Lindsay Wagner's page

It's fine to have a fighter or barbarian display a certain amount of hubris, run ahead and almost die due to his folly.

Once.

Then the rest of the party should tell him that he was lucky to come back alive, and that next time, luck may not be on his side.

Also, fighters are the epitome of martial prowess. They are the best combatants the game has to offer. To say a fighter with middling/slightly below average wis does not understand combat is to say that a druid with low int should not understand nature. It is part of their very purpose and the core of their training. If you have the best training that the world has to offer, you simply do not lack the insight required to do your job.

And if you mold your character from some manner of superhero/anime character who can take five hundred blows and go on because of bad (shonen) writing, you need to learn that this is not that kind of game.

Finally: If your group play with a character-oriented perspective, having a loose cannon be your main line of defense should lead them to desire a NEW fighter, who will approach things in a way that does not jeopardize their lives as well. Or at least tell the dumb-ass that he is gonna get all his friends killed one day.

Yes, you get it now: this is the kind of interaction between the characters that provides many funny moments at the table ;-)

The fighter is assumed to be a trained soldier.

Higher levels? Yup, sure. Lower levels? Not necessarily.

I think a dumb fighter may well act on instinct rather than reasoned deduction - they're still going to be good at fighting (ie tend to choose the best tactical options).

Elaborate tactics dictated by instinct alone? Hmmm.

What I can't see here is the roleplaying part, honestly. Are all your characters skilled in Profession Soldier? Do they all have high wisdom / intelligence (apart from the spellcasters - wizards and clerics -)? I have almost always seen fighter types with relatively low int and/or wis compared to strenght, dexterity, constitution (I'm thinking 15 or even 20 points buy here).

So if you are roleplaying your character, you could easily assume that a "not so brilliant / not so wise" fighter might charge the enemy more times than not, even when the cleric / wizard is telling him not to, and more importantly even when the player thinks the better strategy, all things considered, would be to hit, run, regroup, come back.
My group has a tendency not to overlook the "what would my character do in this situation?" aspect of the game.

Lindsay Wagner wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

I think he was referring to healbot, not healers themselves as being boring.

If that's the case, then I stand corrected.

wraithstrike wrote:

If the assailant it still attacking you might want to take the assailant out or you might be next.

Not if I have an armor, a shield and the chance to survive an attack, even at the cost of taking some damage; if I manage to get my german shephard up on its feet again, it will be far more efficient than me in taking the assailant out.

If the assailant is wearing armor then the german shepard probably won't be taking him out. I was not thinking of this being in medieval times though.

You always have a chance to survive the attack. What those chances are depend on the situation.

To go back to his statement when he said "all the things you COULD have done" he is speaking of making sure the boat never leaks or your dog never gets stabbed. Once it is stabbed make sure it is not stabbed again/the hole is plugged.

Of course the dog scenario does not translate well because you have a lot less options than you do in PF. I guess if you can place a barrier in between yourself and the assailant that might work so you can help the dog safely.

Ehm, I just said pet/german shepherd because I thought it would be rude to say "beloved one" "dear friend" or the like.

I think he was referring to healbot, not healers themselves as being boring.

If that's the case, then I stand corrected.

If the assailant it still attacking you might want to take the assailant out or you might be next.

Not if I have an armor, a shield and the chance to survive an attack, even at the cost of taking some damage; if I manage to get my german shepherd up on its feet again, it will be far more efficient than me in taking the assailant out.

People will get used to the idea that someone actually SHOULD play the most boring, non-rewarding role ever constructed, so they can keep at their behavior.

Wait. Who said that playing the healer is BORING? It might be for you, please don't take for granted it is the same for other players. I've played healers for a long time, now I've turned to the oracle of life but the concept is the same. I like to play that kind of character. Of course, healing is NOT the only thing my character does. But it is an important aspect of the character (in roleplaying terms) and it is also a strenght for the party.

If your boat is leaking, do you plug the leak, and then start scooping out water? Or do you start tossing out water while it is still pouring in? Of course healing does something, but compared to all the things you COULD have done with level-equivalent spells, it is weak.

Let's put this in a different way: if your dog was bleeding out from a cut throat, do you try and stop the bleeding or do you go up against the assailant leaving your beloved pet there to bleed out?

Buffing increases one or more aspects of another player's statistics, skills, feats, etc.

Don't hp's belong to the "statistics" category?

Naedre wrote:

1) You should never heal in combat. If someone dies in combat, they deserve it. If someone asks for a heal in combat, they suck and clearly don't know game strategy.

Somewhere between the notions of this,

Quote:

2) Most healing should be done out of combat. Healing in combat is usually not the best idea, but it sometimes the optimal tactical decision. You can play without a full divine caster, you just have to take less risks.

and the practical application of this, is where my playstyle is.

Quote:

Positions #1 and #4 are wrong. Completely and totally wrong. Always.

I primarily encounter people who take position #4 in my gaming store. It is remarkable infuriating. People constantly tell me that I'm playing...

Position #1 has some truths. If you charge the full length of your barbarian speed into the midst of a band of trolls, out of reach from the party, because "I don't want to waste a round on archery" or whatever, and then proceed to cry foul when your rage/charge AC has your character being turned to pulp, and blame the cleric when he does not take a run action to catch up and heal you, your character deserve to die.

Had this happen in my previous game, where the cavalier lance-charged across a narrow bridge into the midst of a group of cyclops. They proceeded to rain down x3 axe-crits with their "Take 20 1/day" ability, and confirm the critical threats thanks to his AC being lowered by the charge penalty, and turn him to mush. No amount of skilled sorcery or divine intervention could make right of that mess.

But it is reckless and stupid to not have a backup plan in case you are hit with a case of bad luck. It happens. It's like making a melee character and not bringing a bunch of javelins to chuck at the things that hovers our of reach from your blades every once in a while.

So, #2 at heart, with a light sprinkle of #1 when people act like idiots.

I can see the reasons of your preferences, and the fact that I cannot agree is probably due to my fellow players being not "that" reckless; if they take a huge risk they don't cry foul if it goes badly and are duly grateful if my character saves their collective axxes

Thats debatable, when someone drops below 0 they fall prone and are probably inside their attackers threatened area. This means that the fighter who you just healed can will attack at a -4 penalty or generate an attack of oportunity wich can drop it back to negatives or kill him; said summoner will have to deal with a hard concentration check.

In either case, there's a significant risk, specially at lower levels, that the healing is wasted action becaused the character you healed will probably do nothing and you may have removed the threat instead of making your buddy a target again, now the NPCs has every reason to focused in the dangerous near death caracter rather than the cleric.

Humbly,
Yawar

Or, the fighter might play dead and wait one round so the enemy is distracted/has moved and he can deal a devastating strike that wipes it out (been there, done that).

Lindsay Wagner wrote:

[I'm 200% with you on this. And I never (you can read my previous posts, they're few) said every oracle or cleric should be played like that, infact I recall saying (or better, writing) that the beauty of this class is its versatility. The fact is, I do believe that a party with a character who's good ALSO at healing in the middle of a fight is stronger than a party without it. Some people seem to think otherwise, and that's completely fine with me, everybody is entitled to their opinion. I just get itchy all over when somebody says "that's the way it should be played otherwise you're just plain wrong".

In my experience, there are 4 basic positions people take on this issue:

1) You should never heal in combat. If someone dies in combat, they deserve it. If someone asks for a heal in combat, they suck and clearly don't know game strategy.

2) Most healing should be done out of combat. Healing in combat is usually not the best idea, but it sometimes the optimal tactical decision. You can play without a full divine caster, you just have to take less risks.

3) Healing is an important aspect of combat. It allows players to make mistakes, it allows for more risk-taking, and it offsets unlucky dice-rolls. You should always have a full divine caster in the party, and atleast some of their feats should help them heal.

4) The cleric's(or oracle's) job is to heal me in combat. If I die in combat, it is the cleric's fault. If the cleric uses any spells except healing spells, he is wasting resources he could be using to heal me!

The OP appears to take position #2. You appear to take position #3. There is quite a bit of overlap between these positions, and depending on your GM, your party composition, and your party's tactical skill, either one could be "right."

Positions #1 and #4 are wrong. Completely and totally wrong. Always.

Thank you, that was nicely put and yes, I can see how the choice between #2 and #3 can be really situation/campaign/players/GM depending.

In an earlier post, you correctly pointed out that this is a Roleplaying game. If you enjoy and have fun playing a character that is focused on healing others, go for it. It is sometimes optimal and sometimes not, like everything in Pathfinder.

But please don't expect everyone to play an oracle or cleric the same way you do. Not because your way is "wrong", but because there are multiple solutions to any problem, and you should never force someone into a playstyle they do not enjoy.

I'm 200% with you on this. And I never (you can read my previous posts, they're few) said every oracle or cleric should be played like that, infact I recall saying (or better, writing) that the beauty of this class is its versatility. The fact is, I do believe that a party with a character who's good ALSO at healing in the middle of a fight is stronger than a party without it. Some people seem to think otherwise, and that's completely fine with me, everybody is entitled to their opinion. I just get itchy all over when somebody says "that's the way it should be played otherwise you're just plain wrong".

To the bolded statement: See the fire elemental example. Regardless of party, class or encounter I always approach every encounter like I could die right then. So every precaution I can take I do. Running in and going wild just because you have a healer just means you will blow through your spells, abilities and players like its your job. God forbid you fight a SECOND fire elemental and need some of those spells or abilities again...

Well, one could always flee from the SECOND fire elemental...

Oh, certainly. If you are going to do something, do it right. On that notion, I am with you 110%. Though... now you need 4 people to be hurt in one round, which is unusual in my experience (dragons breath and fireballs make sense, but are not THAT common), and he just took 20 more damage on top of whatever he took himself.

Hmmm, interesting. In the campaign I'm currently playing, encounters seem to last more than a few rounds and enemies are usually in good numbers. If my character does his trick on the fourth or fifth round he's usually sure his healings won't be wasted. Perhaps my GM is taking into due account the presence of an effective healer and is adjusting the encounters to deal with that? Just thinking out loud here...

Also, we don't always win init. That means the enemy does damage before the spellcasters can do anything to avoid it.

Because neutralize poison is a lv4 spell

Ehm (*blushing and looking up at the ceiling*) Life Oracles get Neutralize Poison as a bonus spell at level 6 ;-D

Heck, my parties run away a lot. If we get surprised by something that drops half the party to 1/4 HP, we tend to say "Crap!" and drop an obscuring mist or an entangle and run like heck. Usually that allows us to regroup and come up with something akin to tactics.

Just one (perhaps silly) question: don't enemies follow?

I really do wonder how much of a correlation exists between parties who feel that combat healing is absolutely necessary and parties who feel that running away or hiding behind cover or otherwise behaving somewhat less heroically than Rambo is unacceptable behavior.

Necessary, sometimes, definitely not all the time. Useful? Yes.

Kyoni wrote:

Sir Cirdan wrote:

The simplest way of putting it...a healer is somebody who can cast "Heal."

So how does your gourp survive levels 1-9 ?

Healing after a fight, like most sensible folks? The point is that the difference between Heal and most Cure whatever Wound spell is that Heal is made worthwhile as it cancels out a lot of crippling statuses that can render a character helpless or worse long before HP run out. And if HP is the problem, you heal enough to make a real difference, not just undoing one round of damage.

Also, the earliest level where you can get Heal is 11.

You mean, nobody dies in battle in your campaign? Ever?

Also, regarding healing, a 5th level oracle of life with Energy Body, Life Link and Channel can heal up to (assuming party of 4+the oracle):
- Life link 5x4
- Energy Body 1d6+5 to one ally
- Channel Energy 3d6 to all

in one round. Pretty effective for the level.

(...)

What is a healer? I will define a healer as someone who is of a class (and build) with abilities that grant them the full range of divine healing and status removing spells. A paladin and a bard are not healers...only secondary healers...good for out of combat heals or perhaps the odd emergency. The simplest way of putting it...a healer is somebody who can cast "Heal." If the party gets ambushed by an invisible spellcaster with a maximized fireball, followed by some empowered scorching rays at the fighter, which puts the wizard at 0, the rogue at 15 and the fighter in single digits, Lay on Hands isn't gonna cut it.

A "dedicated healer" "heal-bot" "walking band-aid" etc. is somebody who has thoroughly specialized in healing to the point where they are not good at anything else, least-wise common combat applications. Dedicated Healers are usually beast when fighting undead, but that doesn't exactly happen everyday in most campaigns. (...)

Very interesting. By your definition, I could not define my current character as a healbot, since it's also quite good at controlling/enabling. Also I could not play a "dedicated healer" as it would seem "flat" as a character (and frankly quite boring).

Another option you have is to summon a creature with healing spells and let them cast cure serious or whatever they have on the fighter while you drop a comet on the evil priest on Zon Kuthon.

lol ;-)

We've been over this...poor tactics.

At this point the Cleric or Wizard should either have stopped them from casting anymore, OR prepared for a counter spell here shortly. I assumed the spell that hit the fighter wasn't even AoE...didn't even think about the reflex save...

Party doesn't have a Wizard. Big Bad Boy wasn't a pure spellcaster, rather a (hmmm, how do I avoid spoilers here?) really BIG boy with a necklace of fireball and Iron Will... ;-)

My clerics tend to be better at melee than the fighters in my group. :/

That's the beauty of the class, its versatility. Seems like your divine casters tend to be more fighters, while mine tend to be controllers/enablers. Both can be fun.

I am rather wondering why you are clumping up the bad progression reflex save cleric with the fighter when you know that there is an enemy that can deal over half of the fighters HP with one AOE (on what is presumably an average roll). Really you are just asking for another AOE on 2 targets with bad reflex while leaving the cleric in melee that can hit the fighter with ease.

Sorry, English is not my native language so I'm not sure I'm following.

Kamelguru wrote:

What I do contest is the use of actions on casting cure lights or whatnot while the fighting is going on. Could have used that spell for a bless at the start, and made the fight easier. Preemptive, not reactive, is what wins.

The efficacy of one buff (bless) over another (curing) is going to vary by situation.

As to 'preemptive not reactive' that's great when given the option. However many combats can start with tempo on the side of the enemy and recovering that is paramount.

If the in-combat buff that helps achieve that is healing then so be it.

-James

More so when the fighter failed his/her reflex save and got the worst of the blast and you know he's probably going to drop next round... yes, you could (try to) hit the bad guys instead of healing the fighter; let him spend his next round drinking that CSW of his (and, by doing so, he gets the AoO that will eventually drop him anyway). Of course, you're forgetting that he is much better than you at hitting bad guys, but don't let this little detail change your mind about the fact that "healing in battle is usually a poor choice"...

My two cents, if I may.
I'm currently playing a life oracle with the haunted mistery and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. And yes, one could say I'm the healbot, since I'm quite specialized in what I do. And yet I spam healing just about half of the time and that's only when the Big Bad One(s) come(s) along.

My point is, I have options. Buff, debuff and my amazing Spiritual Weapon (my character is level 5 at this time) which is doing a great job since I maxed my Cha. Also, it is called RPG because you're supposed to role-play it: my character has facets, quirks, personality.

True, having the ONLY option to heal and then stand there and do nothing else (or trying and failing all the time) would suck! But honestly I don't see how one could play a character like that, even a dedicated healer. With so many options at hand (thanks to the spontaneous spellcaster nature of the oracle) I never ever find myself out of options. Infact, I'm looking forward to adding options to my action economy (swift, immediate, move equivalent actions) because I usually have TOO many things to do and not enough rounds to get to them all.

A healbot might not be necessary, but it's darn useful, especially if he/she knows what he/she's doing.
At eighth level my character will be able to:

- take 5 hit points damage per party member (Life Link)
- move action Quick Channel
- swift action Combat Heal
- standard action cast Spiritual Ally (and hit with it in the same round) or heavily buff the party with blessing of fervor

and that's in ONE round (plus cure 1d6+8 an ally passing through my space while in energy body form)

Might not be "optimal" according to someone (I dare say it IS, imho), but it sure is fun.