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Since we began STAP, a player of mine is playing a dragon shaman, and chose the "fast healing" aura.
However, there is not a lot of description about it.
So, I have a few questions :
- does the fast healing work with someone into the negative HP ? (there, I will change what I did : the PC has to be cured first, be brought back to 0 or positive HP since he is badly wounded, and then can benefit from fast healing).
- does fast healing work outside a fight ?
(I guess it does, but my PCs being 1st and soon 2nd level, they can be cured very quicly, in less than 2 minutes).
- strange thing (but it is for balancing) that fast healing can work only on PCs at 50% or less of their maximum HP. However, I had a PC at 5 (out of 9) who couldn't benefit from fast healing, and the other one said : "let me cut you with my dagger".
Have you met this ? how did you deal with this kind of absurd stuff ?
Overall, don't you think that this aura is quite powerful at low level ? The cleric has not even used one of his CLW during my last session, and it was heavy fight and lots of wounds !!
Thanks for your feeling about this aura !
- does the fast healing work with someone into the negative HP ?
Technically, yes. And actually, I'd recommend keeping it that way. At first, the PCs will think that this is really good - they never need fear bleeding to death, and they can get back on their feet quicker. But that's before they begin to realize that intelligent foes who see the power at work will move quickly to make sure that down means down (as in, if an NPC knows what's going on, have him make FULL use of coup de grace).
- does fast healing work outside a fight ?
Yes. Not a bad thing. The longer PCs can go without resting, the more fun it is for everyone, trust me. And remember, it will only heal them until they have more than half of their hit points.
- strange thing (but it is for balancing) that fast healing can work only on PCs at 50% or less of their maximum HP. However, I had a PC at 5 (out of 9) who couldn't benefit from fast healing, and the other one said : "let me cut you with my dagger".
Have you met this ? how did you deal with this kind of absurd stuff ?
Laugh and tell the rogue to roll his damage. The fast healing is equal to the aura bonus - At fourth level and lower, that's 1 point of healing that stops once the PC has more than half his hit points. In your example, the PC would take 1-4 damage, then recover 1 hp a round until he reached 5. Then the healing would stop again. There's no benefit here.
Overall, don't you think that this aura is quite powerful at low level ? The cleric has not even used one of his CLW during my last session, and it was heavy fight and lots of wounds !!
Well, yeah, a class that grants pretty continuous fast healing during combat somewhat negates the cleric's usefulness. I would recommend that the cleric switch to the spontaneous domain casting class feature (in Chapter 2 of the PH II). And remember - that fast healing stops once the character is above half hp. So the cleric would still be useful, especially at higher levels when half hit points means 40 of 80...
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Since we began STAP, a player of mine is playing a dragon shaman, and chose the "fast healing" aura.
However, there is not a lot of description about it.
So, I have a few questions :
- does the fast healing work with someone into the negative HP ? (there, I will change what I did : the PC has to be cured first, be brought back to 0 or positive HP since he is badly wounded, and then can benefit from fast healing).- does fast healing work outside a fight ?
(I guess it does, but my PCs being 1st and soon 2nd level, they can be cured very quicly, in less than 2 minutes).- strange thing (but it is for balancing) that fast healing can work only on PCs at 50% or less of their maximum HP. However, I had a PC at 5 (out of 9) who couldn't benefit from fast healing, and the other one said : "let me cut you with my dagger".
Have you met this ? how did you deal with this kind of absurd stuff ?Overall, don't you think that this aura is quite powerful at low level ? The cleric has not even used one of his CLW during my last session, and it was heavy fight and lots of wounds !!
Thanks for your feeling about this aura !
Fast healing works on characters in negatives fine, and same thing after a fight, but stops working on a character once he/she reaches 1/2 hps. A character cannot be healed past 1/2 hps unless the Dragon Shaman in question has a higher aura bonus and some good luck( char with 4 out of 9 hp getting healed by a DS vigor aura with a +2 aura bonus would be brought up to 6 but would gain no more healing until brought back below 4.5 hp by another injury).
I don't think it is overpowered at all if used according to the rules. I get the feeling that you are letting the aura heal everyone up to full. THAT would be way overpowered!
Overall I like all the classes in the PHB2 and find that DMs who are restricting them are doing so because they have been slammed with unbalanced and broken mechanics from previous resources and are gun-shy. If the classes are actually played by RAW they aren't overpowered. The Duskblade and the Beguiler seem to get alot of flak but when you really dig into the classes they have a very restricted spell list with no really powerful spells, although definately useful for each class.
The Duskblade doesn't even get 2nd level spells until they hit 5th level. It all balances out fairly well.
FH
Just to chime in with an observation:
I played Chakarr Ip Ovyrian, a Dragon Shaman 12(Brass) in a friend's campaign, and found it to be a fun, capable class, if a little underpowered. The breath weapon is nice, but lower powered than spells or special attacks other PC's have access to at similar levels, and often obviated by energy resistance. HP's were allright, but nothing to write home about.
The weapon selection is limiting for a character that will be spending plenty o' time in or near the front of the party's combats and it takes a clever player (at least at mid to high levels) to work the auras to max effect.
That being said, my main problems with the auras were that our DM ran dynamic initiative every round, and I prefer to have the greater strategic control of static, especially combined with such a tremendous set of tactical options as the auras provide. That DM also either has no patience for roleplaying or couldn't differentiate between OOC and IC comments, so a character with such great potential for RP was somewhat useless.
I actually look forward to having a Dragon Shaman in one of my campaigns as a player. I really liked the class, and it provides a new dimension to the games plus it would be fun to watch a DS PC develop and see which auras a player would choose (not sure I would have gone fast healing at 1st for reasons mentioned in previous posts). My character came into the campaign at 11th level so had most or all of his auras. I would play one myself, but for the reasons enumerated above, its not a viable option.
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I don't think it is overpowered at all if used according to the rules. I get the feeling that you are letting the aura heal everyone up to full. THAT would be way overpowered!
Thanks FH, that's exactly what I was doing...
So, the FH (is that fake healing or fast healing ?? ;-} ) benefit stops when the PC is back to just above 50% of its HP ?!
I didn't catch that...
I also do like the PHB2 classes, and I think that they are quite interesting...
So, the FH (is that fake healing or fast healing ?? ;-} ) benefit stops when the PC is back to just above 50% of its HP ?!
Yes, that's correct.
Fake Healing... that'd be a great illusionist spell line... like the cure line but temporary hit points that only last 1 rd per level or something like that...