Y'know, the OP has several good points. I hate, but recognize the validity of the "happystick" phenomenon. While a part of me recoils at the idea of effectively unlimited healing, the fact that it basically has to occur out of combat does mitigate it a bit.
What if there were new spells, similar to the Vigor spells, that were something like this:
Restore Health I
Cleric 1
Target: touch. Full round casting time. Duration: concentration for up to 2 min.
Effect: For each round that you maintain the spell (a full round action) your target heals 2hp.
Higher level versions could heal more hp per round, or have longer durations. Because they require so much time to be effective, they arent worth it in combat, but they can bring a party to full after the fight is over.
Its an interesting idea, and I mainly suggest it because, although I agree with the changes made to turning/channeling on a fluff level (it is negative/positive energy, so it should act like it is!) on mechanical and balance levels, its still not quite right for me.
Personally, prior to Pathfinder RPG prelims, I was going to modify the cleric domains and spellcasting so that spells on domains could only be cast if you had that domain. Which would mean that yes, a cleric without the healing domain would not be able to cast Cure spells. I was going to allow the vigor spells as generic spells, because the "per round" aspect makes them less useful in combat, but still just fine for the farmer with a broken leg. But thats just me.
As an aside, I want to mention what was, for me, a bit of an epiphany. Even cure spells have saves, correct? Mostly for when they are used against undead, but they do have them. Consider this: when an outside force works on you, you get a save against it. Now, I know somewhere it says you can voluntarily fail saves, but is that really the case with Fortitude? Your body defends itself against harm, and unless your the nameless one from Planescape:Torment, I don't see it as possible to effectively "shut off" your body's defenses. Will and reflex are beleivable, fortitude, not so much. So that means your body is "actively rejecting" cure spells. You are willing, so your not making a "offical" saving throw, but your body is still somewhat working. Now take the net increases to saves and HP as you level. Lower level curative spells are healing proportionately less HP because your body's defenses are proportionately higher. Thus, more powerful magic capable of overwhelming your defenses is required to effectively heal you. Just a random thing I thought of to justify why a spell that heals a 1rst level character to full barely fixes the scrapes on the knees of a 15th level character.
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You have to consider world balance, not just immediate character needs. If every 1st level cleric in a region could indefinitely cast cure spells to return 1 hp per round to an injured party then the world would quickly overpopulate (at which point there'd be more wars for your clerics to be casting indefinite healing for).
Old age would still kill people, as the rules state you can't prevent this, but other forms of population mitigating death (damaging more so than disease)would basically cease to exist.
This is unlimited healing at almost no cost.
The happy sticks you talk about cost gold to purchase and then you need someone with the correct spell list or skill to use it. This represents a limiting factor for the general populace. Few farmers can afford to get a wand of healing or even have low level spells cast. It's part of what makes their life such a struggle.
I guess if you wanted to create a utopian world where most ill health didn't exist, you could probably implement this into your campaigns, but I'd be looking at the long term effects of even apparently unrelated things such as economics or politics, as these woudl have to be affected somehow.
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*nods*
Most of us do not want unlimited healing and unlimited Cause Minor Wounds.
The second reason why this change would be a good thing is that it's more heroic to see a cleric praying at the side of a companion for minutes than watch a cleric poke said companion with a stick.
A cleric can still do this, Channel Energy to heal.
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Ok. To keep things simple here's why it should be removed:
How would you react to a player who wanted to always have all his spells recover at the end of each combat at no cost? You'd probably think he was nuts as that would clearly unbalance things.
Now, why doesn't effectively unlimited hit points at no cost do the same thing? You can have effectively unlimited hit points, but it costs you resources, either spells, uses of channel energy or gold for magic items. Having unlimited resources of any kind for free is unbalanced.
Clear enough?
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In effect, we already have near-unlimited healing after each battle, with all the Belts of Healing, scrolls, potions, and Cure wands that any reasonable party will have on hand. The main effect of allowing unlimited Cure Minor would be to reduce the amount of gp and gear allocated for magical healing.
I think that the image of the cleric spending several minutes to heal up each PC after a battle is more "mythic" than that of each PC chugging a six-pack of healing potions or being repeatedly "wanded".
A PC down 40 hp, for example, would require about 7 minutes of Cure Minor attention. This kind of down time is really only feasible in a secure, post-melee environment.
High level healing spells, Channelling positive energy, and laying on of hands would be utilized for dramatic, melee situations, not routine healing.
Regarding the effect on the non-adventuring world, currently any Commoner who suffers a serious wound but does not immediately die can fully recover after about a week of complete rest, so the effect of full healing being provided by a 1st level cleric is pretty small. In D&D world, Commoners are more likely to die from poison, disease, overwork, starvation, or massive damage (reduction to -10 before intervention).
Perhaps NPC clerics should charge for each hp healed, rather than by the level of the healing spell cast.
Paul, I'd encourage a player to either play a class from tome of magic or ask the party to rest, or deal with it. Hit points are not the same as spells or n/day abilities. When hit points are gone, the character is dead. When spells and special abilities are gone, characters are still alive.
Except that to characters like fighters (and barbarians under 3.5, but less so now that they have rage points), HPs are what limit how much you can do in a day. If a fighter and his cleric buddy can always have full health, the fighter just got more powerful. Even with 'happysticks', a fighter might not want to do something stupid because it would at least cost some resources. If it's just a matter of a few minutes casting Cure Minor Wounds, then stupid risks become more acceptable.
I mean, the reason fighters rest when the cleric is out of spells is that HPs are their limiting factor, and the Cleric is a machine for converting his own per day resources (spells) into HPs. Happysticks are HPs you can buy, the same way scrolls are spells you can buy. Both are used to extend the length of an adventuring day, and to protect against low resource situations. Giving HPs at will is as bad as giving Mnemonic Enhancer or Lucrubation at will.
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Old age would still kill people, as the rules state you can't prevent this,
[Threadjack]
Actually, you can. And rather easily at that. All you have to do is kill yourself before succumbing to old age and then be reincarnated in a new young adult body. All you need is a trusted Druid minio... err, friend.[/threadjack]
No, but HPs are a major resource, and are the only resource Fighters have, for instance.
The problems with adjusting wealth by level, as you suggest are:
1) Backward compatibility. The Wealth-by-level table might not actually be OGL, but if I want to try to use a 3.5 adventure, I shouldn't have to remember to dial back all the treasure by 10%.
2) Poor decision making. There is no 'expected damage by level' table. If the characters make dumb decisions that lead to taking more damage, it costs them more resources. Under your model, that's not really true.
3) Hoarders. This is sort of the inverse of the problem above. I've run groups that never used potions or wands for healing. They kept them on hand, for emergencies, but never used them unless it was a life-or-death issue. They thought it was a waste of lootgold. They were rewarded for their efforts with more wealth, at the cost of running higher risks. Under your model, this doesn't work.
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Adventuring parties don't rest because cleric is out of healing. They rest because cleric and wizard are out of spells, barbarian is out of rages and paladin is out of smites. Hit points are not the only resource characters have. I'm not arguing for free unlimited healing. I'm arguing for unlimited healing in exchange for some gold the characters don't get to see.
Giving hit points at will and reducing expected wealth by level gudelines is not unbalanced. Giving unlimited spells is like granting access to many many pearls of power. If you could reduce expected wealth by level of characters by the amount those pearls cost it wouldn't be unbalanced either. Then again, pearls of power cost about thousands more than hit points, so your expected wealth by level guidelines would be negative.
I'll try to explain my logic more clearly.
Let's consider a basic stat booster item, like belt of giant strength and the like. This item costs 4000gp. If we reduce 4000gp from each characters wealth by level guideline table at some level and beyond and add a +2 enchancement bonus to an ability score of their choise to all characters from that level onwards it won't be unbalanced, or if it is, it will be because some characters don't need this bonus. I'm applying this thinking into healing, which every character needs.
P.S
Please don't nitpick about the lack of a body slot for enchancement bonus in the example above. If you feel like doing it, imagine that example was about ioun stones or other non slotted items of your choise.
Well, no. Unlimited means unlimited. A Wand of Cure Light is not unlimited. It will last for, at most, 450hp worth. I admit that's quite a lot of hit points, but it is not unlimited. To match unlimited hit points, we'd have to remove ALL the treasure. Your point about the permanent magic items is pretty accurate (not completely as they'd lose the belt bonus in an anti-magic field but wouldn't lose the innate bonus). Your comparison here is not because one (the wand) is limited and the other (infinite Cure minor wounds) is not.
Wasn't there something supposedly in 4th edition regarding a limit on the number of times you can be healed each day?
That has sounded very attractive to me, to prevent the "happystick" phenomenon. Something like your con score, or twice your level plus your con mod? Maybe healing becomes harder after the limit is reached? Sort of the "Mettle" ability against healing spells? Your body automatically starts making saves, and if you save you take none but if you fail you take half? You could even set a full limit at twice the normal, after which healing just doesn't work. You explode at twice your hitpoints on the plane of positive energy, and you get saves to resist that, so wouldn't you body naturally refuse an excess of positive energy for cure spells?
If you could only benefit from healing, say, five times at level 1 (1x2+con mod 3) then you can certainly be healed by the cleric a few times, but after that the diminished returns would make it much more costly to "happystick" the person back up, and eventually it just wouldn't be worth it at all.
I like this. Anyone else?
Wasn't there something supposedly in 4th edition regarding a limit on the number of times you can be healed each day?
I like this. Anyone else?
I think you are right that it is in 4th Edition. I think the Book of Experimental Might also has 'limited' amount of healing each day based on who is receiving the healing. Good ideas are frequently concurrently generated by several people.
This would also help the original posters idea. You could keep Cure Minor Wounds but just limit how much you can use it on each PC. So Cure Minor Wounds would be how you 'pray' between encounters to heal people. You just need time.
I do not believe in free lunches.
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Can anyone imagine a battleground with the inlimited ability to heal.
It would look like a conveyor belt of injured dropping back to be healed up by the 1hp a round clerics (all first level if necessary), then returning to the fight after a minute or so. Battles will last for days rather than hours.
I know this is an extreme case and there are costs to be balanced for hiring clerics etc. but this whole thing just changes the feel for how the world would run. Damage, and the threat of damage, just wouldn't hold the same fear as previously.
In terms of mechanics, it changes the entire focus of the cleric which may or may not be a problem depending on your style of play. Clerics won't burn those other spell slots for small scale healing, they'll just wait and 1hp heal till the parties all good. While this may be what you're after, to me it takes away some of the teactical thinking of the game which my group enjoy. A cleric sometimes needs to weigh up casting an offensive spell vs a healing spell in combat, and those tense situations are what improves gameplay for us.
My original post in this thread was rebuffed with a point on channeling positive energy. (I'd quote it but don't know how, new to the boards).
I agree that chanelling positive energy is powerful and will add to healing the general populace for "Free" but it is still a limited power, and one which a cleric is unlikely to use on just one person in a common setting. They're more likely to use it as a selling point to get people to their church for their regular meetings and prayers (how packed would Sunday service be if everyone knew all their small hurts and injuries would be healed by one pulse of positive from their minister).
I plan on limiting this aspect of the game to being alignment focused (within one step of the cleric) to help counter that huge power upsurge.
Please note that me and my gamers do prefer a more gritty feel to the worlds we play in, and my perspective is skewed by this. Feel free to mod the game as you need, that's your perogative. We certainly will.
Well my group has been using unlimited cantrips for a long time now and we did leave Cure Minor Wounds in the game, but with a small change. My change is meant to allow low level PCs, level 1 to 4, to regain all to most of their HPs in between combats. At low level it can be really dangerous to go into combat with less than max HP. On the other hand we didn't want to remove the need that Wands of CLW would be needed as game balance requires the expenditure of resources on the wands.
Cure Minor Wounds, Repair Minor Damage, and the Dragon Shamans Vigor aura are changed as follows: You can be healed to a maximum number of hit points equal to double your Con Score or one half your full normal hit points. For example lets say you have 20HP with a 12 Con score you can be healed to a maximum value of 20HP. If you had 60HP and a 12 Con score you could be healed to a maximum value of 30HP as thats greater than double the 12 con which is 24.
So far this method has worked very well for our games allowing the adventure to continue after the cleric has spent his 2 or 3 cure spells at low level. It also is helpful to get back to half hit points at mid to high level, but it still requires other resources to get back to full so resources are still tracked and used.
What about putting a Feat into the game that gives Cleric a Cure Minor Wounds as a 0-level spell, so they can use it at-will. Not every NPC cleric is gonna have that feat or maybe make it require 2/3 Character Level as PreQ.
Or maybe like 5 per day cast or something like that.
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From a roleplaying standpoint, it would irk me, after every battle for a cleric to sit for hours and heal everyone up free of charge. However, we've been playing with the at will orisons and cantrips rule well before Paizo came up with it, and I've yet to see Cure Minor Wounds get abused. (But that's my group only.)
So, in this vein - don't remove it.
The problem is that I acknowledge it is subject to abuse. I would say that Cure Minor Wounds isn't necessary and may have people play a bit more cautiously without it.
So, in this vein - removing it might not be so bad.
I do like this suggestion:
What about putting a Feat into the game that gives Cleric a Cure Minor Wounds as a 0-level spell, so they can use it at-will. Not every NPC cleric is gonna have that feat or maybe make it require 2/3 Character Level as PreQ.
Or maybe like 5 per day cast or something like that.
I'd say keep it simple - Cure Minor Wounds as a special bonus feat that can be used at will like any other available orison.
I suspect that having to sacrifice a feat for this extra spell might dissuade its potential abuse for many. (Of course, the opposite might be true - "Now that I have it, I'm gonna use it!)
So, in typical wishy washy format, maybe a feat isn't such a good idea.
:P
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Well my group has been using unlimited cantrips for a long time now and we did leave Cure Minor Wounds in the game, but with a small change. My change is meant to allow low level PCs, level 1 to 4, to regain all to most of their HPs in between combats. At low level it can be really dangerous to go into combat with less than max HP. On the other hand we didn't want to remove the need that Wands of CLW would be needed as game balance requires the expenditure of resources on the wands.
Cure Minor Wounds, Repair Minor Damage, and the Dragon Shamans Vigor aura are changed as follows: You can be healed to a maximum number of hit points equal to double your Con Score or one half your full normal hit points. For example lets say you have 20HP with a 12 Con score you can be healed to a maximum value of 20HP. If you had 60HP and a 12 Con score you could be healed to a maximum value of 30HP as thats greater than double the 12 con which is 24.
So far this method has worked very well for our games allowing the adventure to continue after the cleric has spent his 2 or 3 cure spells at low level. It also is helpful to get back to half hit points at mid to high level, but it still requires other resources to get back to full so resources are still tracked and used.
I like the x2 Con limit on healing using Cure Minor Wounds. I'm going to try that in my campaign.
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6 rounds to a minute = 6 hp.
60 minutes to an hour = 360 hp.
Okay, I may have exaggerated. Of course, praying continuously over a severely injured ally . . . or multiple allies for an extended period, which at higher levels could be up to 360 hp total . . . would not be inconceivable . . . but could be subject to abuse.
So, again, I understand why it was pulled.
Besides, how could fighters brag about their scars?
And who wouldn't get unsettled if a cleric kept pawing you for every cut and scrape you suffer along the way.
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6 rounds to a minute = 6 hp.
60 minutes to an hour = 360 hp.
Egh, 1 round is 6 seconds. Thus one minute holds 10 rounds.
Also, these counterarguments haven't been very good to be honest. I admit it might feel "wrong" that the characters have a chance for "unlimited" healing, which is actually limited by one factor; time. And the eternal stick waving has irked me a lot; all Cure Light etc. Wounds spells would still hold their place as combat healing, when it is most needed.
Initially I was against the "unlimited healing", but I cannot deny the annoyance of constant expenditure of gold to healing stuffs.
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In another thread I posted a similar thought. I've reprinted it here because it has more justification for keeping CmW.
Okay, Crazy Talk Time.
I've been running using Spell Points for a long while now, and as part of that, I allow unlimited 0-level spells. For obvious reasons, I ditched CmW and created a stabilize spell just like Jason did (except mine brings you to 0 hp, unconscious and stable).
I've been doing this for a while and it works. It even works well.
BUT...
I've also been thinking about two related issues. The 15 minute adventuring day and encounter design.
People run out of healing magic and other resources and pack it in and call it a day. We all know this problem.
Or they decide to push on and do one more encounter, and suddenly, they are in TPK-land. The DM then writes a nasty letter to Paizo and Greg Vaughan because the encounter was too hard. Meanwhile, some other group rested and hit that same encounter fresh, and say it was a cakewalk.
So, I've started to believe that designing a balanced encounter would be a heck of a lot easier if you could make the default assumption that everyone was healed up at the beginning of most encounters.
Now don't get me wrong. I know that resource management is part of the game, and I LOVE that it is part of the game, but I think that hp are too important a resource (and frankly have too big an impact on your other resources; clerics still are mostly dedicated healbots, when they have so many cool utility spells) to screw around with too much.
So I am going to playtest Cure Minor Wounds as always available.
Now, before you eat me alive, consider the following. You can cast it once per round. That means 10 per minute, meaning that in 10 minutes you can heal a total of 100 hp. Divide that up among a party of 4 characters and that's an average of 25 hp each. After a big fight, it's going to take a little while to pump everyone back up. Long enough for reinforcements or a random encounter, if you want to put the pressure on. And really in combat CmW is pretty useless except to stabilize a dying character. That 1 hp will never be seen as making enough difference to be worth the effort.
PCs will still run out of spells and stuff, and have to camp sometimes. But mostly, you can keep the action going, and designers can rest a little easier knowing that the tough encounter isn't going to kill some party that would have beaten it if they camped for the night before opening the last door in the dungeon.
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Father Patrick sat on the ground after a violent battle, with his trusted companion Sir Frederic by his side. Sir Frederics wounds were serious, and he had trouble breathing. Father Patrick took Sir Frederic's hand into his own, and begun to pray. The mighty sun god Pelor heard Patrick's plea, and granted him a small trickle of healing energy. Patrick channeled this energy into Sir Frederic, who began to feel a kind of warmth enter him through Father Patrick. Minutes later he was well again.
I can imagine the same descripiont using a wand. The very symbol of medicine is a staff with a serpent around it. The problem is to pay or not for the wands of healing. But if it pleases you, it isn´t really that game breaking i guess. In my campaing, if the players wanted to make something like it, i would require at least that the healed persons shared the clerics faith.
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6 rounds to a minute = 6 hp.
60 minutes to an hour = 360 hp.Egh, 1 round is 6 seconds. Thus one minute holds 10 rounds.
Also, these counterarguments haven't been very good to be honest. I admit it might feel "wrong" that the characters have a chance for "unlimited" healing, which is actually limited by one factor; time. And the eternal stick waving has irked me a lot; all Cure Light etc. Wounds spells would still hold their place as combat healing, when it is most needed.
Initially I was against the "unlimited healing", but I cannot deny the annoyance of constant expenditure of gold to healing stuffs.
D'oh. My bad on the timing.
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I'm just going to throw out another automatic limitation on 'unlimited' CmW. Other spells. Particularly buff spells.
There are a lot of good spells kicking around with 1 minute per level durations. In my experience, once these spells are cast, PCs go as far and fast as they can before the duration runs out. Sometimes they would need to choose between letting the duration run out to use their unlimited healing or to suck it up and either cast the big heal spells or stay wounded so they can keep moving while their other spells are still up.
Granted it won't come up all the time, but it will most often come up during the high tension series of combats.
Okay I'm gonna throw a non-mechanical thought onto this particular bonfire. Regardless of the mechanics of unlimited healing there's the story being told to be thought of. When players have been through a battle they should feel it. Wands and potions and whatnots show a literal decline as they heal themselves. There are fewer potions and charges on the wands as they heal themselves. Lets look at it from a more dramatic standpoint. Do you want your groups to just keep on powering through everything you throw at them? Or do you want to have them be challenged by the encounters? Unlimited healing regardless of the mechanics takes away from the drama of the battle itself.
But that might just be me.
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My players have never complained that I don't challenge them enough in a fight. Trust me.
What they do do is worry about pushing on when it will require them to tap out their wands/potions/cleric/whatever. Because then they have no reserve (and probably less clerical spell support, not just healing) in the next fight. I don't mind that happening eventually. I just don't like it happening as quickly as it seems to.
And my characters do use up other resources in fights too, and take other kinds of damage.
What about having cure minor wounds be able to heal you to your maximum hit points less your HD? A 1st level PC with 10 max hp could be healed to 9 hp. An 18th level PC with 200 max hp could be healed up to 182 hp. It will never give you full hit points but it will keep you healed enough to keep fighting.
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2nd- I've been in a game with unlimited cure minor wounds, and it took more away from the game than it added.
I'd like to hear what it took away. This isn't facetious, if you've play-tested it and didn't like it, tell me why. Because right now, I don't see the problem. Regardless of whether it gets put in Pathfinder or not.
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What about having cure minor wounds be able to heal you to your maximum hit points less your HD? A 1st level PC with 10 max hp could be healed to 9 hp. An 18th level PC with 200 max hp could be healed up to 182 hp. It will never give you full hit points but it will keep you healed enough to keep fighting.
My only objection to this (and all of the other similar limited-unlimited CmW) is that it adds corner-case complexity that I don't see a need for. Actually, I also find it a weird case of the world being built to fit a rule. As in, I don't intuitively grasp from a game-world perspective why that particular limitation is there, assuming that CmW can be cast at will. What if you've only been hit for 1 hp? Is it useless? It just doesn't sit right for me.
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Same here, although actually, no TPKs for me yet (well, not in 3E anyways). My problem is that then they are hesitant to continue.
More than once I've had them decide to 'go back to town' when there was nothing left but a room full of treasure or prisoners that needed rescuing or clues that needed uncovering. I find it very frustrating.