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Hello Everyone,
I have no idea if this has been mentioned or not so here it goes.
One of the things I liked about playing a 4E Cleric (one of our regular group ran a 4E one-off) was the ability to help an ally as well as do something else during a turn. As it stands in 3.5/Pathfinder for a cleric, the usual role is to make a decision each round as to whether to help an ally or to have a dig yourself.
If certain curing spells/blesses/prayers/group buffs could have their casting time changed from a Standard Action to a Move Equivalent, I have a feeling that the burden on playing a cleric could be lessened. Perhaps a new selection of spells that do this could be crafted. I would still maintain the personal buff spells/attack spells as a standard action.
What are your thoughts? Does it make the already powerful Cleric too powerful?
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
As someone who loves playing clerics =)...
I have indeed noticed much the same kind of thing as you pointed out. But is this really a problem? I love playing clerics as selfless, who would rather aid their wounded ally than heal themselves, even at 1 hp. The reverse can also be true, say an evil clerics friend cries out for help on the battlefeild as he is drawing his final breath... the cleric just smiles and draws his weapon, charging the enemy himself for fame and glory... In other words, what you choose to do with your actions can say a lot about your character.
But if that's not convincing, there are ways that you can have your cake and eat it too. Metamagic Rods of Quicken are your bestest friend. The lesser meta rod of quicken can let you use all kinds of useful buffs like prayer/bless/remove fear/energy resist/sheild of faith/bulls strength... as a free action. Once you reach higher level you can get the regular meta rod of quicken, and then you're really in buisiness, quickening things like Righteous Might on yourself, or using a quickened Heal to cure an ally so you can go beat down some monsters.
Erm, the feat quicken spell is useful too. Not as much because clerics need their high level spell slots. Hehe.. *but...* if your DM allows you to take Divine Metamagic (from Complete Divine, I think) -and oh god, he shouldn't-.... heh... well... then you basically grab Extra Turning as a feat somewhere and quicken anything under the sun.
In short, I think there are already ways to do what you want to do, and I don't think that making some spells move actions is the answer. Although it might be cool to see a few spells that did something like hurt the enemy a bit, and give your allies some kind of morale bonus from witnessing the heavenly power.
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For me the question is, what do you see as a Cleric?
Someone who wades into combat and stuff just sort of happens to bless / buff his allies or curse / harm his foes as he's swinging that mace, would probably be better built as a Dragon Shaman or Marshal or something, with special auras that go into effect while they melee.
Someone who stands back and sends dedicated healing / buffing prayers (and debuffing / damaging imprecations) out would be better served to avoid combat entirely (more like a Wizard than a standard Cleric).
From 1st Edition on, the Cleric has been stuck between those roles, having just enough hit points, armor and weapon capability to make melee *tempting,* and yet having to cast spells with full actions, like a magic-user.
I'd rather see either extreme represented, the pure divine caster (with less need for melee) and the 'warrior-priest' who doesn't cast spells so much as have certain effects that go into play, healing, buffing, debuffing, etc. while they whack away with their favored weapon. The hybrid kinda-caster, kinda-melee class has always been stuck trying to straddle the fence, which ends up feeling unsatisfying, to me. "This round, I swing my mace. Next round, I run over and heal someone. This round, I cast Bless. This round, back to the mace..."
Anyone who isn't a primary spellcaster (Paladins and Rangers, particularly) tend to find spells to be a nuisance, especially in a game where spellcasting provokes AoOs and isn't really designed to be done in combat.
Back when 3E was first announced, and there was talk of radical change, I kinda wanted to see a Cleric who didn't cast spells at all, but channeled some sort of holy (or unholy) power to perform a limited number of special things (like heal someone, bless / buff someone, curse someone, etc.). Using 3E terms, they would use turn/rebuke attempts to fuel something much like Divine Feats, with the class getting a number of these feats as it leveled, allowing the priest to learn new ways to channel the energy into other effects, or improve the effects he's already mastered. Seeing the 3E Cleric, which was essentially the same not-really-Fighter and not-really-Wizard, I was left feeling that the class hadn't changed enough, and was still stuck in a sort of 'neither fish nor fowl' role during combat, forced to choose between meleeing fairly badly or casting some spells that were rarely as good as wizard spells of the same level.
Hello Everyone,
I have no idea if this has been mentioned or not so here it goes.
One of the things I liked about playing a 4E Cleric (one of our regular group ran a 4E one-off) was the ability to help an ally as well as do something else during a turn. As it stands in 3.5/Pathfinder for a cleric, the usual role is to make a decision each round as to whether to help an ally or to have a dig yourself.
If certain curing spells/blesses/prayers/group buffs could have their casting time changed from a Standard Action to a Move Equivalent, I have a feeling that the burden on playing a cleric could be lessened. Perhaps a new selection of spells that do this could be crafted. I would still maintain the personal buff spells/attack spells as a standard action.
What are your thoughts? Does it make the already powerful Cleric too powerful?
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
How about going the other way and making healing spells take 1 minute to cast? That way healing is for out of combat situations and in combat healing would consist of Channel Energy and maybe potions? That way the cleric is pretty free to do whatever during combat, and provide healing afterwards.
How about going the other way and making healing spells take 1 minute to cast? That way healing is for out of combat situations and in combat healing would consist of Channel Energy and maybe potions? That way the cleric is pretty free to do whatever during combat, and provide healing afterwards.
I actually kinda like this. And I enjoy playing the cleric as is. This really makes an interesting flavor/element that can increase the edge a little. Maybe more tactics being used. No more "I'll just charge and pound away, if I get damaged the cleric can just heal me" in the middle of combat.
So while the OP asks for healing spells to take less time, ya'll advocate instead increasing their casting time by a factor of 10? Ouch.
Everyone has choices to make in battle. Clerics are no different. Removing an option they have- namely the option to keep someone alive- really isn't a very good game decision, in my opinion.
With No chance of in-combat healing, combat has become *alot* more dangerous. Alot. Not some, or a little, or moderately- but ALOT. And it's not just a matter of "well now Leeroy won't go charging into battle". It means that in the time it takes you to START casting a healing spell, someone can go from -1 to -10.
That means the *only* way to stop someone from dying is now to use a potion or a bandage. I'm not entirely convinced that this is the way to go.
-S
um.. i mean no offense but... you're crazy.
making healing spells take 1 minute isnt going to help anything. People are still going to *need* healing mid-combat, that will just make the clerics be forced to spend even *more* of their turns channelling energy (since channelling doesnt heal as much as standard healing).
EDIT: Selgard beat me to the punch. Agree, agree, and agree. Also, having a potion work instantly when a spell that's exactly the same as the potion takes a full minute to cast doesn't make any sense.
Monte Cook uses character resourced healing in his Book of Experimental Might. Basically the person being healed has a limited amount of healing he can recieve. The Cleric is no longer the resource pool with spells. The Cleric has 'free action' abilites that allow you to heal and the Cleric can do other things. This is basically the same as the Healing Surge concept in 4e. So the cleric can do more than just spend time healing in combat. With Monte helping the design team, I would expect this to be in the Beta or discussed for the Alpha
P.S. I feel like an old record with a scratch that keeps repeating itself. This comes up in a lot of threads.
Actually I don´t mind spending some combat time healing my teammates. It´s one of those many different options of play that makes the cleric so appealing to me. The only problem is that most cure x spells are totally inefficient for in-combat healing. Most of them won´t heal the amount of HP a creature in a decent encounter is going to dish out in a single attack, let alone several mosters or monsters with more than one attack. So unless the choice is between letting a character die right there and throwing a cure serious wounds spell his way, it is often a much better option to lay some smackdown on the moster attacking your mates character.
So while the OP asks for healing spells to take less time, ya'll advocate instead increasing their casting time by a factor of 10? Ouch.
Everyone has choices to make in battle. Clerics are no different. Removing an option they have- namely the option to keep someone alive- really isn't a very good game decision, in my opinion.
With No chance of in-combat healing, combat has become *alot* more dangerous. Alot. Not some, or a little, or moderately- but ALOT. And it's not just a matter of "well now Leeroy won't go charging into battle". It means that in the time it takes you to START casting a healing spell, someone can go from -1 to -10.
That means the *only* way to stop someone from dying is now to use a potion or a bandage. I'm not entirely convinced that this is the way to go.
-S
No, under the Pathfinder rules a cleric can also Channel Energy to heal and keep someone from dying.
With all the complaints about 'powering up' characters under the Pathfinder rules, no in-combat healing would be an exellent way to balance encounters without having to also power up the monsters. If you're really concerned about preventing someone from dying at -con (which is the death threshold for Pathfinder), then change the healing spells to be like the 'vigor' line of spells where healing provides various levels of fast healing instead of a large chunk.
Making combat healing less effective does a few things I really like:
- Frees up the cleric from being everyones healing dummy.
- Gives an edge of danger to combat that is being lost due to the Pathfinder 'power-up' of characters.
- Balances a combat where a party DOESN'T have a cleric.
In regards to the OP's question about being able to use heal spells as a free action I believe the answer is: Yes, it would be too powerful. Already Pathfinder characters are pretty good and with the added healing from Channel Energy the staying power of a party with a cleric is pretty nice.
- Frees up the cleric from being everyones healing dummy.
I´ve read such statements pretty often on thiese boards, and it really doens´t go at all with my own experiances. I came to love the cleric more than any class, but though sometimes you have to heal during combat (which is a satisfying experiance to be there when the time comes to save someones butt) I never, ever felt like the groups heal-b****.
Tis may be a little off topic but i am gonna ask this anyway: Have those of you who played clerics had lots of such bad experiances with your role in the party ?
As someone who loves playing clerics =)...
I have indeed noticed much the same kind of thing as you pointed out. But is this really a problem? I love playing clerics as selfless, who would rather aid their wounded ally than heal themselves, even at 1 hp. The reverse can also be true, say an evil clerics friend cries out for help on the battlefeild as he is drawing his final breath... the cleric just smiles and draws his weapon, charging the enemy himself for fame and glory... In other words, what you choose to do with your actions can say a lot about your character.
But if that's not convincing, there are ways that you can have your cake and eat it too. Metamagic Rods of Quicken are your bestest friend. The lesser meta rod of quicken can let you use all kinds of useful buffs like prayer/bless/remove fear/energy resist/sheild of faith/bulls strength... as a free action. Once you reach higher level you can get the regular meta rod of quicken, and then you're really in buisiness, quickening things like Righteous Might on yourself, or using a quickened Heal to cure an ally so you can go beat down some monsters.
Erm, the feat quicken spell is useful too. Not as much because clerics need their high level spell slots. Hehe.. *but...* if your DM allows you to take Divine Metamagic (from Complete Divine, I think) -and oh god, he shouldn't-.... heh... well... then you basically grab Extra Turning as a feat somewhere and quicken anything under the sun.
In short, I think there are already ways to do what you want to do, and I don't think that making some spells move actions is the answer. Although it might be cool to see a few spells that did something like hurt the enemy a bit, and give your allies some kind of morale bonus from witnessing the heavenly power.
I could see a new matamagic feat that might be interesting:
Sword and Sorcery [Metamagic]
You may prepare a spell that can be cast as a standard action to be cast as a move action instead. The limit of one non-quickened spell per round still applies, and all other rules for casting the spell remain. This spell takes up a spell slot one higher than normal.
It looks pretty elegant, but it would need some major play testing to see if one level is enough, and it has some interesting/unsettling implications; such as a multiclass fighter/wizard using the feat to cast a True Strike and attack on the same round.
Ah well, that sort of thing was what Feats like Reflex Training were for - specialize it in healing you now have the option of healing while still doing something else.