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Do you believe that healing spells such as the cure spells need to heal more hit points?
Do you believe that more spells that provde healing should be added?
Do you believe that certain spells should provide healing in addition to their current effects?
Should arcane spells be able to provide healing as well?
I'm curious about what would happen if the following were to happen:
1. The buff spells (Bear's Endurance, Bull' Strength, etc.) cure X amount of hit points, representing the "feeling" of empowerment as the recipient's bodies are augmented.
2. A Necromancy sorceror/wizard spell were introduced that could transfer hit points between willing targets, helping the party to have a minimum amount of health per member in the absence of a cleric or cure potions/wand.
3. A Necromancy sorceror/wizard spell were introduced that could allow the sorceror/wizard to sacrifice arcane spells/slots for personal or ally healing.
4. The cure spells cure Xd8 + 2x caster level instead of 1X caster level. The inflict spells would deal more as well.
Let's see some arguments and suggestions for or against boosting magical healing.
My players seem to avoid clerics and druids, so I feel your pain.
I think that Arcane Spells should be able to heal, with a few caveats.
1) I think that Necromancy spells should be able to Transfer HP, but not create it.
2) I think that Transmutation spells should be able to remove standing damage effects, such as bleeding, by shapeshifting the wounds closed.
3) I think that Conjuration based Positive Energy Healing, should be at least two spell levels higher for Arcane Casters, but potentially available.
I don't think healing should be boosted in it's maximum amount, especially by such large numbers. This throws off the battle math, if it's ever higher then a corresponding level damage effect. Instead I'd suggest raising the minimum, preferably related to the use of the Heal skill, so that you have less bad healing rolls resulting in party death.
Hm... the problem I see right now is that standard healing spells in battle are bad. Anything below a Heal spell does not restore enough HP to account for a single attack healed, let alone two or three swings from a full attack. Part of what I like about the channelling = healing, is that even though it doesn't restore enough to any one person, it can help the entire party. This means that if the front line gets rotated a little people can survive due to the healling provided.
I think that a small change to the cure X wounds spells could be a good idea.
Maybe have them scale as follows:
Cure Light wounds -- Heals 1d8 per 4 caster levels
Cure Moderate Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 3 caster levels
Cure Serious Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 2 caster levels
Cure Critical Woundns -- heals 1d8 per caster level
This would (over time) increase the amount healed, while still giving good reason to use higher level healing spells and leaving the Heal spell as the king of the mountain.
The downside is that Cure Light would heal less at lower levels, however I think that the channelling to heal ability of the cleric would helps make up for that.
Hm... the problem I see right now is that standard healing spells in battle are bad. Anything below a Heal spell does not restore enough HP to account for a single attack healed, let alone two or three swings from a full attack. Part of what I like about the channelling = healing, is that even though it doesn't restore enough to any one person, it can help the entire party. This means that if the front line gets rotated a little people can survive due to the healling provided.
I think that a small change to the cure X wounds spells could be a good idea.
Maybe have them scale as follows:
Cure Light wounds -- Heals 1d8 per 4 caster levels
Cure Moderate Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 3 caster levels
Cure Serious Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 2 caster levels
Cure Critical Woundns -- heals 1d8 per caster levelThis would (over time) increase the amount healed, while still giving good reason to use higher level healing spells and leaving the Heal spell as the king of the mountain.
The downside is that Cure Light would heal less at lower levels, however I think that the channelling to heal ability of the cleric would helps make up for that.
I agree with this point. CLW for an average of 5 or 6 points, when the orc is swinging a greataxe for d12+3 damage (averaging 9-10 damage) isn't going to keep the fighter alive on a round-by-round basis. Don't even think about what happens when that orc confirms a crit...
Why is it that a 1st level fighter with 20 HP gets hit with an axe for 10 damage, and he's half dead, but a 10th level fighter needs to get hit with that same axe 7 or 8 times, maybe, before he is half dead, BUT a single Cure Light Wounds from the party cleric can almost fully heal the 1st level guy, but the same Cure Light Wounds only heals a small fraction of the damage the higher level guy sustained? Why, when they are both exactly half-dead, do they receive completely different healing from the same exact spell?
Me, I like to house-rule in a bonus to all healing spells that includes the level of the recipient at the same amount of bonus that caster level applies to the spell. No, it doesn't completely cancel out the discrepency I just described, but it does mitigate it a little.
So, CLW heals 1d8, +1/caster level max +5, and +1/recipient level max +5, for a total of 1d8 + 10 if both the caster and the recipient are 5th level or higher.
A 7th level cleric casting Cure Critical Wounds on a 9th level fighter would roll 4d8+16.
I would support a rule like that being added to the official Pathfinder rulebook.
I also rule that all the d8 roll become d6+2 if the caster and the recipient worship the same deity, which motivates the player clerics to proselytize a bit.
But I think the absolutely most important fix they could ever do to all the curing spells is to stop calling them "Cure" - you don't cure wounds, you heal them. Heal Light Wounds, Heal Moderate Wounds, Heal Serious Wounds, and Heal Critical Wounds.
Heck, I'll preorder the Pathfinder book right now if they promise to make that change...
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Cure Light wounds -- Heals 1d8 per 4 caster levels
Cure Moderate Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 3 caster levels
Cure Serious Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 2 caster levels
Cure Critical Woundns -- heals 1d8 per caster level
After some experimentation with a spreadsheet to check the math, I agree that this should be the baseline. Though the wording needs adjustment due to the round down rule in D&D. I assume you meant 1d8 +1d8 per X caster levels. Which scales beautifully and I feel could be useful in combat without being broken.
Which renders at this...
CLW:1d8(@1st),2d8(@4th),3d8(@8th),4d8(@12th),5d8(@16th),6d8(@20th)
CMW:2d8(@3rd),3d8(@6th),4d8(@9th),5d8(@12th),6d8(@15th),7d8(@18th),8d8(@20t h)
CSW:3d8(@5th),4d8(@6th),5d8(@8th),6d8(@10th),7d8(@12th),8d8(@14th),9d8(@16t h),10d8(@18th),11d8(@20th)
CCW:8d8(@7th),9d8(@8th),10d8(@9th),11d8(@10th),12d8(@11th),13d8(@12th),14d8 (@13th),15d8(@14th),16d8(@15th),17d8(@16th), etc
Or if you prefer equations...
CLW Avg = (1+(CL/4))*4.5, CLW Max = (1+(CL/4))*8
CMW Avg = (1+(CL/3))*4.5, CMW Max = (1+(CL/3))*8
CSW Avg = (1+(CL/2))*4.5, CSW Max = (1+(CL/2))*8
CCW Avg = (1+CL)*4.5, CCW Max = (1+CL)*8
Ranged Healing dun, dun, dun
I'd like to see a Short Ranged Option for Healing, which replaces all d8s with d6s, but isn't a different spell.
Area Healing
I'd also like to see a Short Ranged Option for Healing, which replaces all d8s with d4s, but isn't a different spell.
The funny part is that since all of the Cure X Wounds spells reference the CLW spell, you'd only have to insert it once.
I also had some more thoughts for the OP, on some of the original Ideas. AKA Arcane Healing effects.
Cure Light wounds -- Heals 1d8 per 4 caster levels
Cure Moderate Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 3 caster levels
Cure Serious Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 2 caster levels
Cure Critical Woundns -- heals 1d8 per caster level
After some experimentation with a spreadsheet to check the math, I agree that this should be the baseline. Though the wording needs adjustment due to the round down rule in D&D. I assume you meant 1d8 +1d8 per X caster levels.
CLW:1d8(@1st),2d8(@4th),3d8(@8th),4d8(@12th),5d8(@16th),6d8(@20th)
CMW:2d8(@3rd),3d8(@6th),4d8(@9th),5d8(@12th),6d8(@15th),7d8(@18th)
CSW:3d8(@5th),4d8(@6th),5d8(@8th),6d8(@10th),7d8(@12th),8d8(@14th),9d8(@16t h),10d8(@18th),
CCW:7d8(@7th),Also, I'd like to see the Mass Version of those spells Provide their CL as bonus healing. I'd also like to see some spells which do short ranged healing, replacing the d8 above with a d6 or even a d4.
Usually "per x levels" means you get the lowest benefit up to x, the next lowestb benefit up to 2x, and so forth.
So "per 4 levels" means from level 1-4 you get the lowest, from 5-8 you get the next value, etc.
So I've adjusted your table:
CLW:1d8(@1st),2d8(@5th),3d8(@9th),4d8(@13th),5d8(@17th)
CMW:1d8(@3rd),2d8(@4th),3d8(@7th),4d8(@10th),5d8(@13th),6d8(@16th),7d8(@19t h)
CSW:3d8(@5th),4d8(@7th),5d8(@9th),6d8(@11th),7d8(@13th),8d8(@15th),9d8(@17t h),10d8(@19th)
CCW:7d8(@7th),8d8(@8th),9d8(@9th),10d8(@10th),11d8(@11th),12d8(@12th),13d8( @13th),14d8(@14th),15d8(@15th),16d8(@16th),17d8(@17th),18d8(@18th),19d8(@19 th),20d8(@20th)
That's quite jump from CSW to CCW at the higher levels. Are we sure we want someone throwing around 90 HP (average) or 160 HP (max) CSW spells at any level?
Come to think of it, I'm not concerned with that amount of healing.
Also, notice how CMW takes a little nerf at 3rd level. That spell might need wording that includes allowing it to do 2d8 at 3rd level, such as "This spell heals 1d8 HP per 3 caster levels, with a minimum of 2d8."
The other thing I'm wondering, are we still keeping the +1 HP/Caster Level? If so, the impressive healing amounts become more impressive, but if not, the spells take a nerf at their lowest caster levels (a 6th level cleric with CMW would be healing 2d8 HP instead of 2d8+6). But if we keep the +1/CL, then our level 20 healer will be dropping 110 HP average CCW with 180 max. In fact, empowered, a CCW cast by a level 20 healer would average 155 HP for a 6th level slot, which would make it slightly better than a Heal spell, so we might have to raise the cap on the Heal spell.
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I agree with this point. CLW for an average of 5 or 6 points, when the orc is swinging a greataxe for d12+3 damage (averaging 9-10 damage) isn't going to keep the fighter alive on a round-by-round basis. Don't even think about what happens when that orc confirms a crit...
I personally think it's important that it NEVER Keep up with it. If so you get combat without Risks, and that takes a huge amount of fun out of the game.
Me, I like to house-rule in a bonus to all healing spells that includes the level of the recipient at the same amount of bonus that caster level applies to the spell. No, it doesn't completely cancel out the discrepency I just described, but it does mitigate it a little.
I like that thought, maybe a Combat feat for the recipient to add level to Healing again?
I agree with this point. CLW for an average of 5 or 6 points, when the orc is swinging a greataxe for d12+3 damage (averaging 9-10 damage) isn't going to keep the fighter alive on a round-by-round basis. Don't even think about what happens when that orc confirms a crit...I personally think it's important that it NEVER Keep up with it. If so you get combat without Risks, and that takes a huge amount of fun out of the game.
I like that thought, maybe a Combat feat for the recipient to add level to Healing again?
Me, I like to house-rule in a bonus to all healing spells that includes the level of the recipient at the same amount of bonus that caster level applies to the spell. No, it doesn't completely cancel out the discrepency I just described, but it does mitigate it a little.
Don't forget that the enemy monsters are as numerous as the DM wants them to be, with many axes and many attacks, while the cleric only has a few spells to use for curing. There is no chance that you would "get combat without Risks."
What you would get is a viable choice for the cleric. Right now, his choice is "Do I heal our fighter, just so the orc can hit him again and his HP will be even lower than they are now, or do I whack the orc and hopefully kill it, so I can heal the fighter after the battle?"
And unless he's really bad at whacking, chances are the second choice is better, in many cases, than the first choice.
But enhance the healing a bit, and he still has to make the same choice, but now both options are equally viable.
As for fixing healing by charging a "feat tax" on anyone who wants better healing, all that really does is create a feat that everyone wants, which essentially reduces their total number of feats - that's taxation without representation, and you all know how we Americans feel about that... :)
I would rather fix the healin spells themselves.
As for playtesting, our Pathfinder RPG group has felt the sting of underpowered healing. Everyone has more HP, so we fight more monsters or higher CR monsters, or just more fights in a day of adventuring. But our cleric has the same number of healing spells that heal the same amount of HP, so during a day of adventuring her heals cannot keep up with the damage we are taking. Not even close. It's worse than 3.5 was. It forces her to burn all, or nearly all, of her turning attempts just to match her former 3.5 healing ability (with regards to keeping the party fully healed, or nearly so, for just as many fights).
So the current system, at least in our playtesting, has its own unfair tax - a tax against the cleric's turning ability.
It's probably a dang good thing we're not an evil group, or our negative energy cleric wouldn't be able to keep us alive all day. Then I guess she'd animate us and send us back into battle...
Hey! That means she could heal us, then, by channeling her negative energy.
Hmmmm...
In the alpha playtest I ran, we went with the Con + hit die option for starting hit points. Everyone played their favoured classes, and a couple characters took toughness, and the result was a group with massive numbers of hit points, that served to make healing seem incredibly ineffective.
At third level, the fighter had something like 65 hit points, and once he got down to single digits, it took more healing than the cleric could muster for the entire day to bring him back to full.
I don't know if this needs to change, but the overall increase in party durability seems to suggest a proportionate healing increase.
In the alpha playtest I ran, we went with the Con + hit die option for starting hit points. Everyone played their favoured classes, and a couple characters took toughness, and the result was a group with massive numbers of hit points, that served to make healing seem incredibly ineffective.
At third level, the fighter had something like 65 hit points, and once he got down to single digits, it took more healing than the cleric could muster for the entire day to bring him back to full.
I don't know if this needs to change, but the overall increase in party durability seems to suggest a proportionate healing increase.
I'm glad to see other gaming tables are finding similar issues to our own - misery loves company.
OK, well, it's not actually misery, since it's a fun game.
Personally, I feel that this needs to change. As is, a group cannot rely on a druid healer, because they need a cleric who can channel positive energy into a healing wave, and who can convert any prepared spell into a healing spell.
And even then, if that cleric faces any actual undead to turn, or actually wants to use a buff spell or two, there goes a huge chunk of the healing power for the day.
And even if he plays himself as a mace-wielding healbot, using his spells and channeling for absolutely nothing but healing, he still can't keep up with the amount of damage the enhanced higher-HP PFRPG characters will take during an adventuring day.
Especially at low levels. At higher levels, the disparity between 3.5 and PFRPG HP amounts is not so pronounced.
We should remember that it should change for the monsters and enemies, too. Fighting enemy groups with healers means we have to do more damage. Maybe even trolls need to regenerate faster.
Usually "per x levels" means you get the lowest benefit up to x, the next lowest benefit up to 2x, and so forth.
This actually isn't the case. To prevent thread derail, see explanation behind spoiler button.
Shield of Faith
School abjuration; Level cleric 1
casting
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (parchment with a holy text written on it)
efect
Range touch
Target creature touched
Duration 1 min./level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes (harmless)
description
This spell creates a shimmering, magical field around the touched
creature that averts attacks. The spell grants the subject a +2 deflection
bonus to AC, with an additional +1 to the bonus for every six levels you
have (maximum +5 deflection bonus at 18th level).
One thing people should remember when comparing damage to healing is that while a greataxe wielding orc might deal 9-10 damage on average, it has to hit first. This drops the orc's average damage per round considerably, while average damage healed stays constant.
Here's an example to illustrate my point further.
Bob the 1st level fighter is fighting a greataxe wielding orc, and Eric the cleric is healing Bob.
The Orc is standard Monster Manual Orc armed with a greataxe. This gives the Orc an attack bonus +4 and damage 1d12+4 (average 10.5 points). I'll ignore criticals for simplicity's sake.
Bob has AC 15 (Dex +1, scale mail +4). This gives the orc 50% chance to hit Bob, and so the orc's average damage per round versus Bob is 5.25.(including criticals will boost this a bit)
Eric the cleric hasn't specialized in healing, and so his cure light wounds heals 1d8+1. Average damage healed per spell is 5.5.
Notice how the first level healing spell actually heals more damage on average than the orc deals in a round, while the sample fighter was equipped like he was a freshly made 1st level two handed weapon wielder. Even if criticals were taken into calculations, I think the average damage and healing would be roughly the same.
Bob the 1st level fighter is fighting a greataxe wielding orc, and Eric the cleric is healing Bob.
The Orc is standard Monster Manual Orc armed with a greataxe. This gives the Orc an attack bonus +4 and damage 1d12+4 (average 10.5 points). I'll ignore criticals for simplicity's sake.
Bob has AC 15 (Dex +1, scale mail +4). This gives the orc 50% chance to hit Bob, and so the orc's average damage per round versus Bob is 5.25.(including criticals will boost this a bit)
Eric the cleric hasn't specialized in healing, and so his cure light wounds heals 1d8+1. Average damage healed per spell is 5.5....
That's fair, but remember that a first-level party doesn't fight an orc; it fights two--effectively doubling the damage intake; and that's only 50% of the time according to the DMG. in reality, I think encounters with CR equal to APL have fallen out of style (there's not a single CR 1 encounter in Burnt Offerings), so it's likely the damage to healing ratio of an average fight is even higher.
That's as it should be.
The cleric isn't supposed to be able to support all the hats, but I think the trend towards tougher encounters over the lifespan of 3.5 has resulted in more fights where the cleric bounces from ally to ally, bringing each person from -[X] to +[number less than the hit he's gonna take next round].
Further, with the increase in character hit points in the PFB, it can take longer for a party to heal between delves. This is somewhat offset by the cleric's ability to channel positive energy, but that doesn't apply to bards, druids, or (to some extent) clerics multiclassed into prestige classes.
I'd say healing could use a little boost.
My current idea: replace the "standard" d8 healing die with 2d6
Why?:
• Simple: Healing spells aren't broken. Simple changes are best.
• Power boost: the average heal die increases from 4.5 to 7.
• Bell curve: cures are easier to predict. The chances of rolling a minimum on a cure light drop from 1/8 to 1/32. Further, the chances of rolling above the previous maximum (8) are only 23%, meaning the potential to make healing too powerful is dampened.
• Flavour: single-target cures are clearly more effective for healing single targets than Channel Energy, which, presently breaks away after about 6th level.
• It makes non-cleric healers more effective, especially at low levels.
• Damage: cure spells are very effective single-target weapons against undead - as they should be.
I'm actually of the opinion that there is a tad *too much* healing available nowadays. Cure spells *have* improved, massively over 1st and 2nd edition. Hit points have as well, but actually maximum hitpoints at the mid-levels hasn't actually increased much.
1st edition cure spells for anyone not in the know:
As for the spells:
Cure Light Wounds, 1st level, heals 1d8. Period, no plus.
Cure Serious Wounds, 4th level, 2d8+1.
Cure Critical Wounds, 5th level, 3d8+3.
Heal, 6th level, all damage but 1d4.
As for Hit-points, a Fighter with an 18 Con score then had the same hit points as a Fighter with an 18 Con score in 3.5 (up to 9th level anyhow). Other classes, other Con scores, there has been changes - definitely for the better.
Currently a cleric *can* expend all/most of their spells to reasonable cure the party to full, or Channel energy to full, or use a wand of cure light wounds to full.
This essentially takes away the Fighter types (and rogue types) "resource management". Hit points are *most* of what they have to expend on combat. Easy healing takes that away, and can leave the spell casters (or other classes with more limited resources, Monk's Ki pool for instance) looking... stingy?... for wanting to rest.
It also somewhat requires encounters to be particularly challenging every time in order to actually use up significant resources, and even be a fun "threat". This points to Jer's point about not too often encountering encounters actually equal to the EL of the party (though Jer - the very first encounter in Burnt Offerings is EL 1).
Anyhow, I don't want to derail this thread - it has a lot of good numbers and great ideas - but I wanted to add that perspective to the mix. And for the record I *DO NOT* want to go back to 1st edition healing :) - 3rd edition "spontaneous cures" is one of the changes I imported *into* my 1st edition game before eventually converting (though I used d4's and no +'s).
Edit: Completely forgot my story. I've just been playing D0: Hollow's Last Hope with a 3 person party, Fighter, Barb, and Druid. So rather limited healing available. I had somewhat forgot what it was like to wake up the next morning after battle, cast some cures, and still have people down half their hit-points. It's exciting! And you can keep throwing those EL 1 encounters and have them be memorable.
Ranged Healing dun, dun, dun
I'd like to see a Short Ranged Option for Healing, which replaces all d8s with d6s, but isn't a different spell.
Area Healing
I'd also like to see a Short Ranged Option for Healing, which replaces all d8s with d4s, but isn't a different spell.
I like these ideas! It's not clear whether "Short Ranged Option" was intended for the area healing. Do you want area healing to be ranged? Or centered on the caster?
For the necromancy spell, I'd like a spell to drain hp from enemies into yourself. Another spell I like is to sacrifice some number of your own hp to heal twice as many in an adjacent ally. It's sort of like an active version of the passive paladin spell shield other, and I'm not sure who should cast it.
I agree completely. It is also important to remember there is a reason for natural healing and the healing skill. If the group can heal most damage from a single encounter with a single healer, then you never have the situation Mujaba described above. I feel as long as the healers can heal the groups wounded to maximum capacity in a reasonable time period (say 1-3 spell recovery sessions/Game Days)it will allow for more exciting/challenging encounters. Of course, not everyone's playing style is the same. Which is exactly why people house rule things. I believe the healing should continue as is and not be changed in the core PFRPG rules.
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I'd say healing could use a little boost.My current idea: replace the "standard" d8 healing die with 2d6
Why?:
• Simple: Healing spells aren't broken. Simple changes are best.
• Power boost: the average heal die increases from 4.5 to 7.
• Bell curve: cures are easier to predict. The chances of rolling a minimum on a cure light drop...
That's awfully well thought out - I like it.
But again even with those ranges you are not going to heal the damage from a single hit let alone a full attack. In order for the action spent healing to be effective it must heal a bit more than a full attack will do on average. It has to buy two rounds back otherwise you'll just be doing it again next round, and the next. Currently you aren't even getting one round out of your healing, you're getting a swing.
(again the heal spell is completely different and is *possibly* an overpowered healing option.)
I am not sure I am for improving healing.
1st: clerics will become healbots again and negative channeling ones will be even more useless then they are with this stupid channel energy thing.
2nd: Enemy might do more damage then the healing heals but healing works almost 100% while the enemy must hit. Also damage can be reduced by DR and avoided by immunities or concealment.
The changes proposed here will make clerics even more powerful and even able to solo things.
If healing is to be implemented spontaneous casting must be changed. All clerics must have equal opportunity to heal others. Memorizing healing spells must be reinstated and spontaneous conversion put for other spells based on domains taken (or not used at all).
I can easily see clerics fighting one round and healing itself the second and tanking all the time with the enemy not hitting often enough to counter the healing.
This is a whole vicious cycle: PCs get more hits, PCs then feel they need more/better healing, casters using direct spell damage now do even 'less' so they complain to increase it in some fashion, go back to start. Since I'm not in favor of Hp inflation I don't see a need to increase healing.
I think part of the reason we see "healbot" syndrome is becuase the low level healing doesn't do enough to save a life. As soon as we had access to the heal spell our players quiet down about getting healed as fast as possible becuase they know Heal will bring them up to speed again when needed, even if a Crit comes in. At lower levels HP is a game of attrition and healing doesn't help at all becuase your cleric would be better off killing then wasting the action healing one hit for you.
I really think healing is only a problem up until Heal is available. I think the Cure and Mass Cure spells are largely a very bad joke in combat.
The burst healling from Channel Positive Energy is good where it is now to me precisely becuase it can hit more than one person. It still isn't going to take care of more than one swing per person, but when you can heal everyone for that swing people can switch out to even out the HP damage. It doesn't let one person take another full attack, but it can save multiple people from going under.
I think there is plenty of healing around, actually think channeling is overdoing it, the received damage in an encounter isnt much of a problem in my adventures either.
I am almost guaranteed to throw the channel option as it stands now out of my campaign,
instead I am considering giving healing spells the option to be cast slower, like a casting time of 1 round for better results.
I am thinking maximizing these spells when cast this way should be ok.
I think part of the reason we see "healbot" syndrome is becuase the low level healing doesn't do enough to save a life. As soon as we had access to the heal spell our players quiet down about getting healed as fast as possible becuase they know Heal will bring them up to speed again when needed, even if a Crit comes in. At lower levels HP is a game of attrition and healing doesn't help at all becuase your cleric would be better off killing then wasting the action healing one hit for you.
I really think healing is only a problem up until Heal is available. I think the Cure and Mass Cure spells are largely a very bad joke in combat.
The burst healling from Channel Positive Energy is good where it is now to me precisely becuase it can hit more than one person. It still isn't going to take care of more than one swing per person, but when you can heal everyone for that swing people can switch out to even out the HP damage. It doesn't let one person take another full attack, but it can save multiple people from going under.
Low level healing can in many situations make the fighter or some other party member fight for one or more rounds longer. Fighters do more damage and hit more often. The same cleric can try to attack but might miss or not be effective enough.
The only change to healing that would be useful is to make healing spells have range short instead of touch (or touch if the cleric wishes so). Do the same for inflict spells.
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Hm... the problem I see right now is that standard healing spells in battle are bad. Anything below a Heal spell does not restore enough HP to account for a single attack healed, let alone two or three swings from a full attack. Part of what I like about the channelling = healing, is that even though it doesn't restore enough to any one person, it can help the entire party. This means that if the front line gets rotated a little people can survive due to the healling provided.
I think that a small change to the cure X wounds spells could be a good idea.
Maybe have them scale as follows:
Cure Light wounds -- Heals 1d8 per 4 caster levels
Cure Moderate Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 3 caster levels
Cure Serious Wounds -- heals 1d8 per 2 caster levels
Cure Critical Woundns -- heals 1d8 per caster levelThis would (over time) increase the amount healed, while still giving good reason to use higher level healing spells and leaving the Heal spell as the king of the mountain.
The downside is that Cure Light would heal less at lower levels, however I think that the channelling to heal ability of the cleric would helps make up for that.
Hmmm... not bad! I think this would be a good way, but let's raise the "stakes": I'm suggesting that it's fixed 10 points per *recipient* level (max. 40 for CLW, 60 for CMW, 80 for CSW, 100 for CCW). Would that be an "overkill"?
Basing the healing on the target... that's an interesting idea... but I'm not sure I'm completely sold on it. After all a higher level cleric should be better with their healing magic than a lower level cleric. Maybe a precentage healed per so many caster level?
I think that Arcane Spells should be able to heal, with a few caveats.
they are
as per PHB and PRPGbeta:- Bards cast arcane spells
- Cure x Wounds are on the bard spell list
therefore
- Cure x Wounds are arcane spells
they are just not on the Wizard or Sorcerer spell list
in the DMG there also excists a sorcerer variant called the witch, the class has been given access to some low level healing magic.
It is basically a class that uses a restricted spell list using a mix of divine and arcane spells, if you use more than just the PHB for spells you might want to expand the spelloptions within the theme of the class, but it isnt a bad option.
personally I think the class misses out on higher levels though.
At lower levels HP is a game of attrition and healing doesn't help at all becuase your cleric would be better off killing then wasting the action healing one hit for you.This is the core of the problem.
In combat, the cleric's actions are generally better used to hurt the foe than healing his allies.
Out of combat, you have the ever-present wand of cure light wounds making sure everyone's good and ready for the next fight.Any discussion of healing beyond level 3 or so ought to focus on in-combat healing as opposed to downtime healing, because by then the party can afford wands. Each hp healed by the wand costs about 3 gp on average (15 gp per charge, 5.5 hp/charge), and when an average combat brings in 900 gp for a level 3 party (1200 gp in Pathfinder using both the fast XP and treasure rates, which is the default in modules) that's pretty cheap.
One solution is to make casting Cure spells a swift action and give them a short range. That allows the cleric to do other stuff as well, which mitigates the low values healed.
Not every group has easy access to wands. Not even if their own casters take the Craft Wand feat - they may not have time or resources to make wands any time they need them. And many campaigns definitely don't have 24/7 magic shops waiting to sell fully charged wands to every adventring group in the realm.
I can't support a mechanic that presupposes access to magic items as a means to compensate for a weak mechanic - such an assumption only works in campaigns rich in magic items.
One thought I had today might be to have each "Cure" spell (I still want those renamed to "Heal X Wounds") have two versions:
1. The in-combat quick version which might be very similar to what they are now (though I think the numbers should go up very slightly)
2. The out-of-combat slow version (1 minute casting time) which heals significantly more (someone a few posts above me suggested maximized, which I think would be good).
The healer prepares (or spontaneously casts) just the one spell, but the timing of when it is cast (in or out of combat) determines which version is used.
So healing out of combat is much more effective than healing in combat.
This has the advantage of moving away from the "heal-bot" mentality as most groups will want their cleric to be active during combat and save the healing until afterword, unless lives must be immediately saved.
The benefit is that, statistically, the cleric will be able to heal damage after combat with something like 2/3 the number of spells he currently needs. A level 1 cleric casting CLW now heals an average of 5.5 HP, but maximized that is 9 HP (close to 2/3).
The cleric can therefore conserve his spells a little more, or use them for adventuring more.
Our poor cleric almost never gets to cast anything other than CxW all day long. I don't think I've heard her cast anything other than orisons and cure spells in the last 4 adventuring sessions - though she gets more use of her full spell list during town adventures, or other interaction scenarios, but on dungeon crawl or wilderness journeys, she really is just a heal-bot, both in and out of combat.