agruments regarding healing
I couldnt agree more. As long as you have access to either cure light wounds wands or some of the wonderful items you mentioned you dont need a druid/cleric/whatever 'healer'. I had a party where the player playing the cleric left the group. We did fine without her by using cure light wounds wands and healing belts. The healing belt is in fact one of the best items ever put forth. Many people believe they were underpriced, and they are technically right, but they added alot of value to the game in my opinion by providing a significant amount of healing to the whole party. It is one item that will ALWAYS be present in my games, because it allows the players to not think they 'need' a healer. It also free's up all the cool things you can do with a cleric, so that players dont think the cleric has to be a 'healbot'.
We are running a summoner, barbarian, artificer, fighter party. I am playing the battle cleric, so we are still without a healer during combat as I have made it fairly clear that I will not do crap to save anyone if there are foes to be smited. It really hasn't been an issue.
agruments regarding healingagreements regarding healingI have sometimes wondered if parties I play in value their characters too much. There are often times when healing in combat is the difference between wasting a round and spending 5K gp to res the fighter (monk,mage,bard,druid,etc.).
It's not an argument for a dedicated healer, but circumstances have to be considered. Currently, I play in a RotRL game with 7 (!) other players and 2 NPC's, and the GM has scaled the difficulty to somewhere at APL+4 on average. We have only had one character death (mine), but literally every other battle we are low on hp and completly tapped for healing. AFTER getting lots of free healing supplies. AFTER 2 druids and a cleric and a bard and a paladin have done their thing. When you are at 6th lvl and enemies routinely do damage in the 20-30 range per swing, and hit the dwarf's AC25 on 8's, you kinda fall into a hole.
This is an extreme example (we also are under WBL, and are mostly experienced optimized players), but situations do vary. I just get a bad feeling every time I see this topic come up:
DM: The ogre hits for another 17.
BSF: Damn! Hey, I'm at 9hp. I could use some support.
CoD: Ok. I think it's about gone. *casts Command*
BSF: WTF?
DM: What's the Command?
CoD: Flee.
DM: *rolls* It makes the save.
BSF: Why didn't you heal me? If I can't kill it this round, I'm gone!
CoD: Well, those messageboard guys are always going on about how healing in combat is useless...
Healing is less efficient than causing damage, but I would say its a far stretch to never have to heal. Sometimes the dice are just not on your side as a player, and I would have to see a game where there is "never" any healing in combat to believe it. In my group whoever DM's gets magical dice and normally rolls above 12. It's hard to survive when the DM never misses. MM, I hope that example was just an example, and not something that really happened. That happened to me once in a game. I have since made sure I always have a way to heal, at least a little, if needed.
stuff
In-combat healing is very action-inefficient. It's sometimes required, but until you get to heal, you're very frequently going to be healing for less damage than the enemies are hitting you for in a single attack when using your strongest healing spell (especially if you regularly fight APL+4 encounters). It's even worse with channel positive energy. Generally speaking, your best bet is to use your spells to either incapacitate the enemy or prevent the enemy from attacking the severely wounded ally (walls, blade barrier, etc).
In your example, you heal for 3d8+6 with a 3rd level spell, which is ~20 on average. If your enemies are hitting for 20-30 damage on average, it's quite possible that the healing will have no real effect. If instead you'd cast hold person on that ogre (a 2nd level spell against its probable weakeast save), you'd most likely end the threat to the character and enable the ogre to be easily killed all at the same time.
Yeah it just sucks when I spend an entire fight casting heals and bursts, when if one of the weaker characters fell back and let me fight things would go smoother. I signed up for the cleric, so I'll just have to avoid it next campaign.being a cleric doesnt mean you have to be a giant bandaid, if characters that dont belong there are getting into combat its their own fault. Let them know they'll get healed after the fight and not during unless they are dieing. But if you dont wanna be a cleric, dont be, there are others in the party that can heal, let them do it.
Like the man said, if you don't want to heal folks in battle, don't do it. It may take some "tough love", but the rest of the players should be able to handle it, I think.
In your example, you heal for 3d8+6 with a 3rd level spell, which is ~20 on average. If your enemies are hitting for 20-30 damage on average, it's quite possible that the healing will have no real effect. If instead you'd cast hold person on that ogre (a 2nd level spell against its probable weakeast save), you'd most likely end the threat to the character and enable the ogre to be easily killed all at the same time.Or it makes the save, then kills a party member, which is EXACTLY what my example is all about.
Or you heal the party member, then the ogre crits him and kills him anyway.
Usually keep the healer to healing, usually through the NPC cleric being an exalted pacifist (vow of nonviolence). I like to keep the positive energy flowing around as well......
Our Savage Tide campaign does have a Paladin as primary healer instead of cleric:
Paladin
Druid
Wizard-Necromancer
Bard-Rogue-Arcane Trickster
Except in emergencies, the Paladin is a primary off-melee healer (but damn useful when the party is hit by an area spell and she can use channel to quickly counteract some of the damage to the whole group). If she charges into melee, she can heal herself with a swift action (lay hands on self) while fighting, and the others can handle those rounds, if needed, with the bard and druid's lesser heal abilities and items.
After having played a majority of campaigns with parties with clerics, we have found that, with the PF rules, a Paladin definitely gives a higher versatility, as your primary healer is also a damn good melee fighter.
The only tough spot is surviving through lower levels (without Lay on Hands or Channel in the Paladin's repertoire), in this sense is good party-building strategy to have a secondary healer with Cure spells since lvl 1 (Bard, Druid or some of the new APG classes, like Witch) to get you through.
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Or you heal the party member, then the ogre crits him and kills him anyway.Chance to crit with greatclub: 5%, then roll to confirm vs AC 18: 30%. Total: 1.5%
Chance to succeed DC 17 Hold Person: 35%
So, you are betting 5K gp's on a 35% fail vs a 1.5% fail?
Maybe its just me, but I have noticed that whenever I give a monster a very high attack bonus i tend to roll very high anyway... Do math calculations take irony into account? :p
Or you heal the party member, then the ogre crits him and kills him anyway.Chance to crit with greatclub: 5%, then roll to confirm vs AC 18: 30%. Total: 1.5%
What's the chance to heal your ally for less than is needed to prevent the ogre from killing him with a normal attack?
In the example provided, it's pretty high. Higher than 35%, I think.
Or you heal the party member, then the ogre crits him and kills him anyway.In your example, you heal for 3d8+6 with a 3rd level spell, which is ~20 on average. If your enemies are hitting for 20-30 damage on average, it's quite possible that the healing will have no real effect. If instead you'd cast hold person on that ogre (a 2nd level spell against its probable weakeast save), you'd most likely end the threat to the character and enable the ogre to be easily killed all at the same time.Or it makes the save, then kills a party member, which is EXACTLY what my example is all about.
From the DPR Olympics thread. We had several level 10 PC builds that were dealing 50-60 damage per round to a target with an AC of 24. A CR11 encounter would have you up against 2 of these guys. If you have a level 10 healer, their best single target heal hits for 4d8+10=28 average. Their channel with the phylactery of positive energy heals for an average of 7d6 = 24.5 average. On average a cleric can heal for about half what a equal level foe can deal in a single round.
I level 10 fireball does 10d6 = 35 damage to all targets that fail their save. Mass cure light wounds heals for 1d8+10=14.5 which is less that half of what someone who succeeds on their save will take.
Healing during combat is generally a bad idea. You are much better off doing something more offensive.
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Maybe its just me, but I have noticed that whenever I give a monster a very high attack bonus i tend to roll very high anyway... Do math calculations take irony into account? :pWe have the Inverse Rule at our table. A group of gobblins throw rocks at us. They have a very poor to-hit bonus, and we have lots of people with great AC's.
Dwarf w/ breastplate, 16 dex, shield, dodge, and shield mastery feats: Hit 3 times.
Sorceress with Mage Armor, Shield, and 16 dex: Hit twice, missed once
Druid with leather armor and 12 dex: Missed 3 times.
Ya know, I've seen that too now that you mention it. Fifty hobgoblins armed with mundane swords at +2 to hit against a 10th level party, and the hobbies hit regularly against AC 20+. Its probably just the guys with middle of the road Atk bonuses that are unlucky then.
In your example, you heal for 3d8+6 with a 3rd level spell, which is ~20 on average. If your enemies are hitting for 20-30 damage on average, it's quite possible that the healing will have no real effect. If instead you'd cast hold person on that ogre (a 2nd level spell against its probable weakeast save), you'd most likely end the threat to the character and enable the ogre to be easily killed all at the same time.Or it makes the save, then kills a party member, which is EXACTLY what my example is all about.
I'm not saying it's always a good idea, or even OFTEN a good idea, but unless we just resign to have characters die all the time (which may actually benefit the party, since we are under WBL), sometimes you cast the spell so the next hit just doesn't kill the guy. It's the difference between winning and raising a character, or winning and stabilizing a character. You win either way, but one runs the risk of costing the party 5K gp's, the the other does not. There is no substantial benefit to running the risk, since the battle is likely won anyway, so no need to take it.
I agree that healbot is not a good way to go. I just worry about my character's health when people imply that combat-healing is always wasteful.
The whole thing is that the other player is ASSUMING he will be healed. And is operating under that assumption. You know what the fighter should do if the ogre brings him to 9 hp and he is going to die next round? Withdraw. The issue is players stay in the thick of things too long or get in over their heads because they expect the cleric to burn all his reasources being a bandaid.
What's the chance to heal your ally for less than is needed to prevent the ogre from killing him with a normal attack?
There are actually some different examples involved here, but let me spell out my thoughts.
Let's say that an ally is at 10 hp, and the enemies are swinging for 20-30pts of damage. There is a very solid chance (>=10%) a hit will kill the ally, unless they have a 20 con. If you heal them with a 3rd lvl spell and get 20pts, the enemy swing could bring down the ally, but more likely (90%) they will stand long enough to deliver another round attack. At the very least, they will not die.
Now you could roll minimum and heal them for only 9pts. This is still not a disaster. 19-30 is only -11, which should be above their con score (I hope). You have sucessfully saved a friend's life, 100%.
If you instead cast a spell that has a 65% chance of saving your friends life (like Hold Person), then you have just gambled 5K gp's at a loss rate of 35% vs casting a healing spell that has a loss rate of 0%. 1.5% if we include the chance for a crit vs AC 18.
This is an edge case, and does not come up a lot. However, I think it is clear that healing in this case is absolutly the better option. It would be the better option if the Hold Person only had a 5% loss rate (nat20) and the ally had a con <=17.
Basically, healing in combat is not a waste, but it certainly CAN be, when done at inappropriate times (like if the ally had no chance of being killed or the enemy did substantially more damage vs ally hp's).
If A the ally goes before the enemy, he should withdraw. If B the enemy goes before the ally, then he will likely drop the ally anyway, and the ally still wont get an action as he will be unconcious. Thefore overall resources in terms of time have been lost. The doesnt move the party toward success. All you have done is given the enemy an extra turn without the cleric having done anything to defeat them.
If the player dies, its his own damn fault, he should have either withdrew, or at least fought defensively on his previous turn.
And at least in my group, the gamble was only on the ally's part. If you want your character raised or resurrected the cost comes out of your share of the treasure, not the party's. But for the most part in my group, if a PC dies, its replaced with a new one. That i guess comes down to group stlye, more then anything else.
Or you heal the party member, then the ogre crits him and kills him anyway.Chance to crit with greatclub: 5%, then roll to confirm vs AC 18: 30%. Total: 1.5%
Wait, wait, wait.
The ogre only hits 30% of the time? In that case, it's only a 20% chance to both make the hold person save AND hit on its next turn.
I'd also question why your ogre is effing up your party of 7, 6th level, optimizing adventurers and not dieing, if it can only hit 30% of the time.
Healing during combat is generally a bad idea. You are much better off doing something more offensive.
Ehh, the math in your example is a bit unrealistic.
You assume that because 1 cl10 fireball does 35 points of avg damage and a mclw at cl10 does 14.5 of healing, the damage from the fireball will eventually outpace the damage from the mclw. But the reality is that no one is going to sit there and take fireballs over and over until they die. Also, no group is going to take 35*(number of people in the group) points of sustained fireball damage every round till death.
The reality is that defenses (saves, fire resistance, evasion, etc.) are kicking in and your party is doing things to disrupt the caster (killing him, rendering him mute, grappling him, etc). Each save means you're taking 17.5 avg damage -- and that is practically negated by the mclw. Those with evasion are frequently taking no damage at all. And finally, if you're not in the fireball AoE, then you take no damage from it. Having the party spread out can help lower damage output.
All you really need to do each fight is keep your hit points above the negatives long enough to kill the bad guy. Healing in combat can hold the group up long enough to accomplish this goal. Healing doesn't kill the bad guy; healing buys the good guys time to kill the bad guy.
Now, a primary argument I've seen about this approach is that a "disable" type action is simply better than a healing action. On a strictly theoretical level, this is true -- turning an enemy "off" is better than having an enemy "on" and dealing with his damage output. But the problem is that reality and theory don't always see eye to eye.
For instance, there's Mr. High CR Devil. Mr. High CR Devil has a massive SR, excellent saves, and the ability to teleport away if he's unhappy about how things are going. If the disable action is very likely to fail vs. falling even farther behind in the HPR vs. DPR race, probability says its better to guarantee a few extra rounds alive due to healing versus less time to live due to repeated failures to disable Mr. High CR Devil. If you don't disable him enough, he simply teleports away. . . in some cases, that could be considered a failure.
On the other side of the coin:
Healing buys time, but sometimes that time is worthless. If you can't deal damage to an enemy. . . or if your group has a crappy damage output. . . then the time you bought is worthless. If I'm in a group of morons not doing any damage, then typically it would be better to just fail at disable abilities versus trying to heal.
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So I guess it depends on the group. If you know your group is dealing a decent amount of damage, healing can be awesome. If your teammates aren't doing anything but failing, then yes, healing sucks.
What's the chance to heal your ally for less than is needed to prevent the ogre from killing him with a normal attack?
There are actually some different examples involved here, but let me spell out my thoughts.
Let's say that an ally is at 10 hp, and the enemies are swinging for 20-30pts of damage. There is a very solid chance (>=10%) a hit will kill the ally, unless they have a 20 con. If you heal them with a 3rd lvl spell and get 20pts, the enemy swing could bring down the ally, but more likely (90%) they will stand long enough to deliver another round attack. At the very least, they will not die.
Now you could roll minimum and heal them for only 9pts. This is still not a disaster. 19-30 is only -11, which should be above their con score (I hope). You have sucessfully saved a friend's life, 100%.
If you instead cast a spell that has a 65% chance of saving your friends life (like Hold Person), then you have just gambled 5K gp's at a loss rate of 35% vs casting a healing spell that has a loss rate of 0%. 1.5% if we include the chance for a crit vs AC 18.
This is an edge case, and does not come up a lot. However, I think it is clear that healing in this case is absolutly the better option. It would be the better option if the Hold Person only had a 5% loss rate (nat20) and the ally had a con <=17.
Basically, healing in combat is not a waste, but it certainly CAN be, when done at inappropriate times (like if the ally had no chance of being killed or the enemy did substantially more damage vs ally hp's).
No one is saying there are not edge cases where healing might be a good use of resources. Another edge case is if you have multiple allies who are all hurting. Using your action to channel positive energy to heal all your allies can be a very good thing.
The problem is that 9 times out of 10, a cleric's resources are better spent doing other things in combat. Dealing damage, using save or suck spells, or battlefield control spells will all be more effective than a single cure X wounds spell in the heat of combat.
The problem is that in a lot of groups, there is a lot of pressure on the divine caster to be the healer. "I died because you didn't heal me." "No you died because you decided to stay in melee with an ogre when you only had 10 health left." In my group, I am the only player who will play a cleric, because I won't let the group turn me into their heal bot, and thus can actually have fun playing a cleric. Several of the other players will not play clerics because they feel too much pressure to be the group's heal bot.
I don't know what type of GM you guys play with but in my campaign with my GM, you might not "have-to-have" a cleric but it's going to be hell if you don't. At lvl 11, when you are fighting the BBEG and he's CR-13 and doing 60-80 hps per round with vampiric touch and causing fear, all this "just use CLW out of combat" is for the birds.
I can see on a general basis after the little penny-annie battles everyone can heal after combat needs, but it is by far not over-rated.
I guess I should have asked. How pissed would you be if the guy playing cleric in your campaign died, and came back as a different class thereby making life hell for you?
Just to nudge this conversation a little more off topic...
I hate stereotypes. I don't feel there is ANY class that is required in an adventuring group, nor should there be.
The Pathfinder game I am running doesn't have a single arcane spellcaster (but it does have a cleric).
The previous 3.5 edition game I played in had 3 secondary healers, but no cleric AND no arcane spellcaster.
The 3rd edition game I played before that had no rogue, and while there was a cleric (me), I played a cleric of Hades (god of death). I refused to cast healing for philisophical reasons, and yet I was a positive channeler to better combat undead (who were denying Hades his due).
Point being, in three consecutive campaigns, there was at least one role that was left unfilled. No class is mandatory.
play what you want. If you are bored with clerics, move on. If you do play a cleric, don't ignore all of the other cool spells they get, just to be the party medic.
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I get the very strong feeling that most people who say you shouldn't heal in combat don't play high level campaigns.
I can tell you now that if we didn't have players healing during combat in our age of worms campaign, it would've meant TPK all the way.
At high level the difference between everyone dying and no one dying is a well placed heal spell.
And withdrawwing from combat often means you've left the rest of your mates having to go toe to toe with Mr Big Bad.
Mirror Mirror definitely has a point here. Healing in combat is very rarely a wasted action if it gives your best fighter another round of full attacks. However too many save or suck spells just never work because the creature saves then hacks everyone up.
You don't need a cleric for generl healing up to a point. But when your game gets to level 15 and beyond, you need to be very careful how you fight and probably need someone carrying an item that can cast the heal spell. That's where UMD is useful.
Mass Heal is an even better spell, but I can't remember if that's core Pathfinder or if it came from spell compendium.
Cheers
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Mass Heal is an even better spell, but I can't remember if that's core Pathfinder or if it came from spell compendium.
Cheers
And I disagree with your 'people don't play high level' opinion. I played high level with a monk, fighter, and warlock. No cleric. Things like fast healing and UMD covered the healing. I agree it could have helped at times to have in combat healing, but it is not a necessity.
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By the time you are 11th level you should much more than Cure Light Wound wands at your disposal! You should have wands of Cure Critical Wounds, everyone in the party should have potions of Cure Critical Wounds at least. If you need to heal during combat, it is just as valid to pull back, chug a potion or two as it is to call the cleric over
I think there is way to much reliance on a cleric as only a healer. The class has many other powers. In fact, if I was playing a cleric of a god of war, for instance, it would 100% logical that I would be spending the bulk of most combats fighting, not healing! Heck, I wouldn't tell the player of a wizard that he had to only fire magic missles every combat either.
As others have said, play what you want. It is a game, you are ALL there to have fun, not to be forced into doing something you don't like or want to do. Life is just too short.
just to further argue against clerics i partys, when you face a CR 13 demon that give 60+ damage each round, (say if the party is lvl 10) how much more happy would you be with a coupple heal spells instead of, lets just be funny and say 2 summon monster 5. Wich easily gives the demon something to hit on, they can grapple and pin him so he gets easyer to hit, and so on and so fourth.
The idea is, as so many else has already stated, that a good healing can ofcourse save a character, but if your cleric only runs around healing, plz just hit him in the head and tell him to actually look at his spell list. Its way easyer to avoid damage than to keep up with the healing the monsters dish out.
Im currently DMing a lvl 7 party consisting of
half-orc Fighter (with plate and shield)
human Rogue
aasimar cavalier
half-elf warlock (we converted him from 3.5)
So basicly no real spell casters of any sort. With a good supply of CLW wands (gave them one with uses per day instead, since i got bored with the idea of having an npc healer). And with a bit of inginuity and well thought out combats, they basicly nuke anything down i throw at them. So besides the knowledge skills from those classes, they dont really lack anything.
Thats my way of saying, clerics can be fun, but not a neccesity.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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@ Deyvantius and Wrath. Both of you bring up heal as being indispensable in higher-level fights. That's quite true, but it doesn't mean that cure spells are just as effective in lower level fights. Heal is when in-combat healing finally gets good enough to be a good choice most of the time, instead of being a good choice maybe 10% of the time. Besides, in higher-level games, your damage dealing PCs are going to be good enough at their job that keeping them in the fight might actually be a better choice for that healer than trying to take out the enemies himself. And even though heal is super useful, you can still UMD it from a scroll or a staff... meaning that even a high-level party can still do without a cleric.
Classes with heal on their spell list:
Witch, Druid, Cleric, Oracle (I HATE YOU ORACLE!)
You don't need a cleric to have Heal.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Classes with heal on their spell list:
Witch, Druid, Cleric, Oracle (I HATE YOU ORACLE!)
You don't need a cleric to have Heal.
Yes, and I'd caveat what I wrote above that if I were playing an oracle, heal would be the very first 6th level spell I took, and if I were playing a druid or witch, I'd always keep a heal memorized past 14th level. It's good for what ails ya.
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I don't know what type of GM you guys play with but in my campaign with my GM, you might not "have-to-have" a cleric but it's going to be hell if you don't. At lvl 11, when you are fighting the BBEG and he's CR-13 and doing 60-80 hps per round with vampiric touch and causing fear, all this "just use CLW out of combat" is for the birds.
I can see on a general basis after the little penny-annie battles everyone can heal after combat needs, but it is by far not over-rated.
I guess I should have asked. How pissed would you be if the guy playing cleric in your campaign died, and came back as a different class thereby making life hell for you?
Okay so your DM cheats is what your saying. 60-80 damage with vamp touch is a CL 20 vampiric touch that has been empowered AND maximized. That is not something a CR 13 ANYTHING has. Yes DM who cheat will throw off any advice given. And really, at that point you may as well just say screw HP and toss out SoD...unless he rolls behind a screen and cheats those too. At which point you need a new DM more then anything else.
true, the vampiric touch does sound a bit out of that CR. But as said in the DPR lympics thread, its not that hard to make a CR 13 encounter with 2 monsters with classes that can put out 50+ damage each.
Then i agree that a heal spell can be usefull, but a summon monster 6 givind you a huge elemental or a dire tiger, would be way better 9/10 times. That way you give the BBEG damage AND somewhere to focus his attacks, thats damage your friend PCs dont even take.
Yes i do like summon monster.... a lot. but that dosnt change its complete awesomeness
Okay so your DM cheats is what your saying. 60-80 damage with vamp touch is a CL 20 vampiric touch that has been empowered AND maximized. That is not something a CR 13 ANYTHING has. Yes DM who cheat will throw off any advice given. And really, at that point you may as well just say screw HP and toss out SoD...unless he rolls behind a screen and cheats those too. At which point you need a new DM more then anything else.
I meant he was doing 60-80 hps of damage, and vampiric touch (maybe 15 points) And causing fear. He was not vampiric touching for 80 points of damage. i apologize for the misunderstanding.
Again I mentioned my party had no front line fighter and the other guys did not take UMD so I am the only one doing useful healing. All this UMD stuff does not apply.
fair enough. But if i were you i would tell my party to start taking UMD to heal between combats, and then play what ever you want to. If your party learns to combat, without expecting some 1 to come and heal them all the time, then you will do fine.
And if you dont have any front line fighters, then why not summon an earth elemental or something similar, and let that one take the hits for you. way way better than healing through the damage
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Again I mentioned my party had no front line fighter and the other guys did not take UMD so I am the only one doing useful healing. All this UMD stuff does not apply.
Does everyone have multiple potions of cure critical wounds etc? You don't need UMD to drink a potion.
Honestly, there ARE other healing options than just a cleric. It may be that, due to some specific dynamics at your table, these other options are not as viable of course. Good rule of thumb though - potions are your friend.
Also, you are saying you feel obligated as the cleric to concentrate on healing, yet no one else in your party will take ranks in UMD? Do you have a rogue type character? If so, it can be argued that it's every bit his responsability to max out UMD as it is for the cleric to heal.
By the time you are mid to high level, a decent party SHOULD have numerous methods of healing available to them.
Okay so your DM cheats is what your saying. 60-80 damage with vamp touch is a CL 20 vampiric touch that has been empowered AND maximized. That is not something a CR 13 ANYTHING has. Yes DM who cheat will throw off any advice given. And really, at that point you may as well just say screw HP and toss out SoD...unless he rolls behind a screen and cheats those too. At which point you need a new DM more then anything else.I meant he was doing 60-80 hps of damage, and vampiric touch (maybe 15 points) And causing fear. He was not vampiric touching for 80 points of damage. i apologize for the misunderstanding.
Again I mentioned my party had no front line fighter and the other guys did not take UMD so I am the only one doing useful healing. All this UMD stuff does not apply.
The lack of a front line fighter is probably a bigger problem then a lack of a healer. And honestly, if you dont have a front liner, then they are all casters or rogues or monks. There is no excuse for them not taking umd. Just because they arent willing to sacrifice a few skill points doesnt mean you have to sacrifice your whole character.
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By the time you are 11th level you should much more than Cure Light Wound wands at your disposal! You should have wands of Cure Critical Wounds, everyone in the party should have potions of Cure Critical Wounds at least. If you need to heal during combat, it is just as valid to pull back, chug a potion or two as it is to call the cleric over
Here's the problem with that statement, it's entirely untrue. It should read, by the time you are 11th level depending on campaign and circumstances you most likely should have a _________ magic item at your disposal. For example in my campaign, only PCs and villains have character class levels and 95% of the NPCs in the world top out at level 5 the highest level acheivable is level 9 for NPCs. This means that magic items while available, are rarer and valued much higher then a standard campaign (i.e. no magic shops and not many people capable of crafting things of higher than 2 level spells, and only the most powerful spellcasters can even craft wands). Since my group only has one caster and he only has the scribe scroll feat, he's not crafting those items, so unless they come upon a villain with said wand they might not get one, unless it winds up for sale in my random magic items for sale rolls.
That said the only healer in my party is a sorcerer/oracle going for mystic theurge, and they've managed to get to level 7 just fine running RotR without any modifications other than to update it to the pathfinder rules.
I agree you do not have to have a healer...
secondary healers can be primary, if you have enough of them in your party. The other thing is with the new classes can any of them take on that traditional primary healer role?
Another thing that comes up is play style, many threads it seems like there is a major battle then nothing but time to heals up with potions, scrolls, etc.
Enemies are supposed to counter attack in both instances
1. after a victory
2. after a defeat
There are certainly games that impose a certain urgency, but the traditional dnd game does not provide what you suggest. Almost all classic dnd encounters give the players time to search the room, loot the bodies, unlock chests and retreive treasure. This is an expected behavior in an rpg where you get treasure from encounters. Generally the rogue/ranger are doing this, the mage might be identifying a magic item, but the rest of the party is certainly able to apply some healing at the same time.
Besides, dont most encounters end when your enemies are all dead or flee? Who is left to counter attack?
That is a play style choice.
Fleeing baddies can be running to a rally point, heading to alert a larger group, regrouping for the counter-attack.
Unpinning and setting sections of the dungeon for collapse, usually said room where looting is ongoing.....
Unstable seismic activity is something I use alot in games,.
I do consider myself "traditional" since 1.0.
I respect that play style, and it can be exciting, but the game isnt designed for it. There is a reason there is a treasure per encounter table. And in general one encounter after the other with no time in between can greatly swing their relative difficulty (it can go both ways depending on the state of the party at the end of the encounter), messing with the CR tables as well.
I don't know what type of GM you guys play with but in my campaign with my GM, you might not "have-to-have" a cleric but it's going to be hell if you don't. At lvl 11, when you are fighting the BBEG and he's CR-13 and doing 60-80 hps per round with vampiric touch and causing fear, all this "just use CLW out of combat" is for the birds.
I can see on a general basis after the little penny-annie battles everyone can heal after combat needs, but it is by far not over-rated.
I guess I should have asked. How pissed would you be if the guy playing cleric in your campaign died, and came back as a different class thereby making life hell for you?
I think the important thing is that it's worthwhile to keep the best "fight-ender" in your party alive and contributing. So if YOU'RE the best fight-ender, then you don't have to worry so much about spending your resources on everyone else. Not to mention that keeping someone alive doesn't necessarily mean healing alone.
It's certainly possible to play a cleric who's very useful in combat (and not just as a healer). And I think your suggestion of playing a paladin is a great idea.
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Okay so your DM cheats is what your saying. 60-80 damage with vamp touch is a CL 20 vampiric touch that has been empowered AND maximized. That is not something a CR 13 ANYTHING has. Yes DM who cheat will throw off any advice given. And really, at that point you may as well just say screw HP and toss out SoD...unless he rolls behind a screen and cheats those too. At which point you need a new DM more then anything else.I meant he was doing 60-80 hps of damage, and vampiric touch (maybe 15 points) And causing fear. He was not vampiric touching for 80 points of damage. i apologize for the misunderstanding.
Again I mentioned my party had no front line fighter and the other guys did not take UMD so I am the only one doing useful healing. All this UMD stuff does not apply.
60-80 damage for a CR 13 BBEG is pretty normal for a party of level 11. As long as he´s not getting all that back in HP. If your party has no front liners, your cleric should either be summoning front liners...or the party needs to change their fighting tactics so they don´t stand there and get squished...NOT have you waste a character to keep them alive while being stupid.
