So, to sum up:
Always healing: bad.
Never healing: bad.
Healing tactically when needed: good.
Any questions?
Whenever the discussion of clerics, channel energy, or healing comes up, many folks dismiss healing during combat. It seems accepted knowledge that any action spent healing is a total waste and an amateur mistake. If you can't finish the combat by the second round, you are playing the game wrong.
That is not what is being said. In most combats you should have the enemy dead before you get hurt enough to heal. That does not mean don't heal, but it does mean if you have to heal constantly something is wrong. It also means that if the party does things correctly a dedicated healer normally won't be needed.
Creative Director
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Another way to look at it that doesn't involve reducing the game to a bunch of boring equations:
If you're in a combat and you can heal people and your friend or ally is being hurt and that friend or ally is in real danger of being killed or maimed or knocked unconscious if the monsters do something unexpected or get a lucky crit, and you the healer do not go in to heal your friend, your friend is justified in thinking you're an ass and being unhappy with the fact that you would rather try to kill a monster (whose proximity to death normally can't be known to PCs) than to save the wounded ally (whose proximity to death normally CAN be known to PCs). Even if you end the combat faster by killing the monster before it can hurt the wounded friend again.
In other words... sometimes, it's a nice to have someone help you not be in pain.
And WHATEVER side of this interesting argument you find yourself on... neither side gets a "I can be a jerk because I'm right" card. And if many folks misunderstand you, chances are good you aren't explaining yourself clearly.
Play nice, or let it go.
When 5 people get the same impression from a post I think it's pretty clear you didn't communicate what you meant in an effective way. As for being a jerk... you seem to have that under control.No, I think you rolled the 1 on your Reading Comprehension check. Nice job being a jerk about it, though.You rolled a 1 on your check to communicate effectively and wound up arguing with a bunch of people who don't disagree with you. Nice job.i think there is a flawed argument here. You could also argue that if you or your Allies are Dead they cant deal damage. And theres Lots of level appropriate monsters capable of disembowling PCs if they dont get healed.Speaking of flawed arguments...
No one is saying, "Never heal in combat!". What we're saying is that, mathematically, you should reserve healing in combat for times when it's the best option, which is generally either when the entire party is hurt and you have an effective AOE heal or when one character is near death.
+1
I would also like to point out, we're not conducting an experiment or doing dry mathematical runs when we play the game, it's an RPG. Emphasis on the RP. Characters, much like the players themselves should want to live long healthy, wealthy, and happy lives. Taking that into consideration, not effectively healing can lead to VERY dramatic circumstances.
Example, Fighter gets hit by BBEG for a couple rounds and drops below half... he begins to think to himself, if he hits me hard for one more round I could be a goner. *No heals* Next, round uhm... "Tactical Withdrawal!". The fighter out of the picture leaves a gaping hole in your defenses. That heal starts to look like it should have been higher on the ole' priority list.
>Mr. Fishy puts away his Mr. Fishy is Right Card<
Mr. Fishy does need a card to be a jerk, or a reason for that matter.
"Doing it wrong?" No.
The most efficient use of resources? Probably not.
People on both sides need to calm down. Yes, in some situations healing in combat is appropriate and the "best" action to take. However, if your group is constantly getting into situations that require in-combat healing, you should look at the reasons why. In my experience, it's usually caused by either player actions/attitudes (how they prepare and what tactics they use, expectations regarding "class roles," etc.) or campaign factors (the GM uses primarily Challenging and Hard encounters, there are restrictions on magic items, etc.).
There is nothing "wrong" with a game where in-combat healing is regularly needed, as long as everyone involved is having fun. An understanding of the reasons behind why it's needed, however, can aid the group in developing their characters and even add to everyone's enjoyment.
*boards ate my post*
To summarize my eaten post, this is a Role Playing Game. Players tend to Role Play and not want their characters to die. If by not healing you give them the impression they may die, you have made the wrong choice. I myself have been hit to below half and at about that time I start looking around for a little healing support, if I don't get it I will tactically retreat leaving whatever battlefield formation or plan we may have had behind...
Likes James said, my character will not know the status of the monster we face. But the fact he is approaching death will be frighteningly more apparent every single round. Healing is just as much about morale as it is the math involved.
That is not what is being said. In most combats you should have the enemy dead before you get hurt enough to heal. That does not mean don't heal, but it does mean if you have to heal constantly something is wrong. It also means that if the party does things correctly a dedicated healer normally won't be needed.
That depends a lot on the individual game. I'm not saying the GM should push the party to near death every combat, but if you aren't being stressed enough to need a little healing in most combats, I think the GM is being too easy on people.
It really depends a lot on play-style. My game tends to have only a few encounters per day, so I push the limits a lot more. In an extended crawl a lot of easy encounters still wear on the party. There are lots of ways to play the game, the only "right" way is the one where your group is having fun.
I'm going to probably offend quite a few here but that's my right! first off im going to flat out say the opposite in that NOT healing in combat is playing the game wrong! i haven't seen much mention arguing this but i will point out why i feel this way.
first off in my campaign I often have battles that push players to there limits, but i play with 15 year vets and +3-4 CR to there APL is usually needed just to make the battle even remotely a challenge. If players never have to heal in battle then there overpowered or the DM is not adjusting CR tailored to his players. every group is different. a hard encounter for one group might be extremely easy for a group of vets. CR in pathfinder core book are guidlines, it really depends on knowing your players and what the can and might do.
secondly number crunching and saying it's more effective "to kill the enemy fast or your just wasting actions" could easily be metagame thinking. while this would be a tactic for say DND miniatures or hero clix it's NOT the thinking of a ROLEPLAYING game where the player is a CHARACTER-NOT the player himself! so thats how i can see not healing in battle is playing the game wrong. a lot of times healers are GOOD alignment. while yes it may be NUMERICALLY better to attack it may be the CHARACTERS nature to ease the pain and protect there allies! players who ignore this fact could easily be considered an evil or neutral selfish person to not heal there ally! Secondly while you could argue that that "yeah but my character would KNOW not to waste such time on healing" and i would ask REALLY!? what is this characters INT or WIS that he can quickly crunch such scenarios and probabilities in the matter of a round-a few seconds! so in summery, what is more efficient to do and what your CHARACTER WOULD do really should depend on his personality, alignment, loyalty to his friends,and his intelligence and wisdom.
in my opinion since pathfinder is a ROLEPLAYING game anyone who crunches numbers and power-plays is technically playing the game wrong and everyone else is really playing it right lol. I wish pathfinder still had the 3rd edition rules for individual experience awards for roleplaying and keeping to character. i still use them in my campaign and players who number crunch and power play are often punished for metagame playing and not roleplaying there character with less experience.
If you're in a combat and you can heal people and your friend or ally is being hurt and that friend or ally is in real danger of being killed or maimed or knocked unconscious if the monsters do something unexpected or get a lucky crit, and you the healer do not go in to heal your friend, your friend is justified in thinking you're an ass and being unhappy with the fact that you would rather try to kill a monster (whose proximity to death normally can't be known to PCs) than to save the wounded ally (whose proximity to death normally CAN be known to PCs). Even if you end the combat faster by killing the monster before it can hurt the wounded friend again.
+1
The players I game with tend to see the RPG experience from a very non-mathematical POV. From a certain perspective, there is a fair amount of hazard simply in /being in/ a fight wherein both sides are employing lethal force. There are a great many variables as well as "-unknowns," both "known-" and "unknown-." One thing that I do know, and that's not so variable, is that if Belfar is getting HIT BY SWORDS and Cleo has the option of patching him up, it's a fair option to pick.
Took a break for dinner there.
Incoming damage outpaces the potential for even a Healing Domain Cleric with heal-focused 3rd party feat support to heal up, assuming the mathematical assumptions that govern the design of the game, as evidenced by the extensive mathematical theory that went into the re-designed Bestiary.
Extreme corner cases (as a party where every character is nigh-invulnerable very definitely is) don't a convincing argument make. 3rd edition was designed (and 3.5 and Pathfinder inherited this design unchanged) such that offense scales with level/HD, but defense either does not (AC) or does so more slowly than offense (saves). This was a very explicitly intentional design decision; the designers did not want defense to be a prominent part of the base game because they felt that hitting and doing damage was more exciting than trading misses. The designers of 3.0 have said this many*many times.
I would agree that was more the case in version 3.0 - 3.5, however channel energy shifted that balance. There are now a variety of defensive playing options that are very effective.
I would not assume that Pathfinder has the same game balance/monster design philosophies as earlier editions. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but they can answer that for themselves. I don't see anything in the monster creation section of the SRD that really supports the idea that healing falls so far behind. In fact, Table: Monster Statistics by CR tells me that a decent healer could keep up if players were careful, prepared, and didn't have terrible luck.
My thoughts on the issue:
If I am playing a cleric, and the party expects me to heal in combat, they better be prepared to make that tactically possible. If there are multiple enemies between me and the fighter, and the fighter expects me to heal him with a wand or cure spell, he is out of luck. If on the other hand, he falls back, or even just tries to fall back, to a position that I can get to him when he is down on hit points, unless I have more pressing concerns, like multiple enemies on myself, I will generally do my best to heal him.
Overall, going into each and every fight expecting that you are going to need to heal at some point before the fight is over means one of two things: the DM is running a particularly rough campaign (which is fine as long as everyone understands that) or the party seriously needs to reconsider tactics and/or noncombat options that allow them to avoid unnecessary fights beyond their current capabilities. If it a boss fight, or some detail about the fight (enemy tactics, environment, bad dice rolls, unique enemy, unavoidable fight, etc.) than being prepared to do some healing as needed to keep the party up long enough to finish the fight is needed, though as stated in my first paragraph, this will require some tactical thinking on the part of the party as a whole, given that most healing spells are touch spells.
Spells like shield other (used carefully) can close the gap between damage taken and damaged healed.
VERY much so.
In fact, in the last game I ran, my wife's Cleric and the team Barbarian used this to VERY good advantage. My wife plays a halfling cleric in mithral full plate (1 level of fighter/4 levels of cleric). She has the highest AC in the party, but sucks at combat otherwise (low str).
What she did was cast shield other on the barbarian and let him charge into the black wyrmlings with a swinging axe and Acid Resistance. He took tons of damage, and she just sat in the back and healed herself as she needed (she has 1/3 his hp's). The point was though that she didn't need to heal him, and she could do buffs or hit one of the wyrmlings that made it past him and just concentrate on healing herself if needed, rather than needing to get into the thick of the fight. It worked very very well.
Overall, going into each and every fight expecting that you are going to need to heal at some point before the fight is over means one of two things: the DM is running a particularly rough campaign (which is fine as long as everyone understands that) or the party seriously needs to reconsider tactics and/or noncombat options that allow them to avoid unnecessary fights beyond their current capabilities.
Ummm...No. If you go into each and every fight expecting that you are NOT going to need to heal at some point then your DM is either taking it easy on you or needs to reconsider his tactics for the opponents.
Ummm...No. If you go into each and every fight expecting that you are NOT going to need to heal at some point then your DM is either taking it easy on you or needs to reconsider his tactics for the opponents.
I figure that most parties will at some point figure out what their capabilities are and tend to develop combat tactics (and combat avoidance for those situations that are clearly above their heads)that will give them enough control in a typical fight that healing is not automatically assumed as necessary, at least during the combat itself, unless the DM is running a particularly tough campaign where every single combat is effectively stretching the party's resources to the limit. In a typical campaign, where the average fight boils down to tactics and luck of the die more than long term durability, an average fight with average tactics and average dice rolls should not typically require in combat healing unless there are circumstances in play that skew the battle enough that is no longer considered a typical, run of the mill battle. That isn't to say that such a battle will never need to have healing occur, since conditions can change very quickly, or that some kind of healing afterward won't be necessary, just that it should not be assumed that healing will be always be necessary during a standard run of the mill battle with fairly equal opponents.
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The idea probably isn't 'to keep up' (though I'm not sure being unable to cast healing spells and keep up with the pace of damage is such an axiom). Even if you can only heal 50% of the damage dealt, you keep your party up for 50% longer. Can you do more damage than you can heal? It depends on AC, saving throws, MR, DR, and countless other factors. Whatever the potential is, its rarely realized. Healing works every time (barring various anti-magic efforts or effects).
The idea probably isn't 'to keep up' (though I'm not sure being unable to cast healing spells and keep up with the pace of damage is such an axiom). Even if you can only heal 50% of the damage dealt, you keep your party up for 50% longer. Can you do more damage than you can heal? It depends on AC, saving throws, MR, DR, and countless other factors. Whatever the potential is, its rarely realized. Healing works every time (barring various anti-magic efforts or effects).
Aye aye - I always thought that effective healing was all about pulling the wounded out of the danger zone: That point where the health drops to a point where a lucky chain of crits could drop them.
..but as mentioned above in many strong posts, the arguments against healing in combat are very much a symptom of people metagaming the encounters to find the most effecient solutions to a problem rather than playing out the encounter in a manner most suited to their character's personality/the party's history/what their character would do in the situation.
''MEDIC!''
''Pipe down! If I focus on you our net DPR will drop by 19.8%!
''But... ...THE PAIN!''
''Yes yes, but in one more round the beast will be dead, assuming the rogue lands his sneak attack!''
''...but my spleen! MY BEAUTIFUL SPLEEN!''
''Do not fear, with your constitution score you can bleed safely for sixteen rounds!
''.....BUT IT REALLY HURTS!''
''Oh hush, come on, don't be so silly - we always use that scroll of ressurection we found on the goblin gaurds.''
'' ''
Another way to look at it that doesn't involve reducing the game to a bunch of boring equations:
If you're in a combat and you can heal people and your friend or ally is being hurt and that friend or ally is in real danger of being killed or maimed or knocked unconscious if the monsters do something unexpected or get a lucky crit, and you the healer do not go in to heal your friend, your friend is justified in thinking you're an ass and being unhappy with the fact that you would rather try to kill a monster (whose proximity to death normally can't be known to PCs) than to save the wounded ally (whose proximity to death normally CAN be known to PCs). Even if you end the combat faster by killing the monster before it can hurt the wounded friend again.
I got to disagree with one point -- If I can look at my friend and tell how close to death he is, then I can probably look at the monster and tell how close to going down it is too. Maybe in corner cases like some undead, elementals, or constructs I could understand not being fully sure (but even then you'll generally notice the missing parts, the shambling at loss of structure and what not).
The thought that I can "know" my fellow PC needs help, but not "know" that the monster is on its last legs isn't a very good argument.
Also while healing the ally could be a good choice (and often is) I could possibly make him impossible to damage instead -- either by killing the monster (if possible), putting something immediately between him and the monster, or by moving the ally in some way (possibly plane shifting him, resilent sphering him, or summoning monsters myself that will prevent the enemy from getting to my ally).
Not arguing that "all healing is bad" just that as mentioned, sometimes other options can have the same base effect (stopping the damage) and give more time to apply more effective healing (while also slowing down the chance of more incoming damage).
Standing behind the fighter and just healing him every round is generally ineffective, but casting Aid will give him a boost to hit and temporary hit points which act as prehealing. Shield of faith could make him take no damage, or a wall of wind/stone/whatever might prevent him from getting hit in the first place while buying me time to do something wounds and prevent more future damage.
****
To throw in another thought:
IF the CR system works, and something of CR = to APL is supposed to eat up 20% of the parties resources then it seems highly unlikely to me that healing will be needed in all fights.
If that 20% of resources (in the form of HP) all comes from one character then yes he'll need healing more than likely. But if it comes a little from 3 (or 4) different characters then more than likely none of those characters should be in danger of dying since it's less than 20% of their overall hp.
Now a channel energy after the fight? Probably a great idea. Maybe even during a CR even fight if the monster gets in a good shot.
But every fight every time?
Not so much.
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I got to disagree with one point -- If I can look at my friend and tell how close to death he is, then I can probably look at the monster and tell how close to going down it is too. Maybe in corner cases like some undead, elementals, or constructs I could understand not being fully sure (but even then you'll generally notice the missing parts, the shambling at loss of structure and what not).
With Status cast you can know the HP and various conditions of your ally. With Deathwatch, the best you can do looking at the monster is know if he is 3HP or less, or somewhere between 4HP and max HP.
That said, many DM's seem to allow their Cleric players to know exactly the HP's of their party members- I wouldn't let this fly at my table but to each to their own. I agree you should certainly be able to look at your friend and see if hes lighty wounded, wounded or heavily wounded, but no more than that.
Anyway, losing track here. My point is that the spells available to a cleric allow him to monitor the HP of his ally better than he can monitor the HP of his enemies.
Aye but most of the time your friends will ask you for heals while the monster/BBEG/misc minion won't.
I.E -- you don't really need to be able to know if your friend needs healing: it's a matter of them asking for it (so you 'know' they need healing) versus the monster/minion/BBEG not letting you know how badly it's hurt/playing tough so you don't know you're winning etc
Essentially, I'd say that in a fight everyones bleeding/hurting but we'd only 'know' who needs help if they ask for it, unless there's some magical mojo going on.
..ok, perhaps not the best expression of my thoughts on a matter >_< but otherwise aye, I agree totally with 'other options can be just as effective' -- just not with the ability to diagnose friends in combat without some metagaming...
...and suggesting that you we never really know how badly the monster is hurting until it's literally at death's door.
All of the above assumes that HP's are still an abstract reflection of health/fatigue and their loss incorperates near misses and the like until the last few remain - rather than raw health damage/ability to take direct hits.
Tho, that stated (in bold no less) it does make you wonder how positive energy heals the majority of a targets HPs...
..positive reinforcment/encouragment maybe? O_o
''Never let them see you bleed James''
The thought that I can "know" my fellow PC needs help, but not "know" that the monster is on its last legs isn't a very good argument.
I got to disagree with one point -- If I can look at my friend and tell how close to death he is, then I can probably look at the monster and tell how close to going down it is too. Maybe in corner cases like some undead, elementals, or constructs I could understand not being fully sure (but even then you'll generally notice the missing parts, the shambling at loss of structure and what not).
With Status cast you can know the HP and various conditions of your ally. With Deathwatch, the best you can do looking at the monster is know if he is 3HP or less, or somewhere between 4HP and max HP.
That said, many DM's seem to allow their Cleric players to know exactly the HP's of their party members- I wouldn't let this fly at my table but to each to their own. I agree you should certainly be able to look at your friend and see if hes lighty wounded, wounded or heavily wounded, but no more than that.
Anyway, losing track here. My point is that the spells available to a cleric allow him to monitor the HP of his ally better than he can monitor the HP of his enemies.
My point was that if I can look at a friend and see he's "not well and losing blood" I should be able to do the same for the bugbear we are fighting.
I don't mind if a heal check is involved but the idea that somehow I can know that my friend is fading but not the monster doesn't really hold water since both require the same sort of observation in order to know. If I can look at my friend and figure out he's got poison in him, I should be able to look at the monster and tell if the rogue's poison is having effect. The symptoms are going to be very similiar and therefore telling to someone who is looking.
I wasn't really getting into the magical options (of which deathwatch is lower level than status) though those make this even easier.
EDIT for a Thought:
In fact without descriptive terms tell me how I actually know my friend is hurt. Or that he has a disease... the rules don't provide a means of diagnosing someone's condition outside of magic.
Common sense would tell me that if I see my friend's guts get ripped open I would know he needs healing soon, or if the sword and armor that he wears seems to be slowing him down more than normal after a spider bit him he's probably poisoned -- these same ideas apply to enemies.
If it is "unrealistic" for people to not bleed, slow down, etc when they are hurt then the enemies better not be "ganging up" on the PC with the lowest HP since they have by default no way to know that just like the PCs don't.
I got to disagree with one point -- If I can look at my friend and tell how close to death he is, then I can probably look at the monster and tell how close to going down it is too. Maybe in corner cases like some undead, elementals, or constructs I could understand not being fully sure (but even then you'll generally notice the missing parts, the shambling at loss of structure and what not).
With Status cast you can know the HP and various conditions of your ally. With Deathwatch, the best you can do looking at the monster is know if he is 3HP or less, or somewhere between 4HP and max HP.
That said, many DM's seem to allow their Cleric players to know exactly the HP's of their party members- I wouldn't let this fly at my table but to each to their own. I agree you should certainly be able to look at your friend and see if hes lighty wounded, wounded or heavily wounded, but no more than that.
Anyway, losing track here. My point is that the spells available to a cleric allow him to monitor the HP of his ally better than he can monitor the HP of his enemies.
My point was that if I can look at a friend and see he's "not well and losing blood" I should be able to do the same for the bugbear we are fighting.
I don't mind if a heal check is involved but the idea that somehow I can know that my friend is fading but not the monster doesn't really hold water since both require the same sort of observation in order to know. If I can look at my friend and figure out he's got poison in him, I should be able to look at the monster and tell if the rogue's poison is having effect. The symptoms are going to be very similiar and therefore telling to someone who is looking.
I wasn't really getting into the magical options (of which deathwatch is lower level than status) though those make this even easier.
Hmm apparently, as well as reflecting how much punishment you can directly take, HPs reflect the characters ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one..
...hmm
..that makes life interesting. Knowing how much of a characters total HPs 'reflect the characters ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious could be tricky, let alone knowing how many hps they've lost already are from this pool/amount - they could have a few scrapes and bruises from the dragons claws but have lost half their health (assuming that the last few hit points being lost represent the dragon finally conecting with it's claws and finally mulching the poor character).
So.... I still reckon that, most of the time, a character will only know if a someone really needs healing if they're told so because they're surrounded by people/monsters that are covered with scratches, bruises, scrapes etc --- it's only when a poor sod is on 0 hps and bleeding to death that you'd really know they need healing without them telling you.
Especially since there are no modifiers/penalities for fighting on either 3/50hps or 50/50 hps.
o_O
That is not what is being said. In most combats you should have the enemy dead before you get hurt enough to heal. That does not mean don't heal, but it does mean if you have to heal constantly something is wrong. It also means that if the party does things correctly a dedicated healer normally won't be needed.Sounds to me that you are used to some pretty lopsided, improper CR battles.
If I walk into battle and wipe the floor with the opposition before getting hurt - THEN I think something is wrong.
Healing is a resource like everything else (spells, potions, limited use class abilities) - I'd expect to expend an appropriate amount over the course of a gaming session.
I did not say the party should not get hurt.
I said you should not get hurt enough to heal(before the fight is over).Basically if you are healing in the middle of combat every(a high percentage) fight there are issues.
If you were to introduce ramification of injury, there would need to be a balance issue. As it stands, I can easily see it as a trade-off between being hurt, and having a huge adrenaline rush.
One of my GMs was talking about having penalties in place for being on low HP. I _insisted_ that if that were the case, then people at low HP should also have +4 or so to all physical stats in order to represent the feats of superhuman strength we humans are capable of when we are faced with death.
As for the whole knowing how damaged some people are; there is a reason clerics have sense motive and heal, and that both of these skills focus on the cleric's highest attribute. Considering some of the almost ridiculous things you can do with exceptional skill in this game, I only think it fair that every PC cleric is on par with Gregory House when it comes to diagnosing on the fly.
On topic: Healing in combat is a good thing when applied well. From an optimization stand-point, I would say that it is a secondary function of the cleric, and a tertiary function of everyone else that _can_ do it, but with less ease. A cleric should always open combat with a heavy buff, or other spell that will do proactive HP management, making sure that he won't NEED to be bogged down healing in every subsequent round. It is both ineffective, and boring for the player. Tertiary healers, like druids, bards, rangers and paladins should reserve their healing for the aftermath, in preparation of a later encounter. (Obviously, paladins should heal themselves in combat, as personal laying on hands is a swift action, and is not likely barring another action from being pursued in any given round)
However, a well timed channel energy that is able to heal just about everyone is a sound option, as it increases the buffer between active participation in combat, and being face-down in a pool of your own blood. There is no doubt that the cleric in my Kingmaker campaign have saved the rest of the party members from death on multiple occasions by healing in combat.
That is not what is being said. In most combats you should have the enemy dead before you get hurt enough to heal. That does not mean don't heal, but it does mean if you have to heal constantly something is wrong. It also means that if the party does things correctly a dedicated healer normally won't be needed.That depends a lot on the individual game. I'm not saying the GM should push the party to near death every combat, but if you aren't being stressed enough to need a little healing in most combats, I think the GM is being too easy on people.
It really depends a lot on play-style. My game tends to have only a few encounters per day, so I push the limits a lot more. In an extended crawl a lot of easy encounters still wear on the party. There are lots of ways to play the game, the only "right" way is the one where your group is having fun.
I agree, but under the 4 fights a day model you will fight something where the EL is equal to the party's level. These are normally easy fights. I understand there are fights that will be harder than normal due to EL, the dice gods, DM's and player's making silly mistakes, and so on.
I'm going to probably offend quite a few here but that's my right! first off im going to flat out say the opposite in that NOT healing in combat is playing the game wrong! i haven't seen much mention arguing this but i will point out why i feel this way.
first off in my campaign I often have battles that push players to there limits, but i play with 15 year vets and +3-4 CR to there APL is usually needed just to make the battle even remotely a challenge. If players never have to heal in battle then there overpowered or the DM is not adjusting CR tailored to his players. every group is different. a hard encounter for one group might be extremely easy for a group of vets. CR in pathfinder core book are guidlines, it really depends on knowing your players and what the can and might do.....
Not every battle is meant to be a challenge. If the group prefers to play like that then that changes a lot of things
You snuck the stormwind fallacy in there. Crunching numbers is no more metatgaming than me wanting a master's degree if I want to live a better life. As for the noncompassion of not attacking to help your friend, I would argue that if you want to keep you friend safe you eliminate the threat. Patching your body up, so the enemy can just hit him harder the next go around is not helping much.
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Well... in Rob McCreary's game earlier this evening, my cleric of Desna did some healing AND did some damage during a pretty extended combat against some goblins and zombies. A combat that lasted WELL over 2-3 rounds, and was still quite fun.
So as far as I can tell, since the game was fun, healing in combat isn't
"doing it wrong" at all. And no amount of math or combat analysis or anything like that can change that, as far as I can tell.
The fact that the game can be played in so many ways, and that it can be enjoyed in so many ways, is one of the great strengths of an RPG. It's important to keep that in mind; there's no "wrong" way to play an RPG if folks have fun playing it.
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The fact that the game can be played in so many ways, and that it can be enjoyed in so many ways, is one of the great strengths of an RPG. It's important to keep that in mind; there's no "wrong" way to play an RPG if folks have fun playing it.
Whaaaaat? What is this nonsense? Next you'll be telling me I can't win at Pathfinder... ;)
The fact that the game can be played in so many ways, and that it can be enjoyed in so many ways, is one of the great strengths of an RPG. It's important to keep that in mind; there's no "wrong" way to play an RPG if folks have fun playing it.
DAMN YOU AND YOUR ''IF YOU AND YOURS ARE HAVING FUN THEN IT'S FINE'' LOGIC!
I want paper scissors stone damnit. I want clear cut choices. I want one way to play, one way to win. This system is all about winning, right?
Right?
Just tell me how to play the game already.
Please.
All this freedom and variety is hurting my head.
Why do you want to hurt my head?
Why?
Whaaaaat? What is this nonsense? Next you'll be telling me I can't win at Pathfinder... ;)
o-O They wouldn't make a game we couldn't win!
Would they?
..
How can I have fun if I cannot win?
Heals are 100% going to go off, after all....spells can fail, attacks miss, and monsters whiff...healing removes at least one element of chance from the equation.
+1, with emphasis - barring concentration checks and/or provoking AoO, healing is RELIABLE. And that's worth a lot. How many times have I seen "I cast Hold Person!" followed by "He made his save."?
Whaaaaat? What is this nonsense? Next you'll be telling me I can't win at Pathfinder... ;)
The fact that the game can be played in so many ways, and that it can be enjoyed in so many ways, is one of the great strengths of an RPG. It's important to keep that in mind; there's no "wrong" way to play an RPG if folks have fun playing it.
Don't listen to him. I win all the time, and I never heal. I even ready counterspells to disrupt my party's healing. Real adventurers don't heal, and you get to visit your deity faster. Now tell me what is better than meeting a deity in person?
On a more serious note I think the heal/not heal is being taken out of context to the extreme. Nobody is advocating an all or nothing situation, but some of the posts make it seem like they are taking it that way.
I'm going to probably offend quite a few here but that's my right! first off im going to flat out say the opposite in that NOT healing in combat is playing the game wrong! i haven't seen much mention arguing this but i will point out why i feel this way.
first off in my campaign I often have battles that push players to there limits, but i play with 15 year vets and +3-4 CR to there APL is usually needed just to make the battle even remotely a challenge. If players never have to heal in battle then there overpowered or the DM is not adjusting CR tailored to his players. every group is different. a hard encounter for one group might be extremely easy for a group of vets. CR in pathfinder core book are guidlines, it really depends on knowing your players and what the can and might do.....
Not every battle is meant to be a challenge. If the group prefers to play like that then that changes a lot of things
You snuck the stormwind fallacy in there. Crunching numbers is no more metatgaming than me wanting a master's degree if I want to live a better life. As for the noncompassion of not attacking to help your friend, I would argue that if you want to keep you friend safe you eliminate the threat. Patching your body up, so the enemy can just hit him harder the next go around is not helping much.
i didn't say crunching numbers was metagame thinking i said it easily could be. there are no numbers in battle except casualties and probabilities. with the length of a round i doubt a character has time to crunch too many probabilities before he would lose his action. and if your crunching numbers like "Bob is at 14 HP but this last orc has X strength and an axe which only does Y damage so bob will be safe cause i know i can deal Z damage and end the encounter" well that's metagame thinking. The point i was trying to get across earlier was sticking to character. while it may be more "efficient" to finish off the enemy a good character,especially a cleric, would probably heal his friend instead of dropping the last foe. besides being the good and moraly right thing to do a cleric would have a high enough wisdom to know that the last enemy standing might not really be the last guy or there may be more around the corner. while i don't disagree that eliminating the threat would keep your friend safe and your free to play your character as you see fit, it's not always black and white. I played an adventure once where our dwarf cleric of war did just that thinking the battle was over, and then our heavily wounded ranger got sneak attacked in the back by an invisible rogue! I prefer my "friends" not play russian roulette with my life! But he was chaotic neutral after all and was played to character, it just wasn't the right call...
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Several people have already said it in this thread, but definitely the answer is... it depends. Depends on how your DM builds encounters, and depends on your group's playstyle.
For example, we have 10 players in our group, and usually only the combat-phobic wizard is out of channeling range of the single cleric in the group. This makes in combat healing a lot more effective as a standard action during combat, because you could be affecting your entire party a la bard song, and there are a lot of them.
On the other side of the equation, in my game, most intelligent humanoids (and sometimes monsters) tend to target the arcane casters and healer first, especially in a group with a lot of combat types. For this reason, the cleric tends to wait as long as possible to throw a big heal or channel, instead preferring to melee with his holy scimitar or use buff or hold person/silence, etc type spells. We have two bards and a witch as secondary healers in the party, equipped with wands as well as spells, and they often end up stepping in if only one or two people are getting seriously hurt.
Both of these situations affect the assumption that its best to avoid excessive combat healing, so really... it depends :)
Don't listen to him. I win all the time, and I never heal. I even ready counterspells to disrupt my party's healing. Real adventurers don't heal, and you get to visit your deity faster. Now tell me what is better than meeting a deity in person?
I've actually done this with one of the BBEG's minions once. His sole job was to make sure the party would have a hard time healing. He spent many a round counter-spelling cures and heals. They party was pissed. They managed to survive but it made things much more difficult for them.
It can be pretty aggravating when a PC with healing capabilities becomes so focused on attempting to kill monsters that he or she more or less flat out refuses to heal other PCs during combat even if they're in clear danger of dying. The worst is when you're laying there at say -2 HP and somebody could pop you back up with a simple Cure Light Wounds so you could take part in the game again. Instead you have to sit there taking turns which involve nothing but stabilization checks because your "buddy" is sure that his "optimal" save or lose spell will finally work this time (while the DM keeps rolling 17+). Letting the other PCs fail and possibly even die because you need to be a glory hound is about as close to "wrong" as you can probably get in an RPG.
That said, I sometimes play with a guy who is infamous for refusing to heal during combat, and it is actually kind of entertaining. That's a little different though since everybody knows not to rely on him for healing. His motto is "it's no fun if you're not bleeding out". Still, if somebody falls he'll usually heal them (after grumbling a bit).
As an aside, I'm often surprised by how ineffectively people use healing resources. I've seen many Clerics blow their high level healing spells in between combats when wands of Cure Light (or preferably Infernal Healing or the old 3.5 Lesser Vigor) would get the job done while leaving Cure Mod and higher for use in combat. I usually try to institute a "Wand Tax" early in a campaign. If you keep HP topped off between fights then in combat healing becomes less necessary, and while I disagree that healing is suboptimal I do think it is more fun if the "healer" can spend more time trying to kill stuff than just healing his buddies.
I have no parties with a straight cleric. The party with the cleric tends to steamroll anything I throw at them due to remarkably good teamwork and the fact that one party member is a druid whose usual tactic is "I am an air elemental, your offense is invalid". The second group has a paladin and a bard-type character as far as healing goes. Should I list the number of times the bard type healed someone who was about to drop in hell? 3. Every time was necessary because what else could he have done while inspiring? Glitterdust? OK time to break through SR and then have it roll a will save, which may possibly work depending on the devil as they have wildly different saves. That blinds it for 1 round. Tends not to matter since most devils get 3+ attacks and a significant portion of them are large, meaning the dust can catch one, maybe two at most in the area. Only bard spell I can think of off the top of my head, and guess what, still wouldn't have kept the paladin in action after he was nearly crit to death by an ice devil's spear.
I would say this argument is really just people having it too easy. One of my players has been playing AD&D since he was a small child, and he phrased the reason why the cleric heals as something like this:
"If you don't heal, you and your friends will die. If you do heal, you will be kind of boring. But it's better to be kind of boring than to be dead."
Most cleric spells recover around 1 hit's worth of hp for the level. The lower level spells get eaten for more healing outside of combat. Having a cleric "backpack" a fighter or ranger while they were pounding on a pit fiend or other nasty was a popular strategy since it invents an interesting problem for the monster. Either they must attack the fighter and continue to have their attack's damage cut down or hit the cleric, not solve the fighter problem and have the cleric heal himself.
Then again, AD&D did operate under the logic that getting treasure was what caused you to gain levels, which I must say I understand, because logically even the fighter might not want to fight the giant naked red guy from hell with a flaming whip. He might find it quite awkward. Sneaking past it? Totally legitimate. Just hope you weren't using invisibility to do so.
I'm pretty sure when people are talking about combats they mean normal combats: not boss fights.
Same idea as novaing: boss fights are the appropriate time4 to use every resource as they are usually way above ECL/CR.
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Whaaaaat? What is this nonsense? Next you'll be telling me I can't win at Pathfinder... ;)
The fact that the game can be played in so many ways, and that it can be enjoyed in so many ways, is one of the great strengths of an RPG. It's important to keep that in mind; there's no "wrong" way to play an RPG if folks have fun playing it.
when you win does the dm show you the games' credits and play an epic song?
npc 1: the dm
npc 2: the dm
npc 3: the dm
lighting: the dm
key grip: the dm
special effects: the dm.....
special thanks to james jacobs and crew
I have no parties with a straight cleric. The party with the cleric tends to steamroll anything I throw at them due to remarkably good teamwork and the fact that one party member is a druid whose usual tactic is "I am an air elemental, your offense is invalid".
How is an air elemental wrecking encounters?
Whaaaaat? What is this nonsense? Next you'll be telling me I can't win at Pathfinder... ;)
The fact that the game can be played in so many ways, and that it can be enjoyed in so many ways, is one of the great strengths of an RPG. It's important to keep that in mind; there's no "wrong" way to play an RPG if folks have fun playing it.when you win does the dm show you the games' credits and play an epic song?
npc 1: the dm
npc 2: the dm
npc 3: the dm
lighting: the dm
key grip: the dm
special effects: the dm.....special thanks to james jacobs and crew
It would be nice if a DM made a short video for the party. I doubt I will get time to do one for my group but I will keep it in mind.
Whaaaaat? What is this nonsense? Next you'll be telling me I can't win at Pathfinder... ;)
The fact that the game can be played in so many ways, and that it can be enjoyed in so many ways, is one of the great strengths of an RPG. It's important to keep that in mind; there's no "wrong" way to play an RPG if folks have fun playing it.when you win does the dm show you the games' credits and play an epic song?
npc 1: the dm
npc 2: the dm
npc 3: the dm
lighting: the dm
key grip: the dm
special effects: the dm.....special thanks to james jacobs and crew
You win the thread.
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I can't blieve no one posted THIS yet. ;)
Go, Team Cleric!