On the other hand the game has become too much about maximizing and optimizing, at leqast on these messageboards.
Seriously how many guides or threads are about role playing?
Sigh. Roleplaying snobs can be just as bad as the math snobs
Yes, didn't you read the first part of my post?
- not calling you a snob,
Thanks, because I'm not.
edit:And it's still true you know, "how many guides or threads are about role playing?"
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(9+ people spamming the same chat)
AAAaaah, WoW, those were the days...
Zark do you just ignore all my posts? Those number thingies are mental exercises a lot of the time. The guides are there to help people make survivable characters. Yeah, over time most of us will discover these things(character building techniques), but why suffer when someone else is willing to share the knowledge, and if you dont have free time you have time to learn the best options. The other issue is that not all DM's provide the same amount of behind the scenes(fudging and intentionally using bad strategies) help to players, so those that don't come to the table with a decent character get a lot of practice making new ones.
Whether you like it or not math is a part of the game. There is no way to know what someone will roll so we have to go with the average. It is also a good way to know what the best charcter is for what you want to do.Since I am tired of retyping this I have saved it in a file. The next time it comes up I will just copy and paste. I need to find my thread on this issue also. Thanks Zark. :)
I'm not sure what you want to say with this post. Are you attacking me or are you saying I'm attacking you?
My points was this game is both about role playing and roll playing.
I really don't like it when players who just want to role play and can't create survivable characters. ...the cleric with 13 wis and 16 int.
I also dislike players who just maximize and optimize. No, you don't have to dump the charisma if you play a fighter or a barbarian. Yes, the fighter can still pick some archer feats even if he mostly focus on melee. Yes, you can play a gnome barbarian. You can do it as long as you know how to create a survivable character that does it's part of the job. A lot of players forget about team play. It's not fair the rest of the players have to play like gods just because one of the players created a crap character.
I've played cleric a lots of times. Healing in battle is important, but it's also important to know when to heal and when to buff or attack, etc. If the players know EXACTLY when to do what they are metagaming powergamers. If the playes always know when the monster have 1 HP left they are indeed metagaming powergamers. That said I agree with "The dividing line between a mediocre cleric and a great cleric is knowing *when* to heal."
Knowing when to heal and knowing which cure spell to use is very important.
short and to the point, and i couldn't agree more.Healing when you don't need to is not the best tactical choice. Healing when the barbarian is about to go down (which in my group means he dies) can be the most important action that needs to be taken.
Combats are dynamic. A wise healer will pay attention to the options and do the best thing for the specific situation.
+1
Too many DMs using energy immune monsters and Improved Evasion.
Note: Evocation was one of my prohibited schools, and going without it made me really appreciate it. I also never understand how folks think evocation is weak, but that is another thread...
Not all the time and not on all monsters and not in all camaigns.
Evocation is not great vs. the BBEG, but great vs is minions.It saved us so many times. Hurting many using only one spell. Evocation is great.....often but not always.
Just gonna throw my fist in and say:
GO ZARK!
..coz he helped me build a bard *-*
Oh and yes, 'To heal or not to heal' - of course it's a matter of context..
o_o I mean, really people, c'mon!
Combats are dynamic. A wise healer will pay attention to the options and do the best thing for the specific situation.
/cheer
Still, fun thread to read and some interesting points raised and explored.
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I think throwing "fun" around is a bit of a non-argument. People have fun doing a lot of things in the game - nobody is really arguing that things are un-fun. Certainly there are things that a lot of people might think of as not being fun, and others DO think of as being fun.
The problem with healing being "unfun" is that some people - those who play fighters who resemble themselves, for example ;p - tend to freak out whenever they have any lost HP and need all their boo-boos fixed right away. This leads to players thinking that groups need a "dedicated healer," which is false. And while healing itself doesn't have to be "unfun," if it's all you do, it can get frustrating.
As for combat-healing, it's difficult to say. In most cases, healing 12 HP is not better then removing an enemy out of the fight completely. The reason healing in combat gets such a bad rap is because damage scales much faster then healing does - on BOTH sides. While you're healing 12 damage, the enemy is doing 24 - and you could be doing 24 yourself, or flat out controlling the enemies.
It is, I think, the same problem that exists in damage glorification, only it's other side. There's a good number of people who think doing anything but throwing a fireball is a wasted turn, while another good number of people think throwing a fireball is the waste. Pure damage, or the healing thereof, is sometimes raised to a higher level then it truly is. That's not to say doing damage is bad - you typically can't kill a monster and take it stuff without being able to damage it, after all! It is saying that damage isn't everything. There IS a cost to healing that isn't neccisary, and it's the most valuable thing in the game - your actions. One mistimed action can cost a battle (assuming the fight is awesome and dramatic enough ;p), and the "action economy" is one of the reasons solo enemies can have a lot of problems, and why there's such a big debate about them.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In that round, instead of healing 12 damage, you could've cast Hold Person, and healed 24. In the next round, without even casting a spell, you've now healed 36. Theoretical stuff can be somewhat difficult, but it's important. If you're fighting a big group of archers, don't stand there and heal your allies as they're hit - cast Wind Wall!
By the same token ,healing can be that ounce of prevention in some cases. If the fighter is about to go down, or if your whole group just got fried, then healing can be an excellent option. I guess what I'm saying is, while healing in combat isn't always a bad idea, there's somewhat often a better option available.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In that round, instead of healing 12 damage, you could've cast Hold Person, and healed 24. In the next round, without even casting a spell, you've now healed 36. Theoretical stuff can be somewhat difficult, but it's important. If you're fighting a big group of archers, don't stand there and heal your allies as they're hit - cast Wind Wall!
By the same token ,healing can be that ounce of prevention in some cases. If the fighter is about to go down, or if your whole group just got fried, then healing can be an excellent option. I guess what I'm saying is, while healing in combat isn't always a bad idea, there's somewhat often a better option available.
Yes this, exactly.
No healing in combat? Oh Boy, I'd forever be in trouble.
I would not still be alive (or rather my character) in our Rise of the Rune Lords campaign if it wasn't for the cleric patching me up. No joke. I'm currently playing a Sorcerer / Dragon Disciple named Djordi who would have been dead many times over if it wasn't for combat healing. He has an incredible amount of hit points.. but in the big fights he always gets mixed up in parts of the fights he shouldn't..
Why?
Djordi has a tendency in fights to loose his cool. He's fairly rational when the fight starts but inevitably some bad guy casts a fire spell on him (he can't stand being burned) or he spots a worshiper of Lil'Meshy-tu, or he sees one of his friends get into serious trouble... and common sense and tactics go out the window and he leaps into the thick of it claws out and spells-a-blazing. It's just how he is.
It's mechanically inefficient (and getting worse as the game goes forward), but it's a lot of fun to play. Without a healer it would be impossible to play out character flaws like his because he would be dead early in the fight.
Why do the other characters (and thier players) put up with it? Because when not in combat Djordi brings a lot of drive and purpose into the group. He presses the story forward and his Antics bring a lot of flavor to the game.
So I think Healing in combat is a wonderful thing.
I suppose in the end it comes down to what your group is looking for. As many posts above state, yes, the framework involves a system and mechanics, but it's there so the players (and Game Master) can have fun. I leave mechanics efficiency for tournament play and go for fast and loose role-play for a fun game on a weekend.
I would say that preventing damage is actually not always the way to go.
WAIT! Read the rest of my argument first.
I don't know about you, but my parties tend to focus on getting battle plans together. I mean "sweep him under the rug, he's done" plans. I've played a heck of a complex character who was about dealing strength damage, considering how many things attack in melee. I was a shadowdancer/rogue/fighter kobold with a spell storing spear, a shadow companion and crippling strike towards the end of the game.
That was a character built completely around stopping damage. To himself? No chance. Hide in plain sight meant even a strike to the right square could miss, and my AC was a bit low, but still nothing to laugh at. I wasn't a bit damage dealer, but my giant amount of abilities and general ability to fill any role save a target in combat meant that I was invaluable. Knowing how bad I would eat it as a kobold rogue, I started experimenting until I finally got that character down. If anything wanted to hurt my pals, they took some decent damage, plus 2d6+5 strength damage if both my shadow and I hit. No save.
Guess what? That was all I did. And due to the text on ray of enfeeblement, it didn't work on everything. Casters really could care less that they now had 1 strength effectively (Which resulted in some pretty funny grappling attempts) and had we not had an insanely broken goliath barbarian with leap attack we may very well have lost some encounters. Guess who the most useful member of the party was?
A favored soul.
The most useful thing he did?
Healed the barbarian.
This barbarian had around an AC of 13. He had spent most of his money on weapons and stat boosters. With good reason. His Dex was 8, with numerous small boosts to AC we got him up to 20 while raging. Which everything hit on a 3. So why even invest it? Anything that he leap attacked had to be pretty buff just to get a round to hit him. He was a glass cannon made out of meat, because he had around 230 hp. With the favored soul having shield other up, the damage would quickly climb to insane levels on him, so he would occasionally skip that and just heal whatever he took.
About the second half of our game was much easier because he didn't spend a round using shield other on the barbarian. Spreading out the damage just made it so he had to cast heal twice instead of once, and he could close and finish off whatever the barbarian had just charged. When he was locked in combat with a purple worm (Dealing significantly less damage thanks to a certain kobold) The cleric literally waited at the edge of the worm's range to heal him because stepping in would result in unnecessary damage, and blowing a spell to debuff the worm was completely unnecessary. He just let the wall of meat get hit and healed him. Backpacking.
So that's my argument. I would also like to mention that at some point someone said that damage got a lot higher since AD&D? Yeah, guess what else you get now that you didn't get in AD&D (Not the edition I played anyway): More hit dice every level. Percentage wise, healing was really powerful because the fighter could take a meteor swarm to the face, be at 2 hp and the cleric goes "Oh, I move and cast heal" and suddenly the fighter is at full again. How's that 9th level spell sitting after I negated its effects with a 7th level one? Oh by the way I can fight too.
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Too many DMs using energy immune monsters and Improved Evasion.
Note: Evocation was one of my prohibited schools, and going without it made me really appreciate it. I also never understand how folks think evocation is weak, but that is another thread...Not all the time and not on all monsters and not in all camaigns.
Evocation is not great vs. the BBEG, but great vs is minions.
It saved us so many times. Hurting many using only one spell. Evocation is great.....often but not always.
Um, yeah. Which is why people think it's weak. Because of DMs using immune/evasion enemies.
Interesting conversation. In my campaign, anyone with any kind of ability to use cure wands has at least one on their person and healing is used in combat all the time. I am pretty sure I'd go through a LOT of PCs if they didn't. Heh. Maybe I'm just a jerk. ;)
After playing organized play for years, I feel I've got some additional insight into the "healing in combat is stupid" club.
1) I've seen too many clerics who feel thier job is to heal people. And therefore only memorize heaing spells. Sad.
2) I've seen too many clerics who literally don't know most of the spells on thier list. There are times when a resist energy or wind wall is 10x better then cure mod.
3) I've seen too many clerics who feel thier job is to react. Readying an action to heal when someone gets hurt is rarely a good move, especially when that's a turn you could have cast something to benefit your allies, like bless. You'll get another turn later, I promise.
4) I've seen too many clerics who are not prepared to do -anything- else. You've got medium armor and some good weapons. There will be times when you should just hit the bandit with the hammer. And there will be times when you'll make an acrobatics roll too. I'd happily trade some of that +31 heal check for a cleric who was a bit more versatile.
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Now, there are times when healing in combat is exactly the right move, and Gods bless you for saving my characters through the years. But I find sitting next to someone who says "I heal, I heal, I heal" as dull as someone who says "I attack, I attack, I attack".
I'd prefer some good role-playing, some flavor, and a player who is acquainted with the full range of what his or her character can do.
1) I've seen too many clerics who feel thier job is to heal people. And therefore only memorize heaing spells. Sad.
But WHY? Ok, a Heal or maybe two, maybe I can see that, but with the Spontaneous Casting class feature they shouldn't take a single 'CURE' spell. I thought this was one of the greatest ideas ever because it fixes the clerics only take band aid spells.
Also Changeling helps a lot too, though it takes a feat and maybe two to make this perfect.
But WHY? Ok, a Heal or maybe two, maybe I can see that, but with the Spontaneous Casting class feature they shouldn't take a single 'CURE' spell. I thought this was one of the greatest ideas ever because it fixes the clerics only take band aid spells.
Why? It could be that some of those players used to play 1e/2e and were used to memorizing the spells and hadn't really gotten the hang of spontaneous casting.
It could also be that they were playing Living Greyhawk as clerics of Wee Jas - who spontaneously inflicts as a LN death goddess. Those clerics would have to memorize healing spells.
It coudl also be that, as players, they weren't very good at knowing their characters' options.
If healing is not an important feature of D&D combat then you are not fighting worthy challenges. If a fight is so trivial that you end it in 2 rounds or less why even fight it? Just say that the players overwhelm the minor opponent and move on with the story.
I think it depends a LOT on the kinds of challenges a GM throws at you, your party makeup, tactics, etc. Making a blanket statement about it isn't going to help anyone learn better tactics.
Generally, all I can comment on is how my gaming group tends to do it: there is never someone JUST standing and healing. Clerics and everyone else will melee, cast, buff when possible--heal only when needed.
If someone is seriously wounded--and what "seriously" means depends on the situation (someone trapped in melee and under half HP, even if that "half" is still a relatively high number might qualify, someone near death usually qualifies, but someone near death who has managed to teleport out of immediate danger to do something else useful may not qualify).
I would say if someone was standing there just healing all the time, either the challenge is too hard, the party is using poor tactics and not defending themselves well, and/or the healer is healing when they could be doing something more useful instead (like buffing or help fight).
I will go so far to say that if someone is relying solely on keeping their hit points high to survive, that person may be overlooking the importance of other defenses like saves. You fail the wrong save, you'll be a lovely statue (or otherwise paralyzed, polymorphed, etc. etc.) with 150 HP. And then you'd better hope your cleric memorized something other than healing spells that day--if she can help you at all.
Heal or not heal that is up to what you need. If you can polish off your foes before they can become a threat to you, then yes, healing is a waste of time.
I like there to be suspense in the fight. If the players are not in fear for their lives then what is the point of the fight? If there are truly dangerous encounters the ability to grant health to a critically injured companion can mean the difference between success or failure.
In my games the players rarely die but if the figures go onto the mat they are in serious trouble and need to pull it together or some one will fall.
The last major battle in my campaign the 5 players (level 8-9) and 3 NPCs (Level 7-8) defended Sandpoint from a Giant attack. They did not defeat the 13 giants 3 bears and a young dragon the fight called for. They defeated a force of 26 stone giants 6 dire bears and an adult red dragon. Why? Because it was cooler. A couple people came close to falling but some spot healing in the 6th round saved several players.
Clearly people make poor decisions in combat all the time but none of these arguments support the failboat notion that healing in combat is, in general, a waste.
If healing is not an important feature of D&D combat then you are not fighting worthy challenges. If a fight is so trivial that you end it in 2 rounds or less why even fight it? Just say that the players overwhelm the minor opponent and move on with the story.
It's actually funny how ignorant this statement is.
I think the whole argument that "healing doesn't keep up with damage" is only partially correct. I am pretty sure that everybody who has ever played a cleric knows, or finds out very early in his clericky career, that his heals cannot outpace the damage of the monsters.
That's extremely obvious.
But it's not really the point.
The question really is whether the healing will keep up with the cleric's damage output. Or to put it another way, comparing the cleric's healing numbers against the monsters' damage numbers is a fallacy - we should be comparing the cleric's healing to the cleric's damage.
Why?
What we're really looking at here is how effective the cleric can be during his round. He cannot really changet he damage output of the monsters. Sure, he can debuff them and maybe reduce their damage somewhat, or buff his allies to mitigate some of that damage, but ultimately, these are often just minor changes to the monters' damage output.
So the cleric must decide:
1. deal X amount of damage
2. heal Y amount of healing
In my experience, almost every cleric I have ever seen can heal more HP in a round than he can dish out. Yes, I've seen some very buffed-up battle clerics who are all optimized for damage and who are de-optimized for healing; these guys can always dish out more damage in a round than THEY can heal. But they can rarely dish out more damage in a round (on average) than an optimized healer can heal.
So in many cases, the cleric really can be more effective healing than he can be swinging his hammer. He can usually be more effective healing than he can be throwing around Flame Strikes and Inflicting Wounds. He can usually be more effective healing than he can be summoning a troll to go smash the enemies.
Now, arguably, there are two cases where this is usually not true:
a. Melee buff-n-bash clerics can often drop several good buffs on themselves and become melee powerhouses. These clerics can dish out respectable damage. However, he has to cast several buffs (hopefully before the fight, otherwise the rounds of zero-damage while he's buffing bring down his average DPS for the whole fight), and then after the fight, he still needs to cast heals to restore lost HP, so this type of cleric uses up ~ 2x the number of spells that a healer cleric would use.
b. SOS/SOD clerics. Hold Person/Monster is a great way to really affect the enemy's damage output and prevent the need for healing. There are many other spells too. The downside is that these spells can be resisted and enemies can make saving throws, so they are unreliable. If it takes 3 casts of Hold Person to gain a net of holding an enemy for a total of 2 rounds, is that really an effective use of the cleric's limited resources? On the other hand, when it works, it's awesome. But, for many clerics, the guarantee of certain healing eliminates (and is therefore superior to) the randomness of uncertain SOS/SOD spells - at least when you cast a healing spell, you know you will make a positive contribution to the battle; you have no such expectation when you cast a Hold Person.
Of course the situation can change on a round-by-round basis, and what is a bad idea this round might be imperative next round. So being able to evaluate the battlefield and accurately assess the best course of action is critical to a well-played cleric. It might even be fair to say that this is more critical to clerics than it is to any other class.
End of story for me is that in-combat healing is usually a valid option for any cleric that is not specifically built to de-value that option. So for all "general" clerics, and for all cleric builds that do not deliberately over-optimize one extreme at the expense of healing, I would say that in-combat healing usually not "doing it wrong" - barring the occasional tactical assessment where it is, situationally, wrong.
good stuff
+1
good stuff as well
+1
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No, it should be based on what the monster can do. In a game where we go from fully functional to out of combat with 1 point difference, all damage counts. A cleric should be set up as primay function battle or support. If battle, get yourself into battle mode and bash. If support, get the spells up on your party to make them hard to hit, hard to damage, or more efficient damaging. Only in rare circumstances (usually getting someone back up) should you consider using a combat action to heal.
Or to put it another way, comparing the cleric's healing numbers against the monsters' damage numbers is a fallacy - we should be comparing the cleric's healing to the cleric's damage.
That's actually a fallacy. Actually, two of them. First, a false dichotomy, because there are other options than "heal or hit". Second, damage is probably the actual worst thing a generic (non-over-the-top optimized) Pathfinder cleric can do in battle.. Especially since damage is the weakest element of the cleric's spell list and class features. Divine spells have intentionally lower damage caps and damage progressions than arcane spells of the same level, except against very specific targets (almost always undead), and no Pathfinder cleric will ever even sniff the shoes of a Pathfinder fighter as far as melee damage is concerned, not past the first couple levels.
In most cases, a simple bless spell is a more efficient and more powerful use of resources than trying to attack or nuke with a cleric.
I removed some posts. Fight over.
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Fine. Allow me to re-phrase: "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.
Even with that given though, healing magic extends the survival time of the person taking damage. Not all fights occur in an ideal space where it's a perfect choice of doing damage over healing. A cleric who's not invested himself as a battle monster will probably be a far more effective healer than dealer, in which case the charop arguments go out the window.
And if the game is such that everyone HAS to be a combat monster of the party fails, than it's time for me to find another game.
Please cite where I have ever championed dealing damage as a cleric. I never have. You have to hyper-optimize for damage dealing to be an effective option for clerics. I have actually said that damage dealing is a worse option than healing.
Can we please try not to mis-represent my statements?
Try to be civil please.
Try to be civil please.
And crying out "Badwrongfun!" is civil?
In our current game, we don't have a cleric. We have a paladin, and my character has a maxed UMD and healing wands. Often times we are facing quite a few enemies spread out in various corners of the battlefield. Healing often becomes clutch because:
1. We don't have exact HP numbers for our enemies, so predicting when a monster is gonna go down is not reliable. This goes for many other battlefield statistics too. A lot of the time the players have imperfect information, and have to ere on the side of caution.
2. Often, we have split up with half the party covering one vector of incoming monsters, while other half handles another. Lately its been 3 vectors of incoming monsters. Often we use healing to keep a stalemate situation until part of the party can move into position.
3. While putting out damage, or using a battlefield control spell can have a great effect on our success, these things involve to-hit rolls and saving throws. Healing is just a matter of touching an ally or having them in range (unless you are like me and have to roll UMD :P) Having a cleric in the party or even better a healing domain cleric, means that when they use spells or channeling to heal, you are getting something guaranteed, where as attacking or casting SoS have at least some potential as a wasted round.
Obviously there is a time and place for everything. Buff spells and battlefield controls are fantastic offensively, but sometimes the best defense is to heal.
using a battlefield control spell can have a great effect on our success, these things involve to-hit rolls and saving throws.
Very few battlefield control spells require to-hit rolls, and the good ones don't really allow saves, either, or are structured such that saving doesn't prevent them from functioning as battlefield control.
using a battlefield control spell can have a great effect on our success, these things involve to-hit rolls and saving throws.Very few battlefield control spells require to-hit rolls, and the good ones don't really allow saves, either, or are structured such that saving doesn't prevent them from functioning as battlefield control.
Care to suggest any? We were playing 4 9th level characters facing 4 stone giants. Any of them reliably prevent 4d8+9 points of damage? And by that I mean no save, no to-hit, just plain action negation of some sort.
Care to suggest any? We were playing 4 9th level characters facing 4 stone giants. Any of them reliably prevent 4d8+9 points of damage? And by that I mean no save, no to-hit, just plain action negation of some sort.using a battlefield control spell can have a great effect on our success, these things involve to-hit rolls and saving throws.Very few battlefield control spells require to-hit rolls, and the good ones don't really allow saves, either, or are structured such that saving doesn't prevent them from functioning as battlefield control.
Wall of stone, for one. Wall of thorns is even better if you have a druid instead of a cleric.
Wall of stone, for one. Wall of thorns is even better if you have a druid instead of a cleric.Care to suggest any? We were playing 4 9th level characters facing 4 stone giants. Any of them reliably prevent 4d8+9 points of damage? And by that I mean no save, no to-hit, just plain action negation of some sort.using a battlefield control spell can have a great effect on our success, these things involve to-hit rolls and saving throws.Very few battlefield control spells require to-hit rolls, and the good ones don't really allow saves, either, or are structured such that saving doesn't prevent them from functioning as battlefield control.
Fair point, although Its entirely possible that the wall of stone will be blocked by one or more combatants in melee. With coordination, however, I can see that being reliably better than the same level Cure.
Edit - its also dependent on some other factors. A 9th level cleric could not make a stone cage for the giant, because it requires 20 5' squares. If the giant has vital strike (which most don't, but its still possible), then he can move around any wall and still do significant damage.
Also Wall of stone is not something most clerics can normally default to. Defaulting is key when the best laid plans go awry, which is part of the "imperfect information" point I made.
Fair point, although Its entirely possible that the wall of stone will be blocked by one or more combatants in melee. With coordination, however, I can see that being reliably better than the same level Cure.Wall of stone, for one. Wall of thorns is even better if you have a druid instead of a cleric.Care to suggest any? We were playing 4 9th level characters facing 4 stone giants. Any of them reliably prevent 4d8+9 points of damage? And by that I mean no save, no to-hit, just plain action negation of some sort.using a battlefield control spell can have a great effect on our success, these things involve to-hit rolls and saving throws.Very few battlefield control spells require to-hit rolls, and the good ones don't really allow saves, either, or are structured such that saving doesn't prevent them from functioning as battlefield control.
In a 2nd edition game, we had a few wizards cast walls of stone on the boulders the giants were holding. We used the boulders as the anchors and then stacked 4 walls on top. It made it very hard for them to thrown their boulders when they were crushed by the weight of 4 walls.
I don't know how well the tactic would work in Pathfinder. I haven't looked up the spell. I don't think it would be too different though.
I was going to mention that healing is more than just cure spells. It includes preventative measures as well. As others have mentioned, by lessening the damage coming, you are having the same basic effect of healing but doing it better. If you can stop 120 points of fire damage from a adult red dragon's breath, you can still have cure spells left over to deal with the melee damage. You can use Shield Other to take half the damage on yourself, making it even easier to use your healing burst since you will have less damage to heal.
Being the party healer doesn't have to mean that you are just casting cure spells. It means your job is to protect the party and use healing as a last resort. In the military we all learned first aid techniques. What helped us the most was learning how to prevent the need to use those techniques in the first place.
In the end though, it takes a wise cleric to know when to go on the offensive and when to heal. Preferably the healing starts before combat and before it gets out of control. In the meantime, he should be doing whatever he can to minimize the need to heal in the first place.
I like there to be suspense in the fight. If the players are not in fear for their lives then what is the point of the fight?
This is something I feel needs addressed again.
The Fallacy presented is that "If they don't feel like they are about to die then I'm not doing my job or the fight has no point."
Statement of proof of fallacy:
A fight can have purpose and you can be doing your job as a GM without making the PC's feel like they are about to die.
Examples:
1. Hostage situation with a CR well within the PC's capabilities (i.e. CR = APL -2~3). The problem is that the hostages are at (CR = APL - 5~7). The PCs will in all probability not be challenged by the enemy, the hostages however will be and could be killed if the PCs flub the encounter.
Proof of solution -- this fight doesn't threaten the PCs. It still matters because they are challenged, and you are doing your job because you have creatively brought something before your PCs that is more than just another "death threat".
2. A fight to show the PCs that they are big news now. Ocassionally the party needs to see it's large and in charge -- it helps them realize their power. A fight that a few levels back could have killed the party reused at higher level serves to show the PCs just how far they have come and why everyone looks to them to get things down.
Proof of solution -- this fight has a specific purpose to show the PCs that they can get out and do things and are big news. It helps them to realize that they are heroes. It helps the GM left his players up so they know that not everything is just another death match. They have gotten bigger and somethings are easier because of it. This helps prevent turtling and 15 minute adventuring days (because the PCs know they won't have to go nova just to survive a fight).
3. A fight with a friend. In this situation the party faces someone they don't want to kill (usually a friend but possibly an enemy with information they need to get from it alive) but for whatever reason wants to kill them (charming, domination, misinformation, possession, or sheer hatred). Even if the CR is lower than the party it is going to be difficult because they can't simply go all out -- they have to find a way to subdue the foe.
Proof of solution -- This fight has purpose of course -- to recover the friend or to get the information needed. It's is again a challenge because the PCs can't use their standard tactics or go full out they have to carefully gauge how to approach the fight.
4. A fight against a lower level challenge that uses something else to help the challenger to present a threat. This isn't just another monster -- it could be goblins with a terrain advantage (small corridors), trolls in a climate that prevents fire and acid spells, low level foes that are hard to reach etc.
Proof of solution -- The party really isn't threatened with death but with expending more resources than they feel they should have needed. It shows to the PCs that they shouldn't get complacent since something could come up and surprise them without the need of almost killing them.
Wall of stone, for one. Wall of thorns is even better if you have a druid instead of a cleric.Care to suggest any? We were playing 4 9th level characters facing 4 stone giants. Any of them reliably prevent 4d8+9 points of damage? And by that I mean no save, no to-hit, just plain action negation of some sort.using a battlefield control spell can have a great effect on our success, these things involve to-hit rolls and saving throws.Very few battlefield control spells require to-hit rolls, and the good ones don't really allow saves, either, or are structured such that saving doesn't prevent them from functioning as battlefield control.Fair point, although Its entirely possible that the wall of stone will be blocked by one or more combatants in melee. With coordination, however, I can see that being reliably better than the same level Cure.
Edit - its also dependent on some other factors. A 9th level cleric could not make a stone cage for the giant, because it requires 20 5' squares. If the giant has vital strike (which most don't, but its still possible), then he can move around any wall and still do significant damage.
Also Wall of stone is not something most clerics can normally default to. Defaulting is key when the best laid plans go awry, which is part of the "imperfect information" point I made.
Why wouldn't a cleric have Wall of Stone ready. My cleric always had that spell ready. It is quiet useful. Even if the giants go around a wall it still delays them which may give you time to take one or more of them out, thereby minimizing damage.
I like there to be suspense in the fight. If the players are not in fear for their lives then what is the point of the fight?This is something I feel needs addressed again.
And that's not even touching on high-level combat. It's called "rocket tag" for a reason; damage values are so high and save-or-die/suck effects are so common that the party's risk of TPK increases at a greater than geometric rate with every additional round of combat. High-level parties, generally speaking, either finish a fight quickly, retreat via teleportation, or TPK.