I would also agree that if this NEVER happens in your campaign, your DM isn't challenging you enough. No amount of clever tactics can't be overcome by equally clever tactics by the bad guys. If your DM is playing in such a way that the PCs always have better tactics than the players, he's pulling punches.
+1
I am the cleric for one of my campaigns (currently level 7) and there come times when I HAVE to channel just to keep the BSFs on their feet. Other times, I am buffing, blinding and/or holding.
If you never have to heal in battle (haha we always winz over teh turrasque and we have balors as lapdogs LOL !!1!!!1), I question your DM's ability to challenge you.
Let me try this again since you ignored the post that were directly above yours. The word "never" was never used. I am sure some other non perceptive soul will force me to type this again.
However, that doesn't change the fact that sometimes healing in combat just needs to be done or characters are going to die, right then, right there.Sure. But there's really no special reason that has to be the cleric's job. Anything with a healing potion can manage in that case.
There's almost always something the cleric can do in a round to prevent more damage, by far, than he'd be able to heal in that round.
Dire, I'm with Brian on this one. Sometimes it just happens that the Cleric's innate healing ability is useful in combat. We don't always have potions, so it's either that or someone dies.
Having said that, you are quite right, healing doesn't have to be a Cleric's primary job.
Healing is great.
Outside of combat.
This.
I'm not saying a well-played cleric will never heal in combat, but it's rare. You have better things to be doing when rounds count.
And I'm honestly saying that either I play a game that's significantly more hardcore than what you play, or you're playing a game that's not being overly damaging, for whatever reason.
I have needed healing at times, and I used to believe like you do. I also remember the first time I heard the statement I made, and I thought it was nonsense. Well, one day the other DM(also the two best players in the group), finally got a chance to play on the same team. Well, between us being careful, and directing the others in tactics the party hardly ever needed in combat healing. If a group is getting beat up in regular fights the DM is cheating or your tactics are lacking, IMHO. I
...
I disagree. As I've stated several times so far, an appropriate challenge should be appropriately challenging. If you're breezing through fights like you're suggesting you are, either your DM is using kiddie gloves, or your using character builds that trivialize normal combat. Yes, I can make a pointlessly binary statement, as well.Honestly, I'd be really curious to see some of the fights you guys are trouncing so easily that you don't need healing, and the character builds your using. Our current group is filled with competent, tactically intelligent players with strong builds, and the DM is struggling to find challenging encounters to use against us that aren't 4 CRs higher than the APL, and mostly because of channel energy.
Sigh. Folks are talking past each other while making diffeent assumptions based on different gamestyles again.
At this point, I'm actually assuming we're using totally different playstyles here. As I've stated previously, I can't comprehend the level of game required to just not require damage. Maybe it's because I've always had a harsh, and unforgiving bastard of a DM that's challenged us severely (for which I'm grateful, as I enjoy the challenge and rising to meet it), but with a normal (read: non-ridiculous) character build, a normal fight is a normal challenge, not a breezefest.
On combat healing, I tend to agree that in general it is best to heal after the fight. It is usually better to put down the opponents first and prevent more damage than to just play bandaid. Whether you do the healing with an item or spells is largely dependent on the level of the PCs and on the easy availability of specific magic items in your campaign world, which is highly variable.
The point on campaign availability is correct, and valid, and something I was planning on bringing up. We play a pretty strict world, using entirely core, so there's less power creep affecting our character builds. However, to give insight behind our typical combats, our cleric will usually spend the first few rounds of a fight buffing (prayer, bless, resist energy, freedom of movement, et cetera) and then begin healing as needed once buffs are out. We've found that guaranteed bonuses such as static player buffs are less chancy than that hold monster that might win the day (or kill you all if you fail). I'm not a big gambler, so I go for the safe, guaranteed win.
However, that said, once the cleric begins healing, no one drops. At all. Ever. It's impossible. And it has been necessary, at times. We had a fight with a Dark Naga (3 CRs above our APL at the time) that had buffing time before the fight. It had shield, mage armor, displacement, and a few other buffs on itself that I forget. At one point it manage to get three lightning bolts off in a row on the entire group because we were mired in difficult terrain (except the nimble moves fighter), and the monster was in melee, preventing easy escape with its reach, as no one could five foot step. Still, even with all that, the cleric was able to keep the whole group up.
And I'll point out that channel energy every round is pretty important if you're getting hit with an 8d6 lightning bolt every round. If you can go three rounds in a row with the whole party being 8d6 lightning bolted every round and not need heals at level 5 or 6ish, you're playing a different game.
However, that doesn't change the fact that sometimes healing in combat just needs to be done or characters are going to die, right then, right there. This happens a little less often now with auto-stabilization rules having been liberalized, but it still happens. I would also agree that if this NEVER happens in your campaign, your DM isn't challenging you enough. No amount of clever tactics can't be overcome by equally clever tactics by the bad guys. If your DM is playing in such a way that the PCs always have better tactics than the players, he's pulling punches.
This I agree with wholeheartedly. I consider myself tactically apt, but my DM is equally so. He's very intelligent, and understands how to challenge the group. I really believe that if your guys' groups aren't being challenged, it's not because you're too awesome; it's because your DM is being too lenient.
Which is fine, if you like an easy game. We don't. We enjoy being challenged. The threat of death adds to the suspense, and eventually to the positive feelings and reward of triumph. But it's bad to assume that all things work your way when you have a lenient DM.
Sure. But there's really no special reason that has to be the cleric's job. Anything with a healing potion can manage in that case.
I question the validity of this statement. I almost feel dirty pointing out that drinking a potion provokes an attack of opportunity and heals for a marginal amount compared to the non-AOO channel energy that heals for, well, a lot . . . mainly because I feel it's so obvious it shouldn't merit being pointed out. But there it is. A potion at, say, level 7ish is a cure moderate if you're lucky, and that's average 12 damage. Channel Energy is level 7 is 4d6, average 14 damage . . . on everyone. So one channel is the same as the entire party taking a full turn to drink their potion mid combat. So either one person devotes themselves to making sure no one dies, or everyone is responsible for themselves. Either way works, but you can't say that the latter is better than the former because it has a higher chance to wtfpwn monsters in the face quickly enough that they can't react (the old good offense is a good defense idea), as the other playing option has its own benefits that rival those. The two styles of play have separate pros and cons. The all offense strategy is quick and killer, but can easily be derailed by losing any one member of the party, whereas a high healing party basically isn't going to lose a party member.
And to respond directly to your statement: Yes, there is. It's called "Channel Energy." Clerics have it and druids don't.
There's almost always something the cleric can do in a round to prevent more damage, by far, than he'd be able to heal in that round.
I disagree with this statement. It would be better rephrased as "There's always something the cleric can do in a round that has a chance to prevent more damage than he could have otherwise healed." But again, that's a gamble. Hold Person might win the fight, but your'e taking a pretty big risk if the critter you're trying to hold can one shot someone next turn (or kill someone low on health).
And I don't disagree with this statement, at least not the one I posted. In a recent adventure, we accidentally stormed a vampire stronghold. The cleric's first actions weren't healing or bless or prayer, it was Protection from Evil on the low-will save party members, and it saved our hides.
So I do agree that preventative measures are highly effective, but in any simple damage-based situation, pure healing with channel energy can keep up in just the same vein at the same pace, if not better. With a topped off party, that great axe critical is scary, but not a guaranteed kill. With an all offense party, that great axe critical is a character death.
Let me try this again since you ignored the post that were directly above yours. The word "never" was never used. I am sure some other non perceptive soul will force me to type this again.
While “never” itself may not have been used, the connotation and syntax in the majority of posts here have been indicative of situations where it was heartily hinted at in a manner suggestive of being very, very close to “never.”
While this is true, to continue in the vein of your terribly, terribly inapt analogies, 32 pounds of cure is better than an ounce of prevention, and both clerics and druids are prevention moguls, sitting on thrones made out of prevention on a castle in which their prevention vault sits, lording over the lesser peasants and their lack of preventions, and pray to gods made out of curing. Because Their role is to combine preventative and curative measures to effectively aid the party in whatever manner is most fitting for the circumstance. Hold spells, as you cited, are effective in some situations. In quite a few others, they're not. Healing is effective in almost all situations, almost all combats.Theoretically, yes, in a perfect world, a cleric would never need to cure because he'd be too badass or too lucky to allow the monsters to ever hit the party. If, however, you're really playing in a group where the party never takes damage, I honestly don't believe that you're bringing anything to a healing-based discussion, because your playstyle is far too skewed to be of value to the normal groups that are appropriately challenged by an appropriate challenge.
You can never(assuming CR appropriate encounters)* cure as much damage as a monster can put out, and every round you are alive is another chance to die.. The best defense is a good offense.
I alone have refuted the "never" nonsense 3 times. If you see this could you please respond so I know you saw it. Once I know you saw it I will then know you will stop falsely applying it. Once we get that nonsense out of the way we can have a real discussion.
*I should not even need that disclaimer but some "smart" person will say what if you are level 10 fighting CR 1 monsters
You can never(assuming CR appropriate encounters)* cure as much damage as a monster can put out, and every round you are alive is another chance to die.. The best defense is a good offense.
Amusingly, I already covered this response. Let me try this again since you ignored the post that was directly above yours. "So either one person devotes themselves to making sure no one dies, or everyone is responsible for themselves. Either way works, but you can't say that the latter is better than the former because it has a higher chance to wtfpwn monsters in the face quickly enough that they can't react (the old good offense is a good defense idea), as the other playing option has its own benefits that rival those. The two styles of play have separate pros and cons. The all offense strategy is quick and killer, but can easily be derailed by losing any one member of the party, whereas a high healing party basically isn't going to lose a party member." I am sure some other non perceptive soul will force me to type this again.
Also, to nitpick, you're incorrect in saying never in this situation. There are some high CR challenges where curing as much damage as is going out is possible. They're essentially contrived, though, and your hinted at point that keeping the party at full health and in perfect condition on a APL+3 encounter is very difficult under normal circumstances is valid. Again, though, it's quite possible. I WOULD agree that it's impossible without channel energy (again under normal circumstances and not a non-damaging fight, like a wizard repeatedly using save versus death spells, or bodaks, or rust monsters, et cetera), and possible with it.
I alone have refuted the "never" nonsense 3 times. If you see this could you please respond so I know you saw it. Once I know you saw it I will then know you will stop falsely applying it. Once we get that nonsense out of the way we can have a real discussion.
Mark this. I saw it. Mark this: I replied. Let me try this again since you ignored the post that was directly above yours. "While “never” itself may not have been used, the connotation and syntax in the majority of posts here have been indicative of situations where it was heartily hinted at in a manner suggestive of being very, very close to “never.”"
*I should not even need that disclaimer but some "smart" person will say what if you are level 10 fighting CR 1 monsters
You wouldn't need the disclaimer if you all weren't so heavily hinting towards the idea.
*I should not even need that disclaimer but some "smart" person will say what if you are level 10 fighting CR 1 monsters
Mr. Fishy said he was sorry about that...Wait umm. Goblins in trees with bows + crit... that guy totally lived.
Mr. Fishy would like to note that if your cleric never heals in combat then you DM must never crit. Mr. Fishy has to heal stat damage and crits in combat. Or he channels to heal a group effect like a fireball. Healing is about attrition. Keeping the fighter on his feet until he drops the monster or keeping the mage in for one more spell.
Look at some of the builds posted 50 damage/hit Mr. Fishy can't, OK Mr. Fishy can. The typical healer can't heal that in a round. However he can heal enough to give a party member another attack. A another sneak attack for 7D6 or a 50 damage hit from the fighter is better than a 1D8+6 from the cleric. Or a save or oh... he made the save, AGAIN.
"While “never” itself may not have been used, the connotation and syntax in the majority of posts here have been indicative of situations where it was heartily hinted at in a manner suggestive of being very, very close to “never.”"
Wrong. "Never" was never the intent, nor a close to never. There is a difference between never taking damage, and not taking enough damage to be in danger. The point was to not take enough damage to have to heal. In other words the point is that the party will rarely have to take enough damage in an average CR=APL fight for healing to come into play. There will be bad rolls by players, and/or super rolls by DM's. We all know the dice gods are not predictable, but to say I will have to heal in the middle of most(more than 50%) of fights will not happen.
Now that I have clarified my point can we stop with the "nevers". It is misleading.Your group may not optimize or strategize like the people you disagree with, but that does not not mean your group could not avoid the damage. At that point they are kind of avoiding not having to heal.
If you wanted never taking damage to mean not take enough damage to heal I will make a mental note to that affect, but as written never means never without clarification.
PS: Your group may also heal when someone gets to about 70% of their max. Until we drop to below half at least we don't worry about it. [b]
You wouldn't need the disclaimer if you all weren't so heavily hinting towards the idea.
Actually I wouldn't need it if you read what I wrote, and stopped trying to decipher text that was not there.
*I should not even need that disclaimer but some "smart" person will say what if you are level 10 fighting CR 1 monstersMr. Fishy said he was sorry about that...Wait umm. Goblins in trees with bows + crit... that guy totally lived.
Mr. Fishy would like to note that if your cleric never heals in combat then you DM must never crit. Mr. Fishy has to heal stat damage and crits in combat. Or he channels to heal a group effect like a fireball. Healing is about attrition. Keeping the fighter on his feet until he drops the monster or keeping the mage in for one more spell.
Look at some of the builds posted 50 damage/hit Mr. Fishy can't, OK Mr. Fishy can. The typical healer can't heal that in a round. However he can heal enough to give a party member another attack. A another sneak attack for 7D6 or a 50 damage hit from the fighter is better than a 1D8+6 from the cleric. Or a save or oh... he made the save, AGAIN.
Mr.Fishy I can't eat as I am undead and have no body, but I can summon things that like to eat fish.
Also, to nitpick, you're incorrect in saying never in this situation. There are some high CR challenges where curing as much damage as is going out is possible. They're essentially contrived, though, and your hinted at point that keeping the party at full health and in perfect condition on a APL+3 encounter is very difficult under normal circumstances is valid.
APL+3? That is like a boss fight or at least one of his lieutenants, which is not a normal fight. What does that have to do with a normal fight. If this is what your group normally does then I will remind you that you can't use an extraordinary situation to prove an ordinary point.
I was a bit snarky, but I said I was against never 3 times, and you came with it again. How many times do you expect for me to be polite about it?<--No snark.
PS:I just had to get your attention. Now that we know the argument was "normally no relevant damage", not "no damage" we can discuss that.
edit:The sentence about extraordinary cases was badly written, but I think the point got across.
And I'm honestly saying that either I play a game that's significantly more hardcore than what you play, or you're playing a game that's not being overly damaging, for whatever reason.
Not to be all "I know you are, but what am I?", but if your healing can at all keep pace with the damage you're taking... the encounter isn't very hard.
I mean, ok, you point to 4d6 (average 14) healing at level 7. What could you possibly fight at level 7 that doesn't do much more than that?
I guess the channel almost looks okay if the DM goes out of his way to spread out the damage vs. focusing fire... but then, see, the encounter isn't very hard.
Mr.Fishy I can't eat as I am undead and have no body, but I can summon things that like to eat fish.
Mr. Fishy is married with two guppies. Mr. Fishy has stared into the depths of Hell, You Sir, do not frighten Mr. Fishy.
Mr. Fishy has been eye gouged over a cookie. Fish eating monsters? Mr. Fishy's guppies are fishy eating monsters.
Mr.Fishy I can't eat as I am undead and have no body, but I can summon things that like to eat fish.Mr. Fishy is married with two guppies. Mr. Fishy has stared into the depths of Hell, You Sir, do not frighten Mr. Fishy.
Mr. Fishy has been eye gouged over a cookie. Fish eating monsters? Mr. Fishy's guppies are fishy eating monsters.
If I were not worried about having to fight off the fan club I would prove my point. It seems the numbers are against me.
I feel the need to point out that the more "hardcore" and "Damaging" your game is, the worst healing is.. Healing only works when you can heal the same amount of damage that the monsters are doing. If you can do that, your DM has the kiddie gloves on.
Maybe the answer is that we are playing in very dangerous and powerful games where the monsters are fatal, and you aren't?
Again, what's better - casting a cure spell to do 2d8+3 when the ogre is doing 2d8+7 with one attack? Or using Hold Person to stop the ogre from ever attacking? That's a straight CR3 vs CR3 there, too - we're assuming we aren't playing a "dangerous" game.
Flat out - if you can out-heal your enemies, your DM is going easy on you.
Mr. Fishy said he was sorry about that...Wait umm. Goblins in trees with bows + crit... that guy totally lived.Mr. Fishy would like to note that if your cleric never heals in combat then you DM must never crit. Mr. Fishy has to heal stat damage and crits in combat. Or he channels to heal a group effect like a fireball. Healing is about attrition. Keeping the fighter on his feet until he drops the monster or keeping the mage in for one more spell.[/qupte]
Look at some of the builds posted 50 damage/hit Mr. Fishy can't, OK Mr. Fishy can. The typical healer can't heal that in a round. However he can heal enough to give a party member another attack. A another sneak attack for 7D6 or a 50 damage hit from the fighter is better than a 1D8+6 from the cleric. Or a save or oh... he made the save, AGAIN.
I very much agree with this. Healing is about attrition. It's about resources. It's about time. Your health pool is your resource pool. It's your pool of resources versus your enemies'. First one to run out loses. Every heal casted increases your pool, and increases the amount of time you can continue to decrease theirs.
As Mr. Fishy stated, a fighter with 150 hit points is dead in three rounds of taking 50 points of damage a round for a hard hitting critter. A cleric might not be able to heal 50 points of damage a round, but if he can heal 25, he can change that 3 rounds to six rounds before the fighter drops, thereby doubling the length of time you have to freely engage said monster, and effectively (albeit very roughly), doubling your damage output (but obviously not your damage per round).
Wrong. "Never" was never the intent, nor a close to never.
Then your intent was poorly stated.
There is a difference between never taking damage, and not taking enough damage to be in danger. The point was to not take enough damage to have to heal.
My point was, again, that you should be reaching that area at least semifrequently. If you're "Rarely" taking enough damage to "have to heal," all my old, previous points stand. Just apply everything I've already said to your "new" and "current" argument. But for the record, I was already replying with this thought in mind.
In other words the point is that the party will rarely have to take enough damage in an average CR=APL fight for healing to come into play.
And if this is true for your party, I still believe that your DM is extremely lenient. If this is true for you, the four fight a day limit doesn't exist. You could do five, eight, maybe ten, because you're apparently taking so little damage. In an appropriate CR, you SHOULD still be in danger. There should be a danger of death. There should be a danger of dying. A challenge for your level should be a challenge. You're describing a World of Warcraft 5-man instance on autopilot.
There will be bad rolls by players, and/or super rolls by DM's. We all know the dice gods are not predictable, but to say I will have to heal in the middle of most(more than 50%) of fights will not happen.
And I posit that healing continually to keep players topped off is a more effective strategy than essentially risking it and hoping you don't get a crit. Healing is powerful. It’s foolish to say otherwise. I'd much rather spare one quarter of my offense to ensure no one dies than hope I don't get crit, and hope that all the rolls go my way, and hope that we do everything right. Mistakes happen, rolls happen. Healing makes everything more stable, and the level of healing that channel energy brings to the table is powerful enough to make keeping the group topped off rather easy in most situations. Can you play an all offense group? Definitely. Are you never going to need healing? Course not. Are you rarely going to need healing? Only if your DM regularly does not challenge you.
I forget the breakdown of typical CRs as advocated by Pathfinder, but I typically use a rough bell curve consisting of about 50% CR=APL and 25% CR=APL+. So 25% of fights should be difficult enough to mandate healing, and 50% of fights should be difficult enough to strenuously suggest healing for a stable kill, for player longevity, and for common sense purposes.
Because, really, killing that critter a round sooner than you otherwise would have and thereby putting yourselves in significant mortal danger but not just spending one round on a heal is plain out silly.
Your group may not optimize or strategize like the people you disagree with, but that does not not mean your group could not avoid the damage. At that point they are kind of avoiding not having to heal.
That's a dumb statement. Of course taking damage means "avoiding not having to heal." That's a given. No one tries to take damage. But damage is, sometimes, unpreventable. When the monster wins initiative and charges at the wizard in the back with a 90% chance to hit, shit is going down. There's no way to not take damage in that situation unless the dice gods smile their 10% love upon you.
I'm honestly flabbergasted that you can even suggest that it's possible to avoid damage in the way you espouse. I really do believe your DM is being ultra-lenient. When I play or DM, any critter with an intelligence over 12 sees the cleric or wizard, and goes after him first. That's 2 rounds to take out a caster, one if they're unlucky, then they move on to people that matter less. What you're saying is that either your DM's monsters don't coordinate, focus fire, or prioritize targets, or you kill things in 1-2 rounds.
PS: Your group may also heal when someone gets to about 70% of their max. Until we drop to below half at least we don't worry about it.
I typically play the cleric for our group. I delay and heal as soon as damage has gone out that won't cause wasted (or excess, or over-)healing on a target. This allows a stable situation where the other three players are free to make tactically sound and advantageous plays, even if said plays result in damage accrual. For example, moving out of three threatened squares to close with the caster, and taking three attacks of opportunity, might not be possible if I didn't heal the fighter. He might not otherwise be able to do that since he has to be so careful with his health. Typically, such a reckless ploy wouldn't be a good idea, but if said caster is charging up his ranged save versus death spells, someone has to take him out.
Or whatever.
You wouldn't need the disclaimer if you all weren't so heavily hinting towards the idea.Actually I wouldn't need it if you read what I wrote, and stopped trying to decipher text that was not there.
I read what you wrote. I’m having a difficult time coming to grips with a game that’s softcore enough to so “rarely” allow player casualty or damage to the point of impairment.
APL+3? That is like a boss fight or at least one of his lieutenants, which is not a normal fight. What does that have to do with a normal fight. If this is what your group normally does then I will remind you that you can't use an extraordinary situation to prove an ordinary point.
My point was that channel energy almost makes this a normal fight for us. Our group regularly defeats APL+2 with no casualties due to a high level of healing from channel energy and good tactics. My point was my original point, that healing is incredibly powerful, in response to your [plural] points that healing is not powerful, not necessary, superfluous, and easily replaced by more offense to a better end result.
My point is that our group with channel energy makes short work of APL CRs to where the DM is scratching his head unsure what to do. Our group handles APL+2 CRs, perhaps not with ease, but well enough. These would both be a significantly larger struggle without the ability. It would be more like pulling out almost even on APL Crs and struggling with APL+2 CRs (a typical boss fight).
I was a bit snarky, but I said I was against never 3 times, and you came with it again. How many times do you expect for me to be polite about it?<--No snark.
That's entirely up to you. You're welcome to be impolite if you'd like, as it doesn't really bother me. I'll admit I'm straining to the edges of civility, myself, but will very much endeavor not to break down that wall first.
In response, I would prefer not discussing the pedantics behind "never" and instead canvass the premise of the power of the cleric, which is derived directly from channel energy as an addition to his already powerful spell abilities.
PS:I just had to get your attention. Now that we know the argument was "normally no relevant damage", not "no damage" we can discuss that.
I've honestly been replying with that thought in mind the entire time. I mentioned it once or twice, I believe as the phrase, "damaged to the point of impairment." My apologies if I mislead you into thinking I’d misunderstood your intent.
Not to be all "I know you are, but what am I?", but if your healing can at all keep pace with the damage you're taking... the encounter isn't very hard.And I'm honestly saying that either I play a game that's significantly more hardcore than what you play, or you're playing a game that's not being overly damaging, for whatever reason.
My healing usually doesn't keep up with the damage. My healing sustains the party long enough to win the encounter, as I described above. My healing keeps the party going past the point where they would have dropped without healing. My healing extends the amount of time the party has to beat on our enemy. In some cases, my cleric's healing is enough to keep up with the damage. As a group, we've found Pathfinder to be pretty nerf-batty, with most effects, encounters, and abilities geared towards being player-friendly and proponents of no casualty encounters.
I mean, ok, you point to 4d6 (average 14) healing at level 7. What could you possibly fight at level 7 that doesn't do much more than that?
Lots. Just as we could fights lots that go the other direction. Fights rum the gamut, as you well should know. Some fights see massive AOE damage, in which channel energy is well suited towards healing the group. Some fights see multiple small opponents engaging the group, where careful allocation of resources and positioning allows the group to spread the damage out and utilize the AOE healing. In situations like this, channel energy is often enough to keep the group at full.
Even if it's not, it's still going to be enough to stave off death for another round, two rounds, or half a round. Giving another full round of killing that critter/critters.
I guess the channel almost looks okay if the DM goes out of his way to spread out the damage vs. focusing fire... but then, see, the encounter isn't very hard.
I agree. In fact, you just argued my point for me. Thank you.
In any situation where the DM is not focus firing, fights will often be trivial. This is what I see when you [plural] say that healing is rarely needed. Wizard with their tiny hit points, foolish rogues trapped between flanking monsters, both and all can succumb to death or dying in a single round or two of full-attack pummeling . . . unless your DM is easy-balling you. If he's spreading out the damage because you don't have a healer, that's his mistake, and he should step it up. If you're clever enough to force him to spread out the damage, good for you. We do that when we can.
One other thing you're forgetting is that clerics have versatile healing. Channel energy is a large power boost, a big boost to their healing capabilities that is an addendum to their already present power. That is, they gained it in addition to their already potent healing capabilities. Channel every is a tool, albeit a powerful one, that shines in many circumstances, but not all of them. It's the versatility the ability gives to cleric healing that's important as much as the power it adds.
In a semi-recent fight against a Grick Behemoth, the party fighter was getting trounced by a creature that was fairly straight forward. Hit hard, smash much. We managed to get it pinned and bottlenecked so only the fighter was getting hit, even with the creature's ten foot reach. The fighter did total defense and avoided fully half the monster's attacks (about 75% of those half would have hit him without the +4) while just holding the line. The cleric alternated between channel energy and cure moderate wounds every other round, utilizing a five foot step in and out to never provoke an attack of opportunity, thereby keeping the fighter healed without running the risk of himself being damaged.
As a statement, I’d like to say in general that I’m flabbergasted beyond reason that you people think channel energy is BAD. I could understand not really knowing how to use it and thinking it’s alright, or disliking the ability, or thinking it’s only “OK”. But thinking it’s bad? That’s insane. The ability is stupendous. As a player, I love it. It’s incredibly powerful and very much combat-shaping. I whole-heartedly suggest you attempt to employ it to good effect in your campaigns, as you can’t possibly have really used it up ‘til now if you still hold the opinions you hold.
In another campaign I’m running as DM, my group has no cleric. We have a paladin geared for offense, two sorcerers, and a bard archer. Their damage output is amaaazing. It’s outstanding to the point where I’m surprised when monsters die so quickly they sometimes don’t get a chance to react.
But just as common are the situations where they’re beaten down so quickly they can’t react. Nine level 1 kobolds hiding behind rocks nearly killed two of the PCs with ready actions to interrupt spells while sniping (CR 12 campaign). The party absolutely trounced a group of brigands (CR 12) within two rounds. But the brigands brought the bard to 12 hit points in one round. At which point all the remaining brigands pointed their bows at the bard and threatened to do him in if the PCs didn’t leave.
I can speak with experience about a high offense, no healing group. I’m literally running one right now, and I’ve very much had the opportunities to see its failings and successes. In a recent combat, the paladin spent half the fight using channel energy. The paladin, who is optimized for raw damage output, stopped full attacking, five foot stepped back, and channeled energy. It’s that effective.
I honestly don’t understand, can’t even conceptualize, how you people can think it’s a poor ability.
I feel the need to point out that the more "hardcore" and "Damaging" your game is, the worst healing is.. Healing only works when you can heal the same amount of damage that the monsters are doing. If you can do that, your DM has the kiddie gloves on.
This statement amuses me because it's blatantly incorrect. Please refer to the examples above that Mr. Fishy and myself provided.
Healing is about matching resources. Bigger resource pool means lasting for longer.
The idea that healing is worse in a more difficult game is absurd to the point of ridiculousness. That's plain out backwards with no mitigating points to the contrary.
EDIT: I couldn't help it. I called my DM and shared this quote with him. We laughed like little girls. He told me to say, "Yeah, healing sucks. Back when I was playing Diablo II on hardcore mode, I didn't bother using healing potions at all. There was no point."
xD
This statement you made is only valid if monsters are killing you in a single hit, or if monsters do so much damage that healing will have no effect on whether or not you die. Which doesn't happen if a properly balanced encounter of appropriate CR.
Maybe the answer is that we are playing in very dangerous and powerful games where the monsters are fatal, and you aren't?
Addressed.
Again, what's better - casting a cure spell to do 2d8+3 when the ogre is doing 2d8+7 with one attack? Or using Hold Person to stop the ogre from ever attacking? That's a straight CR3 vs CR3 there, too - we're assuming we aren't playing a "dangerous" game.
I'll reply to this idea for the third time this thread, since I'm still giddy with how skewed it is. "What's better, casting a cure spell to do 2d8+3 when the ogre is doing 2d8+7 with one attack, or casting a hold person that might prevent the ogre from attacking? So you have a 50% chance to win. That's 50% chance to win, 50% chance to die. If you don't heal, and don't at least stave off some of that damage, that ogre is going to whoop someone next turn, and at that point, you're losing your damage output. The 25 points of damage you can do in a round drops to 17. With no benefit. It's a gamble, as I've stated several times before, and one that I opine is a poor choice. Much better to extend how long you can fight by another round, and essentially do 25 extra points of damage. The longer you live, the more you can kill.
In response, again, to your ogre idea. Yes, it's nice in the perfect world to hold person a critter susceptible to it. And if all we fought were dumb humanoids with low will saves, that might even work. But what about the 4d10+8 CR3 fire elemental? What about the CR3 wasp swarm doing 2d6 damage to the whole group? You can't hold person those. Can you prepare, with your three spells per day of that level, for every situation? With enough forethought and luck, certainly. . . . . . Or you could just channel energy, to the same effect, with no forethought, no luck, no chance for interruption, and heal everyone.
Flat out - if you can out-heal your enemies, your DM is going easy on you.
I've addressed this once. If you can out heal your enemies, either the DM is going easy on you, or you're making tactically sound combat choices that prevent you from taking as much damage as the enemies could otherwise dish out. I.e., making them come to you, getting full attacks before they do, combat maneuvers to prevent their full attacks, only getting fireballed once every three rounds due to clever readied actions to interrupt the wizard, rather than all out damage. Et cetera.
The more you [plural] reply to me, the more I'm convinced that you play a very lighthearted and player-friendly game. Which, again, is fine if you like that. But you can't apply a situation that makes healing worthless to a discussion on whether healing is worthwhile. Those situations can't applied. Your viewpoints are skewed, your logic is biased, those situations aren't applicable.
By the way, I screen shotted your post. I'm going to share it with my players next session. Thank you. :D
Anyway, I have to take off for a bit. Please don't take my absence as disinterest in the ongoing discussion. I'll be back later to respond, so post away. :)
Wizard with their tiny hit points, foolish rogues trapped between flanking monsters, both and all can succumb to death or dying in a single round or two of full-attack pummeling
... huh?
What edition of the game are you playing? In Pathfinder, wizards have a ton of HP. If your wizards are more than about 1HP/level behind the full base attack characters they're probably doing something (mechanically) wrong. (Or your full base attack characters are doing something wrong, like having a 20 Con at the expense of the stats they'd use to actually kill things.)
Anyway, the rest of your long, condescending post aside, I don't think I ever claimed that Channel is a bad ability. Certainly if you absolutely need to stablize someone this round and can do so (via feat/positioning) without healing the enemies, you might as well do it via Channeling if you're not high enough level for Heal. Certainly it's a great ability for healing between combats and can save you some wand cash. (And before someone "but you can't buy wands in every game"'s on me, if you can afford a feat for Selective Channel, you certainly can afford a feat for Craft Wand.)
But, not always but generally speaking, if it comes out during combat, you've already made some serious mistakes and no, I'm not concerned that an ability that looks best when you either aren't very good at the game or have already dropped the ball is overpowered.
"What's better, casting a cure spell to do 2d8+3 when the ogre is doing 2d8+7 with one attack, or casting a hold person that might prevent the ogre from attacking? So you have a 50% chance to win. That's 50% chance to win, 50% chance to die.
In what world would an ogre have a 50% chance to make that will save from a halfway competently built caster?
I mean, if our baseline for discussion is that your cleric has a 12 Wisdom plus no useful feats or magic items for some reason (the second half of that being more reasonable at that level), sure, that guy needs to Channel all day because he's terrible at what should be his actual job.
EDIT: I couldn't help it. I called my DM and shared this quote with him. We laughed like little girls. He told me to say, "Yeah, healing sucks. Back when I was playing Diablo II on hardcore mode, I didn't bother using healing potions at all. There was no point."
xD
Finally, this argument is terrible. If this is the extent of your DM's grasp on logic...
In Diablo 2 there's no reason you can't chug healing potions like a madman while attacking or doing whatever you'd be doing otherwise.
When Channel is a free action, then he would have a good analogy.* Since that's not the case, he has a terrible one.
* Excepting, of course, that you're highly unlikely to be TPPK'd in a PF game.
In my mind in-combat healing is useful in a limited number of scenarios.
1)Low-level when being in a damaged condition could knock a front-line fighter into negatives thus putting the rest of the team at a relative disadvantage.
2)When average monster damage exceeds current HPs + negative hit point buffer if raise dead effects are not easily available.
3)If a party member is in negative numbers and being conscious could swing the battle back in the party's favor.
4)If the total healing provided to the party exceeds the opportunity cost of the healing action. AoE healing and spells like Heal can be useful for this.
In general though a healing action has an opportunity cost associated with it. Healing someone means that there is an action that can't be used to do an offensive action that round. As long as you use the baseline math and standard encounters most clerics have enough other positive things they can do in a given round that healing actions have a lower net utility than buffing/summoning/Forcing a Save
To a certain degree removing status effects can also be seen as a wasted action but in many cases status effects can result in a greater chance of a TPK than HP damage.
on the topic of in-combat healing - for me, it's to stabilize. The goal is not to get the PC back into action, rather it's to keep them from bleeding to death. Obviously it's best to let the player try and stabilize on there own, but in the end, when they've failed to make the check, they need a heal.
I'll reply to this idea for the third time this thread, since I'm still giddy with how skewed it is. "What's better, casting a cure spell to do 2d8+3 when the ogre is doing 2d8+7 with one attack, or casting a hold person that might prevent the ogre from attacking? So you have a 50% chance to win. That's 50% chance to win, 50% chance to die. If you don't heal, and don't at least stave off some of that damage, that ogre is going to whoop someone next turn, and at that point, you're losing your damage output. The 25 points of damage you can do in a round drops to 17. With no benefit. It's a gamble, as I've stated several times before, and one that I opine is a poor choice. Much better to extend how long you can fight by another round, and essentially do 25 extra points of damage. The longer you live, the more you can kill.
Man, what? Do you regularly have clerics with wisdom 12? Maybe that's why you overprioritize healing.
In response, again, to your ogre idea. Yes, it's nice in the perfect world to hold person a critter susceptible to it. And if all we fought were dumb humanoids with low will saves, that might even work. But what about the 4d10+8 CR3 fire elemental? What about the CR3 wasp swarm doing 2d6 damage to the whole group? You can't hold person those. Can you prepare, with your three spells per day of that level, for every situation? With enough forethought and luck, certainly. . . . . . Or you could just channel energy, to the same effect, with no forethought, no luck, no chance for interruption, and heal everyone.
Do you cast the cure spell on the elemental? Or do you cast Resist Energy to "cure" ten hit points each round on just that one spell alone? Resist Energy isn't even a rare spell to see memorized, it's pretty staple. Seeing as how the elemental does less then ten damage each round, you've literally shut it down completely. Or there's Cause Fear, as the elemental has an even smaller will save then the ogre.
Giant Wasp? Hey, Cause Fear once again saves the day! It's even a level 1 spell, so that frees up all your other level 2's.
Or heck, you could cast Bear's Endurance to heal 6 HP before the fight even begins - and it scales far better then your cure spells do, to boot.
Ounce of prevention.
...
Or heck, you could cast Bear's Endurance to heal 6 HP before the fight even begins - and it scales far better then your cure spells do, to boot.
How's that? Bear's endurance grants +4 to Con. Am I missing something?
Vermin are immune to mind-affecting spells, so that specific example is a bust.
In general/principle I agree with what you said, though.
(Edited to add: going back to the original example/question, incidentally, what's the "whole party" doing in the 10' cube the wasp swarm covers? Also, due to its immunity to weapon damage and its tendency to make many kinds of characters much less useful, there's more of a premium than usual, not less, on the cleric contributing some spell damage instead of healing.)
However, that doesn't change the fact that sometimes healing in combat just needs to be done or characters are going to die, right then, right there.Sure. But there's really no special reason that has to be the cleric's job. Anything with a healing potion can manage in that case.
There's almost always something the cleric can do in a round to prevent more damage, by far, than he'd be able to heal in that round.
I think this becomes more the case the higher in level the characters are, as nearly everyone will have some healing potions by then (assuming potions are readily available), and the cleric will have a lot more spells at his disposal that might be better than healing. It's less the case at lower levels, when potions probably aren't plentiful in the party, and the cleric has fewer options.
I think I'm a mean DM, though, because my players are always taking damage and run through potions and wands of CLW like a competitive eater runs through hot dogs. Even at higher levels, they're frequently short on them.
While this is true, to continue in the vein of your terribly, terribly inapt analogies, 32 pounds of cure is better than an ounce of prevention, and both clerics and druids are prevention moguls, sitting on thrones made out of prevention on a castle in which their prevention vault sits, lording over the lesser peasants and their lack of preventions, and pray to gods made out of curing. Because Their role is to combine preventative and curative measures to effectively aid the party in whatever manner is most fitting for the circumstance. Hold spells, as you cited, are effective in some situations. In quite a few others, they're not. Healing is effective in almost all situations, almost all combats.Theoretically, yes, in a perfect world, a cleric would never need to cure because he'd be too badass or too lucky to allow the monsters to ever hit the party. If, however, you're really playing in a group where the party never takes damage, I honestly don't believe that you're bringing anything to a healing-based discussion, because your playstyle is far too skewed to be of value to the normal groups that are appropriately challenged by an appropriate challenge.
You can never(assuming CR appropriate encounters)* cure as much damage as a monster can put out, and every round you are alive is another chance to die.. The best defense is a good offense.
I alone have refuted the "never" nonsense 3 times. If you see this could you please respond so I know you saw it. Once I know you saw it I will then know you will stop falsely applying it. Once we get that nonsense out of the way we can have a real discussion.
*I should not even need that disclaimer but some "smart" person will say what if you are level 10 fighting CR 1 monsters
Sorry, dude. I take full responsibility for the never insertion. I did it as a general statement not aimed at you or anyone else in particular, just to make the point that no matter how good a group of PCs and players is, somtimes they are going to take serious and life-threatening damage, unless their DM is either incapable of challenging them or deliberately is not doing so. Thus, sometimes the cleric actually does have to heal to keep people from dying or keep them in the fight.
Mr.Fishy I can't eat as I am undead and have no body, but I can summon things that like to eat fish.Mr. Fishy is married with two guppies. Mr. Fishy has stared into the depths of Hell, You Sir, do not frighten Mr. Fishy.
Mr. Fishy has been eye gouged over a cookie. Fish eating monsters? Mr. Fishy's guppies are fishy eating monsters.
I identify with this so much I can feel sympathetic pain in my eye.
Fortunately, I've corrupted them all so that they play now. In games that I DM, so that I can occasionally feel like the boss in my own house.
I'll reply to this idea for the third time this thread, since I'm still giddy with how skewed it is. "What's better, casting a cure spell to do 2d8+3 when the ogre is doing 2d8+7 with one attack, or casting a hold person that might prevent the ogre from attacking? So you have a 50% chance to win. That's 50% chance to win, 50% chance to die. If you don't heal, and don't at least stave off some of that damage, that ogre is going to whoop someone next turn, and at that point, you're losing your damage output. The 25 points of damage you can do in a round drops to 17. With no benefit. It's a gamble, as I've stated several times before, and one that I opine is a poor choice. Much better to extend how long you can fight by another round, and essentially do 25 extra points of damage. The longer you live, the more you can kill.Man, what? Do you regularly have clerics with wisdom 12? Maybe that's why you overprioritize healing.
In response, again, to your ogre idea. Yes, it's nice in the perfect world to hold person a critter susceptible to it. And if all we fought were dumb humanoids with low will saves, that might even work. But what about the 4d10+8 CR3 fire elemental? What about the CR3 wasp swarm doing 2d6 damage to the whole group? You can't hold person those. Can you prepare, with your three spells per day of that level, for every situation? With enough forethought and luck, certainly. . . . . . Or you could just channel energy, to the same effect, with no forethought, no luck, no chance for interruption, and heal everyone.Do you cast the cure spell on the elemental? Or do you cast Resist Energy to "cure" ten hit points each round on just that one spell alone? Resist Energy isn't even a rare spell to see memorized, it's pretty staple. Seeing as how the elemental does less then ten damage each round, you've literally shut it down completely. Or there's Cause Fear, as the elemental has an even smaller will save then the ogre.
Giant Wasp? Hey, Cause...
Have to point out Prof that all the spells you mentioned are great, but the 3rd level cleric may or may not have them prepared when this combat takes place. Whereas, he always has channel (unless he used them all already). Doesn't disprove the assertion that there frequently is something better to do than heal in most situations, but I would say it helps negate the idea that there is always something better to do.
As for your hand-picked ogre scenario. You are right, he is unlikely to make that save, because that is exactly the type of attack he is most vulnerable to. However unlikely is not the same as never. Natural 20s happen. And it probably wouldn't quite take a natural 20, more likely a 17 or 18. That's still a 15-20% chance the spell does nothing and your buddy has a good chance of dying. The odds are with you, but you're still gambling with your buddy's life. As opposed to channeling and all but assuring that he will survive the round, and the whole party will get that round to take out the ogre. I know which I would prefer if I were adventuring with your cleric. After all, is the challenge to take down the ogre as fast as possible, or to take him down with as little damage/resource use as possible?
One final point on combat healing. Channel becomes much more useful in combat the larger the party is, and the more people are hurt. If just one guy needs healing, not that impressive, but if five of them do and are within range, pretty hot stuff. My group currently has seven players, and that admittedly colors my perspective (and makes haste and some other mass buffs truly terrifying).
When Brogue gets back I will have to ask him if he plays any AP's and how his party gets beat up(not lose the fight, but takes serious hp damage) by regular encounters. Hopefully it is an AP I have run or played in. I will then show him the counter to it. Even if it is not one I have played it I can provide a counter if it is below level 6. That is the highest level myself and the other DM got to play in.
As a statement, I’d like to say in general that I’m flabbergasted beyond reason that you people think channel energy is BAD. I could understand not really knowing how to use it and thinking it’s alright, or disliking the ability, or thinking it’s only “OK”. But thinking it’s bad? That’s insane. The ability is stupendous. As a player, I love it. It’s incredibly powerful and very much combat-shaping. I whole-heartedly suggest you attempt to employ it to good effect in your campaigns, as you can’t possibly have really used it up ‘til now if you still hold the opinions you hold.
In another campaign I’m running as DM, my group has no cleric. We have a paladin geared for offense, two sorcerers, and a bard archer. Their damage output is amaaazing. It’s outstanding to the point where I’m surprised when monsters die so quickly they sometimes don’t get a chance to react.
But just as common are the situations where they’re beaten down so quickly they can’t react. Nine level 1 kobolds hiding behind rocks nearly killed two of the PCs with ready actions to interrupt spells while sniping (CR 12 campaign). The party absolutely trounced a group of brigands (CR 12) within two rounds. But the brigands brought the bard to 12 hit points in one round. At which point all the remaining brigands pointed their bows at the bard and threatened to do him in if the PCs didn’t leave.
I can speak with experience about a high offense, no healing group. I’m literally running one right now, and I’ve very much had the opportunities to see its failings and successes. In a recent combat, the paladin spent half the fight using channel energy. The paladin, who is optimized for raw damage output, stopped full attacking, five foot stepped back, and channeled energy. It’s that effective.
I honestly don’t understand, can’t even conceptualize, how you people can think it’s a poor ability.
I read this and just wanted to add a personal anecdote.
My brother and I start playing in our friend Tyler's game about a massive Orc invasion in Brevoy. My brother plays a cleric, I play ranger. Its a two person party. Tyler, who is arguably a simulationist tough but fair DM, sends us into encounters where sometimes we are out numbered. My brother uses channel energy to great effect. He dances his character Porphery around to adjust the radius just so and keeps us going encounter after encounter. Its low level, so the numbers are sometimes pretty swingy but often I get healed just enough to down the next foe.
Later on we get 50 hobgoblins as mercenaries. We do a massive battle or too in which channeling turns the tide on many occasions. 3-4 hobgoblins that go down in one round, pop right back up again in the next.
At this point I start saying "Jesus, army battles in pathfinder must be ridiculous! The army with more clerics obviously wins!"
What edition of the game are you playing? In Pathfinder, wizards have a ton of HP. If your wizards are more than about 1HP/level behind the full base attack characters they're probably doing something (mechanically) wrong. (Or your full base attack characters are doing something wrong, like having a 20 Con at the expense of the stats they'd use to actually kill things.)
Really? You can't swing back and forth on issues like this. You just quoted monsters with amazing damage and to hit with multiple iterative or natural attacks. Such monsters, or multiples of such monsters, could easily take out a wizard in a single round or two. Definitely in two.
Anyway, the rest of your long, condescending post aside, I don't think I ever claimed that Channel is a bad ability.
Then pretend those posts weren't directed at you. There were plenty of other people that have done so that the post still stands for.
Certainly if you absolutely need to stablize someone this round and can do so (via feat/positioning) without healing the enemies, you might as well do it via Channeling if you're not high enough level for Heal.
That's one of many great uses for channel energy, although Heal doesn't factor into this equation. It's just as much a touch spell as any other cure spell (excepting Mass spells, of course).
Certainly it's a great ability for healing between combats and can save you some wand cash. (And before someone "but you can't buy wands in every game"'s on me, if you can afford a feat for Selective Channel, you certainly can afford a feat for Craft Wand.)
But you can't use item crafting in every game. :)
But, not always but generally speaking, if it comes out during combat, you've already made some serious mistakes and no, I'm not concerned that an ability that looks best when you either aren't very good at the game or have already dropped the ball is overpowered.
And this, this here, is what I disagree with. And this here is what I was responding to. And this here is what you were saying to merit all my above posts. YOu said in this very post you just made that you don't think channel energy is bad, and that you didn't say that. But you JUST said it RIGHT here, at least in terms of combat usage. And that is the crux of our argument. No one thinks its a bad ability out of combat. The point is whether or not it's amazing IN combat.
Honestly, I’ve been back and forth providing evidence to support my statement and examples to do the same, but mostly all I’m seeing from you is, “Healing in combat is bad because you could do better with hold person. You’re dumb if you heal in combat.” I would really love to see some actual support for your side of this, instead of the same idea over and over again with no supporting evidence.
And before you say it, no, your previous poor examples were not supporting evidence. They were lackluster in viability as compared to combat healing.
Finally, this argument is terrible. If this is the extent of your DM's grasp on logic...
And again you missed the point. You miss many points. The point, my friend, was the absurdity of your statement. You'll notice the matching absurdity of my own? They're equal in levels of absurdity. In case you didn't get it, I was showing you how absurd your own statements were.
* Excepting, of course, that you're highly unlikely to be TPPK'd in a PF game.
This.
THIS. Is what tells me you play a softcore kiddie game. For sure and without a doubt? Highly unlikely to be TPKed? Really? Your DM is softballing you. Absolutely. Now that you've said this, you cannot in any way expect anyone to believe you play otherwise.
In my mind in-combat healing is useful in a limited number of scenarios.
1)Low-level when being in a damaged condition could knock a front-line fighter into negatives thus putting the rest of the team at a relative disadvantage.
2)When average monster damage exceeds current HPs + negative hit point buffer if raise dead effects are not easily available.
3)If a party member is in negative numbers and being conscious could swing the battle back in the party's favor.
4)If the total healing provided to the party exceeds the opportunity cost of the healing action. AoE healing and spells like Heal can be useful for this.
These are all pretty significant scenarios, and I can think of more besides.
In general though a healing action has an opportunity cost associated with it. Healing someone means that there is an action that can't be used to do an offensive action that round. As long as you use the baseline math and standard encounters most clerics have enough other positive things they can do in a given round that healing actions have a lower net utility than buffing/summoning/Forcing a Save
This is a very good point. Loss of opportunity is very valid. I still posit, however, that the gains from keeping the party up throughout a prolonged encounter are significant. And I'll also note that in my specific examples, I did state that our cleric typically spends rounds 1 and 2 on Prayer and Bless before resorting to Channel Energy.
To a certain degree removing status effects can also be seen as a wasted action but in many cases status effects can result in a greater chance of a TPK than HP damage.
Not so sure about this. I can't ever see removing a status effect as a bad thing. Losing one round on one character to grant another character four rounds? That's a net gain without a doubt.
on the topic of in-combat healing - for me, it's to stabilize. The goal is not to get the PC back into action, rather it's to keep them from bleeding to death. Obviously it's best to let the player try and stabilize on there own, but in the end, when they've failed to make the check, they need a heal.
And this is another reason proactive, rather than reactive, combat healing is better than what you all are supporting. With proactive healing, you prevent people from dropping to negatives and losing actions. With proactive healing, you prevent people from dropping to that dreaded 1 HP. With proactive healing, you can control the flow of the battle by preventing your side from going down, and thereby ensuring you have more pieces on the board to do what's necessary to control the opponents' actions.
Man, what? Do you regularly have clerics with wisdom 12? Maybe that's why you overprioritize healing.
At level 3, a typical cleric in a standard point buy system will have 15 wisdom unless he dumped stats, which is always a bad idea. Combine that with his second level spells and you have a DC 14 save. Against the listed ogre's +3 will save, that IS a 50% chance for success. I don't see an issue here, other than your hyperbole.
In response, again, to your ogre idea. Yes, it's nice in the perfect world to hold person a critter susceptible to it. And if all we fought were dumb humanoids with low will saves, that might even work. But what about the 4d10+8 CR3 fire elemental? What about the CR3 wasp swarm doing 2d6 damage to the whole group? You can't hold person those. Can you prepare, with your three spells per day of that level, for every situation? With enough forethought and luck, certainly. . . . . . Or you could just channel energy, to the same effect, with no forethought, no luck, no chance for interruption, and heal everyone.
Do you cast the cure spell on the elemental? Or do you cast Resist Energy to "cure" ten hit points each round on just that one spell alone? Resist Energy isn't even a rare spell to see memorized, it's pretty staple. Seeing as how the elemental does less then ten damage each round, you've literally shut it down completely. Or there's Cause Fear, as the elemental has an even smaller will save then the ogre.
Our cleric usually has two resists and one protection prepared each day. Although I'll be amused when we reach the point where you all have cited 12 different spells you'll always prepare of third level to thwart the need for channel energy. So far we're at 4+ spell slots used per day.
Cause fear might, indeed, work. And he would, in fact, have less than a 50% chance to make it. Slightly less. But, as you pointed out, he only does less than ten damage around. You could definitely just channel energy through that. So, again, the point that you can't heal through a critter's damage output is incorrect in some cases.
Giant Wasp? Hey, Cause Fear once again saves the day! It's even a level 1 spell, so that frees up all your other level 2's.
I said wasp swarm. You're welcome to attempt to fear the wasp swarm if you'd like. Ironically, I'd also be amused to see you attempt to cause fear the giant wasp. Think on it a bit, and you'll see why that would be ineffective.
Or heck, you could cast Bear's Endurance to heal 6 HP before the fight even begins - and it scales far better then your cure spells do, to boot.
This wouldn't help. This damage would still be there at the end of the fight. You'd only be prolonging your capabilities to take damage throughout the fight, which definitely isn't bad, but isn't really the point of this discussion.
Ounce of prevention.
Is not worth two pounds of cure. Stop being trite, and throwing pithy sayings out. Use facts to support your statements, don't just throw out cliches.
I think this becomes more the case the higher in level the characters are, as nearly everyone will have some healing potions by then (assuming potions are readily available), and the cleric will have a lot more spells at his disposal that might be better than healing. It's less the case at lower levels, when potions probably aren't plentiful in the party, and the cleric has fewer options.
I honestly can't believe many of you are against channel energy and FOR using potions mid combat. Potions mid combat are typically a desperate, no other option gamble. You'd rather have the person geared, designed, and optimized for killing mans stop and spend his round to drink a potion instead of having the character designed and optimized for healing (or not even optimized for healing, just someone that HAS channel energy), spend one action healing EVERYONE in the group. For MORE than that potion would otherwise have done?
Are you guys serious?
Are you trolling now, or what? I mean, that's asinine.
Have to point out Prof that all the spells you mentioned are great, but the 3rd level cleric may or may not have them prepared when this combat takes place. Whereas, he always has channel (unless he used them all already). Doesn't disprove the assertion that there frequently is something better to do than heal in most situations, but I would say it helps negate the idea that there is always something better to do.
This is an idea I’ve been hinting at slightly but haven’t really fully expounded on, since, as Brian has said, it doesn’t completely invalidate the idea; it just makes it unlikely. However, were I to attempt to use it in an argument, the immediate response would be “But duurrr, a WELL PLAYED cleric always has the right spells prepared because we always do it right!”
As I stated above, we’re currently using about 4-8 spell slots a day for third level spells from the two examples that have been provided, and I am curious to see how much that number grows once more examples of ways to thwart monsters are provided.
As for your hand-picked ogre scenario. You are right, he is unlikely to make that save, because that is exactly the type of attack he is most vulnerable to.
Two points. He’s using a third level spell in a Cr3/APL3 scenario, so the merit of his example it fairly small. He’s basically just making a point that will saves beat critters with low will saves, which is a bit of a duh scenario.
I disagree about being unlikely to make it, though. A 50/50 chance is not the definition of unlikely to make something.
However unlikely is not the same as never. Natural 20s happen. And it probably wouldn't quite take a natural 20, more likely a 17 or 18.
An 11 will do, as I demonstrated above.
That's still a 15-20% chance the spell does nothing and your buddy has a good chance of dying. The odds are with you, but you're still gambling with your buddy's life.
This is exactly my point. You’re going for a (I’ll just use these incorrect but jaded numbers here) 75% chance to win instead of just mitigating 75% of the damage. It’s always a much better idea to go for steady and guaranteed than to shoot for the gold. 75% mitigation against 75% chance avoidance? That’s a clear bet as to which is better, yet no one here seems capable of seeing it, and I really don’t get it.
As opposed to channeling and all but assuring that he will survive the round, and the whole party will get that round to take out the ogre.
Exaaaaactly.
I know which I would prefer if I were adventuring with your cleric. After all, is the challenge to take down the ogre as fast as possible, or to take him down with as little damage/resource use as possible?
Double exactly. In fact, I believe I said this once in a previous post.
One final point on combat healing. Channel becomes much more useful in combat the larger the party is, and the more people are hurt. If just one guy needs healing, not that impressive, but if five of them do and are within range, pretty hot stuff. My group currently has seven players, and that admittedly colors my perspective (and makes haste and some other mass buffs truly terrifying).
A good point, but I’d honestly prefer to stick with a 4-person scenario, as that’s the norm, it benefits my opposition’s stance, and I still know for a fact healing is incredibly effective in a four-person group, since that’s currently what I’m doing.
When Brogue gets back I will have to ask him if he plays any AP's and how his party gets beat up(not lose the fight, but takes serious hp damage) by regular encounters. Hopefully it is an AP I have run or played in. I will then show him the counter to it. Even if it is not one I have played it I can provide a counter if it is below level 6. That is the highest level myself and the other DM got to play in.
I don't believe we've done any APs. The only module we've run is Flight of the Red Raven. The rest of our adventuring has been with homebrew adventure arcs. That doesn't make the experience any less valid, however, since appropriate CR and APL systems are being used, although it does, sadly, prevent us from having an effective measuring stick.
I read this and just wanted to add a personal anecdote.
That sounds like a really fun campaign. 
I always enjoy the campaigns where the DM can balance a 2-player group. It makes for a more intimate session.
Again, though, channel energy is definitely extremely powerful. In the situation you’re describing, it’s obscenely powerful. Healing 50 critters a round is effective to no end, and even that no one here will argue against. Still, though, I’d rather stick to the merits of a four person party, as that’s the base line, and I don’t mind debating in a subpar situation.
What you’ve eluded to about the channel energy ability is a good one, though. I did bring it up very briefly earlier. It sounds to me like your friend is doing something our cleric does often, and that’s to dance around and use channel energy’s range effect to avoid AOOs and unnecessary damage. It’s a versatility component of the ability that many people ignore, and proper positioning with is can be devastatingly effective.
Anyway, I’m out for the night, as I have things I need to take care of. Please, respond and I’ll be back tomorrow, although I would appreciate this time to see responses to all or at least most of my responses, instead of picking the smaller, individually flawed arguments rather than responding to the whole.
Good night, and happy gaming.
But you can't use item crafting in every game. :)
That is a DM thing, and we start bring DM Fiat into the discussion we will never get anywhere.
I will have to agree with you that just because you are channeling it does not mean you have dropped the ball. I do still disagree on how much you should be expected to use it.
Darnit Dire you are not making points well. I would agree with him again that the the party should face TPK potential encounter sometimes, but not every fight.
As for status affects it depends on the situation.
Could you describe a typical encounter for your party. Be as detailed as possible. I will try to use my group at the same level so we can compare points.
PS: I was responding to both of your post. I just did not want to copy and paste everything.
Really? You can't swing back and forth on issues like this. You just quoted monsters with amazing damage and to hit with multiple iterative or natural attacks. Such monsters, or multiples of such monsters, could easily take out a wizard in a single round or two. Definitely in two.
I'm not. Your claim is that wizards are squishy. They're not squishier than anyone else.
Of course, certainly any number of things could beat them down in a few rounds if they were stupid enough to sit there and take it.
It only seems like I'm swinging back and forth if you take my words to mean whatever you'd like them to say, rather than what they actually say.
This.THIS. Is what tells me you play a softcore kiddie game. For sure and without a doubt? Highly unlikely to be TPKed? Really? Your DM is softballing you. Absolutely. Now that you've said this, you cannot in any way expect anyone to believe you play otherwise.
What I can't believe is the amazing and utterly arrogant tangent you ran off onto there based on your poor reading comprehension.
TPPK != TPK. That extra P isn't for "please jump to conclusions."
I assumed you'd know the former acronym because you referenced hardcore play of Diablo 2, and it's roughly as ubiquitous in that subculture as, say, "DM" is when talking about D&D or "QB" is when talking about football. Forgive me for assuming you knew what you were talking about.
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I have but one thing to contribute.
It is very deep, very thoughtful and very very serious.
Some of you may not fully understand the implications of what I am trying convey.
Please, consider what I am about to say with a mature, balanced mindset.
I take full responsibly for any consequences of posting what I believe, truly needs to be posted.
However, I must warn you, it may shock and/or cause those with a sensitive disposition some distress.
Once again, please, consider the following with a mature, balanced mindset.
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If
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you
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..but hey,
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./hug
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:D
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I'm sure some of you will understand this needed to be said.
Thank you for your time.
That is a DM thing, and we start bring DM Fiat into the discussion we will never get anywhere.
That's fair. To be honest, I was less making a valid point and more being facetious, responding in the same vein as your own post. :)
My current DM does not allow item creation, and I'm a fan of that. It's simply too powerful for a standard or low-powered game. If item creation was allowed, I'd definitely be taking it on my fighter.
I will have to agree with you that just because you are channeling it does not mean you have dropped the ball. I do still disagree on how much you should be expected to use it.
I'm not saying you should be expected to use it. If healing in combat isn't your style, then don't do it. You're not expected to use the ability. It's more that the ability is powerful in general, and can be used in combat. If you prefer preventative avoidance-based applications of your actions instead of mitigation actions, that's perfectly fine and valid. It's definitely not my style, as we play in a game that's completely unforgiving about tactical errors, and we simply can't make a call where the 20% chance failure option is death.
At our last session, I was paying careful attention to how effective healing versus control would have been for our cleric. In most situations, our healing from channel energy or cure serious wounds was significant enough to represent about a 70-80% mitigation of incoming damage, whereas control effects like hold person had a 45% chance of success, which is mathematically similar to preventing 45% of incoming damage from a single target (we were fighting multiple targets in the two fights we had).
As for status affects it depends on the situation.
I definitely agree with you on this. There are some status effects that aren't damaging enough to merit status removal, or where the situation isn't dire enough to merit resource and time expenditure necessary to bring even one third or one fourth of the party back into the fight. There are some fights where the actions simply can't be spared to bring the person back into the fight, but then again, there are fights where it's simply necessary. When we were fighting a vampire boss around level 5-6, the cleric spent about half of their actions trying to break the dominate on the fighter, who was attempting to murder the party (and doing a good job at it, sadly).
Could you describe a typical encounter for your party. Be as detailed as possible. I will try to use my group at the same level so we can compare points.
Sure. In fact, I can describe in detail our most recent encounter.
Our group consists of four characters. We have a human fighter, a half elf ranger specialized in archery, a half elf cleric of Desna, and a gnome druid with a lion animal companion.
We are invading a drow stronghold in the heart of a small drow city deep below the surface. After finally finding the route into the fortress inside a small labyrinth of tunnel, we came to a sixty foot long and ten foot wide corridor that ended in a large set of double doors.
After a few attempts, the Fighter managed to pick the lock on the doors and we entered. The room inside was an open greeting room for the castle, perhaps forty feet by forty feet, with double doors to the left and right, and an open passageway across the room from us. Not being an entirely skill-focused group, we briefly listened, then entered the room.
Doing so triggered a magical trap that dropped a flamestrike on our heads, bringing the cleric and druid to half health with failed saves and causing about fifteen damage to the fighter and ranger. It also destroyed our cleric's shield, as the reflex failed was on a one. Bad luck on that one.
The noise from the trap triggered the encounter in the room. Foolish on our part for just stepping into it, but we sadly lack any subtle characters, so there's little we could have otherwise done about it. From the two double doors on the left and right, we had two minotaurs. From the passageway at the back, we saw a half-fiend minotaur (the fighter made his knowledge check to identify it).
Initiative went out, and the cleric won initiative and delayed. The lion delayed, due to no orders from the slow acting druid, which was fortunate. This opened us up to the minotaurs' powerful charges, but three powerful charges is preferable to three sets of full attacks with greataxes. The minotaur on our left charged the lion, dealing a moderate amount of damage. The cleric undelayed, using channel energy to heal the party (the lion was previously undamaged due to evasion, and the delay was done by the cleric to allow channel energy to also eat up the minotaur's first attack).
The druid then went next, ordering the lion to begin attacking the closest minotaurs, but otherwise delaying and waiting to use Call Lightning on more than one minotaur. The cat five foot stepped up, still effectively bottlenecking the doorway to prevent the enemies from getting at our squishies, and full attacked the first minotaur. Three attacks and a successful CMB to grapple later, the minotaur was near death and grappled.
The fighter went next, using a move action to circle the grappled minotaur and taking advantage of his grappled condition to avoid attacks of opportunity. He kept the minotaur between himself and the half-fiend, thereby ensuring the half-fiend minotaur would charge the lion, a marginally tougher character and more reliant upon full attacks then the fighter. He then readied to attack and hopefully kill the first minotaur when the half-fiend attacked.
The ranger went next, using a full attack to damage the half-fiend. The half-fiend minotaur went next, expectedly charging the cat, the only opponent within his reach. This triggered the fighter's readied action, and he killed the first minotaur with a power attack. This removed the cat's grappled condition, and the increase in armor class was just enough to prevent the half-fiend from hitting the lion.
Next, the minotaur on the right charged in, doing a small amount of damage on the lion. At this point, the cleric, lion, and druid have about 12 damage, and the rest of the group is at full health, and the most damaging part of the encounter has been the flamestrike at the beginning. We've also managed to focus all of the extra damage from minor minotaur attacks on the lion, who is large and within single-healing range of the cleric.
The druid finally undelays, and call lightning is cast, hitting both the half fiend and the normal minotaur. Bad luck on her part deals a moderate five damage to the normal minotaur and none to the half-fiend, as the druid could not make a Knowledge: Planes check to reveal resistances.
This puts us back to the start of the round, and the cat unleashes a full attack. The DM allows the druid's player to control the cat's actions within reasonable animal intelligence, assuming the proper druid commands are given out. The first attack goes to the Half-Fiend Minotaur. Being armor class fiends the minotaur is successfully hit with a poor roll resulting somewhere around 18. Minor damage goes out, much of which is mitigated by the fiend's damage reduction. However, a lucky grapple does go out (+17 CMB and a roll of 19 snared the fiend), and the cat's remaining two attacks are directed to the remaining, ungrappled minotaur. To the player's dismay, two ones pop up on the next attack, leaving the minotaur ungrappled. Fortunately, the main goal was obtained, and the half-fiend minotaur is unable to bring his great axe to bear (as I've said before, wise players fear the great axe crit and its ability to kill a player dead).
The cleric delays again, wanting to top off herself, the druid, and the cat, waiting until the cat takes another dose of damage to thereby increase Channel's effectiveness (the cat was at full health, but we wanted to KEEP the cat at full health since great axes were being employed). The ranger unleashes a full attack, bringing the grappled half fiend down to moderate health. The fighter goes next, and again takes advantage of the grappled creature, moving to flank and power attacking against his low armor class. His attack kills the half-fiend, freeing up the cat.
At this point, the right-side minotaur's turn is up, and he full attacks the cat. The cat, however, has spectacular kitty-armor class with her dragon hide barding (the druid matches her cat, *roll eyes*), and only one attack hits. With a single creature up, and four of our attacks between now and its next turn, the cleric instead moves up and uses Bit of Luck on the lion, who benefits most from the ability with low attack bonuses and hit-dependent abilities.
The druid goes again, lightning bolting the minotaur for decent damage. This makes it the cat's turn again, and a Desna-enhanced full attack obliterates the final minotaur. If I recall, it might have had enough hit points left to require an arrow or two from the ranger, but it was dead before its turn came back up.
The overall CR of this fight was 8, which makes it an APL+1 against us. I'm unsure as to whether to consider the flamestrike as a separate encounter, but I think it would be fair to consider it as part of this one, since it definitely helped shape the actions we had to take at the beginning of the fight, and since it was purposefully designed to bring us into the fight with low health (there was no way for us to have done otherwise). So overall the fight was an APL+2, which is a serious fight. I like to think we trounced it pretty handily, as it could have gone much worse had we not prevented the majority of the minotaur's attacks and attacks of opportunity, and properly spread the damage to be easily healed. In this example, we could have done without channel energy entirely, but we play a game where death is a serious and expected occurrence. Playing it safe and ensuring that everyone had the health to survive a critical from a greataxe was definitely the right move, even if the unlucky occurrence didn't, well, occur. Interestingly, the DM rolled 5 20s that fight on saving throws and initiatives, but not on attacks.
Our overall expenditure of resources was one Bit of Luck, two channel energies, one call lightning, and about 8 arrows.
PS: I was responding to both of your post. I just did not want to copy and paste everything.
Fair enough. :)
Give me a little bit and I'll describe the other two encounters we had last night.
I'm not. Your claim is that wizards are squishy. They're not squishier than anyone else.
I disagree, but only on the premise that you’re incorrect.
My fighter in the above situation has 67 hit points. Our cleric has 50 Our druid has 47ish. Our lion has 65, I believe. Our ranger is silly and dumped constitution for moar damagez and has 40 before her belt of constitution +4, which then puts her at 54. Amusingly, no one knew until last night when we were discussing who should get said belt that her hit points were so low. She's previously done a very good job of positioning to avoid being hit and thus taking damage.
Anyway, you’re citing that a wizard gets an amazing d6 per hitdice a level, while a fighter gets a d10 and a barbarian gets a d12. I’ll ignore the barbarian’s vaster hit die because the class is retarded to unplayability in core-only rules, and their increased health is a necessity due to their other defensive statistics and instead focus on a fighter versus wizard comparison.
At first level, a wizard has a constitution score of between 10 and 14, depending on the build and how much the player wanted hit points. This gives him between 6 and 8 hit points. Now let’s take the fighter. He’s immediately at 10, So he’s already above your supposition of a one hit point per level difference (1 times 1 is 1). A fighter, in comparison, is going to have a constitution score between 12 and 16. That’s an average of 2 points higher than the wizard, since constitution is a primary stat for a meatshield and a secondary or even tertiary stat for the wizard who, if most people play, will dump most stats to build up his single casting stat. I’m personally against this and prefer higher constitution characters, but it’s a preference thing, optimization versus self-sufficiency. Anyway, that puts the fighter at 11 to 13 hit points at level one, average 12 versus 7. That’s a difference of five, which math majors will notice is greater than Dire Mongoose’s claim of one.
Continuing on in this trend, the fighter will get an average of 6 hit points per level plus his higher constitution. For arguments sake, we’ll say a 14 con fighter and a 12 con wizard, since that's a likely average in a typical standard game. So that’s 8 hit points per level versus the wizard’s 5. Now, the gap begins to close slightly, but evens out at a solid three hit point per level gain. Which, again, is greater than 1. This is even ignoring the fact that a fighter, with his higher number of feats, is more likely to want to, and to be able to, take Toughness. So three could easily become four, which is also greater than one.
So again, I disagree, but only on the premise that you’re incorrect.
Of course, certainly any number of things could beat them down in a few rounds if they were stupid enough to sit there and take it.
Of course. That is, in fact, exactly what I said, and precisely what you refuted. To quote myself,
“Wizard with their tiny hit points, foolish rogues trapped between flanking monsters, both and all can succumb to death or dying in a single round or two of full-attack pummeling.”
To which you replied,
“What edition of the game are you playing? In Pathfinder, wizards have a ton of HP. If your wizards are more than about 1HP/level behind the full base attack characters they're probably doing something (mechanically) wrong. (Or your full base attack characters are doing something wrong, like having a 20 Con at the expense of the stats they'd use to actually kill things.”
So “a ton of HP” is pretty incorrect, especially since wizards have, on average, 2 hit points more per level, or only one more hit point per level if you use the variant rule our group utilizes of each level gaining half plus one hit point instead of rolling, than they did in 3.5. While the 1-2 gain for a wizard can be significant, helpful, and significantly helpful, it’s by no means a “a ton” in any typical usage of the word.
I also find I’m disinclined to agree with your constitution statement. While 20 is hyperbole on your part, I find that it’s quite possible given only moderate level and certain races. A dwarf or human with base 15 (high-end for standard point buy, but a given for the higher ones), gets a +2 bonus, puts in his level 4 or 8 point, and has his belt of +2 con or +2 con/strength. Bam. 20. Not really as implausible as you assert, and it also has the added benefit of possibly being a more likely option for fighters to deck themselves out in stamina gear than the wizard. For wizard, constitution is a necessary survival tactic. For fighters, it’s a necessary survival tactic, and a core usage of their role as meatshield. In addition, non fighter heavy-armor wearers such as the paladin will typically be dumping dexterity, since they can't make much use of it, and are more likely to have a constitution item.
So perhaps three or four should change to four or five, both of which are still greater than one?
It only seems like I'm swinging back and forth if you take my words to mean whatever you'd like them to say, rather than what they actually say.
Honestly, if I had my way, and I could take your words as whatever I’d like them to be, the way I’d take them certainly wouldn’t be “Infuriatingly incorrect and ignorant to the point of blatant trolling and/or disregard for common sense while somehow maintaining a thin veneer of actually being a true opinion and not a poor attempt at being contrary for the sake of contrariness.” That’s bad for my blood pressure, and I already have a headache.
What I can't believe is the amazing and utterly arrogant tangent you ran off onto there based on your poor reading comprehension.
TPPK != TPK. That extra P isn't for "please jump to conclusions."
I assumed you'd know the former acronym because you referenced hardcore play of Diablo 2, and it's roughly as ubiquitous in that subculture as, say, "DM" is when talking about D&D or "QB" is when talking about football. Forgive me for assuming you knew what you were talking about.
I see what you were attempting to say, now, and I'll admit that I just assumed your extra 'P' was a typo and not intentional. In fact, it never occurred to me that it could be other than a typo. To be honest, a Town Portal Player Kill reference was a bit of a leap considering how far back the Diablo II reference was and that the Total Party Kill reference was certainly MUCH more applicable to the situation. And this is why I'm personally against the use of acronyms in typical speech, as they really only lead to confusion, rather than their intended purpose of speed and efficiency. After all, when you have to stop to elucidate a situation, you've lost the point. But anyway, I digress. ;)
Anyway, again, sorry for that. I take back what I said about your game being assuredly kiddie-gloved and instead revert to my previous statements that it's simply likely due the lack of hard evidence to the contrary.
At first level, a wizard has a constitution score of between 10 and 14, depending on the build and how much the player wanted hit points.
Ah. That'd be the source of our disconnect then.
Speaking mechanically (i.e., tossing aside for a minute characters that are built sub-optimally because it suits their RP or whatever else -- and yes, I include elven wizards in that in PF), a wizard's starting con should never be below 14, and in anything but the most bargain-basement point buy should be higher.
Con is always a wizard's second-most-important stat. It's not always a fighter or paladin's second most important stat. Often it's in third place.
I also disagree that the wizard's less likely to have a +CON item than the fighter/paladin/etc. He's more likely because: 1) It's much easier for him to craft one if he didn't find one, 2) +HP and +Fort from CON are generally a bigger deal to him since what he gets from his class aren't as good, and 3) The single biggest one being, CON items consume the same slot as STR or DEX items -- a character who doesn't take physical attacks as a matter of course cares about that a lot less. You can get multi-stat belts, but those are a lot more expensive. I'd possibly agree with what you said, in a campaign that had no crafting and all treasure found randomly with no regard whatsoever for WBL, but I haven't seen one of those in a long time.
Re: the 20 con bit, I was talking 20 con base at first level, which I would consider a ridiculous choice for pretty much any character.
As far as the Diablo 2 thing goes, the reference was immediately following a paragraph contrasting the game to D&D/PF, so, it was topical but... I understand you're reading a pile of posts at a time and it's easy to lose a detail like that. No harm, no foul.
Ah. That'd be the source of our disconnect then.Speaking mechanically (i.e., tossing aside for a minute characters that are built sub-optimally because it suits their RP or whatever else -- and yes, I include elven wizards in that in PF), a wizard's starting con should never be below 14, and in anything but the most bargain-basement point buy should be higher.
Con is always a wizard's second-most-important stat. It's not always a fighter or paladin's second most important stat. Often it's in third place.
I agree, personally, that constitution is a wizard's second most important stat, but many other disagree. It's my personal opinion that survival trumps most other considerations, but I know that most people consider dexterity to be a highly required stats for wizard for damage purposes, or what have you. In the standard point buy game we play, I would sadly have a hard time making a wizard with a constitution higher than 12 or 14, however, needing at least a minimum 10 strength and charisma to avoid penalties, a minimum 12 dexterity and wisdom for saves, and wanting that 15 intelligence to be effective at my primary role.
I also disagree that the wizard's less likely to have a +CON item than the fighter/paladin/etc. He's more likely because: 1) It's much easier for him to craft one if he didn't find one,
As mentioned previously, item creation is a very iffy concept that some DMs won't allow. My DM in specific doesn't, and I prefer that. If I recall, it's also disallowed for society play. So we'll call this one a wash.
2) +HP and +Fort from CON are generally a bigger deal to him since what he gets from his class aren't as good,
This is as true as it isn't. Higher hit points and higher fortitude save are never a bad thing. Even a fighter with an awesome constitution or great hit points can benefit from more when that save versus death comes along.
and 3) The single biggest one being, CON items consume the same slot as STR or DEX items -- a character who doesn't take physical attacks as a matter of course cares about that a lot less. You can get multi-stat belts, but those are a lot more expensive.
This I agree with, and it's something I hadn't considered. Although, to be fair, wizards do still benefit from a good dexterity score, although it's definitely a tertiary stat in my opinion (although the sorceress of our group disagrees).
In our current campaign, my DM is very specific with treasure. Dislike the Christmas Tree effect, our character have a few powerful magic items rather than a small one in each slot. We're still at our appropriate treasure levels (well, two of us are - the other two are vastly undergeared due to bad luck). The fighter has a belt of physical perfection +2, the ranger has a belt of constitution +4, and the cleric has a belt of strength +2.
I'd possibly agree with what you said, in a campaign that had no crafting and all treasure found randomly with no regard whatsoever for WBL, but I haven't seen one of those in a long time.
As I've said, I prefer the no crafting. Crafting allows players to vastly exceed the wealth guidelines to the point of campaign destruction in many situations. But I do prefer a campaign where all the treasure isn't perfectly tailored to the PCs. To me that destroys a level of realism to a point. Finding slightly suboptimal but still useful items is preferable, like the Chime of Opening we have, or the Undead Slaying arrows we've picked up.
Re: the 20 con bit, I was talking 20 con base at first level, which I would consider a ridiculous choice for pretty much any character.
Oh, that's true, then. Only a ridiculously high point buy would allow that kind of score at first level.
As far as the Diablo 2 thing goes, the reference was immediately following a paragraph contrasting the game to D&D/PF, so, it was topical but... I understand you're reading a pile of posts at a time and it's easy to lose a detail like that. No harm, no foul.
Yeah, sorry about that. I've read and written a considerable amount of text today, and it has a tendency to blend together, heh.