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I have an idea for a feat that changes the dice roll in Cure spells (Cure Light Wounds or Cure Moderate Wounds). I con't find any existing feats that handled healing the same way.
The feat would go as follows:
Feat: Reliable Healing
Using knowledge of healing, your healing spells are more reliable.
Prerequisite: Can cast Cure spells, Heal 1 Rank.
Benefit: You substitute each d8 dice roll in a Cure spell with 1d6+2.
The idea behind this feat is to increase the average healing without changing the potency of the spell.
So is there any opinions to this? I was think that you could create another feat that changes to dice roll to 1d4+4.
Comments?
Hm. Makes it kinda weird for metamagic feats. Maximize wouldn't be worth it anymore @ 1d4+4, and Empower would get crazy efficient.
The way you've presented this, you've increasing the average by 1.
1d8 average = 4.5
1d6+2 average = 3.5+2 = 5.5
1d6+1 would reduce both the minimum and maximum, which does what the title suggests - lowering the range. a range of 2-7 with an average of 4.5
Further progressing it to 1d4+2 would reduce the range further, to 3-6, with an average of 2.5+2 = 4.5. Very reliable, but never great.
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Wait. The item's creator needs the feat, or the item's creator and the item's activator both need the feat. Because if it's only the item's creator, why would anyone ever buy a cure spell item that wasn't created with this feat?
You're right. In light of that and for the sake of simplicity, I would rule that potions, scrolls & wands do not benefit from the feat at all.
The way you've presented this, you've increasing the average by 1.
1d8 average = 4.5
1d6+2 average = 3.5+2 = 5.51d6+1 would reduce both the minimum and maximum, which does what the title suggests - lowering the range. a range of 2-7 with an average of 4.5
Further progressing it to 1d4+2 would reduce the range further, to 3-6, with an average of 2.5+2 = 4.5. Very reliable, but never great.
Or 1d2+6. Very reliable (exceedingly so!), very great!
I like the idea behind the feat, but I question whether it is worth it in the long run. Many good healing effects gain the bulk of their points from either the caster level bonus or do not use d8's at all.
@GeneralChaos- RedXian has explicitly stated he doesn't want to change the maximum amount of healing possible. I think you took "reliable" to have a connotation of needing a lower maximum possible in addition to having a higher minimum- which simply isn't necessary. In fact, I would dare say keeping the same maximum is necessary for people to still want the feat, otherwise people would just reject it immediately.
I like the idea behind the feat, but I question whether it is worth it in the long run. Many good healing effects gain the bulk of their points from either the caster level bonus or do not use d8's at all.
@GeneralChaos- RedXian has explicitly stated he doesn't want to change the maximum amount of healing possible. I think you took "reliable" to have a connotation of needing a lower maximum possible in addition to having a higher minimum- which simply isn't necessary. In fact, I would dare say keeping the same maximum is necessary for people to still want the feat, otherwise people would just reject it immediately.
If I could take a feat that would let me have 5 instead of 1d8, I would take it in a heart beat. I much prefer averages (rounded up in this case) to the max.
If it gave 4 instead of 1d8, I'd consider it closely.
If it gave 3+1d2, I would be much more inclined to take it.
Averages are where it's at, yo.
I like the idea behind the feat, but I question whether it is worth it in the long run. Many good healing effects gain the bulk of their points from either the caster level bonus or do not use d8's at all.
@GeneralChaos- RedXian has explicitly stated he doesn't want to change the maximum amount of healing possible. I think you took "reliable" to have a connotation of needing a lower maximum possible in addition to having a higher minimum- which simply isn't necessary. In fact, I would dare say keeping the same maximum is necessary for people to still want the feat, otherwise people would just reject it immediately.
If I could take a feat that would let me have 5 instead of 1d8, I would take it in a heart beat. I much prefer averages (rounded up in this case) to the max.
If it gave 4 instead of 1d8, I'd consider it closely.
If it gave 3+1d2, I would be much more inclined to take it.
Averages are where it's at, yo.
I agree with this. How many time have you had to just roll average to be fine, and the dice screw you? If your answer was anything but "far to many times to remember" then I welcome you to our fine hobby, because you are obviously new here! (watch out for the dice, they are out to kill you) Even for the the cost of a feat and a round down result on the dice (4 rather then 5 on a d8) it would be worth it. If you want it to work with items, consider making it a 0 level adjustment metamagic feat. That has the downside of hampering it's use with spontaneous casters though.
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Reliable Spell [Metamagic]
You have mastered the art of casting spells with standardized, predictable effects.
Benefit: All variable, numeric effects of a Reliable Spell occur at their average values. Adding Reliable to a spell does not change its spell level.
Special: A spell cannot be both Reliable and Maximized. If a spell is both Reliable and Empowered, the effects added by the Empowered metamagic are not averaged.
Example -- a Reliable Fireball at caster level 10 will deal 35 damage.
I worry that your change to the math will get convoluted when you get up there into the higher levels. I don't know about y'all, but everyone at our table has a calculator to do d20 rolls.
You could simply change it to "natural rolls lower than 4 are instead treated as 4." It pushes your average up from 4.5 to 5.25, but ensures that they're never really going to be screwed by the dice.
This is the solution I've been using in my campaign for all cure wounds spells, and it's pretty smooth at the table.
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I had a thought. You could take a page out of the Rogue Talents for more efficient sneak attack damage. Where you would exchange all 1's rolled for 2 or 3. Seems like you would get a higher then average result that would scale with the player.
This is exactly what I was thinking. It still allows for the "exceptional" rolls to occur, while virtually eliminating the "sucktastic" ones.
The thing to be aware of, though, is that once spells like heal become available and offer non-variable, high-powered healing, most of the cure X wounds spells become almost completely unused in combat... or even outside of combat, thanks to wands of cure light wounds. So, a feat that specifically caters to healing would effectively have an 11-level lifespan before becoming almost totally useless, while a general feat that could benefit all kinds of variable spells would be considerably more functional. Food for thought.
Try 2d4 instead of 1d8 slightly more minimum. Dose not get any higher max.
Or, we could emulate the Deadly Sneak rogue talent, and make all die results below the average result for that die count as average. Healing spells affected by the feat would heal a minimum of 4 HP per d8 rolled+caster level. If offensive spells could be affected, a Fireball would do a minimum of 3 hp per d6 rolled.
EDIT: And someone else had the same idea while I was posting it.
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So, a feat that specifically caters to healing would effectively have an 11-level lifespan before becoming almost totally useless, while a general feat that could benefit all kinds of variable spells would be considerably more functional. Food for thought.Would this be something that applied to all "Cure-Like" spells and abilities? Because I could see this coming in quite handy when applied to Channel Positive Energy and even Lay on Hands.
Perhaps. With lay on hands it would be especially powerful as a paladin can use the ability on themselves as a swift action. I suspect, on the other hand, if you were to poll people who have actually played clerics at level 10+, you'll find the number of them that continue to use channel energy in combat (for healing, at least) to be relatively low... probably bordering on non-existent.
Outside of combat, would a feat that let you reroll 1s on d6s for channel energy be useful? Eh... maybe it would. I see quite a few clerics gathering the party around them after a good fight and dropping a handful of "god bombs" on the party to top off everyone's HP. If one particular member was especially damaged, they generally resort to the wand of cure light wounds to finish him up before continuing on. Again, this is all indicative of higher-level play. At low levels, yeah, those 2-3 extra HP per channel might be really useful. Once you get to about level 8 or 9, though, it really stops mattering.
Reliable Spell [Metamagic]
You have mastered the art of casting spells with standardized, predictable effects.
Benefit: All variable, numeric effects of a Reliable Spell occur at their average values. Adding Reliable to a spell does not change its spell level.
Special: A spell cannot be both Reliable and Maximized. If a spell is both Reliable and Empowered, the effects added by the Empowered metamagic are not averaged.Example -- a Reliable Fireball at caster level 10 will deal 35 damage.
+1
1d8 = 4.5 = 4 avg
2d8 = 2x 4.5 = 9 avg
1d6 = 3.5 = 3 avg
2d6 = 2x 3.5 = 7 avg