I don't waste a spell if I have a good opportunity to hit Use your spells when you don't. I agree there can be times bless is a huge waste Why do I need +1 to hit agianst a gelatinous cube or other oozes what you need then is damage. three low level warriors in scale mail much more useful use of bless. What better level 1 cleric spells are there really?
I actually like the analysis of situation in combat and think that adds to the game with choices and makes it fun.
In some cases "bane" is a better choice than "bless" If you are fighting a large group of enemies, a -1 on their attack rolls over the course of the battle will on average reduce their damage output by 5%. That might be all you need to get through combat without having to heal.
2 PCs with 2 attacks: 4 Attacks per round.I don't think that's what he meant. I think he meant 2 PCs each making 1 attack each and every round for a total of 2 attacks per round coming from the pair of them in total.
As to evaluating the value of the +1 to hit, there are a lot of factors to consider, but your focus is on individual chances while the others have been thinking long term averages.
It really only comes into play when the +1 will bump a hit to a miss. It won't alter natural 1s, nor will it alter something that needs a natural 20 to hit.
If you take the other poster's example and even give one of the main low level fighters two attacks per round, the conclusion is that you expect (on average) that this combat the bless gives one hit that otherwise would have been a miss.
One point that hasn't been brought up is.. does this extra hit matter? If the recipient of that hit would be dropped before their next action in either event then it doesn't. This is part of the nature of combat.. it is not fluid.
Also if the cleric is a fair combatant with say a 50-50 or better chance to hit and can get into a position to do so, then he's burning a resource to give around half of a hit to the party...
What seems like an amazing action in general, can be incredibly sub-par in many situations when they are fully analyzed.
-James
Yes, but you aren't fully analyzing it. That was my point. It changes from situation to situation, and to know its impact, you actually have to know the situation. And, with experience, you learn to "eyeball" situations, doing a quick cost-benefit-analysis in your head(even if you realize it), and determining the correct action to take.
If you are facing something with an absurdly high AC and low HP, bless can greatly increase the damage output of the whole party over the course of the combat. (If you only hit 5% of the time without bless, and you hit 10% of the time with bless, and average damage per hit is 1d8+5, then your Damage per swing w/o bless is (9.5*.05) or .475. Your Damage per swing w/ bless is (9.5*.1) or .95. You just doubled your damage! If you are fighting something with absurdly low AC, bless is really only useful on iterative attacks.
You can't make blanket statements like "Bless adds less than 1 more hit per combat." or "Bless adds 5% damage to the party" or "Bless is burning resources. The Cleric should just attack." None of these statements are universally true.
In some cases "bane" is a better choice than "bless" If you are fighting a large group of enemies, a -1 on their attack rolls over the course of the battle will on average reduce their damage output by 5%. That might be all you need to get through combat without having to heal.
You are probibly going to reduce their damage output by more than 5%. If they need a 11+ to hit someone, and you bane them to a 12+ to hit, thats a 10% damage reduction [(45%-50%)/50% = 10%.]
I'd be interested to know a little detail from the pro-healing crowd:
do your DMs adjust the monsters? or are they straight from the monster manual with no change?
is the monster AC, Hitpoints, Damage, Abilities as per the books?
Because as Ashiel, a few others and me pointed out: usually the healing done by a healer is far inferior to the damage output of an equal CR encounter.
The healing crowd says, that's not true, but I wonder why?
When I look at monster entries, that damage output is double from what that healer could do... maybe 2/3, but even then he'll only do it 2-3 rounds and then need to rest before the next encounter.
Leading to those famous 15 minute-days...
How can you healing people, keep healing your fighter throught ~3 average encounters per days?
In some cases "bane" is a better choice than "bless" If you are fighting a large group of enemies, a -1 on their attack rolls over the course of the battle will on average reduce their damage output by 5%. That might be all you need to get through combat without having to heal.You are probibly going to reduce their damage output by more than 5%. If they need a 11+ to hit someone, and you bane them to a 12+ to hit, thats a 10% damage reduction [(45%-50%)/50% = 10%.]
Yes, that's correct, I should have just stuck with "hit 5% less often". But this actually just makes my point more valid, so thanks for the correction.
2 PCs with 2 attacks: 4 Attacks per round.
2 PCs making 1 attack per 2 rounds: 1 Attack per round
=========================================
5 Attacks per round
x 5 Rounds
=========================================
25 Attacks, not 15.But this isn't really a useful analysis, because, while each +1 = 5%, not all 5%s give you the same benefit.
For example, if you only hit on 20s, and you get +1, and now you hit on 19s, you just doubled your damage output. If you hit on 3+, and get +1, and now hit on 2+, you uppped your damage output by 6%. If you hit on 2+, and you get +1, you didn't change your damage output at all, because 1s still miss.
In order to accurately judge the effectiveness of bless, you would have to know the +Hit, AC, HP, and damage of all the combatants and do a weighted average. I don't feel like doing that much work.
If you can hit something 95% of the time and it can give you some trouble, there might be something wrong somewhere.
If you can hit something 95% of the time and it can give you some trouble, there might be something wrong somewhere.
Maybe not really relevant to this discussion, but my 4e ranger frequently hits on a 3 or better, and can only miss on a 1 several times per session.
But that is required for taking down 2,000 hit point bosses. Even hitting 95% of the time, it can take a while to whittle those bad boys down...
In my experience, there are 4 basic positions people take on this issue:
1) You should never heal in combat. If someone dies in combat, they deserve it. If someone asks for a heal in combat, they suck and clearly don't know game strategy.
2) Most healing should be done out of combat. Healing in combat is usually not the best idea, but it sometimes the optimal tactical decision. You can play without a full divine caster, you just have to take less risks.
3) Healing is an important aspect of combat. It allows players to make mistakes, it allows for more risk-taking, and it offsets unlucky dice-rolls. You should always have a full divine caster in the party, and atleast some of their feats should help them heal.
4) The cleric's(or oracle's) job is to heal me in combat. If I die in combat, it is the cleric's fault. If the cleric uses any spells except healing spells, he is wasting resources he could be using to heal me!
The OP appears to take position #2. You appear to take position #3. There is quite a bit of overlap between these positions, and depending on your GM, your party composition, and your party's tactical skill, either one could be "right."
Positions #1 and #4 are wrong. Completely and totally wrong. Always.
I primarily encounter people who take position #4 in my gaming store. It is remarkable infuriating. People constantly tell me that I'm playing...
Good one. Yes, my groups tend toward option 3. Option 1& 4 aren;t for any serious long term parties, altho I can see them as Ok for a possible "one off". So, I'll say "99% wrong".
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But that is required for taking down 2,000 hit point bosses. Even hitting 95% of the time, it can take a while to whittle those bad boys down...
Ooof, I remember that from my trial of 4E. It was worse of course, since the DM was converting a 3E module and making educated guesses. No fun just standing there slugging away with nothing but at-wills left.
But that is required for taking down 2,000 hit point bosses. Even hitting 95% of the time, it can take a while to whittle those bad boys down...Ooof, I remember that from my trial of 4E. It was worse of course, since the DM was converting a 3E module and making educated guesses. No fun just standing there slugging away with nothing but at-wills left.
Tri, one of the first things I decided when I got into a 4e group was that I was not going to suffer the dreaded "nothing but at-wills left" syndrome.
So I have built my ranger so that every feat, magic enhancement and magic item is designed to optimize his at-will attacks (which for a 4e ranger is primarily "twin strike").
He has a lot of stances which also boost his twin strikes attacks, and some utility powers that allow him to maneuver into position for attacks, which are usually twin strikes attacks.
So when we use up our dailies or encounter powers, his output does not drop much. His at will attacks typically do twice as much damage as our other striker's encounter powers, and usually do more damage than even their dailies.
And he could be further optimized if I wanted to. I didn't use any of the frost cheese techniques nor does he have dual brutal bastard swords, like every other ranger you see.
He's fun to play too, because he has a boatload of magic daggers that he uses with his at will attacks to do special things.
4e is a tacticians dream game. You can do amazing things if you put the effort into figuring it out. My group calls my ranger "Batman" because he's always got some amazing trick or toy to pull off. Even when everyone else is out of flashy tricks, he's still got a bag full of 'em.
Because as Ashiel, a few others and me pointed out: usually the healing done by a healer is far inferior to the damage output of an equal CR encounter.
The healing crowd says, that's not true, but I wonder why?
Cause it's not?
You are assuming that the damage is automatic while the monsters have to hit for it to occur. Meanwhile the curing IS automatic.
So if you take Ashiel's case with the 16STR orc with a great axe hitting at +4 for 1d12+4 (10.5 average), then even a character with a 15AC is going to be missed half the time. Meanwhile a charge off a wand of clw heals back 5.5 damage each round. In two rounds you expect the orc to hit once for 10.5 and the target to be healed for 11.
How is that not keeping up?
You could add more orcs attacking the fighter at once, but then I'd like the fighter to have better than a 15AC so that he has a decent and reasonable chance of surviving the attacks to be healed in the first place.
-James
James. How that is not "keeping up" is that you have TWO CHARACTERS devoted to doing ONE CHARACTER'S WORTH of damage.
But I don't think you will get that.
Cause it's not?
You are assuming that the damage is automatic while the monsters have to hit for it to occur. Meanwhile the curing IS automatic.
So if you take Ashiel's case with the 16STR orc with a great axe hitting at +4 for 1d12+4 (10.5 average), then even a character with a 15AC is going to be missed half the time. Meanwhile a charge off a wand of clw heals back 5.5 damage each round. In two rounds you expect the orc to hit once for 10.5 and the target to be healed for 11.
How is that not keeping up?
You could add more orcs attacking the fighter at once, but then I'd like the fighter to have better than a 15AC so that he has a decent and reasonable chance of surviving the attacks to be healed in the first place.
-James
Seriously, what kind of stats do your characters/party have? And Wealth? Starting Level?
I'd be interested to know a little detail from the pro-healing crowd:
do your DMs adjust the monsters? or are they straight from the monster manual with no change?
is the monster AC, Hitpoints, Damage, Abilities as per the books?Because as Ashiel, a few others and me pointed out: usually the healing done by a healer is far inferior to the damage output of an equal CR encounter.
The healing crowd says, that's not true, but I wonder why?
When I look at monster entries, that damage output is double from what that healer could do... maybe 2/3, but even then he'll only do it 2-3 rounds and then need to rest before the next encounter.
Leading to those famous 15 minute-days...How can you healing people, keep healing your fighter throught ~3 average encounters per days?
It has been said before, but I will hopefully be able to rephrase it a bit to make it more understandable.
Healing does not need to keep up with damage, it just has to allow a character to last longer or not die. Working with averages will not look good for healing, but damage doesn't happen in average amounts, it will usually be either more or less than average. If it is less than average then you don't need to heal, if it is more then you can use a heal and bring the damage back to normal.
I can't speak for everyone in the "healing in combat" crowd, but I can point out how it is used in my group. Generally we start combat by gauging the opposition, then buffing and positioning with some damage being done if possible. Then we go to the hardcore damage dealing phase where we try to start dropping foes (which may be done in other ways besides direct damage, btw). Healing happens as a response to spikes in incoming damage.
We have already buffed to try to mitigate damage, defensive spells, combat buffs, favourable terrain are already in full effect. But despite our best efforts a good GM roll has landed a crit on the displaced, hasted, whatever else, melee dealer of death. To make matters worse the enemy spellcaster has stripped him of his buff spells. The enemy has used good tactics and is focus firing on that character. That character who should have lasted another 3 or 4 rounds of average attacks is now in danger of dropping next round.
So what do you do? The archer will probably try to take out the caster, which he probably has a good chance of doing. The wizard will try to remove some opponents from the combat, either through a battle field control spell or a Save or Lose spell. Both the archer and wizard have a chance to fail at their attempt, bad rolls happen. The cleric can try the same thing as the archer or wizard, remove enemies from the equation, but if he fails the melee character dies. The melee character can just retreat, but now the enemies have succeeded in what the party is trying to do, remove opponents from the battle.
So let's say the cleric heals the melee guy. If he rolls well the melee guys stays in the combat and probably takes out an opponent. Along with the archer and wizard removing people, even if he doesn't with his new buffer of hit points he can probably still take a hit if or or all fail.
Alternatively the cleric doesn't heal, but tries to take out an opponent. If the archer, wizard and cleric all succeed, the melee guy is probably safe, but do you take that chance? Well, maybe he can wait and find out? The melee guy delays. If they all succeed he stays. If one or more fails he may run. If they all do he certainly will.
So I see both the healing in combat, and not, as viable.
If I have time I might see if I can come up with some numbers, but it will take a lot of work because I can't just use averages. If everyone always do average damage most likely you will never need to heal. It is when damage is not average that healing comes into play. At least, it is the way that my group uses it.
It has been said before, but I will hopefully be able to rephrase it a bit to make it more understandable.Healing does not need to keep up with damage, it just has to allow a character to last longer or not die.
Absolutely correct Lord.
My contention is that healing is usually not even close to the best way of accomplishing this objective.
It has been said before, but I will hopefully be able to rephrase it a bit to make it more understandable.Healing does not need to keep up with damage, it just has to allow a character to last longer or not die.
Absolutely correct Lord.
My contention is that healing is usually not even close to the best way of accomplishing this objective.
And here is were we will probably have to agree to disagree. I won't say that healing is the best, but I would say that it could be one of the better ones.
Here is a question for the "Don't need to heal in combat" crowd. Have you ever been in a situation where you finish a combat and then don't have time to heal back to full using happy sticks before another combat comes down on you? If so, what do you do then?
Off the top of my head I would say "Run away" would be an answer, but some times you can't. If you are deep in a dungeon or fortress are you going to be able to run far enough to get away? If so, how hard is it going to be to get back to where you were now that the enemy is alerted to your presence?
I think someone else has mentioned earlier in this thread about the possibility of rolling fights, where one fight brings on another, but I haven't heard a good response.
And here is were we will probably have to agree to disagree. I won't say that healing is the best, but I would say that it could be one of the better ones.
It has been said before, but I will hopefully be able to rephrase it a bit to make it more understandable.Healing does not need to keep up with damage, it just has to allow a character to last longer or not die.
Absolutely correct Lord.
My contention is that healing is usually not even close to the best way of accomplishing this objective.
Yep, we will have to disagree. When it comes to managing party hit points, I always prefer the approach of avoiding the things that are making my hit points go down in the first place. And luckily there are lots of spells and tactics that are very, very good at achieving exactly that goal.
In my experience healing in combat is addictive. It has an immediate and obvious effect so it appears to be a good tactic. It simplifies tactics, so it makes combat seem easier. It leads groups to depend on being healed and allows the combat party members to take risks they would otherwise avoid, which increases the need for healing.
Just say no. See how it works out.
The cleric can try the same thing as the archer or wizard, remove enemies from the equation, but if he fails the melee character dies. The melee character can just retreat, but now the enemies have succeeded in what the party is trying to do, remove opponents from the battle.
Sooo... you'd rather take the cleric out of the equation by having him heal? instead of the fighter who'll step back and drink a potion?
And I don't disagree that healing is nice for unlucky crits... I disagree when it's the go-to tactic for clerics. :-)
Are most of your monsters running around with scimitars and other 18-20 crit weapons and specced for it?
The dangerous fights my groups have to tackle usually last more then 2-3 rounds. And any healer would be out of spells/channels quickly, especially since the fights would lasts even longer.
Here is a question for the "Don't need to heal in combat" crowd. Have you ever been in a situation where you finish a combat and then don't have time to heal back to full using happy sticks before another combat comes down on you? If so, what do you do then?
Off the top of my head I would say "Run away" would be an answer, but some times you can't. If you are deep in a dungeon or fortress are you going to be able to run far enough to get away? If so, how hard is it going to be to get back to where you were now that the enemy is alerted to your presence?
I think someone else has mentioned earlier in this thread about the possibility of rolling fights, where one fight brings on another, but I haven't heard a good response.
Has happened before. And we squee with joy, because now we have our buffs still, and stuff die horribly, because we do not have to spend time increasing our power level. We are already super-saiyan, and can go right into kame-hame-ha's.
The people who somehow have high damage go to the back and quaff a potion if the fight looks hard. But really, apart from boss battles, we rarely take significant damage from most encounters. Years of experience and excellent teamwork does more than optimization.
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Here is a question for the "Don't need to heal in combat" crowd. Have you ever been in a situation where you finish a combat and then don't have time to heal back to full using happy sticks before another combat comes down on you? If so, what do you do then?
Pretty much what Kamelguru said. If we get hit immediately after the last battle, our round/level spells may still be going, so we haven't lost effectiveness yet. And our longer duration spells are certainly still going.
Remember, the point of 'kill the enemy, then heal' is that, if you kill them fast enough, you don't NEED to heal, because no one lost points.
Here is a question for the "Don't need to heal in combat" crowd. Have you ever been in a situation where you finish a combat and then don't have time to heal back to full using happy sticks before another combat comes down on you? If so, what do you do then?
Off the top of my head I would say "Run away" would be an answer, but some times you can't. If you are deep in a dungeon or fortress are you going to be able to run far enough to get away? If so, how hard is it going to be to get back to where you were now that the enemy is alerted to your presence?
I think someone else has mentioned earlier in this thread about the possibility of rolling fights, where one fight brings on another, but I haven't heard a good response.
Of course. I've been in situations where we had to heal in combat. That's not the issue. The issue is whether healing in combat should be considered a fundamental tactic or an emergency one.
I think not healing in combat is a point of pride for some people. (Skilled groups can beat the enemy before they need healing; therefore, not healing in combat is a sign of skill; therefore, healing in combat is a sign of incompetence.)
But for those who genuinely can't see that healing in combat can be very effective in dangerous situations (which are the only situations really worth discussing as far as tactics are concerned), maybe you're doing it wrong. Or would be doing it wrong if you were doing it, which you're not, because you've found something else to do that works.
So I thought it would be better to deal with this by showing an example of competent healing in combat. This is based on a real encounter; only the facts have been changed to make it more entertaining.
The situation: A party of four newly created level 9 characters are hunting down the lich who killed the previous party. The cleric is expecting to face undead, and has memorized spells like Death Ward, Restoration, Remove Paralysis, etc.
GM: And as you're travelling along, a Huge creature bursts out from behind a rock. Any of you got Knowledge: Local?
Sorcerer: No.
Cleric: No.
Fighter: No.
Bard: Why are you all looking at me?
GM: Fine. It's a big humanoid with one big eye and a big club. Roll initiative...
Cleric: Looks like I'm first. I cast Prayer and move up to within 25 feet.
Fighter: Let me show you what I can do! I charge with my scythe! Does 25 hit?
GM: No.
Fighter: Oh.
Bard: I start singing my inspiring song as a move action, and fire an arrow at it. Rolled a 17! Does 31 hit?
GM: Well, you've got -4 for firing into melee, and -4 for cover... So, no.
Bard: -4 for cover? It's huge!
GM: I'm pretty sure that's how cover works. The creature takes a full round attack on the fighter. Does a 33 hit?
Fighter: ...yes.
GM: A 25?
Fighter: Yes.
GM: A 23?
Fighter: No. Wait, I charged, so... Yes.
Cleric: What are you wearing?
Fighter: +1 breastplate. (I have my reasons.)
GM: You take 69 damage.
Fighter: That's two-thirds of my HP! I need healing!
Sorcerer: I cast fly and move up out of its reach.
Fighter: Thanks. Big help.
Cleric: I delay.
Fighter: What?
Cleric: He must have a 15 foot reach. I'm hoping you'll move away from adjacent.
Fighter: I go into a rage.
Sorcerer: I thought you were a fighter?
Fighter: I'm multiclass. Full-round attack, power attacking. 25's still a miss. 30?
GM: Hit.
Fighter: Damn. Minimum damage... But with my two-handed fighter specialty, that's still 29 points.
Cleric: And?
Fighter: Oh yes. And I do a five foot step backwards.
Cleric: I stop delaying, cast Cure Critical Wounds, run up to fifteen feet from the creature, and touch the fighter. That's (rolls pathetically) 20. Increased to 30 by my healing domain.
Bard: I cast Good Hope.
GM: Me smash squishy healer!
Cleric: Is that the giant saying that, or you?
GM: Both. What's your AC?
Cleric: 29.
Fighter: What are you wearing?
Cleric: +1 full plate, +1 tower shield.
Fighter: You took the proficiency feats for that?
Cleric: Oh, I'm not proficient in them. They're currently giving me minus 14 on all attack rolls.
GM: He steps forwards, rolls well and gets two hits. Take 48 damage.
Cleric: Not too serious, thanks to my Con of 20...
Sorcerer: I cast Haste on you guys and move further up into the air.
Bard: Yay! Now I can miss three times in a turn.
Fighter: Full-round attack. Does 26 hit?
GM: That's what you needed.
Fighter: 65 damage. Is he nearly dead?
GM: Not even close.
Cleric: I cast Grace as a swift, and move twenty feet back. Then I channel energy, excluding the creature. With my Phylactery of Positive Channeling, we get... 22 healing.
Fighter: With my rage hit points, I'm now at above my normal maximum!
Bard: I cast mirror image on myself. Six images.
GM: The giant cyclops thing decides against provoking an attack for the sake of one attack on the non-squishy healer, and full-attacks the fighter. Does a 24 hit?
Fighter: No, because of haste. ...I mean, yes. I forgot the penalty for raging.
GM: You take 63 damage.
Fighter: Help! I need healing!
Sorcerer: I cast Glitterdust to blind it. Will save?
GM: Does a 31 pass?
Sorcerer: Ugh. High Will saves, guys.
Cleric: I never use save-negates spells. I'm a pessimist. Also, my wisdom isn't that great.
Fighter: I do a full attack.
Cleric: You know, if you hit him once and ran away, you'd take two hits a round at most. That would be easier for me to keep up with.
Fighter: One attack? I'm the only one hurting it! I get two hits, for 63 damage.
GM: He looks fairly bloodied now.
Cleric: Well, I'm staying back here. I use my lesser rod of reach to cast Cure Serious Wounds from a distance, and I use a feat to channel energy as a move action. You heal 51, and I heal 20.
Bard: I'd run up and heal with a wand, but it hardly seems necessary. I move round to the side and fire my bow. Does a 29 hit?
GM: With the penalty for firing into melee, no.
Bard: I knew I should have gone inquisitor.
GM: The giant attacks the fighter. Still on 23 AC?
Fighter: Yes.
GM: That's a crit and two hits... 88 damage.
Fighter: I'm still standing! ...barely. Just so you guys know, if I fall below zero, I lose my rage bonus HP and die.
Sorcerer: I cast fireball. Reflex save?
GM: Does a 9 pass?
Sorcerer: Ha! Take 37 damage.
Fighter: I get my scythe, an intelligent item, to cast cure light wounds on me. I gain nine hit points. I also use my wand of mirror image on myself.
Sorcerer: You can't use UMD while raging.
Fighter: I'm not. I have a level of wizard.
GM: I'll allow it.
Fighter: I gain three images.
Cleric: I channel, and channel again as a move action. You heal... 53. I've got one channel left.
Bard: I cast cure moderate wounds, and run up and touch the fighter.
GM: You provoke, but the cyclops hits an image. But now you can't tell which of the fighter's images is the real one. Roll a d4.
Bard: 2.
GM: You destroy one of the fighter's images.
Fighter: Great teamwork, guys!
GM: And now it's the turn of the cyclops. He's going to keep attacking the fighter. He hits and destroys an image... hits you for 39 damage... And he misses you, but by less than five, so he destroys your last image.
Sorcerer: I begin summoning.
Fighter: Death or glory! I attack! Three hits, for... 99 damage!
GM: That fireball had brought it down to one hit point. You overkill it by a mile.
Sorcerer: We suck.
GM: Not really. That was a CR+3 random encounter. I'm amazed you didn't just run away.
Healing: boring, but not always.
Here is a question for the "Don't need to heal in combat" crowd. Have you ever been in a situation where you finish a combat and then don't have time to heal back to full using happy sticks before another combat comes down on you? If so, what do you do then?
What the others said. :-)
Also if your cleric is not required to heal every round, he's less likely to run out of spells.
There's plenty of options to "run"
we used walls of fire to nasty effect, shaping the battlefield, just recently
invisibility is available from level 1 (vanish, even though very short duration)
fogs work great too
silent image is called "powerful" for a good reason
But usually once we start rolling we actually try to hurry to not loose our buffs... I have sometimes gone as far as asking to keep initiative going to keep track of short buffs at higher levels where you could carry x rounds/level spells through two short combats :-)
or minute/level spells on low levels :D but that's a bit more risky as low-levels lack oh-crap stuff, in case you run into something unexpected
When Gming I also have had encounters where no one took any damage because of lucky rolls. OF course you should not heal then. Buffs on to hit also are better aginast multiple enemies becuase if you knock one down the amount of damage coming in is also decreased.
Battle description
wow so that bard tried to repeatedly shoot with a bow though he's really bad at it?
also most of the buffs you did are great for multiple melees... using them when there's only the fighter is meh...also a fighter who's dipped levels in barbarian and wizard... wow and people tell me I shouldn't multiclass that much :o)
also: that fighter seems less equipped to take hits then the cleric... maybe they should switch "positions" :o)
So I thought it would be better to deal with this by showing an example of competent healing in combat. This is based on a real encounter; only the facts have been changed to make it more entertaining.
** spoiler omitted **...
Great story, and I'm glad you had fun, but 2 things:
1) Your fighter is a horribly stubborn waste of party resources.
He takes 2/3rds of his HP in damage in round one because the creature hits his charge-reduced ac every time.... and then decides to rage. At 1/3rd HP. And refuses to retreat at all.
And he expects you to keep up with the damage. He is a type 4, and I would start refusing to heal him.
2) You have fly and haste against a creature with no ranged attack.
Why the hell didn't you run and shoot? Surely the Fighter has quick-draw and a ranged weapon. The wizard can light him up from the air. You could have taken 0 damage from this fight, instead of exausting all your resources.
My main PF group is a heavily buff-centric group.
Once we were in a dungeon crawl, scouted ahead to find a threat, buffed up with all of our standard buffs, then leaped into the battle with surprise.
2 rounds later the baddies were dead, and we had hardly taken a scratch.
But we were still all super buffed!
So we started charging through the dungeon looking for something else to fight.
"Me Hulk! Smash!"
We managed to get to another encounter before our buffs ran out and chewed that one up too.
It was epic.
Because as Ashiel, a few others and me pointed out: usually the healing done by a healer is far inferior to the damage output of an equal CR encounter.
The healing crowd says, that's not true, but I wonder why?
Cause it's not?
You are assuming that the damage is automatic while the monsters have to hit for it to occur. Meanwhile the curing IS automatic.
So if you take Ashiel's case with the 16STR orc with a great axe hitting at +4 for 1d12+4 (10.5 average), then even a character with a 15AC is going to be missed half the time. Meanwhile a charge off a wand of clw heals back 5.5 damage each round. In two rounds you expect the orc to hit once for 10.5 and the target to be healed for 11.
How is that not keeping up?
You could add more orcs attacking the fighter at once, but then I'd like the fighter to have better than a 15AC so that he has a decent and reasonable chance of surviving the attacks to be healed in the first place.
-James
It is still not keeping up. Experience, and math shows this. Spells generally do less damage than a melee or archery based attack, and cure spells can even keep up with damage spell of the same level until heal comes up. Channel does not keep up either.
If they can't keep up with spells, then how are they going to keep up with direct attacks?
Matthew: That encounter made me cringe on several levels.
But the most important part is very clearly highlighted: The fighter is a complete and utter idiot, and requires healing to mitigate thet he is not only useless, he is a detriment, and the party would be better off if he was not there to eat resources and be a spaz.
That is the issue I have with healing. It is "welfare". Someone who contributes little/nothing take away from those who contribute much, so they can survive as well. And the tax that pays the welfare is the rounds that other have to spend on healing.
Heh, four times now I have started a comment describing why I think a dedicated healer facilitates the execution of poor tactics. But each time I decide doing so will just exacerbate the accusations of "badwrongfun".
But this example Matthew posted is sort of like a poster child of exactly what I mean. Healing in combat is encouraging the party to do foolish things.
Or that's what it seems to me.
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Because as Ashiel, a few others and me pointed out: usually the healing done by a healer is far inferior to the damage output of an equal CR encounter.
The healing crowd says, that's not true, but I wonder why?
Cause it's not?
You are assuming that the damage is automatic while the monsters have to hit for it to occur. Meanwhile the curing IS automatic.
So if you take Ashiel's case with the 16STR orc with a great axe hitting at +4 for 1d12+4 (10.5 average), then even a character with a 15AC is going to be missed half the time. Meanwhile a charge off a wand of clw heals back 5.5 damage each round. In two rounds you expect the orc to hit once for 10.5 and the target to be healed for 11.
How is that not keeping up?
You could add more orcs attacking the fighter at once, but then I'd like the fighter to have better than a 15AC so that he has a decent and reasonable chance of surviving the attacks to be healed in the first place.
-James
Then, do it again for another 3 encounters. How is the cleric not out of spells after the second encounter?
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750g each for 50 charges. Split among 4 party members is 187g5s each. You easily make more than that after your first session or so of adventuring. 50 charges can easily last for a level, by which time, you could afford 2-3, without straining your budget.
Sure, you don't get one at the very beginning of character creation, but unless your DM is being extremely stingy, by the time you next see a city after your first adventure, you'll have enough to afford one.
Something as simple as a barred door can make buffs not last between encounters if you need to knock the door down at low levels.
In PF, it should technically be 3750 GP (minus some hard to find exceptions), but pretty much everyone ignore Magic Items Creation Rule as far as healing items are concerned.750g each for 50 charges. Split among 4 party members is 187g5s each. You easily make more than that after your first session or so of adventuring. 50 charges can easily last for a level, by which time, you could afford 2-3, without straining your budget.
Sure, you don't get one at the very beginning of character creation, but unless your DM is being extremely stingy, by the time you next see a city after your first adventure, you'll have enough to afford one.
We buy CL1 wands because they cost less and you make lower caster level not caster level 5 costing 5 times as much for less than twice as much healing. If I was crafting it why would I make a more powerful one for 5 times the cost even if I was using it myself.
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......what.
The price of a wand is equal to the level of the spell x the creator's caster level x 750g
Cure Light Wounds, spell level 1, made at caster level 1
1 x 1 x 750g = 750g.
You do know you can make magic items at lower than your current caster level, right? Table 15-17 even shows you the base cost for wands at each spell level.
I know you can't make it until 5th level but you can still make a caster level 1 version. So if the crafter leveled up to 6th level would it cost even more to make? Read caster level for magic item creation.
I know you can't make it until 5th level but you can still make a caster level 1 version. So if the crafter leveled up to 6th level would it cost even more to make? Read caster level for magic item creation.
Must have missed that. Forget I said anything about that.
edit: too slow, double ninja'd
750g each for 50 charges. Split among 4 party members is 187g5s each. You easily make more than that after your first session or so of adventuring. 50 charges can easily last for a level, by which time, you could afford 2-3, without straining your budget.
Sure, you don't get one at the very beginning of character creation, but unless your DM is being extremely stingy, by the time you next see a city after your first adventure, you'll have enough to afford one.
Rich Parents trait.
Because as Ashiel, a few others and me pointed out: usually the healing done by a healer is far inferior to the damage output of an equal CR encounter.
The healing crowd says, that's not true, but I wonder why?
Cause it's not?
You are assuming that the damage is automatic while the monsters have to hit for it to occur. Meanwhile the curing IS automatic.
So if you take Ashiel's case with the 16STR orc with a great axe hitting at +4 for 1d12+4 (10.5 average), then even a character with a 15AC is going to be missed half the time. Meanwhile a charge off a wand of clw heals back 5.5 damage each round. In two rounds you expect the orc to hit once for 10.5 and the target to be healed for 11.
How is that not keeping up?
You could add more orcs attacking the fighter at once, but then I'd like the fighter to have better than a 15AC so that he has a decent and reasonable chance of surviving the attacks to be healed in the first place.
-James
You must be skimming my posts instead of reading them. In the example I showed, those orcs come in groups of three. So if each orc only has a 50% chance to hit, the actual damage output of enemies vs healing is 15.75 damage per round, barring the odd critical which will devastate your heal to damage ratio further (at low levels it may outright kill a PC). But you're demonstrating a really terrible understanding of tactics and situational issues here; which is unusual for you Mr. Maissen.
Firstly, you ignore the fact that getting bonuses to hit entirely favor the orcs. If there is an adept that has cast bless, all the orcs deal more damage. If the orcs charge and bring their to-hit from +4 to +6, they deal more damage. If they quaffed a potion during the battle (magic weapon or enlarge person for example) they deal more damage. If they flank, they will deal more damage.
You also demonstrate another problem. Healing is really damn ineffective as a spell to heal ratio. You're burning 30 gp a round on a spell that requires you to touch your target (thus bunching your people up), because actually casting this spell won't even last you the whole combat if you're really trying (1st level cleric has - at best - 4 spells per day, and you're talking about eating around 1-2 per round here just to heal 1 guy).
There's also the fact that you're favored at this level via the cheap cost of a CLW wand. +2-9 hit points of healing quickly becomes obsolete for combat situations. Then you must fall back to either using your own spells, or using wands that are far more expensive. A baseline cure moderate wounds wand is 4,500 gp. That's 90 gp per charge. It heals between 5-19 damage per charge. A 3rd level cure wand is 11,250 gp or 225 gp per charge.
That's an expensive habit to fund. In most cases, if you're going to eat wands like they're candy, you could actually remove the enemy entirely. A wand of magic missile at caster level 9 is 6,750 gp. We could spam one of those every round too. Probably with more effect. I mean it's 17.5 damage each round that's more or less unavoidable by non-arcane casters. It will two-shot monsters like Ogres.
I mean, if we're talking about spamming wands and such for tactical usage; we can seriously push the envelope here and go from merely surviving battles to outright dominating them.
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Here's a list of wands that can help you steamroll some encounters. I mean, if we're assuming that we're going to be going through wands like candy here, let's apply it across the board. Most of these are quite affordable; especially if you buy them partially charged (their cost per charge is market value divided by 50).
CL 5 Magic Missile; 3,750 gp; 937.5 gp; Notes: Average of 550 damage, deals av 10.5 (6-15) unavoidable damage each round, every round. Costs 75 gp per charge, or 18.75 gp from each party member. Is quite capable of one-shotting most low-level enemies, or completely killing mid to mid-low level enemies. Also does a darn good job of disrupting spells on any caster who lacks a shield spell active.
CL 9 Magic Missile; 6,750 gp; 1,687.5 gp; Notes: Average of 875 damage, deals 17.5 (10-25) unavoidable damage each round, every round. Costs 135 gp per charge, or 33.75 gp per party member. Like the CL 5 version, it can one shot enemies and trivialize encounters. If everyone in the party has one, you can focus-fire the damnest things to death (4 PCs opening a combat with this will typically deal 70 damage against anything that doesn't have shield active, and will shatter an amulet of shielding in 1.5 rounds).
CL 4 Hide From Undead; 3,000 gp; 750 gp; Notes: This wand allows your entire party to essentially ignore undead encounters. There is no counter for Hide from Undead. I'm not even sure True Seeing bypasses it. It lasts plenty of time and affects up to 4 party members per casting.
CL 3 Sound Burst; 4,500 gp; 1,125 gp; Notes: This wand allows your cleric to spam sound burst. It's an un-avoidable 1d8 damage in a 10 ft. radius spread that forces a DC 13 saving throw vs stunning. At low levels, spamming this round after round can turn a battle quite handily.
CL 5 Summon Monster III; 11,250 gp; 2,812.5 gp; Notes: As a spell-trigger item, the cast time is only 1 standard action. You can poop out between 1-5 meat shields of various strengths, depending on your circumstances. A personal favorite is simply summoning celestial or fiendish aurochs to trample enemies. Either the aurochs keep trampling enemies or they waste the time to fight with the aurochs, which means not fighting with your party.
CL 5 Call Lightning; 11,250 gp; 2,812.5 gp; Notes: Bomb your enemies with 3d6-3d10 electricity damage every round for each casting. Nice long range and can be used indoors. The 3d10 damage is easy to get unless the weather is more or less perfect. Can be cast multiple times if you want.
CL 5 Ray of Exhaustion; 11,250 gp; 2,812.5 gp; Notes: Just blast your foes. Even on a successful save the enemy is fatigued which prevents running, charging, and reduces Strength and Dexterity by 2. If your target makes the initial save, a second hit will make them Exhausted no matter what their saves. Exhausted cannot run or charge and takes a -6 to Strength and Dexterity. This spell can render many strong enemies impotent when spammed. The -6 to Strength and Dexterity also severely hurts melee and ranged offense as well as reducing AC and Reflex saves noticeably.
To make healing in combat truly worthwhile, you need to include a houserule that healing only works in combat. Kinda like the cleric's powers in 4e.
Simple as that.
I can't even begin to understand how healing is sane in the orc encounter, unless the orc has like 500 hp, and it is a battle of attrition.
1) There is no front-line character with AC15. If you have AC 15 as a fighter, even at lv1, you're bad at the game, and you should feel bad. If anything that is not CR=APL+3 hits a front-liner on less than a 10, you are under-equipped.
2) Unless your GM runs houserules, an average orc warrior1 has less HP than a cleric has DPR (barring certain builds that simply do not do combat). The cleric should on average take down one orc/rd even by doing melee. If he uses spells, he can do more.
3) Even summon monster 1 is better than healing. Place the summoned critter behind the fighter, maybe do some damage, and provide him with a flanking bonus. The dumb orcs will likely make some attacks against it too, and waste their attacks on something that will disappear one round later anyway.
4) Why are all of James' examples "A fighter and his healbot", and never a group of people that would create a scenario that translates to something I could imagine actually seeing in a game?
5) Strange that nobody has mentioned paladins, who by virtue of swift action lay-on-hands is the only class that makes healing work without sacrificing a better standard action.
Just for clarification (not that it's terribly relevant to your point) - 4E powers work outside of combat.
I have faith that if you wanted to try to build a PC that could keep up in healing the damage that a reasonable party will be taking that you could do so. Perhaps you're using a shield other spell to spread out the damage between the tank and yourself. Perhaps you're burning a quickened channel as well as a cure spell. And perhaps you're a healing domain cleric so all of those cure wound spells are empowered. How much you need will depend upon the damage that you are taking.
If I built the best healer I could*, and I made slightly more than a passing effort** at trying to build a damage dealer my healer might pull even at best. It definitely would not be able to keep up over an entire adventuring day. I would guess that by the end of the 2nd combat things would definitely be going downhill, and I am probably being generous.
*browsed the boards and checked every book I could find
**could only use feats and spells I could think of without doing research, and I could only use the books to make sure I met the prerequisites.
Just to be clear I am saying someone who is trying to use mostly channel, cure spells, and shield other.
PS:I already know what an blast focused caster or heavy hitting weapon user will do. You would have to be able to clear hundreds of hit points of damage. Even using stock monsters it is a tall task. There are only so many heals that can be cast.
Incidentally, James Maissen notes that the expenditure of spamming healing wands in combat is quickly made up by the treasure that you are expected to acquire. That seems pretty reasonable, and you are expected to recoup used consumables as time progresses; so let's have a look at what this means.
A 5th level party encounters a pair of ogres. These ogres are wielding longspears (2d6+7 damage) and quaff potions of enlarge person, bringing them to a very impressive reach, with each attack dealing about 3d6+9 points of damage. They have a +7 to hit (+9 when flanking w/ super reach). A single hit deals 19.5 damage. It takes an average of about 4 hits with a CLW wand to restore the damage dealt by a single hit from one of the ogres. The PCs may have to deal with AoOs (reach weapons + huge ogres), and being easily flanked (the ogres can move around 40 ft. and their goofy reach makes it very easy to set up flanks). There are several ways to handle this encounter.
1) Take your licks and try to heal through the damage to keep people standing.
2) Disable the ogres somehow.
3) Crush them, grind them up, and blast them into oblivion.
If we go method #1, we risk PCs getting one-shot by a good roll, or risk getting ourselves thrashed for trying to cast a healing spell on the tank while within their combined reach. If the healer cannot mitigate the incoming damage, then his actions are wasted. Prolonging the fight actually increases the amount of incoming damage overall. So it's of questionable reliability to try and erase the damage done, as opposed to removing the threat.
If we go with method #2, we instead decide to do something like cast Summon Monster III and fill the area with 1d4+1 riding dogs. The riding dogs can aid-another the PCs until killed. At +2 AC per dog, they can make the PCs difficult to hit. Likewise, if there are dogs between the PCs and the Ogre, the PCs have soft cover (+4 AC) and cannot be hit by AoOs from that direction; so the ogres have to eat through the dogs 1 hit at a time before they can deal with the PCs who might be bombing the with alchemist fire or the like (gotta love AoO immunity).
Alternatively, if you're a druid, you might use entangle vs the low-reflex enlarged ogres to root them, and then have your party fall back and pick them apart with ranged weapons. Entangle DC 14 can end up holding the ogres more or less indefinitely, since they have to save each round vs being entangled, halves their speed, and requires a move action to break free. Dropping 2 entangle spells is essentially the "GG".
If we go with method #3, we DPS them down as fast as humanly possible. Every PC chucks an alchemist fire at big stupid ogre #1, more than likely hitting and dealing 4d6 damage on round 1, then another 4d6 on round 2 automatically. Now badly wounded (2/30 HP) the ogre might retreat, or fall to the next magic missile dropped by the mage. Dual-wielding alchemist fires (or using Rapid Shot) vs their touch AC 6 can result in ending 1 ogre each round (tossing up to 28 average damage during round 1 with another 28 damage from burning on round 2).
EDIT: Using the same logic, that money is a river and we can ride the wave of consumables, we could just as easily negate the majority of the encounter by spamming some alchemist fires, wands, etc that prevent damage from occurring in the first place.