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I must be playing wrong. I GM a home game, and I can't remember more than a half-dozen fights in the last year where in-combat healing wasn't necessary to keep characters alive.Unfortunately too many games are run in such a way that healing in combat does become necessary in spite of the party's best efforts to avoid it.I'd counter with the comment that if in-combat healing isn't necessary a reasonable fraction of the time, you're playing below your APL. I would certainly get bored if every fight was a pushover - and a fight where you don't ever get hurt enough to worry about death is a pushover.
Hmm.... so this is a recurring counter-argument, the idea that if you aren't having to heal during combat, the GM is a "pushover" or the party is not being "challenged."
What is a "reasonable fraction of the time" to you Death? I suspect that both of us feel that combat healing should be performed a "reasonable fraction" of the time, but that we probably don't agree on what that "reasonable fraction" should be.
When I GM I typically don't set up every encounter to push the party to their limits. I try to set up some encounters that are truly "pushover" encounters, which are intended to give the party a feeling of being powerful and successful. Other encounters are designed to make them work a bit, and bleed down some critical resources, making them sweat. Some encounters are designed to push them to their limits. In general the only time they should really have to heal during combat is during the "push them to their limits" encounters. In my games that might be every fourth or fifth encounter.
I have a reputation of being a somewhat deadly GM. Players have characters die in my campaigns. So I don't believe I run "pushover" campaigns. What I do try to do is set up climactic encounters after a series of encounters that are designed to ramp up the drama. I have found that games where every encounter is potentially deadly, the party loses that "omigod I'm gonna die!" adrenaline rush that I really want them to feel in those truly climactic encounters. For them to feel that fear of god, they sometimes have to feel invulnerable for a while for it to really matter. Or that's been my experience.
PFS is designed in a way for average characters, working together.This isn't the PFS section of the boards, and as such is aimed at a broader audience.
That doesn't invalidate your points, but I wanted to be sure you were aware of your audience.
There really isn't a "you're playing it wrong" in a home game -- it's what your group has (explicitly or implicitly) agreed to. But that's not the issue. Wraithstrike's point to starting this thread was to clear up exactly this misapprehension. I haven't followed the other threads, so maybe "don't heal during combat" was presented in an overly-aggressive manner. That aside, the point here is that it's not a strict rule, but rather, "only heal during combat when it's necessary." Or, maybe, "healing in combat should not be your only thing (or even the main thing) your character brings to the table during combat."
Definitely. And no, I was using it as a common denominator--in a home game, everything's out the window.
If someone gets hit harder than they're likely to get hit again (such as from a nasty crit), and you have a powerful enough healing spell to essentially "undo" that event, such that it's likely to take multiple rounds for that kind of damage to stack up again, then it *might* be worth spending that round healing them.
Alternatively, if someone's almost down, and that someone has a substantial chance of ending (or effectively ending) the encounter but you don't, then healing them up enough that they can last that round might be worthwhile.
Those are the two main reasons to heal in combat. If your healing wouldn't fall into either of those categories, then 99% of the time you should be doing something else.
It really depends on how challenging the game is and how much the healer can heal vis-a-vis the full health of the team. In the games I've played or GMed that are most challenging, having a healer has been a great boon. Particularly in the Runelords game I'm GMing at a section heavy on wizards, you'll often see the following situation, sort of a hybrid of your two there but belonging to neither: via AoE, multiple characters take average damage, which puts them where they'll be taken out again by the same average damage next round. Healer keeps that from happening for a few rounds, allowing the party to destroy the enemy wizards.
That said, our group's Undead Lord can heal all negative affinity characters to just about full health from 0 with a channel + fast channel and is capable of granting negative affinity, so this strategy wouldn't be as successful with a healer who isn't throwing around big heals. Obviously if you're level 12 and you're healing 6d6 per round with a Channel Positive Energy, instead of healing over 20d6, that isn't helping anyone very much except in the situations you describe.
As it is, it's very difficult to kill anyone via damage while she's around, and the party has good offense and good defense (though at level 12+, good defense usually still isn't enough to keep from being hit by monsters, and only evasion will prevent an admixture wizard who knows what elements you have Resist Energy up for from AoEing you)--
For instance, the superstitious barbarian has high offense and unassailable saves (with the human barbarian favored class bonus of being extra superstitious I think he gets 4 more just from that, plus like 5 from the actual superstition ability for a total of +9 to all saves while in rage), so hit point damage is usually the only thing the Runelords enemies have available that will work on him.
Now you might say "But RE, if the party had additional offensive characters, they wouldn't need the healer". That's the usual party line anyway. I've been uniquely blessed/cursed with this group to have a high rate of turnover--players leave and characters die a lot. In fact, before getting the Undead Lord, pretty much every big boss fight would kill a character or two. Heck, I think I killed four (out of like eight possible, since two PCs had Leadership) characters with the boss of Part IV. However, after adding the Undead Lord, the only two deaths that haven't been Breath of Lifed back (another major healing effect that is needed in like maybe 40% of really tough fights) have been from bad rolls against Finger of Death.
So basically, I saw them before the mega-healer and after (including some times when they had some characters who could heal because their class was like cleric or paladin, but they spent no other resources on being better at healing), and they're way better off with the dedicated healer than they were before. This may be because the other characters bring the damage in spades, if you can keep them alive.
It really depends on the GM and how he sets the encounters. FOr instance, its fairly common for 1 of my GMs to send a single CR+6 or more monster at us. It can usually do 75% of someone's health in a round. Healing and avoidance are big factors, but unless the healing is big its pretty useless. In annother game, the GM likes to throw lots of lower level mooks often in waves. Proper crowd control prevents most of the damage, so aside from the occasional fluke or prolonged battle we rarely need healing in combat. Battles can routinely go 10+ rounds though, and often smaller maintenance healing is useful while the party repositions. These end up being battles of attrition.
In my game, I'm running through kingmaker. Even jumping up the CR of opponents, unless I get a random crit the players don't need healing. I find it amusing because that is the only game we have a dedicated healer in, and he had to branch into other buffs to not be bored.
I must be playing wrong. I GM a home game, and I can't remember more than a half-dozen fights in the last year where in-combat healing wasn't necessary to keep characters alive.Unfortunately too many games are run in such a way that healing in combat does become necessary in spite of the party's best efforts to avoid it.I'd counter with the comment that if in-combat healing isn't necessary a reasonable fraction of the time, you're playing below your APL. I would certainly get bored if every fight was a pushover - and a fight where you don't ever get hurt enough to worry about death is a pushover.
1. It might not be your GM'ing, but how your group plays.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
I can't think of the last time a GM through something less than APL+2 at my party.
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I must be playing wrong. I GM a home game, and I can't remember more than a half-dozen fights in the last year where in-combat healing wasn't necessary to keep characters alive.Unfortunately too many games are run in such a way that healing in combat does become necessary in spite of the party's best efforts to avoid it.I'd counter with the comment that if in-combat healing isn't necessary a reasonable fraction of the time, you're playing below your APL. I would certainly get bored if every fight was a pushover - and a fight where you don't ever get hurt enough to worry about death is a pushover.Hmm.... so this is a recurring counter-argument, the idea that if you aren't having to heal during combat, the GM is a "pushover" or the party is not being "challenged."
What is a "reasonable fraction of the time" to you Death? I suspect that both of us feel that combat healing should be performed a "reasonable fraction" of the time, but that we probably don't agree on what that "reasonable fraction" should be.
When I GM I typically don't set up every encounter to push the party to their limits. I try to set up some encounters that are truly "pushover" encounters, which are intended to give the party a feeling of being powerful and successful. Other encounters are designed to make them work a bit, and bleed down some critical resources, making them sweat. Some encounters are designed to push them to their limits. In general the only time they should really have to heal during combat is during the "push them to their limits" encounters. In my games that might be every fourth or fifth encounter.
I have a reputation of being a somewhat deadly GM. Players have characters die in my campaigns. So I don't believe I run "pushover" campaigns. What I do try to do is set up climactic encounters after a series of encounters that are designed to ramp up the drama. I have found that games where every encounter is potentially deadly, the party loses...
Well, I've run a home game for a little over a year now, and I've killed two characters (one failed both saves against phantasmal killer and the other forgot to ask for healing after taking 20 dice of fire damage in two rounds; the third attack got him). I can only remember a half-dozen instances where in-combat healing wasn't necessary. Now, some of that was due to poor tactics (a raft only moves five feet per round, guys; that's a LOOOONG time to spend in the catapults' range!) and some due to their decision to go after bigger game (okay, Snargrak might've been a bit much the way I built him) than they could handle...but most of it was just that I stated from the beginning that combat would be dangerous and they'd better be ready. In fact, I gave them a 25-point build to allow for it, and they've got...um...lots of characters who can heal. Several of whom usually do in the course of a fight. I don't generally build 'easy' fights except when the bad guys are harassing the PCs for camping too close. I'm not trying to make every fight a boss fight, mind; I just tend to have my monsters use intelligent tactics when they're intelligent enough to do so.
Oh, wait...I killed the Cavalier's cohort's mount (also a cavalier), too. With a crit from an allosaurus. Tasty!
I think the /intent/ is to be helpful. I think it does not always /come across/ that way, and therein lies the trouble. Does this make sense? That is, I may know that x, y, and z is the best way to do a thing--but I should not always go up to someone and say: hey, you should do it x, y, and z.
Now, this is different if they are looking for opinions. In which case--may I offer an idea?
Perhaps: "If you're concerned about being forced into a single role, why not speak with your group and spread it out? Here are some ideas for each member in your party: (discussion on mages using displacement, etc.)"
The tone here is slightly different. It doesn't say outright that "healing in combat is wrong" though it guides towards that point. Jiggy, I'm also not saying that you've never offered suggestions. I'm only providing an example of a way that it could be approached--which makes misperceptions less likely. I'm also saying that stating upfront that "x is wrong" tends to cause defenses to be thrown into place
Am I making sense? This is not to call out any one particular person--I'm not at all. I'm actually interested in fixing it. I value both "sides" and really would rather see a "coming to the table" than upset that can make playing less fun. I get the feeling that I'd enjoy being at the table with a number of you, and I'd hate to see something like this erupt.
I can understand the frustration, though. "But that way /doesn't work/!" It can be difficult to sit on the side lines, you know?
Some backgroud on how this started. I look in to another thread and saw this.
Yes, there’s a number of folks who think in-combat healing is a bad idea. But generally those are the kind of folks who think that PC’s are as disposable as Kleenex,...
Now these type of accusations have been tossed around before. As you can see nobody is advocating allowing a PC to die. I was basically trying to clear that up.
The premise of the post assumes the GM is not boosting encounters also to force them to heal. In such situations, the party should not be having to heal constantly if they use tactics(as presented in this thread), have decent builds, and the dice gods are not against them. <--That pretty much sums it up.
Nobody is saying healing in combat is bad, wrong fun. We are saying that generally speaking it is inefficient, and then we list ways to avoid being inefficient.
As to people getting upset-->Sometimes people will get upset no matter how nicely you say something. As long as you say what about trying ____ instead of ______ in a calm, and rational manner I see no reason to be upset.
Now if insults are thrown around or you try to command them to run their character a certain way that is another issue.
edit:grammar
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1. It might not be your GM'ing, but how your group plays.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
Heh. My players are pretty good at optimization. Not perfect, mind...but pretty good. Gonna be fun to see how they do against the hordes of undead they're about to fight, considering that the first real fight they've had killed one of them...and it was an APL-1 encounter.
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Here's another thought to mix into this discussion:
I keep seeing people talk about when in-combat healing is necessary to "keep someone alive", and how it's more often than they feel someone else is representing it to be.
But are such people really talking about keeping someone alive? Or just keeping someone conscious?
Keeping teammates alive is good. But keeping them conscious is not always a worthwhile goal, and in fact is sometimes counterproductive.
If someone goes down, they lie there. In most cases, the enemies will then focus their fire on someone who's still trying to kill them, not someone who's lying on the ground. Given that you only bleed for 1 point per round (and might even stabilize!), a fallen party member is usually pretty safe.
Then the "healer" comes over and brings him up to 2HP. Now he's conscious, and therefore a threat. And if the enemy is intelligent, he now knows to splatter anyone he drops so that they don't keep coming back. The healer may have just signed a death sentence for the injured character, instead of keeping him alive.
So if you base your assessment of the necessity of in-combat healing on the notion that you've got to keep people up, you might actually be doing more harm than good.
I haven't followed the other threads, so maybe "don't heal during combat" was presented in an overly-aggressive manner.
It definitely has been presented as such in previous threads.
I think what causes the reaction is the fact that every home game has a different difficulty dynamic. For instance, in my Sunday PFS game, we have a dedicated healer (Oracle of Life) who doesn't usually get to heal all that much due to the easiness of many PFS scenarios (his Lifelink alone keeps most other people topped up, though, and at least last scenario we had someone with a Vicious weapon for him to Lifelink, so he was essentially allowing that guy to add 2d6 damage to every attack without really paying the drawback). When we've needed his healing in the tougher scenarios, we've really needed it, but most weeks we've been pretty safe throughout with lots of enemies just missing everyone.
So Thorkull, I think the overly-aggressive promotion of "healing in combat is playing it wrong" come from people who, in their game at least, are actually objectively correct about that fact, playing a game with difficulty dynamics like those in most PFS scenarios (such as, for instance, actually playing PFS).
So even though I'm pro-healing-in-combat due to the dynamics of my own games, I do think that the anti-healing-in-combat people have the evidence on their side for their games.
I guess my point is--we should avoid making definitive statements for anyone's game but our own, unless it's PFS, and in that case I agree with the don't-need-a-healer for most scenarios. I can list the scenarios I've seen where you pretty much need a healer on the fingers of one hand, but they definitely exist--for instance in one scenario [SPOILERyou stand to take 8d6 damage without a save from a set of four enemies who all prepped a 40 foot radius burst that does 2d6 no save. At Subtier 4-5, that 28 damage is likely to put the level 4s at a point where they will drop in one blow, even if they started at full (and there's a good reason why they might not, since two instances of an AoE hit-and-run enemy have been harassing them just before this). After that first initial salvo, the enemies are pretty easy to take down, but not if they only need one hit to drop each PC. [/SPOILER]
Heh. My players are pretty good at optimization. Not perfect, mind...but pretty good. Gonna be fun to see how they do against the hordes of undead they're about to fight, considering that the first real fight they've had killed one of them...and it was an APL-1 encounter.1. It might not be your GM'ing, but how your group plays.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
How did one of them die to an APL-1 encounter?
...nobody is advocating allowing a PC to die...I am!
But then, I'm the GM. And my bad guys despise the PCs in my campaign (grumble mumble stolen artifact grumble).
edit to last post:PC's are not advocating allowing other PC's to die. :)
I'd counter with the comment that if in-combat healing isn't necessary a reasonable fraction of the time, you're playing below your APL. I would certainly get bored if every fight was a pushover - and a fight where you don't ever get hurt enough to worry about death is a pushover.
HP totals are not a measure of difficulty.
Here's another thought to mix into this discussion:
I keep seeing people talk about when in-combat healing is necessary to "keep someone alive", and how it's more often than they feel someone else is representing it to be.
But are such people really talking about keeping someone alive? Or just keeping someone conscious?
Keeping teammates alive is good. But keeping them conscious is not always a worthwhile goal, and in fact is sometimes counterproductive.
If someone goes down, they lie there. In most cases, the enemies will then focus their fire on someone who's still trying to kill them, not someone who's lying on the ground. Given that you only bleed for 1 point per round (and might even stabilize!), a fallen party member is usually pretty safe.
Then the "healer" comes over and brings him up to 2HP. Now he's conscious, and therefore a threat. And if the enemy is intelligent, he now knows to splatter anyone he drops so that they don't keep coming back. The healer may have just signed a death sentence for the injured character, instead of keeping him alive.
So if you base your assessment of the necessity of in-combat healing on the notion that you've got to keep people up, you might actually be doing more harm than good.
Yeah, the goal is instead to put them at the point where they can survive another round's worth of stuff, or at least to keep them exactly out of the anti-sweet spot of 2 hit points that you described (where the enemy, if it does ~20 damage might kill them outright instead of knocking them out). In fact, that's another good time to heal even if you can only heal a little--if your ally is at like 2 health and the enemy stands a good chance of outright killing them with the next hit AND if you think that other than that, your team is definitely going to win the fight (since obviously by healing up an ally to where they will still be KOed, just not dead, is action-economy inefficient if you're on the verge of TPKing)
Also many standard familiars have scent. If a bad guy is within 30 ft the familiar instantly knows without regard to stealth.
Scent is not the same as Auto-Detect 30-Foot Radius.
Also many standard familiars have scent. If a bad guy is within 30 ft the familiar instantly knows without regard to stealth.Scent is not the same as Auto-Detect 30-Foot Radius.
No, but it is still true that scent is generally a very under-utilized scouting ability.
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How did one of them die to an APL-1 encounter?Heh. My players are pretty good at optimization. Not perfect, mind...but pretty good. Gonna be fun to see how they do against the hordes of undead they're about to fight, considering that the first real fight they've had killed one of them...and it was an APL-1 encounter.1. It might not be your GM'ing, but how your group plays.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
The party is a large group of 8th and 9th level characters, most of whom have cohorts. There were 9 total characters in the fight; five PCs and four cohorts. The combat was against a CR9 (witchfire) and some little stuff (a CR 3 sleletal champion and 4 CR 1/2 sleleton archers). The witchfire hit the 9th level ranger with it's 8d6 fire attack three times; with the ranger failing the first save (thus becoming vulnerable to fire and taking more damage on the second and third attacks. The equivalent was 32d6 of fire damage, and he never asked for healing (despite there being four or five other PCs/cohorts who could've healed him).
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HP totals are not a measure of difficulty.
I'd counter with the comment that if in-combat healing isn't necessary a reasonable fraction of the time, you're playing below your APL. I would certainly get bored if every fight was a pushover - and a fight where you don't ever get hurt enough to worry about death is a pushover.
I think the issue people need to realize is there are different perceptions of difficult. There are dms that think every fight should bring the party bellow half health, and there are those that only throw CR = APL encounters at the party except 'boss' fights. How important in combat healing is, is heavily influenced by this factor.
If a dm wants every fight (or most fights) to 'push the characters to their limits' then in combat healing becomes a requirement, since the other methods of dealing with the situation will simply be (eventually) countered by the dm to keep up the level of 'difficulty'.
No, but it is still true that scent is generally a very under-utilized scouting ability.Also many standard familiars have scent. If a bad guy is within 30 ft the familiar instantly knows without regard to stealth.Scent is not the same as Auto-Detect 30-Foot Radius.
'Struth--the inquisitor in one of my games loves his Bag of Tricks for sending out a rat or something to sweep the floor until it gets within one square. Then the party casts Faerie Fire on that square (they don't have anyone who can Glitterdust).
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If a dm wants every fight (or most fights) to 'push the characters to their limits' then in combat healing becomes a requirement
Even this statement is making assumptions. A party could be pushed to the limit without taking more than minimal damage. Throw them up against a group of clerics (or one big cleric) with hold person out the wazoo. They'll fear for their lives, but healing won't be the issue.
Really, any encounter where the hard part is the environment or situation has the potential to really push the PCs without making in-combat healing viable, let alone a requirement. Last time I was fighting for my life was against a pair of dark stalkers, spamming deeper darkness without being hindered at all themselves. In-combat healing was NOT what we were clamoring for as we struggled to come out alive.
The above-quoted statement is only true if the GM's only method of turning up the challenge is via raw numbers.
Wraithstrike:
Definitely. I want to be clear that I'm not accusing you of anything, either. In fact, I'd originally posted because I'd hoped you'd nudge a bit on the language, too--more in terms of more forwardly setting an example for others to follow.
Am I making sense, here? I think language is part of the issue, different mindsets aside.
It took me a while, myself, to see beyond it and realize: oh, that person really /is/ trying to be helpful. It's just coming across...yeah. Perhaps not as intended? :)
Yet, I'll also be one of the first to admit that the guy with 4 hp charging to the fore really frustrates me, too.
No harm intended. I hope it wasn't taken that way. We're really on similar sides, here, and I appreciate you putting together this thread.
Jiggy, absolutely. If the only means of measuring the "challenge" of a campaign is how many times the party is getting chopped into pieces by the enemy.... well, I can only say that there are lots of ways to be bored. And endless beatdown encounters is definitely one of them, no matter how close you come to being knocked out or killed.
I have been in campaigns where every encounter is a life and death beat-down challenge. It is interesting how quickly that becomes boring to me.
Also many standard familiars have scent. If a bad guy is within 30 ft the familiar instantly knows without regard to stealth.Scent is not the same as Auto-Detect 30-Foot Radius.
It automatically detects any threat within 30 ft.
When a creature detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed—only its presence somewhere within range.
If a dm wants every fight (or most fights) to 'push the characters to their limits' then in combat healing becomes a requirementEven this statement is making assumptions. A party could be pushed to the limit without taking more than minimal damage. Throw them up against a group of clerics (or one big cleric) with hold person out the wazoo. They'll fear for their lives, but healing won't be the issue.
Really, any encounter where the hard part is the environment or situation has the potential to really push the PCs without making in-combat healing viable, let alone a requirement. Last time I was fighting for my life was against a pair of dark stalkers, spamming deeper darkness without being hindered at all themselves. In-combat healing was NOT what we were clamoring for as we struggled to come out alive.
The above-quoted statement is only true if the GM's only method of turning up the challenge is via raw numbers.
I disagree. What is the risk if those clerics hold the person? If the players just get hold and nothing happens, then there wont be fear, probably just annoyance. Its the crits that come off hitting helpless opponents thats scary. And if those dark stalkers never get any shots in in that darkness again the sense of difficulty will be very different then if they did.
My point is that alot of dms do in fact think it is important that actual damage is done for something to be considered 'hard'. And while I agree there are many ways to make encounters 'hard' and that 'hard' can mean alot of things there are certainly dms out there which equate tough fight with low hit point totals at the end of it. Saying there are other ways to do it doesnt make those dms not exist.
Also many standard familiars have scent. If a bad guy is within 30 ft the familiar instantly knows without regard to stealth.Scent is not the same as Auto-Detect 30-Foot Radius.It automatically detects any threat within 30 ft.
When a creature detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed—only its presence somewhere within range.
Bolded the important part of that for you...
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
Not that your point is invalid but I don't believe APL=CR should make for easy fights. I agree that a lot of the time combat can be ended with little healing to no healing during combat.
Difficulty....Challenge Rating Equals
Easy..............APL –1
Average........APL
Challenging...APL +1
Hard..............APL +2
Epic...............APL +3
Bolded the important part of that for you...Also many standard familiars have scent. If a bad guy is within 30 ft the familiar instantly knows without regard to stealth.Scent is not the same as Auto-Detect 30-Foot Radius.It automatically detects any threat within 30 ft.
When a creature detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed—only its presence somewhere within range.
Relevance? There is no action. Otherwise:
Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.
Do you have to take an action to see something?
It automatically detects any threat within 30 ft.
No, it doesn't. Scent doesn't even have a fixed range of 30 feet. Also notice the complete lack of adverbs modifying any verbs related to detection:
When a creature detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed—only its presence somewhere within range.
To further emphasize my last post on this point, try to add bold-facing to the word "automatically" in the PRD quote.
meabo, there have been developer rulings that scent is not auto-detect. In some cases a perception check against a DC is required.
In my games scent is treated as realistically as I can manage. Scent can be concealed in my games much as it can be concealed in real life. Also scent is affected by wind and environment.
Before scent can be used to identify the presence of something, the scent itself must first be detected.
A clever sneak will work as hard to conceal or eliminate scent as they do to hide visual or audio evidence of their presence.
The party is a large group of 8th and 9th level characters, most of whom have cohorts. There were 9 total characters in the fight; five PCs and four cohorts. The combat was against a CR9 (witchfire) and some little stuff (a CR 3 sleletal champion and 4 CR 1/2 sleleton archers). The witchfire hit the 9th level ranger with it's 8d6 fire attack three times; with the ranger failing the first save (thus becoming vulnerable to fire and taking more damage on the second and third attacks. The equivalent was 32d6 of fire damage, and he never asked for healing (despite there being four or five other PCs/cohorts who could've healed him).How did one of them die to an APL-1 encounter?Heh. My players are pretty good at optimization. Not perfect, mind...but pretty good. Gonna be fun to see how they do against the hordes of undead they're about to fight, considering that the first real fight they've had killed one of them...and it was an APL-1 encounter.1. It might not be your GM'ing, but how your group plays.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
I see. I would put that under poor tactics.
I don't know if you allow players to say "I have X hit points" left, but even if not the ranger could have said, "heal me".PS:I used a witchfire before with some other monster that uses fire. They are really good for their CR. :)
Wraithstrike:
Definitely. I want to be clear that I'm not accusing you of anything, either. In fact, I'd originally posted because I'd hoped you'd nudge a bit on the language, too--more in terms of more forwardly setting an example for others to follow.
Am I making sense, here? I think language is part of the issue, different mindsets aside.
It took me a while, myself, to see beyond it and realize: oh, that person really /is/ trying to be helpful. It's just coming across...yeah. Perhaps not as intended? :)
Yet, I'll also be one of the first to admit that the guy with 4 hp charging to the fore really frustrates me, too.
No harm intended. I hope it wasn't taken that way. We're really on similar sides, here, and I appreciate you putting together this thread.
I wasn't offended. I just wanted to be clear. :)
*shrug*
If you need a perception check to see something, it must be somewhat difficult to see.
If you need a perception check to detect something using the scent ability, it must be somewhat difficult to smell.
Just because it's hard for me to detect something with my sense of smell doesn't mean it's hard for a dog. A dog can be trained to detect the presence of single cells at a very close range (perception check required). An invisible monster 30 ft. away (most likely many trillions of cells) should be fairly trivial given that level of detection.
The detection of scent within the scent range is equivalent to vision in terms of detection.
I know this is somewhat off-topic (the scent discussion), but it was mainly to address the difficulty of using scouting to avoid healing. I'll shut up now (:
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
Not that your point is invalid but I don't believe APL=CR should make for easy fights. I agree that a lot of the time combat can be ended with little healing to no healing during combat.
Difficulty....Challenge Rating Equals
Easy..............APL –1
Average........APL
Challenging...APL +1
Hard..............APL +2
Epic...............APL +3
That applies for average players and up to a certain level. As you level up you can take on APL +4 or higher as boss fights. With optimized players APL=CR is an easy fight, but for the sake of this discussion I guess I should assume average. So by the chart an APL+1 might require some sort of in combat healing.
*shrug*
If you need a perception check to see something, it must be somewhat difficult to see.
If you need a perception check to detect something using the scent ability, it must be somewhat difficult to smell.
Just because it's hard for me to detect something with my sense of smell doesn't mean it's hard for a dog. A dog can be trained to detect the presence of single cells at a very close range (perception check required). An invisible monster 30 ft. (most likely trillions of cells) away should be fairly trivial given that level of detection.
The detection of scent within the scent range is equivalent to vision in terms of detection.
Yeah, another thread should probably be started on scent.
As I said, developers have weighed in on this from a RAW perspective. From a pure real world approach, scent is not automatic. Even the most rigorously trained scent dogs are not always successful with their scent efforts, and as a hunter I can tell you that it is possible to disguise scent. Scent is a sense, much like hearing and seeing. It can be fooled, overwhelmed or simply not reach conscious awareness for a variety of reasons.
Still, as I said above, it is truly an under-utilized scouting ability.
It's just not auto-detect is all.
That applies for average players and up to a certain level. As you level up you can take on APL +4 or higher as boss fights. With optimized players APL=CR is an easy fight, but for the sake of this discussion I guess I should assume average. So by the chart an APL+1 might require some sort of in combat healing.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
Not that your point is invalid but I don't believe APL=CR should make for easy fights. I agree that a lot of the time combat can be ended with little healing to no healing during combat.
Difficulty....Challenge Rating Equals
Easy..............APL –1
Average........APL
Challenging...APL +1
Hard..............APL +2
Epic...............APL +3
It also depends a lot on how the encounter is designed. A AP+4 encounter of CR-1 foes is very different then a single APL+4 encounter of a single monster or of 1 CR+2 and and some =CR. This affects healing requirements quite a bit (along with monster type).
Big monsters are more likely to burst and require you to need big heals immediately or try to burst the enemy down, lower level heals are practically worthless.Mobs of smaller monsters are more likely to widdle you down, so maintence healing is a decent strategy while your teammates reduce the enemy numbers. In this case, I prioritize CC avoidence early and heals come in the middle of the fight to reduce criticality in the later fight. A few well timed heals can really take the edge off the end of the fight.
Also, if your GM likes to chain fights together, combat healing can be an important factor. THere may not be an out of combat time to cast those spells. I've had GMs use enemy perception checks to cause the entire dungeon to respond to an alarm, causing a rolling fight of everything in the dungeon in the first few rooms (damn Illithid telepathy and Umberhulk tremmorsense).
That applies for average players and up to a certain level. As you level up you can take on APL +4 or higher as boss fights. With optimized players APL=CR is an easy fight, but for the sake of this discussion I guess I should assume average. So by the chart an APL+1 might require some sort of in combat healing.
2. Most encounters will be APL=CR. Those fights are supposed to be easy. Even APL+1 fights are not that much harder and you can get by without healing mid-combat in most games.
Not that your point is invalid but I don't believe APL=CR should make for easy fights. I agree that a lot of the time combat can be ended with little healing to no healing during combat.
Difficulty....Challenge Rating Equals
Easy..............APL –1
Average........APL
Challenging...APL +1
Hard..............APL +2
Epic...............APL +3It also depends a lot on how the encounter is designed. A AP+4 encounter of CR-1 foes is very different then a single APL+4 encounter of a single monster or of 1 CR+2 and and some =CR. This affects healing requirements quite a bit (along with monster type).
Big monsters are more likely to burst and require you to need big heals immediately or try to burst the enemy down, lower level heals are practically worthless.
Mobs of smaller monsters are more likely to widdle you down, so maintence healing is a decent strategy while your teammates reduce the enemy numbers. In this case, I prioritize CC avoidence early and heals come in the middle of the fight to reduce criticality in the later fight. A few well timed heals can really take the edge off the end of the fight.Also, if your GM likes to chain fights together, combat healing can be an important factor. THere may not be an out of combat time to cast those spells. I've had GMs use enemy perception checks to cause the entire dungeon to respond to an alarm, causing a rolling fight of everything in the dungeon in the first few...
I agree that a fight against one monster is different than fighting several monsters with the same CR. If the multiple monsters are of a lower CR then a blasting spell is going to be useful. If it is one monster then buffing the front liners and/or debuffing the one monster is a good idea.
PS: Battlefield control also take care of enemies that try to swarm the
party
This is meta-thinking.. and I frankly blame your DMs for this.In a world where healing can bring up a downed enemy to a functional fighter it is perfectly reasonable to go ahead and hit that downed enemy. Not to mention you might as well include them in your area effects...
It's just for some reason considered, along with sundering, to be 'bad' for the DM to do so.
Rather consider the foe that you are fighting. The DM should be representing the NPCs that are not pawns on the board, but rather creatures and things with motivations and reasons for being in the fight.
Regardless the core issue is about empowering the PC to be able to do something that they otherwise would not do without the healing. This is a buffing spell for them, plain and simple.
-James
I tend to think this philosophy breeds a certain kind of ruthless and resentful player rather than a fun game.
It might not be "reasonable" to leave an enemy lie if he can get back up in a single channel. But then some GM's don't want to deal with having a revolving door of characters that need to be introduced, established, and then mesh with the party. It screws with the overall narrative and sometimes leads to further problems down the line. Worse it can produce an ever escalating curve of characters that are more optimized to your game than the last making you go to further extremes in order to challenge the group.
tldr; It may be realistic to kill a character on the ground. But it's not fun for the player in question and feels sadistic to the rest.
It is one of those things that varies by group. I don't see much difference than being killed when I am down, or taking a crit from a scythe when and dying. Many players however would feel resentful if they were killed when they were on the ground.
This is meta-thinking.. and I frankly blame your DMs for this.In a world where healing can bring up a downed enemy to a functional fighter it is perfectly reasonable to go ahead and hit that downed enemy. Not to mention you might as well include them in your area effects...
It's just for some reason considered, along with sundering, to be 'bad' for the DM to do so.
Rather consider the foe that you are fighting. The DM should be representing the NPCs that are not pawns on the board, but rather creatures and things with motivations and reasons for being in the fight.
Regardless the core issue is about empowering the PC to be able to do something that they otherwise would not do without the healing. This is a buffing spell for them, plain and simple.
-James
I tend to think this philosophy breeds a certain kind of ruthless and resentful player rather than a fun game.
It might not be "reasonable" to leave an enemy lie if he can get back up in a single channel. But then some GM's don't want to deal with having a revolving door of characters that need to be introduced, established, and then mesh with the party. It screws with the overall narrative and sometimes leads to further problems down the line. Worse it can produce an ever escalating curve of characters that are more optimized to your game than the last making you go to further extremes in order to challenge the group.
tldr; It may be realistic to kill a character on the ground. But it's not fun for the player in question and feels sadistic to the rest.
As a side note, one of our group's houserules is that healing magic bringing you above 0 still takes a minute to wake you up, for exactly this reason. Characters who know about healing magic know this, so they have no reason to target downed characters--they don't pop back up until the fight is over. This has resulted in a way lower death rate without resorting to metagaming against what would be the obvious move.
If someone goes down, they lie there. In most cases, the enemies will then focus their fire on someone who's still trying to kill them, not someone who's lying on the ground. Given that you only bleed for 1 point per round (and might even stabilize!), a fallen party member is usually pretty safe.
That depends very much on how tough someone is and how deep below 0 he is.
If a pc with a con of 16 is hit and ends up at -3 he is really pretty save.But if a pc with con 12 is at -9 after a hit I wouldn't call that save.
It is one of those things that varies by group. I don't see much difference than being killed when I am down, or taking a crit from a scythe when and dying. Many players however would feel resentful if they were killed when they were on the ground.
The difference is that one of these things is a fluke of the dice. Punishment from the fickle dice gods. The other is cold, calculated, character death.
Both still suck but there's far less blame for the scythe crit from nowhere. This is why I tend to roll openly in home games except in specific circumstances.
Or knock the cleric down first if you see his holy symbol If they can get back up. It also depends on the enemy.
I'm of the mind that if players are not healing in battle then the battle is too easy.
I enjoy healing in combat as a player and I enjoy pushing hard enough on players when GM'ing that they need to heal in combat. Frequent combat healing just adds a level of challenge and excitment to encounters.
