First off: when I say healing, I mean restoring hit-points... blind, stun, ability damage, etc require different "restoring" means...
That is why I don't think the ranger with a wand of CLW is good enough. Even in other campaigns, our GM like the monsters that give conditions and drains. You need something other than a wand of CLW.
... could somebody show me a level 10 build that is good enough at healing (hitpoints) and also good a doing damage or some other noticeable group activity that does not use spells?
Because if it's just spells: that's less spells to heal with ;-p (we don't get to rest every time our casters run out of spells)
Anyone feel like sharing some nice flavorful builds that heal well and fight well too? :-)
This is only level 7 so far. I can't say for sure this will work out, but it seems like it should. I will be playing him starting this week. When MAJOR healing is needed I can burn through spells and channels fast give back lots of hitpoints. When only minor in or out of combat healing is required, I can burn channels and still have my actions to take. I am taking just a few attack good attack, buff, utility spells each level. So I can still have something interesting/helpful to contribute when not healing (hopefully most of the time. When we encounter undead (alot in this AP) channels and heals are blasting spells against them.
Cure Critical Wounds (4): Cures 4d8 damage + 10 = 28
Cure Serious Wounds (3): Cures 3d8 damage + 10 = 23,5
Cure Moderate Wounds (2): Cures 2d8 damage + 10 = 19I still fail to see how it could be better to heal, when an equal CR encounter nearly always deals more damage then this in a single round of combat.
A situation I found quite a lot playing Kingmaker:
The group gets attacked by an enemy (or multiple enemies) who focus all attacks on a single melee character. That character is losing, say, 40% of hit-points per round. Let's say you can heal them back 20-25% of their hit-points per round. If you don't heal them every round, they're dead on round three. If you do, they'll probably last five. That gives the whole of the rest of the group two more rounds to kill the enemy. Remember that this is in a campaign where you often fight only once a day so conserving high-level healing spells is not the main issue.
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Cure Critical Wounds (4): Cures 4d8 damage + 10 = 28
Cure Serious Wounds (3): Cures 3d8 damage + 10 = 23,5
Cure Moderate Wounds (2): Cures 2d8 damage + 10 = 19I still fail to see how it could be better to heal, when an equal CR encounter nearly always deals more damage then this in a single round of combat.
A situation I found quite a lot playing Kingmaker:
The group gets attacked by an enemy (or multiple enemies) who focus all attacks on a single melee character. That character is losing, say, 40% of hit-points per round. Let's say you can heal them back 20-25% of their hit-points per round. If you don't heal them every round, they're dead on round three. If you do, they'll probably last five. That gives the whole of the rest of the group two more rounds to kill the enemy. Remember that this is in a campaign where you often fight only once a day so conserving high-level healing spells is not the main issue.
OR you could use those spell slots for Hold Person, Shield Other, Prayer, Wind Wall, Vision of Hell, etc. that help you win the battle because they enemy is missing more often, doing less damage, doing ZERO damage, or dying faster.
There are many more universal spells that can be used in better ways or in different ways that can get you the same battle advantage as just healing.
And to your example...why is ONE guy taking ALL the damage? If this was an MMO and we were fighting a raid boss that makes sense, but there are some flaws in how the combat you described is working. I never udnerstood the GM compulsion to just attack the ONE melee guy. If you do ANYTHING the you'd better expect the enemy to be trying to get to and attack you. Especially a heavily armored healer...those enemies would flock to you like flies on poo poo.
Edit: And healing is still better from a wand IMO. You don't get any bonus healing for your caster stat so what is the point of blowing spell slots on it? You still have to be standing right next to the guy if its a wand or a spell slot.
Focusing all attacks, where possible, on a single enemy until they're dead, then moving on to the next one, is just good tactics, for PCs or NPCs.
Of course healing isn't the only effective strategy in this situation, but it's a perfectly valid one. It has advantages, such as being guaranteed to have some effect - when your fighter is dead in two rounds, do you want gamble on the enemy missing a saving throw?
Focusing all attacks, where possible, on a single enemy until they're dead, then moving on to the next one, is just good tactics, for PCs or NPCs.
Of course healing isn't the only effective strategy in this situation, but it's a perfectly valid one. It has advantages, such as being guaranteed to have some effect - when your fighter is dead in two rounds, do you want gamble on the enemy missing a saving throw?
Depends entirely upon too many factors to consider. There's always the possibility that one or both may crit killing your fighter in one round. Or that you can't possibly heal enough to mitigate the damage done by the enemy.
...OR you could use those spell slots for Hold Person, ... Vision of Hell, etc. that help you win the battle because they enemy is missing more often, doing less damage, doing ZERO damage, or dying faster.
There are many more universal spells that can be used in better ways or in different ways that can get you the same battle advantage as just healing...
Just as an aside. I have recently become very disappointed in any offensive spell that has a saving throw (especially if save means no effect). The last 12 SOS spells I've used, the GM has made every single save. No fudging, he rolls right in front of us. My wiz has a 20 int, greater spell focus, and am targeting the low save when possible. He still makes it every time.
I have been switching my selection for buffs and spells that either don't have a save or have at least some affect on a save.
Kydeem, I am not a fan of SoS spells myself. My casters generally focus on spells that at least do 1/2 damage on a successful save. What I really hate are spells that require an attack roll AND give the target a save. Those are just a waste of paper as far as my casters are concerned.
In our group, with mostly 3 to 5 players, we usually try to have one cleric and one frontliner, cause over the years (25 now...) we found out that we need just that. Maybe it's our "style", but in about 1 of 4 fights someone would have died without a cleric. So this is not most of the times, but quite a lot.
Recently we started a new campaign, and for the first few adventures we were a cleric, a fighter and a paladin. In that party composition we burned LOTS of healing in combat, it was almost ridiculous.
Without some fireball-flinging mage, our saying now goes:
"What you can't deal, you need to heal!"
:-)
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Just as an aside. I have recently become very disappointed in any offensive spell that has a saving throw (especially if save means no effect). The last 12 SOS spells I've used, the GM has made every single save. No fudging, he rolls right in front of us. My wiz has a 20 int, greater spell focus, and am targeting the low save when possible. He still makes it every time.
I have been switching my selection for buffs and spells that either don't have a save or have at least some affect on a save.
Kydeem, I am not a fan of SoS spells myself. My casters generally focus on spells that at least do 1/2 damage on a successful save. What I really hate are spells that require an attack roll AND give the target a save. Those are just a waste of paper as far as my casters are concerned.
I used to like them because I would build so that my DC was very high. Then it usually worked.
I usually hit with the ranged touch when needed.But we now have a larger group (5 players and an NPC most of the time) and the characters are better optimized. Since we were walking over things last campaign, the GM has started applying templates to almost everything but the extreme mooks. So their save bonus combined with his good rolls are making the SoS spells useless.
off topic
Yeah, my PFS sorc is heading for heavy conjuration casting.
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I don't know how relevant this is, but I'll share it anyway:
My party started an Evil campaign not too long ago. (Way of the Wicked. It's crazy fun, check it out) Because of that, it makes it a bit harder for us to have a healer. So I was really worried when I found out we weren't going to have a cleric in our party. Up until that point, I figured you ALWAYS had to have at least SOMEONE who could cast a CLW when needed.
After playing a few sessions, I realized that our Alchemist takes up that healing slot well. Not because he ever heals us himself, but because he makes us potions that we use to heal ourselves, usually out of battle. Once or twice we've had a character go into the negatives in-battle. And it's always scary when that happens. But usually someone will run up and force-feed the downed guy a potion to keep them from dying. So normally we wait until after-battle to heal, because of our alchemist's potions. It's really opened my eyes to new tactics.
That being said, it really irks my jim-jims when people focus too much on tactics. In this thread I've heard more about using 'the proper tactics' and such than in most others I've read. Almost like you're belittling people for NOT meta-gaming. Anyway, my two cents.
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That being said, it really irks my jim-jims when people focus too much on tactics. In this thread I've heard more about using 'the proper tactics' and such than in most others I've read. Almost like you're belittling people for NOT meta-gaming. Anyway, my two cents.
The thread is about tactics. Discussions that don't focus on tactics in this thread are off-topic.
How is a discussion of tactics meta-gaming? Are you suggesting that it is metagaming to discuss the relative merits of the action economy? Do you think that it is "meta-gaming" when the US Marines do it?
How is saying "here is what I think the best tactics are" "belittling people"?
Seriously, I am really tired of every time someone says "here's what I think is best for this situation" the holier-than-thou-brigade suits up, mounts their rhetorical steeds and levels their accusatory lances at the poor soul who only wants people to be aware of potential alternative ways to play.
My two cents.
Focusing all attacks, where possible, on a single enemy until they're dead, then moving on to the next one, is just good tactics, for PCs or NPCs.
Of course healing isn't the only effective strategy in this situation, but it's a perfectly valid one. It has advantages, such as being guaranteed to have some effect - when your fighter is dead in two rounds, do you want gamble on the enemy missing a saving throw?
Focusing fire is a good idea, but if tactics is the reason then why not attack the healer? Once you kill him/her it makes it easier to kill the others.
I don't know how relevant this is, but I'll share it anyway:
My party started an Evil campaign not too long ago. (Way of the Wicked. It's crazy fun, check it out) Because of that, it makes it a bit harder for us to have a healer. So I was really worried when I found out we weren't going to have a cleric in our party. Up until that point, I figured you ALWAYS had to have at least SOMEONE who could cast a CLW when needed.
After playing a few sessions, I realized that our Alchemist takes up that healing slot well. Not because he ever heals us himself, but because he makes us potions that we use to heal ourselves, usually out of battle. Once or twice we've had a character go into the negatives in-battle. And it's always scary when that happens. But usually someone will run up and force-feed the downed guy a potion to keep them from dying. So normally we wait until after-battle to heal, because of our alchemist's potions. It's really opened my eyes to new tactics.
That being said, it really irks my jim-jims when people focus too much on tactics. In this thread I've heard more about using 'the proper tactics' and such than in most others I've read. Almost like you're belittling people for NOT meta-gaming. Anyway, my two cents.
1.Why would playing intelligently bother you, and how is it belittling you?
2.Using tactics is not metagaming. If we can figure it out I am sure the characters could figure it out if they were real since they would be the ones with actual training.
I remember reading on this thread (read it with a nap in the middle) that somebody was claiming that more brutal combats (APL +2 or more) required combat healing to stay alive. This is pretty much the opposite of my experience.
Difficult encounters are often so brutal that any action that doesn't kill the opponent quicker is going to cause a PC death. When you have a obviously hard challenge, the PCs are going to go all out, and the enemy in my experience dies quicker than I ever expect as a GM. Heck the BBEG in LoF was taken down in 3 combat rounds and that was an adjusted CR = APL +4 (party level was 13, large party, so 14 APL, in book is supposed to be CR 17, but stated to pathfinder is much higher, I got 20, without CR 20 defenses, so adjusted to 18 which felt right). No combat healing was used even though 3 PCs were near death/dying. Just wasn't time when the BBEG was cranking out 90 damage on a AoO (admittedly a crit but he has expanded crit range), and easily able to kill even 40AC characters on a full attack. Only a full heal spell was going to keep up with that damage output, and even then there was no way any character could survive a full attack. Before the fight they made sure to top off their characters, since they knew that they probably needed every HP.
During other portions of that campaign, the party had a large number of CR = APL-1 or -2. They deferred healing between combats once they knew it was going to be a low level mob grind in favor of healing only characters who needed it in combat. The challenges weren't a serious risk, but even mooks get lucky and they saved the heals for when a character was looking in trouble, never bothering to top off between combats until it looked like a more important fight was coming. During the combats the PCs were reluctant to actually spend once a day abilities or spell slots, since they knew they might need them later. As a result the PCs took more HP damage as a result of conserving their restricted use class abilities. Cost them some healing items, but if you are keeping to WBL and let the PCs buy or create anything that is reasonable for their level and wealth, this shouldn't be too much of an issue.
When i see lots of healing in combat or not from items, I usually think that the GM might have overly restricted wealth. I played a 3.5 campaign to level 12 once where the best item any character had was a +1 sword, and we got 6 healing potions the entire time due to cost and lack of treasure and no "magic marts" Started it with a martial (ranger, was supposed to be an undead hunter in a dead world style campaign), but got so frustrated that my guy was basically lvl 1 with a higher BAB and HPs (couldn't afford even a masterwork weapon) I let him die at lvl 6 so i could roll up a cleric who could self and party buff to replicate gear that we should have had by that level, and to always have access to healing. At the end of the campaign the only feed back I had for the GM was to look at party wealth more closely when designing his campaign. Which is what I told him during it too, but he explained it as being a low magic setting... Yeah, wasn't amused at having to fight liches and vampires without anything better than mundane equipment (and small party at that, only 2 regulars including me and 2 unreliables who never showed at the same time).
Focusing fire is a good idea, but if tactics is the reason then why not attack the healer? Once you kill him/her it makes it easier to kill the others.Perhaps when you started attacking you did not know who the healer was?
-James
Plenty of other possible reasons. The melee guy might be the only one standing in a position to be attacked. The healer might be invisible. The healer might be in plate mail while the fighter is lightly armoured. The enemy might be stupid but relentless. The enemy might see the fighter as a 'worthy opponent'. The fighter might be doing so much damage per round that killing him is the only way the enemy could possibly survive. The enemy might see the healer and say, "that guy's doing in-combat healing, what an idiot!" Or the GM might just have a grudge against the fighter.
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Focusing fire is a good idea, but if tactics is the reason then why not attack the healer? Once you kill him/her it makes it easier to kill the others.Focusing all attacks, where possible, on a single enemy until they're dead, then moving on to the next one, is just good tactics, for PCs or NPCs.
Of course healing isn't the only effective strategy in this situation, but it's a perfectly valid one. It has advantages, such as being guaranteed to have some effect - when your fighter is dead in two rounds, do you want gamble on the enemy missing a saving throw?
My thing is...if its monsters or anything like that their tactics may not be like ours. If they are intelligent humanoids capable of tactics, then cool.
On more than one occasion in games I've played in, it was more beneficial for us to spread attacks out.
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OR you could use those spell slots for Hold Person, Shield Other, Prayer, Wind Wall, Vision of Hell, etc. that help you win the battle because they enemy is missing more often, doing less damage, doing ZERO damage, or dying faster.
If healing in combat is buying the party 2 full rounds of the enemy's attacks then it is a decent use of actions unless the party is very small.
If you have just 2 other people in the party that strongly contribute you've in essence bought a total of 4 actions with your 3. Now if you are in a party that's larger than 3 effective PCs (including yourself) then you've bought much more.
That does seem reasonable and in fact tactically smart.
And again if the enemies pick the heavily armored healer over the party wizard we just chalk that up to another win.
I find it amusing that on these boards people complain that a 'tank' can't get the enemy to attack them and as such no one can do this 'role'. Yet here you are complaining that the healer will be given just that.
-James
And yet somehow it makes sense for the healer to be standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE FIGHTER. From a tactics standpoint you are asking the healer to essentially spread his actions out between healing the fighter and himself, AND you are opening up the flood gates to AOOs. If any of my players attempted to heal in combat like this (every round) I'd destroy 2 PCs in the time it would take to kill one.
Using touch spells on a melee combatant currently undergoing melee combat is just asking for trouble because it puts you in a targetable location. Now you have to worry about getting tripped, sundered, attacked, AOOs, etc.
Focusing fire is a good idea, but if tactics is the reason then why not attack the healer? Once you kill him/her it makes it easier to kill the others.Perhaps when you started attacking you did not know who the healer was? It is very possible for parties to obfuscate these roles amongst their members, and if the enemy has no way to know and the DM doesn't use out of character knowledge for them..
So now you've used one of your precious rounds to turn the tide in severely harming one of the linch pins. If you switch to the healer in essence you have given him a round's worth of healing while continuing on the damage dealer might afford you a lucky crit that could put him down which buys you a LOT of tempo.
But if a healer will draw fire to them over others (say the party wizard) then I'd posit that they are performing another role for the party in just that.
-James
I don't think healers draw fire on purpose though. If so I am willing to take change, tactically speaking.
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1. Nobody is saying never ever heal your buddy and/or let them die. That is ridiculous.
2. Nobody is saying you will never ever have to heal.
3. What is being said is that the bad guys can put out damage faster than you can heal so the best thing to do is kill bad guys. The less bad guys there are the less damage output there is.
4. Most of the time if you have decent characters and use good tactics you will not have to heal in combat.
5. Once again, most of the time does not mean never.
6. Bookmark this thread if you have too.
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The reason I created this thread was because people like us keep getting misrepresented. People are taking our opinion as "it is better to let a party member die than to heal them" among other things, which has never been advocated. I got tired of my points being misrepresented so I made this thread.
Wraithstrike,
your OP is an effective argument. Written in clear English, well reasoned, and aside from a certain underplayed, jaded, snarkiness, free of provocation to the loyal opposition.
A couple of years ago I was on the other side of this argument from you. So I can speak from experience when I say that part of the reason you are so often misrepresented is that many of your allies in this argument don't write in that vein. Their idiom tends toward shorthand, abbreviation, didacticism, hyperbole, and slang, flavored with condescension and smug self-superiority. It only takes a few posts of this tenor, to push the opposing reader into a hostile frame of mind which encourages them to lump everyone on your side into the same basket and return fire indiscriminately.
I used to trade posts with CODzilla whose writing suffered from all the above mentioned flaws. I was trying to get him to slow down and explain his position in plain English so that I could understand what he was trying to say.
To return to your OP of this thread, one of the reasons it works is because it leads by conceding that the opposing side has a few valid points (1 and 2). It then goes on to explain why, in general, your argument is superior.
Take heart, argument on the internet can occasionally change minds (after all it did change my mind on this issue) but it takes a lot of time and effort on the part of the poster and the reader. Most people are not willing to put in the time.
Plenty of other possible reasons. The melee guy might be the only one standing in a position to be attacked. The healer might be invisible. The healer might be in plate mail while the fighter is lightly armoured. The enemy might be stupid but relentless. The enemy might see the fighter as a 'worthy opponent'. The fighter might be doing so much damage per round that killing him is the only way the enemy could possibly survive. The enemy might see the healer and say, "that guy's doing in-combat healing, what an idiot!" Or the GM might just have a grudge against the fighter.
Focusing fire is a good idea, but if tactics is the reason then why not attack the healer? Once you kill him/her it makes it easier to kill the others.Perhaps when you started attacking you did not know who the healer was?
-James
I was assuming the healer was visible and the enemies were intelligent. If the bad guys can't get to him that is another thing altogether. Even I would still try to locate or get to the healer if possible though.
Of course if the healer really can not be touched try to kill the fighter or squishy if possible.
GM's with grudges are metagaming. I was assuming in-character tactics also.
PS:Stupid enemies would have to be near animal intelligence to not figure out not to go after the obvious source and/or stubborn.
And yet somehow it makes sense for the healer to be standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE FIGHTER. From a tactics standpoint you are asking the healer to essentially spread his actions out between healing the fighter and himself, AND you are opening up the flood gates to AOOs. If any of my players attempted to heal in combat like this (every round) I'd destroy 2 PCs in the time it would take to kill one.Using touch spells on a melee combatant currently undergoing melee combat is just asking for trouble because it puts you in a targetable location. Now you have to worry about getting tripped, sundered, attacked, AOOs, etc.
There's a rod that allows you to cast cures from a distance. You could heal by channelling. You could be invisible. You could use 'grace' to retreat if you get into trouble.
Anyway, if the enemy switches target from your injured melee character to the healer, you've already achieved your goal of stopping the enemy finishing off the character he was previously within a couple of turns of killing. As long as the cleric is fairly tough, it can work.
I also have been thinking of a wierd use of spell sunder is to use it on your own teamates to remove hurtful conditions out of combat.
I guess I mis-spoke. That, or all the hostility in this thread just made people want to think I was an idiot. Obviously I don't think using tactics is meta-gaming. That would be extremely stupid.
I think using out of character knowledge in your tactics is meta-gaming. How would your character know, for instance, who exactly is the striker? Who to attack first, tactically? Do I think it's meta-gaming to talk about action-economy in-game? Yes. Because there's no such thing as real-life action-economy. Are marines meta-gaming when they do it? No. That's stupid. Marines are real, dungeons and dragons is not. If you have trouble with that concept, then we're done talking before we've started. Saying "here is what I think the best tactics are" isn't belittling someone. Saying "here is what I know the best tactics are, for all circumstances, and if you disagree you're obviously not good at gaming" IS. On a side-note, I think it's hilarious that you get all holier-than-thou on me for supposedly getting holier-than-thou on you. :P
Wraith: Again, playing intelligently doesn't bother me, usually. But if you have a dumb character and you're playing intelligently, then it does. If 10 is the average intelligence, and on average we can assume that most Pathfinder players are more intelligent when it comes to things like this than the average person, then unless your character is particularly smart there's a good chance they couldn't come up with some of the things suggested. And yeah, fighters, tacticians, warlords, etc would probably be able to come up with really good tactics. But what about the lowly sorcerer who has hardly ever been in a fight? Or the Bard that just knows that when he's with his friends, they fight better?
I'm not saying tactics are meta-gaming. I'm saying that using out of character knowledge to make tactics is, and that sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between what you know, and what your character would realistically know.
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Doctor:
I would say you are inferring things that people aren't saying. Why you feel "here is a solid tactic in most, but not all, situations" is the same thing as saying "here's the only way to play and if you don't do it this way you're stupid" is an interesting psychological exercise, but I'm not a psychologist so I don't really care why your brain works that way.
As far as why I get all "holier than thou on you because you got holier than thou on me" is because I have a general tendency to treat people to the same thing they dish out. I sort of think it's some sort of justice to do so. I do it all the time. It's a character flaw.
If you think actual armies don't consider action economies in their tactical considerations, well.... just wow.
There may have been one comment on this entire thread about identifying a "striker" but if so I don't even recall it. The vast majority of the comments have been on the general tactic of healing in combat and when that might or might not be the best tactical option.
If you want to focus on one or two outliers and paint everyone you disagree with that way, well, that's a pretty familiar tactic in the interwebz.... I'd say you've got that down.
(Terminology note: In the realm of military tactics, one of the nine primary concerns frequently noted is called "Economy of force" which is described thusly:
...one of the nine Principles of War, based upon Carl von Clausewitz's approach to warfare. It is the principle of employing all available combat power in the most effective way possible, in an attempt to allocate a minimum of essential combat power to any secondary efforts. It is the judicious employment and distribution of forces towards the primary objective of any person's conflict.
That is essentially the same thing as what gamers call the "action economy." The term "action economy" is a game term that is based on optimizing what can be done with available "actions." Obviously in real war there are no "actions", but the principle is the same.)
If healing in combat is buying the party 2 full rounds of the enemy's attacks then it is a decent use of actions unless the party is very small.If you have just 2 other people in the party that strongly contribute you've in essence bought a total of 4 actions with your 3. Now if you are in a party that's larger than 3 effective PCs (including yourself) then you've bought much more.
That does seem reasonable and in fact tactically smart.
That still does not end the fight nor prevent damage from landing at all. Extending the combat only aids in burning more resources, not ending the fight. The goal is to finish the combat. If healing finishes the combat by allowing the fighter that last full attack necessary to win that is one thing. However if the fight can be ended much more quickly by expending a spell slot on say, summoning a bunch of lantern archons to zap the guy into oblivion this round that is much more preferable and can even extend a few rounds beyond for mop up.
I'd like to take a moment here to also discuss how bleedingly inefficient channel energy becomes as a heal past level 5. By level five a cleric is healing about 3d6 per target. That's an average of about 9-11 hp at a go. By this point Wizards, Druids, and Clerics have started getting their really good spells. Fireball by itself can completely and utterly undo the effect of channel (An average of 17 or so possibly halved or negated on saves granted) and at CR monsters are doing 15-20 damage a round.
Simply put if the bad guys focus fire on anyone it's usually a far better idea to buff the person in question's defenses rather than attempt to race your healing versus their damage.
There are exceptions to this rule. There always are. But these exceptions are dealt with easily with some thought and awareness of ones own capabilities. A sudden crit from nowhere can drop someone just as quickly whether there is a dedicated healer in the group or not. A good or neutral aligned cleric doesn't suddenly lose the ability to convert spells into cures just because his selection of feats pushes him towards debuffing and battlefield control. A rogue doesn't lose the ability to UMD a scroll of Heal when it comes to his turn. No one loses the ability to drop a potion down someone's mouth. In fact spreading the healing around the group is much more effective than having one person dedicated to the idea. With nearly every class capable of it in one form or another (even a wizard can cast cure serious wounds twice per day with a single 6th level spell) I see no reason why a dedicated healer really needs to exist. What it requires is a refinement of thought about tactics and maneuvering. If you treat your group like a SWAT team or a special forces unit (which in many many ways they are), work on ways to prevent getting hit rather than mittigating damage you quickly find that even the moat ruthless enemies have a difficult time against you as you are working on a scale that precludes the notion of trading hits until the other guy falls down.
Keep in mind this does not mean you don't roleplay or fail to roleplay. Theirs incredibly sensible reasons why even a group of people who met in a tavern would work in such a way. No one wants to die, no one wants to know what a goblins dogclicer feels like as it passes through the pancreas, and no one wants to rely on the zealot of another god to keep them alive when it all comes down to it.
And lastly on the point about the healer taking hits. I think the point he was trying to make was that putting himself in danger when spellcasting is typically a bad idea and only oracles of life can get away with it regularly without constant rolls. Plus being heavily armored does not mean having a high CMD. The bad guy can just sunder your holy symbol as soon as you present it, or even better, grapple you, trip you, dirty trick you so that your hands are unable to cast properly, or steal your holy symbol.
@Ossian: It's possible for a healer to heal from a distance. Reach rods are one method, Metamagic reach is another. Simply channeling energy is easy enough.
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And yet somehow it makes sense for the healer to be standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE FIGHTER. From a tactics standpoint you are asking the healer to essentially spread his actions out between healing the fighter and himself
Yes, and I'm saying that if the bad guys stop concentrating their fire and instead spread out their damage then the party gains an advantage.
I think you have some wizard-like version of a 'healer' in mind. I'm not sure. Personally, I have the heavy armor wearing cleric in mind.
I'm happy to let the enemy target this healer. It takes pressure off of the wizard and other party members.
Besides if in-combat healing is so worthless, why would the enemy bother with the cleric?
People seem to discount the effectiveness of in-combat healing, but at the same time automatically subscribe to 'gack the healer' as optimal effective tactics. Its self-contradictory.
-James
But your argument is that the enemy does enough damage to drop a fighter in 3 rounds by focusing him. Most fighters have the same if not more armor than the cleric because they expect to be in melee. You aren't taking LESS damage because half of the people hitting the fighter are going to move so they get AOOs against you as well when you heal. You didn't take damage away from the fighter...you just added damage to yourself.
No one here is saying its the stupidest move in the world to heal in combat...we are saying to build a character that is ONLY going to heal is counter productive when there are other more reasonable methods for preventing damage rather than fixing damage. Not to mention, everything you can heal is easily done with a wand. Use the wand to heal and use your spells for the day on buff spells so the fighter hits harder, is harder to hit or whatever.
And to whomever suggested buying the rod. Yea you can buy a rod, but thats 3000g you could use on something that could be more effective or universal rather than just increasing your range from touch to 30 ft. for exclusively heal spells.
summoning a bunch of lantern archons to zap the guy into oblivion this round
Next round, surely? Summoning being a full round spell...
summoning a bunch of lantern archons to zap the guy into oblivion this roundNext round, surely? Summoning being a full round spell...
It's possible to do as a standard for a cleric. Sacred Summons and all that. One of the more hilarious builds for a cleric is an Evangelist summoner of Iomedae.
Summon augmented stuff as a standard action while casting good hope and having inspire courage up. Fun times.
Another point to consider about using tactics. I've seen suggestions from some in this thread that even if avoiding healing during combat is actually a superior tactic, many PCs would not care about tactics, would not be schooled in tactics or would not be competent to judge superior tactics anyway, so playing potentially sub-optimal tactics should not only be common, it should be recognized as a legitimate role playing choice.
I agree with some of that.
The brain-dead barbarian charging into combat, or the ivory-tower wizard who finds tactics to be beneath them or many other role playing tropes are time-honored and most of us have played them from time to time.
However, at least in my experience, those are rare departures for me and for most people I play with. While it is sometimes fun to play a loony stereotype, in general my PCs are played as people with common sense and the ability to learn from experience. And as such they pick up on tactics pretty quickly. Especially if there is anyone in the party who has some notion of tactics as a discipline.
Learning the basic principles of tactics is something I would expect any reasonably mentally competent person to be able to do in a very short time when they are in a situation where their very lives depend on doing so.
You aren't taking LESS damage because half of the people hitting the fighter are going to move so they get AOOs against you as well when you heal. You didn't take damage away from the fighter...you just added damage to yourself.
But you can cast defensively, you can (as you suggest) use a wand, you can cast at the start of your round, then move in and heal... It all depends on the situation.
No one here is saying its the stupidest move in the world to heal in combat...we are saying to build a character that is ONLY going to heal is counter productive.
And no-one here is recommending building a character that is only going to heal. I don't know if they're ever effective, but they have a strong tendency to be boring; you wind up with literally nothing to do when your party aren't injured. That doesn't mean you couldn't make a healing-domain cleric, and still do summonings, etc.
And to whomever suggested buying the rod. Yea you can buy a rod, but thats 3000g you could use on something that could be more effective or universal rather than just increasing your...
Cheaper than a wand of cure serious wounds...
I guess I mis-spoke. That, or all the hostility in this thread just made people want to think I was an idiot. Obviously I don't think using tactics is meta-gaming. That would be extremely stupid.
I think using out of character knowledge in your tactics is meta-gaming. How would your character know, for instance, who exactly is the striker? Who to attack first, tactically? Do I think it's meta-gaming to talk about action-economy in-game? Yes. Because there's no such thing as real-life action-economy. Are marines meta-gaming when they do it? No. That's stupid. Marines are real, dungeons and dragons is not. If you have trouble with that concept, then we're done talking before we've started. Saying "here is what I think the best tactics are" isn't belittling someone. Saying "here is what I know the best tactics are, for all circumstances, and if you disagree you're obviously not good at gaming" IS. On a side-note, I think it's hilarious that you get all holier-than-thou on me for supposedly getting holier-than-thou on you. :P
Wraith: Again, playing intelligently doesn't bother me, usually. But if you have a dumb character and you're playing intelligently, then it does. If 10 is the average intelligence, and on average we can assume that most Pathfinder players are more intelligent when it comes to things like this than the average person, then unless your character is particularly smart there's a good chance they couldn't come up with some of the things suggested. And yeah, fighters, tacticians, warlords, etc would probably be able to come up with really good tactics. But what about the lowly sorcerer who has hardly ever been in a fight? Or the Bard that just knows that when he's with his friends, they fight better?
I'm not saying tactics are meta-gaming. I'm saying that using out of character knowledge to make tactics is, and that sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between what you know, and what your character would realistically know.
Training makes up for a lot. I would our characters with their training are better at tactics than a smart person without real life training. Actually I am not assuming. My M.I. unit went up against some grunts(infantry) in a military exercise, and those guys kicked out butts. No I am not saying that there are no smart grunts, but on average I am pretty sure we are smarter than they are.
As for the bard and sorcerer I would also think that the party works together in downtime just like it is assumed the they practice individual skills. The bard does have some proficiency with armor, and weapons so I am assuming he got some military training somewhere, even if it was not the same as a fighter or paladin.
Mentioning a monster's AC would be metagaming if the exact number is used, especially if no knowledge check is rolled. Even then the player should only say the monster has thick skin or its agility makes it hard to hit.....
As for metagaming in general, some thing are almost always considered metgaming while others vary by group. If I roll a bluff check as a GM, after a player rolls a sense motive check, and then the rest of the party rolls sense motive that is metagaming to me, if I know they would not have rolled if I did not roll. What I do now is make certain rolls before the game starts. :)
PS:This thread is not hostile. People are not exactly agreeing on everything, but it is pretty civil. When insults and namecalling starts, then you have a hostile thread. Go to an alignment thread and you will see hostility. I try to avoid those.
PS2:If there have been any insults I missed them, and I would suggest flagging the offending post to keep things civil.
I was assuming the healer was visible and the enemies were intelligent. If the bad guys can't get to him that is another thing altogether. Even I would still try to locate or get to the healer if possible though.Of course if the healer really can not be touched try to kill the fighter or squishy if possible.
I'm having trouble following this. Does the enemy learn by trial and error, guess by appearance, or do they know ahead of time?
But in the end, the fact that you consider the healer to be a lynch pin for the group speaks towards its efficacy.
Now when your party is seldom significantly challenged, then in-combat healing, using consumables, other buffing actions and things like scouting and stealth are perforce devalued. When that's not the case they all increase in usefulness.
-James
If the fighter is single handedly holding off three people, but three can overcome him if it weren't for that pesky healer then the healer should die. If they think the fighter is not doing enough damage to kill them first then kill the fighter. My post was in response to another post that have a situation where the cleric was doing enough damage to keep the fighter up long enough to kill the enemies. That is now I read it anyway.
The cleric has to strongly present his holy symbol. In most game worlds that means cleric or pally, most like a cleric since a pally would be fighting beside the fighter instead of healing him from the rear.
I understand the enemies don't know what hp are, but if I would assume if someone is bleeding badly, or has other injuries, and the cleric removes those injuries then he is an issue. At higher levels a cleric can also cast heal.
It is also efficient to kill as quickly as possible. The cleric might be getting in the way of that.
In short, consider the situation. I often use the monster's mental stats also. A hill giant might think he can kill the fighter, despite the fact that his wounds keep recovering.
I think those that say in combat healing is a bad idea are trying to say that it is always a bad idea. I just think that most of the time it is a bad idea some other spells, along with other measures could have made sure the damage was never taken in the first place.
PS:After reading your post I think we agree. Everything has a time and a place. As an example I won't cast any spells if the party seems to be handling things.
The cleric has to strongly present his holy symbol.
Actually, they don't. Not for healing anyway. If you look at the cure spells (and Heal) you will notice that the only components required are verbal and semantic. There are no material or divine focus requirements listed.
The cleric has to strongly present his holy symbol.Actually, they don't. Not for healing anyway. If you look at the cure spells (and Heal) you will notice that the only components required are verbal and semantic. There are no material or divine focus requirements listed.
For casting the caster must speak in a strong voice which still give him away.
** spoiler omitted **Just as an aside. I have recently become very disappointed in any offensive spell that has a saving throw (especially if save means no effect). The last 12 SOS spells I've used, the GM has made every single save. No fudging, he rolls right in front of us. My wiz has a 20 int, greater spell focus, and am targeting the low save when possible. He still makes it every time.
I have been switching my selection for buffs and spells that either don't have a save or have at least some affect on a save.
Aside: Grease on an object is actually negated by the initial Reflex save--unless you tag team with a disarmer or something, since it works on unattended objects automatically. You avoid the effect entirely if you make that first save, but otherwise you're screwed for a long time.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Aside: Grease on an object is actually negated by the initial Reflex save--unless you tag team with a disarmer or something, since it works on unattended objects automatically. You avoid the effect entirely if you make that first save, but otherwise you're screwed for a long time.
I guess I could sort of see reading it that way, but I'd have to disagree. If you'd like to discuss the details, I'd be happy to follow you to another thread. :)
For casting the caster must speak in a strong voice which still give him away.The cleric has to strongly present his holy symbol.Actually, they don't. Not for healing anyway. If you look at the cure spells (and Heal) you will notice that the only components required are verbal and semantic. There are no material or divine focus requirements listed.
Oh yes, definitely. If you are casting spells, you are being pretty obvious in general. I was thinking about the argument that someone made above about sundering the holy symbol. It will usually not be that effective and they are cheap to replace. All of my divine casters usually carry several spares.