I think he was referring to healbot, not healers themselves as being boring.If that's the case, then I stand corrected.
If the assailant it still attacking you might want to take the assailant out or you might be next.Not if I have an armor, a shield and the chance to survive an attack, even at the cost of taking some damage; if I manage to get my german shephard up on its feet again, it will be far more efficient than me in taking the assailant out.If the assailant is wearing armor then the german shepard probably won't be taking him out. I was not thinking of this being in medieval times though.
You always have a chance to survive the attack. What those chances are depend on the situation.
To go back to his statement when he said "all the things you COULD have done" he is speaking of making sure the boat never leaks or your dog never gets stabbed. Once it is stabbed make sure it is not stabbed again/the hole is plugged.
Of course the dog scenario does not translate well because you have a lot less options than you do in PF. I guess if you can place a barrier in between yourself and the assailant that might work so you can help the dog safely.
Ehm, I just said pet/german shepherd because I thought it would be rude to say "beloved one" "dear friend" or the like.
Translate "german shepherd" into something like "the fighter, your beloved brother" and you get the idea.
Even then cutting off the assailants access to you or your friend is a better option.
PF--Wall of Stone(also on the cleric spell list) or Wall of Ice, Black Tentacles, etc....Now you can heal your buddy in peace instead of both of you getting stabbed.
You can't plan for random chance and Lady Luck is particularly spiteful to me and my friends.
In one of my current campaigns, we could probably get away with not having a healer there most of the time, since it's a pretty sizable group and we kill things pretty solidly.
In another of my current campaigns, I may spend one or two rounds wishing I had a crossbow (not that I'd be able to hit anything anyway, since my first couple of feats were making sure I could channel energy worth a damn), but keeping the group feeling safe with their HP has been my main priority.
In my other campaign, the group basically has to have a dedicated healer to keep us alive, because the DM is trying to become the second coming of Gary Gygax (he's fully admitted he's running a "meat-grinder" campaign)...
A few things:
* Stat generation method:
I won't go into stat rolling...
The effectiveness of spellcasters in other areas depends on their stats, in point buy that mean you have to make choices, at 10-15 PB your cleric can't be good at both healing/spellcasting and fighting (without/before stat boosting magic)
20-25 PB can make things easier.
30+ even easier.
18 everywhere before racial and level adjustment... don't brag about it.
* Hit dices: Maximized, rolled, average? this can help or hinder a party a lot.
(should be noted that PFS game make one thing easier, since you won't get spells above sixth level spells, you don't really nead to put your casting stat above 16 especially if you need other stats)
* Sounds strategies:
1) Not everyone is good at making them. (both players and DM/GM)
2) Not everyone is good at following them.
3) Not every DM/GM is nice enough to let you outplan him/her.
4) Lady Luck is not liking you today.
* DM/GM and encounter dificulty: Some fight should be hard, some fight should be easy (it make the party realize they are getting stronger)...
Also, a bunch of easy fight in a row can make the players/PCs drop their guard.
* PCs and their personalities: One thing to remember is that quite a lot of players make their PCs in the image of existing fictional characters, many of which are in the "Attack, attack, attack" and never back down categories, these character often have "Unlimited HPs" in their series and the players forget in won't be the case in the game.
The whole point I am repeatedly trying to get across is that healing and buffs are not mechanically equal in any way shape or form.
A buff like Prayer will affect EVERY ROLL across the entire encounter. Every time someone misses due to the bonus to AC/penalty to hit, you effectively "heal" the damage that enemy would have done, without spending time doing so. And when your buff make hits out of attacks that otherwise would have missed, and the enemy goes down faster, you will have "healed" all the damage that enemy could have done through rounds 5-10 that did not happen.
I currently play a bard, where I could have played a cleric. My buffs (inspire courage, gallant inspiration, haste, good hope, saving finale) and debuffs (Glitterdust, Blistering Invective, Slow) make it so the PCs defenses go up, and the enemy's offense go down. On average I make it so that 5-10 hits during any given worrisome combat are my doing. And most every combat I undo the same amount of hits by blinding, scaring and otherwise messing with the enemies.
And if my Blistering Invective, which makes the enemies shaken, make it so that 5 attacks that would have done 1d8+5 damage miss. That spell will have "healed" 5d8+25. Which you simply cannot argue is a better result than 2d8+10 (cure mod) can ever hope to achieve. The spell is thus a stronger in-combat option than the cure. On top of that, it does damage and may cause enemies to catch on fire. Which is always fun.
The whole point I am repeatedly trying to get across is that healing and buffs are not mechanically equal in any way shape or form.
A buff like Prayer will affect EVERY ROLL across the entire encounter. Every time someone misses due to the bonus to AC/penalty to hit, you effectively "heal" the damage that enemy would have done, without spending time doing so. And when your buff make hits out of attacks that otherwise would have missed, and the enemy goes down faster, you will have "healed" all the damage that enemy could have done through rounds 5-10 that did not happen.
I do think they're different, but you have kind of undercut your own position here. Having stated that they arent mechanically equal "in any way shape or form" - you then proceed to equate various buffs with healing over the longer term.
.One can think about it lots of ways and it doesnt really matter. For those who want to label them both the same, the argument doesnt really change - barring unusual, specific circumstances healing is a very poor "buff" since it wastes an action of the healer on a one-shot boost to hit points which will soon disappear when the enemy gets attacks they would otherwise have been denied if the healer had instead chosen a more optimal strategy (on this view healing hit points is essentially a "buff" with an extremely short duration).
I do think they're different, but you have kind of undercut your own position here. Having stated that they arent mechanically equal "in any way shape or form" - you then proceed to equate various buffs with healing over the longer term.The whole point I am repeatedly trying to get across is that healing and buffs are not mechanically equal in any way shape or form.
A buff like Prayer will affect EVERY ROLL across the entire encounter. Every time someone misses due to the bonus to AC/penalty to hit, you effectively "heal" the damage that enemy would have done, without spending time doing so. And when your buff make hits out of attacks that otherwise would have missed, and the enemy goes down faster, you will have "healed" all the damage that enemy could have done through rounds 5-10 that did not happen.
1: "Not equal": Yes a 100 dollar bill and a 10 dollar bill are both MONEY, but one is far greater than the other. They are NOT equal. The mechanics of the game allows for people to claim that drawing a sword is a "buff" because it increases your damage potential from 1d3+str to 1d8+str, if they want to be that banal.
One can think about it lots of ways and it doesnt really matter. For those who want to label them both the same, the argument doesnt really change - barring unusual, specific circumstances healing is a very poor "buff" since it wastes an action of the healer on a one-shot boost to hit points which will soon disappear when the enemy gets attacks they would otherwise have been denied if the healer had instead chosen a more optimal strategy (on this view healing hit points is essentially a "buff" with an extremely short duration).
Yes exactly. The outcome of casting a powerful buff is almost always greater than using the same spell to mitigate damage. And the larger the party, the more true this statement is.
1: "Not equal": Yes a 100 dollar bill and a 10 dollar bill are both MONEY, but one is far greater than the other. They are NOT equal. The mechanics of the game allows for people to claim that drawing a sword is a "buff" because it increases your damage potential from 1d3+str to 1d8+str, if they want to be that banal.
There's no need to argue that point though is there?
You can make all the important arguments even if someone insists on using odd language - if they want to say that a longsword is a better "buff" than a dagger it doesnt really matter, does it?
There's no point arguing terminology when the issues at hand are so basic. Barring peculiar circumstances - probably sending the big, bad monster blind is going to 'save' more hit points in the future than healing the fighter of 50 points of damage now.
I think a dumb fighter may well act on instinct rather than reasoned deduction - they're still going to be good at fighting (ie tend to choose the best tactical options).
What I can't see here is the roleplaying part, honestly. Are all your characters skilled in Profession Soldier? Do they all have high wisdom / intelligence (apart from the spellcasters - wizards and clerics -)? I have almost always seen fighter types with relatively low int and/or wis compared to strenght, dexterity, constitution (I'm thinking 15 or even 20 points buy here).
So if you are roleplaying your character, you could easily assume that a "not so brilliant / not so wise" fighter might charge the enemy more times than not, even when the cleric / wizard is telling him not to, and more importantly even when the player thinks the better strategy, all things considered, would be to hit, run, regroup, come back.
My group has a tendency not to overlook the "what would my character do in this situation?" aspect of the game.
No they won't charge into danger like that, not that it changes the premise of don't get into a position where you have to heal.
The fighter is assumed to be a trained soldier. He would know that ____ is generally a bad idea even if he is not that smart, because it has been demonstrated to him.
Our M.I. soldiers had their butts handed to them by the infantry which much smaller numbers. On average the Military Intelligence people are smarter than most other people in the military, but those that train in combat every day know what not to do, and what to do.
PS:These were not the special forces guys in case anyone is asking.
I think a dumb fighter may well act on instinct rather than reasoned deduction - they're still going to be good at fighting (ie tend to choose the best tactical options).Elaborate tactics dictated by instinct alone? Hmmm.
I tend to see "dumb fighters" as the "I am stronger than you, my sword is bigger than yours, no way I'm running like a chicken, come here and face me if you have the guts, you stupid beast!" types.
That's certainly one type of character. It doesn't seem to me that they'd be very good at fighting though, to be frank.
I don't think you should discount stupid people hitting on optimal strategies. It happens all the time. They may not know why they do it - other than "it works" or even "that's the best way".
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The fighter is assumed to be a trained soldier.Higher levels? Yup, sure. Lower levels? Not necessarily.
In my games low level usually means young, unexperienced character (or with very little experience).
Before they became a fighter they had to be trained on how to use all of those weapons, and wear the armor. Even the warriors are trained soldiers, and serve as militia and town guards in many AP's.
Tactics and weapon use go together.In short the game assumes they are trained. Inexperienced does not mean untrained either. It merely means they have not been tested.
PS:I am not saying you can't do it how you want to at your table.
It's fine to have a fighter or barbarian display a certain amount of hubris, run ahead and almost die due to his folly.
Once.
Then the rest of the party should tell him that he was lucky to come back alive, and that next time, luck may not be on his side.
Also, fighters are the epitome of martial prowess. They are the best combatants the game has to offer. To say a fighter with middling/slightly below average wis does not understand combat is to say that a druid with low int should not understand nature. It is part of their very purpose and the core of their training. If you have the best training that the world has to offer, you simply do not lack the insight required to do your job.
And if you mold your character from some manner of superhero/anime character who can take five hundred blows and go on because of bad (shonen) writing, you need to learn that this is not that kind of game.
Finally: If your group play with a character-oriented perspective, having a loose cannon be your main line of defense should lead them to desire a NEW fighter, who will approach things in a way that does not jeopardize their lives as well. Or at least tell the dumb-ass that he is gonna get all his friends killed one day.
My clerics heal in combat all the time - that's what clerics do. The blindness comment was a throwaway illustration that the argument could be made without clarifying terminology. It was from someone with no clue about optimization, not a serious suggestion.
My point was that arguing what constitutes a buff is silly and irrelevant.
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So if you are roleplaying your character, you could easily assume that a "not so brilliant / not so wise" fighter might charge the enemy more times than not, even when the cleric / wizard is telling him not to, and more importantly even when the player thinks the better strategy, all things considered, would be to hit, run, regroup, come back.
My group has a tendency not to overlook the "what would my character do in this situation?" aspect of the game.
TBH, if that Fighter charged in, though my caster told him not to, my caster is likely to let that fighter bite dust and teach him that tactics lesson rather quickly... :-) I guess he wont do it a second time, let alone a third. ;-)
After all my caster doesn't consider herself the babysitter of that mentally disadvantaged show-off bully. (opinion my character would have about such a fighter behavior)
And he might end up getting a fox cunning and owls wisdom buff, instead of a bulls strength and bears endurance. :-p
My clerics heal in combat all the time - that's what clerics do.
That's what clercis can do... they don't have to.
They have plenty other things they could also do. The question is what's the best thing to do and that depends on:- party (what else is there)
- level
- many enemies vs few nasty enemies
- more enemies around the corner or not
- terrain and tactical options
- cleric's build (focussed on melee? archery? spells? healing? anything else?)
It's fine to have a fighter or barbarian display a certain amount of hubris, run ahead and almost die due to his folly.
Once.
Then the rest of the party should tell him that he was lucky to come back alive, and that next time, luck may not be on his side.
Also, fighters are the epitome of martial prowess. They are the best combatants the game has to offer. To say a fighter with middling/slightly below average wis does not understand combat is to say that a druid with low int should not understand nature. It is part of their very purpose and the core of their training. If you have the best training that the world has to offer, you simply do not lack the insight required to do your job.
And if you mold your character from some manner of superhero/anime character who can take five hundred blows and go on because of bad (shonen) writing, you need to learn that this is not that kind of game.
Finally: If your group play with a character-oriented perspective, having a loose cannon be your main line of defense should lead them to desire a NEW fighter, who will approach things in a way that does not jeopardize their lives as well. Or at least tell the dumb-ass that he is gonna get all his friends killed one day.
Yes, you get it now: this is the kind of interaction between the characters that provides many funny moments at the table ;-)
"Did you really have to charge that thing? It was fleeing already"
"Why, my friend, did you really expect me to let the evil thing go unpunished? My God would not stand for that blasphemy, and neither would I!!!"
Chasing a fleeing monster, and charging into the middle of the bad guys are two different things. I think myself and Kamel were against the 2nd idea.
While you did not say "charge into the middle of the bad guys" that was the image I got when I read "So if you are roleplaying your character, you could easily assume that a "not so brilliant / not so wise" fighter might charge the enemy more times than not, even when the cleric / wizard is telling him not to,..."
I have seen that(charge into enemies that are waiting for a fight) happen too many times, and it did not always end well.
If I were to truly play in character as a cleric, and someone kept doing that I would probably stop healing them. I would tell them to get their god to heal them because my god/deity does not have enough spells to cancel out their foolishness.
With this being a game however I would probably talk to them outside of the game, and ask them to calm down because if I am wasting cures on them then I don't have them for the rest of the party if someone gets in trouble later on. I am in one of those groups where the GM's don't tend to fudge dice, especially if the player does things like that. If the cleric uses too many channels and cure spells on one person, that is just too bad.
My clerics heal in combat all the time - that's what clerics do.That's what clercis can do... they don't have to.
They have plenty other things they could also do. The question is what's the best thing to do and that depends on:- party (what else is there)
- level
- many enemies vs few nasty enemies
- more enemies around the corner or not
- terrain and tactical options
- cleric's build (focussed on melee? archery? spells? healing? anything else?)
At our table, clerics heal. They don't have to, I guess, but they do.
To be clear what kind of a game we play - we don't have "builds", we just choose whatever seems cool at each level.
At our table, clerics heal. They don't have to, I guess, but they do.
To be clear what kind of a game we play - we don't have "builds", we just choose whatever seems cool at each level.
So if someone at your table said: "I wanna make a battle-cleric and bash enemies after throwing out my bless/divine favor/etc."
would your group accept that and somebody else do the in-combat healing?build is just a term I borrowed for what that character would focus on... a specialization of sorts. Usually my characters stick to what "focus" I chose because that's kinda what you do in RL.
If you studied physics it's highly unlikely you'd then decide to apply to a chemistry job. (Economy job would be changing from wizard to bard ;-) )
I've never seen anybody in all my life complain when someone choose to play a healer. If someone told me there'd be a player who would scoff me for choosing cleric or some heal heavy paladin (by the way, love my heal paladin!)I'd be very surprised and taken-aback.
The very idea of a party prefering to kill enemies before healing teammates and putting enemy erradication as top strategic priority strikes me as a very "Diablo 2" way of playing. (note: I'm saying nothing bad about Diablo 2, its a fun game. It just works differently from Pathfinder.) In such cases I'd assume that party had no real dedicated healer, and that's just as well. A druid and an alchemist can make up for the healing of 1 cleric in terms of after battle maintainance. After a fight, some healing before the next encounter is much appreciated or necesssary.
Sure tactics can help take you far, but if that enemy should crit... Well it'd be nice if someone could help keep you on your feet, especially if that person being healed is the damage dealer.
As a side note: I've seen an optimized assimar oracle of life be the party's healer. Its rather effective at protecting choice memebers of the party, but only becasue it excelled at mid combat healing using ability called: Life Link and using normal cure spells.
James: In your scenario, you are now standing next to the FIGHTER and the big bad that you seem so certain WILL drop the fithter in one round can now kill you much easier, as healers certainly do not have the defenses that a frontline warrior class has. Or, it can cleave and hit you both for free. He is still engaged, and now, so are you.
And if this is a fort-heavy monster, target his weaker saves, like Will. As a cleric you have several dozen spells at your disposal that can target any given save. Just because ONE spell is not ideal against one type of monster does not mean defaulting to healing is the best thing to do.
It is a simple question of getting the most out of your spells. A wand of cure light is cheap, accessible (barring silly house rules like cranewings' facist churches controlling all the healing items) and gets you up to full after a fight. But the most appealing thing about them is that they allow you to focus your slots on stuff that forces saving throws and can make a HUGE impact in a fight.
It is not even up for questioning that casting Prayer, giving the entire party a bunch of buffs, and at the same time debuffing the enemy, yields a greater numerical return than a Cure Serious Wounds spell in 9 out of 10 times.
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The very idea of a party prefering to kill enemies before healing teammates and putting enemy erradication as top strategic priority strikes me as a very "Diablo 2" way of playing.
To counter that statement:
the idea of must-have-healer-in-party is imho entirely and only based on MMOs, where people go as far as flame you in party chat if you don't keep them full-health at all times (even when it's entirely unnecessary).My issue about the entire healing debate is not if a player wants to play a healer... but rather that some people react in ways that make me sad if I want to play a cleric/oracle/witch/... and NOT be the healer.
That same MMO-thinking tends to default to cookie-cutter builds/specs as well, i.e.: wizards are only there for blasting and fighters are the best tanks (which they are not, imho) and only rogues can take care of locks and traps...
that is not true in Pathfinder.
If nobody in such groups feels like playing a healer, these groups tend to force one person to be the healer nonetheless, because they think is mandatory (=compulsory, obligatory).
The goal here is to explain that healers are not "must-have", they are "nice-to-have": If you like playing one, that's cool, but if you don't you shouldn't be forced to, because others refuse to try different tactics.
Imho the one screaming for a healer as necessary, should be the one who has to play it (if nobody else volunteered). :-p
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What I can't see here is the roleplaying part, honestly. Are all your characters skilled in Profession Soldier? Do they all have high wisdom / intelligence (apart from the spellcasters - wizards and clerics -)? I have almost always seen fighter types with relatively low int and/or wis compared to strenght, dexterity, constitution (I'm thinking 15 or even 20 points buy here).
So if you are roleplaying your character, you could easily assume that a "not so brilliant / not so wise" fighter might charge the enemy more times than not, even when the cleric / wizard is telling him not to, and more importantly even when the player thinks the better strategy, all things considered, would be to hit, run, regroup, come back.
My group has a tendency not to overlook the "what would my character do in this situation?" aspect of the game.
.
Well, my cleric's patron is the Red Knight from the Forgotten Realms 3.5 Campaign setting house-ruled to Pathfinder. I have a moderately high INT (for book learning and understanding what is going on around me) and a very high WIS (good instincts and practical application of knowledge.) I play support/battlefield commander, and constantly yell out tactical advice to my party. Most of the party has learned to listen to me. The barbarian doesn't (I love the barbarian player. She is very tactically smart, and plays the role I am playing in other campaigns. She is just roleplaying a bloodthirsty Barbarian very well, especially when she is raging. When she is raging, she refuses to even take 5-foot steps to flank an enemy, arguing that a raging barbarian is just focused on smashing things.) I have now learned to adapt my strategic thinking to assume the barbarian is going to charge every turn.
But more generally, I would tend to assume that a group of adventurers that has fought together over a long period of time will develop a basic level of coordnation and strategic planning. Remember, for the PCs, adventuring is their job. They fight things for a living. They are, by definition, professional soldiers. And professional soldiers that don't learn atleast a little strategy don't tend to live very long.
EDIT:
At our table, clerics heal. They don't have to, I guess, but they do.To be clear what kind of a game we play - we don't have "builds", we just choose whatever seems cool at each level.
I wish I played at your table. Your group appears to have defined a very complex, flexible, and deep class by one thing. And you create a self-perpetuating situation. You have only ever seen Clerics heal, so people who play Clerics at your table will only heal, because they assume its "what Clerics do."
You, or someone at your table, should experiment and try other ways to play this class. You might be surpised at how effective you can be.
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The goal here is to explain that healers are not "must-have", they are "nice-to-have": If you like playing one, that's cool, but if you don't you shouldn't be forced to, because others refuse to try different tactics.
Someone who is able to trigger the cure light wand (any divine caster, bard, witch or alchemist) is sort of a must have. But then again, who plays a group without ANY class able to wave the wand?
Imho the one screaming for a healer as necessary, should be the one who has to play it (if nobody else volunteered). :-p
Seconded very vocally.
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The very idea of a party prefering to kill enemies before healing teammates and putting enemy erradication as top strategic priority strikes me as a very "Diablo 2" way of playing.
Yeah! The very idea of using "intelligent tactics" strikes me as very video-game-y, too! It's obvious to we True Role Players (TM) that the only correct way to play is determine our actions using percentile dice and consulting a table!
Or not.
Branding any style of play other than yours (in this case, the use of intelligent tactics) as "video-game-y" is nothing but yet another claim of "badwrongfun" in the endless litany.
James: In your scenario, you are now standing next to the FIGHTER and the big bad that you seem so certain WILL drop the fithter in one round can now kill you much easier, as healers certainly do not have the defenses that a frontline warrior class has. Or, it can cleave and hit you both for free. He is still engaged, and now, so are you.If by healer you are thinking your bard, then perhaps. Personally I'm thinking a cleric in heavy armor with feat/traits towards concentration checks. Such a cleric welcomes the front rank, while a bard typically doesn't and has the views of it as you do above.
If the monster is cleaving, ...
You can argue that blinding is better tactically here assuming that it will succeed. But what chance of success do you need here for it to be the statistically better option?
-James
You cannot mathamatically "prove" either side is right, because both sides can create a situation where their prefered tactical advantage is the statistically better option. IE: Healing in combat is situational. Debuffing is also situational. As is Buffing, as is dealing damage, as is anything.
And the strength of any class is defined by their ability to adapt to the different situations.
Defining a character as "the healer" is self-limiting. You are putting yourself in the mindset that your "job" is to do one thing, which will limit your adaptability, either by building towards the goal of only being a healer, or by restricting the options you give yourself in combat.
Similiarly, making the statement "You should never heal in combat" is also self-limiting, because you ignore an option that will be the best choices in some situations.
What we are doing now is arguing how often each situation comes up, which varies campaign to campaign.
Well, I will just say again. If the idea of the game is to have as "challenging" an encounter as possible... nothing raises that challenge level like having to survive without a dedicated healer watching over you.
So for those who keep talking about "challenge", well, challenge yourselves by using non-healing tactics and reserving healing for true emergency situations.
And see how you like it.
I've never seen anybody in all my life complain when someone choose to play a healer. If someone told me there'd be a player who would scoff me for choosing cleric or some heal heavy paladin (by the way, love my heal paladin!)I'd be very surprised and taken-aback.
The very idea of a party prefering to kill enemies before healing teammates and putting enemy erradication as top strategic priority strikes me as a very "Diablo 2" way of playing. (note: I'm saying nothing bad about Diablo 2, its a fun game. It just works differently from Pathfinder.) In such cases I'd assume that party had no real dedicated healer, and that's just as well. A druid and an alchemist can make up for the healing of 1 cleric in terms of after battle maintainance. After a fight, some healing before the next encounter is much appreciated or necesssary.
Sure tactics can help take you far, but if that enemy should crit... Well it'd be nice if someone could help keep you on your feet, especially if that person being healed is the damage dealer.
As a side note: I've seen an optimized assimar oracle of life be the party's healer. Its rather effective at protecting choice memebers of the party, but only becasue it excelled at mid combat healing using ability called: Life Link and using normal cure spells.
I am sure you have misread what is being represented.
Click this and read option 2.
That is what most of us are saying.
Well, I will just say again. If the idea of the game is to have as "challenging" an encounter as possible... nothing raises that challenge level like having to survive without a dedicated healer watching over you.
Again, I agree. This speaks to the usefulness of in-combat healing at the table. If it's wasn't useful, then doing without it would be preferable rather than raising the difficulty for the party..
-James
While I do agree that healing is a viabile tactic, I STRONGLY disagree with both james and AD. Not having a dedicated healer does not raise the difficulty of an encounter.
I could very easily replace my positive energy-channeling support cleric with a full divine caster that channels negative energy, never memorizes a cure spell, and only uses wands of cure light wounds after combat, and the difficulty of 95% of the encounters my group faces would not change. I would change how I spend my actions (not that I spend many actions healing now), but it would not make things harder.
Just because healing is a viable tactic, it certainly doesn't mean it is the only tactic.
EDIT: It appears I misunderstood AD's post. We appear to agree on the relative advantages and disadvantages of healing in combat. And I think we both take exception to the posts that imply that they only reason you don't die encounters without a dedicated healer is because the GM doesn't provide challenging enough encounters.
I apologize AD.
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Well, I will just say again. If the idea of the game is to have as "challenging" an encounter as possible... nothing raises that challenge level like having to survive without a dedicated healer watching over you.
Again, I agree. This speaks to the usefulness of in-combat healing at the table. If it's wasn't useful, then doing without it would be preferable rather than raising the difficulty for the party..
-James
James, for some reason we seem to grate against each other when I think both of us are fundamentally presenting a reasonable view of our own perspective which just happens to be different in this case.
It probably is related to a desire for other people to read our so-reasonable posts and say "aha! I get it now." Which doesn't always happen, regrettably. At least in my case, I won't speak for you.
Also, it is very hard to have a conversation about fundamental tactics without the other person perceiving the expression of a preferred tactic as a denigration of a different tactic.
I've really tried not to do that. I've said all along in this ridiculously long thread that choosing to heal in combat is a perfectly reasonable tactic, and furthermore is a perfectly defensible role playing choice.
So, hopefully you will understand that I am not calling combat-healing badwrongfun. It's just a choice.
I happen to believe it is a choice with some negative in-game consequences that some people seem not to recognize. Which is not surprising since I am not aware of any tactic that doesn't have some negative in-game consequences. The issue at hand is which tactics appear to me to be tactics which have more in-game benefits and fewer in-game penalties.
In my experience, treating healing in combat has several in-game benefits. I'll list a few.
1. It allows other combatants to focus entirely on their non-healing role. That means the full-attacking barbarian can rely on a heal from the party healer and get off another full-attack when without a dedicated healer he might have to spend a round drinking a potion or activating a magic item.
2. It allows the party to have a clear delineation of roles. It has been my experience that parties who have a dedicated healer frequently (not always, but frequently) have other roles as clearly defined. The "tank" the "skill monkey" the "blaster", etc. This is not a "bad thing" since it simplifies the determination of tactics and helps each member to know what to expect in combat.
3. It helps to alleviate the "backpack full of CLW wands" syndrome, which is something that really irks me personally from a role playing perspective.
4. It contributes positively to the combat hit point differential, increasing the amount of damage needed to put a party member down, or to TPK the entire party.
5. It facilitates aggressive combat tactics such as charging, full-on melee, full-attack damage exchange etc. Knowing that a healer is ready to step in at need, that barbarian doesn't have to worry so much about reduced AC while raging and/or potential HP deficit when they stop raging.
I'm sure there's a lot more.
So you see, I acknowledge the tactical benefits of having a dedicated combat healer. And by "dedicated combat healer" I don't even mean a "healbot" who is wholly dedicated to healing, I just mean a character whose primary combat function is to heal damaged party members. They might be dropping a wall of fire or even buffing up a party member when not healing, or might even take a whack or two at the enemy themselves until the healing becomes necessary.
However, there are lots of negative consequences of this approach as well. Here is my off-the-top-of-my-head list:
1. The healer has limited tactical options since they have a clearly defined primary function that is driven by need. This makes the healer necessarily a reactive, not a proactive role.
2. Spell slots dedicated to healing are spell slots not available for other offensive, battlefield control, defensive or buffing spells. This further restricts the party's tactical options in combat. Now, this is somewhat reduced by the ability of clerics to spontaneously cast cure spells, but not all dedicated healers are clerics. And even though a cleric might have "prepared" several non-healing spells, the acknowledged role and the party expectations necessarily make the healer pause and greatly consider the consequences of "wasting" a spell on not-healing when a party member ends up needing healing anyway.
3. Healing is absolutely a net positive in the hit point differential equation. However, it is not usually one of the better spells for contributing to that equation. This is a very difficult concept to get across to some people. But it is quite easy to mathematically demonstrate. A buff spell which provides a +1 to an attack can be modeled using probabilities to estimate what it contributes to a combat encounter purely in terms of hit point differential. A +1 is a 5% increase in a chance to hit. If the entire party is the recipient of that buff, then every PC has a higher chance to hit every single round of combat. If some of those members are full-attacking, then that means they get multiple attacks per round with that 5% increase. Let's say it's a party of four and two of them full attack with 3 attacks per round (melee and ranged we'll say). That means each round contains 8 attacks. If the fight lasts four rounds, that means an average additional hit point damage on the opposition of 1.3333 attacks. Now, does 1.333 attacks contribute more to the hit point differential than one first level cure spell? I would have to say if your characters are built well, yes. So replacing a heal spell with a buff spell in this case contributes more to the hit point differential than the heal spell. Since the hit point differential is the only measure that matters in combat, that's a pretty interesting observation. This is only one example. A buff which adds damage to every hit contributes even more to that differential. A buff which reduces hits on the party does too. So while healing is a net positive, it is frequently not the most efficient way to contribute to a meaningful hit point differential in combat.
4. More aggressive combat is not always good. It exposes the party to additional risks. Leaping into melee not only allows the PC to make a full attack, it allows the opposition to do the same thing. It has been my experience that parties which have a dedicated healer tend to be less careful than parties without one. That means those parties take more damage, which requires more healing which provides a positive feedback loop which appears to show how important healing is. This becomes a cultural thing with many groups. It's "just the way we do it." As I have said, my 4e party has a dedicated healer who enjoys the role and who is incredibly good at it. Does that mean my ranger does foolish things in combat expecting the healer to save his butt? Hell yeah he does!
5. Because heal spells are generally less efficient in managing the hit point differential, that equates to more spells cast in combat. That's just simple math. That means healers tend to run out of spells more quickly, which leads to the "fifteen minute game day" syndrome. It has been my experience over the decades that I've played this game that the single most common situation that causes a party to have to rest to regain spells is when the healer says "uh, guys? I'm low on heals."
Anyway, all of these things lead me to prefer preferring a style of play which I believe maximizes combat effectiveness, minimizes party resource expenditure, encourages careful planning and tactical maneuvering and allows all of the party to contribute proactively in combat for the majority of the time.
Now, that doesn't mean that my parties never heal in combat. But in my preferred style of play healing is just one more tactic that has its place. It doesn't drive party behavior
OK, I'm done with this now. I just hope someone who has always held the traditional "tank, healer, skill-monkey, blaster" idea of adventuring might give it some thought and see if they might be open to a new style of play.
Heck, you might find you enjoy it more.
My parties seem to.
James:
First: I am well aware of what clerics can and cannot do. I have played several, and GMed for more. Also, clerics are no longer default proficient with heavy armor. Takes one of their VERY few feats to get it. Same with being able to reliably cast in melee (Combat Casting). For armor and combat casting, you give up channeling feats that a "healer" would drool over, as well as item creation feats that will increase versatility dramatically.
Second: Don't presume to know my character. He casts mirror image and frontlines with the best of them. At lv6 he reliably hits after 1 round to do Inspire Courage for 1d8+14. He has cha 16, 18 with a +2 head slot, but someone who is able to control battle does not need insane stats to win. Using what you DO have in an intelligent way will bring you victory. Through use of well timed illusions, buffs and debuffs he walks through most fights unscathed. He is far more combat-capable than any cleric I have ever played, that is for certain.
Third: By the time I act in round 2, enemies are usually within 30 feet. I never cast Blistering Invective before that, as party buffs take precedence. So yes, barring situations where we are being pelted by arrows (where I will put up a silent image to obscure vision) this works all the time. Nothing stands unshaken by my +16 intimidate at lv6, and then, the rest of my and the sorcerer's spells have a much easier time making affecting people. It is a solid and tested tactic. Can it go wrong? Of course. Do I have over half a dozen back-up plans? Of course.
Fourth: You insist on obfuscating my positions by changing the scenario to suit your side of the argument. Suddenly the monster attacking the fighter on the brink of death is a "solo" monster (powerhouse that can challenge the entire party), that is on the verge of dying itself, if the fighter only sticks out TWO rounds. Very specific. No variables. I assume the rest of the party is dead, or somehow otherwise unable to affect this, or that the cleric and fighter are a duo then? My arguments have been that IN GENERAL, given a somewhat normal group, spells that affect everyone across the entire battle > healing one dude. That statement is not 1 in 100 for any group
Edit: Adamantite Dragon said it very well in the pros and cons of healing. We used to play clerics as healbots before. Which led to nobody wanting to play a cleric. Ever. Now, we know better, and my last two clerics have been a blast.
And the "Backpack full of CLW" makes perfect sense to me from a socioeconomic point of view. Churches need income, and want to stop evil. Adventurers need healing items, and are the best at killing evil. Win-win. Personally, the "Magic should be rare!" POV irks me tenfolds more, especially in a game where more hero classes have magical powers than not. You can count the PC classes with absolutely no magical features on one hand: Fighter, Cavalier (and thus samurai) and... and that is it. The rest have some manner of supernatural abilities if they so opt to. Rogues can learn magic tricks, barbarians can get rage powers that do all kinds of unnatural stuff, monks heal themselves and disregard space and distance, and ninjas go invisible, among other things.
You said that the healer exposed to melee was in trouble. I simply posited what I have earlier that this is not the case. The healer can easily have an AC that exceeds that of the fighter.James:
First: I am well aware of what clerics can and cannot do. I have played several, and GMed for more. Also, clerics are no longer default proficient with heavy armor. Takes one of their VERY few feats to get it. Same with being able to reliably cast in melee (Combat Casting). For armor and combat casting, you give up channeling feats that a "healer" would drool over, as well as item creation feats that will increase versatility dramatically.
Given that the fighter is an offensive build and the cleric is a highly defensive one, this is possible. If you are talking post buffs (Protection from evil, shield of faith etc) then I would counter that the cleric is foolish for not casting these on the fighter that definitely is going into melee.
Second, I only assumed that you didn't want him in melee as you reacted that being in melee was so horrible for the healer. Are you envisioning a healer with even less defenses than your bard?
Well, yes. A cleric has spells to increase AC and reduce elemental damage. Otherwise, his defensive spells kinda suck. A bard can cast vanish and go around in melee completely safe when he wants to cast spells on the fighter. Or cast mirror image if he wants to be on the offense as well.
Third, I am curious how if you're waiting until round 2 to cast your spell to let you try to demoralize everyone within 30 feet, how it is affecting 50 attack rolls (really a tad over 55) in order for it to reasonably achieve that level of success. How long are your combats lasting (this certainly can vary by group)? If you do have long combats then these averages can make more sense than if they are shorter.
Our combats generally last for 3-7 rounds, I think. First, I Inspire Courage, and the sorc casts Haste, affecting every attack the party makes, which now is 5+/rd. Then, by waiting until combat is joined proper (round 2), I get more targets for my Blistering Invective (usually all enemies in the encounter, barring archers and casters). These enemies often have multiple attacks if they are monsters. Or they get AoOs as we maneuver about, etc. Any given round usually has 10-15 rolls that I now affect. This soon tallies up to 50+ rolls, that are affected by one spell and one class ability.
As to the later 'suddenly' changing comments, it never was changed. That was my premise all along. The fighter is in dire straits. With healing he can continue but baring something happening he can't otherwise. So the question is what is better for the cleric to do in that situation? Healing seems natural, but others in this thread have said that it is far weaker and too expensive to do opposed to other options in this exact situation.
Healing has its place and can be a very good tactical response. A character that delivers strong amounts here can be pivotal in the party just as being strong in other areas can. In short it's a viable thing to bring to the table in many situations and party makeups.
The opposition was never clarified (big solo mob that will go down in 2 rounds) until the post in question, in order to make it so that a debuff has the least possible chance to succeed, and have the least possible return. That you need to specify the situation this far for healing to be the better option pretty much validates the notion that healing is inherently weaker than most other combat spells.
What is the party arcane caster doing while all this is going down? A silent image spell from a scroll can be used to make duplicate fighters "walk" out of the real one, like the wizard in Conan the Destroyer. Lots of things to do to keep the fighter safe, and make the monster waste his attacks on nothing. (Barring the "NO CREATIVITY!"-GM, of course)
At our table, clerics heal. They don't have to, I guess, but they do.
To be clear what kind of a game we play - we don't have "builds", we just choose whatever seems cool at each level.So if someone at your table said: "I wanna make a battle-cleric and bash enemies after throwing out my bless/divine favor/etc."
would your group accept that and somebody else do the in-combat healing?
Oh sure - its not a rule, it's just what happens. We've been playing as essentially the same group for thirty years - we pretty much always have a fighter, magicuser, cleric and thief fulfilling the roles they always did. Maybe it will be a ranger instead of a fighter or a ninja instead of a rogue or something, but it's basically the same. The variation we see tends to be via the story (although we have played a rolemaster game where we were all assassins).
build is just a term I borrowed for what that character would focus on... a specialization of sorts. Usually my characters stick to what "focus" I chose because that's kinda what you do in RL.
If you studied physics it's highly unlikely you'd then decide to apply to a chemistry job. (Economy job would be changing from wizard to bard ;-) )
Hah! I did a maths/physics/philosophy degree for fun, then worked as an acrobat for ten years before running a bridge club (I'm now an accountant). I don't optimise in rl either. :p
I wish I played at your table. Your group appears to have defined a very complex, flexible, and deep class by one thing. And you create a self-perpetuating situation. You have only ever seen Clerics heal, so people who play Clerics at your table will only heal, because they assume its "what Clerics do."At our table, clerics heal. They don't have to, I guess, but they do.
To be clear what kind of a game we play - we don't have "builds", we just choose whatever seems cool at each level.
We've defined all classes in very simple ways, not just clerics (our magicusers all learn damage dealing spells). We don't have time to learn complicated tactics (or any tactics, really).
You, or someone at your table, should experiment and try other ways to play this class. You might be surpised at how effective you can be.
Effectiveness isn't a factor we consider when we create characters. (I'm not convinced you would enjoy playing at our table - I think anyone moderately skilled at optimization would tear their hair out :p).
Is it just me or some of you have PCs way above the WBL?
Also Different Point Buy/Rolled Stats?
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Effectiveness isn't a factor we consider when we create characters. (I'm not convinced you would enjoy playing at our table - I think anyone moderately skilled at optimization would tear their hair out :p).
Not because of their optimization, but their inability to let others play their own way. Or your groups inability to let them play their way. One or the other. Maybe both.
I wish I played at your table. Your group appears to have defined a very complex, flexible, and deep class by one thing. And you create a self-perpetuating situation. You have only ever seen Clerics heal, so people who play Clerics at your table will only heal, because they assume its "what Clerics do."At our table, clerics heal. They don't have to, I guess, but they do.
To be clear what kind of a game we play - we don't have "builds", we just choose whatever seems cool at each level.We've defined all classes in very simple ways, not just clerics (our magicusers all learn damage dealing spells). We don't have time to learn complicated tactics (or any tactics, really).
I would argue that it does not require "complex" tactics to play a cleric as support rather than healing, but then tactical thinking is a default for me. I tend to (over)analyze and (over)plan most of my time. Parking Spot Selection? Grocery Shopping? House Cleaning? These all require strategic thinking, IMHO.
You, or someone at your table, should experiment and try other ways to play this class. You might be surpised at how effective you can be.Effectiveness isn't a factor we consider when we create characters. (I'm not convinced you would enjoy playing at our table - I think anyone moderately skilled at optimization would tear their hair out :p).
Fine, you might be surprised at how much fun it is to roleplay a familiar class differently. :)
But you are correct, I don't think I wouldn't enjoy your table. I frequently make sub-optimal builds to better fit with a character concept, but creating a character with no regard to effectiveness at all? *shudder*
Effectiveness isn't a factor we consider when we create characters. (I'm not convinced you would enjoy playing at our table - I think anyone moderately skilled at optimization would tear their hair out :p).Not because of their optimization, but their inability to let others play their own way. Or your groups inability to let them play their way. One or the other. Maybe both.
I dont know. I think it would probably be a combination of dull and frustrating. No doubt they'd breeze through encounters (since we're not very good at DMing monsters effectively either, I suspect) but stare in disbelief as the cleric healed the useless fighter again while the magicuser cast another hitpoint reducing spell.
I suspect it would work out ok socially - we're pretty easy to get along with and dont actually demand ineffective characters.