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They aren't the same.
My cleric has armor on. So mage armor is no help most of the time—incorporeal undead are another matter.
Even if I was playing a character that could use mage armor, how many times will I need it cast on me for the whole scenario? Once? Maybe twice?
Healing will be needed after just about EVERY encounter. I brought some for myself because I like to be "topped off" between encounters. If you don't want to bring any for yourself, like I said before, no skin off my nose, and it hope that works out for you.
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Even if I was playing a character that could use mage armor, how many times will I need it cast on me for the whole scenario? Once? Maybe twice?At an hour a level, quite often.
So I don't need to buy armor for my characters then because someone else should provide that for me? Good to know.
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The tank is expected to go be tanky, and cover his own healing.
The archer is expected to be good at archery, and cover his own healing.
The evoker is expected to spend spell slots blasting, and cover his own healing.
The debuffer is expected to spend resources debuffing, and cover his own healing.
And so forth.
And what is the healer supposed to do?
If the tank is really able to do his tank job well, he's going to need a lot more healing than everybody else. Sucks to be the tank in your sociopathic "nobody gets heals unless they can pay for them themselves" each-man-out-for-himself world.
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And what is the healer supposed to do?
Heal.
This is not what folks are protesting against.
If the tank is really able to do his tank job well, he's going to need a lot more healing than everybody else. Sucks to be the tank in your sociopathic "nobody gets heals unless they can pay for them themselves" each-man-out-for-himself world.
You're putting the "blind" into "blind rage". Calm down and read.
It's not "each man out for himself", it's "each person contributing to the team according to their role".
Pretty much exactly what you want, except for not allowing you to tell other people what their role is.
"The healer should heal" is fine. "The cleric has to be the healer" is not.
No one has contested the former, only the latter. But you're too rage-blind to see the difference.
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I think our perspectives differ a bit usually because I haven't really played in an environment where we've had a "tank" because, well, we're not playing WOW here so the BBEG can very easily just go punch somebody other than the tank if the tank is to difficult to kill. And our GMs often do this to keep things somewhat interesting. That and the AC tanks I've run into often (not always) have trouble keeping the NPC's attention and they move on to hit stuff that's easier to kill.
My PCs always expect to get hit by something nasty at some point, and I fork over my healing crap to someone who can use it (if I can't) at the start of the game because I don't expect other people to be as prepared as me. I always go in with the assumption that the "healer" will not be as prepared as me, and that's not because they're incompetent or something, it's just erring on the side of caution. Also, my PCs are generally really obnoxious (My time oracle likes to open at the start of initiative with persistent disintegrate and quickened silence) so they get targeted a lot.
Rather, I think a better way to describe the scenario I usually run into is that the PCs are likely, at some point, to take some damage. All it takes is an AOE spell. Or a ranged attack. Or a teleporting creature. So.. if there's a chance you can take damage, and there's not someone who casts healing spells or has a crap load of healing resources available, it's highly practical to just carry some of your own basic healing stuff.
A heavy hit is usually best addressed with a spell of some sort, as CLW is not really great for fixing internal organ spillage. Spells are also mostly cheaper to cast than using a consumable because you get your spells back daily. If somebody is about to die, yes, it would be anybody's prerogative to toss that player a heal or BOL if possible. It makes no sense to not use a spell or class ability to heal them in that situation. I'm very confident that nobody is claiming otherwise, despite what people are saying.
Small bits of damage, and keeping people topped off, is usually best solved by a CLW wand or a IH wand. Any divine caster build can do that, regardless of whether you are built to the healing role or not, so it's very easy. Additionally, having multiple wands around, and multiple people capable of using said wands (not always going to happen, of course) allows for concurrent use of wands if time is a factor (which is not always the case of course). Incidentally though, it's the topping off part that often consumes the most consumables, because people typically do this with wands or potions.
But I've said this a lot and it seems to get ignored pretty frequently, but if I'm performing the "healing" role, and I need to cast something like Restoration or Raise Dead or Breath Of Life from a scroll on you, it's super awesome and greatly appreciated if you come with your own material component or scroll (singular) so I'm not dropping like 1k-5k on healing stuff all the time. Also, material components are trade goods so you can sell them back for full price after the scenario so really there's no harm in everyone bringing stacks of diamond dust in case someone gets hit with a negative level or ability drain. It's unpleasant to find yourself in a situation where someone is stuck with a status condition (how about death for the sake of argument) and nobody has a means of fixing because the "healer" couldn't afford it or didn't think to be prepared, and neither did anybody else.
My favorite anecdote for where this came into play was Siege of the Diamond City 14-15 tier last year at paizo con, where we went through 20 combats and went through a ridiculous amount of 5k diamonds, 1k diamond dust stacks, heal scrolls, and BOL scrolls. Everybody pitched in, and it was awesome.
The "healer" does not need to be the only one who contributes to applying bandaids to the party.
I think I come off kind of strong in my previous arguments on this topic but my intention is basically to strongly recommend that people come prepared with their own healing components in case of emergencies or to help make it less cost heavy and make it much easier/possible for the guy on "healing duty" to keep people topped off. I've played a lot of high level games where that practice has made it possible for us to succeed, so I am a believer in it. If someone doesn't want to provide their own healing, that's totally cool, I'll just let them decide whether buying their own stuff will be worth it next time they play if I wind up having to raise them or use an expensive resource. I like being prepared for my unexpected death so I stay in the game longer, and I think other people should try to do that, too. It's more about teaching, than anything.
EDIT: Lots of edits to refine argument, sorry if someone was trying to quote me.
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So I don't need to buy armor for my characters then because someone else should provide that for me? Good to know.Even if I was playing a character that could use mage armor, how many times will I need it cast on me for the whole scenario? Once? Maybe twice?At an hour a level, quite often.
Wow, and I thought I was the obtuse one.
Wow, and I thought I was the obtuse one.
Oh? What's your angle? ;)
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So I don't need to buy armor for my characters then because someone else should provide that for me? Good to know.Even if I was playing a character that could use mage armor, how many times will I need it cast on me for the whole scenario? Once? Maybe twice?At an hour a level, quite often.
So a player steps up and takes point for you, and makes an effort to keep you from getting hit. So you can spend your other resources not on armor. Well that guy will obviously be hurt more. So that barbarian will be taxed extra healing because he is being a team player. But that is fine with you as long as he pays for the hits he takes for you.
Good to know.
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"The healer should heal" is fine. "The cleric has to be the healer" is not.
No one has contested the former, only the latter. But you're too rage-blind to see the difference.
I'm curious as to why you think I'm rage blind. You seem to have a lot of confidence in your insight into the emotional states of others. Pretty amazing, really.
I'm also curious as to why you think I'm talking about the cleric and insisting that the cleric must be the healer. Where did I say that? You're arguing against something that clearly is something that bothers you, but is not what I'm saying.
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The "healer" does not need to be the only one who contributes to applying bandaids to the party.
I don't think anybody is arguing this. I'm certainly not arguing this.
However, the argument that people must, absolutely, no matter who they are, get a CLW wand once they have 2 PP is being made, and further the argument is being made that people who don't do that aren't team players. That is what I and some others are resisting. For the record, many of my characters do have such wands. But, also, I have a character with a wand of mage armor (a fifth level character, so we have yet to get to the "burn through a wand a scenario" stage), that character has used that wand on multiple other people, more charges worth of which than healing wand charges have been used on that character. In other words, everything's fine, everything's working, but if I sat down at a table with some of the people in this thread I'd immediately be dismissed as a bad PFS player and not a team player. This kind of extreme (and, frankly) hostile attitude is probably no surprise in an Internet message board, where people tend to be d-bags to each other all the time. Still, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth for PFS in general.
Often, the same people who stridenly insist that everybody must have a CLW wand seem to be the ones who think that anybody put off by their extreme stridence in their insistence must be selfish types who think that anybody who's a cleric must spend all their resources healing anybody else. This is not what anybody here is arguing; we're just arguing against the stridence, the stereotyping, and the insistance that no matter what or who you are, you have to have that wand or you deserve to have horrible things to happen to you.
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Often, the same people who stridenly insist that everybody must have a CLW wand seem to be the ones who think that anybody put off by their extreme stridence in their insistence must be selfish types who think that anybody who's a cleric must spend all their resources healing anybody else. This is not what anybody here is arguing; we're just arguing against the stridence, the stereotyping, and the insistance that no matter what or who you are, you have to have that wand or you deserve to have horrible things to happen to you.
I don't think anyone is arguing you have to have a CLW wand. I think people are saying you shouldn't expect others to use their charges on you. And that's all we're saying.
If you sit at a table with me without a CLW wand, I won't bat an eyelash. If you then ask to be healed, I may ask why you don't have your own wand. And if you're of a level where you could easily have spent 2PP by this time, I may not wish to sacrifice my own charges just because you made your choices on the assumption that someone else would provide for your out-of-combat healing.
The problem I see is when people who don't want to buy a wand say, "fine, don't heal me. I'll just sit in the back with a sling instead of using this shiny +3 Greatsword I bought with my wand moneys." To me, this comes off as blackmail. "Heal me or I'm going sit here as dead weight, raising your APL and contributing nothing."
Or, "fine, don't heal me, and if I die, I die." That's better (for me, at least), because you're living with the consequences of your choices (rather than passive-aggressively guilting people into acquiescence), but now if you do die, we've got to try to complete the scenario with an incomplete party. And what if there's no one else capable of adequately filling your role?
That you are willing to trade Mage Armor charges for CLW charges is great, but what happens when that currency does not have the value you think it does? I have a level 9 character with a wand of Mage Armor that he picked up around level 2. It still has 30 charges. He doesn't need Mage Armor charges, he needs healing (often!). So he also carries a wand of CLW, which he will ask someone else to use on him (and even offer them charges for their service).
tl;dr
Not having a wand isn't a problem. Assuming someone else will a) have one and b) use theirs on you is.
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I will never ask anyone to use thier wand charges or resources on any of my characters. But If you have the ability to heal without one and I take a beating for the good of the group I do expect you to use your class abilities to heal me. Because I used my abilities to keep you from getting hurt.
Point in case. My sorcererwith a dip in oracle burned all of his oracle spells healing the party when the cleric dropped. Now that same cleric sets off a trap that damages my character and refuses cast spells to heal me because I do not have a wand of clw. Nowhere did he say when he was dropped , hey, use my wand on myself. He was happy me burning my resources to heal him. So I finished the scenario with 3 hp. Now this type of thing happened to me twice were I burned my resources healing someone that will not return the favor.
I another game a PC died and I donated a little over 1000 gold to raise him. Next time I play with him he refuses to burn a charge off of his wand on me until I remind him of the previous debt I paid to him. In the end i rfused his wand and said a spell was what I wanted. And refused tyhat to because grumbled abotu it.
That is what drives me insane.
I will spend everything I currently have for the group but occassionally there is one self servicing jerk. That will take and not return.
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So I don't need to buy armor for my characters then because someone else should provide that for me? Good to know.Even if I was playing a character that could use mage armor, how many times will I need it cast on me for the whole scenario? Once? Maybe twice?At an hour a level, quite often.So a player steps up and takes point for you, and makes an effort to keep you from getting hit. So you can spend your other resources not on armor. Well that guy will obviously be hurt more. So that barbarian will be taxed extra healing because he is being a team player. But that is fine with you as long as he pays for the hits he takes for you.
Good to know.
Here are my characters. You tell me which ones need to subsidize your barbarian's healing and which ones don't. Keep in mind that all of them have access to healing wands of some sort.
Bard/Cleric
She is a buffer/debuffer. She can channel positive energy for 1d6 points of healing (at 4th level). She can also (and has done so) bypass combat entirely through diplomacy and charm.
Paladin/Gunslinger
She is a hard-hitter. Quite likely, she hits harder than your barbarian (though she has adventured with a barbarian that hits harder than she does). Here is her full round attacks against an evil opponent (at level 8)
+15/+15/+10 ranged touch (1d8+20 plus 1d6 nonlethal/19-20/x4)
Barbarian/Alchemist/Ranger/Rogue
He's a barbarian, so I guess everyone owes him healing. But he's crazy anyway.
Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight
As a melee gish, he is supposed to stand up front, take hits, provide his own healing, provide for his own gear (spells AND weapons AND armor), and probably provide for your healing too?
Swashbuckler/Sorcerer
She is another gish. But she has better defenses and packs more of a wallop—both melee and range, sometimes even in the same round. She is level 4, and has the following two attacks available to her:
melee +9 (1d6+6/18-20)
ranged touch +8 (4d6 electricity, Fort DC 14 or staggered 1 round)
Using Parry and Riposte, she can often get both of those attacks in on the same round. And she is taking damage.
Paladin/Sorcerer
His AC hovers around 31-33, depending on which of his buffs he has up. This is at level 6, so pretty good AC. He gains about +1 AC per level. And he currently has 55 hp. So he is a pretty decent tank. I also managed to get his speed back up to 25 ft., so he has okay mobility as well. He enjoys soaking up attacks of opportunity and setting up flanking.
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I will never ask anyone to use thier wand charges or resources on any of my characters.
Awesome! In fairness, I won't ask you to use yours on me. In actual play, I will offer to use my resources on you; these might be charges from a healing wand, they might be something else entirely—like my paladin/gunslinger who hands out her spare firearms to people who don't have ranged weapons "just in case" (a –4 non-proficiency penalty to hit on against touch AC is usually negligible).
But If you have the ability to heal without one and I take a beating for the good of the group I do expect you to use your class abilities to heal me.
See, now you are telling me how I need to play my character. This is where we run into trouble.
Because I used my abilities to keep you from getting hurt.
Maybe you didn't. Maybe I got hurt anyway. Maybe I was going to remain unhurt even if you weren't there. Maybe I was using my abilities to help you finish the fight sooner so you wouldn't take more damage.
All I'm asking is:
Please don't try to tell me how to play MY characters.
In exchange, I won't tell you how to play yours.
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Would you care to elaborate?What more needs elaboration? Each individual session will call for a different answer.
Let me approach this from another angle (not 2 pi/3)...
In your opinion, which of the characters I listed do not need to have a healing wand? In particular, which characters should everyone else feel obligated to provide healing for as payment for my awesomeness?
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rknop, let's approach this from a different angle: would you expect me to raise you if you died and I had a scroll of raise dead on my cleric? What if you had the PP to pay for it yourself but decided it was my 'job' as cleric to spend that money on you?
Now, a charge from a CLW wand isn't nearly as expensive, but over the course of a PFS career multiple wands can easily add up, making the situation more comparable than you might think.
A player doesn't have to bring his own wand to the party, but I'll be damned if I let him call ME selfish because he is expecting others to foot his bill.
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1. In your opinion, which of the characters I listed do not need to have a healing wand? 2. In particular, which characters should everyone else feel obligated to provide healing for as payment for my awesomeness?1. Looking over them, all of them.
2. None of them.
Then I think we are in agreement.
1. I won't tell you that you need to have a wand of healing.
2. You won't tell me that I need to heal you if I have one.
Correct?
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Tanks tank by tanking, by shoveling so much damage to a dangerous target that they can't be ignored. There's no aggro mechanic(fortunately), but as long as such a dangerous target is still tied by the realities of tabletop movement, so no ethereal shenannies or insurmountable teleportation ability, it needs to pay heed to the tank.
That said high ac no damage toons are the worst. Just being hard to hit does not work, as was already explained.
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I'm curious as to why you think I'm rage blind. You seem to have a lot of confidence in your insight into the emotional states of others. Pretty amazing, really."The healer should heal" is fine. "The cleric has to be the healer" is not.
No one has contested the former, only the latter. But you're too rage-blind to see the difference.
You talk about people's gaming preferences with terms like "sociopathic". That implies some degree of anger.
I'm also curious as to why you think I'm talking about the cleric and insisting that the cleric must be the healer. Where did I say that?
You may have never literally stated flat-out that clerics are supposed to be healers, but every mention of a cleric refusing to be the party healer is met with "Not contributing to the team! Going too far! Sociopathic!"
So yes, you said clerics are supposed to be the healers.
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The thing is, the enemy has to wait until he realizes he can't hit me and that I'm not a threat before moving on to another target.
By that point my wife's archer fighter has usually killed it.
Some judges just never have "the enemy" even take that first swing. Even when you have a Hat of Disguise and look like an unarmored rogue.
You get swung on once in the first fight, then the enemy just moves past you in the rest of the scenario...
The only solution is to wear no armor! I do this and I get hit many times.
Sometimes I'd like enemies to get tired of stabbing into my orc-flesh and attack other people. But they never do. I'm very special.
That's why I carry a magic stick. Then my magic friends make me hurt less. Organs belong inside.
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Some judges just never have "the enemy" even take that first swing. Even when you have a Hat of Disguise and look like an unarmored rogue.
You get swung on once in the first fight, then the enemy just moves past you in the rest of the scenario...
It's usually pretty obvious when the GM is metagaming like that. If the huge worm had moved past me instead of charging it would have been pretty obvious.
Of course, Keldaran being a Dex fighter meant she wasn't much easier to hit anyway.
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If the OP is still around, which is not likely given the thread necromancy, you can pick up some nice consumables for emergencies.
Potion of fly
Potion of water breathing (maybe in a potion sponge if the GM won't let you drink it underwater)
Potion of remove blindness/deafness (caster can't use a scroll if he can't see it)
Potion of tongues (for those rarely spoken languages)
Wand of cure light
Wand of Mage armor
Wand of endure elements
Wand of (any situationally useful 1st level spell)
Scroll of (multiple situational spells)
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If the OP is still around, which is not likely given the thread necromancy, you can pick up some nice consumables for emergencies.
Potion of fly
Potion of water breathing (maybe in a potion sponge if the GM won't let you drink it underwater)
Potion of remove blindness/deafness (caster can't use a scroll if he can't see it)
Potion of tongues (for those rarely spoken languages)
Wand of cure light
Wand of Mage armor
Wand of endure elements
Wand of (any situationally useful 1st level spell)
Scroll of (multiple situational spells)
Comprehend Languages is one of my favorite 1st level scrolls. You never know when you're going to need it, but if it comes up, you'll be glad you have it.
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Prioritising spellcasters and high damage dealers like archers is very far from metagaming for any opponent with even a modicum of intelligence.
Indeed, but having the NPC treating a character as a non-threat before he has reason or knowledge to base that on is bad roleplaying. The GM is just as bound to the separation of player and character knowledge as the players are. Start having the NPCs target the unarmored mage over the unarmored monk before learning who is who and the PCs will start casting resist energy before making their knowledge checks for creatures they already know.
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I'm also curious as to why you think I'm talking about the cleric and insisting that the cleric must be the healer. Where did I say that?You may have never literally stated flat-out that clerics are supposed to be healers, but every mention of a cleric refusing to be the party healer is met with "Not contributing to the team! Going too far! Sociopathic!"
So yes, you said clerics are supposed to be the healers.
Wow. This is pretty rich coming from somebody who's quick to diagnose the emotional states of others, and who's quick to accuse others of reading comprehension problems.
First, take a look at this, a few posts later. I'm not saying "Cleric=Healer", and it's clear in that post. I do say, however, that sometimes people need to be able to consider doing something that there character is capable of doing, even if it's not a part of their core character concept. Second, in the post you linked to, when I responded, you were talking about your healing. So, yes, we're talking about healing.
But I have made clear that I'm not assuming Cleric = Healer.
However, sometimes they are. Sometimes other classes are. And, in my mind, when somebody who's a healer shows up at the table and demands that absolutely none of their non-renewable resources (i.e. things other than spells) be spent helping any individual in the party other than themselves, that's right in line with the archer demanding that other people in the party buy him arrows, the arcane blaster demanding that other people in the party buy him new spells for his spellbook, or the frontline meele type demanding that other people in the party contribute to the cost of his armor and weapon. In all of these cases, it's people in the party demanding that their role in the party be subsidized by others.
And, honestly, in a home game, it often works that way-- in my experience, treasure tends to be pretty communist in home games. The party has its resources, and tries to make sure that they're spent so that everybody in the party has what they need to be effective. This doesn't work in PFS because characters don't all stay together.
So, here are the things I'm arguing:
- Yes, I fully agree that it's unreasonable that the healer (notice I'm saying "healer" and not "cleric") spend all of their resources on healing expendables, because, yes, it's true that healing is the one predictable expendable that will be used most and that everybody needs. Everybody should contribute to this.
- However, it's completely unreasonable for a healer to refuse to spend any of his expendables healing others, ever. This is what I'm objecting to, and yet I'm seeing this attitude here in this thread. No, I'm not arguing that the healer now has responsibility to spend all expendables for everybody's healing ever. There is grey area, but I've seen the argument made, explicitly, that nobody deserves healing from expendables if they don't provide those expendables themselves. And, yes, frankly, I think the healer who does this to an extreme degree is selfish and sociopathic.
- It's a really good idea to have your own healing capability, because you don't know what party you're going to be with and it's the one thing that you can be pretty sure you will need.
- It's a really good idea to be ready, if necessary, to bolster the healing of others in the party, even if you aren't a healer, because you might end up with a party that's weak on that area, and yet you still want to complete your mission.
- And, yes, it's a good idea to get a CLW wand because, sadly, there is always the risk that you're going to be at a PFS table with somebody who's going to write you off as a bad player if you don't have one.
- It's boring if all anybody ever buys is a CLW wand. We've heard of the Vanish wand, I've seen a Silent Image wand used to great effect... it's just more fun at low level if not everybody is doing exactly the same thing with their first two PP.
- Low-level and high-level are not the same. By 7th level, yeah, probably everybody should have a CLW wand (or two), because you're going to burn through healing at a huge rate. This is not true at 3rd and 4th level, and especially not true at 1st (or, if things go really badly, 2nd) level when you've just got your first two PP. It's probably worth being clear which level ranges we're talking about, because what you ought to bring changes with that. (Heck, by the time you're fourth level, it's probably a good idea to have the ability to see in the dark at least once a day, one way or another. Eventually, healing isn't the only thing that everybody needs to be prepared for, although I agree that it's the one thing that you know you will need almost every scenario.)
Those are the things that I'm arguing, to be clear. I am not arguing "cleric=healer". I have said that the cleric has healing capabilities that perhaps should be considered for use even if the cleric isn't primarily serving in the healer role; the first part is a simple fact, the second part is my opinion. But, that opinion is not the same as saying that the cleric's primary role is as a healer. You've made abundantly clear that that is a sore spot for you, to the point that you have repeatedly accused me of rageful emotional states and in inability to read because you want to respond to this argument that I'm not even making. I hope this posts makes clearer what it is that I'm trying to say, and I apologize if I wasn't clear before.
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However, it's completely unreasonable for a healer to refuse to spend any of his expendables healing others, ever. This is what I'm objecting to, and yet I'm seeing this attitude here in this thread.
This is why it looks (despite your claim to the contrary) like you assume clerics are supposed to be healers: because you attribute to "healers" that which I've only seen posted by non-healers. When a non-healer (such as a melee cleric, or whoever else for that matter) says "I'm not going to spend my consumables healing you" and you reference that statement as "A healer said he wouldn't spend his consumables healing me", that means you're pigeonholing him into being a healer when he's not.
Hence, it looks like you think clerics are supposed to be the healers.
Obviously, it's a horse of a different color if someone who actually self-identified as an actual "healer" (rather than someone who identified as a tanky cleric, or didn't identify themselves at all, etc) said they wouldn't spend resources on healing. Maybe I just missed those posts. If you can link me to posts like that, I'll retract what I said in a heartbeat. :)
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Party tank absorbs 100 damage during combat. If you spend 10 charges (and 10 minutes) off a wand of infernal healing to heal the tank, what's the difference if you're using that 150 gp (or 0.4 PP) on the tank or yourself? That 100 hp of damage is going to be absorbed by someone..
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Party tank absorbs 100 damage during combat. If you spend 10 charges (and 10 minutes) off a wand of infernal healing to heal the tank, what's the difference if you're using that 150 gp (or 0.4 PP) on the tank or yourself? That 100 hp of damage is going to be absorbed by someone..
What if that party tank is me, and I *do* spend my own charges on that healing, and then other party members want me to spend some on them as well?