Kydeem, to be clear I didn't say that playing a healer "isn't fun". I said that most players I know consider it the "least enjoyable" of the common roles. "Least enjoyable" can still be loads of fun.
Doesn't channeling in combat also heal the enemy? If the wizard is using a 1st level spell to do 4d4+4 damage, wouldn't the appropriate comparison be a cleric using a first level spell to heal 1d8+5 damage?
Any decent healer has selective channel.
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Doesn't channeling in combat also heal the enemy? If the wizard is using a 1st level spell to do 4d4+4 damage, wouldn't the appropriate comparison be a cleric using a first level spell to heal 1d8+5 damage?Any decent healer has selective channel.
Every time I see an assertion like this I have to chuckle...
If true then it shouldn't be a choice, it should be automatic for the role. It's like "any decent fighter has power attack".
Any time a "choice" is not really a choice, I see that as a game design problem.
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When a wizard is dealing out 4D4+4 from MM (which can't be resisted, nor saved, no miss- but it can be blocked by items, spells or SR) the cleric is doing 4d8+7, which is more or less twice.At the same time, MM is at the low end of the damage scale and you're assuming that those 4d8 are going to be friendly to you and roll high. At the same level, you have started running into monsters that can basically auto-hit on anything other than a 1 multiple times a round, with each attack doing on average as much as the single healing that is trying to keep up. Magic is not where damage output outstrips healing; archers and raw melee fighters can put down a real hurting without much effort at higher levels, often multiple times per round, making damage mitigation and dealing damage yourself more useful as you go up in level, with the usefulness of in combat healing decreasing proportionally.
My experience is that at low levels it's necessary, at mid levels, it's helpful, but by no means the clear and obvious best choice in most circumstances, and once you hit the double digit levels, the math of in combat healing often can't keep up with the raw power that both sides can bring to the fight unless you really work to max out the healing capability at the expense of being able to attack even remotely effectively. PF makes it easier and a bit more effective a bit longer than 3.5, especially with channeling, but it still reaches a point where it takes extreme circumstances for it to be a particularly useful option, usually once the numbers exceed pre 3rd edition numbers. 3rd edition, for better or for worse, pushed a lot of the combat numbers up a lot faster and a lot higher than earlier editions, and the healing spells got left behind.
No, I assumed average on both sets of rolls.
And, James Jacobs and other devs have said that generally, a foe should hit your tank about 50% of the time. So, yeah, sure if in your campaign you’re running against monsters that can’t miss, you do have to drop them as quickly as possible.
Finally, like I have said over and over- you don’t use in combat healing to ‘top off’ your companions (well, except as a nice little side benefit of Channeling). You use it to prevent your friend from being dropped on the next hit. And at high levels, you have Heal and mass Heal, and few offensive spells can beat those.
Topping off is what you do after combat. A divine Spellcaster is better doing party buffs and even laying down some hurt on the foes, until a companion NEEDS to be healed. Then, you do that thing. You don’t let him die just because he has a dozen pre-generated “toons’ waiting their turn to die.
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Usually I would agree that it isn't fun (though I have known some players that love it). We are playing Carrion Crown right now. In this I am currently playing a life oracle that his built to max healing. I can easily heal over a 1000 points a day. But the real reason I like it is that healing both from cure spells and channel positve are a blaster character against undead. Which we are seeing in most fights. I also bicked a few other fun key spells. I simply love chain of perdition.
But after this, I will probably not play a dedicated healer for a long time.
I plan on running such a character somewhere down the line for PFS, so any tips would be a great help.
Doesn't channeling in combat also heal the enemy? If the wizard is using a 1st level spell to do 4d4+4 damage, wouldn't the appropriate comparison be a cleric using a first level spell to heal 1d8+5 damage?Any decent healer has selective channel.Every time I see an assertion like this I have to chuckle...
If true then it shouldn't be a choice, it should be automatic for the role. It's like "any decent fighter has power attack".
Any time a "choice" is not really a choice, I see that as a game design problem.
Well, you see a Divine caster can fill other roles than healer. A Fire oracle can be a blaster, paladins are great tanks, and so forth.
So, your “choice” is “how much healing does your party need?” Selective Channel is a great and very common feat, and it is automatic for that role. But that role can be filled by at least 3 classes, none of which NEED to fill that role. Heck, we have two pallys in our extended group, uses his healing for himself, mostly. Mine is a Hospitaler and does have the selective channel feat. We have two oracles- one healer, one blaster. Etc.
So, it’s not a ‘design problem’ at all- it’s great you can play a divien caster so many ways. It *is* a feature, not a bug.
... I plan on running such a character somewhere down the line for PFS, so any tips would be a great help.
Life Oracle Sarenrae Dual Cursed - Primary is haunted (for more spells known) secondary is tongues (celestial)
Revelations: channel positive energy, energy body, misfortune, combat healer (I had thought this would work offensively to use cures against undead, but GM ruled it does not)
Traits: subject of study (undead) and sacred conduit
Feats: improved channel, quick channel, selective channel, reach spell, spell penetration
Favored class: +3 skills, +2 1st level spells, +2 2nd level spells
Spells:
0: det magic, det poison, ghost sound, light, mage hand, mending, purify food, read magic, stabilize
1: ant haul, bless, cure lt, detect undead, ill omen, pro evil, remove fear, sanctuary, shield of faith
2: cure mod, less rest, levitate, minor image, oracle’s burden, pilfering hand, resist energy, shield other, silence
3: cure ser, bestow curse, searing light, chain of perdition
Primary equip to get as soon as possible:
Headband of charisma or positive channeling
Cloak of resistance (saves are pretty bad and that has been giving me problems)
Mithral breastplate and darkwood large shield (move fast to get into and out of position)
If I had it to do over again, I probaly would have put the 12 in wis, the 10 in int, and the 8 in str. Though some suggested I should have dumped int and str both to 7.
Main thing is to get a buff and fun offensive spell known for each level. That way you almost always have something effective to do if no healing is needed. Could have used summon mon spells instead of offensive, but we have a large group and summond monsters just slow combat too much for us.
Pilfering hand can be amazingly effective. We had a kobold archer ranger on a flying bat sniping us. I took away his bow.
Chain of perdition on the escaping thief. Yes he kept using escape artist to get out of it, but it slowed him down so the slow fighters could get to him.
Yes, buffing is often a very good choice. I have several protective buffs for that. When the guys that want it are buffed, I have attack spells to use. When undead are around, I’m actually the high dps character and the others guard me.
And, James Jacobs and other devs have said that generally, a foe should hit your tank about 50% of the time.
This is the other difficulty that usually comes up with in combat healing. What can hit your fighter that often, and in my experience, that number is much lower than actual reality at higher levels, since monster become more and more common as you go up in levels, is usually going to be hitting the cleric significantly more often and the cleric isn't going to have the hp of the tank, and guess where the cleric has to be most of the time to heal? Right by the fighter where most high level foes can reach him as well as they can reach the fighter. Granted, channel energy and mass heal spells help with that to some extent, but when you need the full heal spell simply to keep the fighter alive and on his feet, channel energy and even a mass cure spell likely isn't going to have enough impact to be worth the time.
And again, it isn't offensive spells that you have to worry about when considering damage; most of the truly good offensive spells don't touch hp at all; it's the multiple attacks that are likely coming in from the archer or melee types that tend to go after hp hard and fast; if the tank is getting attacked 3 or 4 times, even if they are only getting hit twice, that still twice as many times as you can heal them before they take that many attacks again. Even Heal can't keep up with that, and mass heals only are a benefit if multiple people are taking those hits.
None of this is to say that emergency healing is entirely bad, or a waste of time, but logistically and mathematically, other tactics do eventually end up taking over priority for most parties. How soon varies from campaign to campaign, but it does eventually happen. It has nothing to do with the presence of "toons" waiting in the wings, but rather the acceptance that the game assumes death and unconsciousness will occur at some point, and has baked in rules and spells to deal with that assumption that allow for some kind of resolution other than simply bringing in a new character. Put quite simply, the 3.x chassis favors offense over defense while in active combat, and healing gets lumped in with defense most of the time. Granted, a lot of DMs tend to dislike the provisions of how to deal with death, but the system assumes they will be present and actively used, and DMs who choose to disregard them need to be aware of that and communicate that to their players.
... and again we are back to the "if your GM isn't beating the hell out of your PCs, he's either a wuss or an idiot" argument...
You can't really defeat the argument that if your characters aren't getting the hell beat out of them, you're doing it wrong...
I haven't had very many DMs that particularly nasty, and have routinely seen it happen where healing becomes less useful over time. What I've had is DMs who find the development of high level NPCS to be extremely time consuming, and for whatever reason, finds it easier to go with pregenerated monsters from the bestiary, which means the game can get ugly quickly through no one's fault in particular if the party is used to being able to heal in combat instead of having to rely on tactics. It doesn't take a DM looking to purposefully beat up the party to see hyper dangerous encounters; a time strapped DM using beasts from the bestiary can do just as much damage in that department.
you guys are talking nonsense, you absolutely need a cleric. at level 12 I have fought wizards that kill you with 1 spell, finger of death or some other spell and demons or other giants that can do nearly 1/3 of your life in 1 hit. plus most people don't buff their ac very much so the always get hit and in 2 rounds they will be unconscious without healing. with a cleric you get rezed right away and can keep fighting or you just die and stay dead cause no one can cast Resurrection or breath of life.
and also like some people say they can buff the part to own mobs if they aren't healing.
I don't think anyone has targeted clerics as a whole being limited in usefulness, just the healing spells and the healer role from what I've seen.
you guys are talking nonsense, you absolutely need a cleric. at level 12 I have fought wizards that kill you with 1 spell, finger of death or some other spell and demons or other giants that can do nearly 1/3 of your life in 1 hit. plus most people don't buff their ac very much so the always get hit and in 2 rounds they will be unconscious without healing. with a cleric you get rezed right away and can keep fighting or you just die and stay dead cause no one can cast Resurrection or breath of life.
and also like some people say they can buff the part to own mobs if they aren't healing.
What a perfect example of the "healers are necessary so we use tactics that make healers necessary" situation. Thanks Morris.
FWIW you can raise dead with a scroll...
there are tactics intended to mitigate the need for a healer. but they do not completely remove the need for one.
Wearing a Shield. in exchange for making your foe slightly less likely to hit you, you gave them more chances to make a swing
Combat Expertise: take a hit to DPR to gain a negligible defense boost, the stalwart line, makes this better against physical attackers who specialize in making several smaller attacks, like octopi and hydras.
Crane Style. -1 to hit for +4 AC, requires a heavy feat investment, and not truly completed till 7th level. can deflect one melee attack a round. needs a free hand. or with DM permission, a prehensile tail. some DMs are lenient enough to allow this with a shield. but such a bending isn't truly viable on it's own. maybe you can do it with a buckler.
Reach Weapon, always 2handed, negates some AoOs from monsters and generally allows AoOs against medium nonreach humanoids, may require constant 5 foot steps and some way to ignore difficult terrain. if the monster also has a reach weapon, you are screwed.
archery. essentially, you turn your foe into a pin cushion, ignore most forms of damage reduction with your clustered shots, deal massive damage, and depending on distance, can make your foe come to you and waste a whole turn. you also have the best reach with the snap shot line. the big issue is you blow through arrows faster than anyone else.
i would personally either recommend archery, or the combination of crane style with a buckler for a defensively oriented character. also of worthy note is a crane style build that fights using fist and shield.
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... and again we are back to the "if your GM isn't beating the hell out of your PCs, he's either a wuss or an idiot" argument...
You can't really defeat the argument that if your characters aren't getting the hell beat out of them, you're doing it wrong...
...because it's self-defeating?
I plan on running such a character somewhere down the line for PFS, so any tips would be a great help.Usually I would agree that it isn't fun (though I have known some players that love it). We are playing Carrion Crown right now. In this I am currently playing a life oracle that his built to max healing. I can easily heal over a 1000 points a day. But the real reason I like it is that healing both from cure spells and channel positve are a blaster character against undead. Which we are seeing in most fights. I also bicked a few other fun key spells. I simply love chain of perdition.
But after this, I will probably not play a dedicated healer for a long time.
Don't do it.
I built a heal boot cleric that focused on channeling and cure spells (3 channeling feats) and really tried to make it fun and but it was just boring and anything but efficient. The problem with a heal boot in the group is that other players tend to really on you healing them - meaning: They play sloppy. So even if you have other things you might be able to do, as cast spell XXX or hit monster on the head with a stick, you won't get a chance to do it. If you get a chance to do it the party is still one man down because your character is still only built to heal isn't very efficient in battle anyway.As Sean K Reynolds pointed out in another thread:
2) An offensive bonus is more valuable than a defensive bonus of the same number.
The game favors offense over defense. Attack bonuses increase faster than AC bonuses, and that's intentional so higher-level fights don't become stale (you hit more often at higher levels, and your iteratives are at least somewhat viable).
Healing is defense.
@ DrDeth: MM is a first level spells. CCW is a 4th level spell. As resource management goes this is a horrible trade off.
...because it's self-defeating?... and again we are back to the "if your GM isn't beating the hell out of your PCs, he's either a wuss or an idiot" argument...
You can't really defeat the argument that if your characters aren't getting the hell beat out of them, you're doing it wrong...
Heh, nice.
Well, it's a self defeating argument to ME Tri, but others continue to advance it as if it is self evident. In fact several posters seem to assume that the only way to measure the challenge of an encounter is by how many times the PC party gets injured. Then they wonder why their GMs just beat the holy living bejeezus out of them however they can manage to do it.
And if the GM wants to beat the living bejeezus out of your party, believe me, he's going to do it.
But that doesn't mean the encounter was a challenge. It just means that's how he's decided to meet the expectations of the group.
I'm the GM for a campaign, where one of my players is playing an Oracle of Life, and she can heal like no other character I've seen. Her life link gives the party Fast Healing 5 as a free action, her quick channel lets her channel energy as a move action for 5d6, her combat healer lets her cast a cure spell as a swift action.
Then in the midst of that healing blitz, she's fond of casting scorching ray for 8d6 damage as her standard action. Oh, the joys of a level 7 dual-cursed Aasimar Oracle of Life.
...so should their be a dedicated healer in every party? I think its a nice role to have filled, but I think you could get by with wands of cure light and whatnot. However this Oracle really came through when I threw a CR 10 encounter at a level 6 party. I dropped some party members a few times because the bad guy had 4 attacks per turn with some lucky (unlucky) x3 critical hits, and the Oracle of Life brought everyone who was knocked unconscious back while STILL casting scorching ray.
I'm the GM for a campaign, where one of my players is playing an Oracle of Life, and she can heal like no other character I've seen. Her life link gives the party Fast Healing 5 as a free action, her quick channel lets her channel energy as a move action for 5d6, her combat healer lets her cast a cure spell as a swift action.
Then in the midst of that healing blitz, she's fond of casting scorching ray for 8d6 damage as her standard action. Oh, the joys of a level 7 dual-cursed Aasimar Oracle of Life.
...so should their be a dedicated healer in every party? I think its a nice role to have filled, but I think you could get by with wands of cure light and whatnot. However this Oracle really came through when I threw a CR 10 encounter at a level 6 party. I dropped some party members a few times because the bad guy had 4 attacks per turn with some lucky (unlucky) x3 critical hits, and the Oracle of Life brought everyone who was knocked unconscious back while STILL casting scorching ray.
min-maxed healing oracles can be powerful when you nova like there is no tomorrow. i imagine she cannot keep that up for long. but the problem is, that you have to nova like there is no tomorrow. this kind of healer depends on the 15 minute adventure day to be effective. but it makes lower level cures more useful.
... min-maxed healing oracles can be powerful when you nova like there is no tomorrow. i imagine she cannot keep that up for long. but the problem is, that you have to nova like there is no tomorrow. this kind of healer depends on the 15 minute adventure day to be effective. but it makes lower level cures more useful.
Well, that's true of any nova builds. Alot of Magi and some of the odd wizard builds can easily fit in that category.
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... min-maxed healing oracles can be powerful when you nova like there is no tomorrow. i imagine she cannot keep that up for long. but the problem is, that you have to nova like there is no tomorrow. this kind of healer depends on the 15 minute adventure day to be effective. but it makes lower level cures more useful.Well, that's true of any nova builds. Alot of Magi and some of the odd wizard builds can easily fit in that category.
yeah, i know. but it takes a minmaxed nova oracle for the healing to even get close to rivaling the damage a creature with a lesser offensive advancement can achieve. they however cannot keep up with nova magi, nor nova wizards, crossblooded evokers, nor martials for damage.
@ DrDeth: MM is a first level spells. CCW is a 4th level spell. As resource management goes this is a horrible trade off.
Sure, so it's Ice Storm instead. 5D6 vs 4d8+7.
Or at 3rd level, Scorching ray vs Cure Mod. SR does 4d6 with about a 20% miss chance, plus ER. CMW does 2d8+3.
1st level? 1D4+1 vs 1d8+1.
11th? 110 pts with Heal vs Freezing Sphere or Chain Lightning, each 11D6.
To the OP, In my experience... A healer is USEFUL in combat, but not NECESSARY.
I absolutely tell people to play whatever character they WANT to play... and not feel pressured to fill a specific 'tank/healer/buff' role.
There are enough wands and tools that if played well your group can get by pretty well without filling any particular slot.
Our current runelords game (level 9) has two sorcerers, a druid who is 'offensive' and rarely memorizes healing spells. and gnome Monk. Not EVERY group has to be completely optimized.
It's QUITE a challenge staying alive... but we're doing it! One of the sorcerers just took leadership to gain a cleric follower, so hopefully that will help a bit ;)
Where did I say I was going to play a healbot?
I too take 10 on my reading checks, which also explains some of my responses ;-).
Is in-combat healing really necessary for a player to handle, or can the party easily coast through on simply out-of-combat healing, say with wands or potions? Is a 'healer' character actually hampering the group, even if he can be, say, a secondary front-line character (classic cleric)?
Is the 'Healer' a necessary role? Depends on the GM (and players), but usually not.
Is the 'Healer' a useful role? Depends on the GM and players, but sometimes yes and sometimes it can actually hampering the group and even lead to a TPK.Is in-combat healing really necessary for a player to handle? Yes sometimes, but again healing in battle can lead to PC death if done wrong, just as it can lead to saving a PC.
I think no one can deny that healing in battle can be efficient at really low levels. Healing in battle get efficient again once you get heal, but you can't spam healing using the spell. The only problem with the spell is actually the lack of spell slots, ....and also the range being touch.
I think it usually is enough to have a secondary healer in the group, but it really depends on the players and the context.
Is a 'healer' character actually hampering the group? Yes, they can indeed be hampering a group.
Let's say the encounters in an AP is based on monsters vs. 4 well built PCs that work well as a team. If one players plays bad or has designed a character that don't contribute well in battle the CR of the encounter will be too high, possibly leading to PC death or TPK.
a couple of weeks back I read a thread where someone tried to poke fun at people that find healing in battle to usually be a bad idea. The poster had a dialogue involving an unconscious (and bleeding) Paladin and a cleric. It went something like this:
Paladin: - Heal me so I can get up and kill monster
Cleric: no healing in battle sucks. I read that a the Paizo messageboards.
Paladin: Darn. Are you going to let med die.
Cleric: - apparently that is what I should do. I know it's stupid, but the posters at the messageboards are never wrong.
Now, this was supposed to prove a point: That there are times when healing in battle is good and necessary. To me it proved the opposite since I've seen this kind of scenarios in real game play.
Strong dude that hits monster with his stick is down and bleeding (Paladin, fighter or whatever). Let's call him Mike. Monster has taken a beating and the rest of the party has 3 choices:
Take down the monster without the help of Mike.
Run away
Try to heal Mike and hope that they with the aid of him can finish of the monster.
Hasted Cleric (or other class with healing ability) walks up to Mike. Caste cure spell on Mike.
Mike is not fully healed but he wants to try and help the rest of the team.
Mike spends a move action grabbing his sword from the ground (unless he has a gauntlet or a back up weapon and quickdraw) and stands up from prone. When he stand up he provokes AoO. Monsters hit Mike again and now Mike is down and bleeding again or more probably he is dead.
Now it's the monsters turn and he full attacks and beats the cleric to a pulp. If the party is lucky the can runaway with the Cleric and only loose one PC, if not they lose Mike and the cleric. If they are real unlucky it's a TPK.
A better option would have been beat the monster to pulp and then heal mike or use battle field control spells so you buy the party some time to get Mike on his feats. Or run away and hope you can rescue mike later (or Raise him).
Problem with a healer in a group is also that it tend to make players sloppy. They stop playing smart. Playing a healer is also boring. At least to me.
To sum it up:
The game favors offense over defense.
reactively" is better than "proactively"
Healing doesn't scale well.
Healing in battle at really low levels can be useful and a well placed Heal can save the day.
Healer as a role necessary or useful? Usually not, but depends on GM (and players). It is however a boring role.
Sure, so it's Ice Storm instead. 5D6 vs 4d8+7.
Ice storm is an area spell, CCW isn't
Ice storm got raider effects - CCW hasn'tIce storm has elements of battle field control as well - CCW hasn't
Your point was?
1st level? 1D4+1 vs 1d8+1.
Yes 1d8+1 is better than 1D4+1, so what?
MM at level 1? Is your point that team the evil has a real stupid wizard? May I suggest grease or color spray or something else useful?Edit:
If the fighter cries for healing after being hit by 1d4+1 or if the cleric starts casting CLM after the fighter is being hit by 1d4+1, then one of my points has really been proven: A healer in a party can turn smart players into stupid, or at least sloppy, players.
Or at 3rd level, Scorching ray vs Cure Mod. SR does 4d6 with about a 20% miss chance, plus ER. CMW does 2d8+3.
What has ER and miss chance to do with anything? If you don't get hurt you don't need healing. Isn't that rather obvious?
Scorching ray at level 3? Is it the same stupid wizard from team evil?
11th? 110 pts with Heal vs Freezing Sphere or Chain Lightning, each 11D6.
Nor have I denied that healing in battle somtimes can be a good option at times, but as Treantmonk puts it:
* Why isn't the Healer useful in combat? There are two ways you can live your "pretend" life - "reactively" or "proactively". The God Wizard will alter reality to prevent damage, a healer will try to do "damage control" (pun intended) after the damage has been taken. Simple truth: The mechanics of the game make preventing damage more efficient then healing damage after the fact. That's not to say a well placed "Heal" or even "CLW" never has use in combat - but if you're doing your job - it should never be required as a primary role.
Edit:
To sum it up, again:
You mean proactive is better than reactive.
Buffing defences is proactive, stopping damage from occurring in the first place. Healing is reactive, reacting to damage taken.
Team evil has a stupid wizard.
Hehe :)
... and again we are back to the "if your GM isn't beating the hell out of your PCs, he's either a wuss or an idiot" argument...
You can't really defeat the argument that if your characters aren't getting the hell beat out of them, you're doing it wrong...
The opposite is just as true, if you are walking through all your encounters then what is the point of actually running the combats? Just say the PCs win and continue...
Every encounter shouldn't be a life or death situation, but if the only time that the party is afraid is against the final boss, just play those combats.
Not disagreeing with the majority opinion that in combat healing is usually a sub-optimal choice. (I don’t know that I agree that it is necessarily as bad a choice as some believe, but that is a different discussion.)
However, many seem to feel it is nearly always ok to just rely on wands or scrolls used by characters that have the spell on their list. I have found that we can’t always get the wands, scrolls, or potions to take care of stuff. We were having to continue adventuring for quite a while with multiple characters having low hit points, abilities lowered, after affects of poisons, or diseases. (This was after the cleric died and before I switched to the life oracle.) There was simply no place to purchase these items. The single paladin spell was not keeping up with the rate we were being hurt.
I don’t know if it was the GM or the module. Some people have said the AP as written hits you with tremendous time pressure and limited resources to purchase. Others say the AP doesn’t have that and the GM must have added it. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. Even if it is just GM added restrictions, by reading these boards it is apparent that there are at least a significant percentage of GM’s that do this.
Not saying you need to have/use in-combat healing on a regular basis. But there are campaigns where you almost have to have an out-of-combat healer (or you are at high risk) because you almost have to have access to the spells not just have them on your list.
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The opposite is just as true, if you are walking through all your encounters then what is the point of actually running the combats? Just say the PCs win and continue...
Every encounter shouldn't be a life or death situation, but if the only time that the party is afraid is against the final boss, just play those combats.
Yeah, it's not like those early encounters change how the final encounter runs. They don't make the players use resources or anything. And it's not like we have a random element that might make things harder or easier depending on what they generate. Or that the GM needs to measure what the party can handle to better tweak future encounters.
Let's just cut scene it all the way to the final boss. Won't that be fun?
The opposite is just as true, if you are walking through all your encounters then what is the point of actually running the combats? Just say the PCs win and continue...
Every encounter shouldn't be a life or death situation, but if the only time that the party is afraid is against the final boss, just play those combats.
Yeah, it's not like those early encounters change how the final encounter runs. They don't make the players use resources or anything. And it's not like we have a random element that might make things harder or easier depending on what they generate. Or that the GM needs to measure what the party can handle to better tweak future encounters.
Let's just cut scene it all the way to the final boss. Won't that be fun?
If there is no threat to the party, then I am not having fun as a player. Again, I am not saying that every encounter has to be a life and death struggle, but if the only time I am worried about dying is once during an adventure, then what is the point to playing?
Vod, again you present the persistent assertion that "there is no threat" to the party unless the party is getting beaten down to a pulp.
This is the notion that I categorically reject.
It completely presupposes that there is no tactical way to avoid getting the hell beat out of you and any avoidance of getting beaten to a bloody pulp can only be due to GM incompetence or pussyfooting.
My assertion is that proper tactics can be employed which reduce the beatings.
I recognize (with some sense of frustrated resignation) that this concept seems to completely elude an entire class of RPG gamers.
Vod, again you present the persistent assertion that "there is no threat" to the party unless the party is getting beaten down to a pulp.
This is the notion that I categorically reject.
It completely presupposes that there is no tactical way to avoid getting the hell beat out of you and any avoidance of getting beaten to a bloody pulp can only be due to GM incompetence or pussyfooting.
My assertion is that proper tactics can be employed which reduce the beatings.
I recognize (with some sense of frustrated resignation) that this concept seems to completely elude an entire class of RPG gamers.
No I am not, you are reading into what I am saying. I have participated in encounters that were extremely threatening, yet not one person took any damage or was even attacked. I've participated in combats where only one character was significantly damaged. I've been in combats where the GM misread the monsters until the combat started, a 3.5 where the CR rules said we should encounter 10 Noble Salamanders 10 10d6 Fireballs for three rounds spread amongst the party and only the rogue survived, the GM hadn't noticed the spell like ability included 3 Fireballs a day. The GM apologized.
If your tactics can allow you to defeat the monsters all the time, then feel lucky that you have a GM that doesn't come up with better tactics. Because even the greatest tacticians in history had defeats.
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Nowhere did AD say his tactics always succeed. You are making a mistake in portraying everything in binary.
If there is no threat to the party, then I am not having fun as a player. Again, I am not saying that every encounter has to be a life and death struggle, but if the only time I am worried about dying is once during an adventure, then what is the point to playing?
To have fun. If you only have fun when you feel threatened, you need to communicate that to the group. Because some of us like having easy non-threatening encounters and being able to make encounters nonthreatenig due to sound tactics. If you don't want that, we need to know before we make your game unfun.
If your tactics can allow you to defeat the monsters all the time, then feel lucky that you have a GM that doesn't come up with better tactics. Because even the greatest tacticians in history had defeats.
Heh, now you are reading things into my comments. I am certainly not saying that my parties ALWAYS defeat opponents, but I am saying that I generally promote and when possible execute tactics that are specifically designed to allow minimal damage to the party while dishing out maximum damage to the enemy. And my parties have been pretty successful at that. Based on many, many comments on these boards, my parties have been more successful in that regard than many seem to be. Successful enough that we've run a party through multiple published modules without a dedicated healer and with most encounters being completed without healing during combat.
Not "never having healing during combat". On occasion we blunder, get unlucky with dice, or just make tactical errors we have to pay for. But, hopefully, we learn from those things.
Here is some observation about tactics from my own level 9 Pathfinder group (played from level 1).
The original group was as follows:
- My druid
- Ranger
- Battle cleric/tank
- Sorcerer
The cleric player is very similar to me in play style and views healing in combat as a last resort. He viewed his primary combat role to be the tank and the primary melee force (along with my druid's animal companion).
Over time the group lost the ranger, gained a rogue, then lost the rogue and gained a buffing cleric (again, not a healer) and then finally when the buffing cleric player had to leave, he was replaced with a raging barbarian at level 7 or 8.
Now, up until the addition of the raging barbarian our tactics were quite sophisticated and involved a lot of scouting, pre-buffing, battlefield control and ranged attacks. Especially when we had the ranger. I can't even tell you how many combats we had where the ranger, druid and sorcerer were able to "hide behind" the cleric, animal companion and walls, pits or other battlefield control elements while dishing out ranged damage in buckets.
The barbarian changed all that. This was a new player, one who did not really understand our use of tactics. His game play had always been based on massive melee damage by barbarians or fighters who depended on healers to keep him from going down while beating on the enemy with pointy sticks.
This proved to be a bit of an impedance mismatch at first. In our first combats with the barbarian the rest of the group was a bit off-balance since we'd never had a player character who "led with his chin" expecting someone else to "keep him alive."
So we had to adjust. Since nobody in the group had any desire to be the guy whose job it was to "keep the barbarian alive" we had to have a conscious and serious discussion with the barbarian player about tactics. The player is a nice guy, very mature and reasonable, so it wasn't any sort of "argument" or "debate", he had simply never played the game (in about 20 years) where the default "tactic" was anything other than "rush into melee and whale on the enemy while the healer kept the melee dudes alive."
He thought that was how the game was played.
Since then he has developed an appreciation for sound tactics and battlefield control. He still rushes into melee, but generally not before we have set up the battlefield such that we funnel the enemy into his whirling two-handed axe, while keeping him buffed up to avoid taking damage.
The end result is that he gets to do what he loves (beat on monsters with sticks) while the party still manages to conserve resources and everyone gets to contribute to combat without anyone being the barbarian's hit point bucket.
Now, it is true that we are still working on this, and his antics are still causing us to do more healing in combat than I am comfortable with.
But we are moving in the right direction and I'm confident that we'll get things worked out so that we rarely even have to heal him as we continue to gel as a group. That is certainly the goal anyway.
You mean proactive is better than reactive.
Yes I do. Bad editing on my behalf, Hehe ;-)
@DrDeth:I reread my post and it came of snarky. It was unnecessary and uncalled for. My apology.
@ OP: I would like to point out that I still think that is necessary and useful to have at least one character in a party that can heal. I just don't think it has to be a dedicated healer.
I also must pointy out that any kind of character can hamper a party. A badly played and/or designed fighter or wizard or druid or whatever can hamper a party.
Okay so hold on if a group plays really well together and is pretty crazy awesome then they don't really need to heal very much?
Whoa, I need to go lay down.
Okay so hold on if a group plays really well together and is pretty crazy awesome then they don't really need to heal very much?Whoa, I need to go lay down.
LOL, I know you're sorta snarking here Lamontius, but just to respond anyway...
In my experience we pretty much need to heal after almost every fight.
But the key word there is "after".
Regarding the "encounters must be dangerous or what's the point?" thing, it might also be worth mentioning that many encounters, even if they include battle, are not necessarily there to test the party's survivability, but to provide narrative flow. Sometimes a combat encounter is there to provide clues or helpful items for future encounters, or build mystery, or create foreboding, whatever.
Sometimes I give my players a couple of easy encounters to lull them into a false sense of security.... *grins evilly over steepled fingers*
That cleric could be front line build. Instead of heal you could have prepared harm, which will reduce a d10 HD monster of your level to not much more than its con mod even if it saves.
o...
Harm requires a touch attack and there's a save. Heal requires neither. Now, I assume a touch attack will hit 75% of the time, but a monster will save half the time. This means Harm has only 1/4 the average of Heal.
@DrDeth:I reread my post and it came of snarky. It was unnecessary and uncalled for. My apology.
@ OP: I would like to point out that I still think that is necessary and useful to have at least one character in a party that can heal. I just don't think it has to be a dedicated healer.
I also must pointy out that any kind of character can hamper a party. A badly played and/or designed fighter or wizard or druid or whatever can hamper a party.
No problem.
Sure, a dedicated healer isn'y necessary and is boring. But a cleric who can buff, then blast, then heal- that's super useful.