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I've tried to play a non-channeling healing class in parties without a cleric. It stinks. My 5th-level non-life oracle almost never gets to cast anything other than cure lights. I am now at the point that I will not play a non-channeling healing class in a party unless another PC has channeling because I'll be nothing but a healbot most of the time. That's my anecdotal experience.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of healing wands flavor-wise, but given the option between buying one and the non-channeling healer being forced to cast nothing but healing spells if the party gets beat up, I'm taking the wand.
Exactly. Would you prefer the other side of the coin, where every combat has PC's near death, and they have to go back to town to rest for days or weeks, thus putting the campaign on hold? I know most players would bail on a campaign like this, me included.I too hate that players aren't required to play clerics anymore.
My ideal D&D game consists of going back to town and sleeping for two weeks after every battle, waiting for the incredibly slow natural healing to have an effect.
Why is that the other side of the coin? Why can't the other side be that the PCs become more careful and don't lose as many HP?
But anyway: CLW wands! I hate 'em. Am I the only one?I don't mind wands of CLW. You either have them or:
1) Using Healing Surges to heal up. HS was my favorite part of the 4E rule set.
2) One of the PCs is a "healing battery" (one PC has almost all healing spells). With all my heart, I hate it when one of the PCs had to be a healing battery to make adventuring viable (beyond 1-2 encounters). Basically, one of the players had to sacrifice his fun so that everyone else could have fun. I do not miss those days.
First, I don't find being a healer to be sacrificing my fun. I like it, and I actually had a GM ask me not to play my awesome Oracle of Life because I was too good at healing.
But beyond that, why isn't there a #3?
3) PCs act more cautiously and avoid fights, thus losing less HP and needing less healing. If necessary, the GM makes the encounters easier to accommodate this.
Is it just me?
CLW wands are ubiquitous; experienced players will generally pool their resources to buy one at 2nd level, and certainly no later than 3rd. From then on until, oh, 7th or 8th level, they have a massively distorting effect on gameplay. PCs become much more difficult to kill in melee, and between melees they'll tend to heal up entirely. The hit point aspect of the game dwindles almost into insignificance; instead, gameplay becomes about resources. You don't pause and leave the dungeon for the day when you're low on hp, because you're never low on hp; instead, you leave when your casters are out of spells and limited-use powers. This makes for a very different game, and IMO one that's rather less fun.
Way back in 1e, healing was a fairly rare and precious commodity. It was clerics and the very occasional potion -- and clerics had to choose between cure spells and everything else. That's one big reason 1e was so lethal. With 3e, the pendulum has swung far in the other direction; clerics have spontaneous casting *and* burst heals with Channel Energy *and* the party is carrying a CLW wand. The CLW wand is obnoxious enough in its own right, but it's being piled on top of the enhanced healing abilities of the 3.x cleric. The result is... not overkill... overheal?
Also, as an aesthetic point, it kinda bugs me that the gods are willing to invest a bunch of holy healing power in a stick, to be unleashed by anyone who can make a UMD check. That makes perfect sense when dealing with arcane magic, but... well, it just seems wrong that you can whack the High Priest of Zon-Kuthon, pick up his black-and-silver wand of CLW with the screaming skull on the end, and start using it to heal your paladin and her mount. It's a minor point, sure, and more about aesthetics than gameplay. Still.
But anyway: CLW wands! I hate 'em. Am I the only one?
Doug M.
My groups don't use them, and the builds favoured are weak on the use magic device. Yes, we still once in a while have clerics, or make do.
In the games I run, that type of item is not going to be just sitting at a stall. A church will want to keep hold of that, and retrieving a cure mod wand (or two cure lights) for the church or to betray the party would be something you could base an entire adventure around in a low magic game.
So yeah, not everyone has the battery-stick of healing, because some find it cheesy. There is also the bitterly disputed point, if you have no cleric, and no one really has religion, do they even know about these wands and can they ask about and get them, or make use of contacts (church) and get a hold of them? Munckins will say, uh uhhhh,, it is official, you can stock up on them, why we all get them at level 2; but this isn't seen the same way for all players and dms.
I've tried to play a non-channeling healing class in parties without a cleric. It stinks. My 5th-level non-life oracle almost never gets to cast anything other than cure lights. I am now at the point that I will not play a non-channeling healing class in a party unless another PC has channeling because I'll be nothing but a healbot most of the time. That's my anecdotal experience.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of healing wands flavor-wise, but given the option between buying one and the non-channeling healer being forced to cast nothing but healing spells if the party gets beat up, I'm taking the wand.
Sorry to hear that. Never let yourself become just a healbot.
First, I don't find being a healer to be sacrificing my fun. I like it, and I actually had a GM ask me not to play my awesome Oracle of Life because I was too good at healing.
But beyond that, why isn't there a #3?
3) PCs act more cautiously and avoid fights, thus losing less HP and needing less healing. If necessary, the GM makes the encounters easier to accommodate this.
Yes, we're all different. I agree 100%. Yes there are some players that like playing healbots. That's cool.
I don't mind playing a healbot *occasionally*. However, I find it much more cinematic and fun when I use my healing in combat, compared to mostly of out combat, and then have nothing to do in combat.
But I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that in the past I hated that someone was *forced* into playing a healbot. When it's a *choice*, that's a different matter.
I think some people have to realize that this is a preference (born out of roleplaying for 35 years) and you're not going to change anyone's mind on this.
Btw, no PC is "too good" at healing in PF. Damage increases at a much faster pace than healing, and if you're making an optimal group even the "healer" should focus on offense/buffing most of the time.
You can accomplish #3 with my house rule that only allows wands of CLW to heal PCs up to 50% of their maximum hp. So if a PC has 20 hp maximum but 16 hp currently, the wand doesn't help. If he has 2 hp currently, the wand can only cure 8 more hp. Therefore the PCs are still cautious, still leave the dungeon eventually, but it avoids the 7 minute day. I've used this for awhile and it works great, that's why I shared it.
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Guys: are you really saying that without this item, this one particular item, your game is going to suck? Absent the wand, you're condemned to high casualty rates? to fighters collapsing while the casters are still going strong? to trudging back to town to rest for "days or weeks"? Absent this wand, this special wand, it's just going to be a lot less fun?
There is great irony in you bringing up strawmen and then posting this.
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No, I do not hate the wand of cure light wounds.
In my games, sometimes we find them as treasure. Sometimes we don't. There's never been a trend that everyone always must have one by level 2.
When we do have them, I have never felt like they have ruined the game or made things too easy. Usually, since they have limited charges (and are often found as treasure where they have been partly used--for example, in my current game we found one with only 5 charges in it), the party saves their use for dire situations. As a GM, I have never felt like I have to up my game or make things more dangerous or challenging because of their presence. Usually, in fact, I can't ever remember thinking of a cure wand or potion as something that made my job as GM harder. I'm usually worried about what unexpected path the players will take that I will have not prepped for no matter how hard I've tried to create a multipath, sandbox story.
I do not resent healing magic in a fantasy adventure game where magic is prevalent, simply because waiting for people to heal is boring. I do not expect combat to be realistic, because if it were, all fights would end within the first 2 rounds at the longest with most participants dead or severely wounded such that they would be unable to do any significant exertion for months, and that makes telling an epic story hard.
Now, were I to run a low magic game or a game where healing is supposed to be difficult, such as perhaps a post apocalyptic game, I would not include such items, or only with extremely limited uses. However, these same games I would probably use a different system of health than Pathfinder hit points system.
I'm sorry that the OP has found it a source of frustration. Perhaps he can talk to his players about it.
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The whole issue in PF is more the view of healing now then in 1E.
In 1E, you adventured until you were low on hit points, and you retreated. Combats were less lethal then in PF generally, and you could often fight at half hit points generally well.
This meant that attrition wore equally on everyone. Since the cleric was the healer, when the cleric was low on spells, everyone was low on hit points, and likely the wizard was low on spells. Everyone pulled back.
IN PF, the ease of healing means that you adventure until spells and 'point pools' run out, then you pull back. This tends to annoy fighters, who now have unlimited access to the hit point pool, but can't succeed at encounters without spell backing...or someone to do the healing. A group of melees who can use unlimited healing (rangers/paladins) can last far longer and harder then a squad of fighters just because they can use wands. It is now these people with temporary power, be it spells or point pools, who determine the duration of the adventuring day, NOT the health of the party, which will always be near the top. Fighters and rogues thus feel 'wasted' and 'held back' by the other party members who can't go-go-go like they can.
The hate for the CLW is because of how common it is, and it is common because it is EFFICIENT. The cost system means that it is at its most efficient when it is at its weakest...which is very strange. Your options are either to raise the cost of the healing by various means (raising the minimum caster level has been suggested), or by fixing the amount of healing to scale with cost and level (which would mean altering the base spell, such as a CLW that did d4 per level up to 5d4, or 3 pts/level up to 15), at which point a level 1 CLW becomes a low level item, and a level 5 CLWW becomes preferred at higher levels, scaling as you go. To make it even more balanced, you would then have to adjust higher level healing spells so that they are only slightly more expensive, instead of the current 3x+ (A CMW at cl3 is SIX TIMES the cost of a CLW1...for a little over twice the healing?!?)
This then becomes a rewrite of the spell or healing system as a whole, and the problem proliferates.
at the other end of the spectrum, caster healing has become considerably higher in PF. Not giving enhanced healing access to non-casters horribly impacts their staying power. A Fighter with a CLW wand he can use or loan to a party member has the staying power long term of a ranger or paladin, as far as his health goes. Remove it, and suddenly those classes completely outshine his recovery abilities with cast spells or lay on hands, as the case may be.
I recommend just altering the Cure Wands to scale d8 by level...CLW does d8, CMW does 2d8, etc, and simply have the cost scale evenly. HIgh level parties will carry pricier but faster CSW 4d8 wands, and ignore the base formula for wands and have them simply be multiples of one another for cost, and set the cost where you feel comfortable. Just remember that wands are cheaper then potions because anyone can use a potion freely.
==Aelryinth
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Why do you want to kill PCs? Not just defeat them, but kill them?
I don't want to kill PCs. I do want PC death to be a possibility. A game where my PC can't die is a boring game for me. The game is less interesting if there's no risk.
This is a question of aesthetics and play style, mind. Some people would disagree (and probably will).
Doug M.
It is a possibility. I have been playing in a Carrion Crown campaign and we have had about 10 PC deaths. That is with some wands of CLW (which never even got used up), lots of potions, and my uber healing life oracle that channels like crazy. You are being way too nice if death isn't a "possibility" because of wands of cure light wounds. They are pretty much useless in combat except in the first two levels when most PC's won't have them anyway.
They are pretty much useless in combat except in the first two levels when most PC's won't have them anyway.
Ok, let me just clear this up right now because I've seen 591864817 people say the same thing:
Nobody in this thread suggested anyone was using a Wand of CLW in combat. People jumped to this conclusion because someone said the wands of CLW made combat less dangerous, but they were not saying this was the case because people were using the wands to heal in comabt, it was said because they make sure everyone goes into every fight full on HP.
So, if you want to fight that point, you have to argue that fights in Pathfinder are still legitimately dangerous when you have full HP.
Personally, I don't think they are unless you jack up the CR significantly (including providing advantageous terrain for the enemy).
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I've enjoyed reading 80% of this thread, which is a pretty good ratio of sincere participation to unfunny snarkyness. (I enjoy reading funny snark.)
Natural Healing in Pathfinder isn’t too bad.
With a fairly easy Heal check, a typical character recovers about 1/4 of max hit points in a night. Combine natural healing with the modicum of healing magics wielded by a typical party (even one without a dedicated healer) and a single day off from adventuring should see most beat-up parties fully recovered. I mention this because “weeks off for healing” or even “days off for healing” should never really come up in Pathfinder.
I recognize that taking an entire day off to recover is not always a fitting story element. Some campaigns use more or less time pressure, and some settings are or less safe to convalesce in. There are many situations where it’s appropriate, however, and needing some recovery time after a particularly tough fight (or series of fights) sometimes makes the fights more dramatic.
With a full night's rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level. Any significant interruption during your rest prevents you from healing that night. If you undergo complete bed rest for an entire day and night, you recover twice your character level in hit points.
Long-Term Care (DC 15)
Providing long-term care means treating a wounded person for a day or more. If your Heal check is successful, the patient recovers hit points or ability score points (lost to ability damage) at twice the normal rate: 2 hit points per level for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 hit points per level for each full day of complete rest; 2 ability score points for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 ability score points for each full day of complete rest.
I don't like the Wands.
Nearly every resource in Pathfinder is measured in one of three ways, unlimited, per day, or discrete. Unlimited resources include attacks, skill rolls, etc. Per day resources include spells, many class abilities, and many magic items. Discrete resources, which don’t renew without some sort of special effort or circumstance, including expendable magic items, or the life or good will of an NPC.
Typically a discrete resource is special in some way. It’s not the thing you use constantly, or even casually, but more often the resource you manage very carefully. Wands, especially 1st level spell wands, are cheap ways to make a daily resource (a spell) behave like an unlimited one. Also, with the addition of Use Magic Device, the spell can be decoupled from its intended users quite easily. (e.g. An unarmored melee character can afford a 750g wand of Mage Armor before a fighter can afford 1500g plate armor.)
In my experience, first level wands are occasionally used in ways that support the game, but usually used by non-spellcasters to spam spells on themselves, which I generally find gamey and disruptive.
That’s my opinion.
You are free to disagree with me, and feel free to post your disagreement if you do. I don’t like a fighter who is built to be Enlarged during every combat, or a monk who is built to have Mage Armor at all times. I’m not claiming that my way to play is more valid than yours, I’m just stating my position.
A CR 1/3 orc will do 4d4+8 on a crit for a minimum of 12 damage and an average of 18. A level 1 party with a GM that adheres to the CR system religiously could face 12 of them a day in four groups of three. If one crits you when you aren't in tip top shape you're unconscious or dead. Average damage even without a crit is 9, enough to knock out a slightly wounded first level character. A high damage roll on a non-crit (6.25% chance) is 12, enough to knock out many first level characters and able to drop a 14 con fighter with favored class in hitpoints who's taken just two points of damage previously.
Can I suggest then that the optimal idea might be to avoid fighting those Orcs unless everything is stacked in your favor?
The CR system just doesn't work when people are carrying damage between fights. Unless by 25% resource expenditure you mean one party member dies in every fight.
If you spread the damage around poorly, sure, that's a possibility. This is not a problem for me, as I have run games for 20 years and never had any PC die in one of my D&D games, though many have come close. Before a game, I explain that I don't allow any method for coming back from the dead--dead is dead--and that there are no magic items (including potions and wands). It makes people very careful, and I've heard no complaints about the way I run things.
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wow thread explosion!
Hot topic!
AD&D had several mechanics in it to go along with the limited heal thing.
1 of them was hauling mass amounts of loot. Generally not done anymore, the other was cronies to help haul loot.
That system made tracking things like rations and ten foot poles and going back to town to get more a "thing" so pulling out of the dungeon to refresh had other things to hit beside reloading spells.
Damage was also typically a lot lower.
For what it's worth, our table sees a lot of semi healer builds in its groups. Hexcrafters with heal hex, or rage prophets, or inquisitors and witches... there is always SOME healing. Although we don't optimize much we do a lot of OoC healing.
I havent seen the wands get abused. Of course our magic purchasing is at an all time low compared to other tables.
For the record, I also dont like enlarged fighters and things like that.
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I've tried to play a non-channeling healing class in parties without a cleric. It stinks. My 5th-level non-life oracle almost never gets to cast anything other than cure lights. I am now at the point that I will not play a non-channeling healing class in a party unless another PC has channeling because I'll be nothing but a healbot most of the time. That's my anecdotal experience.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of healing wands flavor-wise, but given the option between buying one and the non-channeling healer being forced to cast nothing but healing spells if the party gets beat up, I'm taking the wand.
I hear you. I've done the same thing, and it does suck. It's why few people wanted to play the cleric prior to 3.0. Even now, they still don't.
Alot of guys who have been playing for 25+ years just assume they can jump in with only a basic sweep of the rules. You can usually spot them when you start hearing about how crafting rules are broken, when they ask about how to run a "low magic" game in pathfinder, or when they complain about a 750gp wand "Breaking" their game.
As someone who has played for 25+ years I have to agree. Each edition has required me to "unlearn" to one degree or another and relearn not just the rules but the feel/reality of the game. For me, it has been fun, but I know more than a few who fit your discription quite well. :-)
I generally use level plus con bonus to heal over night... I never read the heal check = double over night healing... thats sweet. I read a lot of people talking about how useless the skill was so I never actually READ anything about it in a rule book. Cool Beans.
A 7th level character healing 14 hp overnight is a big deal in a lot of cases. I think I recall in AD&D it being 1 hp a night.... 3 months rest for the barbarian!
As with any DM experience, you can disallow Cure wands if you want.
All this extra healing came about to remove the pressure of someone playing a cleric/heal bot. It was done on purpose, not an oops, oversight, or symptom of something else.
Devs didnt want 1/4 of the party press ganged.
It was an 'issue' that went on for years (however I never minded playing the cleric, as long as I didnt get stuck with a Lame weapon)
Can I suggest then that the optimal idea might be to avoid fighting those Orcs unless everything is stacked in your favor?
Relying on natural healing and never engaging in combat except in perfect condition? You'd literally be fighting one encounter per week. Believe it or not, "never fight anything ever" isn't always an option.
I have run games for 20 years
Not using the Pathfinder bestiaries you haven't.
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I also hate CLW wands. Infernal healing is so much better.
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I see a good amount of combat avoidance at the table, especially if it's just a mindless (or seemingly mindless) random encounter.
The party doesn't usually jump orcs because "look orcs!"
if they can hide or skulk around them they will, if tey can spy on them or follow them they might.
OF course I've also seen:
"you're walking down the path and make perceptions checks"
*rolls*
"you notice some orcs coming around the bend in your direction, what do you do?"
"I scream at them"
*rolls intimidation
"Ok they panic and scatter into the woods in random directions, do you chase"
"Nah, I've done my good deed"
So I guess it all depends on party approach.
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Is it just me?
While I cannot speak for anyone but my group I can state "we" never buy cure wands.
In the one campaign we have 2 clerics and one only really only ever WANTS to shoot her bow and cast healing spells. She does pretty much nothing else with her cleric magic. I am the other cleric (who is really a warrior cleric) and I am mostly offensive cleric spells and melee. Between her and me we are never low on healing (and we LOST a dwarf priest who left the game when he moved hehe).
As for our other games, we have a priest in one and Oracle of life in the other and still don't buy CLW wands.
Just not needed in our games. I think it is a matter of play style and how optimised minded you players are.
Most of the players I play with are in NO WAY optimizers (me really being the only one).
Relying on natural healing and never engaging in combat except in perfect condition? You'd literally be fighting one encounter per week. Believe it or not, "never fight anything ever" isn't always an option.
I know, obviously, but it's about the attitude of the players. If they see combat as a last resort, they take a lot less damage, even when fights are not avoidable. It's about tactics and character building and the opposition. Honestly, coming from playing like that for so long into a new group where they just wand of CLW, I feel invincible.
I have run games for 20 yearsNot using the Pathfinder bestiaries you haven't.
That's true. I did not mean to imply I had--in truth, I don't use Monster Manuals or anything in general. I make my own NPCs for the most part. I've never run anything someone else has written so far, though I'll be running an AP in a few months to give it a shot since I heard they're so well done, so I'll (pretend that I will) let you know how it goes (because you don't actually care ;)).
In a rather long series of adventures that are all connected in DDO (D&D online) our entire party consisted of myself, a favored soul, another combat oriented 2 hander favored soul, two clerics, and something else that healed alot I think it was a heal focused bard.
Was really funny, it was a thing that took us 3-4 hours to get through and we couldnt get party members together so we just went for it. As we went through the sequence you could look up other LFMs and see 3 or 4 parties sitting there waiting to start saying "looking for healer" and we had a party full of them... was amusing.
did you just say the same thing twice? Or am i confused?
I also hate CLW wands. Infernal healing is so much better.
This :)
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I don't find it bad for characters who do not have access to healing to not have such objects. It's not like they have Regeneration/Fast Healing, or Spell themselves to cast, so I don't really see an issue.
On top of which, a player (who wants to do more than just provide healing) who spends all of their resources on just healing isn't doing much else, and such a player would probably be bored out of their wits either piddling around for a few rounds waiting for their party members to get hit, then say, "I cast a heal spell/channel energy, roll a few D8's (or D6's if channeling energy, and I end my turn," then back to the grind of piddling around, then rinse and repeat until the encounter is done. I know I'd probably be bored off my wits while messing around with my phone/tablet while everyone else does the fun part of the encounter, which is killing things.
Wands and Potions provide flexibility and capability to players who would otherwise not have such luxury, and I believe it's important for people to understand that. While it's important to keep players on their toes and immersed in the desperation of the time period (and the view of Wands and Potions not granting such challenge), some options are to either make the encounters more difficult and/or enduring, forcing them to either use up more resources (and ultimately burn their Wands quicker), or to nerf the capabilities of Wands and Potions (such as maybe 10 charges for Wands instead of the usual 50, and maybe a Potion only heals half as much, etc.) for your campaign. In other words, make it a Low-Magic campaign.
Man, I can't GET my parties to use CLW wands, even when I buy them myself. Heck, in one 6th level group we found a fully charged Cure Moderate Wounds wand and I don't think we've used even 5 charges because the cleric/fighter prefers just channeling.
CLW wands are cheap healing, but if you have a mostly neutral party without a paladin. you can use wands of infernal healing for a longer and slower duration but cheaper price.
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In my experience, CLW wands are rarely used in combat, and if they are, it's often a dire need. There's nothing wrong with that.
As for between combat healing, well, I've never liked the notion that adventuring parties were expected to do a few fights in a day, then retreat back to town to rest for a day or two before returning to the dungeon. That just breaks verisimilitude for me in a big way.
First, we have all of the fantasy and adventure stories that the game is based upon, like Lord of the Rings, in which adventurers press on. How would the story of The Fellowship have gone if, halfway through Moria, everyone said, "Hang on a moment, let's head back to town and rest for a day or two before continuing here," or, "Man, that last fight wiped me out, let's sit down and rest here for two days," when you've got intelligent creatures aware of their presence within the dungeon and making for their position?
That was totally Merry's fault with him kicking the stone down the well.
How about something from the game Iron Heroes? The characters have normal HP and Reserve HP that equals their total normal HP. If they are wounded, they can rest a minute and get back a certain abmount of Reserve HP(Equeal to CON I think.) This lets them keep going if they take wounds and have a rest without leaving the dungeon.
I've been using Vigor & Wounds in Skull & Shackles.
I just read those, and I'm glad you pointed them out. Thanks.
I'd also like wands be eternal wands like in Eberron, with 5 or 6 charges/day.
The standard "Eternal Wand" in Evengar had 2 charges per day, I believe, and I'm a big fan too. I always suggest to my players that they're allowed to make a wondrous item, even one shaped like wands, that cast spells and uses charges/day.
. . .clerics were deliberately slightly overpowered as an inducement to get people to play them. This design decision continues, although attentuated, even to this day.
That's definitely true, although I think another approach has eclipsed the powerful cleric approach. Currently, in both D&D4 and Pathfinder the fashion is to give healing powers to as many characters as possible.
In AD&D editions Bards could not heal, Clerics did not channel healing energy or cast heal spells spontaneously, Paladin was nearly impossible to qualify for and offered only minimal healing anyway, and there were no Alchemists, Magi, Oracles, or Witches. Basically, healing only came from Cleric spells prepared in advance, rest, or visits to the local temple.
I like this change! My current Kingmaker group has a Paladin, a Witch, and a combat focused Oracle (and a rogue) so nobody is really spending a lot of their resources on healing, yet we get the job done.
In a rather long series of adventures that are all connected in DDO (D&D online) our entire party consisted of myself, a favored soul, another combat oriented 2 hander favored soul, two clerics, and something else that healed alot I think it was a heal focused bard.
Was really funny, it was a thing that took us 3-4 hours to get through and we couldnt get party members together so we just went for it. As we went through the sequence you could look up other LFMs and see 3 or 4 parties sitting there waiting to start saying "looking for healer" and we had a party full of them... was amusing.
What server do you play on, and which quest chain?
Gallahanda, the lord of eyes quest chain.
what server are you on? No one I know plays at all anymore. I got no guilds, no buds... it's lame now
Heh, I think you underestimate my paranoia Magnus. Also, your example seems sort of "dungeon-crawl" biased. Our group rarely does dungeon crawls. The last one we did was a module that involved a lot of traps and ambushes. I would say that we avoided 90% of them through sheer paranoia.Ambushes and bum-rushing our party isn't as easy as you make it sound. Seriously.But it is a vastly different situation to be expected than to catch the opponents by surprise. Yeah, given how maxing Perception is one of the most valuable player character survival skills and a lot of monsters don't really have a stealth score, setting up an ambush ain't that easy. However, I've really almost never seen a party check all rooms they already had cleared when they returned to a location for a second or third day, so I think it would not be that far-fetched for some even only semi-smart opponents to set up something and cut off the escape route.
Alright, I may be going by the standards of my own two groups here. :)
That was totally Merry's fault with him kicking the stone down the well.How about something from the game Iron Heroes? The characters have normal HP and Reserve HP that equals their total normal HP. If they are wounded, they can rest a minute and get back a certain abmount of Reserve HP(Equeal to CON I think.) This lets them keep going if they take wounds and have a rest without leaving the dungeon.
Doesn't matter whose fault it was, it was part of the design of the dungeon, as it were. SOMETHING would have caused all of what followed.
And my point wasn't to draw direct parallels here, but to merely illustrate that evacuating a dungeon partway through to retreat to town to heal up doesn't feel heroic, doesn't emulate fantasy tropes, and isn't especially enjoyable.
Finding a safe place to rest within a dungeon for the night can be interesting at times, but at others it's fairly impossible, or makes little sense. I've had groups that were looking to rest after basically every fight (partly my fault for pitting them against tough encounters, partly theirs for going nova in each encounter), but after a few days of them resting for basically every 20 hours in a 24 hour period, I told them that they just couldn't fall asleep. In parties without a healer, however, even that rest cycle wouldn't have been sufficient, because no one would have enough HP to press on.
While I don't think players need to be at full HP for each encounter, unless they're going up against a real softball, they shouldn't be below half HP at the start of a fight. Combat in D&D 3.5/PF is just too lethal for that, ESPECIALLY at low levels when one lucky crit, or even a good roll on a normal attack from a brute can drop a PC, or even kill them, and when no one has gallons of potions, dozens of Channels or spell slots to devote to healing.
And for all the people talking about how they miss the days when clerics were required roles for a party, well, I didn't play D&D in those ancient times, so I can't comment on AD&D and the game prior, but I can say that in my time playing, very few people have ever wanted to play a healer. Do you force them to, or do you have them scampering back to town after every fight?
Alright, I may be going by the standards of my own two groups here. :)
Heh, I think you underestimate my paranoia Magnus. Also, your example seems sort of "dungeon-crawl" biased. Our group rarely does dungeon crawls. The last one we did was a module that involved a lot of traps and ambushes. I would say that we avoided 90% of them through sheer paranoia.
As I recall, the only ambush that got us was a shambling mound hidden in the dark among some bushes (killed my animal companion on a crit) and the only trap was a trapped step on some stairs that our rogue just failed on his trap detection.
That was out of probably a couple dozen traps or ambushes, so the 90% thing is probably pretty close. The GM actually got frustrated with us for not rushing in to "rescue" a chained up girl. Of course the "girl" was a green hag or something, and the floor in front of her was trapped.
Paranoid. Really.
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Finding a safe place to rest within a dungeon for the night can be interesting at times, but at others it's fairly impossible, or makes little sense. I've had groups that were looking to rest after basically every fight (partly my fault for pitting them against tough encounters, partly theirs for going nova in each encounter), but after a few days of them resting for basically every 20 hours in a 24 hour period, I told them that they just couldn't fall asleep. In parties without a healer, however, even that rest cycle wouldn't have been sufficient, because no one would have enough HP to press on.
I HATE when every AP's Dungeons come with room whose description is "this room is not used often, it looks a sace place to sleep". With passion. All the CLWW bate of tbis thread, combined, is not the half of the rage that resting in a dungeo for any other reason than "it's late in the ight we need to sleep somewhere" inspire on me. There is NOTHING worst in tbis game than the 15 min work day syndrome.
On other side of views, one of the reasons CLWW are so ubiquitous (and healing powers in general) is because of the beavy inflation of numbers and how 3e screwed up the system when tbey altered base HP and damage, but holx an adamant grasp at traditional spell numbers. Cure serious wounds was serious back in AD&D, when you only had 9HD and low con modifier. My 17th level half elf figther in 2e had 95hp. My 17th level fighter/barbaria has more than 250. A CSW was a serious heal for my half elf, but it's a cure joke wounds for the barb/fighter. Same happened with blasting spells vs save or sucm. 10d6 Fireball lost his punch whe white dragons went from 90hp to 400
Edit: wow. Writing on cell phones suck so much.
Finding a safe place to rest within a dungeon for the night can be interesting at times, but at others it's fairly impossible, or makes little sense. I've had groups that were looking to rest after basically every fight (partly my fault for pitting them against tough encounters, partly theirs for going nova in each encounter), but after a few days of them resting for basically every 20 hours in a 24 hour period, I told them that they just couldn't fall asleep. In parties without a healer, however, even that rest cycle wouldn't have been sufficient, because no one would have enough HP to press on.I HATE when every AP's Dungeons come with room whose description is "this room is not used often, it looks a sace place to sleep". With passion. All the CLWW bate of tbis thread, combined, is not the half of the rage that resting in a dungeo for any other reason than "it's late in the ight we need to sleep somewhere" inspire on me. There is NOTHING worst in tbis game than the 15 min work day syndrome.
On other side of views, one of the reasons CLWW are so ubiquitous (and healing powers in general) is because of the beavy inflation of numbers and how 3e screwed up the system when tbey altered base HP and damage, but holx an adamant grasp at traditional spell numbers. Cure serious wounds was serious back in AD&D, when you only had 9HD and low con modifier. My 17th level half elf figther in 2e had 95hp. My 17th level fighter/barbaria has more than 250. A CSW was a serious heal for my half elf, but it's a cure joke wounds for the barb/fighter. Same happened with blasting spells vs save or sucm. 10d6 Fireball lost his punch whe white dragons went from 90hp to 400
Edit: wow. Writing on cell phones suck so much.
Can you provide an example of an AP that actually has such text? I would love to see it.
Resting in dungeons is ick.
I'm still trying to figure out if this is a legitimate thread or just trolling. Hating on CLWW? Never been in an issue for me across a multitude of gaming groups.
My thoughts exactly.
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I whipped up a magic item that makes out of combat healing seem more interesting (to me at least) and remembered this thread.
Medicine Pouch
Aura weak conjuration; CL 3rd
Slot --; Price 540 gp; Weight -- lbs.
Description
This small burlap pouch contains a fragrant mix of medicinal and sacred herbs.
The bearer may sprinkle a dose of medicinal herb from the pouch as standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity, providing the recipient 1d8 of magical healing. The bearer may augment the application of herb with a sacred chant to a diety he worships, making a DC 10 knowledge (religion) check. If the check succeeds, the wearer may roll 1d8 twice and keep the higher result. For every five by which the bearer succeeded this check, he may roll an additional time, keeping the highest result among his rolls.
A newly created pouch contains 30 doses. A dose may be gathered from a wooded area by foraging for 4 hours and succeeding both a DC 10 knowledge (nature) or survival check as well as a DC 10 knowledge (religion) check. For every 10 by which the result of the knowledge (religion) check exceeds 10, the bearer restores an additional dose.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, cure light wounds; Cost 270 gp
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Can you provide an example of an AP that actually has such text? I would love to see it.Resting in dungeons is ick.
Sure.
AP Carrion Crown, the first Dungeon, Harrowstone. Room S4, the Warden Office description is:"Once the warden’s off ice, this room has remained
quiet since the fire. Out of a lingering fear of the
warden’s role in the prison hierarchy, the evil spirits do
not extend into this room. As a result, this is the one
room in Harrowstone that is safe to rest in."
In Kingmaker, in thousand breathes dungeon, the Shimmering Falls description goes:
"Once the glade’s current denizens (see Creatures, below) leave, it
can be a safe place for beleaguered PCs to camp—Nyrissa
and her minions do not intrude upon this region"
Some other descriptions aren't so blatant and metagaming, but mean the same. In Nyrissa's castle, the Fable, room L1 reads:
"The secret door to the servant’s wing can be found with a
DC 30 Perception check. It hasn’t been opened in ages, and
is somewhat stuck"
In Armag's tomb in Kingmaker, there's a room which is a hidden passage, behind a secret door unknown for the dungeon denizens. Its description goes:
"Sigils mark the walls of this dark passageway. Judging by the
dust and abandoned cobwebs, it appears to have lain unused for
centuries. A heavy fog restricts vision to just five feet."
In Way of The Wicked (3pp incredibly good AP that I highly recommend), there's a room in first castle that reads:
"There is no one in the garrison who is aware of this
secret door and the vault is the least visited place in the
watchtower.
A trap door in the ceiling leads up to the armory
(room 2). No one bothers to routinely light this room
but there are sconces upon the wall where torches could
be lit. For an entire month, no one will visit this vault
unless the entire keep is being searched. It is a perfect
place for PCs to hide"
Other rooms are more subtle. Such as in Kingmaker's Vordakai tomb. There's a room which is a false stair that goes to nowhere. It's not said in the description of the room, but there's no reason nobody would ever go to that place, except if they are specifically searching for the PC to be there. It has no purpose, goes to nowhere, and has no use for the dungeon's denizens.
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I personally dislike the idea of wands of CLW being used regularly to "top up" Hit Points after each encounter. The flavour of it just seems to trivialise the magic and also it doesn't meet the imagery we see in fantasy films like Lord of the Rings.
I also don't like the idea of sleeping in dungeons (at least unless you're travelling through a massive one that takes days to get through), whether that is because you need to recover spells or hit points.
For me I would like to think having a Cleric or other healer is unnecessary, but potentially useful if the party has been unlucky (e.g. a PC has suffered a critical hit, or high damage rolls by the foes all around), at which point the spontaneous casting of a cure spell after the combat should hopefully be sufficient to bring the party back up to the expected level of resources.
I do worry that some published scenarios are written with the idea that PCs will enter each encounter at full HPs and as such the foes are statted up with this is mind.
I much prefer the idea that many combats won't necessarily threaten death for a PC, but instead wear them down. The 3.5 DMG states that an Encounter Level equal to Average Party Level provides a challenging encounter that should result in expenditure of 20% of a party’s resources (hit points, spells, magic item uses etc). A party should be able to handle approximately 4 of such encounters before needing to rest to heal and recover spells.
It goes on to say that 10% of an adventures encounters should actually have an EL below APL, 20% should have an EL equal to APL but if handled properly it should be easy (e.g. give the PCs the opportunity to ambush the foes, or hamper their ability to get into the fight all at once) and 50% should be EL equal to APL - a challenge that should reduce the PCs by 20% of resources.
Now, it may be the case that the CRs of monsters and the damage they can deal (especially on a crit) doesn't match up to the above expectations (as stated by Atarlost up thread) but the above is my preferred solution.
So I neither want "happy sticks" ensuring PCs enter each encounter at full HP, nor do I want PCs having to rest in dungeons or return to town after only 2 or 3 encounters.
Rather I prefer the encounters to be designed so that they wear the PCs down a bit at a time, so that the threat of death comes more towards the climax of the adventure. Even then the risk is only high if the previous X number of encounters were handled badly.
A healer in the party shouldn't be necessary be if present could hopefully offset the odd badly handled encounter with just one or two spells and maybe a Heal check*
Personally, if encounter design of an adventure is going to assume each PC begins each combat at full HP, then I would prefer an alternative mechanism to Wands of CLW or clerical channelling (which I am also not a fan of) that doesn't rely on certain character types.
D&D4e did this well with Healing Surges and Short Rests (though I still really dislike the fact that a Long Rest restores all HP and Healing Surges) but D&D 3.5 can also do this with the Reserve Points option from Unearthed Arcana (which is also Open Game Content).
I used Reserve Points in my Freeport campaign and it allowed for what could have been a TPK to turn into a fighting escape after being taken prisoner.
*Pathfinder is good in that it added the ability to actually recover some HP with the Treat Deadly Wounds option. 1 hit point per level of
the creature and if you exceed the DC by 5 or more, add your Wisdom modifier (if positive) to this amount. Its not too much to be unbalanced but it can help.
TL;DR - I don't like Wands of CLW for flavour reasons. They shouldn't be necessary and if they are then the encounter design of the adventure should be changed IMHO. If you are going to require quicker healing, just write it into the rules as happening naturally for any character (alal 4e's Short and Long Rests) rather than rely on clerics or wands.
Can you provide an example of an AP that actually has such text? I would love to see it.Resting in dungeons is ick.
Sure.
AP Carrion Crown, the first Dungeon, Harrowstone. Room S4, the Warden Office description is:
"Once the warden’s off ice, this room has remained
quiet since the fire. Out of a lingering fear of the
warden’s role in the prison hierarchy, the evil spirits do
not extend into this room. As a result, this is the one
room in Harrowstone that is safe to rest in."In Kingmaker, in thousand breathes dungeon, the Shimmering Falls description goes:
"Once the glade’s current denizens (see Creatures, below) leave, it
can be a safe place for beleaguered PCs to camp—Nyrissa
and her minions do not intrude upon this region"Some other descriptions aren't so blatant and metagaming, but mean the same. In Nyrissa's castle, the Fable, room L1 reads:
"The secret door to the servant’s wing can be found with a
DC 30 Perception check. It hasn’t been opened in ages, and
is somewhat stuck"In Armag's tomb in Kingmaker, there's a room which is a hidden passage, behind a secret door unknown for the dungeon denizens. Its description goes:
"Sigils mark the walls of this dark passageway. Judging by the
dust and abandoned cobwebs, it appears to have lain unused for
centuries. A heavy fog restricts vision to just five feet."In Way of The Wicked (3pp incredibly good AP that I highly recommend), there's a room in first castle that reads:
"There is no one in the garrison who is aware of this
secret door and the vault is the least visited place in the
watchtower.
A trap door in the ceiling leads up to the armory
(room 2). No one bothers to routinely light this room
but there are sconces upon the wall where torches could
be lit. For an entire month, no one will visit this vault
unless the entire keep is being searched. It is a perfect
place for PCs to hide"Other rooms are more subtle. Such as in Kingmaker's...
Thanks for these! Favorited and filed for future reference.
There are quite more. In almost every long dungeon. Sometimes it's blatant "here the PC can rest", sometimes is descripted in-game instead of meta-game ("this room has not been used in weeks"), sometimes is more subtle ("this room is a false stair. It was going to be a second level for the dungeon, but it was never built"). But you always have a "PC please rest here" room.
It's like the game *assumes* the 15 minute work day, or parties needing to stop. CLWW remove part of this 15 minute work day syndrome, and allow for an extended dungeon exploring. Both because the HP depletion is erased, and because party members have to spend less resources healing (the bard do not deplete spell slots and performance rounds, the cleric do not spontaneous cast Cure spells, etc).
I guess this roots to the game foundation, when in Gygax's basement the game was about exploring an ever-growing dungeon of several levels (Greyhawk Castle), and it was "expected" to clean a level in each session or couple of sessions, then go back to recover, and keep cleaning from the last point forward. The monster never replenished, they never take back the cleared rooms, and they stayed in their rooms until the door was opened. Modern AP don't follow that paradigm, though. So being able to push and keep exploring and finish the module is felt as more organic. CLWW help to avoid going back to sleep and rest after every 2 rooms. I'd rather use "reserve hit points", healing surges, or some kind of "at will" healing instead, but Pathfinder has none of those. So I'm stuck with either CLWW, or searching the Dungeon for the "this room is safe to rest" big poster.
I much prefer the idea that many combats won't necessarily threaten death for a PC, but instead wear them down. The 3.5 DMG states that an Encounter Level equal to Average Party Level provides a challenging encounter that should result in expenditure of 20% of a party’s resources (hit points, spells, magic item uses etc). A party should be able to handle approximately 4 of such encounters before needing to rest to heal and recover spells.
It goes on to say that 10% of an adventures encounters should actually have an EL below APL, 20% should have an EL equal to APL but if handled properly it should be easy (e.g. give the PCs the opportunity to ambush the foes, or hamper their ability to get into the fight all at once) and 50% should be EL equal to APL - a challenge that should reduce the PCs by 20% of resources.
[...]
Rather I prefer the encounters to be designed so that they wear the PCs down a bit at a time, so that the threat of death comes more towards the climax of the adventure. Even then the risk is only high if the previous X number of encounters were handled badly.
The problem with this, is that playstyles vary. Some groups like to do several encounters in a row (be it dungeon crawl or otherwise), while some others tend to play a long period of exploration/social interaction, followed by a single more flashy fight. If the fights are balanced and tailored to the idea of not being threatening, but wearing down the PC a bit, those groups that use the later playstyle will stomp over the encounters. Losing 20% of your HP is worrysome if you expect 4 other encounters, but it's trivial if it is your only encounter in the day.
That's why it's so difficult to build a game system that please everyone.
