Just to be clear, what I was saying at least is that without cure wands, there is ONLY one specific class ability that can provide adequate hp healing, and that is channel energy.
I would argue Lay on Hands can definitely work, too.
And Life Link + Energy Body provides fantastic healing (though Oracles of Life get channel, too).
I am flummoxed. How did I miss that heal ability?
The funny thing is, I've allowed the Heal skill to do that for so long, I didn't even realize I was houseruling it in 3rd edition and that it was new in Pathfinder.|
From an old school to new school perspective - I don't think the issue is the CLWW in of itself (which I hate). I think the issue is the need to use a CLWW to function and the disconnect from going from an older style of play to the increased hp and dmg that 3rd+ systems offer.
Ok, I like what you said here about the need for wands of CLW. However, I take it in a different direction than you.
While you take the (totally valid) path that spells remained the same while HP and non-spell damage scaled up--i.e. an actual need for the wands--I prefer to focus on the perceived need for the wands.
To me, it is a big problem if PCs feel they cannot function without the wands. Just look how many people in this thread are insisting someone would be required to play a boring healer (and specifically a cleric, for some reason, even though I think Oracles of Life and even Hospitalers are better at it).
You don't need those wands--you really don't. And you don't need a dedicated healer, either. You don't have to charge into every fight unprepared, you don't need to stand and fight no matter the cost, you don't need to attack anything that moves, and you don't have to clear "dungeons" in one day.
I guess I just miss the old, "I don't want to die" attitude--I dislike that it has been replaced with a "We don't need to be careful because we can full heal between combats, and even if we die, it's pretty cheap to rez anyway" attitude*.
HP and damage have scaled up since the "old days." But people didn't heal to full in between fights back in the old days anyway (even though the healing scaled better), so why did that change?
I remember back in Everquest when you died, you lost XP. Lots of it. Sometimes entire levels. It was brutal. You really didn't want to die in EQ--even if you got rezzed, it only reduced the XP lost, it didn't eliminate it. You even had to go on a corpse run, because all your stuff stayed where you died. You had to run, naked, into the danger that killed you and get your gear. It was scary and exhilarating.
Dying was a big deal and I liked that.
EQ encouraged the "be careful" outlook, and I enjoyed that (though I didn't enjoy that it heavily discouraged soloing). It was so bad to die that people developed strategies we probably think of as ubiquitous in RPGs now--things like Kiting or Fear Kiting--to reduce danger. I liked that.
Fast forward now, and every MMO I've played in the past year just has you pop back somewhere nearby full intact with all your stuff and all your XP and either no penalty, or some minimal penalty you can literally buy off (so dying just takes some minor amount of cash).
What a parallel between MMOs just charging some gold when you die because you weren't careful and Pathfinder characters essentially buying HP back...
And for the record, I'm not suggesting either is caused by the other--just that both are part of the same shift in attitude.
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You don't need those wands--you really don't. And you don't need a dedicated healer, either. You don't have to charge into every fight unprepared, you don't need to stand and fight no matter the cost, you don't need to attack anything that moves, and you don't have to clear "dungeons" in one day.
Of course I don't need to clear dungeons in one day. I just preffer to do so. I hate the 15 minute work day, I hate dungeons built so there are rooms specifically designed to let the party rest, and I hate when the party retires to the town and nobody in the dungeon goes nowhere, they just keep waiting until the party come back.
Given the choice of using CLWW or sleeping in the dungeon every few rooms, I'd take the former any day of the week, and twice on sundays.
It's not that I need to. It's that I preffer it.
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It always breaks my immersion to think, "well kicked in the front door and killed everyone in the dining room. I bet know one will have noticed or do anything about it in the time I'm gone". It also kind of bothers me when people a few rooms over that are just doing their thing don't hear the screams of their friends as they are disemboweled and are are totally unaware they are under attack and fail to sound any alarm.
10 rounds of in-combat bleed proofing are nothing to be sniffed at either.I only dislike wands of CLW because wands of infernal healing are so much more cost effective for out-of-combat healing.
I'm playing a 1st edition D&D game right now... once your magic-user gets teleport and you have portable hole the game becomes..
"cleric out of heals?"
"Yep"
"Everyone hurt?"
"Yep"
"Hand me the bag of holding, let me cast polymorph self into a flying creature, just in case I come in high, cleric cast meld into stone one me, in case I come in low... and lets telepoert home and rest up and come back"
NOT fun when I (the cleric) has to hold back all his 1st and 3rd level spells for heals and gets to act as a 2nd hand fighter dealing 1d8+3
Of course I don't need to clear dungeons in one day. I just preffer to do so. I hate the 15 minute work day, I hate dungeons built so there are rooms specifically designed to let the party rest, and I hate when the party retires to the town and nobody in the dungeon goes nowhere, they just keep waiting until the party come back.
Given the choice of using CLWW or sleeping in the dungeon every few rooms, I'd take the former any day of the week, and twice on sundays.
It's not that I need to. It's that I preffer it.
It always breaks my immersion to think, "well kicked in the front door and killed everyone in the dining room. I bet know one will have noticed or do anything about it in the time I'm gone". It also kind of bothers me when people a few rooms over that are just doing their thing don't hear the screams of their friends as they are disemboweled and are are totally unaware they are under attack and fail to sound any alarm.
You guys both jumped to the same confusing conclusion.
Why is the alternative "you have to rest in the dungeon" or "only adventure for 15 minutes?"
And why does nothing change in the dungeon while you're gone?
None of those things make sense to me.
My parties can get through quite a few encounters without healing. Not all of them involve fighting and many involve surprise attacks or tactical retreats. The trick is just to avoid getting hurt at all costs (you can't do that 100% of the time, but trying makes you better off anyway). You can do it!
Further, you don't rest in the "dungeon" (and I almost never use dungeons anyway), you rest at camp or in a city or something, unless you have a caster with those safe rest spells like Rope Trick or something.
And while you're gone, stuff in the dungeon absolutely changes. The monsters move around, clean out what you cleared, set up new patrols and ambushes and traps. Or if your slaughter was bad enough, they pack up and leave. They react oraganically.
Why would the default assumption be that nothing moves or changes? Most "dungeons" are where these things live!
And on the flip side, this does not mean no progress has been made. There are a finite number of foes in a given "dungeon." If there are 30 orcs living in a dungeon and you kill 10 of them, it's not like they can reproduce 10 more orcs overnight. Their defenses get better, but they're still down some numbers.
Why is the alternative "you have to rest in the dungeon" or "only adventure for 15 minutes?"
I also hate going back and forward between the town and the dungeon.
And why does nothing change in the dungeon while you're gone?
None of those things make sense to me.
Because if after you start to kill the liche minions, and go back to town, the Lich teleports to another place, carrying his treasure and the kidnapped princess, the adventure is screwed.
My parties can get through quite a few encounters without healing. Not all of them involve fighting and many involve surprise attacks or tactical retreats. The trick is just to avoid getting hurt at all costs (you can't do that 100% of the time, but trying makes you better off anyway). You can do it!
avoid getting hurt shouldn't be possible unless your party overpower the encounter, or your DM is a featherfist. You can try to minimize the damage, but avoid getting hurt isn't possible in appropiated challenges vs competent NPC.
And sure, you can go 100 non-fighting encounters in a row. But that has nothing to do with this thread, which is about CLWW. In non-combat encounters, CLWW are pointless. With combat encounters, no matter how much you can do in a row thanks to clever tactics and being a superior player, (or having a more forgiving DM) you'd still do more fights in a row if you heal using CLWW. I would always preffer to spend a wand of CLW than to spend a day resting. If I rest, it's because either it's late and the PC are fatigued, or because the spellcasters ask for it.
Further, you don't rest in the "dungeon" (and I almost never use dungeons anyway),
Cool. But I play published AP, and those are full of dungeons.
And while you're gone, stuff in the dungeon absolutely changes. The monsters move around, clean out what you cleared, set up new patrols and ambushes and traps. Or if your slaughter was bad enough, they pack up and leave.
In most AP, that's not true.
Just to be clear, what I was saying at least is that without cure wands, there is ONLY one specific class ability that can provide adequate hp healing, and that is channel energy.I would argue Lay on Hands can definitely work, too..
I guess I just miss the old, "I don't want to die" attitude--I dislike that it has been replaced with a "We don't need to be careful because we can...
MPL and I usually dont agree but here we do. These tables about WBL, community wealth, where you can find things etc etc are there to help people build a world or as GM supplements for lack of any idea what to have where, they are "RULES" meaning you dont have to, and in fact have been one of the things that have busted the game up, since the younger gamers come in an think oh boy yippe I can just buy whatever.
It's MMO syndrome, more more more faster faster faster.
The same way you CAN play in a world where guns are everywhere, or guns are rare or guns dont exist, is the same way you can play magic. there are no RULES saying how much gunpowder need be available. Those tables for magic items and wealth are guide lines for people.
If you went by those tables a paladin would just be able to walk into a shop in absalom and say "one holy avenger please, extra sharp, easy on the dried goblin blood"
A game without guns isn't 'NOT pathfinder'
A game without liquorish wand jars full of CLWW isn't "not pathfinder"
Assuming you can just go into a town with 200 people and buy them like pencils is silly.
IF they were that plentiful, they wouldnt BE 750 gold.
Law of supply and demand would make them much cheaper.
IF they were being purchased that fast, because the money was readily available, a cleric could just sit around all month pumping these wands full of charges. Making tons of money and live in a mansion. I'm sure THAT's why the god he worships gave him those holy powers.... so he could make fat dough.
How many wands is he going to make in that fashion before he needs an atonement? Since he's abusing the divine power of his god for personal gain?
Wouldn't that then, there by, make them LESS common that initially thought, due to that little conundrum?
Case in point: PG 460 CRB the first two paragraphs under "purchasing magic items" state that they are GUIDELINES ; MAJOR cities might have one or two purveyors of magical wares; GM discretion; and the GM should keep a list in particular shops of what is available and what isn't, what gets bought and then OCCASIONALLY replenish that stock to represent new acquisitions.
just because you are like to find the wand 75% of the time of the FIRST purchase doesn't mean when you come back tomorrow it's 75% likely to be there again. It also states some cities wild deviate WILDLY from these baselines...
Then it goes farther to say... if you are running a campaign with low magic, reduce those numbers by half.... D'OH now those wands are 33% like to be a round and the amount of value anyone has on hand is halved as much.
Then it says campaigns abundance of magic might have TWICE as much availability, meaning CLWW ARE liquorish sticks.
But ALL those games are still Pathfinder and there are not set rules or assumptions.
IMO, the best way to run it is the 33% way. In yours it's liquorish sticks. IF my party had no healers, I might make accommodations to move things along, but I'm pretty sure if the party was full of oracles, clerics and paladins, the CLWW would be really rare to find as well....
Law of supply and demand would make them much cheaper.
Law of costs wouldnt. There's a lot of demand for cars in real world, and they aren't cheap.
IF they were being purchased that fast, because the money was readily available, a cleric could just sit around all month pumping these wands full of charges. Making tons of money and live in a mansion. I'm sure THAT's why the god he worships gave him those holy powers.... so he could make fat dough. Making tons of money and live in a mansion. I'm sure THAT's why the god he worships gave him those holy powers.
Who said nothing about clerics? Clerics suck as vendors, they have a ton of stupid rules about what to sell to who, alingment, faith, and stuff.
I buy them to witches and bards. They are way more liberal.just because you are like to find the wand 75% of the time of the FIRST purchase doesn't mean when you come back tomorrow it's 75% likely to be there again
Actually, you shouldn't roll the second day. Unless the guy who make them dies, you can ask him to build you one per day. You build 1000g of magic items per day, and the CLWW cost 750.
Then it goes farther to say... if you are running a campaign with low magic, reduce those numbers by half.... D'OH now those wands are 33% like to be a round
You are reading it wrong. What you halve, is the base value. That means the small town base value is 500, so no wand in it (unless it has some modifiers like being prosperous and in a strategic location (GMG page 207). So you need to go to buy it to a large town (2000+ population). There you have 75% to buy it as well. In a high magic campaign, you could buy them in Villages, with population 50-200.
MAJOR cities might have one or two purveyors of magical wares; GM discretion; and the GM should keep a list in particular shops of what is available and what isn't, what gets bought and then OCCASIONALLY replenish that stock to represent new acquisitions.
That's talking about the minor, medium and major items randomly rolled in adition to the Base Value.
I'm pretty sure if the party was full of oracles, clerics and paladins, the CLWW would be really rare to find as well....
The party doesn't really need to be full of those. Just with one, and Craft Wands, they're served. Half cost even.
In standard Pathfinder, in Golarion, in the game world were the AP that Paizo publishes take place, buying CLWW is absolutely trivial. It's part of the assumed enviroment. Of course you can change that. You can ban cure light wound wands, or healing as a whole, just like you can ban the Polymorph spell, or the Wizard class, or magic altogether. That's up to you. But you were asking about which dungeon COULD be done in a single day. And the answer is: lots and lots of the dungeons in published APs that happen in Golarion, the basic setting of Pathfinder, can be done in a day. Because you have Cure Light Wound Wands, that replenish your HP.
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The APs do not assume you must have this magic item availability, in fact several of them are pretty chincey on handing out magic treasure, especially in the first two volumes.
Your STILL missing the term GUIDELINE, not RULE. if you dont know what your doing here's a guide, until you get your feet wet.
and, in the RL if you know how to buy cars you can get them fantastically cheap if you are looking to buy ones that are over stocked, that's how the mini car lots make their living, buying up what the major dealers can't move. They juggle inventory to keep the illusion the cars are going quickly, It's smoke an mirrors.
The credit fallacy keeps people in cars and still buying them. If you actually had to pay cash for a car, and cars all looked the same and did the same thing (like a CLWW) they would be ALOT cheaper, even to someone who didn't know how to manipulate the trick.
But yes, for normal people cars are pricey, but it's a bad example. First aid kits, or hamburgers would be a better one.
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
Khyber. I haven't logged into DDO since September, but my guild is still there (Loreseekers), even if some of the people I've enjoyed playing with most have left.
If you read the DDO forums much, you've probably seen my posts there: sephiroth1084
I never posted or looked on the DDO forums....
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From an old school to new school perspective - I don't think the issue is the CLWW in of itself (which I hate). I think the issue is the need to use a CLWW to function and the disconnect from going from an older style of play to the increased hp and dmg that 3rd+ systems offer.Ok, I like what you said here about the need for wands of CLW. However, I take it in a different direction than you.
While you take the (totally valid) path that spells remained the same while HP and non-spell damage scaled up--i.e. an actual need for the wands--I prefer to focus on the perceived need for the wands.
To me, it is a big problem if PCs feel they cannot function without the wands. Just look how many people in this thread are insisting someone would be required to play a boring healer (and specifically a cleric, for some reason, even though I think Oracles of Life and even Hospitalers are better at it).
Agree 100%, but being an old-schooler myself we always took the path of "ok, so what do we need" for the group. Usually the more experienced player did this - they filled the role (sometimes by taking slow advancing multi-class choice) that the group needed. And that was generally from the big 4 - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User and Thief. That mindset doesn't really exist anymore - at least from interacting with younger/new players here or around IRL.
Things have changed from a group centered paradigm to "how does this help my character" or "how do I replicate X pop-culture character" in my guy. This started when people started plotting out characters from level 1-20, realized that they couldn't really die after a certain level (5+) and when some of the duties of a healer were shifted/distributed to other classes or could be substituted with an item (CLWW). Can't really blame the players on this one - all of these changes lie solely on the shoulders of the designers of 3rd edition. People who are still playing a derivative of that 13 years later are going to use the tools they learned how to play with. They are not going to "tough it out" when the rule-set encourages them to do otherwise.
You don't need those wands--you really don't. And you don't need a dedicated healer, either. You don't have to charge into every fight unprepared, you don't need to stand and fight no matter the cost, you don't need to attack anything that moves, and you don't have to clear "dungeons" in one day.
I guess I just miss the old, "I don't want to die" attitude--I dislike that it has been replaced with a "We don't need to be careful because we can full heal between combats, and even if we die, it's pretty cheap to rez anyway" attitude*.
Agreed - 3rd ed and PFRPG have much higher character survival rates due to easy healing, CR controlled encounters, the per day encounter paradigm/resource hit, over-powered characters (relative to monsters), less SOD effects, magic item creation (no scarcity of resources), full support of the 15 minute workday, de-emphasis wandering/random encounters etc.
The game has removed consequence and risk. To risk: see rope trick and several other spells. Rope trick was a thing you used to hide for a short time in older editions, or you used it to get up to a certain spot. In 3rd and on it became a tool for the 15 minute workday. The game designers made that turkey.
The game designers also promoted the mentality of no consequence for bad choices. Another example - look at 4e and some arguments about allowing some kind of fire vulnerable in Fire Giants. They are still somewhat vulnerable to fire (resist 15 in 4e) so that your 1-trick pony fire mage isn't useless in a fight with them and you are not be punished for having such a narrow character focus or spell selection. PFRPG doesn't go that far, but it's still gaming with training wheels on. Spells that used to be potential game breakers: Teleport, Gate, Wish, etc all had dire risks associated with them. That's all gone now. Why? Because those drawbacks sucked or were unkind to players - according to most posters here,....funny thing though, they seemed to work OK in older editions with all the risks attached, probably even better.
Now if you make a mistake in character creation or development and you can get a "do over" later on. This is what people want in a modern game system. At least most people who play 3rd/PFRPG/4th ed who post over here (not all). That isn't bad for anyone unless they dislike that design philosophy and style of play. Obviously with the success of 3rd and later PFRPG people like and want easier games.
HP and damage have scaled up since the "old days." But people didn't heal to full in between fights back in the old days anyway (even though the healing scaled better), so why did that change?
I don't think you can sell that here. The current rule set and game design philosophy has made things easier on players (survivability-wise, not complexity or tracking mounds of data and effect-wise). These changes are deliberate and integrated into the system. Asking people who only know that, or prefer that would be asking them to play the game on hard mode unnecessarily, ex - physically turning the channel on a TV when they have a remote. There is either no need or understanding of why you would need to get into a fight at less that 100% hp.
That time has passed in these gaming circles. If you're looking for something that supports the older style of play/attitude you are on the wrong forums and probably on the wrong website.
The APs do not assume you must have this magic item availability, in fact several of them are pretty chincey on handing out magic treasure, especially in the first two volumes.
But they give you gold. Which you spend, buying magic items.
Your STILL missing the term GUIDELINE, not RULE. if you dont know what your doing here's a guide, until you get your feet wet.
EVERYTHING is a guideline in the game. You don't have to play with gunslingers, or divine classes, or power attack feat if you don't want to.
But the AP that Paizo publishes ASSUMES this guidelines are being used and work that way. That's why in everey AP you see the base value of every town and village, and in AP like Kingmaker you can even build your own magic shops and increase the base value of your city. For example, in Shattered Star, Kaer Maga is listed as a Small town with Base Value 7600g and Purchase Limit 55000.
Can you change it? Sure. Just like you can change the Main Villain from a Wizard to a Witch, or you can change the treasure from a magic sword to a magic warhammer. It's your game, you can change anything.
But the AP assumes the base value system It even list the Base Value of the towns.
But yes, for normal people cars are pricey, but it's a bad example. First aid kits, or hamburgers would be a better one.
A Cure Light Wounds cost 750 gold pieces. That's the cost of hiring a doctor two years in the game. It's the cost of 75 months of average living cost. Unless you are buying hamburgers that cost like 70.000$, it's not a good comparison. A car is much closer
And again, offer and demand aren't the only variables that set a price. COST is also a variable. To build a Wand cost 375gp. That, plus the crafter's fee, is the minimum you are going to see it being sold. Unless you find someone that want to lose money building and selling them.
so no one has ever lost money on making something? Had to pawn something off? The cost of lukes land speeder went down when the new model came out...
Just because it cost X to build doesn't mean it will never be cheaper.
IF you keep buying them, but then die, and some dungeon is loaded with 12 of them.... they are going to be cheaper, hey dude... ill sell these for 300 gold.
Thats like saying a car is never sold for less than the cost of manufacture, that's not true.
so no one has ever lost money on making something? Had to pawn something off? The cost of lukes land speeder went down when the new model came out...
Just because it cost X to build doesn't mean it will never be cheaper.
IF you keep buying them, but then die, and some dungeon is loaded with 12 of them.... they are going to be cheaper, hey dude... ill sell these for 300 gold.
Thats like saying a car is never sold for less than the cost of manufacture, that's not true.
Fine, I give up that point. I don't feel like discussing Economics 101 has any purpose in this debate.
So yes, there's people in the 200 population small town that build wands for 375 and then sell them below that price, losing money. So what? More power for me. I'd buy 10 insted of 3. Yay me.
That doesn't change the fact that the AP are built assuming the Base Value system, and they even list the given Base Value of the Towns and Villages where the adventurers go. Sandpoint, the starting town of Rise of the Runelords, has 1300g Base Value. It has 7500g Purchase Limit and 3d4 minor items and 1d6 medium items per month, and you can buy scrolls up to 4th level. And that's with 1240 population.
I'm an oldskool grognard. I loathe magic item shoppes, WBL and forecasting/projecting a class build into 20th level. I prefer the intensity of consequences such as character death - this intensity increases the "fun" for me. There is, unfortunately, resurrection, but ai make it very very expensive and not without other sacrifice and consequence.
However - this is only one perspective, one playstyle. There are many others. The old adage: as long as everybody is enjoying themselves then it must be fun!!!
SO: I have some sympathy for players attitudes that the CLWW releases the cleric from the "dedicated healer" syndrome.
Personally I can't really get in touch with the magic shoppe/wands of cure playstyle. I does seem a bit MMO - rezzing up at a waypoint and insta-healing. But if it works let it play. :) I enjoyed Guild Wars for quite a while, precisely because of those functions!
Ocean... i dunno what grognard is but we pretty much play the same way, especially with magic and rez
I like that players can fully heal up between encounters. It's hard enough to make balanced encounters as it is without the possibility of them going in at half HP. Wands of CLW are good for GMs; specifically, the lazy ones.
I'm a fan of recovery mechanics. Clerics are now only useful for in-combat healing, out of combat healing is done through recoveries like in 4e or 13th Age. It has two distinct advantages:
1: No more CLW wands, they're largely unnecessary.
2: No one is required to be a healer.
In 13th Age, most healing abilities for the Cleric are now swift actions, but they are limited either in the number of times per battle or per day that they can be used. The Cleric now gets to take a normal turn AND save a dying ally, or bolster some HP as needed, but only a couple times so they have carefully consider when to use those abilities, or just let healing happen after the battle.
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so no one has ever lost money on making something? Had to pawn something off? The cost of lukes land speeder went down when the new model came out...
Just because it cost X to build doesn't mean it will never be cheaper.
IF you keep buying them, but then die, and some dungeon is loaded with 12 of them.... they are going to be cheaper, hey dude... ill sell these for 300 gold.
Thats like saying a car is never sold for less than the cost of manufacture, that's not true.
Fine, I give up that point. I don't feel like discussing Economics 101 has any purpose in this debate.
So yes, there's people in the 200 population small town that build wands for 375 and then sell them below that price, losing money. So what? More power for me. I'd buy 10 insted of 3. Yay me.
That doesn't change the fact that the AP are built assuming the Base Value system, and they even list the given Base Value of the Towns and Villages where the adventurers go. Sandpoint, the starting town of Rise of the Runelords, has 1300g Base Value. It has 7500g Purchase Limit and 3d4 minor items and 1d6 medium items per month, and you can buy scrolls up to 4th level. And that's with 1240 population.
I'm a fan of recovery mechanics. Clerics are now only useful for in-combat healing, out of combat healing is done through recoveries like in 4e or 13th Age. It has two distinct advantages:
1: No more CLW wands, they're largely unnecessary.
2: No one is required to be a healer.In 13th Age, most healing abilities for the Cleric are now swift actions, but they are limited either in the number of times per battle or per day that they can be used. The Cleric now gets to take a normal turn AND save a dying ally, or bolster some HP as needed, but only a couple times so they have carefully consider when to use those abilities, or just let healing happen after the battle.
This is how I'd do it if I made the game from scratch too.
CLWW are just a bad way to bypass the fact that the game slows down to a snail-crawl without proper healing. They are annoying. I'd rather have recovery hit points, healing surges, or whatever. But this game doesn't have them, they substitute it with wands of CLW, standard base value, and cheap Ye Old Magic Item Shop.I'd rather play without Magic Item Shops. But, given the current rules, and game assumptions, the AP would break any kind of game immersion for me if the players slowplay it with going back and forward to the town to sleep every few rooms, or sleeping in the middle of the Lich's Lair to recover. That's just DUMB, in my opinion.
"So this is the lair where the evil orc Warlord is taking hostage our princess, torturing her every day until she gets mute from screaming in pain. This is the plan: today, we clean the first two rooms, then we go back to town and sleep to recover spells and hit points, and let the princess be tortured an extra day. Tomorrow, we enter the dungeon, clean 4 extra rooms, and we'd probably find a room that goes to nowhere, which orcs never use, and we can sleep there. Then we clean the rest of the rooms, and go vs the Warlord, who will be waiting for us in his throne room, instead of fleeing after three days of his minions being battered". So heroic.
it's entirely possible that i'm missing something since i have yet to get to a fairly high level in PF yet, but we had characters dying all the damn time is 3.5 (which granted, has less HP, but for the most part is comparable) it sounds to me like the problem isn't the novelty of CLWW its the intensity and frequency of encounters
that said, killing PCs that are fairly high level isnt really a nice thing to do unless they deserve it, designing encounters to be too dificult, or purposely throwing an enemy at them that they couldn't possibly have prepared for is bad GMing imo
i'm also not a fan of 'every encounter is a boss fight' but a lot of GMs that are worried about their PCs mopping the floor with cronies decide to do this
you gotta understand that players *should* be able to mop the floor with your joke encounters, but it should wear them down a little bit, the encounter design has to force them to use resources, but they shouldn't be risking death every fight. thats what leads to them wanting things to make them better, and to headaches for the GM
theres gotta be a balance between
"cakewalk fight" -> "boss fight where everyone is unconscious but 1 and the DM rolled s%*&ty on his attack roll and we dont know how we won"
imo the only fights where PCs should worry about dying in combat are the ones at the end of the AP or campaign, if someone does something really stupid on the way there, thats an excepetion
back on point, wands of CLW are the most effective way to heal large amounts of damage, and are balanced by requiring to play a class that can either cast it or has UMD
at low levels you can pretty much scratch the need for UMD guys because they can't even take 20 if their friend is bleeding
potions are usable by anyone, but are a lot more expensive
so your PCs figured out that they can keep themselves from dying in a way that doesnt severely deflate their WBL, isn't that good? we shouldnt punish PCs for playing smarter
back on point, wands of CLW are the most effective way to heal large amounts of damage, and are balanced by requiring to play a class that can either cast it or has UMD
Which means pretty much... everybody?
Those without CLW (paladin, ranger, cleric, oracle, inquisitor, druid, bard, alchemist and witch) or UMD (Sorcerer, Rogue, Summoner) can cast Infernal healing (magus, wizard) Without clerics, paladins or inquisitors of good religions in your group, that's an option too.
So bassically, to have a party where nobody can use a CLWW, you bassically have to make it on purpose.
the question i have for you next is: is that a problem with game design, or a problem with your players playing smarter?
also do you let those rouges take 10 or take 20 on UMD checks at early levels, when their friend is sitting there bleeding to death?
lets not forget that using a wand to heal up 3-4 PCs could take up to 8-10 uses after one decent encounter when your guys are only at <10 HP total
thats 20% of that wands uses, assuming they bought it full
so 5 encounters leads to a fully used wand, possibly less
healing to full, or healing to somewhere reasonable shouldnt be the problem
we are so used to optimizing characters and groups that we forget that there could be a situation where a wand of CLW ISNT useful
saying that it would NEVER happen isnt exactly correct
the question i have for you next is: is that a problem with game design, or a problem with your players playing smarter?
Neither. Who said it's a problem?
also do you let those rouges take 10 or take 20 on UMD checks at early levels, when their friend is sitting there bleeding to death?
You can't take 10 or 20 in UMD, in combat or otherwise. So no.
But that's not really an issue. First, you can stop bleeding with a DC 15 Heal Check as well. Second, there are a lot of party members who can use the CLWW (or cast CLWW themselves). Unless your party is built speciffically around martial characters (fighters, cavaliers, barbarians, and gunslingers, NOT including rangers and paladins), someone in the group CAN use CLWW. Or infernal Healing.
Also, Bloodblock is automatic, and incredibly cheap for those classes that can't use the heal skill or CLWW/Infernal healing.
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You guys both jumped to the same confusing conclusion.
Why is the alternative "you have to rest in the dungeon" or "only adventure for 15 minutes?"
And why does nothing change in the dungeon while you're gone?
None of those things make sense to me.
Welcome to the real reason there is a such a perception gap on the boards.
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I may have a distorted gaming experience, or maybe it's just the playstyle of the people that I associate with, but I've never seen anyone ever buy a wand of cure light wounds.
I'd been GMing 3E and PFRPG for 11 years before I started to see the routine purchase of cure light wounds wands, after we integrated a player with more focus on statistical power-gaming.
Even so, in our games the wands are primarily used for emergency healing or for "topping off" after more significant spell- or channel-healing. That use definitely doesn't bother me.
On the other hand, CLW wands are ubiquitous in PFS games, and (as much as I enjoy PFS otherwise), I have to admit I find it pretty cheesy.
It's really interesting how different "circles" of gamers have different "cultures." Mostly in the non-petri-dish sense. Mostly.
Just some notes:
'Grognards' is a French term for conservative, reactionary old-timers who decry all new-fangled things. In the world of RPG's, it generally refers to people who play AD&D and decry all newer editions of the game as inferior to Gary's original masterpeice and intentions.
AD&D Bards most certainly had healing. They had druidic spells.
And Clerics had to use those level 1 and level 4 slots for heals...unless you used Cure Moderate Wounds for 2d6+2 at level 2 when it was put out somewhere. Level 3 was for condition removal - usually cure disease, but sometimes cure blind/deaf, and that was if you didn't have Negative Plane Prot memorized there...or Remove Curse and Dispel Magic!
Healing in AD@D was 1 hp/day, 2 hp/day if resting, 3 hp/day if a healer+resting, and +Con bonus after 1 week. After 1 month, you were always considered fully recovered.
Monsters in AD&D did a lot less damage, +d6 dmg spells were far more dangerous (no caps), and there were no double damage crits, or auto hits on 20, or misses on a 1. Example: A troll was an average tough monster. 6+6 HD, dmg 5-8, 5-8, 2-12, with a Thaco of 13. That meant a level 7 fighter in plate armor+1, Shield +1 and 15 dex for AC 0 had a 35% chance of getting hit by an attack for the above damage, so he was taking maybe 7 dmg/rd.
He would probably be double specialized, +3/+3, with a +1 sword and 18/01 str, so his THACO was 8, and the troll's AC was 4, so he needed a 4 to hit for d12 (trolls were size L) with a longsword +6 damage, and he got two attacks a round. The troll had 33 hit points, a 16 Con fighter probably had 55 or so. The fighter is doing more damage per attack (about 13), getting hit less (lower AC) and has more hit points then the troll. The fighter would wipe the troll in two rounds and probably get hit twice while doing so.
This lasted right as you went up in levels. Only the most powerful unique monsters ended up with more hit points then the characters (demon lords, etc).
Hill giants did 2-16 dmg. A fighter with Specialization and a longsword averaged more damage against them.
They are VERY different games as far as respective combat abilities of fighters vs monsters. The math was much, much different, and didn't really start shifting until 2E (although the Daemons in the Fiend Folio did give them 'virtual con bonuses').
==Aelryinth
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Just some notes:Monsters in AD&D did a lot less damage, +d6 dmg spells were far more dangerous (no caps), and there were no double damage crits, or auto hits on 20, or misses on a 1. Example: A troll was an average tough monster. 6+6 HD, dmg 5-8, 5-8, 2-12, with a Thaco of 13. That meant a level 7 fighter in plate armor+1, Shield +1 and 15 dex for AC 0 had a 35% chance of getting hit by an attack for the above damage, so he was taking maybe 7 dmg/rd.
He would probably be double specialized, +3/+3, with a +1 sword and 18/01 str, so his THACO was 8, and the troll's AC was 4, so he needed a 4 to hit for d12 (trolls were size L) with a longsword +6 damage, and he got two attacks a round. The troll had 33 hit points, a 16 Con fighter probably had 55 or so. The fighter is doing more damage per attack (about 13), getting hit less (lower AC) and has more hit points then the troll. The fighter would wipe the troll in two rounds and probably get hit twice while doing so.
If we are talking equal challenges I think you should be making a comparison between a 5th or 6th level fighter vs. a Troll (troll is a level 6 encounter, closest thing we can get to a CR in AD&D). The numbers would skew a bit lower on the fighters AC (Plate+Shield +dex = AC 1), hp were closer to 40 at that level. Also the DM could easily give the troll max hp (38) because he rewarded the PCs at a base (525+8xp per hp) - something I did when weapon specialization and multiple attacks and damage bonus came into play (UA).
Also those two hits the fighter took in your example were harder to heal. Less equipment to do so, less spells floating around to do so.
This lasted right as you went up in levels. Only the most powerful unique monsters ended up with more hit points then the characters (demon lords, etc).
Damage output from creatures scaled or even exceeded the hp of you toughest PC even if the monster hp didn't (and in 2nd ed they did in some cases:Dragons). A huge ancient red dragon did 88 or 44 points of damage (if you save) with its breath weapon which was at x3 use a day. In 2nd edition an 8th category Red (Old) had 19 HD, 86 hp (at 4.5 hp per die, using 3rd ed considerations) and did 16d10+8 damage for its breath weapon (avg 96 points of damage, max 168) which could be used every 3 rounds. Players hp changes from 1st to 2nd ed did not even come close to keeping pace with this damage output.
If you are trying to present that AD&D is was easier or that players did more damage you are dead wrong.
Hill giants did 2-16 dmg. A fighter with Specialization and a longsword averaged more damage against them.
A Hill giant is a better level 7 challenge.
And to your argument the answer is yes and no - in first edition where weapon specialization was introduced (poorly and unbalanced, via Unearthed Arcana) this was true. Whereas specialization changed slightly in 2nd ed, the creatures caught up. 2nd ed Hill Giant did 2-16 points of damage +7 for strength if he was using a weapon (since they added that in, and it should have been added in for 1st ed AD&D, since Hills had a listed 19 Str).
So now you are averaging 16 points of damage per attack which was greater than your 13 for your fighter (though he had more attacks per round). To-hits and AC still sucked for the monsters though, but damage output increased in many cases (as did HP for dragons) while players were just doing a little more than they did in core 1st ed, or even 2nd ed.
I would have to say that 2nd was probably the most balanced system, even if some of the mechanics are outdated from a functionality standpoint (closed AC and Save system, etc).
I any case healing was much more difficult (as you pointed out earlier) while concurrently the players had less options to work the 15 minute workday since their options to hide (rope trick, et al) or teleport (risks) were not as good. Which forced players to go into fights at less than full, run away or avoid some encounters (and play smarter as a result).
We've been playing 2nd ed for a bit and my players have identified a few problems with 3.5/PF and CLW wands have been one of them. I created a low magic world and threw out the WBL guidelines. In effect you cannot buy a wand of CLW and they do not exist. The item creation feats will probably be rolled into one except for scribe scroll and brew potion. I'll more or less create two new feats.
Craft Minor Item
Craft Major Item.
Craft minor will be scrolls and potions, craft major will be everything else.
As the DM though I will throw in a few more potions of healing. To many magic items in PF are over priced relative to their effect so with WBL PCs can't really afford them. Rings of Freedom of Movement and Holy Avengers for example.
I'll probably use 2nd ed magic item crafting rules to deal with the bucket of gold thing.THe PCs are also liking the idea that they will be over equipped by WBL standards but I'll be choosing the items up to a point. No more +1 keen/holy/flaming XYZ weapons they may just get a "boring" +5 weapon. Or I might give them a holy avenger at level 8.
The wands are under priced and are a side effect of 3.0's magic mart approach to the game where wealth= magic items. We have been using that for 12 years now but my PCs want a 2nd ed style game and we'll try it out and see how it goes.
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I have no objections to them. In most games, I've had rather merciless DMs. The wands are the only ways we can survive, since the cleric eventually lost all of their unused channels. As for when I DM...well, a round spent healing is a round the PCs don't spend to attack or battlefield control,and at the end of the day, NPCs have infinitely more turns, and infinitely more resources. So while the PCs waste their 50 heals, I can throw in a couple of enemy clerics...
Besides, they aren't even very effective, even at low levels. Most monsters can outdamage a CLW wand easily. Now, a turbo-cleric designed specifically to heal, now those can be annoying. A puny little wand...really? That really ought not be a problem. If the PCs can make your life tough with something small like that...well...that's a little sad.
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One way to get more cure spell slots and less wands is boost cure spell slots:
Cure spells add double amount of D8's.
So CLW is 2d8+caster
CMW is 4d8 +caster
CSW is 6d8+caster
Wand CLW will still be 1d8+caster
So like 2E, healing better keeps up with damage (as hps are higher in PF).
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One way to get more cure spell slots and less wands is boost cure spell slots:
Cure spells add double amount of D8's.
So CLW is 2d8+caster
CMW is 4d8 +caster
CSW is 6d8+casterWand CLW will still be 1d8+caster
So like 2E, healing better keeps up with damage (as hps are higher in PF).
More or less my point a few posts up thread. Healing has not kept up with damage taken and hp that characters posses.
If healing scales too well, then a dedicated in-combat healer will actually become a requirement.
Healing can't be as good as damage or every fight will be a HP see-saw until someone lands just enough burst to take out the enemy healer.
The real answer is probably fewer HP overall, with a cushion on top. The old d20 Star Wars (not Saga) RPG kind of did that by separating wounds from "vigor."
Let the temporary HP pool replenish between fights, but require longer rest for the "real" HP pool.
That way, you can take damage in a fight without being screwed for the next fight, but attrition is still possible.
If it weren't for my Life Oracle's Wand of CLW (which has 12 charges used) we'd have spent 3-4 times as long trying to clear out Harrowstone Prison.
I'm sorry, but sitting around waiting for wounds to heal is about as fun as waiting for paint to dry. If you want super lethal combat, make better encounters. Just forcing everybody to leave and come back whenever they get low, or just have them push ahead with no HP and no way to heal, is generally not fun at all for players.
More than that, if you didn't have healing and had to wait even a couple of days after tough encounters, you'd have a margin of error of about -4 days and would be almost doomed to fail HoH.
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Removing the wand would require retooling campaigns. You would have to decrease the damage done in each encounter.
That's not really true. What would really need to change would be the way players play the game. For the most part, that's about it. There would need to be a lot more caution before and in fights, and not waiting until you HP is low to get to that point (or start seeking Leyroy Jenkins Healing).
It would mean that a lot of the things that are moderatly trivial since 3E (like traps) are actually something to be concidered a threat rather than just burning a Summon Monster resoure or soaking up the damage and not worrying about it. It would mean that trying to work past encounters is much more wise an option than simply fighting everything that crosses your path, just because your mighty "adventureres".
This is exactly the kind of thing that would boost the Fighters and Rogues for those that demand they are so useless, in all honesty.
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Fighters' only vaguely unique feature (lack of daily limits) doesn't exist if they're dependent on the cleric's spells per day for HP, and they're probably the second most ill-suited class (behind Barbarians) for cautious never-take-damage-ever every-hit-point-is-precious play.
If this is your idea of buffing fighters then I'm not sure I want to know how you'd nerf them.
(And how exactly is this meant to make burning a summon monster resource to deal with traps any less viable?)
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Because th entire point of removing a easy healing causes play to be more realistic and the threat of death/failure to be more of a possibility. Note, it doesn't actually make death and failure more common. That's not what I said. I said it reintroduces the threat of those things. Something that existed for a long time prior to the d20 system. With the d20 system, and worst in PF, healing magic has become mundain and common place. Because of that, Fighters for example, really rely on it being always available rather than focusing on smart or tacticle play. If you think that Fighters only (even vaguely) unique feature is lack of daily limits, and can't see a party relying on other members as anything but a bad thing, then I understand your ignorance. It doesn't nerf Fighters, but instead gives them greater time to shine and do their thing well. Work smarter, not harder, as we say.
Similar thing with Rogues, as realitively minor threats like many traps become more of an issue, and the common troupe of just walking through the trap and taking the damage, or burning a low level spell to Summon Monster a victim now start to waste resources the party might actually need. And hey, one of the entire points of the class becomes a serious threat again, and at the same time gives the class another area to shine.
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It doesn't nerf Fighters, but instead gives them greater time to shine and do their thing well. Work smarter, not harder, as we say.
The way to make Fighters shine is to make things more difficult for them? Okay then.
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remember that the breath weapon of a red dragon depended on current hit points. that 88 hp is only if you didn't manage to injure it first, and was only for the biggest and baddest dragons.
one resist fire spell for 1/2 or 1/4 dmg if save, and you just wade in and waste the thing.
weapon spec was a 1E thing, not a 2E. And we're referring to AD&D, not 2E, or I'd have used different examples. A troll is a level 7 creature because of regen, hit points bonus, and dmg output...the average troll would kill the average hill giant in a fight because of the multiple attacks, and has about the same hit points.
But the key point is that the fighter gets hit for less damage as a total figure, and CLW is more able to deal with it. He in turn generally hits for more damage then most enemies, because of magic, str bonuses, and specialization that your enemies didn't get.
IN PF, Melees get hit MORE, get hit for MORE DMG, and the monsters tend to last longer, meaning Melees get hit REPEATEDLY. At higher levels the amount of hit points thrown around is impressive, to say the least. Cheap, efficient healing is neccessary to stay in the game. Remove it, and you gimp classes that cannot heal. This would be okay if they had another edge...in the case of fighters, specialization meant they were the best damage dealers, bar none. It was okay if they didn't have healing ability, they could still beat up the fighters and paladins without a problem.
It was a different game, and a different mindset.
==Aelryinth
Aelryinth is right on the money.
It's also worth remembering that the full-attack mechanic requires anyone who wants to use a melee weapon to already be standing next to their target when they attack if they want to deal appreciable damage once they get to mid-levels - but if you're already standing next to your target, you're giving your target a chance to attack you. Dealing damage requires taking damage.
I don't see how taking a class like that and making them sit out for days at a time to rest after every battle makes them stronger or gives them more chances to shine, particularly when they are notorious for having no class features that let them do anything other than hit stuff for damage.
I like low magic, so dealing with injuries is a part of the game. Oh sure, SOME healing, but it adds some tension.
Aelryinth is right on the money.
It's also worth remembering that the full-attack mechanic requires anyone who wants to use a melee weapon to already be standing next to their target when they attack if they want to deal appreciable damage once they get to mid-levels - but if you're already standing next to your target, you're giving your target a chance to attack you. Dealing damage requires taking damage.
I don't see how taking a class like that and making them sit out for days at a time to rest after every battle makes them stronger or gives them more chances to shine, particularly when they are notorious for having no class features that let them do anything other than hit stuff for damage.
Well the hit and fade, spring attack, ranger's against their favoured enemy, barbarian power attack charging and then withdrawing the next round, taking mobility, combat reflexes and working a reach weaon can create an interesting fighting style, and liven up the combat a bit. Don't always have to go the full attack, can escape dpr, escape fighting predictably, make use of attacks of opportunity or getting the most out of a charge followed by a withdrawal.
I like low magic, so dealing with injuries is a part of the game. Oh sure, SOME healing, but it adds some tension.
It doesn't always add tension. Sometimes it adds boredom.
I've played games with no magic where wounds effectively make you useless due to penalties. Then we spend a half hour figuring out how long it takes to heal and making all the necessary rolls, because once I spend a week sitting around doing nothing, I might as well spend 2 weeks to finish up... or the whole month, depending on the system.