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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.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.
Sorry kids kidnapped and taken to a dungeon to be sacrificed in some unspeakable ritual to summon forth an ancient evil, we don't get healz and our only means of not dying involves fighting styles that simply don't work well in tight spaces were we don't have lots of cover and room for hit and run tactics.
The savvy heroic adventurer simply lets the kids die, because it's not tactically sound to go save them. How heroic!
Ah, yes, charge one turn and withdraw the next. Classic tactics. Only one drawback: do you know what comes between your charge and your withdrawal? Here's a hint: it rhymes with "Your enemy full-attacking you in the face".
Spending several levels building up a Spring Attack / reach weapon character can somewhat work assuming that the only enemies you ever fight are medium humanoids who only use melee weapons. If that ever turns out not to be the case, congratulations on your useless one-illusion pony.
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.
Systems that screw you over with injury penalties are the worst, and not very accurate. In sparring, when people are really hurt but unbroken, that is when they are at their most dangerous, because they are no longer holding back.
Being a bit wounded encourages players to play smart, get their tactics down, not wander into full round attacks.
Natural healing in pf or 3.5 is pretty quick, especially with the heal skill.
A 14 Con fighter being continuously attended to by a healer using Heal takes 4 days to recover from a fight. That's fast compared to real life, but in game terms that's still an eternity.
Without a CLW wand or a dedicated healer cleric, a fighter's resources are significantly more limited than a wizard's. That's just wrong.
Ah, yes, charge one turn and withdraw the next. Classic tactics. Only one drawback: do you know what comes between your charge and your withdrawal? Here's a hint: it rhymes with "Your enemy full-attacking you in the face".
Spending several levels building up a Spring Attack / reach weapon character can somewhat work assuming that the only enemies you ever fight are medium humanoids who only use melee weapons. If that ever turns out not to be the case, congratulations on your useless one-illusion pony.
If you don't think it works, and you want to discourage atypical tactics, don't try it. LOL.
You don't need several levels to use reach weapons. Coordinated charging with spell support on the target or hampering its support can take it out before it gets a full round (high crit weapons can be especially good for skirmishing). Then others move and attack you, okay, withdraw and set up the longspear/reach reception. Cut off the battlefield with spells, allowing retreat and return when convenient, as in as they are moving around magical obstacles like tentacles, fire walls, entanglement what have you, you charge them again. Whatever you like.
There is also pairing skirmishers with a tank high ac blocker, that is really sweet and used a lot in plenty of games.
Roberta, remember the most important rule. "Congratulations on your useless one-illusion pony" is being a jerk.
How do you DMs who make magical healing hard to get keep your players happy?
Both clerics and melee characters are utterly screwed ... the former is a healbot and the latter is almost always the one who holds the party back by running out of HP.
PS. above level 6 as a melee character generally if you aren't full attacking you might as well pick up a ranged weapon untrained for all the impact you're making (always exceptions like spirited charge, but as I said generally).
Different players? I don't know what other answer to give you.
I've run no-magic-item games across different versions of D&D, for 20 years. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I've only had a single Cleric PC in all that time, and she was an evil cleric who refused to heal. No Paladins or Druids, either. I've had a few Bards, but again, the players refused to take Cure spells.
I think that for at least 50% of those many, many games, the party consisted of a tanky type character--Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, etc.--and a roguish type character--Rogue, Swashbuckler, Bard, Beguiler, 3.5 Warlock, etc. (Yes, about half of my D&D games have been for just two players--and not the same two, either).
In the bigger games, I still never had any healers, often had many of the weaker classes (Rogues, Monks, etc.), and come to think of it, never had a full spellcaster that wasn't a Sorcerer who just wanted to blast (or a Beguiler, if you count them as full casters). In 3rd, though, there were plenty of psions (also blasters, for the most part), and Warlocks (a class built to blast).
If you know the game and rules well, you can build challenges for the party that are scary and feel dangerous without being unfair. You just have to shift your perceptions a little. For example, a couple guys shooting arrows at the party who can only hit on a 19 or 20 are still scary, because even one arrow connecting leads to dangerous attrition.
And the people in my games didn't rest when they were weakened--they rested when they were done doing what they came to do, so if they got hurt, they fought hurt from then on.
I guess I did houserule natural healing times, in a way that basically matches Pathfinder's current rules, but that's about all the help I gave them.
They never had problems and always had fun--and they're not just pretending. Several of my players over the years have gone to other groups, hated it, and come back asking for more games.
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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.
Must have been playing a different game - you went up against a dragon in 1st ed and people died - resist fire doesn't work against a blue,or green - and really this wasn't PF, resist "whatever" didn't grow on trees in 1st or 2nd ed.
Most characters couldn't just go and buy the items they need to fight a dragon and you couldn't make them. No one head easy access or "at will" resistance spells, rings or class abilities available to them. And another point: even a breath attack that results in 40 or 20 points of solid area effect damage would gimp or kill a group of mid to high level players - mostly the thieves, clerics and magic users who would be dead or close to dead after an attack like that.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.
Weapon specialization was in both editions - introduced in 1st via Unearthed Arcana (the first broken splat book imo) and then carried over to 2nd ed as a core feature where many creatures (namely dragons) got more hp and did more damage (and had more attacks). These increases on the creature side was probably due to the increase in spells (specialist wizards and cleric domain spells)available to casters and weapon specialization damage bonuses.
And a troll is listed as a dungeon level 6 creature - check the tables in the back of the 1st ed DMG. That is the closest we are going to get as an approximation of a CR.
But I would agree with you on the troll vs Hill giant argument - even if the Hill is higher rated/CR and worth more than twice the xp of a troll. They did fix that disparity in 2nd by giving the Hill it's Str damage bonus to weapons (2d8+7 vs 2d8 in 1st) and 12 hd vs 8. keeping in mind that player Hp in 2nd did not improve and creature damage output and hp did (which was a fix over 1st ed).
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.
I would have to STRONGLY disagree with you on the core argument you are using. Yes, in most cases on a 1 to 1 the PC had the advantage (primarily due to specialization which was added in as an afterthought and broke the game balance between players and monsters). That is where it ends.
The healing spells/potions carried more weight due to the smaller hp range and damage taken range of the recipients but you are missing (or forgetting) a huge point here.
There was no spontaneous healing in 1st or 2nd ed, and healing resources were VERY limited in both editions and magic item creation was pretty much non-existent. Less spells available, no pricing for magic items (in 1st) which again goes towards having limited resources. Those spell/potions had to carry more weight - they were the core mechanic that kept the group functioning and healed. And it required a dedicated resource (cleric or a ton of potions, or both).
So yeah, when the cleric cast CLW it was important at low to mid level play - but in that same game the cleric had less available spells, had to pray for CLW as a chosen spell and the spell healed less than 3rd ed/PF. So while the spike was significant on the numbers side you are omitting the the aspect of the overall limited availability of that healing resource from those editions.
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.
We must be playing mostly different games then. I agree with your assessment about the hp numbers being thrown around, but combats in my PF experience rarely go past round 2 in the players favor...pretty much ever. So even with the extra hps for the monsters in PF (over 1st or 2nd ed) those numbers are decimated by the number of multiple attacks all high level players get, maximized damage spells, multiple weapon damage amplifiers, criticals and improved criticals - if anything the creatures usually don't have enough hp at CR (assuming you give them the listed average).
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.
Or, they should have dumped the flavorless and boring CLWW mechanic and just made Cure Spells heal appropriately.
I am not really disagreeing with you about the need for cheap efficient healing in PF - I am just stating that (with so many things) 3rd edition (with PF following) got it wrong. They got it wrong with cure spells and the got it wrong with Evocation damage spells.
If the spells did what they should (cure spells) then CLWW would really be for desperate non-healer adventuring groups, because clerics would then be able to heal at level for level appropriate damage and keep his group at a good functioning 80% for most of the day - all while not expending all his resources on healing spells since his heals spells work better.
It was a different game, and a different mindset.
I agree - I also prefer the older limited resource focused game. It isn't for everyone, but so far every new schooler who has gamed at my table (3rd or 4th ed players) have preferred a low resource and more exciting game that what is offered up in 3rd/PF/4th, which they felt was not challenging or threatening by comparison.
And yeah, in my game the players would still go after the kids (Ninja in the Rye's scenario) - they would just do it with lower hp and resources and full well knowing that they may die.
Again, different style of play overall and a different notion of heroic role playing.
My point on the dragons remain. If you got off a first attack on the dragon the threat of its breath weapon dropped tremendously. If you had time to prepare (as opposed to random encounters), resist fire and cold were easily capable for mage and cleric, and the druid had prot/lightning. the black dragon was the one to most fear (no acid res in 1E except an Oil). Gust of Wind into the face of a Green could do the job, as could blocking Wall spells. And the dmg=current hp generally meant that young/smaller dragons simply were not threats (how often did you NOT see the Huge Ancient Red? It had to be, just to be a threat). And among the adventuring set, Fire Res was one of the most common things you could get and find (rings, swords, helms, etc).
Weapon Spec was introduced in 1E was the point I was trying to make. they downtoned it viz missile fire, for good reason, in 2E.
Giants also got an AC bonus in 2E. Basically, they added on the armor they wore. This was a 2-7 point AC increase for them. However, they still didn't get COn bonuses.
I notice your example went from my midlevel fighters to your high level PF characters :). Remember level 10 was high level in AD&D!
The troll was more dangerous then the hill giant, esp since if it ran it could heal up and come back. That means its a higher CR. So, the DMG tables aren't right. We have to look at them through the glass of today's judgement of what equivalent monsters are, not back then. Back then, ogres were only marginally more dangerous then bugbears. Now, ogres are considerably more dangerous due to being size L.
Your example of Cure spells doesn't resonate for one reason...cure spells don't help those who don't have access to healing magic. CLWW DO help them, esp at low levels. If you have to you can always UMD a wand.
==Aelryinth
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.
Systems that screw you over with injury penalties are the worst, and not very accurate. In sparring, when people are really hurt but unbroken, that is when they are at their most dangerous, because they are no longer holding back.
Being a bit wounded encourages players to play smart, get their tactics down, not wander into full round attacks.
Natural healing in pf or 3.5 is pretty quick, especially with the heal skill.
My point: less healing magic does not guarantee more tension. It can also mean more boredom, which is the opposite of tension.
if you want to remove the need for the CLW wand. you have to do some of the following.
include a faster system for out of combat natural healing, no matter how unrealistic it may sound.
for example, fast healing = Total Hit Dice/minute. for example, a 10th level character with no racial hit dice would heal 10HP per minute out of combat as long as they don't perform heavily strenuous activity for a 5 minute period first, such as combat (including training and sparring), heavy manual labor, or spellcasting. to make a higher constitution important, you could add a constitution bonus or penalty to the per minute fast healing (minimum 1)
this houserule eliminates the need for cure wands, and makes healing spells a mostly in combat thing.
another good idea is to eliminate ability drain and treat it as ability damage, allowing a regeneration of ability damage equal to 1 point per minute out of combat (after waiting an initial 5 minutes). (ability drain could take 10 times as long)
and to allow temporary negative levels to heal at 1 negative level per 10 minutes. drop the permanent kind.
houserule the spell points variant (see unearthed arcana) and with the above restrictions, allow spell points to heal at a rate of total hit dice per minute (after waiting an initial 5 minutes) so a 10th level character would recover 10 spell points per minute. to make casting stat matter more, you may add your casting stat to the amount of spellpoints recovered per minute. this works best if spellpoint pools from multiple sources stack and you only allow the highest casting stat to influence spell points. requiring the appropriate attributes for DC's and maximum castable spell level.
Edit: i recommend changing the effects of things like bestow curse to only last an hour under this system modifications. it eliminates the permanency of permanent penalties as a means of dropping the 15 minute adventure day. and makes player characters much more durable.
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I notice your example went from my midlevel fighters to your high level PF characters :). Remember level 10 was high level in AD&D!
If you are referring to the two round combats in PF, I was talking pretty much all levels of combat - unless we are talking several low level creatures swarming a low level party in which case it may take longer while that low level PF party is in no real danger. Upper low, to mid to high level fights all end quicker in PF than they do in any other edition.
Fighters in PF have slower access to multiple attacks (vs a specialized 1st or 2nd ed Fighter), but damage per attack vs. target hit points means that you need less hits to take a target down - since damage output from a fighter scales more than CR appropriate hit points. Ex: low to mid older edition fighter gets multiple attacks but the damage range is much more constrained than his 3rd/PF equivalent. A moderately optimized low to mid level PF fighter can do tremendous amount of damage, disproportionally so from his earlier edition version and disproportionately to hp assigned by CR.
So in a multiple foe CR appropriate fight (which means his foes are way weaker than he is) he is going to be doing one-hit take downs because his increased damage range is as such: STR bonus, weapon specialization, training, crit multipliers, pow attack, magic damage multipliers (at mid level ex:+1d6 fire damage), magic damage bonus (all editions), etc. His older equivalent has the STR and weapon specialization damage bonuses and magic damage bonus (all editions).
What has changed between 1st/2nd and 3rd/PF? The Con bonus to hit points.
Con bonus to target hit points does not effectively cover the increases in PF damage that target is taking due to PC attacker STR, weapon specialization, training, crit multipliers, pow attack, magic damage multipliers (at mid level ex:+1d6 fire damage), magic damage bonuses and other feats that increase the damage or to-hit chances.
Bugbears are a perfect example of this argument. In 1st/2nd they had 3+1 HD and max 25 hp. In PF they are 3 HD with +3 hp for max hp of 27 - but in PF we don't give max hp or we throw the creature out of it's CR range, so the PF bugbear has a listed hp of 16. Their damage output went up around 2 points for strength considerations with slightly worse AC.
So you are saying that the fight in earlier editions is going to be quicker against this creature than in PF? Four 2nd level characters in earlier editions would have a hard time with 1 bugbear, while four 2nd level PF characters would kill this creature in one round of attacks (or less).
So while hps for most things are higher in PF, damage scales much quicker. Which goes back to my original argument that the core healing and evo spells don't cut it on the numbers game in PF in relation to all the other damage generating attacks in the game. Because of that we get one of the arguments for the need of the CLWW.
And then there are some people who don't like playing support style characters due to several reasons (ego and self-importance being a few).
CLWW increased in common use due to: cheap price, no one wants to be the healer (various reasons) and because healing spells do not work in relation to total hp and damage taken that was designed (poorly and without consideration) for 3rd ed/PF.
The only point that affects me an my players is the last one - cure spells don't cut it. We still have players who love to play support characters and no one wants to buy a utility boring-ass CLW wand.
But because of the number situation they have to use that or something similar to play the game - which to me is just another failure in a pile of failures which is 3rd edition.
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if you want to remove the need for the CLW wand. you have to do some of the following.
There's an implication to this assertion that I find really interesting: that it's an intended design aspect of PFRPG (and presumably, but not necessarily, 3E before it) that every group must buy and use, as soon as possible, cheap wands of cure light wounds.
Is that implication intended? Do you really mean to say that buying, crafting, and using cheap wands is necessary to play the game as intended by the designers?
My take:
Clerics should not need to be heal-bots. There are far better uses for them such as attacking, buffing, aid another, and debuffing. In fact, I find Clerics uniquely suited to using a Longspear. They can attack or aid another from behind the tank, heal him, and if necessary, step up to deliver a Bestow Curse on the BBEG.
His spells should be used to party or self buff or to debuff the enemy. As a last resort, he heals. Heck, one group Im in my cleric almost never has to heal people during combat. He focuses on preventing damage and does that job quite well with the Bodyguard feat.
So, with that said, a wand of CLW is not very useful in combat but it is very useful out of combat. As a GM I hate the 15minute adventuring day and I also dislike the idea that Heros should have to spend a week recovering from a battle. A wand of CLW can prevent the 15minute adventuring day and let the Cleric do something else besides burning spells on healing. I call this a Win-Win.
Is the wand a requirement? Nope. I do not feel that Paizo designed PF to be based on the usage of a Wand of CLW. However, the benefit of the wand is so obvious that why wouldn't players (rightfully) use it? Again, it minimizes the likelihood of the 15 min adventuring day and promotes the idea that players should not go nova by allowing them to use their other resources more sparingly.
- Gauss
if you want to remove the need for the CLW wand. you have to do some of the following.There's an implication to this assertion that I find really interesting: that it's an intended design aspect of PFRPG (and presumably, but not necessarily, 3E before it) that every group must buy and use, as soon as possible, cheap wands of cure light wounds.
Is that implication intended? Do you really mean to say that buying, crafting, and using cheap wands is necessary to play the game as intended by the designers?
It's not explicitly required, but the game is designed to both allow, encourage and reward it.
Third Rule of the Game:
Pathfinder is a game of resource management and ubiquitous magical gear. If you don't like that, play something else.
I once heard on the internet that the only reason why any PC died in Tomb of Horror was because the player was too stupid not to take damage.
Third Rule of the Game:
Pathfinder is a game of resource management and ubiquitous magical gear. If you don't like that, play something else.
That makes it sound like a really bad game actually, and the pf games I've been in have had a lot more to them than this.
Go low magic, and magical gear is not ubiquitous. Shazam.
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So Im reading this thread and thinking 'I dont get it'.
Some DM's like CLW some don't...whats the big deal....
As a DM, you control what's available in shops and temples.
You dont want a party to have the item, DON'T MAKE IT AVAILABLE.
That is fine when you are the GM, but I equally find the flavour of "happy sticks" a turn off when I am playing a game. I want to play through that struggle, I want to roleplay out the injuries and the fear of death. But if a PC pulls out a wand of CLW after every combat and heals everyone up, I lose that.
Its a matter of playstyles, so I generally try to make sure everyone is on the same page re styles before a campaign begins. However, in terms of Pathfinder specifically, I only play it in PFS and as such I cannot know the playstyles of the other players before the game begins (I tend to only play at cons as getting a group to run PFS locally on a regular basis has proven fruitless).
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How do you DMs who make magical healing hard to get keep your players happy?
Both clerics and melee characters are utterly screwed ... the former is a healbot and the latter is almost always the one who holds the party back by running out of HP.
I tend to write my own adventures and tailor them to the motivations and abilities of the PCs, therefore I create a series of combats that I believe will not leave the fighter running out of HP before the end - at least if the PCs handle encounters smartly when there is an easy win option (pushing foes off a cliff, springing an ambush, attacking melee foes with ranged weapons etc) and / or aren't horrendously unlucky (suffering several critical hits, or rolling consistently poorly so combats drag on etc). And if the latter does happen, that is when the odd Cure spell from the cleric will hopefully be useful.
When I ran a published campaign (Freeport trilogy) I used Reserve Points from Unearthed Arcana in an attempt to mimic 4e' healing surges and short rests, but not as plentiful. It worked rather well.
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Limited healing? Check.
No magic items for you? Check.
Grave death penalties? Check.
Fear, despair and anxiety as core experiences of the game? Check.
Gritty realism? Check.
Hey, why did somebody write "Pathfinder" at the top of the page? We're clearly discussing Warhammer Fantasy here (1ed to be precise)!
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For those who dislike the CLW wand flavour, I suggest you have a look at the wonderful Strain-Injury houserules.
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For those who dislike the CLW wand flavour, I suggest you have a look at the wonderful Strain-Injury houserules.
Hmm, interesting, sort of a mix of Reserve Points, 4e's short rests and Earthdawn's Wounds.
In general, though, I dislike the concept of Divine wands.Every cure spell is on the Bard and Witch list--they're not strictly divine.Oddly enough, my experience with DM's who have nostalgia for the old days of 1e/2e (and especially those who try to make 3.5/PF feel like that game) are completely oblivious to Bardic healing powers, and have never even looked at the witch class. And they HATE the idea that PC's could obtain an item they wanted, versus one that got dropped.
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.
Old-timer here guilty as charged!
Actually, having survived the days of 1e AD&D, I like the freedom in pf to not have to have a healbot cleric. If you're a DM who likes to bring the pain, all you have to do is limit the gp and treasure reward. Instant low magic, unbroken game again!
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This is going to confuse a lot of people who read my posts, but I actually like the wand of CLW.
One of the things I would change in player favor is to improve healing across the boards. Healing should be a better combat action, IMHO, considering that you give up an action to do it.
And healing out of combat allows the day to continue. It shouldn't be free, but I kind of think the cost of CLW is about right and I think one of the best things pathfinder did was add channel healing.
The balance factor between martial and caster is largely based on the length of adventure days. Health can be restored during the day, spells can't. Healing being tied to casters spells per day through the cleric is an issue in that equation.
So not only am I fine with CLW, I'd like to see more healing options in general.
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I think it means a cleric can focus on spells and also be a party healer.
I think when the Cleric had to keep swapping out memorized spells to heal it was more of a problem, and if you keep in mind that Bards, Inquisitors and oracles are spontaneous classes, they have a good amount of healing available.
Particularly, you know, with being able to use the wand of CLW :)
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What bothers me about limiting healing is this.
You have classes who have a primary job of soaking the damage for the rest of the party. They are less likely to be hit, and when they are they can take more. It is one of the biggest assets of some classes.
Why shouldn't it be a party investment to clean up all that soaked damage that could have been on your squishier classes?
And yeah, in my game the players would still go after the kids (Ninja in the Rye's scenario) - they would just do it with lower hp and resources and full well knowing that they may die.
This is the disconnect, characters with full access to magic healing and wands of CLW know they may die. Characters without access to magic healing approaching such a scenario should be viewing it as a suicide run that they will almost certainly fail.
This is, of course, assuming that they're facing level appropriate encounters.
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A 14 Con fighter being continuously attended to by a healer using Heal takes 4 days to recover from a fight.See, this goes back to the "without a CLWW we have NO healing!" strawman.
You're going to spend 4 days if you have no cleric AND you have no druid, bard, alchemist, oracle, ranger, inquisitor, paladin or witch with cure spells in the party AND there's no friendly NPC back in town who can help you AND you don't have potions, scrolls, or any other items that can cure.
It's as if someone said "Hey, the falchion seems a little overpowered as a weapon" and your response was "Take away my falchion? Great, now my fighter has to attack the dragon with his bare hands! Thanks a lot!"
Doug M.
Waiting 4 days after every fight isn't like using a greatsword instead of a falchion. It's more like saying, "Hey, it's okay if we don't let the fighter have weapons ever, the fighter can still punch for 1d3 nonlethal at a -4 penalty provoking an attack of opportunity in the process!"
e: Also the heal check is DC 20, so unless your party has a Wis-based character who has it as a class skill, you can't pass it by taking 10 anyhow. So you're looking at closer to a full week.
e: Also I forgot about the "must be treated within 24 hours" clause, so actually it's already a week, not 4 days.
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A 14 Con fighter being continuously attended to by a healer using Heal takes 4 days to recover from a fight.See, this goes back to the "without a CLWW we have NO healing!" strawman.
You're going to spend 4 days if you have no cleric AND you have no druid, bard, alchemist, oracle, ranger, inquisitor, paladin or witch with cure spells in the party AND there's no friendly NPC back in town who can help you AND you don't have potions, scrolls, or any other items that can cure.
It's as if someone said "Hey, the falchion seems a little overpowered as a weapon" and your response was "Take away my falchion? Great, now my fighter has to attack the dragon with his bare hands! Thanks a lot!"
Doug M.
So, basically, you're fine without a wand of CLW as long as you have someone willing to take on the role of dedicated healer or the GM tosses you a dedicated healer NPC ally to give you free healz?
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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 UMDWhich 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 basically, to have a party where nobody can use a CLWW, you basically have to make it on purpose.
But it is entirely possible for a party to only have one character that has the spell on their list. Now if they get knocked out during the fight, then it doesn't really matter if they could use it because they can't in that situation. That is why potions cost more than wands, because in that case you can have someone that can't heal still pour a potion down the healer's throat.
Infernal healing doesn't appear in the prd, so I don't think anyone can assume that by default a given group will have access to the spell.
And yes, people can take UMD, which was the person's point, you'd have to have someone dedicated to spending skill points on that.
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Thought experiment: I'm a 4th level fighter with 14 Con. Bizarrely, my party has NO healing whatsoever except for my friend Buddy the Bard, who has Cure Moderate Wounds as one of his second level spells. Also, we have no potions and no scrolls, and there's no friendly local cleric in town. Nothing. Oh, and nobody has bothered putting any ranks in Heal, either.
We come staggering back from the Dungeon of Doom. I've been reduced to zero hits! How long will it take me to recover?
Guess first, and then click.
** spoiler omitted **
Doug M.
Well, let's hope that there aren't more than 2 of you in the party or if there are, nobody else has been hurt.
Can someone from the "better tactics" club explain exactly what they mean?
Suppose a party of 4 jumps 6 enemies. They get lucky with crits in the suprise round and drop 2 of them. They drop one more round 1. That still leaves 3 living enemies who get to attack them back. Damage is guaranteed.
3 or 4 times of this with no magical healing and the party simply cannot continue. You would need someone to have healing spells available at this point to continue. A healbot.
Healer's kit costs 50 gp and contains 10 uses. Treating deadly wounds costs 2 uses of the kit, whether the roll is successful or not. You must be carrying around a lot of healer's kits to get one use per party member per day. Not to mention it's only good within 24 hours of the injury being incurred. The rest of the damage after your one Treat Deadly Wounds has to heal naturally or magically.
So, basically, you're fine without a wand of CLW as long as you have someone willing to take on the role of dedicated healer or the GM tosses you a dedicated healer NPC ally to give you free healz?
I have no idea why you would think I think that.
Turn it around: are you saying that if there's no CLW, then someone MUST be a healbot?
Doug M.
Your thought experiment had a dedicated healer, aka Bard, so what are you saying?
Thought experiment: I'm a 4th level fighter with 14 Con. Bizarrely, my party has NO healing whatsoever except for my friend Buddy the Bard, who has Cure Moderate Wounds as one of his second level spells. Also, we have no potions and no scrolls, and there's no friendly local cleric in town. Nothing. Oh, and nobody has bothered putting any ranks in Heal, either.
We come staggering back from the Dungeon of Doom. I've been reduced to zero hits! How long will it take me to recover?
Guess first, and then click.
** spoiler omitted **
Doug M.
Dungeon of Doom is going to be hard with a party of 2. Can your bard heal the rest of the party too?
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Run the numbers. What will the party look like after a single day of full rest? On average, how long will it take them to recover completely?
I don't know how will the party look. But I know how is going to look the princess that is being tortured by the evil warlock while the PC take a nap to heal themselves.