So I'm starting up a megadungeon campaign and I'll have a lot of kobolds in addition to other monsters. I was reading another thread about a kobold cleric healing the big bad in a boss fight and I thought "Huh; how come kobolds never heal themselves like the party does?"
... I know; I'm really slow.
Anyway, do people use monsters that heal other monsters? If so, how well does this strategy do to keep up with the PCs?
it's a fine strategy at the low levels, but eventually, the healing recieved does little to mitigate the Damage a PC will perform. especially if you seen some of these builds involving a level 5 halfling fighter that can deal 750 DPR with a dagger due to how many static bonuses they apply. i can't analyze how it happened, but i have seen a sample in person from a guy named Lyle and he appearantly got the build online.
It certainly is advantageous for the enemy.
I use enemy healers/support. It leads to more interesting combats where PCs have to decide if they try to focus on enemy healers/support or on enemy strikers.
Of course it relates to problem of healing not matching the damage - often requiring multiple healers (or shielding providers).
In one fight with skeletal knight I had four skeletal priests that provided the main enemy with protective bubble of temporary hit points each turn. My players got it quite quickly and decided to get rid of priests while half the party was trying to hold the knight.
It's usually problematic though, because the easy ways of healing (converting spells to cure wounds and energy channeling) is usually beyond the reach of opponents who tend to be evil. Evil undeads are quite boosted by having evil clerics around.
Rarely. Healing in combat is a waste of time on either side of the table after about level 3 or so; after that, damage dealt will be much higher than damage that can be healed.
Now, SUPPORT casters? Definitely.
It comes down to how much an enemy healer can keep up with the damage output of the player characters and if he wouldn't be more helpful casting other stuff.
The former problem is measured by player characters usually being more effective than NPC's at dealing high damage spikes (due to better equipment, better builds, etc) and by healing not scaling very well with those high damage spikes. Multiple healers would be a solution, unless we are talking about situations where the damage output will kill an enemy before healing can be applied to him (i.e. every combat after level 10).
And the latter problem is defined by healers usually having other very potent abilities, which frankly could be used better to deal with those PC damage dealers. If you can stop an opponent from attacking, he does no damage.
And that's why I always shake my head in dismay when I see another statblock in AP's where an opponent is supposed to take out a potion/cast a healing spell/etc when he gets to X hitpoints. It's a wasted action in 90% of the cases, because he will have lost those regained hitpoints before he'll act again and instead could have done something useful with his (last ^^) action.
If the kobolds (ogres, drow, whatever) have a cleric, that cleric will probably prepare at least one CLW. He has to prepare it because he's evil so can't spont or channel. And it's the only way the monsters with a violent society and no listed ranks in Heal skill have to heal themselves, so it's valuable. Whether he uses it in combat is another matter.
In my experience, it's at the low levels that enemy healers are most wasted. A kobold shaman, for instance, is likely to heal only one of his fellows at a time, for only a few hp at a time, and really, the kobold hit likely would have died with the first blow, anyway. Better off letting that shaman lob magical fire, or some other such.
On the other hand, a high-level shaman backing up a pair of ettins is going to get a lot more bang from his healing touch. He can heal a lot more at a time, and he is giving a very formidable combatant at least an extra round in which to act. Somebody mentioned that fighters at upper levels can deal more damage than can be healed in a single hit. Sometimes, yes, but even so giving the ettin an extra round in which to act can be devastating. Such a combatant can dish out a lot of damage himself with that one round.
But getting back to low-levels, a player once pointed out that the dead orcs always seemed to have a potion of clw on them, and asked why they weren't using it themselves. Well, then we started playing 3rd Edition, and every time an orc tried to drink his potion, he got hit with an AoO, or just plain wasted his action for the round, and was dead by the next round. Similar issue as to the kobold example above; at low levels the enemies die too quickly and deal too little damage to make healing worth it.
At high levels? An evil cleric casting mass spells on ogres and giants? Totally worth it.
If the kobolds (ogres, drow, whatever) have a cleric, that cleric will probably prepare at least one CLW. He has to prepare it because he's evil
Not true. Free will and all that.
It is good to have them to remove debuffs applied by your players.
My PCs are at level 1 right now, so this could be a decent strategy. The paladin is unloading w/a greatsword every round though he hasn't optimized for Str (thank god) so he's only dealing about 9.5 damage a round. An NPC adept goblin with a few levels might be unloading scrolls of CLW on his familiar, sending it across the battlefield and bringing back fallen warriors for a couple rounds.
Also for boss fights this tactic seems like a no-brainer for any level. Have a healer nearby, have the boss fight until about 1/2 HP, then retreat to where the healer is, get a decent boost, and head back in; all the while the BBEG's mooks keep the party from healing/boosting themselves.
Healing isn't just HP, IMHO HP healing is a waste of every bodies time. Its not like cure spells or fast healing can keep up with a group of PCs playing intelligently or even delay things much. Certainly not enough to take the hit to the CR budget adding a healer to an encounter entails.
Now removing debilitating conditions and providing protection from such debilitation is another story. Preventing loss of HP or conditions being applied is a better use. A cleric using liberation domains 8th level ability is usually more useful than healing for 4d8+8 or channeling for 4d6.
Red dragon + Iron golem = good time
Rarely. Healing in combat is a waste of time on either side of the table after about level 3 or so; after that, damage dealt will be much higher than damage that can be healed.
Healing isn't just HP, IMHO HP healing is a waste of every bodies time.
This thinking is just not true. I've played multiple dedicated healers and have had no problem doing so. The problem is really that the way people envision healers (i.e. dropping Cure spells or whatever) really is weak and a waste of time, and that, much like blasting, you have to be a dedicated healer for it to be worth bothering with it at all.
For a PC, this is very doable, but the flavor is really a stretch when it comes to the "bad guys."
An awesome in-combat healer needs to be on the right chassis (which, in my opinion, is an Oracle of Life or a Hospitaler Paladin), they need to have Fey Foundling, and they need to play like a martyr using Shield Other and tricks like that to share damage, then utilize faster-than-standard action healing like Lay on Hands and Energy Body and aoe healing like Channeling and Mass Cures. Quick Channel is pretty important later, too. Healing just isn't efficient otherwise.
With all that in place, however, a you can absolutely outheal incoming damage. It's even easier when your party is willing to take Fey Foundling, or the Lesser Celestial Totem Rage power.
That said, I don't actually think it's a great strategy for the bad guys. It doesn't fit the flavor of evil (though for a game with evil PCs, maybe), and it might be really frustrating, actually. It'd be a game of trying to get in position to gank the enemy healer, and frankly, a well played healer would be extremely difficult to kill with DPR optimization.
Rarely. Healing in combat is a waste of time on either side of the table after about level 3 or so; after that, damage dealt will be much higher than damage that can be healed.Healing isn't just HP, IMHO HP healing is a waste of every bodies time.This thinking is just not true. I've played multiple dedicated healers and have had no problem doing so. The problem is really that the way people envision healers (i.e. dropping Cure spells or whatever) really is weak and a waste of time, and that, much like blasting, you have to be a dedicated healer for it to be worth bothering with it at all.
For a PC, this is very doable, but the flavor is really a stretch when it comes to the "bad guys."
An awesome in-combat healer needs to be on the right chassis (which, in my opinion, is an Oracle of Life or a Hospitaler Paladin), they need to have Fey Foundling, and they need to play like a martyr using Shield Other and tricks like that to share damage, then utilize faster-than-standard action healing like Lay on Hands and Energy Body and aoe healing like Channeling and Mass Cures. Quick Channel is pretty important later, too. Healing just isn't efficient otherwise.
With all that in place, however, a you can absolutely outheal incoming damage. It's even easier when your party is willing to take Fey Foundling, or the Lesser Celestial Totem Rage power.
That said, I don't actually think it's a great strategy for the bad guys. It doesn't fit the flavor of evil (though for a game with evil PCs, maybe), and it might be really frustrating, actually. It'd be a game of trying to get in position to gank the enemy healer, and frankly, a well played healer would be extremely difficult to kill with DPR optimization.
Nothing says a terrible option like tons of sunk resources in something that doesn't actually end the encounter. Opportunity costs on playing a character that primarily is meant to do nothing other than be a HP battery are prohibitive.
I also disagree on being able to outpace incoming damage, its just not true even in APs. In my reign of winter game a single non crit hit with one of the monster did about 80 damage to a 10th level PC (and even though that was a lance attack, its DPR on full attacks was similarly impressive as well). Lay on hands , channels or cure spells isn't going to fix that.
Why are life oracles special? Do they work when someone is taking hits from giants and raging barbarians?
Why are life oracles special? Do they work when someone is taking hits from giants and raging barbarians?
They heal better and overhealing translates into temporary hp. A necessary buff when it's about all you do is heal.
Does it help when you're eating a full attack from a fire giant? No, not really.
A dedicated npc healer might do alright. My concern is that it sort of draws out the combat in a way that's neither fun nor clever.
Put a Life Oracle on the enemy team and see how hard things get.
I'm playing a Life Oracle in PFS right now.
It's a paradigm shift for healing, but damn I've rarely seen healing so effective.
Why are life oracles special? Do they work when someone is taking hits from giants and raging barbarians?
1) They put life link on their party, effectively giving the whole party Fast Heal 5 while taking the healing onto themselves. That way...
2) When they burst heal they don't waste it. Both because the healing is more spread out (if you take 10 points of damage a round from your companions regardless of distance, no worrying about positioning the burst) and because, as noted, with the right revelation overhealing becomes temporary HP.3) They're Oracles, so they can be dual-cursed, meaning they get one of the best debuffs in the game: Misfortune. Which is an immediate action.
Combine all this with a good selection of buff and debuff spells, and the quickened burst feat, and you're a force to be reckoned with. SoS spell as a standard, healing as a move action, and immediate actions to give your party or enemies forced rerolls.
I like to use Clerics with a few Heals every now and then. But by 8th level or so any cure X spell isn't going to do enough to matter-- its less healing than a full round attack by a single character, so usually not worth it.
Heal is the exception because it is SO much HP back.
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I like to use Clerics with a few Heals every now and then. But by 8th level or so any cure X spell isn't going to do enough to matter-- its less healing than a full round attack by a single character, so usually not worth it.
Heal is the exception because it is SO much HP back.
Cure spells aren't enough for a single attack from my groups primary damage dealers at any level. 1d8+5 is beaten at 1st level, 4d8+8 is easily beaten at 8th... Cure spells are garbage at every level for in combat healing. Channels are even worse. At 11th when heal come on line 110 HP healed isn't even enough for some of the single hits that happen.
At 11th level its not uncommon for mooks to have more than 100 HP, a primary damage dealer should be able to one round a mook at every level, preferably with out using all of his attacks to do so. Heal while not being completely bad, still has its limits of usefulness. IMHO the enemy cleric ought to have something better to do in combat with a 6th level spell than to cast heal.
Have the kobolds capture a troll, and stick a ring of shield other on it and the bbeg. The troll will never die due to regeneration, and the bbeg essentially doubles his health pool without wasting a casters action economy which could be better spent casting create pit or web. Your party may hate you, but this is the kind of thing that make encounters memorable.
Why are life oracles special? Do they work when someone is taking hits from giants and raging barbarians?They heal better and overhealing translates into temporary hp.
I guess I need to give them a 2nd look. I did not know about them being able to do that.