Hi all,
I already read some threads about it, but would like to hear some more opinions:
Yesterday the Vitalist in our group (lvl 5) kinda surprised me (I'm the gm) with the amount of healing he did.
Due to his race, he has a ML of 6 for healing powers. Using Spirit of Many to augument Mend Body to effect an additional party member in the collective, expending his psionic focus, this equaled to 6d6*2 healing, distributed on the party as needed.
This will continue to increase by 6d6 every level, up to the max of his collective (6 at the moment). This seems a "bit" excessive to me. Later on with stronger heals it will become even more (Heal Injuries on lvl 11 for 240 hp, lvl 12 for 390, ...).
I know this is his stick, and it's ok to have him heal quite a lot. I also know ways to still challenge them, but some of those things are equally unfun (using status effect, extrem area damage or targetting the vitalist) for the group.
I think 6d6 every round on lvl 5 is fine and you are able to pull your weight in a fight with this, but double, triple and so on? But as I said, it's kinda extrem.
What do you think?
I'm asking myself where to look for the rules on the abilities you named. Is vitalist an archetype or some 3pp class or what is it?
Is spirit of many a class ability?
It is extreme. No, I don't see anything wrong with it. If you have a vitalist in your party, they eventually become immune to HP threats. That's just the way the class works.
But, do pay attention to his max manifester lvl. Getting the mass heal equivalent isn't online until ML 17, if I remember correctly. At that point just about everything is going nuts.
Also remember that that's probably the best he can do. He can't keep that up forever. And when a psionic class like the vitalist runs out of power points they are useless . Not just "wizard is out of useful options but still has a couple spells that might come into play" useless, but "I couldn't cast anything above lvl 0 even if I wanted to" useless. Just stretch out their adventuring day and increase the number of encounters/day. He'll start sweating bullets pretty quick.
Thanks for the replies so far.
Playing Kingmaker, stretching out every day is sadly often not really an option. So he has enough PP to use his trick every round.
And beeing immune to hp damage sounds like great fun to me. Either you fail a save and are out of the fight, you are at full health or you are dead. Are those really the only 3 ways all my future fights will be looking like? (It already is this way, 6d6*2 is enough, even against high damage melee monsters).
I did the math myself, it is that extreme as it seems.
Do you have any advice for a reasonable nerv? I think otherwise this will suck out all the fun for my group in the long run. Maybe an expanding increase in PP to effect targets with healing powers? 1 for 1 additional, 3 for 2 additional, 5 for 2,...?
So, here's a breakdown of what I've read happened.
Your player's Vitalist manifested Mend Body to heal himself and another character for 6d6.
Mend body costs 5 PP to manifest for a Vitalist.
It normally heals for 3d8 though you can expend your psionic focus to change each d8 to 2d6 (thus the 6d6).
A Vitalist can spend 1 PP to augment his power and allow one more person in his collective to be healed.
That would mean that the character spent 6 PP out of 25 in order to heal for 6d6*2. A trick he could pull off 4 times in a day (with a full round action to recharge that Focus).
Here's the only hitch I can see. As a level 5 Vitalist, he can only spend 5PP in one action, meaning he cannot do this at this particular level. He will be able to do this at level 6 though, just so you're prepared.
Go to this page to double check how manifesting powers works.
Also, he may have the Overchannel feat. If so, he should be dealing damage to himself while doing this trick.
In my experience, being functionally immortal vs HP damage was more fun. We could go up against encounters that were normally a clear TPK and win! But that may not be your dynamic.
Half your problem is your AP. Psionics shine in situations where they can nova because psionics nova like no other. Just be happy you don't have a Wilder or a Overchannel using psion. Those are even worse.
Is there any reason that you are hesitant to use huge AOE damage or target then vitalist? You mentioned those things being un-fun, but could you elaborate on why you consider those things un-fun?
So, here's a breakdown of what I've read happened.
Your player's Vitalist manifested Mend Body to heal himself and another character for 6d6.
Mend body costs 5 PP to manifest for a Vitalist.
It normally heals for 3d8 though you can expend your psionic focus to change each d8 to 2d6 (thus the 6d6).
A Vitalist can spend 1 PP to augment his power and allow one more person in his collective to be healed.
That would mean that the character spent 6 PP out of 25 in order to heal for 6d6*2. A trick he could pull off 4 times in a day (with a full round action to recharge that Focus).
Here's the only hitch I can see. As a level 5 Vitalist, he can only spend 5PP in one action, meaning he cannot do this at this particular level. He will be able to do this at level 6 though, just so you're prepared.
Go to this page to double check how manifesting powers works.
Also, he may have the Overchannel feat. If so, he should be dealing damage to himself while doing this trick.
Almost (thanks for clarifying it):
As I said, he has a race with +1 MLhttp://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/races/ophiduan
(using an alternaitve racial trait in UPsionics)
Having Wis 18 and a feat with +2, he has about 40 PP. So he can use his trick very often.
@In My Humble Opinion
Had a psion with energy missile and overchannel before he switched to telepath. It was managable, just having more enemies and hitpoints. But not being able to damage someone and make it a close call is my problem. Either someone is dead or full health. Sure, I could use many enemies focus firing someone, but that would suck for the targeted player.
I know psionics is a lot better if nova is an option, but as I said, with the psion it wasn't that big of a problem. At least there was a possiblity for an exciting fight.
Using aoe's would be fine (and I will to it), but many enemies don't have them. Also I like to roleplay the monsters in a fight. And Kingmaker has lots of not very clever big monsters. Why would they go to not threatening guy 40 ft back, instead of trying to kill those who are standing in front of them. Sure, I could use tactics (and will do so as well), but only when it is approriate. And a giant spider looking for a snack won^t know that he is healing those it is trying to eat.
I'd try and help, but I've never run a module, only handmade campaigns, so I don't know much about this.
What I will say is that just about anything that makes healing a viable option is fine in my book.
Let the pc's outsmart the foe, if they can- if the foe is too dumb to kill the healer right away, well, they've lost, ne?
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Had a psion with energy missile and overchannel before he switched to telepath. It was managable, just having more enemies and hitpoints. But not being able to damage someone and make it a close call is my problem. Either someone is dead or full health. Sure, I could use many enemies focus firing someone, but that would suck for the targeted player.
Honestly, something like this is the only way to make Healing a viable in combat action. Which you should embrace, because otherwise those actions will be spent to contribute to the game of rocket tag that the game becomes. Which would you rather have? A fight where the enemy or party dies in 1-2 rounds. Or a back and forth where the Vitalist is always feeling useful by tossing out heals that actually outweigh incoming damage?
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It seems over the top, but that's only because the vitalist does something no other class in the game does - it heals well in combat.
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As was noted earlier, he's probably needing to spend at least his move action every round to regain psionic focus if he wants to keep doing this trick (a full round action if he hasn't taken the feat), so just forcing him into a position where he's threatened severely enough that he has to move could put the kibosh on spamming this trick.
Other than that, even with 40 pp he can do this about 6 times and then he's almost completely out of juice for the day. The Vitalist is an extremely dedicated healer, so outside of keeping the guys who can deal damage going, he's probably not doing a lot to get combats wrapped.
As others have mentioned, it seems weird because most classes don't actually have enough healing to make it a consistently viable choice in combat. If you look at him alongside one of the few actual dedicated combat healers in Paizo Core like the Life Oracle though, you'll see he's right where he should be. It's just jarring because so few classes and builds actually do what he does.
I can't really add much for the psionic class, though I do love them.
On the Kingmaker Adventure Path, however...change it. Add in a psionic threat, working with the BBEG. Willow-o-wisps are all over the place; change them into psionic creatures and have the not-so-clever monsters mind controlled by them. Also, remove the big monster and replace it with three or four of the same monster with the young template. The battle will be much less one sided, especially if some thing intelligent is controlling/advising the brute.
This works really well with the Troll Kingdom' add-in found in the Kingmaker thread.
@icehawk333
I'm all for outsmarting, but spamming the same tactic over and over again, getting all cocky in the process isn't really outsmarting.
@Anzyr
Having this kind of combat is awesome and I quite like what you are describing, but for my taste it is just to much. Maybe my view is kinda scewed, but most enemies won't do about 42 damage per round in this level range.
@Ssalarn
He has psionic meditation. In most fights its not really realistic. As I said, hes always somewhere in the back, being non threatening.
@Gator
I already do change a massive amount (and using the mentioned add-in, which is awesome). Having some intelligent things with every brute just kinda seems unnatural and not right. And I like a more or less "realistic" world. Changing the number of monsters won't change that much. They will hit even less, doing damage all over the place. Vitalists turn: everyones back to full.
Because all other replies are kinda the same direction:
Do I have a wrong view in this? Combat healing is fine and I like it, but having 6d6 per lvl of it, starting at lvl 5: thats manageable in your book? Healing 36d6 at lvl 9? I don't think thats even in the same league as a life oracle. Or is my math that off?
My problem is this: I'm dreading that this will make all fights unfun for the whole group. They tend to become cocky. So what I think will happen is something like this: "Oh whatever, we will fight it, no problem, nothings gonna happen, we are getting fully healed anyway." Next step: "What, Vitalist can't make it this evening? We better not play or do anything dangerous because we are gonna die." Or: "Oh this all sucks, more and more enemies are using save or suck. I rolled bad, so I can't do anything, meanwhile everyone else is slaughtering stuff being not threatend a lot, because they are healed, what great fun this combat is."
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Because all other replies are kinda the same direction:
Do I have a wrong view in this? Combat healing is fine and I like it, but having 6d6 per lvl of it, starting at lvl 5: thats manageable in your book? Healing 36d6 at lvl 9? I don't think thats even in the same league as a life oracle. Or is my math that off?My problem is this: I'm dreading that this will make all fights unfun for the whole group. They tend to become cocky. So what I think will happen is something like this: "Oh whatever, we will fight it, no problem, nothings gonna happen, we are getting fully healed anyway." Next step: "What, Vitalist can't make it this evening? We better not play or do anything dangerous because we are gonna die." Or: "Oh this all sucks, more and more enemies are using save or suck. I rolled bad, so I can't do anything, meanwhile everyone else is slaughtering stuff being not threatend a lot, because they are healed, what great fun this combat is."
So, 36d6 at level 9 is worth (on average) 126 points of healing for a full round's worth of actions and 10pp. A Life Oracle at 9th level can channel as a standard action for 5d6 a round, likely 8 times a day, with a high enough CHA to make Selective Channeling effective in most combats. Assume that's a 6 man party like the Vitalist is healing, that nets you 30d6 for 105 points of healing, roughly the same number of times per day as the Vitalist can cast mend body when accounting for the increased cost and his bonus PP for ability mod. The Oracle is only 21 hit points behind and hasn't even touched his spells, and still has a move action, so he can still move around to set up a flank for an ally, with more hit points and better gear than a Vitalist. Every round an enemy gets hit when he wouldn't have been is, basically, preemptive healing. By spending a feat, the Oracle can spend 2 uses of Channel Energy to activate it as a move action, allowing him to cast one of his spells or use Channel Energy again that round, meaning he can spike his healing substantially higher than the Vitalist. Extra Channel is also going to be far more effective for boosting this healing than any of the Vitalist's options for additional PP.
So, with much better action economy options, the Life Oracle is only behind 21 points of healing a round, and depending on how often he decides to boost his channels he's probably not going to be behind at all. A single casting of Cure Critical Wounds (he should have around 5 available) puts him 6 points of healing ahead (meaning once he's cast all of his 4th level spells he's handily beaten out what the Vitalist can do and still has all of his 1st-3rd level spells and any healing revelations he knows outside of channel), and if he gets better opportunities to activate more situational spells (like a prepared symbol of healing if the party gets some breathing room) he blows the Vitalist's healing potential out of the water, and there's still several unselected mysteries and feats to boost this healing up. The Life Oracle, played smartly, will actually bring way more healing to the group over the course of the day, and can easily pace, or even outpace, the Vitalist round to round.
A 9th level Cleric probably won't have quite as many channel uses (unless he's an aasimar or burned some feats), but gets 5th level spells and can treat all cure spells as empowered if he's got the healing domain, so the numbers are pretty favorable for him as well if he really wants to dedicate that much of his build to healing.
What that brings it around to, is that the issue you're having isn't actually the Vitalist (he's not the only one who can do that kind of healing) it's the concept of effective in-combat healing in general. Think of it kind of like the Barbarian's Rage; sure, you've got this huge buffer of hit points that lets you keep swinging way after you should have been forced to start thinking a little more defensively, but the moment you run out of rounds of Rage (or the Vitalist's PP) you're faced with an instant death scenario if you don't have some other form of healing on hand.
@Ssalarn
thanks for the analysis! But:
Channel Energy heals AE. You can´t decide to give all that healing to 1 guy. Thats a BIG difference in my book. Most of that healing will be overhealing, as not everyone will be damaged. So i don´t really think that can be compared.
Do I really have that different experiences? Most games I played in had maybe 2 or 3 pc really getting damaged. So that would be 15d6 every round and without the option to focus it on the most damaged pc.
And the last sentence is exactly what seems very unfun for me. Combat is fine, till the moment the vitalist can´t heal anymore. And because everyone relies on it, there will eventually be casualties.
@Rikkan
Sometimes even 7. I´m generelly upping the fights, but maybe it is still not enough. Last session I used 2
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/golem/golem-fl agstone-tohc
The time the vitalist started to really use his stuff, it wasn´t really challenging anymore. If he would have stopped, most likely there would have been deaths.
But maybe I should try more enemies with a lower cr.
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@Ssalarn
thanks for the analysis! But:
Channel Energy heals AE. You can´t decide to give all that healing to 1 guy. Thats a BIG difference in my book. Most of that healing will be overhealing, as not everyone will be damaged. So i don´t really think that can be compared.
Do I really have that different experiences? Most games I played in had maybe 2 or 3 pc really getting damaged. So that would be 15d6 every round and without the option to focus it on the most damaged pc.And the last sentence is exactly what seems very unfun for me. Combat is fine, till the moment the vitalist can´t heal anymore. And because everyone relies on it, there will eventually be casualties.
The other option though, is that you rely on either no healing in combat, or so little that it generally is regarded as a last resort tactic. It's not much different than your skill-monkey going down or getting separated in a trap filled dungeon. And resource management is part of the game. You've got to trust the Vitalist not to blow his load and leave the party stuck in a bad place with no options, the same way you trust the wizard not to annihilate the first encounter of the evening and then turn to the party and go "Okay guys, that's it for the day".
As to the healing comparison... Recall, the Life Oracle (and healing focused cleric) have more action economy. They can top off the party while dropping a spell on the most wounded guy. The Life Oracle in particular also has options for turning excess healing into extra hp, siphoning damage from one guy to himself so he can heal himself more efficiently, etc. They're really very comparable, they just don't do their schtick in quite the same way. And the biggest thing, the Life Oracle and the Cleric still have other options. Even after every drop of healing is wrung out of them, they can swing a mace as good as the next guy and wear decent protective gear. The Vitalist has to play smart, because when he's done, he's reduced to things like using Aid Another checks to keep participating. He's basically the wizard version of a healer.
Do you know if the party thinks this is a bad thing? Has anyone complained? Maybe you're just thinking about this a little too much. A guy who built to be good at exactly one thing is being good at that thing. That's okay. He's definitely not going to be breaking the game with a reactive ability whose sole function is that it lets the other players keep playing.
I am going to spell a few things out, just to make sure they are straight in my mind, and I am understanding the issue:
Collective Healing lets him spread the healing out. No fuss there.
Spirit of Many lets him manifest network powers on an additional target per additional power point spent. Is this where the '*2' comes from?
Medic powers states "all powers of the [healing] subdiscipline" are now Network powers, which includes Mend Body.
Collective is either his wisdom modifier (which you said was 18, so +4) or half of his level (uh...10th level? 11th?) So the most he can multiply his healing is by 5 (he is part of the collective but doesn't count against the limit), not counting the power point spending limit.
So, all together...yeah, 6d6 times 2 in healing, spread though all his collective (currently max'ed at 4; some one in the 6 creature party isn't getting the healing until 12th level). 7th level vitalist level will be times 3, 8th will be times 4, 9th times 5, and 10th will also be times 5, unless his wisdom goes up (which will happen, wither with attribute increases via level or, more likely, Wisdom boosting items). Eventually, this will level off, but not soon enough, I think.
...for me, I would increase the Spirit of Many cost to 2 power points per additional person/manifestation. 6d6 per round, spread out, seems like it would be enough to keep it worth while for now, and slowing the increase just a bit (well, halving the increase) will let the healing more manageable. The vitalist will still be getting a huge discount on the power.
Anyhow, just a thought. Hope it helps
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@Rikkan
Sometimes even 7. I´m generelly upping the fights, but maybe it is still not enough. Last session I used 2
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/golem/golem-fl agstone-tohc
The time the vitalist started to really use his stuff, it wasn´t really challenging anymore. If he would have stopped, most likely there would have been deaths.
But maybe I should try more enemies with a lower cr.That is a CR 7.
CR 7 should have something like an average win rate of 50% against 2 PCs of level 5.
A party of 6-7 level 5 PCs are supposed to handle that with ease.And DMing for larger groups (especially with an adventure path like Kingmaker which focuses a lot on a single encounter a day) is difficult. It usually is better to have a multiple enemies for them, but that also makes combats longer and more complicated to run.
This too. APL+3 is an "epic" encounter, but it's one still weighted in the party's favor. If you've got 6-7 people in your group, you've got 50-75% more resources than that calculation accounts accounts for. So, "speedbump" encounters for your group should probably start at APL+1, and if you want it to kick the party's ass a bit and actually be a risky fight, you should be looking at APL+4 for brute enemies. Spellcasters you don't want to have that much higher a level than the party, so go with a caster who's 2-3 levels higher and pile on some mooks. Effective in-combat healing won't seem quite so disconcerting then.
Thanks again for the replies. I appriciate it a lot.
@Ssalarn
Again the problem with the campaign design, which I don't want to change every time. Exploring a hex just to fight 3 fights there per day will slow down the game to a grind.
True, the oracle will heal a lot, but I'm still not seeing it compare to 36d6 on lvl 9 on one person. Overhealing via channeling is not the same, even if it can give some temp hp with it.
Also I'm not really getting the argument "oracle can do more stuff". Sure, thats true. But that's the same as saying: Well, this character can kill every enemy with a look (no save) as a full round action, but not undead. But thats fine, negating all encounters besides undead, because he can't do anything else?
Additionally, he can do other stuff, this trick is just with 1 power. So at lvl 9 he will still have 5 others (+exp knowledge).
Nobody complained this far, but they don't realize the extent of this. Sure, at first they will think it awesome, but sooner or later it will make all fights beside some especially designed to counter this strategy boring and dull. I can't imagine someone wanting this.
And I'm honest: I'm afraid that I will have no fun, because I like to have challenging fights without killing pc's left and right if just a tiny bit goes wrong. And the gm not having fun is the first step to unfun for the whole group.
@rikkan
I used two of those, so it was CR 9, with 2 players not being there (and 1 being asleep in the beginning), in an environment with a disadvantage. So basically just a psion (who couldn't do pretty much anything), the vitalist, a psiwarrior archer and a psiwarrior melee (later on a warder). That should have been a difficult fight, which it was before the vitalist really started.
@gator
Yeah, thats right. But he has a feat to have 2 people more in the collective. So the point where it will level out is very late.
Anyway, I talked with him and 2 others and we are going with this: For every person more being targeted, the PP cost will increase as followed:
+1 target 1 PP, +2 targets 3 PP, +4 targets 6 PP
Which equals (for him) to 12d6 at lvl 5, 18d6 at lvl 7, 24d6 at lvl 10
I feel thats still quite high and very usable (if I would be a player not knowing what would actually be possible, I would be VERY happy with this amount of healing), but not that mindboggling amount. I would be very interested in some reactions if I would tell someone never having heard of the vitalist that he can heal 6d6 per lvl, starting at lvl 5 ;)
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Thanks again for the replies. I appriciate it a lot.
@Ssalarn
Again the problem with the campaign design, which I don't want to change every time. Exploring a hex just to fight 3 fights there per day will slow down the game to a grind.True, the oracle will heal a lot, but I'm still not seeing it compare to 36d6 on lvl 9 on one person. Overhealing via channeling is not the same, even if it can give some temp hp with it.
Also I'm not really getting the argument "oracle can do more stuff". Sure, thats true. But that's the same as saying: Well, this character can kill every enemy with a look (no save) as a full round action, but not undead. But thats fine, negating all encounters besides undead, because he can't do anything else?
Additionally, he can do other stuff, this trick is just with 1 power. So at lvl 9 he will still have 5 others (+exp knowledge).
Nobody complained this far, but they don't realize the extent of this. Sure, at first they will think it awesome, but sooner or later it will make all fights beside some especially designed to counter this strategy boring and dull. I can't imagine someone wanting this.
And I'm honest: I'm afraid that I will have no fun, because I like to have challenging fights without killing pc's left and right if just a tiny bit goes wrong. And the gm not having fun is the first step to unfun for the whole group.
The adventure design note wasn't really a Vitalist thing, it was a "you have more people than that AP is written for" thing.
36d6 is 126 points of healing. You would have to be a Barbarian with a 14 CON who rolled max on every single die roll to be able to benefit from that kind of healing.
While the Vitalist may know other powers, he can't functionally use them and this the way the Oracle can use his powers. Aside from the relative PP expense, it's a full round action. The Oracle can drop his 30d6 healing and then drop 4d8 damage and blind every evil enemy in the same round. A bunch of blinded enemies is literally worth as much healing as all those enemies are capable of dealing in a round (plus channel heals). The Oracle can also redirect damage from the party member most likely to take it (really up to two party members with shield other) to himself. Basically, where the Vitalist spreads out his healing, the Oracle can spread out damage, which is functionally very similar.
It's important to note that what the Vitalist is doing is very different than a "kill every enemy, no save" ability that doesn't work on one creature type. If he is spamming this ability he is literally doing nothing to resolve the fight faster. Healing is a reactive measure, always less effective than a proactive tactic. He may be healing more, but the party will be taking more with a character in the group who can only react. That's the strength and weakness of specialists; sure they can do what they do effectively, but they have trouble doing other things. In the Vitalist's case, if he does branch out and pick up some proactive abilities, that's a good thing, because it means he can't spam his healing (which I'd be really surprised to see a Vitalist doing anyway since, much like the life Oracle, he's probably got more healing than the situation actually calls for).
Not a big fan of your solution for a couple reasons:
1) You're charging him more for less. He's going to burn through resources faster to do less, so you're actually making the situation you fear where the party suddenly runs out of resources and gets screwed more likely, not less.
2) The Golden Rule of Psionics is that you can't spend more PP on an ability than your Manifester Level. You've just screwed your character big time; at 9th level, even with all the resources he's poured into being a good healer, he's limited to being able to heal no more than 3 people (including himself) with this ability.
3) Your Vitalist now limited to effectively 63 total points of healing a round (average of 18d6). A Cleric with the healing domain can channel and cast Breath of Life to heal one target for 66 damage ((5d8+9)*1.5 + 18) and every other party member for 18. So not only is the Cleric still able to rock better arms and armor, better hit die, better versatility, and more longevity in the adventuring day, but he's also spanking the Vitalist in healing :/
@rikkan
I used two of those, so it was CR 9, with 2 players not being there (and 1 being asleep in the beginning), in an environment with a disadvantage. So basically just a psion (who couldn't do pretty much anything), the vitalist, a psiwarrior archer and a psiwarrior melee (later on a warder). That should have been a difficult fight, which it was before the vitalist really started.
I think this reply might highlight one reason you're having issues (and may continue to have issues).
I love psionics. I think they're exceptionally well written and a ton of fun. I play something from DSP at almost every opportunity.
That said, Psionic characters are very good at Nova style play. Kingmaker isn't balanced in that regard. Especially book 1. You're moving past that point now, I imagine, but a psionic party can house a lot of encounters in the first third of kingmaker. Probably most encounters the whole way through.
I do think you found en elegant solution to the exponential growth of the vitalist's healing. So well done there.
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I think this reply might highlight one reason you're having issues (and may continue to have issues).
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That said, Psionic characters are very good at Nova style play. Kingmaker isn't balanced in that regard. Especially book 1. You're moving past that point now, I imagine, but a psionic party can house a lot of encounters in the first third of kingmaker. Probably most encounters the whole way through.
While not inaccurate, this is equally true of just about any spellcasting character in Pathfinder. The Wizard, Oracle, Cleric, Magus, Inquisitor, etc. can all dominate in situations where they're allowed to nova resources. If his party were wizard, oracle, inquistor, magus, and cavalier instead of psion, vitalist, psiwar archer, psiwar melee, and warder, he'd be looking at the exact same dynamics, probably more so since the wizard and oracle have more game-breaking tools than the psion and vitalist.
Kingmaker kind of expects you to push your characters harder than the campaign actually lends itself to forcing you to do, which is unfortunately a problem with the AP, not the classes. The first couple books practically facilitate nova encounters unless you really pile on a lot of extra pressure that isn't really presented in the actual adventure. Our own playthrough involved a lot of facestomping enemies with casual disregard, and that was back before psionic classes were really even a thing at our table. A witch, oracle, cleric, cavalier, bard, and occasional ranger tromped through without ever really being threatened. Or using in-combat healing at all.
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Thinking aloud...
Challenge comes from having a possibility of failure. The higher the probability of failure, the more challenging an encounter is. In Pathfinder, resources are what stands between success and failure. The DM's job is to burn resources (remember when we used to say a typical encounter should burn 25% of PC resources?) to create that challenge.
When you've got a party of 6 or 7, you've got 50% to 75% more resources to burn through. When you've got one encounter per day, you've got less time to do it in that "normal".
This problem isn't really about the vitalist. It's not any different from a paladin being able to smite every target. You just recognize the paladin is going to be significantly more powerful all the time than he should be. Same as a monk who can make every attack a stunning fist attempt. Or a wizard who can use his mightiest spells every round. Those are the offensive side of the coin, where the vitalist ensuring the party is healed every round is the defensive side of that coin. The coin is simply "the PCs are always at their best".
I have some experience with this. My Runelords group is currently 6 PCs and I've had 7 before. I've also run campaigns where the players had full control over how many encounters per day they faced. I also allow (and encourage) all of the psionic content at my table.
Scaling things is a challenge for you, but that's really where the solution lies.
You're going to need to jack up monsters' hitpoints by a good 100% to get anywhere, to absorb the PCs' optimal offense. You're also going to need to find ways to grant monsters more offense, in the form of additional attacks, area-of-effect attacks, and higher odds-to-hit. Once save-or-die spells come into play, you'll need to jack up saves too.
Again, don't get distracted by the math... as Ssalarn has pointed out it's not actually scaled inappropriately. It's just that you're not used to the defensive side of the "optimal" coin.
Your campaign is already broken in several ways. You're just seeing one set of numbers that make you panic. They're the least of your worries.
Mend Body does not have the network descriptor. How is he doing any of this?
Add secondary goals to encounters.
For example, add a skill challenge that leaves a player vulnerable to attack for x rounds and have the vitalist keep him standing.
Sometimes it helps to make encounters have multiple win conditions so that way enemies aren't the only threat.
Templates help too since monsters in the bestiaries are made with 15 point buys.
Your campaign is already broken...
I´m playing the psion, but also helped to develop some of the background for the campaign. Since i´m also gming a lot, i´m pretty interested in this discussion.
Personaly, i thought the encounter was ok, even though my PC was completely taken out and unable to do anything, because of the magic/psionic ward of that things (didn´t look what it actually is).
The vitalist didn´t do anything else, and never will when he´s doing that. The two others were having a real hard time meanwhile. I think without the vitalist we might have lost someone.
Although we are 7 players, at least one is normally missing and we have one player who contrubites a lot roleplaywise, but has no clue of the class, abilities or else and is normaly not contributing a lot in fights, if at all^^ (just a clarification, no critics, i like that player)
So, could you explain further what you mean by the campaign is broken?
That would interest me.
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I think Anguish was more going off the idea that:
1) With 7 players you have almost double the resources, including action economy, the game expects you to have
And
2) Kingmaker as an AP already really, really favors limited resource classes like wizards and vitalists since it tends to be lots of exploration or social punctuated by a single combat encounter.
If you don't really have seven players that kind of resolves number 1 a bit, but number 2 is just a reality of the AP. If you only have 1 combat encounter a night, you're actually not playing by the game's basic assumptions of 3-4 combat encounters a day and balance will skew very heavily in favor of classes who normally have limited resources. You need to be busting out those random encounter tables and making sure that you're putting more pressure on the casters' resources.
Basically, the Vitalist and Psion are crazy well balanced, much moreso than their core counterparts like the Wizard, Cleric, and Oracle. If they're causing problems, you shouldn't be looking at the class, you probably need to look at the adventure. Otherwise your gaming future is going to be filled with lots of spot nerfs on classes when the easier fix is to learn how to align your playstyle to the game's assumptions.
Yup, can totally agree with that.
Part of the GM frustration comes from at least one other player with ridiculos dice luck and another one with a very high AC being definately too cocky about monsters not hitting.
I´m one of those who will suffer from draining resources, but that´s the game. The others will eventually be forced to play more considerate and tactical or we see a TPK some time, what is fine with me^^
Mend Body does not have the network descriptor. How is he doing any of this?Vitalists gain an ability that adds the Network descriptor to any power with the Healing descriptor.
Well. I'll be danged.
Here are a couple of spells that if used by say a 7th level vampire wizard could give the players fits.
Also, the AP wasn't built for psionics, but the game nor the characters are broken. However, a general rule at our table is, "if you can do it, so can the NPC's". My players are often reluctant to abuse certain aspects of the rules because of this. That is not to say this group is being abusive. They're not. The DM is allowing them to use psionics. If anything he should be using psionic NPC's and monsters as well.
We have a Runelords campaign on hold right now and I will be playing a duergar vitalist. It's with the implication that the DM will be adding a few psionic beasties to the mix. So that should be fun.
Uber healing for the win!
So, could you explain further what you mean by the campaign is broken? That would interest me.
Ssalarn beat me to it and got it right. Even used "more pressure", which I was going to.
In a "baseline" campaign, the assumption is four PCs of the classic fighter-cleric-wizard-rogue sort of makeup, in a dungeon setting. Those characters have to delve and explore a hostile environment full of monsters, traps, hazards, and puzzles. They are frequently "trapped" in that they will be unable or reluctant to leave the environment, so the classic "one more room" syndrome kicks in, encouraging the PCs to overextend themselves. Rest is frequently difficult, interrupted, or risky.
In short, a baseline campaign assumes a certain mixture of PC resources, and an environment designed to whittle them down.
The campaign being discussed isn't even almost that. I want to be clear... I'm not saying the campaign is wrong, it's just that it's mathematically broken in that its reality is nowhere near the baseline balance assumptions.
It takes some skill to adjust for when the math is off-baseline. Many adventure modules have sidebars that talk about "scaling the adventure" if there are 3 or 5 PCs. They'll talk about removing or adding enemies, when they do so. With Kingmaker in particular that isn't practical.
Part of the GM frustration comes from at least one other player with ridiculos dice luck and another one with a very high AC being definately too cocky about monsters not hitting.
More GM fun. See, much of the game is about averages. Math, math, math. Lucky dice are either a} loaded or b} statistical anomalies. Humans see patterns where there aren't any.
If you've got 10 d20 rolls a night and four of them are 17 or higher, that looks like "hot dice", and in game terms it is. But when you've got 100 rolls, the averages will become normalized and approach the 10.5 that you should see.
Point is, this is yet another way that more encounters per day evens things out. Admittedly you may not have time in a session for more encounters, but the point is still there. In order to get through a module/AP, you have too face enough rolls that averages kick in.
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As an aside, a good way to look at a vitalist is to compare to the bard. In a standard party of 4, a bard contributes a bit. In a party of 7, the bard's inspire courage is almost impossible to pass up. I'm frankly shocked my many-players Runelords game hasn't seen one yet.
Lol. Never assumed you were talking about badwrongfunstuff^^
I´m doing a lot of PFS scenarios normaly, where such things aren´t a major concern, because there is seldomly an opportunity to rest at all.
Since i´m planning to run more campaigns though, that math stuff greatly interests me. Not only for player number adaptions, but also ways to balance stronger builds and players versus weaker ones and resources over time.
I really appreciate the help and feedback you people provide here. There´s always something to learn to be a better GM^^
That dice problem is real though, it´s connected to the person, not to the dice and was tested in several ways. It´s amazing. We have another player who has statistically overly bad rolls though. Nevermind. It´s also part of the fun. I totaly agree that more roles even that out better, even with their (un)luck.
Part of the problem though lies somewhere completely else i guess.
Dela wanted psionics only to experience something new and also have a more balanced experience. Like he said, the key lies in searching for a way for better and stronger storytelling and some players doing less damage or not ridiculing encounters.
That´s at least partly a problem of the game itself though, since players are supposed to win all encounters if they are not overly silly.
So, the solution, besides adjusting encounters better and putting more strain on ressources, would more be in finding a way to make Pathfinder more grittier and darker somehow.
Don´t think that functions very well though...
Funny how you are spilling doom on our campaign, whereas until the vitalist showed up (new character) it was not really an issue (at least not from my point of view). I already jacked up pretty much everything (partly 6 ppl conversation, monsters apl+3-5, advanced template, max hp for almost anything). We had a lot of close and exciting fights (and yes, my players think having low hp comapred to max hp is close and fun). Kingmaker as written is for the most part kinda a joke difficulty wise, even for 4ppl 15 pb standard.
Ssalarn, we certainly have very differnt views of this. Yes, I´m charging more for less. But thats the whole idea. Now he has to think about it and I´m not forced to up the monsters/encounters to regions where a small mistake will kill. When he is not healing all the time, the monsters can do less damage per round and threaten, but not kill someone. Then he can jump in and heal him, but has to do it strategically and not spam it. When he is not healing he can do other stuff. If I´m designing every encounter with his extremly high spam heal in mind, I´m afraid of making it very unfun for the most part of the group in the long run.
Also I´m not going to discuss the topic of the one (two) players dice luck, because that´s beside the main topics point. And no, it´s not a skewed view (as Hayato wrote), when they are not rolling under 15, thats a special occurance...
Also the point with more encounters just won´t work for our group with this campaign. Not everyone is into fighting all the time. And having 3-4 fights a day is just unrealistic. Not every hex can teem with enemies or ruins to be explored.
And so I stand by the nerf, because it probably will work and is the most simple solution for us. I´m not saying that in other campaigns with more encounters per day, less players or any other factors, the vitalist works fine as written. But thats not really important for me, as I´m not responsible for those campaings, but am for my own one.
That dice problem is real though, it´s connected to the person, not to the dice and was tested in several ways. It´s amazing.
There's a couple options here:
1} Confirmation bias.
In short, when the die rolls high, you all shout out "see... his rolls really ARE super-lucky." When the roll is low, you ignore/discard the evidence as irrelevant. Unless you're literally recording every single roll and noting the averages over a statistically significant number, this is human nature.
2} Time for a chi-squared test.
The dice may actually be weighted in such a way that they do roll statistically high. This may or may not be deliberate. There's a technique that involves rolling a bunch of times to measure any bias in a die.
3} The player has rolling habits.
I've seen a number of physical rolling techniques where mysteriously the die ends up with the same number repeatedly. It's not easy to do deliberately, but muscle-memory can seriously influence this. If the die says "17" and the player picks it up and performs the exact same "shake", it stands a good chance of being a "17" again. Obviously the less randomization time in the shake, the more this can happen. We've all seen "that guy" who rolls by more or less picking the die up and dropping it again. Again, this may or may not be deliberate. Dice cups or towers are an interesting addition to neutralize this.
Funny how you are spilling doom on our campaign, whereas until the vitalist showed up (new character) it was not really an issue (at least not from my point of view). I already jacked up pretty much everything (partly 6 ppl conversation, monsters apl+3-5, advanced template, max hp for almost anything). We had a lot of close and exciting fights (and yes, my players think having low hp comapred to max hp is close and fun). Kingmaker as written is for the most part kinda a joke difficulty wise, even for 4ppl 15 pb standard.
Just to be really, really clear, that's not at all what I'm doing, and I strongly expect that's not what anyone else in the thread is doing. The thread started with essentially asking if the vitalist's healing is somehow inappropriate. The response is "nope, but under your circumstances classes like it will look skewed". I'd point at the bard again as a class that will drive DMs nuts in high-PC-count games.
There's nothing wrong with your game. There's just a bunch of mathematical tapdancing going on, as you've already had to do, that makes it a challenge to... challenge.
This is me, pointing at the "two sides of the 'PCs are always optimal' coin" comments I made.
As long as you're having fun, your game is great. But the vitalist is messing with your mind because of the way the game is structured, not because the vitalist isn't balanced.
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As long as you're having fun, your game is great. But the vitalist is messing with your mind because of the way the game is structured, not because the vitalist isn't balanced.
Truth, on both counts. Though I might have specified "the vitalist is messing with your mind because of the way the specific AP you are running is structured".
I can say with authority that even moderate system mastery combined with a full casting class can really take advantage of that particular adventure.
Also, Anguish, I'm pretty sure he was responding to Hayato Ken, who is a player and sometimes GM in that group.
Ssalarn, we certainly have very differnt views of this. Yes, I´m charging more for less. But thats the whole idea. Now he has to think about it and I´m not forced to up the monsters/encounters to regions where a small mistake will kill. When he is not healing all the time, the monsters can do less damage per round and threaten, but not kill someone. Then he can jump in and heal him, but has to do it strategically and not spam it. When he is not healing he can do other stuff. If I´m designing every encounter with his extremly high spam heal in mind, I´m afraid of making it very unfun for the most part of the group in the long run.
The thing is, what happens if he dies and comes back as a cleric or oracle? Do you spot fix those too? How? And is he going to continue to have fun now that a single use of his ability is costing him the class resource equivalent of a 1st level spell, a 3rd level spell, and a use of channel? What happens when the "fix" impacts his ability to do other stuff, like basic party buffing? How do you deal with the fact that your "fix" will mean that in a few levels he will never be able to share level appropriate abilites with more than one or two allies?
Parting thoughts:
The most important part of the game is "have fun". Whatever makes it more fun for everyone is usually the right call. When I pointed out the issues with the inteded "fix", it wasn't a "don't do that" it was a "that class is already really well balanced and there's any number of other mechanics you're messing with (probably unnecessarily) by doing that". And it's possible that a spot fix now instead of a game fix will lead to more spot fixes later, which is ultimately going to be more work, and a lot of houserules to keep track of that you'll probably want to throw out the door for the next campaign.
And so I stand by the nerf, because it probably will work and is the most simple solution for us. I´m not saying that in other campaigns with more encounters per day, less players or any other factors, the vitalist works fine as written. But thats not really important for me, as I´m not responsible for those campaings, but am for my own one.
I don't know how familiar people are with Magic: The Gathering, but it's a great example for what I'm going talk about. In Magic: The Gathering, there are cards whose sole function is to heal damage. These cards are derided by competitive players (correctly so) as being universally bad. The reason is that healing cannot help you win, it can only help you to not lose. Furthermore while you are sinking resources into that, the opponent is sinking resources into actually winning. The same is true in D&D only... even more so.
No matter how good they are at or how many times the Vitalist heals, they are never contributing efficiently. The most efficient way to prevent damage in D&D is to focus fire on one enemy until it is dead. Dead creatures deal 0 damage. The faster they die the more damage that will be prevented. Healing for a big number of health sounds good until you realize had that healer been dealing even 30-40 points of damage reliably the enemy would be dead and dealing 0 damage. The only reason the Vitalist is even vaguely worth playing as a healer is it's sheer healing power. Without that it's a waste of time like every other form of in combat healing and would be better off served by investing in a good damage power and using "preventative curing" ie. killing the enemy for they deal any damage. The best part about "preventative curing" is that it also prevents the enemy from doing thing anything at all, even attacks that aren't HP damage like status conditions and ability damage.
I mean if everyone is having fun that's fine, but I believe your view on the value of healing is skewed towards it being more viable then it is.
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You psionically augment the healing ability of the targets with your power. The targets heal 110 points of damage total, divided among the targets at your discretion.
Augment: You can augment this power in one or both of the following ways.
1 For every additional power point you spend, the total amount healed increases by 10 points of damage.
2 If you spend 6 additional power points, you can heal all living creatures within 20 feet of you.
It is with this power that the Vitalist truly breaks. Your party becomes immune to HP loss unless you one-shot the Vitalist or another PC into oblivion (which, if he's an Elan is near impossible).
Thankfully, this comes into play very late game. 90% of people will never see this. I've played it. It's glorious. My group loved the feel of danger it brought to high levels because if I, the vitalist, ran out of PP or went down, we were all dead. No question. It became an interesting strategy game.
The vitalist still suffers from the same weaknesses it has had since level 1, however. HP restoration is the only thing it does really well unless you count making Will saves for people with that power who's name I forget at the moment. Still, an extremely specialized one trick pony who can perform his trick absurdly well.
At level 18-20, the Vitalist can manifest the AoE of this on 2-4 people, healing 2-4 20ft bursts for 110. If up to his Collective limit are all in that burst, the amount healed goes into the thousands. It's a stupid effective trick, and limited to a couple times per day (because, as I said, you do Not want to run out of PP), but man does it feel good to pull off.
One last level to add to the "Stupid OP OMG Banzorz" bonfire. If all four of those 20' bursts overlap and your full collective is huddled around you, you provide 110*2*17 to 110*4*20 or 3640 - 8800 hp distributed as you will as a standard action. So, ya. The Vitalist is a blast to play. :)
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At the level when you get the power (11th) your reading is true. At 12 it becomes 120 divided as you will, OR, a vitalist can employ this:
A vitalist of 2nd level gains special abilities when manifesting powers with the Network descriptor. He can manifest these powers on any member of his collective, even if they are out of the power's range or would normally be immune to the power. Whenever a vitalist manifests a power with the Network descriptor targeting only members of his collective, the power loses the mind-affecting descriptor (if it had it) and bypasses any power resistance, although it still provokes an attack of opportunity to manifest as normal. Network powers manifest only on members of the collective never allow saving throws -- their saving throw entry becomes “None,” although if the power specifies a subsequent saving throw, subjects attempt those saves normally. The vitalist also adds the following augment to all powers with the Network descriptor:Augment: For every additional power point you spend, you can choose an additional target, so long as the target is a member of your collective.
Note that all healing powers gain the Network descriptor for the Vitalist. Meaning a lvl 12 vitalist can actually heal 110 twice. Once on himself and once on another member of the collective.
This in and of itself is by no means crazy. In fact, you should be doing this with various powers all through your career starting at Level 2 with Natural healing.
It's a good trick, but requires a max expenditure of PP and, as has been noted, he is doing nothing to actually end the fight. All his weaknesses and holes still hold true up to the bitter end at lvl 20.
Where things get crazy is level 17 when that second augment option comes into play and you have that exponential growth effect really kicking in. Well, pseudo-exponential. It's not truly exponential. There are other tricks using other powers that offer similar options, but for burst heals, this takes the cake. Add Overchannel to this and it gets even more interesting.
Really though, at lvl 17-20, HP damage is the least of your worries to begin with. At that point other conditions like getting disintegrated, dominated, Plane Shifted, imploded, negative leveled and a whole list of other things will mess up your day if you're the sole healer and your DM is keeping the party under HP pressure (forcing you to heal every round even if it's not your nova heal shown here). Even then, you have limited and sometimes no ability to deal with such things even if you aren't under the gun to keep everyone on their feet and trying desperately not to run out of Power Points.