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For me it comes down to this: did my group have more fun when I took the cure-wand dance out of the game entirely?
The answer was an emphatic YES.
I don't care what the intent of the rule was in earlier editions, I care how the game plays now.
I still get my multi-encounter attrition jollies in through the other vectors we mentioned upthread. Hit points, as currently implemented, do virtually nothing to enhance that part of the game.
Strain/injury perfectly addresses my issues with cure wands (and with the abstract nature of massive hp damage) -- it may not be the solution for everyone, but it's enough evidence for me to say that ditching the cure wand entirely is an unmitigated boon for gameplay.
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The thing that always bothered me the most about "Healing Surges" was the name. It sounds like they had the idea, and just went with the working title. They didn't bother to contextualize it in the simulation at all. It doesn't mean anything, so it looks outwardly like a sloppy patch over a hole in the system.
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The thing that always bothered me the most about "Healing Surges" was the name. It sounds like they had the idea, and just went with the working title. They didn't bother to contextualize it in the simulation at all. It doesn't mean anything, so it looks outwardly like a sloppy patch over a hole in the system.
Thematically healing surges actually works within the context of abstract hit points. HP is a 'wearing down' of your ability to fight (I dont need to explain this to you ofc). Maybe calling it determination or something would have been better, but 4E wasnt exactly worried about associative vs disassociative mechanics. A 'Surge' of determination or 'guts' or whatever is a perfect explanation for the reocovery of everything but those actual viatal injuries.
The thing everyone who argues for those sorts of things should remember is that the 2 games 4E and 5E are also very different in how much damage things put out. The reason most seasoned players insist on going into encounters fully healed is the fact that things can cut through the hp of even the tough guys (full bab d10 or d12 hd) in a single full attack.
Pathfinder doesnt really work as an actual attrition game because a full attack from a level appropriate opponent doens't contribute to attrition of hp, it can flat out drop you.
You can draw a comparison to video games here. Many older games and some current games made hp a long term resource. Healing was rare and had to be carefully manaaged (think medpacks in doom). BUT things did damage in very smalle chunks. Even bosses couldnt wipe you out in seconds. You might only fight one or two weak enemies at a time most of the time with almost no chance of seriously hurting you, but even one hit was a drain on resources. Its a slow burn of encounters.
Many current games, like say call of duty, dont have that. Your damage goes a way, you recover after a few seconds. Each encounter is as intense as it possibly can be. Each set peice has you fighting for your life, but if you get through it, recovery to complete health is simple. This a kind of flashpoint system of encounters.
Pathfinder as it stands is like call of duty, while sort of still being doom on the box. Sure theres 'attrition' but it's simple to recover from the attrition. But challenges have shifted to compensate. Things do WAY more damage then they did back in the adnd the cleric has 2 spells and covets them intensly. And they do more damage then 4E or 5E does. If you want to most to a system where players are struggling into encounters half injured and bleeding thats fine, but you have to realize that doesnt work when the big bad could have dropped them in a round when they were at full hit points, let along when they were dragging themselves into the fight.
Yeah, so, first, I am not advocating for a return to the days of attrition based gaming. I personally want that concept killed with fire.
In my ideal game, fights are all or nothing. You don't grind through trash fights to get to the real encounter that's meaningful. If you have no chance to die here...if the point is just to drain your resources so the next encounter is dangerous, no, just stop that. Make the next encounter actually dangerous.
I really liked D&D as a heist game, the way it was way at the beginning. But, not as a limited resource tracking sim.
I would want people to basically be up or down (like savage worlds, really), and all resources to be infinte or rechargeable during the day (as long as it's not daily!) so, my performance in encounter x doesn't affect x+1, x+2, etc. I already remove all those "permanent, but not really, you just need to pay for the treatment" effects ftom my game (along with exceptional pc wealth, which is just there to be spent on attrition anyway).
But, at the same time, the game is not designed that way, and while I find that fact bizarre, it's just the way it is. Wands of CLW and 15 minute work days will be a thing until the core paradigm of the game--attrition--is altered. Right now, these things just sweep the problem under the rug. Nobody likes it, for the most part, but they hate the stop-gap solutions more.
Well, that's easy to fix at least.
How about: Vitality reserve? Life force? Toughness pool? Stamina?
I like those just fine. "Second wind" would be another way to refer to it (but I suppose third and fourth wind are a stretch).
The term "healing surge", whatever it is meant to represent, evokes the image of the PC actually magically HEALING himself. They really ought to have called it something else.
I'm glad I'm not the only one put off by this.
... the "Need wands of CLW, CMW, CSW, CCW" is and isn't a problem, the problem is more with adventure/encounter designs, many these days are made with the thoughts the party will spend the majority of its ressourses on healing items, which mean said ressources aren't available to buy better offensive and defensive items, which, ironically, would reduce the need of healing items.
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15 minute work days will be a thing until the core paradigm of the game--attrition--is altered. Right now, these things just sweep the problem under the rug. Nobody likes it, for the most part, but they hate the stop-gap solutions more.
my solution to this predicament is to simply sweep the PCs under the rug of Climbing Plot Conflict. If you can introduce into your story a sense or Narrative Urgency, suddenly Time itself becomes a resource, joining the milieu of various other Attrition Indexes (HP primarily).
what if the PCs don't have 10 minutes to conduct a short rest!?
naturally this is much easier said than done, and is something I am always striving for as a DM, but, ain't no better "stop-gap" than one the PCs, under pain of narrative arcs altering story crossroads, impose upon themselves, without some external rule, disassociated or otherwise, tearing asunder verisimilitude from on-high.
15 minute work days will be a thing until the core paradigm of the game--attrition--is altered. Right now, these things just sweep the problem under the rug. Nobody likes it, for the most part, but they hate the stop-gap solutions more.my solution to this predicament is to simply sweep the PCs under the rug of Climbing Plot Conflict. If you can introduce into your story a sense or Narrative Urgency, suddenly Time itself becomes a resource, joining the milieu of various other Attrition Indexes (HP primarily).
what if the PCs don't have 10 minutes to conduct a short rest!?
naturally this is much easier said than done, and is something I am always striving for as a DM, but, ain't no better "stop-gap" than one the PCs, under pain of narrative arcs altering story crossroads, impose upon themselves, without some external rule, disassociated or otherwise, tearing asunder verisimilitude from on-high.
the 16 hours adventuring day is easier at higher levels, but design and luck can seriously alter that.
15 minute work days will be a thing until the core paradigm of the game--attrition--is altered. Right now, these things just sweep the problem under the rug. Nobody likes it, for the most part, but they hate the stop-gap solutions more.my solution to this predicament is to simply sweep the PCs under the rug of Climbing Plot Conflict. If you can introduce into your story a sense or Narrative Urgency, suddenly Time itself becomes a resource, joining the milieu of various other Attrition Indexes (HP primarily).
what if the PCs don't have 10 minutes to conduct a short rest!?
naturally this is much easier said than done, and is something I am always striving for as a DM, but, ain't no better "stop-gap" than one the PCs, under pain of narrative arcs altering story crossroads, impose upon themselves, without some external rule, disassociated or otherwise, tearing asunder verisimilitude from on-high.
The problem with adding that urgency in plot terms is that you are in conflict with the game, which itself isnt designed for an endless escalation. Honestly, I'd like to see the whole resource attrition thing be thrown away, and have the majority of abilities balanced around the idea of always, or mostly always being able to do them. It makes things like having plot urgency not a direct conflict with the game itself. Not every story can be told at lord of the rings pace.
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placing your PCs in a situation which has no perfect solution, where they have to cut certain losses (attrition) in order to obtain certain gains, the consequences of which create new such scenarios.
these 'losses' and 'gains' can be defined in many terms, and is ultimately a dynamic function of forces that exist within the story, at the meta level of the rules, and across the personalities who occupy seats at your table.
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we are totally off-topic, but in essence, it is quite likely that in every story you read or watched there was something of the sort, because Conflict is about opposing forces which cannot all simultaneously exist in harmony, with 'loss' or 'attrition' being inherent, and, but for de-railing the thread, could probably be identified in any given narrative.
but how about them CLW wands, eh?
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we are totally off-topic, but in essence, it is quite likely that in every story you read or watched there was something of the sort, because Conflict is about opposing forces which cannot all simultaneously exist in harmony, with 'loss' or 'attrition' being inherent, and, but for de-railing the thread, could probably be identified in any given narrative.
but how about them CLW wands, eh?
That's just the thing, though: conflict is, as you say, about opposing forces who want different things, and something's gotta give. But the attrition being discussed does not fit that description. The attrition in Pathfinder (whether hit points, daily resources, gold, whatever) is something that one interested party has, and must manage its expenditure in order to leverage success for their side of the conflict.
Attrition and resource management are one way of engaging the plot's conflict; they are not part of the definition of conflict.
Removing attrition as a central game mechanic does not remove conflict from the storytelling. Attrition and conflict can interact, they can be part of the same story, but they are in no way inherently linked.
And here's why I don't think it's off-topic: CLW wands (or other forms of plentiful between-combat healing) drastically reduce (eliminate?) an entire axis attrition, but have no effect on the conflict in the story. If some of the other posters are correct that players are getting less and less interested in attrition, it need not have any impact on the level of plot conflict, because it was never really a part of the conflict in the first place.
Recognizing the independence of attrition and conflict from one another helps us figure out what we can do about HP recovery without sacrificing the story.
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i mostly agree with you. except over the conceptualization of time. i see time as a resource as well. to intersect, using the Injury/Strain house rule, in eliminating gold, instead posits time, as a finite resource, with which to exchange for HP. time, the very same continuum over which conflict unfolds.
within a story, in a dramatic moment, time could very well be running out.
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Could. Even the importance of time is not a required element of conflict. Just like any other form of attrition, it's something that could be used to press an advantage. But it doesn't have to be, and a story doesn't automatically stop having conflict if there's no time pressure.
There are two things you can do with this.
1) as mentioned above, turn Time into a resource. If healing items are only available if the party makes them, or commissions them ahead of time, then simply dropping a grand for a CLW wand becomes spending a day or two and dropping the money. Time. Each potions sucks up some time to make, etc.
2) SPlit hit points into stuff characters get back naturally, and stuff magic heals. The two don't mix.
Thus, a Wound system that's healed by magic, or overnight rest, and a Vitality system that can top off rapidly after combat. Let the PC's determine what they want to assign to Wounds, and how much to Vitality, depending on what they are going to get healed. If magic can't heal Vitality, then no matter how much healing you have, it can't ever 'top you off'. You have to wait, and spend time...and if you have time constraints, it will play the way you run the game.
just a thought.
==Aelryinth
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as a storytelling game, i find conflict to be at the heart.
but that's me.
Conflict within the story, ofcourse. Conflict WITH THE GAME, is not fine and isn't at the heart of a good story or a good game.
We are after all playing a game. There is story telling, but the dramatic moment is not more important then people having fun. And one of the biggest parts of having fun is participation.
I have seen too often people pushed into either over preservation of serources, or into directing their resources in a very specific way (think, mandatory healer) to the point where one or more party members are effectively not participating in most of the game.
And while sometimes that makes for a good story (gandalf only pulling out the stops in moria) it makes for a crummy experience at the table, if half the time a certain character must effectively not participate in order to maintain resources against attrition.
I have seen way to many 'we need to have a healer' conversations to think making hp attrition an important aspect of the game is anything but an aweful aweful idea. I actually hand out renewable healing items (healing belts) in my game simply because I dont want my players resources to go towards that instead of things they actually want to do.
I can make moments dramatic and challenges difficult without requiring them to no play to be able to play.
2) SPlit hit points into stuff characters get back naturally, and stuff magic heals. The two don't mix.
Thus, a Wound system that's healed by magic, or overnight rest, and a Vitality system that can top off rapidly after combat. Let the PC's determine what they want to assign to Wounds, and how much to Vitality, depending on what they are going to get healed. If magic can't heal Vitality, then no matter how much healing you have, it can't ever 'top you off'. You have to wait, and spend time...and if you have time constraints, it will play the way you run the game.
Aelryinth, you just described the Strain/Injury HP variant! :D
Okay, that's enough plugging that rule. This was just too spot-on to ignore.
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What would happen if, without any other houserules in place, every effect whose only function was HP recovery was completely at-will? For instance, cure X wounds must be prepared in a slot or taken as a spell known as normal, but is not expended when cast (much like a cantrip, but for higher spell levels than 0). Channeled energy, when used to do nothing but heal HP damage, does not tick off a daily usage. And so forth.
What would the game be like, if that was the only change made?
What would happen if, without any other houserules in place, every effect whose only function was HP recovery was completely at-will? For instance, cure X wounds must be prepared in a slot or taken as a spell known as normal, but is not expended when cast (much like a cantrip, but for higher spell levels than 0). Channeled energy, when used to do nothing but heal HP damage, does not tick off a daily usage. And so forth.
What would the game be like, if that was the only change made?
It wouldn't be that different, surprisingly.
You'd probably see more high-level healing spells used in combat than presently -- generally the action is the most "expensive" cost of a combat-heal. If they were continuously at-will, people would be a little riskier with them.
Characters would still die. What you're suggesting is not all that different from my houserule, out of combat, and yet I see characters die all the time despite the availability of mid-high level healing spells.
What would the game be like, if that was the only change made?
Pretty much the same except with no wands of clw and your average party a couple of thousand gold richer.
It wouldn't stop the 15 minute workday, though, because that's less about HP and more about other daily resources like spell slots, ki points, SLAs, etc.
Edit: oh, and umd would be drastically less powerful and there would be no way for a party to get by without someone able to ACTUALLY cast CLW.
2) SPlit hit points into stuff characters get back naturally, and stuff magic heals. The two don't mix.
Thus, a Wound system that's healed by magic, or overnight rest, and a Vitality system that can top off rapidly after combat. Let the PC's determine what they want to assign to Wounds, and how much to Vitality, depending on what they are going to get healed. If magic can't heal Vitality, then no matter how much healing you have, it can't ever 'top you off'. You have to wait, and spend time...and if you have time constraints, it will play the way you run the game.
Aelryinth, you just described the Strain/Injury HP variant! :D
Okay, that's enough plugging that rule. This was just too spot-on to ignore.
Not quite.
Your Strain/injury system makes the monster/attacker determine where the damage goes, via crits or whatever.
My variant lets the PLAYER determine where the damage goes. He can turn it aside/avoid it with Vitality, or take the hit and let magic cure it fast. His choice. It gives no advantage to having a high crit weapon. It simply limits the amount of magical healing any person can get, while also allowing them to regain between encounter health more quickly on their own.
===Aelryinth
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Hmmm. Can clerics still convert spells to CxW?What would happen if, without any other houserules in place, every effect whose only function was HP recovery was completely at-will? For instance, cure X wounds must be prepared in a slot or taken as a spell known as normal, but is not expended when cast (much like a cantrip, but for higher spell levels than 0). Channeled energy, when used to do nothing but heal HP damage, does not tick off a daily usage. And so forth.
What would the game be like, if that was the only change made?
It wouldn't be that different, surprisingly.
You'd probably see more high-level healing spells used in combat than presently -- generally the action is the most "expensive" cost of a combat-heal. If they were continuously at-will, people would be a little riskier with them.
Characters would still die. What you're suggesting is not all that different from my houserule, out of combat, and yet I see characters die all the time despite the availability of mid-high level healing spells.
Sure! And it won't even cost them the spell! (Assuming they're good-aligned, or worshipping a good blah blah blah...)
Not quite.
Reading/Comprehension fail on my part. Carry on.
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Kolokotroni,
consider that the separation you are maintaining between conflict 'in-story' and conflict 'in-mechanics' may be thinner than it initially appears. that said, i agree with you in that working against attritions of different types (be it in-story "time" or in-mechanics "daily powers") is best when no particular character has, by virtue of forces strictly outside of their control, been pidgeon-holed (example: Cleric = healer = no spell diversity). which, is exactly why i like the Injury/Strain variant rules (so far)!
Jiggy,
i agree that time may or may not need to be a central theme of a given conflict. i will say that i often try my darndest to intentionally situate my plot within such a constraint because of the dramatic tension it creates in the form or my PCs arguing about strategy, tactics, morality, etc, in and out of character, leading to excitement at the table, to which i bear witness. But! i am blessed with PCs who can handle such controversy.
finally: All spells at-will?
no way. remember, even though it is a fictitious one, there is an in-game world economy to reconcile, and the repercussions of infinite resources runs counter to that, dragons or no.
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Jiggy,
i agree that time may or may not need to be a central theme of a given conflict. i will say that i often try my darndest to intentionally situate my plot within such a constraint because of the dramatic tension it creates in the form or my PCs arguing about strategy, tactics, morality, etc, in and out of character, leading to excitement at the table, to which i bear witness. But! i am blessed with PCs who can handle such controversy.
Sure, time constraint is an excellent tool in storytelling and dramatic tension. All I'm saying is that, like every excellent tool, it's not inherently required in order for there to BE conflict in the first place. Therefore, attrition (temporal or otherwise) is ALSO not inherently required. So we need not be alarmed for the safety of our storytelling at the suggestion of removing attrition as a core gameplay tenet. Relegating attrition to its proper status of "available tool that can be used if it properly serves this particular story" would, I submit, be better for the game than keeping it as a mandatory element for EVERY story.
finally: All spells at-will?
no way. remember, even though it is a fictitious one, there is an in-game world economy to reconcile, and the repercussions of infinite resources runs counter to that, dragons or no.
No no no no no, not "all spells at will". That's not at all what I said. I said that if a spell (or other ability) has no effects other than HP replenishment, then using it consumes no resources. You still need to have access to it in the first place (so the 1st-level cleric only has cure light, and if they're nongood they'd have to prepare a slot, etc), and you still follow other normal rules for it (it's still Xd8+CL, for instance), it just doesn't get used up.
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right. though pardon my venture into "realism" here: what happens to your world (economy) when the only constraint on healing spells is the willingness and personal energy levels of those endowed with access to such magic?
Honestly, on a worldwide, non-adventuring-population scale, it changes very little. A town with a "village healer" (cleric) was already capable of doing this, unless there were lots of injuries each day.
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again, teasing "realism": beyond the scale of hunter-gatherer micro-communities, what is the price and availability of healing magic? (say, in the city)?
Probably about the same as it already is in the rules (such as the settlement spellcasting availability rules, and the Core rules for the price of spellcasting services). A resource that fails to be depleted in a given day and then gets completely renewed the next morning is already an effectively limitless resource, so I see no reason that the pricing or availability would change.
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i suppose i meant my question not in context to PC access.
again, maybe my supply/demand macroscopic has no place in a fantasy game that already commodifies magic (!) - akin to fruitlessly arguing physics - but I do suppose there may very well be weird and possibly undesirable consequences in deemphasizing the nuance between 'effectively' and 'truly' unlimited healing.
economics aside, this ruling is very similar to Injury/Strain but even more permissive/dismissive of HP attrition.
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i suppose i meant my question not in context to PC access.
Presumably, NPCs are typically charged the same rates. I don't see why they wouldn't be.
economics aside, this ruling is very similar to Injury/Strain but even more permissive/dismissive of HP attrition.
It's really more of a thought experiment: if you play a game of "unmodified" Pathfinder, and then play the same adventure with no resource cost for HP recovery, then the difference (or lack thereof) between the two games will tell you a lot about how interested Pathfinder authors/GMs/players are in HP attrition as a central gameplay element.
Another thing you can do for healing is give penalties for going below 0, that must be taken care of with higher level healing magic.
Example:
A character who reaches 0 or less hit points can only take partial actions until they are at full health and receive a full night's rest, or they tear open their wounds and start losing hit points at the rate of 1 hit pt/round until stabilized again. This can be alleviated with a Cure Moderate Wounds directed solely at curing the condition once the character is at full health.
A character who reaches -1 to -10 hit points has an additional penalty until the same conditions are met (hobbled knee, cracked bone, mild concussion, etc). This penalty should be to hit, dexterity, strength, movement, or mental faculties, as is appropriate.
A Cure Serious Wounds directed at this condition removes it without healing hit points, or heals the Condition 0 and hit points.
A character who reaches -10 to -20 health suffers a fairly major trauma until the appropriate conditions are met. Losing almost all move, nearly blinded, half-stunned, broken bones, probably a permanent scar, half-severed limb, etc.
A Cure Critical Wounds directed solely at alleviating this condition will take care of it, or it can mend a -10 Condition and heal hit points.
Getting taken below -20 hit points might involve limb loss, being disemboweled or impaled, etc. Someone who can survive such punishment and keep functioning would be extraordinary.
A Heal Spell will also alleviate all the conditions, but for each one it does, it heals 20 less damage (major condition steps down to lesser first).
A Regenerate spell can fix any of the conditions without needing to be at full hit points.
Use of the Heal skill can reduce the severity of the injury by one steps, possibly two if surgery is performed, although the effects still won't go away until the character is at full health.
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Attaching conditions to going negative means characters will take a MUCH more proactive view of in combat healing, as suddenly getting dropped will have more expensive and harder to dispose of consequences, instead of being CLW'd away for a handful of gold.
But it involves adding more complexity to the system to add some realism, and taking away some of the abstraction of using Hit Points.
==Aelryinth
as a storytelling game, i find conflict to be at the heart.
but that's me.
The first goal of the game isn't the story, but for everyone to have fun.
If the GM is having fun, but the players don't, there is a problem.
If the players are having fun, but the GM doesn't, there is a problem.
If neither players nor GM are having fun, there is a big problem.
The idea that this is more of a PFS thing matches my experiences. In my last home game campaign I gave the players a CLW wand as random loot. They saw it as only slightly useful. Since starting a new campaign with the same players, they haven't expressed any interest in getting one again.
No they cost 2 prestige and and will last through level 11 in PFS more often then not.This is completely off-topic but it does reinforce that wands of CLW have certainly become ingrained in PFS if not the core rules themselves.
I had exactly the opposite experience in my home game, it enabled them to complete a dungeon that was three levels deep at a very low PC level. They were even able to do it without leaving, resting and coming back several times and cheesily re-uping all they're spells, ki, rage etc. which I think made it interesting since they couldn't go nova on every encounter.
Also what I said is relevant. Have you ever heard of the phrase "if it ain't broke don't fix it"?
The idea that this is more of a PFS thing matches my experiences. In my last home game campaign I gave the players a CLW wand as random loot. They saw it as only slightly useful. Since starting a new campaign with the same players, they haven't expressed any interest in getting one again.
No they cost 2 prestige and and will last through level 11 in PFS more often then not.This is completely off-topic but it does reinforce that wands of CLW have certainly become ingrained in PFS if not the core rules themselves.I had exactly the opposite experience in my home game, it enabled them to complete a dungeon that was three levels deep at a very low PC level. They were even able to do it without leaving, resting and coming back several times and cheesily re-uping all they're spells, ki, rage etc. which I think made it interesting since they couldn't go nova on every encounter.
Also what I said is relevant. Have you ever heard of the phrase "if it ain't broke don't fix it"?
yes, but I think we are debating Optional vs Mandatory.
What would happen if, without any other houserules in place, every effect whose only function was HP recovery was completely at-will? For instance, cure X wounds must be prepared in a slot or taken as a spell known as normal, but is not expended when cast (much like a cantrip, but for higher spell levels than 0). Channeled energy, when used to do nothing but heal HP damage, does not tick off a daily usage. And so forth.
What would the game be like, if that was the only change made?
This would change the game significantly.
Maybe a subtle change on the surface, but a major one nonetheless. It's subtle because CLW wands essentially give the healing resource pool a high capacity. However, wands are still a finite resource. Taking damage-to-be-healed still has a financial or class resource cost, which still incentivizes players to play smart even in non-deadly encounters. There will be many more consequences, perhaps too many for me to list at the moment. I'm dreadfully tired from finals week.
I do agree the healing item system and core assumptions need an overhaul. As I said earlier, I believe the problem simply stems from PCs being able to trivially carry way too much inexpensive healing at once. This is why at-will healing spells appear to have little effect on the game
This thread isn't intended to discuss the merits of HP as an attrition resource. It's intended to ask: Do people find the APs as written break down if you remove wands of cure light wounds? If yes, would a limited healing resource like 5e's hit dice shore up the problems by removing wands of cure light wounds?
Thus far we've gotten a couple of posts saying "my group doesn't use wands and we have no problems", many people saying they just give their groups various different types of HP recovery methods and a couple saying that the game would breakdown IF you did it (although apparently based on theory then real life experience).
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It's funny, but it rather speaks to my GMing style that I said Jiggy's scenario wouldn't change much.
It's because when discussing rules like this, I'm still thinking about encounter balance, or multi-encounter balance. A few other posters went straight to world-building and logical inconsistencies in the setting that would result.
That stuff is important, but it's basically irrelevant to me actually running the game. The setting is already so rife with inconsistency, and the effect of magic on society is already so haphazardly explored, that I don't even bother to process the in-setting consequences of such a change.
Perhaps I should, at least a little.
So I revise my response: It would change little in terms of encounter balance, a little more in terms of multi-encounter attrition, and it would wreak havoc on the setting assumptions (though those are already quite problematic out of the box).
It's probably because so many of us are readers and frustrated authors, and players instead of GM's. We look for the inconsistencies like someone building a world would..."If I was there I'd do this" type of things, as opposed to "my character is there and this is how things are going to work."
==Aelryinth
It's probably because so many of us are readers and frustrated authors, and players instead of GM's. We look for the inconsistencies like someone building a world would..."If I was there I'd do this" type of things, as opposed to "my character is there and this is how things are going to work."
I think you nailed it.
They're both important skills. A well-constructed world is definitely more stable to play in.
However, I've been playing in radically unstable worlds for so long that I no longer expect any consistency whatsoever.
There's nothing in the game of Pathfinder that creates an expectation of logic in the setting, so I guess I have a HUGE blind spot for issues that would purportedly wreck the society/economy.
For me, world building didn't come up because my core assumption is that there is no magic beyond what the pcs and major npcs can do. Infinite CLW wouldn't change anything in a PCs hands unless they retired from adventure and just gave out free healing all day, in which case, not a PC anymore, so what they do would be in my hands. It only changes things if random schmuck cleric #4633 can infinite heal. In my world, the vast, vast majority of priests are just people with no spellcasting.
As for what is claimed to be the "point" of this thread, I would never run an AP (or any other module, honestly), so, I have no idea how removing wands of clw would work. All I can say is that, in my own games, having no clw wands (or really, much in the way of magic at all, since no magic items and everyone I ran games for before last year has hated vancian magic with a passion and avoided it for the most part) never caused my group a problem.