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The game works by assuming each fight will take its toll on your resources. Healing is the major resource of the game, requiring either expending precious daily abilities or items that cost you money and required you to prepare ahead of time. The gameplay of D&D/PF centers around mitigating the healing cost. If you play smart and work as a team, you lower the damage party members take and lower the healing cost of the fight.
Sorry, but this just isn't the way that Pathfinder works. The math doesn't support your argument.
Let's consider a 4-person party of 8th-level PC's fighting against a CR 8 encounter. Between the four characters, the party probably has something like 300 hit points. Depending on how they "manage" the battle, there are two extreme possibilities:
1. They take almost no damage.
2. They take an enormous amount of damage, requiring close to 300 hit points worth of healing.
In the second case, the party will use up essentially a whole wand of cure light wounds after the battle, costing 750 gp.
So how much does this difference matter?
Well, according to the Treasure Values per Encounter Table, the PC's are likely to net 3,350 gp worth of treasure for the encounter, which is more than four times the cost of the wand.
And in reality, it's very unlikely that different tactics or player choices would swing an encounter between "no damage" and "almost all dead". Realistically speaking, how efficiently the players dispatch the encounter is very unlikely to make more than 250 gp worth of difference, which is less than 10% of the expected income. So a party that consistently requires lots of healing ends up at most 10% poorer, which will hardly be noticeable given how fast wealth increases. Hit points and healing just aren't a significant long-term resource in this game.
Overall, Pathfinder just isn't a resource-management game -- it's a risk mitigation game. The danger in a Pathfinder campaign isn't that the PC's will spend too much on healing and end up bankrupt. The danger in Pathfinder is that the PC's will make poor choices in a tough encounter and end up with a character death or even a TPK. The danger is that they won't be able to make it through the dungeon in time to stop the BBEG's plan to destroy the world. You lose in Pathfinder because the bad guys kick your ass, not because you run out of money.
actually, the impact of fast healing on your funds actually does matter in an AP or module, because most of them give you lots of high powered magic items that aren't quite optimized and leave you very little gold. you are very likely to find a simple +2 Falchion because it is highly unlikely to show up in the treasure of most non middle eastern themed adventure paths, but sure, expect to find a +3 keen ghost touch mithril undead bane scythe at 8th level as a hint you are going to eventually be slaying necromancers and need the firepower when not even a metropolis has the funds to give you the full extent on the half price resale on this pharasman relic and well, expect to be forced to retrain your falchion feats to scythe feats because you aren't going to be getting a better falchion any time soon. and teleporting to katapesh to buy anything you want just reeks of cheese.
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I'm sorry but you're just flat wrong.
Kestral understood my point.
I agree with Aelryinth. I previously never argued that fast healing to all PCs would make combats easier (though instant stabilizing does make them less lethal). I argued it would reduce the tension of most encounters and change the way players approach using their class abilities.You also seem to make the faulty assumption that every combat should be lethal. That's not true. Any GM worth his salt varies his encounters, such as ones merely made to wear down the party. It's much harder to do that and vary the encounters when the party can recover for free after every fight.
Furthermore, step back and look at the big picture. Even if fast healing did have the effect Cyrad is claiming, it's still irrelevant. The current design paradigm intends for a CR = APL encounter to consume 25% of the party's resources. Suppose fast healing had the impact of making a CR = APL encounter only consume 20% of the party's resources, allowing for an extra encounter per day. So what? Since four CR = APL encounters per day is an arbitrary amount to begin with, going from 4 to 5 makes no meaningful impact on the way encounters need to be designed.
Fast healing does have an impact, but it's mostly an economic one, as other people have already mentioned. I certainly wouldn't have to make encounters harder because of it.
But you just illustrated the GM would have to make encounters harder if fast healing had any effect on the resource consumption per encounter. Let me break it down.
1) Fast healing impacts the resource consumption of each encounter, even if a little. That should be obvious, even if the impact merely reduces the consumption of a CR = APL encounter from 25% to 20% as you postulated.
2) You argue that if the above point is true, then a GM only needs to add another encounter each day. (Padding the day out with another encounter is actually a big deal, but that's beside my point)
3) If the above points are true and the GM wants to keep the same number of encounters per day, then the GM must increase the CR of one or more of his encounters. With your example, the GM would need to increase CR of one encounter by +2 or two encounters by +1.
Therefore, fast healing would require the GM to make encounters harder if it had any effect on resource consumption (which it does). You just illustrated that with your example.
Maybe one could say a +1 or +2 to one or two encounters as no big deal. I can concede that point. A GM granting all PCs fast healing would be prepared for that. But to say that a GM wouldn't have to make encounters harder at all to keep the resource consumption the same? That's a fallacy.
The game works by assuming each fight will take its toll on your resources. Healing is the major resource of the game, requiring either expending precious daily abilities or items that cost you money and required you to prepare ahead of time. The gameplay of D&D/PF centers around mitigating the healing cost. If you play smart and work as a team, you lower the damage party members take and lower the healing cost of the fight.Sorry, but this just isn't the way that Pathfinder works. The math doesn't support your argument.
That example has so many flaws for various reasons. It also neither supports your claim nor does it disprove mine.
1) It views the game in isolation within a single, specific type of encounter and makes the gross assumption that a party has infinite amount of healing wands and/or the ability to exchange money for healing items at any given time. This and other ridiculous assumptions undermines the counterargument by postulating a spherical cow.
2) The example fails to look at emergent player behavior, which I consider much more important and relevant to the discussion than simply how much money the party loses each encounter.
3) Even excusing the above two points, the math provided proves against your argument. Losing up to 10% of your income is not insignificant. Even players with 12th level characters would wince at losing 250 to 750 gp on each encounter--mine certainly do, even when I'm generous on treasure.
And no. Pathfinder is a game of attrition, at least as the game design pattern described by Joris Dormans. Each encounter beats up the party's abilities, health, and items they had to buy/prepare ahead of time. If they play smart, they can get to the climax with enough resources necessary to win and save the day. Otherwise, someone might die or worse.
Even if I agree with you, you cannot deny that it's much harder to beat up the PCs if they can recover from any injury completely for free by sucking their thumb for 5 or 10 minutes. I don't want to play, run, or design for a game like that.
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the gross assumption that a party has infinite amount of healing wands and/or the ability to exchange money for healing items at any given time
That's the default assumption. Settlements have wands for sale. Encounters provide enough money to buy wands. Anything else borders on a house rule.
Even if I agree with you, you cannot deny that it's much harder to beat up the PCs if they can recover from any injury completely for free by sucking their thumb for 5 or 10 minutes.
If they do that, their buffs will wear off or they'll get attacked by a second group of enemies before they're healed.
The hit-points attrition paradigm has never really described Pathfinder as I've played it. In Carrion Crown we burned through wands casually and often fought eight or nine encounters a day. In Kingmaker we rarely fought more than one battle a day. Other times there'd be an arcane caster who'd burn through all their best spells quicker than the cleric would run out of channels.
And there usually wasn't any real time pressure. If you wanted to rest and get your spells back after a battle or two, there were rarely any negative consequences.
2) You argue that if the above point is true, then a GM only needs to add another encounter each day. (Padding the day out with another encounter is actually a big deal, but that's beside my point)...
I'm only quoting this part because I think it's the most important source of our disagreement. Specifically, by saying:
then a GM only needs to add another encounter each day.
You imply that's how the campaign is designed around the concept of a certain number of encounters per day. Maybe that's how APs are designed, but since I run homebrew, I certainly don't design my encounters that way. I don't design a dungeon and then neatly parcel it up into 4-encounter multiples. I place encounters - monsters, to be more accurate, because the actions of the PCs can impact how many of them they may fight at once - based on what I think makes the most sense. That's why this...
Padding the day out with another encounter is actually a big deal
...makes absolutely no sense to me. How exactly does a GM "pad" the day with extra encounters when the PCs for the most part determine the amount of encounters they have per day by their own actions? I'm certainly not going to conjure a forced encounter out of thin air if the PCs didn't expend enough resources - as determined by some arbitrary formula - on an arbitrary amount of encounters.
So please, tell me. You've said repeatedly fast healing alters the game in some sort of profound and fundamental way, but have alluded to that in only the vaguest sense. So I disagree with your assertion because from my perspective as a GM, fast healing would change very little - if anything - on how I construct and run my game.
Even if I agree with you, you cannot deny that it's much harder to beat up the PCs if they can recover from any injury completely for free by sucking their thumb for 5 or 10 minutes.If they do that, their buffs will wear off or they'll get attacked by a second group of enemies before they're healed.
The hit-points attrition paradigm has never really described Pathfinder as I've played it. In Carrion Crown we burned through wands casually and often fought eight or nine encounters a day. In Kingmaker we rarely fought more than one battle a day. Other times there'd be an arcane caster who'd burn through all their best spells quicker than the cleric would run out of channels.
And there usually wasn't any real time pressure. If you wanted to rest and get your spells back after a battle or two, there were rarely any negative consequences.
This, this right here. Unless the campaign is being run in a videogame-like fashion where the party must defeat X number of encounters before they can reach the save point and rest up, the amount of encounters the party faces per day is irrelevant (unless they're under some sort of external time constraint).
The game works by assuming each fight will take its toll on your resources. Healing is the major resource of the game, requiring either expending precious daily abilities or items that cost you money and required you to prepare ahead of time. The gameplay of D&D/PF centers around mitigating the healing cost. If you play smart and work as a team, you lower the damage party members take and lower the healing cost of the fight. At-will fast healing on PCs completely breaks this system and has multiple design consequences that I'd need to write a multi-page article to fully explain.
This is a matter of game design. Fast healing on a PC affects the game on a fundamental level and has wide-spread consequences on the game as a whole. That's why it's powerful.
as far as i can tell the only effect it has there is that you level up faster then you are expected to
minimal effect on wealth by level (and indeed if you have supplementary sources of income you may fall below it a little)
(Padding the day out with another encounter is actually a big deal, but that's beside my point)...thats the thing though a extra encounter per day is in no way a big deal
even if the game is assumed to be about attrition theres no reason you have to play that way
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You imply that's how the campaign is designed around the concept of a certain number of encounters per day. Maybe that's how APs are designed, but since I run homebrew, I certainly don't design my encounters that way.
Adventure Paths aren't really designed like that either. If things go badly for the party, APs almost always allow for them to retreat, replace their dead members, and return.
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Don't forget bleed damage, Fast Healing effectively neutralizes Bleed Damage.
This.
I have seen several encounters using bleed damage and fast healing was very strong in one of them and would have been in all.
Especially if the bleed has some additional effect, like healing the one making you bleed.
And, for some time I've been playing a dwarf inquisitor with the favored class bonus into buffing the healing judgment. The fast healing 5 he had at level 9 was noticeable. Especially as he could share it with another pc via shared judgment.
Sure, the shorter combats last the weaker it gets in the case of healing judgment. But in some fights it adds up.
actually, the impact of fast healing on your funds actually does matter in an AP or module, because most of them give you lots of high powered magic items that aren't quite optimized and leave you very little gold. you aren't very likely to find a simple +2 Falchion because it is highly unlikely to show up in the treasure of most non middle eastern themed adventure paths, but sure, expect to find a +3 keen ghost touch mithril undead bane scythe at 8th level as a hint you are going to eventually be slaying necromancers and need the firepower when not even a metropolis has the funds to give you the full extent on the half price resale on this pharasman relic and well, expect to be forced to retrain your falchion feats to scythe feats because you aren't going to be getting a better falchion any time soon. and teleporting to katapesh to buy anything you want just reeks of cheese.
spelling error. had to fix that because i noticed it like a day too late
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Any generally available free healing, whether it's fast healing or free cures, will upset the general parameters of the game. When it's a non-adventure path campaign, the GM can typically handle the adjustments necessary to keep it from being too overpowered. But in a module or AP, there's a pretty clear set of resources and challenges provided, and fast healing will weaken those challenges.
However, if the fast healing we're discussing is that available only through current Pathfinder standard spells/items, I'm not seeing the problem.
Ring of Regeneration: 90,000 gp - too expensive for what it gets you
Infernal Healing 1 wand = same as Cure Light Wounds wand. IH1 has slightly better consistency, doesn't surge for quick replenishment, does stop bleeds.
Castings of Greater Infernal Healing 4th level spell = guaranteed 40 hp over 1 minute vs Cure Critial Wounds 4d8 + level (max 40 hp) in one round. Same arguement as above.
Boots of the Earth is probably the most unbalanced item. It has several threads discussing it in detail. To summarize, it gives Fast Healing 1 for 5,000 gp when standing still. This can be underpowered if the GM has the world keep moving while your party waits for the owning character to heal. Or overpowered if every pause between encounters is hand-waved to allow full top-off of hit points (and possibly passing the boots around).
Some of the character abilities/special ways to get access to fast healing do result in a measurable change for that character, but not for the party as a whole. And that is as it should be, since the player devoted that build's limited resources into making this character unique and special with this focus.
IMHO I don't see a problem with the way fast healing works today, but I'd strongly lobby against cheap/cheaper fast healing items in campaigns in which I play.
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The Hunter can actually pick up Fast Healing 1 from 1st level. Take the Verminous Hunter, either shamelessly murder your animal companion or allow it to die as a martyr for your cause, apply Worm animal focus to yourself. Fast Healing 1 and scaling Fortification.
I knew there was at least one good option I was forgetting on my last count and that's it.
Also, Bramble Brewer Alchemists get some fast healing through their mutagen.
I take it your Inquisitor was avoiding the front lines or somehow just not being targeted?
Why do you assume that?
No, with a high con from being a dwarf, toughness, heavy armor from a banner bearer cavalier dip, a buckler and his trusted dwarven waraxe he was always right in the middle of it and could take quite a beating.
He went down on a regular basis. But without his shared fast healing it would have been much worse.
Well, you could always play with the bleed RAW instead of the RAI. Say that the fast healing is equaled by the bleed damage until you actually tie off the artery.Or not do bleed damage in the first place, it hasn't come up much in my games, and even if it did, no one is saying fast healing should be automatic for everybody, just easier than "harder than raising the dead."
Why should we use the silly RAW if we are told the RAI and it makes much more sense?
The intent is that any actual healing can stop bleed damage. The wording of "any spell" is a bit confusing, alas. Channeled energy, regeneration, and fast healing should all stop bleed damage.
If bleed did not come up often that is ok for you. But if you play APs you will encounter bleed damage unless your GM puts on the kids gloves. Because there are AP encounters build around bleed damage.
Don't forget bleed damage, Fast Healing effectively neutralizes Bleed Damage.This.
isn't fast healing by default a natural healing ?
so it wouldn't stop bleeding damage.
The posting directly above your clarifies that the RAI of fast healing it that it DOES stop bleed damage.
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Really, the fact that you're touting "Fast Healing is useful in combat" right next to "the character getting lots of Fast Healing was frequently knocked out" kind of proves the point that Fast Healing is not great in combat.
Still, if he did go down in combat despite fast healing, there's a good chance the fast healing made a difference between 'unconscious' and 'dead'.
While fast healing isn't worth spending all your money on, it's always a good thing. I find a few hit points makes the difference between conscious and unconscious, living or dead, fairly often.
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Only as a resource-extender.
On the one hand, it means you'll be back to full health after each fight. On the other... that's pretty much something we assume anyway.
In fights, unless your FH is really, really high it's not going to be noticeable. Fast Healing 4 is DR 4/- once per round. Um. Woo? And there aren't any ways I can think of to get a Fast Healing higher than 4 on a PC so that's pretty much your limit.
It does give you some semi-useful immunities-- Bleed effects auto-fail against you, for example, and you don't need to roll to stabilize. But that's minor stuff.
Mythic can give it as the first mythic power.
1st-Tier Guardian Path Abilities
You can select these path abilities at any tier.
Fast Healing (Ex): As a swift action, you can expend one use of mythic power to gain fast healing 5 for 1 minute. This ability can be taken a second time at 3rd tier or higher and a third time at 6th tier or higher. Each additional time you take this ability, the fast healing increases by 5.
If bleed did not come up often that is ok for you. But if you play APs you will encounter bleed damage unless your GM puts on the kids gloves. Because there are AP encounters build around bleed damage.
I have yet to see one.
... sure, let's look! I'm curious now.
Rise of the Runelords: pg 19 of the last volume, there's one guy (deals 1d8 per round for 4 rounds, though, not just 1).
Curse of the Crimson Throne: not that I can find.
The Second Darkness: pg 64 of the third volume, the greater demonic boon to Andirifkhu causes bleed 1 (not stacking); no specific NPC has this.
Legacy of Fire: pg 41 of the fifth volume has some guys with bleed 1 (it doesn't stack with itself).
Council of Thieves: pg 88 bestiary has a swarm with bleed 1; these creatures do not appear in the adventure or random encounter. Pg 28 in part three has a creature with bleed (1d2). Pp 18-19 of part four has a fellow with bleed (a rogue with the talent), as does pp 11 and 25 of part 5; speaking of part 5, there's a creature in the Bestiary on pg 84 that does so from the Bleeding Critical feat, but it does not appear in the adventure or random encounter tables. Pp 10-11 has another rogue-y fellow with the talent, as does pg 52; a critter in the bestiary on page 80 and another on pg 86 from the feat mentioned before (again, neither appear in the adventure or random encounters) round out the AP's bleed installments. That one has a lot!
I'm out of time for now, but that's what I've found to date.
Of five, one lacks it altogether, three only have a single instance (one of which isn't actually part of the AP), and one is chock full of it!
More later! (Unless someone else takes over - please, someone else, take over.)
Neat. :)
EDIT: for clarity.
Mythic can give it as the first mythic power.
1st-Tier Guardian Path Abilities
You can select these path abilities at any tier.
Fast Healing (Ex): As a swift action, you can expend one use of mythic power to gain fast healing 5 for 1 minute. This ability can be taken a second time at 3rd tier or higher and a third time at 6th tier or higher. Each additional time you take this ability, the fast healing increases by 5.
While that's good against bleed, it expends a finite resource every time. Most of this discussion has been about the concept of free healing with no limitation except having to wait a few minutes.
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Aye, the Mythic version is basically "Spend one Mythic to heal yourself of 50 hit points of damage"
Contrast with Mythic Spellcasting: Spend one mythic to cast any spell you could normally cast. Like, oh, HEAL. Granted, the guardian ability is available at a low level, but it rapidly falls behind in usefulness. Having to blow more mythic power on it so it scales is just blatantly unfair.
==Aelryinth
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... sure, let's look! I'm curious now.
Rise of the Runelords: pg 19 of the last volume, there's one guy (deals 1d8 per round for 4 rounds, though, not just 1).
Curse of the Crimson Throne: not that I can find.
The Second Darkness: pg 64 of the third volume, the greater demonic boon to Andirifkhu causes bleed 1 (not stacking); no specific NPC has this.
Legacy of Fire: pg 41 of the fifth volume has some guys with bleed 1 (it doesn't stack with itself).
Council of Thieves: pg 88 bestiary has a swarm with bleed 1; these creatures do not appear in the adventure or random encounter. Pg 28 in part three has a creature with bleed (1d2). Pp 18-19 of part four has a fellow with bleed (a rogue with the talent), as does pp 11 and 25 of part 5; speaking of part 5, there's a creature in the Bestiary on pg 84 that does so from the Bleeding Critical feat, but it does not appear in the adventure or random encounter tables. Pp 10-11 has another rogue-y fellow with the talent, as does pg 52; a critter in the bestiary on page 80 and another on pg 86 from the feat mentioned before (again, neither appear in the adventure or random encounters) round out the AP's bleed installments. That one has a lot!
I'm out of time for now, but that's what I've found to date.
Of five, one lacks it altogether, three only have a single instance (one of which isn't actually part of the AP), and one is chock full of it!
More later! (Unless someone else takes over - please, someone else, take over.)
Neat. :)
EDIT: for clarity.
I'll check the three I have access to right now.
AP 67 Snows of Summer page 28 has one with 1d4 bleed.
AP 68 Shackled Hut Page 20 bleed 3.
AP 69 Mother Maiden Crone Page 18 three with 1d4 and can summon more, Page 27 four with 1d4 and can summon more, Page 40 two with 1d4 and can summon more, Page 90 unused new monster with 1d4.
So...
Reign of Winter [67-69, at least]: six (one of which isn't used).
That's about as many as Council of Thieves, though CoT had one more and had one more unused monster. It's a bit of a wash for which one has more in that case.
Thanks!
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So...
Reign of Winter [67-69, at least]: six (one of which isn't used).
That's about as many as Council of Thieves, though CoT had one more and had one more unused monster. It's a bit of a wash for which one has more in that case.
Thanks!
Close, 69 uses three, four and two of the same type at various points, so nine of one type with 1d4 bleed showing up in the module, and they can potentially summon more. That plus the unused bestiary one.
Gonna go ahead and ask the big question that NEEDS to be asked when answering "Is X useful?" How are we getting X?
In this case, before we can even begin to argue if Fast Healing will benefit us, we need to know how we are getting it.
If you have it naturally, then heck yeah! No need to throw away a perfectly good resource! If you're getting it through spell (Infernal Healing) or magic item, then it becomes a matter of situation.
or it could come from being on a minor positive dominant plane
or it could come from being on a minor positive dominant plane
Excellent point! In which case, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, i say! Unless of course you are on the Plane of Positive Energy....
well i dont know much about the pathfinder cosmology but i just checked the prd and none of the outer planes are minor positive so i guess its more being on a minor dominant part of the positive energy plane or a demiplane i suppose
of course in the great wheel the plane that was minor positive it did not matter a whole lot if you got killed anyway
Carrion crown 1st book: One of the incorporeal enemies (forgot which) used bleed attack hit-and run tactics and was healed by the bleed damage.
Kingmaker 2nd or 3rd book: A quickling combined spring attack with natural invisibility and bleeding sneak attacks. Not sure if it is in the AP or was a 6-Player conversion. Normal quicklings just have 1d6 sneak attack without bleed.
well i dont know much about the pathfinder cosmology but i just checked the prd and none of the outer planes are minor positive so i guess its more being on a minor dominant part of the positive energy plane or a demiplane i suppose
of course in the great wheel the plane that was minor positive it did not matter a whole lot if you got killed anyway
well i suppose there is the first world but that does not grant fast healing in most places