| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd say the 4 hp from an AoE healing spell compares favorably with a 1st level PF1e cleric's 1d6 channelThe spell slot itself is a major consideration. At 1st level, you could have a Cleric with 3 spell slots and 4 uses of channel. Not requiring the use of a spell slot is a pretty big deal there.
In addition, you actually need a decent wisdom modifier to do this. If you're a more martial Cleric with 14 wisdom, that's only 2 points of healing. That's not nearly as good as the channeling option they got in PF1, and it's unlikely such a character will be able to make use of the AoE version of this spell.
IIRC Playtest Kyra could cast CLW using some class/domain power instead of a spell slot. Had like 4 per day... Think gonna be a spell-point absed feature to replace spont cast.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd say the 4 hp from an AoE healing spell compares favorably with a 1st level PF1e cleric's 1d6 channelThe spell slot itself is a major consideration. At 1st level, you could have a Cleric with 3 spell slots and 4 uses of channel. Not requiring the use of a spell slot is a pretty big deal there.
In addition, you actually need a decent wisdom modifier to do this. If you're a more martial Cleric with 14 wisdom, that's only 2 points of healing. That's not nearly as good as the channeling option they got in PF1, and it's unlikely such a character will be able to make use of the AoE version of this spell.
We saw that the iconic PF2E cleric has a separate pool of spell points they can cast heal with. Whether that is a default cleric power or something specific to the healing domain hasn't been revealed.
Also, if you are a martial cleric in PF1 odds are you were MAD enough to dump Charisma and have less than 3 channels. From what we know about stat creation in PF2 it doesn't seems like you'd have to work pretty hard to only have a 14 in wisdom, given ancestries have better ability bonuses + bonuses that float, and BAB being gone means less need to max strength to keep up with the martials.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd say the 4 hp from an AoE healing spell compares favorably with a 1st level PF1e cleric's 1d6 channel, especially since the 2e spell can both heal the party and harm undead at the same time. And it scales much better than the 1e mass cure spells - compare the 5th level new version at 4d8+mod to mass cure light wounds at 1d8+10 at level 10.
The fact that basic healing spell can do both AoE and ranged healing if desired also really helps with getting healing to dying characters.
I think due to the lack of a roll, it's probably better. I'm just wondering about the interaction with HP. What monster damage output looks like is a big factor in this. Although you're right that it does really outperform the mass version.
Just 2 points I'd like to add:
1) The 'also damages undead' bit is only a significant factor in undead- heavy campaigns. Most of the time it won't matter.
2) The AOE version should be compared vs Channel, as that was PF1's AoE healing. If the Spell Points allow Heal to auto-scale, then it compares really well. I'm a little worried about that, but I'm currently going to take Mark at his word about a Cleric not being necessary as a healer. (Especially since it sounds like the office playtests they do are often higher level games)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Also, if you are a martial cleric in PF1 odds are you were MAD enough to dump Charisma and have less than 3 channels.
The point is that no matter how hard you dump charisma, you still got a usable AoE healing ability that didn't touch your spell slots. A Cleric with 8 charisma still gets 2 channels per day, and that's an average of 7 points healed to the entire party (if damage is spread evenly). In PF2, a cleric with low wisdom just doesn't have a functional AoE heal. There's no way you're expending spell slots for so little return.
In any event, this is all in a vacuum and it's entirely possible (likely, even) that Clerics have lots of other goodies to make up for whatever they may have lost.
...This does not bode well for my hopes regarding the PF2 economy...Actually, in Starfinder that won't work as the math for NPCs is designed to produce different results than PCs. An NPC will have lower AC, better attack rolls, and better skills than an equivalent level PC.
I'm really hoping that isn't true for PF2e as that was major 4e dealbreaker for me.
They have specifically said this is not true in PF2 and that building a character using the PC rules as an enemy is both legal and will result in a challenge of the right CR for the level of the character (or whatever term they use). So you should be good to go there.
The way they put it is that the PC rules are one route to power in-setting but not the only one. So using the NPC/Monster creation rules is, thematically, the same as giving them NPC Classes or using Racial HD was in the previous edition (ie: something unavailable to PCs but an existent thing in-setting). I'm cool with that explanation, as long as the system supports it.
You are correct that either path works just fine in PF2. We don't have legacy math requirements and the dominated PC problem isn't as big (thanks to Critical Successes and Failures; for instance, when Jason's wizard got dominated, he nearly TPKed us right away blowing all his best abilities on us after we were hammered by the enemies, but since it wasn't a critical failure, he broke free shortly thereafter), so there's no need to have the NPCs on a shifted math scale like in Starfinder.
Thus, you can build like a PC, or use the monster generation rules, and they'll both work out great! The one trick of building like a PC is the NPC might drop way too much wealth, so I personally am considering using a hybrid for in-depth NPCs where I build like a PC at first but then don't give PC wealth and instead use the monster rule guidelines to give some quick automatic bonus progression.
Unless you have really tight encumbrance rules and really strict on encumbrance for loot drops. Lots of stuff dropping but you can't effectively cary much of it off other than the light easily pocketed stuff like some coins and gems.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The point is that no matter how hard you dump charisma, you still got a usable AoE healing ability that didn't touch your spell slots. A Cleric with 8 charisma still gets 2 channels per day, and that's an average of 7 points healed to the entire party (if damage is spread evenly). In PF2, a cleric with low wisdom just doesn't have a functional AoE heal. There's no way you're expending spell slots for so little return.
Also, if you are a martial cleric in PF1 odds are you were MAD enough to dump Charisma and have less than 3 channels.
I strongly suspect you shouldn't build a cleric with as low wisdom as you could get away with in PF1, and at the very least I suspect keeping your wisdom high enough will be very easy to do because the new stat system seems more generous than point buys usually are, and the iconic cleric got 4 none spellslot heals instead of 2. And you no longerhave to decide between harming undead or healing the living with the same channel. If you have 16 wisdom you are only a point behind the old channel at level 1. If you have 14... Well, yeah, you are neglecting your cleric stat so you're not going to be as good at clericing.
Also, even if the AoE healing lags behind at level 1, your single target heals for more and at range. It's hard to say how the heal spell points will scale, but if it gets bumped to your highest spell level it will get stronger in comparison to channel with every level.
Unless you have really tight encumbrance rules and really strict on encumbrance for loot drops. Lots of stuff dropping but you can't effectively cary much of it off other than the light easily pocketed stuff like some coins and gems.
I was just thinking about that earlier today. If they keep the bulk system rather tight, it would really help with the whole 'take ever last dagger' issues that annoy me.
Also, even if the AoE healing lags behind at level 1, your single target heals for more and at range. It's hard to say how the heal spell points will scale, but if it gets bumped to your highest spell level it will get stronger in comparison to channel with every level.
I seem to remember someone mentioning in another thread that they said level adds in to the 'Spellcasting Modifier', too, which would have a pretty large impact on scaling as well. I kind of wonder how accurate that info was, though, since they said it was from the Glass Cannon playtest recordings, which seemed like level wasn't adding in from they way they were talking about ability scores. I wonder if we'll know the answer before the release or not... hopefully there will be lots of info out of PaizoCon.
Seems to me that the single target healing scales rather fast considering how many times you can cast it in a turn.
So if you have 3 lvl 2 spell slots thats 9d8+X for 3 actions, though you spend your spell slots a LOT faster.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
Seems to me that the single target healing scales rather fast considering how many times you can cast it in a turn.
So if you have 3 lvl 2 spell slots thats 9d8+X for 3 actions, though you spend your spell slots a LOT faster.
I thought about this last night. If you're willing to burn spells slots you can most certainly nova heal. Even at level 1 spending three slots/actions gets you 3d8+12, which more than tops off nearly any 1st level PC even from the brink of death.
By level 12 or so spending 3 6th level slots gets you 33d8+3*Wis mod; if we assume a modest 20 Wis at level 12, that's an average of 163.5 healing as a full round action. That's more than PF1e heal - the drawback being that it uses more slots.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I’m really liking the ability to, at substantial cost, outheal incoming damage (for one target) at most levels.