What would be your ideal ruleset for how healing works in PF2?
Have you played any other game systems that do healing particularly well? How could PF2 adapt those strategies?
What would you consider the most important design goals when establishing a system for healing?
I would suggest the following fixes:
1) Beef up the Heal skill so that with one minute of work and a successful roll vs a given DC you can "treat serious wounds" and heal, say, 1d6+LVL of hit points.
2) Allow healing potions to work at minimum CL with no resonance investment, and at current character level of the imbiber if they invest one resonance point. Or the result could simply be maximized (1d8 becomes 8 hit points healed).
3) Assuming that there will be a variety of ways to negate damage, between the Raise Shield mechanic, or various reaction actions like dodge or parry, you can suppose that players can invest actions to reduce their chances of being wounded. This would radically reduce the need for healing (and hence for short adventuring days) from the get-go.
I'm not invested deeply in any particular implementation, but I'd like to see the need for dedicated healers deemphasized, as (1) that's a generally unfun role to play, (2) trying to balance out an unfun role by making it more powerful in other areas had... less than great results when 3e was designed, such that its offshoots have been suffering ever since, and (3) more flexibility in party composition is better.
So you probably want to spread healing around. Giving everyone a hp reserve (as in 4e or 5e), having more classes that have healing access but don't have it as their main schtick, and letting the Heal skill do more (maybe with skill feats) would all be good, and the last would also go towards giving martials more things out of combat. I might also be inclined to say that short rests just let you go up to 50% (or something) of your hp.
The resonance system, on its own, seems to make the situation worse - "spam wands of CLW" is goofy in a peasant-railgun way but a lesser evil than "every party needs a cleric" - but to be fair we don't know enough about the entire rules ecology to really make a judgment.
How about a Stamina system (but without Resolve)?
Every level, you gain Stamina Points equal to your Con, and Hit Points based off your class.
Stamina Points are lost first, once you run out of Stamina you start taking HP damage.
A 10-minute rest restores all your Stamina Points.
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How about a Stamina system (but without Resolve)?
Every level, you gain Stamina Points equal to your Con, and Hit Points based off your class.
Stamina Points are lost first, once you run out of Stamina you start taking HP damage.
A 10-minute rest restores all your Stamina Points.
Please god, just no.
I HATE the stamina mechanic. I don't need two hit point pools to track. It is so needlessly complicated.
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Why can't we just keep what we have in PF1?
Why re-invent the wheel (for normal damage)?
For non-lethal damage, make it so any non-lethal makes the final blow non-lethal unless the one striking it declares they are going for a killing attack?
Don't keep separate pools, though.
Track them in the same pool.
How about a Stamina system (but without Resolve)?
Every level, you gain Stamina Points equal to your Con, and Hit Points based off your class.
Stamina Points are lost first, once you run out of Stamina you start taking HP damage.
A 10-minute rest restores all your Stamina Points.
Please god, just no.
I HATE the stamina mechanic. I don't need to hit point pools to track. It is so needlessly complicated.
I'm totally for it, instead.
And I would extend it to other resources, too, like the wizard regaining her lower-level slots. Or some of them, at least.We generally want to avoid:
1) retreating to rest in the middle of a quest, because you are out of resources and going on would be a suicide;
2) CLW wand spamming;
3) going nova on every fight.
This solution would solve all these problems: you still have to manage your most powerful resources and your HP, keeping healing items or spells for critical injuries or for emergencies during combat, but you can generally go on with your adventure without having to stop for a whole eight hours.
A DM could use chained encounters when appropriate, which would make for a different challenge.
I would just not make it so simple as "you lose all stamina first", because it would basically negate all little wounds and that feels too much. My first idea would be using a threshold (based on CON, class, level, whatever) that works like DR, something like: your Barbarian's threshold is 4, so every time you are damaged the first 4 damage go to stamina and the rest to HP.
Of course when your stamina is over, all damage goes to HP.
Here is a system that occurred to me while thinking about the new healing rules:
Consumable magic items such as wands and potions should create a pool of magical hit points equal to the maximum possible effect of the underlying spell (or perhaps even a bit more). Magical hit points cannot exceed the amount of damage taken and (most importantly) do not stack with other magical hit points. These hit points are lost last, after all "normal" hit points have been lost.
You would obviously have to re-scale the Cure X Wounds spells and associated items since you cannot cast these spells multiple times to fully heal somebody.
A: no need for a dedicated healer or expectation for one character to bear the burden of being the healing resource.
B: make a dedicated healer build available and obvious in core, and make it very awesome if someone wants that role.
C: make the Heal Skill Damn Good, relatively quick (I use one minute per patient, two for self treatment) and free or very cheap. Every party should desire a medic with the Heal Skill (but the game should be totally playable without one.)
(B), or at least a naive implementation of it, was how we got the 3e cleric: a class that had giant fluorescent THIS IS THE HEALING CLASS signs taped all over it, and had its overall power pushed (deliberately, not just by accident like the wizard) so that someone at the table would suck it up and agree to play the healer.
Result? Healing is still boring, wands are silly but way less hassle than sticking someone with a boring job, and CoDzilla.
There are no doubt other implementations (4e's heal/attack combos might point the way to one), but any are going to have to deal with the fact that no amount of power is going to make dedicated healing fun (for most players,) and any power increase to more fun aspects of a class is just going to get people to focus on those more fun aspects.
would just not make it so simple as "you lose all stamina first", because it would basically negate all little wounds and that feels too much. My first idea would be using a threshold (based on CON, class, level, whatever) that works like DR, something like: your Barbarian's threshold is 4, so every time you are damaged the first 4 damage go to stamina and the rest to HP.
Of course when your stamina is over, all damage goes to HP.A: This is WAY too complicated.
B: I favor story encounters for fun and dread battles for challenges. I am perfectly happy with the party being at full health and 80% magic when they encounter a difficult battle.
C: I like the option to flavor all damage as meat points. (Totally respect the choice of others, this is my choice as a GM and once in a blue moon player)
I understand that rules must be kept simple.
But how do you solve those problems? The Heal skill solution is frankly absurd, if a blow sent you close to dying you can't just patch up the wound in a few minutes and be good to go. Unless you use magic, or your skill is really really high, to the point that you can achieve incredible things.It seems that PF 2e does offer this option (Medicine with skill unlock heals HP, they said), but it doesn't really work until a certain level.
I still think that a stamina approach, well thought to keep it simple, would be the best one.
Personally I would like Constitution to take a much bigger role in healing whether its natural or magical. The simplest way I can see doing that is adding con mod to the amount of healing received (and further penalizing low con characters).
Its been a long time but I recall a game (I want to say it was dark heresy but dont quote me on that) where I was playing a psychic kind of character and you could only benefit from a number of psychic healings per day. This could also become a rule so players couldnt just make a cure light wounds wand and go to town with it. It would be easy to convert to pathfinder by just saying you can recieve a number of healing spells that is 2x your con modifier (to a minimum of one) per day. Adding in an optional rule that the forced magical healing takes a toll on the body and receiving to many can make a target become fatigued, then exhausted, then comatose
would just not make it so simple as "you lose all stamina first", because it would basically negate all little wounds and that feels too much. My first idea would be using a threshold (based on CON, class, level, whatever) that works like DR, something like: your Barbarian's threshold is 4, so every time you are damaged the first 4 damage go to stamina and the rest to HP.
Of course when your stamina is over, all damage goes to HP.A: This is WAY too complicated.
B: I favor story encounters for fun and dread battles for challenges. I am perfectly happy with the party being at full health and 80% magic when they encounter a difficult battle.
C: I like the option to flavor all damage as meat points. (Totally respect the choice of others, this is my choice as a GM and once in a blue moon player)
I understand that rules must be kept simple.
But how do you solve those problems? The Heal skill solution is frankly absurd, if a blow sent you close to dying you can't just patch up the wound in a few minutes and be good to go. Unless you use magic, or your skill is really really high, to the point that you can achieve incredible things.Real world? Sure.
Fantasy world filled with amazing plants and vegetation with incredible powers of healing and restoration? Nah, not a problem at all.
In my own games, from level 1, Heal Skill is very appealing. They need a Healer's Kit [50 gold, never runs out except in very rare and extreme circumstances determined by GM fiat because the character is gradually restocking it the same way a spellcaster is his spell component pouch] and takes one minute's work to heal the target by a number of the target's Hit Dice equal to the healer's ranks. [So a 1st level medic Healing a 1st level Barbarian would heal him by 1d12, a 2nd level medic healing a 4th level Fighter would heal him by 2d10, etc]
It seems that PF 2e does offer this option (Medicine with skill unlock heals...
Good point, besides the fact that Medicine unlock kicks in at higher levels when magic healing is easier, leaving a gap at the lower ones where you said it would have a more important role.
I still think that working a bit on the stamina idea could produce a good rule that isn't too complicated.
For example:
- give characters less HP per level;
- give them a stamina pool: 1 point at lvl 1 and more later (with some classes getting extra stamina and having feats to increase it);
- when you are hit you can spend stamina to ignore damage from the blow, up to a limit that depends on factors like level and CON bonus: it works just like a DR, but with limited uses;
- your stamina pool recharges with 15 minutes of rest.
There: you have a more interesting rule with just one resource (stamina points) to track, and one value (DR amount) that may only change when you level up.
Given the rise in 1st level hit points, I think it unlikely that Paizo has any plans for using stamina points.
However, not to belabor my earlier suggestions, I think there are several non-complex solutions to allow some measure of healing even for parties without clerics or other dedicated healers.
1) Without making the Heal skill ridiculous, it could be slightly beefed up so that with a minute of work you can heal, say 1d6+(the healer's LVL, assuming there are no longer such a thing as skill ranks)
2) Healing potions without resonance investment could heal at minimum CL (1d8 for a potion of CLW) and with resonance investment that roll could be maximized (1d8 becomes 8) or give 1d8 per character level.
3) Alchemists could be able to make non-magical healing "philters" that heal 1d8 with no resonance investment necessary (or possible).
4) The existence of defensive actions like Raise Shield and various sorts of dodge or parry actions or reactions could reduce damage suffered. The more wounded a character becomes, the more incentive he'll have to include defensive actions in his 3-action sequence. That right there would lengthen the adventuring day significantly.
5) We've already seen that clerics will have new options for healing, depending on how many rounds they use for their bursts. I've never understood people's aversion to playing clerics anyway, since they are very adequate fighters in addition to having their panoply of healing and other spells.
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5) We've already seen that clerics will have new options for healing, depending on how many rounds they use for their bursts. I've never understood people's aversion to playing clerics anyway, since they are very adequate fighters in addition to having their panoply of healing and other spells.
Just want to stick my head in here and mention that I don't think people have a problem with occasionally playing a cleric. Where people like me start to object is when there becomes a pattern established on one person in the group getting stuck with always playing the cleric. [note that in this context "cleric" is synonymous with "primary healer" even though those are not necessarily equivalent concepts]
Because that happens, and it sucks. It gets boring and frustrating to feel forced into similar roles over and over again, even if that pressure isn't explicit. It's also emotionally draining when that role (at least in my experience) has a higher incidence of being taken for granted because it's not as flashy as dealing the mega-damage-killing-blow-of-doom.
EDIT: and while some of that can be largely a group problem, that problem can be mitigated by more/better options of getting the healing done without strongly tying it to a specific party role. It's taken my players a while to come around to the idea of a "party healing fund," but doing so has vastly improved the play experience for the one player who used to be the constant cleric.
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5) We've already seen that clerics will have new options for healing, depending on how many rounds they use for their bursts. I've never understood people's aversion to playing clerics anyway, since they are very adequate fighters in addition to having their panoply of healing and other spells.Just want to stick my head in here and mention that I don't think people have a problem with occasionally playing a cleric. Where people like me start to object is when there becomes a pattern established on one person in the group getting stuck with always playing the cleric. [note that in this context "cleric" is synonymous with "primary healer" even though those are not necessarily equivalent concepts]
Because that happens, and it sucks. It gets boring and frustrating to feel forced into similar roles over and over again, even if that pressure isn't explicit. It's also emotionally draining when that role (at least in my experience) has a higher incidence of being taken for granted because it's not as flashy as dealing the mega-damage-killing-blow-of-doom.
EDIT: and while some of that can be largely a group problem, that problem can be mitigated by more/better options of getting the healing done without strongly tying it to a specific party role. It's taken my players a while to come around to the idea of a "party healing fund," but doing so has vastly improved the play experience for the one player who used to be the constant cleric.
It's not even just that - even once, it's not cool to say "You are the last one to build your character, and we already have a ranger, a barbarian, and a wizard, so you need to be the healer." PF1 allowed massive freedom in that you could very much completely ignore "party composition"/"party balance" and still be basically OK most of the time. I would like to see that same feature in PF2.
Make the Heal skill work like the kinetic healing blast - a very good amount of healing with a 'can't get rid of without sleep' non-lethal damage.
I actually kind of like the kinetic heal...
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I think non-lethal damage as we know it isn't going to return in favor of the starfinder system, but that could be approximated with levels of fatigue or hampered conditions. I think having to accept the equivalent of burn for being treated with the heal skill is a great trade-off for removing the 1/day benefit restriction of treat deadly wounds and/or the 1 hour action time, both of which make the heal skills basically useless in practice in PF1.
Then add in skill unlocks (or whatever they're calling them in PF2) which make it go faster or heal more effectively or "hurt less." I feel like a functional heal skill has potential to be a great "replacement" for the CLW spam that everyone is fighting for or against lately.
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Yes, making mundane medicine useful should be a system goal.
People complain about parties sitting around spamming CLW wands appearing in no narrative. If we actually look at narratives of heroic fights, what you have after battles is the "pulling out arrows and bullets and bandaging wounds montage."
Except that doesn't work in PF1 or SF because the heal/medicine skill is useless for restoring HP.
1) Without making the Heal skill ridiculous, it could be slightly beefed up so that with a minute of work you can heal, say 1d6+(the healer's LVL, assuming there are no longer such a thing as skill ranks)
Um, right now, Treat Deadly Wounds (TDW) in PF does the target's level in hit points, plus the healer's wisdom bonus if it succeeds by 5 or more. DC20. The only drawbacks are 1) once a day per target and 2) there's this really dumb penalty to the check that happens as the healer kit declines. (-2 per usage burned, and so that's -4 per TDW).
TDW is just 10 minutes, and takes two charges out of the ten the kit has.
If you make that extra 5 check, it's actually better on average than d6+healer's level for anybody who has a +4 wisdom bonus or higher, and has a good chance of being better for +2 or +3 wisdom people.
Of course if you get rid of the penalty (which needs to happen anyways as there's no way of refilling a kit by RAW aside from buying a whole new one), and make this at will, you'll end up with the new CLW wand: a healing kit is 50 gold, 10 charges. That's 10 gold per TDW, and it's almost instantly better than CL1 CLW if you can make the 5 extra points. At level 15, with a wisdom bonus of oh, +8, you would heal 23 hit points.
If you just get rid of the penalty and say make it once per target per combat encounter (or say per injury, with injuries not accumulating past the first), that might be moar practical.
Plus if you treat someone overnight, it's like 2x level healing. 4x for all-day resting.
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Anyone here remember Neverwinter Nights?
In that series, healers kits were single uses, but very commonly found items, which when used restored hit points equal to a character's heal check result. Improved healers kits existed which gave a bonus to the heal check.
What if we borrow something like that idea plus Starfinder's ten minute rest?
Using a healing kit takes 10 minutes, and restores hit points based on the user's medicine skill. Masterwork or better healers kits exist for bonuses on the check or more hit points restored.
I think the best solutions is : RITUALS !!
They can't be used in combat and don't need a spellcaster to perform them. Using several people makes them easier to use. So that's perfect or a party, no matter its composition.
Just give them a DC not too high, an expensive component (price depending on the amount to heal) and a cooldown of a few hours (or a daily limit to perform) to avoid infinite spam.
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Make the numbers healed with curing spells less swingy.
If you look at the Cure XX wound s spells, then they should head an average character of the level at which they are gained about 50% of their hit points (I was assuming a d8 character with a +2 bonus was an average character), then abou 1/3 at the even numbered level between. But because they use d8s it is easy to roll badly and then have to cast another spell, and another...
Assuming current levels of HP, turning each d8 into it 2d4, or d4 + stat modifier would mean more consistent amounts of healing, and less of the "my god hates you" cures for piddling amounts.
Channeling is underpowered as well - make it d6/ level, possibly plus stat bonus and it becomes worth using. As currently statted it doesn't keep pace with damage output at all
Anyone here remember Neverwinter Nights?
In that series, healers kits were single uses, but very commonly found items, which when used restored hit points equal to a character's heal check result. Improved healers kits existed which gave a bonus to the heal check.
What if we borrow something like that idea plus Starfinder's ten minute rest?
Using a healing kit takes 10 minutes, and restores hit points based on the user's medicine skill. Masterwork or better healers kits exist for bonuses on the check or more hit points restored.
I feel like this is getting back into "every party needs a healer" territory... which is not where we're trying to go.
Having some form of healing is important.
It's a dedicated Healer role we're trying to prevent.
Mark Seifer made a comment in one of the other threads.
By the way, if this turns into Healing Surges, I'm blaming you.
(just kidding) ;)
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Mark Seifer made a comment in one of the other threads.Having some form of healing is important.
It's a dedicated Healer role we're trying to prevent.
Hmmm, that's a little concerning, in that the post kind of does imply that you need someone to invest their build or spells into healing. It's somewhat reassuring that that healer could be of any class, but it's still markedly worse than PF1 where you simply did not need to invest anything except the gp for a Wand of CLW.
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I want a variety of healing options. Big, beefy barbarians should be able to crack open a cold one for self-heals. We should have alchemists with sniper rifles so they can distribute healing infusions at long range. Bards should have an AoE passive heal that increases in power with bard song. Monks should be able to achieve nirvana and get themselves infinite healing as a level 20 capstone ability. I'd also love to have some sort of flying angel chick with short ranged heals and spontaneous resurrections.
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'Free' healing without investment is a bug, not a feature. Your choices should mean something.
How is it a meaningful choice if it's required for every party?
I'd make cure spells channelable on one target for Spell level rounds.
So cure moderate wounds can be cast continuously for two rounds to heal 4d8+2×CL, to improve the GP economy of healing.
Hmmm, that's a little concerning, in that the post kind of does imply that you need someone to invest their build or spells into healing. It's somewhat reassuring that that healer could be of any class, but it's still markedly worse than PF1 where you simply did not need to invest anything except the gp for a Wand of CLW.
Ugh. I'd hardly call that an investment past level 4 or so. Also, depending on how Wealth By Level is used at the table, the investment might end up being paid for by the Bank of WBL.
Why should people get healing for free? You have to pay for damage, and skills, and .. special.. thingies. They cost feats and skill points and weird archetypes and strange races that have penalties and opportunity costs and such.
Sure, that raging barbarian can do 80+ points of damage at first level on a crit (PF1 of course).. but he had to give up a shield to have a two handed weapon, he gave up 19-20 crit range to have a x3 weapon, he had to spend a feat slot on power attack, he had to spend a round of rage, he had to dump stats to get to 20 str and decent dex/con to stand that close, and he gave up the ability to cast vanish or shield of fai.. er, protection from evil or do sneak attacks. He paid for it.
(biggest run-on sentence..ever)
Also.. if the PF2 barbarian is able to heal the whole party with specialization, I doubt it costs all that much. Have you ever been a healer? A full size party is a major drain on healing resources. If a barbarian can do it with specialization, someone without or with very minor specialization can probably heal themselves at almost no cost.
How is it a meaningful choice if it's required for every party?
It's not required for every party. In-combat healing in PF1 has been deemed to be useless by the All-Knowing Internet, and you can out-of-combat heal given enough time, even just by lazing around for a few days. And it sounds like it's going to be easier in PF2 even without the Wand of Training Wheels.
You could flip that logic around and say that um, damage dealing, having a face, being able to disable traps, utility spells, etc are all required, and therefore should be a 750 gp wand with 50 charges or baked into every class or whatever.
Hmmm, that's a little concerning, in that the post kind of does imply that you need someone to invest their build or spells into healing. It's somewhat reassuring that that healer could be of any class, but it's still markedly worse than PF1 where you simply did not need to invest anything except the gp for a Wand of CLW.
Many classes needed to invest in UMD.
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'Free' healing without investment is a bug, not a feature. Your choices should mean something.How is it a meaningful choice if it's required for every party?
It means you aren't going to die.
More seriously, having a healer is not required. It's just easier when you do.
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I like Healing Surges. I don't think there is anything wrong with them. HP is an abstraction, and the hero who has gotten all beaten up finds a second wind and proceeds to kick butt is basically a trope of action movies.
More seriously, having a healer is not required. It's just easier when you do.
That's a perfect point at the end there.
If it's ever not easier with a healer, then the devs were obviously napping during Game Balance 101.
Of course on the flip side of the coin, a party of all-healers should also be harder than a more balanced party composed of skill people, damage people, CC people, and stuffs.
Class synergy between different classes should always be a thing.
I'm all for arcane as well as divine healing.
I want healing and condition removal options that are practical and not locked behind one class. Mark Seifter’s post here gives me hope we will get this.
Being able to heal between fights means scenarios don’t suddenly become much more deadly because you hit one battle that you weren’t able to handle very well. I don’t want a bad set of dice rolls on one battle to carry forward so that the whole scenario spins off to disaster. I like that a high constitution can somewhat make up for a poor armor class as the character heals between battles.
I think healing should be more abundant and spread around. I think maybe each character should be able to heal themselves, automatically, by just resting in between battles.
But, there are two distinct types of healing--in-combat and after-combat healing. I think maybe there should be more of the latter.
I want healing and condition removal options that are practical and not locked behind one class. Mark Seifter’s post here gives me hope we will get this.
Being able to heal between fights means scenarios don’t suddenly become much more deadly because you hit one battle that you weren’t able to handle very well. I don’t want a bad set of dice rolls on one battle to carry forward so that the whole scenario spins off to disaster. I like that a high constitution can somewhat make up for a poor armor class as the character heals between battles.
I'm glad to see that linked post~