Martial artist archetype let you be of any alignment., I thinkOff topic: Really? Have a player that wants to do Monk/barbarian so that sounds like it can be possible now.
Yep. Just checked again martial artist
I question how your rule effects your in game buying practices as a whole then. God what goes unused or sold off? God a sub par wand is probably vendor trash under this outlook.
I also ask just what people are using their newly saved gold to buy thanks to saving gold with CLW wands.
Responding to the one sentence I more or less understand: CLW wands don't save money. They save spell slots. One uses them to heal so that clerics can use their spells for other stuff.
I guess they save money compared to using, say, wands of Cure Serious Wounds for out of combat healing, but that isn't something I ever thought of doing in the first place. The 10,000gp or so I 'save' by not buying that wand goes on buying other cool magic items.
The 15gp saved by not wasting an individual wand charge? Well, that can be donated to the poor. It's not much to a mid-level adventurer, but it's enough for a normal person to live off for five months.
Wait you rule of thumb is 1gp is close to $100. I've no idea how you get that.
The numbers in no way add up. 10ft of Chain does not cost $3000, it costs less the $50. Or a days worth of trail rations does not cost $50. What on earth caused you to pick such a high conversion rate as a rule of thumb? 1 GP = $10-20 might be reasonable.
It really depends on exactly which items you're looking at. You can pick specific prices to justify a higher or lower conversion rule of thumb, since the pricing tends to be all over the map. For instance, a bar of soap is 1 CP ($1), a hammock is 1 SP ($10), and a one night stay in a typical inn is 5 sp ($50).
All of which point to 1GP being not $100 to me. Soap at 50c sounds more reasonable, as does a night at somewhere pretty low end being closer to $25. If you use $100 most starting weapons cost over a grand.
You're nitpicking on the cost of the soap there. 1 CP is as low as Pathfinder's currency system goes, and $1 for an unspecified bar of soap is well within reasonable expectations.
5 sp per night is for mid-range accommodations. Low-end accommodations are 2 sp per night, which is actually below your $25 lowball.
As for weapons being over a grand, that is about the price range you'll pay for reproduction weapons today. You can get a display piece for much cheaper, but those aren't suitable as actual weapons. Real weapons need a very specific grade of steel to have the right balance of rigidity and flexibility.
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All of which point to 1GP being not $100 to me. Soap at 50c sounds more reasonable, as does a night at somewhere pretty low end being closer to $25. If you use $100 most starting weapons cost over a grand.It really depends on exactly which items you're looking at. You can pick specific prices to justify a higher or lower conversion rule of thumb, since the pricing tends to be all over the map. For instance, a bar of soap is 1 CP ($1), a hammock is 1 SP ($10), and a one night stay in a typical inn is 5 sp ($50).Wait you rule of thumb is 1gp is close to $100. I've no idea how you get that.
The numbers in no way add up. 10ft of Chain does not cost $3000, it costs less the $50. Or a days worth of trail rations does not cost $50. What on earth caused you to pick such a high conversion rate as a rule of thumb? 1 GP = $10-20 might be reasonable.
Have you been shopping lately? Or stayed at a motel?
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Have you been shopping lately? Or stayed at a motel?
Depends on where you are. I'm sure there are some places where you can get cheap motels and bargain bin soap at those prices. Still, those are very low prices and I'd agree they'd be atypical (at least in the developed world).
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Yeah because this is what I play Pathfinder for. To equate gold coins to real world currency.
Inflation is a cruel mistress
Yup. I can buy a box of 6 bars of Dove soap (so not ultra cheap brand) for £3. Which converts to about 70c a bar. So we are all a little off!Have you been shopping lately? Or stayed at a motel?All of which point to 1GP being not $100 to me. Soap at 50c sounds more reasonable, as does a night at somewhere pretty low end being closer to $25. If you use $100 most starting weapons cost over a grand.It really depends on exactly which items you're looking at. You can pick specific prices to justify a higher or lower conversion rule of thumb, since the pricing tends to be all over the map. For instance, a bar of soap is 1 CP ($1), a hammock is 1 SP ($10), and a one night stay in a typical inn is 5 sp ($50).Wait you rule of thumb is 1gp is close to $100. I've no idea how you get that.
The numbers in no way add up. 10ft of Chain does not cost $3000, it costs less the $50. Or a days worth of trail rations does not cost $50. What on earth caused you to pick such a high conversion rate as a rule of thumb? 1 GP = $10-20 might be reasonable.
Bulk discounts alter things. How much do they sell the individual bars for, if they do?
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Also when translating from pounds to dollars and then to gold pieces, you have to take in account foreign exchange . Those pounds were worth more dollars/euros and euros before it value took a hit because of brexit, while in PF a gold piece is worth the same everywhere. As KirtRyder said, mass production changes things a bit, and Internet and global companies do it too. Things like Amazon, Uber or AirBnB drop overall prices, and you buy shirts cheaper in Primark1 than in a local taylor.
No, it doesn't. You just need to compare things that are comparable.
Compare a book in PF with a handmade book today, not with a mass produced outsourced book printed in China and sold to you by Amazon skipping half of the process like a physical retailer store. Compare the price of a hotel, not the price in booking. Compare a handcrafted soap, not a soap mass produced and sold in bulk packages.
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Rather than a healing cap, a cap in the number of times per day a spell can benefit a character would be better.
For example, 10 per day would place minimal wand CLW at an average of 55 hp per day, while that figure jumps to 95 for CL 5 and jumps yet higher if being cast by a character with special bonuses on the spell.
Do you realise that your suggestion sounds almost exactly the same as the resonance system that will be in the play test?
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Except resonance is how often a character can use an item, not benefit from them. In the future, PF2 heroes will still carry CLW but also be accompanied by 50 day laborers, preferably charismatic goblins, to ensure a steady supply of resonance.
Resonance costs for beneficial effects like healing and buffs are almost 100% certain to be paid by the recipient, not by the wand wielder. No getting around the daily limit with hirelings.
How would that work for wands of fireball?
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Resonance costs for beneficial effects like healing and buffs are almost 100% certain to be paid by the recipient, not by the wand wielder. No getting around the daily limit with hirelings.
This is not true according to what the people at Paizo have said. Whoever uses the item pays the Resonance.
That said, I doubt Wands have changed their user requirements, so you'd need a bunch of hired Clerics (or other casters) to pull this trick...and if you've hired a bunch of Clerics to heal you, why are you bothering with a Wand?
Resonance costs for beneficial effects like healing and buffs are almost 100% certain to be paid by the recipient, not by the wand wielder. No getting around the daily limit with hirelings.This is not true according to what the people at Paizo have said. Whoever uses the item pays the Resonance.
That said, I doubt Wands have changed their user requirements, so you'd need a bunch of hired Clerics (or other casters) to pull this trick...and if you've hired a bunch of Clerics to heal you, why are you bothering with a Wand?
Where have they said that? Because it's the logical solution to a problem that is immediately visible with only 5 seconds thought.
Just throwing in a concept from a series I read, can't recall the name: there were a dozen or so "tribes" who had annual war game seasons. They'd meet on the field of battle, call each other out, proceed to slaughter each other, and then everyone healed up afterwards and they partied at night and counted up the points they had earned. The only true deaths were effectively massive damage - twice your total HP in one blow kind of thing. It made for a rigid, formalized system, but in some campaigns/worlds it works. Unlimited healing doesn't have to impart a lack of meaning in combat.
Wait you rule of thumb is 1gp is close to $100. I've no idea how you get that.
The numbers in no way add up. 10ft of Chain does not cost $3000, it costs less the $50. Or a days worth of trail rations does not cost $50. What on earth caused you to pick such a high conversion rate as a rule of thumb? 1 GP = $10-20 might be reasonable.
D&d economy has always been pretty nonsensical, once you get down to the coppers and silvers. Sometimes the same item even is listed as 2 silver in one book and 2 gold in another. To rich adventures with sacks of gold, it's not really meant to think about too much.
The problem with a healing limit on the recipient of Cure Light Wounds from a wand is illustrated by a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition game that my wife played. My wife's rogue Trixie and a fighter Kazu were the front line for the party, with the rogue using her repositioning power to set up targets for the fighter. They took the brunt of the damage from opponents. Healing in D&D 4th edtion was limited by a character's own healing surges. Even healing potions consumed a healing surge from the character. A rogue had fewer healing surges than a fighter, so guess who ran out of healing surges first?
Thus, that party occasionally had one frontline character unable to heal herself at all when the rest of the party was able to go through several more rooms. Even if Trixie moved to the back, she was at risk from an arrow or fireball. Consider the awkwardness of that. "We want to press on, but Trixie might die."
Fortunately, Trixie was a daredevil and scoffed at the risk.
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The problem with a healing limit on the recipient of Cure Light Wounds from a wand is illustrated by a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition game that my wife played. My wife's rogue Trixie and a fighter Kazu were the front line for the party, with the rogue using her repositioning power to set up targets for the fighter. They took the brunt of the damage from opponents. Healing in D&D 4th edtion was limited by a character's own healing surges. Even healing potions consumed a healing surge from the character. A rogue had fewer healing surges than a fighter, so guess who ran out of healing surges first?
Thus, that party occasionally had one frontline character unable to heal herself at all when the rest of the party was able to go through several more rooms. Even if Trixie moved to the back, she was at risk from an arrow or fireball. Consider the awkwardness of that. "We want to press on, but Trixie might die."
You've just reminded me that dealing surges was one of the things I hated about 4th edition. I wasn't concerned about resonance, now I'm slightly apprehensive. I suppose we'll see how it works in practice come August.
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After thinking about this for a while - the solution to all this - will highly depend on what we get as a replacement.
Don't like the wand?
- It is too cheap. OK but what if what we end up with costs nothing - but does the same thing?
- You don't need to be full hit points. In the early versions of the game - there was no design method or guidelines - people just kind of threw stuff at the wall and we saw what worked, some adventures (based on a overall theme) were more popular - people studied why - and found that stories and themes were important to player fun. Those adventures also had a ton of magic items btw (go ahead and read your queen of the demonweb pits again and note how much treasure was in it).
End result - having a design guideline helps build better adventures - assuming the players are full health every fight lets you build solid encounters and makes for a more consistent experience - it may not be your preference but I think our adventures would get worse if designers had to guess 'how many hit points will the players have now' every time they build an encounter.
- Something Something 'verisimilitude'. If every class can heal - how is that better? Is spending so much word count and effort on a single aspect of the game really worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
Honestly I don't really like cure light wounds wands - I'd rather have a straight up 'you can rest for 50% of your hit points twice a day' mechanic - or use wands - or whatever but keep it simple and not overly complex.
I don't want any character to have to 'invest' in healing to be able to heal - If the biggest issue with wands they are trying to address is that not everyone case use a wand (a party of all fighters!) then just make cure wands usable by any class as a special rule and move on - I dislike making systems *more* complex to solve something that really isn't a current problem.
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If you look at HP and GP strictly as resources, the CLW wand is grossly OP for the price, which seems to be the biggest argument against them. The suggestion above about total healing caps is, IMHO, the best way of dealing with that problem. Another solution is to change the economy of scale regarding the GP cost per HP healed.
While the Wand of CLW is objectively the cheapest option for healing, this doesn't make it OP. Relying on it does have a considerable overhead cost, and as any experienced player in Pathfinder will attest you need access to reliable healing. If you don't have a Cleric in the party (or an equivalent healing class option, like Life Oracle) then you needed consumables to fill that void. If it wasn't wands, it would have been scrolls, but wands were the most cost-effective so that's what got used.
What is being complained about here isn't the cost, which could be completely rebalanced (and probably has been) in PF2. It's the very fact that there is a daily limit at all. The niche that wands of CLW fill in Pathfinder is ensuring that parties without access to healing abilities from their character classes have an option to keep their hit points topped up. If resonance puts up a hard barrier and forces an end to the adventuring day, that could be very disruptive to play experience and could lead us back to the "a Cleric is a mandatory part of any party composition" mindset to ensure a party can keep going.
If it were just wands getting changed, and scrolls and potions weren't affected, then I wouldn't have any problem. I think that's part of the reason this discussion keeps going off the rails, because the problem isn't the wand of CLW. The wand of CLW is the bandaid over the real problem: that running low on hit points means that the group has to stop and replenish them. Resonance threatens to rip off that bandaid, and there's serious concern there won't be a replacement.
Except resonance is how often a character can use an item, not benefit from them. In the future, PF2 heroes will still carry CLW but also be accompanied by 50 day laborers, preferably charismatic goblins, to ensure a steady supply of resonance.
UMD (a skill most common henchmen won't have) should hopefully keep that under control in most games, but it's still an issue even if it's a non-abusive situation like a 6-person party passing around a wand. Even with just six wand users, that could be a lot more daily uses than wands are balanced for, and if their cost is balanced around cases like these then they'll likely be unusable for someone who just wands a wand for themselves.
Resonance costs for beneficial effects like healing and buffs are almost 100% certain to be paid by the recipient, not by the wand wielder. No getting around the daily limit with hirelings.
This would nerf multi-target spell consumables into the ground, would lead to stupid workarounds (ie, using wands of summon monster to summon creatures with healing ability, thus circumventing the resonance cost when the healing spell is cast on the intended target), and wouldn't even solve the "50 henchmen" problem since it just inverts it. Now instead of the henchmen using the wand, you use the wand on the henchmen to activate it repeatedly without limit. This would make wands objectively OP in situations where the party is working with NPC's since there is literally zero cost to spamming a powerful buff on all of them.
So no, I sincerely doubt this is what they'll do.
There's also the the issue that Hirelings still break the system if your DM allows you to train them or improve their abilities. But where can we find that?
Oh hello Leadership you wonderful feat who, if in core, would be such a same to ban. Quite such a tragic loss should you be banned enmass.
Sorry for the sarcasm but some solutions, questions and other ideas are starting to bleed together for me leaving a mental mess in my head. Should probably take a break from the playtest forums.
Oh and if there's a way to Drain Resonace well back to the Hireling cattle.
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I don't want any character to have to 'invest' in healing to be able to heal
Why? Why does this always get a pass? A fighter has to invest in wizard levels to cast wizard spells, so why shouldn't people have to invest in healing features to get healing?
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I don't want any character to have to 'invest' in healing to be able to healWhy? Why does this always get a pass? A fighter has to invest in wizard levels to cast wizard spells, so why shouldn't people have to invest in healing features to get healing?
Because you can get through the game without necessarily having a fighter or a wizard or the specific things they might bring to the table.
But if you eliminate effective access to non-class based healing it means someone has to play a character focused on healing. Most people find that tedious and boring. While I want the game to support the ability to play a healer for those who want it, I don't want it to be required. I want the game to be able to be played with any 4 PCs classes. Not any 3 and a cleric.
I think there is space between “focused on” and “invested in”. Teamwork feats shouldn’t require a whole build to be useful.
"invested in" should mean you can heal during combat and be effective - that kind of character is fun and some people really like playing it.
'invested in' shouldn't mean taking care of bookwork outside of adventuring - that's not fun - it's even less fun if only 1 person has to do it - because one person has to do it, and the rest of the group can take fun stuff with that feat/ability/slot.
If everyone has to take the feat/ability/etc. to be useful then why even have it - it's just mechanically boring at that point and becomes paperwork. I'm not playing Accountants & Spreadsheets. I'm playing Pathfinder. If only one person has to take it - then they are punished by not being able to take something fun. There is a difference between the between fight stuff and not.
Or - we could always go back to fight 2-3 times - rest for a month in game time to heal up. That's at least more fun than having to spend character abilities on basic adventuring tasks.
Skill Focus [build a campfire] or you can't rest in the rain am I right?
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In general the issue to me is that wands were costed/designed for what feels like in-combat use. And the healing wands are the notable, common exception that appears outside of combat and is _spammed_. In combat you have the action trade-off that means efficiency/charge is important. Out of combat you only care about efficiency/gp.
Some form of daily use limit on wands feels like one of the easiest ways to balance the in-combat/out-of-combat. To encourage parties to pick up higher level healing wands for their non-healer based out of combat healing.
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Because you can get through the game without necessarily having a fighter or a wizard or the specific things they might bring to the table.
But if you eliminate effective access to non-class based healing it means someone has to play a character focused on healing. Most people find that tedious and boring. While I want the game to support the ability to play a healer for those who want it, I don't want it to be required. I want the game to be able to be played with any 4 PCs classes. Not any 3 and a cleric.
This is totally fair. However, in Mark Seifter's playtest game, for a while the Barbarian was their primary healer and they did fine. Now, the Barbarian certainly invested in healing, by description, but the mere fact that this was possible is pretty strong evidence you don't actually need a Cleric.
This is totally fair. However, in Mark Seifter's playtest game, for a while the Barbarian was their primary healer and they did fine. Now, the Barbarian certainly invested in healing, by description, but the mere fact that this was possible is pretty strong evidence you don't actually need a Cleric.Because you can get through the game without necessarily having a fighter or a wizard or the specific things they might bring to the table.
But if you eliminate effective access to non-class based healing it means someone has to play a character focused on healing. Most people find that tedious and boring. While I want the game to support the ability to play a healer for those who want it, I don't want it to be required. I want the game to be able to be played with any 4 PCs classes. Not any 3 and a cleric.
Replace the word Cleric with 'someone who has to dedicate a chunk of character to healing'.
That any class can become a combat healer would be cool (and fine) - that someone in the party must take that chore on (and dedicate themselves to it) is the opposite.
And then you are still in a bind if that dedicated person is the one that's down - which means that the "healer" has to play cautious or the party could be really in trouble. The only thing making "any class" the healer does is remove the need to call it "a cleric" - they moved away from clerics having to focus all the spells to healing because dedicating your character to out of combat focus was boring - why bring it back now?
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Replace the word Cleric with 'someone who has to dedicate a chunk of character to healing'.
Okay. Though it sounded like the Barbarian mostly dedicated non-combat resources.
That any class can become a combat healer would be cool (and fine) - that someone in the party must take that chore on (and dedicate themselves to it) is the opposite.
Evidence suggests nobody has to do this, though. Items are still very much a healing option, just not the cheapest possible items.
And then you are still in a bind if that dedicated person is the one that's down - which means that the "healer" has to play cautious or the party could be really in trouble. The only thing making "any class" the healer does is remove the need to call it "a cleric" - they moved away from clerics having to focus all the spells to healing because dedicating your character to out of combat focus was boring - why bring it back now?
Combat and out-of-combat resources seem pretty distinctly separated in this edition in a lot of ways. I wouldn't assume being a healer eats up too much in the way of combat resources.
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Evidence suggests nobody has to do this, though. Items are still very much a healing option, just not the cheapest possible items.
The current rules suggest that you don't count wands and consumables against the wealth of a character - this is they are expected to replace these and still end up 'around' the correct WBL chart.
If what you are saying is true - then what's the guideline? Spend character options so you can get better items, or slowly lag behind? That's a fun system.
Combat and out-of-combat resources seem pretty distinctly separated in this edition in a lot of ways. I wouldn't assume being a healer eats up too much in the way of combat resources.
Then why even bother - book keeping isn't fun - this is adding complexity to fix a problem that doesn't exist other than 'it feels funny' - that's not good game design - and it's a waste of space in a book that will already be fighting for stuff like coherent mounted combat rules (as a random example). There are times when a game of resource management can be fun - but there is also a reason that most games ignore rations, encumbrance, and a host of other methods meant to limit your adventuring - because in general they are boring. Making people track rations when anyone with survival can feed the party with ease - doesn't make sense. Adding a bunch of complications to the game so that we don't spam a wand... doesn't make sense.
No matter what the system ends up being - it's always going to be a wand of cure light wounds, wrapped in another flavor - adjust the price, make it whatever. The problem isn't healing, the problem is no matter how expensive or the rules used people are going to want to top up between fights, and if there is a system to do so - it's just the CLW wand wrapped in another guise.
Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make it less of a pig, although adding complicated and convoluted systems to the game (like resonance) seems like bad design to me, when it'd be much easier to just take wands of cure spells and increase the cost - or make the spell un-usable in wand format - if that is the goal.
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Why? Why does this always get a pass? A fighter has to invest in wizard levels to cast wizard spells, so why shouldn't people have to invest in healing features to get healing?
Because party compositions can be successful without wizards or fighters. There's some argument to be made that you need some access to magic and martial abilities in a party, but the the range of classes that fill those niches is so broad that it's not a problem. I've never had a serious problem with party composition. Some compositions are better than others, but I can just let my players do their own thing then drop consumables to fill any gaps in their capabilities.
The thing is, front-line fighters consume a lot of healing. The exact amount fluctuates wildly from one adventuring day to the next, since it's heavily influenced by random dice rolls. This means you need a reserve of additional healing - above and beyond what you might use in a typical day - to handle the unlucky streaks. If healing is so plentiful that a randomly assembled party has the healing resources to power through those unlucky streaks then it might work, but I doubt healing will be that ubiquitous. More likely is that we'll need reliable ways to stay healthy in situations where we get unlucky rolls and our party composition lacks a strong healer. And consumables are pretty much the only way to go in those circumstances.
Finally, I'll be just as vocal about the problem if it turns out the wizard has exclusive access to a necessary niche. Flight is probably the biggest potential offender in that regard, since it's historically had poor distribution across the classes (although these days pretty much everyone has at least some option to get it by 10th, which is definitely a good thing) while simultaneously being a necessary ability in high-level play. However, the changes to the item system (including resonance) looks like they could actually help in this context, since it will be easier for a fighter to afford a magic item that grants flight when he needs it.
The way it comes across to me is that the designers goal with PF2 is to make it so that you're not topped off between fights. Which is the opposite of what I want, as someone who plays a lot of melee characters.
With the main problem being that damage isn't equally distributed between the party, and while the adventure may be balanced around 4 PCs equally distributing the damage across them, if 1 person is taking 50% or more of the damage, they're probably going to end up in a bad situation if they don't have easy access to healing.
That's my fear. Whether or not that's a reality I don't know. I just don't want anyone to be required to invest many resources into healing to be able to keep all the party members going throughout the adventuring day.
Evidence suggests nobody has to do this, though. Items are still very much a healing option, just not the cheapest possible items.The current rules suggest that you don't count wands and consumables against the wealth of a character - this is they are expected to replace these and still end up 'around' the correct WBL chart.
If what you are saying is true - then what's the guideline? Spend character options so you can get better items, or slowly lag behind? That's a fun system.
Combat and out-of-combat resources seem pretty distinctly separated in this edition in a lot of ways. I wouldn't assume being a healer eats up too much in the way of combat resources.Then why even bother - book keeping isn't fun - this is adding complexity to fix a problem that doesn't exist other than 'it feels funny' - that's not good game design - and it's a waste of space in a book that will already be fighting for stuff like coherent mounted combat rules (as a random example). There are times when a game of resource management can be fun - but there is also a reason that most games ignore rations, encumbrance, and a host of other methods meant to limit your adventuring - because in general they are boring. Making people track rations when anyone with survival can feed the party with ease - doesn't make sense. Adding a bunch of complications to the game so that we don't spam a wand... doesn't make sense.
No matter what the system ends up being - it's always going to be a wand of cure light wounds, wrapped in another flavor - adjust the price, make it whatever. The problem isn't healing, the problem is no matter how expensive or the rules used people are going to want to top up between fights, and if there is a system to do so - it's just the CLW wand wrapped in another guise.
Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make it less of a pig, although adding complicated and convoluted systems to the game (like resonance) seems like bad design to me, when it'd be...
Resonance is a solution that opens the door for many playstyles. I like resource management of the "un-fun" type. Its core to my playstyle. With resonance I can enforce that. If somebody finds it too restrictive they can boost resonance per day totals. If they really hate it, they can just ignore it.
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The current rules suggest that you don't count wands and consumables against the wealth of a character - this is they are expected to replace these and still end up 'around' the correct WBL chart.
If what you are saying is true - then what's the guideline? Spend character options so you can get better items, or slowly lag behind? That's a fun system.
Well, wands probably do count towards WBL in PF2 (assuming WBL exists, which seems a solid bet), but Wands also probably aren't consumables. You can use them all day, it just costs Resonance every time you do.
So a group relying on items for healing have less Resonance free for other stuff but still have solid healing options. That's not unmanageable at all.
Then why even bother - book keeping isn't fun - this is adding complexity to fix a problem that doesn't exist other than 'it feels funny' - that's not good game design - and it's a waste of space in a book that will already be fighting for stuff like coherent mounted combat rules (as a random example). There are times when a game of resource management can be fun - but there is also a reason that most games ignore rations, encumbrance, and a host of other methods meant to limit your adventuring - because in general they are boring. Making people track rations when anyone with survival can feed the party with ease - doesn't make sense. Adding a bunch of complications to the game so that we don't spam a wand... doesn't make sense.
Resonance actually reduces this kind of fiddly stuff in addition to ditching CLW Wand-spam. Since no items have charges of their own any more, all are either one-use, or re-usable but costing Resonance. That actually reduces bookkeeping quite a bit (I think a PC in my RoW game currently has five Wands all with different numbers of charges on them...in the new edition they'd probably have slightly fewer wands and not need to track charges at all).
No matter what the system ends up being - it's always going to be a wand of cure light wounds, wrapped in another flavor - adjust the price, make it whatever. The problem isn't healing, the problem is no matter how expensive or the rules used people are going to want to top up between fights, and if there is a system to do so - it's just the CLW wand wrapped in another guise.
Ah, but the problem isn't topping up between fights. The problem is doing so effectively for free at high levels. In PF2 it looks like it will require some sort of investment in time or resources (even if that resource is just Resonance) to properly top off between fights. People will still absolutely do it, but it won't be endlessly repeatable. People will actually eventually hit the point of 'We're out of healing guys, time to call it a day.' which is not something that happens much in the current edition, and from a theme and encounter balance standpoint really should.
Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make it less of a pig, although adding complicated and convoluted systems to the game (like resonance) seems like bad design to me, when it'd be much easier to just take wands of cure spells and increase the cost - or make the spell un-usable in wand format - if that is the goal.
Resonance replaces separate charges for each item, as well as X per day abilities for items. That's actually a vast simplification. It's new, so it seems more complicated, but that's an illusion. It's actually a serious simplification of magic item resources tracking.
Ah, but the problem isn't topping up between fights. The problem is doing so effectively for free at high levels. In PF2 it looks like it will require some sort of investment in time or resources (even if that resource is just Resonance) to properly top off between fights. People will still absolutely do it, but it won't be endlessly repeatable. People will actually eventually hit the point of 'We're out of healing guys, time to call it a day.' which is not something that happens much in the current edition, and from a theme and encounter balance standpoint really should.
Why is it a bad thing if topping up between fights is free?
Why is it a good thing that people will have to stop for the night just because of injuries?
I can see story reasons for wanting to control the ability to heal, but in most of those cases I think you can handle it by just causing it to take longer than the PCs can afford at the moment. Make game time the resource spent on healing and you don't have to dump treasure on the group just so they can continue operating.
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Why is it a bad thing if topping up between fights is free?
Because Pathfinder's entire system, and indeed adventure design, is based on resource expenditure as the primary thing fights cause. Things that get around that radically alter the fundamental calculus of how the game functions.
They could theoretically change that in PF2, but it would no longer feel like the same game, so they're better off fixing it.
Why is it a good thing that people will have to stop for the night just because of injuries?
In short? Right now people stop only when they run out of offensive resources (ie: the Wizard is out of spells), having to balance those with defensive resources (ie: how much healing they have left) is both more interesting and more mechanically balanced, as well as making the character's choices feel more urgent and relevant (since there's a greater element of risk in going onward when low on healing).
I can see story reasons for wanting to control the ability to heal, but in most of those cases I think you can handle it by just causing it to take longer than the PCs can afford at the moment. Make game time the resource spent on healing and you don't have to dump treasure on the group just so they can continue operating.
This is using an in-game issue to solve a metagame problem and does not work in all situations. The game works better if the actual rules solve problems like this without the need for GM intervention.