CLW wands helped parties with no dedicated healer to survive the encounters without feeling like they could have to say goodbye to their character in any encounter beyond the second (or even the first)
I feel that in PF2 having a dedicated healer is compulsory. I do not like that feeling
Well, what do we mean by "dedicated healer"? Since "every party needs a cleric" is a wholly different sort of thing than "someone in the party needs to invest in the medicine skill".
As long as there are enough different ways to supply the necessary healing and status removal, we don't need a one-size-fits-all solution.
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I sincerely doubt the non-magical ways of healing will be useful for an adventuring day though. Maybe I will be surprised.
Funnily enough one of the big complaints I'd heard about cleric was how Channel Energy simply didn't do enough healing to be useful in combat. Now the Heal spell, which replaces Channel Energy, does even less.
They are really pushing the mundane healing, aren't they?
They are really pushing the mundane healing, aren't they?
Not only healing, but mundane in general.
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CLW wands helped parties with no dedicated healer to survive the encounters without feeling like they could have to say goodbye to their character in any encounter beyond the second (or even the first)
I feel that in PF2 having a dedicated healer is compulsory. I do not like that feeling
Well, what do we mean by "dedicated healer"? Since "every party needs a cleric" is a wholly different sort of thing than "someone in the party needs to invest in the medicine skill".
As long as there are enough different ways to supply the necessary healing and status removal, we don't need a one-size-fits-all solution.
I mean someone who invests a pretty big part of their build into healing others whatever the means
CLW wands made it pretty easy to avoid this in case a party was made of character builds that did not want to take the healer's role because it did not fit their concept
I am far from certain that PF2 allows this because they advertise so much the various ways of healing but not the ability to get by without some significant investment in healing ability on a PC's level
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Well, every class in PF2 gets 10 skill feats which are not generally applicable to one's combat strategy, so it's not like "I can craft alchemical elixirs" (which costs 1 feat) really hurts one's ability to be a swordsperson.
So you've got to pick some skills to be good at, so it's not a huge opportunity cost if one person picks "healing."
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Funnily enough one of the big complaints I'd heard about cleric was how Channel Energy simply didn't do enough healing to be useful in combat. Now the Heal spell, which replaces Channel Energy, does even less.
Against living enemies, sure. The channel version of the heal spell is much better in combat vs undead. Dealing damage and healing allies in the same round is a big improvement. So, heal is not an every combat choice, but it can be an excellent combat choice.
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Funnily enough one of the big complaints I'd heard about cleric was how Channel Energy simply didn't do enough healing to be useful in combat. Now the Heal spell, which replaces Channel Energy, does even less.Against living enemies, sure. The channel version of the heal spell is much better in combat vs undead. Dealing damage and healing allies in the same round is a big improvement. So, heal is not an every combat choice, but it can be an excellent combat choice.
I will give it that, should all undead turn out to be vulnerable to positive energy. I imagine there will be a rare few that won't, but those same ones aren't likely to be mobs where you'd use the area effect anyway.
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I feel that in PF2 having a dedicated healer is compulsory. I do not like that feelingWhy do you have that feeling? You can still get by with a wand in PF2. It's just going to be CSW instead of CLW, right?
This. All evidence is that while a dedicated healer is nice to have in PF2, it isn't compulsory. You'll just have to spend an actual meaningful amount of money replacing such a person.
I sincerely doubt the non-magical ways of healing will be useful for an adventuring day though. Maybe I will be surprised.
Evidence is very strong that it absolutely will be useful.
Funnily enough one of the big complaints I'd heard about cleric was how Channel Energy simply didn't do enough healing to be useful in combat. Now the Heal spell, which replaces Channel Energy, does even less.
No, it doesn't. I've done the math and Heal in PF2 flatly provides more healing than Channel Energy in PF1. By a lot, actually. Heck, it provides more healing than Channel Energy and the PF1 Cleric spending all their extra spell slots on Cure spells by 10th level or so.
Let's do an example.
Two 3rd level Clerics with Wis 18 and Cha 12. The PF1 one can heal 28 HP. The PF2 one can heal 33 HP.
Let's up them to 5th level. The PF2 Cleric, with more generous points, has gone to Cha 14. The PF1 Cleric can heal 42 HP now. The PF2 one can heal 65 HP (52 in the same number of rounds as the PF1 Cleric).
This difference only gets bigger as their levels rise.
They are really pushing the mundane healing, aren't they?
Not really, they've only mentioned it in passing a couple of times. It's some people on the boards (myself included) who are enthused about the idea.
I've done the math and Heal in PF2 flatly provides more healing than Channel Energy in PF1. By a lot, actually. Heck, it provides more healing than Channel Energy and the PF1 Cleric spending all their extra spell slots on Cure spells by 10th level or so.
Let's do an example.
Two 3rd level Clerics with Wis 18 and Cha 12. The PF1 one can heal 28 HP. The PF2 one can heal 33 HP.
Let's up them to 5th level. The PF2 Cleric, with more generous points, has gone to Cha 14. The PF1 Cleric can heal 42 HP now. The PF2 one can heal 65 HP (52 in the same number of rounds as the PF1 Cleric).
This difference only gets bigger as their levels rise.
@DMW: thank you for doing the math so we don't have to!
Do you think though that characters will likely be taking more damage in PF2, given that it seems to be easier to crit - enough that the difference between PF1 healing and PF2 healing becomes irrelevant? Or is this something that can't be calculated with the information we have at the moment?
(Apologies for being dis-numerate)
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The PF2 cleric has to heal more HP though, since everyone gets more health. They are pushing mundane healing by making magical healing less attractive.
How much health people have is actually irrelevant to how much healing you need. That's determined by how much damage enemies deal.
Which, as a raw numbers game, don't seem meaningfully higher than in PF1 (it's more swingy since more of it is dice, but it's not higher). This is intentional, since they're aiming to avoid rocket tag situations.
The healing also goes up quite a bit more than the HP do. A 10th level PF1 Fighter might be expected to have 104 HP or so (Con 16 due to Belt of Physical PErfection + FCB). A level 10 PF2 Fighter will have more like 148 (Con 18 by that level). That's a tad more than 40% additional HP.
Channel Energy on a Cha 12 PF1 Cleric at that level is probably 70 HP per day. On a Cha 16 PF2 Cleric, meanwhile, it's 138 HP and almost twice as much healing.
So even going by your assumption, the Cleric's healing in PF2 is a lot better before they start delving into spells per day.
There is also no evidence giving how long mundane healing will take. If this was shown somewhere let me thouh.
There's no official word, no. I'd be shocked if it's so long as to be unworkable given that the Feat that grants it is called 'Battlefield Medic' and it's been cited as part of making a viable Barbarian healer.
@DMW: thank you for doing the math so we don't have to!
Do you think though that characters will likely be taking more damage in PF2, given that it seems to be easier to crit - enough that the difference between PF1 healing and PF2 healing becomes irrelevant? Or is this something that can't be calculated with the information we have at the moment?
(Apologies for being dis-numerate)
It's actually not a lot easier for most enemies to crit vs. most equivalently leveled PCs. AC and to-hit scale similarly, so the chance tends to be fairly low (well within the 15-20 max crit range in PF1, usually within the 18-20 one).
It's greater on higher level opponents fighting lower level ones, but that's a specific enough situation that I don't think it throws off the general damage most PCs are likely to take per day all that much. Certainly not enough to change the above healing calculations.
My suggestion would be if you want characters full healed after every combat just say that they are. There is not really much of a difference. except one way you have to keep track of charges for no real reason.Totally, 4th Ed might as well state that. The Vancian thing is weird in that edition, Daily powers should be Encounter, and Encounter powers should be Recharge X. Powers should also be grouped by Source, not Class.
That would be a cool houserule for 4th: Wait, are Encounter Recharge 1?
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This is provably incorrect. In the worst case, the chance of critting in Pathfinder P(crit) = P(hit) * 5%. The chance of critting in PF2 P(crit) = 5%. Because a natural 1 never hits, there is at least a 0.025% higher chance of critting in PF2. And this is the extreme where a second natural 20 would be required to confirm the crit.
In most practical senses, where P(hit) is around 50%, the chance of critting in Pathfinder is 2.5%, compared to 5% in PF2.
When the adjustments (to-hit modifier vs AC) exceed -10, the chance of a crit in PF2 increases linearly. So a +13 to hit vs AC20 results in a 20% chance to critical. Which is likely to come up simply with the attacker being at least somewhat better than you. P(crit) will never get less than 5%, and can easily get higher.
I didn't mean to imply that it was identical, but then neither is damage. I was simply saying both are in the same ballpark most of the time. Changing from a 2.5% crit chance to a 5% crit chance boosts damage, and bigger differences boost it more...but not by the doubling damage as compared to PF1 it would need to do to keep up with healing, or anywhere close to it, which is where I was going with that.
Additionally, DPR per round for a lot of monsters is gonna be quite a bit lower just because you can't make 3+ natural attacks at Full BAB any more. Higher critical chances do not make up for that. Other things may, evening out their DPR, but I doubt it'll skyrocket or anything.
In every AP and PFS module I've run or played, there is at least one encounter with higher CR monsters than the party level.
I'd venture to say it happens at least half the time. We can't go discounting it here.
Sure, but how much higher? At one level higher it's a very minor difference, you need at least two or three for it to get big enough to be a real concern. For example, decent AC at level 1 seems to be 16 or 17 (more with a Shield or other enhancement). An Ogre (a level 3 monster) has a +8 to hit, and crits on an 18+ at best vs. that, and that's a foe two levels higher rather than one. Now, they'll do better against the terrible AC Wizard or the like, but then they're 2 levels higher, which is where I said it'd start kicking in.
IME, encounters with monsters of APL+2 is very much the exception rather than the rule. It certainly happens, but not very often.
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How about:
CLW: Heals 1d8 to a person, once that person has 20 hp the spell no longer adds hp, since you are in effect already more healthy than the average individual. You can't get higher than 20 hp using CLW.
CMW: Works until someone is topped out at 40 hp
CSW: 60 hp
etc.
I like this
Another take on this could be that low-level healing spells cannot be used on characters that suffer from very grievous wounds aka are far below their total hpFor example, if you need 40 hp to go back to full health, anything that heals less than 10 hp just does not work on you
After all IRL you need to bring people far back from the brink of death before even consider giving them aspirin
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How about:
CLW: Heals 1d8 to a person, once that person has 20 hp the spell no longer adds hp, since you are in effect already more healthy than the average individual. You can't get higher than 20 hp using CLW.
CMW: Works until someone is topped out at 40 hp
CSW: 60 hp
etc.
Doesn't this effectively benefit Elf Wizards much more than Dwarf Barbarians? Is that something we want to do?
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See, this is something i was discussing with a friend of mine... This idea that the professional designers, veterans in the field, have no idea of what they are doing.
Resonance is a mechanic designed to set the pace of an adventure, to make other things beside the spell caster's resources the attrition factor in a party. It limits ALL magic in a way, so you can't simply blow through an adventure in a day using dozens or hundred of spells "in a can".
If that mechanic is useful, if it works as intended, we can discuss that. But saying that the designers simply don't know what they are doing, that they work could easily be changed by anyone that bothers to write a quick homebrew... Well, that's both mildly insulting to the people hard at work in paizo, and an overstatement of the skill of any random poster in the forum.
I fully agree that it's absurd to think these professionals haven't put in a whole lot of thought and effort. Some of these guys are astoundingly quick to think through a lot of game design problems, and it's pretty rude to rag on them for a product we haven't even fully seen yet.
That being said, game designers are notorious for getting in the way of themselves. Take 4th edition as an example. In a lot of ways it was a well oiled machine, that hit all sorts of design targets and stated goals which is why lots of people still admire it even now. It still wasn't a game I wanted to play.
It's very important to get a sense for the intangible aspects of what makes the game fun to play. Resonance raises a lot of red flags for me in that regard.
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Doesn't this effectively benefit Elf Wizards much more than Dwarf Barbarians? Is that something we want to do?How about:
CLW: Heals 1d8 to a person, once that person has 20 hp the spell no longer adds hp, since you are in effect already more healthy than the average individual. You can't get higher than 20 hp using CLW.
CMW: Works until someone is topped out at 40 hp
CSW: 60 hp
etc.
I do not think it does
What matters in the game is how far from down you are, since remaining hp do not impact your abilities until you reach zero
Having less than 20 hp left is as worrying to the Elf Wizard as it is to the Dwarf Barbarian and vice versa
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But resonance is a bad mechanic and has no business being in professionally made product. I am not especially good at homebrew but given a week I could come up with dozens of better solutions. I expect someone who is getting payed to manage better than that.See, this is something i was discussing with a friend of mine... This idea that the professional designers, veterans in the field, have no idea of what they are doing.
Resonance is a mechanic designed to set the pace of an adventure, to make other things beside the spell caster's resources the attrition factor in a party. It limits ALL magic in a way, so you can't simply blow through an adventure in a day using dozens or hundred of spells "in a can".
If that mechanic is useful, if it works as intended, we can discuss that. But saying that the designers simply don't know what they are doing, that they work could easily be changed by anyone that bothers to write a quick homebrew... Well, that's both mildly insulting to the people hard at work in paizo, and an overstatement of the skill of any random poster in the forum.
And yet it's not like they haven't messed up before, didn't fix it, and had someone in the community homebrew it. I mean, people don't use some level of the merged feat tax rules from that blog post right? Paizo fixed that, so that power attack is built into characters so the feat tax is gone right?
Oh.
Or if you want a more current example, look at the mess that is Shifer(Which got a buff only after forum/player outcry). Or the oddity that is Occult Classes.
These professional designers, these veterans in the field; they have messed up before. And they will probably mess up again for PF2. No one is perfect nor is any game system we make. Now, the extent of just what they mess up, how badly it effects the game, and what can be done to fix it can be talked about. To me Resonance is one of those things. But from what they have shown of it, I see more issues it causes than it fixes. Things I actually hope will get fixed during play test. if they don't and it goes to print as is, and my players dislike it well, I'll have to figure out a way around that issue with homebrewing. Because if there is something that I think needs to be fixed for my table, I'll try fixing it rather than shrugging and say "Well, DnD 5 for us guys."
Also, why does every group have 100 spells in a can? I don't even think I limit myself on purpose, I just think "Do I really need a Wand of this spell? No, I want this instead."
God I feel like I'm playing a different game at times.
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CLW wands are a problem because some people are worried that others having "badwrong fun" and not playing the game the way they personally envision it. If YOU don't like CLW wands then don't use them and heal through spells or naturally. Don't try to limit gameplay that others like just because you don't like the idea of getting touched up back to fighting shape
I mean, the simplest thing for CLW fans to do in PF2 is figure out what the HP/GP ratio is for optimal healing, and just reduce the amount of treasure by that much, then have everybody always be at full health post-combat.
Do this and then there's just a limiter on in-combat healing and assorted less-essential magic, this way we can have both sword beams and not spammable sword beams.
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Seems to me that a game option which is considered to be the absolute best at its function from the moment it can be afforded to level 20 is an option which is too good and leaves that part of the game with no interesting decisions to be made.
The wand of clw fits that description for 1e out of combat healing.
6) How improved natural attack works basicly was handed them on a silver platter by the community when they couldn't figure it out.
*Cough*
I still have trouble with Natural attacks and mutliplie monster swings.
I have said I'm bad at the game yes.
6) How improved natural attack works basicly was handed them on a silver platter by the community when they couldn't figure it out.*Cough*
I still have trouble with Natural attacks and mutliplie monster swings.
I have said I'm bad at the game yes.
Hey, I'm not much different. I always have a print out on hand if I have to run something with natural attacks, no matter how many times I've done it, just 'cause it never clicks for me. This is actually something I hope (and expect) to see PF2e fix, either through the action system, or some pseudo FoB system where you can look at the stat-block and see "Oh, they attack with a bite and two claws (each claw at -4) for 2 actions. Ok, I know how to resolve this"
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I like resonance but it's for reasons entirely unrelated to CLW (and more to how it opens up design for other magic items, and removes dumb stuff like keeping a stack of 10 Quick-Runners' Shirts and enabling more than x uses per day of items that can replicate spells).
I'm not a fan of CLW spam, but I would be fine with resonance not being used by consumables. Stockpiling scrolls and potions for major expeditions can be awesome, even if I don't like having a golf-caddy of happy sticks to down like mugs of milk/ale.
I think one thing that would go a long way for stuff like the CLW wand issue is to make caster level/spell level scaling less explosive. I'm looking forward to seeing the math for these items because the 3.5/3.P scaling for magic items really did not work well at all.
I like the idea of healing spells going up to a certain limit - I think it would be good to have this limit modified by the recipient's CON mod or a percentage of the characters' max HP total.
Hey, I'm not much different. I always have a print out on hand if I have to run something with natural attacks, no matter how many times I've done it, just 'cause it never clicks for me. This is actually something I hope (and expect) to see PF2e fix, either through the action system, or some pseudo FoB system where you can look at the stat-block and see "Oh, they attack with a bite and two claws (each claw at -4) for 2 actions. Ok, I know how to resolve this"6) How improved natural attack works basicly was handed them on a silver platter by the community when they couldn't figure it out.*Cough*
I still have trouble with Natural attacks and mutliplie monster swings.
I have said I'm bad at the game yes.
I recall natural attacks work exactly like every other type of attack. Some things have combos (like zombies try to connect with a slam and then start biting for free - at least as described from the number of actions), but everything should be far simpler.
I'm just glad I won't have to pull up the table anymore to find out the relative scaling, B/P/S (this had better be included in the listing), and primary/secondary nature.
Can we just agree that arguing about whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not is more contentious than any "Should this Paladin fall?" thread, and leave it at that?Because it is.
The hubby insists we watch that every Christmas since it's a "Christmas Movie"....somehow?
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/07/15/bruce-willis-dares-to-say-die-hard-i s-not-a-christmas-movie
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The thing is.. if charged/consumable items were really a problem for your pacing the GM (or even the module designer) can just say they are not available in the town you are in... and or only in limited quantity. That restores your pacing without adding all the resonance book keeping.
Boojum
For our group CLW wands are not a problem at all. In fact, since our current group only has an inquisitor and a witch for healing options, they are a must. We've never experienced a problem with them.
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They are really pushing the mundane healing, aren't they?Not only healing, but mundane in general.
The reason I'm really not liking this new edition. If I wanted mundane I wouldn't play a fantasy game.
Also, I don't really think that wands are that big a problem to require Resonance, I mean, maybe they needed so tweaking. But what pissed me off the most was that they said that Resonance was to be a universal system to track magical uses, so instead of uses per day for this or charges for that you would only keep track of resonance. But then they said in one of the item blogs that you need to both spend resonance AND a charge to activate a wand/staff. I mean, come on, you propose something to supposedly make the system less complicated, but it actually makes it more complicated, and just seems like another cap on magic and casting, which I'm sick of in this playtest.
Erik Mona, whom I deeply love and admire as one of my indutry heroes, said in a stream I think, something along the lines of "in what fantasy movie or novel you ever saw/read the protagonists stoped and just went using a wand 15 times to heal up a companion?". Excuse, great sage Iquander, but I have some very good ways of describing that mechanic in a good narrative form. What I do actually find more artificial and "gamey" is potions to suddenly stop working because a stat number is spent.
I tried to give Resonance a chance, but after the "spend resonance AND a charge" I'm just done with it. Are we gonna have Resonance? Okay, but at least make it really replace charge items and make one-use items (potions, scrolls) exempt from it.
We haven't even seen it in action, we should give resonance a chance.
Worse case scenario, you just house rule that wands have charges and don't consume resonance on use.
Personally, I'm going to see how resonance plays out. Yes, I'm concerned, but we don't even know how medicine or other forms of healing work yet.
They are really pushing the mundane healing, aren't they?Not only healing, but mundane in general.The reason I'm really not liking this new edition. If I wanted mundane I wouldn't play a fantasy game.
Also, I don't really think that wands are that big a problem to require Resonance, I mean, maybe they needed so tweaking. But what pissed me off the most was that they said that Resonance was to be a universal system to track magical uses, so instead of uses per day for this or charges for that you would only keep track of resonance. But then they said in one of the item blogs that you need to both spend resonance AND a charge to activate a wand/staff. I mean, come on, you propose something to supposedly make the system less complicated, but it actually makes it more complicated, and just seems like another cap on magic and casting, which I'm sick of in this playtest.
Erik Mona, whom I deeply love and admire as one of my indutry heroes, said in a stream I think, something along the lines of "in what fantasy movie or novel you ever saw/read the protagonists stoped and just went using a wand 15 times to heal up a companion?". Excuse, great sage Iquander, but I have some very good ways of describing that mechanic in a good narrative form. What I do actually find more artificial and "gamey" is potions to suddenly stop working because a stat number is spent.
I tried to give Resonance a chance, but after the "spend resonance AND a charge" I'm just done with it. Are we gonna have Resonance? Okay, but at least make it really replace charge items and make one-use items (potions, scrolls) exempt from it.
Or perhaps they held the wand over the wound for a minute and a half of continuous use. All in how it’s described or visuaized.
The thing is.. if charged/consumable items were really a problem for your pacing the GM (or even the module designer) can just say they are not available in the town you are in... and or only in limited quantity. That restores your pacing without adding all the resonance book keeping.
Boojum
I hear this argument a lot but doesn't the reverse make more sense? If you find that your games fare better with CLW wand spam then wouldn't it make more sense to just house rule that you are at full health after every encounter? Why do you need an overpowered cheap item in the game for that? Seems much easier to just get rid of CLW wand spam, and then those that still want to use that playstyle can make a dead simple house rule in your games?
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I hear this argument a lot but doesn't the reverse make more sense? If you find that your games fare better with CLW wand spam then wouldn't it make more sense to just house rule that you are at full health after every encounter? Why do you need an overpowered cheap item in the game for that? Seems much easier to just get rid of CLW wand spam, and then those that still want to use that playstyle can make a dead simple house rule in your games?The thing is.. if charged/consumable items were really a problem for your pacing the GM (or even the module designer) can just say they are not available in the town you are in... and or only in limited quantity. That restores your pacing without adding all the resonance book keeping.
Boojum
I tried this - using CLW wands was better in every aspect.
I have to assume it's more of a psychological thing really - but the CLW wands just worked.
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Also, I think we need more things for adventurers to spend money on, not less. There are players who like their characters to be able to buy things, even silly things, that are in keeping with their character. Things like the Tengu Jug, or a hat that makes you look different, even though they aren't much use in combat.
What kept magic wands in check at low levels was the cost of the wand. Every charge spent cost you gold pieces. At the higher level, our group really never used wands of clw because the healer was powerful enough to keep people healed during the days adventures... and by the time the healer was low on healing pretty much everyone was ready for a long rest.
I understand that some GM's have had a problem with clw wands when they want the pacing of the adventure to be tight, but the simpler answer is to limit the availability of problematic items rather than to make book keeping more complex and rewrite how magic items work.
Boojum