RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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tldr: my party was stymied by very limited healing resources at 1st level.
I ran my first playtest game last weekend, and overall I think it went pretty well. I wanted to give some feedback, particularly around healing or lack thereof.
Character creation was a bit rough, but I will let my players provide that feedback.
Party composition: half-orc barbarian, human monk, human bard, human sorcerer (imperial). (Yeah, I know, we need to work on having more diverse ancestries! :-P )
We started out with some great die rolls on my part; the sewer ooze critted once and hit twice on the first round! Fortunately I decided it was dumb enough to split up its attacks, so I didn't just insta-kill the barbarian.
After that fight, the party realized that none of them had healing magic. We kind of assumed that the Bard would be the healer for the group, but we didn't realize until we started play that bards don't actually have heal on their spell list anymore. We also looked through the bard's powers and didn't see anything healing related, at least not at level 1. This probably needs to be addressed, especially since the class description says that "You can alternate between helpful spells, attacks, and healing as needed."
The party pooled their money and were able to afford a single 1st level heal potion, which the barbarian drank.
They proceeded on to fight the goblins in the second room, taking minimal damage, but they decided to drink the goblins' healing potion as well. The barbarian was out of resonance, but fortunately made her check. Then in the fight with the centipedes they again got unlucky die rolls and got quite beat up.
With no more healing resources and everyone quite badly hurt, the party retreated. By selling the goblins' gear, they were able to purchase a single healing spell from a local temple of Erastil. But they were very disappointed to learn that they could only get a burst heal of all of them for 2HP (I figured the NPC had a Wisdom of 15), or one of them for 1d8+2. That seems like not very much for 27sp. They begrudgingly paid and spent the next two days healing mundanely. The lack of a "Treat Deadly Wounds" option in the Heal skill was also a pain point.
Finally, they decided they needed to press on, even though only half the party was at full HP.
Overall, the game was pretty fun, though a bit rockier than usual with everyone needing to learn the new system. But it definitely felt like we are back in "mandatory cleric" territory, with very limited healing options available at level 1. I know this is always an issue in low-level games, at least until the party can afford a wand of cure light wounds or something. But since heal isn't on anyone in the party's spell list, they won't even have that option. Potion-only healing gets expensive really fast!
We were also disappointed that having an NPC cast a healing spell was only 3sp cheaper than buying a potion. We really think that NPC spellcasting needs to be much cheaper, especially at low levels. In PF1, an NPC spellcaster is only 1/5 the cost of an equivalent level potion; in PF2 they are nearly the same price. This makes "retreat to the temple and heal up before going back in" not a viable strategy at 1st level.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Check out the soothe spell for bardic healing.
Oh, hey, we definitely did not know that existed! I'll probably let my player swap out one of his spells for that one next session.
Admittedly we did not have a chance to read all the spells before we started. I'd bet he saw the spell name and thought it was some kind of calm emotions-type thing.
I am still a little worried that it won't be enough -- 2d6 healing per day isn't even enough to fully heal the barbarian once!
Compare to the cleric who can heal d8+WIS damage 5 + CHA times per day. Now, I absolutely do think that clerics should be the best at healing. But it seems like the other classes are lagging a bit too far behind in that department to make parties without a cleric viable. Especially since characters have more hit points now, but the amount of healing in the game has been reduced considerably.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Ah, yes, I stand corrected. So it's 1d6+CHA twice a day vs 1d8+WIS 5 + CHA times per day. I think my point still stands, though :-P
Assuming an 18 in the primary stat and a 14 in the secondary, that's an average of 15HP/day for the bard vs. 59.5 for the cleric. My gut instinct is that 1/4 the amount of healing is too low. I think I'd be happier with something like 1/2 for a party without a cleric.
In the old days, the first dungeon was always rough, but once the party could afford a wand of CLW, out of combat healing was pretty much always viable for a party, even without a cleric. Now, I doubt that will be the case. I'll be interested to see if it's still a problem when we come back to these characters at higher level, but I expect it probably will be.
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Ah, yes, I stand corrected. So it's 1d6+CHA twice a day vs 1d8+WIS 5 + CHA times per day. I think my point still stands, though :-P
Assuming an 18 in the primary stat and a 14 in the secondary, that's an average of 15HP/day for the bard vs. 59.5 for the cleric. My gut instinct is that 1/4 the amount of healing is too low. I think I'd be happier with something like 1/2 for a party without a cleric.
Just a minor correction re: cleric channel uses.
(and your point still stands)Its NOT 5 + cha mod but rather 3 + Cha mod (normally comes out to 5 total)
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Ah, yes, I stand corrected. So it's 1d6+CHA twice a day vs 1d8+WIS 5 + CHA times per day. I think my point still stands, though :-P
Assuming an 18 in the primary stat and a 14 in the secondary, that's an average of 15HP/day for the bard vs. 59.5 for the cleric. My gut instinct is that 1/4 the amount of healing is too low. I think I'd be happier with something like 1/2 for a party without a cleric.
Just a minor correction re: cleric channel uses.
(and your point still stands)Its NOT 5 + cha mod but rather 3 + Cha mod (normally comes out to 5 total)
I was also counting the cleric's two 1st-level spell slots, which could be used to cast heal as well if necessary.
I was assuming that the bard spent all his spells on healing; it only seemed fair for this example that the cleric should do the same! ;-)
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Ah, yes, I stand corrected. So it's 1d6+CHA twice a day vs 1d8+WIS 5 + CHA times per day. I think my point still stands, though :-P
Assuming an 18 in the primary stat and a 14 in the secondary, that's an average of 15HP/day for the bard vs. 59.5 for the cleric. My gut instinct is that 1/4 the amount of healing is too low. I think I'd be happier with something like 1/2 for a party without a cleric.
Just a minor correction re: cleric channel uses.
(and your point still stands)Its NOT 5 + cha mod but rather 3 + Cha mod (normally comes out to 5 total)
I was also counting the cleric's two 1st-level spell slots, which could be used to cast heal as well if necessary.
I was assuming that the bard spent all his spells on healing; it only seemed fair for this example that the cleric should do the same! ;-)
Oops, sorry i didn't notice that. Carry on :)