Really what we need is for there to be a non-feat version of these abilities available all the time, but with timespans too long for combat (eg. 1 minute or 10 minutes).
Battle Medic is a feat because you can do it in a single action.
Really what we need is for there to be a non-feat version of these abilities available all the time, but with timespans too long for combat (eg. 1 minute or 10 minutes).
Battle Medic is a feat because you can do it in a single action.
Actually, I really think you are onto something there. Consider that we now have numerous mechanics that slow down the adventuring party, such as identifying items and repairing equipment. Why not have someone fill that time patching wounds up? Make it so that treating deadly wounds also doesn't leave the target bolstered-- that was absurd in PF1 and it is absurd now. Even if you can't patch the same wounds more than once, if someone gets hurt again later in the day you absolutely should be able to treat new wounds.
Let's try this as a trained only Medicine usage:
Treat Deadly Wounds
Requirement: You must have healers tools.
You spend an hour trying to treat the wounds of a creature, patching wounds and helping them rest and recover. Make a DC 10 medicine check. On a success, your target regains 1d10 hit points. For every 10 by which you exceed the DC, you restore an additional d10 hit points.
On a critical failure, the target instead takes 1 persistent bleed damage.
Numbers and DC can be altered for best results. I erred on the side of easy to run-- 1d10 for every 10 you get on the result. Should scale decently with level, I think. I was looking at having the time it takes get progressively shorter with TEML and higher DCs, but the math started to look complicated there so i back pedaled.
Battlefield Medic can basically exist as it is currently written, even with the bolstered bit. It can be the fantasy equivalent of jabbing someone with a shot of adrenaline; it keeps someone fighting in a pinch but you can't give someone that kind of jolt more than once in a day without really bad consequences.
These changes have several notable effects.
Resonance and consumables are still important. Sometimes you need to make a push and can't sit around waiting to patch wounds; this may be during or after a combat. When you need to keep immediately keep going, you burn resonance and drink a potion.
Clerics are still useful, but not mandatory. For all the same reasons potions are relevant, but clerics essentially mean you don't need to spend as much from the aforementioned pools.
Everyone has something to do when you "short rest. While the Fighter repairs his shield, the wizard identifies the items you just found, and the ranger keeps watch, the Rogue is helping patch people up.
The adventuring day is now a full day. For all that people complain about the 15 minute work day, having a CLW wand or plenty of spell slots doesn't actually prevent it. In fact, if you are healing up to full by spamming CLW, you're back to full in minutes. Encounters themselves rarely last longer than a minute. Unless you are traveling overland or there is some other big buffer time between encounters, 15 minutes actually seems like the in fiction time you are probably doing stuff.
Now, if you are going to conserve magic healing between encounters, you are starting to really look at the hours in a day. You could assume you've got about 8 hours of "work" in a given day, whether that time is spent traveling, deciphering esoteric writing, repairing wounds or equipment, etc. It also makes it easier to think about your character being exhausted after a hard day.
I think there's a lot of potential here. I might even try to experiment with some house rules in both editions to this effect.
I disagree with this as a design goal.
Barbarians, monks, paladins, and rangers all being good at dealing damage doesn't make the role of damage dealer useless. It just means you don't have to be a fighter for that role.
Bards getting disable device (and dispel magic for magical traps) or barbarians getting d12s to soak up damage with don't make the role of trap finder useless. It just means you don't have to be a rogue for that role.
Alchemists, bards, and sorcerers being good at magic don't make the role of magic user useless. It just means you don't have to be a wizard to be good at that role.
I'm not sure what point you are making, or how it contradicts what I'm saying. Can you clarify? I'm not saying other classes can't be good at healing? Lots of classes can also heal. I am fine with them getting more healing. I'm also fine with the cleric being the best at it, save for maybe the divine sorcerer. You don't need to buff to be a bard, but bards are the best at it. You don't need to be a paladin to tank, but paladins are the best at it.
The average 4 person party simply doesn't have the resources to be the best at everything. The classic rogue/fighter/cleric/wizard group would be better at dealing with mental magic and getting buffed with a bard. They'd be better at fighting demons with a paladin. They'd be better at dealing with nature junk with a druid.
The goal is make a balanced party, and hope your collective strengths make up for your deficiencies. If you have a barbarian instead of a cleric, hopefully he kills the enemies quicker and his temporary HP sponges some of the remaining damage.
The problem is that CLW/Heal is the only effective way to heal damage in a short amount of time
You aren't entirely wrong. But I'm not positive if that's a bad thing. Having to rest for 8 hours after each fight can get discouraging, but I think if you can heal sans magic given an hour or whatever of time after a fight, the battles feel significant and you can still get plenty done in a day.
Having a cleric means you won't need to slow down, but then again, if you had a rogue instead of a cleric maybe you would have disabled that trap and not taken the damage in the first place, for example.
Your options for healer are basically limited to Cleric
Not quite. The cleric is clearly the best option out of the box, but the Paladin and Sorcerer can be built to rival them, and will probably have more resonance to spend on wands or staffs. A Bard could take advantage of the resonance pool using trick magical item for similar purposes. Druids can get pretty up there with good berry, and can use a staff of healing to convert leftover spell slots rather than prepare heal outright.
, and even then, it won't matter that you have other spells, because you'll feel pressured to conserve your spell slots to heal with.
Again, not totally sure what you mean here. The 2e cleric certainly doesn't seem like it needs to conserve its spell slots for heals, because they have channel. I don't think the 1e cleric did either to TBH, because they had spontaneous conversion and a much weaker channel. In both versions of Pathfinder, the cleric is usually going to prepare other non-healing spells to, say, prevent damage in the first place.
But like the above examples, letting Heal/Medicine restore a substantial amount of hp, even if it requires a feat, wouldn't negate the role of the healer. It would just make it so you don't need some sort of access to CLW/Heal to fill that role.
I'm not actually sure which examples you are referencing above, since there are several. The one I gave actually allows for repeated healing through out the day, where as the other ones only allow for it once per day. Which is why I'm again a little confused about what you think we disagree on.