Healing Issues


Running the Game


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After running my 1st session with the playtest rules last night, both I and my party felt that a big issue with the rules is that once again, the cleric is reduced to heal bot. Additionally, unless the cleric focuses everything on healing by maxing charisma and taking two heal spells at 1st, the party are really suffering, especially with the new crit rules (which I love btw and my group don't dislike them).

What I cannot abide is the need for a group to get half way through a dungeon and then wander back out for a night's rest. This generally leads to one of two schools of thought.

1. You leave the dungeon in the exact state it was in with minor changes (those monsters just get caught in that time weave).

2. The monsters reorganise, making the whole going and resting exercise pointless.

So it seems to me that this was often a problem in PF 1 as well as many other popular d20 games.

PF need to address this. One thing I discovered in another d20 game a few years back was the ability to carry out a Refresh action during combat, which allows your character to restore some hit points. I believe that this is a really good idea and adapted to PF 2 could go something like this:

REFRESH
3 Actions • Concentrate

You take a breath and possibly patch up some minor injuries. You cannot be suffering from any conditions to take this action, and you forfeit your chance to act during the current round (including reactions). Unless you’re targeted by 1 or more attacks before the start of your Next Turn you may at that point as a free action recover 1d10 + 1 per level hit points. If you are targeted by any attacks during this period (whether they hit or not), the activity is wasted. You may use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Con modifier.

Go on Paizo give it a go, you know you want to. I can already hear all of the sighs of relief coming from the party clerics across Golarion and other worlds.


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Not sold on the Refresh suggestion, btu the problem is 100% the biggest issue with PF2 right now.


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I think a lot of the time we are caught in two worlds. We have always been told since those early gygaxian books that Hit points are a combination of factors: physical tolerance, endurance, luck, experience, etc.
However, when it comes to healing these hit points, we immediately reduce them to physical damage.
Thus the Refresh Action :)


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It would be interesting to see if they "fix" monster attack bonuses and that changes some of the problems experienced at low levels around healing.

For example: Goblins inexplicably have +6 to hit. If this were changed to a more reasonable +4, your party may be getting hit and critically hit less often, thus needing less healing.

I wouldn't mind seeing goblins with a strength penalty as well...but that's another story.


That is a very good point, the attack bonuses do seem a little high, combined with more attacks and this does present an issue.


Snickersnax wrote:

It would be interesting to see if they "fix" monster attack bonuses and that changes some of the problems experienced at low levels around healing.

For example: Goblins inexplicably have +6 to hit. If this were changed to a more reasonable +4, your party may be getting hit and critically hit less often, thus needing less healing.

I wouldn't mind seeing goblins with a strength penalty as well...but that's another story.

Low level monsters attack modifiers are at that level intentionally. If they had the values expected the are far too “boring” and to stop them being obsoleted too quickly. Generally it works as they deal only a d6 damage, barring a crit. I’m not convinced the low level crit issue is worse than it was in 3.P. Level 1 has always been deadly to an errant crit.

As to healing, IMO the best option is a retooling of hero points. Resets to 2 after long rest, can expend a Hero Point to heal half Hp outside of encounter mode. Make all hero point actions cost only one hero point.


Ah long rests, short rests, I think that someone may have lost the dragon in a dungeon ;).

Seriously though, the Hero Points could be used to link with the refresh system i mentioned above. Using a Hero Point outside of combat to heal in a similar fashion.


Here is another possible solution

MEND

1 Minute • Healing, Manipulate, Skill
Trained in Medicine, healers kit

You apply your medical know how to either yourself or one of your allies. At the end of the one minute required to carry out this action you must attempt a Medicine check. The difficulty of the Medicine check and the amount of hit point damage which you can heal is determine by your medicine proficiency level.

Trained DC 15 and the target regains Hit Points equal to 1d10 plus your Wisdom modifier.

Expert DC 20 and the target regains Hit Points equal to 2d10 plus your Wisdom modifier.

Master DC 25 and the target regains Hit Points equal to 3d10 plus your Wisdom modifier.

Legendary DC 30 and the target regains Hit Points equal to 4d10 plus your Wisdom modifier.

You must select the required level of healing before you make the medicine check. Regardless of your result, the target is bolstered to any further use of Mend.

Success The target regains Hit Points as detailed above.

Critical Success As success, but target regains double hit points.

Critical Failure The target takes an amount of damage equal to the amount you were attempting to heal.


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Again +1 for Stamina


Surely all that adding stamina does is add another pool of hit points. It annoys me in Starfinder and it is a pain to track when using an online battlemap like d20 pro.

Just allow some extra healing options to keep the characters in the game rather than adding to the problem.

-1 for Stamina


If the GM can track 12 health bars of the monsters, the players can track 2! It's hardly a big ask compared to how terrible the system is right now.

But I would also accept any other fix to the horrific adventuring day/out of combat healing issues in PF2.

Liberty's Edge

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Talsharien wrote:

Surely all that adding stamina does is add another pool of hit points. It annoys me in Starfinder and it is a pain to track when using an online battlemap like d20 pro.

Just allow some extra healing options to keep the characters in the game rather than adding to the problem.

-1 for Stamina

You don't understand how Stamina works in SF if you really think it's just "another HP pool."

Stamina allows PCs to finish a dungeon without blowing all their money on healing items or going to sleep after every encounter. It allows PCs to catch their breath and push through when they've already been hurt. This and it works on a limited daily resource, you can only Rest a few times each day to get this benefit as you need to spend Resolve (AKA the only way to save your Characters life below 0 HP) to regain your Stamina.

Adding more healing options to PF is a TERRIBLE idea, the whole point of Resonance and the Magic Item balancing is because healing is WAY too easy to get after level 3, and it trivializes the danger of any NON 1-hit Kill attrition tactics.

A party of 5 with no healers shouldn't simply be able to plow through a dozen of encounters a day simply because the rogue bought a cheap wand and a case of potions.


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Yes, I know how it works..... GM'ing without knowing how it works would be rather foolish after all. So you believe that refreshing stamina a limited amount of times per day is different to the limited allow options that I have suggested above, interesting.


Ultimately, Paizo have decided to go down a Hit Point only route. So we need to look at alternative routes to deal with that. Stamina I feel will be left with Starfinder.


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As I've stated before I think only allowing so many Stamina refills up to your Con mod+1 is the way to go. Having only 1 health pool makes any type of out of combat healing to strong. BUT having the pools separate, with one ONLY being refillable a certain amount of times per day, means that no matter how much EXTRA healing you have (from items or healing spec'd players) it won't be broken, just helpful.


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Just.. as a random note for the heal skill portions

The First aid requires the kit and the kit is 50 gold
meaning most people won't have them
so most people can't even attempt to save a dying person right now.

That needs to be helped as well. cause it is entirely possible for someone gto go down, and if someone went down chances are the party's low on healing stuff.. which means they can't even try to help the person bleeding out unless they spent 50 spfirst.

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Zwordsman wrote:

Just.. as a random note for the heal skill portions

The First aid requires the kit and the kit is 50 gold
meaning most people won't have them
so most people can't even attempt to save a dying person right now.
.

It's 50 silver.

But true, the very first characters we rolled did not have the kit (expenice, other gear looked like priority) - only to find out later they can't use first aid later. A bit of surprise.


Ah yeah. I'm not used to writing silver over gold yet. kind of neat that it has more use in this, but it is still weird to write at this point.

Silver Crusade

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The DCs for First Aid are so high that it's usually not worth attempting. The chance of killing the patient is high. For example, if a PC was dropped by Drakus in The Lost Star, you would need a DC 19 Medicine check to stabilize,and a result of 9 or lower would increase the dying condition by one.


What do you mean?
the Med Untrained Skill "administer first aid" is DC 15.
Or did this change when they changed the dying rules recently?
I'm still learning those. Too much annoying cross referencing. Wish when they made huge changes like that they'd just rerelease that section.

A.First Aid is easier than the dying person rolling VS the DC they got hit by. but it sorta was meant to be I think considering it is third person vs the person.

A.First.Aid
You perform first aid on an adjacent creature that is at 0 Hit
Points in an attempt to stabilize or revive it. You can also perform
first aid on an adjacent creature taking persistent bleed damage.
The DC for either is 15. If a creature is both dying and bleeding,
choose which one you’re trying to end before you roll. You can
Administer First Aid again to attempt to remedy the other.
Success The creature at 0 Hit Points gains 1 Hit Point, or you
end the persistent bleed damage (see page 323).
Critical Failure A creature with 0 Hit Points has its dying
condition increased by 1. A creature with persistent bleed
damage takes damage equal to the amount of its persistent
bleed damage.

Silver Crusade

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Administer FIrst Aid (Update 1.2) wrote:
To stabilize a dying creature, the DC is equal to the creature’s recovery save DC; to stem blood loss, the DC is 15.

Yes, they made it worse.


Well. Ain't that just a fine solution to the issue with the untrained skill ~_~

Honestly . I thought that applied only to the user trying to save themselves..
It made sense to me that anyone else would have an easier time than the person in question's autonomic system.


Lyee wrote:

If the GM can track 12 health bars of the monsters, the players can track 2! It's hardly a big ask compared to how terrible the system is right now.

But I would also accept any other fix to the horrific adventuring day/out of combat healing issues in PF2.

My problem with stamina in Pathfinder is that it’s not just “keeping track of another health bar” - it’s doubling your hit point pool, for a truly absurd amount of hit points, making it almost impossible for a PC to go down in a fight. In Starfinder, at least mystics and healing serums are not extremely common, but in PF, everyone from bards to Paladins to alchemists to clerics can heal, and keep replenishing hit points. I have a hard enough time with PCs in PF2 having 100 hit points by level 8, having close to 200 hit points by then would make it impossible to drop PCs in combat after a point.

I agree that healing needs a little more widespread implementation than just clerics having the best option, but stamina to me is overkill for the job. Better if you could just rest a limited number of times to refresh up to half your hit points or something, than to just grant a whole extra pool.


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ENHenry wrote:
Lyee wrote:

If the GM can track 12 health bars of the monsters, the players can track 2! It's hardly a big ask compared to how terrible the system is right now.

But I would also accept any other fix to the horrific adventuring day/out of combat healing issues in PF2.

My problem with stamina in Pathfinder is that it’s not just “keeping track of another health bar” - it’s doubling your hit point pool, for a truly absurd amount of hit points, making it almost impossible for a PC to go down in a fight. In Starfinder, at least mystics and healing serums are not extremely common, but in PF, everyone from bards to Paladins to alchemists to clerics can heal, and keep replenishing hit points. I have a hard enough time with PCs in PF2 having 100 hit points by level 8, having close to 200 hit points by then would make it impossible to drop PCs in combat after a point.

I agree that healing needs a little more widespread implementation than just clerics having the best option, but stamina to me is overkill for the job. Better if you could just rest a limited number of times to refresh up to half your hit points or something, than to just grant a whole extra pool.

That seems very easily resolved by just making the Stamina + HP pools total equal to the current amount of HP.

For example, every class could get 4 + Con modifier HP per level, and then you get Stamina based on your class. d12 classes (Barbarian, currently) get 8 Stamina/level, d10 get 6, d8 get 4, d6 get 2.

There, now everyone has the same max/total HP that they currently have, but the more martially inclined classes have a bigger Stamina buffer.

You would need to retool the Toughness feat and Fighter's Resiliency.

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