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Hey guys we are almost done with Plaguestone, and something is bothering me. One of us play a Divine Sorceress, and we find the Divine list to be really lacking in term of coolness, and almost all her spells are getting used on Heal spells.
So yeah heling is strong, very stong, but without a good way to heal the group outside of this spell (you got no Wands of CLW like in PF1, and no short rest like 5e/SF), you have to rely on healing with your own spells. Yes there are Elixirs of Life, Meidicne, and Healing Potions, but their dices are really not impressive after level 1.
So we really are having the impression that an healer is mandatory. Nothing is even close to the Heal spell at low level, maybe that will switch around level 6-7? Because one of the thing I really liked about PF1 was the fact that you don't have to have an healer. Just someone who can use wands. Any thougths?
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Some who can heal? Yes I would think it would be difficult to proceed without them. But someone with the treat wounds skill to heal you up in the downtime between fights (ie, makeshift short rests) should be enough.
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You have the medicine skill, which is amazing in PF2
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Medicine Treat Wounds, remember that if you succeed the check you can spend 1 hour on that to heal double and if you spend one hour for treatment you can immediately treat wounds again because the time treating overlaps with the the immunity of treat wounds.
I know about Medicine, but you don't have that 10 minutes (or even one actio nwith the feat) avaible all the time. You were almost always full HP at the end of a fight in PF1 wit ha Wand. Now it seems to be way harder to do so. But the monsters still brings the pain.
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It depends also what kind of consumable the GM would give you. It would be better to adapt to your party, a struggling party should get more defensive/curative consumables, while a party that is doing fine should get more offensive consumables.
See party treasure rewards for more details.
I know about Medicine, but you don't have that 10 minutes (or even one actio nwith the feat) avaible all the time. You were almost always full HP at the end of a fight in PF1 wit ha Wand. Now it seems to be way harder to do so. But the monsters still brings the pain.That’s a good thing. Your health should be a valuable resource. I don’t really know what the composition of you’re party is but it sounds like they’re not playing smart to minimize damage (either by playing tactically or using CC spells or such)
We have indeed two heavy hitters two handed as a frontlane, who like to rush into battle giving the opportunity for the monsters to hit multiple time, and our DM is so far having very good luck thourgh the module, so I may be in a particular spot here, and it will probably fade off after a few more game.
They are used to go full combat DPR monster and be cured after almost each fight from PF1 so I think we will have to adapt to the new system ^^
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If your party really cannot stop moving for a minute, Battle Medicine is a skill feat that allows anyone that's merely Trained in Medicine to instantly Treat Wounds once per day per patient for quite a bit of HP. Nothing stops multiple party members from taking this, so if the entire party REALLY insists on going buck wild they can all learn to patch themselves and each other up multiple times instantly. For a party of four, that means each party member can be healed up to four times, once from each party member. Maybe trust the ones with a shakier understanding of human anatomy a bit less, as there's a chance of failure and a crit failure damages you instead.
I suppose you could also craft a lot of level 1 Wands of Heal, spending a bunch of gold, in order to get a fairly silly number of uses of Heal per day purely through wands. They're renewable and light, and should be just enough if used alongside Battle Medicine to keep that party trucking nonstop. They don't use up your magic item limit either.
It also helps that said Wands of Heal can do an AoE heal, if 4 or more party members took 8 or more damage then it'll heal a bit more HP overall on average than pointing it at a single target.
So no, you don't have to have someone with innate magical healing to keep up a party like that. If even THAT isn't enough, and your Cleric is still sucking up all their healing, A) jUST dOdGE B) it really only takes a ten minute break here or there to Treat Wounds and avoid spending those daily resources. Any time you spend in one place trying to solve a puzzle, talk to an NPC, or do anything other than murder or jumping around like children hopped up on Mountain Dew will probably be a calm enough moment to patch everyone up. And there's quite a few Medicine feats that can make the most of those brief moments of respite before the Suicide Squad decides it's time to apparently shove their faces into the nearest cheese grater.
I did not know that multiple players could use the Battle Medic feat! Very interesting! However you stil have to interact a few times and use the healer kit with both your hands to pull that off in fight.
As for Wands, yeah it will be very usefull.
By any chance, do you know if we have to have the formulas to craft Scrolls & Wands, as the feat Magical Crafting? Can't find it in the book, and we are basically in the middle of nowhere.
Trained in Medicine + Battlefield Medic + Continual Recovery should keep you covered. This provides in healing combat, and unlimited out of combat healing. Everyone can be trained in this. Or have someone play a paladin.
To add to this, at level 6 assurance with expert medicine allows you to automatically succeed at the DC 20 check to treat wounds for 2d8+10. Add continual recovery and ward medic and you can heal half the party for about 20 points every 10 minutes without chance of failure. And you don't even need any wisdom to make it work.
On top of that, paladins can lay on hands every 10 minutes. At higher levels, bards and healing domain clerics can use an area heal every 10 minutes.
Getting the alchemist dedication and the follow up feats that increase your advanced alchemy level can provide LOTS of free healing every day. We're talking about more than 2000 points worth of healing in elixirs of life at level 20.
I can see healing be a problem at lower levels. But at higher levels, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be an issue.
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I did not know that multiple players could use the Battle Medic feat! Very interesting! However you stil have to interact a few times and use the healer kit with both your hands to pull that off in fight.
Not for Battle Medicine. It uses the Treat Wounds DC, but it is not actually treat Wounds and doesn't require more than one hand or action.
With my limited play experience I would say no it doesn't feel like a healer is mandatory. My group has multiple people who have the ability to provide healing but none focus on it and they are doing fine in plagestone so far.
Getting the alchemist dedication and the follow up feats that increase your advanced alchemy level can provide LOTS of free healing every day. We're talking about more than 2000 points worth of healing in elixirs of life at level 20.
Interesting, could you spell this out please? I'm not sure I see how this would work...
Interesting, could you spell this out please? I'm not sure I see how this would work...Getting the alchemist dedication and the follow up feats that increase your advanced alchemy level can provide LOTS of free healing every day. We're talking about more than 2000 points worth of healing in elixirs of life at level 20.
It's basically spending all your daily batches on Elixirs of Life. Just checked my math and noticed that 2000 was a bit optimistic. It's more like 1700 on average. Which is still more than solid, in my opinion.
With the Mastery Alchemy feat of the alchemist multiclass archetype, you can use your batches to craft up to level 15 items. That would be the Major Elixir of Life, healing 8d6+21 damage (42 on average). At that level, you have 20 batches and each creates 2 Elixirs, so you get 40*42 = 1680 HP healed per day on average.
I think when first doing this calculation I checked the maximum potential healing from those Elixirs (which is 2760, by the way) and somehow "over 2000" got stuck in my head. Sorry for the confusion.
Anyway, I'm currently playing a Sorcerer multiclassed to Wizard and I intent to get Alchemist Dedication at level 9 (multitalented ancestry feat) and Expert Alchemy at level 10. That gives me 20 Lesser Elixirs of Life, for an average of 330 healing.
Mastery Alchemy at level 14 upgrades this to 28 Moderate Elixirs of Life for 826 healing.
And of course, those are the maximum numbers if I never use the batches for anything else. There's also a great deal of flexibility with bombs and other elixirs like granting Darkvision to the whole party or giving your tank a Stone Body Mutagen. Or hand some poison to the rogue.
In some ways, a character multiclassed to alchemy feels like he can use his batches for healing and utility more freely than a true alchemist, since he doesn't need batches to do his main shtick. I can cast all the spells I want and still brew all those Elixirs every single day.
It's basically spending all your daily batches on Elixirs of Life. Just checked my math and noticed that 2000 was a bit optimistic. It's more like 1700 on average. Which is still more than solid, in my opinion.
With the Mastery Alchemy feat of the alchemist multiclass archetype, you can use your batches to craft up to level 15 items. That would be the Major Elixir of Life, healing 8d6+21 damage (42 on average). At that level, you have 20 batches and each creates 2 Elixirs, so you get 40*42 = 1680 HP healed per day on average.
I think when first doing this calculation I checked the maximum potential healing from those Elixirs (which is 2760, by the way) and somehow "over 2000" got stuck in my head. Sorry for the confusion.
Anyway, I'm currently playing a Sorcerer multiclassed to Wizard and I intent to get Alchemist Dedication at level 9 (multitalented ancestry feat) and Expert Alchemy at level 10. That gives me 20 Lesser Elixirs of Life, for an average of 330 healing.
Mastery Alchemy at level 14 upgrades this to 28 Moderate Elixirs of Life for 826 healing.
And of course, those are the maximum numbers if I never use the batches for anything else. There's also a great deal of flexibility with bombs and other elixirs like granting Darkvision to the whole party or giving your tank a Stone Body Mutagen. Or hand some poison to the rogue.
In some ways, a character multiclassed to alchemy feels like he can use his batches for healing and utility more freely than a true alchemist, since he doesn't need batches to do his main shtick. I can cast all the spells I want and still brew all those Elixirs every single day.
Thanks for that. I'm currently playing a rogue - and I think I just decided on going for the Alchemist Dedication :)
Aaaaand somehow I got the math wrong AGAIN. At level 20, you heal an average of 49 per Elixir of Life, not 42. So 40 of those are 1960 on average, which is much closer to what I thought it should be.
The rest of the numbers check out (unless I screwed up again).
Thanks for that. I'm currently playing a rogue - and I think I just decided on going for the Alchemist Dedication :)
You're welcome :)
I think Alchemist Dedication is pretty good. The nice thing about it is that all your batches create items at your highest possible level. Getting 40 level 15 items for free every day at level 20 is very very good. And all this for only 3 feats.
The caster dedications pale in comparison. You need four feats to get a single level 8 slot (which would be level 15 if spells weren't different). Spells are much more powerful than Elixirs and Bombs of course, so I guess it works our in the end.
I can see for people with some extra feats the alchemist dedication being pretty handy. Even if you don't crank your int a lot you still get a reasonable amount of heals/utility elixirs per day. And at the higher level the buff potion tend to last in the hour+ range so it gets pretty easy to crank out some nice utility stuff for your group that is long lasting that never really interacts with your DC at all.
Given the amount of new stuff we saw with some of the laund adventures I fully expect alchemists to really get rolling as the splat books come out with more goodies to make.
Agreed. Any mention of how someone with alchemist dedication would get new formulae other than buying them?
CRB: "Each time you gain a level, you can add the formulas for two common alchemical items to your formula book. These new formulas can be for any level of item you can create"
You could conceivably think that this also applies to the alchemist dedication feats, but I can't see it spelled out anywhere.
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In any party, one person with Assurance (Medicine), Battle Medicine, Continual Recovery, and Ward Medic will be able to Treat Wounds to multiple people every 10 minutes. At level 3, they will always be successful at the DC 15 to treat wounds, at level 6 with expert, they'll always hit the DC 20 and treat two people at once. At 14 with Master, they'll always hit the DC 30 and be able to treat four people at once, every 10 minutes.
Battle Medicine is optional but is good to have on hand in case someone needs emergency health.
But literally anyone can fit the role of medic with this combo.
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Any mention of how someone with alchemist dedication would get new formulae other than buying them?
I don't think you get any for free. However, since you're already becoming a master in crafting anyway, I'd say pick up the Inventor skill feat. This way, you're at least not bound by whatever the GM wants to make available.
You should also be able to disassemble any alchemical items you come across to learn its formula. At least I can't find anything in the disassembly rules that makes this not viable for consumables.
To add on to what Blave said, if you have someone who actually is a Chirugeon Alchemist they get to maximize all of the healing done by any Elixir's of Life that they make.
This in itself drastically improves the amount of healing that you can pass out.
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Any elixir that they make using quick alchemy, so if by 'pass out' you mean 'distributing to the party ahead of time' then that's not something they can use that ability for. (Though of course they also have the feature where they make 3 elixirs per reagent with advanced alchemy, instead of only 2.)
I don't think comparing it to the PF1's CWL Wand is a good idea. That thing was broken and outdid any form of healing with exception of the team consisting only of trolls.