Life Boost and the Efficiency of Healing Focus


Witch Playtest


1 person marked this as a favorite.

There are 4 Focus Powers in the core rulebook that offer healing.

Lay on Hands is the most ubiquitous, offering 6 hp per spell level for only one action, albeit only at melee range. It also offers a small AC bnus if used in combat.

Wholeness of Body is not as good, being self-only and offering 8 hp per level -8 for 1 action but only applying to yourself.

Soothing Ballad comes on significantly later at 13th level, but offers a burst of 1d8 per spell level to yourself and 10 allies along with versatility for other options.

And finally, after the errata Goodberry clocks in as the best of them all, offering 1d6+4 per level for two actions that can be precast and requiring only 1 action to consume, and you can split it up however you like.

In addition to their relative action efficiency, all of these focus powers can be used out of combat for cost and time efficient healing, and on top of that because of how Refocus can be combined with other activities as they apply, it can be argued a champion of a deity of healing like Sarenrae can Refocus by treating wounds, making it even more time efficient.

Now let's look at the witch's Life Boost. At maximum use, we're getting 10 hp per level spread across 10 rounds for the cost of 11 actions (2 to initially cast and 9 rounds of sustain/cackle). In combat, this plays out for, as an example, a character with a witch in a level 10 party healing for 5 hp per round which, as anyone who's played a level 10 combat will tell you, is absolutely nothing. Out of combat, this comes out to slightly more than any other Focus Power, except that unlike those powers, you can't use them repeatedly on the same target.

All in all this makes Life Boost terrible in general, providing very little in combat value and not enough out of combat value to be worth spending the lesson on it, but especially when you put it next to the far more valuable other Focus Powers, it just makes a Lesson of Healing witch look pathetic by comparison.

Grand Archive

I agree that the healing is very minor. Its possible it is entirely meant to be used during downtime in combination with treat wounds so you're fixing someone up with medicine while they are fast healing, however, why does Life Boost give temporary immunity to its healing while lay on hands doesn't? If we already have a source of infinite healing in the game around the same level, why limit it only one of those abilities?

Community / Forums / Archive / Pathfinder / Playtests & Prerelease Discussions / Advanced Player’s Guide Playtest / Witch Playtest / Life Boost and the Efficiency of Healing Focus All Messageboards
Recent threads in Witch Playtest