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Are there any plans to buff Harm just a tad bit to help bring it inline with Heal? Currently it appears a bit underpowered, of course going up against Fortitude is rarely ever a good thing. How do people feel about the balance between Harm and Heal currently? Heal feels phenomenal and it's in a good place imo, I would rather see a slight buff to Harm rather then a nerd to Heal to bring them closer together.
Are there any plans to buff Harm just a tad bit to help bring it inline with Heal? Currently it appears a bit underpowered, of course going up against Fortitude is rarely ever a good thing. How do people feel about the balance between Harm and Heal currently? Heal feels phenomenal and it's in a good place imo, I would rather see a slight buff to Harm rather then a nerd to Heal to bring them closer together.
Heal is the best spell in the game for the majority of levels. I don't think Harm needs to be anywhere near as good as Heal.
Harm, by itself, is a pretty strange duck. It's pretty good as a Fort AOE with some channeling feats to buff it, but it sure does take up a lot of the cleric build. It's also okay at being a nova option for clerics that do 3 single action harms. Overall, I'd say it's a fine build around for a cleric and not very good outside of that.
It does get better if you build an undead minion to follow you around using the create undead ritual. Zombies, in particular, are great minions at any level when there's a level appropriate option. If the GM works with the cleric player to level up the undead minion with them in some way by helping them with costs and creating stat blocks to fill in the level gaps, then it's a pretty good option.
Are there any plans to buff Harm just a tad bit to help bring it inline with Heal? Currently it appears a bit underpowered, of course going up against Fortitude is rarely ever a good thing. How do people feel about the balance between Harm and Heal currently? Heal feels phenomenal and it's in a good place imo, I would rather see a slight buff to Harm rather then a nerd to Heal to bring them closer together.
There are a lot more ways to get bonuses to Heal than Harm but there are some.
The Undead Sorceror has bonuses to harm, both in extra healing for undead with Undeath's Blessing, and extra damage to living with their Blood Magic.
But I have to assume it was a design decision to make Heal better than Harm. I'm OK with that.
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They are literally equal, both do the same damage and both heal the same amount.
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They are literally equal, both do the same damage and both heal the same amount.
Yep.
1) Both Heal and Harm, heal more than than they harm in the two action version.
2) The downside gets a saving throw.
3) There are more options which boost the healing effect not the harming.
I assume that is what is being talked about.
Yes the saving throw is a killer, and a Fort save at that. Limited ways to boost Harm your correct Gortle.
I am confused. Harm is a very good spell. Of course it has a saving throw, I get that fortitude is seen as a bad save to target, but it’s output as a one action damage spell is brutal and the 3 action version is a show stopper.
If it were any more powerful evil enemy clerics would be the most lethal boss monsters in the game.
I think the fact it can be used offensively against far more creatures than heal is the trade off. Heal is not a very good offensive spell. Harm outproduces the vast majority of offensive spells on the divine list. The fact that it doubles as an amazing healing spell if your allies are undead makes it a very powerful NPC spell as is.
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I guess the proof is that Heal is one of the best spells in the game and Harm is nowhere near that. Heal Clerics are considered extremely strong while Harm Clerics are not nearly on the same level.
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I guess the proof is that Heal is one of the best spells in the game and Harm is nowhere near that. Heal Clerics are considered extremely strong while Harm Clerics are not nearly on the same level.
I think that comes down to utility. A healing cleric is seen as the party savior. A harm cleric is seen as another form of offensive combatant, something most parties don't need as much as a dedicated healer.
This could swing a bit once we get access to undead ancestries, and Harm Clerics become able to handle both roles at the same time.
pff, Harm is OP. It needs to be nerffed :)
On a side note, It is what has almost TPK'ed my pfs group more times than anything else.
Lol
Yeah, for evil undead parties/groups of enemies it is already pretty over powered, doing damage and healing at the same time. I don't think boosting it to make it more universally powerful is a very good idea, unless you want to have to adjust the difficulty of all undead down to handle it when an encounter is putting undead and harm clerics together. It is probably just important to remember that its balance factors in that it is every bit as good as heal when the caster/allies are necrotic. To that party, heal is far more useless as spell than harm is to the typical adventuring party.
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Seems like one of those things that will be fixed by more books coming out.
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Harm is good, I'd say the problem is most of the feat options for it that add effect comes late.
Heal only have heroic & defensive recovery compared to harm I believe? I could imagine debuff equivalent coming later, but seeing that you can't Stacy status penalties, that could be a bit too niche to be worth a feat.
Cast Down is really powerful though, unless they have a crit success on their save, they are prone (and at 14 with quick channel you can do it in aoe or cone).
I feel like the biggest 'problem' isn't the spell itself being weak, just the niches they fill.
Heal is one of the best ways to provide meaningful combat healing and one of the only sources of strong AoE healing. If you want to heal in a fight, you're probably going to be playing a Heal cleric (battle medicine has limited uses, chirurgeon potions have their own issues, and those are pretty much it for your combat-centric alternatives).
Harm meanwhile is a respectable burst damage tool or AoE nuke... but it's a respectable damage option in a game where literally every single class has multiple options for dealing damage.
I wouldn't even say Heal is so much a power house itself as that the cleric's font is. Casting a naked, unaugmented heal as a Druid or Sorcerer at low levels when you have like, 3 whole spell slots doesn't always feel that great unless you can hit a bunch of allies with the AoE.
I was actually planning a Gorum harm war cleric in once I get the chance to play in the future. Does it not synergise well with melee attacks as well as I hope it did?
I was actually planning a Gorum harm war cleric in once I get the chance to play in the future. Does it not synergise well with melee attacks as well as I hope it did?
It makes a great second or third action instead of an attack.
I was actually planning a Gorum harm war cleric in once I get the chance to play in the future. Does it not synergise well with melee attacks as well as I hope it did?
It has better flow, but as far as meaningful results, you'll get a mixed bag.
True, Warpriest Clerics will have improved proficiency in weapons and can use Channeling Smite better than a Spell Priest can since they actually add (presumably good) weapon damage in addition, but the truth is that their Legendary Save DCs will outpace their forever-Expert to-hit (which actually scales with unarmed and simple proficiencies just as fast with Spell Priests) in terms of successful/desirable outcomes, and since Harm is only 1 Action, automatically heightened to their maximum spell level casting through their Fonts, dealing the same base damage...yeah, I don't see Warpriests doing that much more damage than Spell Priests to warrant the lower save DCs, spells per day, increased actions, etc.
It flows better than a Fighter with Cleric Dedication, since they don't get access to feats like Channel Smite or Harming Hands, have even fewer spell slots, and even lower level spell slots, but as far as raw results? Ehhhhh. You're basically sacrificing proficiency boosts for it, which isn't really fair in my honest opinion. I don't see how fonts (which are Cleric class only) as requirements for these feats is really fair, as they interact with a type of spell than the fact that they get a certain amount of those spells for free.
If you can manage to get a group of Power Gamers to all become Undead in some way, and you're fighting anything other than Undead, then Harm becomes arguably the best spell in the game, doing major healing AND damage at the same time.
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Harming hands having harm font as a prerequisite prevents undead sorcerers getting it for 1d10+2 per spell level damage with harm.
But healing font is much better for all (non undead) clerics than harm font.
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Harm as a 2 action spell is a ranged attack that requires a fort save dealing 1d8+8 damage if failed.
If it's heightened by a level, it adds an additional 1d8+8?
No. The bonus +8 per Rank is only for when the spell is used for healing. Both Heal and Harm work that way.
Harm cast on a living creature as a damaging attack will have the fort save, but will only deal 1d8 damage with +1d8 for each Rank heightened.
Heal can be used the same way on Undead creatures.
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Be aware that this thread was revived. Much of the information given previously is out of date.
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