Putting together another idea for a character build, but I am not sure how useful it would be in general. The idea is a Witch of divine or primal tradition that uses Counterspell Heal in order to hamper the enemy's ability to heal in combat rather than providing healing directly.
But it isn't going to be very useful if none of the enemies ever actually cast Heal.
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This feels more like a question for your GM. If I'm being honest, unless I'm going with a very specific sort of encounter, it's not something I do very often because it...
1) Isn't actually effective much beyond extending the encounter length.
2) It "reads" as a good thing to do and I'm not sure how much I want my players looking around and asking "Are we the baddies?" after they bash in the cultist's face for the third time.
3) I would much rather use a spell slot for something fun or interesting for my players to deal with.
So while it is up to how your GM runs their encounters, I personally have a preference against using Heal on my antagonists.
In addition to your GM's tastes, it also depends on what kind of campaign you are playing. I've been running a 2e conversion of Mummy's Mask and the party hasn't gotten to a bunch of casters who would use heal yet, most of the antagonists have been arcane casters and the party talked their way out of the most significant fight with a healer enemy. I rather like including support NPCs in enemy teams whose purpose is to heal and buff every once in a while, it just hasn't been right for the campaign yet.
This feels more like a question for your GM. If I'm being honest, unless I'm going with a very specific sort of encounter, it's not something I do very often
I'm reading this in two ways. Either as GM you don't have the enemies cast Heal, or you don't think Counterspell of Heal would be a good thing.
I'm suspecting the first reading, but thought I should ask for clarification.
This feels more like a question for your GM. If I'm being honest, unless I'm going with a very specific sort of encounter, it's not something I do very oftenI'm reading this in two ways. Either as GM you don't have the enemies cast Heal, or you don't think Counterspell of Heal would be a good thing.
I'm suspecting the first reading, but thought I should ask for clarification.
I, personally, don't have enemies cast Heal outside of very specific encounters as attrition battles aren't fun or interesting to me.
I, personally, don't have enemies cast Heal outside of very specific encounters as attrition battles aren't fun or interesting to me.
Excellent, thanks.
The other idea I have for this character is in my role as GM. When you want to train your players to not flail wildly with a third attack at -10, put them up against a Swashbuckler or two. If you want to teach them to not over-rely on Heal, put them up against a Counterspelling Witch.
That may be a bit too harsh to overuse, but Witch doesn't get enough spell slots to keep that up for very long.
Thoughts on that?
At the risk of going on a tirade, I have plenty of opinions on encounter design and GMing in general. My chief concern when running games is that they are fun. I also want encounters that encourage (but do not require) players to play a bit differently than usual.
For instance, in a group that has been standing and fighting very decently, having them face an enemy that is invisible, which asks them to Seek often or Ready action to Strike. Or a battle against flying enemies while players cross (and Balance) across a frozen bridge.
To your particular questions, I feel like the system teaches "don't Strike with -10 MAP" fairly decently. It's a 50% reduction in accuracy and assures that almost any attack will miss. Players doing this seem to lack system mastery and I don't want to punish them for that. Rather, I just point out the math to them (as I did have to do with a barbarian player of mine who would happily pick up a die and chant "need that 20") and offer up alternatives to the attack. Demoralize, Stepping, even Recall Knowledge (do you know how many martials have Warfare Lore trained?) all fit quite nicely into anyone's patterns. If it's something that keeps happening and - importantly - frustrating the player, then I would just speak to them about it. My NPCs are always using their 3 actions for a variety of things, but if yours aren't, showing off how effective they can be while using them can also help.
As for the counterspelling witch, I have a few thoughts. Done once, with plenty of signposting ("Aye, the witch there has a curse out for the workers of healing magic. It would be best not to invoke the gods should you find her."), it could make an interesting encounter. But I also don't enjoy encounters that strip away options rather than provide options. I've never run into the problem of players casting Heal often, but it sounds like a self-correcting one as Heal is... really not sustainable in difficult encounters.
Generally, I see the tools that you're talking about as player-side tools to foil their enemies (which feels good!) and not to be foiled by (which feels bad!). Counterspelling an opponent's fireball feels great, but having yours countered feels terrible. Having the option to third attack isn't a good one, but I wouldn't stop someone from taking their shot at it, especially if they're having fun.
At the risk of going on a tirade
Tirade away. You have some good points.
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Don't allow me that! I realize that I'm slowly turning into Mathmuse (sans math knowledge) where I want to attach anecdotes from my recent games to every post.
I say this with the utmost love to Mathmuse and his Ironfang Invasion campaign. There's only room for one yarn-spinner on these here forums and you've got the crown.
I don't think the game teaches not to strike at -10 very well. My group pretty much only does tank and spank, even when we have no tank(there were a few fights where my summoner's Eidolon was the only front line). I hit often enough with third and fourth attacks, while missing so much with first attacks, that it often feels completely random. I don't feel like every class has enough ways to synergies with others just yet, got flat footed, check, frighten or sicken, check, then your usually done. I hope this improves with more options, because as much as I would like to have more engaging fights, it usually just ends up circle around opponent and flail at them until they die, rinse and repeat. Hopefully this new party will turn out differently, but so far it's much the same.
More on point, if your going to bring in enemies that "counter" your parties playstyle in anyway, make sure they have other options to fall back on, as most people have a hard time being forced out of their comfort zone in tough fights. Sprinkle the counters in on easy fights to try and push them in new directions or foreshadow a bigger fight that might include these elements. Once you know swashbucklers and anyone dual wielding might counter crit misses it becomes something to look out for.
Counterspelling heal sorta feels like a dick move. It's often going to be THE thing your cleric does, and your taking it away from them. If they are high enough to have other HP restoring spells, then maybe, but it feels like a risk of ruining a players fun, singling them out for punishment. Just be very careful you don't sweep their feet out and leave your players floundering too hard, some players might be fine with having backup plans, others might just shut down.
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As mentioned, probably campaign specific so asking your GM their thoughts will better answer the question. With respect to org play it very rarely happens. Healing rarely keeps up with the DpR of a party so spending a round healing and not dealing with the threat directly will not change the outcome of most battles. In fact a single crit will usually do more damage than the healing restored so unless the bad guys have a significant advantage with action economy, its a poor tactic.
OTOH, if your home GM is one to use healing during magic by the enemies, being a counter-caster could be quite effective and a fun alternative to repetitive standard tactics.
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A scroll of "Shut down Fast Healing" would be a good ace for a character to have up their sleeve. You occasionally run into a monster that has both difficult AC or maybe good (flying) mobility, and fast healing or some kind of life stealing. Where you can see the writing on the wall as players: you can't win this one through attrition, time is on the side of the enemy.
I have on occasion run into monsters that had "counter Divine magic" style reactions, usually with a range of 30ft. That's reasonably balanced, because you can adjust for it by waiting out their reaction, or casting you spells from greater range (Reach spell can help).
I feel like these "they have this trick, I have to work around it" things are more fun than "they have this trick and I just have to hope for a good roll under critical circumstances".
Worth noting as a GM that you can get a similar effect to having an enemy that counterspells the party's heal spells by using monsters that leave wounds which resist healing, like Barbazus and Clay Golems
With as much as the numbers are stacked against the PCs in terms of enemy attack vs PC AC and enemy Ac vs PC attack (and more generally monsters being numerically superior) I think having enemies who heal is bad in PF2.
Especially for groups that don't have good teamwork to twist the numbers in their favor. Same as a GM who might run enemies in very tactically intelligent ways.
From my perspective, to keep it fun (unless your players like player on super high difficulty) enemies shouldn't use smart tactics (including healing) except on very rare occasions.
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I disagree. IMO, the GM should run monsters to their intelligence, not to some preconceived notion of fairness. In most cases, the creature's intelligence, or lack thereof is a part of the balancing that makes them what they are. A vampire is not only deadly because of their inherent physical stats and supernatural abilities, but also because of their superior intelligence allowing them an edge over most opponents. OTOH, creatures like mindless oozes and constructs are already a challenge because of their inherent abilities, but that they are too dumb to consider advanced tactics, especially when there are multiples that could benefit from flank, etc. is part of the balancing that keeps them from being too difficult an encounter. YMMV
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I prefer monsters to play to their intelligence. It's fun to sometimes face a really dumb monster and get tactical openings you wouldn't normally have, and on the other hand to sometimes get challenged by really smart moves.
But, it does indeed affect the difficulty. If your monster is both the highest level threat in the adventure (because he's the boss) and has the smartest tactics (because he's the boss) that might be too much at once.
I think it's a manner of being honest to yourself as a GM. How hard is the encounter really? If you pick a certain level of encounter to build but then you coordinate monster tactics and terrain setup to give the monster a big advantage, you know that it's harder now right?
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With as much as the numbers are stacked against the PCs in terms of enemy attack vs PC AC and enemy Ac vs PC attack (and more generally monsters being numerically superior) I think having enemies who heal is bad in PF2.
Especially for groups that don't have good teamwork to twist the numbers in their favor. Same as a GM who might run enemies in very tactically intelligent ways.
From my perspective, to keep it fun (unless your players like player on super high difficulty) enemies shouldn't use smart tactics (including healing) except on very rare occasions.
Actually, I think most enemies have other ways than Heal to keep up with damage so that they don't face the PCs' problem of mass healing all combattants including your enemies.
It is in fact yet another way to stack combat against the PCs.
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I prefer monsters to play to their intelligence. It's fun to sometimes face a really dumb monster and get tactical openings you wouldn't normally have, and on the other hand to sometimes get challenged by really smart moves.
But, it does indeed affect the difficulty. If your monster is both the highest level threat in the adventure (because he's the boss) and has the smartest tactics (because he's the boss) that might be too much at once.
I think it's a manner of being honest to yourself as a GM. How hard is the encounter really? If you pick a certain level of encounter to build but then you coordinate monster tactics and terrain setup to give the monster a big advantage, you know that it's harder now right?
There is an encounter in a recent PFS scenario where opponents basically auto-succeed at their perception check well in advance and make the best possible use of one of their innate abilities.
And this was not taken into account when assessing the encounter's difficulty (Severe on XP budget alone).
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If they have the Domain Tradition that isn't sourced from Innate Spellcasting (or in other words are actual "Trained" Divine Spellcasters) then the creatures should absolutely have and USE Heal in combat if the situation warrants it, at worst it will likely help keep the combat going another round or two if the party is unlucky.
From my perspective narratively justifying this type of opponent to have ACCESS to one of the best spells in the entire game but not prepare/know or USE it is tenuous at best, enemies are supposed to have a life and motivation all their own and eschewing Heal (or Sooth/other healing spells) is pretty much antithetical to that.
I prefer monsters to play to their intelligence. It's fun to sometimes face a really dumb monster and get tactical openings you wouldn't normally have, and on the other hand to sometimes get challenged by really smart moves.
But, it does indeed affect the difficulty. If your monster is both the highest level threat in the adventure (because he's the boss) and has the smartest tactics (because he's the boss) that might be too much at once.
I think it's a manner of being honest to yourself as a GM. How hard is the encounter really? If you pick a certain level of encounter to build but then you coordinate monster tactics and terrain setup to give the monster a big advantage, you know that it's harder now right?
Yeah, I absolutely agree with this. That is both what I prefer to play as a GM, and what I prefer to see as a player.
And you are right that the GM needs to keep that in mind when deciding how difficult the battle actually is.
It is also much harder for the GM to set up and play those types of battles. Deliberately dumbing down the tactics of your own characters is difficult. Sure, I know that these characters are destined to be a speed bump in the PC character's stories - but I put quite a bit of work into them. It feels bad to have them simply steamrolled.
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In general, thanks for all of the feedback everyone.
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Sure, I know that these characters are destined to be a speed bump in the PC character's stories - but I put quite a bit of work into them. It feels bad to have them simply steamrolled.
I hear you. I guess it helps that making higher-level NPCs is at least much less work now. And that NPC hit points go up pretty fast so they usually last for at least a few rounds.
I think that a counter heal build would only really come up if your GM is specifically pushing for healing heavy combat.
Should the enemies have a healer? Yes. Any intelligent group designed for long term use should probably look for some kind of healing. However, healers- especially ones capable of doing so in the middle of combat- are a rather rare resource (especially if you can't do normal recruitment as a group of bandits or cultists). So it isn't something that would come up in most fights.
A major villain might have an evil cleric as a lieutenant, and I could see that being the gimmick of a midboss fight when you stumble into the group's medical room. Maybe they could also stick around the leader, since the leader wants insurance.
HOWEVER, it isn't exactly hard to create campaign where healing is a central motif. The first thing that comes to mind is a campaign where you are taking on a well established church- so clerics would be a standard enemy type.
Another possibility is that your party is a group of assassins in a setting where nobles are extremely well prepared (and they are very willing to use every 'intelligent' suggestion in this thread). So they always have clerics and escape items on hand, and these are tactics you would have to prepare for. Counter healing, counter status removal, counter various teleporting spells. Everything.
The reason why strong healing is usually not a thing is because monsters, by their design in game, are disposable. Players go through monsters like potato chips, and the bestiary is basically a big snack machine with dozens of different flavors of chips.
This is a game that is designed so that the party chews through dozens of enemies per dungeon raid. Healing that one lvl 4 kobold is not as important as getting one more hit on the party. One heal on a kobold means it might take one more turn of sword swings to slaughter it- this is only time, and no other resource might be wasted. One more hit on a party member means that they might have to spend one more healing spell or potion on themselves, and that means they ran through a limited resource.
Now, the "logic" in setting... well, a lot of the villains that players fight similarly view their minions as disposable. And they might not be able to afford to man that much healing anyway. Spell casters and people with good medical skills are rare. As a player, you are part of a group of highly concentrated talent, because that is more interesting, and it is more likely for a plot to pay attention to that than to bandit party #73.
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Mass healing is supposed to be mostly limited to the "good guys". Primarily it just slows the game too much if the enemy can heal.
But it is a factor in the game world. So it should show up. Just not that often, as it drags out the game for very little benefit. Tactical use to buy a round for an enemy, or to attempt an escape is Ok.
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tl;dr: if Paizo wanted monsters to be able to cast the Heal spell, they would have access to it already. It is not a mistake they don't have healing, it is an intentional design choice. (I believe you Gortle already agree to this, so I'm talking to everyone here)
That's not true. There are a few NPCs with access to Heal.
But they are all at least neutral. And I think that's the catch here: Heal is a "good" spell, cast by good characters. Evil ones have Harm. And Harm is quite common amongst enemies, many of them being undead or related to undeads and as such providing healing to their allies.So I disagree about the "game" choice, in my opinion it's a "lore" choice.
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The intention is for this to be sufficient, and *not* to add custom-made "healing monsters" with full-strength healing abilities (such as the Heal spell).Eh, depends on what we mean by full-strength. The gamemastery guide gives advice on making creatures that heal themselves, and it boils down to not letting them heal from 2+ attacks every round for free or letting them cast max-level heal spells at-will.
Your creature might have regeneration, fast healing, or some other ability to heal itself. These healing abilities can greatly affect the flow of a fight. Regeneration or fast healing heals some number of hits each round—usually one to one and a half hits. To determine the number of Hit Points it should restore, look at the high damage value on Table 2–10: Strike Damage (page 65) and multiply that value by the number of hits healed. For instance, if the high damage is 20, regeneration between 20 to 30 makes sense. The value should be higher if the regeneration is easy to overcome—and remember that most regeneration gets easier to overcome at higher levels. Also, you might want to decrease the creature’s total HP by double its regeneration value. Fast healing follows the same rules, but because it can’t prevent a creature’s death and there isn’t always have a way to deactivate it, you might want to give the creature more HP instead of fast healing to keep things simple.
If a creature can use an ability that heals it, that ability typically restores more HP since it costs actions. An at‑will healing ability should be based on a heal spell 2 levels lower than the highest-level spell a creature of that level could ordinarily cast (for example, an 11th-level creature can typically cast up to 6th-level spells, so you would base its healing ability on a 4th-level heal spell). If the ability both deals damage and heals, use that same baseline scale from above but with vampiric touch instead of heal.
Seems like the published intent is to give creatures that can heal themselves some limits rather than don't make creatures capable of healing. Especially because the advice for building NPCs tells us that cleric NPCs should get divine font which means several full-strength healing powers, just not at-will full-strength healing.
But they are all at least neutral. And I think that's the catch here: Heal is a "good" spell, cast by good characters. Evil ones have Harm. And Harm is quite common amongst enemies, many of them being undead or related to undeads and as such providing healing to their allies.
I've seen several enemies with Heal who are evil in Paizo's published adventures. Every Dahak cultist in Age of Ashes have Heal, the Angazhani cultists in The Slithering also all have heal.
But they are all at least neutral. And I think that's the catch here: Heal is a "good" spell, cast by good characters. Evil ones have Harm. And Harm is quite common amongst enemies, many of them being undead or related to undeads and as such providing healing to their allies.I've seen several enemies with Heal who are evil in Paizo's published adventures. Every Dahak cultist in Age of Ashes have Heal, the Angazhani cultists in The Slithering also all have heal.
What fun are broken toys? You should at least make it so that you can break them again.
Or there would have been a "neutral heal" available to everybody.
So, if there was a spell that heals exactly as much as Heal and would be neutral-aligned, or even better evil-aligned, and as such quite common among enemies (especially those who can benefit from it) then your whole point would be moot?
In the past, there was no point debating with you but you reached another level: now you give us the counter arguments to your points so you can debate with yourself.
Zapp, you're my hero!
You can be sure that if the game would have been better off by enemies casting heal, companies such as Wizards of the Coast and Paizo would be quick to change the description of Heal to not refer to alignment. Or there would have been a "neutral heal" available to everybody.
Making Heal "good" so it just "happens" to be out of reach for 99% of monsters is not an accident.
Um Heal makes no mention of alignment in its write-up, Heal. So what are you exactly saying here?
EDIT: Just checked, Cure Wounds (you know, the spell from Wizards of the Coast) also makes no mention of alignment in its write-up. So really, what are you exactly saying here?
If somehow our culture were different and healing were not associated with good, according to your logic monsters would have had strong healing, since we've removed the main obstacle according to you.
Let's find an AP where healing is associated to the antagonists and check the amount of healing.
So, I open Hell's Vengeance and look for the word cure (we are talking Pathfinder 1). 14 potions, wands, scrolls and memorized spells in the first volume, 14 in the second volume, 12 in the third volume. You have an enemy with healing abilities in nearly half the fights.In the past, there was no point debating with you but you reached another level: now you give us the counter arguments to your points so you can debate with yourself.No.
Yes, you are giving me the counter arguments to your thesis, again. Your whole point is based on blatantly false data that I just have to check to prove you wrong.
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You can be sure that if the game would have been better off by enemies casting heal, companies such as Wizards of the Coast and Paizo would be quick to change the description of Heal to not refer to alignment. Or there would have been a "neutral heal" available to everybody.
Making Heal "good" so it just "happens" to be out of reach for 99% of monsters is not an accident.
Um Heal makes no mention of alignment in its write-up, Heal. So what are you exactly saying here?
EDIT: Just checked, Cure Wounds (you know, the spell from Wizards of the Coast) also makes no mention of alignment in its write-up. So really, what are you exactly saying here?
It's a lore alignment.
For example, all good deities give access to Healing Font and very few of them give access to both fonts. All evil deities, on the other hand, give access to Harming Font and only a few of them give access to both fonts.So, even if Heal is not aligned per se, it is strongly associated with good (and Harm with evil).
You can be sure that if the game would have been better off by enemies casting heal, companies such as Wizards of the Coast and Paizo would be quick to change the description of Heal to not refer to alignment. Or there would have been a "neutral heal" available to everybody.
Making Heal "good" so it just "happens" to be out of reach for 99% of monsters is not an accident.
Um Heal makes no mention of alignment in its write-up, Heal. So what are you exactly saying here?
EDIT: Just checked, Cure Wounds (you know, the spell from Wizards of the Coast) also makes no mention of alignment in its write-up. So really, what are you exactly saying here?
It's a lore alignment.
For example, all good deities give access to Healing Font and very few of them give access to both fonts. All evil deities, on the other hand, give access to Harming Font and only a few of them give access to both fonts.
So, even if Heal is not aligned per se, it is strongly associated with good (and Harm with evil).
But it doesn't prevent evil monsters from benefiting from it. If you're living you can use or get healed.
They're literally following the rule though. The rule for making NPC clerics is to give them Divine Font and prepared divine spellcasting as a cleric of their level. So the clerics in print follow the rule and have powerful healing abilities.I've seen several enemies with Heal who are evil in Paizo's published adventures. Every Dahak cultist in Age of Ashes have Heal, the Angazhani cultists in The Slithering also all have heal.So they're the exceptions that prove the rule.
Ergo my clear-sighted analysis: skip the in-game fluff and focus on the fundamental needs of the game and you will find the true answer.
The "game" fundamentally needs the lore to be properly understood, the lore informs quite a bit of the decisions about the game. Especially with regards to what creatures are used in published adventures, the lore informs authors about what creatures it makes sense to use when building encounters in the context of the adventure. Pretending it is just fluff and can be easily dismissed when analyzing what creatures have been used in print is short-sighted, not clear-sighted.
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I've seen several enemies with Heal who are evil in Paizo's published adventures. Every Dahak cultist in Age of Ashes have Heal, the Angazhani cultists in The Slithering also all have heal.So they're the exceptions that prove the rule.
"The exception proves the rule" does not mean that finding examples that defy a rule somehow prove it true. In this case it could be used to mean testing (using prove archaically to mean test) the rule through its exceptions but I highly doubt that is what sophistry you were trying for here.
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An exception doesn't prove a rule. It's an emergency path to a rule to prevent it from being disproven altogether because someone just came up with a counterexample.
"Enemies never heal." "What about this troll?" "Enemies never heal, except through regeneration."
If a rule has a lot of exceptions then maybe the rule wasn't that well-conceived to begin with.
"Enemies never heal, except through regeneration, fast healing, life draining, sometimes casting Heal spells that they prepared, or when an author gives them healing potions and tactics that are probably too little, too late, or when the campaign is actually about evil PCs fighting good guys, or when you're fighting enemies that come from some package book with complete teams of NPCs with healers in them, or..."
I think the real reason you don't see quite as much healing on stock monsters is that they don't get written for support roles very much. A monster might be selected for an encounter on its own and they have to be self-sufficient. When you get a book like PF1's NPC Codex or Monster Codex that deals in local tribes or organizations, you see more support characters too.
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All that being said, I've had some traumatic fights against enemies that would fly, have high AC, fast healing and enough accuracy to hit the low-level PCs. With a lot of monsters the PCs can bull through even poorly balanced encounters with some desperate kite-and-heal tactic, but that falls apart against enemies that can heal up each round nobody manages to hit them.