Is it better to not spend Actions in combat healing your allies unless they’re unconscious because defeating your enemies faster will generally have a better result than repeatedly healing an ally as their hit points bounce up and down? This is what I read in a guide recently, does it still hold true?
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Depends. How valuable are your actions relative to the person you're healing? Does the monster have a reaction that makes getting up from prone after being healed from 0 a fool's errand? These are tactical considerations that are going to be different for different encounters, there's no hard rule on when battle medicine is better than a strike.
You want to avoid any important characters getting ko'd since it costs two actions to pick your stuff back up and stand.
On the other hand, if the rogue just got 100-0'd by the +3 boss maybe just leave them bleeding out while you desperately prop up the fighter so they can win the fight for you.
You want to avoid any important characters getting ko'd since it costs two actions to pick your stuff back up and stand.
On the other hand, if the rogue just got 100-0'd by the +3 boss maybe just leave them bleeding out while you desperately prop up the fighter so they can win the fight for you.
This is the first I have ever heard of having to pick your stuff up and stand up from prone when dead. Where can I find this in the rulebook?
And the type of Healing I was referring to would be the use of Heal.
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This is the first I have ever heard of having to pick your stuff up and stand up from prone when dead. Where can I find this in the rulebook?You want to avoid any important characters getting ko'd since it costs two actions to pick your stuff back up and stand.
On the other hand, if the rogue just got 100-0'd by the +3 boss maybe just leave them bleeding out while you desperately prop up the fighter so they can win the fight for you.
Unconscious
Source Core Rulebook pg. 622You're sleeping, or you've been knocked out. You can't act. You take a –4 status penalty to AC, Perception, and Reflex saves, and you have the blinded and flat-footed conditions. When you gain this condition, you fall prone and drop items you are wielding or holding unless the effect states otherwise or the GM determines you're in a position in which you wouldn't.
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You don't want to let them go unconscious. Heal is real effective at early levels, then you can back off quite a bit at higher level and focus on killing the creature. It's one of those situations where you have to figure out intuitively if combat healing is needed. Otherwise focus fire the enemy down or control it.
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Is it better to not spend Actions in combat healing your allies unless they’re unconscious because defeating your enemies faster will generally have a better result than repeatedly healing an ally as their hit points bounce up and down? This is what I read in a guide recently, does it still hold true?
There's no clear cut answer to that question.
Healing a downed character is rarely a good idea as they won't be immediately efficient but some characters can be quickly back on their feet (Monk) while others are very important for the party stability (tanks). It's also important to not get a downed character up for them to go down again as their dying value will quickly reach critical levels, so only strong healing has to be done on downed character (unless they just want to run away from danger).Healing a character who's close to getting down is in general more interesting as you use your actions for them to keep theirs. Once again, it depends on your character: A Cleric will tend to use Heal extensively while other healers may have more options for helping win the fight.
Healing with a third action, with Battle Medicine for example, is also excellent healing and should be done any time possible.
So, as usual in PF2, the answer is: it depends.
Isn’t a big part of it to do with initiative order?
If you heal someone unconscious, that’s going to get to act before the thing that knocked them down, that’s probably great.
If you heal something unconscious that’s not going to get to act before the enemies next turn, they’re pretty likely to get knocked down again
In which case you probably wasted your turn and they probably miss theirs again.
This is the first I have ever heard of having to pick your stuff up and stand up from prone when dead. Where can I find this in the rulebook?You want to avoid any important characters getting ko'd since it costs two actions to pick your stuff back up and stand.
On the other hand, if the rogue just got 100-0'd by the +3 boss maybe just leave them bleeding out while you desperately prop up the fighter so they can win the fight for you.
Well, when you're unconscious it's reasonable to think you lose your grip on anything held in your hands. I don't know that's it explicitly stated, but it's not an unreasonable ruling. So if you drop your items, you then need to pick them up. And stand up. Minimum of 2 actions. Possibly 3 depending on shields and how you think of them (shields aside from buckler's were strapped to the arm as well as held in the same hand so I probably wouldn't have those be dropped).
I guess technically you don't need to grab your items or stand up, but you're going to be a lot less effective at doing things if you don't.
Anyways, my personal opinion is that healing from unconscious is very tricky. Depending on the enemy, and how much you can heal there is a good chance the ally will go down again.
It's much better to try to throw that heal in before your ally goes unconscious.
Also what SuperBidi said, I agree with their points about handling healing.
Try to throw in a battle medicine after a character has taken some damage, but before they're at critical levels. Consider throwing in a 2 or 3 action heal depending on how many people have taken damage and how much needs to be healed. Once you know healing is going to "be wasted" to "overhealing" and you evaluate how much damage an enemy is causing on average you can consider dropping a heal/battle medicine at any time.
In addition, I just had a thought for an interesting feat for clerics. What if they could take a feat to let you overheal a character, and any hp over you max is converted to temp HP that lasts for 1 minute. I don't think anything like that exists, would it balanced?
In addition, I just had a thought for an interesting feat for clerics. What if they could take a feat to let you overheal a character, and any hp over you max is converted to temp HP that lasts for 1 minute. I don't think anything like that exists, would it balanced?
I unfortunately think it would not have the intended effect.
During combat, overheal is not supposed to happen often outside the very first levels, so unless your feat is available before level 5 it should not have much impact on combats. But on the other hand, being able to give everyone a nice stack of temp hp before opening a door would definitely makes the following fight extremely simple. So in my opinion it will imbalance the game because of the one minute duration. If you put it down to one round, to limit its use to combat strictly, it would make a balanced feat even if a very circumstancial one in my opinion.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Healing is incredibly useful in combat, even at high levels (though high levels do give you more options to compete). You don't want to let your colleagues go unconscious, as this not only costs them action economy but potentially puts them in more danger by giving them the wounded condition when you bring them back up.
Think about it this way: Using a healing spell or action to bring someone back in the fight is often a good trade, because you're spending one or two actions to gain access to at least a whole PC's worth of actions (assuming that they have actions worth taking and can stay alive for at least one or two more rounds). That's not even getting into the benefits of reducing the risk of losing someone permanently, of course. But if you do it before they ever go down, you're saving two extra actions on top of that, and reducing the risk even further.
It's always going to depend, but healing is an action economy game. If you expect the character to get one-hit before they can take a turn, or you don't expect them to have any actions worth contributing but you have a really good offensive spell that could save the day, you may want to leave the rogue unhealed for a round.
Basically, there's no easy "best action". As with all tactics in PF2, it will depend on the situation.
In addition, I just had a thought for an interesting feat for clerics. What if they could take a feat to let you overheal a character, and any hp over you max is converted to temp HP that lasts for 1 minute. I don't think anything like that exists, would it balanced?I unfortunately think it would not have the intended effect.
During combat, overheal is not supposed to happen often outside the very first levels, so unless your feat is available before level 5 it should not have much impact on combats. But on the other hand, being able to give everyone a nice stack of temp hp before opening a door would definitely makes the following fight extremely simple. So in my opinion it will imbalance the game because of the one minute duration. If you put it down to one round, to limit its use to combat strictly, it would make a balanced feat even if a very circumstancial one in my opinion.
What about something a little more middle of the road? What about the temp HP lasting 2 rounds? You could use it as a pre-buff (I don't think that's a bad thing) and it lasts just long enough for characters to (likely) take a hit so that it's not wasted. Without being a thing that you would use 100% of the time due to limited spell slots and not being sure an enemy is in range to inflict damage before the duration runs out.
Basically, there's no easy "best action". As with all tactics, it will depend on the situation.
I agree. And the situation also depends on player preferences.
My own players have a teamwork style that emphasizes defending teammates. A frontline martial character could say, "Hey, I am getting dangerously low on hit points," and arrange to swap places with a support character, such as a bard, while he guzzles a healing potion safely in the back. In my current campaign from 1st level to 18th level, PCs have been knocked unconscious only three times. The party goes into rescue mode whenever that happens.
The role of some party members requires enough hit points to absorb some blows. If they have too few hit points, they cannot fulfill their role completely. Thus, healing during combat lets them operate at full capacity.
The advice in the guide should really be that in-combat healing is expensive in actions and resources. Thus, it should not be routine. Treat Wounds or an extra Lay on Hands from Refocusing after combat should be the routine method of restoring hit points. However, expensive in-combat healing is justified in many situations and the party should have it ready, such as learning the Battle Medicine feat.
It's not expensive in actions once you get Doctor's Visitation. >;D
Honestly, the idea of only a few partymembers going unconscious over eighteen levels is alien to me. Our GM runs pretty harsh encounters, sometimes to a fault, and she especially doesn't like to allow our "frontline" and "backline" to get too comfortable. Our last fight had us face a couple treacherous allies who turned on us in the middle of our ranks, and a few days before our party faced teleporting devils who gleefully tore apart the backline while the tougher frontliners got bogged down up ahead by combat maneuvers. Both encounters were in cramped environments, so repositioning to put the main heavy-hitters between us and them was no easy feat (and the poor investigator was just not equipped to take on two bearded devils to defend us casters). In that campaign, my medic cleric has basically been a necessity, and in a lot of fights the question isn't "should I heal?" but "should I heal myself, or gamble on bringing the fighter back up and hope she can draw this guy's fire?"
Basically, in a 4- or 5-person party, the importance of healing cannot be overstated--especially if your combats tend to be extremely swingy.
Chromatic Durgon, when a character goes down, their initiative moves to the spot directly before the thing that downed them.
O.O
Me and every group I’ve been I have been doing this wrong forever lmao
It's not expensive in actions once you get Doctor's Visitation. >;D
That costs a class feat slot to take an archetype feat. Investing feats to save actions is good planning, but most people have other plans for their feats.
Honestly, the idea of only a few partymembers going unconscious over eighteen levels is alien to me. Our GM runs pretty harsh encounters, sometimes to a fault, and she especially doesn't like to allow our "frontline" and "backline" to get too comfortable. Our last fight had us face a couple treacherous allies who turned on us in the middle of our ranks, and a few days before our party faced teleporting devils who gleefully tore apart the backline while the tougher frontliners got bogged down up ahead by combat maneuvers. Both encounters were in cramped environments, so repositioning to put the main heavy-hitters between us and them was no easy feat (and the poor investigator was just not equipped to take on two bearded devils to defend us casters). In that campaign, my medic cleric has basically been a necessity, and in a lot of fights the question isn't "should I heal?" but "should I heal myself, or gamble on bringing the fighter back up and hope she can draw this guy's fire?"
I frequently call my players "tactical masterminds." They improvise clever tactics all the time. And they have discovered a principle that makes the cleverness pay off, "If it amuses the GM, then it is more likely to work."
Here is a quote from a September 27, 2021 comment about clever tactics and healing in combat:
Another time the 6th-level 7-member party faced a small army of 40 hobgoblin soldiers (grouped into 10 5th-level troop units of 4 soldiers each), 2 6th-level sharpshooters, an 8th-level captain, and his 3rd-level dire wolf. That is 475 xp when the extreme threat against a 7-member party is 280 xp. The party had a great terrain advantage, because they had set up an ambush in a mountain pass for the next 12-soldier hobgoblin patrol. I sent an army instead, heh heh. The enemy column was 120 feet long, so I knew the party would not have to fight the entire army at once. The back would need time to catch up.
The trickster rogue was taken down to 2 hit points. The sorcerer had to follow behind the druid in Dinosaur Form casting Heal to keep the druid on his tyrannosaurus feet. And the monk followed the sorcerer as her bodyguard. When the trickster rogue was down to 2 hit points, the monk picked up the small leshy sorcerer and ran her to within 30 feet of the rogue to perform emergency healing. Perhaps that bent the rules, but I loved the teamwork. The champion, ranger, and sniper rogue were undamaged.
And the September 24, 2021 comment further up that thread discusses the first time a PC went unconscious in that campaign. It says something about healing in combat, too.
The tactics were straightforward. Take advantage of their stealth and later go for terrain advantage. Put PCs where they could use their strengths, such as a defensive character to block the doorway and ranged characters where they had cover but the enemy didn't. Heal to keep PCs active while the enemy was willing to sacrifice lowly 1st-level soldiers. The party also made opportune use of consumables. It was enough to let them fight as well as 7 characters instead of fight like 5. And that 40% advantage breaks the tight PF2 encounter budget math.
"Heal to keep PCs active," is a good summary of when to heal in combat. A PC on their last hit points will avoid risk and slow down. Don't let that happen, let them be active.
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Sure, I just mentioned the Medic archetype because it's a commonly-taken archetype that changes the math. How easy it is to heal people swings massively in PF2 based on your party composition, just like how easy it is to hit a given enemy.
And yeah, I thought about it a bit. I can definitely see how a seven-person party could afford to make choices like, "my fighter's just gonna take a little break and let the others tap in for her". For a 4- or 5-person party, that's often just suicide.
Chromatic Durgon, when a character goes down, their initiative moves to the spot directly before the thing that downed them.O.O
Me and every group I’ve been I have been doing this wrong forever lmao
I think this is a new rule in PF2. I can't remember if we used this in PF1 as it didn't come up that often.
Yeah, it's new. I also think a lot about "your init moves to be right after the person who heals you" as a house rule, but that's way more potentially broken. Maybe with a "if you haven't acted this round yet" qualifier. It gets squirrely, but that's what house rules are for.
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I have found that a charcoal that gets heals plays with a higher level of confidence and is usually far more willing to tank the hits so other PCs don’t.
Also, one doesn’t need to heal an equal or higher level of HP than taken as loss to be effective. If the PC took 40 damage that round and got healed for 30, than the only loss was 10. One solid heal can be all that is needed to balance the numbers enough in favor of the PCs in an encounter.
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Yeah, it's often more bang for your action buck than, say, trying an offensive spell with a 50/50 failure rate. Healing and buffs are never not a good idea.
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I have found that a charcoal that gets heals plays with a higher level of confidence and is usually far more willing to tank the hits so other PCs don’t.
Also, one doesn’t need to heal an equal or higher level of HP than taken as loss to be effective. If the PC took 40 damage that round and got healed for 30, than the only loss was 10. One solid heal can be all that is needed to balance the numbers enough in favor of the PCs in an encounter.
I’m not sure about healing charcoal, but a character does work.
Ugh stoopid autocorrect
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Yeah, it's often more bang for your action buck than, say, trying an offensive spell with a 50/50 failure rate.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Healing costs resources (most of the time) and doesn't put you closer to the end of the fight. So even if I fully agree that a properly built party must have healing abilities, relying too much on healing will ultimately reduce your efficiency. There is something as too much healing, healing can be a bad idea.
Also, if you cast an offensive spell, you have a chance to kill an enemy or help kill it earlier, reducing the damage the party takes by a value that then has to be compared to what you would have healed otherwise. Sometimes, you "heal" more by blasting than by healing.
PF2 is not WoW, there's no point in healing as much as the enemy deals damage and it's even a bad idea as you won't maintain this level of healing for long. Considering how out of combat healing is cheap, it's often better to focus on killing during the fight and healing once the fight is over.
Outside of the first 4 levels (where healing is important as damage is very high compared to hp pools), healing is interesting for emergencies. But it's not really interesting as a main specialization for a character.
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Yeah, it's often more bang for your action buck than, say, trying an offensive spell with a 50/50 failure rate. Healing and buffs are never not a good idea.
This is what I've seen, often, in the AoA game I have running. The cleric's two action heals, with healing hands feat often brings people from close to dead to almost full HP. Like anything, it can be situational, but in combat healing is not something to be ignored, IMO.
Outside of the first 4 levels (where healing is important as damage is very high compared to hp pools), healing is interesting for emergencies. But it's not really interesting as a main specialization for a character.
Yeah, after some levels the relative ratio of hp to damage because a lot less serious. Requiring 4+ hits to knock a character unconscious, while at very low levels sometimes a single lucky crit can send a character into unconsciousness.
That time period is when healing is super critical and probably done multiple times every combat. After that point though, the action economy should open up as healing isn't something required practically every turn.
This is what I've seen, often, in the AoA game I have running. The cleric's two action heals, with healing hands feat often brings people from close to dead to almost full HP. Like anything, it can be situational, but in combat healing is not something to be ignored, IMO.Yeah, it's often more bang for your action buck than, say, trying an offensive spell with a 50/50 failure rate. Healing and buffs are never not a good idea.
Two-action heal plus Doctor's Visitation saved our asses in the last fight. Specializing in healing pays off if your fights tend to be close. :)
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Two-action heal plus Doctor's Visitation saved our asses in the last fight. Specializing in healing pays off if your fights tend to be close. :)
Be careful to not end up with a self fulfilling prophecy. If you focus too much on healing you will have hard time contributing efficiently when healing is not required and will thus generate more close fights.
In PF2, a single character who can't contribute efficiently increases the fight difficulty by nearly one step, from Moderate to Severe or from Severe to Extreme. So you can generate the situations that you are supposed to solve, ending with the false impression that your contribution is a must have.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My character has plenty of spells and options. That's kind of the point of spontaneous casting. That being said, it's not uncommon for a combat to start and people to already be in the red before my turn even rolls up, so I don't always get the chance to bust out Organsight or Haste like I'd like. Maybe your campaigns just have safer combats. ;)
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My character has plenty of spells and options. That's kind of the point of spontaneous casting. That being said, it's not uncommon for a combat to start and people to already be in the red before my turn even rolls up, so I don't always get the chance to bust out Organsight or Haste like I'd like. Maybe your campaigns just have safer combats. ;)
I've seen a few dead characters and even a TPK, so I don't think it's a question of safety.
Are you low level? Because at mid to high level, putting a character in the red before you even get to act asks for a lot of bad luck.
My character has plenty of spells and options. That's kind of the point of spontaneous casting. That being said, it's not uncommon for a combat to start and people to already be in the red before my turn even rolls up, so I don't always get the chance to bust out Organsight or Haste like I'd like. Maybe your campaigns just have safer combats. ;)I've seen a few dead characters and even a TPK, so I don't think it's a question of safety.
Are you low level? Because at mid to high level, putting a character in the red before you even get to act asks for a lot of bad luck.
I would say more a GM using PF1 tactics. By which I mean, "Oh, there's the fighter in the front I'm going to attack him with all 4 enemies!"
In PF1 your fighter probably had a good enough AC (at least at moderate levels) that the enemy missed most of their hits, and the fighter while scathed is still in good enough shape to carry on.
In PF2, if you take 4 successful hits on turn 1 you're probably close to be incapacitated.
I would say more a GM using PF1 tactics. By which I mean, "Oh, there's the fighter in the front I'm going to attack him with all 4 enemies!"
In PF1 your fighter probably had a good enough AC (at least at moderate levels) that the enemy missed most of their hits, and the fighter while scathed is still in good enough shape to carry on.
In PF2, if you take 4 successful hits on turn 1 you're probably close to be incapacitated.
I won't make assumptions on Kobold Catgirl GM. I prefer to hear from her why there are so big differences in our experiences.
Also, I don't think focus fire is a bad thing, the PCs do it and the GM should definitely do it. Still, it should not be easy to put a Fighter down, especially if there's a need to move to get to them. The characters who are going down a lot are those who charge in the middle of the enemy group. But it doesn't look like the case here from the description of KC.
I would say more a GM using PF1 tactics. By which I mean, "Oh, there's the fighter in the front I'm going to attack him with all 4 enemies!"
In PF1 your fighter probably had a good enough AC (at least at moderate levels) that the enemy missed most of their hits, and the fighter while scathed is still in good enough shape to carry on.
In PF2, if you take 4 successful hits on turn 1 you're probably close to be incapacitated.
I won't make assumptions on Kobold Catgirl GM. I prefer to hear from her why there are so big differences in our experiences.
Also, I don't think focus fire is a bad thing, the PCs do it and the GM should definitely do it. Still, it should not be easy to put a Fighter down, especially if there's a need to move to get to them. The characters who are going down a lot are those who charge in the middle of the enemy group. But it doesn't look like the case here from the description of KC.
That's fair, I shouldn't be so presumptuous about the strategies of a GM who is not here to explain themselves.
But I do think that if a character is on the receiving end of focus fire from the entire enemy party that it shouldn't be surprising to see a character be near or go unconscious. It could be due to incredibly poor player tactics, like jumping into the middle of a group of enemies and being subject to multiple attacks from each enemy or it could be that all the enemies (3 ranged and one melee) focus on the fighter in front because GM reasons.
Two-action heal plus Doctor's Visitation saved our asses in the last fight. Specializing in healing pays off if your fights tend to be close. :)Be careful to not end up with a self fulfilling prophecy. If you focus too much on healing you will have hard time contributing efficiently when healing is not required and will thus generate more close fights.
I would call that a deliberate choice of combat style rather than a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My own players like to start combat slowly with Recall Knowledge checks and test attacks with cantrips to figure out the opponents' strengths and weaknesses. A slow start typically means taking more damage, so they have good defenses to avoid that. Then they invent tactics to nullify opponent strengths and exploit their weaknesses and finish combat quickly. The encounters that damage them the most are ones in which the only way to defeat the enemy is to hack away at their massive hit points.
In PF2, a single character who can't contribute efficiently increases the fight difficulty by nearly one step, from Moderate to Severe or from Severe to Extreme. So you can generate the situations that you are supposed to solve, ending with the false impression that your contribution is a must have.
The Encounter Budget rules in the Core Rulebook give precise math for how deadweight in the party affects the encounter difficulty. For a regular 4-member party, a Moderate Threat is 80 xp of opponents, a Severe Threat is 120 xp, and an Extreme Threat is 160 xp. A 4-member party with one totally useless PC would experience the difficulty of a 3-member party: Moderate Threat is 60 xp, Severe Threat is 90 xp, and Extreme Threat is 120 xp, so Superbidi's scale is correct. However, in my experience, most lame characters contribute more like half a character than zero characters. For a 3.5-member party Moderate Threat is 70 xp, Severe Threat is 105 xp, and Extreme Threat is 140 xp.
I would say more a GM using PF1 tactics. By which I mean, "Oh, there's the fighter in the front I'm going to attack him with all 4 enemies!"
In PF1 your fighter probably had a good enough AC (at least at moderate levels) that the enemy missed most of their hits, and the fighter while scathed is still in good enough shape to carry on.
In PF2, if you take 4 successful hits on turn 1 you're probably close to be incapacitated.
The highly defensive champion in my party could probably take the hits.
At 15th level she was swallowed whole by a 14th-level Blighted Froghemoth and her reaction was that the party should deal with the other four froghemoths, because she had plenty of time to carve her way out. Since that froghemoth had just swallowed its lunch, it left combat. A GM ought to play monsters as acting like monsters rather than giving them the very best tactics.
In contrast, in that battle against 40 hobgoblin soldiers that I mentioned yesterday the last order of Captain Dargg before the party killed him was, "Kill the wizard!" Thus, the army was focusing on the gnome stormborn druid who had just thrown lightning, whom Dargg had mistaken for a wizard. Armies use good tactics and killing the druid specializing in area-of-effect damage was the smartest tactic. The magical trickster rogue stood up on a 10-foot-tall rock, threw Produce Flame at the hobgoblins, and announced with a Deception check, "You fools, I am the wizard!" This split the army so that one third was attacking the druid, one third was attacking the rogue, and one third was still trying to catch up from the back of the marching column. Through killing the commander and using Deception, the party weakened the army's tactics. This is also why the rogue ended up at so few hit points that he needed emergency healing.
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I do notice on these boards a lot of people declare "I play my encounters like the PC party, ruthless going for the kill" as if anything else is bad dming and going soft on the party.
When to me it always screams "I play all my encounters with meta knowledge and ignore how monsters and animals are likely to behave in favor of trying to kill the party!" lol
