I like that there's a lot of options and they play differently-- There's obviously Heal Clerics of both persuasions (with some neat options in the remaster and no need for Charisma they're more versatile), Life Oracles (and others for a less dedicated healing role), Angelic/Phoenix Sorcerers (ditto), Kineticists of Wood and Water (which manage resources very differently), Medics on a Variety of Classes, Occult/Divine/Primal Witches can all get Life Boost for a healing style I'm having fun with, Bards especially with Hymn of Healing, Druids, Alchemists were looking decent at healing after some recent adjustments, there's even weird little niches for healing Gunslingers via Life Shot.
Overall healing feels powerful and important, I consider it prerequisite to some of the harder encounters you can legally create using the encounter guidelines and that a lot of the stuff that garners "don't" advice is perfectly acceptable with dedicated healing. I see this as a good thing because we have players who like healing, and it stops the meta from dismissing it due to the superiority of alpha-striking in PF1e/5e/4e/etc.
Do you have experience with wood kineticist healing? It looks very shiny to me, and Timber Sentinel is great for obvious reasons, but I'm concerned about the bit where Fresh Produce basically requires that the target have a free hand, especially since it seems like front-liners would be the least likely members of the party to be running around with hands free.
Fresh produce is somewhat competitive with 2-action heal, though only at higher levels (where aura shaping is online) and only because the action cost is lower. It's not bad by any means, though.
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My least favorite option is 1-action heal (it's hideously inefficient compared to the 2-action version, and ruinously expensive in terms of slots. Just cast the 2-action variant). Likewise, Ocean's balm is too low to serve as anything but a replacement for battle medicine.
Fresh Produce doesn't actually save any actions. It takes one from the kineticist and one from the target. This also means that it can't be used on downed targets to get them back up again. It does mean that it's nto eating your two-action slot for the turn, though, which can matter.
Ocean's Balm is potentially useful even if you do have Battle Medicine, as Ocean's Balm is effectively limited to once per target per encounter (as all kineticist heals are) and Battle Medicine is generally more limited than that.
I notice that you haven't addressed Chirurgeon-based healing at all. It's my understanding that recent changes have made that option more viable, especially if you're dealing with a large party and extended adventuring days (ie, the situations where "clerics spams two-action heals" is less dominant).
Healing options are very strong in PF 2e, and sometimes border on too strong. Not because of their healing output, but rather simply because compared to other non-damage options, healing well and truly shines above both other skills and other spells when it comes to utility. But yes, healing is in a amazing space, S tier no questions.
Fresh Produce will never not be funny to just make a fruit or vegetable appear in someones hand. My least favorite as of this moment is Lay On Hands because it feels like a must-pick option for any caster via blessed one. The bang for your buck return on a reliable 6 hp per spell rank every 10 minutes is just way too good not to snag, and I wish there were like, 3 different lay on hands style heal focus spells to make a bit of variety to this choice.
How do you guys feel of the current state of healing in PF2e as of now? What are your favorite and least favorite healing options. For me i really appreciate the quantity of renewable heals Kineticist can pump out now so it is my favorite healing option. While my least favorite would have to be Investigator(Forensic Medicine), it not having Int based medicine like alchemist makes me not like how MAD it is.
Healing is good in this edition, probably the best it's been compared to every other tabletop game.
But there are still two serious problems with Healing existing in this edition:
1. Healing is almost always countered heavily by Reactive Strikes. If you get in a position that you require healing, that healing now has an added cost of taking damage for it, as well as risking not even doing the healing in the first place. This means self healing, whether it is potions, spells, or the Medicine skill, is never worth doing against an enemy with such a reaction.
2. Non-magical healing is still very limited in its application/uses, even in optimal circumstances, compared to magical healing: Battle Medicine and Elixirs have far less staying power in a given combat compared to spells. At best they make up for it by being less impactful for the action economy, but it's not something exclusive to non-magical options, since there are still functional 1-action healing magical options.
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IMO, combat healing is downright amazing in pf2e.
Not just the chunky Cleric 2-A Heal, but even Oceans Balm is crazy slept on. Being able to slap an ally with a no-miss heal for 1-A in combat is nuts. Anytime the Kinet is at MAP and considering a blast, Ocn Blm really ought to be getting splashed around.
It is super relevant to the healing discussion to bring in pf2e's often nuts damage values, as IMO it's at the root of a whole lot of balance/numbers discussions.
Everyone seems to get that player HP & incoming damage numbers are absurd at L1 through 4ish. A single crit can 1-shot even bulky classes.
However, even at L9, an enemy that crits on a 13 will do 85-ish damage, pf2e is built *very* swingy. As far as I can tell, it's basically unavoidable that PCs will go down to dying somewhat regularly, at least in Lvl <10.
So you get the current healing. There's the obviously OP stuff like Medic Dedication that's compatible with most parties. And in general it is having a party of PCs that keeps the system mostly functional, so that only 1/4 is knocked dying like that.
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In brief, it's a multiplicative combo of: the ease of taking +10 crits *** the abundance of 1 monster (above P-Lvl) fights *** the old D&D design of huge gaps in class HP values (Wiz vs Barb, ect) *** player saves varying by -+ 5
On one hand, the severity of this means that there is a degree of excitement when a PC unexpectedly goes down dying, and everyone else has to scramble. I don't want to undersell that feature, it's a very "spicy" ingredient.
However, I think this does more unfun than fun. It leads to overly cautious play, pumping the crap out of defenses, increased "yolo risk-taking" to get that -10 MAP Strike to KO the foe, and all the expected player psychology reactions.
The biggest reason why I would like for the PC HP numbers to get tweaked is what this "he rolled a 13, you're 100% --> 0% & dying 2" system does to player tactics. Right now, a party of 4 or 3 PCs seems to be the norm.
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In a system when PCs can drop after 1, at most 2 lucky d20s, it highly discourages nuanced tactics between PCs. The game is super flexible via Delay or Prepare a Reaction, but this over-lethality really discourages spending actions to do anything that is not killing the foes.
When you cannot rely on a PC being conscious the next round, it is super hard to develop strategies that specifically synergize across PCs. Instead, the tactics often could be described as anonymized scrambles, where the cooperative tactics struggle to get beyond flowcharty "give them a flank" or "go for a Trip" kind of universal considerations.
By sacrificing only initiate, and 0 actions, every party could sequence the PC turns to go exactly one after the other, with no foes in between to disrupt. That's absolutely *amazing,* and crazy player synced combos should be the norm. But, because a single enemy turn could easily send someone dying, dropping a few slots in initiative is just not done. I have never once heard of a party syncing up to the lowest PC initiative slot to do a prepped combo like that. At best, it's absurdly rare.
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As the Medic, my L9 Alch is never outside their own syringe reach. Despite that, if I'm ever below 80% HP, I have to play like I could be KOed before I get to act again. Because I literally can, between a single crit & multiple hits, there's like a 30% or more chance of that if I'm targeted.
It's... very limiting.
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What's worse is that because the 1-foe fights have a 40% ish chance to crit, it both wasteful to never take a hit, and *more* dangerous overall, because,
it leads to a "buff that one guy" meta, where all the heals, Numbing Tonics, ect just go to the one person that's built to take damage. While the odds of a "bad luck chum, you're dying" is reduced by that focus, it never goes away. And when it does happen, all those actions invested into that PC are nullified, and you're in deep s@*~.
Basically, just about every tactical implication of being 1 or two hits from death at all times is IMO, super no bueno. The HP and dmg scaling will continue to slowly lessen this issue as the Lvls go up, but I'm surprised how much it's still there at L9.
I still remember how excited I was when I got crit, and saw for the firs time that it was for less than my max HP. That assurance that I could not be outright 1-shot by a single hit is not something normal to most RPG systems, I don't think. And for good reason. When I know just how mathematically possible the "make no mistakes and still die" issue is, it's honestly harmful to my ability to even care about my PC, or the party's PCs.
Even things like when we get | scripted foe ambush --> Feeblemind spell --> crit fail --> Hero point and pray the PC is not "dead" | was just not fun.
The way that PC saves can vary by so much, like -+5, translates to a huge swing by itself, and when *so* many foes are +P Lvl, pf2e is just a crazy lethal game, seemingly on accident.
Knowing that you're just 1 bad roll from is "exciting" until you figure out just how little agency you had, and that it's mathematically expected to happen again.
Yes, the real possibility of death is super important for fun. However, the idea that "I was just f---ed with no chance to survive" is sooooo fun-sucking it can easily drive players away from playing the system entirely.
Yes, that Feeblemind example happened. It was right at the start of a session so I had the hero point. It also was followed by being coerced into continuing to adventure with Stupefy 4 as my Alch's the only non-spell caster. Thank f~@& the remaster added Break Curse, and that we were right at the edge of Lving up. 20% extra chance to fail, and to crit fail, every Will save would have killed me. It even took GM fiat to give a high roll +1 more to break the curse, in exchange for Fatigue.
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I don't see the expected RNG lethality talked about all that much, it only seems to come up in the form of "power gamers playing rocket tag" or similar.
While I do think is a rather serious design problem that directly at the root of many discussed problems. while some player-types do naturally enjoy spending book-time to power-game, this behavior can, and often is, induced by harsh systems with "tight" balance. Which fits pf2e to a T.
(hello, "bad stat" discussions. Yes, I would love my +2 WIS to be +4. 10% better chance to not get permanently mind-crushed is literally life-saving. So is +2 initiative to most every fight.)
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One neat way that the design of pf2e's chips have fallen at the moment is that a blanket +10 (or more, TBH) increase to Lvl 1 starting HP values could by itself go a long way here. More max HP both "nerfs the crits" and "nerfs the healing" in equal measure without needing to touch any other number.
I do think the +10 crit system is kiiiiinda incompatible with the idea of there being a 4 or 5 -+ variance in save values for a d20 game.
A 25% swing *away from* whatever the designed default chance was set to, is just kind of impossible to design for. A 5% crit chance becomes 30%, ect.
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So yeah, don't be stingy with your heals, whether it's "is it worth the action to Ocn Blm?" or burning a spell slot to Soothe. If you can't KO the foe, and the ally could be KOed before you'd get a second chance to heal them later, doooo iiiiit.
(and yes, that does dramatically restrict everyone's tactical freedom)
My least favorite as of this moment is Lay On Hands because it feels like a must-pick option for any caster via blessed one. The bang for your buck return on a reliable 6 hp per spell rank every 10 minutes is just way too good not to snag, and I wish there were like, 3 different lay on hands style heal focus spells to make a bit of variety to this choice.
How does it have anything to do with "caster"? It's an archetype that has no requirements, based around a spell that doesn't care what your casting proficiency is. If anything, I'd think it was stronger for front-line martials than for casters, as the "range: touch" is much less of an issue when you yourself are likely to be the one that needs healing. There's one feat in the entire archetype that is significantly more advantageous to a caster than a martial.
Now, it is a pretty efficient way to turn class feats into party healing capacity, but it's one that anyone in the party can do... and I feel like if everyone is doing it, then you might find that the market for party healing is a bit glutted.
My least favorite as of this moment is Lay On Hands because it feels like a must-pick option for any caster via blessed one. The bang for your buck return on a reliable 6 hp per spell rank every 10 minutes is just way too good not to snag, and I wish there were like, 3 different lay on hands style heal focus spells to make a bit of variety to this choice.How does it have anything to do with "caster"? It's an archetype that has no requirements, based around a spell that doesn't care what your casting proficiency is. If anything, I'd think it was stronger for front-line martials than for casters, as the "range: touch" is much less of an issue when you yourself are likely to be the one that needs healing. There's one feat in the entire archetype that is significantly more advantageous to a caster than a martial.
Now, it is a pretty efficient way to turn class feats into party healing capacity, but it's one that anyone in teh party can do... and I feel like if everyone is doing it, then you might find that the market for party healing is a bit glutted.
Casters get easier, built in focus points. It means you can use lay on hands more often, and regain more of your focus spells. The new remaster rules for refocusing means casters get slightly better benefits from focus spells.
Granted however, Monk does get the same benefit. So yeah, it's good for all classes. I just wish there were more healing focus spells to make Blessed One/Champion not be so frequently picked.
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I sorta wish healing were a little more limited.
After level 4 or so, basically every group has access to once per 10 minutes healing, so rarely does a fight happen with someone even moderately injured.
It makes hitpoints a far less limiting resource to the length of ones adventuring day.
A consequence of this is that most fights assume the PCs are at or near full fighting capacity.
Heck, if you don't have a regular spellcaster, there's basically nothing the party loses to attrition.
I rather like blessed one or champion archetype on my martials. You don't need a free hand for spellcasting so it's not restricted to empty hand builds, blessed one ramps quickly into 2 focus points and champion gives you one of the best reactions in the game. Sure, reaction attacks can be an issue, but it can be useful to force a situation that can guarentee champion reaction value (net gain in hp and damage) or to prevent that reaction being used on something else (like a lesser death's). A pair of frontliners with LoH are also probably giving each other +1 AC which is marginal but a nice bonus to go with the cheap healing. Especially now that if one is a rogue, gang up obsoletes flanking and the two can just stand next to each other.
How do you guys feel of the current state of healing in PF2e as of now?
It is too strong and too easy.
Example in one published scenario the party where getting fireballed every round. They could have dealt with the problem. Instead they avoided it buy simply accepting the damage and casting heal every round. I mean it is a viable tactic. I was just annoyed that they could bypass problems like this, as normally damage is the GMs signal to the players to resolve a situation.
Out of combat healing being cheap is a design feature to enable easy encounter balance but it comes at the cost of not being able to wear the party down. In order to pressure the parties resources you have to be able to put time pressure on the party.
What are your favorite and least favorite healing options.
I prefer healing with side effects like Lay on Hands or the Life Oracles ability.
Least would be Battle Medicine. That is partly my taste preference for more realism: a non magical option should only be once per day, but that is part of the balance design choice. It has an annoying rules interaction with treat wounds.
Next least would be the limits on Alchemical healing. I really don't like that it can't be perpetual like bombs, given that healing is unlimited on a ten minute basis anyway.
Next least would be the limits on Alchemical healing. I really don't like that it can't be perpetual like bombs, given that healing is unlimited on a ten minute basis anyway.
Yeah... but if the limit wasn't there, then "Perpetual Infusions/Healing Bomb/Healing Bomb" would get real degenerate, real quick. It's a bit jank, but better jank than broken.
Next least would be the limits on Alchemical healing. I really don't like that it can't be perpetual like bombs, given that healing is unlimited on a ten minute basis anyway.Yeah... but if the limit wasn't there, then "Perpetual Infusions/Healing Bomb/Healing Bomb" would get real degenerate, real quick. It's a bit jank, but better jank than broken.
Jank is broken flavour.
What sort of dengeration are you complaining about that, that isn't already possible in the game?
Put limits on perpetual if you must. Example say perpetual resouces are infact limited by supplies but at the GMs discretion there is not normally a need to count. In practical terms an Alchemist might be limited to say perpetual 40 items due to their carrying capacity, call it 100 if they have extra carrying capacity like a mule or a bag of holding. It's not really limited in a scenario where the alchemist has had a long time to prepare resources, or if the resources are readily available in the environment.
As a GM those limits were always there narratively, just never expressed in the rules.
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Jank is broken flavour.
What sort of dengeration are you complaining about that, that isn't already possible in the game?
Put limits on perpetual if you must. Example say perpetual resouces are infact limited by supplies but at the GMs discretion there is not normally a need to count. In practical terms an Alchemist might be limited to say perpetual 40 items due to their carrying capacity, call it 100 if they have extra carrying capacity like a mule or a bag of holding. It's not really limited in a scenario where the alchemist has had a long time to prepare resources, or if the resources are readily available in the environment.
As a GM those limits were always there narratively, just never expressed in the rules.
I am personally very grateful that they did not do that thing. It sounds awful. Taking away their last scrap of access to at-will resources would have ruined the class for me.
I am personally very grateful that they did not do that thing. It sounds awful. Taking away their last scrap of access to at-will resources would have ruined the class for me.
Feels like an empty point as my suggestion wasn't actually doing that. Its just an option for the GM to assert narrative control if he felt abuse was happening. Something which is already clearly in the game just not explicit for this ability.
But are you going to answer
What sort of dengeration are you complaining about that, that isn't already possible in the game?
And why are Alchemical healers second class citizens compared to every other healer?
How do you guys feel of the current state of healing in PF2e as of now?I think healing is a little too strong, and I'm curious about the Stamina variant rule.
The Stamina rules, in my opinion, go a little too far into insisting that all normally HP healing shouldn't be able to restore stamina, theoretically making people in a way more fragile in various circumstances. I personally think having Stamina simply being HP that can be easily restored with time, allowing the stamina being restored via normal healing, the loss of doing that being only the expending otherwise unnecessary limited resources on something that can be restored easily without expending the resources.
I'd tend to make most healing that is repeatable without expenditure could be set to apply generally to stamina, and be allowed most to be applied to HP only once per day. Beyond that restoring HP would take up abilities that eat up your daily resources, such as spell slots, reagents or consumables to repeatedly refresh those HPs. In my opinion excess 'full' healing should be able to heal stamina, or at least heal at like 50% effect potentially.
The stamina rules do help give the definite flavor that taking damage past your stamina is more impactful, against your daily capabilities and eats up more of your limited resources to restore, rather than just watching and waiting for the red line in the corner of your screen to refresh to full length. I had hoped to see the subsystem more fleshed out process with the second edition StarFinder, since StarFinder had Stamina in core. But it seems likely they may be dropping that unfortunately.
If you like harder battles to take the flavor of the encounter into a more gritty state, it certainly has the potential to help with that. I'd suggest people look at it if they like that idea.
I am personally very grateful that they did not do that thing. It sounds awful. Taking away their last scrap of access to at-will resources would have ruined the class for me.Feels like an empty point as my suggestion wasn't actually doing that. Its just an option for the GM to assert narrative control if he felt abuse was happening. Something which is already clearly in the game just not explicit for this ability.
But are you going to answer
What sort of dengeration are you complaining about that, that isn't already possible in the game?And why are Alchemical healers second class citizens compared to every other healer?
Because it's technically possible to use them as a one-action Activate
Because a L9 Chiurgeon could theoretically make/use 13 * 3 healing elixirs per day
They basically designed themselves into a corner. Reagents are like if all spell slots were maxed Rank. One way to avoid the "retroactively improving old Reagents" conundrum could be to award an increasing number of Reagents each Lvl up, while also needing to spend more for your high Lvl items.
Example, L1:5 --> +3 --> L2:8 --> +5 --> L3:13 --> +7 --> L4:20, ect.
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As is, you need all the stars to align to make the always sub-par alch items worth using. Because if they were actually worth the actions in average context, then the Alch class would be crazy good. Not only would the Alch spend their actions using the elixirs, but the whole party would.
Psst. The L5 and L9 Numbing Tonics are absurdly good, even without matching Chiurgeon. More important to start each fight w/ one in hand than it is to pop a Quicksilver, IMO.
But are you going to answerWhat sort of dengeration are you complaining about that, that isn't already possible in the game?And why are Alchemical healers second class citizens compared to every other healer?
So for the first, it would allow at-will healing. That's the thing that isn't allowed elsewhere, except in incredibly limited ways. You can tell, because if anyone had it, the Kineticist would have it, and every kind of kineticist healing that isn't tied to damaging enemies is on a 10-minute timer.
Perpetual infusions would let you administer two heal-pots of the appropriate level every round without spending resources. Healign Bomb would let you do one per round at range, with only crit-fails preventing it from going off. At level 13 you get Greater Field Discovery. Once they get Greater Field Discovery, that chirurgeon is healing 24 hp per perpetual elixir (it bumps up again one last time at level 17). With a conmod of +3, a 13th-level alchemist has 143 hp... which would mean that spending a round on infuse/chug/chug would restore 1/3 of their max HP... without cost. That's "go on a pleasant stroll through the ankle-deep lava as long as you make sure to stay hydrated" numbers... and it never runs out.
That's why they wanted to make sure that heals off of perpetual infusions were limited to, in effect, once per target per fight.
The issue is balancing "I can fall off a skyscraper, dust myself off over 10 minutes, and be fine" with the hideous grind of editions like AD&D.
You really don't want to have to balance combats around PCs entering them with variable hit point pools. That way lies a barrage of TPKs. They did the right thing with 10 minute rests.
The issue is that it makes for some WEIRD interactions that you would never see in real life, where PCs are willing to walk through hellfire at the drop of a hat because they know it's just damage and they'll heal at the end with no consequences.
But that was an issue in PF 1E and 3.5 too. If you don't believe me, talk to my sack of wands of lesser vigor.
Yes. There was a time when this game was very deadly. Just having a character last a long time was a monumental achievement in itself. You loved that character for having lived to see level 10 or so.
[That's why they wanted to make sure that heals off of perpetual infusions were limited to, in effect, once per target per fight.
Which they could have done more directly. Instead Alchemical healers are left as second class alchemists.
2 action heal is an "I win" button against non-AoE using creatures.
AoE is the only real way to deal with healing for a DM other than special abilities that specifically disrupt healing.
I'm about to start using moment of renewal. This seems like a very powerful heal as long as everyone has a decent con modifier. Definitely great for the drained condition.
Soothe is a decent secondary heal.
Lay on Hands, Goodberry, and plenty of items to further bolster healing.
Medicine makes sure you walk into most encounters full up.
PF2 is made to be played at near full hit points nearly every encounter, though it does make solo boss encounters fairly easy as you get higher levels. You could play an incredibly inefficient, poorly made group of incompetents as long as someone can manage use a 2 action heal against a solo monster.
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[That's why they wanted to make sure that heals off of perpetual infusions were limited to, in effect, once per target per fight.Which they could have done more directly. Instead Alchemical healers are left as second class alchemists.
Alchemists were problematically bad. They put out an errata, after which they were merely notably understrength for everyone who wasn't one of the very small number of people who could and would exploit the specific advantages they had intuitively and joyfully. They brought out Treasure Vault and also another errata, and that was the one that gave the Chirurgeon Perpetual Healing at all. That brought Chirurgeon up to... actually not terrible. They're not aces as a dedicated healer, because no alchemist is aces as a dedicated anything. They're not intended to be specialists like that. If you're playing an alchemist and you're not leaning into the utility/flexibility side at least some, you are literally doing it wrong... but they gave the Chirurgeon enough to work with that they could take the "party healer" role reasonably well.
Now we're getting Remaster Core. We don't know what we're going to see there... but I suspect that it'll be another little nudge upwards. They've been slowly tweaking the alchemist up, bit by bit, getting info at every step. The only thing that you have to complain about is that they're not going faster.
Anyway, they're still doing better than poisoners, and arguably better than mutagenists.
And why are Alchemical healers second class citizens compared to every other healer?
Because Alchemists are second class with everything except for some pontual items.
It's more about the limited power balance of alchemical items than a thing specific for healing. The main example was pointed by Trip.H when he/she/it pointed the existence of Numbing Tonic that's is not real healing but its pretty efficient hp shield that can be useful for all party. Helps to compensate a little the fact that 2-action healing spells are 3 times stronger than an Elixir of Life.
Now we're getting Remaster Core. We don't know what we're going to see there... but I suspect that it'll be another little nudge upwards. They've been slowly tweaking the alchemist up, bit by bit, getting info at every step. The only thing that you have to complain about is that they're not going faster.
Anyway, they're still doing better than poisoners, and arguably better than mutagenists.
Based on the level of improvements we saw in several classes in PC1, I honestly believe that in the remaster they will be bolder in the alchemist than in the past errata.
But I agree with you, the general feeling is that the designers are "testing" little by little to see how things behave, probably to prevent a very severe change that could break the class, since it is a very versatile class and subject to effects dominoes that are difficult to predict.
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Going to make a really hot take and say I dislike the state of healing in PF2.
Attrition is almost gone as a concept, the game provides a wide variety of ample tools for healing up between encounters such that the GM has to force it to really stop people from starting most fights healthy (and doing so can sometimes stress the corners of the game system if you aren't careful).
But the game puts the responsibility for obtaining those tools on the players while also expecting some meaningful degree of investment into them. There's no 'spend a tiny amount of gold for infinite out of combat healing' so while healing is plentiful, it means someone is going to need to do something like invest in medicine or provide an alternative source of healing or, often, both. This somewhat runs contrary to steps Paizo has taken to make role-filling less important.
Meanwhile, in combat healing can often still feel like a losing battle. Most classes do not have the stamina to make in-combat healing a core part of their combat routine (lots of spell slot or time based limitations), and healing can often be erased as fast or faster than you can apply it (though this can sometimes still be valuable against bosses). This makes it a somewhat situational tool... which isn't inherently bad, unless you actually want to play a healer.
... So I occasionally run into new players encounter a worst of both worlds scenario: In one campaign, someone who doesn't really care about healing becomes 'the medicine guy' because they have the free feats and the best Wisdom, with part of what they actually want to do taking a backseat. In another, someone excited to be a dedicated healer finds himself spending a lot of time blasting, debuffing, and striking because the pool of healing he has access to is so limited. Both of them suffer because Paizo's kind of half-in half-out approach to healing.
... Ironically despite the pooh-poohing in this thread, I've found Alchemists to be one of the classes that thrives the most in this paradigm, since they can provide out of combat healing options relatively cheaply without obliterating their in-combat capabilities (exception for dedicated healer chirurgeons who flounder miserably in combat, especially pre-TV, unfortunately).
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I prefer the Medicine healing. It provides some verisimilitude without forcing an all magic source of out of combat healing.
I like that healers are no longer required. An occasional 2 action heal can handle most combat healing.
From a personal perspective, it's taken some getting use to accepting that a fight is sufficiently difficult if the PCs just get hurt. I don't have to level them to the ground for a difficult fight. In PF1 the game was rocket tag and an all or nothing situation. Roll init, whoever slams the other first wins and healing allowed you to survive rocket tag.
Now it's a sort of attrition fight over 3 to 5 rounds or so. You beat on each other doing some damage with maybe some crits requiring combat healing or some big old hammer spell or ability. That is a sufficiently difficult fight and you don't have to rocket tag level someone for a difficult fight in PF2.
Took a bit for me to get used to this, but now that I am I prefer the PF2 style. No combat healing required, but it's nice to have. Make sure you have a Medic rather than purchasing a ton of cure wands. Go into each fight full or nearly full so you can get in another back and forth hit point attrition fight. Make it difficult on occasion if a big, important encounter.
It makes for an easier time building parties players enjoy without having to focus heavily on a combat healer. Even a martial like a rogue can pick up medicine and do the out of combat healing job. In combat healing can be a druid or bard tossing an occasional soothe or heal out.
So I think I like it. Though a cleric or heavy heal party can make the game a little too easy due to the power of the 2 action heal.
Do you have experience with wood kineticist healing? It looks very shiny to me, and Timber Sentinel is great for obvious reasons, but I'm concerned about the bit where Fresh Produce basically requires that the target have a free hand, especially since it seems like front-liners would be the least likely members of the party to be running around with hands free.
I haven't gotten to do it yet, but yeah, fresh produce seems party contextual-- if you've got a duelist or a laughing shadow or whatever who can then immediately go back to readiness that works-- or maybe if they let go of a broken shield?
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The issue is balancing "I can fall off a skyscraper, dust myself off over 10 minutes, and be fine" with the hideous grind of editions like AD&D.
You really don't want to have to balance combats around PCs entering them with variable hit point pools. That way lies a barrage of TPKs. They did the right thing with 10 minute rests.
The issue is that it makes for some WEIRD interactions that you would never see in real life, where PCs are willing to walk through hellfire at the drop of a hat because they know it's just damage and they'll heal at the end with no consequences.
But that was an issue in PF 1E and 3.5 too. If you don't believe me, talk to my sack of wands of lesser vigor.
I was going to say, is it any different from the 2 room adventuring days that you'd get in pathfinder 1e where once your healer hits their limit for the day, you pack it up and try again tomorrow, even if it means the dungeon turns into like 7 in game days despite it being 1 session of time.
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As an MMO player I like that the game has robust in combat healing options.
Kineticist and Cleric are each the strongest healer depending on campaign style.
The more combats per day you have, the stronger kineticist is. Somewhere between 3-4 encounters per day it pulls ahead of cleric. But only f he cleric takes the new AoE healing feat. Without that feat Kineticist pulls ahead by the second oe third combat.
That noted, there are other options as well. You can "almost" make a viable ranged healer with an alchemist that shoots people with healing darts... almost. It has the most heals per day of any option, but they're just a little bit too weak per shot to be good for harder fights. Still, in a game with good mitigation options like a Champion, you could have an alchemist standing 60 feet out shooting allies - except their accuracy is not good enough.
Medicine options can pull a lot of weight. And there are various focus abilities that give fast healing or lay on hands. Some of which can be picked up with a minor dip into archetypes. In a free archetype game a kineticist can get very potent as a healer by dipping into blessed one and picking up hymn of healing from bard (though by the time you get both of these you'll only need one of them so it's really just a "lets just be silly about this" path).
I like the tools we have, and yet I'd also like to have more of them.
I want to look at a game system and always see at least three radically different ways to fill the same role.
Right now for "main healer" I see two paths: Cleric or Water/Wood kineticist.
I do see a LOT of "off-heals" which is perfectly fine as a main healer in a game where the players have good tactics.
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Healing in PF2e is probably the most satisfying it's ever felt to me out of any tabletop game, and I find it really fun. Out-of-combat healing being effective and resourceless I find makes a huge difference, because it sets a radically different benchmark that allows in-combat healing to also be impactful. The fact that this out-of-combat is universally accessible via a skill, which also provides solid in-combat healing as well, I think makes for much more enjoyable cooperative play, as a player doesn't have to play a dedicated healer class for a party to function. Classes that do access additional healing, however, do still feel impactful even if they're not essential, and I agree that the Cleric and Kineticist provide some of the best healing in this regard.
And the most important for me; HP attrition as the presumed balance mechanism is gone so there is no longer a necessity to trying to stop the players who are going to do anything and everything within their power to heal up between fights from being able to do so, which results in a lot less of the game-play being the GM throwing obstacles in the way of the players just trying to feel confident that they can press on without losing a character. No extra force of time-based narrative to prevent heading back to town, no "random" encounter to interrupt a rest taken "too early", no keeping the shops void of the items they want to buy to refill their HP on the cheap, no forcing a time-scale that prevents crafting said items, and also a lot less needing to hand out exactly those kind of things at just the right moments to facilitate the party actually making it through the gauntlet they finally broke down and decided to push on through since the GM took away the rest of their options. So all those things that used to be mandatory just to have game balance can now take their rightful place as narrative elements that only show up when relevant to the narrative.
That's... semi-true.
HP attrition between fights is largely a nonfactor as a balance mechanism. That's true. You basically need a few people to invest a bit in between-fight healing abilities, and then you're done and mostly don't have to worry about it anymore. Attrition for Spell Slots (and Alchemist Reagents) is still pretty important as a matter of balance, though, and that's still going to drive things like (some) players wanting to head back to town for they day after every fight and (some) GMs wanting to come up with methods to coerce or compel them to do otherwise. Still, yeah, taking the HP math out of that particular process does make it gentler in a number of ways. It's just that it's toned down and somewhat ameliorated, rather than being removed ouright.
Simple traps are a problem since before the PF2 when players noticed that they can use summons and other sacrifices to safety "disarm" the traps.
Now I use only complex traps or I use simple traps inside an encounter (where the players have more difficulties to detect because they usually needs to have Trap Finder to be able to find it in the middle of the combat) when it really becomes a thing once the off-encounter healing is unaccessible and its hard for the to use tricks to riskless detect and trigger traps.
The cleric in my Kingmaker game allows my laughing shadow Magus to tank for the group, feels a bit much.
I hope we get more healing options, one thing I liked about Ever Quest 2 was the 3 different healer types, burst heal, heal over time, and bubble heals. Hopefully we can get some more temp fast healing and really need more ways to give temp HP.
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I like the current state of healing.
I had tried out a wood/water kinetecist who focused on healing when it first came out, and that unfortunately ended poorly for them. I don't think it was the playstyles fault, there were numerous other factors. We only had 3 players, the dm was new and still learning how to balance things, the dice we rolled were poor. And one of the players was also new and was choosing to play a very convoluted build, that pushed against the system and didn't seem interested in using their class features.(they were playing a shooting star gun wiedling magus, and were hesitant to use spellstrike and there conflux spell.) Sure if I was a cleric, the healing there might have allowed me to push through any of those issues with raw heaing output but I think in a better handled situation a Wood/Water kinetecist would have done fine.
I had tried out a wood/water kinetecist who focused on healing when it first came out, and that unfortunately ended poorly for them.
Oooh, yeah. On top of everything else, a 3-player party is exactly where you don't want kineticist healing, given that it's basically all run on on per-target timing limits.
Simple traps are a problem since before the PF2 when players noticed that they can use summons and other sacrifices to safety "disarm" the traps.
Now I use only complex traps or I use simple traps inside an encounter (where the players have more difficulties to detect because they usually needs to have Trap Finder to be able to find it in the middle of the combat) when it really becomes a thing once the off-encounter healing is unaccessible and its hard for the to use tricks to riskless detect and trigger traps.
Myself, I'm a jerk.
If PCs try to set off a pressure plate with summons, I sometimes have it set off an alarm. Or collapse the ceiling of that entire dungeon level. Or unleash a bound eldritch horror. Rather than just shoot an arrow or drop them into a pit trap or something that only affects the expendable summon.
I don't always do this since that would be cruel, but it's very effective at getting PCs to more carefully weigh whether they REALLY want to just set off every mysterious tripwire they come across.
Some players would be angry if I do that. For technically, with some exceptions, if a trap triggers with a living PC, it should also work with a similar creature.
In addition they would also complain that they spent resources (ok, a rank 1 spell slot most times) and that it would be "unfair" with their "effort" and "creativity".
Also, as I said, simple traps out of combat unless they are changed to be powerful enough to instantly kill someone, they hardly have any significant effect besides annoying the players (and myself as GM because I know they they will simply just stop to recover and then continue). For me the ideal use of these traps is precisely in pressure situations like during combat or intense action where time presses players like an escape or chase.