Healing at range [Archive] - Wizards Community

Healing at range [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
LarryMac
03-13-07, 01:28 PM Assuming a cleric can cast cure spells as rays (I can't think of the name of the feat right now), is a ranged touch attack still required if it's being cast on a party member since, presumably, their ally will just stand there and let it hit them?
ryryguy
03-13-07, 01:37 PM I don't know if there's a specific ruling for this, but it would make sense to me to treat the willing target as having an effective Dexterity score of 0, resulting in a -5 penalty to his touch AC (as well as eliminating his regular Dexterity bonus to AC, if any).

Things like Deflection bonus to AC would still apply, which is a bit lame, but... <shrug>. I'd make Dodge and Insight bonuses go away though. The target should end up being really, really easy to hit - you'd probably only have to worry about a natural 1 in most cases.

(By the way, spectral hand could also be used to administer cure spells at range.)
KillerGM
03-13-07, 03:05 PM As a ray attack, it would be a ranged touch attack, getting rid of everything but Dex, Dodge, Deflection (I think), and Luck bonuses to AC.

The idea is that the guy you're aiming at is still trying to avoid stuff in combat.

It would also suffer the -4 penalty of "shooting into a melee" as per the rules in the Complete Arcane. It assumes you don't want to hit the other combatant with your healing spells. ;)

A ranged attack is harder to "auto hit" than a regular melee (ie: you don't have to roll a touch attack to heal someone normally).

The ranged touch attack is still pretty easy to hit, I think. I don't think it's an auto-hit, though.

Hope it helps! :D

PS - The feat is called Reach Spell and actually states: "The spell effectively becomes a ray, so you must succeed on a ranged touch attack to bestow the spell upon the recipient."
primemover003
03-13-07, 03:45 PM Besides the Reach metamagic feat which allows touch spells to become short range rays there is also the Divine Ward feat which lets you burn a Turning attempt for the day/ creature warded and allows you to cast any touch ranged healing spell on the warded creature as a close range spell.
Epicweaver
03-13-07, 03:53 PM Depends on what he's using...

Reach Spell turns the spell into a ray with a range of 30ft... So yes, he must make a touch attack roll against the party member (who can willingly lose his dex, insight, and dodge bonuses)... So the DC is like 5... possibly more if you interpret the deflection bonus to always carry.

I'd say allow it to auto-hit except on a natural 1.
calronmoonflower
03-14-07, 01:49 PM Subtact the Dex bonus from their AC instaed of adding.

Also negate any other dodge bonus and misc. bonuses like sacred and luck.
Halaku
03-14-07, 01:59 PM still a ranged touch attack, though im pretty sure players can opt to let things hit them?
ryryguy
03-14-07, 04:15 PM Subtact the Dex bonus from their AC instaed of adding.

An immobile inanimate object has an effective Dex of 0, giving a -5 penalty to its AC. In most cases that's actually going to be a worse hit to the AC than subtracting the target's regular Dex bonus would be.

I suppose if the target has a Dex bonus greater than +5, you could subtract that instead of the Dex 0/-5 penalty, representing the target's agile ability to intentionally dive in front of the ray... but I wouldn't give anything less than the -5 penalty. After all, that's what someone should get for keeping perfectly still.
AndrewD2
03-14-07, 06:27 PM I always liked Greater Status, lets you cast up to 2nd level cure spells through the link, I don't know if there was a range restriction, I think it might just be site
calronmoonflower
03-15-07, 02:26 AM An immobile inanimate object has an effective Dex of 0, giving a -5 penalty to its AC. In most cases that's actually going to be a worse hit to the AC than subtracting the target's regular Dex bonus would be.

I suppose if the target has a Dex bonus greater than +5, you could subtract that instead of the Dex 0/-5 penalty, representing the target's agile ability to intentionally dive in front of the ray... but I wouldn't give anything less than the -5 penalty. After all, that's what someone should get for keeping perfectly still.

I got that from Races of stone form the part that describes a Goliath game that involves passing a ball between players.

I guess you could stand perfectly still, but wouldn't that provoke an attack of opportunity?
Morwen
03-15-07, 02:34 AM If he actually is engaged in melee combat with an opponent at the time, you shouldn't be giving the cleric bonuses to hit him without also giving the opponent the same bonus. Leaving himself open to the cleric would also leave him open to the opponent.
Gregthavious
03-16-07, 12:55 AM If he actually is engaged in melee combat with an opponent at the time, you shouldn't be giving the cleric bonuses to hit him without also giving the opponent the same bonus. Leaving himself open to the cleric would also leave him open to the opponent.

I have to agree with this. A character can't simultaneously stand still and dodge blows from opponents. Characters can willingly become easier to hit, lower spell resistance, and generally become sitting ducks... but I don't know any rule allowing them do so while not giving their opponents the same benefit as their ally.
KingMarl
03-16-07, 06:55 AM I don't agree. You can, for example, declare your Dodge bonus against a single opponent. I don't see any reason why you couldn't say "I don't try to avoid the cleric's ranged touch attack" and thus not apply your Dex bonus to your AC for that attack.

Besides - if someone in combat is in need of healing, it takes a pretty cold-hearted DM to try to rules-laywer away the healing.

One warning about something I discovered - if you cast Spell Resistance (or the Mass version), you're making it really hard to heal people in addition to making it hard to cast offensive spells on them.
Marcus Majarra
03-16-07, 01:32 PM There's a difference between training at dodging a single target more effectively and reducing your defenses against a single ally more effectively. As it is, only touch range spells can auto-hit in this fashion. For a ranged spell requiring any kind of attack roll, you need to hit.
ryryguy
03-16-07, 03:52 PM If he actually is engaged in melee combat with an opponent at the time, you shouldn't be giving the cleric bonuses to hit him without also giving the opponent the same bonus. Leaving himself open to the cleric would also leave him open to the opponent.

That is a good point.

As a compromise, you might allow the target to give up his Dex bonus and Dodge bonus (if any) against just the friendly cleric (not losing it against engaged foes), but if he wants to go the "stand still" route with the effective Dex 0 and -5 penalty to AC, that would apply for the foes as well. But I wouldn't say it would be a bad ruling just to do as Morwen suggests - the drop in AC applies to all.

A side note - if he's engaged in melee, the cleric would certainly suffer the "shooting into melee" penalty with his healing ray. And Precise Shot is not typically high on the list of feat choices for a cleric...
bigboy5584
03-16-07, 05:03 PM I believe that it actually states in the rule book that a character can purposefully lower their spell resistances and things of that sort, but that effect would last until the begin of their next turn and any and all parties could/would take advantage of this change in ability, if percieved. Keep in mind also that spell resistance is a catch-all for resisting spells, technically speaking a check would have to be made when healing a player that has not or will not lower their spell resistance for a turn. And I would like someone to explain to me how a person could be dodging the attacks from a creature, say a marilith, and resisting the spell attacks of a lich while simultaneously standing still enough to purposefully get hit by the clerics healing spell or trying to NOT resist only the clerics spells. That seems to be a little off. Also take into effect that sometimes one would not realize the cleric was trying to heal them and could by accident react poorly on the attempt. Has anybody out there not accidently turned to swing on someone because they accidently didn't make their presence/purpose known? These are things that can and should be incorporated into the heat of battle, it definitely makes things a bit more interesting. Watch the lawful good cleric try to sweat on the idea wether to try to heal his companion and risking missing and accidently healing the tarrasque. It can prove to make things fun.
Burgundy Lotus
03-16-07, 09:18 PM I don't agree. You can, for example, declare your Dodge bonus against a single opponent. I don't see any reason why you couldn't say "I don't try to avoid the cleric's ranged touch attack" and thus not apply your Dex bonus to your AC for that attack.

I agree with this.
BigJohn42
03-17-07, 09:54 PM I don't agree. You can, for example, declare your Dodge bonus against a single opponent. I don't see any reason why you couldn't say "I don't try to avoid the cleric's ranged touch attack" and thus not apply your Dex bonus to your AC for that attack.

I've included the description of the Dodge feat, to help illustrate my idea.

During your action, you designate an opponent and receive a +1 dodge bonus to Armor Class against attacks from that opponent. You can select a new opponent on any action.

I've always been of the impression that the way the Dodge feat works is that the character has learned how to pay extra attention in combat to one particular person/creature.

What I'd be willing to do is allow the target of the healing ray to declare their "Dodge" be against the cleric (the character acknowledging that the cleric is about to do something cool). Instead of adding the dodge bonus, I would allow the character to reduce, by their dex bonus, their AC in regards to the cleric.

From a game-balance perspective, it takes the character's Dodge feat out of play for that round. From a RP perspective, it shows that the character is focused on the healer.

Alternatively, if someone wanted to go into full-defensive mode for the round (give up their attacks), I would allow them to be considered flat-footed against the cleric ONLY.
KingMarl
03-19-07, 08:57 AM I believe that it actually states in the rule book that a character can purposefully lower their spell resistances and things of that sort

Different effects have different ways of handling them. Spell Resistance has rules that specifically state it can only be lowered as a standard action, and automatically returns the following round. The Dodge feat lets you change your selected opponent on "any action". There is no over-arching principle that covers all effects.

And I would like someone to explain to me how a person could be dodging the attacks from a creature, say a marilith, and resisting the spell attacks of a lich while simultaneously standing still enough to purposefully get hit by the clerics healing spell or trying to NOT resist only the clerics spells. That seems to be a little off.

Not going to get an explanation from me. My philosophy is that it's a game. It's not a simulation - a true simulation of humans versus dragons, elemental monoliths and ancient spellcasting liches would result in many, many character deaths. Cries of "but how does it work?" should fall on deaf ears as far as I'm concerned.

That doesn't mean that I think things ought to be silly. For example, the whole "should Evasion work for Shadow Dragon breath" thread, while an interesting intellectual exercise, doesn't change the fact that it ought to work for consistency's sake.

Likewise for the White Raven Tactics scam - while it's technically allowed by the rules, I would never allow my group to twist the rules to that extent. They know this, and also know that I will do the same thing - I won't find cheesy little rule loopholes and use them to do a party wipe.

Watch the lawful good cleric try to sweat on the idea wether to try to heal his companion and risking missing and accidently healing the tarrasque. It can prove to make things fun.

Probably not that fun for either the cleric or the front line fighter who buys it because the DM house-ruled it that clerics can accidentally hit the wrong target and heal their enemies.
Kouk
03-19-07, 10:43 PM I have a cleric who uses Reach to heal people sometimes. If the target is threatened I allow him to drop his Dex bonus against the heal, making his AC 10 + Deflection.

It seems to me that actively trying to get yourself hit by a heal ray, and not your enemies would be more difficult than just not ignoring (or just not avoiding) what the cleric does. It is interesting, trying to Dodge "into" a ranged attack though, I might consider allowing it because by doing that you are also leaving yourself more open to taking MORE damage from enemies.

Completely lowering your guard would be bad if threatened, I would think it would provoke from anything threatening you. Just standing up straight and not moving would at least be as much of an opening as trying to cast a spell.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
LarryMac 03-13-07, 01:28 PM	Assuming a cleric can cast cure spells as rays (I can't think of the name of the feat right now), is a ranged touch attack still required if it's being cast on a party member since, presumably, their ally will just stand there and let it hit them?
ryryguy 03-13-07, 01:37 PM	I don't know if there's a specific ruling for this, but it would make sense to me to treat the willing target as having an effective Dexterity score of 0, resulting in a -5 penalty to his touch AC (as well as eliminating his regular Dexterity bonus to AC, if any). Things like Deflection bonus to AC would still apply, which is a bit lame, but... <shrug>. I'd make Dodge and Insight bonuses go away though. The target should end up being really, really easy to hit - you'd probably only have to worry about a natural 1 in most cases. (By the way, spectral hand could also be used to administer cure spells at range.)
KillerGM 03-13-07, 03:05 PM	As a ray attack, it would be a ranged touch attack, getting rid of everything but Dex, Dodge, Deflection (I think), and Luck bonuses to AC. The idea is that the guy you're aiming at is still trying to avoid stuff in combat. It would also suffer the -4 penalty of "shooting into a melee" as per the rules in the Complete Arcane. It assumes you don't want to hit the other combatant with your healing spells. ;) A ranged attack is harder to "auto hit" than a regular melee (ie: you don't have to roll a touch attack to heal someone normally). The ranged touch attack is still pretty easy to hit, I think. I don't think it's an auto-hit, though. Hope it helps! :D PS - The feat is called Reach Spell and actually states: "The spell effectively becomes a ray, so you must succeed on a ranged touch attack to bestow the spell upon the recipient."
primemover003 03-13-07, 03:45 PM	Besides the Reach metamagic feat which allows touch spells to become short range rays there is also the Divine Ward feat which lets you burn a Turning attempt for the day/ creature warded and allows you to cast any touch ranged healing spell on the warded creature as a close range spell.
Epicweaver 03-13-07, 03:53 PM	Depends on what he's using... Reach Spell turns the spell into a ray with a range of 30ft... So yes, he must make a touch attack roll against the party member (who can willingly lose his dex, insight, and dodge bonuses)... So the DC is like 5... possibly more if you interpret the deflection bonus to always carry. I'd say allow it to auto-hit except on a natural 1.
calronmoonflower 03-14-07, 01:49 PM	Subtact the Dex bonus from their AC instaed of adding. Also negate any other dodge bonus and misc. bonuses like sacred and luck.
Halaku 03-14-07, 01:59 PM	still a ranged touch attack, though im pretty sure players can opt to let things hit them?
ryryguy 03-14-07, 04:15 PM	Subtact the Dex bonus from their AC instaed of adding. An immobile inanimate object has an effective Dex of 0, giving a -5 penalty to its AC. In most cases that's actually going to be a worse hit to the AC than subtracting the target's regular Dex bonus would be. I suppose if the target has a Dex bonus greater than +5, you could subtract that instead of the Dex 0/-5 penalty, representing the target's agile ability to intentionally dive in front of the ray... but I wouldn't give anything less than the -5 penalty. After all, that's what someone should get for keeping perfectly still.
AndrewD2 03-14-07, 06:27 PM	I always liked Greater Status, lets you cast up to 2nd level cure spells through the link, I don't know if there was a range restriction, I think it might just be site
calronmoonflower 03-15-07, 02:26 AM	An immobile inanimate object has an effective Dex of 0, giving a -5 penalty to its AC. In most cases that's actually going to be a worse hit to the AC than subtracting the target's regular Dex bonus would be. I suppose if the target has a Dex bonus greater than +5, you could subtract that instead of the Dex 0/-5 penalty, representing the target's agile ability to intentionally dive in front of the ray... but I wouldn't give anything less than the -5 penalty. After all, that's what someone should get for keeping perfectly still. I got that from Races of stone form the part that describes a Goliath game that involves passing a ball between players. I guess you could stand perfectly still, but wouldn't that provoke an attack of opportunity?
Morwen 03-15-07, 02:34 AM	If he actually is engaged in melee combat with an opponent at the time, you shouldn't be giving the cleric bonuses to hit him without also giving the opponent the same bonus. Leaving himself open to the cleric would also leave him open to the opponent.
Gregthavious 03-16-07, 12:55 AM	If he actually is engaged in melee combat with an opponent at the time, you shouldn't be giving the cleric bonuses to hit him without also giving the opponent the same bonus. Leaving himself open to the cleric would also leave him open to the opponent. I have to agree with this. A character can't simultaneously stand still and dodge blows from opponents. Characters can willingly become easier to hit, lower spell resistance, and generally become sitting ducks... but I don't know any rule allowing them do so while not giving their opponents the same benefit as their ally.
KingMarl 03-16-07, 06:55 AM	I don't agree. You can, for example, declare your Dodge bonus against a single opponent. I don't see any reason why you couldn't say "I don't try to avoid the cleric's ranged touch attack" and thus not apply your Dex bonus to your AC for that attack. Besides - if someone in combat is in need of healing, it takes a pretty cold-hearted DM to try to rules-laywer away the healing. One warning about something I discovered - if you cast Spell Resistance (or the Mass version), you're making it really hard to heal people in addition to making it hard to cast offensive spells on them.
Marcus Majarra 03-16-07, 01:32 PM	There's a difference between training at dodging a single target more effectively and reducing your defenses against a single ally more effectively. As it is, only touch range spells can auto-hit in this fashion. For a ranged spell requiring any kind of attack roll, you need to hit.
ryryguy 03-16-07, 03:52 PM	If he actually is engaged in melee combat with an opponent at the time, you shouldn't be giving the cleric bonuses to hit him without also giving the opponent the same bonus. Leaving himself open to the cleric would also leave him open to the opponent. That is a good point. As a compromise, you might allow the target to give up his Dex bonus and Dodge bonus (if any) against just the friendly cleric (not losing it against engaged foes), but if he wants to go the "stand still" route with the effective Dex 0 and -5 penalty to AC, that would apply for the foes as well. But I wouldn't say it would be a bad ruling just to do as Morwen suggests - the drop in AC applies to all. A side note - if he's engaged in melee, the cleric would certainly suffer the "shooting into melee" penalty with his healing ray. And Precise Shot is not typically high on the list of feat choices for a cleric...
bigboy5584 03-16-07, 05:03 PM	I believe that it actually states in the rule book that a character can purposefully lower their spell resistances and things of that sort, but that effect would last until the begin of their next turn and any and all parties could/would take advantage of this change in ability, if percieved. Keep in mind also that spell resistance is a catch-all for resisting spells, technically speaking a check would have to be made when healing a player that has not or will not lower their spell resistance for a turn. And I would like someone to explain to me how a person could be dodging the attacks from a creature, say a marilith, and resisting the spell attacks of a lich while simultaneously standing still enough to purposefully get hit by the clerics healing spell or trying to NOT resist only the clerics spells. That seems to be a little off. Also take into effect that sometimes one would not realize the cleric was trying to heal them and could by accident react poorly on the attempt. Has anybody out there not accidently turned to swing on someone because they accidently didn't make their presence/purpose known? These are things that can and should be incorporated into the heat of battle, it definitely makes things a bit more interesting. Watch the lawful good cleric try to sweat on the idea wether to try to heal his companion and risking missing and accidently healing the tarrasque. It can prove to make things fun.
Burgundy Lotus 03-16-07, 09:18 PM	I don't agree. You can, for example, declare your Dodge bonus against a single opponent. I don't see any reason why you couldn't say "I don't try to avoid the cleric's ranged touch attack" and thus not apply your Dex bonus to your AC for that attack. I agree with this.
BigJohn42 03-17-07, 09:54 PM	I don't agree. You can, for example, declare your Dodge bonus against a single opponent. I don't see any reason why you couldn't say "I don't try to avoid the cleric's ranged touch attack" and thus not apply your Dex bonus to your AC for that attack. I've included the description of the Dodge feat, to help illustrate my idea. During your action, you designate an opponent and receive a +1 dodge bonus to Armor Class against attacks from that opponent. You can select a new opponent on any action. I've always been of the impression that the way the Dodge feat works is that the character has learned how to pay extra attention in combat to one particular person/creature. What I'd be willing to do is allow the target of the healing ray to declare their "Dodge" be against the cleric (the character acknowledging that the cleric is about to do something cool). Instead of adding the dodge bonus, I would allow the character to reduce, by their dex bonus, their AC in regards to the cleric. From a game-balance perspective, it takes the character's Dodge feat out of play for that round. From a RP perspective, it shows that the character is focused on the healer. Alternatively, if someone wanted to go into full-defensive mode for the round (give up their attacks), I would allow them to be considered flat-footed against the cleric ONLY.
KingMarl 03-19-07, 08:57 AM	I believe that it actually states in the rule book that a character can purposefully lower their spell resistances and things of that sort Different effects have different ways of handling them. Spell Resistance has rules that specifically state it can only be lowered as a standard action, and automatically returns the following round. The Dodge feat lets you change your selected opponent on "any action". There is no over-arching principle that covers all effects. And I would like someone to explain to me how a person could be dodging the attacks from a creature, say a marilith, and resisting the spell attacks of a lich while simultaneously standing still enough to purposefully get hit by the clerics healing spell or trying to NOT resist only the clerics spells. That seems to be a little off. Not going to get an explanation from me. My philosophy is that it's a game. It's not a simulation - a true simulation of humans versus dragons, elemental monoliths and ancient spellcasting liches would result in many, many character deaths. Cries of "but how does it work?" should fall on deaf ears as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't mean that I think things ought to be silly. For example, the whole "should Evasion work for Shadow Dragon breath" thread, while an interesting intellectual exercise, doesn't change the fact that it ought to work for consistency's sake. Likewise for the White Raven Tactics scam - while it's technically allowed by the rules, I would never allow my group to twist the rules to that extent. They know this, and also know that I will do the same thing - I won't find cheesy little rule loopholes and use them to do a party wipe. Watch the lawful good cleric try to sweat on the idea wether to try to heal his companion and risking missing and accidently healing the tarrasque. It can prove to make things fun. Probably not that fun for either the cleric or the front line fighter who buys it because the DM house-ruled it that clerics can accidentally hit the wrong target and heal their enemies.
Kouk 03-19-07, 10:43 PM	I have a cleric who uses Reach to heal people sometimes. If the target is threatened I allow him to drop his Dex bonus against the heal, making his AC 10 + Deflection. It seems to me that actively trying to get yourself hit by a heal ray, and not your enemies would be more difficult than just not ignoring (or just not avoiding) what the cleric does. It is interesting, trying to Dodge "into" a ranged attack though, I might consider allowing it because by doing that you are also leaving yourself more open to taking MORE damage from enemies. Completely lowering your guard would be bad if threatened, I would think it would provoke from anything threatening you. Just standing up straight and not moving would at least be as much of an opening as trying to cast a spell.