The Problems
Some players think they *have* to have a cleric or druid to cover the healing role, and place healing as an extremely high priority, even in combat, and even if they don't, many even spend inordinate amounts of money on extremely inefficient healing items that may hurt them more than help them.
To summarize a few common issues:
- Players overprioritize healing in combat when there are more effective options available to them.
- Players spend too much money on healing, often spending wads of cash on things like potions of Cure Moderate Wounds.
- Players believe they can't heal efficiently without a Cleric or Druid or similar class in the party, and view such as an essential role, to the point where some even *force* others to play a Cleric or Druid just so that they can have a dedicated healer, and then downplay the extraordinary talents of those classes and belittle them to a mere healing role, making for an unenjoyable experience for the victim of this treatment.
- Many players just don't know how to get the best healing for their buck.
Some Information and Comparisons
First, an effort at dispelling some of the myths. First off, you should probably never be buying healing potions, perhaps with the exception of Cure Light Wounds or a similar level 1 spell. The reason for this is simple. The cost is exorbitant, and it's really not worth it. A Cure Serious Wounds potion will heal, on average, 18.5 hp, and it will cost you 750gp, and it will take either a standard or a full round action to use, and it will provoke AoOs unless you did some further investment to prevent that, and on top of that it probably smells bad and tastes bitter. Yuck. For the same price, you could have gotten a Wand of Cure Light Wounds (275hp total instead of 18.5hp), a Wand of Lesser Vigor (550hp total instead of 18.5gp), or a Healing Belt (Either 6d8 hp (average 27 hp) a day, or 18 hp (same as the potion!) per day if you burst heal, usable as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.)) Would you rather get 18 hp, or 18 hp per day? Now would you rather use a standard or full action that provokes AoOs, *and* need to draw the item, or would you rather use a standard action that doesn't provoke AoOs? And hey, wouldn't you like the option to heal even more for efficiency, outside of battle? There's even another option, this one for artificers, that costs a mere 50 gp a pop: Infuse an ally with Greater Healing armor. This will give them 6d8+30 total healing (3d8+15 as a swift action, usable twice). As an added bonus, it will even automatically heal you if you get knocked unconscious. The point is... potions are bad. Potions are inefficient. So are scrolls of Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, and so forth.
Second, a dedicated healer is not a necessary combat role. Seriously.
First off, healing often does not outpace damage. Moreover, removing an enemy a threat can often be much more effective at saving your allies' necks than going up and poking them with Cure X Wounds. If an enemy were to deal 50 damage to an ally, and you can take that enemy out by either disabling or killing them, then you've "healed" that ally of the 50 damage he would have taken. Additionally, as healing often does not keep up the pace with damage, even if you can't disable the enemy, healing the ally might not be good enough to save them. Instead, you might want to use an ability to help the ally escape, or block the enemy from attacking them (this can be something as simple as Benign Transposition, really). In fact, healing in combat is only situationally a good choice, and is often a subpar tactical option.
Secondly, you can get very efficient out-of-combat healing quite easily without a Cleric or Druid, and indeed a Rogue, Artificer, Paladin, Ranger, Factotum, Warlock, or Bard could fill the healing role with a wand of Cure Light Wounds or Lesser Vigor. In fact, you can even get good, cheap burst healing comparable to the Cleric or Druid's ability at low levels with items like the Healing Belt.
Actually, the Artificer can prove to be a fantastic healer, cheaply (we're talking 37.5% market price here) turning out healing belts, wands of lesser vigor, and providing Greater Healing armor infusions (a mere second level infusion) at an early level. The Paladin and Ranger can use wands of Cure Light Wounds without penalty, and the others can use UMD to master the efficient wands. On top of that, members of *any* class can easily chip in with the very efficient Healing Belt.
These things considered, you really can get by without a Cleric or Druid. In fact, if you do have a Cleric or Druid, they're probably going to be more useful in most combats if they are doing something OTHER than healing, since they have considerable talents in many regards.
How to Heal Effectively
(Author's note: I have excluded a few very potent and efficient means of healing because things like the infinite-healing-for-cheap trap and other such things are just plain abusive, and few sane DMs will allow them)
- Blessed Bandages (10gp, MiC page 152): 10gp to automatically succeed to stabilize an ally. Can definitely save a friend at very low levels.
- Wands of Cure Light Wounds (750gp, Core): The hallmark of efficiency. These wands will dish out an average of 5.5hp a pop, and with 50 charges that will add up to 275 total healing. This wand gains an advantage over Lesser Vigor in two respects: Speed of use, and the fact that Lesser Vigor is a Cleric and Druid only spell, and thus is only available to those classes and UMD users, while Paladins and Rangers and the like will stick to Cure Light Wounds.
- Wands of Lesser Vigor (750gp, Spell Compendium Page 229): These are the most efficient healing wands around! You get 11 hp per pop (though it takes a full minute to gain that 11 hp), and you get a total of 550hp of healing for your 750gp.
- Healing Belts (750gp, MiC page 110): For 750gp, *anyone* can heal 6d8 hp a day, and even burst heal for 4d8hp as a Standard action with a Touch range, and does not provoke attacks of opportunity like spells and scrolls. Also, with the MiC rules for adding common effects, you don't even need to worry about "keeping the slot free" anymore. You can actually just say, give one of these to everyone in a party of 5 for 30d8 healing per day, and just subsidize your healing costs. This is a great way to keep everyone alive at low levels. As if this weren't good enough, you get feel-good +2 bonus to Heal checks as a bonus.
- Artificers can heal very effectively with Greater Healing Armor (MiC page 12), dishing out 3d8+15 healing *twice* usable as a swift action, and even automatically healing a character should they fall unconscious. Best of all, this only costs you 50gp for a total of 6d8+30hp healing, and is available at a very low level.
- Wand of Faith Healing (Spell Compendium): It's kinda cheesy, but it's worth mentioning if your DM allows it. It's exactly the same as Cure Light Wounds, except maximized and only usable on people who share your faith (which can easily just be everyone in your party). I personally don't allow this spell as a DM.
- Touch of Healing (Reserve Feat, Complete Champion pg 62): This one is for the actual "healers." As long as you have a healing spell of second level or higher ready to cast, you can heal anyone up to half their total hp (but no higher, meaning you have to use more abilities to fully heal them) for free. Basically, for the cost of a feat, you get a lot of free healing.
- Summon Nature's Ally IV (Core): Summoning a Unicorn nets you a free set of 3 CLWs, 1 CMW, and a Neutralize Poison. It has a caster level of 5th, so that'll total 5d8+20 points of healing (and a neutralize poison). It's even something a druid can cast spontaneously. Not bad.
- Revivify (Cleric 5, Spell Compendium page 176): Revive your dead buddy for 1000gp as a standard action instead of for 5000gp as a much longer action, and best of all *no level loss.* A no brainer really. You just need to be quick about it, acting within 1 round of the victim's death!
- Revenance (Cleric 4, Paladin 4, Bard 6): This spell can target any character that died within 1 round / caster level of casting. The subject comes back to life (as if by Raise Dead except with no penalties) and is able to fight (with a +1 morale bonus on attack, damage, and saves against the person who killer her) for 1 minute per level, at the end of which the character dies again. The real seller here is that it has a wider window to cast than Revivify (1 round / level), and moreover the ally will die at the end of the spell (or after being killed again), often allowing you to use Revivify when it would otherwise be impossible (window passed) or too dangerous (in the middle of combat).
- Delay Death (Cleric 4, Spell Compendium page 63): As an *Immediate Action*, the ally becomes unable to die from hit point damage (they'll still fall unconscious, they just won't die.) This means that you can instantaneously cast this spell when a buddy takes their final hit, and they won't die for 1 round/level (during which time you can finish the encounter, then heal them up.) Can definitely be a lifesaver.
- Tomb Tainted Soul (Feat, Libris Mortis): This handy feat allows you to be healed by negative energy. This means that a living Dread Necromancer can heal you to full as much as she likes with Charnel Touch, and that you can heal yourself with things like Uttercold metamagiced spells and the like.
- Amulet of Retributive Healing (2000gp, MiC Page 69): This handy little doodad lets you double up on your healing 3 times per day. When activated (as a swift action) this amulet allows you to cure yourself of an amount of damage equal to however much you cured your buddy of. So, if you cast Heal on your ally, you can activate this item to use a free quickened Heal on yourself. Works with scrolls and everything, too.
- Collar of Healing (5000gp, MiC page 90): As an *Immediate action* once per day, heal your animal companion of 50hp and cures the Fatigued or Exhausted conditions. Keep your little buddy going. As an added bonus, it works at any range (as long as you're on the same plane), and lets you know your companion's exact hit point total at all times.
- Heal (Core): Heal is a great spell. It really is. It's the healing spell you actually might want to use in fights fairly often. It heals a ton of damage, and it takes away ability damage, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, sickened, stunned, and poisoned. A laundry list of status effects, some of which are quite deadly in their own right! However, Heal is not a necessary party role in and of itself! Again, you don't actually need *any* in-combat healing to have a highly effective party. Still, when you *do* have a Cleric or Druid around, there's no reason they shouldn't have this ready. If you don't have a Cleric or Druid around, you may want to consider a scroll or two of this for those few situations where you really do want a Heal (i.e., your buddy just got blasted for 100 damage and got stunned to boot).
- Divine Ward (Feat, PHB II): This feat will help out the "true healers," allowing them to use Close Range instead of Touch Range for their healing spells on one ally by spending your Turning attempts. You can get a similar results with Divine Metamagic (Reach Spell) (Which happens to be doubly useful for, say, a ranged Slay Living).
- Augment Healing (Feat, Complete Divine): Add +2 healing per level of the healing spell cast. Simple and effective for a dedicated healer, should you choose to get one.
- False Life (Sor/Wiz 2, Core):
Instead of taking up an action to heal during combat, take an action to heal up to 1 hour / level before combat ever happens! See also, Aid (Cleric 2, PHB) - Empathic Transfer (Egoist 2, Psychic Warrior 2, XPH): This useful power is the standy of healing as a Psionic character. The method is a little unique as opposed to standard methods of healing, but it works just as well. You eliminate anywhere from 2d10 to 10d10 (depending on augment) hp of damage from an ally, and transfer half of that damage onto yourself. Combined with Vigor (Psion 1, Psychic Warrior 1, XPH), and Share Pain (Psion 2, XPH) both shared to your psicrystal through Share Powers, the temporary hit points will absorb all of the damage.
- Vigor (Psion 1, Psychic Warrior 1, XPH): This power giives you 5 temporary hit points per power point spent, lasting for a minute per level. It's like healing *before* you ever take damage, and lets you buff beforehand in order to avoid the need to heal in combat.
- Amulet of Tears (2300gp, MiC page 70): Another source of temporary hit points, this handy item stores 3 charges per day and grants temporary hit points lasting for 10 minutes based on the number of charges spent. For 1 charge, you gain 12 tmporary hit points, and for 3 charges grants 24 temporary hit points.
- Share Pain (Psion 2, XPH): This power transfers half of the damage dealt to you to a willing subject, and thus helps a good deal with damage mitigation. It lasts for an hour per level, so can last for a full day's worth of encounters, and a popular use is to combine it with a Vigor (Psion 1, Psychic Warrior 1, XPH) power shared with your psicrystal and make your psicrystal the subject, effectively doubling the effect of vigor and transferring a good deal of hp damage onto a target that is often a noncombatant.
- Shield Other (Cleric 2, Paladin 2, Core): This is much like Share Pain, except it deals half of an ally's damage to you, helping you to protect them. It also adds a +1 resistance bonus to saves and a +1 deflection bonus to AC for the target, as an added plus.
- Vampiric Touch (Sor/Wiz 3, Duskblade 3, Core): 1d6 damage per two levels, and gain temporary hp equal to the damage dealt. This spell is notable for combining offensive abilities and effective in-combat "healing" into the same attack. This spell is useful in spell storing weapons, or channeled through a Duskblade's "Arcane Channelling" ability. It is generally *not* a good idea for the average mage to run up into melee and try to touch an enemy with it, because the damage will be low and the temporary hp probably won't save you from a world of pain (unless you have other protective spells and such up). Also note that if you're an Unseen Seer or Arcane Trickster, you can increase the amount healed with sneak attacks!
- Bloodstone weapon enhancement (+1, page 29 MiC): Stores and casts Vampiric Touch just like a spell storing weapon, except that it's automatically empowered. Basically, this will deal extra damage on attacks equal to (1d6 per two caster levels)*1.5, *and* give the wielder of the weapon temporary hp equal to the damage dealt. Thus, you're adding to damage and to healing at the same time! See also: Vampiric Touch.
- Bodyfeeder weapon enhancement (+3 bonus, XPH): This handy enhancement will grant its wielder temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt by any critical hit he dishes out. With an expanded critical hit range, you can expect this to give a steady stream of temporary hp. This enhancement can be granted by an artificer spending a 3rd level infusion and a small amount of gp. (Note: Though "Wrathful Healing" is almost certainly more effective, it's much less likely to be allowed)
-Signed,
Thanks for the tips, man! I didn't know about the Healing Belt nor the Blessed Bandages.
Much obliged. Yeah, actually, in one of the games I'm in right now (where we're all level 5), we just made the artificer craft one for everybody. Subsidized the party's efficiency healing, and lets everyone burst heal if they need to.
Anyways, I'm sure I've missed a few, so if I have, please tell me so I can improve the guide
Weapon augment Crystal of Life Drinking. The least and lesser versions are very cost effective. Once you hit the daily limit of the crystal you can always swap it for another one.
Vampiric weapon enchantment (+2), get an extra 1d6 damage vs. living creatures and heal that amount with each hit. Not nearly as cost effective as the augment crystals, but the weapon enchantment has no daily limit.
Again not strictly healing, but still efficient damage mitigation:
Armor augment Iron Ward Diamond. 1/-, 3/-, or 5/- damage reduction that stacks with similar damage reduction from any source.
For everything else, you're usually better off doing something else.
With a few exceptions, all of these options are non-combat healing related in a post level 6 world. While I agree that a wand of CLW is efficient out of combat, in combat it's borderline useless fighting anything that can do more than 25 damage a round.
This is true. And like I said, emergency burst healing isn't actually a really necessary party role. It's a very useful one, to be certain, but others are very useful as well!
Aye. I have to note that there comes a time when NOTHING but a Heal will do.
For everything else, you're usually better off doing something else.
Agreed. Usually, though, these times are pretty much when something hits hard *and* can nab you with a nasty healable status effect, and you can't take the threat out quickly, in my experience.
An eternal wand (MIC) of healthful rest (SC) doubles your bang on vigors for 2 PCs per wand all day long.
I don't think Healthful Rest works that way. I thought it just doubled your natural healing from sleep.
I don't think Healthful Rest works that way. I thought it just doubled your natural healing from sleep.
Thing is, Fast Healing IS natural healing. It's a cheesy little trick that even allows beings with natural Fast Healing to double their healing rate. It's unlikely to be allowed by any sane DM, and as such warrants no mention.
Thing is, Fast Healing IS natural healing. It's a cheesy little trick that even allows beings with natural Fast Healing to double their healing rate. It's unlikely to be allowed by any sane DM, and as such warrants no mention.
Maybe natural Fast Healing, but Vigor isn't natural, is it? Anyways, I don't think that was the intent of the spell, and I think it's just another poorly-considered and worded thing thrown out by WotC. Blargh.
Thing is, Fast Healing IS natural healing. It's a cheesy little trick that even allows beings with natural Fast Healing to double their healing rate. It's unlikely to be allowed by any sane DM, and as such warrants no mention.
Right on the RAW. As to cheesyness, you are probably right. It's dispellable, but makes vigors even more efficient.
Right on the RAW. As to cheesyness, you are probably right. It's dispellable, but makes vigors even more efficient.
Out of curiosity, where is this clarified in the RAW?
Anyways, I don't think any DM I know would let me get away with it, so I don't think I'll add it... good catch, though!
Out of curiosity, where is this clarified in the RAW?
Anyways, I don't think any DM I know would let me get away with it, so I don't think I'll add it... good catch, though!
Vigor gives fast healing
Fast Healing is natural healing
Healthful Rest doubles natural healing
Completely RAW. Rule loopholes are fun.
For the record, I'm gunna try this in my current game (the cleric doesnt heal, so shapechanging into a hydra is my healing). Fast healing 44 = fun.
An eternal wand (MIC) of healthful rest (SC) doubles your bang on vigors for 2 PCs per wand all day long.
Beat me to the punch. There's a second part to this trick also though.
Summon Elysian Thrush (also SC) is an identical spell but has a shorter duration, effects the entire party, & is second level.
4*Vigour healing anyone?
Out of curiosity, where is this clarified in the RAW?
A creature with fast healing has the extraordinary ability to regain hit points at an exceptional rate. Except for what is noted here, fast healing is like natural healing.
Beat me to the punch. There's a second part to this trick also though.
Summon Elysian Thrush (also SC) is an identical spell but has a shorter duration, effects the entire party, & is second level.
4*Vigour healing anyone?
Wow. It can go in an eternal wand too. Fast healing 66... Wow.
Another spell that is good to combo with Revivify is Revenance. Now your "dead" buddy can continue to fight, instead of laying on the ground waiting for you to heal him.
Ur-Priests can make higher level magic items for healing more cheaply than other classes, due to having a lower "minimum caster level". This is particularly good for staves, as they can use the user's caster level, instead of their own. For example, an Ur-Priest could craft a staff of Heal (caster level 8, minimum for a staff) that uses 5 charges per use for 3600 gp (6x8x375/5). When he/she used it, it would be at their full caster level, however.
A sixth level character with the Shape Soulmeld (Theraputic Mantle) and Bonus Essentia feats could heal an extra 5 hp every time he is targeted by a Cure Light Wounds spell. If he is targeted by the Martial Spirit Stance (from the ToB) he would be healed 6 hp per melee attack (the stance has no spell level so the healing would be 2 pts from the effect + 4 from the 2 pts of invested Essentia).
I totally agree with this thesis. I do, however, believe that a Cleric/Druid provides a lot of utility divine for removing nasty status effects like disease, poison, blindness, and whatnot.
I agree with this. You will likely need a cleric in the party not only to heal hp damage but for other things like restoring ability damage, lost levels, or even bringing a character back to life.
However to contribute positively to this thread let me point out that you can use limited wish to cast the heal spell since heal is a 5th level adept spell.
I agree with this. You will likely need a cleric in the party not only to heal hp damage but for other things like restoring ability damage, lost levels, or even bringing a character back to life.
However to contribute positively to this thread let me point out that you can use limited wish to cast the heal spell since heal is a 5th level adept spell.
A Psion or Artificer can restore people to life in a pretty straightforward manner. UMD users can also do so with a scroll of Raise Dead or similar spell. Additionally, a halfling with a coupla feats in the Eberron Setting can cast Resurrection off of an Altar of Resurrection. At later levels, arcane casters can cheat death with things like Clone.
:D
I totally agree with this thesis. I do, however, believe that a Cleric/Druid provides a lot of utility divine for removing nasty status effects like disease, poison, blindness, and whatnot.
And negative levels. My cleric-less party fought some Slaughter Wights recently, and two characters rolled 1's on their Fort saves to remove negative levels.
Both Natural Healing and Fast Healing are seperate healing abilities - a character with fast healing who gets a full night's rest will benifit from Fast Healing AND Natural Healing. Of course, even Fast Healing 1 would heal up to 4,800 hp in 8 hours, so the extra 1hp/character level of healing is likely not needed. Even if the character was wearing a Ring of Sustenance, 2 hours still heals up to 1,200 hp.
P.S. If one does take the word LIKE to mean IS, than Fast Healing, as Natural Healing, would be prevented by any significant interruption - such as combat :P
Stuff
One would think (the RAI and most DMs would rule that way), but it works RAW. Fast healing is natural healing; it's just fast y'know. What you just explained was RAI, not the loophole in RAW.
Arch, I was initially confused by your reply - folks keep saying Fast Healing IS Natural Healing by RAW, but I wasn't seeing that from the definitions in the DMG and PHB. Which means...
A-hah.
The Definition of Fast Healing in the Monster Manual is slightly different than the DMG. Page 309; " is JUST like"...
A-heh. That changes the context/meaning of LIKE. And MM came out later than the DMG, so it's wording trumps. And the wording in the definition of MMIV is still basically the same as in MM (don't have MMV yet).
Okay, by RAW I see that the trick works - and fast healing doesn't function if any significant interruption (such as combat) occurs during the round per PHB pg. 146. So those bloody vampires and their spawn can't benifit from Fast Healing while we're slapping them around -SWEET! They have to retreat to heal. Has our DM been running these critters wrong all along? This is going to make the campaign sooo much easier.
Yeah, fun exercise, fun to talk about, but RAI will likely dominate, as should be - unless we really have been playing Fast Healing incorrectly. Certainly possible. Anyone out there saying, "Well duh, you have to rest during the round for Fast Healing to work, din't you know that?" Certainly would nerf Vigor casting during combat.
Its true D&D can be a game of number crunching, but character death isn't something most parties want to take lightly. With out a dedicated source of healing, your party can die very easily. A cleric can still cast spells when that belt of healing gets stolen, when the wand runs out of charges, when you're ring of regeneration gets disjunctioned or what not.
The same does apply for a cleric, if he goes down, and the party can't heal without him, you're in a world of ****.
SOLUTION: Every member of the party, once you pass lvl 4 I'd say, should have the ability to fully heal themselves, and at least get the party healer up and running. This maybe class abilities, feats, spells, wands, wonderous items, or even potions.
I'd be just as ****** off if the party fighter said, I'm not going to drink that healing potion, I'll just take another full attack and hope I drop it, and then that fighter died, I'd be a little angry too.
You want the Fighter to KILL HIMSELF? "Yeah, I drink a healing potion and get hit by an AoO and die instead of taking a full attack cuz I'm teh smart3st."
You want the Fighter to KILL HIMSELF? "Yeah, I drink a healing potion and get hit by an AoO and die instead of taking a full attack cuz I'm teh smart3st."
5ft step.
5ft step.
Against the ogre with 10-ft reach?:P
5ft step.
Furthermore, while taking a 5 ft. step does not itself provoke an AoO, moving out of a threatened square does.
Furthermore, while taking a 5 ft. step does not itself provoke an AoO, moving out of a threatened square does.
Only if the opponent is in thicket of blades.
5ft step.
Reach. And special abilities. And multiple opponents.
Seriously, if you can drink a potion, why not use a Healing Belt? That will do 4d8 healing (about the same average as a Cure Serious Wounds potion), not provoke an AoO, and be usable the next day. It's not like you have potions of Heal flying around.
Furthermore, while taking a 5 ft. step does not itself provoke an AoO, moving out of a threatened square does.
Uh... no. You're WAY over-analyzing this. You don't provoke an AoO for taking a 5 foot step, even if you leave a threatened square, unless there is something very specific causing you to (thicket of blades, difficult terrain, etc).
Do note that you can only move 5 feet in the round, if you take a 5 foot step. You can't take a 5 foot step to get out of reach, and then use a move action to go even further. You could use a move action that doesn't include actually moving, like drawing a potion, however.
A-heh. That changes the context/meaning of LIKE. And MM came out later than the DMG, so it's wording trumps. And the wording in the definition of MMIV is still basically the same as in MM (don't have MMV yet).
The standard rule, I believe, is that the "primary source" dominates. From the Core Books (PHB, DMG, MM; the default Primary Sources), the only way to gain fast healing is by being a monster, so the Monster Manual is the Primary Source for the rules on fast healing.
Okay, by RAW I see that the trick works - and fast healing doesn't function if any significant interruption (such as combat) occurs during the round per PHB pg. 146. So those bloody vampires and their spawn can't benifit from Fast Healing while we're slapping them around -SWEET! They have to retreat to heal. Has our DM been running these critters wrong all along? This is going to make the campaign sooo much easier.
Unfortunately, intelligent undead don't need rest to benefit from natural healing. They heal one hit point per hit die every 24 hours regardless of what else they're doing, and regardless of whether anyone makes a Heal check for long-term care.
Also there is the dragon shaman's fast healing aura...
Here's my [thread=739761]Dragon Shaman heal-bot[/thread]
JaronK
On a side note, the OP could very easily have been pulled from the Defender's Forum on City of Heroes. ;)
There's a huge fight in that game about healing vs damage mitigation. ;)
I definitely prefer Dragon Shamans to Clerics in a lot of cases.
The Dragon Shaman can drop a huge amount of healing on a single person, which counters the "they'll do more damage than you heal" issue, and has the fast healing aura to do a lot of the incidental stuff.
Plus, they can do a lot of other nifty buffing. And the one in my current group has more hp than the two casters combined....
You want the Fighter to KILL HIMSELF? "Yeah, I drink a healing potion and get hit by an AoO and die instead of taking a full attack cuz I'm teh smart3st."
Beyond that -
So let's say you're the fighter. You have 75 hp. You've taken 50 damage, and you expect your opponent will be able to do 30 damage, so you're in trouble.
You can drink a CSW potion, and heal 3d8+5 points of damage. That's an average of 17.5 hp. So now, you're at 43 hp. And then your opponent hits you for 30 damage. Now, you're at 13 hp. You expect your opponent will be able to do 30 damage, so you're in trouble. You can drink another, heal up to 31. See where this is going? Even maximized, you're getting 29 hp, less than they can deal to you.
If keeping your opponent focused on you is allowing the party to do useful things, that's fine, it's not a horribly bad deal. But you're burning a lot of gold just distracting them.
Really, you need to be able to doubly out heal the damage you're taking, such that you can fix what you took, fix what you're taking in the round you take damage from doing the heal, and still come out ahead. Otherwise, you're just delaying it by two rounds.
Really, the best place to see this is in computer games. When you're fighting a computer controlled opponent, and they get to a certain portion of their HP, they'll start healing. Unless they can horribly overheal, you know you've won now, because you can just keep damaging them while they keep healing, and you'll eventually win out.
Beyond that -
So let's say you're the fighter. You have 75 hp. You've taken 50 damage, and you expect your opponent will be able to do 30 damage, so you're in trouble.
You can drink a CSW potion, and heal 3d8+5 points of damage. That's an average of 17.5 hp. So now, you're at 43 hp. And then your opponent hits you for 30 damage. Now, you're at 13 hp. You expect your opponent will be able to do 30 damage, so you're in trouble. You can drink another, heal up to 31. See where this is going? Even maximized, you're getting 29 hp, less than they can deal to you.
If keeping your opponent focused on you is allowing the party to do useful things, that's fine, it's not a horribly bad deal. But you're burning a lot of gold just distracting them.
Really, you need to be able to doubly out heal the damage you're taking, such that you can fix what you took, fix what you're taking in the round you take damage from doing the heal, and still come out ahead. Otherwise, you're just delaying it by two rounds.
Really, the best place to see this is in computer games. When you're fighting a computer controlled opponent, and they get to a certain portion of their HP, they'll start healing. Unless they can horribly overheal, you know you've won now, because you can just keep damaging them while they keep healing, and you'll eventually win out.
Right. Damage just tends to outpace healing. Now, delaying it for a round *can* save you and give your allies time to finish off the enemy while you might not have been able to in time, and so is situationally useful as I have said.
Also, don't forget that even if the tank can 5 foot step and potion up without getting AoOed, pursued, or some similar ability, he may be giving the enemy that was knocking him down so hard clear sailing to the squishies.
Any suggestions for helping out with curing things like Ability Damage, Poison, Disease, and the like without a "mainstay healer"? I'm going to be adding a section, and I thought I'd get some input first.
Some of it can be solved with Iron Heart Surge, the ultimate condition remover.
Panacea is a nice 5th level spell that removes all those conditions.
Healing Cocoon is a Druid Heal spell, but at 5th level, and it only heals HP (it also has an... interesting... side effect, in the form of an invisible force field around the target while it's awaiting healing).
A Wand of Lesser Restoration can just remove the damage those afflictions cause, while you heal naturally.
It fixes everything.
"My condition is that my teammate is poisoned, which hurts my ability to hurt people. IROOON HEARRRRRRRRRRT SURRRRRRRRRRRRRRGE!"
MIC has items that heal ability damage for massively cheap. I'm afb, but they're in Bunko's Bargain Basement.
MIC has items that heal ability damage for massively cheap. I'm afb, but they're in Bunko's Bargain Basement.
wow! even some that heal ability drain. Magic Item Compendium page 215, the complete set of Wraith's Woe pieces (4000+6000+14000 gp).
Some of it can be solved with Iron Heart Surge, the ultimate condition remover.
Panacea is a nice 5th level spell that removes all those conditions.
Healing Cocoon is a Druid Heal spell, but at 5th level, and it only heals HP (it also has an... interesting... side effect, in the form of an invisible force field around the target while it's awaiting healing).
A Wand of Lesser Restoration can just remove the damage those afflictions cause, while you heal naturally.
Please give sources so we can find these things. Thanks
Please give sources so we can find these things. Thanks
Iron Heart Surge is an Iron Heart Maneuver of 3rd level from the Tome of Battle.
The rest is from the Spell Compendium.
Wands of Lesser Restoration can be bought from Paladin to get a better price (it's a 1st level spell for them...).
On a side note, the OP could very easily have been pulled from the Defender's Forum on City of Heroes. ;)
There's a huge fight in that game about healing vs damage mitigation. ;)
My Rad/Dark will heal you a number of hit points directly proportional to your IQ. I do not have a heal power.
That was my keybind for pickup groups.
My Rad/Dark will heal you a number of hit points directly proportional to your IQ. I do not have a heal power.
That was my keybind for pickup groups.
R U HEELR?
It's actually really funny how much CoH shapes my view of a good group in DnD, actually. Playing defenders taught me that healing is only one form of staying alive, and often an inefficient one. Instead of thinking of the need for rogue/fighter/cleric/mage, I think in terms of Tank/Scrapper/Blaster/Cont/Def.
And I certainly call mages squishes without a thought.
- For adventurers in Eberron without access to the Belt of Healing and with no Cleric/Druid/Artificer, an Eternal Wand of CLW costs 820gp and can be used 2/day by any arcane caster. Let the wizard do the healing for a change.
R U HEELR?
It's actually really funny how much CoH shapes my view of a good group in DnD, actually. Playing defenders taught me that healing is only one form of staying alive, and often an inefficient one. Instead of thinking of the need for rogue/fighter/cleric/mage, I think in terms of Tank/Scrapper/Blaster/Cont/Def.
And I certainly call mages squishes without a thought.
Could you maybe define those for us?
Fighter(High Hp, High armor - not a ton of damage)/Barbarian or Rogue(melee damage)/Wizard or Sorc (ranged damage, lots of AoE) / Bard or Enchanter (mind controllign specialist) / Cleric or druid playing "heal bot"
Could you maybe define those for us?
Sure. ;)
The tank is the meatshield. He's the guy that stands in the middle and takes the hits. When someone is beating on the caster, he's there to do something about it.
He may or may not have an ability that draws attention to himself, but he's a big enough obstacle that foes have to work around him. He either has high AC or a ton of hp and DR.
The scrapper is the up close damage dealer. He's tougher than the casters, but not on par with the tank. He excels at dishing out damage in large quantities, whether his focus is single target or multi target. He's the guy turning people in to a fine red mist when they get near him.
The blaster is the blow 'em up. Ranged damage of some sort, whether it's arrows, magic, or daggers. They may have some close range tricks, but primarily, they want to be away from people, hitting them and not getting hit back.
The controller is in charge of crowd control and doing weird things to people. Anything from a mass hold person to Chester the Molester - he keeps people from doing what they want to do, and make them do what he wants them to do. He screws up the enemies plans. He also may have a minor overlap with the defender.
The defender is in charge of keeping people alive. He may have buffs for you, he may have debuffs for the enemy, he may be neutralizing threats with the controller, or he may flat out be healing you. He's also a second line fighter, whether up close, or at range. He doesn't do as much damage as the scrapper or the blaster, but he can contribute.
Tank/Scrapper/Blaster/Cont/Def.
Fighter(High Hp, High armor - not a ton of damage)/Barbarian or Rogue(melee damage)/Wizard or Sorc (ranged damage, lots of AoE) / Bard or Enchanter (mind controllign specialist) / Cleric or druid playing "heal bot"
To a degree. But that's why I think of roles - you can do so much more if you don't think of them in those terms.
There are far more ways to be the damage guy than barb or rog. Blasters can be archers, knife throwers, or Warmages. Controllers can be the guy with the spiked chain and the stand still feat. The defender can keep you alive by keeping anyone that gets near you from taking a full attack, so you take far less damage.
Name, my idea of a tank is anything which is able to draw enemy fire to himself, regardless of how it is done. Be it by using some sort of "taunt" skill to force enemies to attack you or or presenting yourself as too great a threat to be ignored (such as dealing a lot of damage, interfering with the monster's tactics etc), so long as the foe finds that he "has" to attack you over another target, you are a tank. And of course, you must also be able to soak up those future hits, otherwise, you are just target practice.:P
This means that it is very much possible for a wizard to qualify as a tank if he is able to draw enemy fire, and deal with those hits.
*snip*
To a degree. But that's why I think of roles - you can do so much more if you don't think of them in those terms.
There are far more ways to be the damage guy than barb or rog. Blasters can be archers, knife throwers, or Warmages. Controllers can be the guy with the spiked chain and the stand still feat. The defender can keep you alive by keeping anyone that gets near you from taking a full attack, so you take far less damage.
Oh indeed! I absolutly agree, that was just my brief/bland quick description of the roles and possible classes that can fill those roles (stereotypically of course)
Psionic Vigor for 1 level 1 slot.
Touch of Healing for the other level 1 slot.
Maybe a feat left over.
It's a below average character, but with +30 hp at the start of an encounter, and another +30 or just +20 hp in the middle, and possibly another. At the end of an encounter, Wilder heals any hp loss that got by the Vigor, and then heals the party. ToH is also an emergency undead damaging power.
Somewhat useful - always emotional.
Why did you post this thread on the Class boards as well as the CO boards?
I have a question:
Why did you post this thread on the Class boards as well as the CO boards?
Why not? It's relevant in both places, and it gets different flavors of feedback in different places from different people.
Any suggestions for helping out with curing things like Ability Damage, Poison, Disease, and the like without a "mainstay healer"? I'm going to be adding a section, and I thought I'd get some input first.
Here's a build for a Healing Sorcerer. He can blast and heal. I've played a version of this build for a Living Planar campaign, and it's worked out pretty well. Main downsides are that it's feat intensive and doesn't come into its own until 12th level.
Race: Human.
Stats: Need Wis 11+, Dex 13+, Int 10+.
01: Sorcerer 1. Draconic Heritage (Gold), Combat Casting. This is to get Heal as a class skill without losing any caster levels. Max out Heal and Concentration, and cross-class Knowledge (Religion).
02: Sorcerer 2.
03: Sorcerer 3. Dodge.
04: Sorcerer 4.
05: Sorcerer 5.
06: Sorcerer 6. Arcane Disciple (Healing).
07: Sorcerer 7.
08: Combat Medic 1.
09: Combat Medic 2. Arcane Preparation. This is so you can use Pearls of Power with your Cure spells to get around the 1/spell level/day limit of Arcane Disciple. There could be some table variation with this. If your DM doesn't let this work, switch out Arcane Preparation for something else.
10: Combat Medic 3.
11: Combat Medic 4. Evasion!
12: Combat Medic 5. Now you can Heal. If you took Arcane Preparation or Rapid Metamagic at 9th, or have the Metamagic Specialist alternate class feature, take Quicken Spell.
13-20: whatever prestige classes float your boat, as long as they give you full spellcasting.
There are other ways to make this build work. You could be an Azurin or Strongheart Halfling, or a Kobold or Spellscale with the Dragonblood Sorcerer substitution levels. Any of these would get you into Combat Medic at the same rate as a Human, although you would need more Int to get the requisite skills. Alternatively, you could be some other race, though entry into Combat Medic would be delayed if you couldn't take flaws.
Now before the spell ends cast empowered vampiric touch on him to regain some hp.
Here's a build for a Healing Sorcerer. He can blast and heal. I've played a version of this build for a Living Planar campaign, and it's worked out pretty well. Main downsides are that it's feat intensive and doesn't come into its own until 12th level.
Race: Human.
Stats: Need Wis 11+, Dex 13+, Int 10+.
01: Sorcerer 1. Draconic Heritage (Gold), Combat Casting. This is to get Heal as a class skill without losing any caster levels. Max out Heal and Concentration, and cross-class Knowledge (Religion).
02: Sorcerer 2.
03: Sorcerer 3. Dodge.
04: Sorcerer 4.
05: Sorcerer 5.
06: Sorcerer 6. Arcane Disciple (Healing).
07: Sorcerer 7.
08: Combat Medic 1.
09: Combat Medic 2. Arcane Preparation. This is so you can use Pearls of Power with your Cure spells to get around the 1/spell level/day limit of Arcane Disciple. There could be some table variation with this. If your DM doesn't let this work, switch out Arcane Preparation for something else.
10: Combat Medic 3.
11: Combat Medic 4. Evasion!
12: Combat Medic 5. Now you can Heal. If you took Arcane Preparation or Rapid Metamagic at 9th, or have the Metamagic Specialist alternate class feature, take Quicken Spell.
13-20: whatever prestige classes float your boat, as long as they give you full spellcasting.
There are other ways to make this build work. You could be an Azurin or Strongheart Halfling, or a Kobold or Spellscale with the Dragonblood Sorcerer substitution levels. Any of these would get you into Combat Medic at the same rate as a Human, although you would need more Int to get the requisite skills. Alternatively, you could be some other race, though entry into Combat Medic would be delayed if you couldn't take flaws.
Add the Touch of Healing Reserve feat to this from Complete Champ. As long as you have a 2nd level or higher healing spell available, you can heal people up to half HP.
Binder 5 (Tome of Magic) / [something with Turn Undead] 1
feats: Improved Binder (ToM) and Sacred Healing (Complete Divine)
skills: Heal 8 (required for Sacred Healing)
You can substitute two more levels of Binder for Improved Binder
Bind Tenebrous, thus getting a free Turn Undead every five rounds. Sacred Healing lets you spend a turn attempt (full-round action) to grant fast healing 3 to all living creatures within 60 feet for 1+Cha mod rounds. With 18 Charisma, that is fast healing 3 for your entire group indefinitely.
Since you can bind 4th level visages with this set-up, you could instead bind Buer, who grants you fast healing 1, a healing touch every five rounds, disease and poison immunity, and a disease- and poison-suppressing aura. Binder 8 lets you bind two visages 4th level visages, so you could have both (with [something with Turn Undead] 1 to get Sacred Healing).
Here's a build for a Healing Sorcerer. He can blast and heal. I've played a version of this build for a Living Planar campaign, and it's worked out pretty well. Main downsides are that it's feat intensive and doesn't come into its own until 12th level.
Race: Human.
Stats: Need Wis 11+, Dex 13+, Int 10+.
01: Sorcerer 1. Draconic Heritage (Gold), Combat Casting. This is to get Heal as a class skill without losing any caster levels. Max out Heal and Concentration, and cross-class Knowledge (Religion).
02: Sorcerer 2.
03: Sorcerer 3. Dodge.
04: Sorcerer 4.
05: Sorcerer 5.
06: Sorcerer 6. Arcane Disciple (Healing).
07: Sorcerer 7.
08: Combat Medic 1.
09: Combat Medic 2. Arcane Preparation. This is so you can use Pearls of Power with your Cure spells to get around the 1/spell level/day limit of Arcane Disciple. There could be some table variation with this. If your DM doesn't let this work, switch out Arcane Preparation for something else.
10: Combat Medic 3.
11: Combat Medic 4. Evasion!
12: Combat Medic 5. Now you can Heal. If you took Arcane Preparation or Rapid Metamagic at 9th, or have the Metamagic Specialist alternate class feature, take Quicken Spell.
13-20: whatever prestige classes float your boat, as long as they give you full spellcasting.
There are other ways to make this build work. You could be an Azurin or Strongheart Halfling, or a Kobold or Spellscale with the Dragonblood Sorcerer substitution levels. Any of these would get you into Combat Medic at the same rate as a Human, although you would need more Int to get the requisite skills. Alternatively, you could be some other race, though entry into Combat Medic would be delayed if you couldn't take flaws.
Could you *please* give sources?
Here's a build for a Healing Sorcerer. He can blast and heal. I've played a version of this build for a Living Planar campaign, and it's worked out pretty well. Main downsides are that it's feat intensive and doesn't come into its own until 12th level.
Race: Human.
Stats: Need Wis 11+, Dex 13+, Int 10+.
01: Sorcerer 1. Draconic Heritage (Gold), Combat Casting. This is to get Heal as a class skill without losing any caster levels. Max out Heal and Concentration, and cross-class Knowledge (Religion).
02: Sorcerer 2.
03: Sorcerer 3. Dodge.
04: Sorcerer 4.
05: Sorcerer 5.
06: Sorcerer 6. Arcane Disciple (Healing).
07: Sorcerer 7.
08: Combat Medic 1.
09: Combat Medic 2. Arcane Preparation. This is so you can use Pearls of Power with your Cure spells to get around the 1/spell level/day limit of Arcane Disciple. There could be some table variation with this. If your DM doesn't let this work, switch out Arcane Preparation for something else.
10: Combat Medic 3.
11: Combat Medic 4. Evasion!
12: Combat Medic 5. Now you can Heal. If you took Arcane Preparation or Rapid Metamagic at 9th, or have the Metamagic Specialist alternate class feature, take Quicken Spell.
13-20: whatever prestige classes float your boat, as long as they give you full spellcasting.
There are other ways to make this build work. You could be an Azurin or Strongheart Halfling, or a Kobold or Spellscale with the Dragonblood Sorcerer substitution levels. Any of these would get you into Combat Medic at the same rate as a Human, although you would need more Int to get the requisite skills. Alternatively, you could be some other race, though entry into Combat Medic would be delayed if you couldn't take flaws.
Instead or in addition to Arcane Disciple(Healing) you could take the lv 5 sorc variant from Comp Champ, as it actually gives you a domain, although only useable 1/day, but it saves a feat
Warlock + Spellfire Wielder feat (from FRCS, not sure if it's been updated or not).
Spellfire Wielders absorb magic like a Rod of Absorption.
Rods of Absorption can absorb spells and SLAs.
Warlocks use SLAs.
Assuming this works, a Warlock can basically Eldritch Blast himself and absorb it (or blast another party member who has the feat), thus storing 2xCon mod in healing at all times. Not much in combat, but outside combat it amounts to infinite free healing for the entire group, for the cost of one feat.
Mor
I'm not really sure if this trick works by RAW or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there for discussion.
Warlock + Spellfire Wielder feat (from FRCS, not sure if it's been updated or not).
Spellfire Wielders absorb magic like a Rod of Absorption.
Rods of Absorption can absorb spells and SLAs.
Warlocks use SLAs.
Assuming this works, a Warlock can basically Eldritch Blast himself and absorb it (or blast another party member who has the feat), thus storing 2xCon mod in healing at all times. Not much in combat, but outside combat it amounts to infinite free healing for the entire group, for the cost of one feat.
Mor
That doesn't work. It takes a standard action to ready to absorb a spell and a standard action to launch an Eldritch Blast. The Spellfire Wielder has to be somebody other than the Warlock.
I'll also note that I don't like Sorcerer 7 in the above build. No BAB, saves, or feats. I would probably start out with Combat Medic at 7th level or find another dip class if it came to that.
Ruathar's a good dip, if you've got access. In fact, my Living Planar healing sorcerer build has Ruathar levels. And you probably could get into Combat Medic at 7th by switching or retraining one of your 1st level spells known at 6th. You couldn't spontaneous Heal until 12th (since you don't have 6th level spells), but you'd have Evasion at 10th.
Could you *please* give sources?
Ah, sorry about that.
Combat Medic (the heart of the build) is from Heroes of Battle.
Draconic Heritage is from Complete Arcane and Races of the Dragon.
Arcane Disciple is from Complete Divine.
Arcane Preparation is from Complete Arcane and Player's Guide to Faerun.
Spellscales and Dragonblood sorcerer substitution levels are from Races of the Dragon.
Azurins are from Magic of Incarnum.
Strongheart Halflings are from Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.
Rapid Metamagic is from Complete Mage.
the Metamagic Specialist class feature is from Player's Handbook 2.
Hope that helps.
edit: check out the polymorph reserve feat from Complete Mage for healing. That's self-healing though... I read that trick from somewhere I do not r--The Complete Mage tricks/combos/etc. thread.
edit 2: If we're talking about builds here, and that Binder one was neat, then Celestial Mystic 10 grants fast healing 2, I think. Radiant Servant of Pelor, Complete Divine. Combine with Reach spell for ranged healing. Lemme brainstorm... Healing, healing... HEaling mainly stemming from items and not a build... Or a build that is handicapable in other roles as well... PLANE SHIFT to the Plane of Light/Good. You can get 2x your HP that way. Good buff. I don't know how many people know of it though. Planar Bubble + Plane of Light/Good + Grapple + don't let your HP rise, or have HP higher than your opponents and watch them explode in your arms! Wow, that is evil... Sorta.
Anyone willing to compile the stuff that's been suggested already and the *sources?* (please mention sources! It makes it soooo much easier!)
Have we found a way to remove negative levels and repair level drain without a Cleric? (The CR 3 Wights that ambushed our level 9-10 party yesterday reminded me to wonder about this.)
Well, there's the (rather costly) Wand of Restoration. Obviously, it's a problem when you're level 3, but hey, not a lot of clerics are going to be easily curing negative levels at level 3 either!
Of course, a better way would be quite welcome.
Have we found a way to remove negative levels and repair level drain without a Cleric? (The CR 3 Wights that ambushed our level 9-10 party yesterday reminded me to wonder about this.)
For negative levels there's the feat Lasting Life (page 200 Expedition to Castle Ravenloft and page 28 Libris Mortis).
Font of Life....... allows you to remove Negative levels when they occur, with a single Save
:D
"Each time you use wild shape, you regain lost hit points as if you had rested for a night."
Assuming 8 hours to rest for a night, you heal 4,800 damage per point of fast healing each time you change forms.
Once you hit high levels, you really do need a dedicated healer if you want to be able to heal at all in combat. Also, once you hit this high of levels, in-combat healing can be extremely efficient.
My favorite is a Cleric / Radiant Servant of Pelor with divine metamagic (twin) and domain spontaneity (healing) (alternate class feature for clerics in PHB2).
With this, you can potentially cast a twinned empowered mass heal with each of your 9th level slots. This can cure everyone in your party for 750 points of damage. This is especially formidable when combined with Delay Death.
Once you run out of 9th level slots, a Heal spell can still cure a respectable 450 hit points to one target, especially good if you make it ranged by one method or another.
Turning attempts per day to power this can be obtained with a high charisma and some nightsticks (Libris Mortis, gain 4 extra turn attempts per day), or extra turning if you have feats to spare.
It is, needless to say, devastating against undead.
twinned empowered mass heal
Why do people keep Empowering and Maximizing Heal? It doesn't have any variable numeric components to Empower or Maximize.
"Empower Healing (Ex): When a radiant servant of Pelor of at least 2nd level casts a domain spell from the Healing domain, that spell is affected by the Empower Spell feat. This spell does not use up a higher-level slot"
This seems to directly conflict (at least in the case of Heal and Mass Heal) with the entry for Empower Spell, which says it does not affect spells without random variables, while the RSoP entry says it DOES affect any spell from the healing domain.
In games I play, its not an issue, as our DM has decided to ignore the 'random' part of Empower Spell and treat anything that includes a number as a variable effect, but I can definitely see a DM deciding that this ability does not affect fixed effects such as Heal.
Without Empower, the Mass Heal only cures a measly 500 hit points, and normal Heal is limited to a paltry 300 hit points cured.
Quoted from Complete Divine:
"Empower Healing (Ex): When a radiant servant of Pelor of at least 2nd level casts a domain spell from the Healing domain, that spell is affected by the Empower Spell feat. This spell does not use up a higher-level slot"
This seems to directly conflict (at least in the case of Heal and Mass Heal) with the entry for Empower Spell, which says it does not affect spells without random variables, while the RSoP entry says it DOES affect any spell from the healing domain.
There's no conflict here. Radiant Servant's ability applies Empower to all healing spells. That doesn't mean it does anything. You can Empower spells without random variables just fine, it just doesn't have any effect.
Under the text of Empower Spell, it states that spells without random variables are not affected by the feat, while the RSoP entry says that they are affected.
With or without empower, the twinned Mass Heal cures more hp than most characters' maximum. If the enemy is dealing heavy damage consistently, applying Repeat Spell via DMM would not be a bad idea either.
Some players think they *have* to have a cleric or druid to cover the healing role, and place healing as an extremely high priority, even in combat, and even if they don't.
[*]Players overprioritize healing in combat when there are more effective options available to them..
[*]Players believe they can't heal efficiently without a Cleric or Druid or similar class in the party, and view such as an essential role, to the point where some even *force* others to play a Cleric or Druid just so that they can have a dedicated healer, and then downplay the extraordinary talents of those classes and belittle them to a mere healing role, making for an unenjoyable experience for the victim of this treatment.
[
Second, a dedicated healer is not a necessary combat role. Seriously.
First off, healing often does not outpace damage. Moreover, removing an enemy a threat can often be much more effective at saving your allies' necks than going up and poking them with Cure X Wounds. If an enemy were to deal 50 damage to an ally, and you can take that enemy out by either disabling or killing them, then you've "healed" that ally of the 50 damage he would have taken. Additionally, as healing often does not keep up the pace with damage, even if you can't disable the enemy, healing the ally might not be good enough to save them.
Secondly, you can get very efficient out-of-combat healing quite easily without a Cleric or Druid, and indeed a Rogue, Artificer, Paladin, Ranger, Factotum, Warlock, or Bard could fill the healing role with a wand of Cure Light Wounds or Lesser Vigor.
Healing is a very nessesary in-combat role. First of all, the OP blithely tosses of statements like "healing often does not outpace damage" - in fact he likes it so much he says it twice, like that will make it more true. Not so at all. Any decent healer should be able to outpace the damage done in any fair fight- at least when it is needed.
And that is the crux here, and where the OP argument falls flat. Sure, you can get healing after combat with wands. And a cleric can deal out damage during combat. But let us say the Foe does do a big solid hit (or series of) for 50 points to a PC, who has 80 hp, and now cries "Medic!". The cleric chooses to not heal, and tries to kill instead. Well, now if 50 pts does not kill our party member in one hit, why should it kill the foe? Even so, the foe gets a save or SR or the cleric may miss (depending on the attack). So the foe does another 50 pts, and Bob the Fighter is dead. So, in order to "fix" Bob, the party needs to spend at least $5000, and really should spend $25,000, the cost of a True Res. And frankly the party can NOT be throwing that kind of money around.
It is not taking more damage that that in-combat healing is there for, it is for PREVENTING PC DEATH. In combat healing prevents PC death.
Well, sure, so does running. The cleric could step in, and let Bob the fighter run. But now we have lost Bob's damage for the entire combat, while healing him allows Bob to keep on hittin'.
Most clerics can not do more damage than they can heal. Let us take level 5 where a cleric can cast CSW. With Augment Healing (not the Healing Domain as there are better Domains), that's 3d8+11, or 26 points. And that is 26 points with no miss chance, no chance of failing to bypass SR and no chance the other guy will make his save.
Higher levels you say? Mass Heal will do 1000 points to an average party, with again, no miss chance, no chance of failing to bypass SR and no chance the other guy will make his save.
Yes, after combat is a good time to patch up those lesser wounds, and a wand is not a terrible way to do it. But those wands (in a healer-free party) will turn out to be a constant hemmorrage of cash from the party's coffers. I have seen healer-less parties go thru a wand per game day. 3 such wands, and you no longer have a +1 weapon. 4 such wands, and a spellcaster ca not afford a lesser Rod.
First, it's absolutely true that a party doesn't need a cleric or druid. If the fighters are careful in combat, if they are willing to front the cash for healing magic, if they are willing to use other tricks to remove status effects, if they are willing to use some of their paladin or ranger or bard spells on healing, then the party can do without. I have seen successful parties do this. Furthermore, I agree that some clerics (perhaps conditioned by all the cries of 'medic!' they've heard over the years) are too quick to waste combat rounds healing when they have better options available.
However, that is not necessarly the right mindset. In 3.5, playing a cleric is not a bad thing. Parties should want a cleric. Because a cleric can do all that healing and status removal, kick butt in melee as needed, and drop some pretty solid attack spells on the enemy. If you think playing a cleric is boring you're not doing it right.
Just like any other party role, a party can do without a cleric. But why would you want to?
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread...=900290&page=2
Here is my reply there:
"First of all, only a few classes can use a Wand. So, for them, a wand is not an option. It is a better choice for after combat healing, assuming your party has scads of extra cash.
And then there's that- scads of extra cash. With a cleric (and yes Augument healing is a good feat) you get lots of healing for FREE. With wands, you are constantly bleeding cash. After three wands, there is a permanent +1 weapon that the party does not have.
Healing Belt- Not Core, takes up the very valuable Belt slot, and by one reading can only be used by a cleric ("channels positive energy"). Nice for PC's around 3-6 level, however.
"Touch of Healing" is nice, but it means the party is going to run around at 1/2 HP too much. Toss up between that and Agument healing, IMHO. Now,if you have a Dragon Shaman as the 5th party member, you have that built in, which is nice.
Let us compare doing 50 points of damage as opposed to healing 50 points. If you want to cause 50 points, the cleric has to generally TOUCH the enemy, which requires a roll to hit. Even touch attacks can miss. If there is no roll to hit, there is very often a saving throw, and there is also SR- not to mention DR and Energy Resistance. With all that taken into consideration, you have to assume that 1/2 of damage output does not arrive. However, healing is nigh 100% effective, thus healing is twice as effective as dealing damage.
I have run a dedicated Healer (yes, the much maligned MH class) in Age of Worms, in a large party of powergamers, with a super powergamer DM- all the way thru Epic. My Healer was consistently voted "most valuable PC" by the players, and the DM paid me the doubtful compliment of having the BBEG make me the #1 target in most encounters.
At higher levels, Mass heal can do WAY more healing than any damage spell can do.
Now there are other costs of "not healing" and they include a much decreased party damage output. Yes, I said DECREASED party damage output. If the "damage dealers" are casting defensive spells, going full defence, running or drinking potions- they are NOT dealing damage. And of course, if they think the next hit will kill them, they WILL do this. One of my group is a CPA, who calculated that our party had a 50% INCREASE in damage output as no one had to worry about being healed- the very effecient dedicated Healer WOULD heal them. That is a CPA folks, with spreadsheets and all, not just opinion.
Then there is the "final " cost of not healing- dead party members. Dead folks do no damage. Raising them costs a LOT. Most importatly, while dead- the players do not get to play, thus they have less FUN. A dedicated healer adds fun for the whole group.
Sure, the heal-bot role is the least fun role of all. Thus, for a small party, a Healer as a Cohort is not a bad idea at all."
On_the_wings_of_TPK had a good refutation there also. As did Downtym.
Healing Belt- Not Core, takes up the very valuable Belt slot, and by one reading can only be used by a cleric ("channels positive energy"). Nice for PC's around 3-6 level, however.
It's from the Magic Item Compendium, which presents rules for mitigating slot affinity. You can have a Healing Belt of Giant Strength +4 for the same price as a Healing Belt and a Belt of Giant Strength +4.
I can't see why you'd say the fact that it "channels positive energy" means it can only be used by a Cleric. For one thing, it's a magic item. The item itself is doing the channeling. Second, Clerics aren't the only ones who cast Cure spells. Just in Core, there are also Paladins, Rangers, Druids, and even Bards. Paladins can even turn undead, if that was your reasoning.
Healing is a very nessesary in-combat role. First of all, the OP blithely tosses of statements like "healing often does not outpace damage" - in fact he likes it so much he says it twice, like that will make it more true. Not so at all. Any decent healer should be able to outpace the damage done in any fair fight- at least when it is needed.
Well, first of all, the point is that rather than having a cleric doing damage, you won't have a cleric - you'll have another DPS or Control person. The idea isn't that your cleric is fighting instead. The idea is that you don't have a cleric.
Secondly, you do realize this is the char ops board, right? Damage *always* outpaces healing in the environment we're looking at. Until you get to something like Heal, characters that do damage in the range that a healer does healing are considered sub-par. In a normal party, perhaps. But even at level one, when your fighter is doing 2d6+7 damage, that's a lot more than your CLW is tossing out. When you get to the mid levels (say level 7) your cleric is looking at 3d8+7 healing. Say you're twinked to heal, and you can double that, to 6d8 + 14. If your level 7 build can only turn out 6d8 + 14 (40, 20-62 range) damage per turn, it's pretty far below the power curve. My kobold finesse fighter is looking at something like 6d6 + 40 (61, 46-76 range) with Wraithstrike active, which comes out pretty equivalent to autohit. And that's a kobold. My ToB melee is a much more damaged focused character, and he's generating something like 4d6 + 80 on a charge, or 8d6 + 30 or so in melee.
It is not taking more damage that that in-combat healing is there for, it is for PREVENTING PC DEATH. In combat healing prevents PC death.
It delays party death, hopefully to the point that the foes can be taken down.
If you accelerate the time it takes to down the foes, it's entirely possible to have the same result.
The problem with healing, until you're doing something like Mass Heal, is that you're effectively substituting the cleric's action for someone else's action. "Oh, Bob is going to die. I will spend my turn to allow Bob to take another turn." If Bob is significantly more combat effective than you, then that's valid. But the OP's point is that you should be equally as useful as Bob, such that you subbing your turn for his is not a good tactical choice.
Your arguments stem from a very traditional Fighter/cleric/mage/thief view.
The OP's (and mine, obviously) stem from a Kill you with swords/Kill you with magic/Kill you with daggers/Kill you from behind view.
To be effective as a healer, you have to be creating positive healing. If you can mass heal everyone, then yes, you are useful, assuming there are multiple people with high injuries. If you can mass CLW everyone, then unless the damage is spread around equally, it's not worth it.
Using random numbers from non-tweak parties:
Fred the Fighter: 85 HP, does 20 damage a round.
Fran the Fighter: 85 HP, does 20 damage a round.
Chuck the Cleric: 85 HP, heals 15 damage in a round.
Meanie the Monster: 85 HP, does 20 damage in a round.
Your choice is Fred and Chuck vs Meanie, or Fred and Fran vs Meanie.
FCvM:
F does 20 damage, M does 20. C heals 15.
F: 80, M: 65, C: -1 spell
Repeat.
F: 75, M: 45, C: -2 spells. F: 70, M: 25, C: -3 spells. F: 60, M:5, C: -4 spells. F: 55, M: -15, C: -5 spells.
Even with M at 80 hp, it ends in round 4 with -4 spells, and F at 60. Then F needs 2 heals to get to 85 hp again. So C is down 6 or 7 spells.
FFvM:
F does 20. F does 20. M does 20.
F: 65, F: 85, M: 45
Repeat
F: 45, F:85, M: 5. F: 25, F:85, M: -15
If you do 80 hp, it ends in round 2. And that's assuming that there isn't some nice synergy between F and F.
So with a cleric, you're down 25 hp and 4-5 spells. Without, you're down 40 hp, and no spells.
3 spells heals you up.
Alternatively, assume the cleric casts Hold Monster, with a 50% chance to hit.
Round 1: Fails.
Round 2: Succeeds. Total damage of 40.
Rounds 3+: Irrelevant.
Again, you've taken 40 damage, cast 2 spells. Cast 3 heals, you're at the same 4-5 spells used.
Most clerics can not do more damage than they can heal. Let us take level 5 where a cleric can cast CSW. With Augment Healing (not the Healing Domain as there are better Domains), that's 3d8+11, or 26 points. And that is 26 points with no miss chance, no chance of failing to bypass SR and no chance the other guy will make his save.
Again, we're talking about no cleric. But really, clerics are the prime example of brokenness. Are you really arguing that a level 5 cleric can't do 26 points of damage consistently? Certainly a level 5 melee can do far more. Hell, a level 5 wizard can probably do 26 points of damage. And a level 5 tripper can often insure that the foe stays on the ground the whole time, out of reach. Etc.
Higher levels you say? Mass Heal will do 1000 points to an average party, with again, no miss chance, no chance of failing to bypass SR and no chance the other guy will make his save.
1000 points of damage is child's play at 17th level on these boards. Seriously. A charging pouncing FB can do 3k without much work. And a 17th level cleric is much better off abusing persistent divine magics and just wailing on things.
And of course, the other option is for your level 17 wizard to cast his fell draining empowered twin magic missles to do multiple hundreds of damage, and draining massive levels, or simply using a couple save or lose spells on the foes.
The basic point is that having an offensive or controlling character in the slot is often better, or as good as, having a healer.
Plus, people like to play them a lot more.
Yes, after combat is a good time to patch up those lesser wounds, and a wand is not a terrible way to do it. But those wands (in a healer-free party) will turn out to be a constant hemmorrage of cash from the partie's coffers. I have seen healer-less parties go thru a wand per game day.3 such wands, and you no longer have a +1 weapon. 4 such wands, and a spellcaster ca not afford a less Rod.
This is indeed true. You are swapping cash for more combat effectiveness. However, having another person that does more than simply heal will often allow you to take on high CRs, which net more treasure. With careful planning, though, you're using far less wands (touch of healing, fast healing, etc).
Enough rambling. ;) I should get back to work now.
I
I can't see why you'd say the fact that it "channels positive energy" means it can only be used by a Cleric. For one thing, it's a magic item. The item itself is doing the channeling. Second, Clerics aren't the only ones who cast Cure spells. Just in Core, there are also Paladins, Rangers, Druids, and even Bards. Paladins can even turn undead, if that was your reasoning.
Yes, a Pally, but none of the others, the point is you need Turning. It is not written very clearly and I have seen both sides argued strongly here on the boards.
Yes, a Pally, but none of the others, the point is you need Turning. It is not written very clearly and I have seen both sides argued strongly here on the boards.
...What?
That comment is not only completely off-topic, but it's completely untrue. Undead die just as well as any other creature -- heck, usually a bit faster, since they have no CON score and it's fairly easy to hit incorporeality now. (Augment crystals!) You don't NEED turning in a campaign -- in fact, most well-made Clerics will be blowing their attempts on some Divine feat anyway.
...What?
That comment is not only completely off-topic, but it's completely untrue. Undead die just as well as any other creature -- heck, usually a bit faster, since they have no CON score and it's fairly easy to hit incorporeality now. (Augment crystals!) You don't NEED turning in a campaign -- in fact, most well-made Clerics will be blowing their attempts on some Divine feat anyway.
That's not what he's talking about at all. His claim is that only characters capable of turning undead can activate a Healing Belt, since it says that activating it allows you to "channel positive energy and heal damage with a touch". I don't think this is accurate, since the item makes no mention of the ability to turn or rebuke undead, nor the requirement that the character spend turning attempts.
That's not what he's talking about at all. His claim is that only characters capable of turning undead can activate a Healing Belt, since it says that activating it allows you to "channel positive energy and heal damage with a touch". I don't think this is accurate, since the item makes no mention of the ability to turn or rebuke undead, nor the requirement that the character spend turning attempts.
Oh, I get it.
I think the problem there is that I consider that interpretation so absurd that I could not have thought of it in any conceivable reality in which the text remained the same.
That's not what he's talking about at all. His claim is that only characters capable of turning undead can activate a Healing Belt, since it says that activating it allows you to "channel positive energy and heal damage with a touch". I don't think this is accurate, since the item makes no mention of the ability to turn or rebuke undead, nor the requirement that the character spend turning attempts.
I am not the one who made that claim. OTHERS have made that claim. I have one DM that requires Turning the other does not. Nor is the claim that you spend a Turn, just that you have that ability. Myself, I dunno. It's not written very well, that is all I am sure of.
Contrast this with items like Runestaves, which require that you have a spell list and expend spell slots, or the Bloodclaw Amulet, which requires that you be a Sorceror, or the Relics, which require that you take a feat or be a Cleric and expend a divine spell, or any of the other items that specifically mention a race, racial ability, class, or class feature that's required to use them.
Healing Belt + Sneak Attack: Thanks to the Sage's ruling about sneak attack damage being the same type as what was used to deal the damage, a Rogue with a Healing Belt can now add tons of positive energy onto the initial touch attack. Remember, you can always make yourself flatfooted against an attack: let the Rogue Sneak Attack you w/ a touch attack of positive energy.
Black Sand + Tomb Tainted Soul: Black Sand (Sandstorm) deals d4 negative energy damage per round, which means healing with TTS. You either find the Black Sand, or have a Cleric cast the 3rd level spell Black Sand and then sacrifice a creature to it (which makes the creature turn to Black Sand immediately). Its a good investment for any undead necromancers in general, really.
Nothing wrong w/ these two, right?
In the case where you're fighting monsters that do enough damage to kill one PC every 2 rounds, if you don't have a high level of healing counteracting that damage output, you will smugly have a TPK on your hands.
Outside of combat, there's a ton of easy ways of healing everyone up to full. Level 1 dragon shaman + wand of lesser vigor is the easiest way at low levels.
At high levels, you can get by entirely with arcane casters. Combat medic allows you to channel spells into Heals (even for arcanists), which is awesome, and I personally like picking up Arcane Devotee (Healing) and converting Heals into spell like abilities via runesmith or archmage.
Contingent heals are also very awesome.
In the case where you're fighting monsters that do enough damage to kill one PC every 2 rounds, if you don't have a high level of healing counteracting that damage output, you will smugly have a TPK on your hands.
If the monsters are 2-shotting the party, I'd much, much rather somehow shut down its attacks. Your situation at first seems to imply healing is necessary, until you realize that it's actually detracting. All it would take is a crit and a party member goes down. With such high damage, it'll also be easy to shut down the healer. You're playing rocket launcher tag with a man down.
Why is everyone neglecting the weaknesses of healer? First off, touch spells on your front liners isn't always exactly easy. A lot of higher level monsters are going to have reach. They're also going to be intelligent enough to realize that, "Hey, the cleric heals" and ready actions, not only causing the cleric to lose the spell, but drop him lower too. On top of that, if your party gets split by monsters spell-like or NPC spells, the healing cleric can easily be split off from the party. Now you have a healer who can't fight to save his life, and a party that's used to relying on healing that's suddenly stopped.
It seems a lot of people fight rather tactically inept monsters, that just sit there and beat on one person all combat. Sure, for those kinds of combats, healers can work. But they're hardly necessary, by any means.
And lol @ the guy with the cpa. Ever hear of logical fallacies? An example doesn't prove a statement. I'd love to see these "spreadsheets".
Two quick ideas, neither broken, really:
Healing Belt + Sneak Attack: Thanks to the Sage's ruling about sneak attack damage being the same type as what was used to deal the damage, a Rogue with a Healing Belt can now add tons of positive energy onto the initial touch attack. Remember, you can always make yourself flatfooted against an attack: let the Rogue Sneak Attack you w/ a touch attack of positive energy.
i love this idea... great catch
:D
Healing Belt + Sneak Attack: Thanks to the Sage's ruling about sneak attack damage being the same type as what was used to deal the damage, a Rogue with a Healing Belt can now add tons of positive energy onto the initial touch attack. Remember, you can always make yourself flatfooted against an attack: let the Rogue Sneak Attack you w/ a touch attack of positive energy.
That would be great, if healing were damage. And you wouldn't even need the Healing Belt for this. In Core, a Rogue with UMD and a CLW wand could attempt it. I can't think of a good reason it should work, though.
@ Crimson Death: There's no doubt that the healing this way is damage. Just think of the target as having the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat, for example.
It only gives 1d4+5 points of healing 3/day as an immediate action when below 0hp, but it saved our party already many times. It even allows healing as a immediate action when below -10hp's !! It could save you from death (it migh even save you from death when falling to -18 hp) and also stabilises.
I think it has close range (yup!)
The problem is that I can't find where it says that positive energy always heals living creatures... can anyone lend me a hand?
@ Crimson Death: There's no doubt that the healing this way is damage. Just think of the target as having the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat, for example.
In general, positive energy heals the living and hurts undead creatures.
Tomb-Tainted Soul is different. Tomb-Tainted Soul explicitly says you get healed by Negative Energy, while you're making the implicit assumption that sneak attack positive energy damage heals.
The problem is that I can't find where it says that positive energy always heals living creatures... can anyone lend me a hand?
@ Crimson Death: There's no doubt that the healing this way is damage. Just think of the target as having the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat, for example.
heres an interesting quote.... from the Rules Compendium:
Damage Types
Damage types include kinds of weapon damage and categories of energy damage, as well as special types of damage from specific sorts of attacks. Some monsters are resistant or immune to attacks from certain types of damage, while others are more vulnerable to certain types of damage. For
these reasons, damage type can be important.
WEAPONS
Weapons and natural weapons are classified according to the type of damage they deal, which can be bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.
ENERGY
Abilities and effects that employ one of the five energy types deal energy damage, which can be acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic.
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE
Negative energy and positive energy are damage types, but they are not considered energy types the way that acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic are.
PRECISION DAMAGE
A number of abilities in the game allow a creature to deal extra damage by striking a vital area. This category of abilities includes sneak attack and other abilities that work like it, such as a ninja’s sudden strike(Complete Adventurer 8)and scout’s skirmish (Complete Adventurer 12). For the sake of simplicity, the extra damage such abilities deal is referred to as precision damage. Several factors are important to keep in mind regarding this sort of damage.
• Precision damage applies on any attack that meets the requirements of the ability that grants the damage. This includes multiple attacks made during a full attack. If conditions somehow change between multiple attacks,
attacks that not longer meet the ability’s requirements can’t deal precision damage.
• An attacker can deal precision damage with any weapon he can wield, but he must wield that weapon in the optimal way. If an attacker takes the –4 penalty to deal nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon, for example, no
precision damage is possible.
• Ranged attacks can deal precision damage only if the range is 30 feet or less.
• Precision damage applies only against living creatures that have discernible anatomies. Undead, constructs, deathless, oozes, plants, and incorporeal creatures are not subject to precision damage, and creatures that are not subject to critical hits are not subject to precision damage.
• To deal precision damage, the attacker must see (or otherwise sense) the target accurately enough to pick out a vital spot. Any degree of concealment foils the ability to deal precision damage.
• To deal precision damage, an attacker must be able to reach the target’s vital spots. If the attacker can’t do so,he can’t deal precision damage.
• If the bonus damage from a precision damage ability is expressed as extra dice of damage, the damage from those dice is never multiplied when the attack receives a damage multiplier (such as from a critical hit).
• A form of attack that enables an attacker to make multiple attacks during an action other than a full-round action, such as the Manyshot feat (standard
action) or a quickened scorching ray (swift action), allows precision damage to be applied only to the first attack in the group.
the closest thing to a Positive Energy reference...
Elemental and Energy Traits
Four basic elements and two types of energy together make up everything. The elements are earth, air, fire, and water. The types of energy are positive and negative.
The Material Plane reflects a balancing of those elements and energies; all are found there. Each of the Inner Planes is dominated by one element or type of energy. Other planes may show off various aspects of these elemental traits. Many planes have no elemental or energy traits; these traits are noted in a plane’s description only when they are present.
Positive-Dominant: An abundance of life characterizes planes with this trait. The two kinds of positive-dominant traits are minor positive-dominant and major positive-dominant.
A minor positive-dominant plane is a riotous explosion of life in all its forms. Colors are brighter, fires are hotter, noises are louder, and sensations are more intense as a result of the positive energy swirling through the plane. All individuals in a positive-dominant plane gain fast healing 2 as an extraordinary ability.
Major positive-dominant planes go even further. A creature on a major positive-dominant plane must make a DC 15 Fortitude save to avoid being blinded for 10 rounds by the brilliance of the surroundings. Simply being on the plane grants fast healing 5 as an extraordinary ability. In addition, those at full hit points gain 5 additional temporary hit points per round. These temporary hit points fade 1d20 rounds after the creature leaves the major positive- dominant plane. However, a creature must make a DC 20 Fortitude save each round that its temporary hit points exceed its normal hit point total. Failing the saving throw results in the creature exploding in a riot of energy, killing it.
:D
how about 'amulet of emergency healing'from MIC.
"MIC"?
If the monsters are 2-shotting the party, I'd much, much rather somehow shut down its attacks. Your situation at first seems to imply healing is necessary, until you realize that it's actually detracting. All it would take is a crit and a party member goes down. With such high damage, it'll also be easy to shut down the healer. You're playing rocket launcher tag with a man down.
Uh, no. Most monster's won't do 50% of your tank's hp in a single shot. Dragons for instance, can easily do 50% of your tank's hp with a full attack though. Or 4 stone giants each pounding on the spiked chain raging barbarian.
In other words, in tough combats, one crit will hurt, but not kill.
As I said, if you're playing in underpowered combats, than healing isn't necessary. It's in tough combats that healing shines, and tough combats are where you want to win.
Why is everyone neglecting the weaknesses of healer?
Because they're not significant. Yes, a monster might very well shift his attacks to a cleric after having his damage negated by a healer for a couple rounds, but then the healer just heals himself. Clerics usually have superior ACs to the barbarian-damage-sponges they usually heal, so the monsters' damage output is usually a lot easier to manage.
Mathematically, you want two things from a combat: 1) All the monsters dead 2) All the PCs alive. Increasing the speed of 1 will increase the chance of 2. But a cleric giving up 1/6th the damage output of the party in order to greatly increase the survivability of the damage sponge is usually a good tradeoff in tough combats.
In weak combats** or easy campaigns, sure, just blow through the monsters ASAP and use easy healing afterwards to heal up.
**Weak combats aren't just CR+2 battles and below, but include higher CR combats where the DM allows their power levels to spiral out of control. You don't need healing when a party member is pun-pun.
"MIC"?
Magic Item Compendium.
But a cleric giving up 1/6th the damage output of the party in order to greatly increase the survivability of the damage sponge is usually a good tradeoff in tough combats.
I thought the default assumption was the four-man party.
Not to mention those times the party controller is hit by a critical, falls uncoscious on the ground and you can only heal him 5.5 life at a time because nobody bothered to play a healer.
Monsters are tough and hit hard. Either you're one of those uber optimizers who will kill anything in the first round with questionable rules interpretations and weak DM's who are afraid to throw anything really dangerous against the party, making healing completely irrelevant, or people in the party will get hit hard, and then you'll need something better than a healing belt or spend all your money in diamonds for ressurection spells.
A medium dificulty battle is suposed to take around 3-6 rounds, and the monsters are suposed to be able to dish out some kind of damage to the party. If this isn't hapenning, the DM isn't really trying to challenge their party.
I thought the default assumption was the four-man party.
It doesn't matter, really. There *will* be times, regardless of the number of damage dealers (DDs) you have, where a PC will die during the next round unless he gets a lot of healing. If you can't come up with burst healing, PCs will start dying. Would you rather have an extra damage dealer in exchange for the party cleric? No, of course not.
Because even by the OP's original logic:
Dead PC < Healer < DD
(Healer can be any class capable of healing a significant amount of damage.)
(DDs can be wizards, rogues, barbarians, whatever.)
In other words, if you had to choose between a party consisting of 4 DDs+Healer or 5 DDs, the former is the optimal party makeup. Because there *will* be situation, regardless of how much damage you deal, when a PC will be on his last legs and in sudden need of a large amount of healing. When 4 rogues pop out in flanking around Timmy the BDF, and start combat with him bleeding at 3 hit points.
The "Healer" doesn't necessarily have to be a dedicated healer. If PCs aren't in risk of dying, it's optimal to have a healer than can do other stuff. My fiancee (in real life a pharmacy student) always plays healer clerics in D&D. But I always make sure she has options if healing isn't necessary. Summons, buffs, etc.
Crusaders are another great alternative healing class. Beat on enemies and heal? It's like the best of both worlds. =) The 1st level stance that gives 2 points of healing on a successful hit is usually good enough to keep the party out of danger in low levels, especially if you optimize for it.
But going without a healer entirely and relying on out of combat healing? Recipe for getting TPKed at some point.
As a DM my way of bringing people down the notch usually relates to huge ranged damage. I speak of alpha strikes that instantly kill or cripple unless the players are prepared for those.
Sure, they can be prepared.
But when theyre not prepared and dont have a healer? TPKs have happened.
Where a simple close wounds could have saved someones life, its situations like that which make me giggle with glee.
Sure enough, D&D can be played as "who fails save first will be screwed" but when my players are already doing that I like to compensate with heal-a-tag-team with nukes. Obviously they finally figured it out how nice it would be if everyone wouldnt need to whip a wand out in midbattle and run to a fallen friend and ********wand him instead of having a dedicated healer/buffer. Now they have a healer - and suddenly everyone can do their -own- stich in combat!
That's not what he's talking about at all. His claim is that only characters capable of turning undead can activate a Healing Belt, since it says that activating it allows you to "channel positive energy and heal damage with a touch". I don't think this is accurate, since the item makes no mention of the ability to turn or rebuke undead, nor the requirement that the character spend turning attempts.
I have to disagree. The passage Carnivore quoted calls all positive energy damage; just b/c its healing doesn't mean the nature of what the spell does is changed.
I have to disagree. The passage Carnivore quoted calls all positive energy damage; just b/c its healing doesn't mean the nature of what the spell does is changed. Its like damage reduction: even if a poison attack has its HP damage reduced to zero, the barbarian is still going to save to avoid the poison.
Huh? No. The rules explicitly say that if your DR stops all damage you don't need to make a poison save.
I think sneak attack only applies to damage, not healing, so you can't sneak attack (or crit, for that matter) to increase the damage of a cure light wounds. You should, however, be able to sneak attack (with the right abilities) undead with a CLW for extra damage.
Huh? No. The rules explicitly say that if your DR stops all damage you don't need to make a poison save.
I think sneak attack only applies to damage, not healing, so you can't sneak attack (or crit, for that matter) to increase the damage of a cure light wounds. You should, however, be able to sneak attack (with the right abilities) undead with a CLW for extra damage.
I think there's some ambiguity there, in the rules. Why would you get Sneak Attack on one attack, and not the other? As long as an attack roll is made, that is...
Uh, no. Most monster's won't do 50% of your tank's hp in a single shot. Dragons for instance, can easily do 50% of your tank's hp with a full attack though. Or 4 stone giants each pounding on the spiked chain raging barbarian.
In other words, in tough combats, one crit will hurt, but not kill.
You do realize in that passage of yours that I quoted you specifically said that the monsters would be doing half of the tanks hp, right? Way to remember your own post and be able to read mine.
As I said, if you're playing in underpowered combats, than healing isn't necessary. It's in tough combats that healing shines, and tough combats are where you want to win.
No, it's not. In those tough combats, I'd rather have guaranteed ways to lock down monsters than waste my time healing waiting for the opponent to get a lucky blow and kill someone. After all, you yourself said that the monsters are doing half the damage of a PC, and on a crit that would be a kill.
Because they're not significant. Yes, a monster might very well shift his attacks to a cleric after having his damage negated by a healer for a couple rounds, but then the healer just heals himself. Clerics usually have superior ACs to the barbarian-damage-sponges they usually heal, so the monsters' damage output is usually a lot easier to manage.
Not significant? Maybe you need a more tactically-savvy DM. On top of having to now roll two concentration checks, he's got an increasingly short clock if he fails any one of these.
On top of that, unless all you do is play in dungeons where monsters aren't smart enough to trip the cleric (because of the attack ops your healer is probably going to have to draw running around) your high AC cleric is going to have a lot of trouble running across a fight and keeping everyone up with his 20' move speed.
And you still haven't explained how your party that relies on the Cleric healing isn't ****ed if a cloud, summoned wall, or w/e cuts him off from the party.
Mathematically, you want two things from a combat: 1) All the monsters dead 2) All the PCs alive. Increasing the speed of 1 will increase the chance of 2. But a cleric giving up 1/6th the damage output of the party in order to greatly increase the survivability of the damage sponge is usually a good tradeoff in tough combats.
As you go up in party size, a healer is obviously much more viable. However, in compact parties (say 4, which is the standard the CR system is based on) that's a significant loss of damage. And you're not losing pure damage either, you're losing control and buffing too.
Irian's Light is of limited use. It's basically a Searing Light that does a bit less damage to undead, can fire at multiple undead, and heals instead of harming people. Requires a Ranged Touch Attack to hit...thus qualifies for SA
Darts of Life ...short range,1min/CL, makes 10 darts, each heal 1d8 or damages undead ..... variable delivery(free action,standard action,full round action), similar effect can deliver with Ranged Touch Attack
:D
Well, what about a 1st level party? They can't really go out there dishing 750 gp for healing(or for anything really). There are low money campaigns. There are situations where the party finds itself whitout nearby shops or whitout equipment at all.
A first level cleric with an 18 wisdom gets 2+1 spells per day. Assuming a healer, with the healing domain, that's 3 spells at 1d8+1 each. 3d8+3 healing is going to run out pretty fast as well. At first level, combats are often more deadly than high levels, because you're 1-2 hits from dead at every moment.
If each PC got hit once, you've used all your healing after battle number 1.
Not to mention those times the party controller is hit by a critical, falls uncoscious on the ground and you can only heal him 5.5 life at a time because nobody bothered to play a healer.
Reread the thread. The entire point of the OP is that there's no need for someone to play a healer, because each PC can take control of their own destiny enough to cover the bases. In fact, under the OP, you're better off in that case, because if it's the healer that goes down, everyone else has some capacity to keep the party going.
Monsters are tough and hit hard. Either you're one of those uber optimizers who will kill anything in the first round with questionable rules interpretations and weak DM's who are afraid to throw anything really dangerous against the party, making healing completely irrelevant, or people in the party will get hit hard, and then you'll need something better than a healing belt or spend all your money in diamonds for ressurection spells.
We need some actual scenarios.
A lot of people are saying "No, you need a healer, or people die. I know, I've seen it, that's how it is."
But there's nothing beyond anecdotal evidence to show that. Because people know you need a healer, so when people say "Do you need a healer" the answer is "Yes, we know you need one!"
A medium dificulty battle is suposed to take around 3-6 rounds, and the monsters are suposed to be able to dish out some kind of damage to the party. If this isn't hapenning, the DM isn't really trying to challenge their party.
Again, if you're facing 5 medium challenge monsters that each do 1/4 HP per hit, and they each hit a pc, what's the healer going to do? Heal each PC?
In a situation of one big baddy facing off against one tank (mmo style, with attacks focused on the armored damage sponge), you're fine. The party attacks, the monster beats the PC down, the healer heals him up.
But that's not a very common occurance. Playing a healer is running in reactive mode. Most good combat strategies are active (I won't say proactive, because I hate that word), not reactive. When you're on the defensive, you're already on the path to losing. I think a dude named Sun said that.
Honestly, I'd recommend people try a no-healer party, using this thread as a guideline, and come back, and see how you feel. I think you'll be surprised.
what about using Weapon like Spells to deliver SA and Healing:
Irian's Light is of limited use. It's basically a Searing Light that does a bit less damage to undead, can fire at multiple undead, and heals instead of harming people. Requires a Ranged Touch Attack to hit...thus qualifies for SA
Darts of Life ...short range,1min/CL, makes 10 darts, each heal 1d8 or damages undead ..... variable delivery(free action,standard action,full round action), similar effect can deliver with Ranged Touch Attack
:D
nice! great ideas.
I think it would definitely work: for Sneak Attack, you definitely need to be doing damage and rolling an attack. Positive Energy definitely is a form of damage. Do those spells all say they use Positive Energy? Also, where are they from?
:D
I think there's some ambiguity there, in the rules. Why would you get Sneak Attack on one attack, and not the other? As long as an attack roll is made, that is...
Because the rules say damage.
Believe me, I wanted to figure out ways of critting with heals.
You do realize in that passage of yours that I quoted you specifically said that the monsters would be doing half of the tanks hp, right? Way to remember your own post and be able to read mine.
Heh, way to read my post without reading it, and then criticizing me.
In my second post, I said they don't do 50% of damage in a single attack. They can easily do it in a single round. Thus crit on one attack != death since it alone does not represent 50% of a player's health.
Not significant? Maybe you need a more tactically-savvy DM. On top of having to now roll two concentration checks, he's got an increasingly short clock if he fails any one of these.
Why on earth would a cleric be rolling concentration checks? If you can't tap the combat casting roll by 10th level or so, there's something wrong. And as I said, monsters will deal less damage per round attacking a cleric than pretty much anyone else. Especially if they have power attack. At 12th level, you could easily have a 30AC cleric (+3 full plate, +3 large shield, +1 dex, +a couple points of misc) and a 14 (-ish) AC reckless raging barbarian in the same party.
Fighting 4 stone giants (a CR+0 encounter), all four on a barbarian (power attacking for 5) equals about 200ish damage per round. Not a lot of barbarians have 200hp at 12th level. The same giants on the party cleric deal about 25 points of damage a round.
Double the giants for a CR+2 encounter, and you see why it's just, frankly, stupid to go healer-less.
I'm sure you'll hurry to say this is a contrived example, but hardly. This was a combat in the one LG game I played without a healer at the table. We only survived due to the awesomeness known as the devoted defender.
Why on earth would a cleric be rolling concentration checks? If you can't tap the combat casting roll by 10th level or so, there's something wrong. And as I said, monsters will deal less damage per round attacking a cleric than pretty much anyone else. Especially if they have power attack. At 12th level, you could easily have a 30AC cleric (+3 full plate, +3 large shield, +1 dex, +a couple points of misc) and a 14 (-ish) AC reckless raging barbarian in the same party.
Why wouldn't someone else have a similar AC, though? In a party without a healer, I would certainly *want* an defense monkey to be out there taking the hits. In fact, I'd pretty much assume you had one. To say it would have to be the cleric is needlessly restricting yourself. A gish can easily hit that 30 ac, plus have a miss chance. A 2h fighter can easily have an animated shield. The spring-attack monkey only has to face one hit. Etc.
I think a lot of people are arguing against this from a very traditional PoV, which is why I again recommend you try it before you say it won't work.
Your own comment about the Devoted Defender is *exactly* the point of the thread. You can run w/o a cleric. You just have other people doing other things that make the cleric not needed....
Because the rules say damage.
Believe me, I wanted to figure out ways of critting with heals.
Right, but Positive Energy is damage, from the passage that Carnivore quoted previously.
@Carnivore: can't find either spell in SpC.
@Carnivore: can't find either spell in SpC.
then one must be in Complete Champions
the other is probably in Dragon magic, or BoeD
:D
Heh, way to read my post without reading it, and then criticizing me.
In my second post, I said they don't do 50% of damage in a single attack. They can easily do it in a single round. Thus crit on one attack != death since it alone does not represent 50% of a player's health.
There are monsters for both instances. Many only have a single attack, particularly low level ones, which is where the healer is more relevant. At higher levels, monsters are going to be throwing out death in a round, so the healer is no longer relevant. I guess you could make an argument for the middle levels.
Why on earth would a cleric be rolling concentration checks? If you can't tap the combat casting roll by 10th level or so, there's something wrong. And as I said, monsters will deal less damage per round attacking a cleric than pretty much anyone else. Especially if they have power attack. At 12th level, you could easily have a 30AC cleric (+3 full plate, +3 large shield, +1 dex, +a couple points of misc) and a 14 (-ish) AC reckless raging barbarian in the same party.
A readied action, persistent damage, spell effects... it seems that you don't play with many tactical options of this game. Once they switch to the Cleric, you have a character who is simply a liability.
Also relevant question. Is an actual rule somewhere that you can switch items between hands as a free action? Otherwise your cleric is going around weaponless (or shieldless) so he can actually do the somatic component. On top of that, he's hustling around at a 20' move speed. Or do all of your opponents stand right next to each other too?
To be honest, your fights seem rather restricted. You don't have to worry about healing multiple targets. You don't have to worry about opponents being smart enough to attack the cleric and interrupt his spells. Your cleric is the only one able to get a high AC. Your melee's aren't smart enough to deprive the enemy of attacks and easily get surrounded. I mean, come on, are we playing WOW or D&D here?
Fighting 4 stone giants (a CR+0 encounter), all four on a barbarian (power attacking for 5) equals about 200ish damage per round. Not a lot of barbarians have 200hp at 12th level. The same giants on the party cleric deal about 25 points of damage a round.
Again, you really don't do much in the way of tactics. Any character who gets attacked by 4 giants (large creatures no less) deserves to die for being stupid enough to get into that situation in the first place. On top of that, your example is completely ridiculous. First, you use a barbarian instead of anyone with a decent AC. How many other frontliners have that pathetic of an AC? Few, if any. Most would have about the same AC of the Cleric. On top of that, why would they Power Attack the Cleric? That's likely to reduce their damage significantly (I don't know the numbers off hand), and unless it says that they always power attack and/or they are very stupid (int 3-4) they'd be able to realize PA is probably not the best idea.
Double the giants for a CR+2 encounter, and you see why it's just, frankly, stupid to go with a dedicated healer.
See, it's easy to make generic statements with no support!
I'm sure you'll hurry to say this is a contrived example, but hardly. This was a combat in the one LG game I played without a healer at the table. We only survived due to the awesomeness known as the devoted defender.
You really don't understand logic. In order to prove something, you cannot prove that it is true for a single example. You need to prove it is true for all examples, which you are not doing. But, since you ignore it, let's ignore it too.
Since you did survive the encounter without a healer, you proved that you don't acutally need a healer.
just focus on the arguments at hand, and if nothing else, just agree to disagree.. and leave it at that
with issues like this Actual Game Play usually determines the correct course, but it takes many encounters to see it properly, the answer is in the middle
:D
@ gleemax: dam you, making me do stuff and things!!!
Reread the thread. The entire point of the OP is that there's no need for someone to play a healer, because each PC can take control of their own destiny enough to cover the bases. In fact, under the OP, you're better off in that case, because if it's the healer that goes down, everyone else has some capacity to keep the party going.
We need some actual scenarios.
A lot of people are saying "No, you need a healer, or people die. I know, I've seen it, that's how it is."
But there's nothing beyond anecdotal evidence to show that. Because people know you need a healer, so when people say "Do you need a healer" the answer is "Yes, we know you need one!"
Again, if you're facing 5 medium challenge monsters that each do 1/4 HP per hit, and they each hit a pc, what's the healer going to do? Heal each PC?
Honestly, I'd recommend people try a no-healer party, using this thread as a guideline, and come back, and see how you feel. I think you'll be surprised.
The game is built upon the assumption that Healer is one of the 4 roles. Thus, we do not need to prove a healer is needed, you need to prove a healer is NOT needed.
Yes, you do CLW Mass, or any of several other Divine feats or spells.
And yes, in my last campaign where I was a Player, the DM asked that we do NOT collaberate on roles ahead of time. Thus EIGHT players, no healer.
I then rana Healer (yes the MH class) up thru Epic, my PC was constantly voted MVP, and a CPA in our party did a spreadsheet that showed the damage output of our party was around 50% greater becuase of the dedicated Healer.And the same thing happened in another campaign where we started @5th, and we even had a number of wands of CLW and folks who could use them. TPK.
So far, other than in the WLD, I have ONLY seen TPKs in parties without a healer.
And yes, in my last campaign where I was a Player, the DM asked that we do NOT collaberate on roles ahead of time. Thus EIGHT players, no healer.
So far, other than in the WLD, I have ONLY seen TPKs in parties without a healer.
To prove that you need a healer in every group, you literally have to prove, for every group, that you need a healer. That sounds redundant, but you're not doing it. You're not even proving you need it in one instance, because you don't consider how the group would have done without the healer. You don't detail anything, you don't provide this spreadsheet, nothing. You simply make the claim that a healer is necessary. In essence, you prove nothing.
For example, my current group that I DM does not have a dedicated healer, yet they have managed to prevent any party death. By your logic, no group needs a healer, since this group does not.
It reminds me of the time when I was playing a cleric in group of 6 5th level pcs vs a 10th level blackguard. The blackguard kept hitting the half-ogre instead of taking a 5' step around the half-ogre and hitting me who was healing him all the time. We should have lost that fight if the NPC was played correctly, and it left a bad taste in my mouth after we won against him.
Maybe this has been asked before - I haven't gone through all five pages of this yet as I'm reading at work - but is there any way in all the infinite multiverse for a Bard/Warweaver to get access to Heal?
Look in the same book you found the War Weaver. Combat Medic 5 gets Spontaneous Heal.
Not significant? Maybe you need a more tactically-savvy DM. On top of having to now roll two concentration checks, he's got an increasingly short clock if he fails any one of these.
Having the Cleric tank the monster and heal himself isn't generally a manageable tactic at low levels, when nobody can afford heavy armor and casting defensively is a risk, but it doesn't take long before a primary caster can cast level 2 spells defensively even on a 1, and by level 10 they should be able to automatically cast any spell in their repertoire defensively.
By the way, where's the second Concentration check coming from? Is the monster readying an attack to hit the healer when he casts a spell? If so, he's giving up the opportunity for a full attack, which reduces his damage output, which may eliminate the need for healing entirely (especially if the healer decides not to cast a spell that round). And let's not forget the power of the five-foot step.
what about using Weapon like Spells to deliver SA and Healing:
Irian's Light is of limited use. It's basically a Searing Light that does a bit less damage to undead, can fire at multiple undead, and heals instead of harming people. Requires a Ranged Touch Attack to hit...thus qualifies for SA
Darts of Life ...short range,1min/CL, makes 10 darts, each heal 1d8 or damages undead ..... variable delivery(free action,standard action,full round action), similar effect can deliver with Ranged Touch Attack
:D
Heal technically requires a touch attack to hit. People who would like to be healed generally allow themselves to automatically get tagged. That doesn't mean you should be able to crit with them, even if your ally is actively avoiding you.
Yes, positive energy is a type of damage. No, that doesn't mean that healing a type of damage, even when it's accomplished through the application of positive energy.
Your own comment about the Devoted Defender is *exactly* the point of the thread. You can run w/o a cleric. You just have other people doing other things that make the cleric not needed....
*Can* be done, yes. *Should* be done, no. We were lucky to live. If we'd run the same party across 10 tables, we'd have picked up at least 1 TPK.
There are monsters for both instances. Many only have a single attack, particularly low level ones, which is where the healer is more relevant. At higher levels, monsters are going to be throwing out death in a round, so the healer is no longer relevant. I guess you could make an argument for the middle levels.
At higher levels, you actually have much lower levels of lethality, unless you're dealing with theoretical optimization monsters or something silly like that.
A readied action, persistent damage, spell effects... it seems that you don't play with many tactical options of this game. Once they switch to the Cleric, you have a character who is simply a liability.
I run a nationwide living campaign, playtested 4 books for WOTC, have been very active in the RPGA, and have tried every build that has interested me as a real character.
I'm simply telling you my experience. Regardless of how leet you think you are, in the long run you will have encounters where the PCs will have a dire need of burst healing, and if you don't have it, you'll TPK.
Also relevant question. Is an actual rule somewhere that you can switch items between hands as a free action? Otherwise your cleric is going around weaponless (or shieldless) so he can actually do the somatic component. On top of that, he's hustling around at a 20' move speed. Or do all of your opponents stand right next to each other too?
How many hundreds of combats are you trying to distill into a single sentence? It's nonsensical.
As I said, in my experience, I've never seen it be that big a deal. Generally speaking, melee types charge into battle, ranged people hang back, and clerics go where they're needed. Clerics have various ways of dealing with the range issue. Ranged spell, mass healing spells (which can be done at range), various ways of picking a high movement speed up (flying carpets, footsteps of the divine, flight), etc. etc. etc.
To be honest, your fights seem rather restricted. You don't have to worry about healing multiple targets. You don't have to worry about opponents being smart enough to attack the cleric and interrupt his spells. Your cleric is the only one able to get a high AC. Your melee's aren't smart enough to deprive the enemy of attacks and easily get surrounded. I mean, come on, are we playing WOW or D&D here?
You can't ask for an example and then complain that I didn't list every one of the thousands of 3ed combats I've played since even before 3ed came out.
Smart monsters will focus fire on a single target. If they're being stupid and all four stone giants are hitting four different PCs, then yes, low level healing or ignoring healing is a valid tactic. In order for monsters to win, they need to start dropping PCs. Damage doesn't decrease a PC's effectiveness -- only when a PC drops does the party's power level decay.
As far as spell interruption, it's also not much of an issue. If you can't figure out how to beat spell interruption, you don't deserve to play as a cleric. And, sure, a cleric can go without a weapon in his mainhand. My fiancee's 12th level healing cleric uses +4 spiked full plate and a tower shield.
Again, you really don't do much in the way of tactics. Any character who gets attacked by 4 giants (large creatures no less) deserves to die for being stupid enough to get into that situation in the first place.
In that module, you basically start the encounter surrounded by giants.
On top of that, your example is completely ridiculous.
Real example.
You really don't understand logic. In order to prove something, you cannot prove that it is true for a single example. You need to prove it is true for all examples, which you are not doing. But, since you ignore it, let's ignore it too.
Actually, in this case all you need is a single case study.
You don't need to survive one encounter as a no-healer party. You need to survive all encounters. I can provide plenty of real-life (so to speak) examples where no-healer parties would die.
Since you did survive the encounter without a healer, you proved that you don't actally need a healer. Now go away troll.
See, it's brilliant statements like that that make your point.
We survived, but it was dicey, and involved the awesome cheese of dual devoted defenders protecting each other. The same table across 10 LG tables would be TPKed 10% to 30% of the time. My character also burned through a whole wand of CLW, which pretty much negated the GP reward for the game.
By the way, where's the second Concentration check coming from? Is the monster readying an attack to hit the healer when he casts a spell? If so, he's giving up the opportunity for a full attack, which reduces his damage output, which may eliminate the need for healing entirely (especially if the healer decides not to cast a spell that round). And let's not forget the power of the five-foot step.
Yes, it is. And you are correct, both are valid points. I was considering in particular the giants example earlier, where they only get one attack in the first place and have reach. Strategies would change based on the monsters. Obviously, some wouldn't have answers, and some would be able to completely shut down the healer.
I think this need to be clearly established. I don't think the original intent of this thread is to state that you SHOULDN'T run with a dedicated healer. The point of this is to prove that you don't NEED to, which are quite different.
Also, a clarification, logically speaking. The game is based around having a semi-dedicated healer. Thus, the burden of proof does lie on those of us (myself included) saying that it isn't necessary. However, as with trying to prove anything else false, you only need one counter example to prove anything false (i.e. that a dedicated healer is NEEDED in EVERY party). Yet you cannot prove that you need a dedicated healer in every party unless you literally go through every possible party and prove that they do, in fact, need a dedicated healer.
Basically, there are certainly some instances where a healer could be useful. There are also some where they are a detriment. Certain party builds simply do not need them, and certain encounters are better off not having them. Thus, while a dedicated healer can be useful, you do not need one.
To prove that you need a healer in every group, you literally have to prove, for every group, that you need a healer. That sounds redundant, but you're not doing it.
No, like I said- the healer is one of the 4 roles WotC designed the game around. Thus YOU have to prove a party does NOT need a healer.
The overarching purpose of this thread, as I understand, is to publicize secondary healing options, especially those that are available regardless of character class. A worthwhile secondary purpose, which may or may not have been intentional, would be to encourage those players whose characters are not dedicated healers to avail themselves of secondary or even tertiary healing options.
Does anyone find the above objectional or erroneous?
Heal technically requires a touch attack to hit. People who would like to be healed generally allow themselves to automatically get tagged. That doesn't mean you should be able to crit with them, even if your ally is actively avoiding you.
Yes, positive energy is a type of damage. No, that doesn't mean that healing a type of damage, even when it's accomplished through the application of positive energy.
Fair enough, but now your giving heal spells two different functions that are target dependent. Me no likey.
However, since healing is a necessary function for any party that's not immune to damage (which, I daresay, encompasses the set of all parties that don't include "Campaign Smashers"), a party that does not include a dedicated healer must include multiple members with secondary healing capabilities.
I have the suspicion this is the point of the original poster.
I.e., Why need healing when everyone can design a character so good they never take damage (and can kill everything in one round)?
The overarching purpose of this thread, as I understand, is to publicize secondary healing options, especially those that are available regardless of character class. A worthwhile secondary purpose, which may or may not have been intentional, would be to encourage those players whose characters are not dedicated healers to avail themselves of secondary or even tertiary healing options.
Yeah, it does have a good list of alternative healing methods. IMO, no alternative healing methods beat a character with a Heal.
Fair enough, but now your giving heal spells two different functions that are target dependent. Me no likey.
The spell says it heals living creatures and damages undead. There's the two functions.
No, like I said- the healer is one of the 4 roles WotC designed the game around. Thus YOU have to prove a party does NOT need a healer.
Again, read my posts. I said that in order to prove that you need a healer, you need to prove you need it for every case. Which is what you guys are trying to do, by providing examples that support the statement. Which doesn't work.
Since you missed my second statement:
Also, a clarification, logically speaking. The game is based around having a semi-dedicated healer. Thus, the burden of proof does lie on those of us (myself included) saying that it isn't necessary. However, as with trying to prove anything else false, you only need one counter example to prove anything false (i.e. that a dedicated healer is NEEDED in EVERY party). Yet you cannot prove that you need a dedicated healer in every party unless you literally go through every possible party and prove that they do, in fact, need a dedicated healer.
@ShakaUVM: Again, you can throw 10,000 real examples at this thread, and in the end, it doesn't prove anything. Whether or not a non-healer group needs to survive all encounters I'm not sure about, but I am fairly certain that only one group would be necessary to disprove the statement.
Both of you should really read http://www.maths.uwa.edu.au/~berwin/humour/invalid.proofs.html#1.1Proofbyexample
And yes, I realize that this one is specifically related to math, but the ones that aren't focused on math aren't as clear. You are also managing to fall under multiple logical fallacies at the same time, which is rather impressive.
Regardless, my point is that unless you actually have substantive proof, and not just examples (I find it ironic that you say "how leet you are" and yet you decide to whip out the "I'm more experienced than you so I must be right" argument). It does not matter how many thousands of encounters you have gone through, that does not prove anything. You are not the only one playing this game.
And yes, I realize that this one is specifically related to math, but the ones that aren't focused on math aren't as clear. You are also managing to fall under multiple logical fallacies at the same time, which is rather impressive.
Now you're just talking nonsense.
I'm not giving you a logical proof. I'm simply telling you that in my experience, in the majority of the tables I've sat it, it would be have been A Bad Idea to replace the party healer with another DD. Stating that is a "logical fallacy" means you really don't really understand what you're talking about. In cases where the topic is too complex to directly prove (as in chess, or D&D), it's certainly valid to use the experience of long time players. But the intention is not to do a proof (which in the case of D&D is impossible, since the composition of combats is unbounded), which is where you're making the mistake.
My only real assertion is that D&D is not about winning a single combat, but about the long term, which I think can't really be debated.
Tbh I don't think this is going to get proved one way or another like this.
If you're really interested in getting an answer - run some simplified simulations (shouldn't be too hard to write some code for a d20 encounter if you make some basic assumptions about things, if you break it into fighters & healers rather than anything where choice is involved, it should be even easier) & compare the results of adding another standard damage output vs. adding a healer.
If the result is significantly different, it will show up as a difference in average number of PCs dead over large simulation runs.
Now, just where did I leave that damned CD...
the question is: Do you need a Cleric in a Party?..from the original post.
the OP makes the assertion that the Clerics main purpose is to Heal the party members. but as has been shown, the Cleric has Many uses and abilities.... so it boils down to this:
"Do you need a Character that focuses on Healing"
i would say ...Yes it would be a good idea, but it is possible to function and Survive without one..... would that be easier, No i dont think so...but it could be done.
the reason why..... you cant attack everything that can Damage you:
1)you cant kill a Cliff that you fall off of, to avoid damage from Falling
2)you cant Kill a Spiked-Pit Trap
3)you cant kill a Lava Pit
4)ETC......
there are many things that can Hurt you, that you need to be able to repair the Damage done to your party members... that you cant always avoid
a Healer in the Party helps keep the Party in top Physical Shape...so they are as combat ready as Possible....... the Cleric does a Great job at this and can fill other roles(Tank,Face,etc...)..to assist in keeping his party mates Healthy
:D
from my view... this is what i see:
the question is: Do you need a Cleric in a Party?..from the original post.
the OP makes the assertion that the Clerics main purpose is to Heal the party members. but as has been shown, the Cleric has Many uses and abilities.... so it boils down to this:
"Do you need a Character that focuses on Healing"
I think this latter question is what he's trying to argue.
Actually, I'd say that if his original question was, "Do you need a Healer in your party?" (capital H healer, the class), then his argument would be correct. You don't need a class that focuses entirely on healing. What you need is the ability to drop large heals in times of need. Healers suck because they can't do anything but heal. Clerics, as we all know, channel their non-capital H heal spells, so they're loaded chock full of useful non-healing stuff. Druids have a harder time of it, since they have to prep cures (lowering their utility), and at higher spell levels to boot.
So yeah, going without a Healer, yes, absolutely. Going without a healer, no. Not without taking too much of a risk.
:D
"Do you need a Character that focuses on Healing"
i would say ...Yes it would be a good idea, but it is possible to function and Survive without one..... would that be easier, No i dont think so...but it could be done.
the reason why..... you cant attack everything that can Damage you:
1)you cant kill a Cliff that you fall off of, to avoid damage from Falling
2)you cant Kill a Spiked-Pit Trap
3)you cant kill a Lava Pit
4)ETC......
I believe the point of the OP was, since these events occur out of combat, wands of vigor/CLW and healing belts can handle that damage.
To break it down:
Premise 1: In combat healing is a poor choice, and shouldn't be done.
Premise 2: any class that can use a wand of CLW/lesser vigor can handle the out of combat healing very cost effectively.
So if these premises are true, you do not need a dedicated healing class.
If the point that you are trying to make is "clerics should be using their spells for status effects and buffs" I will agree.
However you still need someone in the party that answer the unexpected/dangerous things (Fireball sucks for a wizard, but multiple enemies casting it often means CLW, Mass needs to be cast.) Level Drain, Ability Damage, Stunned, panicked, shaken, nauseated ect. Are all common sources of suck that you need to remove heal is an excellent answer to these. I dare say such a spell is quite Needed at higher levels, where you get it isn't as important.
ultimately you don't need a cleric, you could have an artificer instead. Or spend a huge amount on scrolls.
You need the "support" role, not a dedicated healer, but that is their most important job damage is secondary removing status effects, and large quantities of damage is primary.
Premise 1: In combat healing is a poor choice, and shouldn't be done.
i think that this is more a conditional Statement..... it is not bad All the time to heal in combat, there are times when it is very useful, and even necessary.
in fact sometimes Healing can be Done simultaneously with Combat:
exa: Crusader and these Healing Manuvers:
[indent]
Iron Heart Endurance (IH6, M): If at 50% or few HP you can heal 2x Level as a swift action.
Crusader Strike (DS1, M): Successful attack allows you to heals self or ally 1d6 +1/Initiator Level
Martial Spirit (DS1, S): Heal self or ally 2 points with each successful attack
Revitalizing Strike (DS3, M): Successful attack allows you to heals self or ally 3d6 +1/Initiator Level
Aura of Triumph [Good] (DS6, S): Heal yourself or ally 4 points with each successful attack.
Rallying Strike (DS6, M): Successful attack allows you heal 3d6 +1/Initiator Level to all allies within 30ft burst
Strike of Righteous Vitality (DS9, M): Successful attack grants Heal spell to you or ally[/indent]
exa 2: any character and a Vampiric Weapon...do extra 1d6 damage and heal that amount
the main thing is.... you ABSOLUTELY DO NEED some way to get yourself and your party back to full health quickly,... before the next encounter if possible.
the Cleric is a Natural to fill that role, and can be very effective when NOT HEALING, but other Classes and PrCs can be used so that a Cleric is not a Necessity.
exa:
party:
Ranger(Wands of CLW,CMW,CSW)
Sorceror(Arcane Disciple(Healing))
Crusader(Healing Manuvers)
Rogue(UMD wands or Scrolls)
all can heal, and help other party members..... with the right Equipment, they dont even Miss a Cleric.... but a Cleric makes it even Easier
:D
Some things are necessary in any given D&D campaign. In the "standard" (yeah right) campaign presupposed by the core rules, they include out-of-combat healing, trapfinding, damage-dealing (or a really good save-or-die supply), and some kind of social skills. Without access to these things, you're just Not Gonna Make It.
Then there are things that are useful. They may be useful to such a degree that some players consider them effective necessities (like flight), but it is rare that not having them will make completing an adventure impossible; rather, having them makes completion easier, reduces casualties, etc.
The ability to cast Heal is useful but not necessary. Are there situations where Heal will save you massive trouble and possible casualties? Absolutely. There are also situations where a crowbar, a silver-plated sword, or the ability to speak Kobold will do the same thing. I would personally rate Heal higher than any of these, because it addresses a relatively wide variety of situations in which the consequences of not having it are probably more dire than the consequences of not having a crowbar.
The topic line says "you will be just fine without a cleric to heal", not "having a cleric to heal is worthless". Heal is a handy thing to have, but the point of the thread is that it's not a necessity.
(..also, seriously, folks, crowbars are cheap and really useful. You should have one.)
A lot of the tension here is coming from an apparent conflation of "useful" and "necessary".
Some things are necessary in any given D&D campaign. In the "standard" (yeah right) campaign presupposed by the core rules, they include out-of-combat healing, trapfinding, damage-dealing (or a really good save-or-die supply), and some kind of social skills. Without access to these things, you're just Not Gonna Make It.
Then there are things that are useful. They may be useful to such a degree that some players consider them effective necessities (like flight), but it is rare that not having them will make completing an adventure impossible; rather, having them makes completion easier, reduces casualties, etc.
The ability to cast Heal is useful but not necessary. Are there situations where Heal will save you massive trouble and possible casualties? Absolutely. There are also situations where a crowbar, a silver-plated sword, or the ability to speak Kobold will do the same thing. I would personally rate Heal higher than any of these, because it addresses a relatively wide variety of situations in which the consequences of not having it are probably more dire than the consequences of not having a crowbar.
The topic line says "you will be just fine without a cleric to heal", not "having a cleric to heal is worthless". Heal is a handy thing to have, but the point of the thread is that it's not a necessity.
(..also, seriously, folks, crowbars are cheap and really useful. You should have one.)
i agree ........ i do have a Crowbar, and String, and a 12' Colapsable Pole
:D
exa: Crusader and these Healing Manuvers:
[indent]
Iron Heart Endurance (IH6, M): If at 50% or few HP you can heal 2x Level as a swift action.[/indent]
Nitpick: Crusaders don't get access to the Iron Heart discipline, so you'd need to burn feats on Martial Study to get this (probably not a good idea for the relatively feat-starved Crusader...)
:D
party:
Ranger(Wands of CLW,CMW,CSW)
Sorceror(Arcane Disciple(Healing))
Crusader(Healing Manuvers)
Rogue(UMD wands or Scrolls)
all can heal, and help other party members..... with the right Equipment, they dont even Miss a Cleric.... but a Cleric makes it even Easier
*nod* All of those cover the "support" role. Clerics are just better at it
Heal is a handy thing to have, but the point of the thread is that it's not a necessity.
Actually, I would say that having some source of capital-H Heal is necessary in high level parties. All your cure crits in the world won't make up for a dragon pwning you for 150 points of damage before you get a chance to go. You're hovering at 3hp. Do you:
1) Use your wand of lessor vigor
2) Use your healing belt for 4d8+whatever
3) Cast Heal (or get a Heal)?
I don't care *how* your party has access to Heal, but it IS a necessity, unless you can bring your A game in avoiding damage.
There is a HUGE step up in healing between CCW and Heal. As in, an 11th level character will cure roughly 45 points with an Empowered CCW (6th level slot) and 110 damage with a Heal. That's way too large a difference in power to ignore. There's a similar jump in healing ability when you get access to Mass Heal.
I don't care *how* your party has access to Heal, but it IS a necessity, unless you can bring your A game in avoiding damage.
There is a HUGE step up in healing between CCW and Heal. As in, an 11th level character will cure roughly 45 points with an Empowered CCW (6th level slot) and 110 damage with a Heal. That's way too large a difference in power to ignore. There's a similar jump in healing ability when you get access to Mass Heal.
True, and with Mass heal, you become super-useful when the party encounters Undead! Everyone healed and them blasted. Nice.
Actually, I would say that having some source of capital-H Heal is necessary in high level parties. All your cure crits in the world won't make up for a dragon pwning you for 150 points of damage before you get a chance to go.
This is a situation that can come up but is not assumed - just like the time speaking Kobold will save your behind. If you can still win, the high levels have the Resurrection insurance to cover the situation, and it's still possible to win with one man down.
As I say, it's not necessary, but that doesn't mean it isn't extremely useful.
As I say, it's not necessary, but that doesn't mean it isn't extremely useful.
Well, I guess if you don't do combat then it's not necessary.
Well, I guess if you don't do combat then it's not necessary.
You specified being critted for 150 points of damage before you got the chance to take a turn. This is a rather more specialized circumstance than "combat".
I completely agree with you that Heal is a very useful thing to have available and will make life a lot easier in many circumstances. I don't agree that it's an absolute necessity, but I would much rather be in a group with it than without it.
I also bring crowbars.
This is a situation that can come up but is not assumed - just like the time speaking Kobold will save your behind. If you can still win, the high levels have the Resurrection insurance to cover the situation, and it's still possible to win with one man down.
As I say, it's not necessary, but that doesn't mean it isn't extremely useful.
I completely disagree. In high level play, you get hit for massive damage all the time; and you don't have regular access to True Resurrection until somewhere around 17th level, which is a far cry from the 11th level you get the Heal spell at. Even then, I know which 9th level spell I'd rather cast in a high-level group: the one that doesn't cost 25000gp.
EDIT: Ok, you're more reasonable about it than I assumed
. Still, I wouldn't leave Heal at home.Still, I wouldn't leave Heal at home.
All else being equal, I would rather have Heal than not have Heal. Nonetheless, plenty of parties can and do survive without a dedicated healer, and this thread advises them on ways to do it.
"Nobody wants to play a healer this time" is more than enough reason not to have one; the purpose of the game is to have fun. Knowing how to get by without one is useful.
And this is hardly truth.
At low levels you really can't cash out wands or belts of healing or whatever, neither can you use a bazillion tactics to end the fight before it starts with 99% acuraccy. So players are going to be hit. And the cleric/druid is the only onw who'll be able to put them back togheter.
Similarly,at mid and higher levels, it's much easier and cheaper to have a dedicated healer than having the party being a group of paranoids who either spend half their money in healing items or need to come up with strategies to defeat ALL their encounters whitout being hurt in any way.
Is it possible to go whitout dedicated healer? Yes
Is it easier than having a dedicated healer? Never.
Is it at least cheaper/more effecient than having a dedicated healer? Hardly. Versatility is always good.And if the DM is at least as competent as the players the players are going to be hit.
Not to mention stuff such as poisons, diseases and ability drain wich can't be easily solved whitout a cleric/dedicated healer at hand.
And ironically, you won't be able to ressurect anyone whitout a dedicated healer class in your party.
And ironically, you won't be able to ressurect anyone whitout a dedicated healer class in your party.
Psionic Revivify
Edit: And oh, I pretty much agree with you on all the other points, though. Just that it doesn't *have* to be a Cleric, just someone that can heal *and* do something else.
Psionic Revivify
Edit: And oh, I pretty much agree with you on all the other points, though. Just that it doesn't *have* to be a Cleric, just someone that can heal *and* do something else.
A Cleric can do something else. It's widely regarded as one of the three strongest base classes in Core and one of the top ten base classes in 3.5th Edition.
Other clases can heal and do something else. Clerics can do it too, of course.
So, any class in the [Heal+something else] group can handle the healing role. Clerics, being part of that group, can do it. So can other classes.
Not sure if it was mentioned in the thread, but one nice little addition to your list you should consider is a skill trick from Complete Scoundrel, where you heal 1d6 damage whenever you stabilize someone (or was it whenever you stabilize someone below 0HP?). I believe it was called Healing Hand, but don't quote me on that.
I don't think you can stabilize someone with 0 or more HP.
I've made two dedicated healing characters. The first was a Year 6 LG RSoP (meaning Divine Metamagic). As a 10th level cohort, it was keeping all the players alive while the tanks (including a tricked out dire tiger with a halfling rider) killed.
My second was a Year 7 LG Healer (MH). She had two feats. Augment Healing (CD), and Ritual Blessing (PH2). Because of the limit of LG, she only had a 16 Cha. With some buffs (blessing the combatants with holy water), she could dish out 6 points of healing with her Cure Minor Wounds (1 + 3 Cha + 2 Ritual Blessing). Her CLW were dishing out 9-16 (1d8 + 1 + 3 Cha + 2 AH + 2 Ritual Blessing). I never had a character die when I played here, even at typically deadly 1st level LG tables (meaning pre-teen players with <10 personal Wisdom). She could heal 64 + 4d8 points of healing at 1st level per day (68-96, avg 82). Her build is what I recommend for any Thrallherd or Leadership monkey for their 1st level believers/followers. Give her a Potion of Eagle's Splendor, and her healing goes from an average of 82 in her 8 spells, to 98. At 1st level. I could optimize her, with an 18 Cha and a potion of Eagle's Splendor, to average 106 points per day of healing. Plus, she's a bit of a diplo-monkey. That's how healing can outpace damage, even at 1st level. Plus, she's got Sharkskin armor, and a light crossbow for when she runs out of spells.
In dandy-wandy life-loving campagns, and pre-written adventures, its acceptable to cruise on through life with your healing belts and CLW wounds; healing at the end of every encounter and slaping each on the back with job-well-dones and boy that was close I was on half hitpoints for a round there!
An Optimised party NEEDS (I'm no fence sitter) an -Optimised- healer of some description. Whether thats a Cleric, Druid or Artifacer; whatever. If you're pushing your DM around with Raging Mongoosers, Uber-Chargers, Incantrix' and Pun-Pun's and he doesn't throw them right back at you... well, you've got much nicer DM's than I.
If things go your way its great to have the healer off a bit of support, try out that mace he bought at level 1 and hasn't used yet, or see if he can hold a monster/person for a few rounds. Great! When the shizzle hits the fizzle NOTHING beats a few DMM Quicken/Chain/Max/etc heal bomb.
Cuz if your hitpoints arn't bouncing like a blonde jogger's nipples then your on the wrong section of the boards.
PS. Loved the suggestions of the OP, its great supplementing for OOC healing and the occasional clutch during mid-low levels.
In a world of optimization it is naive to believe that only the players will optimize, and optimize damage at that. Sure you're optimized death dealing uber charger would pwn more than your party cleric, but when -their- optimized death dealing uber charger gets his turn who's left standing in the field with their panties about their ankles and a puddle of blood and urine at their feet?
In dandy-wandy life-loving campagns, and pre-written adventures, its acceptable to cruise on through life with your healing belts and CLW wounds; healing at the end of every encounter and slaping each on the back with job-well-dones and boy that was close I was on half hitpoints for a round there!
An Optimised party NEEDS (I'm no fence sitter) an -Optimised- healer of some description. Whether thats a Cleric, Druid or Artifacer; whatever. If you're pushing your DM around with Raging Mongoosers, Uber-Chargers, Incantrix' and Pun-Pun's and he doesn't throw them right back at you... well, you've got much nicer DM's than I.
If things go your way its great to have the healer off a bit of support, try out that mace he bought at level 1 and hasn't used yet, or see if he can hold a monster/person for a few rounds. Great! When the shizzle hits the fizzle NOTHING beats a few DMM Quicken/Chain/Max/etc heal bomb.
Cuz if your hitpoints arn't bouncing like a blonde jogger's nipples then your on the wrong section of the boards.
PS. Loved the suggestions of the OP, its great supplementing for OOC healing and the occasional clutch during mid-low levels.
The thing is, you should be disabling those uberchargers and mongoosers and so forth (if you've got pun puns, there is no game anymore, man), or, as the OP said, be having optimized enough damage mitigation (possibly healing) to really make a difference. The thing is, when that ubercharger actually hits you, the result tends not to be "I need healing" it tends to be "I need resurrection." Things like Delay Death or other immediate saves that OW4 suggested can prevent that, and so can things like "I have a high AC" or "I trip you with AoO" or "you can't charge through web."
The reality is that healing is just one more type of defensive ability, and it's not necessarily the best. Saying that healing is a much more valuable defensive ability than things like "Solid Fog" to the point that you feel some inordinate NEED to devote a party slot to it is naive (and criminal, when you end up forcing someone into a role they don't want to play), and that seems to be the OP's point. It's perfectly okay for an optimized party to have plenty of abilities that are *not* healing, and simply rely on healing out of combat. It in no way means that they're playing a dandy-wandy life-loving campaign.
Like any type of defensive ability in D&D, it's weak against certain types of offense. Conventional healing (cure X and so forth) is a defense against controllable amounts of hp damage against people who can take a hit. It doesn't do anything for status effects, it tends to be action-intensive rather than preventative, and generic forms of healing tend to have trouble with things like "the squishy is getting attacked" or "he does really high damage." Further, things like potions or touch-range heals can easily make you vulnerable.
As a general principle, preventative defenses tend to be nicer than reactive defenses used after the fact. Immunity to fire damage is better than using actions to heal the fire damage after it's done (provided you're still alive enough to be healed).
Well said - I tried to post that, and it wasn't nearly as good.
In optimized play, I think there's basically 3 states:
Fine, dead, Healable.
There's no "Oh, I took some damage." It's either "I'm at full HP" or "I'm disabled" or "I need 200 hp of healing".
So the optimized healer that focuses on chained heals, or maximized empowered twinned Cure Serious, or the like, would be useful. But back to the original point, not many people want to be that person. There are some, sure, and if you have one, booya. But if you don't, you'll be okay. Even if one person's job is simply to lock down other combatants....
There's no "Oh, I took some damage." It's either "I'm at full HP" or "I'm disabled" or "I need 200 hp of healing".
More or less.
So the optimized healer that focuses on chained heals, or maximized empowered twinned Cure Serious, or the like, would be useful.
If you can heal high enough that you'll put the tank back up to full hp when he's dangerously low, that *is* good, but it's not ALL you should be doing. There are plenty of other dangers out there. It's also not the only way to protect that tank. Healing is *a* means to an end, not *the* means to an end. This is something that a lot of players don't realize, because they seem to assume that D&D is like WoW or something, and it's not. In WoW, you need a steady stream of healing as monsters deal a steady, predictable, and wholly manageable stream of damage and always attack the tank unless the tank screws up somehow. D&D isn't like that at all. There's a whole host of other options, enemies can actually think, and there's a lot more to worry about than gradual increments of damage coming in at your tank.
Okay, I'm in the camp that you don't need a healer in every party, but it sure as heck is nice, if they're played right.
And so are plenty of other things that reach the same end. A healer's purpose is, at its core, to negate enemy actions. If you just healed the effects of an enemy's attack, that means that that guy just lost the effect of his action. But then again, what do we use battlefield controllers for? Interrupters? Disablers? Killers?
What a lot of people fail to realize is that healing is just one means to an end. When I hear people say "healing is a necessary role" it just sounds silly to me. Healing isn't a necessary role any more than "dealing damage with a sword" is a necessary role. It doesn't matter if that damage comes from a sword, spell, or bow, or if that enemy goes down from something completely unrelated to damage, like "Finger of Death." What matters is that you're killing enemies. Do you see what I'm getting at here?
I know how to heal optimally (heck, I think that's evidenced by my guide), but I would trade a dedicated healer for a good controller any day of the week, because I tend to be a lot more afraid of a deadly blow or screw-over lockdown than controllable amounts of hp damage against those who can take a hit. And really, odds are, if all you're doing is healing, you're not playing to your potential. Just as a wizard shouldn't target only fort saves as a route to disabling/killing enemies, you shouldn't only look at one route to negating actions.
And remember, if you ARE healing, *make sure you're doing it well enough to accomplish the goal of negating actions,* and make sure you're not actually leaving yourself (or your allies) more vulnerable in the process. Otherwise, you're pretty much sacrificing your own actions in vain.
The thing is, you should be disabling those uberchargers and mongoosers and so forth (if you've got pun puns, there is no game anymore, man), or, as the OP said, be having optimized enough damage mitigation (possibly healing) to really make a difference. The thing is, when that ubercharger actually hits you, the result tends not to be "I need healing" it tends to be "I need resurrection." Things like Delay Death or other immediate saves that OW4 suggested can prevent that, and so can things like "I have a high AC" or "I trip you with AoO" or "you can't charge through web."
The reality is that healing is just one more type of defensive ability, and it's not necessarily the best. Saying that healing is a much more valuable defensive ability than things like "Solid Fog" to the point that you feel some inordinate NEED to devote a party slot to it is naive (and criminal, when you end up forcing someone into a role they don't want to play), and that seems to be the OP's point. It's perfectly okay for an optimized party to have plenty of abilities that are *not* healing, and simply rely on healing out of combat. It in no way means that they're playing a dandy-wandy life-loving campaign.
Like any type of defensive ability in D&D, it's weak against certain types of offense. Conventional healing (cure X and so forth) is a defense against controllable amounts of hp damage against people who can take a hit. It doesn't do anything for status effects, it tends to be action-intensive rather than preventative, and generic forms of healing tend to have trouble with things like "the squishy is getting attacked" or "he does really high damage." Further, things like potions or touch-range heals can easily make you vulnerable.
As a general principle, preventative defenses tend to be nicer than reactive defenses used after the fact. Immunity to fire damage is better than using actions to heal the fire damage after it's done (provided you're still alive enough to be healed).
Pretty much. Every action, defensive or offensive or whatever, has its advantages and disadvantages in different situations. Relying heavily on healing to protect your party quite simply won't protect you from being disabled, debuffed, locked down, or dealt high amounts of damage to vulnerable places. Essentially, healing is *situationally good.*
Okay, so...
As a DM my way of bringing people down the notch usually relates to huge ranged damage. I speak of alpha strikes that instantly kill or cripple unless the players are prepared for those.
Sure, they can be prepared.
But when theyre not prepared and dont have a healer? TPKs have happened.
I've had this situation happen to me plenty of times as a player. Seriously, nothing like an ARMY targeting your level 5 group with volleys of ranged attacks. And you know what? I've never wanted for a healer in any of 'em. Things like Wind Wall or a mild amount of DR (individual arrows don't deal high damage, they just stack up) or even just throwing up a Silent Image to block the enemy line of sight (and make them think that you actually cast "wall of stone" or something) will save the day, whereas Cure Serious Wounds won't bring your bloodied corpse back to life, if the damage is as high as you make it out to be.
The problem here is that you need to widen your perspective from "healer" to "people who can stop attacks from killing you." Suddenly, you notice that there are a ton of awesome effects for that that are not healing effects.
That's what you actually want. You want "people who can stop attacks from killing you."
Last Friday a guy in my regular table top game announced that he was starting to write up an Eberron campaign and that we should all start thinking about character ideas. There will be three of us making characters for this game and so far it's looking like there will be no dedicated healer. I'm planning to play a multi-classed Crusader/Warblade focused on Devoted Spirit, White Raven and Diamond Mind. I know that I should be able to handle the bulk of in-combat healing. Another guy is planning on playing a Half Orc Ranger. He should be able to handle most out of combat healing with wands. The third guy will probably be playing some sort of rougey/fighty base looking towards Dread Comando.
So, my question is, what are some of the best ways to take care of more serious wounds/ability damage & drain/status ailments/etc?
So, my question is, what are some of the best ways to take care of more serious wounds/ability damage & drain/status ailments/etc?
have someone play a Cleric.... that is one of the "Best" ways tp do that
:D
have someone play a Cleric.... that is one of the "Best" ways tp do that
:D
Cleric: The only class where your main focus is no fun at all.
"Hey, Bob - you're playing a cleric." "Huh?" "Well, the rest of us wanna have fun, so we need to keep being able to do stuff. So that's your job." "So, lemme get this straight - you want me to play the game so that you can have fun?" "Yup!" "How much are you paying me?" "uh....."
Might as well play the new Chartered Accountant class from Mind-Numbing Games' "3e's Death Knell" expansion, with a couple levels of "Cartographer."
:p
(yes, this post is a response in kind to Carnivore. Take it with tongue in cheek, and such like).
Cleric: The only class where your main focus is no fun at all.
"Hey, Bob - you're playing a cleric." "Huh?" "Well, the rest of us wanna have fun, so we need to keep being able to do stuff. So that's your job." "So, lemme get this straight - you want me to play the game so that you can have fun?" "Yup!" "How much are you paying me?" "uh....."
Might as well play the new Chartered Accountant class from Mind-Numbing Games' "3e's Death Knell" expansion, with a couple levels of "Cartographer."
:p
(yes, this post is a response in kind to Carnivore. Take it with tongue in cheek, and such like).
i love the Chartered Accountant.... right now im playing a Tiefling Obnoxious Boss 4/ Chartered Accountant 4/ CPA 2 ... and am having loads of fun :P
Clerics can be lots of Fun.... in fact one of the best ways to avoid having to heal your group.... kill the Enemy first.. that IS something clerics can do
Clerics are very versatile... and if you play them as Only a "Party Band-Aid", you are not playing them correctly ;)
:D
At third level the character would have the feats Healing Soul, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity and Improved Essentia Capacity. His essentia capacity is now 3 for soulmelds and 2 for incarnum feats. He has five points of essentia, two of which are invested in Healing Soul. Assuming that he's channeled lifebond vestments and therapeutic mantle, it could work something like this after combat:
- Invests three points of essentia into lifebond vestments, thus being able to heal up to 16 hit points of damage from each comrade. At the same time he loses half this amount of hit points. Taking into account the amount of hit points that an average 3rd-level character has, everyone should be doing okay by now, except for the Incarnate who's missing some hit points.
- Uses Healing Soul to heal up to 4 hit points. He can do this twice a day now.
- The Incarnate invests 3 essentia into therapeutic mantle and has the group Cleric/Druid/Bard/guy with the wand of cure light wounds heal him. He now heals 1d8+7+caster level.
- Profit.
i love the Chartered Accountant.... right now im playing a Tiefling Obnoxious Boss 4/ Chartered Accountant 4/ CPA 2 ... and am having loads of fun :P
Clerics can be lots of Fun.... in fact one of the best ways to avoid having to heal your group.... kill the Enemy first.. that IS something clerics can do
Clerics are very versatile... and if you play them as Only a "Party Band-Aid", you are not playing them correctly ;)
:D
Eh, the pre-reqs for Obnoxious Boss were too much for me - I always enter via the "failed mathlete" prc - only need 3 levels of an int-based class to get in.
And I agree - in fact, the subtext of this thread is also "Even if you do have a cleric, the cleric can do a lot more than just heal, if you help him/her out by following some of the advice here-in."
I played D&D Online for a while - this thread is *nothing* on the fights in those forums over people that play melee clerics, blasty clerics, etc. *Man* people on MMOs get pissy when you step outside your box, I tell ya.
I started up on a new server just so I could make 5 clerics, none of them healbots. ;) GodSmite is my favorite one.
:D
In the short run killing the baddy seems a lot better than making the high-HP PC who is taking the hits take even more damage (higher than what was healed, even). But then you run into the pesky problem of bringing your dead party member back to life.
In the overwhelmingly common situation where you might lose a party member but don't risk a TPK, strong healing is essential. You'd think such a guide would at least address what is perhaps the #1 most common & major problem a party faces in dnd.
And most people already know: clerics are awesome w/ or w/o healing, CLW (or lesser vigor) wands are the way to go between combat. The guide provided some other useful tips, but dumping strong healing does not follow.
... unless the wounded person receiving a high level healing spell isn't being attacked every round. Surprising as it may seem, wounded players tend to run away and let their unwounded companions fight in their place (or benign transposition or w/e). The run-for-your-life tactic is often mixed with strong healing in case the baddy ocassionally (not every round) manages to catch up to or knock unconcious the fleeing PC.
That's a double success for the opponents. Not only have you negated a PC *without having to do full damage* you've now forced the healer to withdraw as well, chasing after the PC to heal him. You've got 2 PCs out of combat. If you're facing a four person party, that's a 50% reduction in opposition without doing even 1 PC's HP worth of damage.
Even if the PCs are only out for 2 rounds, that's huge.
Twin close wounds (2d4+10 ranged healing? hell yeah)
Empowered Close Wounds ( 9-13 healing, why not!)
and things like that.
I had a friend who is playing a cleric malconvoker, and he totally saved our butts just by using close wounds along with DMM twin.
Well he saved THEIR butts, i'm god, i don't get hit, it's not in my job description.
I've found that the best way to negate partymembers output at fight is to drop a healer or two spamming stabilizes and other healing spells, quickly party ignores the actually lethal npcs and flock their firepowqer on the healer/s.
Healers proceed to spam empowered cure light wounds on themselves.
TPK soon follows.
I dont know, maybe my players are just stupid or something, but on three separate occasions I have annihilated them just by having heavily fortified heal-point-per-combat-round npcs followed by various sorts of glass cannons.
You know whats evil? Enemy healer npc in the hands of an optimizer dm.
Yeah, that's basically what I'm doing in an online game right now. Think Ultralisk with a team of medics behind him. Now on the chance that the guys facing "Bulldozer" see this, I refer them to this.
Yeah, that's basically what I'm doing in an online game right now. Think Ultralisk with a team of medics behind him. Now on the chance that the guys facing "Bulldozer" see this, I refer them to this.
I should have showed that to them a long time ago! O_o
That's pretty funny, IMHO. Are there any rules against it?
(I do assume that many DMs will not allow it simply because it doesn't make much sense. However, it seems to be RAW to me right now.)
Remember that lots of optimized builds assume that your DM lets you pick whatever you want. I've never seen that happen in real life, and now that I'm playing living campaigns, it's even worse
A situation faced in a LG mod I played last week: our APL 6 group faced an 18 level Wight. Our tank (8th level barbarian) faced it, and managed to kill it. By that time, she had been drained 5 levels, and would probably have died 2 times if I had not been continously healing her. And that would have resulted in the DM (yet agin) TPKing the party.
Remember that lots of optimized builds assume that your DM lets you pick whatever you want. I've never seen that happen in real life, and now that I'm playing living campaigns, it's even worse
I've never had it any other way, and never played a living campaign outside of a gaming convention.
In fact, healing in combat is only situationally a good choice, and is often a subpar tactical option.
There are some times when it's a good choice. A party that is facing a single source of damage that is significantly beyond most of the party is a situation that works well. However, I'm not sure that a 6th level cleric can really out heal a level 18 wight (I'm not entirely sure what that means, honestly - a wight is a CR 3 creature with 4 HD. Is that a wight with 18 character levels? Or 11? Either way, it should be making short work of any level 6 PC it faces). One that is entirely focused on heals might be able to, but at 6th level, you're looking at 3d8+6 heals, or possibly 2d8+6 * 1.5 for empowered. That's gonna cap out at 33 hp. A wight does 1d4+1 damage, with a +3 bonus. Plus energy drain. If the wight was simply energy draining, and the cleric casting lesser restore for 3 rounds, that would do it....
The premise of the thread isn't that clerics suck. It's that tactically speaking, playing the role of full healer shouldn't be your default choice, and that you can survive w/o a dedicated full healer.... There will always be situations where it's a good choice, but it's not the only one. ;)
The wight in question simply had 18 HD, and the corresponding augments. Another broken encounter I remember: an APL 2 party (with PCs ranging from lvl 1 to lvl 4) facing off a chain devil.
All in all I've found that living campaigns (at least in some regions) are significantly more brutal that home campaigns. So if your DM is working out on a campaign that's not too murderous, I agree with you. In a living campaign, a strong healing element is key to the survival of a party, especially at lower levels before PCs have cash to buy CLW wands (Lesser Restoration being Access-dependant, which means you can't buy them unless they can be found in a mod).
That's the catch: in LG, you quite commonly experience a single source of damage that is significantly beyond most of the party (at least it's common in Keoland :D ).
The wight in question simply had 18 HD, and the corresponding augments. Another broken encounter I remember: an APL 2 party (with PCs ranging from lvl 1 to lvl 4) facing off a chain devil.
I was at a table of all 2nd and 3rd level people (can't remember if it was APL 2 or 4, which had the mod automatically trap us in a room with a vampire. Due to pipes in the room, he could gaseous form in and out and heal himself at will, whereas all of us were one or two hits away from dying at any time.
Pocket clerics ended up winning the day, ironically enough, in that case -- everyone ran up and stabbed him with their wands of CLW.
Most of the time though, you will need a healer, especially in LG.
I think that many of the OP's methods and suggestions for alt. healing solutions are great, and I could have used them in another game I was playing in where we were allowed to buy anything that was in a printed source and there was way too much money- I think that the OP depends a little too much on exploiting the economy, so to speak; or at times shoehorns someone into a role of building items so the party doesn't die. Also, the further you get away from Core, the less necessary a dedicated healer becomes.
However, I think that the concept of getting the other players to be a little more self-reliant is a very good one (and probably more in the spirit of the OP as opposed to bashing the role of the healer) that makes the Cleric class a little more desirable, and I'll present it to my group. We're starting a campaign with very low magic item availability, and it turns out that we will probably have several healers (not me, I'm probably gong Duskblade :P), so it shouldn't be as much of an issue.
Anyway, great job all. Very meaty food for thought.
However this is all good sound advice,however I'd still prefer to be part of the all cleric party. Healing,damage output,controllers,blasters, you've got it all in one neat,over-kill of a party.
However this is all good sound advice,however I'd still prefer to be part of the all cleric party. Healing,damage output,controllers,blasters, you've got it all in one neat,over-kill of a party.
Yeah, that's the biggest issue I have with the thesis of this thread.
It's not: "Bob, please play a cleric so the rest of us can be healed and do neat things."
It's: "No, *I* want to play a cleric, so that I can shapechange + divine power + divine favor + righteous might, and run around slaughtering everything in my path, while having the ability to heal myself at will. Oh, and I guess other people too."
My fiancee actually loves to play healing types (she's a pharmacist in real life), but you don't see any healing on her spell lists, beyond the Heal or two.
My fiancee actually loves to play healing types (she's a pharmacist in real life), but you don't see any healing on her spell lists, beyond the Heal or two.
I rarely prepare healing spells,simply because I usually play a good aligned cleric just so I can spontaniously cast them,and if not,I burn the feat. But this is for myself mostly,and just incase someone else is dying completely. And even then it's like cure minor to stabalise.
At first level, combats are often more deadly than high levels, because you're 1-2 hits from dead at every moment.
Heh, a crit with a greataxe from a 1st level barb will take out almost any 1st-3rd level character with d8 or less. Fun times.
Actually, I would say that having some source of capital-H Heal is necessary in high level parties. All your cure crits in the world won't make up for a dragon pwning you for 150 points of damage before you get a chance to go. You're hovering at 3hp. Do you:
1) Use your wand of lessor vigor
2) Use your healing belt for 4d8+whatever
3) Cast Heal (or get a Heal)?
If it's a dragon with an int of 10 or above it damn well better be concentrating on the cleric once it identifies him. Most of the examples given where clerics are necessary are predicated on enough enemies not targeting the cleric in order to tie him up.
(summarized) Powerful healing is essential in the uber-common situation of having one near-death party member while the rest of the party is ok.
That's a double success for the opponents. Not only have you negated a PC *without having to do full damage* you've now forced the healer to withdraw as well, chasing after the PC to heal him. You've got 2 PCs out of combat. If you're facing a four person party, that's a 50% reduction in opposition without doing even 1 PC's HP worth of damage.
Even if the PCs are only out for 2 rounds, that's huge.
Okay, then let the wounded PC die from an arrow or spell or what not and pay for his revive later. Or better yet have the whole party run away if the battle's really that hard. I mean, if they're damaging you as much as you're damaging them, then you have a 50:50 chance of tpk. Otherwise if one of your party members is near death then the baddy group should be hurting badly. Half your party shouldn't have much trouble finishing them off.
Okay, then let the wounded PC die from an arrow or spell or what not and pay for his revive later.
Wounded PC withdraws, and uses his healing belt for 3d8+5 damage, and he's got 20 hp back or so. Or he withdraws and jumps in to a rope trick. Or withdraws and hides. Whatever he needs to do. The other PC who isn't a healer, but is instead, say, a battlefield controller, prevents the archer or wizard from casting a spell by using his AoO, trips the guy that tries to chase the PC, also doing damage.
The assumption is that being wounded == being dead.
It's not. That's been the assumption in a number of the counter arguments here - at least in my group, the average length of battle is 5 rounds. If the wounded PC is dropped near death in round 4, it's likely he's got one round to survive, maybe two. I'd actually very much consider pressing the attack on whoever can kill the wounded PC, removing them, and then keeping the PC back for the next round.
Because let's look at 4 person party. A and B are damage. C is skills/tactical. D is the healer.
In round 1, B is put near death. B withdraws, D follows and heals. A and C fight. In round 2, B returns, makes a single attack, D does as well. A and C fight. In round 3, all fight, and slay the monsters.
So it took A+A+A+B+B'(B with one attack)+C+C+C+D+D' to kill them. That's 4 primary, plus a single attack, plus 3 tactical + 1+single healer.
The other party has A, B and C as damage (assume they're all equal). Round 1, B is put near death, but fights on. The monsters die in round 2.
Round 1: A+B+C+D
Round 2: A+B+C+D
That's 6 primary, 2 tactical. Assuming the 2 full primaries are equal to a single attack by a primary, a single by a tactical, and 1+single from the healer, you're at the same place either way. If your primaries *aren't* doing that, then having a healer is better. If they are, either way works. Course, attack typically increases far far faster than AC anyway.
Simplistic, but it's a scenario....
And re: your sig - power attack only decreases damage against a certain class of opponents with high, but not unreasonably high, AC. Consider dropping the energy damage for straight +, and channel those in to power attack. At a x4 return, -1 to hit = 4 damage, unresisted, vs 1d6 energy, resisted. But typically, AB will scale faster than AC anyway, so you aren't too concerned.
Warforged (and more specifically, the living construct subtype) take 1/2 the healing power of a Conjuration (healing) spell, but are immune to things such as energy drain or other physical ailments.
That means, in a party of warforged, a wizard/sorcerer is as useful for healing as a cleric (but the cleric needs domain spells to heal) and a druid is almost useless for healing. Additionally, wands of LV are even BETTER than CLW, as CLW would be halved. (you can't half fast healing 1).
And for you Artficers/UMD out there: Staff of Life is a perfect, core staff for all of your high level healing. (If you include use only by a specific alignment or class and Extraordinary Artisan feat, this staff can turn out to be CHEAPER than actual Resurrection.)
Finally, the Wraithful Healing weapon enhancement (+3, melee only, Enemies and Allies pg. 20) is REALLY useful in groups without a healer. "When the weapon deals damage to a creature, the wielder heals a number of hit points equal to half the damage dealt." Try it on rogues or other classes that get massive bonuses to damage.
After reading this thread, I realized that one thing is not being considered by many people:
Warforged (and more specifically, the living construct subtype) take 1/2 the healing power of a Conjuration (healing) spell, but are immune to things such as energy drain or other physical ailments.
That means, in a party of warforged, a wizard/sorcerer is as useful for healing as a cleric (but the cleric needs domain spells to heal) and a druid is almost useless for healing. Additionally, wands of LV are even BETTER than CLW, as CLW would be halved. (you can't half fast healing 1).
Well... you can have fast healing, but I don't think you can get it from the Vigor line of spells specifically. And a psion is also great for healing warforged. Psionic Repair Damage heals 3d8+ML for 3 power points, making it one of the few powers that scales automatically with your manifester level.
Having a healer (MHB class) can be a life saver at low levels especially if you optimize him.
This post goes against everything I was trying to get across in this thread in so many ways...
This post goes against everything I was trying to get across in this thread in so many ways...
Brings back memories, eh? :D
You can summon Vivacious creatures (Planar Handbook) to provide your party with fast healing 1 or temporary hp.
Not sure I know a spell that can summon templated creatures.
Just found this ancient thread, read all 8 pages and didn't see these views expressed. I believe they are in line with the OP's purpose of this thread (healing well without focusing on healing.)
Something I didn't see in here, is using Master of Day and Night (PGtE iirc) to auto maximize all "cure" spells casted. This goes a long way to making Bards (or others with Cure *) better healers than a Cleric. You don't pay the level adjustment for the Maximize. Significantly better than RSoP which only Empower/Maximize spells casted from Domain Slots. Using less spell slots for massive heals leaves more room for non healing in your daily actions.
Play a Divine Crusader/Radiant Servant of Pelor and get all healing Empowered/maximized. You will need Turn Undead to do so from a Full BAB class like Knight of the Raven (EtCR) or Soldier of Light (D&D ask DM for swap to Pelor.) Plus you are a mostly full BAB fighter type and if you work in Sun (KotR), Healing, and something with Righteous Might you can be a very effective fighter that can efficiently heal in or out of combat.
There is a arcane/divine focus item in CC p138 that adds +1 to all heals (max at die cap) if used as a focus to spellcasting. You need to be within one step of the deity (Pelor) to use it and you can use it as a Holy Symbol if you also worship Pelor.
I tend to build these types of characters ("better healer than a cleric" healers.)
You can summon Vivacious creatures instead of Celestial creatures of one SM lower, as of the Planar Handbook. It's a permanent replacement, and well worth it. Given a high enough CL, this is one of the most efficient OOC healing methods.
Thanks, Planar p134.
Never knew of it.
One exception would be the Positive Energy Rays of Vivacious creatures, as that is actually damage, even though you can get healed by it (it's stated to be damage). It's meant to "kill" things, just by "over-healing" them.
So instead...what would happen if i used inflict versions of such spells? That is clearly a damage source
From Inflict Light Wounds:
When laying your hand upon a creature,
you channel negative energy that deals 1d8
points of damage +1 point per caster level
(maximum +5).
Since undead are powered by negative
energy, this spell cures such a creature of a
like amount of damage, rather than harming
Or a duskblade using that as arcane channeling with destruction disciple?
This ofc. for healing undead or suchlike.
For them, it acts like a cure spell of an equal level, so no.
nflict versions of such spells?
Since undead are powered by negative this spell cures such a creature of a
like amount of damage, rather than harming.
It turns into healing, and therefore can't be crit.
I did not play as if I was in an MMO and just spam heals on the party tank. A buff here, a blast there, battlefield control at times, and the occasional bout of 'I debuff the mobs HP by smacking it with my sword'. I had fun.
I agree with both sides of this argument to a degree basicaly. You don't need a dedicated healer, but it's nice to have something aviable. Also spreading out the healing duties between the party members by using other sources such as belts/wands/etc lets the player who chose to play the healer do other cool stuff and have fun as well.
I agree with both sides of this argument to a degree basicaly. You don't need a dedicated healer, but it's nice to have something aviable.
Except that that's not really both sides of the argument. I said it was nice to have things available and gave a list of nice things.
In combat healing is generally ineffective and not worthwhile with anything less than a Heal. (Though on rare occasions it can be useful - such as a low level group facing a monster with DR/magic - magic weapon of the "fighter"'s weapon and then healing him was probably the cleric's best tactic.)
There are players (and DMs) who think potions of CMW are cost effective.
I usually play with 2 other players and am usually the one who is pushed towards the healer role. In our last campaign we had 2 characters each for a change and one player decided that one of her characters did not like my "healer" (cleric/monk heading to sacred fist) because I wasn't looking to keep his hit points up in combat.
The problem with in combat healing is that it use an action and you don't get many actions, and they can generally be used to so something more effective (prior to Heal). WotC's solution in Bo9S and 4e of having healing as a side effect of attacking does not feel right to me. Having lots of healing available through items so that there is no need for a dedicated healer seems better to me, though it would not be good for someone who wanted to play a dedicated healer.
"What were you saying about my class role?"
4th Panacea (SC 152)
This seems to act like Heal, except it only cures a few hp, but there are times when you've got some status effect to remove and don't want to waste a 6th level spell.
3rd Insignia of Healing (Races of Destiny 166)
Mass Cure Light Wounds in a 3rd-level slot! You just buy some cheapo bling with your party symbol for everyone to wear. If that happens to be a platinum ring a la Shield Other, so much the better. It's great, but eclipsed by another 3rd-level spell...
3rd Mass Aid (SC 8)
Everyone gets temporary hp, up to 1d8+15. Plus the effects of Bless. Severely undercosted imo. Plus, since it's a 3rd-level spell, you can combo it with
5th Triadspell (SC 224)
Triple any prepared 3rd-level slot. Trade a 5th-level spell for two 3rd-level spells. I'll take that deal. Note: I don't recommend having your character spend several days to triple all your low-level spells, as your DM may get cheesed off.
I'll be playing in a party, where one of the rules is that everyone has to be able to fully heal himself in a day ... so much to play with