Proposal: Divine Power

Tinwe said:

I'm not sure what kind of campaigns you're playing in where the clerics are doing crazy damage. This ability makes it not matter how long the fight "drags on", because it's handing out constant healing as an at-will. In addition, it makes it easier for everyone to hit. After you hit once, you gain the bonus to hit as well if needed, making the cycle even easier to maintain.

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If there are multiple enemies on the field, then taking a long time to kill one without expending resources means that the rest get more time to plug away at everyone else. Seal can only heal one ally, while every living enemy has a change to hurt an ally. And most, if not all, solos can hit multiple targets at once. Also, when enemies live longer they have more chances to disrupt your plans with nasty conditions, recharge powers, and complete evil rituals that you are trying to stop. So yes, the length of the fight is still important.

The cleric could have been using Sacred Flame or Recovery Strike to do damage while defending, or Righteous Brand or Lance of Faith to do damage while helping someone else attack. And no, I haven't seen leaders whip out huge amounts of damage, but their attacks aren't nothing. Most non-strikers struggle to do more than [W] damage with an at-will.

HotF as a once per day encounter long... ok, you win.

This, to me, has the feel of one of those "looks too good to be true" things on paper, but actually pretty difficult to figure out in advance how effective it'll be until you play with it. Like 3.0 flurry of blows. It has the potential to really stretch the party's healing surge resources, and could have an outsize impact on the game if it acually does so. But there are enough factors involved to make it really hard to say for sure that that will happen. So, I'd be inclined to shrug and let it in as-is, see what happens.

One question though, how does this interact with Pacifist Cleric? Do they get even more benefit from the healing?

ryryguy said:

One question though, how does this interact with Pacifist Cleric? Do they get even more benefit from the healing?

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No. The feat Pacifist Healer applies only to surge expenditure. If you paragon into Compassionate Healer, you can take 5 dmg to add +2d6 to the heal and gain +2 to all defenses until WoNT, though.

However, Medic's Weapon, Healer's Brooch and the feats Potent Restoratives and Healer's Implement all add to the healing done by Astral Seal. By early epic, you can heal around 80 hp with Astral Seal, which is more than double the average damage of early-epic elites. It starts out strong and can be broken to be straight-up ridiculous.

It kind of feels to me like this should be granting temp hp, except then it doesn't stack with Battlerage Vigor. How about "grants X temp hp, or adds (a smaller amount) to the current temp hp total if the character already has temp hp"? (I'd suggest "temp hp that stacks with all temp hp that's not from the same power", like Battlerage Vigor and Invigorating used to do, but I never really liked that.)

Tinwe said:

No. The feat Pacifist Healer applies only to surge expenditure. If you paragon into Compassionate Healer, you can take 5 dmg to add +2d6 to the heal and gain +2 to all defenses until WoNT, though.

However, Medic's Weapon, Healer's Brooch and the feats Potent Restoratives and Healer's Implement all add to the healing done by Astral Seal. By early epic, you can heal around 80 hp with Astral Seal, which is more than double the average damage of early-epic elites. It starts out strong and can be broken to be straight-up ridiculous.

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I have to say, if Astral Seal doesn't become broken until paragon levels, then I really don't care. I don't have the same faith in WotC's ability to quickly notice and balance broken elements in their game, but if Seal really is too good, I'm sure they will have fixed it by the time anyone in L4W hits level 11.

don't switch it to temp HP, then it's no better than sacred flame...

I'm hiding the foam...

It seems fine as is. As TwoHeadsBarking said, if it's only an issue when you hit epic, I don't think we have to worry here. And If we nerf it, we kill an entire build, the pacifist cleric. I say keep it as it's written.

Tinwe said:

However, Medic's Weapon, Healer's Brooch and the feats Potent Restoratives and Healer's Implement all add to the healing done by Astral Seal. By early epic, you can heal around 80 hp with Astral Seal, which is more than double the average damage of early-epic elites. It starts out strong and can be broken to be straight-up ridiculous.

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Medic weapon boost Channel Divinity powers only, not At-Will.
Healer's Implement feat and Healer's Brooch would help that power.
Potent could help too. It would cost two feat and a Int 13, not all Cleric will aim for such Int.

So let's assume we have a Kalashtar who started with 18 in Wis and Cha. By level 28, he will have

2+8(Cha)+8(wis)+6(implement)+6(Brooch)+7(Potent Restorative) = 37 hp healed. This is far from your 80 and we are at late Epic. And he need to hit and another character need to hit the same target.

I've never seen it into action, but the fact this power doesn't damage at all, and it is no guarantee to heal each round, even for a heavily healing character, I don't see it as overpowered. It might become a strong at-will, but I wouldn't be surprise to see the opposite too.

Velmont said:

Medic weapon boost Channel Divinity powers only, not At-Will.

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My mistake. I was thinking Holy Healer's Weapon, but even that is Healing Word, not all healing.

2+8(Cha)+8(wis)+6(implement)+6(Brooch)+7(Potent Restorative) = 37 hp healed. This is far from your 80 and we are at late Epic. And he need to hit and another character need to hit the same target.

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Add +2d6 + Cha for Compassionate Healer PC, +Cha for Beatific Healer, +5 for Beacon of Hope, and with Symbol of the Warpriest, you also toss out additional small heals each time you hit with Astral Seal, so call it another +5 there (it's not a power, so nothing adds to it). Power of Life gives an additional 8 temp HP when Astral Seal hits.

Now we're looking at 2+ 3*7 (Cha) + 7 (Wis) + 5 (healer's implement) + 5 (brooch) + 6 (potent) + 5 (Beacon) + 5 (symbol) + 2d6 = 62 average + 8 temp hp. That's at level 21 aka "early epic".

At the same level, a Healing Word affect two targets (retrain feat to Supreme Healer at 21) and does Surge + 5d6 (base) + 3*7 (Cha) + 7 (Wis) + 5 (healer's implement) + 5 (brooch) + 6 (potent) + 5 (Beacon) + 5 (symbol) + 5 (holy healer) + 2d6 (compassion) + 2d6 (gloves of the healer) + 3d6 (pacifist) +2d6 (radiant vessel + sacred flame) = Surge + 108 average + Cha to defenses + saving throw.

Too much, you say? It doesn't matter... it'll be mostly wasted? Then you need to meet the pacifist healer's little friend: the Cincture of Vivacity:

Lvl 14
Item Slot: Waist
Property: When you spend a healing surge and regain hit points above your maximum hit points, you can keep the extra hit points as temporary hitpoints until the end of the encounter.

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Did I get the attention of everyone who's seen a battlerager?

Finally, a "pacifist" healer is only penalized for damaging bloodied enemies. He can still, say, use Sacred Flame to clear minions. He can stun, daze, apply vulnerabilities, cleanse status effects, and slowly help chew a monster's hp down (to bloodied anyway) just like any other leader. The difference is that he does it while providing fantastic healing.

At the very least, Potent Restorables should only affect Artificer healing powers. This would bring it in line with other leader healing boosting feats. I believe that stacking ability mod bonuses multiple times isn't a great idea, either.