Book of Nine Swords -- okay?

[Nifft]

Stone Power also works with the attack and full attack action, so if you really need those hp and you don't have any Stone Dragon strikes, you can just make a melee attack.

What you say is 100% true. The advice of taking a few Stone Dragon strikes is mostly so you aren't tempted to use some OTHER strike during your action.

You're playing a Crusader to use maneuvers, after all.

Cheers, -- N

 

[FireLance]

Although (and I mentioned this before on Malhavoc's Iron Heroes forum) a game where even hit points refreshed after every encounter could be very interesting. Basically you're fresh, or you're dead. Or maybe severely injured -- ability damage might still carry over, or there could be a threshold below which hit points don't come back.

I'm toying with something I call the VP/HP system, loosely based off the VP/WP system. The basic idea is, at the start of every encounter, all the PCs get VP equal to their current HP (not including temporary HP). Damage taken during the encounter is taken off VP first, then temporary HP (if any), then actual HP. Taking actual HP damage will of course give you less VP in future combats (until you get the chance to rest and recover your HP, anyway).

I recognize that, as written, this will make the PCs VERY durable. This is intentional. I'm planning for there to be no clerics in the game, and magical healing will be very rare. There will be a healer/buffer type class with access to maneuvers from the Devoted Spirit school, with one tweak: Devoted Spirit "healing" maneuvers and stances add to VP, not HP (they are morale/inspiration based, not actual healing), and a character's maximum VP is capped at his full normal HP (so no extra padding of VP before anyone actually gets hurt).

I'm planning to playtest this with my regular group using pre-generated characters.

 

[The Souljourner]

FireLance - we're doing something similar in our new campaign - using reserve points from Unearthed Arcana. Here's the details:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm

-Nate

 

[hong]

I'm toying with something I call the VP/HP system, loosely based off the VP/WP system. The basic idea is, at the start of every encounter, all the PCs get VP equal to their current HP (not including temporary HP). Damage taken during the encounter is taken off VP first, then temporary HP (if any), then actual HP. Taking actual HP damage will of course give you less VP in future combats (until you get the chance to rest and recover your HP, anyway).

I recognize that, as written, this will make the PCs VERY durable. This is intentional. I'm planning for there to be no clerics in the game, and magical healing will be very rare. There will be a healer/buffer type class with access to maneuvers from the Devoted Spirit school, with one tweak: Devoted Spirit "healing" maneuvers and stances add to VP, not HP (they are morale/inspiration based, not actual healing), and a character's maximum VP is capped at his full normal HP (so no extra padding of VP before anyone actually gets hurt).

I'm planning to playtest this with my regular group using pre-generated characters.

That's pretty much what I did with Brit3E.

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/vpwp_dnd.htm

In the end, people had so many VPs that keeping track of healing times became a bit of a joke. I tended to skim over that, saying that by the time they got to the next encounter, they'd recovered 100 VP or were fully healed or something similar.

 

[Shazman]

I would say that if they have reserve type feats for clerics in Complete Champion, then there will be enough viable options for spellcasters and warrior-types so no major overhaul of the system will be needed. Want to play with the standard Vancian x number of spell slots per day? Then play standard clerics and wizards, etc. If you like more of an x abilities per encounter, then go for warlocks, wizards, and clerics (with reserve feats), martial adepts and factotums. Doing small things all day plus few dramatically powerful spells per day would let you worry less about resource management without totally negating it. You could still get tense combats when all of your big spells are gone, but you're not totally hosed after several brutal encounters. That's my two cents anyway.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Crusaders can heal with every melee strike, and further, their maneuvers refresh automagically, no actions required, so they can keep healing.

If they have the healing stance, they only heal 2 hit points per attack. That isn't really that great, and definately not something you want to use as your main healing ability. As noted, they also have access to strikes that do healing, but that most certainly isn't something they are guaranteed to do/get every round by virtue of their withheld/granted maneuvers.

True that their maneuvers refresh on their own, but you still run into the same problem that you aren't guaranteed the exact maneuver you want at the exact time you want it.

FWIW, I played a Crusader briefly, and using their healing strikes was very touch and go. One encounter me and my group would be nearly fully healed, and another encounter we barely stayed alive. And I beleive this was because of the random nature of gaining those healing strikes.

 

[brehobit]

If they have the healing stance, they only heal 2 hit points per attack. That isn't really that great, and definately not something you want to use as your main healing ability. As noted, they also have access to strikes that do healing, but that most certainly isn't something they are guaranteed to do/get every round by virtue of their withheld/granted maneuvers.

True that their maneuvers refresh on their own, but you still run into the same problem that you aren't guaranteed the exact maneuver you want at the exact time you want it.

FWIW, I played a Crusader briefly, and using their healing strikes was very touch and go. One encounter me and my group would be nearly fully healed, and another encounter we barely stayed alive. And I beleive this was because of the random nature of gaining those healing strikes.

Well...

There are a few tricks here (mostly at higher level) . Firstly, there is a 6th level stance which heals 4 points/hit to you and a partner for every hit you or your partner make. Darn handy. With the right partner (say a 12th level ranger with 6 attacks) you can expect to heal ~12 points/round. If you or he are fighting mooks and get lots of cleaves in, it gets pretty silly.

Plus, stone power can be used to heal 10 points from your "temp damage" pool I believe.

Plus you get the healing strikes (a 6th level one heals level +3d6 to all allies on a hit).

So a crusader _can_ last a long time, and can really buff/heal the party. I've been working on a Ruby Knight Vindicator who can do a HUGE amount of healing. Not a lot of damage potential (only 2 real damage stikes) but pretty nice.

 

[Victim]

If a crusader wants more reliable healing, they'll have to work against the system a bit and keep their lower level healing moves known and readied. If you only have the level 6, AoE 3d6+level healing manuever, then your healing is going to be pretty hit or miss. But if you have that and the level 3 one readied, then the character is much more likely to be regaining some HP. Combine that with the Stone Dragon DR attacks and a Crusader could have a defensive manuever running every round.

Not that the other healing moves help the rest of the group though.