Broken Magic Item: Infinite Healing?

[Numion]

About the original item of infinite healing .. imo it doesn't seem too powerful. It can't be used in combat in a way that matters (so it doesn't make combats easier), so it basically just makes the group not need rest as often.

I could see this kind of item actually making the game more enjoyable. Clerics don't have to burn slots for cures, and the party still has to rest every now and then to recover spells.

In our games it's about the same situation because people are stocked with cure light wands. "hey cleric, zap me with .. um .. about 23 charges, then let's roll". Infinite healing would remove extra bookkeepping involved with those wands.

up the price a little and it's there.

 

[RangerWickett]

Well I suppose we now have an explanation for why D&D commoners can live to be 70 or 80 years old without hospitals. If they're hurt, they just have to make it to the local church where they take a hit off the holy water flask of infinite healing, and all's better. Still won't cure cancer and the plague, but old man Earl's broken hip won't be a hassle at all.

 

[Staffan]

I would still price the true striking crossbow at higher than +1,000 gp or whatever the guideline cost is. It has plenty of utility, especially against hard-to-hit baddies and in ambush situations. But no, I definitely wouldn't call it broken.

The total cost is 4,000 gp. This breaks down as follows:
500 gp: Mighty (Str +1) masterwork composite longbow
2,000 gp: +1 weapon
1,500 gp: spell-trigger true strike

The last bit is essentially extrapolated from the item design guidelines: if making an item charged with 50 charges (instead of unlimited-use) is a reduction of 50%, making a wand infinitely-charged should be an increase of 100%. Thus, it's twice the price of a 1st-level wand.

A true striking lance, on the other hand, should be pretty expensive. Surprise round: activate true strike. First round: charge (using spirited charge), power attacking for 12. Net bonus: +10 attack, +72 damage!

Nah. You still have the requirement to have true strike on your class spell list, which means you have to be a sorcerer, wizard or a FR cleric with the right domains to use it (or be able to make a UMD check DC 20). If you fulfill those requirements, you might as well use a wand.

 

[rkanodia]

Why does it have to be spell completion? Is there a reason it can't be command-word activated, albeit at a higher price?

 

[BSF]

While I agree with you about the true strike bow, an activated cure light wounds item with unlimited charges would be a little different, no?

I've often thought about an item like this, essentially trying to figure out why it was too powerful. It's obvious that it's too good, but what makes it too good, in terms of coming up with better guidelines for other items?

I would hazard a guess that it seems broken because True Strike is most useful in combat. However, healing items that work for an unlimited time out of combat have a huge potential to change the CR system. If an equal CR encounter is supposed to use 25% of your resources, but you can heal fully between each one, you can handle many more encounters without accepting anywhere near as much risk.

To play that theory out, I ask if an unlimited charge cure light wounds item would seem unbalancing if you could designate that it only worked in _real_ combat. That is, not sparring, but honest to goodness, fighting for your life combat. Not toying with the single kobold when you are 10th level so you can top everyone's HP off, but combat that truly threatens the character's life. Of course, implementing such a thing would be problematic since the players will want to maximize it's use and the potential for arguments crops up, but as a theoretical situation, would a cure light wounds item with unlimited charges that only works in combat be unbalancing.

 

[BSF]

A true striking lance, on the other hand, should be pretty expensive. Surprise round: activate true strike. First round: charge (using spirited charge), power attacking for 12. Net bonus: +10 attack, +72 damage!

I go back and forth on this one. It is a huge amount of damage, but I am not sure I would prohibit a player from trying it as part of a character. After all, as the DM, I control most of the situations when it can be used in that manner.

Surprise rounds, by their nature, can hurt a lot. I mean a chain lightning on a surprise round can change the tone of the combat. In this case, the PC is using the surprise round to activate. If the PC's opponent wins initiative, they can choose to close the distance themselves with a pre-emptive charge. Or, they could ready to set a spear against a charge, or, they could move to the side so that a charge is no longer a viable option. The times that the PC get's the surprise charge off will be very satisfying and fun. So, I am not sure I would disallow it for my games.

 

[BSF]

About the original item of infinite healing .. imo it doesn't seem too powerful. It can't be used in combat in a way that matters (so it doesn't make combats easier), so it basically just makes the group not need rest as often.

I could see this kind of item actually making the game more enjoyable. Clerics don't have to burn slots for cures, and the party still has to rest every now and then to recover spells.

In our games it's about the same situation because people are stocked with cure light wands. "hey cleric, zap me with .. um .. about 23 charges, then let's roll". Infinite healing would remove extra bookkeepping involved with those wands.

up the price a little and it's there.

The key is that they don't need to rest as often. One element I sometimes include in my games is attrition. I usually give my players plenty of warning that someplace they are going is *bad*. I try to give them every indication that they are coming into a situation that will be tough on them so they have the option of bowing out. I once ran a portion of an adventure where the party was being assaulted every 2-4 hours. They did fine until they started running out of spells. But, when your Arcance spellcasters are not getting enough sleep to get spells, your clerics can't pray without being harassed, and the whole group is starting to suffer fatigue, it starts to be tough. I was afraid that the players would hate it. Actually, they seemed to really dig it. They kept pressing further and further onward, determined to succeed. It was actually a lot of fun and made them appreciate lower level challenges more.

Of course, this is much less of an option at higher levels, but I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything.

It really depends on the tone of the game. In some cases, an unlimited cure item could be helpful to keeping the flow of the game. In others, it would detract from part of the challenge of the story you might be trying to tell.

 

[Rel]

I would hazard a guess that it seems broken because True Strike is most useful in combat. However, healing items that work for an unlimited time out of combat have a huge potential to change the CR system. If an equal CR encounter is supposed to use 25% of your resources, but you can heal fully between each one, you can handle many more encounters without accepting anywhere near as much risk.

It also skews effectiveness toward the fighter types and away from the wizards and sorcerers. If a fighter could heal completely between every fight, he could fight a score of battles every day and be completely effective in every one. A wizard would use up his spell allotment and become fairly useless after a quarter that many combats.

To play that theory out, I ask if an unlimited charge cure light wounds item would seem unbalancing if you could designate that it only worked in _real_ combat. That is, not sparring, but honest to goodness, fighting for your life combat. Not toying with the single kobold when you are 10th level so you can top everyone's HP off, but combat that truly threatens the character's life. Of course, implementing such a thing would be problematic since the players will want to maximize it's use and the potential for arguments crops up, but as a theoretical situation, would a cure light wounds item with unlimited charges that only works in combat be unbalancing.

Off the top of my head, what about The Mace of Righteous Healing:

Each time this +1 heavy mace delivers a blow against an evil opponent that deals at least X amount of damage, it gains a charge. Each charge can be spent to cast Cure Light Wounds once at caster level 1.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I once ran a portion of an adventure where the party was being assaulted every 2-4 hours. They did fine until they started running out of spells. But, when your Arcance spellcasters are not getting enough sleep to get spells, your clerics can't pray without being harassed, and the whole group is starting to suffer fatigue, it starts to be tough.

Attrition can be great if the players and DM have all planned for it, and if both sides have the same idea of how many encounters can be expected in a typical day. It can really really suck the rest of the time. I speak from experience here, of course; that second possibility ends up being far more common than the first, and it isn't alway the exciting sort of thing you describe.

If the players were only expecting two encounters per day and instead had four, the spellcasters will be a liability in those later two, with no resources and a lot of vulnerabilities. So, the DM either has to fudge the scenario, shifting the last encounters to after a rest period, or he has to accept the very real possibility of a TPK (which isn't fun for anyone, no matter how sadistic you are).
On the other hand, if the players were pacing themselves for four encounters and you only threw one Big Bad at them, the spellcasters won't feel like they have contributed very much. They'll have held back a good number of big spells solely on the possibility they'll need some for later.

It's not just a question of "did you screw over the party?". It's more about the relative balance of casters versus tanks. In a 1-fight-per-day type of adventuring (see also Scry-Buff-Teleport), casters dominate, but in a prolonged dungeon crawl with no safe rest, the tanks shine.

***HOUSE RULE ALERT***

The whole concept of attrition was one of the key behind my friends and I developing our own homebrew system loosely based on D&D. The spells were the same, but our three magic-using classes are all at least partially attritionless.
Mutant: (based on 4CTF's Hero class) gets spell-like abilities that can usually be used at will, plus a bunch of always-on abilities.
Channeler: Every spell cast deals damage, so if you try casting a bunch of high-level stuff at once, you'll probably die. Between encounters, you can heal yourself back up, so there's no limit on fights per day
Wizard: Sort of a cross between the 3E Cleric and Wizard, with a Focus, specialization, material components, and some limited spell-swapping ability. Still uses spell slots, but every level or two can pick a low-level spell from within his specialty that he can use almost at will, without spending slots, IF he still has his Focus in hand. Even a first-level Wizard can pick one cantrip, like Ray of Frost, to be used at will once the memorized stuff runs out. A 20th-level Wizard might have one 3rd-level spell, two or three 2nds, etc. that he can use at will, all within his specialty. Someone who can cast a Cure spell at will, or offensive abilities like Fireball, will never really be "useless".

Anyway, the point is, we went to a system where the attrition simply never happened, so as DM the exact timing of encounters stopped being so critical. There are still good reasons to want 8 hours of safe sleep, of course, but it's no longer so ratbastardly to attack the players in the middle of the night.

 

[BSF]

Attrition can be great if the players and DM have all planned for it, and if both sides have the same idea of how many encounters can be expected in a typical day. It can really really suck the rest of the time. I speak from experience here, of course; that second possibility ends up being far more common than the first, and it isn't alway the exciting sort of thing you describe.

If the players were only expecting two encounters per day and instead had four, the spellcasters will be a liability in those later two, with no resources and a lot of vulnerabilities. So, the DM either has to fudge the scenario, shifting the last encounters to after a rest period, or he has to accept the very real possibility of a TPK (which isn't fun for anyone, no matter how sadistic you are).
On the other hand, if the players were pacing themselves for four encounters and you only threw one Big Bad at them, the spellcasters won't feel like they have contributed very much. They'll have held back a good number of big spells solely on the possibility they'll need some for later.

It's not just a question of "did you screw over the party?". It's more about the relative balance of casters versus tanks. In a 1-fight-per-day type of adventuring (see also Scry-Buff-Teleport), casters dominate, but in a prolonged dungeon crawl with no safe rest, the tanks shine.

Hmm, that's interesting. As it was, I didn't give them any indication of how many encounters, or even what kind of encounters they would experience. They basically had to fight themselves to a relatively safe spot to get a little rest. Basically, they ended up going for over 3 days without sufficient rest to recover anything. I did everything I could to make the situation difficult, but believably so. They were frantically adjusting tactics to deal with a party that was becoming increasingly less effective. The thing was, they were effective at it. It wasn't easy on them, and they were all pretty banged up, but they pulled it off. This was nearly 2 years ago in real time. Heck, the more I think about it, the more impressed I am with how they dealt with it.