How Do You Heal?

[JoeGKushner]

With the pantheon of strikers out there, where does the healing come from?

What methods do you use to insure that the damage done isn't quickly nerfed as several of the strikers tend to be like the glass ninja, deadly but not tanked on hit points or armor class. (Note, not saying it's not possible for either of the latter to be true, but...)

So where does the healing come from? People plunking down the money for potions? Spending that one healing surge per encounter? House ruling it? something else?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Our current group is:

1/2E Rogue
Human BattleCleric
Human IceWizard
Dwarf MC Starlock/Psion (me)
Elf Archer Ranger
Dwarf Fighter

...plus a rotating cast of other PCs, depending on who shows up. So far, not everyone in the group has been able to on any given night.

Healing comes from the BC plus second winds & healing surges, and of course, resting. No potions so far. No HRs, and the DM is running a published adventure at this point. No idea if he's pulling punches or not.

(The guy playing the fighter would argue "No." since he's got the highest AC and still gets tagged all the damn time.)

Generally speaking, we walk with a limp.

 

[Aulirophile]

If you're going to have low defense strikers you may as well go whole hog and have a party of nothing but strikers and specialize in alpha-striking with Immediates that invalidate the few attacks you take.

Otherwise: Don't have gimp party members whose defenses suck and they didn't build-in some way of dealing with this is my general solution.

 

[IanB]

Cloak of Courage at the start of every fight is how I get around the wussy strikers on my now-epic cleric. A full surge worth of temporary hit points to get things rolling helps a LOT.

Pretty sure that power is borderline overpowered as an encounter power, but they keep not nerfing it.

EDIT: Also up to 4 minor action ranged surges per fight, that covers a lot as well. (3x Healing Word, Bastion of Health)

Group is Cleric, Starlock, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Warden. Nobody is particularly defense-optimized, but surge values are high as everyone but the sorcerer and I have con as an important stat in their builds.

 

[the Jester]

In my group, the pcs start their healing with a cleric.

They also have a pc multiclassed into warlord and another into bard.

Then there's second wind, and the warden has a "grant a few hps" power or two.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I of\ten wonder how leaderless classes handle combats myself. My group is heavy leaders and still the fights are tough. Of course mey group is small, so that might have an effect.　

I do know in combat our group hates using secod winds (except as a dwarf or if a power lets it be sued as a minor action, so that is something that requires us to have otehr healing.

Most times someone needs ot use scnd wind that bad they end up taking a ton of damage that round anyway.

And it is a poor use of a HS, with no or few extra points.

 

[IanB]

Are leaderless groups really all that common? The only archetype I see getting left out regularly in our games is the controller.

 

[Aulirophile]

I often wonder how leaderless classes handle combats myself. My group is heavy leaders and still the fights are tough. Of course mey group is small, so that might have an effect.　

I do know in combat our group hates using secod winds (except as a dwarf or if a power lets it be sued as a minor action, so that is something that requires us to have otehr healing.

Most times someone needs ot use scnd wind that bad they end up taking a ton of damage that round anyway.

And it is a poor use of a HS, with no or few extra points.

They shave off 1-4 rounds (depending on party comp/optimization level) from having more strikers/controllers instead of leaders.

 

[kaomera]

Sorceress is very hard to hit, forcing re-rolls and/or teleporting out of the way, sometimes with an extra attack thrown in for good measure.

Swordmage has ridiculous defenses and can completely negate the damage of many attacks from a marked target. Oh and he's usually invisible and running away from his marks at any given moment.

Shaman heals with nearly every power. And hands out temp hps like candy. And runs Spirit of Athas for resist all 5. And all of this from way in the back ranks, while hitting the spirit companion is like free resist...

Ardent rarely bothers healing, because most of the rest of the party doesn't really take real damage. And she actually wants to be bloodied, but rarely is.

Fighter actually has a huge glass jaw. Must be the striker secondary.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I have a few different experiences:

Multiclassing into a leader. That 1/day extra heal has helped in those extra difficult encounters.

When no one had a leader multiclass, and we only had a single leader, second winds (often when using an action point) get used quite often. We've had a few situations where using a standard action to trigger an unconcious guy's second wind. Potions sometimes show up, but only as a last resort (especially when it's in that spot where we don't have the higher level ones so compared to a real surge it's barely noticeable). If the healer has some extra healing through their utilities/attacks, it goes a long way.

I just ran a 1st level group through some Dark Sun encounters, most were around level 3 equivalent, so they were pretty nasty. With only one healer in a five person party ... the one twice per encounter healing word was not going to be enough on it's own. Even with little bonuses (like the valorous bard giving out thp when someone bloodies/kills, the goliath barbarian generating his own thp when he kills someone and being able to give himself resist all 5 for a turn, the mul auto-saving against ongoing 1/enc) the group had two people fall unconcious over the course of 3 encounters, and one encounter had two of them sitting at 1hp at the end of it. They will likely be using some healing pots now that they have some, but I think once they get to level 2 or 3, they'll be a bit tougher (the barbarian has no dex, so he's going to grab the AC boosting feat, but wanted to get fullblade proficiency first, not to mention that some utility powers the group can grab can improve their healing capabilities).