Astral Seal = The Most Broken Ability

[scottchiefbaker]

Is Astral Seal the most broken power? Our level 5 cleric can do astral seal on the enemy and the next person that hits it gets 10 HP! We tracked it one night and astral seal gave out 90+ HP in two encounters.

All free and clear, no healing surges required, etc. I love the ability, it's been VERY helpful. It strikes me as slightly broken that you can give out that many HP with it though.

Anyone else feel the same (or different)?

 

[DracoSuave]

Is Astral Seal the most broken power? Our level 5 cleric can do astral seal on the enemy and the next person that hits it gets 10 HP! We tracked it one night and astral seal gave out 90+ HP in two encounters.

All free and clear, no healing surges required, etc. I love the ability, it's been VERY helpful. It strikes me as slightly broken that you can give out that many HP with it though.

Anyone else feel the same (or different)?

The problem with Astral Seal is it doesn't actually end fights quicker, and only undoes enemy attacks. Against multiple foes, you might end up taking more extra damage from the extra hits.

It's a hard thing to balance, them non-damaging powers.

 

[Hamilburg]

Is Astral Seal the most broken power? Our level 5 cleric can do astral seal on the enemy and the next person that hits it gets 10 HP! We tracked it one night and astral seal gave out 90+ HP in two encounters.

All free and clear, no healing surges required, etc. I love the ability, it's been VERY helpful. It strikes me as slightly broken that you can give out that many HP with it though.

Anyone else feel the same (or different)?

And if the cleric had used Sacred Flame rather than Astral Seal they would have dealt (d6+5)*9 damage and given out 54 temporary hit points. Even if you correct for Astral Seal's accuracy bonus (scaling back Sacred flame by ~20%) you are still trading ~61 damage and 43 temps for 90 healing. Sounds about fair to me.

 

[Aulirophile]

Wait till you get to level 6 and he picks up Consecrated Ground.

With a wave of your hand, jagged lines of radiant light spread across the ground around you like a crackling web, moving at your whim. Enemies that stand upon this ground suffer the wrath of your deity.
Daily

Divine, Healing, Radiant, Zone
Standard Action Close burst 1
Effect: The burst creates a zone of sanctified ground that lasts until the end of your next turn. You can move the origin square of the zone 3 squares as a move action. Enemies that start their turns within the zone take 1d6 + your Charisma modifier radiant damage. You and any allies who are bloodied and start their turns within the zone regain hit points equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier.
Sustain Minor: The zone persists.


Heal keyword, so all bloodied allies gain 1+4+4 (standard 18/18 wis/cha array for a Healic), +Healers Implement should add a couple. But a dying creature is still bloodied. So unless you die, you'll heal at the start of your turn no matter how low you get, from 0. So long as a party stays in the zone no normal encounter should be able to kill them. Ever. Including the Cleric. Zone lasts till EoNT, he gets healed at start of turn, sustains, everything is okey-dokey. Only thing he has to worry about is stun.

To the question: Eh, Astral Seal isn't any more/less abuseable then other stuff. It just makes fights take longer, which I actually think makes it kinda suck.

 

[Alex319]

Only thing he has to worry about is stun.

And forced movement. If the bad guy can knock him unconscious and force move him out of the zone before his turn comes up then that's it for the zone. And if the cleric is unconscious then he is very easily bull rushed. (Unless he's a dwarf, of course. Dwarves can't be pushed back by bull rushes at all.)

 

[keterys]

Changing Astral Seal to give temp hp would go a long way.

Don't underestimate the -2 def penalty. In many parties, 20% of 4 others is as good as their own damage or better.

 

[babinro]

I think the power is very well balanced personally. It comes off a lot stronger in earlier levels than later ones because it does nothing to mitigate effects tied to attacks. Healing a small chunk of hp doesn't mean a lot with ongoing or dazed or other such conditions. The concept of at-wills becoming weaker as you get into higher level is true with all of them though. So that is not reason enough to call it overpowered.

At low levels, 10hp is a strong percentage of your total hp and is likely to almost fully negate one successful attack while also helping your allies. If the power would be considered over-powered at any point, it would be low end heroic in my opinion.

If an errata were to take place, I could see it gaining Temp HP, and then improving to actual HP gain at level 21. Though I don't think something like this is necessary.

From a DM perspective, if the PC's are fighting intelligent monsters who see that one character is continuously healing. The Monster tactics should change accordingly be it through focus firing or otherwise. When you accompany such shifts of combat with the enemies saying something like, "We're not gaining enough ground, focus your attacks on the cleric!"...perhaps the point will start to come across to the PC to not rely on one tactic all the time since it will inevitably make him the focus of attention.

 

[Turtlejay]

The value of Astral Seal is proportional to the tactical ability of the players. If your party Cleric throws it out, but is immediately followed by the party Sorcerer (who hits *everyone*), then the Fighter never sees a lick of that healing, and it is all overheal.

Some groups take a dim view of asking others to delay, or telling the Cleric who he should target.

As for Consecrated Ground. . .our Cleric had it up last fight, and we had a party death. If you are not willing to stay in a little 3x3 box, you are not invincible. Kind of a counterpoint to the Astral Seal, Consecrated Ground is only as good as your DM lets it be. Ours pulled the Defender from the zone and gave him ongoing damage.

Jay

 

[mkill]

If the Cleric uses Astral Seal in most turns, the party lacks one damage dealer. In a large party with several strikers, that's not much of an issue, but in a small 3 PC party that would prolong the fight by several turns. And a longer fight means more time for the monsters to do damage, so it evens out.

If you consider the effect over several encounters between extended rests, it means that the party will have more healing surges left over. Unless your party runs out of healing surges often, that doesn't make a difference. It makes no difference whether you go from 4 healing surges to full or from 1 healing surge to full.

Another issue with Astral Seal, and all other temp-hp granting at-wills for that matter, is scaling. PCs start with around 30 hp and go up to at least 150 or even 300 at 30th level. To scale properly, Astral Seal would have to grant at least 5 times as many hp at 30th level. Let's see: A level 1 Cleric can grant 2+Wis+Cha, so with Wis 18 and Cha 16 that's 9 hp. At 30th level, the same Cleric would have to grant at least 45 hp to keep up with scaling. Even with a 26 Cha and a 24 Wis, he's only at 17 hp. He would need to add some 30 hp healing to make up for the gap.

The effect of scaling is that at 1st level, Astral Seal is very good, but its usefulness gets less with every level as the amount of healing you hand out is less and less compared to a PC's total hp and the damage dealt by monsters. And even with a dedicated healer build that effect is hard to counter.

 

[Victim]

If the Cleric uses Astral Seal in most turns, the party lacks one damage dealer. In a large party with several strikers, that's not much of an issue, but in a small 3 PC party that would prolong the fight by several turns. And a longer fight means more time for the monsters to do damage, so it evens out.

If you consider the effect over several encounters between extended rests, it means that the party will have more healing surges left over. Unless your party runs out of healing surges often, that doesn't make a difference. It makes no difference whether you go from 4 healing surges to full or from 1 healing surge to full.

Another issue with Astral Seal, and all other temp-hp granting at-wills for that matter, is scaling. PCs start with around 30 hp and go up to at least 150 or even 300 at 30th level. To scale properly, Astral Seal would have to grant at least 5 times as many hp at 30th level. Let's see: A level 1 Cleric can grant 2+Wis+Cha, so with Wis 18 and Cha 16 that's 9 hp. At 30th level, the same Cleric would have to grant at least 45 hp to keep up with scaling. Even with a 26 Cha and a 24 Wis, he's only at 17 hp. He would need to add some 30 hp healing to make up for the gap.

The effect of scaling is that at 1st level, Astral Seal is very good, but its usefulness gets less with every level as the amount of healing you hand out is less and less compared to a PC's total hp and the damage dealt by monsters. And even with a dedicated healer build that effect is hard to counter.

Getting 30 HP might be tough, but PCs can find a lot of healing bonuses. Healer's Implement from DP adds the bonus of your holy symbol to healing - that's 6 at level 30. There's Healer's Brooch from AV for another 6. The Mace of Healing - also from AV - could also add, but probably wouldn't at +6 as more secondary slot. So let's call that 5 more. So we're a bit more than half way there. IIRC, there was some stuff in AV 2, but I don't recall what it is.

And at epic levels, PCs have a ton more healing powers in general.