Battle Standard of Healing and Healer's Brooch: overpowered healing?

[Jhaelen]

Nice necromancy - I couldn't even remember this therad ever existed!

Incidentally the Battle Standard has been the first magic item my players found. The bard player seems to love it. It's also a big group (seven players) with three leaders.

I didn't feel it was overpowered but none of the leaders is really a dedicated healer (and of course no Healer's Brooch was involved yet). I think it's fine, nonetheless.

Well, about one year later we all realized that the Battle Standard is indeed completely broken.

We now have a running gag: "Our most important party member? Why, it's the Battle Standard!"

This item single-handedly avoided two TPKs and turned them into a victory for the pcs. The party was encountering first a level + 3 encounter then a level +4 encounter (both using adjusted post-MM3 damage) and wouldn't have stood a chance if it wasn't for the Standard. This thing is insane!

 

[Infiniti2000]

That doesn't seem right. As mentioned earlier by [MENTION=65726]Mengu[/MENTION], I just don't see it add up. Even if all PCs use a healing surge in one round, that's only +10hp per PC. That's not really that much extra and it has several caveats. What part of your math am I not following here?

 

[the Jester]

"If you wield a magic implement, you can add its enhancement bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls of implement powers you use through it"

So - does that mean that you guys aren't adding implement damage to the zone damage for Stinking Cloud, or the 'starting your turn next to' damage for Flaming Sphere?

The key phrase in answering this is "Damage rolls".

 

[keterys]

The key phrase in answering this is "Damage rolls".

Yep - in the intervening year, the damage roll was _just_ removed from stinking cloud's zone. Though flaming sphere still has it.

 

[Argyle King]

Re: the Op

I don't think it's game breaking. I'd actually say it's less powerful than many other combos.

 

[Ferghis]

That doesn't seem right. As mentioned earlier by [MENTION=65726]Mengu[/MENTION], I just don't see it add up. Even if all PCs use a healing surge in one round, that's only +10hp per PC. That's not really that much extra and it has several caveats. What part of your math am I not following here?

Here's the math as I figure it.

In a five-PC heroic level party, the cleric can use two healing words to trigger surges and a Healer's Mercy to trigger, on average, say, three surges. Throw in three surges used with second winds or healing potions per encounter, and assume that the whole encounter occurs within the banner's zone. If each surge used by Healer's Mercy triggers the banner once (a notion I disagree with, since they are contemporaneous, and the wording on the banner, as far as I recall, is "when a surge is spent..."), that's a total of 8 times the banner is triggered, and 8 extra HP healed for each character over the course of the encounter. If the banner is augmented by a +2 Healer's Brooch, that triples each heal for a total of 24 HP healed for each character by the banner over the course of the encounter. If every character of the party benefits from every HP of healing, that's a total 120 HP healed by the banner. Not trivial at all.

If Healer's Mercy only triggers the banner once, the above healing is reduced to 6 hp healed to each character by the banner, which can be boosted to 18 HP with a +2 Brooch. That would heal a total of 90 HP healed by the banner. Still very impressive for a standard action.

 

[Jhaelen]

Here's the math as I figure it.

And don't forget healing potions!

Also, in our group we have seven pcs, three of them leaders (bard, cleric, warlord) and the barbarian pc wears a Bloodcut Armor which allows spending a healing surge as a minor action to trigger its power!

You can easily see how that quickly spirals out of control. Basically, unless monsters are able to one-hit-kill a pc, there'll never be a dead pc.

(Well, actually the group _did_ experience one pc death: the pc had two ongoing damage effects on him, was in the range of a damaging aura and the elite monster besides him hit him twice in a round).

 

[Infiniti2000]

Your math has too many caveats to be believable, but at least thanks for reminding me about the specific part that causes this to be considered broken. It's certainly not the healing word, it's the powers that grant a surge to multiple party members at once. Healer's Mercy is irrelevant to the discussion, however. I reject out of hand the notion that one item/power is broken due to the influence of another. If Healer's Mercy is broken, then it must be removed from the equation and not used in a transitive closure sort-of method.

Still, all of the caveats, no matter how much of a stretch, can be discarded after one significant use of the healing power. Once the bad guys see this, they rip out the standard. Sure, this takes a standard action, but that's no less a waste of time than it was for the PC to put it up in the first place.

 

[Ferghis]

It's certainly not the healing word, it's the powers that grant a surge to multiple party members at once. Healer's Mercy is irrelevant to the discussion, however. I reject out of hand the notion that one item/power is broken due to the influence of another. If Healer's Mercy is broken, then it must be removed from the equation and not used in a transitive closure sort-of method.

I mildly disagree. Healer's Mercy only heals bloodied allies within range. It's powerful, but not broken. But if it were to trigger the banner multiple times, I can see how that would become an overwhelming heal. This is, in small part, the reason why I consider Healer's Mercy (and other similar powers) to trigger the banner at once, as would Cloak of the Walking Dead, and any other multiple-surges-at-once power. If a power triggers a surge-fueled-heal, it triggers the banner once.

Still, all of the caveats, no matter how much of a stretch, can be discarded after one significant use of the healing power. Once the bad guys see this, they rip out the standard. Sure, this takes a standard action, but that's no less a waste of time than it was for the PC to put it up in the first place.

I wholly agree that this is the real balancing factor. It also adds an interesting factor to the the tactics of used in encounters.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I mildly disagree. Healer's Mercy only heals bloodied allies within range. It's powerful, but not broken.

I agree with you. I didn't try to corroborate that Healer's Mercy is broken. I also don't think it is, having seen it in practice only just last night. It's very situational. Anyway, I was simply responding to it as an argument from someone else, trying to point out that BSoH is broken.