Consequences of boosting healing spells?

[Grayhawk]

I believe that the reason for WotC to make the cleric one of the toughest classes, is to give it some appeal, as not many want to merely play the party's band-aid.

In 3.x characters have more HP due to Con bonusses at lower stats, max HP at first level and the fact that you get to roll for HP through all 20 levels (in earlier editions you would stop rolling around level 10).

To off-set this, the cure spells now grant a level bonus to their dice, but what if you increased this bonus?

If a cleric needs less spells to heal himself and his party, he will be able to use more spells for other stuff, hopefully removing the feeling of just being a walking hospital.

My proposal is to add the cleric's Wis bonus to the amount he cures.

What do you think would be the (negative) consequences of this?

(I'm aware that if you get to add this to inflict spells as well, they'll propably be overpowered, but you could rule that the Wis bonus only applies to cure spells and get around that.)

 

[Scion]

Most clerics already have wis as their highest ability score. I am assuming that is why you used it Would you be comfortable making a feat that did something along the lines of what you wanted?

Feat XXXX (metamagic):

If you memorize a cure spell it is treated as being the next level up from the slot it takes. This metamagic adds 0 levels to the spell.

(ie if you memorize a cure light wounds instead of spontaneously casting it it would heal as a cure moderate)

You could even change it so that it worked for cures, inflicts, or both. You could even give it to clerics for free at some level I suppose.

If you are just going for an all or nothing sort of thing then I would suggest useing either the charsima bonus or a healing check.

For the healing check whenever they cast a cure spell set a dc that would allow them to up to double the extra points added (ie the +5 on d8+5) I would say dc 15 + the bonus hp to be doubled. Fast, easy, and it requires a secondary expenditure that is useful anyway.

 

[the Jester]

If you're giving the bonus to good guys with cures but not bad guys with inflicts, you've broken parity. All of a sudden the good guys are better off than the bad guys. Bad idea, imho.

Both or neither. After all, the spells are just the inverses of each other, and why wouldn't the evil gods give their priests the same perks that the good gods give? Or even more, maybe?

 

[Grayhawk]

Both or neither. After all, the spells are just the inverses of each other, and why wouldn't the evil gods give their priests the same perks that the good gods give? Or even more, maybe?

Because good triumphs over evil?

Besides the point about whether good or evil deities would grant the bigger bonus, you're right that it propably should be the same for each use of the spell.

Btw, this is for a game using the standard array and with a lower magic level, hence the party's cleric has a Wis of 15 and will propably have a Wis of around 18 at 10th level, assuming he spends at least one of his stat increases on Wis and finds a +2 stat boosting item, which is far from certain. As such, I don't believe that this bonus would get out of hand.

Given the above, how bad would it be to let both cure and inflict spells get this bonus?

 

[Scion]

minor impact at low levels, negligible effect at higher levels. At the low end +2 hp/spell will probably cause the healing spells to put the person up to max from whatever they were hurt from slightly more often (d8 +4 instead of d8+2 causes people who are missing 6 hp, most of a first level characters hp, to be up to full with no real change, at higher levels an extra 2 - 4 hp for a moderate healing spell will just be a slight perk, nothing major)

are you changing anything else about magic and such to reflect lower magic? or is it mainly just much lower item proliferation? cr's and such will shift incredibly.. sorry for the hijack just curious

 

[Grayhawk]

are you changing anything else about magic and such to reflect lower magic? or is it mainly just much lower item proliferation? cr's and such will shift incredibly.. sorry for the hijack just curious

Besides the lower item proliferation, some spells are reduced in power as well (I'm currently looking at the cleric's 'big 3': Divine Favor, Divine Power & Righteous Might. I'm also contemplating the removal of 3 the mental stat boosters - like Owl's Wisdom - as per core 3.0e.)

Actually I've reduced the overall powerlevel, not just magic:

You can only sneak attack once per round, crits only multiply the weapons damage die, monetary treasure is restricted as well, so at the beginning levels you have to save up for your longbow, chaimail, etc. No one is playing/getting a PrC, as my players don't even know they exist.

Presently I have no arcane casters in the party, so I haven't been forced to come up with ways to reduce their powerlevel. Comming from 1e and 2e, I'm used to casters being more powerful at high levels, but as this campaign just started out, that's a far time off, especially since XP's are restricted as well.

I don't use the CR system, but I do use premade modules (set in my own world). These are often modified to match the party's lower powerlevel.

 

[Nifft]

contemplating the removal of 3 the mental stat boosters - like Owl's Wisdom - as per core 3.0e

Done this, it's fine. (A 3.0e campaign that's migrated to 3.5e, and I didn't want to complicate spell DCs by allowing these boosters.) NOTE: Headbands of Intellect et al. now require Limited Wish or Miracle, and they cost at least double.

You can only sneak attack once per round, crits only multiply the weapons damage die

I don't recommend restricting Sneak Attacks, as they're pretty restricted already. Also, bad-guy Rogues are some of my favorite bad-guys in general.

As to crits multiplying only weapon damage, I did this IMC too, and it's working out great. Now I don't have to fear making a two-handed power-attacking glaive-monster... it will hurt the PCs, but there's no chance for Insane x 3 damage (just Insane + 3d10).

-- N