Cure Light Wounds: Nearly Useless?

[KarinsDad]

Your theorycraft falls apart when your party is facing a group of aboleths.

Which is to say, yeah, shield of faith is better in the abstract, but CLW isn't worth nothing either.

Sure it is. But with all of the different ways to heal in the game and the very few ways to increase AC, it's not worth as MUCH on average (by a large margin) than Shield of Faith.

 

[DLichen]

But in this case, the common case is the PCs facing random monsters in the MM who randomly use their available attacks.

Also, your theory of average worth isn't based on any existent game.

While Shield of Faith is better in the abstract, the times CLW comes through may make it worth more. Just saying it depends, CLW is mediocre in most setups, sometimes it's not.

 

[Zurai]

Well, which is it? Incorrect? Misleading? Or neither?

If 40% of monsters have attacks that target AC only and 100% of monsters have attacks that target AC and a very high percentage (80%+?) have 2 attacks that target AC, how exactly is it a false statement that <50% of attacks target defenses?

It's very misleading, misleading enough to be a falsehood. Your implication was that there aren't enough monsters that make non-AC attacks to make a difference. The truth is that most monsters do have non-AC attacks, and that for the most part only minions and low-level monsters only have vs AC attacks. You are attempting to equate number of attacks on the books to number of attacks that actually get used. How often do artillery or controller monsters use their melee basic attacks? Rarely if ever - but they all have one and they're all or almost all vs AC. Similarly, a lot of soldiers and brutes have ranged basic attacks that they will rarely if ever use. However, all non-AC attacks are likely to be used in any given encounter.

 

[James McMurray]

Personally, I went with Bless. Might swap it out for Divine Aid at some point though. Those status conditions are a killer.

 

[KarinsDad]

It's very misleading, misleading enough to be a falsehood. Your implication was that there aren't enough monsters that make non-AC attacks to make a difference. The truth is that most monsters do have non-AC attacks, and that for the most part only minions and low-level monsters only have vs AC attacks. You are attempting to equate number of attacks on the books to number of attacks that actually get used. How often do artillery or controller monsters use their melee basic attacks? Rarely if ever - but they all have one and they're all or almost all vs AC. Similarly, a lot of soldiers and brutes have ranged basic attacks that they will rarely if ever use. However, all non-AC attacks are likely to be used in any given encounter.

Using your statistics, 60% of monsters have attacks that do not target AC.

If those non-AC attacks are used 100% of the time by 100% those monsters, then 60% or less of all attacks are not affected by Shield of Faith.

Dropping that extreme improbability from 60% to < 50% is not a big of a stretch. The designers did not give monsters AC attack options for them to not ever be used. And in fact, using your statistics, only 49% of heroic monsters are capable of using against defense attacks (which is <50%). In non-heroic campaigns, there are more ways to boost healing than there are to boost AC, so my point still stands.

Even if 60% of all attacks are not against AC, Shield of Faith STILL prevents a lot more damage on average than Cure Light Wounds ever cures because CLW effectively negates one+ hit 100% of the time (and at high level, less than that) once per day (assuming that the target didn't die or or didn't get smoked for even more damage due to a condition or didn't lose a lot of combat actions due to a condition), and Shield of Faith negates ~20% of hits and any condition damage that hit would do (50% chance to hit drops to 40%) 40+% of the time for many attacks against many PCs once per day. If there are more than 12 total attacks for all of the NPCs in an entire encounter combined (on average), Shield of Faith is better (and that's just taking into account damage, not monster attack condition protection).

Since it will almost definitely be <60% of all monster attacks in most campaigns, Shield of Faith is even better.


Plus, the user of Shield of Faith does not need to use it on an average encounter. He can use it on encounters where it helps more (such as minion attacks or attacks by creatures that prefer vs. AC melee or ranged attacks).


The only one being misleading here is you. You use words like misleading and false and dishonest a lot in posts.

 

[James McMurray]

Since each GM determines both which monsters he'll use and which attacks they'll use on a given round, aren't those statistics kinda meaningless?

 

[Zurai]

You use words like misleading and false and dishonest a lot in posts.

This is a flat out lie. I won't bother responding to the rest of your post because you obviously have a grudge against me.

 

[DLichen]

Karin, using monster statistics to justify your explanations is inherently flawed since encounter and party dynamic depends on a lot more.

 

[KarinsDad]

This is a flat out lie. I won't bother responding to the rest of your post because you obviously have a grudge against me.

And words like "lie".

 

[KarinsDad]

Karin, using monster statistics to justify your explanations is inherently flawed since encounter and party dynamic depends on a lot more.

Not completely.

There are ~663 vs. AC attacks in the Monster Manual.
There are ~138 vs. Will attacks in the Monster Manual.
There are ~217 vs. Reflex attacks in the Monster Manual.
There are ~184 vs. Fortitude attacks in the Monster Manual.

It seems pretty reasonable that if <45% of all of the possible attacks in the Monster Manual are not against AC, that it is fair to say that Shield of Faith will probably see good service in at least 50% of all attacks and probably 80% or 90% (or more) of encounters in which it is cast (i.e. if enemies are targeting will, reflex, or fort, that does not mean that the spell is useless that day, it just means that it is useless for that encounter).

It really does not make sense to cast it in a combat where enemies are targeting Will for example.

So what you say has some truth to it, but it is also tempered by when and how players would use these spells.