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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 5011689" data-attributes="member: 710">The "underpowered party" and also in general discussions about "grind" make me wonder - how good is healing and related abilities like extra saves and condition removing/ignoring abilities regarding a characters or a party's power?A lot is talked about stuff like Iron Armband of Powers, Bloodclaw (pre-errata) weapons or Staffs of Ruin.  But we certainly also have discussions about abilities that grant healing and temporary hit points.My general hypothesis wass that it doesn't really matter whether a party or character is build offensively or defensively - the overall power will probably stay the same. But more damage means shorter combats, and so it still seems preferable to focus on that. Some defensive abilities - specifically in regards to "condition negating" (saves, save rerolls, outright removal or immunity to conditions) are still relevant, as conditions can also make combat last longer by denying actions to the PCs.That is a big change from the way it was in 3E - healing was great (and cheap) after combat, but during combat, the healing you could provide was very limited - only when Heal or Mass Heal became available, healing at a chance to keep up with the damage taken or dished out per round.But: Is it true that both sides are "equal"? That it is equally valid to focus on healing and defensive abilities than on offensive abilities? Or is one side actually stronger and would allow beating more encounters or more difficult encounters?I certainly know that the party that I DM is really good at healing thanks to its "Laser Cleric" and several abilities that grant regeneration or regeneration-like abilities. It seems almost impossible to keep them down. I wonder if alternative builds where they focused more on offense then defense would really be more effective? How could we test? Might the "Monte Carlo" thread possibly show us this, once different "builds" are tested and compared? (If it indeed turns out that they are about equal, than I must say: Kudos to the designers, especially since the way the achieved it is not as transparent as other stuff they tried to balance!)What are your experiences in this regard? Have you seen different parties in actions and seen them perform similar succesful in similar situation, despite different focusses?</blockquote>

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