KotS Healing Potions

[AtomicPope]

That Bard works great for after-action patching up. When you're in a pitched battle with a bruiser at mid-levels and the fighter's hit points are down in the teens, he's not looking for 1d8+1 from the Bard's wand--he's looking for 4d8+9 from the Cleric's Cure Critical Wounds. Or hopefully, a bit more ...

All a Bard has to do is cast Animate Instrument and have it play Healing Hymn. Healing Hymn adds a Bard's ranks in perform to their Cure Spells. I know, I played a Bard from 1st to Epic. Add 12 ranks to a CSW and that 4D8+9 becomes a glorified crap shoot. It's even better with Mass Cures because the base level is higher.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

All a Bard has to do is cast Animate Instrument and have it play Healing Hymn. Healing Hymn adds a Bard's ranks in perform to their Cure Spells. I know, I played a Bard from 1st to Epic. Add 12 ranks to a CSW and that 4D8+9 becomes a glorified crap shoot. It's even better with Mass Cures because the base level is higher.

12 ranks added to 4d8+9? Umm...that's a really small amount actually. The character I play the most often is a Cleric in Living Greyhawk. He's 15th level now. However, if I healed any less than 100 per spell after 12th level my entire party would die during most adventures.

Take, for example a battle against a Marut. It is CR 15, and we'd fight one at 12th level probably.

It is listed as:
Full Attack: 2 slams +22 melee (2d6+12 plus 3d6 sonic or 3d6 electricity)

If hits with both of its attacks it does 60 damage. In LG, a 12th level fighter with a con of 18 has 124 hitpoints. This means that without healing, if the monster does 4 points over average in 2 rounds, the fighter drops without healing.

If the fighter is wearing +3 fullplate and +2 ring of protection and their dex is at least 12 then their AC would be 25. This means both attacks hit on a 3. The creature could Power Attack at least a couple of points with very little change to how often it missed. Let's say it Power Attacks for 5 and still hits all its attacks. It's doing 70 a round now.

So, let's assume that's the average damage done by monsters at that level(may or may not be exactly true, but let's assume for now). Assume combats last 3 rounds and that you fight 3 combats a day. The combats are spaced 3 hours apart so any spell you use to make your healing better might wear off between that time.

Now, can you heal enough in combat to keep the fighter alive for all 3 combats and heal him up to full between every combat? So that's 630 points of healing that needs to be done per day. Your Cure Crits heal on average 44(adjusted for a 12th level bard) each time(assuming you have the +12 bonus every time). Using nothing but those would require 15 of them. You need to cast a cure spell every single round of combat, since any 2 rounds in a row without healing kills the fighter. The total of your 3 cure spells during the rounds of combat need to be at least 87 or the fighter isn't conscious at the end of the combat.

Those numbers aren't too out of the ordinary for the monsters we've faced in Living Greyhawk. I'm picking a stock monster from the MM who is a little weaker than most enemies we face. Being hit for closer to 90 damage per round isn't too surprising.

I, generally needed 2 heal spells for 142(healing domain and augment healing feat) every adventure. Plus 2 or 3 cure crits.

Having a bard as our healer just wouldn't have worked.

 

[AtomicPope]

12 ranks added to 4d8+9? Umm...that's a really small amount actually. The character I play the most often is a Cleric in Living Greyhawk. He's 15th level now. However, if I healed any less than 100 per spell after 12th level my entire party would die during most adventures.

The OP gave a level and I gave the same level. At 16th level I was using Mass Cures while adding +19 from Hymn of Healing alone. Not to mention the party was buffed with:
1) Inspire Courage +6 hit/damage (+3 class, +1 Song of the Heart, +1 Inspirational Boost, +1 Masterwork Instrument)
2) Greatness +3 to hit +3D10 Temp. HP
3) Inspire Aim +3 to hit at range
4) Haste +1 to hit and AC

The entire party would hit and run using low lvl teleport spells to swap fighters. Everyone focused on rapid attacks because getting +10 or more to hit they could afford the rapid attacks. We killed a CR 17 Dragon at 15th level in the 1st round of initiative. When not a single shot or attack misses, it makes life easy. The only one that worries about healing is the monsters.

 

[Jack Colby]

I think you really have to forget previous healing ideas to understand 4E, but it is cool.

The healing surge total per day is like the body's capacity for recovery. Clerics can use divine power to heal beyond this, but potions are just potions to aid in recovery. After a point, more of them won't do any good, the body simply can't recover any more. It would take a miracle... cue the cleric.

Does that make sense, and is that the basic idea?

 

[DonAdam]

So, if regular folk don't have healing surges, can regular folk benefit from healing potions?

Orcs can.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So its two minor actions?

one action to draw the potion, one to pour it into your mouth... if you already hold in your hand only one action?

seems fine to me

you could also use mage hand to make it ready and put whatever was in your offhand into your pouch...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The OP gave a level and I gave the same level. At 16th level I was using Mass Cures while adding +19 from Hymn of Healing alone. Not to mention the party was buffed with:
1) Inspire Courage +6 hit/damage (+3 class, +1 Song of the Heart, +1 Inspirational Boost, +1 Masterwork Instrument)
2) Greatness +3 to hit +3D10 Temp. HP
3) Inspire Aim +3 to hit at range
4) Haste +1 to hit and AC

The entire party would hit and run using low lvl teleport spells to swap fighters. Everyone focused on rapid attacks because getting +10 or more to hit they could afford the rapid attacks. We killed a CR 17 Dragon at 15th level in the 1st round of initiative. When not a single shot or attack misses, it makes life easy. The only one that worries about healing is the monsters.

I don't have books nearby, but I would think at least one of those things don't stack. I don't know where Inspire Aim comes from. Probably a PrC or something. How did you get the Greatness up to +3? I can't remember if song of the heart works on anything by Courage. And most instruments add their plus to 1 type of bardic ability.

How are you keeping Greatness and Courage up at the same time while also having the Hymn of Healing going? I don't know Animate Instrument well as I've never seen a Bard use it. However, if its the one I remember, I thought there was a provision in there about only being able to keep one bard song going between you and it. Either way, I believe it is immobile, so once you cast it, it doesn't follow you around the dungeon. You need to cast it again each combat.

Plus, casting spells ends your songs(unless you take that feat). If you had lingering song then you might be able to put these spells and buffs up by round...5 maybe. Standard action first round for Courage, standard action second round for Greatness, standard action 3rd round for Inspire Aim, standard action 4th round for Haste, standard action 5th round to cast a mass cure. And you'd have 1 more round after that before the Courage ran out. And you'd have to worry about the monster attacking you for that entire time with no healing at all. You might be able to cut a round off of it if your DM lets you wander around singing a song continuously.

Don't get me wrong, it's half decent and your party does seem EXTREMELY optimized to take advantage of your particular tactic. I know if I got into a party with the half-orc barbarian we normally play LG with and told him "We're going to teleport you out of battle with the monster whenever you are low in hitpoints. Then you are going to pick up a bow and fire"...well, he'd probably chop me in half for even suggesting that staying in melee until either he or the enemy was dead was anything but the absolute right answer.

Still, with an average party taking close to 100 points of damage per round from enemies at that point, even a mass cure mod only does 44 on average to the group.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

So its two minor actions?

one action to draw the potion, one to pour it into your mouth... if you already hold in your hand only one action?

seems fine to me

you could also use mage hand to make it ready and put whatever was in your offhand into your pouch...

As far as I understand it, it's one minor action to drink a potion and get the effects.

I don't think you need a seperate action to "draw" the potion - after all, in a dramatic fight do you really want to be spending an action just to be allowed to do something else? That would seem to go against the 4e ethos, as far as I can tell.

Surely it's not too much of a stretch to allow players to drink potions quickly and easily in combat? Although I appreciate those with a more simulationist style might find this harder to accept.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

As far as I understand it, it's one minor action to drink a potion and get the effects.

I don't think you need a seperate action to "draw" the potion - after all, in a dramatic fight do you really want to be spending an action just to be allowed to do something else? That would seem to go against the 4e ethos, as far as I can tell.

Surely it's not too much of a stretch to allow players to drink potions quickly and easily in combat? Although I appreciate those with a more simulationist style might find this harder to accept.

we will see...

i don´t think two minor actions (substituded move and regular minor) are too much for those hp... and way better than one standard

that has nothing to do with simulationist or so...

you also have to draw a weapon to fight (which is a minor action i believe)... and the mage hand entry especially allows you to change two items in your hand as one minor action... so i suppose: two minor actions are fine...

 

[D.Shaffer]

I'm really hoping that the flat HP heal rate is more of a 'Quick and Easy' amount for the prerelease quick play rules and not the actual full amount. I'd rather we keep consistancy with surges doing a percentage of healing, even if they're a reduced amount compared to the standard second wind.

In fact, I'll probably house rule it that way if it comes up.