Monstrous Healers

[ruleslawyer]

As mentioned earlier, undead do precisely this... and damage PCs at the same time. It's a nice touch, really.

 

[Stormrunner]

Some other things to consider:

If the monster advances by level, the problem can be solved simply by giving it levels of cleric/druid/favored soul/whatever. So we should ignore "advance by class" monsters when counting up the number of "no buff" monsters.

Many "advance by HD" monsters are of low to animal intelligence, hence unlikely to learn magic or use buffing tactics.

If you create a monster focussed around the concept of being a "natural" buffer/healer, you can't use just one of them. The critter needs allies to be at all effective, which is somewhat odd and limits its usefulness a little. Thus such critters are rarely designed (and ecology-wise, probably would be rare in the game world).

 

[Victim]

Consider the main uses for healing amongst a group of PCs:

Healing allows the group to recover HP quickly in between encounters, so that encounters can occur in fairly rapid succession.

Healing allows dying characters to recover, thus allowing for continuity of characters.

And healing allows for characters to take more damage in a fight, thus giving the group more effective actions.

A group of monster antagonists is typically only important for one encounter. If the PCs get wiped out, no one is going to care how long the monsters have to rest before they can fight again. It's not usually a big deal how replacement monsters get worked into their groups. So really, only the last concern is an issue for monsters.

Monsters are usually designed to be stand alone, or in homogenous groups - they're much easier to run that way. sure, there can be cool combinations, but those a side benefit. Generally only classed foes need special group composition to be effective. So it's often easier just to build the extra defensive ability into the monster's base stats rather than require a special healer/buffer monster.

 

[I'm A Banana]

they're much easier to run that way

The idea is that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If monsters are only around for one encounter, the question "why is that the case?" comes up. And the only answer that seems satisfying is that "it's easier that way."

So then, if healing and buffing make the game so much more complex, why do PC's have that capability? Wouldn't the game be streamlined by giving PC's regeneration and good DR and Fast Healing (or even "reserve points")? Wouldn't effectively ditching the "healer/defender" role of the cleric in exchange for tougher PC's make the game faster, more fun, and better?

That doesn't mean get rid of the cleric, it just means re-focus the cleric around a more punish/smite/destroy/divine angle, rather than a heal/buff/defend angle. Would there be great resistance to this throughout the community?

If it's easier to run monsters that are just tougher, rather than with healing/buffing/defending roles in combat, why not have PC's benefit from the same simplicity?

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

When the monsters are two iron golem guardians, the healer is a red dragon.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Firstly, you can't determine CR based on a group of monsters. Well, I guess you could, but that's not how we do things. Secondly, healing is only good in-combat under two circumstances 1) It's a huge amount of hp healed and 2) the healer isn't the one taking damage (which is negated by Firstly). If one of those is true, then healing is golden. Otherwise, you're best off not healing unless its some weird cirucmstance.

So, giving a monster access to some kind of SLA magical healing is just going to make it waste its turn under most cirucmstances. Looking at #1 above, the monster is going to have to heal more hp than the entire PC party can do in one round in order to make it worth it. That's a dragon's heal, for example. And, #2 is impossible to gurantee for any singular monster, so it isn't a feasable design goal.

That's why you don't see a lot of healing monsters or buffing monsters. It is so rarely worth more to do either than do an attack that it wouldn't really help the monster. The cleric taking a round to cast bull's strength on the fighter can be worth it, since the fighter gets the benefit of it this round. A minotaur or such doing that to himself just wasted his action this round. A minotuar casting a cure spell on himself this turn just wasted his round.

Since it would have to be so over the top to be of any use, the healing is reserved for the big ones, the aforementioned casting dragons, and a few random creatures like celestials. That's why fast healing and regeneration (and DR) are the method of healing for monsters. No action spent to heal, its automatic.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And, #2 is impossible to gurantee for any singular monster, so it isn't a feasable design goal.

It does bring up the question of why #2 isn't catered for, though. It's a whole cascading fall of tough design questions: why aren't designed to help each other? PC's are. Presumably, by that extention, classed NPC's are. If a goal of 3e was to make the monsters play nice with the PC's, why isn't that followed through to it's logical conclusion?

It's more possible to ensure than you might think. A list of common monster groupings (something like the Organization entry, but with more emphasis on a "party" of monsters) goes a long way, as does simply mentioning "the healers are rarely encountered without big-hitting monster X" in the description. It doesn't ensure it, but neither is it assured that a party going against a golem has adamantium, and that doesn't mean that it's unfeasable to design golems with adamantine DR, does it?

 

[LightPhoenix]

It's more possible to ensure than you might think. A list of common monster groupings (something like the Organization entry, but with more emphasis on a "party" of monsters) goes a long way, as does simply mentioning "the healers are rarely encountered without big-hitting monster X" in the description. It doesn't ensure it, but neither is it assured that a party going against a golem has adamantium, and that doesn't mean that it's unfeasable to design golems with adamantine DR, does it?

I think you touch on another subtle reason why there aren't many non-classed healers.

There's a general, but subtle assumption that, aside from the climactic fight with the nemesis (ie, "boss fight"), that an encounter usually only has one type of enemy. You might fight a group of gorillons, or a single cloud giant, but usually not more than the one kind of monster. This appears to me to be borne out in modules that have been released. A party of healers is, at best an annoyance to the PCs, and at worst a long drawn-out encounter where the enemy simple keeps healing. Or, worse yet, the PCs steamroll the monsters because all they're doing is healing.

In contrast, in a climactic battle, healing helps to make it more memeorable by doing exactly what makes a routine battle upsetting - it draws it out.

Total tangent, but the first thing that popped into my head when I read this thread was the healing slime/jellyfish from the console RPG Dragon Quest. Maybe I'll find a way to introduce them in a campaign some day...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Many a Heroclix battle has been won on the basis of taking out the healers first. I can easily see a D&D battle vs. orcs (or whatever) where the PCs realize that they have to take out the healer. In fact, I could see battles occur where the loss of the healers meant that the foe retreated.

RC

 

[Barak]

Undead creatures who can cast inflict wounds or do the reverse of lay-on-hands is great for that, because their "healing" capabilities can also be used as an offensive ability against the vast majority of PCs. The WLD has an encounter like that, and it really freaked my players out. A group of 6 (or was it 8?) undead "paladin-like, but evil!" creatures, + a bottleneck = freaked out PCs.