More Hospitaler's Boon woes.

[SlyFlourish]

So tonight we had five players against two dryads and a displacer beast pack lord.

The displacer beast gets three attacks against creatures it has combat advantage against. The dryad can cage people, restraining them so the beast can get this ability.

The paladin had the beast marked but was not caged. The Invoker, however, was caged and was adjacent to the displacer beast. The displacer beast, seeing the caged meal, went for the Invoker instead of the paladin. Even with the mark, three hits is better than one.

Except for healing boon.

Instead, the creature did about 25 damage and the hospitaler healed the invoker for 27. 27 damage without a single action taken and no surges.

Right now, it seems like against area attackers or multi-target attackers, there is no choice but to either omit the attacks or attack only the Paladin until he is dead. Attacking anyone else usually heals them for more damage than they took. Last week we had a fireball that went off and ended up healing the entire party instead of doing any damage.

I really really think Hospitaler's Boon should only be once per round. Does anyone else agree?

 

[Mort_Q]

I really really think Hospitaler's Boon should only be once per round. Does anyone else agree?

Hospitaler's Blessing is fine. What's wrong with allowing the Paladin's mark to be effective?

 

[Stalker0]

I'm surprised more people have mentioned incidents like this, while hospitaler isn't the coolest looking paladin pp, I personally feel its the strongest.

 

[yesnomu]

Well, I guess you should start attacking the paladin a bit more, eh? Maybe include him in the fireball next time? I mean, that's kind of what he's there for.

1/round probably wouldn't hurt anything... but the pally needs a bit of defending help as it is.

EDIT: Huh, including him wouldn't have helped... wow, that's strong.

 

[keterys]

It'd probably be fine as an immediate or only triggered when the paladin dealt damage from his divine challenge.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I haven't seen the Hospitaler in play yet but if I was seeing what you describe I might make a couple of changes to the blessing: probably only applying it on attacks that don't include the paladin and only applying it on attacks that hit. Still effective, but not excessive.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Man I haven't got a Pal in our party so haven't paid that much attention to the pal par paths but that is pure CHEESE! That is auto heal the party vs solos. Are there any feats that let you challenge more than one enemy? Man I hope not.

 

[ppaladin123]

I'm surprised more people have mentioned incidents like this, while hospitaler isn't the coolest looking paladin pp, I personally feel its the strongest.

Hospitalar gained new popularity once melee training (charisma) reduced MAD for cha-paladins. Suddenly it became reasonable to have a +3 or more wisdom modifier at 11th level. Before then the emphasis on wisdom seemed like a weakness...

 

[SlyFlourish]

"Hospitaler's Blessing is fine. What's wrong with allowing the Paladin's mark to be effective?"

The problem is that it would be absolute insanity to do anything other than hit the paladin. All of the other marks are effective but you can still choose to not attack the marker and it won't be totally stupid. This way, any area attack and any attack that hits someone else is likely to heal them more than it is likely to harm them. There is never any reason to not hit the paladin.

In a battle with any BBEG who hits multiple targets (which is most of them), I have to put every guy on the paladin until he drops. There's no choice about it. To do anything else would make the battle trivial.

I just sent a note to the player talking about the nerf. I just hope I don't make him too mad. I just want the game to be dynamic and fun, not slotted into positions without any choice at all.

 

[hong]

I think the idea behind the hospitaler is that it's usually very hard for a paladin to challenge more than one enemy. So this ability could lockdown one monster at most, leaving the rest free to whack the party. You happened to run into a situation where this wasn't an issue (only 2 monsters, one of which clearly outdamages the other).