Touch of Healing [Reserve] feat from Complete Champion Excerpt

[hong]

If resource management is so meaningless to you, maybe you should go play a superhero game. Or XboX.

You say this like it's a negative thing.

... So! Who's up for some Soul Calibur 2 Tome of Battle buttkicking goodness?

 

[IanB]

I wouldn't call it meaningless, and it will still exist even with this feat (and the other similar mechanics) in the game. Regardless of how many hit points the cleric can heal between fights, it will still run out of *other* spells eventually, and will still have to burn those higher level healing effects during fights. This just extends the party's adventuring endurance by a few fights at low levels, and at high levels it isn't like out of combat healing has much of a cost.

As a DM I get really tired of the 4-rooms-and-rest syndrome, and I think this will enable a lot more interesting play of things like the Paizo APs and other published modules as entire coherent sections rather than "ok, time to start our 4th incursion into Bhal-Hamataugn" or whatever.

It takes the game closer to a normal fantasy sort of storytelling model, I think. Conan didn't stop halfway through the Tower of the Elephant to rest; I'm not sure I want my players to do so either.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I wouldn't call it meaningless, and it will still exist even with this feat (and the other similar mechanics) in the game. Regardless of how many hit points the cleric can heal between fights, it will still run out of *other* spells eventually, and will still have to burn those higher level healing effects during fights. This just extends the party's adventuring endurance by a few fights at low levels, and at high levels it isn't like out of combat healing has much of a cost.

As a DM I get really tired of the 4-rooms-and-rest syndrome, and I think this will enable a lot more interesting play of things like the Paizo APs and other published modules as entire coherent sections rather than "ok, time to start our 4th incursion into Bhal-Hamataugn" or whatever.

It takes the game closer to a normal fantasy sort of storytelling model, I think. Conan didn't stop halfway through the Tower of the Elephant to rest; I'm not sure I want my players to do so either.

I'm playing through Shackled City, and we made it through the Malachite Hold without resting, the Drakthar's Way dungeon without resting, and each of the two Flood Season dungeons with resting (there were days of travel in between, so of course we rested in between). All of them were exciting close calls that would have been boring and yawn-inducing instead if we had included that feat and had infinite healing.

 

[Kurotowa]

I think it's too early to say anything about this. The descriptive text in a feat table is never as much as in the full text of the feat itself. I'll reserve judgment on this reserve feat.

Absolutely. My bet is either a limit on how often you can use it on the same target, or a limit on total activations per hour (or other chunk of time).

 

[Twowolves]

I'm playing through Shackled City, and we made it through the Malachite Hold without resting, the Drakthar's Way dungeon without resting, and each of the two Flood Season dungeons with resting (there were days of travel in between, so of course we rested in between). All of them were exciting close calls that would have been boring and yawn-inducing instead if we had included that feat and had infinite healing.

Indeed. Some of the most exciting times I've ever had playind D&D was when we were low on spells and hp, and gave in to the temptation of "just one more room"....

Part of the balance of the game is finite resources. Wizards and clerics have spells, fighters and rogues have hit points. With this feat, the latter won't have to worry about running out between fights. Sure one big fight can do them in, but the cleric can still cast a healing spell in combat to save them like always. Now, however, so long as they have one cure left, the cleric can completely heal the party between fights. Add in the Complete Mage reserve feats, and you might as well get rid of ammunition for bows as well, since everyone else can go all day without running out of ammo, why not the archer too?

Reserve feats are a massive shift to the fundimental premise of the game and of the campaign world. There is nothing wrong with superhero roleplaying, mind you, it's one of my personal favorites, but if I wanted to play in that genre, even mixed with fantasy, I'd play Mutants and Masterminds, or Savage Worlds, not D&D-bastardized-into-superhero-lite.

 

[hong]

Add in the Complete Mage reserve feats, and you might as well get rid of ammunition for bows as well

I did that 5 years ago. BUT NOBODY EVER LISTENS TO ME

 

[Stalker0]

I don't mind this feat at 10th level or so, but you can get this feat at 3rd level. At that level, healing is still pretty darn scarce, and 750 gp wands are also still expensive. Further, not everyone allows lesser vigor wands.

 

[IanB]

I'm playing through Shackled City, and we made it through the Malachite Hold without resting, the Drakthar's Way dungeon without resting, and each of the two Flood Season dungeons with resting (there were days of travel in between, so of course we rested in between). All of them were exciting close calls that would have been boring and yawn-inducing instead if we had included that feat and had infinite healing.

Well, all I can say to that, is your game is extremely different than mine.

 

[AllisterH]

Indeed. Some of the most exciting times I've ever had playind D&D was when we were low on spells and hp, and gave in to the temptation of "just one more room"....

Ah, but you don't have to succumb to the "just one more room" and tactically it didn't make much sense. Unless there was a time constraint ("we got to defeat the villain before he completes the ritual"), few parties IME would be willing to go adventuring at less than 50% of resources as this was asking for a TPK. Even in the above scenario, this feat doesn't get rid of that type of adventure.

Basic tactic I've seen is: at low levels, wizard casts rope trick and people rest until replenished and at high levels it was MMM time.

What this feat seems to do (assuming we are right and we don't have anymore restrictions) is actually encourage longer forays into the dungeon, however if you're a cleric/druid you still going to have to worry about limited resources since in combat, reserve healing doesn't pack enough of a punch meaning you're still going to need to have to worry about how many casting slots you have left.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Well, all I can say to that, is your game is extremely different than mine.

Interesting. Did you guys play through Shackled City too?

Our party did have both a Cleric of Lathander and an Archivist (me), and we had a decent number of healing potions that came for standard on one of the standard SCAP mooks (I can't remember if the Rogue mooks or the Fighter mooks who always had the potion), but it was still a nailbiter thanks to the difficulty of the adventure path. I think if our group wasn't so haphazard and poorly-optimised for synergy, it might have not been as close. We have no real tank--we force the TWF ranger with 12 Con to pretend he can tank because he and the Cleric have the most HP, and we need the Cleric to not be dead straight away like when Triel would have killed him if not for the Rejuvenation domain. Our only Wizard is nearly barred from everything that can attack except for Illusions thanks to some racial substitution levels (but his Illusions are spiffy!). Our Cleric has taken Skill Focus: Diplomacy and Negotiator feats and spends all of his money on a huge selection of wine and trying to get into the Cusp of Sunrise. Our Mountebank is a...well...a Mountebank.

Our GM also has a habit of combining several rooms of encounters into one if he thinks the enemies would have no reason not to congregate or he thinks they would have heard us. The worst was the Malachite Hold--we fought the BBEG and his pet and bodyguards, + about 16 additional hobgoblins (thank Lathander for Colour Spray!).

Anyway, that tangent aside, the lack of infinite healing is what makes the game fun, tense, and exciting for our group (since we don't really have any big guns other than our Ranger, and with infinite HP, he can keep it up all day).