Touch of Healing [Reserve] feat from Complete Champion Excerpt

[IanB]

I am ok with the idea of the feat. I think as written it is too powerful. I hate the idea of always having to stock up on wands of CLW, but I think the Cleric can heal too much too fast with this feat.

As is, if a Lvl 7 cleric can use a 4th lvl spell and heal 12 hp/round. Assuming an average of 8 HP per level, that heals a party of 5 from 0 HP to full in 3 minutes.

As a DM there will be no wearing down your PCs. Fighters will always be at 100% when they role initiative. I would be happier with the feat if it let you heal 1 Hp/round.

3 minutes between fights is a lot of time for buffs to run down or for the guards in the next room to burst in. Site-based adventures often tend to lead to chained encounters anyway, as the PCs set off the alarms and the occupants of the place they're attacking head their way. Where the real difference will be seen is in event-based adventures I think.

And as always, "cheapened" and "less fun" are anything but objective measures.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is a good point--this reserve feat is unnecessary for games with that style of low battles per day, and games with that style can actually be completely awesome. Of course, no one would take this reserve feat in shil's game, and even if they did, it would never even possibly be a problem.

The problem is that there are many games, and in particular most published adventures, that do have these vast complexes with loads and loads of encounters, and I can speak for Shackled City when I say that those games would be cheapened and the fun lessened with the infinite healing Reserve Feat. And of course, players in this sort of game would be the first to line up to take the feat.

That's the trouble with things that are either harmless/useless or potentially game-changing/game-breaking depending on playstyle--players likely just won't take it if the style makes it useless, but they will when it is of massive utility.

Okay, my group is probably a bunch of powergamers (okay, not probably. We all are.)

We played through Shackled City, and I remember the big dungeons and dangerous encounters we faced there. We didn't have a Cleric at the beginning (we only got one because we got a new player, too). But we still ensured that we always rested once our spell and hit point resources where done.

Even the campaigns before, we made it a habit to buy several wands of cure light wounds and later Wands of Lesser Restoration and Cure Moderate Wounds, and now, high level clerics even buy Staffs of Healing once they can afford it. At early levels, the first magic item the group buys is usually a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, and only then we begin to distribute the treasure to buy other magical or mundane equipment.
We always ensure that we are at full hit points after each encounter (unless it is impossible due to time constraints), and rest time is not determined by the amount of hit points left in the characters, but the amount of useful spells we have. If we're out of cure wands, we will usually leave the area entirely and try to buy new ones. (Otherwise, 3 guard shifts and a Leomunds Secure Shelter, Mordekainens Magnificent Mansion or the classical tent will provide for our safe rest)

So, what would really change with this feat for us is that we don't have to waste time thinking about buying dozens of Wand of Cure Light wounds in our adventuring career. Counting wand charges isn't a particularly interesting part of resource management. (I'd prefer counting tokens to fuel my new "special move" or determining whether I cast my last Empowered Fireball on this tight formation of hobgoblins or leave the task to our meelee warriors and just interfer with some Magic Missiles, hoping the FIreball will really count at a later time...)

I know other play styles will be different (again, we're power gaming a lot), but for us, the feat would be nice.

 

[blargney the second]

[..] heals a party of 5 from 0 HP to full in 3 minutes.

As a DM there will be no wearing down your PCs. Fighters will always be at 100% when they role initiative.

1) We already have the former the wands of CLW/CMW. The difference is that with the wands you have to roll the dice bajillions of times to figure out how much you get healed in a given time frame. With the feat, it requires much less makework arithmetic to patch up, and it's easier to figure out how long it takes (for those encounters where time is a factor).

2) You can still wear down your PCs in the usual ways: make them cast spells, use their daily abilities, cause ability damage, inflict harmful conditions, etc. If the cleric gets KO'd, the party's still in trouble. Heck, if the cleric loses his holy symbol he might not even be able to use this feat!

Nothing changes except the fact that you're using a feat instead of gold to heal you. It still costs someone a resource to get the effect, it's just a different cost.
-blarg

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

1) We already have the former the wands of CLW/CMW. The difference is that with the wands you have to roll the dice bajillions of times to figure out how much you get healed in a given time frame. With the feat, it requires much less makework arithmetic to patch up, and it's easier to figure out how long it takes (for those encounters where time is a factor).

Reading this: We only roll the dice of our CLW wands during combat, outside, we assume the average (rounded up => 6 hit points for a Wand of Cure Light Wounds). (We usually don't tell the hitpoints we need to heal up, but the # charges we need to get to full hitpoints )

 

[Twowolves]

If resource management is so important to you, go become an accountant.

If resource management is so horrible, why have hit points at all? That's the logical next step in making the game "more fun", isn't it?

Mutants and Masterminds doesn't have hp, and it's a fun game. So is Savage Worlds (ok, technically, they have 3 hit points. but everyone has the same). These are fun games, but they aren't D&D. And D&D shouldn't try to become them, at least in my opinion.


"Video gamey" to me at least means "Pac-Man" or "Super Mario Brothers" or other twitchy games. One hit and Mario is dead. Better jump that barrel in time! Lord knows Starcraft and other RTS games have lots of resource management in them, but having clerics heal an infinate ammount of damage, wizards dish out an infinate ammount of damage, and fighters take an infinate number of hits just seems to me to be a lot more like Gauntlet and less like D&D.

If you don't agree, and the rest of the people here don't either, that's fine too. You guys enjoy your game, but I don't think I'll be playing it along with you. I'll be playing D&D, and I won't pretend otherwise. Or consider my hobby "accountant training", thanks.

 

[Henry]

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

If resource management is so important to you, go become an accountant.

So in that case, none of us should be playing D&D?

From my standpoint, allowing "reserve healing" is the last thing that takes D&D squarely into "refresh after each fight" and out of territory that has been important to it for 30 years. Everybody's got their point past which a game is no longer "their game" - and for me, that's going to be "refresh all your abilities in 1 minute's time."

 

[Charwoman Gene]

If resource management is so horrible, why have hit points at all? That's the logical next step in making the game "more fun", isn't it?

I don't know I was just being snarky.

 

[Twowolves]

From my standpoint, allowing "reserve healing" is the last thing that takes D&D squarely into "refresh after each fight" and out of territory that has been important to it for 30 years. Everybody's got their point past which a game is no longer "their game" - and for me, that's going to be "refresh all your abilities in 1 minute's time."

I kind of agree. Instead of the "4 fights per day" paradigm, it's "one fight at a time". It's a huge shift, and not one I'm keen on making. Unfortunately, I see the writing on the wall, and this is how things will be come the next edition. When that day comes, I don't think I want to play anymore.

I intend to pick up the Saga Edition of d20 Star Wars and read over it, even if the group I'm in won't use it. I have a funny feeling that a lot of what they have in mind for 4th ed D&D will be "playtested" in there.

 

[Alpha Polaris]

So in that case, none of us should be playing D&D?

From my standpoint, allowing "reserve healing" is the last thing that takes D&D squarely into "refresh after each fight" and out of territory that has been important to it for 30 years. Everybody's got their point past which a game is no longer "their game" - and for me, that's going to be "refresh all your abilities in 1 minute's time."

I see your point, but honestly I don't agree. Reserve healing does not equate to full refresh after each fight, because lost spells are still lost, ability damage is still a factor, and so on. The only meaningful difference is that the cleric will use a feat rather then burning through countless C(L/M/S/C)W wands. In the meantime, he had to make a choice between this feat and divine spell power, so as a DM I do not feel cheated. I've never played a game in which the party keeps going when out of combat healing is depleted. In the grand scheme of things, this feat doesn't change a lot, and I don't think it will be as widely used as some reactions here seem to imply. Shuffling through the aforementioned excerpt, i found the divine feats much more interesting than the reserve ones. Countering or retrieving spells with turn attempts, that seems to pack some punch.

 

[Henry]

I see your point, but honestly I don't agree. Reserve healing does not equate to full refresh after each fight, because lost spells are still lost, ability damage is still a factor, and so on.

Well, consider the following: As is, any Martial Adepts in the group (Swordsages, etc.) retrieve all of their abilities within 1 minute of combat ending. Mages with reserve feats can generate small fireballs, lightning bolts, ranged damage, etc. on the fly, and never use a single spell with the exception of maybe flinging their largest spells for the climactic encounters. The Factotums can do almost all of their abilities at will, and regain them within 1 minute of use (only two exceptions are their healing/turning, and their spells). Now, the cleric can heal an entire group back to full by taking about 30 rounds or less out of combat; there will before long, I do not doubt, a feat that allows a cleric to cure 1 point of ability damage per round to fix any and all damage there.

Over in the new Star Wars game, all force-users will regain their powers in 1 minute's rest. This is another example of the "per-encounter" design noted above.

There may be indeed 1 or 2 instances, given current rules now, where a party will have to dip into its daily resources. However, all of it is evidence of a path toward the very popular option of simply having all resources renew at the end of a combat or non-combat encounter, and not have to worry about the next encounter, whether it be combat or not. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, you're looking at characters whose only worry is if the villain is overpowering enough to smash them outright, rather than worrying if the villain will wear them down - because he can't. (Given current D&D spells, it's pretty easy to hide from your enemies for 1 minute's time, long enough to come back at full strength and kick butt. Heck, a forcecube spell would do it in most cases.) Hide out, heal up with your 30 to 270 points of reserve healing per minute, come back almost before the enemy knows you're gone.

If we were looking at 3 points per minute, or "regains 20% of abilities per hour of rest", or similar, it would be a different situation; but all you do is stop for a breather, and you can emerge completely or almost completely restored? For me, that's too much.