Healing spells and magic/Negative energy spells based on skills

[Tyrpaladin2000]

Any chance we can change the heals to equal what a person invest in their heal skill or magic/negative energy attacks based on spellcraft. Like a healing spell based on (heal skill + Ability modifier + spell level) + d2 roll or something like that. A similar idea to Kingdom of Haven. Just proposing.

[Kitunenotsume]

Healing Kits already work like this and are readily available.
They restore 1d20+[modifyer] HP, as well as testing to remove poisons and disease effects on the target.
https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=Heal_(skill)

I don't see that making a spell reliant on skill-modifyer would be relevant given that circumstance.

[Tyrpaladin2000]

Healing Kits already work like this and are readily available.
They restore 1d20+[modifyer] HP, as well as testing to remove poisons and disease effects on the target.
https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=Heal_(skill)

I don't see that making a spell reliant on skill-modifyer would be relevant given that circumstance.

The healing skill set has a flat modifier when you’re not using it in battle. Making it somewhat superior for aft about it heals whereas healing spells or healing potions are more ideal for it in battle use, however, the most ideal healing spell propulsion is a Heal spell or a Heal potion at endgame.

heal skill + Ability modifier + spell level) + d2 or (33 + 10 + 7) d2 for 50d2 = 50 to 100. Augmented Healing adds to the +2 modifier for any non-cantrip spells. Empowered Spell adds +1 to dice rolls and Empowered Healing/Faith Healing +2 to dice rolls. (No stacking)

[Kitunenotsume]

Having 50+ Heal skill gives the same effect in combat, though, and can activate slightly faster in succession than multiple spells, without requiring any spell slots.

[DaloLorn]

That is arguably a reason to implement the OP's proposal...

For my part, though, I'd prefer to see something like a reserve feat for healing spells.

[MasterSilke]

Healing spells are magic and not skills and should therefore be based upon the nature of the spell and the person's aptitude with said magic, hence why it is the base die roll plus the caster level. A person's understanding on how to apply a tourniquet should not have have any impact on the efficacy of a Cure Moderate Wounds spell any more than a Fireball should be impacted by a person's Boy Scout knowledge on how to start a fire.

[whatsittoya]

That is arguably a reason to implement the OP's proposal...

For my part, though, I'd prefer to see something like a reserve feat for healing spells.

Reserve feat for healing spells yesssssssssssss

[Tyrpaladin2000]

Healing spells are magic and not skills and should therefore be based upon the nature of the spell and the person's aptitude with said magic, hence why it is the base die roll plus the caster level. A person's understanding on how to apply a tourniquet should not have have any impact on the efficacy of a Cure Moderate Wounds spell any more than a Fireball should be impacted by a person's Boy Scout knowledge on how to start a fire.

Reason I propose it because Healing kits are more broken than potions and spells. If you can get +50 Healing not counting the roll, you can healing uninterrupted with AOOs and you carry as many healing kits as you want. So a cleric, even with some form of empowered healing, can only heal up to 90ish in one round with the possibility of being interrupted during spellcasting and can only cast said spell 3 or 4 times whereas as person with kits who has a 50 heal skill point can out heal a cleric in battle. Part of the reason why I don't focus on healing my cleric or any of my cleric has a lot to do with that reason alone as I encourage (in-character) for my traveling companions to stock up on healing kits. My character has at least 40 healing kits and can heal up to 50, but only out of battle, which is still a lot more than I heal for spellcasting wise. Also healing kit/skill is a flat rate heal with no roll except in battle, it has NO CAP along with Concentration, Hide, Lore, etc. Tumble has a 3/30 skill AC cap and going above 15 DC is pointless and spellcraft has a 6 vs spell/30 cap. With no cap, theoretically, you can get up to 70 to 80ish with skill gear and/or spells. That means a character can heal up 80ish-90ish in battle and 100 HP out of battle. Healing spell in this game, even with empowered healing, are capped and cannot keep up with HP greater than 250ish, with NORMAL healing spells capping out at 80 on average. Most of the HP character on the server is 350ish on average and group wise 1200 HP. Clerics even with Wisdom items only get 6 slots, 3 to 4 of the slots which are used for RP, protection spells, or buffing. That means you will be lucky if a cleric has 1 to 3 healing spells that heal above 50 HP.

I know I am probably going to get a big fat NO on healing spells, but that's the reality of healing spells and healing kits. Again, tying the healing skill with spells not only makes the healing spell more useful, but puts a bigger emphasis on focusing on being a better healer, which is what the Kingdom of Haven healing skill tie-in did.

[Ashenie]

Hello there,

I would agree with your reasoning if this was all about numbers. Healing Kits have an infinite potential, while spells are limited, although the number of rests per day facilitates this question already. But I believe the roleplay aspect should be looked too. As others pointed, a spell relying on the ability to know how to apply a poultice or a bandage is strange. It is also not the same purpose for me, as mundane and magic healing do not always mend the same type of injuries in the same way, roleplay wise. But surely, both restore "hitpoints".

We already have Faith Healing that empower those spells. Also, Greater Restoration restores hitpoints. Heal spell will always be superior to healing kits, unless you reach 130 heal, which is virtually difficult if not impossible.

To make the spell more valuable and perhaps attractive, I would dig into these suggestions :
~ Add the Greater Status Spell, which would allow to target others from distance. This could be implemented as "mode", perhaps? I am not sure how it is doable, mechanically.
~ Imbue healing feats, which allow healing spells to offer another benefit.
~ Touch of Healing feat, which allows to heal as long as there is a 2nd level healing spell available. Mitigate Suffering feat would offer a similar benefit.
~ Add Greater Heal spell, which allow to heal up to 300 hitpoints as a level 9 spell for one target. It could be modified too since we already have mass heal that heals up to 250 hitpoints a whole party.
~ Allow Augment Healing, Faith Healing and Empower Healing to affect Heal and Mass Heal. It could also affect other spells restoring life, such as vigor and regeneration, or greater restoration.

I am not sure healing needs so much work currenty, but those aspects exist and could, in my opinion, offer better ranges of interest to magic, rather than swapping healing spells to heal skill. Heal skill and healing kits, on the other hand, would remain useful especially for those who specialise in using them. As someone who plays a character heavily revolving around healing and its various aspects, I find utility in both, especially in roleplayed situations.

Perhaps, if these suggestions ever give something, could we consider that the characters taking those feats would also forgo a part of their power. So less offense available, no harmful spells can be cast while the status spell mode is active and it has a cooldown, less spells per day if they have a reserve feat or no spontaneous conversion anymore, or other things that could help balance, if balance is needed.

These are only my suggestions, so feel free to ignore!

Cheers,

Ashenie

[Tyrpaladin2000]

Hello there,

I would agree with your reasoning if this was all about numbers. Healing Kits have an infinite potential, while spells are limited, although the number of rest per day facilitate this question already. But I believe the roleplay aspect should be looked too. As others pointed, a spell relying on the ability to know how to apply a poultice or a bandage is strange. It is also not the same purpose for me, as mundane and magic healing do not always mend the same type of injuries in the same way, roleplay wise. But surely, both restore "hitpoints".

We already have Faith Healing that empower those spells. Also, Greater Restoration restores hitpoints. Heal spell will always be superior to healing kits, unless you reach 130 heal, which is virtually difficult if not impossible.

To make the spell more valuable and perhaps attractive, I would dig into these suggestions :
~ Add the Greater Status Spell, which would allow to target others from distance. This could be implemented as "mode", perhaps? I am not sure how it is doable, mechanically.
~ Imbue healing feats, which allow healing spells to offer another benefit.
~ Touch of Healing feat, which allows to heal as long as there is a 2nd level healing spell available. Mitigate Suffering feat would offer a similar benefit.
~ Add Greater Heal spell, which allow to heal up to 300 hitpoints as a level 9 spell for one target. It could be modified too since we already have mass heal that heals up to 250 hitpoints a whole party.
~ Allow Faith Healing and Empower Healing to affect Heal and Mass Heal. It could also affect other spells restoring life, such as vigor and regeneration, or greater restoration.

I am not sure healing needs so much work currenty, but those aspects exist and could, in my opinion, offer better ranges of interest to magic, rather than swapping healing spells to heal skill. Heal skill and healing kits, on the other hand, would remain useful especially for those who specialise in using them. As someone who plays a character heavily revolving around healing and its various aspects, I find utility in both, especially in roleplayed situations.

Perhaps, if these suggestions ever give something, could we consider that the characters taking those feats would also forgo a part of their power. So less offense available, no harmful spells can be cast while the status spell mode is active and it has a cooldown, less spells per day if they have a reserve feat or no spontaneous conversion anymore, or other things that could help balance, if balance is needed.

These are only my suggestions, so feel free to ignore!

Cheers,

Ashenie

To use medicine, you have to have knowledge of a humanoid body. You don't use [insert medicine] if it will have ill-verse affects on the wound. Its why healers were worst than what they were in the past. It is knowledge that is used when healing wounds through magical means as you would heal certain bones, muscles, or body parts together that weren't mean to be.

As for feats, we already have feats and I agree with the touch of healing, but the problem is touch of healing with unlimited casting would make it broke as it would be a good after battle heal and healing kits would still be superior. As for allowing a wider healing effect, against there are mass cure spells that address this issue. Greater Restoration, Heal, Mass Heal, etc. are nice, but you get those spells between spell levels 5 to 9, which have the least amount of spell slots.

Again, I don't expect the devs to be okay with this, you know with purest and keeping the dnd status quo and all, but I believe this idea works because adapts to the current status of HPs. My character has both augmented healing and faith healing, yet his strongest single cure wounds does 70 to 90ish and is lucky to get 70 to 100ish using mass cure wounds outside of Heal and mass heal. Again, with HP averaging on 350, he barely helps.

My healing kits do more than my spells do because I don't get AOO using them and if I committed all my points to them, my character can do 50 points in battle and 70 out of battle. However, healing spells aren't the only issue here. Arcane spells and negative energy spells, which can be based solely on spellcraft skill points and healing can be based on that too. My point was not only to increase the effectiveness of spells over all, but emphasis not letting certain abilities get overshadowed.

Lastly, having RP with you, your opinions are always welcome.

[Kitunenotsume]

It sounds to me as though the suggestion is "Please improve healing spells because Healing Kits are too potent", which would appear to be in the format "Please do X to correct Y". Perhaps the appropriate approach is not revising healing spells, but re-consider how Healing Kits work,

In P&P, Magical Healing is always "Heal NOW, at cost of spell/resource" while mundane healing is often cheaper and reliable (with a skilled practionier), but takes time.

On other servers like Sundren, I have seen that their Healing-Kit equivilents (Bandages) could be very potent when used, but restored health over time, and the effect was canceled if the target received damage for any reason.

A similar approach could be used here, where rather than a Healing Kit granting a big lump of health all at once similar to spells, instead it could be pooled and distributed over time and have it canceled on damage (Even 3 rounds would reduce compat potency to at or below spell-levels)
This would make Magical Healing ideal for a big chunk of healing in combat, and spells like Regenerate would have a similar effect but still function in the thick of a fight. Meanwhile, Healing Kits would still be optiomal for out-of-combat restorations when there is more time to apply them and let the medicines work.

[Ashenie]

Hey there,

I do not disagree with your suggestions, but they are not mutually exclusive.
Offering more potency to healing spells and more feats that already exist in dungeon and dragons does not sound too bad to me, and would offer more tools to supportive characters - at the cost of feats.

Having healing kits work in different ways could probably help make them more accurate to what mundane healing is. Although we could also have different kind of healing kit that could apply heal over time, or direct heal, or a bit of both. Reworking healing kit that way could also lower the amount of hitpoints you are currently able to provide in a set time.

Both seem intersting to me, and would deepen healing roleplay eitherway. I personally already play the use of healing kit on time, with the use of bandages and poultices.

Cheers,

Ashenie

[Tyrpaladin2000]

This still brings me to Negative energy spells and arcane spells having their damage being influence by spellcraft. Again something else to consider.

And I said before, healing needs a tad bit of an upgrade because the average HP is 350 and heals without investment are 30 to 70 with few spells slot between spell level 6 to 9 (1 or 3 spells slots if you are lucky) while heals with investment are 70 to 100. It makes bottom tier heals spells at spell level 5 and down useless. I wasn't just trying to upgrade upper level spells, but low level spell. Cure wounds minor is all but useless at higher levels since it only restore 4 to 8 HP.