The State of Healing in 2.0

[mikestrauss]

Across a variety of threads I have seen arguments that healers are more or less necessary in 2.0 and/or arguments that earth casters will need to focus more or less on healing in 2.0. I believe the intent of the designers is that healing remains roughly equally necessary, or possibly even slightly less necessary. But intent doesn't always translate to results, so this thread is designed to look at the nitty gritty of the rules changes and see what they suggest for the future.

At least for this initial post, I will just try to list every meaningful rules change and attempt to group them into categories of how much they increase or decrease availability / need for healing.

Increased availability:
Healing spells at every level
-> (subset of above) Greater variety of options in potions
Healer paragon path
Healing storm spells
-> (subset of above) Storm Augmentation (for healing storm spells)

Decreased availability:
Magic item reduction across the board

Increased need:
Higher starting body
Hearty skill

Decreased need:
Higher armor values
Fast Refit skill
Intercept skill (for some usage)
Counteract skill


That is almost certainly not an exhaustive list and if I have missed something big, please point it out. The biggest factors on there, IMO, are the increased availability of healing spells (roughly a 250% increase including storm spells) and the decrease in magic items (hard to summarize).

The next two biggest factors (significantly lower in my opinion) are the hearty skill and the higher armor values. I expect higher armor values to result in a roughly 25% to 30% increase in armor value. Given the cost, I expect the average character to take Hearty no more than 1 per 50 xp and the average to be closer to 1 per 75 xp (maybe 100 xp). For a fighter, that is a roughly 33% increase in body. For a scholar, it is a roughly 100% increase in body.

While the introduction of the Hearty skill looks like it overwhelms the armor increase (though that is far from a sure thing), I think the massive increase in available healing will overwhelm the loss of magic items (especially with the new skills and rituals).

I think the "cost" of healing will go down, but that is simply an opinion.

-MS

 

[Tantarus]

I think you missed the point of the arguments in those threads, It is about the state of earth casters and how they are pigeon holed into a healing roll.

 

[Avaran]

I think you missed the point of the arguments in those threads, It is about the state of earth casters and how they are pigeon holed into a healing roll.

I could be incorrect here, but it seems like he is trying to point out/illustrate that there would be more options for Healers, thus making them less likely to be forced into taking only healing or enhancement/buffing at every level. I think this is best illustrated by his first point, where he noted that there are 2.5x more healing spells available because they are available at every level.

For example, if you wanted to still only memorize Healing at an every-other-level pace (i.e. pick healing at 4 or 5 levels as you do now), you still have 4-5 levels that you can choose to not take healing, but rather take other spells/effects.

And, depending on which levels of healing you take, you could numerically end up with more healing than you would have now.

I think it's hard to tell how much healing will/would be needed at this point, since we don't really have any concrete examples. I can say for me, if I have 90+ body without taking Hearty in the new system, I would certainly PREFER more healing from my healer, but then again, that is going to depend on the sorts of things that Plot puts out for me (and my group) to fight against.

I think where things start to fall apart a little, is when you start looking at what those other options are, and how well they have historically performed.

Binding is generally laughable because when something takes binding, it usually dies very fast.

Command - usually works the same as Binding in terms of effectiveness.

Curses are hit and miss, and with the exception of Paralysis, don't really offer a taken-out effect. This changes in 2.0 when Death becomes a Curse, but as I've stated before, I think that current Death immunity and Death resistances and defenses will remain on NPCs that plot doesn't want to die in the first 2-4 seconds of combat.

Paragon Paths - as noted in this thread and others, there aren't really any "alternative" paths for Earth that aren't related to healing.

Necromancy - well...I think the downsides speak for themselves, particularly since chapters that have an established Kingdom/setting with Knights and The Law, it is almost in all cases never a good idea to throw Chaos, and certainly not in public. While some of its power has gone up, specifically when it comes to PVP, I still don't see it being all that useful for PVE, but again, dependent on what Plot puts out.

Protection\Enchancement - The sibling effect groups to Healing.

I would also like to point out that since the duration of Pre-Casts no longer last indefinitely, the first night of an event is going to be taken up with casters passing around Protective spells. This will work counter to allowing Casters, particularly Earth Scholars, from being able to realistically branch out to other effects on those levels. I feel this is an important point to consider. In some cases, some casters may be pressured to spend that whole part of their tree on the first night. Yeah "potions", but that just feels punitive when most of the time we came into game pre-buffed from Sunday morning of the last event.

I'd also like to point out that anyone able to cast a spell/protective, WOULD REALISTICALLY KEEP THEMSELVES BUFFED given that the world is, in theory at least, persistent.

I mean, why in the blue hells would a 14-column caster come into game unbuffed and unprotected? And they have to use their first-day spells for that? Harsh.

 

[mikestrauss]

First thing, let me ask a question. You gave an example of a 90+ body character without the Hearty skill. Unless I am mistaken, without the Hearty skill, body is only increasing very slightly for PCs. It should be a roughly 2-4 body increase depending on class, since characters now have 10 body at 25 build rather than 6 body at 15 build (and then follow the old pattern for extra body). Am I missing something or are you just giving an example of a current character with 90+ body (which would probably be a lvl 40+ fighter)?

I'm asking because it seems that such a character (rare as 40+ level characters are) is already a pretty big healing soak and I don't think the rules meaningful change that (except maybe by giving the character a little more ablative armor to work with).

Moving past that example, because I'm honestly not sure I'm fully understanding it, I have to disagree with your assessment of cursing and binding (though, since the latter also belongs to celestial, it isn't quite as big a draw for earth casters). I think both are very effective groups and I pretty much never play an earth caster that doesn't memorize as many weakness spells as possible (amazing spell for its level... arguably too good, but don't tell ARC). I acknowledge your concern for artifacts of the current system interfering with the power of paralyze and death in the future, but I also have faith in the good intentions of those making the rules and will accept at face value their intention to make curse spells more universally useful in the updated monster database.

And given the above, I disagree on your point about paths. I think a Curse Specialist is a rather effective paragon path, arguably the best type of Specialist (assuming certain undead in the monster database continue to swing weakness, paralysis, or death carriers in the future database). I also think Binding Specialist is a solid choice. I am admittedly much less enthused about Command Specialist and pretty much think Enhancement Specialist is awful. I'm not really going to try to discuss Ritualist because my knowledge of rituals is flaky and I don't want to wing it.

Finally, I think your last point is really interesting and worthy of a separate thread or maybe even a proposal to your owner. I think there is the seed of an idea there that might really be a good weekend policy.

-MS

 

[ASFDan]

I've got to say, I am absolutely jacked to see where healing is going in the upcoming edition. More options for spell memorization, no pocket scholars making healers redundant, and potentially a paragon path that lets me memorize literally whatever I want and still heal when needed. On top of all that, with monsters likely having lower body and fewer immunities I can drop the boom with curses and anti-fundead when the need for healing is low. It's going to be a blast.

 

[Avaran]

Am I missing something or are you just giving an example of a current character with 90+ body (which would probably be a lvl 40+ fighter)?

I'm asking because it seems that such a character (rare as 40+ level characters are) is already a pretty big healing soak and I don't think the rules meaningful change that (except maybe by giving the character a little more ablative armor to work with).

Yeah, that is basically what I was thinking of.

Part of the reason for that is an issue I've mentioned earlier, and that is the fact that it's easier than ever to gain build/XP. Chapters across the country (I haven't seen any for Canada, but that doesn't mean they don't exist) offer season passes and various deals in order to raise money. This in turn leads to more higher level characters more quickly. In 3-4 years (faster if you spend a lot of money) it's possible to have a 30th+ level character (and with each additional chapter, that only gets easier). It isn't necessarily a problem now, but it will be in the very near future. And with everything else going into these rules, something needs to be said for (or done about) high level characters. And yes, Hearty - if people end up taking it - is also going to accelerate things. Even now, with Earth's Bounty, I know 2 or 3 Scholars pushing 50 body, and several that are over 30 with no buffs.

Who knows, maybe putting healing at every level IS the answer for the longer term issue of healing sponges. But it creates the alternate problem of putting flexibility on a timer for Earth Scholars.

I have to disagree with your assessment of cursing and binding

Specialization, I think, is bad for the game overall. It's okay in small doses, but when the numbers get too high, it starts to become a real problem.

In my experience, the effectiveness of an effect group - any effect group, really - is utterly dependent on what Plot wants. If plot wants PC's to one-shot their NPC's, then that is what will happen. If Plot wants their NPC's to not be taken out within the first 5-10 seconds of combat, there will be steps taken to ensure that. If you have a large enough group of PC's that memorize all Binding or Curse, and they throw it (as they should) and they skew the results plot was hoping for, you can be sure that NPC's are going to end up having defenses against those effects in order to deal with the plethora of PC resources. I mean, I guess they can just run wave battle after wave battle after wave battle until they "feel" that the PC's have had enough, but at some point that starts to get old and they'll need to adapt because you'll eventually end up with two things you don't want: Tired/worn out NPC's (a resource that needs to be managed carefully), and bored/tired/frustrated/disengaged PC's.

Finally, I think your last point is really interesting and worthy of a separate thread or maybe even a proposal to your owner. I think there is the seed of an idea there that might really be a good weekend policy.

When I have brought up that last point I made before, I've always been met with "you just need to play it"; I have to admit I'm tired of hearing that and responses like it, and so I have no energy, time, nor inclination to pursue it. I merely bring it up here because I think there's some merit to it and hope that it'll start a conversation somewhere that I'm not spearheading.

Perhaps I've been overly negative about a lot of the rules, but I like simple (which I feel the old rules are far more simple and easier to understand/follow) and there's a lot that I just don't like; and perhaps the people I've talked to haven't liked my input because I've mostly been negative...and usually about the same things (the melee change/nerf, the new spell incants, and Enhancement/protection duration being set to 5-days, are what draws 99% of my ire). And me being stubborn in my belief that the only real drastic change the game needs is the magic item nerf with a few tweaks here and there and me not being convinced that my view is entirely (or partially) incorrect. But again, that could just me being stubborn and not seeing the whole picture, so I read here and respond here in the hopes of being convinced (still a wash, mostly, but definitely new angles to think about; I think slow and make up my mind slower).