An Idea: Improveing Clerical Spells

[dougnoel]

Wasn't there also some discussion about removing the "x per level" power caps for spells?

That's an epic feat that bumps them by 5 or 10.

[Baron]

...though it would be nice if we could at least add the AoO.

I dont want to see kits nerfed to the point of uselessness (i.e. only use 1 every 4 minutes and never in combat) I do think an attack of opportunity is reasonable...but more than willing to live without it.

That's a much more labor-intensive solution, if it is indeed possible. We could fake one by scripting it, or we might be able to make a 2da change, but someone would have to look into that...

Then dont bother

[Malathyre]

Just as a point, there isn't much reason to discuss empowering healing spells when Heal is available at level 6. Since Cure Critical wounds is level 4...empowering it would just take a slot away from Heal, which is always going to be better. In terms of whether or not this issue is changed at all, no, I don't really have a strong preference one way or the other.

[Khaelindra]

I did not mean to say that only cleric spells should be upgraded. Why not? Because in 3E, spells are the same for anyone who can cast them. Yes, druids are not focused on healing, but that's why they don't have heal. If you want to nerf a druid's healing ability, the right way to do it is to change their spell list. So, when thinking about these changes, don't think in terms of only clerics - think in terms of spells.

Two misconceptions to clear up here (yes, the healer-druid is back in town):

* Druids -DO- have the HEAL and MASS HEAL spells in their list.

* Druids -DO- have a slightly nerfed healing spelllist: every healing spell except CLW is one spellevel higher.

We return you now to more productive topics.

*grumbbles about first cutting the bandage and then starting on druids not being or should being healers...*

[dougnoel]

I did not mean to say that only cleric spells should be upgraded. Why not? Because in 3E, spells are the same for anyone who can cast them. Yes, druids are not focused on healing, but that's why they don't have heal. If you want to nerf a druid's healing ability, the right way to do it is to change their spell list. So, when thinking about these changes, don't think in terms of only clerics - think in terms of spells.

Two misconceptions to clear up here (yes, the healer-druid is back in town):

* Druids -DO- have the HEAL and MASS HEAL spells in their list.

* Druids -DO- have a slightly nerfed healing spelllist: every healing spell except CLW is one spellevel higher.

We return you now to more productive topics.

*grumbbles about first cutting the bandage and then starting on druids not being or should being healers...*

Good to know. I guess I should have use bards as my example.

[Orleron]

I'd really rather see enchanting get finished. That issue has higher implications for economy and magic.

[slave.of.emotions]

How rather about changing clerics with domain healing to auto mass spells for party members, but not when it comes to hurting undead. It owuld not make them anybetter when soloing and improve clerics that are actualy healers.

[Wyrmwing]

Clerics with the Healing domain get a lot of bang for their buck already. Having standard empowered spells is a huge help, especially at the higher end levels. Getting cure serious at level 2 means you can basically ignore cure moderate and use cure serious on two different levels (and also as spontaneous casting), and having heal available standard at two levels is nothing to sneeze at either.

And I do like giving undead some mass heal loving.. please don't take that away

In any way, the above make the domain already a top choice in sheer party utility.. no need to make it even better.

[WrathoG777]

Actually, I was trying to derail the healing kit nerfing thread - which I did.

My point in that thread was the kits aren't broken, the spells are just weak. We don't have to change them, it was just my suggestion for how I think the "unbalance" of the healing kits should be handled to keep the game fun.

This is the basic part I disagree with. The clerics and druids are what are working right. The kits and heal potions are overpowered to the point of broken.

I disagree with your premise because I play a cleric every day that does heal my groups and can keep them alive without the need for kits.

Haveing kits is almost the same as giveing all melees unlimited resting at a minor gold cost. Heal potions make epic melees nigh-invinceable.



On the other hand, I do think the cure line should be percentage based. Because as you go up in lvl they become completely useless. 1d4+1 str is always useful. 2d8+10 hp healed is a sad joke after lvl 10 or so. Being % based also helps CON based melees who are currently shafted by the straight hp cureing system. A STR melee goes farther on the same number of HP.



Heal domain clerics do function very well.



As Doug mentioned... Changeing the cure spells is quick. It is the decideing what to do that takes time.

[dougnoel]

This is the basic part I disagree with. The clerics and druids are what are working right. The kits and heal potions are overpowered to the point of broken.

On the other hand, I do think the cure line should be percentage based. Because as you go up in lvl they become completely useless.

These two statements don't seem to agree. We agree on one thing: healing kits are more powerful than most spells.

My premise is the spells need to be improved.

It sounds to me that you agree Wrath, you just want the kits cranked down at the same time. I think they are two separate issues.

[WrathoG777]

Clerics and druids do ok because they get heal about the same time cures become useless. Cures, after that point are still useless.

Kits are overpowered because they are better, at low lvls, then a healer can do, and at later lvls because they are unlimited.
- At lvl 1 a kit, with no skill heals 21. A cleric/druid/bard cannot cure anyone 21 hp.
- At lvl 20, a cleric can cast heal/GR/mass 4-8 times a day, the only spells that matters at that point. But why? They could full heal with three kits anyway and cost under a thousand gold a stack.

[kokobil]

I would suggest the following

Cure minor wounds [ caster's level] , max 40.

Cure light wounds: [2d8 + caster's level] x 2 , max 112.

Cure Moderate wounds: [ 3d8 + caster's level] x3 , max 192.

Cure Serious Wounds: [4d8 + caster's level ] x 4, max 288 .

Cure Critical Wounds: [5d8 + caster's level ] x 5 , max 400.

Same for druids

For all the other classes it would not taking into consideration the level of the caster . Example :

For a paladin the cure light wounds would be just 2d8 x 2

[Khaelindra]

One issue i have with the current %-suggestions: they are caster-based instead of target-based. I see little reason why a CLW should be better when cast by a lvl 20 caster instead of a lvl 1...the higher level caster is already granted more healing capacity in his spells by being grant both more spells and higher spells, why also make the lowlevel spells better?


Make it dependent on the receiver.

If you say a Cure Light wounds should heal a light wound, say 5% of total hp, you shouldn't build in a casterlevel-effect, as (taking the example of Kokobil above) a cure minor wounds cast by an epic cleric isn't a cure minor wounds at all on a lvl 2 character...it's a HEAL. Instead you should go about it like Doug implemented the Heavenly Healing elixers: max of x hp -OR- y % of target max hp, with the set hp actually just being optional.

CMinW: 1% (min 1 hp )
CLigW: 5% (min 5 hp)
CModW: 10% (min 10 hp)
CSerW: 25% (min 25 hp)
CCriW: 50% (min 50 hp)
Heal: 100%

In this way the wound healed is proportionate to total health, according to the strength of the spell, while still giving a slight advantage to using stronger spells on lowlevel characters.

An additional advantage is that lowlevel caster can actually contriibute a bit more to highlevel partymembers.


For that case, i also wouldn't mind giving healing kits a cap on their healing capacity equal to the Heal-skill as percentage of total hp of the target. At this moment Divinia heals any lowlevel character completely with a single bandage, and i agree that's quite much.

Come to think of it, the Heal-skill as %-cap on healed hp would remove 90% of the objections of the strength of those kits hp-wise.

Thoughts?

EDIT: adjusted fixed hp minima per spell to match percentage.

[Guest]

My thoughts are that like this it benefits the powerbuilds that will take some clerical levels to have access to the healing spells since they will be target depended but for the rest seems fine. Still the funny thing will be that a for a cleric of high level will need 2 cure critical wounds to fully heal a fighter of 100hp that has droped to 50 . So the fighter of 100 hp will still prefer his healing kit . In my mind it makes no sence. Amonien should be able to heal this fighter moving her little finger using a lesser healing spell instead of needing 2 criticals

[kokobil]

*coughs*
The above is by me, i forgot to login

[Starslayer_D]

Amonien has learned 4 greater restorations and five masssheals. Anything lesser is simply inefficient in combat.
Either foes she faces with her group are so minor one can bandage up after the fight, or people are in need of instant and quick replacement of 400+ HP's, as they are loosing 300+ a round.

It has been ages since I used the spontaneous casting feature of a cure spell.
I actually espect people to cure lesser wounds by using potions or bandages. I am there for the dire emergency healings in tough combat. Not for the replacement of a missing 30 HP's after a fight. Use a kit for that.

[Khaelindra]

Still the funny thing will be that a for a cleric of high level will need 2 cure critical wounds to fully heal a fighter of 100hp that has droped to 50 . So the fighter of 100 hp will still prefer his healing kit . In my mind it makes no sence. Amonien should be able to heal this fighter moving her little finger using a lesser healing spell instead of needing 2 criticals

This is not correct for two reasons:

* you'd only need one CCW to get a 100 hp fighter from 50 to 100

* you shouldn't be able to fully heal a badly wounded lvl 5 fighter using a cantrip.

Kokobil, i would agree with you if at lvl 40 a divine caster still had only the same healing spells as they had on lvl 1...of course then they'd need a rise in power per spell to make the progression.

However, the increase in healing power is only marginally reflected by spells getting better. Primarily it is reflected by
A ) being able to cast more powerful spells and
B ) the ability to cast MORE spells, which in itself is already exponentially as you get more spells of the same level -AND- additional spells of higher levels.

I see why Amonien/Divinia should have more healing capacity than a lvl 3 cleric. However, i don't see why even a single 1st CLW of them should have more healing capacity than the complete repertoire of said lvl 3 cleric, while they ALSO have access to literally dozens of spells like CMW, CSW, CCW, HEAL and Mass Heal. There is a cap on level-effect on Cure-spells for a reason.

For Divinia or Amonien, healing someone with a CCW -IS- waggling their finger a little, as it represents maybe 2% of their healing capacity! If it could be done with a cure light, it would be more like 0,03% of their healing capacity...way out there.

[Khaelindra]

My thoughts are that like this it benefits the powerbuilds that will take some clerical levels to have access to the healing spells since they will be target depended

Taking my numbers as example:

someone taking 3 cleric levels (and WIS 14 to get the bonus spells) would have: 4 + 4*7.5 + 3*12 = 70 hit points flat under the current system, no matter if it's a lvl 3 or lvl 25 character/party.


Under my system this would be (respectively for a lowlevel cleric, a highlevel with a few cleric levels, and a dedicated cleric at highlevel):



lvl 3 cleric:

[4* lvl 0 = 4%, min. 4] + [4* lvl 1 = 20%, min. 20] + [3* lvl 2 = 30%, min.30] is a maximum healing capacity of 54% of target (minimum 54 hit points) when using total spell capacity for healing.

lvl 3 cleric, lvl 22 fighter:

[4* lvl 0 = 4%, min. 4] + [4* lvl 1 = 20%, min. 20] + [3* lvl 2 = 30%, min.30] is a maximum healing capacity of 54% of target (minimum 54 hit points) when using total spell capacity for healing.

lvl 21 cleric, lvl 4 fighter:

[6* lvl 0 = 6%, min. 6] + [8* lvl 1 = 40%, min. 40] + [8* lvl 2 = 80%, min. 80] + [8* lvl 3 = 200%, min. 200] + [8* lvl 4 = 400%, min. 400] + [6* lvl 6 = 600%, min. plenty] + [6* lvl 8 = "1200"%, min. plenty] is a healing capacity of 2526%, when leaving all level 5, 7 and 9 spellslots free to 'play' with.

Two conclusions:
1) A pure lvl 3 cleric could heal someone of equal level twice over, a 'pure' cleric of lvl 25 can heal at their own level 25 times over, while an epic character with three clericlevels to get access to some healing could heal half a character (54%) of his own level. A nicety, but not as good as a dedicated lowlevel cleric and not even comparable to a dedicated cleric of his own level.

2) A dedicated cleric at high level is more than heal-capable enough without adding a level-dependant factor to the healing.


I think the above is not a bad set-up.

[WrathoG777]

I would suggest makeing the % of each cure equal to the current hp roll. This would leave in the intended random component.

HP, minimal% (% at later levels)
Cure minor heals 1 hp, or 1%.
Cure light heals 1d8+1, or 2-9% (6-13%)
Cure moderate heals 2d8+3, or 5-19% (12-26%)
Cure serious heals 3d8+5, or 8-29% (18-39%)
Cure critical heals 4d8+7, or 11-39% (24-52%)

[kokobil]

The randomity factor between min-max Wrath is too large. In effect the spells will be about as useless as they are now. The whole point of the topic was to increase their power not convert them slightly.
I prefer Khaelindra's pattern compaired to yours....
If you study my pattern too you ll see it provides more randomity than Khaelindra's . Another problem with your pattern Wrath is that it will contain "OR" commands which is better to be avoided since they slow processor down.

[teleri]

This seems to be a very spirited discussion who is planning to do all of this coding or is this just a rant?

I do not feel that kits or spells are out of balance for the type of game NWN is. No they are not 100% PnP nor are they perfect, but based on the engine they work. I see no reason to tinker with them.

[Guest]

Well, Avlis made one change over a year ago, and all the "cure" potions became astronomically expensive from NPC merchants. Heals became completely unavailable.

Regular players switched to using cheap kits real fast, and there's really not much disadvantage. They're still stupidly useful even without a few skill points.

Conclusion? I don't have one, draw something.

[Khaelindra]

I see no reason to tinker with them.

Doug did, and we agree, hence the brainstorming.

[Khaelindra]

The randomity factor between min-max Wrath is too large. In effect the spells will be about as useless as they are now. The whole point of the topic was to increase their power not convert them slightly.

As far as i can deduct, Wrath's effectiveness level is close to my pattern for both low and highlevel characters (on average about 10-20% lower yield), so he does increase the usefulness of spells, only in his version a higher casterlevel is needed to actually make the higher curespells have a big effect. It's a variant, but not quite useless.

Some variance would probably be nice,,,i could see the endproduct end up somewhere inbetween the two principles.

[emprod]

eek, anon post above.

People will do whatever the economy dictates. That isn't working on CoPAP at the moment, because some worlds have unlimited heals (and deathwards) for sale cheap, and others have them as only high end craftables. I actually feel bad for the avlis alchemist who's high end product is being laughed at.

As for how that relates to clerical spells, well, it devalues their role in a party. Level 4 and 6 spells aren't really supposed to be in a bottle, and if they are they should be insanely expensive, not something to carry around a sack of 100+ of.