Make Clerical Healing Spells Cost No SP.

[Oran_Lathor]

Can you not understand that scrolls are NOT FREE? I honestly can't understand how you don't see that this would be a game breaker. It would over power the cleric class beyond anything I have ever seen suggested for any class. If any thread ever has justified this comment, this is it: Wow, just wow.

[Tenkari_Rozahas]

by your own logic, yoru saying that casters should carry around as many scrolls as they can cause its "free SP"

the most Plat ANY of my characters had was 30k max. some of us dont play enough to afford 1000's of scrolls on their clerics. Clerics with unlimited SP still wont be better, why? casue a good group doesnt even NEED a cleric.. i'll give you an example.

My level 6 Pally was running with a TR group as the primary healer. he had two LoH, and maybe 160 SP, i bought THREE Cure Mod wands before going in, thats 150 charges..... we went through the whole series.... I came out with 147 charges left on my wands, yes i only used three charges.... and NOT ONE DEATH happened. Clerics need to learn how to use the SP they have if they are running out, not get more.


Edit: Oh yes. i forgot to mention the run was on elite.

[Hendrik]

But the essence is the same.

Regardless of how you GOT the sp... you're walking into that quest with far and away more SP than norm. Clerics have been known to walk into Raids and burn 100 Heal Scrolls.

Could they have done that without those heal scrolls?


I'm telling you the game would change relatively little for the worse and far more for the better.

PLENTY of teams have died while the cleric had full SP, or close to it.

Legions of teams have had dead members that the Cleric simply couldn't keep up with in healing, despite having SP to go around.

However, freeing up that SP so the Cleric could cast more offensively with impudence would increase the Clerics desirability for far more players and increase the liklihood of people playing battle Clerics as well.

You know, PLENTY of teams die all the time without a Cleric in the party.

Ok. Fine. Your opinion. However, has it not sunk in yet? The Clerics your so determined to 'help' do not want your 'help' and furthermore the Clerics are vehemently OPPOSED to this idea. Thats some big brass yarbals to TELL a class that you dont even play what is the best for them. Yea, the game would be better for those less then talented players that zerg and rely on the Cleric as crutch for bad gameplay. Yea, great for them, hell for the Cleric - thats why everyone here is TELLING YOU that this is in the top three bad ideas, ever.

Again, you have no idea how to play a Cleric, what they can or cannot do because you DON'T PLAY ONE! Why not go play one and actually learn what it is to be a Cleric and have some FACT to back up your 'suggestions'. Until you can do that and have some experience playing a Cleric, please, be quiet.

Freeing up SP? I see, you want Clerics to cast Heals with out a cost and be able to spam everything else they have memorized. Umm, have you REALLY put any thought into how unbalancing that would be for the game as a whole and not just Clerics?

Whats your next post going to be? You heard from a friend that CC is a pain you want CC based casters to be able to cast CC spells with no cost?

Please, stick to your right-click fest and leave the casters alone, Clerics included - we know what we are doing and we certainly do not need help from anyone that is not a Cleric themselves.

[Arlith]

That's EXACTLY what I want.

If Clerics were allowed to chuck around some more of those interesting spells a bit more freely they wouldn't HAVE to be healbots. The cleric class would imrpove as a whole and more poeople would want to play them.

Why stop there?? Lets give Sorcs, Wizzies, and Bards spontaneous heal spells and we can reduce the wait for a Cleric even more. Even better lets give EVERYONE spontaneous heal spells and we will never have to wait for a Cleric again!

Better yet, let's do away with that pesky HP bar altogether and no one will need healing ever. Yeah, that's the ticket!

[Nott]

If having sp enough for spells were enough to keep people alive why do people still die rather frequently no less, even when the Cleric has SP?

SP, in and of itself, is not enough to keep a player alive.

If I gave someone a hundred thousand heal scrolls, people on his team would still die now and again.

If heals were truly free, the healbot would simply be spam healing. Be the cost SP, platinum, or a pile of healing items, there is a resource that must be managed, and this prevents spam healing. Under your proposal, there is no resource to manage, leading to spam healing and removing most of the challenge the game currently offers.

You're clearly not going to sway even a single opinion as noone sees this your way. This isn't a debate, its you trying to convince anyone that will listen but noone who will listen agrees with you. If you believe you're right, you should stop looking for validation as its clear noone is going to offer it to you.

[cridus]

I don't run with a "LEET" guild, just a bunch of people who like to have fun like myself. When I'm running with guildies I don't care about how much my inventory is deflating. Now I also PuG a tremendous amount, I like getting different flavors. So yes I do go through more wands then some of the posters have mentioned. Use 1 CSW wand every 4-5 quests???? lol I burn at least 1 wand every quest, sometimes more. Why cause I like tossing out a few of those "uber" clerical spells, but I need my SP for combat healing so I wand whip, probably more than I should. And I have a bad habit of Topping people off, but that is what I do, so I go through more wands then usual, But to suggest giving my cleric free healing spells. well why not break the game. Unlimited healing for one defeats the purpose of buying healing pots and wands, as I can just stand there and spam CMW mass for free. Managing my SP so I can use a few nice spells, keep people alive and still have sp left over for the "final" room. Is like a mini game in itself.

Currently lvl 12, starting a quest I have 1017 sp thanks to TWF a magi and a wizardy item. I use the extra sp for the few buffs I use, (buffs are for the other classes to do, I only have mass SoF and Mass Aid, with a nightshield and Owl's Wisdom for myself) so with my buffing and maybe 2 resists on my self I have my bonus sp used and switch to a shield and weapon of choice (carrying seven cause I like to fight too). I toss out a Greater Command, Command, Soundburst, Cometfall a few times, and I use a wand to heal as everyone currently is nicely buffed and not taking much damage usually. When I hit half mana I stop using my offensive spells and conserve my sp for combat healing, also equip my potency scepter at this point, I wand whip to keep people moving (I know people should have pots, guess I'm a sucker) and save my sp.

Don't give clerics unlimited healing it would totally break the game, unsigned.

my 2cp

[Vox]

Not a single person mentioned how terribly unsatisfying it is to succeed at anything with a cleric standing there spamming heal scrolls. Seriously... I feel about as accomplished as if I stole candy from the quadriplegic ****** having an epileptic fit. Not at all.

This suggestion is not dumb because it's game breaking. It's not dumb because it's unbalanced... it's dumb because it's unfun. I didn't have fun spending 3-5 CSW wands in wizzy king, and I didn't have fun the first time I went into GH Tor and got told I needed a stack of 100 Heal scrolls to succeed. I learned from Wizzy king, and I didn't need 1 Heal scroll for the dragons. Even on elite I only use about 25 heal scrolls for all 3 dragons (more on White than Blue, more on Blue than Black and I think that's acceptable for content that most people won't even try, let alone be capable (calm down forum elitists... we are a small percentage, seriously tell me how many GH Tor Elite Scale runs you see in LFM

On top of that, there is one essential difference between an SP free Heal and a scroll. I have to swap equipment to use the scroll. Do you really want to see a server full of battle cleric dwarves who never have to stop swinging their axe? Seriously, everyone would build an 11 CLR/9 Barb dwarf and spec for axes. They'd go in and mow things down periodically casting Heal on themselves. I bet a talented guy like that could solo the DQ without ever moving.

*sigh* I can't believe I got suckered in and responded to this thread... ahhh well, boredom does terrible things to the soul.

Vox

[Dingo123]

If heals were truly free, the healbot would simply be spam healing. Be the cost SP, platinum, or a pile of healing items, there is a resource that must be managed, and this prevents spam healing. Under your proposal, there is no resource to manage, leading to spam healing and removing most of the challenge the game currently offers.

You're clearly not going to sway even a single opinion as noone sees this your way. This isn't a debate, its you trying to convince anyone that will listen but noone who will listen agrees with you. If you believe you're right, you should stop looking for validation as its clear noone is going to offer it to you.

Actually, people would be LESS LIKLELY to spam heals.. because they would be able to use that SP for more proactive things.

[PaintHorseCowboy]

People say infinite free SP is broken, people would leave in disgust, it's terribly unbalanced, etc etc etc.

Let's say I have a few million gold pieces. I buy a few thousand heal scrolls. I now have a vast supply of free SP. Even if it costs me Plat... I still have nearly endless amounts of free healing power.

So on one hand, you're in favor of a player having vast quantities of free spell points... but on the other hand, you're against a player having vast quantities of free spell points.

Does the scroll SP cost plat? Certainly. So who does that favor? The Cleric with money. The Cleric with money has endless amounts of free SP... the broke Cleric is feverishly using his last wand.

We already have a system of sp free healing spells. You just have to be wealthy to take advantage of it.

You're not getting the concept.

I fear it will take a wrecking ball/pile driver to make this sink into your skull.

This game has a history, probably longer than you've been around, certainly longer than you've been playing it. I cannot remember who it was that said it, but many of us were drawn to it because of the name and the fact that it does have a history which all of us are familiar with.

The Dev's realized that limiting the number of casts to the number of spell slots per day would be an unworkable solution for such a fast-paced game. They implemented the SP system in it's place. This was not a made-up-from-thin-air solution. I forget which manual, but one of them actually presented the premise of spell points in lieu of spells-per-day which was usable if the DM approved.

Pick up a player's handbook. At level 14, a cleric gets 3 level six spells, PER DAY (which equates to per rest shrine in this game). It has been that way for 20+ years.

The change you are suggesting is not only so radical it will unbalance the game, but departs from traditional PnP rule in such an extreme manner that it very likely WILL cause the crowd drawn to the game because of it's background to depart in disgust.

You can say whatever you wish about this being an elitist attitude. I will say it is NOT an elitist attitude. Those of us "geeks" who have spent hours hunched over a table working our way through some module understand the way of this game and know and expect that you will need scrolls or wands at some point during many adventures. If you manage to get through them without using up all your spells per day, you were incredibly lucky, or the DM had used up his allotment of 20's in any given die (those of us who were geeks will also understand and appreciate the humor of this statement.).

I do not know your background, but it sounds as if you never played PnP. You are simply a product of the computer game genre, do not know the history, do not care to know the history, and do not care to have the online version resemble the PnP game on which it is based in any manner what-so-ever.

The arguements you have presented here are circuitous. You continue to equate scrolls and wands to "FREE" spell points. They are certainly not free. You have even noted this yourself by saying many clerics are poor. Well, in PnP, many clerics ARE poor. You should be grateful the Dev's have a brain that works (*grin* on occasion). Try reading about tithing to your diety sometime when you have a minute. Be grateful they didn't implement that. How about we take all plat away from our clerics and send it to the church? Then the party will be required to purchase the items needed to heal itself. Perhaps then it will limit the amount of mana sponging. Yes, wands and scrolls extend the ability of the cleric to continue to heal after their SP are depleted. I say, that is exactly as they were intended to do. If they were not intended to do this, they wouldn't exist in the game.

The point of the matter is, you are allowed to cast so many spells for "free" with your spell points. After that, you have to manage your resources. It provides some challenge to the game. The change you suggest, no, verily demand, would literally break this game.

[Dingo123]

The change you are suggesting is not only so radical it will unbalance the game, but departs from traditional PnP rule in such an extreme manner that it very likely WILL cause the crowd drawn to the game because of it's background to depart in disgust.

You mean... like Enhancements? I see absolutely no where in the PHB anything about Dwaves getting bonuses to Axe damage, much less warforged getting benefits to power attack, nor Barbarians for that matter.

Those of us "geeks" who have spent hours hunched over a table working our way through some module understand the way of this game and know and expect that you will need scrolls or wands at some point during many adventures.

A few hundred?

I do not know your background, but it sounds as if you never played PnP.

I have the better part of a grand and a half worth of 3.5 Books not six feet from me.

You are simply a product of the computer game genre, do not know the history, do not care to know the history, and do not care to have the online version resemble the PnP game on which it is based in any manner what-so-ever.

Thanks for your masterful, yet wrong, analysis.

The arguements you have presented here are circuitous. You continue to equate scrolls and wands to "FREE" spell points. They are certainly not free. You have even noted this yourself by saying many clerics are poor. Well, in PnP, many clerics ARE poor. You should be grateful the Dev's have a brain that works (*grin* on occasion). Try reading about tithing to your diety sometime when you have a minute.

There are no Tithing mechanics in 3.5, shall we make saves for breathe weapons next?

Yes, wands and scrolls extend the ability of the cleric to continue to heal after their SP are depleted. I say, that is exactly as they were intended to do. If they were not intended to do this, they wouldn't exist in the game.

Glad to see you agree with me.

The point of the matter is, you are allowed to cast so many spells for "free" with your spell points. After that, you have to manage your resources. It provides some challenge to the game. The change you suggest, no, verily demand, would literally break this game.

People carry on and on about DDO would just implode if Clerics could endlessly heal... which, truth be told, they can. So long as they have a scroll in their hand, and cash in their pocket they can chuck out heals.


Someone should try explaining why the game would "esplode" if Clerics were not charged for healing spells.

[Tenkari_Rozahas]

as a player of a cleric, i say no. If I suck at managing my SP, i shouldnt beable to heal for free. in ALL the mmo's i've ever played, no ones ever gotten unlimited abilities as a Play character, this would go completely against everything and quite possibly ruin the game. If this change were to happen I for one would just toss my cleric out the window. if you manage your SP right, you should beable to toss out CC spells and such while still healing and not run out of SP. they have those SP restoring post around for a reason, same with the spell storing rings THOSE are free SP, not wands and scrolls.

[smodge13]

*heals Dingo*, there feeblemind is gone.

^_^

seriously, i dont see how you can possibly consider it a good idea that healing could EVER be free, if you've played 3.5 please try to justify in any way how that is within the ruleset?
unless of course your treating it like baldurs gate game (step into room, do battle, rest 8 hours, rinse, repeat)
Action pts are in ebberron, they allow you to make reroll and alter dice rolls per session, this is a simpler way to fix things.
if you do play pnp, please tell me how you handle healing do your players heal for free?.
Healing should never be free, otherwise everyone will just take 1 level of clr in their builds and there we go they can all heal themselves to full whenever they want.

I myself am a games student, hence i study games and analyze them, risk vs reward is one of the most important things in a game (fun and challenge are most important and risk vs reward is part of challenge) and in no way, should a character be able to use its strongest abilities whenever it wants, while we're at it with your idea, paladins can LoH/smite whenever they want, bard/sorc/wizards spells are unlimited, barbarians rage can be used at any time.

Sure great idea, to be serious, in my opinion (safety so i dont get in trouble) this is the most stupid idea ever suggested on the forums and i've seen alot of stupid idea's.

should healing ever be completely free it will completely break the game, currently it is limited by the sp/shines/plat the character has access to, which as it currently is plenty.

[GeneralDiomedes]

People carry on and on about DDO would just implode if Clerics could endlessly heal... which, truth be told, they can. So long as they have a scroll in their hand, and cash in their pocket they can chuck out heals.

Someone should try explaining why the game would "esplode" if Clerics were not charged for healing spells.

Gameplay would become as stupid as this thread. Tactics would go out the window. People would run with 4 Barbarians and 2 clerics exclusively. What is your point again?

Actually you have a point around the unlimited availability of scrolls .. but you came up with the wrong answer.

Surprising for someone who supposedly plays PnP.

[Dingo123]

Gameplay would become as stupid as this thread. Tactics would go out the window. People would run with 4 Barbarians and 2 clerics exclusively. What is your point again?

Actually you have a point around the unlimited availability of scrolls .. but you came up with the wrong answer.

Surprising for someone who supposedly plays PnP.

People would still die endlessly with four barbarians and 2 Clerics.

The unlimited availability of scrolls means what I'm proposing is already in the gane, if you have the cash.

[smodge13]

People would still die endlessly with four barbarians and 2 Clerics.

The unlimited availability of scrolls means what I'm proposing is already in the gane, if you have the cash.

Scrolls are limited by a cooldown timer and how many you can carry, cash may be all the limit there is, but it IS a limit, and a limit of how many heals per quest is required, even if that limit is nigh infinite, just because we have 200 scrolls doesnt mean we want to use them, and even with tonne's of plat, doesnt mean your willing to blow it all in 1 quest, y is this, because there IS a cost associated with the scrolls, thereby limiting a quest to what resources your willing to put in it.

[wundernewb]

Someone should try explaining why the game would "esplode" if Clerics were not charged for healing spells.

D&D (or any other adventure game, be it on a table, or on a computer) is about resource management.

The amount of spells usable in a given time, be it limited by spells per day, or a pool of "mana", is a staple of such games.

You can argue that healing is effectively free now, only limited by how much plat one has. Plat is a resource, and as such, must be managed. IMO, something is wrong with how plat gain is handled, if scrolls, potions, wands, etc. can be purchased in such quantities as to make healing seem "free", but that's another kettle of fish entirely.

Making healing completely free would have an adverse effect on the game, because it would be removing a manageable resource that is key to gameplay.

[teddok]

Actually, people would be LESS LIKLELY to spam heals.. because they would be able to use that SP for more proactive things.

Please stop. We have told you repeateatly over and over that this will not work nor is it a good idea. All you are doing is proving that you are ignorant. Every single post says that you are wrong. EVERY SINGLE ONE
What will it take to get you to stop. Please can we get this thread ended.

[teddok]

You mean... like Enhancements? I see absolutely no where in the PHB anything about Dwaves getting bonuses to Axe damage, much less warforged getting benefits to power attack, nor Barbarians for that matter.

If you ever bothered to read the Ebborron book you would see that Action points are part of the game setting. Secondly this is a video game based off of D&D. Please stop this stupid thread. It serves no point what so ever.

[blakbyrd]

But the essence is the same.

Regardless of how you GOT the sp... you're walking into that quest with far and away more SP than norm. Clerics have been known to walk into Raids and burn 100 Heal Scrolls.

Could they have done that without those heal scrolls?


I'm telling you the game would change relatively little for the worse and far more for the better.

PLENTY of teams have died while the cleric had full SP, or close to it.

Legions of teams have had dead members that the Cleric simply couldn't keep up with in healing, despite having SP to go around.

However, freeing up that SP so the Cleric could cast more offensively with impudence would increase the CLerics desirability for far more players and increase the liklihood of people playing battle Clerics as well.

To me this is a valid point, however it is also in the wrong discussion entirely. The situations you mention certainly can and do happen, but in many of such situations it wouldnt even matter if the cleric had unlimited mana. As you state they can't put out enough heals or morelikely unable to put out heal fast enough. To me this has nothing to do with the mechanics of the game o the manner in which mana works. It has entirely to do with the ability of the group compared to the difficulty of what they are attempting. Many groups just cant seem to work together or dont care, and many also try things way to hard for their group as well. This is not a problem with the cleric or mana/unlimted mana. No cleric can compensate for a completely bad group.

The point of wands and scroll are not really a means of unlimited sp, as to view them that way is outrageously expensive. Rather they are a means of compensation on several levels.
1. non-clerics can use them (if people even bother, but they are there and somone else using a wond charge on occasion saves time and mana on the cleric...1 wand on such a character can last a long time)
2. in a cleric's hands, they can give them access to more spells than they can memorize to use.
3. In a cleric's hands a wand or scroll can help bypass spell timers to cast spells more quickly than they could strickly from mana (allowing over time more spells to be cast, yet the same amount of mana used).
4. clerics and non-clerics can use the scrolls or wands to cast spells a level higher than they can currently cast from the memorized list.

Regardless, whether people want to see wands and scrolls as unlimted mana or not, the point remains that they save mana. In a way they are free mana, but like everything else there is a trade off. Free mana costs money, just as a mana costing spell costs no money...they balance out. The trick comes when the cleric can efficiently balance out the use of the two to a minimal or non-financial cost to the most efficient means for them and the group.

There are costs involved to running any quest, whether it is in wands/scrolls, cure potions, repairs, etc. The cohesiveness of the group to act as a group is a direct reflection of whether or not those costs (mana included) will be high or low. A bad group is going to be more costly than a good group, etc.

However, no group should enter a quest with the assumption that the cleric is supposed to be the only reason they survive (a few quests require a cleric when certain tactics are used but those are special circumstances).

If we decide to just give clerics unlimited mana, what is that going to produce? It doesn't allow them to cast things any faster, which means as stated above, even with unlimited mana they wont be able to put out enough heals in bad situations anyways, so it gains no benefit there. What it produces is an effect that bad for the game though. It produces the ability for people to start walking into quests that they have no business being in yet (ie: more constant forms of powerleveling). It will allow lower level players to skip more content and just jump to higher level stuff, since the group can expend alot of effort and resources per small battle (that they otherwise would have for the whole quest) and then just let the cleric put them all back to full status and move to the next battle. It produces the effect of negating a large part of the gameplay and tactics that D&D is, making it closer to another shake'n'bake MMO. Not to mention the enormous arguements, fights and debates that will immediately follow regarding why all other mana classes cant have unlimited mana as well.

Going for unlimited mana seems to incur that the intention is to make things easier, not better. Cater to those who can't play well or can't work well with a group, which is entirely bad for the game and could kill it all together. A sense of wanting to know that you can enter almost any quest with a near 0% failure rate, since people can play about as badly as they want, knowing that an unlimited source of healing, debuffing and bad player correction is following you around. For that matter, shouldnt clerics also be given unlimted DVs? why wouldnt that be fair to all other mana casting classes?

The idea that it would make more people want to play clerics is not the problem. The problem is that many who shouldnt be playing them are playing them. Being the healing cleric is a skill that not everyone has (not if you want to be a good an efficient one). The game certainly doesn't need more bad clerics, what it needs is more good healing clerics, and throwing out unlimited mana is just going to flood the world with clerics who tend to take unlimited mana as meaning anyone can effectively play one, when it's experience and efficiency that is needed, not just free reign to go casting with no cost.

[Cowdenicus]

let this die.