The Witch-King
2009-09-26, 10:52 PM
Okay--to make a long story as short as possible...
I don't like healing. Never did. I hate playing the healbot. I'd play Clerics all the time if they couldn't heal. The very first character I played was a cleric and I was a warpriest and that's what I'd want to be doing out there--taking names and kicking butt.
A couple of tangential asides...
When I started playing City of Heroes, there were certain power sets that appealed to me--the Dark powers and the Radiation powers. These powers could only be used by Defenders, so I made Defenders with these powers. But Defenders could heal--so they were EXPECTED to heal. I would just skip the healing powers since I didn't want to heal and more than once, I'd be added to a party, the party leader would scan my powers list, see I couldn't heal and then kick me from the party without a word.
In World of Warcraft, I wanted to play a Blood Elf Warrior but they didn't have them at the time, so I played a Blood Elf Paladin instead. Everything was fine while I soloed but when I joined a party, even if there was a main healer, at some point if the feces hit the fan, the party would expect me to stop everything else I was doing and spam heals. And I don't find that fun. For my money, at the point the party leader tells you to stop fighting the enemy and "stand in back and just cast heals," you stop being a Paladin.
So--just one more tangential aside--since you've read this far anyway.
I like that Pathfinder added those positive energy bursts--giving a Cleric a separate healing function away from his or her spells is a good thing. But they kept the whole "abort your chosen spells for healing spells" and I utterly hate that. It keeps the Cleric forever in the role of healers are needed but it would be nice to use the versatility of the Cleric to kick butt in the name of Thor or Odin. (And before you say, play a Paladin, I want the variety that clerical spells provide in addition to the ability to wear armor and kick butt.)
I guess what I'm laboring to say is that I lament the situation that if my class is CAPABLE of healing--people want me to do NOTHING BUT HEAL.
These days, I play a sorcerer or wizard so I can cast spells and blow things up and not have to work about healing. And I thought that role was safe.
But then there's Warforged. You can see the full argument here:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/63822
The skinny is that clerics don't want to heal Warforged because it eats up twice their healing spells and sorcerers and wizards don't want to blow spells on healing the Warforged. And believe me, I get that. I don't play a sorcerer or a wizard because I want to stand around healing anybody.
So I thought of this:
Give Warforged twice as many hit points and they can't be healed by magic at all. That way they can survive most initial encounters and be repaired by mundane repairs afterwards and if they have any sense, when they get too low in hit points they'll hit the road because they'll know it'll take days to fix them back up to maximum and if something happens between then and now, they're toast.
What do you think, sirs?
EDIT: I just had another thought. Give them twice the hit points and change the Repair spells from the Eberron Campaign Setting to non-combat Incantations. Artificers could automatically start with all of them as Incantations. What do you think of that?
I don't like healing. Never did. I hate playing the healbot. I'd play Clerics all the time if they couldn't heal. The very first character I played was a cleric and I was a warpriest and that's what I'd want to be doing out there--taking names and kicking butt.
A couple of tangential asides...
When I started playing City of Heroes, there were certain power sets that appealed to me--the Dark powers and the Radiation powers. These powers could only be used by Defenders, so I made Defenders with these powers. But Defenders could heal--so they were EXPECTED to heal. I would just skip the healing powers since I didn't want to heal and more than once, I'd be added to a party, the party leader would scan my powers list, see I couldn't heal and then kick me from the party without a word.
In World of Warcraft, I wanted to play a Blood Elf Warrior but they didn't have them at the time, so I played a Blood Elf Paladin instead. Everything was fine while I soloed but when I joined a party, even if there was a main healer, at some point if the feces hit the fan, the party would expect me to stop everything else I was doing and spam heals. And I don't find that fun. For my money, at the point the party leader tells you to stop fighting the enemy and "stand in back and just cast heals," you stop being a Paladin.
So--just one more tangential aside--since you've read this far anyway.
I like that Pathfinder added those positive energy bursts--giving a Cleric a separate healing function away from his or her spells is a good thing. But they kept the whole "abort your chosen spells for healing spells" and I utterly hate that. It keeps the Cleric forever in the role of healers are needed but it would be nice to use the versatility of the Cleric to kick butt in the name of Thor or Odin. (And before you say, play a Paladin, I want the variety that clerical spells provide in addition to the ability to wear armor and kick butt.)
I guess what I'm laboring to say is that I lament the situation that if my class is CAPABLE of healing--people want me to do NOTHING BUT HEAL.
These days, I play a sorcerer or wizard so I can cast spells and blow things up and not have to work about healing. And I thought that role was safe.
But then there's Warforged. You can see the full argument here:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/63822
The skinny is that clerics don't want to heal Warforged because it eats up twice their healing spells and sorcerers and wizards don't want to blow spells on healing the Warforged. And believe me, I get that. I don't play a sorcerer or a wizard because I want to stand around healing anybody.
So I thought of this:
Give Warforged twice as many hit points and they can't be healed by magic at all. That way they can survive most initial encounters and be repaired by mundane repairs afterwards and if they have any sense, when they get too low in hit points they'll hit the road because they'll know it'll take days to fix them back up to maximum and if something happens between then and now, they're toast.
What do you think, sirs?
EDIT: I just had another thought. Give them twice the hit points and change the Repair spells from the Eberron Campaign Setting to non-combat Incantations. Artificers could automatically start with all of them as Incantations. What do you think of that?