[3.5] Help me tweak some Feat ideas

[Adamantrue]

Actually...a Feat & and addendum. First, the addendum:

Diehard
Special: When dealing with nonlethal damage, you become staggered if your nonlethal damage exceeds your hit point total by less than 10. You become unconscious if your nonlethal damage exceeds your hit point total by 10 or more.
The staggered condition is superseded by the disabled condition if your hit point total is already below 0.

And the Feat:

Tenacious [General]
While others may fall, you endure.
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +9, Con 15, Endurance
Benefit: You gain Fast Healing 1. This stacks with any Fast Healing you already possess or later gain.
Whenever you take hit point damage, you may convert 1 point of that damage into nonlethal damage. If a single source has multiple damage types (such as a flaming longsword+1), you may convert 1 hit point for each type.
Special: A fighter may select Tenacious as one of his bonus feats.

I'm really hesitant to brew a Feat that allows Fast Healing, thinking it could easily be so valuable that its one of those "why wouldn't you take it" types.

Mind you, I know Combat Vigor or Persistent Spell are already options, but both require investments that aren't always attractive.

So, with the general premise presented above in mind, what would need to be tweaked.

[Pyromancer999]

I believe WoTC already made a feat like the one you are trying to make. It had either a Con requisite of 23, I believe.

[jiriku]

I dunno. By level 9, I probably already have 60+ hit points if I'm a martial character. Spending two feats just to convert 1 hp per strike into nonlethal isn't worth it to me at that point. It's significantly worse than DR 1/-. I'm not sure this feat would carry its weight even if it was gained at bab +4.

It might be better if it was 1 hp per die of damage. That provides some inherent scaling of the effect vs. more dangerous foes.

[Yitzi]

The problem with any fast healing ability (even FH 1) is that it allows you to recover hit points between combats without any use of party resources. Which is ok for higher-power games, but not for the lower-power games.

[Adamantrue]

So, I got one person saying its underpowered...and another saying its too potent?

That's a bit of a mixed message. I'm...not sure where to go from here.

[Glimbur]

An ability slightly better than DR 1/- and a wand of lesser vigor is not worth a feat. It's especially not worth a mid-level feat and requiring Endurance as a pre-requisite.

A more interesting feat would be one that lets you heal by your level, or your BAB + (your Con mod)* X, where X is probably 2-5, as a swift action every round. Swift actions should be valuable things, and everyone should be able to use them. This feat is kind of strong by itself, but if martial and skill types get more swift action choices then the opportunity cost increases too.

[jiriku]

Oh, so it's fast healing AND pseudo-DR? Well, that's better. Still... Glimbur's right. Not worth a 9th level feat and a throwaway prerequisite.

If you removed the prerequisite, or replaced it with Improved Toughness, and knocked the base attack requirement down to +3... hmmm, that would be decent. Not lighting the world on fire, but decent.

[blackmage]

Something I made a little bit ago that's in the same ballpark is this feat. It's pool of temporary hit points that are refreshed each round, so that its sort of like DR but not really. May be a good way for a non-caster to extend their longevity.

[Ashtagon]

"Always-on" fast healing will rapidly break any game that plays on the idea of man vs. nature, or man vs. death-by-a-thousand-cuts.

I'd consider a feat that allows fast healing during limited "adrenalin rush" or "barbarian rage" periods. But always-on is too weak to be useful during combat, and too strong to be balanced outside of it.

[jiriku]

"Always-on" fast healing will rapidly break any game that plays on the idea of man vs. nature.

This is true, but it's also true that create water (ECL1), endure elements (ECL1), and a DC 15 Survival check (ECL1) will break a man-vs.-nature game, to say nothing of create food and water (ECL 5) or teleport (ECL9). Such games don't really challenge the capabilities of any but the most low-level and unoptimized parties.

[Ashtagon]

This is true, but it's also true that create water (ECL1), endure elements (ECL1), and a DC 15 Survival check (ECL1) will break a man-vs.-nature game, to say nothing of create food and water (ECL 5) or teleport (ECL9). Such games don't really challenge the capabilities of any but the most low-level and unoptimized parties.

Not to the same extent. Casting those spells will still consume resources. An always-on feat won't.

Now otoh, having the effects of those spells always-on without having to spend the spell each morning would be a valid counterpoint.

Plus, there are ways a GM can take those spells away from the party. Not so much in the case of a feat.

[Adamantrue]

Not to the same extent. Casting those spells will still consume resources. An always-on feat won't.

Curious...casting a spell is "consume a resource", but spending a Feat isn't?

But that's just inviting an argument on semantics.

(As a side note...Fast Healing won't help against thirst or starvation, so you could still have some Man VS Nature struggles, to some degree.)

Getting back to your actual point:

But always-on is too weak to be useful during combat, and too strong to be balanced outside of it.

I agree that it isn't particularly strong in-combat, but I didn't want to drastically change a character's survivability with this Feat. I'm thinking that perhaps something more significant may be required, though.

A more interesting feat would be one that lets you heal by your level, or your BAB + (your Con mod)* X, where X is probably 2-5, as a swift action every round. Swift actions should be valuable things, and everyone should be able to use them. This feat is kind of strong by itself, but if martial and skill types get more swift action choices then the opportunity cost increases too.

Now that's an interesting approach. Swift actions are valuable things, but the options for more mundane characters to use them are very limited.

On a somewhat related note:

Something I made a little bit ago that's in the same ballpark is this feat. It's pool of temporary hit points that are refreshed each round, so that its sort of like DR but not really. May be a good way for a non-caster to extend their longevity.

I'd consider a feat that allows fast healing during limited "adrenalin rush" or "barbarian rage" periods. But always-on is too weak to be useful during combat, and too strong to be balanced outside of it.

This just gave me a neat idea. Some tangentially related (not directly important) reference material in the Spoiler.

Spoiler

Show

Expert Maneuvers [General]
Proper defensive postures can lure opponents into more vulnerable positions.
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +8, Combat Expertise, Expert Strike, Improved Feint, Improved Trip.
Benefit: When using Combat Expertise, you may apply a bonus to Bluff checks when performing a feint, Sense Motive checks to oppose a feint, and Strength checks when performing or resisting a trip attack, equal to the bonus you gain to AC.
Special: A fighter may select Expert Maneuvers as one of his bonus feats.

Expert Strike [General]
Honing your skill has improved your offense as well as your defense.
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +1, Dexterity 13, Intelligence 13, Combat Expertise.
Benefit: When using a light melee weapon, or one with which Weapon Finesse would apply, you gain a bonus to damage equal to the bonus to AC you gain from the Combat Expertise feat.
Special: A fighter may select Expert Strike as one of his bonus feats.

Combat Dynamo [General]
The thrill of combat, tempered by skill, fuels your actions.
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +5, Combat Expertise.
Benefit: Whenever you successfully deal damage to an opponent while using Combat Expertise, you gain temporary hit points equal to the bonus you gain to AC. Cumulative hits add to your temporary hit point total, up to but not exceeding your normal (uninjured) maximum.
Temporary hit points gained in this way last for a number of minutes equal to 3+ your Intelligence Modifier.
Special: A fighter may select Combat Dynamo as one of his bonus feats.

This would be a completely different approach, unrelated to the first (which I have to think on some more). But I think they both kinda require the same kind of feedback.

And a better name, for this new one.

[jiriku]

I'd go with a flat five minutes. 3 + Int is an unnecessary calculation - there aren't enough instances where the difference will produce an interesting result to justify having to keep track of a variable duration.

Possible Names:
Intricate Defense
Tread on the Blade
Combat Momentum
Combat Rhythm

Power-wise, it's decent. I like that, since it's tied to both base attack and number of attacks, the feat grows with you (to a limited degree) as you level.

However, with the ever-present caster/noncaster conflict in mind, I'll point out that this feat is much more valuable to gish combatants, who can often make all their melee attacks as touch attacks (and thus afford larger Combat Expertise penalties), than to straight martial combatants, who usually can't do so.

[Yitzi]

So, I got one person saying its underpowered...and another saying its too potent?

That's a bit of a mixed message. I'm...not sure where to go from here.

It really comes down to a question of how much free healing between fights is worth.

An ability slightly better than DR 1/- and a wand of lesser vigor is not worth a feat.

It's quite more than a wand of lesser vigor; it's more like a wand of lesser vigor that regains all its charges every 50 minutes.

The point here isn't so much that it lets you heal as that it lets you heal at no cost.

[Glimbur]

It's quite more than a wand of lesser vigor; it's more like a wand of lesser vigor that regains all its charges every 50 minutes.

The point here isn't so much that it lets you heal as that it lets you heal at no cost.

A wand of lesser vigor heals 550 hp for 750 gp. A third level barbarian has (12+13+3*6) = 43 hp while raging, more or less. We can completely heal this third level barbarian about 17 times on one wand. Average treasure value for an encounter level 3 fight is 900 gp. There are four people in a party, and let's assume the worst case and that they all need full healing after every fight with an encounter with EL = APL. A wand lasts for four fights, so we spend 750 gp every time we get 900*4, or 3600 gp. This is kind of expensive, but as levels raise income increases faster than gp loss. For example, a CR 5 encounter gives 1600 gp on average while the barbarian has 12+26+5*6 hp, or 68 hp. That's about half again as much hp and almost twice as much gold. CR 8 is 3400 gp and 12+7*6.5+8*7 hp, or 113 hp. That's 1/5 a wand each full heal, but each fight makes enough for four wands. Net wand profit at level 3 is a bit more than .9411 wands/fight assuming healing only the barb, at level 8 net wand profit is a bit more than 3.8 wands/fight.

What's the point? Out of combat healing is cheap unless you need continual amounts of small healing, for example from environmental effects which do 1d6 damage per minute or whatever. Healing also gets cheaper as one levels.

[Adamantrue]

It's quite more than a wand of lesser vigor; it's more like a wand of lesser vigor that regains all its charges every 50 minutes.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, unless you are in a situation where you take 1 point of damage every round for the entire day (which would be a particularly rough day to be an adventurer).

It also doesn't do a whole lot to increase survivability in any single encounter (going back to how minimal the effect is), so much as ensuring that you usually start each encounter at full health. Which is where the real issue comes in.

It really comes down to a question of how much free healing between fights is worth.

[snip]

The point here isn't so much that it lets you heal as that it lets you heal at no cost.

How much is a Feat worth, in Gold Pieces? Like if I were to buy an item that grants a Feat, how much would I pay? From there, one could conceivably figure out how much a healing item that has daily uses would compare, and tweak the concept to match that power level better.

[jiriku]

Generally speaking, 3,000 - 10,000 gp for feats with no prerequisites. Feats with prerequisites usually aren't available in items, so hard to say there. More, obviously.

[Ashtagon]

I don't normally value abilities in terms of their rated gp value. WBL is a rather suspect mechanism for balance anyway I think. Instead, I consider whether or not the item would allow for interesting adventures to continue.

In the case of any feature that essentially says "you heal to full health between combats", the answer is plainly that it does not allow for a huge numvber of adventure concepts to take place.

[Adamantrue]

I don't normally value abilities in terms of their rated gp value. WBL is a rather suspect mechanism for balance anyway I think. Instead, I consider whether or not the item would allow for interesting adventures to continue.

In the case of any feature that essentially says "you heal to full health between combats", the answer is plainly that it does not allow for a huge numvber of adventure concepts to take place.

I don't think that's a fair statement to make. Healing is often assumed to happen, or even taken for granted. In addition, I'm sure that it opens the doors to different kinds of adventures as well, some of which could be very interesting.

The more fair statement to make would be that it changes a fair portion of adventure concepts. Which I would admit may be a bit much.

Generally speaking, 3,000 - 10,000 gp for feats with no prerequisites. Feats with prerequisites usually aren't available in items, so hard to say there. More, obviously.

So, on the low end, it could be 4 Healing Belts (about 24d8, 108 hp), and on the high end, 13 belts (about 78d8, 351 hp) over the course of a day.

Reframing it in terms of Eternal Wands of Lesser Vigor (I know its supposed to be arcane only, but this is just for the math), it ranges from 4 wands (96 rounds/hp) to 12 wands (288 rounds/hp). Same general ballpark (but boy, are those Healing Belts good).

So...what if we set it up so that it would provide a more significant Fast Healing (to meet jiriku's criteria of being more useful in-combat), but had a hard limit of amount of rounds it can be used per day (to satisfy everyone else concerning the game out-of-combat)? Say, somewhere between Fast Healing 10 for 10 rds/day, and Fast Healing 15 for 20 rds/day, and they can break these up as desired.

That's one option. I'm considering others, but I thought I'd get feedback on this direction first.

[Ashtagon]

I don't think that's a fair statement to make. Healing is often assumed to happen, or even taken for granted. In addition, I'm sure that it opens the doors to different kinds of adventures as well, some of which could be very interesting.

The more fair statement to make would be that it changes a fair portion of adventure concepts. Which I would admit may be a bit much. So, on the low end, it could be 4 Healing Belts (about 24d8, 108 hp), and on the high end, 13 belts (about 78d8, 351 hp) over the course of a day.

Fully healing between encounters changes a series of mook opponents from a level-relevant challenge (when taken as a whole) to a total irrelevancy. The only encounters that pose any challenge would become the ones against bosses.

It's not just a question of money spent surviving. A deeper question is whether there is any meaningful danger. If you have full healing always available, there simply isn't any danger.

Of course, I play in worlds without magic marts. ymmv.

[jiriku]

A lot of the full-heal question is a matter of campaign power level and class choice. For example, if you play with a high-op group and the party is a warlock, a swordsage, a DMM-cleric, and warblade, the idea that parties finish an encounter with fewer resources than they started is kind of foreign to them. A group like that can handle an arbitratily large number of encounters if hp damage is all they have to be concerned about.

OTOH, if you ban ToB and DMM and the party uses spells to heal instead of charged items , or if your party is low-op, or if your group is running fighter, rogue, healer (again w/o a CLW wand), and generalist wizard, the party probably has to limit its resource expenditure pretty tightly, and can't handle many encounters without resting.

For my group, that particular horse left the barn and has never come back since the day I showed them A Player's Guide to Healing. Other groups may have a different style and play level.

[Yitzi]

A wand of lesser vigor heals 550 hp for 750 gp. A third level barbarian has (12+13+3*6) = 43 hp while raging, more or less. We can completely heal this third level barbarian about 17 times on one wand. Average treasure value for an encounter level 3 fight is 900 gp. There are four people in a party, and let's assume the worst case and that they all need full healing after every fight with an encounter with EL = APL. A wand lasts for four fights, so we spend 750 gp every time we get 900*4, or 3600 gp. This is kind of expensive, but as levels raise income increases faster than gp loss. For example, a CR 5 encounter gives 1600 gp on average while the barbarian has 12+26+5*6 hp, or 68 hp. That's about half again as much hp and almost twice as much gold. CR 8 is 3400 gp and 12+7*6.5+8*7 hp, or 113 hp. That's 1/5 a wand each full heal, but each fight makes enough for four wands. Net wand profit at level 3 is a bit more than .9411 wands/fight assuming healing only the barb, at level 8 net wand profit is a bit more than 3.8 wands/fight.

So by level 8, the wand for the full heal (for one character) costs roughly 5% of the income. +5% to net income is a pretty decent effect.

But of course that's based on the assumption that all encounters will be level-appropriate. Where this feat really shines is (as Ashtagon said) with the minor mook fights, where it can turn things from a minor but noticeable matter to nothing at all.

The other thing that it's totally overpowered for is hit-and-run fights; of course, such things really require everybody involved in the fight to be a sneak class (or have invisibility at will), so unless the whole party is optimized for such it's not such an issue. (It does, however, give you the means to turn that properly played ranger boss from a huge threat to a nearly insurmountable one. )

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, unless you are in a situation where you take 1 point of damage every round for the entire day (which would be a particularly rough day to be an adventurer).

No, except in such a situation "wand of lesser vigor every 5 minutes" would be an exaggeration. "Wand of lesser vigor that regenerates every 5 minutes" would be more like what this is: If you have no use for it, you can't save it up for later.

Which is where the real issue comes in. How much is a Feat worth, in Gold Pieces? Like if I were to buy an item that grants a Feat, how much would I pay?

That sounds like a reasonable way to figure things out.

I don't normally value abilities in terms of their rated gp value. WBL is a rather suspect mechanism for balance anyway I think.

If so, then D&D is irredeemably broken and there's no point even considering these matters, as equipment is a major part of any character's significance.

In the case of any feature that essentially says "you heal to full health between combats", the answer is plainly that it does not allow for a huge numvber of adventure concepts to take place.

Question then is whether wands of CLW cause the same issues.

[Ashtagon]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon View Post
I don't normally value abilities in terms of their rated gp value. WBL is a rather suspect mechanism for balance anyway I think.

If so, then D&D is irredeemably broken and there's no point even considering these matters, as equipment is a major part of any character's significance.

Well, since you linked to this thread, let's grab the first example that comes to mind.

Cure Serious Wounds potion will heal, on average, 18.5 hp, and it will cost you 750gp, and it will take either a standard or a full round action to use, and it will provoke AoOs unless you did some further investment to prevent that, and on top of that it probably smells bad and tastes bitter. Yuck. For the same price, you could have gotten a Wand of Cure Light Wounds (275hp total instead of 18.5hp), a Wand of Lesser Vigor (550hp total instead of 18.5gp), or a Healing Belt (Either 6d8 hp (average 27 hp) a day, or 18 hp (same as the potion!) per day if you burst heal, usable as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.)) Would you rather get 18 hp, or 18 hp per day?

The fact that the same 750 gp can buy you 18 hp worth of healing or 275 hp, or even 550 hp --- that alone should tell you that the item prices are seriously broken. Certainly, characters should gain more wealth as they level up. By the item prices, and the corresponding WBL accountancy arguments they generate, are irrelevant, once you realise that item prices are inherently broken.

[Yitzi]

The fact that the same 750 gp can buy you 18 hp worth of healing or 275 hp, or even 550 hp --- that alone should tell you that the item prices are seriously broken.

No, it tells you that the ability to heal important wounds quickly is worth a lot. After all, 550 hp of healing won't save your life in the middle of a battle if they take nearly an hour to take effect. 18 hit points in a single standard action very well might.

[Ashtagon]

No, it tells you that the ability to heal important wounds quickly is worth a lot. After all, 550 hp of healing won't save your life in the middle of a battle if they take nearly an hour to take effect. 18 hit points in a single standard action very well might.

I think you misunderstand the power of those items.

Sure, potions of csw can heal more in a single standard action. But many many statistical analyses have been drawn up that basically say that healing during combat is a waste of time, and that the action will almost always be more efficiently spent by attacking an enemy than by healing a friend.

[Yitzi]

I think you misunderstand the power of those items.

Sure, potions of csw can heal more in a single standard action. But many many statistical analyses have been drawn up that basically say that healing during combat is a waste of time, and that the action will almost always be more efficiently spent by attacking an enemy than by healing a friend.

Almost always. Which is why a potion of CSW is a contingency item only (which is just what you'd expect.)

If anything, you're proving that the higher-level healing spells are underpowered and over"priced", not that the item costs are off.

[Ashtagon]

No, my point becomes even more extreme when you consider the wands of CSW. The problem is that potions are overpriced compared to wands, not that high level healing is mis-priced.

[Adamantrue]

Potions are pricier because anyone can use them, regardless of whether you can cast spells or its on your class list.

Fairly...OK, there may be a debate in that.

[jiriku]

Prices are wonky. No argument there. Still, I feel that a discerning, experienced eye can judge the difference between a well-priced item and one priced poorly. If both players and DMs react warmly to an item (ex. ring of protection, magic armor enhancement bonus), its price is a good guideline. If players rarely or never buy an item, it is probably too expensive for the value it offers. If players eagerly seek an item but experienced DMs ban it or increase its cost, it is priced too cheaply for its value.

Try this: take your feat, put it in a ring, and set it alongside various other rings of different prices from 2,000 gp to 12,000 gp and ask yourself which item you'd rather have. That should help you estimate the gp value.

[Hanuman]

Dukar hand coral, built-in fast heal and bodily restoration.

I think that fast healing feat is in a dragon book like draconomicon.