Orisons and Cure Minor Wounds

[Throndir]

Hi guys,

A minor thing, but I wanted to get some input on this. Please respond if you can! :)

Since we included Orisons (unlimited level 0 spells for divine casters), in PF Cure Minor Wounds was removed probably due to keep the spell in-line, so that divine casters won't be able to heal 600 HP per hour for free.

Please reply back with your vote? You can include reasoning behind it too which would be nice.

Thanks!

[Oath]

We could take a shadowrun approach to healing with this spell, that once you use it you can't use it again until new damage is taken. That way it retains its use if multiple allies are lightly injured but you don't get to just spam it until everyone is at full health. It might make it a bit more viable to use in battle, but it is still dangerous to take an entire turn to heal someone just 1 hp.

So basically, say Ryine had 15 hp left, and you used it on him, he would have 16 hp and not be able to be healed by cure minor wounds again until he took damage again. so if he got hit for 6, you would be able to bring him back up to 11 from 10.

[Linwelin]

We could take a shadowrun approach to healing with this spell, that once you use it you can't use it again until new damage is taken. That way it retains its use if multiple allies are lightly injured but you don't get to just spam it until everyone is at full health. It might make it a bit more viable to use in battle, but it is still dangerous to take an entire turn to heal someone just 1 hp.

So basically, say Ryine had 15 hp left, and you used it on him, he would have 16 hp and not be able to be healed by cure minor wounds again until he took damage again. so if he got hit for 6, you would be able to bring him back up to 11 from 10.

I like this, but it feels a bit underpowered and does not address healing tanks very well. Sure you're not SUPPOSED to be able to full-heal someone at level 1, but the idea was that a cleric could sacrifice any number of spells to become heals, thus offering more. Limiting it like this actually makes the orison version weaker than the original, imo.

What I propose is a dynamic heal limit. Basically, a healer can use the cure minor wounds orison a number of times equal to half the damage accumulated on the target since damage was last taken. Thus there's no full heal in any circumstances (unless done over a long period of time out-of-combat, but that's another discussion), but the healer can still do their job of keeping people alive. The reason I point this out is because tanks aren't supposed to get hit if possible, which means healing that should be viably done is prevented while they dodge blows.

So for instance, Ryine takes that first hit to 15hp. The healers can only heal him for half the difference between 15 and his max hp. When he's hit again, it's half the new difference.

(Because I don't know it off-hand and am too lazy to look it up, Ryine's health is 30hp for the example)
15/30 - can be healed to 22
16/30 - healed once, upper limit is still 22
10/30 - hit again, new upper limit is 20
...
15/30 - was last hit to 10, so upper limit is still 20.

I feel this is generally balanced, but please discuss. I thought of this late at night AND on the spot, so I'm sure there's some improvement to be made XD

[Throndir]

I like the idea of putting limits and making it a dynamic limit, but I think changing the rules too much adds a lot more extra paperwork. Cure Minor Wounds is such a minor spell, it's really only good for level 1 parties where 1 HP can be like 10% of their HP. Higher level groups would really only use this spell to stabilize.

For a small cost you could buy a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, which already has 50 charges, and heals for 1d8+1 per cast, which make it a lot better already in terms of healing in combat.

I don't think there are any cooldown precedence in the core books are they? Does anyone know of any spell where there's a cooldown?

How about making Cure Minor Wounds a level 0.5 spell? Still be level 0 on paper, but has a more limited uses per day to more simulate 3.5. Maybe based of the HD of the user. No precendence for that either though...

Lets go back to my first thought. The spell is used for:

1) Healing for low level parties. (Even then alternatives such as Cure Light Wounds, Wand of, Potion of, Scroll of, are at least x8 times better,)
2) Stabilizing for higher level parties. Pathfinder created a spell Stabilize to do this.

I see why the people of PF removed it, they probably didn't want to deal with too many 'special cases' for spells. I like the idea of being able to heal a very small amount of hitpoints, but not the fact that its so easily abusable with orisons. I also don't want to increase the complexity for a spell that would really stop being used after level 1. We'd really outgrow it.

If we go through the two examples above, remember Cure Minor Wounds only heals 1 HP. In terms of combat, it's not really something you should be doing. It's probably better to attempt to do an attack roll, and if you had to heal, Cure Light Wounds would have more of an effect. In combat this spell should really only be good for stabilizing and not for actual healing since 1 HP is negligible after level 1. I think a cleric can do a lot more things in 5 rounds, than to cast CMW 5 times to heal 5 HP.

I am really leaning towards removing the spell now. If they really wanted to heal themselves per turn, get them a ring of regeneration. Unless you guys can think of other changes we can do to CMW that has precedence in other 3.5 spells that we can apply to it.

How about this. Lets just give all Divine Casters who are able to cast Cure Light Wounds, a new class ability:

Minor healing: Heal 1 HP, you may use this spell-like ability equal to the number of orisons you can prepare each day.

This will keep it simple, no need for extra paperwork. Or we can do a more hard limit like:

Minor healing: Heal 1 HP, 5/day.

You guys have any thoughts?

[Lance]

As far as cooldowns go, they were implemented in as early as the first monster manual (see Hellhound's Breath Weapon). I'm certain that Monks get some other cooldown ability in core, but I can't seem to find it. There's also precedence for setting the spell to be based off HD. I mean, just look at the Monk's Stunning Blow.

But I agree that it shouldn't get too complicated. This is, after all, just a cantrip.

My initial thought was to replace the spell with something like Life Transfer (the ability to heal others (1 HP) by sacrificing your own life (1 HP)). And while the name may sound just a little TINY bit too "evil," I can see "good" clerics making use of this ability too. With the whole "putting others above yourself," "sacrificing yourself for others." and whatnot going for them, they'd be using this every chance they could get.

Of course if it can go one way, then it makes sense that it can go the other, right? It shouldn't be too cheap for the less good-inclined clerics to be able to drain 1 HP every round, after making a successful touch attack. There would be natural limit to this ability too, since creatures only have so much life to give. Therefore, the cleric WOULDN'T be able to heal the party to full health after every encounter yet still retain a useful ability.

This way, the cleric doesn't get too outclassed by potions, scrolls, and wands the party may acquire, making his existence moot, since he has this option available from the start and may use it without spending a single gold piece. Also, moral implications may be raised for using the ability to its fullest. That's always a plus.