Mastery of Day and Night

[moritheil]

This feat, from Eberron, basically maximizes all your inflict and cure spells for free.

The problem is, it requires Maximize Spell and certain skill ranks as prerequisites.

While at first glance it seems great for a cleric, I'm not sure if it's worth two feat slots. Consider that for one feat slot I could have Touch of Healing, which would basically let me heal everyone up to half health between fights without expending any resources. Is an automatic maximize worth twice that? Two feats is also what it would take to get, say, Crusader's Strike and the crusader stance that heals an ally 2 hp every hit. How does Mastery of Day and Night compare to options like that?

Is combat healing viable if all your healing is maximized, or is it still seriously sub-par?

Thoughts?

[ThiagoMartell]

Mastery of Day and Night only makes in-combat healing work an extra level or maybe two.
Even if you go full op on in-combat healing, it becomes useless once you get (Mass) Heal.

Basically, it depends on the levels you'll be playing at. At low levels, it's a godsend.

[moritheil]

Mastery of Day and Night only makes in-combat healing work an extra level or maybe two.
Even if you go full op on in-combat healing, it becomes useless once you get (Mass) Heal.

Basically, it depends on the levels you'll be playing at. At low levels, it's a godsend.

I am considering it for my level 4 gestalt cleric/swordsage, since I was informed that no matter how I stack AC, I should never enter melee or I'll be grappled/torn apart in one round (terrible hit point rolls on a necropolitan.)

Said character is also the primary healer, so, you know, healing is not a bad thing to have more of. I'm just unsure of how worthwhile it is to blow all my feats on this.

[ThiagoMartell]

I am considering it for my level 4 gestalt cleric/swordsage, since I was informed that no matter how I stack AC, I should never enter melee or I'll be grappled/torn apart in one round (terrible hit point rolls on a necropolitan.)

Said character is also the primary healer, so, you know, healing is not a bad thing to have more of. I'm just unsure of how worthwhile it is to blow all my feats on this.

Sounds like a decent option, then. Specially since as a necropolitan it's good for both offense and defense.

[ahenobarbi]

Could be ok if your DM will let you re-train feats later.

[Aeryr]

:smallsmile:

Sacred healing can be another option it's a feat from complete divine expend a turn attempt as a full round action to give living creatures within a 60 ft burst fast healing 3 and it lasts for a number of rounds equal to 1+ your CHA.

Profane boost and sacred boost can partially do what mastery of day and night does, but burn turn attempts, so mastery of day and night is better than those two feats.

If you are looking at dedicating yourself to healing one of my favorite feats for healers is imbued healing. That feat makes healing more similar to buffing than actual healing and it makes it less boring. I would talk to your DM but I find that the undeath domain could confer an effect similar to the plant domain, since the plant domain gives light fortification for making people similar to plants, and the undeath domain makes people more similar to undead it could grant light fortification.

In the end it all might depend if you need to be able to heal yourself or can get some "free" source of negative energy damage i.e. a dread necromancer.

[moritheil]

:smallsmile:

Sacred healing can be another option it's a feat from complete divine expend a turn attempt as a full round action to give living creatures within a 60 ft burst fast healing 3 and it lasts for a number of rounds equal to 1+ your CHA.

Profane boost and sacred boost can partially do what mastery of day and night does, but burn turn attempts, so mastery of day and night is better than those two feats.

If you are looking at dedicating yourself to healing one of my favorite feats for healers is imbued healing. That feat makes healing more similar to buffing than actual healing and it makes it less boring. I would talk to your DM but I find that the undeath domain could confer an effect similar to the plant domain, since the plant domain gives light fortification for making people similar to plants, and the undeath domain makes people more similar to undead it could grant light fortification.

In the end it all might depend if you need to be able to heal yourself or can get some "free" source of negative energy damage i.e. a dread necromancer.

Does sacred healing work with Rebuke attempts?

Good point that profane/sacred boost are inferior.

That's an interesting point on imbued healing. I'm not sure that I want to totally 'dedicate myself to healing' as you put it, as combat healing is classically sub-par, but as a cleric I have to be able to heal people and I don't want to be terrible at it. I'm mostly interested in the question, "Would taking these feats make combat healing suddenly viable?"

I certainly think a dread necromancer changes the dynamic a bit, but I'm not sure that reliance on a DN to heal instead of casting fear etc. in the middle of a fight is a good idea. People go into cleric with the understanding that they need to drop everything and heal others; people don't usually go into DN with the understanding that they will be healers (except of themselves.) I suppose I'd have to discuss it with the DN player.

[NeoSeraphi]

Mastery of Day and Night is fantastic for a blaster cleric, especially if your DM allows it to apply to greater harm and mass harm as well (which hopefully, s/he will).

It's not that great for healing, but when you don't have to roll for damage, it's always good, even if it only means an extra +14 damage per spell when you're casting inflict critical wounds. That's an extra +14 damage per inflict, and of course, it eliminates luck, so you won't have to worry about rolling 1s ever again. The +14 is just over the average, but it's replacing your potential output (4-32) with the maximum (32).

The same is true for cure spells, but healing is much less important than DPS.

Plus, you know...it's not like Maximize Spell is a bad feat for clerics. You can use it on summon monster spells, for instance. And hey, that auto-Maximize cure without having to prepare or increase your spell level will probably be the difference between life and raise dead at low levels (especially when the DM rolls a crit...)

[Aeryr]

Does sacred healing work with Rebuke attempts?

"Would taking these feats make combat healing suddenly viable?"

Sadly sacred healing doesn't work with rebuke attempts.

I believe that mastery of day and night is a good feat, and even if it might not make it viable or desirable it can make it easier. You will need less spells invested on healing so you can use more spells for other stuff. If you can spontaneously convert them into inflict spells you can even spare spell slots, knowing that if you need a heal you will have it or you can use a inflict whenever you fancy.


especially when the DM rolls a crit...

Precisely that is what always worried me most of disregarding in combat healing.

[moritheil]

Precisely that is what always worried me most of disregarding in combat healing.

I think the thing is, if someone's dropped from, say, 60 hit points to 8 hit points due to a crit from an ogre, no healing spell I have is really going to fix that - they are far better off withdrawing and hiding out, blowing an emergency anklet teleport, or being the target of a conjurer transposition spell that pulls them out of danger.

If I cast CMW, I heal someone 2d8+4 = 12 points on average.
If I cast maximized CMW, I heal someone 20 points on average.

In both cases that is wholly inadequate and it's still not safe for them to be on the front lines.

It seems I would always be better served trying to cast stuff like Hold Person on the enemy, and using my feats to boost save DCs. Or, if I'm not trying to disable, Summon Undead II would use the same feat slot and give us a zombie with an average 40+ hit points. True, it's no match for a dedicated front liner, but at least it's immune to crits and fully expendable.

[Aeryr]

I know, go for whatever you feel like :smallsmile:

[Warrnan]

I have used this feat on a dedicated healing class. Add mastery of day and night with the imbued healing feat(I like the healing domain for this purpose only) to gain caster level temorary hit points.

This trick is great with the swift action spell Stabilize. To heal the whole party 1hp and grant them CL temp hp as a swift action. Also good with Close wounds for immediate action heals and buffs. Or stuff like CLW mass.

I can't tell you how many times my cleric kept the paladin and rogue alive just by the difference of CL temp hp and maximized heals.

Draconic aura:vigor (passive AOE fast healing for allies below %50) and touch of healing (larger single target standard action healing for ally below 50%) are good but just choose one. Pick up a devoted spirit amulet with the martial spirit stance inside, only 3000g. Wack baddies and heal 2hp to any ally you want per hit all day.

I hope you've enjoyed this quick guide to the care and feeding of your big stupid fighters.

[Rebel7284]

Even at level 4, healing belts are affordable.

If you feel the game may go to higher levels, avoid these feats.

Spending those feats on Divine Metamagic is almost certainly a better deal.

Consider one of these options listed in decreasing power level:
- DMM[Persistent Spell] gives fast healing 1 for the whole day starting next level by persisting Mass Lesser Vigor. (does take three feats as extend spell is a prerequisite)
- DMM[Quicken Spell] is a pretty early discount for a greater rod of quicken spell.
- DMM[Chain Spell] greatly helps with buffs and some debuffs.

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: Thread Necromancy.