Need Help Balancing Regeneration (3.5)

[eftexar]

I consider myself fairly good at balance, but there are some mechanics that give me a lot trouble and I need a bit of help with one.
In particular I want to know what the playground thinks about Regeneration in the possession of both monsters and PCs. Anything, from what CR it is fair to give monsters the trait, to balancing encounters with the ability, to when, and if, PCs should gain access to such an ability, would be a great help.

[TuggyNE]

Regeneration of any speed, especially on a PC, is a pretty substantial game-changer, solely because of the way it converts lethal damage into non-lethal. It's less significant for monsters/NPCs, mostly because PCs tend to be resourceful types who put some thought into bringing common regeneration breakers, but also because PC damage output tends to be high enough for the healing effect to be minimal: +25% normal HP, perhaps, or less.

Consider the Troll vs the Ogre: regeneration, double max HP, and about the same amount of damage, or even less. Same AC, fractionally higher attack bonus. But those add up to +2 CR. However, on a PC, that is a major factor in earning its +5 LA.

I'm inclined to think LA is generally a bit high on most monsters, but regeneration should probably be quite difficult/nigh impossible to acquire reliably at levels 1-5, maybe even 6-10. After that it should merely be difficult.

[ngilop]

here is my thoughts

Regenration on most Monsters are completely fine, oh sure there are a couple monster who could afford a little less or a little more. but for the most part it is nail on the head accurate.

Regeneration for players, well just abut any amount is going to be a bit powerful. I am of the school of thought that the vast majority of monster abilities were created in a vacuum and without thought of players ever getting those same powers through any alternate form spells/abilities they would eventually acquire.

The example that Tuggyne gave in regards to the troll vs ogre LA is pretty spot on. players really shouldn't be getting any form of regeneration before id say level 8 and honestly be getting troll equivalent regeneration at around id say 15th.

[CosmicOccurence]

The problem is that monsters are designed to be in one encounter and then die. PCs are supposed to go through several encounters, which makes regeneration free healing.

[eftexar]

All good points. I hadn't even thought about the fact player's were never intended to gain regeneration.
Hmm... I guess I should get into specifics, of what I want to balance, now that I have some general opinions on the ability.

I had an idea for a class somewhat based off of Venom and the guy from Prototype with risk of losing control to the parasite. Based on what you guys have said I'm thinking I could offer regeneration at level 13 since that tends be a good place for any classes pre-capstone.

It's really more about the flavor of the class than wanting to increase the power so what if I simply made it easier to overcome. I'm thinking allowing cold, sonic, and silver to bypass it?

Or perhaps I'm better off offering, let's say, a limited form of regeneration that works as fast healing with limb regeneration and restoration of ability damage.

Also what do you think of offering "fast healing" that works in hours instead of rounds? In particular I'd like to offer some limited healing at even the first level of the class.

[TuggyNE]

All good points. I hadn't even thought about the fact player's were never intended to gain regeneration.
Hmm... I guess I should get into specifics, of what I want to balance, now that I have some general opinions on the ability.

I had an idea for a class somewhat based off of Venom and the guy from Prototype with risk of losing control to the parasite. Based on what you guys have said I'm thinking I could offer regeneration at level 13 since that tends be a good place for any classes pre-capstone.

It's really more about the flavor of the class than wanting to increase the power so what if I simply made it easier to overcome. I'm thinking allowing cold, sonic, and silver to bypass it?

Or perhaps I'm better off offering, let's say, a limited form of regeneration that works as fast healing with limb regeneration and restoration of ability damage.

Also what do you think of offering "fast healing" that works in hours instead of rounds? In particular I'd like to offer some limited healing at even the first level of the class.

All that would probably work reasonably well. Although note that ordinary regeneration doesn't do anything for ability damage.

[DMMike]

I had an idea for a class somewhat based off of Venom and the guy from Prototype with risk of losing control to the parasite. Based on what you guys have said I'm thinking I could offer regeneration at level 13 since that tends be a good place for any classes pre-capstone.
Best to look up monster classes. There are several in the Libris Mortis, 3.5.


Also what do you think of offering "fast healing" that works in hours instead of rounds? In particular I'd like to offer some limited healing at even the first level of the class.
That's also known as Lay on Hands, if I'm not mistaken. Or spell-like ability, 3 per day, Cure Light Wounds.

[Phippster]

As a side-note, if you're looking for something similar to Alex Mercer from Prototype as you said, I would suggest looking at the Warshaper PrC for some inspiration for the class. The natural weapon growth is more or less identical to his ability to create weapons out of his body, especially with the lack of a limit allowing him to grow the massive amount of tentacles needed for devastators.

More on topic, I would recommend fast healing instead of regeneration for such a concept, with a caveat that you also regenerate limbs. The real kicker with regeneration is that everything becomes non-lethal, which doesn't really fit (at least to me) with that type of a design. Fast Healing allows for natural, super-fast healing abilities without making all other damage obsolete. For vulnerabilities, you can make it so taking a certain type of damage stalls out their ability to heal for one round after taking the damage.

[ngilop]

I have to agree with this. fast healing seems more up to what you want conceptulization wise than full blown regeneration.

[TuggyNE]

More on topic, I would recommend fast healing instead of regeneration for such a concept, with a caveat that you also regenerate limbs. The real kicker with regeneration is that everything becomes non-lethal, which doesn't really fit (at least to me) with that type of a design. Fast Healing allows for natural, super-fast healing abilities without making all other damage obsolete. For vulnerabilities, you can make it so taking a certain type of damage stalls out their ability to heal for one round after taking the damage.

This would probably work well, especially if you give it a new name (perhaps Rejuvenation; that's only used by Ghosts, so far as I know) and detail its mechanics. I especially like stallable healing as an alternate way to handle regeneration-like mechanics.

[eftexar]

I'm aware, tuggyne, that normal regeneration doesn't heal ability damage, but I was thinking ability damage shouldn't be any harder to heal considering how the two characters I had in mind wouldn't be slowed down very long by even such severe damage. Though, I wonder if I should deal with ability drain too?

DMMike, I thought undead couldn't have regeneration because they don't have a constitution score?

Thanks Phippster, I had forgotten about the Warshaper. It's at least a place to start.

I think I'll go with stall-able fast healing with limb regrowth. I think I'm going to go with cold and sonic to bypass it. I also wanted to use a special material. Would silver be too common to use?

[TuggyNE]

I'm aware, tuggyne, that normal regeneration doesn't heal ability damage, but I was thinking ability damage shouldn't be any harder to heal considering how the two characters I had in mind wouldn't be slowed down very long by even such severe damage. Though, I wonder if I should deal with ability drain too?

I'd suggest taking cues from Naberius, if you have Tome of Magic.

Otherwise, something like curing 1 point of ability damage per damaged score per hour/ten minutes/minute, and curing ability drain at the rate ability damage is healed for normal characters (i.e., daily). Maybe also set it up so it ties in nicely with Mind over Body (XPH) so you can heal 1 + Con bonus per hour/ten minutes/minute.

[eftexar]

Thanks. One last thing though. Do you know what book has the monster, or was it a race, with the dual mind ability?

[TuggyNE]

Thanks. One last thing though. Do you know what book has the monster, or was it a race, with the dual mind ability?

That sounds like it's either Dvati (two bodies, two minds, one soul) or Synads (CPsi, three minds, one body). But I'm not sure.

[eftexar]

I think Dvati were what I was thinking of, but, now that I can find them, they don't look to be any help in this instance. I'm not familiar with Synads at all though. Found the Synads.

Oh, and here's what I have for healing. Will this work for level 1?

Rejuvenation (Sq, Ex)
She recovers 3 + her constitution bonus (if any) hit points, to a maximum of her Symbiont level, per round. If she is dealt sonic or cold damage, or struck by a silver weapon, her Rejuvenation is suppressed for a single round.
This allows her to regenerate limbs and organs. She recovers the hit points lost with them first, even if they were taken from her maximum total, and regains the body part when she recovers hit points that are equal to that lost with it.


I think I'll wait and put in Nebarious' at 5th level so I don't clutter first level too much. Plus it is still a pretty powerful effect even then.

And I'm not sure how to list an ability as a racial ability, since the base abilities (at level 1), would technically be racial (from the parasite). Perhaps I should just leave such abilities unlabeled like they are in the racial entries?

[Phippster]

Really, the question of whether it's too good for 1st level depends on the rest of your party. That's a fairly subjective quality, really. Personally, I don't feel as though it's too overpowered for what I assume is some variation of a melee class, because melee is sadly pretty bad in most cases. As someone who really likes melee, I say go ahead and give them a nice thing or two; the casters still have the rest of the toy store to play with.

As for racial abilities, I'd say that it'd still be a class ability since I'm making the assumption that the parasite is necessary to become a member of the class. That being said, any race could become a member, meaning that it's still technically a class ability.

[Amechra]

I'm working on something that would have two parts:

The first is Fast Healing that only affects nonlethal damage.

The second is a conversion from lethal damage to nonlethal.

Together, they "stack" and basically boil down to weaker fast healing.

Regeneration is actually weaker at healing than fast healing, when you get down to it; Regeneration 5 removes 5 nonlethal damage a round; fast healing 5 removes 5 lethal and 5 nonlethal damage in a round.

[TuggyNE]

Regeneration is actually weaker at healing than fast healing, when you get down to it; Regeneration 5 removes 5 nonlethal damage a round; fast healing 5 removes 5 lethal and 5 nonlethal damage in a round.

Regeneration is weaker, yes, but not by nearly that much; fast healing notes that it heals non-lethal damage if there is any, or lethal otherwise, not both at the same time. Basically, the advantage of fast healing is that it can eventually get around to lethal damage, and the advantage of regeneration is that it converts most things into the non-lethal damage that it then heals, which is more broadly useful but slightly less powerful in edge cases.

Naturally, the best thing possible is to have Regeneration 1 and Fast Healing X, which functions as Regeneration X + 1 most of the time and Fast Healing X the rest of the time.

[ericgrau]

The three considerations are the (1) hp gained, (2) free full heals and the (3) not dying.

(1) As a rule of thumb I peg the important part of combat at 3 rounds. So triple the regeneration amount and figure out how much extra hp that is worth. Maybe double, under the assumption that you don't heal every round. You might reference the vigor armor enchantment in the magic item compendium to help you. You may notice that a flat hp amount is worth much more at low level than high.

(2) Free full heals are worth about as much as a wand of cure light wounds or two.

(3) Not dying can save you from a resurrection or three. Each one is about 5,000 gp plus some temporary xp loss, or 25,000 gp (true resurrection). Whichever is less.

Note that (2) and (3) apply equally to regeneration 1 and regeneration 10. Only (1) varies. There should be a big flat cost regardless of amount plus a small scaling cost depending on amount.

For monsters you can also look at existing creatures. A troll only has 1 CR more than a dire boar, yet with similar damage and defenses. Unlike a PC unconsciousness is almost as good as dead on monster CR, so it makes sense.

I'd say that (3) is the biggest consideration for PCs. If you assume the player will abuse it, you might price it at around multiple resurrections. Maybe 50,000-75,000 gp for regeneration 1, and only a little more gp for higher regeneration amounts. LA isn't a good way to balance it because the value changes dramatically depending on the availability of [true] resurrections. It could work with LA buyoff, and then you use a rather high LA under the assumption of worst case scenario: low level players [ab]using it.