who should pay for wand/scrolls CLW?

[khachaturian]

as a matter of etiquette, i was wondering how other people handled this. i am the party cleric and can scribe scrolls of CLW for 12.5GP or buy a wand at 15GP/charge. is there an expectation that the party will chip in for this. if so, how much?

[Big Fau]

A wand is 750gp, and it's expected that there are 4 players to a party. Asking the rest of the party to pitch in ~185gp for a brand new wand isn't unfair.

[erikun]

When I'm the party cleric, I generally talk with the other players to see how to handle this. Wands of CLW are generally considered party resources, because even though only one character uses it, everyone gets benefits from it. Most parties I'm in are fine with buying at least one from the party pot, and I make it a point to not be stingy on the heals and buffs as a result.

If they're insisting that I, as the healer, should be paying for it with my own money, then I, as the healer, will be the one deciding when and with who healing and buffing is important. :smallwink:

[Deadline]

Our group generally pitches in an equal share of the cost for things like wands of CLW or LV.

[ericgrau]

The cleric. It's a team game and part of his contribution to the party. The fighter doesn't charge the party mercenary fees for the damage he does to prevent damage to the party, nor for his weapons and other gear. But since it's a team game it doesn't really matter if everyone pays for it either. And 750 gp isn't a big deal either.

The exception I think is when the cleric finds something more important to buy and the rest of the party still wants something. Then they have to pitch in to get it. And at low levels 750 gp may be a bit much for the cleric to pay by himself, and it's not unreasonable for everyone to pay at those levels.

Usually it doesn't really matter like I said. The only dangerous thing is if everyone start paying way more for one member's items than another's. Or if PCs stop contributing to the team, only heal themselves and so on. Possibly even brags about it. In the first case it's unfair and gives too much limelight to one player. He may have a valuable contribution worth paying for, but so does everyone else. In the second case it's fair but the party is weaker from it. Besides being mean & unfriendly in a social setting.

[Grayson01]

For Wands oh healing that are party use the party should pool together for. As to comapiring thing to the fighter asking for money per-kill or for similar services rendered I don't see that as a equal comparison. If the Cleric was demanding a tieth for every spell he cast from his own spell pool I could see that as a like comparison. But a wand that cost and is directly helping the party and is a party resourse that should be party funded. As for the comparison of the fighter asking for money from the party to buy/upgrade his equipment, I have played some games where we have done just that. Helped the Mellee and in some cases casters purches equipment that in the end will only help the party.

[sleepyphoenixx]

At low levels, the party. In general the party chips in to buy universally useful stuff like Metamagic Rods of Chain Spell or Pearls of Power for buffs earlier or more of them.
I've played in groups where it was the opposite though. It usually means less buffs to go around and once you point that out people will often be happy to chip in.

[CRtwenty]

Generally the entire party chips in for items like this. At least in my experience.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The cleric. It's a team game and part of his contribution to the party. The fighter doesn't charge the party mercenary fees for the damage he does to prevent damage to the party, nor for his weapons and other gear. But since it's a team game it doesn't really matter if everyone pays for it either. And 750 gp isn't a big deal either.

That's bad comparison because only the fighter can benefit from his own weapons and armor directly and chances are the fighter will be benefiting from CLW wands more then the cleric will. Should the cleric pay for resurrecting the fighter because its his job to resurrect him? Or should the whole party chip in some money.

Now here's a question, what if there is no cleric, or bard, or paladin. What if the curing comes from UMDing a wand? then who pays for the wand?

Essential consumables should be purchased by the whole party, not just wands of cure light wounds or restoration, but even for some material components. You shouldn't ask the wizard to pay the material cost for identify everyone should share that burden.

[RustyArmor]

Our group does a group loot fund. Which we divide the treasure as if one more person was there. That extra goes to Cure/Raise/Resurrection wands/scrolls/potions.

[ericgrau]

That's bad comparison because only the fighter can benefit from his own weapons and armor directly and chances are the fighter will be benefiting from CLW wands more then the cleric will. Should the cleric pay for resurrecting the fighter because its his job to resurrect him? Or should the whole party chip in some money.

Now here's a question, what if there is no cleric, or bard, or paladin. What if the curing comes from UMDing a wand? then who pays for the wand?

Essential consumables should be purchased by the whole party, not just wands of cure light wounds or restoration, but even for some material components. You shouldn't ask the wizard to pay the material cost for identify everyone should share that burden.

And yet damage prevention to the party via damage to the enemy is often put ahead of healing. Who then pays for the fighter's potions of enlarge person? But like I said in the end it's all cooperative so it doesn't matter much one way or the other. And I've seen it done both ways too.

Expendables can't really be differentiated from permanent items either, because in this system with incredibly brief fighting it's often better and cheaper to use expendables in place of permanent items. They may get widespread hate because people don't realize this and think they're throwing money away, but that doesn't change anything. What if the cleric had an eternal wand of cure light wounds? What if the fighter stands at the choke point and holds position? If the mage cuts enemy damage in half, and the healing required, with a wall of force from a staff, does everyone chip in for the staff? It doesn't make a difference what the gear is for or if it's permanent or expended, it all contributes the same in the end. And yet it doesn't matter who pays for it either.

With one item it doesn't really matter who pays. But what if there's more? My last character took support to the extreme. He was a buffing, affliction removing, healing beast, and nearly every penny of his gear went to it. One extended fight I ran out of useful spells, so I took care of a personal matter and told the party I'd catch up to the next fight segment. My buffs saved someone 2-3 times, so I joked "I'm most useful when I'm not around!" Should the party have split the cost of all my gear? I hope not, they'd be mad at having less toys of their own to play with.

For etiquette my groups have been largely indifferent and tend to help whoever needs it.

[Krobar]

In our games things like this are paid for by the party. When treasure is divided, loot sold, etc., a portion goes into the party treasury to cover future expenses.

[Maginomicon]

There are rules for reduced-count wands in the Magic Item Compendium. These allow you to purchase or find a wand with less than 50 charges. This is relevant because it means that if you can't get together enough funds from the party to afford a 50-charge wand, you can by a 20-charge wand or even a 10-charge wand and just choose to only use it on those who paid into the investment.

[White_Drake]

There are rules for reduced-count wands in the Magic Item Compendium. These allow you to purchase or find a wand with less than 50 charges. This is relevant because it means that if you can't get together enough funds from the party to afford a 50-charge wand, you can by a 20-charge wand or even a 10-charge wand and just choose to only use it on those who paid into the investment.

I can't really see that working; theoretically, maybe, but are you just going to say "no, I won't heal you" after the party fighter gets his face ripped off by a dragon?

[Deophaun]

I can't really see that working; theoretically, maybe, but are you just going to say "no, I won't heal you" after the party fighter gets his face ripped off by a dragon?
You could always dock his treasure share at double the cost.

[Barsoom]

I don't see a reason why a character should be paid for using his class features. The Rogue isn't paid extra for approaching every potentially-trapped door first, and the Fighter isn't paid extra for being on the frontlines and taking the brunt of the damage, because that's what they are supposed to do. So the Cleric shouldn't be paid extra for doing what he's supposed to do, ie. healing them.

[Raendyn]

I agree with eric on this!

The *healer* pays for them, its his job to heal, healing is his contribution, he restores the dmg enemies do, the same way the glass cannons deal enemy dmg in order to get a fast kill and prevent the need of healing.

Ever seen a wizard asking the party to share the cost of his wand of empowered fireballs? or a rogue and his wand of G. Invis?

Maybe, in low lvls he can talk the rest of the party to help with those, but beyond that...

[Deophaun]

Maybe, in low lvls he can talk the rest of the party to help with those, but beyond that...
Beyond that he can simply say "sorry, I don't have the spells available to heal you." That method is a pretty effective way to convince others to buy the wands.

[Barsoom]

And the party will say he is a crummy Cleric, kick him out, and get a hireling instead. All completely IC.

[Herabec]

If the group wants to benefit from my Wand of Cure Light Wounds, then the group is going to contribute toward the price. Just as if I want the Wizard to identify my magic sword, I'm going to give the Wizard the gold for the materials for the spell.

[Raendyn]

Beyond that he can simply say "sorry, I don't have the spells available to heal you." That method is a pretty effective way to convince others to buy the wands.

I can see this ending with someone that knows what dnd is, how party roles work and how important healing is, to take over his role and making him feel embarashed for being a total @ss, just by doing it correctly. He will eventually quit because of being obsolete and because ppl will heavily dislike that behavior.

I can also imagine the wounded wizard who wasnt healed because the cleric was being and @ss, to pick him after the ranger companion into the Dim. Door, and then replying ""sorry, I don't have the spells avaiable to het you across that chasm."

Toxic behavior breed toxic behavior..


And the party will say he is a crummy Cleric, kick him out, and get a hireling instead. All completely IC.

This will happen even if they dont kick him, when the rest look down on you, you eventually quit anyways.


If the group wants to benefit from my Wand of Cure Light Wounds, then the group is going to contribute toward the price. Just as if I want the Wizard to identify my magic sword, I'm going to give the Wizard the gold for the materials for the spell.

How much gold will you pay him for disintegrating the troll that just tripped you and is trying to eat you alive?

[Herabec]

How much gold will you pay him for disintegrating the troll that just tripped you and is trying to eat you alive?

Not one copper because disintegrate doesn't have a material component cost. A Wand of Cure Light Wounds costs 750gp.

I'd pay for any spell that costs money/exp to cast.

Casting spells on them from my wand costs me money, so they're going to chip in for it.

[Barsoom]

Now you're just being silly. Of course casting that Disintegrate costs him. It costs him a 6th level spell slot. A spell slot he could have used for another opportunity. He could have let that troll eat you and have kept the spell for another use.

[Raendyn]

Not one copper because disintegrate doesn't have a material component cost. A Wand of Cure Light Wounds costs 750gp.

I'd pay for any spell that costs money/exp to cast.

Casting spells on them from my wand costs me money, so they're going to chip in for it.
Thats irrational, from my list or from a scroll, it costs more or less the same. See how much it costs to have a 6th lvl spell cast. So there's a difference on who pays me if I use my last disintegrate to kill your Troll, and a scroll of disintegration to kill the Troll over the rogue!!! Interesting...

You understand that having to spam charges from the CLW wand means that either you are doing something wrong as a party, or you are wasting precious potencially healing spells to do something else as a healer. Regularly those wands last for so long that the cost is of no matter.

People that think this way should never get the healer role, not just cause your logic is flawed, but mainly because it doesnt fit you, healers feel rewarded when they heal, just as a wizard feels when he disintegrates, if you don't feel this rewarding feeling, then you shouldn't be the healer.

This way of handling things just bring more arguing. because, when I am the back line wizard I would need less healing than the front line fighter/rogue, so why I have to pay 750/(party members) gold while only 1-2 charges were cast on me?

[LordBlades]

In my group, stuff that's useful for the whole party, like Wands of Lesser Vigor (and other generally useful spells, like Knock for example), Belts of Wide Earth and the like, regardless of who gets to use the,

Regarding the cleric having to pay for wands to heal the fighter because 'that's his job', that's bull**** IMO. He's already doing the fighter a great service by considering healing instead of being a better fighter. If 'you're a crappy cleric because you don't heal me, go away' is a valid IC justification for kicking the cleric out, then so is 'you're a crappy fighter, because the cleric fights way better, go away'.

[Crake]

In all the games I've played in/DMed the players have all used a party collective system where people who are more gear dependent get more gear than those who aren't, as agreed upon by all the players, and all consumables are also purchased by the party collective.

I find it hard to imagine any party where, upon looting, the loot is split an even cut and everyone goes and spends their own money separately.

[eggynack]

People that think this way should never get the healer role, not just cause your logic is flawed, but mainly because it doesnt fit you, healers feel rewarded when they heal, just as a wizard feels when he disintegrates, if you don't feel this rewarding feeling, then you shouldn't
This only seems true if the character's primary role is to heal. A lot of the time, a wand of cure light wounds isn't used to supplement a cleric's healing ability. It's used as a replacement for his healing ability, so that he can do what he was actually built to do. In this case, his being able to activate the wand is a convenience to the party. The way I figure it, if I'm a cleric, and I'm paying for the wand, then there's going to be some wand based triage going down. If you don't look like you absolutely need the cure, I'm not going to spend it, because I wouldn't spend a spontaneous cure on it without the wand. If the wand is a group purchase, it's not up to the cleric to decide how it's used. Instead, folks are just healed up after battles, or they're not, but that's the decision of the one being healed, or perhaps the entire party. I personally prefer the latter situation, where everyone's always healed, but if you want the guy with the wand to make all of those decisions, I guess you can have him pay for it.

[Undead Pebble]

The correct response to a party who refuses to help buy wands of CLW is to not buy a wand of CLW. Buy something that counts as your gear instead, like an eternal wand of CLW with 3 uses/day.

Or better yet, skip the whole wand idea, clerics have enough heal spells if you refrain from casting anything else. Buy a good sword or something and fight in melee to save your spells for healing.

The point is: if you expect the cleric to buy all the healing items, he will eventually fall behind in gear and become useless compared to the rest of the party anyway. That is also not fun.

Btw. Do you guys get much gold in your games? We seem to be getting mostly items and a single party member would need to spend almost all the gold he gets on wands of CLW.

[LordBlades]

I find it hard to imagine any party where, upon looting, the loot is split an even cut and everyone goes and spends their own money separately.

As a tanget, we've once experimented that in the course of a semi-long campaign (from level 4 to 11) and it tends to create huge disparities between people with specific gear needs, and people with less specific gear needs.

Char A was a druid. He had very specific gear needs (Wilding Clasps, Dragonhide armor or Monk's Belt, Wis and Con Boosters etc.) and 90% of the loot we'd find would be useless for him (either stuff he couldn't use, like most weapons and armors, or trinkets that weren't worth a Wilding Clasp to put on). At the end of the campaign he peaked around 80-90k GP worth of gear.

Char B was a cleric with Magic domain. He could literally use 90% of the stuff we'd find, Weapons, armor, any arcane or divine scroll/wand/staff, and was also keen on keeping a lot of potentially useful trinkets, like feather tokens and similar MIC stuff. At the end of the campaign he was just over 200k GP worth of gear.

[Raendyn]

In my group, stuff that's useful for the whole party, like Wands of Lesser Vigor (and other generally useful spells, like Knock for example), Belts of Wide Earth and the like, regardless of who gets to use the,

Regarding the cleric having to pay for wands to heal the fighter because 'that's his job', that's bull**** IMO. He's already doing the fighter a great service by considering healing instead of being a better fighter. If 'you're a crappy cleric because you don't heal me, go away' is a valid IC justification for kicking the cleric out, then so is 'you're a crappy fighter, because the cleric fights way better, go away'.

First of all, it seems that your post is missing something, probably a mistake while editing the 1st paragraph.

You should see the whole idea more open minded, when we say " fighter" we mean the role, "Big Stupid Fighter", the melee, front line, heavy armored, meat wall, with lots of hp/ac, wielding a heavy piece of metal and wood, bashing heads. This guy in my party is a wizard/fighter/E.Knight/runesmith with a 50 AC, dishing out 80-100 dmg/attack at lvl 11, in a "persist dont exist" world. Still, he is the fighter*, and the very few times DM manages to do some tiny dmg on him, I heal him then say "Papa healed you, now go bite them my little puppie", Satisfaction, checked. OOC trollin, checked....

[eggynack]

The correct response to a party who refuses to help buy wands of CLW is to not buy a wand of CLW. Buy something that counts as your gear instead, like an eternal wand of CLW with 3 uses/day.

Or better yet, skip the whole wand idea, clerics have enough heal spells if you refrain from casting anything else. Buy a good sword or something and fight in melee to save your spells for healing.

The point is: if you expect the cleric to buy all the healing items, he will eventually fall behind in gear and become useless compared to the rest of the party anyway. That is also not fun.

Btw. Do you guys get much gold in your games? We seem to be getting mostly items and a single party member would need to spend almost all the gold he gets on wands of CLW.
This stuff seems like the opposite of accurate. First of all, it's a pretty terrible idea to spend your slots on spontaneous cures, unless it's the end of the day, or the situation is desperate. Healing is just a generally bad idea. Second of all, clerics can generally do just fine with very little money. They're exceedingly powerful, and unless the rest of the party is made up of top tier casters, or they're playing significantly below their capacity, they're unlikely to fall behind. I'm not saying that they should go without money, but they essentially can if they want to.

[Barsoom]

Clerics are actually less gear-dependant than most classes. They can make their own magical armor weapon, for a start.

The 12th-level fighter has to pay 9,000 gp for a Full Plate+3, but the 12th level Cleric just makes a Full Plate+3 that lasts all day. So there's no reason to whine about a bloody 750 gp wand.

[Undead Pebble]

This stuff seems like the opposite of accurate. First of all, it's a pretty terrible idea to spend your slots on spontaneous cures, unless it's the end of the day, or the situation is desperate. Healing is just a generally bad idea.

So you want the cleric to be the healer, but you don't want him to use any of his healing spells?

Then why not designate the UMD rogue to be the healer, it seems like he would do exactly as good a job of it.

[eggynack]

So you want the cleric to be the healer, but you don't want him to use any of his healing spells?

Then why not designate the UMD rogue to be the healer, it seems like he would do exactly as good a job of it.
I said I don't want the cleric to be the healer. If the rogue has invested the UMD to get off the cures every time, you can give that guy the wand if he wants it. A wand of cure light wounds is largely for out of combat use. It doesn't matter who holds it, except that the cleric is often the only one who can. There's no real decision making involved, so it makes no sense for the cleric to pay for it unless he's making some odd decisions about who gets healing and when.

[sleepyphoenixx]

So you want the cleric to be the healer, but you don't want him to use any of his healing spells?

Then why not designate the UMD rogue to be the healer, it seems like he would do exactly as good a job of it.

The point of a healer is often to cure stuff like ability damage, curses and status effects that just aren't cost effective with a wand.
Making the cleric spend all his slots on cure spells is a good way to make sure no one wants to play one in my experience.

[Undead Pebble]

Making the cleric spend all his slots on cure spells is a good way to make sure no one wants to play one in my experience.

Making his only alternative be to buy a bunch of CLW wands seems to be another way to make sure no one wants to play one.

[LordBlades]

First of all, it seems that your post is missing something, probably a mistake while editing the 1st paragraph.

You should see the whole idea more open minded, when we say " fighter" we mean the role, "Big Stupid Fighter", the melee, front line, heavy armored, meat wall, with lots of hp/ac, wielding a heavy piece of metal and wood, bashing heads. This guy in my party is a wizard/fighter/E.Knight/runesmith with a 50 AC, dishing out 80-100 dmg/attack at lvl 11, in a "persist dont exist" world. Still, he is the fighter*, and the very few times DM manages to do some tiny dmg on him, I heal him then say "Papa healed you, now go bite them my little puppie", Satisfaction, checked. OOC trollin, checked....

Yeah, I meant to say, 'everybody pays for it if it's useful to the whole party, regardless on who actually uses it'.


I didn't mean fighter per se. Thing is, cleric is such a versatile and powerful class that it can do a lot more than just healing. Healing, especially in-combat healing is a very limited use of a cleric's actions and spell slots.

In your actual case, even if Persistent Spell is banned, you can always play summoner (going into Malconvoker, and flood the battlefield with tons of augmented evil outsiders), or you can go into necromancy, and flood the battlefield with your undead army, all while you're standing safely away on your zombie dragon. There are ways:smalltongue:

Also, even if I had even such a frontliner insisted that the cleric should heal and pay for healing items out of kindness of heart I'd point them at the Arcane Disciple (Healing) feat, so they can become a healer too and express that kindness of heart in deeds, not only in words.

I play Divine casters 'for a living', my most played class is Druid, and an even spread of Cleric and various gishes coming in second, and I consider in combat healing a very poor use of actions compared to actually dismantling the opposition, especially since healing doesn't really keep pace with damage. Only healing spells I regularly use in combat are Close Woulds, Heal, Delay Death, Last Breath and Revivify. Between combats we heal ourselves up with wands of Lesser Vigor, or infinite healing sources when available (like Dread Necro in a party of undead, or Martial Spirit Boxing).

[eggynack]

Making his only alternative be to buy a bunch of CLW wands seems to be another way to make sure no one wants to play one.
They're really not that expensive, despite how divisive this issue is. It's just 750 GP, and that gets you about 275 HP off of the whole thing. Alternatively, you could go all in on the out of combat healing experience, pay 750 GP for a wand of lesser vigor, and get 550 HP from it. Those HP go a long way, and clerics are fantastic enough that they can take the GP hit, even if they shouldn't have to.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I don't see a reason why a character should be paid for using his class features. The Rogue isn't paid extra for approaching every potentially-trapped door first, and the Fighter isn't paid extra for being on the frontlines and taking the brunt of the damage, because that's what they are supposed to do. So the Cleric shouldn't be paid extra for doing what he's supposed to do, ie. healing them.

He's not being paid extra for healing, he's being partially reimbursed for the cost of a wand. Healing a whole group with wands of cure light wounds or lesser vigor between encounters can add up, if your in the middle of a dungeon and only have a few minutes before the next wave hits you could burn ten or twenty charges at once.

If the fighter is disintegrated by a beholder should the cleric pay that whole 10,000gp material component cost for resurrection because healing is his job? As that's essentially what your saying. Or should the party share the expense of bring back a dead comrade.

Should the wizard have to pay the material cost of identifying the pile of magic items or should that cost be deducted before treasure is divided.

The fighter doesn't lose money by being on the front lines, nor does it cost the rogue any currency to search for traps. But it does cost a character money to buy a wand of cure light wounds. The character has not really bought an item for himself... he's bought an item for the whole party.


Ever seen a wizard asking the party to share the cost of his wand of empowered fireballs? or a rogue and his wand of G. Invis?

If the whole party routinely asked to use charges from the wand of Greater Invisibility how would it be unfair to ask the whole party to share the expense rather then make the rogue shoulder the cost? If the fighter is asking the wizard to cast stoneskin on him every encounter is it unfair for the wizard to ask fighter cover the 250gp material point cost?

Its the difference between spending money on your self and asking a fellow PC to spend money on you. When you ask one character to pay the cost of wands of curing. Your asking him to shoulder other peoples expenses.


And yet damage prevention to the party via damage to the enemy is often put ahead of healing.
Which means the cleric isn't actually required for healing at all. If the party has a Bard a ranger, a paladin or a UMD rogue those characters could use the wand instead of the cleric, as I say to Raendyn

You understand that having to spam charges from the CLW wand means that either you are doing something wrong as a party, or you are wasting precious potencially healing spells to do something else as a healer. Regularly those wands last for so long that the cost is of no matter.
Not really an entire wand of cure light wounds is going to heal more damage then a scroll of heal and for half the cost. Wand of CLW or lesser vigor are the most efficient way to heal a party between encounters freeing up the cleric's spell slots for buffs or other offensive measures. A cleric has only so many spell slots in a day and they are better spent on preventing the damage from occurring in the first place.


What if the cleric had an eternal wand of cure light wounds? What if the fighter stands at the choke point and holds position? If the mage cuts enemy damage in half, and the healing required, with a wall of force from a staff, does everyone chip in for the staff? It doesn't make a difference what the gear is for or if it's permanent or expended, it all contributes the same in the end. And yet it doesn't matter who pays for it either.
It doesn't cost the fighter gold to stand at a choke point, the mage isn't asked to use fifteen or twenty charges from his staff in a day. The same can not be said for charges coming off restorative items.

It does in fact it makes a world of difference. If the whole party shares the cost for wands of curing/restoration etc then you can have more of those items on hand then if the burden was left to one character. Lets look at a staff of life, a fifty charge item capable of casting heal(1) or resurrection(5). But it caries a very hefty price tag. The difference between sharing the cost and making one guy pay for it is likely the difference between having it and not having it. A cleric is really only necessary when it come to healing because of the spell heal which can instantly put a brink of death character make to full strength, or at least enough strength to survive the encounter.

"Heal" aside a party could get buy just using UMD and some wands of curing and restoration. I've been in groups where the party healer was a Bard and when nearly all your restorative magic is coming from consumable magic items, asking him to shoulder that whole GP cost would be ungodly expensive.
A lot of this discussion is predicated on the belief a cleric or druid is present in all parties they aren't and when they aren't you need a good deal more of those curing items so splitting the cost between the whole party becomes that much more important.

[Krazzman]

In our Group?

Let's sum it up:

The campaign I play the Warblade in so far we didn't thought of it as we actually found such a wand and normally we sum up the treasure in a party share. Our Bardlock took a wand of curing the last time we visited a settlement from this and we divided the rest up afterwards.

The campaign I play the Cleric in Magic has become volatile again in Faerun. Healing can instantly turn into Harm. As such and due to being level 3 and not anything near civilisation: so long nothing. I will bring that up though if we get to it but atm more mundane means of magic items are needed.

The Sorcerer is in a high enough level and in a pathfinder campaign (so no Lesser Vigor) and our Cleric patches us up after the big fights. We mostly have either some smaller easy fights or one big fight for the day (due to in campaign stuff).

In the Totemist Campaign:
To say it beforehand Ed has gotten NO education. He is quite intelligent (Int 14, Wis 14) but without education (or means of reading stuff, yes he is illiterate and comes along dumb but already outwitted the others on a few occasions).
In this constellation Dwarf Fighter, Elven Warmage, Human Kossuth Cleric and him the Warmage actively asked if we should buy ourselves a healing wand first so our Cleric can blast things with fire. (We haven't found a wand-shop yet but I think we will get to one in the city we are now as it is bigger than the one before).

[Kudaku]

In both parties I GM for and parties I'm in the group pools funds for basic utilities - a wand of CLW or Infernal Healing is typically the first thing the utility fund is spent on. Other examples of utility items would be an emergency scroll of teleport, antidote/antitoxin doses, smelling salts etc.

A character with access to healing is expected to assist with healing when needed, but he is most certainly not expected to pay for it.

[Trouvere]

Getting hold of that first wand of CLW is a massive power-up for the cleric. Instead of holding back his spells for the inevitable patching-up he will have to do when things go wrong, he can prepare whatever he likes and use it right away. If there is someone else in the party who can use the wand, it's even better: instead of hanging back lest he be incapacitated, he can wade right in with his adequate melee contribution, knowing that he's no longer at the mercy of lucky stabilisation rolls, Heal checks from Wis 8 companions, 8 hours bed rest, or expensive potion-healing.

Forget that lots of the charges of the wand will be used on other people. Even if every last one turns out to be spent on the fighter, the 'free up your spell slots and let you fight'-stick would still be the first bit of gear a cleric would buy! If there were a similar item for wizards, they would leap at the chance to buy it - a healstick is something like a whole set of pearls of power.

The greatest trick clerics ever pulled was convincing everyone else they should pay for the CLW wands. Meanwhile, no one steps up to help out the poor old rogue, who's trying to cover archery, TWF slice-and-dice, trapbreaking, face duties, scouting, thievery, UMDing stuff, and having just that right item tucked away for a rainy day, and getting no credit for it.

[ahenobarbi]

Party. I may be playing a cleric but I'm not playing a "healer" if you want me to take that role, you have to pay extra (i.e. cover cost of items to do the job effectively) or not complain when you get only healing left after I do my primary role.

[Barsoom]

Getting hold of that first wand of CLW is a massive power-up for the cleric. Instead of holding back his spells for the inevitable patching-up he will have to do when things go wrong, he can prepare whatever he likes and use it right away. If there is someone else in the party who can use the wand, it's even better: instead of hanging back lest he be incapacitated, he can wade right in with his adequate melee contribution, knowing that he's no longer at the mercy of lucky stabilisation rolls, Heal checks from Wis 8 companions, 8 hours bed rest, or expensive potion-healing.

Forget that lots of the charges of the wand will be used on other people. Even if every last one turns out to be spent on the fighter, the 'free up your spell slots and let you fight'-stick would still be the first bit of gear a cleric would buy! If there were a similar item for wizards, they would leap at the chance to buy it - a healstick is something like a whole set of pearls of power.

The greatest trick clerics ever pulled was convincing everyone else they should pay for the CLW wands. Meanwhile, no one steps up to help out the poor old rogue, who's trying to cover archery, TWF slice-and-dice, trapbreaking, face duties, scouting, thievery, UMDing stuff, and having just that right item tucked away for a rainy day, and getting no credit for it.Absolutely 100% true. Well said.

[eggynack]

Getting hold of that first wand of CLW is a massive power-up for the cleric. Instead of holding back his spells for the inevitable patching-up he will have to do when things go wrong, he can prepare whatever he likes and use it right away. If there is someone else in the party who can use the wand, it's even better: instead of hanging back lest he be incapacitated, he can wade right in with his adequate melee contribution, knowing that he's no longer at the mercy of lucky stabilisation rolls, Heal checks from Wis 8 companions, 8 hours bed rest, or expensive potion-healing.

Forget that lots of the charges of the wand will be used on other people. Even if every last one turns out to be spent on the fighter, the 'free up your spell slots and let you fight'-stick would still be the first bit of gear a cleric would buy! If there were a similar item for wizards, they would leap at the chance to buy it - a healstick is something like a whole set of pearls of power.

The greatest trick clerics ever pulled was convincing everyone else they should pay for the CLW wands. Meanwhile, no one steps up to help out the poor old rogue, who's trying to cover archery, TWF slice-and-dice, trapbreaking, face duties, scouting, thievery, UMDing stuff, and having just that right item tucked away for a rainy day, and getting no credit for it.
Well, y'know, screw that. You know what else helps the party? If the party cleric remains alive so that he can fight enemies. That's roughly equvalent to the fighter using a sword to defend his allies, so it's completely fair. There's no onus on the cleric to heal, just because that's the role you think they should have. If I'm paying for the wand, screw triage, I'm going to use it on myself. Getting a wand of cure light wounds won't free up my slots at all, because there's no way that I'm converting one of my first level slots into a cure light wounds. The choice isn't between the cleric healing with the wand, or the cleric healing with his slots. The choice is between the cleric healing with the wand, or the cleric not healing at all.

[ahenobarbi]

Absolutely 100% true. Well said.

Only if cleric has heal-bot as primary role. If cleric has "front line fighter", "summoner", "battlefield controller", "buffer", ... as it's primary role then it's 100% wrong. Then CLW becomes huge power up for the fighter, because now it can get as much healing as it needs, not measly scraps cleric has left after doing its primary job.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Only if cleric has heal-bot as primary role. If cleric has "front line fighter", "summoner", "battlefield controller", "buffer", ... as it's primary role then it's 100% wrong. Then CLW becomes huge power up for the fighter, because now it can get as much healing as it needs, not measly scraps cleric has left after doing its primary job.
Not to mention those parties who have no cleric and are largely dependent on wands, staves and UMD.

[Krazzman]

Seriously said:

Freeing up the clerics Spell Slots is something you want. You want to end encounters as fast as possible and then patch up afterwards.

I have so far only when the character was actively a healbot seen them heal infight. And in our Pathfinder Game the Cleric is a Merciful Healer. She looks after our main Damage sources (Paladin and Barbarian) to not die since even if she had the spells prepared that would shut this encounter down it has a chance to fail and as such she uses her channel or curing for stray damage that comes at us.

If I had Craft wand I would totally make her wands of Cure spells... problem being that they wouldn't be as effective as her cures. Additionally we have a debuff/controller wizard, a buff/Heal cleric and a Buff/Blast sorcerer. I cast haste and some other stuff freeing their spellslots. Then I start lopping Snowballs around the battlefield.

And every group that says Wands of CLW have to be paid from clerics alone is rather "non-heroic" in my opinion. In an evil game I understand this reaction but in the typical we are the good guys game? Nope, not seeing this.

It's not about whos job it is but rather about what does it bring the party? The level 1 Cleric might have a Persisted Lesser Vigor on himself and using his last 2 spellslots (one of that a domain spell) for something they might need. Like a Magic Weapon against an enemy that can only be hurt by magic weapons or similar.

[erikun]

Re: Wizards getting magical items from party funds, I have seen games where Wizards have successfully asked for and received money to buy and scribe a scroll of Identify into their spellbooks, to benefit the entire party in identifying magical items.

Also, I've never been in a position where I said "Pay for my wand, I'm using it to heal everyone." It has always been more along the lines of "You know, this wand is expensive but will let us keep going for more than 2-3 battles each day. I can even free up spell slots for buffing up the strength of the fighter, or the HP of the rogue." Most players seem to realize that helping your healer heal you is generally a very good thing, and far better than getting hurt and realizing just then that the party is out of healing spells.

[ahenobarbi]

Also, I've never been in a position where I said "Pay for my wand, I'm using it to heal everyone." It has always been more along the lines of "You know, this wand is expensive but will let us keep going for more than 2-3 battles each day. I can even free up spell slots for buffing up the strength of the fighter, or the HP of the rogue." Most players seem to realize that helping your healer heal you is generally a very good thing, and far better than getting hurt and realizing just then that the party is out of healing spells.

Being polite about the issue can help.

[eggynack]

Being polite about the issue can help.
Quite so. I'm don't think that a player should actually say that they're holding everyone's health totals hostage unless they meet the cleric's demands. You should just gesture vaguely towards that fact, and maybe wink at people excessively. Your party will probably pay for their share of the healing if you do that. :smallwink:... :smallwink:

[Hand_of_Vecna]

As several people have said it depends on whether the person activating the wand has a "role" of healer. In the last few games I've been in there was no "healer" at level 1 and when we eventually had someone took UMD ranks or dipped cleric, nobody proclaimed "Yay, a healer!" it was "cool, now we can use a cheap wand instead of expensive potions".

[some guy]

Yeah, my players also all pitch in for wands of clw. I don't expect clerics to have the role of healer (I don't expect anyone to have specific roles). I think that is causing the main divide in this thread, the notion of players adhering to roles or not.

[Psyren]

And the party will say he is a crummy Cleric, kick him out, and get a hireling instead. All completely IC.

And spend more doing it than if they had just bought you the damn wand :smalltongue:

I don't require that every single party member chip in, but someone needs to (for a party resource) and preferably, several someones. As a general rule, I have the party members with more disposable income help me buy wands. The fighter's wealth is usually tied up in trying to get to masterwork full plate for instance, but the rogue and bard are typically all set only a few levels in.

[Rebel7284]

In parties I have played in, we always just invest in a few Healing Belts from MIC. One of them we just had a cleric persist Lesser Vigor and mostly ignored healing (I think close wounds was cast once...)

[Deophaun]

I can see this ending with someone that knows what dnd is, how party roles work and how important healing is, to take over his role and making him feel embarashed for being a total @ss, just by doing it correctly. He will eventually quit because of being obsolete and because ppl will heavily dislike that behavior.
You are assuming that the person playing a character that happens to have CLW on his spell list or UMD as a class skill must be the healer and must pay for all healing. I'd say that attitude is more in line with being a total @ss than "you've got gold, get your own."

[Maginomicon]

I can't really see that working; theoretically, maybe, but are you just going to say "no, I won't heal you" after the party fighter gets his face ripped off by a dragon?
Well, actually, yes, because you can always have good business sense and...

dock his treasure share at double the cost.
If they don't pay into the buying of the item, they might get the benefit by paying double what everyone else does. It's called an opportunity cost (like an attack of opportunity, except they're actually not as likely to stiff you next time).

Treasure is supposed to be indicative of personal rewards. Taking away that reward so that other people in the party can get the benefit of something they didn't spend any of their treasure to afford? They can go stick it. If the group were that greedy, the healer would be better off buying things like better armor and weapons. Anything that doesn't imply he has to spend anything more than his replenishing class features and the action economy.

This is one of the reasons why I love the Divine Sorcery feat. As a sorcerer, I choose the healing domain, and then I don't have to trouble the party battery/gimp for healing most of the time.

[nedz]

This is one of the reasons why I love the Divine Sorcery feat. As a sorcerer, I choose the healing domain, and then I don't have to trouble the party battery/gimp for healing most of the time.

Do you have a source for this ?
Or did you mean the Domain Access ACF, or the Arcane Disciple feat ?

[Fouredged Sword]

Normally I advocate for a party share in loot. If the party is a four man band, then the treasure is split five ways, with one share being used to buy supplies that help out the whole group. This is used for wands of CLWs, scrolls of teleport, scrolls of status removal, and death reversal.

Characters put things on a shopping list, and if it gets three OK's we buy it with the party funds.

If the fund builds up over time, the party can take a vote and make an even cut from the fund.

It neatly solves so many accounting issues and ensures that one party member doesn't get stuck with buying party supplies.

[Dimers]

The fighter doesn't lose money by being on the front lines, nor does it cost the rogue any currency to search for traps.

However, if that DOES happen ... If the frontliner gets his gear eaten by a rust monster while I'm playing the healer, I'd bear some of the cost of replacement. If the skillmonkey could get bonuses to trap detection and removal with some cheap item, I'd chip in for that. I certainly do pay my share for item identification and other divinations with expensive components. And if I'm going to use my class abilities (such as having CLW on my spell list or skill points invested in UMD) for the good of the party in a way that costs extra money, I expect that to be a party expense too.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Team should bear the cost. Under normal circumstances this is a team game; team items should be purchased with the help of the team. Keeps the players happier. (Also clerics make sub-par heal bots and it is unfun to boot. Try playing a healer for a campaign and you will get a better sense of it).

[Gigas Breaker]

I just buy one so that it's settled and I don't have to worry about it anymore. 750 gp is nothing to me #yoloswag.

Seriously though I tend to be the front line guy anyway and I don't mind buying one.

[navar100]

Team should bear the cost. Under normal circumstances this is a team game; team items should be purchased with the help of the team. Keeps the players happier. (Also clerics make sub-par heal bots and it is unfun to boot. Try playing a healer for a campaign and you will get a better sense of it).

Clerics make excellent heal-bots and the fun in playing one is subjective to the individual. It would be boring for a cleric's only action ever is to cast healing spells, but that is not what a heal-bot does. A heal-bot does heal and remove afflictions, but he also buffs, casts attack spells, summon monsters, and occasionally even attack with a weapon.

The glory is not all about who gets the kill. Assisting others in getting the kill gives you equal glory. It's a tactic. By being the party's primary defender other party members can afford to focus more on offense.

As for the topic, it's fine for the cleric to ask everyone to chip for a healing wand. If a fighter wants to pay for a wand of Bull's Strength good for him. What is not cool is for the cleric to ask everyone to chip in for every wand he wants anytime all the time, even if it's for a buff spell. What is more likely to happen is a wand is found in treasure which the cleric, or any spellcaster depending on the wand, gets as his share. The spellcaster also gets goldpieces and gems which he can use to purchase things for his own use, even if they happen to be wands and scrolls.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Clerics make excellent heal-bots and the fun in playing one is subjective to the individual. It would be boring for a cleric's only action ever is to cast healing spells, but that is not what a heal-bot does. A heal-bot does heal and remove afflictions, but he also buffs, casts attack spells, summon monsters, and occasionally even attack with a weapon.

Then he is not a heal-bot. Notice you listed a lot of not-healing actions? And every healing spell cast is a monster not summoned, a buff not cast, and direct damage not sent out. Honestly, if I had to choose between the cleric healing me and the cleric casting a mid to high Summon Monster spell I would always pick the SM. Heck, some of the later ones can heal.

[Mithril Leaf]

If you have the class features to heal, then it's entirely within your right to have others front any non-renewable costs interred by that healing. If they don't want to chip in for a CLW wand, they can always buy their own healing belt and hope it's enough. You don't ask your fighter if you can just have his armor do you?

[Maginomicon]

Do you have a source for this ?
Or did you mean the Domain Access ACF, or the Arcane Disciple feat ?The Divine Sorcery feat is in Dragon Magazine #343 page 88. It gives you the domain's granted power, and adds one spell on that domain list each day to your spells-known list.

[DuncanMacleod]

WTF? Surely the team pools money and then debates what purchases are most beneficial for the team? You character simply doesn't exist independently from the team. If the team dies, your character dies. I really don't get this debate. It only make sense if you think you can leave a campaign whenever you want and somehow transfer your character to another GM/campaign, which is ridiculous. You leave a campaign, your character from that campaign ceases to exist. Do you guys only play with strangers that you hate?

[nedz]

The Divine Sorcery feat is in Dragon Magazine #343 page 88. It gives you the domain's granted power, and adds one spell on that domain list each day to your spells-known list.
Ah, thanks.


WTF? Surely the team pools money and then debates what purchases are most beneficial for the team? You character simply doesn't exist independently from the team. If the team dies, your character dies. I really don't get this debate. It only make sense if you think you can leave a campaign whenever you want and somehow transfer your character to another GM/campaign, which is ridiculous. You leave a campaign, your character from that campaign ceases to exist. Do you guys only play with strangers that you hate?

Evil parties exist, but IMHO the question posed is an IC decision for each character/party to make and so there is no general answer anyway.

[DuncanMacleod]

Fair enough, if you really want to have this debate in character, fine. It still seems like each character's primary priority would be not dying in any case, in which case they would selfishly do whatever benefits the team most...

[sleepyphoenixx]

WTF? Surely the team pools money and then debates what purchases are most beneficial for the team? You character simply doesn't exist independently from the team. If the team dies, your character dies. I really don't get this debate. It only make sense if you think you can leave a campaign whenever you want and somehow transfer your character to another GM/campaign, which is ridiculous. You leave a campaign, your character from that campaign ceases to exist. Do you guys only play with strangers that you hate?

That depends heavily on your fellow players and also on the campaign style.
It works fine in a standard good heroes campaign. Not so much if you're playing for team evil.

In the games i play often loot is split evenly and if a player needs some extra cash the others chip in as needed if they can spare it.

Some items should be party expenses though. Stuff like a Portable Hole, a Rod of lesser Chain Spell, Rod of Bodily Restoration,
a supply of basic emergency scrolls and spell components (raise dead and the component for it, for example).

Then there are the games where the plot is the only reason we (IC) work together so it's every man for himself, with associated backstabbing and plotting once the campaign draws to a close.
It's certainly not for everyone but it's fun once in a while.

[LordBlades]

Team should bear the cost. Under normal circumstances this is a team game; team items should be purchased with the help of the team. Keeps the players happier. (Also clerics make sub-par heal bots and it is unfun to boot. Try playing a healer for a campaign and you will get a better sense of it).

Actually, clerics are some of the best possible healers. It's the whole in-combat healing concept itself that's sub-par.

[eggynack]

Actually, clerics are some of the best possible healers. It's the whole in-combat healing concept itself that's sub-par.
The way I think of it is that clerics absolutely suck at healing. It's just that every other class in the game (except maybe the crusader, I think) sucks worse at it.

[DuncanMacleod]

I suppose it depends on how tough the campaign is. I tend to play in campaigns where the GM has no qualms whatsoever about TPK's, and I personally would be furiously annoyed with the GM if he fudged an encounter to not kill the PC's. In that scenario, it is always in a character's self interest to try to contribute to not dying. If a GM is going to level scale/fudge stuff due to some aversion to killing PC's, then you have room to scheme (and generally LARP rather that playing "well" - hugely subjective term I know - by optimizing all your decisions).

[DuncanMacleod]

I appreciate that you said "with associated backstabbing and plotting once the campaign draws to a close", but that surely means that for the vast majority of the campaign you don't play selfishly, because to do so would be suicidal... And actually we mainly play evil campaigns.

[JusticeZero]

Pay for group items like CLW wands and the like out of loot before division.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I appreciate that you said "with associated backstabbing and plotting once the campaign draws to a close", but that surely means that for the vast majority of the campaign you don't play selfishly, because to do so would be suicidal... And actually we mainly play evil campaigns.

It depends on the circumstances of course.
"Do we really need him to complete X? Can i kill him without making myself vulnerable to the others/expending too many resources? Can i sucker Y into killing him instead and finish off the survivor?".

In a campaign like that the whole leadup usually consists of everyone trying to attain as much resources as possibly while leaving the others just enough to keep them useful.
Stealing, cheating, lying etc. are all fair game as long as it's kept IC. If people die they die, that's part of the fun.

That doesn't work at every table of course. In "standard" games with a good party sharing costs and resources should be the norm.

[nedz]

Fair enough, if you really want to have this debate in character, fine. It still seems like each character's primary priority would be not dying in any case, in which case they would selfishly do whatever benefits the team most...

Yes, and that's normally what I see in play; but characters can be irrational or hold IC grudges etc.
Ed: or alternatively be generous/altruistic or even proud/honourable and insist on funding the consumables themselves.

[DuncanMacleod]

Hmm... now I think about it in the morning, that's actually quite interesting...

[BWR]

In our games, depletable resources that directly benefit the entire group, like wands/scrolls of curing/restoration etc. are payed for by the group at low levels. Permanent magic items are personal expenses. Once people start getting enough money that a wand of CLW isn't that big of an expense, it's all personal expense. Things like diamond dust for raise/resurrection is a party exxpenditure all the way.

[#Raptor]

To those that would have the cleric pay for the wand:

What if your party has no divine caster? But lets say instead you'd have a rogue and a factotum with UMD - which one of those will get the role of "Healer" and have to buy the wand?

I feel its a realistic questions, since if you view the cleric as a healbot, you just might end up with a group without a cleric.


Also:
The cleric can use his spells for buffs and debuffs and be a flanking buddy for your main frontliner or the rogue.
Or he can heal.
Pick one.

Ultimatively if you don't share the costs for healing, the cleric might actually even become a worse healer.
He can't cast Remove Blindness/Deafness // Curse / Disease / Break Enchantment / Restoration if he had to convert all his spells to Cure X.
Sorry guys, the fighter stays blind and level-drained because we didn't buy a wand, so our cleric had to waste his spell slots on healing.

And BTW, just because your group bought a wand of CLW/Vigor doesn't mean the cleric will never cast a healing spell from his own spells.
In-combat healing may suck, but sometimes you really don't have any other choice.
I.e. in a level 3 PBP game I was playing here, me (cleric) and the fighter got into a fight that was meant for the whole group. I had already cast a lesser Vigor (wand) on me and him but our health was sinking rapidly. He had Cleave and a Greatsword, I had a Morningstar. Due to the lesser Vigor I would have auto-stabilized once I'd have been below 0 hp, so I concentrated on keeping our fighter alive and burned all my level 2 spells for Cure Moderate Wounds.

Other non-renewable items should be party expenses too. If the rogue buys a Scroll of Teleport - I certainly wouldn't mind covering a part of the cost.
Lots of other good examples have been named here too, like the rust monster attack.

[JeenLeen]

I vote for the CLW coming from party funds.

A more radical example happened in a high-level game I was in. I was a War Weaver wizard, specializing in buffs. Having 9th-level spells, I had a lot of buffs and releaseing my web cost several thousand gp. It was worth it (Stoneskin; Spell Resistance to everyone; other stuff), but it would rather rapidly cost my character a lot o fhis wealth if I supplied it all. So we had a party fund that covered it (which also covered 2 of those horns that cast Hero's Feast, diamonds for resurrection, various scrolls to heal status ailments, and wands for out-of-combat healing).

I could even see a rogue asking for the party to pitch in for masterwork thieves' tools, although I've never asked that when I played a rogue.

In the one low-level game (i.e., when the costs of wands mattered), the party joint-buying a wand came up because otherwise we all would need to buy potions. It was cheaper for the entire party to do it that way, since I didn't have the spells per day to effectively contribute to the party via spellcasting in combat and also healing.

[Fitz10019]

WTF? Surely the team pools money and then debates what purchases are most beneficial for the team? You character simply doesn't exist independently from the team. If the team dies, your character dies. I really don't get this debate. It only make sense if you think you can leave a campaign whenever you want and somehow transfer your character to another GM/campaign, which is ridiculous. You leave a campaign, your character from that campaign ceases to exist. Do you guys only play with strangers that you hate?

I think some players come to tabletop D&D by way of WoW and other video games. The group you play with today is not the group you play with next week, and that affects the 'culture' of loot allotment and 'role's to be played in the party.

That said, for tabletop D&D, the group fund buys group resources in my experience.

[Gnarnia]

I'd say it all depends on how reckless the party is.

If my party invests in both offense & defense, I'd pay out of my own clerical earnings.

If my party only invests in offense and they expect me to consistently clean up after them, I'd ask for party funds.