Houserule for Cure X Wounds lline, balanced?

[Asrrin]

So I'm thinking of adding a houserule for the Cure X Wounds line of spells to give it more combat viability.

When casting Cure X Wounds, you have the choice of any one of three boosts to the spell:
1. Treat the spell as having a casting time of 1 immediate action, or;
2. Treat the spell as being maximized without increasing spell level, or;
3. Treat the spell as having a range of short, rather than touch.

I believe this would give healers the flexibility to use Cure spells in the most appropriate situations and present a viable alternative to using actions to battlefield control or damage opponents.

Thoughts?

[Secret Wizard]

Unbalanced. If you want to be a good combat healer, you have to build for it.

By doing this you reduce the comparative power of high defense classes like Barbs/Fighters/Paladins.

[DeAnno]

This is fine, maybe don't allow it with Cleric spontaneous-swap-casting though.

[Vhaidara]

An excellent start. Let's you heal reactively (immediate action), effectively (maximize), or safely (range).

I would further make the default casting action Swift.

Secret Wizard: That's bull. Those high defense classes are the ones who benefit from this. Since they get the crap kicked out of them. If the cleric can be bothered to heal them instead of just fighting, that's a buff to the people who need healing

[TheIronGolem]

I wouldn't allow this out of the box, but it would make a great domain power, or possibly some kind of "Combat Healer" feat.

[Troacctid]

You should not make it a swift or immediate action without also increasing the range. Leaving it at touch range defeats the purpose of being action-efficient, since you have to move anyway. What it does is strongly incentivize you to only heal yourself, because you're the only one in range and, hey, might as well heal somebody. And that's not really in the spirit of what healing spells are intended to do.

[Vhaidara]

Actually I would say let them pick two. Immediate and ranged, Ranged and maximized, or Immediate and Maximized

[Asrrin]

You should not make it a swift or immediate action without also increasing the range. Leaving it at touch range defeats the purpose of being action-efficient, since you have to move anyway. What it does is strongly incentivize you to only heal yourself, because you're the only one in range and, hey, might as well heal somebody. And that's not really in the spirit of what healing spells are intended to do.

If it were both immediate and ranged, you would never take the maximized version inside of combat because it's too versatile. by making a choice between range or action, you must decide if you are going to be a back line spell slinger and not be able to react to a large chunk of damage, or if you are going to be wading into the thick of things and flanking with a bruiser to offer that reactionary healing.

[Troacctid]

Also, I'd probably make this the domain granted power for the Healing domain. And a class feature for Healers--let them start by choosing one, then choose two later, and eventually choose all three. (And give them spontaneous curing while you're at it.)

Clerics are already one of the strongest classes in the game and don't need a universal buff. Healing specialists, on the other hand, are underpowered, and would really, really appreciate a buff.

[Red Fel]

I like it, but I do think it's something you should build towards. The blasters have to optimize their metamagics, the melees have to optimize their Power Attack, the Monk has to optimize not being a tragic failure, and the Ranger has to optimize from Point Blank Shot; it seems a bit jarring that, regardless of specialization of build, the Cleric can heal quite that well right out of the gate.

I think one or two homebrew feats should reasonably cover the expense, while enabling combat healing to be quite efficient. I don't think the ultimate outcome of what you've proposed is broken, but I do think there should be some higher entry cost.

[Chronos]

Quoth Troacctid:

Also, I'd probably make this the domain granted power for the Healing domain.
This, I like. Healing, as-is, is by far the most useless domain in the game: All of the spells are already on the cleric list anyway, and a +1 caster level to a narrow category of spells is quite a weak domain power. Its only purpose is for things like Arcane Disciple, and even there, a wizard is much more likely to pick some other domain.