Party-wide resources?

[Flickerdart]

As far as I know this isn't a design space that D&D's really explored, but are there any effects that have a party-wide "pool" of resources that anyone can expend? Think of spells like protection from energy but the "12 points per CL" shield would be expended whenever any party member is struck by an attack.

I suppose water breathing is an okay example, where its duration is divided between all targets, but I'm more curious about spells where the shared depletion is "live" rather than pre-determined.

[Eloel]

As far as I know this isn't a design space that D&D's really explored, but are there any effects that have a party-wide "pool" of resources that anyone can expend? Think of spells like protection from energy but the "12 points per CL" shield would be expended whenever any party member is struck by an attack.

I suppose water breathing is an okay example, where its duration is divided between all targets, but I'm more curious about spells where the shared depletion is "live" rather than pre-determined.

Shield Other, to make HP into this?

[JeenLeen]

I haven't heard of anything like this, though the War Weaver PrC lets you cast multiple buffs on the entire party at once, so one spell slot is used to buff multiple party members. It's not what you're talking about, but sort of related in a way (one resource is given to all PCs, but each has it independently of the others.)

If a spell was made that works like this, it seems more versatile because it saves spell slots, working similar to that PrC. I suppose it does make the buff weaker, in a sense, since it applies less to each person, but it's better in that you don't have to worry about shielding someone unnecessarily (another PC can use it if that PC doesn't.)

[Zaq]

Blessing of the Godless (ceremony feat from Exemplars of Evil) does exactly this. It gives all participants in the ritual a shared pool of HP they can individually draw from.

The Paladin ACF Spirit of Healing (from Dungeonscape) kind of does this, but less elegantly than Blessing of the Godless does.

[Flickerdart]

Blessing of the Godless (ceremony feat from Exemplars of Evil) does exactly this. It gives all participants in the ritual a shared pool of HP they can individually draw from.
Oh, neat! Shame that it kinda sucks (unless the entire ritual is just to prop up a flagging party member - 6*HD healing is pretty good for a feat).

Also, is it just me, or can you not just constantly refresh the ritual to get the pool back?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Companion Spirits (DMG2) do exactly that. They offer stuff like a shared pool of healing, energy resistance and things like using Message between party members at will.
They also only require a bit of gold and XP to use, so they fit into pretty much any party.

[Zaq]

Oh, neat! Shame that it kinda sucks (unless the entire ritual is just to prop up a flagging party member - 6*HD healing is pretty good for a feat).

Also, is it just me, or can you not just constantly refresh the ritual to get the pool back?

The general text on Ceremony Feats says "a creature can only benefit from one ceremony at a time," but I don't see why you couldn't refresh the same ceremony over and over, unless the text about how "the effects of each ceremony last for 24 hours unless otherwise noted" interferes with you invoking a second ceremony while the first one still exists. (In other words, it doesn't explicitly say if the first ceremony prevents you from invoking the second ceremony, or if the second ceremony overwrites the first ceremony.)

Ceremony feats usually have a costly component to their ceremonies, but Blessing of the Godless is unclear—it says "each ceremony requires unholy water and the dung of an evil creature (see below)," but it doesn't say anything below. It doesn't say how much unholy water it uses, either. A GM would be perfectly justified, in my opinion, in requiring you to expend a fresh flask of unholy water each time you use the ceremony. 25 gp a pop isn't expensive, but neither is it free.

One downside of Blessing of the Godless is that it says that the pool of HP is based on your class level, not your character level. Likewise, the participants pull HP equal to their class level with each go, not their character level. Since it's a feat and not a class feature, it's entirely unclear which class level you use for this—in the absence of clarifying information, you probably use your highest class level, but that can be a problem if you're playing a build with a lot of dips or PrCs. If you use it in an actual game, you should probably get your GM to houserule that you use your character level, since that's much more sane all around, but RAW, it says class level.

[Eloel]

Companion Spirits (DMG2) do exactly that. They offer stuff like a shared pool of healing, energy resistance and things like using Message between party members at will.
They also only require a bit of gold and XP to use, so they fit into pretty much any party.

This is the first time I read through that. And it's amazing.