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Sergeantbrother
2007-05-23, 01:28 PM
I have often though that its a bit arbitrary that wizards and sorcerers can't heal, that even bards and rangers can heal (so its not like only the will of the gods can accomplish it) but the most powerful magic users in the game cannot.

Obviously, a wizard's spell selection is better than a cleric's - otherwise it would be terribly unbalanced that a cleric gets better hit point, combat ability, saves, and can wear armor. So since the wizard spells are better than cleric spells, why would it be unbalancing to give the wizard access to healing magic? It seems like it would be less powerful for a wizard to use up one of his better slots on a healing spell, if they are not as good as the spells a wizard has access to, right?

Is there any big reason why not to let wizards cast healing spells?

Belkarseviltwin
2007-05-23, 01:37 PM
That split has been there since OD&D. Apparently, it's there because Gary Gygax was trying to decide what to use his bishop for when he was converting Chainmail miniature wargaming rules into D&D. Back then there were only three classes: Fighting Man, Magic User and Cleric. Fighting Man did combat, Magic User did blasting, Cleric did buffing and healing. All the other classes that can heal came later (the Bard only appeared as a base class in 3.0).

....
2007-05-23, 01:42 PM
I have often though that its a bit arbitrary that wizards and sorcerers can't heal, that even bards and rangers can heal (so its not like only the will of the gods can accomplish it)

Rangers use the same holy magic as druids. So they do heal through the grace of the gods/nature/higher power.

Bards get to heal because they suck anyway.

Shatenjager
2007-05-23, 01:59 PM
Bards were a base class in 2E. They just couldn't heal.

Closet_Skeleton
2007-05-23, 02:32 PM
Bards were Druids in 1st edition or something so they could heal then.

ClericofPhwarrr
2007-05-23, 02:34 PM
Is there any big reason why not to let wizards cast healing spells?

Because they're already overpowered when played halfway intelligently as it is?

Telonius
2007-05-23, 02:39 PM
They can already cast "healing" spells, if you happen to be a Warforged. The "Repair" spells are arcane, and work on all constructs. [/nitpick]

Arbitrarity
2007-05-23, 02:40 PM
Because healing requires an intrinsic, instinctual knowledge of the body of the recipient, which cannot be duplicated by merely memorized rote lines. Furthermore, arcane magic as a whole is unrefined, unlike that channeled by the gods and nature, and therefore is incapable of preforming the fine and delicate manipulation to heal.

Bards can't really heal, it's psychosomatic :smallbiggrin:

Although, considering how healing works in D&D (I open a portal to the elemental plane of positive energy! Bask in it's light, and feel better!) It is kind of odd.

Vuzzmop
2007-05-23, 02:41 PM
did ... just say that bards suck?

You obviously aren't playing them right. Bards are all rounders, so you have to use their abilities to fill in gaps in the party, they're like charismatic window filler.

They get healing magic for that same reason, they are all rounders, and their magic comes from the soul. Therefore, they can heal.

lousy bard bashers.

JaronK
2007-05-23, 03:36 PM
Bards suck in kick in the door pure combat campaigns. They shine when they can use a little diplomacy.

Anyway, you can heal as a caster if you want... Wizard 19/PrC Bard 1! They get all bard spells added to their list.

If you wanted to show off your healing, you could do Wizard 14/PrC Bard 1/War Weaver 5, and be able to heal the entire party with a single spell... which would be new and different, certainly.

JaronK

my_evil_twin
2007-05-23, 03:43 PM
Is there any big reason why not to let wizards cast healing spells?BECAUSE!

It's one of the brute facts of the fantasy universe that clergy heal people. It's like gravity, or the existence of gold in the pockets of monsters who have no concept of economics.

But really...

So they will need clerics.

D&D was designed fairly carefully to let four adventuring-type characters hang out together without anyone feeling redundant. Generally if you reassign class roles, you'll get redundancy or you'll get one character being a lot more useful than anyone else.

kpenguin
2007-05-23, 03:46 PM
BECAUSE!

It's one of the brute facts of the fantasy universe that clergy heal people. It's like gravity, or the existence of gold in the pockets of monsters who have no concept of economics.

But really...

So they will need clerics.

D&D was designed fairly carefully to let four adventuring-type characters hang out together without anyone feeling redundant. Generally if you reassign class roles, you'll get redundancy or you'll get one character being a lot more useful than anyone else.

There already is a redundancy. One word: CoDzilla. Or, for real cheese, Polymorph-Wizard. Both can match the tank in pure melee and can outclass him in everything else.

Valairn
2007-05-23, 03:47 PM
I'm sensing a new base class in the works!

Tobrian
2007-05-23, 04:12 PM
Although, considering how healing works in D&D (I open a portal to the elemental plane of positive energy! Bask in it's light, and feel better!) It is kind of odd.

Precisely. Wizards can channel negative energy in necromantic curses, but not positive energy? It's arbitrary. :smallmad:

Add to that that the rules allow clerics and paladins who do NOT follow any deity whatsoever but merely some principle, and the whole pretense "only clerical magic can heal because only the gods can grant healing!" goes out the window.

I could have sworn that in AD&D there were some wizardly healing spells? Hm.

Dragonlance (or the old 2nd ed AD&D Wizards Spell Compendium) did have wizard spells that could heal by transfering the wounds of a wounded character to someone else who could then supposedly heal himself. Or transfering life energy from a healthy person into a sick/wounded person. Dragonlance even had that necromantic spell that could suck life energy from person A and make him age and transfer it to person B and make person B younger. Raistlin's nemesis evil archmage Fistandantilus used that a lot and sucked his apprentices dry...

Neek
2007-05-23, 04:16 PM
I already found a Wizard build that lets you cast healing spells. Take Arcane Disciple from the Complete Divine (pg. 79), which allows you to take any Cleric Domain, you can learn to cast those spells. Pick up Healing. Then, if you want, take Augment Healing (which adds +2 hp/level when you cast Cure). Only catch is, to learn these spells, you have to learn the spells from a scroll.

But it'd be awesome.

[Edit] Spontaneous Healer. I mean, come on? You can spontaneously cast Cure spells like a Cleric.

akira72703
2007-05-23, 04:18 PM
Off the top of my head theres vampiric touch (which is self only) and i dont know if im spelling this correctly but a 7th level forgotten realms spell called the Symbuls Synestodweomer (i think) it allows the wizard to convert a memorized spell into 2hp or healing per spell level.

SurlySeraph
2007-05-23, 04:35 PM
False life sort of counts as healing, though it's only temporary. Plus there's vampiric touch, like akira said. But I don't know of any wizard spells that let the wizard heal any one except himself, unless you count using plane shift to go to the Plane of Positive Energy. Giving wizards healing on top of blasting, battlefield control, save-or-die, save-or-suck, and save-or-lose spells would just be ridiculous, though; you'd never need any other class to do anything.

Aquillion
2007-05-23, 04:44 PM
The thing is, even if wizards could heal, they wouldn't. Oh, sure, wizards would probably memorize Heal once in case of an emergency and a few lowest-level heals for stabilizing people, and certainly they'd be sure to have some form of bringing back the dead in their spellbooks (though they get a few ways to do that now, come to think of it), but overall healing is less useful than the other things a wizard can accomplish. Even for a cleric, combat healing often isn't as useful as buffing yourself and wading into melee.

Shoyliguad
2007-05-23, 05:08 PM
Wow you are kidding right? Wizards are overpowered as it is, hit epic levels and your wizard can kill on sight, and adding healing is way over-powered. True at the first levels they aren't great but they catch up and are by far the strongest class in the book.

Miles Invictus
2007-05-23, 05:10 PM
D&D was designed fairly carefully to let four adventuring-type characters hang out together without anyone feeling redundant. Generally if you reassign class roles, you'll get redundancy or you'll get one character being a lot more useful than anyone else.

I think D&D could use a little more redundancy, especially for essentials like healing. If you had more classes that could heal, the Cleric could be balanced better.

In spite of Codzilla, the Cleric is intended to be the party's walking, talking medicine cabinet. The Cleric may do a damn good job of upstaging the fighter, but it has Spontaneous Healing as a class feature. That's its intended role.

The reason the Cleric gets all of these other goodies -- Divine Power, armor proficiency, etc -- is because healing is so essential, and the Cleric is your stock party's only healer. Because the Cleric is expected to heal, he can't burn through all of his spells the way a wizard can -- he's supposed to hold some in reserve for his teammates.

In order to make him fun to play, though, he's got to have some way of being effective without casting spells. Hence, armor proficiencies to keep him alive. Hence, Divine Power, to let him fight effectively without burning through all of his spell slots. Which is fine -- until the player realizes that, with the right build, he can outshine the party's fighter, and still have lots of spells to cast.

Now, imagine that your average party had two or three members capable of a fair bit of healing. The Cleric is still the best healer, and thus an important party member, but his healing isn't essential. He doesn't need to hold back all of his spell slots to heal the party. Although his niche is reduced, he gains flexibility. Result? You can take away the Cleric's more problematic features while keeping it a fun class to play.

Each class should be "the best" at something, but you want at least a little redundancy.

Aquillion
2007-05-23, 05:52 PM
I was sort of thinking along the same lines. Strangely, giving healing to wizards could actually make them less powerful, in effect, since healing is generally less overpowering than casting just the right spell at just the right time... every healing spell a wizard memorizes is one less spell from the more powerful arcane list that they don't have prepared. If I was redesigning the game from the ground up, I'd probably give healing to almost all casters.

(Of course, they'd still require other fixes to be balanced... as it is now, wizards would just ignore healing. But giving healing to lots of people is a good idea quite aside from balance, since it reduces the pain of playing a dedicated healer and being forced to devote lots of your spells and abilities to 'compulsory' things.)

Crazy_Uncle_Doug
2007-05-23, 06:06 PM
I remember a good article of Dragon back in the days of 2nd Edition DnD. Essentially, Wizards were to be separate from Clerics, but there were ways around the basic concepts and restrictions.

The article introduced a few spells that essentially allowed a Wizard to heal. Basically they built off of the necromatic or transmutation schools. That is, they either transferred vitality from one subject to another ("Yes, I can heal your buddy. Take my hand and hold still. This is going to hurt.") or they changed the nature of the subject. ("Alright, your friend will be gelatinous for three days. Some of his injuries will heal in that time, but you'll need to find a Cleric by the time your three days are up.")

Spell Research is the oft-ignored avenue I'd suggest. You can use the basic concepts listed and add those to your spell repetoire.

Miles Invictus
2007-05-23, 06:44 PM
The article introduced a few spells that essentially allowed a Wizard to heal. Basically they built off of the necromatic or transmutation schools. That is, they either transferred vitality from one subject to another ("Yes, I can heal your buddy. Take my hand and hold still. This is going to hurt.") or they changed the nature of the subject. ("Alright, your friend will be gelatinous for three days. Some of his injuries will heal in that time, but you'll need to find a Cleric by the time your three days are up.")


...

...

:smallbiggrin:

That's brilliant.

Szatany's Ultimate Wizard (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=9893396&postcount=7) had a neat mechanic -- you could learn spells on other lists, but they were more difficult to learn.

Cruiser1
2007-05-23, 07:01 PM
Wizards already can heal, if you allow non-core sources such as the Spell Compendium. They're just slightly less efficient at it than a healing focused class:

Light of Venya: Heal 2d8 from a 3rd level spell slot. Good creatures only.

Heart of Earth: Gain 2/level temporary hp for 1 hr/level, in a 4th level slot. One of the best buffs in the game, and one to always have active. It's like having an extra +4 CON. If you take damage, recast it to "heal" and gain those temporary hp back. Self only though.

There's also a 7th level spell, who's name I can't remember, that allows your next spell to heal spell level x d8 hp. For example, cast this spell, then discard some 5th level spell to heal 5d8. It's expensive to use up two high level spells, but it does allow a Wizard to heal.

FirstAdam
2007-05-23, 07:12 PM
There is "Healing Touch", a 3rd level wizard spell in the Spell Compendium. You can heal the subject 1d6 points/2 caster levels, and you take damage equal to half the damage you heal. And it even has the fine print that you can't take enough damage with this to kill yourself. I got to use it once when our cleric got dropped.

....
2007-05-23, 07:23 PM
did ... just say that bards suck?

You obviously aren't playing them right. Bards are all rounders, so you have to use their abilities to fill in gaps in the party, they're like charismatic window filler.

They get healing magic for that same reason, they are all rounders, and their magic comes from the soul. Therefore, they can heal.

lousy bard bashers.

Why use a bard when any other class will do better?

(And I say this from a munchkin standpoint, I have no real problem with bards as characters, I'm just saying that if you're gonna min/max, you're not gonna be a bard)

ocato
2007-05-23, 07:31 PM
Bards get to heal because they suck anyway.

Wrong.


Bards suck in kick in the door pure combat campaigns.

Mildly wrong, but not uncommonly thought.

Ahem, onto the topic at hand, Wizards don't really need to heal. I mean, you don't really want to bog down half your spells per day healing the fighter you could just as easily make useless. But he's gonna whine and moan until you do anyway. The Cleric is a magical person who does that for you. The Bard can do it too, to a somewhat lesser extent.

Before I get kicked out of the Defense League, tarred, feathered, and then sissy slapped, let me explain that. Clerics have more spells per day and spontaineous casting of heals. We're pretty good, especially if we have wands to help us, but they can use those wands too. But Wizards? I mean, yes, they could use healing wands in the same way, but would they want to? Do they care? How many Warforged have you seen in piles of broken metal because some wizard couldn't spare the time to grunt 'meh' between blasts, let alone cast a repair spell. Let's just let the Clerics, Bards, and Druids do the healing, so that the Wizards can do the fun things they like to do, like ignite character balance.

Darrin
2007-05-23, 10:15 PM
Bards were Druids in 1st edition or something so they could heal then.

Actually, in 1st Ed. AD&D they were more like a Prestige Class. A human or half-elf that had the right stats and multiclassed through Fighter, Thief, and then Druid could then advance as a bard. They were originally intended to be like the warrior-skalds of Irish/Celtic legend (a.k.a, Taliesin).

2nd Edition actually toned them down a bit, if you can believe that.

Reinboom
2007-05-23, 10:22 PM
Synostodweomer = massive healing, for a 7th level spell, as a swift action. Can heal others and self.
You sacrifice another slot for the healing and the die are based on that, for example, synostodweomer + a 6th level slot produces 6d8 of healing.

Vuzzmop
2007-05-23, 10:28 PM
Bards are made to help others, with their music, and their magic.Clerics are shephards of the people and thus have a responsibility to heal those in need. Paladins fight for good, and rangers/druids protect the natural aspects of the world, including the people in it.

Wizards and sorcerors are generally less caring about life and those around them, with more concern for the unnatural and the occult, so wizards generally pursue more unnatural and damaging magic.

de-trick
2007-05-23, 10:42 PM
wizards cast arcane magic which is alot different than divine in divine you use your faith in your god, cause, or nature to cast spells

Miles Invictus
2007-05-23, 11:22 PM
Bards also cast arcane magic, but they can use healing spells.

Vuzzmop
2007-05-24, 01:30 AM
As stated before, a bard's magic comes from music, which has healing properties ( dark side of the moon has been knoiwn to cure cancer).

But seriously, the bard works his magic to buff or otherwise affect others, so it stands to reason that they can heal.

They are only arcane because they do not gain magical abilities from some other source such as a god or nature. They use magic drawn from their souls.

Who
2007-05-24, 04:35 AM
Theres always undying vigor of the dragonlords from dragon magic, but that's self only

Leush
2007-05-24, 04:56 AM
The reason is arbitrary, as are a heck of a lot of things in D&D.

If you want to add healing spells to a wizard's spell list, don't bother going through every supplement: Just do it. I'll explain the reasoning:

Overall, if you look through every splat book that was ever brought into existence you will get just about every combination of character features possible. So why bother looking through splat books? Just say "my wizard can learn healing spells." And as people said, it's not unbalanced as healing spells make a wizard weaker (prevention is better than cure) and because you can never have too much healing.