Buying healing magic

[Ogun]

I hate dying with money that could have helped save me left unspent, so right before our latest adventure I spent all my loot on healing potions.
Scrolls and healing potions were the only readily available magics I knew of, so it was that or Healing Word scrolls, and half the party couldn't use the scrolls, so I chose potions.
I handed out the potions to the party, asking for nothing in return, but knowing the life they saved might be mine.

Is this a common choice?
Is there a more efficient/effective way?
.

[LudicSavant]

I hate dying with money that could have helped save me left unspent, so right before our latest adventure I spent all my loot on healing potions.
Scrolls and healing potions were the only readily available magics I knew of, so it was that or Healing Word scrolls, and half the party couldn't use the scrolls, so I chose potions.
I handed out the potions to the party, asking for nothing in return, but knowing the life they saved might be mine.

Is this a common choice?
Is there a more efficient/effective way?
.

I find that in games where you can't purchase much beyond basic PHB equipment, basic healing potions are an excellent investment. Especially if you have minions like familiars.

[CheddarChampion]

Pretty common in my group.

More efficient is... subjective. A scroll of Rope Trick or Tiny Hut could be very effective if it grants you a rest, but YMMV depending on the DM.

If you use Xanathar's Guide for magic item prices, Keoghtom's/Restorative Ointment might be more cost effective.
1d4+1 uses of 2d8+2 healing plus it cures poison and disease. That's 7d8+7 HP on average.
It costs an average of 175 gp if you don't need to search for it, compare that to 3 and a half potions of healing: 7d4+7 HP.
But if you need to spend 100 gp and a week of downtime searching for it, just get the potions.

[Amnestic]

Is there a more efficient/effective way?
.

If Xanathar's is in play you can make healing potions yourself (page 130) with herbalism kit proficiency, 25gp of materials and a day of work, potentially doubling your number of potions if you have the time free to do so.

[quindraco]

For 2 gp per day plus 10 gp per casting, you can hire an Acolyte (who has the slots of a 2nd level cleric despite being listed as a 1st level spellcaster), probably finding one who knows Spare the Dying, and then you can pay them 10 gp per spell to cast Cure Light Wounds. This is not very efficient.

If you can convince your GM to allow the Druidic version of Acolytes to be hirable, though, for the same cost, you can hire someone to sit in your cart making you Goodberries. That's 32 gp for 30 hp of healing per day, which is a good deal more efficient than 50 gp for 7 points of healing. Like with most 5E healing, this is more efficient when consumed between fights, rather than burning precious action economy on it.

Barring that, you can hire an actual Druid (the CR 2 humanoid from the MM). RAW, this is better - there's no listed RAW up-charge for employing a CR 2 druid over a CR 1/4 Acolyte, and the Druid has more slots, which reduces the overhead of 2 gp/day, meaning it's more efficient to hire three druids than seven acolytes for the same number of casts. But this is unfathomably stupid, and if your GM houserules that hireling costs scale with CR, I don't know which will end up more efficient.

[Sparky McDibben]

I was going to suggest a wand of cure wounds: give it 50 charges, no refresh, each charge used boosts healing +1d8.

[Sigreid]

For 2 gp per day plus 10 gp per casting, you can hire an Acolyte (who has the slots of a 2nd level cleric despite being listed as a 1st level spellcaster), probably finding one who knows Spare the Dying, and then you can pay them 10 gp per spell to cast Cure Light Wounds. This is not very efficient.

If you can convince your GM to allow the Druidic version of Acolytes to be hirable, though, for the same cost, you can hire someone to sit in your cart making you Goodberries. That's 32 gp for 30 hp of healing per day, which is a good deal more efficient than 50 gp for 7 points of healing. Like with most 5E healing, this is more efficient when consumed between fights, rather than burning precious action economy on it.

Barring that, you can hire an actual Druid (the CR 2 humanoid from the MM). RAW, this is better - there's no listed RAW up-charge for employing a CR 2 druid over a CR 1/4 Acolyte, and the Druid has more slots, which reduces the overhead of 2 gp/day, meaning it's more efficient to hire three druids than seven acolytes for the same number of casts. But this is unfathomably stupid, and if your GM houserules that hireling costs scale with CR, I don't know which will end up more efficient.

If I'm DM that acolyte rate is for the safety of town. Finding a mercenary healer wiling to venture out into danger with you becomes much more expensive.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Note: the PHB-listed price for hiring people is explicitly a floor, and more skilled people are noted as likely costing more. And spell-casting is 10-50 gp per spell for a 1st or 2nd level spell while sitting in the safety of their shop in town, not out there among the dangers. So no, you're not going to hire an acolyte for 2 gp/day + 10 gp/cast. Or a MM druid for the same. Heck, you're not going to hire a Thug for 2 gp/day.

[quindraco]

If I'm DM that acolyte rate is for the safety of town. Finding a mercenary healer wiling to venture out into danger with you becomes much more expensive.

How expensive? 1 gp per day covers Modest food and rent, so 2 gp per day is literally double that. How much should a CR 1/4 schmuck charge for staying in the wagon to heal people between fights?

Whatever your answer is will be a homebrew - meaning it's not directly relevant to answering OP, since you're not the OP's GM - not rooted in the RAW. From a world-building perspective, you'll need to figure out a gp rate conducive to allowing trade to exist (merchant caravans need to be able to hide caravan personnel to function, so the cost can't be too high relative to the cost of goods). WOTC hasn't done that work for you, but I'd assume it's doable. The main point is that we can't guess a priori how OP's GM will homebrew, so all we can do is answer based on the RAW and let OP find out what their GM will allow. Amnestic suggested making healing potions with an herbalism kit; OP's GM could hand-wave that out of existence or modify the rules in literally any way, but we don't jump down Amnestic's throat about it. Same thing here. The only prices we can sanely discuss are the RAW ones.

I can tell you from preparing to GM Rime of the Frostmaiden that caravan guards can't possibly be pulling more than 2 gp per day - and they use the Thug statblock, so literally double the CR of an acolyte. If humanoids generally charge for hazard pay based on how competently they can face hazards, thugs should charge at least as much as acolytes, and generally more.

[Ogun]

I didn't realize that Xanathar's had a magic item pricing guide.
That fact alone will reduce the friction of acquiring magic items in our game.
Even if I'm the only one who can use it a wand of Healing Word would be amazing at our level(second).
The healing items mentioned are all useful, the hirelings would create too much friction for my taste.

We have an Artificer, Paladin, Druid, Rogue, and me a Divine Soul/Hexblade.
Everyone but the Rogue can use some kind of healing magic, but I play the support role.
I'll have to find out if anyone has herbalist kit proficiency, I'm wishing I had snagged that myself.
My druid might, but they didn't know thier own spells last session, so I don't think I can lean on them for goodberry goodness or potion making.
Fortunately they went Shepherd, and have already contributed to party survival with temporary hit points, despite a lack of preparation.

So it seems buying the healing potions was a safe bet, but I may be able to do better.
I'll need to read up on Xanathar's magic item rules.

[Doug Lampert]

How expensive? 1 gp per day covers Modest food and rent, so 2 gp per day is literally double that. How much should a CR 1/4 schmuck charge for staying in the wagon to heal people between fights?

He's acting as a member of the party (he will fight if he can, because he doesn't want to die and it's unlikely that the OpFor will accept "I'm just a hired hand", in any game I'm running he'll expect at least half as much as a PC gets in loot.

[PhoenixPhyre]

How expensive? 1 gp per day covers Modest food and rent, so 2 gp per day is literally double that. How much should a CR 1/4 schmuck charge for staying in the wagon to heal people between fights?


By black-letter RAW, spell-casters do not fall into the usual hirelings table.


People who are able to cast spells don't fall into the category of ordinary hirelings. It might be possible to find someone willing to cast a spell in exchange for coin or favors, but it is rarely easy and no established pay rates exist. As a rule, the higher the level of the desired spell, the harder it is to find someone who can cast it and the more it costs.

Hiring someone to cast a relatively common spell of 1st or 2nd level, such as cure wounds or identify, is easy enough in a city or town, and might cost 10 to 50 gold pieces (plus the cost of any expensive material components).

So each transaction is a separate one, and generally priced ad-hoc. In town, a cure wounds costs you 10 to 50 gp. Hiring one to accompany you is not generally something you can do by default; if you can, the prices are negotiated individually.

[Sigreid]

How expensive? 1 gp per day covers Modest food and rent, so 2 gp per day is literally double that. How much should a CR 1/4 schmuck charge for staying in the wagon to heal people between fights?

Whatever your answer is will be a homebrew - meaning it's not directly relevant to answering OP, since you're not the OP's GM - not rooted in the RAW. From a world-building perspective, you'll need to figure out a gp rate conducive to allowing trade to exist (merchant caravans need to be able to hide caravan personnel to function, so the cost can't be too high relative to the cost of goods). WOTC hasn't done that work for you, but I'd assume it's doable. The main point is that we can't guess a priori how OP's GM will homebrew, so all we can do is answer based on the RAW and let OP find out what their GM will allow. Amnestic suggested making healing potions with an herbalism kit; OP's GM could hand-wave that out of existence or modify the rules in literally any way, but we don't jump down Amnestic's throat about it. Same thing here. The only prices we can sanely discuss are the RAW ones.

I can tell you from preparing to GM Rime of the Frostmaiden that caravan guards can't possibly be pulling more than 2 gp per day - and they use the Thug statblock, so literally double the CR of an acolyte. If humanoids generally charge for hazard pay based on how competently they can face hazards, thugs should charge at least as much as acolytes, and generally more.

I don't know. I'd have to think about it. Also, caravan guards aren't payed to fight. Not really. They may have to but their job is to deter a fight from even happening.

[LudicSavant]

How expensive? An old-school answer is "a share of the loot and XP" expensive.

[MoiMagnus]

When I read the title of the thread, I though you were talking about buying the services of a healer (a NPC whose only job is to disengage and avoid danger during fights and heal peoples between fights).

But both are great if the campaign make them convenient to acquire.