Wrathful Healing

[Jack_Simth]

I wanted to get some opinions on Wrathful Healing, the +3 WSA from Enemies and Allies p. 20.

"When the weapon deals damage to a creature, the wielder heals a number of hit points equal to half the damage dealt

It's pretty good WSA, and rather underpriced as a +3 imo, but I digress. By my understanding, a creature that is hit by an attack can technically go endlessly into negative HP from the damage of that attack. Should the creature be at -10 or lower once the attack has been resolved the creature dies and becomes an object, but that happens after the resolving of the attack. I think that is why immediate action effects that can heal/save a creature that has just taken enough damage to kill it work.

So, by RAW, if you kill a weak critter with such low HP that the damage you've dealt to kill it would be enough to kill it several times over, a Wrathful Healing weapon would still heal you an amount equal to half the damage the creature took, no matter how far into the negative HP you sent it, right?

If so, then rats, pigeons and other kinds of critters adventurers might come across could be used a convenient source of all-day healing if the party as a Wrathful Healing weapons and the skill to find/chase/kill said critters. Obviously, relying on the presence of easy prey is a tad risky, so what ways are there to gain access to a large or ideally unlimited number of disposable creatures to kill for healing? A bag of tricks is cheap, but only provides 10 per week. Pipes of the sewers can summon a bunch of rat-swarms, but only if there are rats within 400 ft. Anyone know something better? All that matters here is that the things count as creatures.

And, since I'm on the topic, can anybody else think of some other fun uses for a Wrathful Healing Weapon? :smallsmile:

The easy answer for pop-up targets is the Summon Elemental reserve feat from Complete Mage. As long as the caster keeps a 4th level Conjuration (Summoning) spell unused, standard action summon of a small (or larger, with a higher level slot reserved) Elemental (one at a time).

Also... the DMG has a few unlimited summoning items. Stone of Controlling Earth Elementals (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#stoneofControllingEarthElemental s) (as long as you can find unused dirt) and the Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#bowlofCommandingWaterElementals) (as long as you have a supply of water... such as from a Decanter) are expensive, but will do the job.

There's also the Distracting Ember boost in Tome of Battle, which briefly summons a small Fire Elemental to flank (and only flank).

[ciopo]

Soulspark familiars can be given fast healing with essentia, thus making it "spreadable"

Psycrystals have no stated limit on what it takes to reobtain one on death. Likewise wild cohorts if you squint sideway

Mirror images/greater mirror images are a funny one

[Jack_Simth]

Soulspark familiars can be given fast healing with essentia, thus making it "spreadable"

Ah a fast healing target! Good call. A few of the Improved Familiars also have fast healing, the Troll-blooded regional feat grants Regeneration-1, and there's a magical location (The Shriver, Fiendish Codex II, page 52) that can grant Regeneration as well (for 99 days, renewable if you're NOT Lawful-Evil by repeatedly committing a set of specific lawful or evil acts found on page 30 or 31 of the same book). Any of those could be leveraged the same way. And of course, you can Planar Bind, Charm Monster, or Dominate Monster a suitable pet with fast healing and/or regeneration for the same purpose.

Additionally, most living creatures can be healed up to 50% via the Lesser Draconic Aura "Aura of Vigor" or the Touch of Healing reserve feat (Complete Mage). A Wrathful Healing dagger lets you leverage that to full for all but the last person in line.



Psycrystals have no stated limit on what it takes to reobtain one on death. Likewise wild cohorts if you squint sideway

Mirror images/greater mirror images are a funny one
Speaking of funny ones:
What happens if you put Wrathful Healing on a sap, whip, or other weapon that deals nonlethal by default?

[Biggus]

Depending how you interpret it, Pipes of the Sewers could be pretty reliable. In towns and cities you're estimated to never be more than 164ft away from a rat, and the rat population in general is thought to be more than double the human one (these figures are from the UK, but I doubt they're very much different most other places).

The questionable part is whether they're only affected by the Pipes if there are enough to make at least one swarm (300) or not. Personally it makes more sense to me that they'd work regardless of the numbers, but the RAW says they attract rat swarms, not rats, so I can see some DMs might only allow them to work in areas of high rat population density.

[Darg]

Speaking of funny ones:
What happens if you put Wrathful Healing on a sap, whip, or other weapon that deals nonlethal by default?


When a spell or a magical power cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.


Nonlethal is a type of damage so it works. But, the healing can be doubly effective if the character has taken lethal and nonlethal damage.

[AvatarVecna]

+1 Wrathful Healing weapon is 32000 gp. It provides [X] healing per round.

Wondrous Item at-will Command Word "Cure Critical Wounds" CL 2 (as cast by a Bard 1/Wizard 9/Sublime Chord 1) is 14400 gp. It provides 20 healing per round on average. This is 720 gp per 1 HP/round.

Thus, if the aforementioned weapon cannot provide ~44.44 HP/round, it is overpriced. This threshold gets higher the more the weapon costs. Might be a good item to make it an aurorum shuriken?

[ciopo]

Nonlethal is a type of damage so it works. But, the healing can be doubly effective if the character has taken lethal and nonlethal damage.
... with a wrathful healing whip, you can heal your lethal damage by whipping yourself!

[Jack_Simth]

... with a wrathful healing whip, you can heal your lethal damage by whipping yourself!
Let's see... you hit yourself for X nonlethal (we'll say 20 nonlethal for now), and heal X/2 lethal (10 lethal) and X/2 nonlethal (10 nonlethal), leaving you with X/2 nonlethal (10 nonlethal) from the hit, essentially converting half your damage roll from lethal to nonlethal.

Still need to deal with the nonlethal, though, so if you have other options, best to use them after converting half your damage to nonlethal.

But, of course, a Wrathful Healing weapon of any sort costs 32,300 gp market (32,000 for the enchantments, 300 for the masterwork portion of the weapon - something like a club would be the lowest cost possible - barring cheddar like making it a shuriken as AV "suggested" in blue), which works out to 43 (and change) wands of lesser vigor. As a dedicated item for out of combat healing, a wrathful healing whip is probably not the best choice.

But if you're putting it on your primary melee weapon anyway, regenerating or pop-up targets will help.

[Darg]

Well, if you have a cap of 100 HP and are at 10 HP, you can whip yourself to full health at the cost of 90 nonlethal damage Or you can stop at 55/55 and you'll heal both HP and nonlethal at the same rate from then on using your nonlethal damage taken as an extra health pool of sorts.

[Vaern]

+1 Wrathful Healing weapon is 32000 gp. It provides [X] healing per round.

Wondrous Item at-will Command Word "Cure Critical Wounds" CL 2 (as cast by a Bard 1/Wizard 9/Sublime Chord 1) is 14400 gp. It provides 20 healing per round on average. This is 720 gp per 1 HP/round.

Thus, if the aforementioned weapon cannot provide ~44.44 HP/round, it is overpriced. This threshold gets higher the more the weapon costs. Might be a good item to make it an aurorum shuriken?

You forgot to take mage slayer for - 4 CL. Then they'll have to pay you t to take their cl - 2 healing trinket off their hands.
Another feat from the mage slayer line for a total of - 8 should be enough to cast 9th level spells at CL 1, right?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It's pretty good WSA, and rather underpriced as a +3 imoWait, what? Really? Healing is stupidly cheap and easy, and you're willing to spend a +4 or greater weapon enhancement on it, instead? Holy crap is that a bad deal. Even +3 is excessively high.

Dude, I have some ocean-front property in Utah, if you want it...

[Rebel7284]

Wait, what? Really? Healing is stupidly cheap and easy, and you're willing to spend a +4 or greater weapon enhancement on it, instead? Holy crap is that a bad deal. Even +3 is excessively high.

Dude, I have some ocean-front property in Utah, if you want it...

Healing that doesn't take an action is pretty good for a melee character. Sometimes the uber-charger loses initiative and takes a bunch of damage. Much safer to recover all your health on your next attack than risk someone with magic missile murdering you before your friend with a healing belt acts.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Healing that doesn't take an action is pretty good for a melee character. Sometimes the uber-charger loses initiative and takes a bunch of damage. Much safer to recover all your health on your next attack than risk someone with magic missile murdering you before your friend with a healing belt acts.Why not purchase the Martial Spirit Stance, from ToB? Stances are considered maneuvers, so a devoted spirit maneuver item should grant it for you. Sure, it's "only" 2 hp per hit, but it's vastly less expensive, especially if you want more goodies on your weapon? Alternatively, vampiric touch imbued on your weapon would give you enough temp hp to allow yourself to heal up to full via vigor fast healing or whatever, and all together it would be cheaper than adding a +3 bonus to a weapon (since weapons are stupidly expensive). Or you could use vampiric blade (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/vampiricBlade.htm) for the same purpose, although it would be direct healing instead of temp hp + healing.

It doesn't even have to be one of those. There are lots and lots of other, much cheaper alternatives.

[Elves]

Does Jowgen support his argument? If something dies at -10 I don't see how it is taking any more damage than that.

[Rebel7284]

Why not purchase the Martial Spirit Stance, from ToB? Stances are considered maneuvers, so a devoted spirit maneuver item should grant it for you. Sure, it's "only" 2 hp per hit, but it's vastly less expensive, especially if you want more goodies on your weapon?

Devoted Spirit Amulet: The appearance of these amulets varies considerably, since each is constructed to serve a particular axis of alignment: chaos, evil, good, or law. Some even double as holy symbols. A Devoted Spirit amulet does not function for someone who doesn't share its alignment.

Takes an item slot (unless your DM allows you to make it slotless), doesn't work for neutral characters, but most importantly 2 hp is very little as opposed to Wrathful Healing which is likely to heal most optimized martials back to full. Devoted Spirit Amulet can work well enough for a low level character, but ultimately seems ineffective for high level characters.



Alternatively, vampiric touch imbued on your weapon would give you enough temp hp to allow yourself to heal up to full via vigor fast healing or whatever, and all together it would be cheaper than adding a +3 bonus to a weapon (since weapons are stupidly expensive).


Spell storing weapons is great (as spells are great), and Bloodstone Weapon enhancement can do this very well too, however, these spells discharge only once and need to recharge after. They also require someone in the party to invest resources into casting these spells.

Powerful options indeed, but much more fiddly and doesn't really allow you to heal to full every turn that you can attack like wrathful healing.



Or you could use vampiric blade (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/vampiricBlade.htm) for the same purpose, although it would be direct healing instead of temp hp + healing.


Takes a standard action to manifest and only heals you based on the base weapon damage and no other bonuses. With that said, if I was playing a psychic warrior with linked power who could manifest this as a swift/immediate action, I would likely not want to ALSO have Wrathful Healing since this is close enough (even if still significantly weaker). Pretty niche case.



It doesn't even have to be one of those. There are lots and lots of other, much cheaper alternatives.

Yes there are excellent ways to heal in D&D. Craft Contingent spell + Heal is certainly amazing for free action healing, etc, etc. However Wrathful Healing has a lot of very important advantages in

a) Healing scaling with damage optimization
b) Not taking any additional actions besides attacking (and working on EVERY attack) adds consistency and simplicity.
c) Not being extremely reliant on yourself or party members expending build resources.

Sure it's expensive and thus not something you can use early game. However, if you are playing a character that does a lot of damage with a weapon and are at a point where you can afford this, it's a solid investment for many characters in many parties especially if the party isn't already optimized for healing.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Does Jowgen support his argument?That was the only post in that thread, and the OP quoted the entirety of the post. So no.