Mass Cure Wounds spells

[Vaern]

That's why the FAQ generally isn't regarded as official errata or RAW. It's basically one writer's personal rulings with no review or oversight from anyone else involved in the game's development. We could apply the same logic to, say, an empowered fireball or lightning bolt and rule that you can increase the damage of the spell by 50%, but only up to its set maximum of 10d6.

[nedz]

That faq ruling is ridiculous. (So it fits right in with most of the rest of them)
I bet whoever wrote that thinks you can't extend Heat Metal either and get 10 rounds of "searing" in the middle.

Yes I agree, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Ashiel]

Personally, rather than buffing the dice, buffing the caster level benefit to +2 or +3 per caster level would make most of the cure spells much more attractive and less random. Makes potions and such more attractive as well since you're not going to just roll 2 hp worth of healing on your 50 gp potion.

[Thurbane]

Would making the entire Cure line of spells a Move Action casting time help, or open up a new can of worms?

[nedz]

Would making the entire Cure line of spells a Move Action casting time help, or open up a new can of worms?

I actually think that they are fine — at least I've never heard a complaint at a table.
That said, I've never seen anyone cast any of the mass ones twice.

[Thurbane]

I actually think that they are fine — at least I've never heard a complaint at a table.
That said, I've never seen anyone cast any of the mass ones twice.

Same here - at least regarding complaints about Cures. We rarely play high enough level to get the Mass Cure spells.

Honestly, I never saw an issue with in combat healing, until I started reading optimisation forums. I've explained the PoV that healing in combat is a wasted action, and my whole group shrugged it off. As I said, we play low-ish level mostly, and Raise Dead etc. can be difficult to come by, so stopping people from dying in the first place is a priority.

Yes yes, I know - that standard action you "wasted" on a Cure could have been spent taking out one (or more) of the attackers blah blah. I've heard ALL of the arguments, and to be honest, it largely depends on the optimisation level, character level/play level, and play style of an individual table as to how true all of that is.

[Vaern]

On the other hand, would they still be too weak to use even if I did?

I once played a healer, starting at level 6, who used the Complete Divine version of Sacred Healing to convert daily uses of Turn Undead into AoE fast healing to all of my allies. Upon looking into that old build for the purpose of responding to this thread with a bit of AoE healing accessible before mass cure spells, I found that there is another feat named Sacred Healing in PHB2. The PHB2 version is much less impressive and barely worth mentioning, except that it grants access to the Sacred Purification feat which looks amazing for early game healing.
Sacred Purification is activated by a swift action, healing everyone within a 60 foot burst for 1d8 + your charisma bonus and harming undead for the same amount. This healing doesn't really scale at all and will fall off in mid to late game, but it's great early on. It's effectively a quckened mass cure that you can burn on someone else's turn, expanded from a 30-foot diameter spread to a 120-foot diameter, without the limit of one target per caster level, and without burning an actual spell slot. On top of all of that, it's accessible at level 1 to your average human cleric with no flaws or other cheese to meet prerequisites.
The downside, of course, is that it heals everyone within the area - not just selected targets. Still good for a clutch heal if someone's about to die or a pick-me-up between encounters, if nothing else.

[King of Nowhere]

Yes yes, I know - that standard action you "wasted" on a Cure could have been spent taking out one (or more) of the attackers blah blah. I've heard ALL of the arguments, and to be honest, it largely depends on the optimisation level, character level/play level, and play style of an individual table as to how true all of that is.

it also depends on the situation. if three opponents attacked your ally, and you undo the damage with a single spell, you are winning the action economy.
actually, provided that no one is one-shotted, healing is a very reliable way of taking one enemy out of combat. you cast a spell so he doesn't get to act, or you cast a spell to undo what he did, what's the difference? and in the second case he doesn't even get a saving throw.
and let's not talk about mass heal, i've seen a high level cleric dominate the board just with that. though it helps that at my table i tend to shore up defences a bit so instakills are less likely.

[Biggus]

trivial healing?

I think you don't seem to understand what '1 creature per level' actually means perhaps?

You are lets just say... 12th level; so that means you are healing 12 creatures for 2d8 plus 12. You only have 3 members other than you, in your party. So that means each is able to get healed 6d8+36.

I do not think a reasonable person would say that ~63 HP per person healed, for ~252 total hit points is 'trivial'.

But, then I am not the typical GiTPer, so i guess a 12 level character probably has like 1000 HP or closer to it than the 100-150 that I normally see on front liners.

The interpretation that you can target one person several times with the same Mass Cure spell is highly debatable. See Biffoniacus_Furiou's posts and the replies to them above.

I've raised all "cure" spells from d8 to d12 (and I tried 2d8 in the prior campaign). But that's not really relevant when comparing cures as it applies to the Mass versions as well. (it does matter vs vigor)

If I dropped the Mass versions a level, I think that's enough to get more use out of them.

My groups are always bigger than 4 players, so they do get some additional value from that as well. And by 9th (or 7th with the reduced level) there will always be some sort of companions around as well. Plenty of targets to get the full use while skipping the ones that don't need it.

8th level caster. 4d8+8 to one target. Or 1d8+8 to 8 targets. 26hp vs 100hp. That's a pretty big jump.

Once you compare to the Vigor spells (for out-of-combat healing), my d12 houserule matters.

Extended Mass Lesser Vigor. 4th level slot. 36hp for 4 targets, 144hp total.
Mass CLW out of a 4th level slot with d12s. 116hp (with a large enough party). Not as good, but it's a single round, not 36.

You could get the extend for the vigor out of a cheap lesser rod, and that really makes the mass clw look bad - especially if it's still d8s and Level 5.

Yeah, I'm now leaning towards increasing the base damage of the Mass Cure spells based on your and Xasten's suggestions, it seems to be less problematic than changing the level.

Same here - at least regarding complaints about Cures. We rarely play high enough level to get the Mass Cure spells.

Honestly, I never saw an issue with in combat healing, until I started reading optimisation forums. I've explained the PoV that healing in combat is a wasted action, and my whole group shrugged it off. As I said, we play low-ish level mostly, and Raise Dead etc. can be difficult to come by, so stopping people from dying in the first place is a priority.

Yes yes, I know - that standard action you "wasted" on a Cure could have been spent taking out one (or more) of the attackers blah blah. I've heard ALL of the arguments, and to be honest, it largely depends on the optimisation level, character level/play level, and play style of an individual table as to how true all of that is.

I agree that it depends. I certainly don't think that healing in combat is always a wasted action, but it does become a law of diminishing returns as you go up levels, until Heal and Mass Heal become available.

[nedz]

Same here - at least regarding complaints about Cures. We rarely play high enough level to get the Mass Cure spells.

Honestly, I never saw an issue with in combat healing, until I started reading optimisation forums. I've explained the PoV that healing in combat is a wasted action, and my whole group shrugged it off. As I said, we play low-ish level mostly, and Raise Dead etc. can be difficult to come by, so stopping people from dying in the first place is a priority.

Yes yes, I know - that standard action you "wasted" on a Cure could have been spent taking out one (or more) of the attackers blah blah. I've heard ALL of the arguments, and to be honest, it largely depends on the optimisation level, character level/play level, and play style of an individual table as to how true all of that is.

Well if someone is down, and you spend your action to bring them back into action then that's a win from an action economy POV.
Also stopping them dying, if that's imminent, can save lots of resources in having to raise them etc.
Thirdly: your character may have no more effective action than healing another PC - this is entirely situational.
But otherwise - yes - the game is geared towards offence.

[Zombimode]

That's why Close Wounds is so great. Sure, it heals even less then a Cure Serious Wounds, but range and immediate action casting time will get you the healing exactly when you need it.

[Biggus]

Why else would Mass Cure Serious Wounds say it maxes out at +35 in the core rules, when you can't reasonably expect to have a caster level of 35? Same for Mass Cure Critical Wounds maxing out at +40.

Just noticed that Regenerate, which like CSW is 7th-level but is single-target, also maxes out at +35, so apparently the designers do expect you to have a caster level of over 30...

[Darg]

Just noticed that Regenerate, which like CSW is 7th-level but is single-target, also maxes out at +35, so apparently the designers do expect you to have a caster level of over 30...

Or if you look at the Healing Domain you'll see that it follows the formula of +5 maximum per spell level.

[farothel]

Mass cures can also be useful for keeping low-level cohorts and allies alive. If you have a bunch of allies keeping a bunch of equally low level enemies at bay, having a cleric to keep them going will mean you win that battle, while the PCs can concentrate on the enemy commanders.

That being said, I'm not sure if the 'you can target people twice' would be a good idea. As GM I'm always of a mind that 'whatever the PCs can do, the enemy can do as well'. So if you allow it for the PCs, the enemies can do that kind of healing as well. The same goes for other spells, like inflict spells.