What would change with % based healing?

[skydragonknight]

The status restoring spells - aside from the Restoration line - are extremely niche and usually not worth preparing unless you know your foe uses those attacks (Remove Paralysis vs Ghouls, for example). Maybe they can remove one condition at a time, but higher level Cures have more options on what conditions they can remove? Like Cure Moderate Wounds can remove Paralysis with a Heal check (since Remove Paralysis is 2nd level), but to remove Blindness you'd need to us Cure Serious Wounds (since Remove Blindness/Deafness is 3rd).

Considering what Heal does, it's not like rolling status removal into healing is unprecedented.

[veekie]

Very true.
So lets see
-When you cast a Cure spell, you may immediately make a Heal check on the target, providing their effects while skipping the time for normal treatment.
--You must choose the check's desired effect and strength before the roll.
--The chosen/rolled Heal result is immediately applied.
--The Heal check results you can apply with a spell is limited by the spell's level. Perhaps link this to the Heal DC, with higher level spells allowing a wider range of DCs
--Inflict spells can instead apply using Heal to harm targets(see below). You would normally require Inflict spells, captive victims, or false pretenses to do these at all

-Heal checks are expanded, for all heal effects you must choose the effect.
--You can determine the state of the subject's health and conditions affecting the subject with a diagnosis, with higher DCs for less obvious effect types, greater detail or taking less time. Default is say...10 minutes. This has no chance of harming the patient, and can reveal the DCs for treating the chosen conditions.
--You must declare the desired Heal effect and DC before rolling. In the case of effects with variable DCs(such as curing poison), if your chosen DC is below the required DC, the treatment does nothing and does not harm the patient.
--Failure to meet the chosen check DC damages the patient, depending on how far you failed the check by. Damage is as per percentile healing.
--You can roll against a target DC to heal a percentage of the target's normal full health. This takes several hours of treatment. Of course, you should be choosing a DC you can automatically make anyway, unless you're in a hurry or in combat. Every 5 points of DC is another 5% healed.
--You can remove permanent conditions such as paralysis, blindness, curses, etc, with a DC of X+their save DC, where X depends on the condition. This takes several hours. Effects with multiple saves(like disease, poison and some curses) require a successful check for each save attempt.
--You can remove 'permanent' losses like ability damage, ability drain and negative levels with a DC modified by their severity. Large amounts of these are more difficult to mend.
--You can remove temporary effects like spells or short term conditions on living creatures with a full action. The DC is based on their save DC+effective spell level.
--You can return the freshly dead to life with a high DC check, but unless you also repair whatever caused their death in the same check(see below, e.g. combining healing with this), the person dies again.
--You can combine multiple of the above into a single roll, but this stacks their DCs and takes the least favorable of their individual time requirements, as well as combining the effects of failure for all.
--You can also reverse the effects of treatment in order to inflict conditions on a victim. This takes one step less time than its healing equivalent to perform(but takes the normal amount of time to come into effect), but failure has no effect at all. You cannot use Heal to kill a target save by ability or regular damage, nor can you inflict a curse, disease, or poison without a suitable source. This also takes more time than a victim would normally allow, unless they are inflicted under false pretenses.

Does that seem complete enough?

[oslecamo]

On the original topic, I believe it makes perfect sense for healing to be less effective in tougher warriors. The wizard drops to 1 HP after someone bitch-slaps him with a gauntlet. The raging barbarian drops to 1 HP only after geting half a dozen spears stuck in his body. The cleric will have a lot more work to patch up the tough as nails barbarian than the wimpy wizard.

The explanation that makes most sense (especially with Wounds/Vitality) is "Your spiritual energy forms a barrier which protects you from harm; attacks wear it down and cure spells recharge it. Attacks don't really make contact until you're down to your last HD." Y'know, the Dragonball route.

That makes sense? What hapened then to good old "You're tough enough to get a sword stuck in your chest and keep fighting"? Which, interestingly enough, does happen both in ancient legends and in the real world itself, not just an anime a decade old.

Human beings have been known to be impaled by spears, losing members, being riddled by bullets, geting their brains pierced, falling out of planes, and still keep going.

Heck, ancient military weapon design actually took in consideration that there was a good chance your enemy would keep charging after geting a big piece of metal/wood stuck inside them. Stuff like extra spikes to make it harder to remove, and the ancient romans made their javelins in such a way they would break after thrown, because their enemies were known for pulling the weapons stuck in their bodies and throwing them back at the romans.

But no, instead spiritual force-field that makes weapons magically bounce off. Yeah, that surely makes most sense.

[snakeman830]

I like the idea of Cure spells being able to also remove conditions from the target, but I feel like they should be limited.  Blindness, deafness, poison, disease, sleep and paralysis I can really get behind curing.  Ability damage and drain...not so much.  Restoration is a spell that's frequently prepped.  Not so much on Remove Poison.

How does this sound for an addendum to the Heal skill?

When casting a Conjuration (healing) spell, you may make a Heal check as part of casting the spell.  If you succeed on a DC15 check, you heal the target for an additional 5% of their maximum hit points.  For every 5 points by which you beat the DC, you increase this bonus healing by another 5% of the target's maximum hit points (to a maximum of 70% bonus healing by beating the DC by 65).  You may also voluntarily raise the DC to remove certain conditions.  Exactly which conditions can be removed depends on the level of the healing spell you are casting (requirements given are minimums, not maximums).  Regardless, the Heal skill cannot remove more conditions than the spell level when used in this way.  On spells that have multiple targets, these extra benefits are only chosen once and apply to all targets.  Spells with non-instantaneous durations only apply these extra benefits once at the beginning of the spell.

Remove Poison: Increase DC by poison DC-10, requires 3rd level spell.
Remove Disease: Increase DC by disease DC-10, requires 3rd level spell.
Remove Paralysis: Increase DC by 10, requires 2nd level spell.
Remove Blindness: Increase DC by 10, requires 3nd level spell.
Remove Deafness: Increase DC by 10, requires 3nd level spell.
Remove Sleep: Increase DC by 5, requires 1st level spell.
Remove Fatigue: Increase DC by 5, requires 1st level spell.
Remove Exhaustion: Increase DC by 15, requires 3rd level spell.  May be reduced to Fatigue with a DC10 Heal check requiring a 1st level spell.  If this is done, the Fatigue cannot be cured in the same spell via the Heal skill.
Remove Sickened: Increase DC by 5, requires 1st level spell.
Remove Nauseated: Increase DC by 15, requires 3rd level spell.
Remove Dazzled: Do not increase DC, requires 1st level spell.
Remove Daze: Increase DC by 15, requires 4th level spell.
Remove Stun: Increase DC by 20, requires 4th level spell.

If the DC is not met, conditions that were attempted to be cured must be removed until the DC is lower than the result.  Conditions with the highest DC adjustment are removed first.  Because the DC was not met, any bonus healing beyond the base 5% is not gained.  If the Heal check result is lower than 15, the spell is merely resolved as normal.

Also, when casting any Inflict Wounds or Harm spell, you may make a Heal check, causing the target to receive extra damage equal to the extra healing on (Healing) spells for their result (including the same cap).  This additional damage is calculated before the saving throw.

[TuggyNE]

This list looks very solid.

-When you cast a Cure spell, you may immediately make a Heal check on the target, providing their effects while skipping the time for normal treatment.
--You must choose the check's desired effect and strength before the roll.
--The chosen/rolled Heal result is immediately applied.
--The Heal check results you can apply with a spell is limited by the spell's level. Perhaps link this to the Heal DC, with higher level spells allowing a wider range of DCs

Presumably CCW allows you to try for up to 80%, CSW up to 60%, CMW up to 40%, and CLW up to 20%.
Unless we want to integrate Heal, which is currently getting the short end of the stick.

--You can determine the state of the subject's health and conditions affecting the subject with a diagnosis, with higher DCs for less obvious effect types, greater detail or taking less time. Default is say...10 minutes. This has no chance of harming the patient, and can reveal the DCs for treating the chosen conditions.

Use a -10 penalty for rushing (taking one minute instead of 10), and a further -10 for reducing to 1 round, perhaps?
The base DC should probably derive directly from the save DC for the effect where possible.

--You must declare the desired Heal effect and DC before rolling. In the case of effects with variable DCs(such as curing poison), if your chosen DC is below the required DC, the treatment does nothing and does not harm the patient.
--Failure to meet the chosen check DC damages the patient, depending on how far you failed the check by. Damage is as per percentile healing.

This is an interesting change; currently attempting to cure poison or disease (by substituting for the save) has no penalties except a long treatment time, and failure does nothing special.

--You can remove permanent conditions such as paralysis, blindness, curses, etc, with a DC of X+their save DC, where X depends on the condition. This takes several hours. Effects with multiple saves(like disease, poison and some curses) require a successful check for each save attempt.

I suggest building a table on a hidden formula for X, something like (level of spell that can cause effect) * 5, and supplying the minimum expected save DC for each, also based on the lowest-level spell that could cause it.

Fake edit: Oh look, snakeman already did this!

When casting a Conjuration (healing) spell, you may make a Heal check as part of casting the spell.  If you succeed on a DC15 check, you heal the target for an additional 5% of their maximum hit points.  For every 5 points by which you beat the DC, you increase this bonus healing by another 5% of the target's maximum hit points (to a maximum of 70% bonus healing at DC 80).  You may also voluntarily raise the DC to remove certain conditions.  Exactly which conditions can be removed depends on the level of the healing spell you are casting (requirements given are minimums, not maximums).  Regardless, the Heal skill cannot remove more conditions than the spell level when used in this way.  On spells that have multiple targets, these extra benefits are only chosen once and apply to all targets.  Spells with non-instantaneous durations only apply these extra benefits once at the beginning of the spell.

Remove Poison: Increase DC by poison DC-10, requires 3rd level spell.
Remove Disease: Increase DC by disease DC-10, requires 3rd level spell.
Remove Paralysis: Increase DC by 10, requires 2nd level spell.
Remove Blindness: Increase DC by 10, requires 3nd level spell.
Remove Deafness: Increase DC by 10, requires 3nd level spell.
Remove Sleep: Increase DC by 5, requires 1st level spell.
Remove Fatigue: Increase DC by 5, requires 1st level spell.
Remove Exhaustion: Increase DC by 15, requires 3rd level spell.  May be reduced to Fatigue with a DC10 Heal check requiring a 1st level spell.  If this is done, the Fatigue cannot be cured in the same spell via the Heal skill.
Remove Sickened: Increase DC by 5, requires 1st level spell.
Remove Nauseated: Increase DC by 15, requires 3rd level spell.
Remove Dazzled: Do not increase DC, requires 0th level spell.
Remove Daze: Increase DC by 15, requires 4th level spell.
Remove Stun: Increase DC by 20, requires 4th level spell.

Also, when casting any Inflict Wounds or Harm spell, you may make a Heal check, causing the target to receive extra damage equal to the extra healing on (Healing) spells for their result (including the same cap).  This additional damage is calculated before the saving throw.

This still needs a limit on percentage healing for CLW etc, at the least. Otherwise, it's a good minimal change.

Although, it requires spells for all of these, rather than allowing mundane solutions at higher DCs. I think an alternate solution for each of these (for the most part) should be allowed with a sufficiently high Heal check.

--You can remove temporary effects like spells or short term conditions on living creatures with a full action. The DC is based on their save DC+effective spell level.

Including, I suspect, a caster level check of some sort, like break enchantment?

--You can return the freshly dead to life with a high DC check, but unless you also repair whatever caused their death in the same check(see below, e.g. combining healing with this), the person dies again.

If this is supposed to substitute for raise dead directly, which I think would be in poor taste, the DC would be around 40 or so; if it's supposed to supplement it at higher levels, which would probably work better, shoving it to 50 or 60 might be fine.

--You can combine multiple of the above into a single roll, but this stacks their DCs and takes the least favorable of their individual time requirements, as well as combining the effects of failure for all.

Specifically, DC A + DC B - 10 + DC C -10. Similar effects (e.g. curing multiple diseases) may gain an additional +5 bonus for each added effect (beginning with the second).

[veekie]

Presumably CCW allows you to try for up to 80%, CSW up to 60%, CMW up to 40%, and CLW up to 20%.
Unless we want to integrate Heal, which is currently getting the short end of the stick.

I'd say make it DC based because that covers percentile achievable at the same time as limiting conditions you can cure instantly. A high DC simple condition might still benefit from having the specialized spell available.
Heal, meanwhile, wipes pretty much all the conditions.

Use a -10 penalty for rushing (taking one minute instead of 10), and a further -10 for reducing to 1 round, perhaps?
The base DC should probably derive directly from the save DC for the effect where possible.

Rush diagnosis penalty can be in increments of 10 yeah. The base DC however, doesn't necessarily relate directly to effect strength. In fact, a low impact effect would be harder to diagnose, compared to one that say...damages all your stats and Confuses you for the duration. Diagnosis simply means you know the target DC you need to hit to cure it instead of going for overkill.

Including, I suspect, a caster level check of some sort, like break enchantment?

It is tricky either way. Existing Heal uses base the difficulty off the save DC. However, not all things have save DCs, particularly self inflicted conditions like fatigue. If its formula is Base + Caster level, or Base + Monster HD, it'd be more consistent, but dealing with much larger numbers overall.  Assuming you treat your own HD as the caster level for self inflicted stuff.

If this is supposed to substitute for raise dead directly, which I think would be in poor taste, the DC would be around 40 or so; if it's supposed to supplement it at higher levels, which would probably work better, shoving it to 50 or 60 might be fine.

It's supposed to substitute for a slightly longer grace period Revivify. However, in this case you need to deal with the following factors:
1) You cannot use a Cure spell to do this. The Cure spell cannot target a corpse, which is an object.
2) You have a few minutes grace to start work on resuscitating the target.
3) You must use the combined rolls option to do this at all(save for those death effects which just switch you off at full health), if the target is dead because of damage, you must heal at least enough to bring him to 0, if hes dead from ability damage, he needs the ability to be restored, etc.
4) Unlike Revivify it won't work in combat time.

Specifically, DC A + DC B - 10 + DC C -10. Similar effects (e.g. curing multiple diseases) may gain an additional +5 bonus for each added effect (beginning with the second).

Something like that, it was sorta a brainstorming post rather than a codifying post.

[TuggyNE]

Presumably CCW allows you to try for up to 80%, CSW up to 60%, CMW up to 40%, and CLW up to 20%.
Unless we want to integrate Heal, which is currently getting the short end of the stick.

Heal, meanwhile, wipes pretty much all the conditions.

My point was more that there's not much reason to cast heal as opposed to CCW + high Heal check, unless you really need full condition removal plus lots of HP in one quick spell.

So it goes from being #1 high-level healing spell to being a slightly higher-powered, considerably more expensive panacea.

Use a -10 penalty for rushing (taking one minute instead of 10), and a further -10 for reducing to 1 round, perhaps?
The base DC should probably derive directly from the save DC for the effect where possible.

Rush diagnosis penalty can be in increments of 10 yeah. The base DC however, doesn't necessarily relate directly to effect strength. In fact, a low impact effect would be harder to diagnose, compared to one that say...damages all your stats and Confuses you for the duration. Diagnosis simply means you know the target DC you need to hit to cure it instead of going for overkill.[/quote]

Ah, hmm, OK.

If this is supposed to substitute for raise dead directly, which I think would be in poor taste, the DC would be around 40 or so; if it's supposed to supplement it at higher levels, which would probably work better, shoving it to 50 or 60 might be fine.

It's supposed to substitute for a slightly longer grace period Revivify. However, in this case you need to deal with the following factors:
1) You cannot use a Cure spell to do this. The Cure spell cannot target a corpse, which is an object.
2) You have a few minutes grace to start work on resuscitating the target.
3) You must use the combined rolls option to do this at all(save for those death effects which just switch you off at full health), if the target is dead because of damage, you must heal at least enough to bring him to 0, if hes dead from ability damage, he needs the ability to be restored, etc.
4) Unlike Revivify it won't work in combat time.

I suppose those are fair points, yes, which can reasonably reduce the DC down to perhaps the 40s or so.

Also I suspect death effects should be harder to recover from, at least as a base, although their final DC obviously need not included combined HP restoration.

[snakeman830]

Notice that my suggested addendum works perfectly well with Heal.  In fact, it becomes quite possibly even more of a powerhouse healing spell, since not only will you get it's already good effects, but a rather high percentage of the target's max health in extra healing to boot.

[veekie]

For Heal my opinion was that the fix aims to make Cures and the Heal skill more relevant, whereas Heal(the spell) already works anyway.

[Rejakor]

I toyed with making classes that channel positive energy/can cast healing spells be able to use that to heal, with a pool of points similar to lay on hands that recharged over time (quite quickly, something like 1/round) with a few feats that let you use it for other stuff (DMM, equivalents, one that let you blast, one that let you turn) and spells that let you burn it or recharged it much quicker.  And classes like Healer or Combat Medic had much greater pools and regenned it faster and could use it to remove afflictions/conditions much easier.

Seemed to work pretty well.  Hell of a lot better than using spell slots or wandwhipping for healing, people did all kinds of stuff with it.  One guy ended up making a Healer/something that used a massive pool to counter spells (10pts/spell level), blast, and debuff (feats like warlock blast mods for after you took blasting healing feat) as well as occasionally healing himself while everyone else was like 'heal me heal me' 'no *shoots enemies with healing energy*' *party member sadface*.  He just used his healer spells to recharge and supercharge his healing pool and healing blasts, it was pretty funny.

[TuggyNE]

Notice that my suggested addendum works perfectly well with Heal.  In fact, it becomes quite possibly even more of a powerhouse healing spell, since not only will you get it's already good effects, but a rather high percentage of the target's max health in extra healing to boot.

For Heal my opinion was that the fix aims to make Cures and the Heal skill more relevant, whereas Heal(the spell) already works anyway.

Mostly, I was worried about lower-level spells obsoleting it with high percentages, but I guess that mostly would happen with higher op levels. Suppose you have just gotten access to heal, and have the Heal skill pretty well optimized; +2 circumstance, +3 skill focus, +8 ability, +14 ranks, +10 competence custom item: +37. Which is better, 3d8+11+40% from a spontaneous 3rd level slot, 1d6+13+40% from a prepared 4th (panacea, which has roughly the same list of condition fixers), or 110+40% from a prepared 6th? A rogue might have 18 Con by that level, and be up to around 85 HP; a barbarian might have 28 Con in rage, and be up to ~176. Heal in this case neatly restores them from negative to full in one fell swoop; very tidy. However, it's absurdly wasteful on the rogue.

Ehh, I guess a full analysis mostly just shows that heal becomes less dominant without completely losing its place, which is probably fine.

[lans]

What if we reduce the casting time required by 1 action if the heal would easily over fill the hp, and two actions if it would heal the recipient to 125-150% or so.

For Close Wounds spell I would consider a penalty to the percentage.

Wasn't their a feat or spell that turned extra healing into temporary hp?

[veekie]

^^
Note that adding the Heal check on Cure spells is to remedy Cures being entirely ineffective. Heal, as demonstrated, remains good relative to Cures of the same level, while also working on multiple status effects at once(niche, but common enough to have applications), Close Wounds works out of turn and thats pretty much going to make it trump the Cure on the sole basis of being able to save allies from going splat from full health.

[TuggyNE]

Wasn't their a feat or spell that turned extra healing into temporary hp?

The only such ability I personally know of is in a homebrewed replacement for the Healer.

[Rejakor]

The Cure line is essentially irredeemable.  The only design goal it actually works for is 'make the cleric a healbot'.  And it doesn't even succeed, because there are other ways (wands, fast healing, various tricks, healing belts) all designed to let the cleric NOT be a healbelt and actually DO stuff with his turns.

One of the most common houserules i've seen has been to beef up the cure spell, usually by making it scale slightly better but still poorly.  You can make it ACTUALLY scale, i.e. turn in-combat healing into a real option, by making it something like 1d6/level, or 1d6+1/level and each spell level (1st, 2nd, 3rd) extends the CL-cap by 5d6.  That provides some kind of SANE gradiation from 1st level spells all the way up to Heal, which is still worth casting, but it isn't like 'shitty tiny healing spells to OH GOD IT CURES EVERYTHING'.

But % based healing is just unnecessary math and doesn't scale well for healing different hp total characters, and the cure spells as they are are utterly useless and shouldn't be used as a balance guideline or basis for pretty much anything.

[snakeman830]

How the hell does %-based healing not scale for different HP totals?

[Rejakor]

You expend a third level spell on the bard and heal 7 hp.

You expend a third level spell on the barbarian, and heal 28 hp.

That's weird and terrible.

[veekie]

Actually, that is kinda the point, to make having higher hp more useful in the sense that it is more efficient to heal a higher hp character, who is also more likely to be in melee and needing the difference. So high hp characters can take more hits and recover quickly from hits.

[Rejakor]

And characters with lower hp don't get healed, because it's a 'waste of a healing spell'.

[snakeman830]

It wouldn't be a waste, everyone needs healing throughout the length of a campaign.  However, the guys taking the most damage would get priority, yes.  This makes sense.