Cure X Wounds spells aren't worth it

[n00bdragon]

So, I'm the very last person to say that casters need yet more toys that the rest of the plebs do not have but hear me out: Healing is right now an extremely one-dimensional affair and it would be a simple and fairly safe matter to increase the options for that all around.

So, just to recap, let's look at what Cure X Wounds spells actually do:

• Cure Minor Wounds - 4hp. Average: 4hp
• Cure Light Wounds - 1d8+5hp. Average: 9.5hp
• Cure Moderate Moderate Wounds - 2d8+10hp. Average: 19hp
• Cure Serious Wounds - 3d8+15hp. Average: 28.5hp
• Cure Critical Wounds - 4d8+20hp. Average: 38hp

Whether cast as a spell or used from an item these spells take an entire round to use, remove the user from stealth, and provoke attacks of opportunity. In or out of combat they heal the same amount. The primary advantages of these spells are that they can be found on many items (mainly potions and bandage rolls and the like) that do not require any investment of skill points to use. It's important to keep in mind that these spells were not designed for NWN, they are taken from D&D where the balance expectations are very different. Characters do not smash through dozens of enemies by themselves or take nearly as much damage in an adventuring day as a typical NWN character does, and Arelith has further exacerbated this difference by maximizing all HP rolls, reducing further influence of healing powers.

And what are the healing spells up against? Healing Kits. This isn't a topic about how healing kits are OP, I think they are fine. However, healing kits do not exist in pen and paper D&D (the Heal skill exists in 3e D&D but it does not restore hit points). They are an invention of NWN for its own unique needs: namely a way for non-clerics to heal in a game where the main campaign is played by a single player character and a single henchman. Healing kits can be used twice per round, don't break stealth or provoke AoOs, and in general provide much more healing than the Cure X Wounds spells do in addition to doing double duty curing poison and disease. Out of combat, characters take 20 on their heal check making the absolutely minimum one can heal with a single point in the skill and a +1 kit 22 hp, more than a Cure Moderate Wounds spell.

Just a few stats for using a +1 healing kit:

• Ranks in heal / Average healing per round in combat (2 kits) / Average healing per kit outside of combat
• 1 rank / 25 / 22
• 10 ranks / 43 / 31
• 20 ranks / 63 / 41
• 33 ranks / 89 / 54

So no matter how you look at it, whether from a healing per round or resource expenditure standpoint healing kits just blow spells out of the water with just a single point in the skill (and potions often don't even get the full bonuses described above as they are not cast at high levels, making them even weaker) and that says nothing about the combat liability of provoking attacks (and to a lesser extent breaking stealth).

I think it would be a safe change to drastically increase the amount of healing Cure X Wounds spells put out. The NWN game already does this on lower difficulties and its easy to see why: not to make the game easier but to try to bring them closer in parity to heal kits, but it still fails. I think it would be safe to go further.

Consider the following:

• If you wanted to make Cure Light Wounds competitive with 1 rank in heal and using +1 heal kits it would need to pump out an average of just over 20 hp just to remain even in HP, not even counting the provoking an attack. This would be something like 3d8+10hp for an average of 23.5hp healed.
• In higher tiers you would have to make a decision whether you want kits or spells to be better in the healing per round in combat or healing per unit outside of combat. It's my belief that a Cure Critical Wounds potion should be the "just a step down from a Heal" potion that its level implies it should be. Heal potions currently slam down over 150hp, which puts the (less than) 38hp of Cure Critical Wounds pots right now to shame. I don't think it would be at all unfair for Cure Critical Wounds to restore 100hp on average, or more.
• In addition to being straight up better at healing, healing kits are far cheaper to purchase from NPCs. The higher price NPCs charge for these items should indicate that they are superior products in some way. HP healed per gold spent is another way to measure one versus the other.
• No matter what values you choose for these spells the balance implications are simple. The risk of breaking things by drastically increasing healing values of spells is very very low. There might be a moderate increase in survivability of characters but no one is going to be getting anything that they shouldn't which you might subsequently need to take away. If something still appears to be too weak or ends up being too strong it's an easy tweak and you will face few complaints.
• This is an easy change. All the changes are located in a few spell scripts and can be easily done in less than an hour by pretty much anyone. No complex systems to implement, just a few numbers to shuffle around.

[Twily]

While I agree that the spells could use a little bit of love, I don't think they should be drastically increased.

In order for Heal Kits to surpass potions, you need to invest skill points into these skills.
Additionally, using Heal Kits makes one flat footed when potions do not. Sure potions provoke attack of opportunities, but any decent AC character will get hit less from this than from using kits.

If no or very few skill points are invested, then heal kits restore an extremely inconsistent amount of HP in combat, and restoring only 1-10HP when you need a lot more can easily result in death.
Potions restore more consistent amounts of HP, when compared to low heal skill kit usage.

So overall, while I think they could use a small increase, I don't think healing spells from potions need that big of a buff; as any sort of notable buff has the potential to invalidate Heal, which takes skill point investments and has downsides such as going flatfooted when used. I've had several characters that used Cure Crit potions as their primary source of healing in combat and never had any large problems from it.


That said, In regards to these healing spells being casted, I think they could use a pretty huge buff. Using up a spell slot for an otherwise very lackluster healing is almost never worth it.

[-XXX-]

On the other hand, they are very useful for low level characters who can cast them.

[Sofawiel]

Healer clerics are a thing.

[CptJonas]

Healer clerics are a thing.

Well..they are not...or better to say not for Cure wounds spells Only reason why anyone would pick healer path as cleric is for overhealing and special comands...

And you dont try to heal as cleric with cure spells...you use Heal, Greater restoration, Regeneration, etc, etc....

Cure and Inflict wound spell would need quite big buff to anyone with game knowlege (not taking RP reasons into acount) to put them into your spell slots...

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Healer clerics are a thing.

Well..they are not...or better to say not for Cure wounds spells Only reason why anyone would pick healer path as cleric is for overhealing and special comands...

And you dont try to heal as cleric with cure spells...you use Heal, Greater restoration, Regeneration, etc, etc....

Cure and Inflict wound spell would need quite big buff to anyone with game knowlege (not taking RP reasons into acount) to put them into your spell slots...

Unlike Heal, Greater Restoration, and Mass Heal, you don't have to prepare cure wounds spells at all as a cleric.

The powerful utility of cure <light/moderate/serious/critical> wounds comes in the fact that you can prepare other spells in those level 1-4 slots, and then spontaneously turn them into extra healing if necessary via the cleric's spontaneous healing ability. This is sometimes crucial after you've run out of those coveted heals/G.Rest/mass heals, unless you want to rest immediately every time. Healing domain empowers them all for free, as well, increasing the potential numbers you've given for their averages across the board.

A haste (one of the given standards of any form of 'serious combat') allows you to cast two per round, as well, further doubling that.

[CptJonas]

Healer clerics are a thing.

Well..they are not...or better to say not for Cure wounds spells Only reason why anyone would pick healer path as cleric is for overhealing and special comands...

And you dont try to heal as cleric with cure spells...you use Heal, Greater restoration, Regeneration, etc, etc....

Cure and Inflict wound spell would need quite big buff to anyone with game knowlege (not taking RP reasons into acount) to put them into your spell slots...

Unlike Heal, Greater Restoration, and Mass Heal, you don't have to prepare cure wounds spells at all as a cleric.

The powerful utility of cure <light/moderate/serious/critical> wounds comes in the fact that you can prepare other spells in those level 1-4 slots, and then spontaneously turn them into extra healing if necessary via the cleric's spontaneous healing ability. This is sometimes crucial after you've run out of those coveted heals/G.Rest/mass heals, unless you want to rest immediately every time. Healing domain empowers them all for free, as well, increasing the potential numbers you've given for their averages across the board.

A haste (one of the given standards of any form of 'serious combat') allows you to cast two per round, as well, further doubling that.

Well....thats nice and all...But you will never wilingly sacrifice those slots for such weak healing.....you will more likely just put your hands at your felow player/yourself and spam healing kits even if you dont invest in that skill....

Heal skill starts to be important at higher levels where you will never use your round (half of it if hasted) to useles small healing....
Those spells are outclassed by healing kits in their own game...in low level play....

[CptJonas]

Btw...you need to take into consideration.....that especialy clerics would never have small heal skill bcs it takes ranks from wisdom...their main attribute

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

As a primary caster player, I'd argue you're thinking about the spell slots backwards.

I could fill my level 7 slots with G.Rest, or I could drop one or two, knowing I have other lower level spells I probably won't need all of (seriously, all of my pure casters have like 8-12 spells for levels 1-4, so unless a DM is sitting there spawning endless wave after endless wave I'm absolutely going to be able to rest before I run out), and instead fill that slot with word of faith, another essential spell for dealing with summons and pvp alike.

Not that I'm advocating not taking a few G.Rest slots, they fix everything all at once and they're super useful. But I've played clerics, and I will absolutely sacrifice a divine power and other personal battle buffs to heal the tank (which might be me, depending on the party composition), since the tank being at full health up front does more for the party than me adding some extra melee damage as a cleric.

I mean, hey. Buff cure spells, sure. I don't object to things that make it harder for me to die, but if we're actually debating their worth, I'll fight you to the death on this one.

Cure wounds spells are free - healing kits cost money. Also; using a healing kit makes you flat-footed. Casting a cure wounds spell does not.

[CptJonas]

As a primary caster player, I'd argue you're thinking about the spell slots backwards.

I could fill my level 7 slots with G.Rest, or I could drop one or two, knowing I have other lower level spells I probably won't need all of (seriously, all of my pure casters have like 8-12 spells for levels 1-4, so unless a DM is sitting there spawning endless wave after endless wave I'm absolutely going to be able to rest before I run out), and instead fill that slot with word of faith, another essential spell for dealing with summons and pvp alike.

Not that I'm advocating not taking a few G.Rest slots, they fix everything all at once and they're super useful. But I've played clerics, and I will absolutely sacrifice a divine power and other personal battle buffs to heal the tank (which might be me, depending on the party composition), since the tank being at full health up front does more for the party than me adding some extra melee damage as a cleric.

I mean, hey. Buff cure spells, sure. I don't object to things that make it harder for me to die, but if we're actually debating their worth, I'll fight you to the death on this one.

Cure wounds spells are free - healing kits cost money. Also; using a healing kit makes you flat-footed. Casting a cure wounds spell does not.

I can argue with this ("DM is sitting there spawning endless wave after endless wave I'm absolutely going to be able to rest before I run out")...I am speaking from point of someone who is grinding hard....like 10-15k exp per day hard....Who have basicly all caster characters alcohol adicted, if you take into consideration those 5 botles of spirit they drink every few IG hours, just to make them permanently around 0 rest....
.....And to heal tank? What tank? You mean summon? And why would I do that? isnt beter to cast darkness as 99999% of PVE mobs cant see in it and it gives your "tank" and yourself enough breathing room to heal yourself up to full

[TimeAdept]

As a primary caster player, I'd argue you're thinking about the spell slots backwards.

I could fill my level 7 slots with G.Rest, or I could drop one or two, knowing I have other lower level spells I probably won't need all of (seriously, all of my pure casters have like 8-12 spells for levels 1-4, so unless a DM is sitting there spawning endless wave after endless wave I'm absolutely going to be able to rest before I run out), and instead fill that slot with word of faith, another essential spell for dealing with summons and pvp alike.

Not that I'm advocating not taking a few G.Rest slots, they fix everything all at once and they're super useful. But I've played clerics, and I will absolutely sacrifice a divine power and other personal battle buffs to heal the tank (which might be me, depending on the party composition), since the tank being at full health up front does more for the party than me adding some extra melee damage as a cleric.

I mean, hey. Buff cure spells, sure. I don't object to things that make it harder for me to die, but if we're actually debating their worth, I'll fight you to the death on this one.

Cure wounds spells are free - healing kits cost money. Also; using a healing kit makes you flat-footed. Casting a cure wounds spell does not.

I would be pretty annoyed if you wasted spell slots on cure critical wounds when they could have been used on productive spells, and you instead didn't use the heal kit tat can heal me 2x a round without spell slots, without drawing AoO off my -guard, and healing me for probably 4x as much, if not more, depending on your skill.

The spells are really bad. A cure crit pot is going to heal you 4d8+7 2x a round with an AoO, that's going to be about 23 HP a pot. That potion sells for 150ish GP with minor appraise investment. Or you can use a heal kit with basically no investment and heal just as much, a kit that costs you about 30 GP to *buy*, not sell. The spells aren't good and using cure crits as your primary healing is literally just throwing so much GP into the trash over the course of your character's career. In both cases, trying to heal yourself mid combat with these can be dicey, but here's the big thing: Kits don't turn off Improved Expertise. Potions do. As soon as you start chugging those potions, you're just going to die to losing 10 AC off that, on top of healing for much less consistently, AND drawing the AoO every round with your new -10 AC.

The potions are bad, the spells are bad, heal kits are where it's at. Let Healer Cure X line be all AoE like Circle of Healing is, then you might be getting somewhere with em, but they're never going to be a good option for anyone but Feylocks to spam for lowbie regen. Not without large scale changes.

[CosmicOrderV]

I'm gonna second the notion: heal spells arent worth it. I never prepare them on my cleric. Mass heal, grest, and regen are all more effective, with heal kits between. I would honestly love to see heal kit utility brought lower, and cure spell utility raised. Never made sense to me how easy it was to mend mortal wounds with but... some first-aid alone? Or whatever it is heal kits actually do. They're mundane, so at the very least they ought to be doing less than cure spells (plus remove disease / poison).

[Memelord]

Unlike Heal, Greater Restoration, and Mass Heal, you don't have to prepare cure wounds spells at all as a cleric.

Healer Clerics (which are a DIRECT UPGRADE to normal clerics) can spontaneously cast Heal and Mass Heal. The only reason to NOT play a Healer Cleric is if you're playing a battle cleric, in which case you shouldn't be the one responsible for baby sitting your party's HP anyways, except when tossing out a Heal/Mass Heal/G. Resto in the case of an extreme emergency. Anyone who is playing a non-battlecleric cleric that does not have the Healer path is actively nerfing themselves into irrelevancy.

Even then, Healer clerics are far better off saving their spellslots for buffs, and making use of Extended Regeneration and +3 Healing kits for emergencies. Healing kits are absurdly cheap. Gold is obnoxiously easy to come by. Use them.

In order for Heal Kits to surpass potions, you need to invest skill points into these skills.

Mathematically false. Prices below are the prices in Myon, so your mileage may vary.

CLW Potion = 1d8+2 HP = 6.5 HP/rnd on average - 14 gp
CMW Potion = 2d8+3 HP = 12 HP/rnd on average - 23 gp
CSW Potion = 3d8+5 HP = 18.5 HP/rnd on average - 46 gp
CCW Potion = 4d8+7 HP = 25 HP/rnd on average - 196 gp

Healer's Kit +1 = (10.5*2) + 2 HP = 23 HP/rnd on average - (35*2 gp) = 70 gp
Healer's Kit +3 = (10.5*2) + 6 HP = 27 HP/rnd on average - (42*2 gp) = 84 gp

With zero Heal skill investment and 10 Wisdom, only CCW potions surpass +1 Healer's Kits in average healing per round, but +3 Healer's Kits surpass them for SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper - if you, for whatever reason, decide you need to use gold as a metric for determining efficiency.

[Sea Shanties]

It seems to be the lesser cure spells are useful when you get them at low levels (especially since they don't have to be slotted) then become irrelevant. That's not so unusual.. How many people cast lesser summon creature or missile spells when they get the better versions? Some spells just lose their usefulness as you level up.

If a dev wants to improve them, of course, that's great. I just don't think every spell in the book needs to be useful all through the caster's journey. (And I'm not sure why anyone would buy potions either, except druids who can't use kits in wildshape.)

[Twily]

Mathematically false. Prices below are the prices in Myon, so your mileage may vary.

CLW Potion = 1d8+2 HP = 6.5 HP/rnd on average - 14 gp
CMW Potion = 2d8+3 HP = 12 HP/rnd on average - 23 gp
CSW Potion = 3d8+5 HP = 18.5 HP/rnd on average - 46 gp
CCW Potion = 4d8+7 HP = 25 HP/rnd on average - 196 gp

Healer's Kit +1 = (10.5*2) + 2 HP = 23 HP/rnd on average - (35*2 gp) = 70 gp
Healer's Kit +3 = (10.5*2) + 6 HP = 27 HP/rnd on average - (42*2 gp) = 84 gp

With zero Heal skill investment and 10 Wisdom, only CCW potions surpass +1 Healer's Kits in average healing per round, but +3 Healer's Kits surpass them for SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper - if you, for whatever reason, decide you need to use gold as a metric for determining efficiency.

You can drink 2 potions per round.

There is a difference in when the items are used though, if I'm remembering correctly. Potions, while able to drink 2 per round, won't actually drink when clicked until the start of your next round. Heal Kits will interrupt the round progression of your character and get used immediately.

[Memelord]

My math more or less still stands. With 4 Heal (what you can have at L1) and +3 Kits it comes out to 35 HP/round, which is just below the output of CSW potions. With 6 Heal (what you can have at L3), the +3 Kits already pull ahead of the potions. Potions also don't play terribly well with Expertise, irrc, and without Expertise - even very early on - you're pretty much going to be hit more often than not by the AoO's you're suffering from chugging those potions in combat (negating the entire point of drinking them in the first place.)

Cure Spells suck. Potions, suck. There's no upside to them.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I'll make this purely about numbers.

33 ranks in heal, we'll say +15 wisdom modifier, and we'll edge on the high side of the average with an 11 roll. +1 kit. 60 hp healed. We'll be generous to your side of the math, and say you can buy them for 20 gold each, for the sake of having a nice round number. This means for each gold you spend, you gain 3 HP.

We'll eliminate the healing domain aspect from the argument. Casting a cure wounds spell is free, but anything divided by zero doesn't work. This means that in practice, casting a cure wounds spell is literally infinitely more gold efficient than using a healing kit per hit point healed.

So we'll SAY that you spend a single gold coin per cure wounds you cast, just for the sake of giving us a workable number.

A cure light wounds spell (1d8+5 average 9.5) then equals 9.5 HP healed per gold spent, making it greater than three times more efficient per point of gold spent. The difference only increases in the cure spells' favor as you move up the chain, as well.

No amount of rationalization about the other things you could do with those spell slots changes this. I could spend that gold for healing kits on other things, too. Mathematically, per hit point healed, casting a cure wounds spell is economically more efficient than spamming heal kits, and always will be.

[Iceborn]

While I don't disagree with the numbers, I am going to point that we are talking about miserably small amounts of gold here. Not even low-level characters are going to feel the difference right now, since the writ system makes getting gold early on a very easy thing to accomplish.

AND EVEN if it was more expensive, I couldn't find anything wrong with that, since greater gold expenditures means more reason to engage in RP and seek patrons and sponsors, or seek meager jobs and task to keep gold flowing and keep the world moving.

[Memelord]

Yes. Your first like, 1-2 hours of hunting in Cordor as a new character with no appraise can very easily bring in 7-10k GP. Even buying +3 Kits at 45 gp each that's still over 200 healing kits - you should not be needing more than 50 or so in any given hunt (which should be bringing in roughly that same amount of gold again) so you're spending about 2.25k to make about 7.75k profit.

If you need more than that, you're either:

A) A 2-hander build who has terrible AC and should not be solo'ing and thus will not require nearly as much expenditure on healing goods once you start playing the game the way you're supposed to, or
B) A rogue who has terrible AC and relies on sneak attacks and should not be solo'ing and thus will not require nearly as much expenditure on healing goods once you start playing the game the way you're supposed to, or
C) Your build is hot trash and you're still solo'ing for some godawful reason, we should not be balancing things around this metric and you should either rebuild or find a group which will mean you will not require nearly as much expenditure on healing goods once you start playing the game the way you're supposed to.

[Vrass]

This is why you take the Healing Domain... my cure wounds spells will often heal close to or over 50+ hp. Still not as good as it could be but certainly not bad either.

[CosmicOrderV]

But nerf heal kits, tho.

[CptJonas]

This is why you take the Healing Domain... my cure wounds spells will often heal close to or over 50+ hp. Still not as good as it could be but certainly not bad either.

Ohoho....so you sacrifice one of 2 slots for domain (where is allready atleast 2 better options then healing), then you sacrifice on of your spell slots where you have probably some buff or any other usefull spell, to cast heal what will do same or little more then healing kit....good gods.....its great...forget what we all said...we must nerf healing spells

[Astral]

My 2 cents.

A delicate tweak of making the +x/CL doubled will solve this problem. Making the spells/potions viable and comparable to healing kits in low lvls, still kinda useless compared to kits in epic lvls unless healer path.

EXAMPLES! (assuming all character max Heal like this should if they arent healer cleric or masochistic)

Cure Moderate Wounds is now 2d8 + 2/cl (capped at +20). Average healing from potions will only raise from 11 to 14, making it nearly the same for lowbies but pushing the level range of where they are still cost efficient to them by 3 lvls only. Average healing from a Healer with healing domain is (8+20)x1.5 = 42 at cap lvl instead of 27. I'd say 27 hp at lvl 10 from a Healer is below usefulness range while 42 is not too high still. Average healing kit mid combat is 23~ at this lvl by someone who isnt a healer and invested in maxing the skill.

Cure Serious Wounds is now 3d8 + 2/cl (capped at +30). Average healing from potions will be raise from 18 to 23. Again, merely pushing the cost efficiency of the potions several lvls higher. Healer Cleric with Healing domain at lvl 15 now heals an average of (13+30)x1.5 = 64 instead of 42. Still not a huge difference but definitely more worthy of your spell slots at lvl 15~ dungeons when people already heal an average of 28 from healing kits mid combat, 56 if hasted (again, not including gear, just maxed skill).

Cure Critical Wounds is now 4d8 + 2/cl (capped at +40). Average healing from potions raised from 25 to 32. I'd say for the gold value of the potion it is hardly a difference at all and maybe the potion's CL should be raised from 7 to something like 10. Healer Cleric at lvl 20 with healing domain now heals average of (18+40)x1.5 = 87 instead of 57 in a lvl range where people heal an average of 38 (76 hasted) from healing kits mid combat with maxed heal investment.

TL;DR:
Currently, healing domain is garbage and needs a buff, like this one, and potions are terrible. This tweak solves it.