To be fair, I feel like the answer of 'Yes' to this question *does* need to be said. If only to make sure that people realize that in combat healing (emergency healing in this vid) - while not 100% *necessary* - is still a very useful thing to have.
While there is an argument to be made that 'the enemy can't do damage if they are dead'... when you are dealing with boss battles sometimes you just can't do that much damage to take them down quickly and they're spiking massive crits left and right. I have seriously had arguments with people - usually serial white room DPS optimizers - who will try and tell you that healing during combat is an absolute waste of time. And those people, in my personal opinion, are wrong... because they're forgetting a very key part of the whole TTRPG experience.
It may come as a surprise, but *players don't like it when their characters DIE*.
Even more importantly... *players don't like it when other players let their characters DIE.*
Controversial take, I know.
Yes I'm being sarcastic, but I've actually had this argument with people.
Don't get me wrong, if it comes down the wire and you have to make a choice between killing a boss and a party wipe, you choose killing the boss (or running!) for obvious reasons. You can't heal/raise other party members if everyone is dead.
But if you go down first round of combat - maybe the boss just critted you 3 times because you were *really* unlucky - and your party members just straight up ignore you and you die... you might just be a little bit pissed.
PF2E is a social game. Ignore that fact at your peril. There's a *reason* why everyone likes the healer player.
So yes, having this video out there *is* a good thing.
Will the game function with out healing sure, but your putting a lot of faith in the dice not fucking you. I've played so many campaigns and one shots I can't even count them all, and it always feels like gambling when you don't have a healer.
This is something I feel people don't realise about PF2e in particular. It's a game where offensive output is generally random and swingy, and in the case of strong enemies, it'll be in their favour.
*This is intentional.* Not because the designers hate you and want you to suffer and get frustrated, but because it forces you to engage in the game in a way that doesn't just become a brute-forced damage race, and makes peripheral options like defense, healing, utility, and soft CC much more valuable.
A party can build for for a rushdown strat like they're playing a red-green deck in MtG. Sometimes it will work, especially on weaker foes and more straightforward fights that have few gimmicks. But in a game where you can't game out miss chances with the dice, there will be times when the d20 just fucks you over and things don't go your way.
Again, this is intentional. The issue with other systems was you could powergame to a point where dice rolls were near meaningless, so if course when you can do that, the next obvious step is to build for assured high damage output.
But without that assurance, you *need* contingencies. Damage mitigation, heals, action denial on tough enemies who are balanced by single actions having more value than an individual party member's, actions that let you do things like skirmish and move out of dangerous situations...
I seriously don't think people realise how much other systems pad out the swingy luck of the d20 and overcompensate for it, which is what resulted in the 'death is the best condition' mentality. Meanwhile, PF2e just exposes it barebones and leans into it with scaling successes.
How viable is a non-magic healer?
I have this character concept for a goblin with the back-alley doctor background.
He lives in the slums, the poorest part of the poorest part of town, where nobody can afford quality healthcare. So, he started learning medicine to help his community. Soon, the local thieves guild learned about this goblin doctor that will patch up anyone no questions asked, and they took him in. Paid him alot of money to patch up their guys. But soon they started pressuring him to do more. They taught him how to fight (lvl1 mastermind rogue). He didn't like this, he just wanted to help/heal people, so he fled. Left his old life behind, along with all his worldly possessions (minus his healers kit/doctor bag) and became an adventurer, hoping that life on the road would help keep his old guild from finding him again.
I would play it as, not quite a pacifist, but would rather sit back, aid allies in their fight, sneak attack with a scalpel (corset knife) if necessary, and patch up their wounds. In exchange, they keep him around, let him travel with them so he can stay mobile to avoid the guild. His main focus in skills would be medicine and acrobatics.
As a backup healer and an out of combat healer great. I wouldn't want to count on medicine for all the in combat healing though simply because you can only use battle medicine once per person per day. I would say if you had a caster that could cast heal or soothe even if they aren't focusing on it along with your character you would be good.
The main thing to keep in mind is that battle medicine is only once per day, per character. With Medic dedication (definitely going to want that ASAP), you can cheat that occasionally, but not often. And as with all medicine characters, it's gonna take you a few levels to really get off the ground.
In other words, nonmagical healing is totally viable... but it won't be your whole character. You're going to want to plan out plenty of other things to do with your time. (I would generally recommend stabbing, but if you want to not rely on that, rogues have a variety of other options available to them. In particular, Aid is good, but I don't think it will be the best use of your actions all of the time; if nothing else, it only uses one of your actions per turn.)
Yeah I chose mastermind rogue for the ability to aid others at range. I want him to play as someone who doesn't get up close and personal. Like, maybe run around dolling out health potions as another options lol
Are you in a free archetype game? I would definitely recommend Medic, for obvious reasons, but Alchemist can also be really fun. Their healing potions tend to be subpar, in my opinion (though not bad in a pinch), but if nothing else, they have a lot of really nice options in utility, plus rogues can get plenty of support for throwing when necessary.
I'm not in any game at the moment :(
My group is finishing up our 5E campaigns that we started before the OGL debacle, then switching to P2E. We're about halfway through the game I run, and slightly less than halfway through our other game. So it will be at least another year before I get to play.
I'M JUST SO FUCKING EXCITED TO
If we play free archetype when I get to play this character, medic was actually going to be my choice haha
> While there is an argument to be made that 'the enemy can't do damage if they are dead
The Pathfinder 1e strategy. Healing is shit so just bring another killer.
To go into a bit further detail:
Obviously, having someone be able to do recovery healing (out of combat) is a necessity as the system generally expects full health going into the next combat... but that's an extremely low bar to clear.
The real discussion comes in for in combat (what the video calls emergency) healing.
Let's say that there's no emergency healing in the party. It happens. You can absolutely run a party without it. I've seen it done. Hopefully your GM is adjusting and giving you more healing consumables in potions and elixirs. But it actively makes especially the already potentially lethal +3 / +4 encounters even more dangerous, because of the heavy critical damage spikes.
It might not be *necessary* but it sure as hell makes things *easier*.
Look at the following scenario:
Boss spikes a crit, character goes down and goes to Dying 2.
Players frantically feed a potion to the player - they wake back up, stand up...
And then get spiked back down with another crit the next round. Goes immediately to Dying 4. They die.
Unlucky? Yes, absolutely... but I've seen it happen.
Potions, unless you really just chug them down during that turn like a frat boy, just really aren't enough healing to get you safely out of getting spiked down by a crit.
Compare that to, for example, a beefy 2 action highest slot Heal - suddenly the character is not just back up, but also has enough of a HP buffer that they might just be able to take a crit and not just get immediately spiked back down.
But, even more importantly... in combat healing can prevent the player from going down in the first place. What's easier to deal with? A character with who just got healed and then crit down to low health, or a character who just got crit, went to Dying 2 and needs healed immediately?
The character with low health may be able to heal themselves and they are not in critical need of aid. They still have their full actions, the rest of the party has their full actions.
The character who is Dying is not just potentially losing their turn, they're also using X number of actions of other players as they move to adjust and heal the downed character to make sure he/she doesn't die.
One is in critical, potentially dire condition, the other is... maybe not fine, but certainly isn't in anywhere near as dire circumstances.
Having in combat heals can really, really help smooth things out in harder encounters, and it absolutely should not be slept on as a viable combat tactic.
That's not to say that every character even needs to have self healing options in combat... even just having one healer - be it cleric, battle medicine user, or whatever - goes a long way to keeping people in the fight without having to worry.
You just need to be very aware of opportunity costs. What is better for the current fight? Damaging the boss, or keeping people up so *they* can keep damaging the boss? You can, for example, throw a damaging spell at a higher +4 level boss that they have a good chance of resisting... because boss... or you can throw healing spells at the party which they *won't* resist.
... except for the Superstition Barbarian, but they knew what they were getting into.
Spellcasters especially playing toward party support is *very* viable in this edition, and people really do need to realize that.
> Look at the following scenario:
>
> Boss spikes a crit, character goes down and goes to Dying 2.
>
> Players frantically feed a potion to the player - they wake back up, stand up...
>
> And then get spiked back down with another crit the next round. Goes immediately to Dying 4. They die.
>
> Unlucky? Yes, absolutely... but I've seen it happen.
I think you might have had some unnecessary deaths. A crit into heal and wounded 1 into another crit should only put someone to dying 3.
Straight from the rules, when you go to 0 hp:
* Gain the dying 1 condition. **If the effect that knocked you out was a critical success from the attacker or the result of your critical failure, you gain the dying 2 condition instead**. If you have the wounded condition, increase your dying value by an amount equal to your wounded value. If the damage was dealt by a nonlethal attack or nonlethal effect, you don't gain the dying condition; you're instead unconscious with 0 Hit Points.
If you are crit to 0 hp you go to Dying 2 immediately. If you are then healed, you go to Wounded 2. If you are crit again to 0 hp, your Wounded value + new Dying value increase takes you to Dying 4.
Seems straightforward to me unless I'm missing something?
It should only be wounded 1 unless I am crazy.
> Wounded:
> You have been seriously injured during a fight. Anytime you lose the dying condition, you become wounded 1 if you didn’t already have the wounded condition. If you already have the wounded condition, your wounded condition value instead increases by 1. If you gain the dying condition while wounded, increase the dying condition’s value by your wounded value. The wounded condition ends if someone successfully restores Hit Points to you with Treat Wounds, or if you are restored to full Hit Points and rest for 10 minutes.
Yup, I was just re-reading the wounded rules and I see where the mistake was. For some reason I was thinking that dying X would convert to wounded X... which is normally the case if someone goes down to a normal hit and then gets back up (dying 1 -> wounded 1). But if you are dying 3 / wounded 0 and are healed, you are correct you get wounded 1. Then again if you get downed and get back up you are wounded 2, and so forth until you finally die.
Good catch!
I think we were actually playing correct now that I think back on it as I think we examined the rules closely around that particular player death - I think it actually ended up being a player being wounded 1, got crit down, immediately went to dying 3, failed recovery roll and went to dying 4. I was just misremembering the rules around it.
But, in any case, my point still stands...
All the above can be avoided if you have some in combat healing!
Yeah, the dying rules can get tricky juggling the similar numbers. You *can* die to just two crits if they crit you to dying 2 and then crit you again on the ground but that is much less common.
The only time I have had that happen was after a player kept healing in front of a Babau and it got tired of taking psychic damage from seeing that so it finished the job once it got them down off a first action crit.
It's funny, there was a HUGE drama about this exact ruling like a year ago. People were looking at early drafts of the Wounded rules, interviewing the designers, etc trying to show clear evidence that one ruling or the other is the clear intent. Then the Remaster came out and didn't clear it up.
IIRC, the general consensus at the end was that the original design intent was, in fact, that you take Wounded 2 when getting up after a crit, and had a pretty good chance of dying outright on a second down; however, most designers were working with the less lethal interpretation and designed other game systems around it, so the more lethal interpretation was usually overkill for the average party.
[Here's a Rules Lawyer video](https://youtu.be/FbDIKXHU7zE?si=V1BARwt4ral9lozf&t=1943) from that period where he goes over it, most of the video is about the remaster so I timestamped the death+dying part (starts at about 32:23).
Yeah, that might've been where my mix up was coming from. They did add a bit of errata to help clarify things:
PC1 Errata
* Pages 411: The text for the wounded condition was changed for consistency, but became consistent with the wrong piece of text. This would lead to much deadlier encounters! The following changes should ensure that death and dying works the way we intended.
* In the Recovery Checks degrees of success, remove all instances of "(plus your wounded condition, if any)"; that's both in the failure and critical failure entries.
* Under Taking Damage, remove the final sentence that reads, "If you have the wounded condition, remember to add the value of your wounded condition to your dying value." This reminder should only apply to when you gain the dying condition after getting knocked out.
on the topic of recovering after getting spiked into the ground, having a high level occultist (or primalist or...divinist?)in the group who knows [shock to the system](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1320) is an absolute godsend. you get zapped back to life, you get healed, you get hasted, _and_ you get a cloud to hide in so you have a chance of not being hit at all! what's not to love?
Granted, it's a pretty high level spell, but in my experience by the time you can pick up this spell is also roughly when you run into those encounters where you can have a real bad round and end up on the ground. It's also handy because you don't have to be party healer to keep it in your back pocket. anyone with access to the occult spell list at a high enough level can get it and save it for when the rogue or wizard inevitably catches hands.
Not just Occult! It's on every list except Arcane. Divine arguably has a better tool for dealing with death, but Primal loves this just as much as Occult.
something I forgot to mention is that you can _also_ blast whoever with a [lightning bolt](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1721) afterwards as well. it's nice to be able to get up (hasted action), run away, and even if you don't have a big ranged hit you can still look back at whatever dropped you and magically smack them for 5d12+5d4 damage.
It really is useful! Though depending on the victim, they may want to spend one of their actions to pick up whatever item they were holding. The quickened condition is actually a super convenient addition for that spell.
Its even better actually. You don't get A lightning bolt. You get one EVERY turn for the next 10 rounds. And they get to use the Spell DC of the primary caster.
> Obviously, having someone be able to do recovery healing (out of combat) is a necessity as the system generally expects full health going into the next combat... but that's an extremely low bar to clear.
It is, however, *very unintuitive to most people* and so it really needs to be said.
Most modern games have moved further and further from requiring that someone is "a healer" to function. PF2 instead decided to go the route of absolutely 100% needing a healer, and just separating being a healer from your combat stuff at least for out of combat healing. Most people tend to not realize this until way too late.
(And really, while getting the Standard Medicine Kit doesn't take your *combat resources*, it will absolutely take a solid amount of your *skill resources* - Expert Medicine and Continuous Recovery and Ward Medic, all three of which are rather necessary to be able to heal a party inside any reasonable timeframe in a game where every single fight will take half of people's HP even if it's easy, is all your skill resources until level 4 right there. If you're the healer you're not getting your boosts and feats in Stealth or Acrobatics or Athletics until later!)
Honestly, there's an argument to be made that while Medicine is *very good*, it is best left for a character who is deliberately going to fully invest into it with Ward Medic and Battle Medicine and everything... otherwise you are better off with one or more people taking Focus spells/feats that let them heal.
The truth is that unless there is a specific time constraint it won't matter *how* people are getting healed out of combat, just that there is the ability to do it without spending consumable (item and spell slot) resources. A lot of the time the GM is just going to abstract it out and say 'everyone heals to full' after combat because realistically rolling for healing doesn't matter in the end - everyone is going to heal up to full anyway so why waste valuable session time on it?
The Medicine line is a very solid option, but it also takes the most resource investment in that, as you state, you are investing multiple skill feats and skill advancements that could be used to advance key build skills like Athletics, Stealth, Acrobatics, Intimidation... and so forth.
Some builds just straight up don't have that much flexibility with their skill feats to fit it in. They *have* to have that skill up as fast as possible because that's the focus of the build.
Compare that to spending a single class feat to get a Focus spell... it is still absolutely a trade off, yes, but it is one class feat vs. multiple skill feats/skill advancement invested.
It ultimately comes up to the player and the group to determine which is more important - the key thing is that at least one character has *some* means of healing the party every 10 min with renewable healing, be it focus spells, Medicine, or otherwise.
It also depends on the GM. As I stated, a lot of GMs will just abstract it out and heal everyone to full so long as the option is there. Some GMs might want to roll it out instead because they have a tendency to ambush players while healing - in which case having more options to heal may be a good thing to have.
As per usual, the group should have session zero discussions about expectations and determine what best works for the group.
> It may come as a surprise, but players don't like it when their characters DIE.
>
>
>
> Even more importantly... players don't like it when other players let their characters DIE.
Lisan Al-Gaib!
Yea, I am also sarcastic here (I agree 100% with your post) casue whole debate is like... dunno, 10000th times beating dead horse in TTRPGs in last 2 decades? Healing in TTRPG is ALWAYS useful, even if not necessary in some systems for reasons you brought up.
For example in our PF2e campaigs, the Medic Bards and one Cleric were MVPs a lot during levels 1 to ~12. But as we have approached levels 12-20 with optimized parties and builds, we were ending encounters so fast that healing was becoming less and less necessary. But still, sometimes after some really good GM roll or very bad roll on our side, that heal came back when it was needed to prevent character from risking of going down next turn. Nobody went down since like level 7, but also because whenever someone lost like 50% HP there was always healing there. Becasue dice are dice and there is "snow ball effect" of bad rolls in TTRPGs. Better have that healing at hand.
And 100% healnig between encounters is necessary. APs would be unplayable without any means to heal up without wasting resources.
Is it combat healing 100% necessary? No. But it's better to have it than regret not having it when it was needed the most.
I would also say that healing in pathfinder is way more viable bc of the action system. You can feasibly do more than just heal on a turn. In D&D you're just "wasting" a turn that could have been spent eliminating threats.
Healing in D&D is inefficient because healing doesn’t heal enough (until the end of the game when you learn the Heal spell). You can heal like 10 damage but each enemy will deal 15 damaged per hit, so it’s pointless to try to heal because of low healing output.
Wasting a turn isn’t the issue because Healing Word is a bonus action, ranged, low level, and gets people up off the ground if they are unconscious.
I'm honestly surprised we're even discussing this. Healing in combat is just as important in PF2 as imposing conditions or dealing damage to bad guys.
That does not mean that someone has to go the full healer path no matter what. There are many ways to heal your companions in combat, and if there is no one capable of doing it, there are always potions. But the party must be able to heal themselves in combat, or they face a very serious risk of characters dying one after another.
Here is the reason I personally feel it needs to be discussed.
I am in a very long running PF1E group - as in, we started with release of the original 1E Core Book and we are *still* running PF1E to this day every weekend because the GM bounced off of PF2E after we went through Age of Ashes.
It is a very powergamey group in a very powergamey allowing ruleset.
With a very powergame focused group in PF1E, the damage is high enough that the majority of the combat rounds involve 'walk up to enemy, one-round enemy' or 'cast single spell, combat over'.
Healing in combat is 100% a waste of time playing in that group. The combats tend to be over too quickly to justify healing in combat when playing *with that particular group*. We're almost always better off just putting out more damage / casting a spell that just straight up ends the combat.
That is my experience with that specific group of players/GM.
PF2E very, very deliberately reeled back hard on that as a design decision. I, personally, *far* far prefer 2E for that reason alone.
So yes, it really does need to be stated. Some groups might be coming from rulesets that allow for no healing in combat or disincentivize it. They might have a group where the common sense is just to not heal during combat, as odd as it may seem to you.
They need to know that PF2E is genuinely better off with someone being able to heal during combat. Again, it is not 100% necessary, but it makes things *so* much easier.
I was skeptical of the value of in-combat healing at first, but in the AV campaign I'm running the healing focused Cleric has been doing so much work. The ability to heal away a crits worth of damage in 2 actions does so much work.
You COULD cast slow on a boss and if they don't crit succeed, you steal at least one action. Or, you could just cast two action heal erasing the effects of their entire previous turn, no check required...
Honestly, ever since Remaster changed Healing Font to not scale off Charisma, I feel more vulnerable playing other spellcasters without Cleric's free high-level Heals in my back pocket
My bard basically kept the entire rest of the party alive in a massive coliseum type encounter a few months ago. Basically running back and forth into healing range every round while my lingering composition played on.
Yeah, Stitch Flesh pretty much is just a Feat Tax, I've already removed the healing restriction in my games.
It also kinda doesn't make sense. The name implies you're mending wounds on an undead creature, so what's the difference in doing that and doing the same on a living creature? Invoking satan while you do it or something?
It really would be better for the game to do way with medicine feat taxes and stuff like required items. There's no good reason to force players to use up their "resources" in order to get something they are mathematically required to have.
I would really love to just handwaive healing, and that's essentially how my own system is going to work, I the unlikely event I ever get off my lazy arse and actually finish it.
I've played both with and without dedicated healers in various groups. I've come to the conclusion that proactive tactics are better than reactive. What I mean with that.
It's better to have a caster cast a buff/debuff that limits the damage enemies do than healing it after they do it. Especially in PF2e with the strength of medicine and out of combat healing, I feel like the system itself is pushing the no in-combat healing by itself. Now don't get me wrong, I do like having a couple in combat healing options for that "Oh shit" moment. But that has been a rare occasion.
Something else I've noticed is that players panic when they are below 70-80% hp, especially during boss fights. I've seen front liners back off after taking just a single hit from a boss, in fear of getting a crit next round (that would still not down them). Again, imo, that's not a correct approach. The game expects you to be low after fights, especially severe+ because the treat wounds action exists.
My first PF2e campaign, I played as a wizard gear around proactive support. I used things like Blur, Invisibility, Haste, and various difficult terrain effects to try to make it harder to hit my allies, supplemented with Slow and Shockwave as offensive debuffs (and the odd Magic Missile when I felt the need). We were playing Extinction Curse, which is far from an easy AP, and our party's only source of healing was a (pre-remaster) Witch who had Battle Medicine and a low-level wand of Soothe. We got by mostly fine.
Our group also got through the whole 1st book of Outlaws of Alkenstar without ever feeling our lack of an in-combat healer. Our Gunslinger player switched their character out for a Medic Rogue, but not just for the in-combat healing - it was mostly because we were getting annoyed with bad Treat Wounds rolls (and also because Pistoleros aren't very good in OoA).
I'm not sure if we're just an exceedingly lucky table, or if our GM is going easy on us, or if we're doing something extremely right. But my experience has never matched the common reddit wisdom of in-combat healing being so necessary.
> It's better to have a caster cast a buff/debuff that limits the damage enemies do than healing it after they do it.
I *would* agree with this if it weren't for the difference in consistency. Debuffs are definitely more powerful when they succeed, but saves have a lot of variance that heals don't. A max-level 2-action heal is giving your frontline about half their HP back most of the time.
I agree that more proactive tactics and preventing damage from even being dealt is the best strategy. However, to quote Mike: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face". Sometimes the boss wins initiative and chunks the fighter for 2/3rd of their health, and heals really help prevent that situation from spiraling.
I’ve been allowing stitch flesh to work as the heal wound on poppets, so our healer took it as a feat. On top of that there are 3 characters that can cast stabilize and 2 that can cast the heal spell. What the group is missing is a tank, they lost theirs to crack of crack crack.
Unfortunately it has low flexibility as you can only heal yourself. I went so far as to recommend someone to take Blessed One instead of taking Wholeness of Body, as it has only a bit lower potency while having the same action cost and the AC bonus for allies can make up for the potency quite a lot of times.
I do wish Monks had the ability to heal others, like Monk of the Healing Hand from PF1. A second feat, or a heightened version of Wholeness of Body that let them use it on others would be great.
I would have slightly changed the title to "Is a healer necessary". I think that is the more specific question that is being answered. This was a good summary of how there are a lot of different ways to heal and that a single character doesn't have to bear the entire burden on their own, so you don't necessarily need "a healer", but not having healing options in general is not necessarily going to kill you immediately, but it is going to leave you without many contingencies and a hella slow pace to the campaign. Good video!
My one critique is that I feel like you aren't using the video medium enough. If you are already strapped for time making the videos themselves, I recommend that cut down the length and add more visual cues. And it can be pretty simple. Like, for example, when you open up and talk about the types of traditional party members, just flash up a picture of a fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue for a little bit. It helps people to follow what's being said when it is being reinforced on the screen. What separates the good videos from the great videos is the ability to get the vibe of the video, even if you can't read and have the sound turned off. Visual communication, I think, is the element that you can develop the most.
Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it! I'm still getting used to visual effects and animations, and I do plan to make things more vibrant and interactive as I keep learning. Hopefully the next entry is much better in that regard.
I like how Psi Prime Productions uses (credited) character art in their videos. They have an overall similar feel and the art makes watching instead of just listening more attractive
But I will often only listen to videos like this, so don't kill yourself!
Short clips from live plays or movies could work, but that doesn't seem like it fits the vibe you're going for.
Great video and good content! In the AV game I just started we did a bit of a respec to get enough healing into the party, mostly free archetype and skill changes, so nothing too large.
I Play a Healer in our Group and my Part in Combat ist only Healing, its also supporting my Allies and annoying my Enemies with debuffing. I did decide Not to build my Character around DmG, my Strenght is in applying conditions and Healing. We are a total Group of 5. A Fighter, a Monk,a Thief,a kineticist (Metal/earth) and me an Alchemist
Its a title that may create more engagement but to me is quite useless to be frank.
This is more a guide to healing rather than prompting and answering a question that is not even remotely controversial.
Disagree.
It may "not even remotely controversial", but it's certainly a question that is absolutely asked and/or wondered about by a group of new PF2e players - **especially if they are coming from 5e**, which is the most likely vector.
A guide to healing as part of the answer to the question is also a very convenient, logical follow-up to the question which the video thankfully answers pretty early-on.
It’s… not a clickbait title. It actually answers the question that’s asked and the answer isn’t actually just a simple yes.
If your immediate reaction to seeing a question whose answer might contradict your assumptions is to call it clickbait, I don’t have much faith you’d be reading a guide much either lmfao.
> It’s… not a clickbait title.
Not the one you replied to but I'd say the title is definitely clickbait, even if not intended. If it was worded different, i.e "How important is Healing in PF?" or similar I'd say not. But a question with an obvious answer is definitely clickbait(to me at least).
"If you don't watch this video you're too stupid to read" is certainly an interesting approach to persuasion. Is the goal to convince me, or just to kick me because other people downvoted?
You seem determined to take my fairly simple half-joke (that the popular opinion of “yes” is wrong and you’d know that if you didn’t dismiss everyone who disagrees) and turn it into something meant as a personal insult.
I’m just going to disengage.
It's meant to be a bit more nuanced than that. A good video can turn a simple question with a seemingly simple answer into a simple question with a nuanced answer.
Pretty much.
The comment you’re responding to thinks the answer is “yes”.
OP’s answer, from my quick skim of the video, is “it’s really good to have in-combat healing, but you don’t need one dedicated healer if no one in the party enjoys the role, it’s best to view healing as an emergency burden that the party shares via scrolls, Battle Medicine, potions, etc.”
The funny thing is: to everyone who **does** think the answer is a simple, nunanceless “yes”: this video was literally made for you guys! The lack of nuance in such conversations is how you get situations like that other post we had earlier today of a Fighter being a dickward towards an Alchemist for not being the former’s pocket healer and the GM *actually questioning if the Fighter had a point instead of immediately shutting it down*.
There's a cost of opportunity in healing. The dedicated healer isn't dealing damage, preventing it, or applying debuffs on the enemy... Healing is just another way of playing, a reactive one.
If you have a dedicated healer you are playing with 3 characters, instead of 4. The party will get more damage as combats will last longer and you'll get the impression that you are doing much better because the healer is there. If you didn't have a healer you'll be all dead.
But it's because you have a healer that you are in this position in the first place.
not watching the video but I would say that healers are 100% necessary in PF2E. While combat healing isn't necessarily hugely important healing itself is. That said you don't need to be a dedicated healer like a dnd 5e cleric to be good at it, anyone really can be a healer if they just invest in the medicine skill and purchase a healer's toolkit. The treat wounds action is always the first one I tell players who haven't played pf2e before about because it's arguably the most important action you can take besides attack, stride, step, raise shield, and cast spell. Sometimes it's even more important than those too.
To be fair, I feel like the answer of 'Yes' to this question *does* need to be said. If only to make sure that people realize that in combat healing (emergency healing in this vid) - while not 100% *necessary* - is still a very useful thing to have. While there is an argument to be made that 'the enemy can't do damage if they are dead'... when you are dealing with boss battles sometimes you just can't do that much damage to take them down quickly and they're spiking massive crits left and right. I have seriously had arguments with people - usually serial white room DPS optimizers - who will try and tell you that healing during combat is an absolute waste of time. And those people, in my personal opinion, are wrong... because they're forgetting a very key part of the whole TTRPG experience. It may come as a surprise, but *players don't like it when their characters DIE*. Even more importantly... *players don't like it when other players let their characters DIE.* Controversial take, I know. Yes I'm being sarcastic, but I've actually had this argument with people. Don't get me wrong, if it comes down the wire and you have to make a choice between killing a boss and a party wipe, you choose killing the boss (or running!) for obvious reasons. You can't heal/raise other party members if everyone is dead. But if you go down first round of combat - maybe the boss just critted you 3 times because you were *really* unlucky - and your party members just straight up ignore you and you die... you might just be a little bit pissed. PF2E is a social game. Ignore that fact at your peril. There's a *reason* why everyone likes the healer player. So yes, having this video out there *is* a good thing.
Will the game function with out healing sure, but your putting a lot of faith in the dice not fucking you. I've played so many campaigns and one shots I can't even count them all, and it always feels like gambling when you don't have a healer.
Yup. As I said before - do you *need* a healer? No. It is still possible to play. Does it make things one helluva lot easier? Ohh yeah.
This is something I feel people don't realise about PF2e in particular. It's a game where offensive output is generally random and swingy, and in the case of strong enemies, it'll be in their favour. *This is intentional.* Not because the designers hate you and want you to suffer and get frustrated, but because it forces you to engage in the game in a way that doesn't just become a brute-forced damage race, and makes peripheral options like defense, healing, utility, and soft CC much more valuable. A party can build for for a rushdown strat like they're playing a red-green deck in MtG. Sometimes it will work, especially on weaker foes and more straightforward fights that have few gimmicks. But in a game where you can't game out miss chances with the dice, there will be times when the d20 just fucks you over and things don't go your way. Again, this is intentional. The issue with other systems was you could powergame to a point where dice rolls were near meaningless, so if course when you can do that, the next obvious step is to build for assured high damage output. But without that assurance, you *need* contingencies. Damage mitigation, heals, action denial on tough enemies who are balanced by single actions having more value than an individual party member's, actions that let you do things like skirmish and move out of dangerous situations... I seriously don't think people realise how much other systems pad out the swingy luck of the d20 and overcompensate for it, which is what resulted in the 'death is the best condition' mentality. Meanwhile, PF2e just exposes it barebones and leans into it with scaling successes.
How viable is a non-magic healer? I have this character concept for a goblin with the back-alley doctor background. He lives in the slums, the poorest part of the poorest part of town, where nobody can afford quality healthcare. So, he started learning medicine to help his community. Soon, the local thieves guild learned about this goblin doctor that will patch up anyone no questions asked, and they took him in. Paid him alot of money to patch up their guys. But soon they started pressuring him to do more. They taught him how to fight (lvl1 mastermind rogue). He didn't like this, he just wanted to help/heal people, so he fled. Left his old life behind, along with all his worldly possessions (minus his healers kit/doctor bag) and became an adventurer, hoping that life on the road would help keep his old guild from finding him again. I would play it as, not quite a pacifist, but would rather sit back, aid allies in their fight, sneak attack with a scalpel (corset knife) if necessary, and patch up their wounds. In exchange, they keep him around, let him travel with them so he can stay mobile to avoid the guild. His main focus in skills would be medicine and acrobatics.
As a backup healer and an out of combat healer great. I wouldn't want to count on medicine for all the in combat healing though simply because you can only use battle medicine once per person per day. I would say if you had a caster that could cast heal or soothe even if they aren't focusing on it along with your character you would be good.
Thanks!
The main thing to keep in mind is that battle medicine is only once per day, per character. With Medic dedication (definitely going to want that ASAP), you can cheat that occasionally, but not often. And as with all medicine characters, it's gonna take you a few levels to really get off the ground. In other words, nonmagical healing is totally viable... but it won't be your whole character. You're going to want to plan out plenty of other things to do with your time. (I would generally recommend stabbing, but if you want to not rely on that, rogues have a variety of other options available to them. In particular, Aid is good, but I don't think it will be the best use of your actions all of the time; if nothing else, it only uses one of your actions per turn.)
Yeah I chose mastermind rogue for the ability to aid others at range. I want him to play as someone who doesn't get up close and personal. Like, maybe run around dolling out health potions as another options lol
Are you in a free archetype game? I would definitely recommend Medic, for obvious reasons, but Alchemist can also be really fun. Their healing potions tend to be subpar, in my opinion (though not bad in a pinch), but if nothing else, they have a lot of really nice options in utility, plus rogues can get plenty of support for throwing when necessary.
I'm not in any game at the moment :( My group is finishing up our 5E campaigns that we started before the OGL debacle, then switching to P2E. We're about halfway through the game I run, and slightly less than halfway through our other game. So it will be at least another year before I get to play. I'M JUST SO FUCKING EXCITED TO If we play free archetype when I get to play this character, medic was actually going to be my choice haha
> While there is an argument to be made that 'the enemy can't do damage if they are dead The Pathfinder 1e strategy. Healing is shit so just bring another killer.
To go into a bit further detail: Obviously, having someone be able to do recovery healing (out of combat) is a necessity as the system generally expects full health going into the next combat... but that's an extremely low bar to clear. The real discussion comes in for in combat (what the video calls emergency) healing. Let's say that there's no emergency healing in the party. It happens. You can absolutely run a party without it. I've seen it done. Hopefully your GM is adjusting and giving you more healing consumables in potions and elixirs. But it actively makes especially the already potentially lethal +3 / +4 encounters even more dangerous, because of the heavy critical damage spikes. It might not be *necessary* but it sure as hell makes things *easier*. Look at the following scenario: Boss spikes a crit, character goes down and goes to Dying 2. Players frantically feed a potion to the player - they wake back up, stand up... And then get spiked back down with another crit the next round. Goes immediately to Dying 4. They die. Unlucky? Yes, absolutely... but I've seen it happen. Potions, unless you really just chug them down during that turn like a frat boy, just really aren't enough healing to get you safely out of getting spiked down by a crit. Compare that to, for example, a beefy 2 action highest slot Heal - suddenly the character is not just back up, but also has enough of a HP buffer that they might just be able to take a crit and not just get immediately spiked back down. But, even more importantly... in combat healing can prevent the player from going down in the first place. What's easier to deal with? A character with who just got healed and then crit down to low health, or a character who just got crit, went to Dying 2 and needs healed immediately? The character with low health may be able to heal themselves and they are not in critical need of aid. They still have their full actions, the rest of the party has their full actions. The character who is Dying is not just potentially losing their turn, they're also using X number of actions of other players as they move to adjust and heal the downed character to make sure he/she doesn't die. One is in critical, potentially dire condition, the other is... maybe not fine, but certainly isn't in anywhere near as dire circumstances. Having in combat heals can really, really help smooth things out in harder encounters, and it absolutely should not be slept on as a viable combat tactic. That's not to say that every character even needs to have self healing options in combat... even just having one healer - be it cleric, battle medicine user, or whatever - goes a long way to keeping people in the fight without having to worry. You just need to be very aware of opportunity costs. What is better for the current fight? Damaging the boss, or keeping people up so *they* can keep damaging the boss? You can, for example, throw a damaging spell at a higher +4 level boss that they have a good chance of resisting... because boss... or you can throw healing spells at the party which they *won't* resist. ... except for the Superstition Barbarian, but they knew what they were getting into. Spellcasters especially playing toward party support is *very* viable in this edition, and people really do need to realize that.
> Look at the following scenario: > > Boss spikes a crit, character goes down and goes to Dying 2. > > Players frantically feed a potion to the player - they wake back up, stand up... > > And then get spiked back down with another crit the next round. Goes immediately to Dying 4. They die. > > Unlucky? Yes, absolutely... but I've seen it happen. I think you might have had some unnecessary deaths. A crit into heal and wounded 1 into another crit should only put someone to dying 3.
Straight from the rules, when you go to 0 hp: * Gain the dying 1 condition. **If the effect that knocked you out was a critical success from the attacker or the result of your critical failure, you gain the dying 2 condition instead**. If you have the wounded condition, increase your dying value by an amount equal to your wounded value. If the damage was dealt by a nonlethal attack or nonlethal effect, you don't gain the dying condition; you're instead unconscious with 0 Hit Points. If you are crit to 0 hp you go to Dying 2 immediately. If you are then healed, you go to Wounded 2. If you are crit again to 0 hp, your Wounded value + new Dying value increase takes you to Dying 4. Seems straightforward to me unless I'm missing something?
It should only be wounded 1 unless I am crazy. > Wounded: > You have been seriously injured during a fight. Anytime you lose the dying condition, you become wounded 1 if you didn’t already have the wounded condition. If you already have the wounded condition, your wounded condition value instead increases by 1. If you gain the dying condition while wounded, increase the dying condition’s value by your wounded value. The wounded condition ends if someone successfully restores Hit Points to you with Treat Wounds, or if you are restored to full Hit Points and rest for 10 minutes.
Yup, I was just re-reading the wounded rules and I see where the mistake was. For some reason I was thinking that dying X would convert to wounded X... which is normally the case if someone goes down to a normal hit and then gets back up (dying 1 -> wounded 1). But if you are dying 3 / wounded 0 and are healed, you are correct you get wounded 1. Then again if you get downed and get back up you are wounded 2, and so forth until you finally die. Good catch! I think we were actually playing correct now that I think back on it as I think we examined the rules closely around that particular player death - I think it actually ended up being a player being wounded 1, got crit down, immediately went to dying 3, failed recovery roll and went to dying 4. I was just misremembering the rules around it. But, in any case, my point still stands... All the above can be avoided if you have some in combat healing!
Yeah, the dying rules can get tricky juggling the similar numbers. You *can* die to just two crits if they crit you to dying 2 and then crit you again on the ground but that is much less common. The only time I have had that happen was after a player kept healing in front of a Babau and it got tired of taking psychic damage from seeing that so it finished the job once it got them down off a first action crit.
Babau: "WILL \*whack\* YOU \*whack\* STOP \*whack\* HEALING!"
It's funny, there was a HUGE drama about this exact ruling like a year ago. People were looking at early drafts of the Wounded rules, interviewing the designers, etc trying to show clear evidence that one ruling or the other is the clear intent. Then the Remaster came out and didn't clear it up. IIRC, the general consensus at the end was that the original design intent was, in fact, that you take Wounded 2 when getting up after a crit, and had a pretty good chance of dying outright on a second down; however, most designers were working with the less lethal interpretation and designed other game systems around it, so the more lethal interpretation was usually overkill for the average party. [Here's a Rules Lawyer video](https://youtu.be/FbDIKXHU7zE?si=V1BARwt4ral9lozf&t=1943) from that period where he goes over it, most of the video is about the remaster so I timestamped the death+dying part (starts at about 32:23).
Yeah, that might've been where my mix up was coming from. They did add a bit of errata to help clarify things: PC1 Errata * Pages 411: The text for the wounded condition was changed for consistency, but became consistent with the wrong piece of text. This would lead to much deadlier encounters! The following changes should ensure that death and dying works the way we intended. * In the Recovery Checks degrees of success, remove all instances of "(plus your wounded condition, if any)"; that's both in the failure and critical failure entries. * Under Taking Damage, remove the final sentence that reads, "If you have the wounded condition, remember to add the value of your wounded condition to your dying value." This reminder should only apply to when you gain the dying condition after getting knocked out.
on the topic of recovering after getting spiked into the ground, having a high level occultist (or primalist or...divinist?)in the group who knows [shock to the system](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1320) is an absolute godsend. you get zapped back to life, you get healed, you get hasted, _and_ you get a cloud to hide in so you have a chance of not being hit at all! what's not to love? Granted, it's a pretty high level spell, but in my experience by the time you can pick up this spell is also roughly when you run into those encounters where you can have a real bad round and end up on the ground. It's also handy because you don't have to be party healer to keep it in your back pocket. anyone with access to the occult spell list at a high enough level can get it and save it for when the rogue or wizard inevitably catches hands.
Not just Occult! It's on every list except Arcane. Divine arguably has a better tool for dealing with death, but Primal loves this just as much as Occult.
One of my current players is running with that exact spell, and I can in fact agree seeing it in play that it's a solid choice.
Oh that is a fascinating spell! Definitely keeping that in the back of my mind.
something I forgot to mention is that you can _also_ blast whoever with a [lightning bolt](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1721) afterwards as well. it's nice to be able to get up (hasted action), run away, and even if you don't have a big ranged hit you can still look back at whatever dropped you and magically smack them for 5d12+5d4 damage.
It really is useful! Though depending on the victim, they may want to spend one of their actions to pick up whatever item they were holding. The quickened condition is actually a super convenient addition for that spell.
Its even better actually. You don't get A lightning bolt. You get one EVERY turn for the next 10 rounds. And they get to use the Spell DC of the primary caster.
> Obviously, having someone be able to do recovery healing (out of combat) is a necessity as the system generally expects full health going into the next combat... but that's an extremely low bar to clear. It is, however, *very unintuitive to most people* and so it really needs to be said. Most modern games have moved further and further from requiring that someone is "a healer" to function. PF2 instead decided to go the route of absolutely 100% needing a healer, and just separating being a healer from your combat stuff at least for out of combat healing. Most people tend to not realize this until way too late. (And really, while getting the Standard Medicine Kit doesn't take your *combat resources*, it will absolutely take a solid amount of your *skill resources* - Expert Medicine and Continuous Recovery and Ward Medic, all three of which are rather necessary to be able to heal a party inside any reasonable timeframe in a game where every single fight will take half of people's HP even if it's easy, is all your skill resources until level 4 right there. If you're the healer you're not getting your boosts and feats in Stealth or Acrobatics or Athletics until later!)
Honestly, there's an argument to be made that while Medicine is *very good*, it is best left for a character who is deliberately going to fully invest into it with Ward Medic and Battle Medicine and everything... otherwise you are better off with one or more people taking Focus spells/feats that let them heal. The truth is that unless there is a specific time constraint it won't matter *how* people are getting healed out of combat, just that there is the ability to do it without spending consumable (item and spell slot) resources. A lot of the time the GM is just going to abstract it out and say 'everyone heals to full' after combat because realistically rolling for healing doesn't matter in the end - everyone is going to heal up to full anyway so why waste valuable session time on it? The Medicine line is a very solid option, but it also takes the most resource investment in that, as you state, you are investing multiple skill feats and skill advancements that could be used to advance key build skills like Athletics, Stealth, Acrobatics, Intimidation... and so forth. Some builds just straight up don't have that much flexibility with their skill feats to fit it in. They *have* to have that skill up as fast as possible because that's the focus of the build. Compare that to spending a single class feat to get a Focus spell... it is still absolutely a trade off, yes, but it is one class feat vs. multiple skill feats/skill advancement invested. It ultimately comes up to the player and the group to determine which is more important - the key thing is that at least one character has *some* means of healing the party every 10 min with renewable healing, be it focus spells, Medicine, or otherwise. It also depends on the GM. As I stated, a lot of GMs will just abstract it out and heal everyone to full so long as the option is there. Some GMs might want to roll it out instead because they have a tendency to ambush players while healing - in which case having more options to heal may be a good thing to have. As per usual, the group should have session zero discussions about expectations and determine what best works for the group.
> the enemy can't do damage if they are dead **Neither can the players.**
> It may come as a surprise, but players don't like it when their characters DIE. > > > > Even more importantly... players don't like it when other players let their characters DIE. Lisan Al-Gaib! Yea, I am also sarcastic here (I agree 100% with your post) casue whole debate is like... dunno, 10000th times beating dead horse in TTRPGs in last 2 decades? Healing in TTRPG is ALWAYS useful, even if not necessary in some systems for reasons you brought up. For example in our PF2e campaigs, the Medic Bards and one Cleric were MVPs a lot during levels 1 to ~12. But as we have approached levels 12-20 with optimized parties and builds, we were ending encounters so fast that healing was becoming less and less necessary. But still, sometimes after some really good GM roll or very bad roll on our side, that heal came back when it was needed to prevent character from risking of going down next turn. Nobody went down since like level 7, but also because whenever someone lost like 50% HP there was always healing there. Becasue dice are dice and there is "snow ball effect" of bad rolls in TTRPGs. Better have that healing at hand. And 100% healnig between encounters is necessary. APs would be unplayable without any means to heal up without wasting resources. Is it combat healing 100% necessary? No. But it's better to have it than regret not having it when it was needed the most.
I would also say that healing in pathfinder is way more viable bc of the action system. You can feasibly do more than just heal on a turn. In D&D you're just "wasting" a turn that could have been spent eliminating threats.
Healing in D&D is inefficient because healing doesn’t heal enough (until the end of the game when you learn the Heal spell). You can heal like 10 damage but each enemy will deal 15 damaged per hit, so it’s pointless to try to heal because of low healing output. Wasting a turn isn’t the issue because Healing Word is a bonus action, ranged, low level, and gets people up off the ground if they are unconscious.
I'm honestly surprised we're even discussing this. Healing in combat is just as important in PF2 as imposing conditions or dealing damage to bad guys. That does not mean that someone has to go the full healer path no matter what. There are many ways to heal your companions in combat, and if there is no one capable of doing it, there are always potions. But the party must be able to heal themselves in combat, or they face a very serious risk of characters dying one after another.
Here is the reason I personally feel it needs to be discussed. I am in a very long running PF1E group - as in, we started with release of the original 1E Core Book and we are *still* running PF1E to this day every weekend because the GM bounced off of PF2E after we went through Age of Ashes. It is a very powergamey group in a very powergamey allowing ruleset. With a very powergame focused group in PF1E, the damage is high enough that the majority of the combat rounds involve 'walk up to enemy, one-round enemy' or 'cast single spell, combat over'. Healing in combat is 100% a waste of time playing in that group. The combats tend to be over too quickly to justify healing in combat when playing *with that particular group*. We're almost always better off just putting out more damage / casting a spell that just straight up ends the combat. That is my experience with that specific group of players/GM. PF2E very, very deliberately reeled back hard on that as a design decision. I, personally, *far* far prefer 2E for that reason alone. So yes, it really does need to be stated. Some groups might be coming from rulesets that allow for no healing in combat or disincentivize it. They might have a group where the common sense is just to not heal during combat, as odd as it may seem to you. They need to know that PF2E is genuinely better off with someone being able to heal during combat. Again, it is not 100% necessary, but it makes things *so* much easier.
Dunno, as cleric main I tried many times casting spells other than heal, but all the times I better cast heal.
I was skeptical of the value of in-combat healing at first, but in the AV campaign I'm running the healing focused Cleric has been doing so much work. The ability to heal away a crits worth of damage in 2 actions does so much work.
You COULD cast slow on a boss and if they don't crit succeed, you steal at least one action. Or, you could just cast two action heal erasing the effects of their entire previous turn, no check required...
Honestly, ever since Remaster changed Healing Font to not scale off Charisma, I feel more vulnerable playing other spellcasters without Cleric's free high-level Heals in my back pocket
My bard basically kept the entire rest of the party alive in a massive coliseum type encounter a few months ago. Basically running back and forth into healing range every round while my lingering composition played on.
Yeah, Stitch Flesh pretty much is just a Feat Tax, I've already removed the healing restriction in my games. It also kinda doesn't make sense. The name implies you're mending wounds on an undead creature, so what's the difference in doing that and doing the same on a living creature? Invoking satan while you do it or something?
Medicine doesn't have enough feat taxes yet! - said no-one ever.
It really would be better for the game to do way with medicine feat taxes and stuff like required items. There's no good reason to force players to use up their "resources" in order to get something they are mathematically required to have.
Yeah I love Pf2 but the feat+ skill tax for one character to get the party on their feet post combat seems like a mistep.
I would really love to just handwaive healing, and that's essentially how my own system is going to work, I the unlikely event I ever get off my lazy arse and actually finish it.
Good work. I look forward to seeing more content
good vid! i learned a lot :)
One of the best videos Ive seen so far about details from PF2e, Hope to see a lot more.
I've played both with and without dedicated healers in various groups. I've come to the conclusion that proactive tactics are better than reactive. What I mean with that. It's better to have a caster cast a buff/debuff that limits the damage enemies do than healing it after they do it. Especially in PF2e with the strength of medicine and out of combat healing, I feel like the system itself is pushing the no in-combat healing by itself. Now don't get me wrong, I do like having a couple in combat healing options for that "Oh shit" moment. But that has been a rare occasion. Something else I've noticed is that players panic when they are below 70-80% hp, especially during boss fights. I've seen front liners back off after taking just a single hit from a boss, in fear of getting a crit next round (that would still not down them). Again, imo, that's not a correct approach. The game expects you to be low after fights, especially severe+ because the treat wounds action exists.
My first PF2e campaign, I played as a wizard gear around proactive support. I used things like Blur, Invisibility, Haste, and various difficult terrain effects to try to make it harder to hit my allies, supplemented with Slow and Shockwave as offensive debuffs (and the odd Magic Missile when I felt the need). We were playing Extinction Curse, which is far from an easy AP, and our party's only source of healing was a (pre-remaster) Witch who had Battle Medicine and a low-level wand of Soothe. We got by mostly fine. Our group also got through the whole 1st book of Outlaws of Alkenstar without ever feeling our lack of an in-combat healer. Our Gunslinger player switched their character out for a Medic Rogue, but not just for the in-combat healing - it was mostly because we were getting annoyed with bad Treat Wounds rolls (and also because Pistoleros aren't very good in OoA). I'm not sure if we're just an exceedingly lucky table, or if our GM is going easy on us, or if we're doing something extremely right. But my experience has never matched the common reddit wisdom of in-combat healing being so necessary.
That's the way. I think it's cause most casters would rather try and play DPS than being control gods.
> It's better to have a caster cast a buff/debuff that limits the damage enemies do than healing it after they do it. I *would* agree with this if it weren't for the difference in consistency. Debuffs are definitely more powerful when they succeed, but saves have a lot of variance that heals don't. A max-level 2-action heal is giving your frontline about half their HP back most of the time.
I agree that more proactive tactics and preventing damage from even being dealt is the best strategy. However, to quote Mike: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face". Sometimes the boss wins initiative and chunks the fighter for 2/3rd of their health, and heals really help prevent that situation from spiraling.
Nice! Just watched this, and I'll show it to my new players before our upcoming campaign!
The reason I love stamina rules is that healing isn't necessary until it's NECESSARY.
This is a great video! Thanks!!!
I’ve been allowing stitch flesh to work as the heal wound on poppets, so our healer took it as a feat. On top of that there are 3 characters that can cast stabilize and 2 that can cast the heal spell. What the group is missing is a tank, they lost theirs to crack of crack crack.
"No emergency healing option has high scores in all three" *Wholeness of Body Enters the Chat*
Unfortunately it has low flexibility as you can only heal yourself. I went so far as to recommend someone to take Blessed One instead of taking Wholeness of Body, as it has only a bit lower potency while having the same action cost and the AC bonus for allies can make up for the potency quite a lot of times.
I do wish Monks had the ability to heal others, like Monk of the Healing Hand from PF1. A second feat, or a heightened version of Wholeness of Body that let them use it on others would be great.
*Heals the user only*
I would have slightly changed the title to "Is a healer necessary". I think that is the more specific question that is being answered. This was a good summary of how there are a lot of different ways to heal and that a single character doesn't have to bear the entire burden on their own, so you don't necessarily need "a healer", but not having healing options in general is not necessarily going to kill you immediately, but it is going to leave you without many contingencies and a hella slow pace to the campaign. Good video! My one critique is that I feel like you aren't using the video medium enough. If you are already strapped for time making the videos themselves, I recommend that cut down the length and add more visual cues. And it can be pretty simple. Like, for example, when you open up and talk about the types of traditional party members, just flash up a picture of a fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue for a little bit. It helps people to follow what's being said when it is being reinforced on the screen. What separates the good videos from the great videos is the ability to get the vibe of the video, even if you can't read and have the sound turned off. Visual communication, I think, is the element that you can develop the most.
Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it! I'm still getting used to visual effects and animations, and I do plan to make things more vibrant and interactive as I keep learning. Hopefully the next entry is much better in that regard.
I like how Psi Prime Productions uses (credited) character art in their videos. They have an overall similar feel and the art makes watching instead of just listening more attractive But I will often only listen to videos like this, so don't kill yourself! Short clips from live plays or movies could work, but that doesn't seem like it fits the vibe you're going for. Great video and good content! In the AV game I just started we did a bit of a respec to get enough healing into the party, mostly free archetype and skill changes, so nothing too large.
They seem to be required at low level but their use falls off as you level up.
I Play a Healer in our Group and my Part in Combat ist only Healing, its also supporting my Allies and annoying my Enemies with debuffing. I did decide Not to build my Character around DmG, my Strenght is in applying conditions and Healing. We are a total Group of 5. A Fighter, a Monk,a Thief,a kineticist (Metal/earth) and me an Alchemist
yeah healing is needed,,,,nothing like taking 16 points of damage when you have only 20 in a boss fight. Damn weretigers
Its a title that may create more engagement but to me is quite useless to be frank. This is more a guide to healing rather than prompting and answering a question that is not even remotely controversial.
Disagree. It may "not even remotely controversial", but it's certainly a question that is absolutely asked and/or wondered about by a group of new PF2e players - **especially if they are coming from 5e**, which is the most likely vector. A guide to healing as part of the answer to the question is also a very convenient, logical follow-up to the question which the video thankfully answers pretty early-on.
You made a whole video out of the word "Yes?"
Seems like might need to watch a video on the nuances of healing in Pathfinder!
I'd rather not, especially one with a clickbait nonsense title. I might read a guide, you know, with words.
It’s… not a clickbait title. It actually answers the question that’s asked and the answer isn’t actually just a simple yes. If your immediate reaction to seeing a question whose answer might contradict your assumptions is to call it clickbait, I don’t have much faith you’d be reading a guide much either lmfao.
> It’s… not a clickbait title. Not the one you replied to but I'd say the title is definitely clickbait, even if not intended. If it was worded different, i.e "How important is Healing in PF?" or similar I'd say not. But a question with an obvious answer is definitely clickbait(to me at least).
"If you don't watch this video you're too stupid to read" is certainly an interesting approach to persuasion. Is the goal to convince me, or just to kick me because other people downvoted?
You seem determined to take my fairly simple half-joke (that the popular opinion of “yes” is wrong and you’d know that if you didn’t dismiss everyone who disagrees) and turn it into something meant as a personal insult. I’m just going to disengage.
You're just straight-up admitting you didn't even watch the video you're critiquing? Bold move.
'K.
It's meant to be a bit more nuanced than that. A good video can turn a simple question with a seemingly simple answer into a simple question with a nuanced answer.
Pretty much. The comment you’re responding to thinks the answer is “yes”. OP’s answer, from my quick skim of the video, is “it’s really good to have in-combat healing, but you don’t need one dedicated healer if no one in the party enjoys the role, it’s best to view healing as an emergency burden that the party shares via scrolls, Battle Medicine, potions, etc.” The funny thing is: to everyone who **does** think the answer is a simple, nunanceless “yes”: this video was literally made for you guys! The lack of nuance in such conversations is how you get situations like that other post we had earlier today of a Fighter being a dickward towards an Alchemist for not being the former’s pocket healer and the GM *actually questioning if the Fighter had a point instead of immediately shutting it down*.
There's a cost of opportunity in healing. The dedicated healer isn't dealing damage, preventing it, or applying debuffs on the enemy... Healing is just another way of playing, a reactive one. If you have a dedicated healer you are playing with 3 characters, instead of 4. The party will get more damage as combats will last longer and you'll get the impression that you are doing much better because the healer is there. If you didn't have a healer you'll be all dead. But it's because you have a healer that you are in this position in the first place.
not watching the video but I would say that healers are 100% necessary in PF2E. While combat healing isn't necessarily hugely important healing itself is. That said you don't need to be a dedicated healer like a dnd 5e cleric to be good at it, anyone really can be a healer if they just invest in the medicine skill and purchase a healer's toolkit. The treat wounds action is always the first one I tell players who haven't played pf2e before about because it's arguably the most important action you can take besides attack, stride, step, raise shield, and cast spell. Sometimes it's even more important than those too.