I'm gearing up to try and GM a Pathfinder game for a couple of friends and I dusted off an old houserule that I'm particularly fond of but I've run into a problem.



This worked very well when I used it last but we also didn't use the XP system so I never worked out a good XP bonus for it.

What do you think would be a good XP bonus that would reward a player for extra work but not push them way ahead of other players?

Since the 3rd edition of D&D, having a PC healer in the party really is no problem at all, since there are so many options to be a good healer and still able to do tons of other stuff (cleric spontaneous healing, for example). You don't need a dedicated healer.

Anyways, I would not give an XP bonus at all for this.

Why would you? You are effectively giving the party a half-share of XP on top already for having the NPC not deduct any XP (like a cohort would, for example).

It is also in the best interest of everyone to control the healer. That's good enough in my eyes.

Bye
Thanee

Also in pathfinder a positive energy channeling cleric can heal without taking up much of his resources.

Having a cleric in 2nd edition was no problem either.

I want to give a small XP to make up for the fact that a player basically has to do bitch work. They have to essentially play two characters, one of which they cant make any decisions regarding the actual roleplaying of the character. They have all the work and none of the fun.

I may have missed it in earlier posts, but why isn't the healer a GM-controller henchman or something?

Because Nodwick, that's why.

Because I dont want to deal with yet another block of stats tottering around the battlefield.

It's not like the guy has to be a critical contributor to combat. Most henchmen aren't around to fight anyway. They carry your shit back to down and watch the horses outside the dungeon.

In D&D, in-combat healing is a luxury rarely worth the opportunity cost. Consider having the players try without, but giving them a full hit point regeneration between combats (something easily achievable with wands and the like, but a bother to keep track of)

That's edging into "healing surge" territory which is something I was not a fan of in 4th ed.

That was due to the relatively ineffectual healing until heal (and then mass, heal) became available. The (Level+1/2)*D6 AoE heal from level 1 pretty much fixes that.

Are there any guidelines at all for bonus XP?

I really think the answer to that is 'no', unfortunately.I can't think of any amount that would satisfy this. Either it's not enough to notice (so why bother?) or it's enough to notice… which counts as 'way ahead'.

They're not really doing extra work, 'bitch work' or otherwise. At worst, they *get* to play another (albeit boring) character. Buy them a soda for the session.

Instead of giving bonus xp get the advanced race guide and let them play a more powerful race to make up for the feats/spells they spend on healing keeps it easy - if you are set on giving them something extra that is.

Well, that's only if he ditches the primary assumption of this thread, which is that the healer is an 'extra' hench character that one of the players is handling as a secondary duty. I agree, there shouldn't be a problem with anyone playing a healer as primary, but some people are lame.

Really, you don't need to incentivise the role of healer.

Any Rogue with a solid Use Magic Device check can use a Wand of Cure ___ Wounds. Or, for that matter, a Bard can use them without UMD at all.

Alternately, take a page from the Guardians of the Flame novels, and just make healing potions ridiculously cheap, and commonly available. Say, 5% or 10% the usual price - and bugger the rules limiting potions to only 3rd level, where healing is concerned.

Honestly, what I would do is completely different.

Make the NPC healer a full character who rotates his in-combat actions from player-to-player, but roleplay decisions are made for him. He can take any valid action he's capable of (buffing, whacking something over the head with a mace, whatever,) and he gets a full cut of XP.

That, or go with _Pax._'s idea and make healing potions ridiculously cheap, commonplace, and don't cap at third level. At that point, nobody has any right to complain. Hell, at that point, towns can afford to issue healing potions to the guards. (Also make healing magic basically free, so if they stumble into a church penniless and damaged, the priest will heal them up in exchange for an hour's labor or something.)


However, if you're dead-set on going with an XP bonus (and not pegging everybody to the same XP tally,) what I would do is give whomever controls the Healing Bitch an extra (100 x Level) XP per session. That's 10% of the XP to their next level. Just don't let them play the healer consecutively - rotate it, and make playing the healer a strictly opt-out thing, so that someone who doesn't want to do it doesn't have to, but knows what they're giving up.

[e]Also, I wouldn't let the Healing Bitch take the Cleric class. It's kind of ridiculous to ask why this Cleric refuses to lift a mace in his own defense, etcetera. Make him some kind of bodged-together class that only learns healing, curing etcetera, spells, and has to take a strict vow of pacifism, but also gets a shitload of immunities.

And probably every non-destitute household has a CLW or two for emergencies - bad swings with the axe while cutting firewood, mule kick to the chest, the sorts of non-combat but stil potentially life- or livelihood-threatening injuries common farmers and laborers would face in their lives. The kind of things that really did kill people, but would be completely dealt with after just ne swig of "healing draughts".



Unearthed Arcana ... "Cloistered Cleric"; all the healing, none of the mace-swinging or armor-wearing.

Then maybe, if the party's alignment is compatible, give them the Vow of Peace (Book of Exalted Deeds).

That's what I was thinking of, but the OP mentioned Pathfinder.

The two are compatible.

Well, yeah, but I didn't want to assume, since I know a lot of people consider Pathfinder to be D&D 3.75 and consequently blanket-ban anything from 3.5.

Which is usually a good idea, especially for anything from UA or BoED.

What about the BoEF?



I'll get my coat.

Eh. UA isn't meant to be used in toto, it's meant as more of a "painter's pallet" with which the GM can tailor their game a little better.

And as for me, at least? I wouldn't blanket ban 3.5E stuff ... 'cause that'd be throwing away nearly $3,000 worth of books. Though I'm probably just going to stuff them in the basement anyway ... no group to game with, bugger it all.

It's all like that, certainly. I was just echoing that it's a good idea to assume (as SD said) nothing is allowed, especially from those books.

There are some other healer classes from various books, including the pretty flawed Healer class. To me, this is kinda why people like no-class (hyuk) games like SR. No futzing around for your modular power-set.

For a classless system, SR is very class-based. It's more of a mix'n'match of subclasses than something like GURPS, which is really classless.

I don't agree (magic ruins everything, yes), but that's beside the point. Mix-n-match is good enough. Feats in D&D never managed to give us that mix-n-match at all.

The better option is to just give players a free Healing Belt (Magic Item Compendium, 750gp). Three charges that are refreshed daily, each use of the belt heals 1d8+1d8*charges used. Combine with a rule that auto-maximizes any out of combat healing.

As I understand it, this is because Monte Cooke made a deliberate decision to build "trap" choices (Toughness feat, hah!) into the game, so that players who took them would be underpowered, feel that they had made a mistake, and learn "system mastery."


We all know how well that turned out. (Pun-Pun. Hulking Hurler. Etctera.)