Purpose of Faith Healing

[WhiteLily]

I find myself scratching my head at the Cleric's Faith Healing Advantage.

Why take it? It requires at least 1 level of Power Investiture, so you're going to spend 43 points on at at minimum.

For those same 43 points, you could have PI 4 and take the spells: Regeneration, Major Healing, and Cure Disease.

You would end up with very similar healing abilities and have 3 extra points of PI for spells.

To me, I think this ability would be great if it was a Holy Warrior ability that keyed off of Holiness. Paladins have always had a lay on hands ability to heal, and the DFRPG Holy Warrior currently lacks that.

[Anders]

Healing spells and the Healing advantage all accrue penalties if used more than once on the same subject. Using many different abilities allows you to sidestep those penalties. And I think Holy Warriors and Clerics can take all Holy abilities, not just those listed on their own template.

[WhiteLily]

33 character points seems like an awful expensive way to sidestep the -3 penalties for healing the same person more than once a day.

[Anders]

I agree. It's probably not the most useful way to spend those points.

[WhiteLily]

Exactly.

I could absolutely see taking this ability as a Holy Warrior if it was keyed to Holiness instead of PI.

There's another thread on "What to do when you have a party with no cleric?" so giving the Holy Warrior back his/her traditional lay on hands ability seems to help address that problem.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

Exactly.

I could absolutely see taking this ability as a Holy Warrior if it was keyed to Holiness instead of PI.

There's another thread on "What to do when you have a party with no cleric?" so giving the Holy Warrior back his/her traditional lay on hands ability seems to help address that problem.

For holy warrior :

You may also buy all of those described for clerics – but where they
mention Power Investiture, substitute Holiness.

So, there is the Lay on hands for holy warrior.

And a cleric start with PI 3, so the prerequisite is always met for clerics, who cannot start with PI 0 (or 1 or 2). the cost is 33, not 43.
Obviously, still more than 3 to get the matching spells. (4 to grab great healing) (actually more if you want to raise the spells skill level to match the native IQ+PI of faith Healing.)

[restlessgriffin]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

I find myself scratching my head at the Cleric's Faith Healing Advantage.

Why take it? It requires at least 1 level of Power Investiture, so you're going to spend 43 points on at at minimum.

For those same 43 points, you could have PI 4 and take the spells: Regeneration, Major Healing, and Cure Disease.

You would end up with very similar healing abilities and have 3 extra points of PI for spells.

To me, I think this ability would be great if it was a Holy Warrior ability that keyed off of Holiness. Paladins have always had a lay on hands ability to heal, and the DFRPG Holy Warrior currently lacks that.

You take it because it is NOT an either or, you can have Faith Healing in ADDITION to the healing spells. It is expensive but there is NO cap on the amount of healing you can do on one subject. The amount of healing is just limited by FP. So say if you have a barbarian that needs 18 points of healing, you can do so for 9 points. Great healing requires 20 points and can only be used ONCE per day. So if you want to heal that barbarian that took 18 points of damage you could do Major Healing of 8 HP for 4FP + 3 HP for 3 FP, for a total of 11 HP at 7FP cost. Or you could heal it all for 20 FP, if you have that much available to use.

Sure you can do multiple castings but it will be at a cumulative -3 on each particular spell. As for the PI1 cost, your going to do that for ANY Cleric. If there are multiple significant injuries in the party, Faith Healing combined with healing spells is your best bet.

As to Holy Warriors having Faith Healing, they can. See p. 26 under Holy Abilities. For spells Holy Warrirors can access only using Contingency Casting.