Shadowheart can't heal.

[The Gut]

Potions and short rests are better, maybe just take healing out of the game if you don't want to have a dedicated healing classes. What's the point of making healing so useless that you shouldn't even try to use it?

Is that supposed be a fun thing, to force players to have to play the game a certain way to win, vs playing and molding the characters the way you want?

I'd like either to know, if the intention was to have some useless fake healing moves be there like the pinky toe, a useless toe or healing move, that's there still because other games have healing in them, but not make it a viable thing in the game, and players will just have to focus on damage and avoiding being hit more than armor and healing.

Anyone care to share their perspective on how to effectively have a healer in the game that doesn't involve being rich, and buying weak potions, and throwing to heal and rez your team?

[Sir_Baldur]

Respec Shadowheart to life cleric or light, put amulet of restoration on her, cast aide at level 6, use another amulet to replace the spell slot, cast beacon of hope.

No class was meant to be a pure healer in DnD, but you can certainly spec to provide the most healing you can.

[Zeel Ara]

Originally posted by The Gut:

Anyone care to share their perspective on how to effectively have a healer in the game that doesn't involve being rich, and buying weak potions, and throwing to heal and rez your team?

You're not meant to have a dedicated healer.

[seeker1]

D & D has no dedicated healers.... but as was said, if you want a cleric who's the best possible healer, give SH (or another cleric) the Life Domain.

Dunno, the 6th level Heal spell is nothing to sneeze at. It doesn't restore 100% of your HP like in TT, but still pretty good. Mass Cure wounds is also decent for repairing the entire party.

Beyond clerics, I would say the best healers are paladins, and druids. In that order.

[Metallicus]

My perspective is that you should kill your enemies before they can damage you for best results in BG3. If you can’t kill the enemy fast enough then healing will never keep up with damage taken nor was it designed to keep up.

[jonnin]

the ability to share 1 potion among 4 people is a BG3 hack, not normally in D&D**. Being hit and hurt in D&D is punishing -- normally resting in 5e is 1/2 your health for a long rest, not 100%, and before that, in older editions, you healed 1+your con bonus per night, so you would heal like 3-4 health a night in an inn! Of course, you also cast all your healing spells when sleeping for a few days, so its much faster than this implies. Short rests in 5e heal sort of like that, your con bonus + a die roll, but its not meant to be much.

So this game is loaded with excessive healing, which is a good rule bend because its so combat heavy and the combats are filled with overly strong enemy compared to less punishing encounters.

Healing by a cleric etc are just fine with the normal 5e rules, its really strong. Its just weakened in this game because you have the potion hack & rest hack. Also, if you need it or want it, the paladin, bard, and others can heal you.

the long range heal is meant to be weak, its to revive a downed player, and of little use.

** Most DM can be talked into letting you split a potion by dividing the healing amount by the number of drinkers, which is not useful for weak potions but the very strong ones can be shared out to give everyone the benefit of a smaller one, if its what you have found in your loot.

[Zsrai]

Triage healing is a valid healing style, and that's what D&D 5e uses. I don't think any TT RPG has used the early MMO style "spam heals 95% of the time" healing style, where every turn you just heal and do nothing else.

[fulf]

Healing sucks because on top of healing in 5e just not being very good, Larian's encounter design does D&D no justice. There's no pacing to the combat, no care for managing your HP and resources, when every other fight is a climax that requires you to use everything you've got and you can just rest whenever or chug infinite potions to keep yourself topped off afterwards.

It's like they still balanced the game around the D:OS2 bedroll except now the bedroll is a longass contrived resting sequence instead of a single-click action.

[The Gut]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

My perspective is that you should kill your enemies before they can damage you for best results in BG3. If you can’t kill the enemy fast enough then healing will never keep up with damage taken nor was it designed to keep up.

Yeah, well I have cheesed my way through most of the game by stealth shooting and kiting loads of enemies with Astarion alone. Basically you'll win by doing that vs having a whole party get into combat. If the game is too hard, we will find a way to break it to get through it.

[The Gut]

Originally posted by fulf:

Healing sucks because on top of healing in 5e just not being very good, Larian's encounter design does D&D no justice. There's no pacing to the combat, no care for managing your HP and resources, when every other fight is a climax that requires you to use everything you've got and you can just rest whenever or chug infinite potions to keep yourself topped off afterwards.

It's like they still balanced the game around the D:OS2 bedroll except now the bedroll is a longass contrived resting sequence instead of a single-click action.

Yeah... compelling gameplay, right?

Adds hours of playtime they can brag about. Meh.

[cookie]

shadowheart the life cleric completely heals my whole party and gives them resistances at the same time , for damage she deals awesome radiant damage , wears heavy armour and rarely takes any damage, she isnt really needed either cause the games pretty easy beyond a first playthrough - but - she heals better than anything and more than once per turn

[The Gut]

Originally posted by Sir_Baldur:

Respec Shadowheart to life cleric or light, put amulet of restoration on her, cast aide at level 6, use another amulet to replace the spell slot, cast beacon of hope.

No class was meant to be a pure healer in DnD, but you can certainly spec to provide the most healing you can.

I'll try that build and see if I can have fun with Shadowheart finally. I see so many videos online about Paladins being the best class in the game. Maybe the game is going to open up at some point with the builds after act 1, but I'm yet to get to act 2 so who knows. Don't spoil anything. I'll play a bit more and see what I can do. I'm level 7 or 8 I think.

[yahboi1988]

Healing with spells in this game is actually stronger then they are in the table top version of 5E. Normally you can only cast 1 leveled spell per turn. So you could never chain a Heal Wounds into a Healing Word. This is more relevant later when you can cast Mass Healing Word. A number of items also add bonus effects to your healing like Blade Ward, extra health, Temp HP, ect. While potions are very useful and can be better then a spell at certain times, being able to hit your entire party with healing if they are spread out can save your ass.

Another change from 5E is the loss of your action if you are downed and then healed. This makes healing people before they go down more important then in the table top version of 5E where it can turn into whack a mole.

[Cartesian Duelist]

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Triage healing is a valid healing style, and that's what D&D 5e uses. I don't think any TT RPG has used the early MMO style "spam heals 95% of the time" healing style, where every turn you just heal and do nothing else.

Exactly this. D&D isn't an MMO. It's best not to try playing it like it is.

Originally posted by fulf:

Healing sucks because on top of healing in 5e just not being very good, Larian's encounter design does D&D no justice. There's no pacing to the combat, no care for managing your HP and resources, when every other fight is a climax that requires you to use everything you've got and you can just rest whenever or chug infinite potions to keep yourself topped off afterwards.

It's like they still balanced the game around the D:OS2 bedroll except now the bedroll is a longass contrived resting sequence instead of a single-click action.

This is also a good point. Larian doesn't really understand how to design proper D&D encounters.

[Masoterian]

Originally posted by The Gut:

Originally posted by Sir_Baldur:

Respec Shadowheart to life cleric or light, put amulet of restoration on her, cast aide at level 6, use another amulet to replace the spell slot, cast beacon of hope.

No class was meant to be a pure healer in DnD, but you can certainly spec to provide the most healing you can.

I'll try that build and see if I can have fun with Shadowheart finally. I see so many videos online about Paladins being the best class in the game. Maybe the game is going to open up at some point with the builds after act 1, but I'm yet to get to act 2 so who knows. Don't spoil anything. I'll play a bit more and see what I can do. I'm level 7 or 8 I think.

yo, I was in the same boat, the starting subclass of her is just terrible imo. I'd switch to life if you wanna proper healer or to light/war/tempest if you want her more dmg focused. I found her really underwhelming in the beginning, but kinda kept her in the party anyway since so much content is centered around her. But she became an absolute beast on later levels, I have her on 12 rn and she's insane, great healer and doing really good damage too while tanking everything like a champ, she's really good.

[Masoterian]

but overall yeah, like others mentioned, this game is very damage focused and you're not really supposed to outheal the opponents attacks, its usually better to go for the damage in general.