Why use false life instead of cure moderate wounds?

[Arachnite]

I am making a grenadier with infusion and am wondering why I should pick false life over cure moderate wounds? False life has temporary hitpoints and less than the healing of cure moderate wounds, doesn't it?

[InEffect]

It's more for a buffer than for healing. Not that it's useful, but then neither is healing that alchemists have access to.

[Nero]

Originally posted by Technotica:

I am making a grenadier with infusion and am wondering why I should pick false life over cure moderate wounds? False life has temporary hitpoints and less than the healing of cure moderate wounds, doesn't it?

It's a nice buff for a normal kineticist since they never have enough hitpoints.
But besides this, it's kinda useless.

[jonnin]

its a 'pre heal'. There are several of those; like blessing of something and life, aid, couple others.
They may not heal as much, but they save *time* in combat in a tough fight. Instead of casting that heal to top off your tank, your cleric is casting 'summon moar undead distractions' or something more useful, or off tanking, whatever. It could be that edge you need in a tough fight. Most of the time, they are garbage spells. Once in a while, its exactly what you needed.

[For_Science!]

jonnin expressed it well. It's action economy. To "heal" 10 points by a spell you cast BEFORE the combat, can be way more useful than to heal 20 points by a spell you have to cast DURING the fight.

Of course, if you can cast the more powerful healing spell AFTER the fight, that provides the best of both worlds...but it also requires the patient to survive the fight without healing, which may be a dicey gamble.

[Jackdaw Mask]

Yaeh, temporary hitpoint's whole point is being "expendable" hp you don't care or worry about losing.

[dwarner]

It lasts forever. Most spells that do are better than they look. Time is money and resting is time.

False life is best for backliners who don’t often care about HP much but when they do they need a bunch.

[deuxhero]

The big thing about False Life is it doesn't take an action. Healing in combat is an inferior use of your actions, not to mention spell slots to killing the thing hurting you. It also helps stop squishies from getting one shot. Out of combat, expending many lower level spells is better than expending one higher level spell.