20 September 2017

House Rules - Scaling the Cleric's cure spells

Here's a breakdown of the Cleric's "cure" spells, by level he can cast them and amount of damage healed:

LevelSpellHP Restored
2Cure Light Wounds1d6+1
8Cure Serious Wounds2d6+2
10Cure Critical Wounds3d6+3
12CureallAll but 1d6

The main question I have about this is the disparity in time between CLW and CSW compared to then acquiring CCW and CA. Six experience levels pass while the Cleric can only heal 1d6+1 per spell, but after that, you get an upgrade every 2 levels. Huh?

To me, this only limits the Cleric's choice of spells to cast, and thus, his role in the party. If we want to move beyond the party medic role and encourage the Cleric's player to experiment with some of the other spells available to him, I think we need to overhaul the cure spells. My proposal is simple, get rid of the CLW, CSW and CCW spells, and replace them with this one:

Cure Wounds*
Level: 1
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Effect: Any one living creature

This spell will either heal damage or remove paralysis.

If used to heal, it will restore ld6+ 1 points of damage, however, it will not heal any damage if used to cure paralysis.

The Cleric may cast it on himself if desired.

This spell will never increase a creature’s total hit points above the original amount.

As the Cleric becomes more powerful, the effectiveness of this spell increases; for every 3 experience levels he gains beyond 2nd level(keep in mind the cleric must be 2nd level to cast this spell initially), the cleric may add an additional 1d6+1 points of damage restored:

LevelHP Restored
21d6+1
52d6+2
83d6+3
114d6+4
145d6+5
176d6+6
207d6+7
238d6+8
269d6+9
2910d6+10
3211d6+11
3512d6+12

*This spell may also be reversed, inflicting the listed damage on a single creature after a successful attack roll by the Cleric.

The Cureall spell remains unchanged, providing a more reliable option for high level Clerics to quickly heal large amounts of damage.

What do you think?

5 comments:

  1. I'd add more cure X wounds spells instead.
    The extra 1d6+1 should be worth another level of the spell when casting, especially when getting up above 5d6+5.
    You'd have to cap out at 7d6+7, and leave cureall to cover diseases and poisons and such as well as hp damage.

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  3. I don't play new editions, this is intended for Basic D&D. My goal is to keep the cleric useful as a healer while letting them have a little more utility with their other spells as they get access to more variety.

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Thanks for your comments!