Vial of Blessed Water - POOF!

[Selveem]

Before I begin, I'd like to suggest I already know most Clerics have dealt with this issue for ages and even that I believe it's been suggested before, but I couldn't find the thread, so!

I was hoping that it might be possible to change 'vials of blessed water' to not be consumed by every single spell that uses it instantly.

There's a few reasons I would like to see this changed. The primary being simply that it's entirely annoying and boring to engage of the process of memorizing and casting dozens of bless water prayers, but here are a few other reasons why:

• 1: It causes Priests to stockpile a common component for Wizards: a flask of water (which is required for bless water spell). This causes them to not be available from most vendors.
  2: It causes Priests to stockpile another common component, this one for Priests: a vial of blessed water. This causes them to not be available from some (many?) vendors.
  3: It's only used for three offensive spell that I'm aware of; only one of which is pretty powerful, but that one requires a pretty rare component in addition.
  4: Most other spell components are not immediately consumed.

[Nysan]

Was with you then you hit a curb and lost me...

I hate spamming bless water. Nysan uses tons of blessed water and I often bless water in 100+ bulk batches. If the component's life spam was extended by a few casts, I would love it. That said,

1. Flasks of water, didn't we bump the supply of this a while ago during a debate of spells, cooking, and other demands? Are we still running out at vendors? I only ask because I haven't had a 'out of stock' echo from my usual vendors since that discussion was ended.

2. No comment, I never ever buy blessed water vials. I make them or collect them from mobs. Too expensive for me. Powdered silver... thats another story.

3. (Here's the curb) Wait... what? Blessed water is used for quite a few spells. I don't know every spell in the game, but looking at old Nysan's spellbook I count 7 spells that require 'vials of blessed water' as components. Every one I use regularly and I am sure I missed a few he hasn't trained.

[Lysha]

3: It's only used for three offensive spell that I'm aware of; only one of which is pretty powerful, but that one requires a pretty rare component in addition.

3. (Here's the curb) Wait... what? Blessed water is used for quite a few spells. I don't know every spell in the game, but looking at old Nysan's spellbook I count 7 spells that require 'vials of blessed water' as components. Every one I use regularly and I am sure I missed a few he hasn't trained.

Nysan, are you talking about all spells that use it or only offensive spells like Selveem is talking about? I'm just wondering.

[Selveem]

1. Flasks of water, didn't we bump the supply of this a while ago during a debate of spells, cooking, and other demands? Are we still running out at vendors? I only ask because I haven't had a 'out of stock' echo from my usual vendors since that discussion was ended.

Out of stock still happens for a LOT of components most places. I don't know which places were saying they're out, specifically. Even taking that away, there are plenty of other valid points I've made.

And Lysha is right. I was saying specifically _offensive_ spells.

[Nysan]

Eh, missed the offensive part, never read while tired. Sorry about that. Of the 7 I mentioned, I use 6 nearly every fight, if not more (7th is a group spell, not used as much). Still connected to vials over-uage, in any case.

Don't get me wrong. I am not arguing components don't go out-of-stock... nice to dream though. I was asking if flasks of water were still having that issue, because I thought it was bumped so high after our last water discussion to end that issue. I haven't run into out-of-stock water since that discussion personally so I was under the impression it was fixed, like parchment.

[Zorinar]

Indeed creating individual vials of blessed water is extremely time consuming. You have to forget all your spells, memorize all of them as bless water, you have to buy out all the water flask selling vendors, you have to cast bless water 150 times, forget all the bless water spells, then re memorize all your regular spells. That takes a LONG time, it kills the water supply and etc etc. I have seem some priests carry 200+ holy waters on them at a time, which seems excessive but considering that they are used up in but one cast it ends up making sense to me. If the holy waters could be extended like regular components or if many vials could be made with but one water flask (depending on skill level?) that might make things much more comfortable for priests.

[Selveem]

I have about 160 on my Priest now after getting annoyed from running out. 9 different Priest spells require it. Of those 9, 5 of those are commonly cast. One of those is cast multiple times in single encounters. If you think about it in those terms, you'll easily be able to figure out how 160 vials of blessed water are so quickly extinguished.

Realistically, I'd rather just have vials not be consumed on single casts. I don't even like the idea of carrying around 160 vials, even if they are made more easily replaced.

[Anya]

I'll admit. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate making blessed water. It runs out so quickly, so I try not to rely on the prayers that use it because if I memorize those prayers (heal, for example) and I'm relying on those, the worst thing for me to see is "You do not have the right components" or whatever the right message is.

I understand that it is my own responsibility to keep up with what's in my pouch, but when you're on an adventure, like let's say the Undermountain or the new Underdark section, I'm more worried about making sure people are alive rather than counting down how many vials I've used in the past few minutes. I want to keep my numbers simple and down to "Okay, Bob can take 5 hits before he's in the 70's, which is where I want to start healing so I don't waste my prayers" instead of "I started out with 48 vials of blessed water, I've used heal on Joe 7 times, Sue 3 times, and Bob better quit getting hit because I've used heal on him 10 times. Now, how many vials do I have left? How many times has Bob been hit again?"

It really hurt when the % of HP regained from Heal and Cures went down, especially with Heal since it uses up blessed water like a fat kid sucks down pudding, but I'm getting off topic.

I am all for vials of blessed water being used up, but maybe after 3 uses. That would be very helpful with Heal, for a certainty.

Thank you for your time.

[Briek]

I agree with what's being said

In my own experience it is even more time consuming for my paladin than it is for a priest, I still go through hundreds of the things and only have 20 or so spell slots, it takes hours to replenish my supply.

[Athon]

What if the spell was changed to this:

Code: Select all

Pinch of Powdered Silver + 5 flasks of water = 5 vials of blessed water

The powdered silver would decay at it's normal rate (disappears after so many spells) but instead of making one vial at a time, it makes 5? I would like to see this.

[Briek]

Since it's not really hard to get hold of either component in large numbers time is the issue, so I think that's a good suggestion Athon.

[Selveem]

I like the suggestion, Athon, but really.. There are two major issues with blessed waters:
1: the rate at which they are consumed.
2: the fact that healing doesn't do as much as it used to.

If you really think about it, an 'active adventuring Priest' will use heal about 3 times per dangerous encounter.. at least. WAY more if you're facing something deadly.

If you're the only priest in a party traveling through a high level area, you will find that your blessed waters are gone _way_ quicker than you'd expect (or appreciate, for that matter). In such deadly areas, utilizing Heal is the only real way to go. Let's face it, cure crits are now a slot sink end-game. In many high level areas, they don't even heal as much damage as a monster does per round anymore.

Also, please keep in mind that heal is not the only spell which utilizes blessed water, there are lots (which I won't list, for the sake of keeping IC info out of here). Many of which are useful to your party when you are trying to maximize your effectiveness as a Priest.

Lastly, remember that spellpouches do _not_ hold infinite amounts of items. I know mine recently was too full to even put more flasks of water in. Even if spellpouches did hold an infinite amount of items, remember (almost?) every item has a weight and the more you have, the heavier your load (which causes all sorts of issues).

[Raona]

So is the real problem here the rate of consumption of blessed waters, or the fact that cure spells heal fewer HP than before? If it is the conflation of both, what is the correct fix?

I'm just trying to come up with a player consensus to kick up to staff, but I'm not sure what people really want to see, vs. what would be a band-aid that doesn't really resolve the problem.

Selveem has made a good case for changing the consumption rate on these components. Would that set things right, without unbalancing the game? Would it address all the issues, or just one aspect of a greater problem? The former is the question the staff will consider, the latter one from me in pursuit of efficiency.

I *think* cure spells were changed to bring them into line with other spells, to match canon. The issue is that (now, across the board), spells on FK have canon effects, but HP for PCs are multiplied by 2.5 or 5 or somesuch. This is compensated for by the fact we can regain spells more readily than in canon.

[Dapher]

eesh, forgive me, it has been a while since I posted last. Looking at this and looking at my priest it drives me absolutly nuts to go from 100 vials of blessed water down to 30 after on adventure. And the only prayer used on that adventure that deals with blessed water is heal. That makes me think something is messed up. I know it is coded that way but good lord. There are ways around having to mem 100 bless water prayers at a time. You could purchase a substantial amount of water and silver, while having 10 or so low lvl spell slots filled with bless water and use it sporadically as you walk around. But yes, I feel it should be changed for no other reason than to help eliminate the vendors running out of stock.

[Eltsac]

I didn't play my priest for a long time so I have no personnal experience in this, it's just a thinking.

Is the heal spell the more problematic one (as it is the one spammed while adventuring) ?
If so, maybe we can simply remove the vial as component of the heal spell (if I'm right, in 3.5, heal does not have any material), and keep the blessed water component for more occasional spells.

Anyway, in a more general thinking, I tend to think that spells that are not too powerful and that are intended to be spammed in fight (be it healing or offensive spell) should have either no component or unused (or slowly used) component.

That way you don't have to wander around with 50 or 100 of a component (with all the negative aspect of it like being out of stock).
Plus... it's not IC to have people wandering around with so many vials or other in a spellpouch, is it? Or it's a very large pouch *think about coding spell carts*

El

[Anya]

In my opinion, and please take it with a grain of salt, is that Heal should be a curative prayer that heals more hit points than any other prayer. In fact, the helpfile for Heal reflect this. (I will quote the helpfile at the end of my post.)

I do believe that since it is a more powerful curative, it does deserve to use a component due to the amount of power that goes into it. Also, I believe that since the prayer is so often used, that the component, a vial of blessed water (and a vial of holy water at times) should have it's uses extended before it is fully consumed. Even a 2-3 use per vial would be a significant relief upon the market of vials of water and the adventuring cleric.

The prayer already has a time delay in it's use, or at least from what I've seen with Anya, but to have a component used up in a single cast for a prayer that is in high demand for high level areas we want to incorporate, again this is only my opinion, I believe it to be a little silly.

"Well Anya, you said it was a powerful prayer. If you look at raise dead and resurrection, the gem used in the ritual is consumed at 1 per cast. Aren't you contradicting yourself here?"

No, I do not believe I am for this reason: You are more likely to use Heal anywhere between 10-100 times in an adventure, depending on the number of PCs in a group, the level of the area, the number of the MOBs, and to factor in player error in miscasting. In the average adventure, if all goes well, you are not going to have someone fall in combat unless something happens (i.e. your priest runs out of vials of blessed water to Heal). Raise Dead and Resurrection are a rare prayers to be used in adventures. I am not saying they aren't used, but they are used less often than Heal.

I understand that healing prayers may never go back to they way they were. I am not trying to attack that (or any other) issue, please believe that. I just think that extending the life of the component for Heal would be beneficial and hopefully it isn't unreasonable.

Thank you for your time.

Heal
====
Conjuration (Healing)
Range: Touch
Target: Defensive
Syntax: cast 'heal' <target>

When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive
energy that cures damage. Heal also remedies all forms of blindness, fatigue
and mental effects.

Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage
to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can attempt
a save to take half damage.

Heal is the most powerful of the curing spells.

[Gwain]

I once suggested that heal use Holy water instead of blessed water, that way it would differ from any other spells that used blessed water, and because of the preparation involved in holy water, would have a stronger result.

The problem with that is that blessed water and holy water are the same item. I still like the idea though, but I don't know if it is practical to make holy water a separate component.

[Athon]

Honestly, we should just remove the spell component on heal. There is no listed component for it in 3.5ed rules and honestly, it's not an overpowered spell in FK, especially since we have so many more HP. It's quite UNDERpowered as it stands right now.

If we are to keep heal with a spell component, especially the pain in the arse of a spell component that it currently has, then we should set it back to where it used to be - with the 2.5x multiplier. It's already silly that we have inflated HP and other effects, yet our heals are so weak and follow canon rules.

Remove the spell component or make heal stronger. Those are the only two fixes.

[Lysha]

Honestly, we should just remove the spell component on heal. There is no listed component for it in 3.5ed rules and honestly, it's not an overpowered spell in FK, especially since we have so many more HP. It's quite UNDERpowered as it stands right now.

If we are to keep heal with a spell component, especially the pain in the arse of a spell component that it currently has, then we should set it back to where it used to be - with the 2.5x multiplier. It's already silly that we have inflated HP and other effects, yet our heals are so weak and follow canon rules.

Remove the spell component or make heal stronger. Those are the only two fixes.

I agree with your reasoning and suggestions.

[Athon]

Also, heal seems to take 2 rounds or at least twice as long as the other cure spells. This should not be the case as they are all 1 standard action (1 round) in D20.