Healing Strategies
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/mcohma/healing_between_combat/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/115737j/if_i_let_my_pcs_long_rest_after_each_encounter_is/ https://www.enworld.org/threads/pathfinder-2e-is-it-raw-or-rai-to-always-take-10-minutes-and-heal-between-encounters.682675/
Understand that it's normal to get knocked unconscious in Pathfinder and that you will experience the Dying and Wounded condition relatively often.
Keep in mind the resting mechanics in Pathfinder are embarrassingly bad for hit point recovery. It's pretty clear Paizo wants resting to be for recovering spells and losing conditions and not for healing hit points. It could also be argued that the system isn't designed around resource attrition -- encounters are meant to meaningful, not a way to slowly drain the party's resources.
The character regains Hit Points equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum 1) multiplied by their level. If they rest without any shelter or comfort, you might reduce this healing by half (to a minimum of 1 HP).
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=534
When out of combat healing becomes completely deterministic, encourage the DM and party to agree on how much time passes for the party to heal for the necessary hit points. I can't imagine having to roll a Treat Wounds check for each party member, roll for the amount healed, ask to wait 1 hour, and repeat the process until everyone is healed. Either limit the amount of Treat Wounds checks to a certain number or say "after X hours, the party is bandaged up, healed to full health, and ready to continue." (This example justifies taking the Assurance skill feat)
Healing Strategies
Medicine
Remember that Treat Wounds removes the Wounded condition.
Treat Wounds makes out of combat healing trivial. There's a suite of Skill Feats from Medicine that overcharge it but in reality, taking one or two of these should be enough to get by:
- Assurance (Medicine) (1): Recommended. You'll never fail a Treat Wounds check if you are level 3 and trained in Medicine (or at any level if you're an Expert in Medicine). Characters not investing is Wisdom or Medicine after becoming an Expert get the most out of it.
- Continual Recovery (2): Reduces the lockout time of Treat Wounds to 10 minutes (the same time it takes to complete the action), so you can treat the same character up to 6 times per hour.
- Ward Medic (2): Allows you to treat multiple targets, increasing your healing efficiency by 2-4x based your expertise in Medicine. Depending on how generous your GM is, it might not be necessary.
- Risky Surgery (1): Guarantees a critical success on Treat Wounds at the cost of 1d8, effectively increasing the healing to 3d8. Again, increases efficiency but it's a much lower priority and only should matter if the GM puts a strict limit on time between encounters.
While any class can do this by level 3 (increasing their Medicine skill to Expert at level 3 then picking up Continual Recovery at level 4), this works best for Rogues and Investigators -- they can do this by level 2 without setting their primary skills behind by 2 levels.
A second suite of skills is useful when the party has multiple characters with the Battle Medicine Feat or the character picking up these Skill Feats are the only tank/healer in the group:
- Battle Medicine (1): You can use Treat Wounds in combat now and it's on a separate timer (someone who is immune to Treat Wounds can still receive Battle Medicine and vice-versa).
- Godless Healing (2): Treat Wounds and Battle Medicine heals you for more but more importantly, the immunity window for Battle Medicine is reduced to 1 hour. This is pretty good already but gets way better when the party has multiple people with Battle Medicine.
- Mortal Healing (2): Situational. This is a better version of Risky Surgery but has some roleplaying implications relating to divine magic (e.g. Clerics and Champions)
For this reason, I strongly recommend Field Medic for anyone interested in using the Medicine skill for healing.
Medic Dedication
You become an expert in Medicine. When you succeed with Battle Medicine or Treat Wounds, the target regains 5 additional HP at DC 20, 10 HP at DC 30, or 15 HP at DC 40. Once per day, you can use Battle Medicine on a creature that's temporarily immune. If you're a master in Medicine, you can do so once per hour.
This increases your Medicine to Expert at level 2 and gives you one of the quickest ways to get access to Continual Recovery.
Once the character is has Master proficiency, the Medic Dedication adds the benefits a character gets from Godless Healing without restricting the character's association with a deity.
Focus Spells
Champion: Lay on Hands
(Champion Level / 2, rounded down, minimum 1) * 6
I'll start with the most obvious one -- Lay on Hands.
Bard: Hymn of Healing
(Character Level * 2) * 4
Niche Use Case: Keep Hymn of Healing in mind in encounters when Persistent Damage shows up -- not only will it heal the character suffering from it, it's also likely to prevent up to four triggers of it through the temporary hit points.
Druid: Goodberry
1d6+4 * (Character Level)
Unlike Lay on Hands and Life Boost, Goodberry allows the Druid to distribute healing across multiple party members with a single cast.
Witch (Divine): Life Boost
(Character Level * 2) * 4
A Witch with access to Life Boost through the Basic Lesson Feat (Level 2) is a better healer than a Champion from that point on.
Wands and Staffs
Wands
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=756 https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=368
Best to do this with Wands
Players can buy or craft wands to cast a particular spell once per day. This means a character has access to a level 1 Heal spell for every 60gp they spend.
| Spell Level | Cost | Level-Based DC |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 60gp | 15 |
| 2 | 160gp | 18 |
| 3 | 360gp | 20 |
| 4 | 700gp | 23 |
| 5 | 1,500gp | 26 |
| 6 | 3,000gp | 28 |
| 7 | 6,500gp | 31 |
| 8 | 15,000gp | 34 |
| 9 | 40,000gp | 36 |
Characters with Trick Magic Item can use the wands by passing the appropriate DC check based on the wand's level. Spellcasters that have access to the spell through their Spell List do not need Trick Magic Item or make the skill check to use the wand.
Staff of Healing
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=748 https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=357
Each spellcaster can charge one Staff for the day and they can add a number of charges equal to the highest spell level they can cast (e.g. a level 5 Cleric can cast 3rd level spells, so they can put 3 charges into a Staff of Healing). Spontaneous casters can spend one of their highest level spell slots during their daily preparation to double the number of charges (e.g. that same level 5 Cleric could spend a 3rd level spell slot to put a total of 6 charges into the staff).
Here's a table to show spell slot progression for caster and the archetype dedications:
| Spell Level | Class Level | Dedication Level |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 3 | 6 |
| 3 | 5 | 8 |
| 4 | 7 | 12 |
| 5 | 9 | 14 |
| 6 | 11 | 16 |
| 7 | 13 | 18 |
| 8 | 15 | 20 |
| 9 | 17 | - |
| 10 | 19 | - |
Consumables (like Scrolls and Potions) and Spell Slots
Limit use of consumables and spell slots as much as possible. A Cleric might have an extra Heal spell or two through Divine Font, but these resources are better spent for emergencies (like when you don't have time to recover after an encounter).
Limiting out of Combat Healing
First off, the GM should not be limiting out of combat healing unless it's being abused. Pathfinder 2e is balanced around having 10-30 minutes after combat for activities like searching the room, identifying items, refocusing, healing, and repairing your gear.
Restricting the recovery window to 30 minutes or less is something the GM should consider if they feel their players are abusing the mechanics, want to incentivize or reward skill investment, or add urgency/difficulty by reducing the rest time.
Be careful when restricting the recovery window for Focus Spell casters. It would feel pretty bad for a Champion to not have at least one Focus point available for an encounter.
Assurance can be occasionally circumvented by adjusting the DC of Treat Wounds. Some examples are given in the description of Treat Wounds:
The Medicine check DC is usually 15, though the GM might adjust it based on the circumstances, such as treating a patient outside in a storm, or treating magically cursed wounds.
The Lawful Evil GM
GMs can (and should) make the world more dynamic. Maybe the dungeon boss sneaks away after they were alerted by the adventurers. Maybe the NPC they were trying to save succumbs to their injuries. Maybe reinforcements show up to add more encounters to the dungeon (or make the existing encounters more difficult).
If players continue to abuse out of combat healing, remember the GM has practically total control over the game. Parties that have committed zero Skill Feats to the feats mentioned above might see that recovery window restricted to 10 or 15 minutes (or lost entirely on occasion). That Druid spamming Goodberry any chance they get might find themselves out of ripe berries.