[RPG] Are there any spells that heal hit-points over time in Pathfinder or 3.5

dnd-3.5ehealingpathfinder-1espells

I've been looking through all the Paizo spells, but all I see so far are instantaneous duration healing (cure) spells.

What I am looking for is a spell I can have on a wand or other magic item, so if such a magic item exists already, that would be a sufficient answer. I would prefer a low-ish level spell, but if there are none, there are none.

What I am not looking for is feats or class features that allow this.

Best Answer

The vigor spell line in Complete Divine and Spell Compendium is your go-to in 3.5. The line consists of:

  • the 1st-level lesser vigor for Fast Healing 1
  • the 3rd-level vigor for Fast Healing 2
  • the 5th-level greater vigor for Fast Healing 4

They each last 10 rounds (one minute) plus a number of rounds equal to your Caster Level. There are also the 3rd-level mass lesser vigor and 6th-level vigorous circle for group healing, with Fast Healing 1 and 3 respectively.

Lesser vigor, in particular, is a 1st-level spell that is the most efficient HP-by-spell-level option in the game, healing 11 HP at CL 1. Therefore, wands of lesser vigor are pretty standard adventuring gear for folks “in the know:” it’s the most HP for your gold piece you can get.

In Pathfinder, the 1st-level infernal healing spell is nearly equivalent to lesser vigor (it lasts only one minute, rather than one minute plus CL rounds). However, strangely enough, it is [Evil]; this makes it harder to use as “standard adventuring gear,” but for healers who don’t mind the alignment issue, it’s still the best option. There is a celestial healing spell that is [Good], but it has a massively-reduced duration that makes it basically worthless. There is also a greater infernal healing and a greater celestial healing which work like greater vigor (Fast Healing 4), but are 4th-level instead of 5th-level. There are no group-healing options among celestial/infernal healing spells.

The difference in duration means that a wand of greater vigor is more cost-effective than a wand of greater infernal healing, but it costs more up-front, requires a higher-level crafter, and takes longer to heal. The point is largely moot as lesser vigor and infernal healing are both much superior in that regard, though. The duration on both celestial healing and greater celestial healing makes them worthless.

And then there is song of healing for bards, which grants fast healing 2 as a 4th-level spell to up to 3 targets. Considering it costs a 4th-level spell slot and only works in conjunction with a bardic performance, you would be better off just leveraging your Charisma to Use Magic Device some wands of lesser vigor.

Better, but still not good, are the 2nd-level path of glory and its 4th-level greater version. Both let you pick 4 squares when you cast, and add 4 more squares each time you use a swift action to expand it. Allies that end their turn in these squares heal 1 hp (or 5 hp for the greater version). So that works out to 1 (5) hp/round for at least four people, and potentially a lot more. In the best case scenario, this heals 4 (20) hp in the first round, then 8 (40), then 12 (60), and so on. At higher caster levels, that can be enormous—but it’s spread out among many allies. For a party of four, a minimum-CL 3rd path of glory heals 12 hp—that’s 2 hp more than infernal healing, for 6× the cost. Greater path of glory can’t even be gotten in a wand, and a minimum CL 7th scroll of greater path of glory costs almost as much as an entire wand of infernal healing. Best case scenario, it does heal 140 hp—but that’s still a rate of 0.2 hp/gp, where a wand of infernal healing has a rate of 0.73 hp/gp. And that’s if your entire party is hurt, and hurt badly enough to use the full healing.

Path of glory does have a synergy with the celestial totem rage power, which a skald can give to the entire party. A skald also casts bard spells, which path of glory is, so that’s convenient. Healing CL+1 hp/round instead of 1 hp/round is a big deal when you can put it on the whole party. However, the only reason this works is because path of glory isn’t technically “fast healing”—if it were, celestial totem wouldn’t work, because that rage power specifically blocks fast healing for exactly this reason. I imagine many GMs would therefore nix this combo.

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