Death Healing

I have a couple of questions about the Death Healing custom power (p94, Players Companion).

1) How does the custom power cost work - I can't quite get my head around it? Does it mean that if the custom class is built with an Arcane Value of 1 or 2 it 'costs' 1 power slot and if the AV is 3 or 4 it 'costs' 2 powers? If that's true - why is that the case?

2) The description states that when a creature is slain the character can choose not to cleave to expend a spell slot and heal. Does this mean the character must be able to cleave in order to use this custom power? A custom class with FV 0 cannot cleave, so it would be incompatible to build a class with this power and FV 0 - is that correct?

1) Yes, because AV 3 or 4 have more spell slots, so they're able to use Death Healing more often.

 

2) I'm going to leave this one for somebody else to answer, since I'm not sure whether you can be considered to give up a cleave if you have no cleaves.

1) As The Dark said, if you have more spell slots it's more valuable.

2 That's correct, with FV you cannot cleave and therefore cannot make use of this power. You could, if you like, allow a single user per round, if it's important to a class concept. 

2 That’s correct, with FV you cannot cleave and therefore cannot make use of this power. You could, if you like, allow a single user per round, if it’s important to a class concept.

This phrasing confuses me; isn’t Death Healing normally only one per round, because you do it instead of cleaving?

Which means no more attacks, thus no more chain, so no more cleaving.

Unless it takes up a cleave attempt mid-stream without interrupting the cleave chain. 

Ruinguard 10th has potentially 10 cleaves - he cleaves through 4 guys, slight pause to death-heal (uses a cleave) then the next 5 guys are cleaved as usual, for 9 cleaves + 1 death heal.

Cleave chain:

Oh it's the sound
Of a worried, a worried man
Ha ha ha ha ha ha
That's the sound of havin' a good time, mhmm
It's the sound of pain

Chain, chain, chain

Chain of cleaves...

That works with very little modification to the first stanza.

A single use per round would be more than the zero uses per round that you would get if you couldn't cleave

I've been allowing pretty much any "special" in place of a Cleave, but not allowing said special attack to trigger an additional Cleave (i.e., it ends the "Cleave chain"). Seems to work fine. Allowing any special attack to trigger a Cleave creates some wierdness, although Death Heal makes more sense. Would it make Death Heal "overpowered"? It seems not, considering one gives up spell uses to power it.

I could see that as a possible interpretation, but isn’t the way I’d read ‘in lieu of cleaving’.

(It would certainly make Death Healing stronger if it simply cost one cleave attempt for the round. It would also set a precedent for the use of other special powers costing cleave attempts, which could be neat.)

You misunderstand me. That's expressly not how it's written. Specials are not possible as a Cleave, and can't trigger a Cleave, per rules-as-written. Allowing it doesn't seem to really break anything, though, and I believe it has lead to slightly more attempts at Special Maneuvers.

I think you misunderstood a reply chain, we’re talking about Alex’s phrasing in this sub-thread :stuck_out_tongue:

Offhand I wasn’t aware that specials couldn’t trigger a cleave (except, of course, the ones that don’t do damage obviously can’t), but I agree that allowing it wouldn’t break anything. Although personally I think I’d be most likely to allow a special attack in place of a cleave attempt, but continue to only allow more cleaves after an enemy goes down (so only specials like Overrun or Nonlethal Attack, which can actually take down enemies, would continue cleaving).

My confusion is about how Alex described Death Healing as if once per round would be a change, when it seems to me that it would already be limited to once per round by its nature.

Right you are. My apologies.

Specials not triggering a Cleave could easily be an overzealous reading on my part, but it seems to me Alex had implied as much in a discussion around Special Maneuvers and Cleave somewhere here on the Forum. The lack of interation with Cleave struck me as a real hindrance for Special Maneuvers, which are already weighted against with the difficulty of pulling them off.

I think once per round would be a change from "in lieu of cleaving" due to effects that give a second attack (e.g., Haste, Swift Sword, etc.).

EDIT: Am I a little closer to being on topic now? cheeky

I have another question about the cost of Death Healing!

Should the cost go above two powers if your class has more than 100% casting? (For example, even with sticking with Arcane, you could have Elf 4/Arcane 4 or Zaharan 4/Arcane 4, which gives you 200% casting.)

For types other than Arcane, I figured that you should use the percent casting to figure out the cost (Arcane 3 is 66% casting, so if you have 66% casting or better, two powers; less than that and 1 power). But this made me curious about situations where you end up with greater than 100% casting and whether or not the price should keep increasing.