5 Handy Healing Items You Should Be Aware Of (In Pathfinder)

Staying on your feet long enough to finish the fight is a challenge, even for groups that field a cleric, warpriest, or oracle. That goes double if you find yourself in a time crunch, or can't take a moment to catch your breath and refresh your spells between battles. While most of us carry a plethora of wands to take care of incidental damage when the dust settles, and holdout potions for when we really need a quick infusion, there are a lot of wonderful, mystical solutions out there you should keep an eye out for... other than that impossibly expensive ring of regeneration, that is.

Things like...

#1: Aegis of Recovery

Hold person you say? Hold on, I got a bonus for that.

The aegis of recovery, located in Ultimate Equipment, is an item that tends to be undervalued. Its main function is that it provides a +2 bonus on saves made against a lot of ongoing effects after you fail your first save. This includes against poisons, daily saves versus disease, and against spells like hold person. Where it can really be a life saver, though, is that if you're ever brought below 0 hit points the aegis crumbles to dust, and heals you for 2d8+3 points of damage. For 1,500 gold, that can pull your butt out of the fire when it matters.

There's also a greater version of this item, which provides +5 bonuses and heals you for 5d8+7 points of damage. It costs 3,750 gold, but if you find one, you may as well hang onto it. Just in case.

#2: Trollblood Elixir

Even prestidigitation can't make this taste good.

Trollblood elixir, as the name suggests, is a thick, viscous, disgusting liquid. However, it can be just the thing if you find yourself sitting next to a severed limb, or lingering on death's welcoming mat.

Found in the Giant Hunter's Handbook, trollblood elixir runs you about 4,550 gold pieces, and it's a one-shot item. However, once you finally toss it back, it gives you fast healing 5 for one minute (or the equivalent of 50 hit points worth of healing). You aren't feeling good while it does its thing, but that's a small price to pay. More important than the total amount of healing, though, it can reattach severed limbs if they've been cut off for less than an hour, which can be just what the cleric ordered if you fail the wrong save against some seriously nasty stuff at higher levels.

While not practical for cuts and scrapes, this is one of those things you either acquire just in case.

#3: Boots of The Earth

These boots were made for stomping!

One of the most ridiculously valuable items for its cost, boots of the earth are found in Inner Sea Gods. These dwarven boots have marble soles, and as a move action the wearer can plant their feet to draw strength from the earth beneath them. This grants them a +4 bonus against trip, bull rush, and reposition combat maneuvers, but more importantly it grants them fast healing 1. As long as you keep your feet planed and stay conscious, these bonuses keep going.

These boots only cost 5,000 gold pieces, and that is a steal for what they do.

#4: Gorget of Umbral Hunger

All right, it doesn't heal THAT much.

Coming in at 6,500 gold, the gorget is not a great value for your money if you're buying it in a shop. If you come across it in a treasure hoard, though, it can be something worth hanging onto. Found in Merchant's Manifest, the gorget activates when it's in an area of dim light, or darkness. It grants the wearer fast healing 1, but it can only heal 20 points of damage per day before it's exhausted.

Not ideal, but since it will heal damage from any source (unlike a lot of other items that grant you temporary fast healing but which are shut off by things like cold iron or silver), and dim light is easy enough to find, it can be useful. Maybe not as good as the other entries on the list, but worth thinking about all the same.

#5: Determination Armor

I am here to kick ass, and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of bubblegum.

I first came across the determination armor enchantment back when it was in the Advanced Player's Guide, and it's one of those things almost no one gets to use. After all, it costs you 30,000 gold, and that's on top of the other enchantments your armor has to have. However, this enchantment gives you a once-per-day breath of life spell that goes off when you get downed.

Ask any group that needed that spell, but didn't have it, how critical this can be to stopping the tide of battle from turning against you. Now imagine having it on-hand as a get-out-of-boned-free card once per day. It's an expensive insurance policy, but one you're glad to have when you really need it.

That's all for this week's Crunch installment. Hopefully it helps some of the groups out there trying to keep their HP up so they can press on in the face of hardship! If there are any I missed (magic items specifically, not spells and class features) feel free to leave them in the comments below!

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Alternatives To Traditional Magic Weapons and Armor

There's nothing quite like that moment where your characters get their first magic weapons. Whether it's a longsword crackling with lightning, a glowing bow that fires with a choral thrum, or a shotgun that booms with a thunderclap, chances are it was your character's most treasured possession for months. You went on adventures with it, saved the day with it, and it became part of your character's signature look.

At least until you found something more powerful.

You fought well old friend, but you're just not a +2 weapon.

It happens in every game; your first magic item is a life-changing experience, but pretty soon even the most wondrous weapons and amazing armors become nothing more than a collection of numbers and abilities. Worse though, you usually have to end up exchanging huge piles of gold for them. It's the only way to keep the game balanced though; if players didn't have to pay a wizard to enchant their weapons and armor then the whole game would be unbalanced.

Wouldn't it?

Not really.

You see the mechanic of treating a magic weapon or suit of armor like any other good, with a value that can be measured in gold pieces, is functional. If it wasn't then so many roleplaying games wouldn't use it. However, for storytellers who are sick to death of how these awe-inspiring items become no more impressive than buying rations or a bedroll, here are some alternative suggestions for getting magic items into the hands of the party.

If you'd like suggestions for making your magic items just seem more special, then read How To Keep Your Magic Items From Getting Mundane.

Don't Let Players Buy Magic Weapons or Armor

Now I know what you're thinking, but hold up a moment. I'm not advocating that you force your players to partake in a world with no magic; that would completely eliminate the point. What I'm saying is that you need to take away your players' abilities to just exchange hard currency for whatever they want out of the back of the book.

I bought this at a hock shop for $500.

Magic items are supposed to be fairly rare in the first place; it's what makes them so special. Lots of players just walk into every town like there's an epic weapon emporium right next to the inn though, and if you want to keep your players on their toes you need to curb that behavior right away.

If you want to be a kind storyteller then you can put magic items in your shops, but make players really look for them. Perhaps what a merchant thinks is simply a monstrously fine sword is actually a weapon engraved with dwarven runes of power to make it burn brightly when drawn in battle. Maybe the local smith has a weapon he keeps only for special customers, locked away in the back for those willing to pay for its true value. Or it might be possible for characters to wheedle a favor from a wizard's college or a learned spellsmith, if the character is willing to pay the price demanded.

That's if you want to be nice.

What if I'm all out of nice?

If you don't want to be nice to your players then make them work extra hard for their magic items. Make them fight creatures for them, or give them specific magic items as quest rewards. Make them win a tourney of champions, or seek out a mythical smith in the haunted forest. Have the party defeat the Lord of the Dread Marsh in order to take up his enchanted helm and flail. If you do that it becomes clear that enchanted tools represent things money simply cannot buy.

Alternatively if a party member wants a flaming sword, then make him perform a ritual where he plunges a masterwork blade deep into the flames of a sacred volcano while chanting an ancient incantation. If someone wants a lighting lance then make her charge the top of a mountain and survive being struck by bolts from the heavens. These solutions allow players who want more story to still get magic items without taking craft feats or chiding the party wizard to please, pretty please, make something shiny for them. It also means that you can't stop in at local farming village #356 and walk out with celestial armor and a holy avenger.

Ancestral Weapons

Despite the name, an ancestral weapon doesn't have to be handed down within a family or a clan; the name refers to weapons that have acquired a legend of their own through long use. As an example, many vorpal weapons were never enchanted as such (at least in older editions of Dungeons and Dragons), but they gained this quality due to the sheer number of heads they'd taken from both the wicked and the wrongly convicted. Everything from Wyatt Earp's 6-gun to the Sword of Charlemagne grows larger when wielded by someone whose legend has grown long.

I'm sure there are other examples... somewhere...

This mechanic means a storyteller avoids the whole "go to a special shop and commission an enchanted weapon" mechanic entirely, and it allows weapons and armor to get special histories of their own. The holy sword found in a treasure trove might have been handed down a certain line of priest kings, whose piety made it more than just sharpened steel. A bow might have been carried by a series of famous outlaws whose chaotic lives imprinted in the grain of the wood over long use. Even a spiked gauntlet worn as a symbol of rank by ancient generals might begin to buzz with the energies and wisdom of a hundred great commanders, taking on effects for those who wear it today.

Old Fashioned Magic

Both high and low fantasy have some pretty epic examples of enchanted weapons, and they always come with intricate rituals and rare components. These weapons or suits of armor come with names and looks, and a complete pedigree of how they were made and where they came from. Like the greatsword Starbreaker, forged from the last gasp of a dying star fallen from the heavens, and hammered on the altar of Gorum for seven days and seven nights. Quenched in sacrificial oils the sword burned white hot, and then the blade turned as black as the Lord of Iron himself. The sword's edge never dulls, and it cleaves through shields and flesh as if they were no more than morning mist.

What I just described is an adamantine greatsword +1. But how much cooler did it sound?

It bears a passing resemblance to another famous sword.

Some magic items are made with certain components, while others are created by certain events. If you want to power up your party then use that to get players deeper into the game.

Let's say you have a barbarian who is particularly devout. There's no mechanical bonus for it, but the player is going to the hilt with her character's devotions to Sarenrae. The character arises every morning, prays, sharpens her sword, and dances to welcome the burning light of another day. Say that the party is later fighting undead in an underground tomb, and the barbarian dedicates each slain foe to Sarenrae; it's possible she'd begin to notice, and that the sword would glow brighter on each death. Once a cinematic moment is reached the sword bursts into flames as bright as the dawn itself, and the character attacks with all the ferocity of a desert whirlwind.

That's a lot cooler than just paying 4k gold for a +1 flaming sword. It also comes with the potential for the character to lose the goddess's favor if she strays too far from the fervor that granted her the weapon in the first place.

For characters who are less devout then it's possible for pure circumstance to leave weapons changed. A weapon that's killed a hundred lycanthropes might become a bane weapon, for instance. A blade that deals the death blow to a dragon might absorb some of the wyrm's power in the form of an enchantment appropriate to the creature's breath weapon. A weapon which always seems to deliver critical blows might become keen-edged, or perhaps actively try to suck the life force out of those it kills, depending on the wielder and the situations it's been used in.

For players who want the experience of making a magical weapon there's always the use of rare components. The hunt for star metal is well known, but what else might soak magic into steel? Quenching the blade in dragon's blood and bile? Heating a forge with the bones of great warriors so the steel absorbs their power (this was something some ancient peoples actually frigging did!)? Perhaps having a sword forged by a blind man, or a prophet, or a virgin priestess is the secret to making it powerful?

Whatever mystical dingus you want to use for your magic items it will make players appreciate how hard they are to get. Not only that, but a player will be a lot less likely to forego the trusty Razor Tusk, the weapon that killed the last of the great orc chieftains in the Black Tooth Wars just because another sword crops up that gives him an extra +1.

And even if the new sword gets drawn, the old one will never leave its place of honor on that warrior's hip.

One More Thing...

Also, before you go, I wanted to show you this.

Willy Shakes just telling it like it is.

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