Paizo Employee James Jacobs (Creative Director), Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 01:40 AM
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Quandary wrote:

I think Breath of Life works perfectly as the name.
It draws attention to it's crucial difference vs. other Cure spells: being able to bring back the dead (if you don't procrastinate). The reference to the maximum is not "(25)", but "(+25)" after the crucial "per level" was mentioned.

Though I think Senor Buhlmahn's secret agenda here was making BoL not spontaneously castable like Cure/Inflict spells. (I wouldn't really know how to reverse BoL into an Inflict version, either... A failed stabilization check = instant death?)


Well... my not-so-secret agenda WAS to make it a spell that clerics could cast on the fly. It's an important spell and concept, and one that helps to keep unplanned deaths from ruining a campaign. Letting clerics cast it on the fly as cure deadly wounds means they don't have to keep one prepared at all times (it's sort of a spell tax otherwise), and helps to let them save their allies from sudden death. It's how I've used the spell in my last 2 or 3 homebrew games, and it's worked really well.

As for the inflict version, it's just a 5d6+level inflict spell. Nothing special there needed.

James Jacobs (Creative Director), Monday, 08:22 PM
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Quandary wrote:

I got it: Breath of Life should have been Cure Mortal Wounds.
(if it were to be a 'cure' spell, BoL is a great name by itself)


Actually, it was originally called "cure deadly wounds," since calling it "cure mortal wounds" could be interpreted as a spell that cures wounds suffered by mortals. Also, as cure deadly wounds, its abbreviation of CDW doesn't overlap with the abbreviation of other cure spells (CLW, CMW, CSW, and CCW).

Since the spell's so handy, I figured that calling it cure deadly wounds would be a great way to let clerics have access to it all the time. Doing so would help give clerics a better than ever chance to rush in and save a slain companion, since if it isn't a cure spell, a cleric has to prepare it.

The spell got changed to "breath of life" because of a concern that allowing it to be called cure deadly wounds made it TOO easy to save a dead person from dying. Unfortunately, I feel that change basically just turned the spell into a "spell tax" for clerics, since it's such an important spell to have handy. In my home games, I'll continue to let clerics spontaneously cast it, in any event; it's worked fine that way for my homebrew games for the last several years, so I don't think it unbalances much...