D&D 5E 5e, Heal Thyself! Is Healing Too Weak in D&D?

[tetrasodium]

It's really simple. Hit Dice are there so they can claim "look, you don't need a Cleric to play 5e!". Some people manage to run games without healing classes just fine, with a few back end adjustments, and I presume, ample short rests.

I played a lot of AL and home games where the 6-8 encounters benchmark was not the standard, and you basically get all your resources back at the end of the adventure, so I have never used hit dice. Which, now that I think about it, explains some of my frustrations with the healing mechanics the game has.*

Between adventure healing is just handwaved, so I'm solely focused on trying to keep the party going in combat, and getting rid of goofy status effects that you can't shake off under your own power.

And it turns out, if you have good healing options, you really don't need Hit Dice at all, making them fairly vestigial for some games.

*I do remember an adventure in AL where the Bard's Song of Rest came up, but as a Fighter, I could just Second Wind my way to full hit points, and I was also giving out temps with Inspiring Leader so I never needed to bother with them.

] There are a lot of changes to various parts of the game that allow things to run in various ways without a cleric & some that even add up to something that allows the game to work fine without a healer. Healing surges are an optional rule on dmg266 that goes above the already solid foundation for "you don't need a cleric!" already baked into the rules.

 

[Lyxen]

How on Earth can you make a computation without knowing any of the variables? You might know the PHB orc's initiative, but not the Cleric or the Fighter's. Or the Fighter's AC. And this is only assuming one orc.

Of course it's assuming one orc, what are you doing now, moving the goalpost all the time ? One orc per PC or less anyway, to respect action economy, and after that, considering the swinginess of initiative, it's safe to assume that there is exactly 50% chance that the PC will play before the orc, just as it's safe to assume that a monster will have around 50% chance of hitting a target of his appropriate challenge rating.

After that, yes, I'm sure you'll move the goalpost even further, but it's much better using reasonable hypothesis than trying to prove something based on guts feelings only on a totally doctored situation.

And the other two are not actual benefits, just the cold calculation that says 'sucks to be you' to the players whose turns are being wasted.

Oh sure, to convince others, you have to make it emotional on these kind of computations, to ensure that they have zero value, good job doing that. As for me, a simple probability plus enumeration of actual technical benefits is enough to convince me that they are perfectly worth a level 1 bonus spell.

 

[Voadam]

4e, of course, was the seismic shift in the healing rules. 4e introduced the idea of healing surges - that individual characters could heal themselves. You no longer needed to depend on external magic (or the dedicated healbot); you were the master of your own healing. I mean ... you could get additional healing! But it wasn't required. Innate healing was now part of the game. Which brings us to 5e ....

4e introduced this as a core rule, but the Unearthed Arcana book introduced an optional reserve points rule in 3.5 to allow everybody to self heal after fights without magic. I was a big fan of the concept and wanted it to go farther. I liked the concept of a party of just fighters and rogues working in normal D&D.

 

[DarkCrisis]

5E healing weak?

If anyone says this to you, tell them to go play some AD&D and then get back to you.

Heck or something modern like The One Ring RPG. 2 hits and your dead and there is no magic healing. Took my Hobbit several days to heal the ONE hit he took.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Of course it's assuming one orc, what are you doing now, moving the goalpost all the time ?

I wasn't giving you a word problem to solve for X, I was posing a situation I keep seeing where healing is just a waste of a turn because it doesn't heal enough to absorb one full hit before going down again. There's no goalposts and no windmills.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If anyone says this to you, tell them to go play some AD&D and then get back to you.

But... what if I don't hate them and respect their play time?

 

[Mort]

Lets us not forget: hour long short rests.

That's default sure. But the DMG suggests 5 minutes if you want. That happens to work for my current group (generally maximum of 2 between long rests, though so far we've left long rests at 8 hours).

And it even suggests using healing surges if you want a bit more heroic feel.

Sure that's optional, but it's right there in the DMG. There are lots of dials to get the feel you want - right in there.

 

[DarkCrisis]

But... what if I don't hate them and respect their play time?

Did you RP out healing and resting or something?

2E Cleric "I cast Cure Minor Wounds"
5E Cleric "I cast Cure Wounds"

2E "We rest for a couple days (with cleric healing) then get back to it."
5E "We sleep for 8 hours when get back to it."

 

[Vaalingrade]

Did you RP out healing and resting or something?

We replay all downtime, which is why I'm so very much not a fan of long convalescence.

 

[Manbearcat]

For me, if you want to really privilege in-combat healing more, I think the first step is to dramatically lower the ability of characters to have innate and massive out-of-combat healing.

The thread is an interesting design question (D&D design in particular).

However, I'm curious why you come to the conclusion above given 4e's paradigm; pretty much ubiquitous innate and massive out-of-combat healing which leads to full HP at the start of each scene (assuming available HSes...which is a safe assumption) while simultaneously featuring the most prolific and most consequential in-combat healing in the history of D&D.