D&D 5E House rule for in combat healing and yoyo at 0 HP

[Vaalingrade]

Keep up.

Keep up. Mecheon also doesn't agree with your assessment.

 

[FrogReaver]

Enough to make the loss of a round of attacks be worthwhile, so probably at least the full amount of damage you could expect to get in at least a single round, if only a single round and a half as a bare minimum. As for resource cost? Basically the same as what it is at present

Fun story. If you look at heals the same way you do dpr then you’ll find that using your highest level of spell for cure wounds does provide enough hpr to offset the dpr of a single level appropriate foe. On first glance that seems solid. I don’t think we want heals invalidating all of team monsters damage when all of them are attacking 1 PC.

The issue there is dpr is accuracy reduced and heals are 100% accuracy. So when you heal your ally doesn’t get enough hp to offset even 1 more attack that actually hits.

Compared to the other things you can do with your max level slots, healing is never going to compare without becoming so strong that healers are viewed as mandatory.

 

[Rabulias]

There is no -20 hp in 5E.

There are "virtual" negative hit points in 5e, from a certain point of view. Let me expand @Nightfly's example in more detail.

A PC starts a round at max, 28 HP. They are hit for 24 points of damage, dropping to 4 HP. Consider two options:
1) The party's healer moves to the wounded PC and upcasts cure wounds to heal the PC back to 28 HP. The PC is then hit for another 24 points, and is back to 4 HP.
2) The party's healer makes an attack on their turn instead of healing the injured PC. The PC is hit for another 24 points of damage, and drops to 0 HP. The next round the party healer casts healing word using a 1st-level slot and heals the PC to 4 HP.

So in option 2, the PC ends up at the same place with less resource expenditure. Twenty points of the monster's attack was negated by hitting the 0 HP "wall."

Personally, I think it is a very "gamey" approach and discourage it, but it is a more optimal strategy.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Yo-yo healing is ridiculous in-and-of itself. It's also the optimal strategy, which is why it's so common to see. The PC suffers no drawbacks until they hit zero HP, so it's simply more efficient to not bother healing until the PC is dropped to zero. Death saves are cleared and the revived PC operates at full combat capability regardless of their recent near-death experience, so the healer is being more efficient by simply waiting. None of the "solutions" you provide are more efficient for the gamers, which is why gamers reject them.

failed death saves carrying over until your next rest would certainly give an incentive to not go down in the first place, short rests removing one failed save, long rests removing all of them

 

[Vaalingrade]

failed death saves carrying over until your next rest would certainly give an incentive to not go down in the first place, short rests removing one failed save, long rests removing all of them

Except I'm full certain the same people who would do this are on the 'only two short rests a day' train. So Five Minute Work Day it is.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Except I'm full certain the same people who would do this are on the 'only two short rests a day' train. So Five Minute Work Day it is.

true perhaps, but that's an entirely separate issue to yoyo healing to be solved in it's own ways.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If you need to punish dropping to 0 in a way that doesn't help anything and only makes the play experience worse, why not simply kick the player under the table?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If you need to punish dropping to 0 in a way that doesn't help anything and only makes the play experience worse, why not simply kick the player under the table?

I mean it helps, making it relatively more optimal to heal characters while they're up. And sure, it also makes the game harder and more deadly, and if that's not what one wants then it is bad solution. However, given that a lot of people feel that the game is too easy, to them this might be basically solving two problems at once.

 

[Reynard]

There are "virtual" negative hit points in 5e, from a certain point of view. Let me expand @Nightfly's example in more detail.

A PC starts a round at max, 28 HP. They are hit for 24 points of damage, dropping to 4 HP. Consider two options:
1) The party's healer moves to the wounded PC and upcasts cure wounds to heal the PC back to 28 HP. The PC is then hit for another 24 points, and is back to 4 HP.
2) The party's healer makes an attack on their turn instead of healing the injured PC. The PC is hit for another 24 points of damage, and drops to 0 HP. The next round the party healer casts healing word using a 1st-level slot and heals the PC to 4 HP.

So in option 2, the PC ends up at the same place with less resource expenditure. Twenty points of the monster's attack was negated by hitting the 0 HP "wall."

Personally, I think it is a very "gamey" approach and discourage it, but it is a more optimal strategy.

This ignores the cost in action economy of the character that goes down, not to mention the possibility of that character getting outright killed in the intervening round.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

This ignores the cost in action economy of the character that goes down, not to mention the possibility of that character getting outright killed in the intervening round.

Not to mention that sometimes players like to play their characters according to how they perceive their personality traits/bonds/ideals/flaws/motivations/etc and not just according to what someone on the internet thinks is mechanically "optimal". If someone feels their character is more likely to dole out healing and buffs immediately rather than wait, well... who are we to tell them the "right" way to play?