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

[James Gasik]

The point is that very, very few people like playing healbots. Even I who played one now and then (I still prefer tank) in MMORPG never ever wanted to play one in TTRPG, and absolutely no-one in our 20+ people group wants to play one. Everyone prefers having characters who can do more things than heal all the time. Even in the loooong years of BECMI then AD&D, people who played clerics mostly wanted cool gods and the associated roleplay, not the "healbot role". And let's not forget that people NOT wanting to heal is the reason for which clerics have almost been one of the most powerful classes (which is also why some people hated clerics who did not want to heal, some people thought they got all the good things and none of the bad).



Yes, it is, 4e then 5e made it entirely optional, and I think it's a good thing. You can still be one and contribute in other ways, which is cool, because, again, there are very very few people who want that role anyway.



And it's not a good thing, it wanting a healbot which is a completely alien way, because IT DOES NOT EXIST IN THE GENRE. And that's a really important point for me, by the way, that way of playing it totally technical. There are non-combat healers in the genre, usually for low magic settings, and for a good reason, hit points are totally abstract and represent many things and thinking that a healer heals the loss of confidence, skill, luck, divine blessing, etc. is something that self-respecting writers don't put in their books/movies because it would break the suspension of disbelief (and make people dislike their production). 4e then 5e acknowledged the fact that it's all abstract anyway and we are just trying to simulate a genre in which no hit/effect has any immediate or lasting impact unless it downs you (which is dramatic, and therefore cool), and even that can be extremely temporary because otherwise it's not fun to play.



And still making it way better, see the success of 5e...

I was willing to give you a like until you brought up the "success of a game" as a metric by which to judge it's merit. Warhammer 40k is wildly popular in my area.

Very few people will seriously defend the game is good.

EDIT: I apparently failed to make clear that "the game" in this case is Warhammer 40k, not D&D.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's because short rests take too long. In 4e, short rests were five minutes, so you were assumed to take one after each encounter. In 5e, they're one hour. Absent outside time pressure, there are very few situations where you can take a short rest but not a long one.

As a DM I often don't have narrative time for that one hour nonsense, so I just ignore it. Take five, grab a glass of water, now get back out there tiger!

 

[Lyxen]

I was willing to give you a like until you brought up the "success of a game" as a metric by which to judge it's merit. Warhammer 40k is wildly popular in my area.

Very few people will seriously defend the game is good.

Well, I happen to be one of them, and so do 95%+ of the players in our groups, the remaining ones are more tactical players who preferred 4e. In our eyes, it's way better than any previous edition, and most of us have played most of them anyway. Even on forums such as these who draw complainers by the score, it's considered a good edition of the game. And millions of players have flocked to it. Would they have done so it it was BAD ?

 

[James Gasik]

Well, I happen to be one of them, and so do 95%+ of the players in our groups, the remaining ones are more tactical players who preferred 4e. In our eyes, it's way better than any previous edition, and most of us have played most of them anyway. Even on forums such as these who draw complainers by the score, it's considered a good edition of the game. And millions of players have flocked to it. Would they have done so it it was BAD ?

People flock to lots of things that are bad. I'm not debating if 5e is good or not, just that I don't see "people like it a lot" as a metric worth talking about.

Armageddon made 553.7 million dollars. You can say that makes it a good movie. I'm going to be laughing over here if you do! : )

 

[Fenris-77]

I've been playing 40K for 30 years. Good, bad, blah. People can make 'good' mean a lot of things.

 

[James Gasik]

I've been playing 40K for 30 years. Good, bad, blah. People can make 'good' mean a lot of things.

I mean if you have fun with a thing, it's "good" for you. But I hear a lot of gripes from my friends who play it about how GW handles the property, to the point I often ask them "so why do you play it again?"

I get blank stares, and then someone usually calls me a Heretic, and I have to get out of melee range so all they can do is fire flashlight lasers at me.

 

[Fenris-77]

I mean if you have fun with a thing, it's "good" for you. But I hear a lot of gripes from my friends who play it about how GW handles the property, to the point I often ask them "so why do you play it again?"

I get blank stares, and then someone usually calls me a Heretic, and I have to get out of melee range so all they can do is fire flashlight lasers at me.

Well, frankly, its a lot of fun. Eveyone complains about editions some are more balanced than others, some are more fun, but good? That needs to be unpacked.

 

[Lyxen]

People flock to lots of things that are bad. I'm not debating if 5e is good or not, just that I don't see "people like it a lot" as a metric worth talking about.

Armageddon made 553.7 million dollars. You can say that makes it a good movie. I'm going to be laughing over here if you do! : )

Flocking is not the same thing as "staying for years". People might flock to a movie because of the names on the poster, but it will die ouytquickly. But staying with the game and continuing to play it for years is something else. You don't do that for bad things.

After that, of course, tastes vary.

I mean if you have fun with a thing, it's "good" for you. But I hear a lot of gripes from my friends who play it about how GW handles the property, to the point I often ask them "so why do you play it again?"

Because it's, at its core, a good game. So good, actually, that people will play it DESPITE what the company does about it.

 

[Fenris-77]

The notion of 'good' is always going to be divisive because it doesn't mean anything.

 

[James Gasik]

Flocking is not the same thing as "staying for years". People might flock to a movie because of the names on the poster, but it will die ouytquickly. But staying with the game and continuing to play it for years is something else. You don't do that for bad things.

After that, of course, tastes vary.



Because it's, at its core, a good game. So good, actually, that people will play it DESPITE what the company does about it.

Honestly, I think a lot of people play 5e not because it's their game of choice, but because it's the one most people are playing right now. The hype train is very real, and each new book seems splashier and more amazing than the last- the proven WotC strategy! The slower production cycle probably has an effect.

Again though, my point of contention is not whether 5e is good or bad. It does some things I like, it does some things I don't like. It comes down to whether it's good because it's popular, or if it's popular because it's good- that's a subjective opinion.

I mean, the fourth most popular pizza topping in the world is onions. I can't stand them myself. I'd have to be pretty hungry to eat them and try not to pick them off.

But that's not really a metric that says "onions are great!/onions are a plague upon pizza!"