Chris_Nightwing
First Post
So, this week I have given some thought to the problem of healing in combat - of clerics, resources, fun and longevity. What I don't want to discuss here (I provoked that badger already) is long-term healing, or systems alternative to hitpoints. Assume in this discussion we will use HP to determine if you are concious or unconcious, with no wounds, penalties or otherwise to being between 0 and full HP.
In pre-3E editions, the cleric had to prepare healing spells in advance, and they consumed resources said cleric might otherwise put into setting things on fire, or hiding them from undead (classic spell). This was frustrating because, as a cleric, you didn't want to have to prepare healing spells, especially if your god loved setting things on fire, but you had to, because otherwise someone might go down in a fight and you would immediately lose party actions and long-term have to wait for them to heal up.
3E suggested that you might not have to prepare these spells - just use them when you had to instead of spells that set things on fire. This sounded like an elegant solution, but ultimately it made things slightly worse, because now you couldn't excuse yourself having at least one spell that set things on fire if the party took a serious beating - you had to heal them all.
4E said, ok, fine, healing people is something you do that doesn't consume your other resources, or even your main action! This also sounded elegant, especially as the second wind mechanic gave people a reason to play without a cleric. However, what this did instead was just give everyone a great big hitpoint buffer. Your HP in combat were really your HP + some quantity depending on how many leaders you had. Healing was more of an automatic, twice a fight I gotta make sure the fighter is still standing, kind of thing (and indeed, became bizarrely encouraged once leader abilities added riders to being healed).
Up to and including 3E the cleric was pretty essential, and treated by the party like teenagers treat their parents (though this could be a fun role to play). 4E made it less essential, but there is no denying the power to effectively increase your melee guy's HP by a significant quantity every combat.
What I'd like Next to avoid is, to be honest, both of these aspects. Clerics should not be essential, and they shouldn't have to choose between setting things on fire and healing. On the other hand, they shouldn't be able to heal as a matter of course, it just skews the party HP. I can see only two solutions, but I hope you have more (sticking to the criteria at the top of the post). Either you disallow in-combat healing, with clerics being able to heal as a matter of course outside of combat, or you allow anyone to heal with the ease of a cleric.
My ideal would be a combination of both of these. Inside combat, the only available healing is a second-wind type mechanic (use an action to regain some number of HP), and the ability to stabilise or trigger second wind in others with a heal skill (or wave of your hand if you are the relevant type of cleric, say). Outside of combat you have hit-dice spending, potentially enhanced (just a little) by the relevant cleric.
If you want to try this out, I suggest second-wind takes an action but gives you back max HD in HP, once per battle only. I suggest that healing word stabilises any dying character at a distance (range death ward). Finally, CLW adds the cleric's wisdom modifier to any HD spending in a short rest (not per HD, just once).
In pre-3E editions, the cleric had to prepare healing spells in advance, and they consumed resources said cleric might otherwise put into setting things on fire, or hiding them from undead (classic spell). This was frustrating because, as a cleric, you didn't want to have to prepare healing spells, especially if your god loved setting things on fire, but you had to, because otherwise someone might go down in a fight and you would immediately lose party actions and long-term have to wait for them to heal up.
3E suggested that you might not have to prepare these spells - just use them when you had to instead of spells that set things on fire. This sounded like an elegant solution, but ultimately it made things slightly worse, because now you couldn't excuse yourself having at least one spell that set things on fire if the party took a serious beating - you had to heal them all.
4E said, ok, fine, healing people is something you do that doesn't consume your other resources, or even your main action! This also sounded elegant, especially as the second wind mechanic gave people a reason to play without a cleric. However, what this did instead was just give everyone a great big hitpoint buffer. Your HP in combat were really your HP + some quantity depending on how many leaders you had. Healing was more of an automatic, twice a fight I gotta make sure the fighter is still standing, kind of thing (and indeed, became bizarrely encouraged once leader abilities added riders to being healed).
Up to and including 3E the cleric was pretty essential, and treated by the party like teenagers treat their parents (though this could be a fun role to play). 4E made it less essential, but there is no denying the power to effectively increase your melee guy's HP by a significant quantity every combat.
What I'd like Next to avoid is, to be honest, both of these aspects. Clerics should not be essential, and they shouldn't have to choose between setting things on fire and healing. On the other hand, they shouldn't be able to heal as a matter of course, it just skews the party HP. I can see only two solutions, but I hope you have more (sticking to the criteria at the top of the post). Either you disallow in-combat healing, with clerics being able to heal as a matter of course outside of combat, or you allow anyone to heal with the ease of a cleric.
My ideal would be a combination of both of these. Inside combat, the only available healing is a second-wind type mechanic (use an action to regain some number of HP), and the ability to stabilise or trigger second wind in others with a heal skill (or wave of your hand if you are the relevant type of cleric, say). Outside of combat you have hit-dice spending, potentially enhanced (just a little) by the relevant cleric.
If you want to try this out, I suggest second-wind takes an action but gives you back max HD in HP, once per battle only. I suggest that healing word stabilises any dying character at a distance (range death ward). Finally, CLW adds the cleric's wisdom modifier to any HD spending in a short rest (not per HD, just once).