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House rule idea for healing to avoid "whack-a-mole"
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7259754" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Nod. There's a difference between focusing on it and allowing it to be effective. Fast combat means there'll be some high-volume damage-trading going on over a fairly small number of rounds, and thus small number of random resolutions, small sample-size = higher variance, so an even slightly unlucky PC could go down early and miss virtually the whole fight, or worse, simply be killed outright (unlikely much above 1st level), or worse, start a party-wide death-spiral for want of that character's contributions in the combat. So for campaigns to consist of 6-8 'fast combats' per day, and a couple days per level and hundreds of round in a campaign, without multiple TPKs being inevitable, those combats have to be tuned to being almost trivially easy and/or the party has to have a 'come back' mechanism.</p><p></p><p>In 5e, obviously, encounter guidelines do err on the side of being 'too easy,' but in D&D in general, in-combat healing/restoring has been that come-back mechanism. 5e in-combat healing is not quite up to the challenge, so players try to use it most efficiently-which means waiting for an ally to drop, then nudging him back to consciousness as a bonus action to take his turn without sacrificing yours. Which, if you do it more than once, becomes whack-a-mole. </p><p></p><p>As usual, I'm verbose, but ultimately in agreement: fast combat can't mean focusing on healing. But, it must also mean having fairly potent healing available for 'emergencies.' Fast combat can also mean that combats often feel 'too easy,' so challenging-feeling ones may well call for some big in-combat healing.</p><p></p><p> Sufficiently fast healing on one side of the combat would be quite compatible with fast combat, if it lets the healer belt out his usual DPR, and keeps his allies belting out theirs, instead of laying on the ground making death saves. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> Healing Word doesn't quite pull that off this ed, because it's not strong enough, and leaves the healer only a fairly minor single melee attack or meh cantrip with which to chip away at the opposition.</p><p></p><p> Like, IDK, 2 healing words / encounter? ;P </p><p></p><p> Fast combat as too high a priority does distort the game towards an all-damage-dealer pathology, sure.</p><p></p><p>That'd be a tough argument. AFAICT, D&D has not only always done that (had meat-shield, DPR, healer, & magic-slingers integrated into a model of combat), it originated it, and video games, CRPGs, & MMOs merely adopted it. (And, yes, 4e did it in a particularly formal, balanced, and clear way that worked more cleanly than in prior or subsequent eds, but was subjected to edition warring.)</p><p></p><p> Even though you complain about it being 'too easy?'</p><p></p><p> There are /4/ classes with significant in-combat healing-others ability, and a 5th that can have a little, and 6th that can heal itself. So, if you really don't want it, you'd have to toss two classes entirely, and willfully avoid knowing/prepping healing spells with 4 more. </p><p></p><p> Handy old-school table-policy for healer-less parties: first one to die rolls a cleric. </p><p></p><p><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7259754, member: 996"] Nod. There's a difference between focusing on it and allowing it to be effective. Fast combat means there'll be some high-volume damage-trading going on over a fairly small number of rounds, and thus small number of random resolutions, small sample-size = higher variance, so an even slightly unlucky PC could go down early and miss virtually the whole fight, or worse, simply be killed outright (unlikely much above 1st level), or worse, start a party-wide death-spiral for want of that character's contributions in the combat. So for campaigns to consist of 6-8 'fast combats' per day, and a couple days per level and hundreds of round in a campaign, without multiple TPKs being inevitable, those combats have to be tuned to being almost trivially easy and/or the party has to have a 'come back' mechanism. In 5e, obviously, encounter guidelines do err on the side of being 'too easy,' but in D&D in general, in-combat healing/restoring has been that come-back mechanism. 5e in-combat healing is not quite up to the challenge, so players try to use it most efficiently-which means waiting for an ally to drop, then nudging him back to consciousness as a bonus action to take his turn without sacrificing yours. Which, if you do it more than once, becomes whack-a-mole. As usual, I'm verbose, but ultimately in agreement: fast combat can't mean focusing on healing. But, it must also mean having fairly potent healing available for 'emergencies.' Fast combat can also mean that combats often feel 'too easy,' so challenging-feeling ones may well call for some big in-combat healing. Sufficiently fast healing on one side of the combat would be quite compatible with fast combat, if it lets the healer belt out his usual DPR, and keeps his allies belting out theirs, instead of laying on the ground making death saves. ;) Healing Word doesn't quite pull that off this ed, because it's not strong enough, and leaves the healer only a fairly minor single melee attack or meh cantrip with which to chip away at the opposition. Like, IDK, 2 healing words / encounter? ;P Fast combat as too high a priority does distort the game towards an all-damage-dealer pathology, sure. That'd be a tough argument. AFAICT, D&D has not only always done that (had meat-shield, DPR, healer, & magic-slingers integrated into a model of combat), it originated it, and video games, CRPGs, & MMOs merely adopted it. (And, yes, 4e did it in a particularly formal, balanced, and clear way that worked more cleanly than in prior or subsequent eds, but was subjected to edition warring.) Even though you complain about it being 'too easy?' There are /4/ classes with significant in-combat healing-others ability, and a 5th that can have a little, and 6th that can heal itself. So, if you really don't want it, you'd have to toss two classes entirely, and willfully avoid knowing/prepping healing spells with 4 more. Handy old-school table-policy for healer-less parties: first one to die rolls a cleric. ;) [/QUOTE]
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