D&D 5E No Support healer type setting.

GameOgre

Adventurer

• Jan 14, 2015

• #1

So what if you wanted to make a swords and sorcery type 5E setting. How would you work healing into the game?

I think short rest recovery at 5 min and let you get 4 of them in between long rests might help. Also perhaps some sort of in combat emergency heal like a boosted up Second Wind might be in order.

Without a dedicated healer or even support healers those bad luck moments in the middle of battle are going to turn deadly as all get out.

Another thought was to just place all the Divine spells in with the Arcane ones(Wizards and Sorcerers can use). That does fit part of the feel I'm looking for with this idea of a swords and sorcery setting.

 

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C

Cernor

Explorer

• Jan 14, 2015

• #2

You could make short rests 5 mins and let the players have them as frequently as they want (bearing in mind they won't always have 5 minutes available) and use the Healing Surge option from the DMG. Maybe give more HD to compensate as well?

 

P

Paraxis

Explorer

• Jan 14, 2015

• #3

Have druids, to me atleast they have a sword & sorcery vibe.

Anyone trained in healer's kit gets the benefit of the Healer's feat.

Escalating time of short rests, the first is a bonus action like giving everyone second wind once per day, second one is five minutes, third is an hour, you get no more benifits of short rests until you take a long rest for 8 hours.

Damage mitigation, make some new feats that give damage reduction or AC.

A feat that gives you your Con mod as DR (like heavy armor master) and if you don't wear armor your base AC is 10 + Cha mod.

 

M

Mallus

Legend

• Jan 14, 2015

• #4

Off the top of my head, I'd go the opposite route: leaving the healing classes/spells/abilities more-or-less alone and have dropping to zero HP represent serious injury which can only be healed over a long period of time (or perhaps by risky rituals or rare elixirs, but not battlefield actions).

ie, the old HP-as-minor-injury-and-fatigue-but-bit-serious-hurt approach.

edit: this seems S&S-enough (for me), plus it's game-y in a good way, creating a strong incentive during play to keep PCs from going to 0 HP. This approach drives tactical choices, rather than just removing classes and/or abilities.

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2015

S

Syntallah

First Post

• Jan 14, 2015

• #5

Something I use in my standard Game might be of use. I let a Medicine check grant limited healing as follows:

- Medicine check [DC 15] simulates the rolling of a natural 20 on a death save (i.e. conscious at 1hp)
- Medicine check [DC 20] allows the expenditure of a healing die without the need for a Short rest

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2015

B

Blackbrrd

First Post

• Jan 14, 2015

• #6

Let characters spend a HD as an action. Remove the ability to spend HD from the short rests and keep them 1 hour long as before.

 

J

Joe Liker

First Post

• Jan 14, 2015

• #7

Seems to me, if you want a game without healers, all you have to do is remove the spells that restore hit points. Bards, druids, rangers, paladins, and even clerics can all function quite well without being able to heal. I think you'd be doing your players (and the genre) a disservice by removing entire classes when it's only a very small subset of spells you take issue with.

To me, the whole point of such a setting is that it is more dangerous and deadly than normal D&D, so I would hesitate to let everyone use Second Wind. Are you against healing potions? Because as long as you have those available, the Second Wind option is completely unnecessary. (It also gives the party something to spend money on!)

As for resting, a reasonably fast pace is also important. Instead of having shorter short rests, however, which would alter class balance too much for my taste, you could divorce the spending of Hit Dice from short rests. Just say it only takes 5 minutes of downtime to spend Hit Dice, but all other benefits of a short rest still require an hour. That way balance is preserved, but self-healing is not a huge burden.

 

P

Pickles JG

First Post

• Jan 14, 2015

• #8

Healing magic especially clerical healing magic is far more a feature of the DD genre than the Sword and Sorcery genre. I would not change the actual rules but might encourage the non magical healing feats.

 

T

Theovis

Explorer

• Jan 14, 2015

• #9

Joe Liker said:

Seems to me, if you want a game without healers, all you have to do is remove the spells that restore hit points. Bards, druids, rangers, paladins, and even clerics can all function quite well without being able to heal.

Click to expand...

There are a few class abilities that provide healing as well: usually self only, but sometimes others (Lay on Hands), so you'd also need to decide what to replace those with.