Xeviat
Hero
This is an old topic, but the last thread was 14 pages and it went all over the place. I'm coming at it from a different angle here.
I'm really frustrated with the way Errata has worked in 5E. They've only been using it for clarification, not rebalancing. I suppose that makes it easier to run official events and such, but it does leave trap choices within the rules.
The Durable feat is both a trap choice and something that seriously needed clarification. Heck, even Mike Mearls waffled on it in the following twitter exchange: [FONT="]https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/495998443702456321
So, rather than looking at how the durable feat should be interpreted, why not look at what it should be to begin with? The durable feat, as is now, sucks. If you go with the generous interpretation of the feat, where the "roll" is the die roll itself before the modifiers are added to it, the feat is only good if you have a Con of 16+ and a 1d6 HD, or if you have a Con of 18+. I have charts, but I won't bore you. (If you go with the less generous "roll means total" interpretation that M.M. started with, and was then talked away from, it is never "good enough".
Where am I setting my baseline? Toughness is a feat that grants +2 hp per level. An ASI can grant +2 Con. Durable grants +1 Con and it's weirdly worded benefit. Thus, it's benefit is worth half the feat, and thus the benefit should be comparable to +1 hp per level.
Got it?
Hit dice recover at a rate of 1/2 level (min 1) per long rest. This means a character can only afford to spend half their hit dice per day to stay at full (or, after the first day of tapping hit dice out entirely, they can only recover half of them).
Thus, for Durable to be a fair feat, it should be increasing healing over the course of the day by +2 per hit dice (and thus +1 per level). It only does this for d6 HD with 16+ Con, or anyone with 18+ Con. It also benefits lower HD far more than higher HD, and I'm not sure too many feats out there give such a wide difference in effects (barring taking a feat that doesn't even synergize with your build).
This is on top of the fact that healing and max HP are going to be balanced differently. Max HP from Toughness benefits you in the first part of the day and means healing can top you up higher. Extra healing just means you'll be able to patch yourself up more.
At it's best, Durable offers +6.5 HP per HD for a d6 character with a 20 con. I don't see very many doing this. Maybe a dwarven sorcerer or mage since they can wear medium armor. a 20 con character with a d12 is gaining 3.8 hp per HD spent. That's a big difference.
I don't even want to compare it to what Healer would do if you only used it on yourself (oops, I did)
Healer heals 1d6+4+level and you can do it again after every short rest. This means it can get 3 uses per character on a "typical adventuring day". It automatically is healing 3*level, which is already better than Toughness, without getting into the 1d6+4 base (7.5, so healer at 1st level increases your daily HP by 25.5 ...)
Healer is an OP feat.
Anyway, how much healing should Durable really be granting? It's a half feat, so one could say it should be half a s good as Healer, but it should be a lot worse than Healer since Healer's effect is multiplied by the number of party members.
Okay now I'm getting on Healer's case. Healer heals up to 1d6+24 hp, average 27.5, with a min 25 and max 30. Cure Wounds from someone with a +5 stat heals 5+(1d8 per spell level). A 5th level cure wounds spell heals 5d8+5, average 27.5, with swingier mins and maxes. Why do I point at cure wounds? Because half of the Magic initiate feat gives you 1 1st level spell once per day ... and a 20th level character with the Healer feat is getting X times 3 of these 5th level spells per day, where X is equal to the number of people in their party. (I feel like Magic Initiate's level 1 spell should at least recover on a short rest, if not scale by level; new feats in Xanathar's give out a few short rest recovering spells or spell equivalents).
The healer feat's healing is equivalent to a cure spell at the following levels:
Cure 1st (9.5) - level 2
Cure 2nd (14) - level 6-7
Cure 3rd (18.5) - level 11
Cure 4th (23) - level 15-16
Cure 5th (27.5) - level 20
Like, really? I don't even know how to properly weaken the healer feat aside from rebuilding the healer's kits to cost more and to heal some on their own.
So, how would you change Durable? How much healing over the course of a day should a feat be giving?[/FONT]
I'm really frustrated with the way Errata has worked in 5E. They've only been using it for clarification, not rebalancing. I suppose that makes it easier to run official events and such, but it does leave trap choices within the rules.
The Durable feat is both a trap choice and something that seriously needed clarification. Heck, even Mike Mearls waffled on it in the following twitter exchange: [FONT="]https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/495998443702456321
So, rather than looking at how the durable feat should be interpreted, why not look at what it should be to begin with? The durable feat, as is now, sucks. If you go with the generous interpretation of the feat, where the "roll" is the die roll itself before the modifiers are added to it, the feat is only good if you have a Con of 16+ and a 1d6 HD, or if you have a Con of 18+. I have charts, but I won't bore you. (If you go with the less generous "roll means total" interpretation that M.M. started with, and was then talked away from, it is never "good enough".
Where am I setting my baseline? Toughness is a feat that grants +2 hp per level. An ASI can grant +2 Con. Durable grants +1 Con and it's weirdly worded benefit. Thus, it's benefit is worth half the feat, and thus the benefit should be comparable to +1 hp per level.
Got it?
Hit dice recover at a rate of 1/2 level (min 1) per long rest. This means a character can only afford to spend half their hit dice per day to stay at full (or, after the first day of tapping hit dice out entirely, they can only recover half of them).
Thus, for Durable to be a fair feat, it should be increasing healing over the course of the day by +2 per hit dice (and thus +1 per level). It only does this for d6 HD with 16+ Con, or anyone with 18+ Con. It also benefits lower HD far more than higher HD, and I'm not sure too many feats out there give such a wide difference in effects (barring taking a feat that doesn't even synergize with your build).
This is on top of the fact that healing and max HP are going to be balanced differently. Max HP from Toughness benefits you in the first part of the day and means healing can top you up higher. Extra healing just means you'll be able to patch yourself up more.
At it's best, Durable offers +6.5 HP per HD for a d6 character with a 20 con. I don't see very many doing this. Maybe a dwarven sorcerer or mage since they can wear medium armor. a 20 con character with a d12 is gaining 3.8 hp per HD spent. That's a big difference.
I don't even want to compare it to what Healer would do if you only used it on yourself (oops, I did)
Healer heals 1d6+4+level and you can do it again after every short rest. This means it can get 3 uses per character on a "typical adventuring day". It automatically is healing 3*level, which is already better than Toughness, without getting into the 1d6+4 base (7.5, so healer at 1st level increases your daily HP by 25.5 ...)
Healer is an OP feat.
Anyway, how much healing should Durable really be granting? It's a half feat, so one could say it should be half a s good as Healer, but it should be a lot worse than Healer since Healer's effect is multiplied by the number of party members.
Okay now I'm getting on Healer's case. Healer heals up to 1d6+24 hp, average 27.5, with a min 25 and max 30. Cure Wounds from someone with a +5 stat heals 5+(1d8 per spell level). A 5th level cure wounds spell heals 5d8+5, average 27.5, with swingier mins and maxes. Why do I point at cure wounds? Because half of the Magic initiate feat gives you 1 1st level spell once per day ... and a 20th level character with the Healer feat is getting X times 3 of these 5th level spells per day, where X is equal to the number of people in their party. (I feel like Magic Initiate's level 1 spell should at least recover on a short rest, if not scale by level; new feats in Xanathar's give out a few short rest recovering spells or spell equivalents).
The healer feat's healing is equivalent to a cure spell at the following levels:
Cure 1st (9.5) - level 2
Cure 2nd (14) - level 6-7
Cure 3rd (18.5) - level 11
Cure 4th (23) - level 15-16
Cure 5th (27.5) - level 20
Like, really? I don't even know how to properly weaken the healer feat aside from rebuilding the healer's kits to cost more and to heal some on their own.
So, how would you change Durable? How much healing over the course of a day should a feat be giving?[/FONT]
