How dangerous/unbalanced would it be to give a monster the Healer feat? Considering the wild disparity between PCs that get 1 HD per level and monsters that get however many HD they need to reach the desired HP range, it seems like the "plus additional hit points equal to the creature's maximum number of Hit Dice" portion would make things interesting. Has anyone used the Healer feat on an allied NPC?
D&D 5E Healer Monsters
Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
Don't bother giving feats to monsters, they are designed for PC's to use, and thus have a totally different set of expectations and mechanics to balance them. If you want a monster to heal, just give it power that heals as an action. If you want it to do more damage with a sword, just give it +x damage on attacks. Then recalculate it's CR with the DMG as appropriate.
That said:
Giving 1d6+37 hp to the Tarrasque is basically wasting a turn.
However, stabilizing with 1 hp means that your entire party is going to rage IRL and will coup-de-grace everything for the rest of the campaign.
That said:
Giving 1d6+37 hp to the Tarrasque is basically wasting a turn.
However, stabilizing with 1 hp means that your entire party is going to rage IRL and will coup-de-grace everything for the rest of the campaign.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Its genuinely rad how different two peoples experience of dnd can be.
In my game, unless the PCs tell me that they aren’t showing any mercy, enemies make death saves, and a 20 means 1hp. As well, they heal each other, and sometimes have magic items or feats that do things like the Healer feat or heal them the first time they hit 0hp but aren’t killed outright.
They don’t spend attacks killing the wounded, because things are either going well enough that they are likely to obtain surrender, or badly enough that their actions are better spent knocking the next guy down.
As for feats, I sometimes give NPCs feats. Magic Items also almost always come off a fallen foe, not in a chest. It’s fun, and adds depth to the combat scenario.
Horwath
Legend
We play that way also.
And if not pressed with time after a fight, we generally stab every monster for "just in case" if we do not stabilize them for interrogation...and then stab them after.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
We don’t do the post-combat stabs much, but otherwise same.
