D&D 5E Durable Feat is weak, Healer feat is too strong

Fenris-77 · Jun 15, 2019

Errata is a part of complex tabletop games. WoTC is pretty freakin' brilliant at releasing mostly functional product compared to some other popular game publishers *cough*Games Workshop*cough*. Play testing is great, and it catches lots of stuff, but it doesn't catch everything, it's the nature of the process. The system doesn't really get stress tested until it hits the general public and the min-max fairies and language nazis get at it, folks who do such a wonderful job (no sarcasm) finding loopholes, RAW issues, and other assorted weirdness.

IMO, the game as written is perfectly functional. Not perfectly balanced maybe, nor perfect period (hah), but perfectly functional. D&D is a game played in a lot of ways, for a lot of different reasons, by a lot of different folks. Good as it might be, it can't be everything to everyone, and for those folks for whom it isn't doing X, Y, or Z, there are house rulings and outright hacks. I don't think that's a bad thing, nor a failing of the published rules.

Garthanos · Jun 15, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
If it's less than 100*, I'd say it's an improvement. ;P

When you have 3,724 feats

Tony Vargas said:
* Yeah, I know.

Still using Trumpish math is not impressive.

ad_hoc · Jun 15, 2019

In a game with Healing Potions on the common item list I think Healer is just fine.

Inspiring Leader is much better than it too.

Healer does shine on a Thief Rogue though.

Xeviat · Jun 15, 2019

ad_hoc said:
In a game with Healing Potions on the common item list I think Healer is just fine.

Inspiring Leader is much better than it too.

Healer does shine on a Thief Rogue though.

My thinking is that a party with Healer (Heck, a party with Inspiring Leader too) plays so much differently than a party without it (them), that it makes me wonder about the groups that playtested the 6 to 8 encounters a day. Healer (and Inspiring Leader) adds so much to the day's endurance.

That's why I want to "balance" healer by adding basic healing to the healer's kit and then having the Healer feat improve that. I could also limit it to once per long rest and be done with it, it would be a little more balanced then.

TwoSix · Jun 15, 2019

It's a lot harder to care about the Healer feat in a game that has the Healing Spirit spell in it.

Xeviat · Jun 15, 2019

TwoSix said:
It's a lot harder to care about the Healer feat in a game that has the Healing Spirit spell in it.

I can care about two things at the same time. LOL.

I'm starting to think the game really exects us to heal up to full with each short rest. LOL.

Hawk Diesel · Jun 15, 2019

I have revised Durable as follows:

Durable
Hardy and resilient, you gain the following benefits:
• Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• When you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, you add your proficiency bonus to the total of each roll.
• When you complete a long rest, you regain a number of additional hit dice equal to your proficiency bonus.

Xeviat · Jun 15, 2019

Hawk Diesel said:
I have revised Durable as follows:

Durable
Hardy and resilient, you gain the following benefits:
• Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• When you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, you add your proficiency bonus to the total of each roll.
• When you complete a long rest, you regain a number of additional hit dice equal to your proficiency bonus.

That certainly makes it better, but I fear it makes it too good, what with the scaling. It's already scaling per HD, I don't think it needs to scale with proficiency too. And you might as well just have it regain all HD on a long rest at that point, because it's almost there.

Ristamar · Jun 15, 2019

Xeviat said:
I'm starting to think the game really exects us to heal up to full with each short rest. LOL.

I don't know if you're joking, but that's actually one of the aspects of 5e some people struggle to embrace, so they continue to be frustrated that the game isn't performing to their expectations. I'm fairly certain some of the designers have directly stated or heavily implied that you're expected to go into most fights at or near full HP.

A character's total hit points aren't meant to be a point of extended attrition in this edition (though the resources that replenish them may be).

Xeviat · Jun 15, 2019

I'm liking the earlier idea about merging it with Toughness. I'm thinking of having it be:

Durable
*Increase your hit points by +2/level, and gain 2 additional HP per level there after.
*When you spend a HD to heal, increase the amount healed for each hit die by 2.

This way, it is truly half of +2 con, doubled.