ZombieRoboNinja
First Post
I think hit dice actually work fine right now, since you only have a handful per day. I just want some way to use them without having to spend an action (standard action by 3e/PF/4e parlance).
Apparently some people are Very Upset by the idea of nonmagical healing, but this would still be a good idea for a feat that they can just ignore.
Survivor: As a reaction after taking damage, you may instantly expend one or more Hit Dice to heal as if you were using a healer's kit during a short rest. You do not use a healer's kit to restore hp this way.
Or maybe magical in-combat healing just needs to be strong; I spend 1 action and you spend your hit dice, and we undo 2 or 3 actions worth of monsters-dealing-damage. We get ahead in the action economy by using up a different resource.
I think this is what they're trying for: Cure Moderate Wounds with the Healer specialty heals - what - 36 hp? at level 5, which is a full heal for most level 5 characters. Meanwhile, a war-domain cleric can attack and heal with Channel Divinity for 2d8.
The trick is that this tradeoff between using a full action for a big heal versus using only part of your action so that you can attack and use a small heal in the same turn is pretty complex in the current playtest, because the Cure X Wounds spells come from a separate resource pool than the Channel Divinity heals.
So once again, I would recommend dropping the whole "channel divinity" thing, letting clerics have Cure spells auto-prepped like they do Turn Undead, and give them a few more spells/day to make up the difference. Simpler resource management and easier options all around. Of course, we're right back in the 3e model where clerics have to spend most of their daily resources on heals, but the current playtest works out that way anyhow.