How should D&D handle healing?

[Minigiant]

That's probably about the closest fit to my preferences as well, though I'd not be much in favor of full healing in just one day without the application of magic. I like second wind style mechanics in a limited capacity. They should be fairly dramatic.

The 4e subsystem's worst aspect, in my opinion, was limiting the amount of healing you could receive in one day and driving substantial numbers of externally provided healing effects on the character's own internal healing surges. Either it's internal or external - don't mix the two.

I'm a fan of Second Wind being ~25% of Max HP once a day and a night's rest healing about the same. This way if you do both you heal ~50% your HP. So after 2-4 days you'll have all your HP and still have a Second wind to use.

This all being separate from magical healing which runs on the caster's resources and item healing which runs on the item's uses.

The issue is D&D doesn't do percentage healing so you'd need a "surge value", "rest value", or something.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm a fan of Second Wind being ~25% of Max HP once a day and a night's rest healing about the same. This way if you do both you heal ~50% your HP. So after 2-4 days you'll have all your HP and still have a Second wind to use.

This all being separate from magical healing which runs on the caster's resources and item healing which runs on the item's uses.

The issue is D&D doesn't do percentage healing so you'd need a "surge value", "rest value", or something.

that sounds great but can't we do something with the HD idea there... 1st level fighter can second wind for a d10 a 5th level fighter can second wind for 5d10 or 5 times for 1d10 per time... a nights rest regains 5d10..

 

[Kinak]

Whats the problem with that? In a class based system party composition affects a lot of things, why not also healing times?

The short answer is "I just really don't like it flipping back and forth based on party composition."

It's fine if there's no point of comparison, generally, but party composition isn't static and the passage of in-world time is a major factor in a lot of my campaigns.

So if the party has to complete the quests, get up to 15th level, and save the world from a looming threat, the party with the healer might be at it for a couple months. The party without the healer could be at it for over a year.

Neither of those is a problem by itself. But if the party gains or loses a healer, the timeline is suddenly either impossible or trivial. You can always fake it and change the timeline, but I'd rather my worlds' consistency not depend on whether the party has a healer at any given moment.

A similar thing happens in published scenarios, which either have to assume a healer, assume no healer, have everything happen between rests, fake it, or just leave time out as a factor. Most of them go for one of the last two, to the detriment of drama and the encouragement of the five minute work day.

And, personally, even if the party composition never changes, I'm going to keep the time pressure on regardless. So the party's with healers just face faster-moving threats, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[jodyjohnson]

I'm going to mix the 2 main styles and use HP where for some creatures it is all meat, most are half meat/half stamina-luck-morale and for PCs (NPCs) and some monsters it is all stamina-luck-morale until down to -1hp when it is meat.

Meat is 1e healing, and stamina-luck-morale is 4e healing.

A feat or class ability let's characters keep fighting after they take meat damage.

 

[Derren]

isn't beign weak and beat then taking a second to come back strong a going troup of adventurers?

Because I don't like this ping pong "I am dieing, oh wait I am not" without outside influence.
Temporary HP? Maybe. But not healing.

 

[Minigiant]

Because I don't like this ping pong "I am dieing, oh wait I am not" without outside influence.
Temporary HP? Maybe. But not healing.

I believe the whole problem for many is the drop under 0 HP.

I have no problem with anything healing if you are at 1HP or more. I don't think many do either.
But once you go under 0, it's magic or doctors to go back to positive.

 

[Jester David]

I think natural healing should be mid-fast, not overnight but not 1hp per day. There can be a few alternate ways of recovering hp in the middle of a dungeon (potions and spells) but I don't think there should be a focus on in-combat healing.

It's unsatisfying for someone to be forced to play the cleric. But being forced to play any other healer is equally annoying.
Having a cleric should be a bonus. Spreading healing out to other classes just mandates having a healer. But if you don't assume combat healing, then having a cleric is a great perk that people are happy to have. This also means clerics are less pressured to always heal, as mid-combat healing is unexpected.

 

[Ratskinner]

I wanted to reply before I got too far into reading others' replies, so perhaps this might echo what some others have said.

The thing I really really want out of healing and damage would be narrative or in-fiction consistency. Old-school HP, when combined with the names of the healing spells and other healing mechanics, simply do not provide this. However, I'm not terribly committed to any particular method of addressing this: keep the basic HP mechanics, but change the way healing works, change the way HP are defined (e.g. non-meat except that last one), change the recovery periods, whatever. Heck, put any and all of those in rules modules. I'm just totally over the garbage output of the traditional HP, Schrodinger's wounds, and healing spells. Sacred cows can...do something mildly offensive and die.

 

[Li Shenron]

So my question, how would you like to see healing handled in D&D?

Truly, it should be left up to each gaming group to enable/disable (and then dial) healing options from (but not limited to) the following list:

- Cleric's spells
- healing potions
- night resting

This is the minimum that needs to be covered by the books. If a "default" is needed, it should include these. The default might also include something else, but the bottom line should always be "each group for himself", and the game should still work fine when a group changes the default.

 

[Razjah]

I prefer having a system where some damage to the character can be shrugged off. If the is a wound system with HP or something like FATE with stress and consequences. I want serious injuries to have an effect on the characters and be harder to heal.

If HP is just cuts, scrapes, bruises, and fatigue, then everyone should be able to shrug that off relatively easily. But Wounds require treatment. Magical treatment should be best, but a heal skill, herbs, or something should also be an option. But I don't really want combat healing, even as an option- everyone will want a cleric in their group and it can easily lock the cleric into a support role. That is not something I want to see happen.