Hit Dice instead of d8's on cure wounds spells

[Michael Morris]

A house rule I've been running in Pathfinder is instead of using d8's, use a die of the target's favored class (The one with the most levels). So cure serious wounds on a barbarian is 3d12+caster level. The rule does shaft the classes with d6's a bit, but taking their power down a notch doesn't bother me too much. I'm thinking of keeping this around for 5e

Thoughts?

 

[Viking Bastard]

I like it at first glance, although I'm sure someone will chime in with the obvious drawback that's escaping me.

While I don't really miss healing surges that much from 4e, I do miss the "surge value".

 

[the Jester]

That's actually a very cool idea. How would you handle multiclassed characters? (Would a barb 1/wizard 10 get to roll 3d12 on that cure serious wounds?)

 

[Michael Morris]

That's actually a very cool idea. How would you handle multiclassed characters? (Would a barb 1/wizard 10 get to roll 3d12 on that cure serious wounds?)

Use the die of the favored class - the one with the most levels.

 

[GMMichael]

Do your characters also take damage based on their hit dice?

If not, then yes, the d6 characters are getting the proverbial "shaft."

How will it work in 5E? Well as far as I know about 5E, hit points are one of the few areas to still grow astronomically. So again, d6 characters (any d4s out there?) are getting the "shaft." This is all coming from my rules-lawyer friend who's very good. And thorough.

 

[Michael Morris]

Do your characters also take damage based on their hit dice?

Of course not.

If not, then yes, the d6 characters are getting the proverbial "shaft."

Are they really getting the shaft? See below...

How will it work in 5E? Well as far as I know about 5E, hit points are one of the few areas to still grow astronomically. So again, d6 characters (any d4s out there?) are getting the "shaft." This is all coming from my rules-lawyer friend who's very good. And thorough.

Not thorough enough. I've used this awhile now and this is what I've noted about the change.

First, the logic is that cure spells should heal proportionately the same amount to characters regardless of who they are. The inspiration for the mechanic comes from, of all places, Team Fortress 2, where healing packs grant 25%, 50% and 100% of health respectively, regardless of class (class hp are locked).

As to how hard the shaft is, consider who it really affects - the caster. Let's be honest the player of the squishy class is going to whine until enough spells are cast to restore his hp fully. So does everyone else. Shifting down 1 die step means, on average, 1 less point of healing per die is applied - that isn't huge. It comes out to 3 points less effect on average with a cure serious wounds, meaning a cure light followup will be in order.

On the other side of the coin, the spell picks up 1 or 2 points average oomph per die on the high hit point classes, meaning less spells are needed to cure them. Under normal circumstances, they have to be healed more often anyway, so in the long run the party healer has to devote fewer spells to curing.

In that light calling this change a "shaft" is highly myopic and biased. For the party as a whole it actually slightly increases the mileage of the healing spells. So the wizard will sometimes require the cleric to cast an extra cure light wounds to make up for the difference? So what??

 

[tomBitonti]

Except in combat, where the reduced healing would tend to keep casters out of the fight longer.

Also, any bonus mechanics (like the +1 / Caster Level for cure spells from 3E), as well as fixed healing amounts (lay on hands) aren't similarly scaled. Or, if there is an ability which is not dice based but which heals a fixed amount based on the caster level (say, that gives fast healing for X + 1/CL rounds, or which heals X points per caster level).

The idea seems good, but there seem to be a lot of mechanics which should also be adjusted to put the idea consistently through the game mechanics.

Thx!

TomB

 

[GMMichael]

The rule does shaft the classes with d6's a bit,

In that light calling this change a "shaft" is highly myopic and biased. For the party as a whole it actually slightly increases the mileage of the healing spells. So the wizard will sometimes require the cleric to cast an extra cure light wounds to make up for the difference? So what??

Welcome to the club.

Do we want to be objective or subjective here?
Objectively, tanks have more hit points than casters, so hit points matter less to tanks. Supply and demand, after all. A tank will be happy to get a d6, d8, or d10 healing spell equally. Ooops, "cure" spell. A caster holds HP a little more dear, so a d6 cure spell is likely to be an insult.

Subjectively, a monster's damage output doesn't change, so casters aren't likely to care that a healing spell is giving them a proportionate amount of health back; they'll want something proportionate to the amount of bear claw that they just took to the face.

But you might have found the crux of the discussion; it's a one or two HP difference. Or three. Who cares?

 

[Tovec]

That's actually a very cool idea. How would you handle multiclassed characters? (Would a barb 1/wizard 10 get to roll 3d12 on that cure serious wounds?)

There are a couple of solutions.

A. Assuming the barb 1 is first level, they could heal 1d12+2d(4/6)s. If it had been wiz 10, barb 1 - that would be 3d(4/6). If it had been wiz 1, barb 1, wiz 2-10; then 1d(4/6)+1d12+1d(4/6). A bit silly but might work.

B. What I did in my homebrew system is class HD, but most levels in a class decides what that is - so a barb1,wiz10 has a wiz HD so 3d(4/6)s.

C. Gestalt the HD - class with the highest HD is the HD you have - so yes 3d12.

D. HD is whatever you took at first level. 3d12 if barbarian at first. 3d(4/6) if wizard at first.

E. HD is whatever you took last. 3d12 if barbarian latest.


I do like this idea. In my system I also added +CON instead of +level. Then again I played around with the entire equation so I don't think it really matters. Yes it will be more HP but if you have a d12 you already have a larger pool so you probably need it, so a barb 1, wiz 10 might then have a reason to exist in order to pick up d12s for healing (per the C,D,E options).

Shouldn't mess things around too much. Makes me wonder why WotC never actually tried this in 3.5, or paizo for Pathfinder. I guess in theory it is supposed to be fixed like fireballs are always d6s, but that doesn't account for martial classes having more HP and a harder time recovering them.