D&D 5E Healing

[Uller]

Is the 1st level version of healing word really nerfed? Correct me if I'm wrong:

Old healing word: 2d4+2
New healing word: 1d4+spell ability mod

Assuming a +3 mod at 1st lvl and a +4 at 4th it's really about the same. Once you have a 20 wisdom, it's a little better and cure wounds is only 1.5 hp weaker. Take the life domain and healing spells scale better. Spend a 3rd lvl slot and an action for 3d8+10 healing or just the spell slot for 3d4+10...I'd take thatif it meant giving the wizard a chance to survive long enough to cast his fireball spell...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

5e was, according to Mike Mearls in an L&L, and he's never modified the stance, being balanced around a specific day length (in encounters & rounds). It's workable, if the DM and players don't deviate from the prescribed schedule. Overnight healing is one of the things that keeps the game on that schedule. Making healing magic 'weaker' may well be intended as another - thus the 'waste' issue you mention.

Like I said, I'll need to see it in action. It's possible that everything, taken together, will balance out in such a way that the limited magical healing available will actually make a meaningful difference, enough to counter-balance the offensive disparity between a Cleric and a Barbarian.

I'm not terribly hopeful, though. It sounds like they haven't left much room for error. Prescribed schedules rarely hold in reality, (especially for any type of sandbox DM). It certainly seems like it will be another 4E situation, where everyone can heal themselves between encounters, and the Cleric might only be useful to bring people up from zero in the middle of combat.

I know that, personally, I'm going to have to tweak the natural healing rate to allow for attrition over the course of several weeks rather than giving everyone a free reset every night. I'm not sure what rules will be in place for that, or if it will be as simple as dialing up the length of short and long rests. The stronger the rely upon their base assumption, the less room there is to accommodate such tweaks, and those are supposed to be the most important part of this edition.

 

[Uller]

I'm not terribly hopeful, though. It sounds like they haven't left much room for error. Prescribed schedules rarely hold in reality, (especially for any type of sandbox DM). It certainly seems like it will be another 4E situation, where everyone can heal themselves between encounters, and the Cleric might only be useful to bring people up from zero in the middle of combat.

Our party is 8th lvl. Our cleric has the best AC, the second highest hp and with divine favor or divine power plus divine strike he does very nice damage. Yes...he pretty much only heals in combat if characters are at or near zero unless he sees he might be able to prevent a character from going down to help ensure he or she gets to act. But that is an interesting tactical choice I think...

Also...you probably don't want to assume short rests happen all that often. So far in our game they occur once or twice per day.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Like I said, I'll need to see it in action. It's possible that everything, taken together, will balance out in such a way that the limited magical healing available will actually make a meaningful difference, enough to counter-balance the offensive disparity between a Cleric and a Barbarian.

I doubt healing spells are meant to balance the Cleric in that sense. If anything, the 'healing burden' helps balance all the other stuff Clerics get relative to other casters (heavy armor, divine domains, channel divinity, d8 HD, decent weapons, etc) on top of getting all spells known automatically and having just as many slots, because healing eats into those slots to benefit other characters.

I'm not terribly hopeful, though. It sounds like they haven't left much room for error. Prescribed schedules rarely hold in reality, (especially for any type of sandbox DM). It certainly seems like it will be another 4E situation, where everyone can heal themselves between encounters, and the Cleric might only be useful to bring people up from zero in the middle of combat.

I agree we can't say how it'll play out with regard to pacing incentives, atm. While I can see how HD & overnight healing are going to help encourage the party to take a short rest each day, and not wait too long between long rests, I'm not sure I see what (beyond DM intervention or player restraint) is going to prevent the dreaded 5MWD.

And, again, the Cleric in 5e has far too many spells, other class abilities, and even melee to fall back upon, to be 'only' useful as an in-combat healer - and the Cleric in 4e had plenty to do buffing and contributing directly, that (minor action) healing was hardly his 'only' function. You'd have to go back to AD&D to find a 'healbot' cleric.

I know that, personally, I'm going to have to tweak the natural healing rate to allow for attrition over the course of several weeks rather than giving everyone a free reset every night. I'm not sure what rules will be in place for that, or if it will be as simple as dialing up the length of short and long rests. The stronger the rely upon their base assumption, the less room there is to accommodate such tweaks, and those are supposed to be the most important part of this edition.

It's a save assumption that the DMG will have some sort of guidance. If it's about /pacing/ - if, for instance, it advises you to change the definition of short or long rest (short rests are 8 uninterrupted hours, maybe - long ones days of R&R in a safe/friendly environment, perhaps), then you follow that advice and get a slower-paced campaign where a day's worth of encounters can be spread over a week and things work out reasonably well. If it advises you to do that /just/ by changing the rate of natural healing (X hps/1 HD/whatever per long rest or something), then following that advice could seriously impact class- and encounter- balance, as rest-recharge abilities become much more available.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And, again, the Cleric in 5e has far too many spells, other class abilities, and even melee to fall back upon, to be 'only' useful as an in-combat healer - and the Cleric in 4e had plenty to do buffing and contributing directly, that (minor action) healing was hardly his 'only' function. You'd have to go back to AD&D to find a 'healbot' cleric.

You could also do a healbot fairly well, in 3E and 3.5, if you wanted to. Even if you didn't want to, you could just be a second-rate fighter, comfortable in the fact that your out-of-combat healing ability would balance your less-than-stellar combat efficiency.

One thing that 4E was really bad about was providing that in-combat healer experience, though, for people who liked running around and deciding who to heal each round, and for how much.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You could also do a healbot fairly well, in 3E and 3.5, if you wanted to.

Sure, you /could/. You could also be CoDzilla - you could pretty nearly decide which you wanted to be from one day to the next, unless you went full-on Pacifist from BoED.

Even if you didn't want to, you could just be a second-rate fighter, comfortable in the fact that your out-of-combat healing ability would balance your less-than-stellar combat efficiency.

If your out-of-combat healing ability involved the Craft Wand feat, I suppose. But you could do that and be a CoDzilla, as well.

The Cleric in 3.x was solidly tier 1, no question about it, and didn't have to prep any healing spells to stay there.

One thing that 4E was really bad about was providing that in-combat healer experience, though, for people who liked running around and deciding who to heal each round, and for how much.

If you'd hung on for even one year, you'd've seen the Cleric pacifist healer build, which was very much that. While no other class went that far overboard, you could get quite a lot of healing, in a variety of flavors and possible approaches, with other leader classes if you wanted to.