D&D 5E On the healing options in the 5e DMG

[MoonSong]

You havent explained why a healer is, in this respect, any different from an archer, an illusionist, a diviner, etc.

If the group doesn't have a healer then that player will be playing a different PC; and it is the contribution made by that different PC (eg in dealing more damage, devliering more battlefield control, etc) that will obviate the need for a healer. My 4e group doesn't have a full-time healer: there is a hybrid cleric (one Healng Word per encounter, compared to the 3 per encounter that a full healer would have), a paladin with 5 lay on hands per day, and a dwarf. But they cope fine with encounters of up to level +5 or 6, because they have other capabilities to bring to bear (eg three controllers via an invoker, a polearm fighter and a control-focused sorcerer).

I don't see why you think the healer role is unique in having to be indispensible to be useful.

As I view it, the healer is entirely party oriented and (in pure form) completely party reliant. All others roles can eventually win fights on their own -ok maybe a pure illusionist won't- if needed, a pure healer (even if supplemented to be buffer too) can't do so, all others can hopefully defeat an enemy, a pure healer at most can stave off death and stay alive but nothing else. By this nature a pure healer needs the party to win fights, and becomes a load if not useful enough. Now the problem is that the line between useful and necessary is thin, and entirely subjective. Ones very useful is another's mandatory. (I consider 5e has no need for a dedicated healer, but a healer is fairly useful, however see how CappnZap holds that the healer is still mandatory)

Your example form 4e is spot on, that is the edition which truly makes healing non-mandatory, but it features no pure healers, nor pure healing/buffing, most of it being tied to riders upon attacking. However much you tell me how useful A healer can be in 4e, I cannot help but feel it is superfluous for the most part, with the edition too geared towards all damage all time.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't think this is quite right, though. In AD&D and B/X monstes tend to have weaker ACs than PCs; tend to have fewer hit points than PCs (eg fighters have d10 hp and CON bonuses); and tend to have less access to spells and magic items (spike damage, control effects, etc) than PCs.

In my experience with Basic and AD&D, it's not much of a simplification that Con bonuses and Dex bonuses weren't factored into monster stats, because it was fairly unlikely that any PC would have such either. The suggested character-gen method was 3d6 down the line, and you needed a significantly high roll before anything started giving you a bonus, and the game honestly didn't care if you were a fighter with only 1 HP.

 

[Emerikol]

Rapid non-magical healing isn't the default. Not sure why you think that. The only rapid non-magical healing in the game is second wind. Everything else requires an action and is magical in some form.

If you take the Healer Feat you can use the Healer's Kit to heal someone in a non-magical way. It works once between rests.

Not sure where you're getting your info from. That isn't the case.

What is happening in your mind when you use your hit dice to recover? You can use them any short rest you feel like. The healing can be substantial. No magic is going on?

Also in response to the other response to your post....who said anything about the feasibility of fixing it? What does that have to do with anything I said? My question is why they would force the default rules to require non-magical healing if at the same time the game still requires a cleric (or equivalent healer) by default. To me the whole point of including all this extra non-magical healing was to eliminate the dependency upon healing classes and healing magic items. If that goal is not met then why even do it?

 

[Joe Liker]

If, as a healer, someone can't have any fun unless their role is mandatory (meaning the other players cannot have fun without them), they are probably kind of a passive-aggressive jerk, and I don't care about making the game fun for them.

I've been in plenty of parties that got by without a wizard or a rogue, but that doesn't make those classes underpowered or useless. It doesn't even mean we wouldn't have been glad to have a character of the missing class join the group. On the contrary, we would have welcomed them because they would have made adventuring easier or safer in some way. Why is it so important to some people that the healing role be on a pedestal? As it stands, 5e does a great job of supplying characters with enough self-healing options that they can get by without a dedicated healer. That doesn't mean the healer is useless.

A party with a healer can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a rogue or ranger can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a nonhealing bard, cleric, or druid can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a sorcerer, warlock or wizard can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a barbarian, fighter, or paladin can do some things that would be much harder without one.

No party is going to have every one of these bases covered in full, yet they somehow find a way to get by. That's part of the beauty of the game. If you enjoy filling a certain role, just do your damn job and enjoy it. It's not that complicated. If what you actually enjoy is lording your abilities over the other players and delighting in their inability to function without you, I'm frankly glad 5e is not fun for you.

 

[MoonSong]

If, as a healer, someone can't have any fun unless their role is mandatory (meaning the other players cannot have fun without them), they are probably kind of a passive-aggressive jerk, and I don't care about making the game fun for them.

I've been in plenty of parties that got by without a wizard or a rogue, but that doesn't make those classes underpowered or useless. It doesn't even mean we wouldn't have been glad to have a character of the missing class join the group. On the contrary, we would have welcomed them because they would have made adventuring easier or safer in some way. Why is it so important to some people that the healing role be on a pedestal? As it stands, 5e does a great job of supplying characters with enough self-healing options that they can get by without a dedicated healer. That doesn't mean the healer is useless.

A party with a healer can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a rogue or ranger can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a nonhealing bard, cleric, or druid can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a sorcerer, warlock or wizard can do some things that would be much harder without one.

A party with a barbarian, fighter, or paladin can do some things that would be much harder without one.

No party is going to have every one of these bases covered in full, yet they somehow find a way to get by. That's part of the beauty of the game. If you enjoy filling a certain role, just do your damn job and enjoy it. It's not that complicated. If what you actually enjoy is lording your abilities over the other players and delighting in their inability to function without you, I'm frankly glad 5e is not fun for you.

But it's not about that, it's about feeling useful and needed, to feel you are contributing, that no matter how much you suck at fighting, you are still helping the others. That your fun isn't costing the others at the table their fun, that when you decide to just buff and heal you are making things better for them instead of just wasting their time and getting them more hurt, not feeling as if you aren't pulling your weight and are instead a load to the others. That is what I mean when I say needed, to be useful enough that the others will cover for you instead of demanding you just add more damage to the pool, and that the others won't object to you joining them because you are making things worse for them with your sole presence.

Like I said, the difference between the healer role and the others is needing the others in the party to achieve anything. But if the party needs you less than you need them, then you aren't contributing, you are a load, you are leeching of their success and the less polite members of the party won't let you forget it until you build a killing cleric with enough DPS that still keeps them healed or give up and leave the game for another edition where you are more welcome.

 

[pemerton]

In my experience with Basic and AD&D, it's not much of a simplification that Con bonuses and Dex bonuses weren't factored into monster stats, because it was fairly unlikely that any PC would have such either. The suggested character-gen method was 3d6 down the line

That's not true for AD&D. Gygax,, in his DMG, says (p 11) that

it is important to allow participants to generate a viable character of the race and profession which he or she desires. While it is possible to generate some fairly playable characters by rolling 3d6, there is often an extended period of attempts at finding a suitable one due to quirks of the dice. Furthermore, these rather marginal characters tend to have short life expectancy . . . t is recommended that the folllowing systems be used . . .

Method I [4d6, drop lowest, arrange] . . .

Method II [3d6, 12 times, keep best 6, arrange] . . .

Method III [Roll 3d6 6 6imes for each score and keep the highest in each score]

Method IV [Generate 12 characters via 3d6 in order for eeach, keep the one yoy want]​

These methods will give a reasonable number of CON and/or DEX scores above 14.

In B/X, CON or DEX bonuses are gained at scores of 13+, which will be relatively common even rolling 3d6 straight.

 

[pemerton]

the healer is entirely party oriented and (in pure form) completely party reliant. All others roles can eventually win fights on their own -ok maybe a pure illusionist won't- if needed, a pure healer (even if supplemented to be buffer too) can't do so, all others can hopefully defeat an enemy, a pure healer at most can stave off death and stay alive but nothing else.

it's about feeling useful and needed, to feel you are contributing, that no matter how much you suck at fighting, you are still helping the others.

I still don't understand how any of this relates to the healer being mandatory.

If the healer spends an action keeping the fighter alive, that helps the fighter do his/her fightery thing. If, instead, the player of the healer was playing an archer then the fighter woud do less fightery stuff (eg fall back, fight defensively etc) but the archer would be making up for the lost offensive capability.

Or, if the healer was uinstead an illusionist or an assassin, the fighter would take less damage overall because the PCs would attack via ambush rather than frontal assault, thereby taking out more NPCs/monsters before suffering retaliation. Etc.

I don't see why the healer is anything special here. (I also don't see why the healer can't win a fight by inflicting damage, at least in principle - like everyone else in D&D s/he has a base attack and a list of proficient weapons. S/he is not uniquely incapable in a fight.)

Your example form 4e is spot on, that is the edition which truly makes healing non-mandatory, but it features no pure healers, nor pure healing/buffing, most of it being tied to riders upon attacking. However much you tell me how useful A healer can be in 4e, I cannot help but feel it is superfluous for the most part, with the edition too geared towards all damage all time.

Honestly, to me this suggests a lack of familiarity with 4e. The invoker/wizard in my game does miniscule damage even allowing for the fact that quite a bit of it is AoE - at 28th level his typical AoE does one or two dice +14, compared to the sorcerer doing 2 to 4 dice +50-odd with his AoEs.

Yet the invoker contributes. He delivers control effects (he has the only AoE per-encounter blindness). He negats invis (via Clinging Radiance). He supports battlefield manouevrability (via various teleport and shift/slide options).

The fighter also does considerably less damage than the sorcerer or the ranger-cleric, but contributes via first-rate battlefield control.

Ultimate, healing is just another form of control - because like control it negates enemy actions via mitigating damage inflicted. The healer shoudn't need to be any more special than any other controller/debuffer.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's not true for AD&D.

It really depends on how generous the DM was in allowing stat methods, so YMMV by a significant amount.

In B/X, CON or DEX bonuses are gained at scores of 13+, which will be relatively common even rolling 3d6 straight.

It's still less than half of the time that you might get a +1 to Hit Points or AC, and even then you could still roll 1 or 2 for HP at first level.

Much of the advice in the early editions was for how a DM could run a fun game in spite of the limitations of the system. The game, itself, was perfectly willing to give you terrible stats and 1 Hit Point. If your DM wanted to give you above-average stats and max HP at first level (which was totally an option, even in Basic), then that's more a reflection on the DM than on the game.

 

[pemerton]

It really depends on how generous the DM was in allowing stat methods, so YMMV by a significant amount.
It's still less than half of the time that you might get a +1 to Hit Points or AC, and even then you could still roll 1 or 2 for HP at first level.

Much of the advice in the early editions was for how a DM could run a fun game in spite of the limitations of the system. The game, itself, was perfectly willing to give you terrible stats and 1 Hit Point. If your DM wanted to give you above-average stats and max HP at first level (which was totally an option, even in Basic), then that's more a reflection on the DM than on the game.

Moldvay Basic, p B6, says:

First level characters may easily be killed in battle. As an option, the DM may allow a player character to roll again if the player has rolled a 1 or 2 for the number of hit points at first level only.​

The same page also has a system (not labelled as option) for adjusting stats (on a 2-for-1 basis) to improve a PC's prime requisite.

I think the "game itself" was aware of the significance of stats and hit points to play, and had built-in options to smooth some of the rough edges.

 

[Hussar]

I don't think it is that easy, how could you design a game where healer wasn't needed but still useful and fun as a healer, but no so much it turns mandatory and thus a no win for groups that want no healer, but still fun enough for the healer player and in a way that doesn't steal fun from the party? <this is a rhetoric question>

One of the two options has to be baked to a certain extent or nobody really gets to have fun, without that choice adventure writing requires aiming for a narrow sweet spot, one that is entirely subjective. Even if it was successful, how long until such a narrow band becomes repetitive?.

I believe the designers erred for ease of play and the path of less resistance (the four role party). This is a no-win situation for the designers, catering to two contradictory demands is impossible, they had to decide or compromise as much as it was needed or useful. But those choices aren't really design flaws, they had to choose or we'd have an unplayable mess. (And, no I'm not really happy with the setup, I feel the healer role is already diluted in 5e with overnight healing and self healing)

Since when is "healer" a role? The history of the game never defaulted to that. Cleric's were much more than just "healers", or, at least, in AD&D they were. They were second to fighters in term of melee damage and, at higher levels, got some of the most destructive spells in the game. Wizards got nothing like Earthquake which could bring down small towns in a single spell.

Never minding the fact that there was a HUGE gap between 1st level and 4th level spells where you got no new healing spells at all. Sure, your 1st level slots were probably all cure light wounds (or at least mostly) but, 2nd and 3rd level spells were buff and whatnot spells. It wasn't until you hit 7th level before you got another healing spell at all.

Plus, in AD&D, you rarely, if ever, healed in combat. It just wasn't worth dumping a straight d8 HP on someone. The monsters did so little damage relative to PC HP and hit so rarely, that you generally, outside of about 1-3rd level, were rarely going to hit single digit HP in a given fight. There was no reason to heal in combat. It wasn't necessary. So, healing was almost universally out of combat, allowing the cleric to act as a front line fighter during combat. IOW, the cleric was rarely, if ever, giving up actions to heal.

Healing in combat is a 3e thing because the monsters hit so much more often and so much harder than their AD&D counterparts due to the idea of CR=4 PC's of a given level. A troll in AD&D maxes out at about 25 points of damage, if it hits every time. A 3e troll has twice the HP, a better AC and maxes out at over 50 points of damage if it hits 3 times. IOW, a 2e troll has to fight for 2 or 3 rounds before it can whittle a PC down to single HP. A 3e troll can flat out kill a 5th level PC in a single round.