D&D 5E Bouncing heroes and healing tweaks

[Barolo]

You know that DM that likes their game to be one which hero death matters? Who feels like the game should seem deadly on the perspective of the adventures so to keep them on their toes? Who takes from their hat add-ons to resurrection and raise dead spells that effectively make them once-in-a-campaign events that require quests that could even take more lives than save, so to restrict any magical resurrection to people that are really, really, (really?) praised and cherished, so as to someone be willing to save their own life to try to save that other person? Who does not shy away from employing save-or-die (or better, choose-wisely-or-die) scenarios, as long as they are well telegraphed to the players so to avoid gotchas. Well, I am one of those damn DMs.

Something that has been happening for a while (it is not a 5e specific issue), and that bothers me is the recklessness displayed by some players regarding other adventurers in the party. I have players that simply refuse, at any cost, to spend one turn or a higher level resource to rescue a comrade in bad conditions during a melee. I find it more annoying that by entitling themselves to be complete arses, they even manage to complicate some encounters, by not preemptively acting to protect one another, followed by a dropped ally, who subsequently loses their action and is one less threat for the enemies.

This usually seems to happen for two (or three) reasons that I could observe:

1. Using an action now to prevent an ally from dropping is perceived as a weaker strategy as acting before the fact to prevent the drop and the ally's losing an action.
2. Healing a fallen ally is cheaper, as any leftover damage does not get accounted for.
3. When the fight is too close to the end, it seem better just to try for a finishing blow and them rescue any fallen comrades.

While I generally agree with the third bullet myself (even though I find it somewhat reckless in some circumstances), the first bullet really annoys me. It has over and again being detrimental to the party tactics, but selfishness usually takes over and they never learn the lesson, even when adventurers start dying as a result of a battle becoming tougher.

The second bullet is a result of the specific way health is abstracted in 5e (as in previous editions, and with the house-rules my table used, all lost HPs had to be accounted), and I find it even more annoying, as it effectively introduces the "bouncing heroes" effect.

To address these issues (mostly the first and second bullets), I could go full "evil" and just start using actions from the baddies to terminate fallen heroes as soon as these baddies notice the healing capabilities of the party. But, on the other hand, sometimes I feel like I am even more of an arse than my usual self by doing this. This "solution" has, though a subjective advantage of not needing any rules tweak.

Then I thought about a second option. What if every time someone gets dropped, they will take at least some minutes to be able to recover consciousness? If someone hits 0 HPs during combat, they can be stabilized, or even healed by cure wounds or whatever, but they do not simply come back to fight as if nothing had happened, after having their HPs restored to values bigger than zero.

I feel like this option would add some interesting twists to the game dynamics, the party should start to feel more pressed to hold everybody up, as if someone drops, that ally will be out of action until that combat ends. It also enables some nice action scenes, with someone stabilized being carried by their allies in a retreat. Also, allowing an ally that dropped to be defenseless in the middle of the brawl might look very dangerous, as that ally will not be easily recoverable. I know it could potentially let Jimmy very bored as his selfless chevalier PC got down in the beginning of the combat trying to protect that frail spellcaster ally, but I think most of the time the party would go to extra pains to avoid this from happening as it would be very detrimental for the whole group.

But, you know, I can be overlooking some obvious detrimental consequences, so I am looking forward for some input from the community. What do you think? Do anybody have another option that could address these points? Thanks for all contributions in advance!

 

[wwanno]

You could give a little more freely inspiration and use it to speed up recovery after your players go down.

Inviato dal mio ASUS_Z00AD utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[Blue]

I tend to find that my players are risk-adverse and will spend hours over-planning and over thinking, so I'm for anything that makes them more willing to act.

A point in 5e is that the players are right. With the exception of mass-healing with multiple wounded comrades, for the most part pre-emptive healing is less effective then an attack. A dead foe does no damage, while most healing offsets less than equivalent actions on the other side spent to wound. (Equivalent actions - what I mean is if a PC's action is 20% of their actions for the round (for a 5 man group), then 20% of foe actions.) Pop-up healing gets them back to act, sometimes without having lost an action at all depending on the initiative of the dropping attack, the healer, and the fallen character.

(Note: there are always corner cases. I played through SKT with a fantastic life cleric pre-emptive healer, but we were good at spreading giant damage out among us so his mass-heals were super effective.)

Minutes spent coming back from zero means that you can death spiral - lose a character early to a crit or failed save and then the encounter is mroe deadly, leading to more down that can't get back up, etc. It also penalizes characters who are protecting the rest as they are more likely to get hit and go down since they are putting themselves into the fray.

And really, not all of your characters are likely able to heal effectively, so if you change the rules you're really just penalizing the players who have already chosen to play characters that can support other PCs. That seems contrary to what I want at a meta level.

So between the first (already over cautious) and last (force support-capable PCs into an even more support role) points, I see reasons why I'm okay with it as is at my table.

 

[Fanaelialae]

You're free to try, it but it sounds to me like your players aren't interested in preemptive healing. From what you've described, they are leaving downed allies at the cost of their own action economy.

In my own games, we sometimes use preemptive healing, while other times we wait for the ally to go down. It's because we only bother to heal a conscious ally if we believe it is likely to buy them a round. A 1st level healing word is rarely sufficient for that. You don't really get into the range until Heal (maybe Mass Cure Wounds).

I doubt you'll accomplish your goal using the stick. I think you'll just make the game harder for them. My suggestion would be to use a carrot. In other words, buff healing until it's worth using preemptively. The downside of this, of course, is that it would make the game easier. Even then, for a certain style of player (who would rather deal damage than heal) it will not induce your desired playstyle. But, for that kind of player, almost nothing will (I've seen peer pressure work, but only in the short term, and to the detriment of that player's fun, so I don't recommend it).

 

[Blue]

You're free to try, it but it sounds to me like your players aren't interested in preemptive healing. From what you've described, they are leaving downed allies at the cost of their own action economy.

In my own games, we sometimes use preemptive healing, while other times we wait for the ally to go down. It's because we only bother to heal a conscious ally if we believe it is likely to buy them a round. A 1st level healing word is rarely sufficient for that. You don't really get into the range until Heal (maybe Mass Cure Wounds).

I doubt you'll accomplish your goal using the stick. I think you'll just make the game harder for them. My suggestion would be to use a carrot. In other words, buff healing until it's worth using preemptively. The downside of this, of course, is that it would make the game easier. Even then, for a certain style of player (who would rather deal damage than heal) it will not induce your desired playstyle. But, for that kind of player, almost nothing will (I've seen peer pressure work, but only in the short term, and to the detriment of that player's fun, so I don't recommend it).

One buff to healing I've seen talked about takes inspiration from 4e. Let PCs also spend HD when healed. # of HD up to number of dice of healing, though sometimes I've seen halved for bonus action heals. (I'd allow Life cleric bonus to work on that as well if that's where the healing is coming from.) Alternately instead up to CON mod (min *0*) extra HD, so front-liners can get more out of it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Kill them. Recovery from death is already a trivial inconvenience beyond level 5. If a character dies instantly upon hitting zero HP, then that might be sufficient incentive to discourage anti-social behavior.

To a selfish player, letting another PC be removed from the encounter may not be sufficient motivation, since it incurs no personal cost - it actually gives them a bigger share of the spotlight for rest of the encounter. By adding a 300gp shared cost, that actually attaches a ~75gp individual price tag to the failure of each PC to defend another PC.

 

[iserith]

Try the carrot:

+10% XP for each encounter where no PC is reduced to 0 hit points.

Modify the additional reward by whatever factor is required to get the behavior you desire.

 

[Barolo]

Thank you guys for the contributions, you have made fair points, and do anticipate some issues I was not foreseeing.

Maybe I am just facing an odd problem. Some of my players have been complaining about that "bouncing heroes" feature for quite some time already, and this complaint even crosses edition boundaries. Still, the group as a whole keeps doing this "strategy", contrary to their own expressed perceived preferences. As I mentioned, I don't like it, and the reason might as well be purely aesthetical, but sometimes it really annoys me, as a DM, to see one of my players' PC die because the others are "gaming the game" too much (for lack of a better expression), or being just plain egotistical. Also, if I can somehow tweak the rules to change this dynamic, I will.


Some anecdotes from my games:

In one session, after cleaning up pretty much the whole dungeon and fulfilling all their goals, the adventurers decided to leave the area by crossing a small section of corridor they managed to avoid when they entered, because they suspected (with good reason) that that area was a small hazard. By going out through the path they knew better to avoid when they arrived, they managed to awake some small threat that was hidden there. They could have just left the area right away after taking some minor damage, as the threat was almost immobile, but they decided to exact revenge upon the "insolent enemies". The party was already battered, so that small threat could actually pose some risk. One of the heroes, who was already heavily damaged from previous encounters, fell. The others kept to the killing. He failed the first death save. The others kept to the killing. He passed the second save. The others kept to the killing. On the third round, he had a "1" on the save, and died. This happened early in the campaign, when they were lowish level, and in an easy fight they sought themselves into and that had nothing to offer them except to quench their curiosity. Still, after that, they would keep not acting upon the threat on some ally's life just to have a chance at "just one more attack", which would, more often than not, put them in bigger difficulties.

Later in the same campaign, as they were already on the higher levels, the group's paladin (who would usually waste every single spell slot trying to maximize critical hit damage) had this modus operandi that she would not care to heal anybody but herself, and considering that she had by far the best AC in the party and a huge HP pool, she could very often spend the day not using her lay on hands at all, except for the occasional 5 hp heal to stabilize (and precariously send back to fight) a fallen ally. The group tried to talk to her, and I tried too, on different occasions. Her rationale was that if everybody could barely survive, they could inexpensively recover HPs on a short rest, and her lay on hands was too valuable to be spent on anybody else, as she was the paladin, who could rescue everybody else if things went wrong. Suffice to say that before the end of the campaign, more PCs died.

On yet another campaign, a light cleric would always try to concentrate all his spells on offense. This would even mean he would rather burn a 1st level slot at an enemy to deal 4d6 @ 70% hit chance (average damage expected ~10) in place of healing the rogue for 1d8+4 (average 8.5). Some might say this is sound as he could potentially drop the enemy, and the heal was smaller than the expected damage, but he would do this even when he didn't really have any expectation to drop an enemy (for instance when fighting a giant, while only halfway through the battle), while he knew by the rogue's remaining HPs that a 6-8 HP heal was good enough to keep the she standing for at least one more round, and the rogue had 85% chance to hit with her magical dagger for 1d4 + 6d6 + 6 (averaging just over 25 damage). Luckily the giant missed more than his fair share on this encounter, but it got way more tense than what I anticipated.

One observation on regard to healing amounts and damage amounts, when a party has a combined HP total of, let's say, 150, and the enemies have a combined HP total of 450 (not at all unusual at my table), to be able to win, the party must be able to output more than 3x as much damage as they can withstand. That would also mean that a healing of around 1/3 of the expected attack output usually breaks even in the end of the fight, if the damage that was not dealt did not also slow down dropping an enemy one round earlier. If a healing actually manages to at least 1/2 of the sacrificed attack, it might as well be the best strategy already, specially if it can be redirected to a frontliner who is really good at mitigating damage (as with HAM, raging barbarians, or smart use of blade ward from eldritch knights)

You could give a little more freely inspiration and use it to speed up recovery after your players go down.

Inviato dal mio ASUS_Z00AD utilizzando Tapatalk

Would you mind to elaborate? I did not understand your suggestion.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Kill them. Recovery from death is already a trivial inconvenience beyond level 5. If a character dies instantly upon hitting zero HP, then that might be sufficient incentive to discourage anti-social behavior.

To a selfish player, letting another PC be removed from the encounter may not be sufficient motivation, since it incurs no personal cost - it actually gives them a bigger share of the spotlight for rest of the encounter. By adding a 300gp shared cost, that actually attaches a ~75gp individual price tag to the failure of each PC to defend another PC.

If they're unwilling to take the time to heal an ally, what makes you think they will spend resources to case Revivify?

It seems to me that they would be more likely to have the other player roll up a new character.

Plus, unless you have two healers in the party who can Revivify, this is exceptionally punitive towards the healer.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Maybe I am just facing an odd problem. Some of my players have been complaining about that "bouncing heroes" feature for quite some time already, and this complaint even crosses edition boundaries. Still, the group as a whole keeps doing this "strategy", contrary to their own expressed perceived preferences. As I mentioned, I don't like it, and the reason might as well be purely aesthetical, but sometimes it really annoys me, as a DM, to see one of my players' PC die because the others are "gaming the game" too much (for lack of a better expression), or being just plain egotistical. Also, if I can somehow tweak the rules to change this dynamic, I will.

You can only play the game in front of you. Lamenting over some theoretical, preferable game, does nothing for the game that's currently being played. Maybe they want to have a good reason to heal people earlier, but unless it actually makes sense for their character to do that, it would be bad role-playing to pretend otherwise.

The idea that the paladin should save Hands to bring people back up, instead of using it to preemptively heal, isn't that crazy of an idea. There's a good chance that a lot of that healing would have been wasted later on; there's no point in healing someone for 10 or 15 instead of 1, when the enemy hits for 20. Spending everything to bring someone up to full would mean that you don't have enough left to bring people up from unconsciousness later. Healing is a game of guessing, and the world where everyone has 150% of their total HP in self-healing everyday presents a significant change to the value of magical healing. I can't exactly blame the character for following their chosen strategy.