Uller
Adventurer
A recent thread on how some groups (probably especially in low/mid level games) experience "whack-a-mole" where PCs go down, get healing from Healing Word or the like but then go back down very shortly because they received so little HP.
We don't experience a ton of whack-a-mole in my group but at the table recently (both in a 5th level game and a 12th level game), characters with healing spells have had to spend a lot of spell slots to get characters back up to an acceptable level of HP to move on because time pressure prevented them from taking a short rest. In both cases, the party had all its HD but the cleric (5th level) or Paladin (12th level) had to spend most of their slots just to keep the party going.
My players understand it is better to spend HD when possible but in both cases, taking a short rest was just not feasible (or my players believed it wasn't).
So to help encourage them to spend those HD rather than spells, I'm considering the following house rule:
When a character receives healing that character can spend 1 HD per die of healing (or per 5 hp for static healing like Lay On Hands).
So if you receive a 3rd level healing word you can also spend up to 3 HD if you have them. Yes, this hearkens back to the 4e healing paradigm that a lot of folks didn't like...my intent is to allow/encourage my players to spend HD more and use their spells for more interesting ways.
I think the argument against it is pretty obvious: If you make something more powerful, you'll get more of it. So I'm concerned it might have the opposite effect. Why cast an interesting 1st level spell to avoid some damage when you can just use it to heal?
So maybe make it only for out of combat? I dunno. Thoughts?
We don't experience a ton of whack-a-mole in my group but at the table recently (both in a 5th level game and a 12th level game), characters with healing spells have had to spend a lot of spell slots to get characters back up to an acceptable level of HP to move on because time pressure prevented them from taking a short rest. In both cases, the party had all its HD but the cleric (5th level) or Paladin (12th level) had to spend most of their slots just to keep the party going.
My players understand it is better to spend HD when possible but in both cases, taking a short rest was just not feasible (or my players believed it wasn't).
So to help encourage them to spend those HD rather than spells, I'm considering the following house rule:
When a character receives healing that character can spend 1 HD per die of healing (or per 5 hp for static healing like Lay On Hands).
So if you receive a 3rd level healing word you can also spend up to 3 HD if you have them. Yes, this hearkens back to the 4e healing paradigm that a lot of folks didn't like...my intent is to allow/encourage my players to spend HD more and use their spells for more interesting ways.
I think the argument against it is pretty obvious: If you make something more powerful, you'll get more of it. So I'm concerned it might have the opposite effect. Why cast an interesting 1st level spell to avoid some damage when you can just use it to heal?
So maybe make it only for out of combat? I dunno. Thoughts?