D&D General 4e Healing was the best D&D healing

[Neonchameleon]

My point basically in my other thread about too much healing in 5E was if 90+% of encounters already have the party fully healed (or close to it), why not just remove healing between encounters and max out hp for each encounter. It is only when you have a series of encounters with no chance to rest that hp attrition comes back into D&D. IME that happens sometimes but not often.

One of the encounters I remember most vividly was on paper very easy. But we were so badly down on healing surges that I had to tank using my Invoker (the 4e take on the Cloistered Cleric - a divine caster only slightly less squishy than a wizard) because our fighter started on under half hp and no surges. It's not something I'd recommend as a regular thing - but it's something the system is richer for having occasionally for variety.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm not sure. Calling something a "construct" gives the impression that it exists and can be defined. I prefer to stay clear of that word myself. I feel it causes confusion more often than not.

I'm sure you realize "nonsense" is inflammatory. Do feel free to replace construct however. Cheers.

 

[CapnZapp]

I was responding to the idea of slow natural healing that D&D used back in the day (recovering 1 HP after a long rest, or along those lines) rather than magical healing.

To reiterate, I feel that approach doesn't work particularly well because a low level character reduced to 1 hp will naturally heal to full in a few days, whereas the toughest person in the world will take months.

I made the point that "low level wizards heal faster than high level fighters" is a poor argument against slow healing.

It's an entirely different issue that can be solved independently.

Just don't fixate on "1 hp". Let me take a slightly absurd example. If you replace "you heal 1 hp" with "you heal 1/90th of your maximum hit points" you have created a system where everybody heals in three months, regardless of level or class. Voila!

THEN we can discuss the benefits and flaws of slow natural healing - without getting sidetracked by "low level wizards heal faster than high level fighters"

Best regards

 

[Undrave]

I made the point that "low level wizards heal faster than high level fighters" is a poor argument against slow healing.

It's an entirely different issue that can be solved independently.

Just don't fixate on "1 hp". Let me take a slightly absurd example. If you replace "you heal 1 hp" with "you heal 1/90th of your maximum hit points" you have created a system where everybody heals in three months, regardless of level or class. Voila!

THEN we can discuss the benefits and flaws of slow natural healing - without getting sidetracked by "low level wizards heal faster than high level fighters"

Best regards

Slow healing just matches a completely different aesthetic to modern DnD. If you have slow healing, you end up making magical healing mandatory, otherwise your character(s) get sidelined for ridiculously long period of in-game time, which means you then have to adjust your stories for that possibility.

Or, you end up avoiding combat so much that you might as well not have detailed combat rules because it's a bad idea to have it to begin with. In turn, this makes a class like the Fighter absolutely unnecessary and disposable because it's ONE thing it can do well is to be avoided at all cost... And, again, it gives magical means of overcoming obstacles a LOT of value compared to mundane heroes (which are actually the majority of fantasy heroes, btw).

A game like that s possible, but DnD just isn't that game anymore. You can lament that if you want, but it is what it is. Personally, I think it sounds boring, but I guess I'm not a 'SERIOUS ROLEPLAYER' because, quite frankly, I like a good fantasy tussle and constantly tip-toeing around encounters gets really repetitive.

 

[DND_Reborn]

All this has gotten me thinking and maybe cure wounds spells and such should replace the d8 with the HD type of the recipient? So, you cast a level 1 cure wounds on a barbarian for d12+spellcasting modifier, but a wizard would get d6+spellcasting modifier.

 

[Undrave]

All this has gotten me thinking and maybe cure wounds spells and such should replace the d8 with the HD type of the recipient? So, you cast a level 1 cure wounds on a barbarian for d12+spellcasting modifier, but a wizard would get d6+spellcasting modifier.

That really would have made a lot of sense.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I made the point that "low level wizards heal faster than high level fighters" is a poor argument against slow healing.

It's an entirely different issue that can be solved independently.

Just don't fixate on "1 hp". Let me take a slightly absurd example. If you replace "you heal 1 hp" with "you heal 1/90th of your maximum hit points" you have created a system where everybody heals in three months, regardless of level or class. Voila!

THEN we can discuss the benefits and flaws of slow natural healing - without getting sidetracked by "low level wizards heal faster than high level fighters"

Best regards

I have nothing against slow natural healing though. My criticism was only with regard to that particular implementation of slow natural healing.

Back in the day, I actually house ruled it so that you recovered your level + Constitution bonus from a night's rest. Which wasn't perfect, but was a significant improvement. It still had the downside that the healthier you were, the longer it took you to heal from 1 hp after 1st level. But at least the hale guy could recover faster (overall) than the sickly guy, and leveling up didn't make it take you vastly longer to heal to full.

WRT 5e, you could use the variant where short rests require a night's sleep and long rests require a week. Which is much slower than standard 5e recovery, but is not subject to those criticisms.

There are absolutely alternate approaches that can produce more reasonable results. I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

 

[Horwath]

All this has gotten me thinking and maybe cure wounds spells and such should replace the d8 with the HD type of the recipient? So, you cast a level 1 cure wounds on a barbarian for d12+spellcasting modifier, but a wizard would get d6+spellcasting modifier.

or you could spend a HD as an option when you receive a cure spell. up to 1 HD per spell level.

so a a barbarian can heal for 1d8+mod and an extra 1d12+con mod if he wishes for 1st level cure spell.

edit: having cure spells base healing tied to HD of recipient could have issues with multiclass characters.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Slow healing just matches a completely different aesthetic to modern DnD. If you have slow healing, you end up making magical healing mandatory, otherwise your character(s) get sidelined for ridiculously long period of in-game time, which means you then have to adjust your stories for that possibility.

Or, you end up avoiding combat so much that you might as well not have detailed combat rules because it's a bad idea to have it to begin with. In turn, this makes a class like the Fighter absolutely unnecessary and disposable because it's ONE thing it can do well is to be avoided at all cost... And, again, it gives magical means of overcoming obstacles a LOT of value compared to mundane heroes (which are actually the majority of fantasy heroes, btw).

A game like that s possible, but DnD just isn't that game anymore. You can lament that if you want, but it is what it is. Personally, I think it sounds boring, but I guess I'm not a 'SERIOUS ROLEPLAYER' because, quite frankly, I like a good fantasy tussle and constantly tip-toeing around encounters gets really repetitive.

It doesn't have to though. I'll grant that it can go this direction if you put the recovery of magic and hp on different schedules.

However, if you put them on effectively the same schedule, all you've done is redefined the adventure day. The DMG slow rest variant just changes the adventure day into an adventure week. The same amount of adventure and resources fit into that space, you've just made the space bigger.

Don't get me wrong, it won't necessarily be perfect. Something like Create Food and Water is less useful if it takes a week to recover that slot. So some tweaking might be desirable. However, that's largely a matter of flavoring the variant to suit your tastes.

 

[Xeviat]

Playing "Pillars of Eternity" has me remembering Healing Surges fondly.

In "Pillars of Eternity", you have health and vitality. Vitality is your regular HP, your health is your daily HP. Health is equal to 4 or 5 times your Vitality. When you take damage, it goes to both pools. Most healing goes to Vitality. Vitality recovers after combat. The athletics skill gives a character access to a Second Wind type ability.

Your Health ends up being a timer for the day. I liked that about Healing Surges. As much as I'm liking Pathfinder, spell slots are your only real timer for the day. Healing surges were great because they out everyone on the same footing.