D&D 5E 5e, Heal Thyself! Is Healing Too Weak in D&D?

[MoonSong]

@Snarf Zagyg It isn't that healing is weak, just very unrewarding and unengaging. I am proud healbot player, the kind that would prepare only heals. The problem with 5e healing is that it is too generous and done for people who don't like to heal. The party starting a day at full hp used to be a meta goal for the party healer. Gone. Patching up comrades after a combat was something valuable you could do. Gone as well. Then tending to a fallen comrade in combat was this dramatic rush to get there, fend off attackers and then hope you could stabilize them without losing the spell to a stray attacker. It was a unique and cool spotlight. Gone also, just sneeze and they are back to the fight. You don't even need to "waste" your turn doing so! You can now do your "real" contribution on top of it!
Hit points across the board are just too many, and combats drag for too long if people aren't focusing fire. In making dedicated healers nonmandatory, they have effectively soft banned them.

 

[pemerton]

Whether taking 4 weeks to regain all one's hit points sucks or is irrelevant depends on what difference it makes to game play of having to wait 4 weeks.

At mid-to-high levels in AD&D, the cost of waiting 4 weeks is normally not very great at all - just pay your upkeep!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Of course there are spells that do more damage! That should go without saying. The reason is ... because combat healing and damage must be asymmetric or the game gets badly out of balance.

Your error, here, is assuming that the only possible form of asymmetry is "X must be less than Y."

"There is another." -- Dumbledore

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm going to say I don't understand the question, but I also didn't read the thread. 5E has more healing and more survivable characters than any other edition. Which is cool for going toe to toe with the big bads, but also has some attendant issues when it comes to many other phases of the game and the overall suitability of the 5E rules RAW for use to run a variety of genres and tropes.

 

[Blue]

Counterpoint: If in-combat healing were on-par with damaging options, it would be taken as a regular occurrence. Instead it only happens for healing down characters so they get their action, and there only because of heal-from-zero.

If characters went negative, we would see how poor healing in 5e is, but because of an outside prop (which is not healing), it is sufficient, but only in a way widely considered annoying and "whack-a-mole" that DMs try to fix, without fixing the base issue that healing in 5e is insufficient.

 

[Fenris-77]

Counterpoint: If in-combat healing were on-par with damaging options, it would be taken as a regular occurence. Instead it only happens for healing down characters so they get their actgion, and there only because of heal-from-zero.

If characters went negative, we would see how poor healing in 5e is, but because of an outside prop (which is not healing), it is sufficient, but only in a way widely considered annoying and "whack-a-mole" that DMs try to fix, without fixing the base issue that healing in 5e is insufficient.

I have two questions. First, did anyone actually suggest that in-combat healing should be on par with damage? That's silly. The fact that they aren't on par doesn't really say anything about their relative strength or effectiveness compared to other editions. Second, are you contending that healing in 5E is poor? I'm just trying to get things on straight here.

 

[Voadam]

I preferred 4e's style of healing. One of the four core class roles is healing and buffing so there is the divine magic cleric, the arcane magic bard, and the martial warlord. In combat healing based off of both the healer's healing power resources and the healed's healing resources. Having healing be both heal the target and do x as a combo action was great for my playstyle preferences. Having a choice of combat contribution being buffing and healing, defense, concentrated damage, or area damage/control was a great menu of options that could work in different combinations for different in combat feel.

In 4e being a big defender with a leader/healer at your back you can really mechanically hold the line against big monsters as an effective tactic to free up your vulnerable buddies to bring their glass cannons into play for major damage.

Having an in combat healer in 4e was a fun option for the combat flow and dynamics, but generally not a necessary one. Most groups can get through a lot of combat by hammering with the other non healing roles then healing up on their own outside of combat with surges.

In 5e the healer's roles in combat are a little different. It is either spend a big action and resource economy for little comparative return (that can still be worthwhile), or even littler healing while still having a cantrip or physical attack, or popup healing as needed while trying to focus on other stuff.

I preferred 4e where big in combat healing was an option that worked in ways I enjoyed within the math, but not necessary.

5e is decent, but I prefer 4e's flow options.

Also 4e's Warlords were a fantastic class.

 

[MoonSong]

I have two questions. First, did anyone actually suggest that in-combat healing should be on par with damage? That's silly. The fact that they aren't on par doesn't really say anything about their relative strength or effectiveness compared to other editions. Second, are you contending that healing in 5E is poor? I'm just trying to get things on straight here.

More like healing is overall too good to be a challenge for a dedicated healer, and at the same time, too bad at the micro level to justify spending an action healing, particularly to prevent people from going down. And bonus action healing is too good for normal action healing to compete.

This is a problem because bonus action healing is too brief to make a meaningful spotlight, so healing remains largely unrewarding, boring, and a chore rather than a contribution you can feel proud of.

 

[Voadam]

If characters went negative, we would see how poor healing in 5e is, but because of an outside prop (which is not healing), it is sufficient, but only in a way widely considered annoying and "whack-a-mole" that DMs try to fix, without fixing the base issue that healing in 5e is insufficient.

I consider it superior game play to prior negatives rules that often kept downed PCs out of the fun action for longer on game night. There is only so far you get in roleplaying unconsciousness.

 

[Fenris-77]

More like healing is overall too good to be a challenge for a dedicated healer, and at the same time, too bad at the micro level to justify spending an action healing, particularly to prevent people from going down. And bonus action healing is too good for normal action healing to compete.

This is a problem because bonus action healing is too brief to make a meaningful spotlight, so healing remains largely unrewarding, boring, and a chore rather than a contribution you can feel proud of.

So, not to be rude, but that seems like a pretty standard reading of the 5E action economy. What am I missing?