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5e, Heal Thyself! Is Healing Too Weak in D&D?
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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8609160" data-attributes="member: 907"><p>I can see where folks are coming from, particularly regarding clerics. The first "flavor text" describing the cleric is "Arms and eyes upraised toward the sun and a prayer on his lips, an elf begins to glow with an inner light that spills out to heal his battle-worn companions." They are described as "Healers and Warriors". It is not strange that someone would play a cleric and expect that their job would be similar to a holy priest in World of Warcraft, who spend most of their in-combat time putting their blue bar into their tank's green bar, and it would be logical for that someone to be disappointed to realize that it's far better for them to spend in-combat actions and resources taking out their opponents and thus healing indirectly by making the fight end faster.</p><p></p><p>But as has been pointed out, out-of-combat healing is pretty strong in 5e (though I'd argue that you have access to 2.5x your max hp over the course of a full day, not 3x, with the remaining .5x being an extra emergency reserve). I think that if you want in-combat healing to be useful, you need to overhaul the game in one of two fashions:</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The WOW method, which is fully encounter-based. Very few non-consumable resources take more than a few minutes to recover. That means you can turn incoming damage up far enough that every encounter is potentially lethal, and the healer needs to spend their actions and resources healing those who take damage. This is dangerous though, because as [USER=6799660]@Willie the Duck[/USER] notes, amping up both damage and healing makes things swingier, meaning it's easy to go from "tough fight" to "TPK". This is particularly so given D&D's round-and-turn-based structure. In WOW, if the tank (or some other party member) takes a big chunk of damage, the healer can react immediately and go with one of their bigger heals. In D&D, it's very possible for other enemies to get a chance to act before the healer can do anything, and maybe bring the tank down.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The 4e method, where healing is a daily resource for the person healed, and combat healing is mostly about allowing access to that resource mid-fight instead of only between fights. This would still allow attrition over the course of a day, but the "risky" scenario would be more "I'm down to one healing surge" rather than "I'm down to 30 hp."</li> </ol></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 8609160, member: 907"] I can see where folks are coming from, particularly regarding clerics. The first "flavor text" describing the cleric is "Arms and eyes upraised toward the sun and a prayer on his lips, an elf begins to glow with an inner light that spills out to heal his battle-worn companions." They are described as "Healers and Warriors". It is not strange that someone would play a cleric and expect that their job would be similar to a holy priest in World of Warcraft, who spend most of their in-combat time putting their blue bar into their tank's green bar, and it would be logical for that someone to be disappointed to realize that it's far better for them to spend in-combat actions and resources taking out their opponents and thus healing indirectly by making the fight end faster. But as has been pointed out, out-of-combat healing is pretty strong in 5e (though I'd argue that you have access to 2.5x your max hp over the course of a full day, not 3x, with the remaining .5x being an extra emergency reserve). I think that if you want in-combat healing to be useful, you need to overhaul the game in one of two fashions: [LIST=1] [*]The WOW method, which is fully encounter-based. Very few non-consumable resources take more than a few minutes to recover. That means you can turn incoming damage up far enough that every encounter is potentially lethal, and the healer needs to spend their actions and resources healing those who take damage. This is dangerous though, because as [USER=6799660]@Willie the Duck[/USER] notes, amping up both damage and healing makes things swingier, meaning it's easy to go from "tough fight" to "TPK". This is particularly so given D&D's round-and-turn-based structure. In WOW, if the tank (or some other party member) takes a big chunk of damage, the healer can react immediately and go with one of their bigger heals. In D&D, it's very possible for other enemies to get a chance to act before the healer can do anything, and maybe bring the tank down. [*]The 4e method, where healing is a daily resource for the person healed, and combat healing is mostly about allowing access to that resource mid-fight instead of only between fights. This would still allow attrition over the course of a day, but the "risky" scenario would be more "I'm down to one healing surge" rather than "I'm down to 30 hp." [/LIST] [/QUOTE]
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