A party without a healer

[ronin]

For our last campaign we tried using an NPC as the healer. We gave the NPC full XP so she wouldnt fall behind the rest of the party and gave her a share of items as well. It worked out well and we are going to continue doing this in the next campaign that starts next month.

 

[BRP2]

Reserve Points variant is just too good, I'd suggest it. Especially if you allows players to instantly heal a small but decent amount with the use of "Heal" skill and feats.

 

[Lazybones]

I think you need to work to have a party without healing talent (read as: ability to use cure wands); if your group (like that in the OP) doesn't have a cleric, druid, paladin, ranger, or bard, then UMD is the way to go.

Cure wounds wands are cheap and scale up, so that should be enough for almost any party. At higher levels, the clerics can't keep up with the hit point losses anyway (assuming they don't focus their entire spell reserve on healing), so wands are usually heavily relied upon anyway. At least in my games.

 

[Dross]

The NPC cleric/healer etc is a good way to go (and if DM is inclined a good source of plot info and hooks).

We had a wonderous magic item: Bandage: 50 x Cure Light Wounds priced as CL*SP*2000 (use activated) that worked well enough. Adjust the price as you see fit.

Any class that can get Cure spells could take the augment healing feat (+2 HP cured per spell level) or possibly a domain specialist mage from UA with the healing domain.

 

[xrpsuzi]

Maybe I've missed something, but isn't the heal skill a bit redundant at higher levels? From what I've gathered, you can't heal more than 2 hp/day, and that's with complete bedrest.

It's 2hp/day/level. It would still take a while, but the 13th level barbarian would heal (with a successful roll) 26 hp.

Oh, we also used wands of cure (mentioned by other posters).

-Suzi

 

[hong]

TPK them. Repeat until one of your players wises up and actually creates a cleric.

In all seriousness, if you've got 5 players, and they can't co-ordinate their character choices sufficiently to have *someone* cover healing (they seem to be willing to cover all the other iconic cases), I have a distinct lack of sympathy.

Eh. Just because D&D retains vestiges of the old philosophy of treating the "party" as some kind of gestalt multilimbed monstrosity as opposed to a group of individuals with a shared interest, doesn't mean you have to continue propagating it.

I use reserve points and handwave the bit about RPs returning at a fixed rate over time. Instead, a minute out of combat is enough for people to get back all their hits. This is because tracking time is something I find tedious and I'd rather not expend brain cells on tedious things.

 

[Herobizkit]

I'm with the general concensus that you shoudn't punish a group of players because they want to play against the system's "bulit-in" requirement of a "balanced" party. At the same time, the players obviously want to run with the safety off.

Several options immediately come to mind:
* Replace the Heal skill with the Treat Injury skill from d20 Modern. It can be found in the d20 Modern SRD.
* Allow for shorter forays into dungeons, and longer rest periods. A city/wilderness campaign would be much more suited to a non-healer party than dungeon-delving, plus a city would have the benefit of healers built in... at a price.
* Healing fairies/springs, ala Legend of Zelda. In fact, go the distance and have an NPC Pixie Cleric accompany the PCs; it's invisible, it flies, and it's small, so it won't take up much of the PCs attention. Or, have them negotiate and hire a travelling NPC cleric for contract work.
* Encourage someone to take Use Magic Device (Rogues who don't make me giggle).

Or, if all else fails, let the dice fall where they may.

 

[Musrum]

Teamwork Benift (PHB2 pg 158)
Medic
Because sometimes, laughter is not enough.
Training: Your team has employed the services of a Healer. You have trained with the healer to perform co-ordinated battlefield healing.
Task Leader Prerequisite: CHR 13+; heal 5 ranks.
Task Member Prerequisite: heal 1 rank.
Benift: The party attracts a medic cohort. This NPC is a single classed Healer (Miniatures Handbook pg 8). The medic's level is determined by the Task Leader's Leadership Score (DMG pg 106).

 

[charlesatan]

If you don't want to change the rules, you might want to read my blog entry for tips on increasing everyone's healing capacity. It's a bit splatbook heavy though:

http://charlesatan.vox.com/library/post/dd-increasing-the-partys-healing-efficiency.html

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

It's 2hp/day/level. It would still take a while, but the 13th level barbarian would heal (with a successful roll) 26 hp.

Oh, we also used wands of cure (mentioned by other posters).

-Suzi

In our Birthright game, where the DM was handling blood powers with BESM d20, I took a rank of Greater Regeneration for my barbarian warpriest. Not only did the Fast Healing 1 make sure he was full up after 20 minutes, but it saved his life in more than one fight.

Brad