D&D 5E (2014) barbarian damage reduction and combat healing economy

[The Crimson Binome]

So the problem is: How can we allow the barbarian his "staying power" without making healing effectively twice as good?

You could make it so that Barbarians have much lower AC... maybe give enemies Advantage on their attack rolls or something... so that the barbarian gets hit twice as often to make up for only taking half damage.

That way, after four attacks against each, the fighter and the barbarian will both be down the same number of HP, and healing either one is exactly as effective.

 

[Rune]

Efficient magical in combat healing in 5e is all about Healing Word, you wait until your allies are dropped to 0 than you heal them up with a bonus action.

Why? A few good reasons.

There is no penalty for standing up besides a bit of reduced movement, there isn't a threat of an attack of opportunity for instance.

All the damage done to your companion that went over reducing them to 0 h.p is wasted damage you don't have to heal.

The healer doesn't have to be adjacent to the downed person with healing word, and all it takes is a bonus action to cast it so the healer can spend their action doing damage which in turn ends the combat sooner and reduces the amount of healing needed.

So don't heal the barbarian or anyone else until they drop to 0 in combat, it wastes actions and when they get taken down below 0 it is like all that extra damage is a waste, keep your allies hovering at or near 0 h.p.

Now as soon as the combat is over get them back up to max h.p as fast as you can with Healer feat, your sack of goodberries, or cure wounds spells.

Except that the barbarian's rage ends when s/he goes unconscious. Sure, the barbarian can rage again, but healing word from zero hit points won't go far. One hit, maybe two. So there goes another rage. The barbarian can't keep that up for long.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I don't think that is a problem. Barbarians tend to have fairly average ACs and get hit a lot, so they still need plenty of healing.

I agree. Magical healing is also a limited resource.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Efficient magical in combat healing in 5e is all about Healing Word, you wait until your allies are dropped to 0 than you heal them up with a bonus action.

Why? A few good reasons.

There is no penalty for standing up besides a bit of reduced movement, there isn't a threat of an attack of opportunity for instance.

All the damage done to your companion that went over reducing them to 0 h.p is wasted damage you don't have to heal.

The healer doesn't have to be adjacent to the downed person with healing word, and all it takes is a bonus action to cast it so the healer can spend their action doing damage which in turn ends the combat sooner and reduces the amount of healing needed.

So don't heal the barbarian or anyone else until they drop to 0 in combat, it wastes actions and when they get taken down below 0 it is like all that extra damage is a waste, keep your allies hovering at or near 0 h.p.

Now as soon as the combat is over get them back up to max h.p as fast as you can with Healer feat, your sack of goodberries, or cure wounds spells.

This is the whack-a-mole effect that standard 5e comes with unfortunately. Fixed by using the injury rule or exhaustion rule etc.

Players should want to avoid hitting zero hp in my view. For excitement if nothing else. In 2e I think if you hit -10 your PC died. You sure as hell used healing spells in combat back then! There ought to be a meaningful choice about using combat healing spells to keep above zero hp. The strategy should not be just let the PC go down, shrug, then pop them back up after a death save or two with no downside...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In 2e I think if you hit -10 your PC died.

In 2E, you were dead at zero. There was an optional rule that you could stay alive until -10, but even then you would lose most of your prepared spells and needed an extended recovery time before you were good to go again.

 

[Psikerlord#]

In 2E, you were dead at zero. There was an optional rule that you could stay alive until -10, but even then you would lose most of your prepared spells and needed an extended recovery time before you were good to go again.

Oh right yeah it was even worse than I remembered, hahaha! (with the optional rule)

 

[Celtavian]

This is the whack-a-mole effect that standard 5e comes with unfortunately. Fixed by using the injury rule or exhaustion rule etc.

Players should want to avoid hitting zero hp in my view. For excitement if nothing else. In 2e I think if you hit -10 your PC died. You sure as hell used healing spells in combat back then! There ought to be a meaningful choice about using combat healing spells to keep above zero hp. The strategy should not be just let the PC go down, shrug, then pop them back up after a death save or two with no downside...

Our group has anyone that drops get hit a few more times to kill them. That makes the PCs paranoid about dropping.

 

[Chocolategravy]

You could make it so that Barbarians have much lower AC...

WotC is busy giving them higher AC with things like Mariner.

maybe give enemies Advantage on their attack rolls or something... so that the barbarian gets hit twice as often to make up for only taking half damage.

Advantage would only double the hit rate if they were getting hit only on a 20. At 50% hit rate it is only a 50% increase in hits.

That way, after four attacks against each, the fighter and the barbarian will both be down the same number of HP, and healing either one is exactly as effective.

If only all attacks were physical or psychic and if only the damage output of both were the same so they were receiving the same number of attacks.

As it is a high level barbarian can reliably butcher an ancient dragon before it kills him, but a fighter probably won't. At least straight classed. MC of course will give you better characters.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Our group has anyone that drops get hit a few more times to kill them. That makes the PCs paranoid about dropping.

Ah we only tend to do that, purposely attack zero hp targets, when its zombies or wolves or something. So not that often. If you do it all the time, I imagine you have lots of dead PCs. Intelligent enemies could easily finish a zero hp PC with a bit of focus fire.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Our group has anyone that drops get hit a few more times to kill them. That makes the PCs paranoid about dropping.

Ah we only tend to do that, purposely attack zero hp targets, when its zombies or wolves or something. So not that often. If you do it more often, I imagine that scares the crap out of players!! Intelligent enemies could easily finish a zero hp PC with a bit of focus fire...