Cure/inflict wounds spells revision

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

True. But I mentioned a fix to this with my first suggestion.

In the case of multiclassed characters, use the HD of the class with the highest levels. In the case of equal number of levels among different classes, use the highest HD value between the equal level classes.

For me, that's still too complex. If a simple percentage of the target's hit points wasn't used, I'd prefer either a flat number per HD (with no modification for HD type as it doesn't make sense to modify only for Hit Die type and ignore CON bonuses to HP as well as other adjustments, like Toughness). That flat number could be multiplied by the spell spell level. It could also be capped according to level, too.

• Cure Wounds I:
  1d8 +1 per caster level (max +5) +1 per HD of target (max +5)
  
• Cure Wounds II:
  2d8 +1 per caster level (max +10) +2 per HD of target (max +20)
  
• Cure Wounds III:
  3d8 +1 per caster level (max +15) +3 per HD of target (max +45)
  
• Cure Wounds IV:
  4d8 +1 per caster level (max +20) +4 per HD of target (max +80)

Pretty sure this suggestion has already been offerred, but sometimes it helps me to restate a houserule in my own words.

 

[Hawken]

For me, that's still too complex.

How is the highest HD value for the highest level too complex?

One flaw with your solution is your 4th level spell. Topped out (max target HD, max caster HD), your spell heals 100hp + 4d8. This is almost the equivalent of the Heal spell but 2 levels lower. If a more powerful healing spell tops out at 15th level, all lower level ones should too.

 

[Ashtagon]

First, I'd say renaming the cure spell chain to I, I, III, and Iv instead of the more prosaic (and increasingly hard to rationalise) current names.

I ran a little spreadsheet, comparing a cleric casting each of his available cure spells (assumption: all rolls result in averages) on a fighter of the same character level (assumption: Fighter has 14 Con, which never changes, gets max hp on 1st level, and 5.5 hp per HD (+ Con bonus) on later levels). The following table reflects the fraction of the fighter's maximum hit points that are healed at each level.

Level    CW I    CW II    CW III    CW IV
1.       0.393            
2.       0.302            
3.       0.259    0.414        
4.       0.233    0.356        
5.       0.216    0.318    0.42     
6.       0.184    0.291    0.379    
7.       0.161    0.271    0.347    0.424
8.       0.143    0.256    0.323    0.391
9.       0.128    0.243    0.304    0.365
10.       0.117    0.233    0.288    0.344
11.       0.107    0.213    0.275    0.326
12.       0.098    0.197    0.264    0.311
13.       0.091    0.183    0.255    0.298
14.       0.085    0.17     0.247    0.287
15.       0.08     0.16     0.239    0.277
16.       0.075    0.15     0.225    0.269
17.       0.071    0.142    0.213    0.261
18.       0.067    0.134    0.201    0.254
19.       0.064    0.128    0.191    0.248
20.       0.061    0.121    0.182    0.243

We could probably use this to make a rule that, for example...

* CW I always heals at least 10% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* CW II always heals at least 20% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* CW III always heals at least 30% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* CW IV always heals at least 40% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* heal always heals at least 50% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.

 

[Kerrick]

I've read the same stuff from Gygax about hit points, but even that explanation is flawed--in the explanation itself. An attack can't do the "same damage" if luck, skill and toughness turn a fatal strike into a glancing blow. That's not the "same damage". An attack that would kill one man (stab through the heart) is the "same damage" if it would kill any other man (by stabbing them through the heart). Otherwise, its just not the same.

Sure it is. Hit points are an abstraction, not a concrete, quantifiable thing. An attack that deals the same amount of damage, hit point wise, against the two fighters can have vastly different results due to their varying hit point totals. Fighter A has only 13 hp, so a sword thrust for 6 damage is a serious wound for him; Fighter B has 120, so the same sword thrust is just a minor scratch - instead of it hitting him in a vital organ, he dodges and it slices along his arm.

 

[Hawken]

@ Kerrick: And therein lies the flaw of the hit point concept--using an abstraction in a game that relies on quantifiable factors. Damage is quantifiable. Healing is quantifiable, but because hit points (which go up or down based on damage or healing) are not quantifiable, you never have a clear idea of where you stand with them. There is no sense of injury or danger until you run out. Of course, you can use your imagination to pretend that if you're at 5 out of 100 hit points that you're pretty beat up. But just how beat up are you when you're suffering no weakness, exhaustion or significant injury whether you're at 99/100 or 1/100? You can't say for sure. Its all subjective to the person with the hit points.

Abstraction is only good with art, not games (or anything else). There is no justification in why one person (with 8hp) gets incinerated by a Fireball when another person (with 80hp) gets a minor burn--with all other conditions being equal. Skill at swinging a sword doesn't make someone fire resistant and if they can "duck and roll" and survive, the other guy should be able to do the same and survive too.

It seems to make better sense that hit points aren't an abstract of how much damage you can take, but rather that they are a measure of how long you can avoid taking damage. But the deficiency with this is a lack of something quantifiable to measure someone's condition and health. If damage and healing are quantifiable, then one's health needs to be as well.

Star Wars Saga Edition has this Condition Track/Damage Threshold which does just that, and they still use hit points as well. Rather than all these different variants of healing spells, it would reflect a more precise concept of health and injury incorporating that Condition Track and adjust the healing spells to restore an amount of hit points and improve their position on the Condition Track.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

How is the highest HD value for the highest level too complex?

For me, it's too complex because I don't want to compare the hit die types and adjust for the type and, then, multiply to find the result. It's at least one step too many, considering how often healing occurs in the game. Especially, when the idea of Mass Cure and Mass Heal is considered.

Also, as I've already mentioned, I don't think the HD type captures everything that should be adjusted for. Two fighters of the same level can have vastly different HP totals due to differences in rolls for HP, differences in Constitution, differences in feat selection, etc... I feel the total max hit point number is more important than the various Hit Die types, if any adjustment is going to be made, at all, to the RAW Cure spells based on the target beyond the target's HD total.

One flaw with your solution is your 4th level spell. Topped out (max target HD, max caster HD), your spell heals 100hp + 4d8. This is almost the equivalent of the Heal spell but 2 levels lower. If a more powerful healing spell tops out at 15th level, all lower level ones should too.

That's just shows how tightly the 3.x ruleset is woven. Change one thing and it cascades through the system, sometimes in unexpected ways. If we up the potency of the lesser level healing spells, it becomes necessary to adjust the higher level healing spells, too. So, Heal would need to be adjusted, too, in a similar way.

Using the last option that I presented, heal would need to be adjusted as follows:

• Cure Wounds I:
  1d8 +1 per caster level (max +5) +1 per HD of target (max +5)
  
• Cure Wounds II:
  2d8 +1 per caster level (max +10) +2 per HD of target (max +20)
  
• Cure Wounds III:
  3d8 +1 per caster level (max +15) +3 per HD of target (max +45)
  
• Cure Wounds IV:
  4d8 +1 per caster level (max +20) +4 per HD of target (max +80)
  
• Heal:
  10hp per caster level (max 150) +6 per HD of target (max +90)

Whatever we do to the lower level spells, we've got to carry through to similar higher level spells.

If a more powerful healing spell tops out at 15th level, all lower level ones should too.

It doesn't even work that way in the RAW, Hawken. Look at Cure Critical Wounds in the SRD. It tops out at 20th level even though Heal tops out at 15th level. So, while I see your logic for saying this, I don't think it's necessary to follow that logic because the amount of healing provided by Heal from a 15th (or higher) level caster is the equivalent of 25d8 (112hp on average) more hp healed than the average for the RAW Cure Critical Wounds cast by a 20th level caster (average 38hp by RAW).

It's perfectly OK for Heal to top out at 15th and for lower level spells to top out at 15th and 20th, respectively.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

First, I'd say renaming the cure spell chain to I, I, III, and Iv instead of the more prosaic (and increasingly hard to rationalise) current names.

I ran a little spreadsheet, comparing a cleric casting each of his available cure spells (assumption: all rolls result in averages) on a fighter of the same character level (assumption: Fighter has 14 Con, which never changes, gets max hp on 1st level, and 5.5 hp per HD (+ Con bonus) on later levels). The following table reflects the fraction of the fighter's maximum hit points that are healed at each level.

We could probably use this to make a rule that, for example...

* CW I always heals at least 10% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* CW II always heals at least 20% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* CW III always heals at least 30% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* CW IV always heals at least 40% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.
* heal always heals at least 50% of the target's max hp, or the RAW amount, whichever is higher.

Thanks for running the numbers, Ashtagon. I appreciate it.

It's good to have an idea how the numbers work out by the RAW when trying to houserule something. There's no question that many of the suggestions, so far, including all of mine, increase the power of the Cure spells. This version doesn't increase the maximum output, but rather, it keeps them on the high side of average results. Which is good because it doesn't up the overall damage potential when these spells are turned around into Inflict Wounds spells.

That said, I'll have to think about whether to adopt this or not. Right now, I'm still in favor of increasing the power of the healing spells based upon the Max HP or number of HD of the target (but probably not the Cause Wounds spells or Harm).

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

It seems to make better sense that hit points aren't an abstract of how much damage you can take, but rather that they are a measure of how long you can avoid taking damage.

But, that doesn't work, either. Here's why. Poison. If poison relies on injury to affect the target, why is it necessary for the target to make a saving throw to avoid the effects of the poison if they dodged the strike that would have delivered the poison?

Hit Points are a character's ability, skill, luck, and/or supernatural favour that allows the character to turn a grievous wound into a lesser wound combined with endurance. The more lesser wounds you take, the less likely you are to be able to avoid that grievous wound that will most likely be fatal.

In the example of the fireball v. the two fighters of different level. The one with 8hp isn't skilled enough to have the reflexes to avoid certain death. Simply put, even if he could have reacted to save himself, he is unable because reacting in such a way is beyond his ability. The one with 80hp might, somehow, find a way. If there's no way, then the survival of the one with 80hp could be viewed as evidence of some minor supernatural favour upon him.

And, another thing to remember is that once characters achieve 5th level or higher, they're more powerful than practically everyone that's ever lived in the real world... But, they'd have to be to seriously consider facing the obstacles that DnD provides. They're superhuman and that which would kill normal humans might not kill the superhuman.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

HIT POINTS

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage -- as indicated by constitution bonuses – and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the “sixth sense” which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no less than 15 points of actual physical damage before being slain, and that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into the non-physical areas already detailed. Furthermore, these actual physical hit points would be spread across a large number of levels, starting from a base score of from an average of 3 to 4 going up to 6 to 8 at 2nd level, 9 to 11 at 3rd, 12 to 14 at 4th, 15 to 17 at 5th, 18 to 20 at 6th and 21 to 23 at 7th level. Note that the above assumes the character is a fighter with an average of 3 hit points per die going to physical ability to withstand punishment and only 1 point of constitution bonus being likewise assigned. Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage.

Consider a character who is a 10th level fighter with an 18 constitution. This character would have an average of 5½ hit points per die, plus a constitution bonus of 4 hit points, per level, or 95 hit points! Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm --- the sword thrust that would have run a first level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter’s exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment. However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts, and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points.

--Gary E. Gygax, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide, p.82

 

[Kerrick]

There is no sense of injury or danger until you run out. Of course, you can use your imagination to pretend that if you're at 5 out of 100 hit points that you're pretty beat up. But just how beat up are you when you're suffering no weakness, exhaustion or significant injury whether you're at 99/100 or 1/100? You can't say for sure. Its all subjective to the person with the hit points.

You could easily institute a condition track like SW... I don't know why they didn't, except maybe for the purposes of simplicity - D&D uses a lot of healing, unlike most modern and futuristic games (I'm not sure about SWSE); hp are constantly going up and down, so it would necessitate constantly changing your condition.

Skill at swinging a sword doesn't make someone fire resistant and if they can "duck and roll" and survive, the other guy should be able to do the same and survive too.

That's why fighters have low Reflex saves. But seriously... it actually does. As someone progresses in training, they become better able to avoid attacks.

It seems to make better sense that hit points aren't an abstract of how much damage you can take, but rather that they are a measure of how long you can avoid taking damage.

Pretty much, yeah.

But, that doesn't work, either. Here's why. Poison. If poison relies on injury to affect the target, why is it necessary for the target to make a saving throw to avoid the effects of the poison if they dodged the strike that would have delivered the poison?

Huh? If the attack doesn't hit or deal damage (e.g., bypass DR), there's no save involved unless it's contact poison.

In the example of the fireball v. the two fighters of different level. The one with 8hp isn't skilled enough to have the reflexes to avoid certain death. Simply put, even if he could have reacted to save himself, he is unable because reacting in such a way is beyond his ability. The one with 80hp might, somehow, find a way. If there's no way, then the survival of the one with 80hp could be viewed as evidence of some minor supernatural favour upon him.

Or, more likely, the DM would rule that everyone fails their save.