D&D with no Healing Magic! Would it work?

[Arnwyn]

But would D&D without Healing Magic work? I'm thinking that my PCs would drop like flys as their Hit Points are sloughed off in great waves by monsters, spells and vile weapons.

It sure wouldn't work with my group. Those monkeys tried to make a party without any healing, but still continue to adventure in the same way they did before (when they had access to healing).

After sustaining extremely heavy losses, they learned their lesson (and sadly, it wasn't "adapt your style to the situation" ).

 

[nikolai]

While all the talk of UA is going on, there is also the Reserve Points variant. Full details are on the wizards site:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20031214a&page=4

I think this is a really interesting thread. The idea of how d20 works minus one of its components is an interesting and important one. Has anyone actually done this in practice? Can you put PCs up against MM monsters and still retain the balance of D&D?

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I'm not looking for such an easy fix, however. I wanna really play the hardline and BAN Healing Magic. I'm not sure if I'd be able to run a very long campaign, however.

What are others thoughts? Is D&D possible without Healing Magic? Would having to heal your wounds the *natural* way be too disruptive to campaign play?

A few thoughts:

1. The more deadly combat is, the more a system encourages players to avoid it. With absolutely no healing magic, successful players will always use combat as a last resort. There's simply too much risk involved - too many things can go wrong in a battle which can't be fixed quickly. If this is what your players want, fine. If your players want to play "old style" - don't even think of it.

2. While hit points are a considerable abstraction, if you take away healing magic without converting the hit point system to something else (WP/VP, for instance), then you end up with some pretty unrealistic situations. Consider: two swordsmen square off. Both are fairly skilled. They fight for several seconds, then one gets under the other's guard and deals a crippling blow. In real life, the victor is unlikely to be seriously injured. In D&D, however, the same fight is liable to result in both fighters taking a lot of hit point damage - the one who lost just took more.

3. More recordkeeping. It's more likely you'll have to track character hit points between sessions, since not every session will end with several days of rest available. In addition, you'll have to track them for all the npc's the party wounded, but didn't kill (assuming the party is smart and uses hit-and-run tactics).

4. Reduces utility of high hit points. Sure it's nice to survive combat because the barbarian has tons of hit points. But it's not a lot of fun (or very heroic) to sit around afterwards for days and days while the barbarian heals.

If you're serious about this, I suggest running a one-shot adventure to see how your players like it. Personally I wouldn't want to be in a D&D campaign like this - the whole D&D system assumes healing is available and it tends to break down if it's banned completely. If I do want to play a campaign with this kind of feel, I'll use another system better suited to it.

 

[frankthedm]

I hope you have a LOT of character sheets.

Better yet use dry erase character sheets.

 

[Trainz]

I'll grant that a Paladin's and a Ranger's healing is divine, but not the Bard's. It's arcane.

So the Bard would be the only (limited) healer in your campaign. And your PC's will only be able to do long term adventuring if said bard has wands of cure light wounds.

Keep in mind that with no healing whatsoever, you'll tire quick of the hit-n-run tactics necessary in such a campaign. Your players will do one, two, *maybe* three rooms and retire for a few days before going further.

Sure, you'll achieve the hard-n-gritty feel, but the games might become boring and tiresome.

Things to consider...

 

[DarkMaster]

Naw, I wouldn't let these classes have such powers. I consider these powers reliant on a *divine* connection and I wanna sever that connection utterly and completely.

Bard x-light wounds are arcane magic, nothing to do with divinity

 

[Salad Shooter]

When the gods left the DL setting, magic went too...it was still possible by jacking the energies from old artifacts, but thats about it. They came up with an earth-energy based Sorcery to replace it, however. I'll haveto second the opinion that you just give them lower CR creatures, and have them change their tactics. Would healing potions be applicable? If you're looking for a massive rules overhaul...just nerf the creatures you're sending against them. Good luck!

 

[Merlion]

I find it rather funny that "removing healing" is seen as synonmous with "removing divine magic" but thats a whole other thing....

If I understand what your driving at, your considering no healing magic at all from any source.

I'm not sure how well that would work. It would also be weird to me because magic for healing purposes is such a staple of fantasy

However, I do think that DnD would work just fine without a "healer" class...still have healing magic, but I dont think that that needs to be a "full time class job" so to speak

 

[Merlion]

Naw, I wouldn't let these classes have such powers. I consider these powers reliant on a *divine* connection and I wanna sever that connection utterly and completely.

I didnt notice this, and I second the response that Bardic healing is non-"divine" in nature

of course, I find the association of healing with "divine" stuff one of the most obnoxious concepts in DnD


So, are you wanting rid of healing magic, or are you wanting rid of the "divine" connection?

If the former, see my last post

 

[Arkhandus]

**IMPORTANT**

If you remove divine magic and also whatever healing spells Bards have, your players will be annihilated as soon as they run across a mummy, lycanthrope, vampire, wight, lamia, or anything else that inflicts magical poisons/diseases, potent mundane poisons/diseases, permanent ability damage, ability drain, level drain, negative levels, energy drain, or the like. Also, remember that the Challenge Rating of such creatures is based on the assumption that the party has a cleric of similar level, thus assuming the party can mitigate these nasty effects to at least a small extent.

In fact, without any means of easily preventing or quickly negating any such effects, the world is likely to have already been overrun by such creatures because no one can stop them. Everyone who tries is just that much weaker against the next such creature, and the problem compounds over time. So keep in mind that you need to remove all such creatures from your campaign, or include some non-divine means of negating/preventing such conditions/effects easily and without absurd amounts of spending.

Also, remember that relying entirely on natural healing will not bode well for an adventuring party going through a dungeon environment, where they might not be able to rest for days or weeks at a time to recover naturally. You might allow the Heal skill to restore a small amount of hit points, though, to speed things up just a bit.