D&D 5E Does “Whack-A-Mole” Healing really happen in games?

[Azuresun]

One houserule I've used for this: for every die of magical healing, you may also spend one Hit Die (if you have any left.)

In practice, this means a top-level cure wounds, when combined with HD, can bring a character most of the way up to full (ie a 9th-level barbarian getting 5d8+wis+5d12+(5xCon)) - making such a spell actually worth casting. This cause actual healers to be a thing without making them overly powerful.

But ultimately we dropped it, because frankly whack-a-mole, while it does happen from time to time, doesn't get ridiculous enough to be worth the extra brain-load of the houserule.

That, and the more effective in-combat healing becomes, the more it pushes characters who can heal towards looking at all their cool options, sighing wistfully and casting yet another healing spell.

 

[Voadam]

Even with exhaustion for 0 hp in the Curse of Strahd game I play in the one healer in our four-PC group is also a front line plate mail tank and heavy hitter and most often chooses deliberately to engage and attack rather than to heal in combat, saving healing for afterwards or for people failing death saves.

 

[TwoSix]

That, and the more effective in-combat healing becomes, the more it pushes characters who can heal towards looking at all their cool options, sighing wistfully and casting yet another healing spell.

This. Ideally, if you want to support in-combat healing, you need to couple effects that heal hit points with some other kind of offensive or defensive boost, to make them fun to cast.

The reason it doesn't, of course, is because the system is designed to make in-combat healing subpar; having combats not feature yo-yoing hit point totals is a deliberate design choice. It's why the only efficient healing spells are either healing over time, long casting time spells, or 6th level and up.

 

[Stalker0]

My house rule was to go old school. I just dropped the death save system whole sale and returned to you die at -con score.

I also upped healing a bit. Cure wounds when upcastes heals your ability score for every level above 1st. So 18 wis is 1d8 + 4, 2d8 + 8, etc.

combat is deadly again, no whack a mole...worked like a complete charm

 

[Rockyroad]

Here are some ideas to make it deadlier. When you make death saving throws, you only count the failed saving throws. So basically you're seeing how long it takes before you die not whether you'll stabilize or pop back up on a roll of "20". You will need another entity to stabilize you. You ain't stabilizing on your own if you get yourself knocked out. Another way to do it is to roll 1d con mod and the result is the number of rounds you have before you die, minimum of 1.

And then for healing you can say that you first need to be stabilized before you can receive any hp healing. Besides the usual methods, you can use a healing spell to stabilize but you won't benefit from any hp healing from this spell when used in this way. Then the first healing spell you receive after being stabilized needs to be cast at a spell slot at least half of the receiving character's level rounded down, maybe capped at level 5 or something. This way you will hopefully have more than just 1 hp after they cast their healing word on you lol.