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

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't think it would impact things as much as you imagine...

Another option would be:
Round 1: You can move, take an action, or take a bonus action.
Round 2: You can do two of the three.
Round 3: You're good to go.

Since most times getting up would be your first priority, that is basically all you would likely do in Round 1. But, if I did this I would not allow magic/healing to speed it up.

At any rate, it would take further thought and play-testing to see exactly how much impact these types of mechanics would have.

Do you find 5e combat lasts more than 4 rounds more often than, say, one in ten combats? More importantly, do you find this at-least-four-rounds thing happens more than ten percent of the time after the first person goes down? Because that's really the problem. After the first few levels, 5e is not so deadly that people go down in the first round very often. So you're expecting 6+ round combats, or PCs that sacrifice multiple actions/very expensive resources to scrape players off the floor, rather than push the fight to a conclusion NOW and save the dying person AFTER.

 

[Mistwell]

Sure, but that usually isn't an issue.

With Healing Word, the caster gets their move and action, and the person they are healing gets their move, action, and bonus action.
With Goodberry, the caster or other user gets just their bonus action (if any).
It's a much worse choice in terms of action economy. You essentially miss your turn to use the Goodberry.

Seems like a fair exchange to me. Healing word is superior, but if you need to save slots then Goodberry is a poor man's substitute.

Anyway, it is also more useful because any PC carrying a berry can restore the downed PC--it doesn't have to be the one PC with Healing Word. So, the rogue can move, cunning action dash, free object get the berry out, and use an object action to feed it to the cleric/druid/healer-type that is at 0 HP. If the rogue has 4 berries on him, he can feed all 4 at once even if the DM allows it (most do, IME). And again, 1 use vs. potentially 10 makes goodberry MUCH more of an issue IME. I've never had an issue with Healing Word, frankly.

If the Rogue chose the Thief subclass they can do this much easier. For that situation the Goodberry spell is definitely superior.

Goodberry is a spell I will probably remove from future games or at the very least rewrite. It makes requiring rations pointless and getting PCs back to consciousness ridiculously easy. If you want high magic-high power games, it is perfectly fine as is, but that isn't the style of D&D I enjoy playing or running.

Personally I would restrict it to once per day per person.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I see this in my games... I don't mind it tactically, but it really pushes my boundaries of disbelief. I just don't like the image of someone falling unconscious, standing up, taking actions, falling unconscious multiple times a day. As someone who got a pretty serious concussion once from passing out and hitting my head on the ground (I lost two teeth and three days of memory), I just keep imagining the traumatic brain injuries these characters are collecting...

 

[DND_Reborn]

at first glance that looks meaningful, but nine times out of ten the players is going to either get up & attack the thing that just dropped them or get up & move to safety. The only "Now that I'm up, on my turn I..." that would be affected is if the player would have said "disengage & move away." Having a cost of something you probably weren't going to use is effectively not a cost at all

Oh, I agree. I prefer my other solution more but offered this as a "not as intense" options.

Do you find 5e combat lasts more than 4 rounds more often than, say, one in ten combats? More importantly, do you find this at-least-four-rounds thing happens more than ten percent of the time after the first person goes down? Because that's really the problem. After the first few levels, 5e is not so deadly that people go down in the first round very often. So you're expecting 6+ round combats, or PCs that sacrifice multiple actions/very expensive resources to scrape players off the floor, rather than push the fight to a conclusion NOW and save the dying person AFTER.

Yes. I find combat lasts, on average, about 5 rounds. Some, just 1-2 rounds, but many others 8-10 rounds or longer.

Let's put it this way: when a player's Rage counter ends, we know it's been 10 rounds--and that happens often enough IME. YMMV of course.

Anyway, like you said how often after the first person goes down? Well, in 5E (after those early levels) if a PC goes down (again IME) the battle is likely still going strong and will last more rounds. Also, the point of such a mechanic is to stress that you can't just jump right back into the fight after you've been unconscious. It is going to take you a few seconds to collect yourself. It is part of what so many people dislike about the whack-a-mole thing.

We already had too much of the "finish the fight first--worry about downed dying friends later" which is why changing death saves to be more likely to end in death than recovery was so important.

 

[DND_Reborn]

With Healing Word, the caster gets their move and action, and the person they are healing gets their move, action, and bonus action.
With Goodberry, the caster or other user gets just their bonus action (if any).
It's a much worse choice in terms of action economy. You essentially miss your turn to use the Goodberry.

Seems like a fair exchange to me. Healing word is superior, but if you need to save slots then Goodberry is a poor man's substitute.

With either method the person healed gets to use all their actions normally, so that is immaterial to the discussion.

Healing word is better only in action economy and range IMO, but it can't heal as much or more than one target to overall isn't better really. IME needing to move and use the action for the goodberry isn't a big issue.

You also miss your action if you cast any other healing spell... so, meh.

And personally, saving slot is always an issue when you get into the meat of an adventure.

Personally I would restrict it to once per day per person.

That would be okay, and I would probably only have it provide a half ration per berry (it'll help keep you alive, but that's about it) instead of a full-ration's worth.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

One way to battle "whack-a-mole" (defined here as not healing allies until they hit 0 HP) may be to limit the refresh on death save failures. For instance, a house rule might be that spells, potions, and class/subclass abilities don't remove death save failures at all. Only natural healing from a healer's kit or resting would result in a reset of death save failures. May give pause to the thought that waiting until a PC is knocked out is the optimal time to magically heal in combat.
We're actually thinking of implementing that on a limited basis in our Curse of Strahd reboot campaign - certain areas of the adventure might be desecrated in such a way that healing magic holds no sway over death saves.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Could we have a "recovery" mechanic for PCs who reach 0 HP and are down/disabled, that allows them to slowly get back into the fray, hopefully maybe encouraging further healing?...

Made me think of the Raise Dead mechanics for some reason, a "you suck" for a while mechanic that goes away with time.

Total brainstorm to make tracking easy while penalizing "whack-a-mole" antics:

If restored from 0 HP, you have -4 to your d20 rolls and enemies save against your abilities at +4. This penalty goes away at 1 per round at the (start/end) of your turns. It's a bit more number crunching than no penalty at all but gives some easy-to-remember bite.

Extra healing to reduce the penalty is a trickier mechanism as savvy players might use the "bargain bin" healing of healing (e.g. a 1 hp goodberry) while the actual benefit of healing is distancing you from having to reset this penalty. The bigger the heal, the better odds.

For those who don't feel you don't see whack-a-mole that often, it's a numerical trade-off imbalance. You can trade off 1 point of healing (e.g. the goodberry) as insurance against the next hit. So long as that hit can't outright kill a character, you can effectively use the most minute of healing, trading 1 point of healing against, let's say, a 20 damage enemy spell or attack. Character hits 0hp, and the extra damage drains away. Character bounces back up with 1hp, no big deal. In prior editions, it was a big deal because the extra damage didn't vanish.

I also am intrigued by @DM Dave1 's suggestion to limit the refresh on death saves. We're doing a version of that with homebrew as earlier. Given how quickly a death save can go bad, though, definitely would want something beside a long rest to remove them.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If restored from 0 HP, you have -4 to your d20 rolls and enemies save against your abilities at +4. This penalty goes away at 1 per round at the (start/end) of your turns. It's a bit more number crunching than no penalty at all but gives some easy-to-remember bite.

Something like that could work, as well, but I would want to also include some sort of penalty to movement. In the same light, maybe -20 to speed, and then -15, -10, and -5 to mirror the -4 to -1 penalty.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I also am intrigued by @DM Dave1 's suggestion to limit the refresh on death saves. We're doing a version of that with homebrew as earlier. Given how quickly a death save can go bad, though, definitely would want something beside a long rest to remove them.

Well, there are short rest HD to spend and/or healer's kits to utilize under the proposed house rule. Those aside, we may actually allow class/subclass features to remove death save failures (fighter's second wind, paladin's lay on hands, Circle of Dreams druid's balm of the summer court, etc.) That way, it's just spells and potions that hold no sway over death save failure reset and the rule places more importance on class/subclass special abilities. Still noodling on it...

EDIT: one other way under this house rule to reset Death Save Failures: 3 Death Save Successes (or Nat 20 when making Death Saves)

 

[loverdrive]

You're approaching it from a weird angle. A better idea would be to buff healing, so it gives something more than "ok, you now can withstand whole one more attack, good luck"