D&D 5E Excluding Healing Spirit, is 5e Healing too weak?

[CapnZapp]

So imagine your character concept was "in combat I hide, then at the right moment I pop out and kill, then hide again. Getting hit is something I don't do."

4e never successfully made that viable.

This.

Similarly, an archer who desperately runs away whenever someone gets close, is less effective than one that mixes up tactically with the battle.

Well, the relevant comparison wouldn't be using someone running away. It would still be an archer shooting every round, staying in the fight.

The relevant comparison is between an archer that lets her tank buddy soak the hits (because he's better at it) rather than soaking some of them herself.

With 4E style surges you couldn't choose the former tactic, regardless of how many healing potions you have.

PS. I only played 4E up until PHB2 or thereabouts, so I don't really care for any arguments that later additions fixed any of the edition's problems. Some people argue Essentials fixed this or magic items fixed that, to which I simply shrug: You only get the one chance, and 4E blew it.

 

[NotAYakk]

Yes, in 4e healing potions did not give you an infinite pool of HP. Your tank would run out of gas and need a break, even with infinite healing potions backing them up.

You apparently want infinite healing potions to be able to make someone have infinite endurance, and consider the alternative to suck.

Note you could still choose the tactic of "I don't get hit" and play 4e. It wasn't optimal, but neither is any character who isn't a chain of nfinite-simulacrum wizards at level 17 5e.

Now, in both 5e and 4e, taking preventing 100% focus fire on your tank by taking a few hits that would otherwise focus on the tank is optimal play. But 5e's encounter balance is a lot more random; 4e it was possible to throw a bunch of challenging encounters at a party in a row and stress the party's resources in a pretty controlled manner.

So a 4e DM (especially at low levels) can push a party to the brink (resource-wise) reliably; it has pretty robust encounter building tools. In 5e, if you push the party anywhere near the brink, you are going to get a TPK or have to cheat (change the encounter on the fly, etc) with near certainty by the 5th time you do it.

This, together with the flat power curve of 5e D&D from level 5 to 15, means that DMs seem to eyeball encounters as much as they use the encounter building tools. That flat power curve, more than anything, keeps 5e encounters from being splat fests, and is a great innovation of the game. People talk about how the bounded accuracy of 5e made it plausible to use CR 1 monsters en-mass as threats to high level parties; I find more of its utility is really that a CR 18 demi-lich is extremely scary, but not a guaranteed TPK for a level 10 party.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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PS. I only played 4E up until PHB2 or thereabouts, so I don't really care for any arguments that later additions fixed any of the edition's problems.

It wasnt so much a problem, but thereabouts (2009), there were already several options, including a trivial 1st-level ritual, that allowed surges to be shuffled around, if that was your preference to suppprt a given style.

I understand that you were unwilling to give 4e a chance, and you had as much... well 1/5th as much ...justification for giving up on 4e a year in, on that basis as someone giving up on 5e, today, for want of a Psion in print.

But, please, accept facts when they are presented to you by people who did become familiar with the whole edition.

So imagine your character concept was "in combat I hide, then at the right moment I pop out and kill, then hide again. Getting hit is something I don't do."

I imagine few DMs or parties going for it, sold in quite those terms, since it sounds like you want to always win at no risk, but...

4e never successfully made that viable.

Heh. An epic-level thief in my campaign would fall into that rut a lot - if you don't find it boring, it's at least viable.

Similarly, an archer who desperately runs away whenever someone gets close

Not exactly 'desperately,' but the rangers mobility was good for that.

, is less effective than one that mixes up tactically with the battle.

Ranged attacks in melee generally provoked in 4e, so not s'much, no.

The ranger archer build was more LotR legolas than a piece of artillery.

A number of its manuevers seemed taken straight from the movie version. But, then 4e was very cinematic, that way.

Baiting foes to go after you, then using your "aha you came after me" powers, was...

...also, viable for some builds, sure.

 

[Retreater]

Healing can't be too weak, because I've never seen a character die in a 5e game.
(Granted, there have been a couple TPKs but never a single character.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

Healing can't be too weak, because I've never seen a character die in a 5e game.
(Granted, there have been a couple TPKs but never a single character.)

IDK if it's the easiest too-deadly game, or the deadliest too-easy game, but it's crazy how often I've heard both those...

...just not usually both at once.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, I'd say 5e is really vulnerable to the death spiral for some reason. Maybe it is just my gut, maybe it is something else, but when things start going bad in 5e, they start stacking and going bad quick for the party.