D&D 5E Healing in 5E

[the Jester]

I agree that it was often spread out (usually by good tactics from the PCs, or baaaaaaaaaaaad play from the DM), but "non-surge healing"? Wat? Non-surge healing was very rare and very weak in 4E in my experience, to the point where it was basically irrelevant.

Wow, we have had very different experiences of this aspect of the game. IME a party with a cleric is very likely to see cure light wounds as a level 2 (or 6? Can't recall) utility power choice. The whole "save the guy who's out of surges!" thing comes up from time to time, at least in my game. And there are definitely other leader types with surgeless healing- the rogue multiclassed into warlord just to get a surgeless healbomb (which is to say, it was either a close burst or an area burst surgeless healing power).

Of course, since late paragon, my group has had a vampire in it, which suffers from a severe lack of surges to begin with, so that might be making me more aware of the frequency that surgeless healing comes up imc; but the guy who is most prone to run out of surges is probably the barbarian, and I always notice when he gets surgeless healing because he wears armor called Unceasing Violence that lets him make a basic attack whenever he spends a healing surge.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Yeah, I get it. But, D&D is escapism. There are many players who just want to kick down the door and beat the crap out of what is behind it and take its stuff. Having the default mechanics of the game prevent that type of gaming seems backwards.

Every edition of D&D has been more about fighting than it has been about scouting and avoiding. If 5E is leaning towards making PCs avoid half of the fights, I know that most of the people that I've ever played with would be bored by that. As an occasional thing, sure. But not as the default.

I do want to finish watching the 5E podcasts to see how the game designers are playing. Are they really sneaking past stuff, or are the encounters so easy that the PCs tend to win by default?

My personal preference is Combat as Sport. 5e may just be a temporary diversion from 4e, but I can appreciate the appeal of scouting, planning, and avoiding which I regard as Combat as War traits.

I suspect we may settle on a variation of 4e with 5e-isms rather than playing 5e with 4e leanings. But that is really up to the group as a whole.

4e does 4e style better than 5e ever will. 3.5 or PF does 3.x-style better than 5e ever will.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Anyone else ever read threads like this and think, "I wish I could get other people to run for a change so I can try all these different game styles?"

 

[fjw70]

In the 5e campaign I started with the kids none of them selected the cleric so I put healing surges in the game to replace cleric helping and hit dice.


Each PC get 8 surges that healing 1/4 of the total hp (5 min) and they can use as many as the want during a short rest. A healing potion allows them to spend a surge without a rest. They need to rest a few days to get the surges back (still playing around with the timing) so it will only happen between adventures or adventure parts.


The 5 minimum give a pretty good boost to the lower levels. The minimum will go away in a couple levels.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Anyone else ever read threads like this and think, "I wish I could get other people to run for a change so I can try all these different game styles?"

All the time.

Thaumaturge.

 

[keterys]

In my experience, they were never a limit. I can count the number of times in the last 5 years that someone ran out of Healing Surges on one hand. That was from playing 3 Living Forgotten Realms adventures a week as well as 2 weekly D&D games for a while.

Most of the time, there was plenty of non-surge healing on hand and the damage was spread out enough to make no one PC run out. Or the damage was so focused on the Defender who had more than enough Healing Surges.

I'll definitely grant that LFR is very focused away from surge use, except in a couple places. The adventures just aren't long enough (and/or dangerous enough) for it to be an issue.

That's not at all my experience outside of LFR, though; especially early on. One of my favorite moments from a campaign was when the party's defender walked bloodied and surgeless into the boss fight, because resting would have meant failure.

I also remember going to extreme steps to keep the druid healed in one campaign. Mind you, that's the campaign where we also hit 8 milestones once. Surgeless healing was _very_ much a thing there.

It became less of a problem later on with Comrade's Succor and Keoghtom's Ointment, but at the same time those being used also meant there was still an impact I suppose.

At any rate, the main thing I liked about healing surges was actually that it made healing amounts reasonable and relevant. I don't want to see people figuring out healing at very high level by rolling out 1d8 for a healing spell 10-20 times to top people off.

 

[KarinsDad]

Anyone else ever read threads like this and think, "I wish I could get other people to run for a change so I can try all these different game styles?"

I'm not convinced that there are too many different game styles. Every D&D or Pathfinder game I enter for a given version, it seems pretty much like all of the rest with a few house rules sometime thrown in. I suspect that it is a very narrow bell curve. The players tend to play pretty much the same. Sometimes we have better maps.

 

[KarinsDad]

At any rate, the main thing I liked about healing surges was actually that it made healing amounts reasonable and relevant. I don't want to see people figuring out healing at very high level by rolling out 1d8 for a healing spell 10-20 times to top people off.

This. The hit dice recovery just seems wonky, especially since you have to keep track of them separately for multiclassing.

Hmmm. Gotta think of a good house rule.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Wow, we have had very different experiences of this aspect of the game. IME a party with a cleric is very likely to see cure light wounds as a level 2 (or 6? Can't recall) utility power choice. The whole "save the guy who's out of surges!" thing comes up from time to time, at least in my game. And there are definitely other leader types with surgeless healing- the rogue multiclassed into warlord just to get a surgeless healbomb (which is to say, it was either a close burst or an area burst surgeless healing power).

Interesting. For me, Divine Aid (saving throw + CHA, 1/encounter) is the go to Cleric 2 power worth drooling over. But, we see lots of save ends effects that are absolutely deadly and want to end right the heck now. Same goes for the warlord's power Shake It Off. We consider those must haves that blow everything else that level out of the water.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Wow, we have had very different experiences of this aspect of the game. IME a party with a cleric is very likely to see cure light wounds as a level 2 (or 6? Can't recall) utility power choice. The whole "save the guy who's out of surges!" thing comes up from time to time, at least in my game. And there are definitely other leader types with surgeless healing- the rogue multiclassed into warlord just to get a surgeless healbomb (which is to say, it was either a close burst or an area burst surgeless healing power).

Our Cleric had CLW, but she ditched it because it wasn't clutch enough. If you have a nerk in your party who runs out of surges on a routine enough basis to warrant CLW, she felt, he needs a metaphorical slap upside the head, not surgeless healing. And indeed we had that guy and that's what he got, and now he doesn't run out of surges!

All the surgeless stuff seems to top out at like, a naked Healing Surge or not much more, in value, and is usually Daily (or is truly tiny, like, single-digit HP, or only works below 50% or the like), whereas the surge-based healing can often use a surge and then almost double that in bonus HP from the heal.

Of course YMMWV! Our party is quite active in conserving their surges after Captain Suicide managed to get to 0 a number of times early on. The BRV Fighter sometimes get very low on surges, because he's a bloody Juggernaut and does 10 damage to himself virtually every round these days!

The biggest "SAVE YO ASS" spells/spell-types in my main group seem to be:

A) The Cleric spell which teleports someone to the Cleric (this needs to appear in 5E, because it's very miraculous and very effective) has got so many PCs out of "OH BOY!"-type situations. I think it's Encounter to boot.

B) Anything that grants more saves.