D&D 5E Healing in 5E

[Blackbrrd]

Not sure if anyone has touched on this yet but it seems like we might be back to "healing is a trap" in 5.0, just like 3.x.

In other words: if your Cure Wounds heals 1d8 +3, that means you're healing 4.5 + 3 = 7.5 on average as a 1st level spell. If monsters can do 8 or more damage on a hit - and many of them do - you're only losing ground when healing. (It gets even worse when there are more monsters that do that much damage at a time at once.) It's better to use your action to kill a monster instead.

The Life domain adds 3 to that spell, and definitely extends its usefulness much further - which is great because that's what that domain is all about. In fact, with this domain even Healing Word can heal for 8.5 on average and it's a bonus action, which is awesome. That's definitely something a cleric would want to do during a turn. It becomes a far better spell than Cure Wounds at low level (and since it has a huge range, it replaces Spare the Dying whenever possible).

Generally though - and I've not seen it in play yet - the math makes me think that healing as an action in combat will usually be a sub-optimal choice. Maybe not as bad as 3.x, but nothing like 4.0, where in-combat healing was a crucial part of the round-to-round mechanics.

They intentionally removed scaling of spells from caster level, now the scaling comes from user higher level spell slots. It makes the strength of caster less exponential and more linear, like the other classes.

Another effect of this is that combats will be quicker in 5e than in 4e. In 4e you really had to "kill" a character 2-3 times over in a single combat for a hope of getting him down due to the healing mechanic. Now the assumption will be that healing in combat is something you only do if desperate.

It's still better for the cleric to heal the fighter so he doesn't go down instead of doing regular melee attacks. Looking at it that way, it isn't a trap to heal. Using a level 1 spell slot to heal in combat when you have access to level 2-3-4 spells isn't smart though (generally).

 

[Tony Vargas]

They intentionally removed scaling of spells from caster level, now the scaling comes from user higher level spell slots. It makes the strength of caster less exponential and more linear, like the other classes.

True. /Less/ exponential. Oddly, where 3e got this bit right with saves (sorta, saves scales with spell level, making low-level spells that granted saves less useful in combat at higher levels, they were just optimizable to too great a degree) and wrong with damage (scaled with CL), 5e got it right with damage (scales with slot) and wrong with saves (scales with proficiency, and the caster /always/ gets proficiency, while the target gets it only 1/3rd of the time).

Another effect of this is that combats will be quicker in 5e than in 4e. In 4e you really had to "kill" a character 2-3 times over in a single combat for a hope of getting him down due to the healing mechanic. Now the assumption will be that healing in combat is something you only do if desperate.

5e combats are quicker because the the encounter guidelines and monsters are tuned that way - you fight fewer, weaker monsters in a standard 5e battle than in 4e, and everyone, monsters and PCs has vastly fewer hps. (At least, that's how it was in the playtest, if the monsters or encounters get beefed up enough, fights will be longer.) So, while you might or might not need to heal in a given combat, that's a side effect of the combat being over so fast because you rolled over the monsters, not a cause for the fight being over so quick.

The only case in which not healing dropped allies (or pro-actively healing with minor- or bonus-actino heals to keep them from dropping and thus losing actions) speeds up a fight is the TPK.

It's still better for the cleric to heal the fighter so he doesn't go down instead of doing regular melee attacks. Looking at it that way, it isn't a trap to heal. Using a level 1 spell slot to heal in combat when you have access to level 2-3-4 spells isn't smart though (generally).

About like it was in 3e. Healing in combat wasn't a good idea unless it saved an ally from dropping, that ally's actions were worth more than yours, and you used one of your higher level spells to grant a /lot/ of healing that'd actually put you ahead of monters' damage output. The numbers are all smaller, but it's basically the same dynamic. Bonus-action healing tweaks that a little, but it's such a small amount of healing, I'm not sure it'll prove worth the slots.

 

[Thaumaturge]

I may have missed someone making this point, but at low levels healing isn't quite the trapped some paint it as.

If the fighter (or anyone else) is at 3 HP, an attacker only has to do Max HP+3 to outright kill him. A cure spell gives a buffer.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Another effect of this is that combats will be quicker in 5e than in 4e. In 4e you really had to "kill" a character 2-3 times over in a single combat for a hope of getting him down due to the healing mechanic. Now the assumption will be that healing in combat is something you only do if desperate.

Combats in 4E were almost never slow because it was hard to kill PCs. They were slow because it was hard to kill monsters. So that's not a big difference, actually.

5E will be faster because it's faster to kill monsters, not PCs (the latter is merely a necessary adjunct of the former and retaining risk).

I may have missed someone making this point, but at low levels healing isn't quite the trapped some paint it as.

If the fighter (or anyone else) is at 3 HP, an attacker only has to do Max HP+3 to outright kill him. A cure spell gives a buffer.

Thaumaturge.

At levels above 1, Max HP+3 is a pretty big number, Thaum, so this isn't really a big issue, at least based on enemies we've actually seen. At L1 you're just screwed whatever happens if you take damage! I'm not saying it can't happen, but it the chances that your extra HP actually save his life are very slim unless the monster is VERY high damage. Much more likely, you blew your action, one of your spells slots AND the Fighter went down anyway. Good job!

 

[Thaumaturge]

At levels above 1, Max HP+3 is a pretty big number, Thaum, so this isn't really a big issue, at least based on enemies we've actually seen. At L1 you're just screwed whatever happens if you take damage! I'm not saying it can't happen, but it the chances that your extra HP actually save his life are very slim unless the monster is VERY high damage. Much more likely, you blew your action, one of your spells slots AND the Fighter went down anyway. Good job!

True. I thought we were talking about at 1st. Above 2nd, you have higher level slots. But mostly I need to not post to non-joke threads while trying to manage 3 children under 6. My reading comprehension is suffering.

Thaumaturge.

 

[KarinsDad]

It's still better for the cleric to heal the fighter so he doesn't go down instead of doing regular melee attacks. Looking at it that way, it isn't a trap to heal.

Not always. The cleric's initiative might be immediately before the fighter's. If the cleric heals, then he has wasted an opportunity to damage a foe. If he does not heal, he tries to damage a foe. The fighter then tries to damage a foe. At some point, the foes attack. Some might attack the fighter simply because he is still up and still low on hit points (NPCs do not know the hit points, but probably do know that the fighter got hurt). That might be better for the party than attacking the wizard or rogue (due to their lower ACs and overall hit points). If the cleric heals the fighter, then sure, the fighter is better off. But, the wizard might be dropped that next round and the cleric can no longer heal him, etc.

I have played in a lot of games where as a healer, I waited to heal downed PCs in many cases. It just depends. I was once in a 4E game with a hybrid leader/leader where one PC went down to 4 hit points. For several rounds, he wanted me to heal him but I didn't. Two other PCs ended up going unconscious and I healed them right away (because as a hybrid, I could cast my only 2 minor heals in a single turn). The 4 hit point PC never got hit again and it worked out that the party saved more resources the way I did it.

It will not always turn out that way, but waiting until a PC drops to heal him is often (not always) a viable tactic in a game where PCs do not go to negative numbers and start healing at zero hit points and there are few penalties for going unconscious.

 

[Emerikol]

Sure, but healing pre-emptively at low-levels is indeed kinda a trap. It may actually be better, depending on initiative and so on, to wait for someone to drop.

I think most of the time, combat healing is not the optimal choice. Why not use cure wounds which does more if you can? So healing in battle is something you do because you really need to do it.

The person made the assertion that it was always better to kill rather than heal. I gave one example where this is not true. I will admit my players and I when I play tend to be far more tactically minded where frontage is concerned at low levels. We don't fight in open rooms. We run for the nearest door and we get the blockers up front. That enables those in the rear to fire over and the healers to keep people up.

It's just not black and white that choosing to heal is a trap. It is situational.

 

[KarinsDad]

That is certainly not the case. 1E strongly encouraged scouting and avoiding. The bulk of your XP came from treasure found rather than monsters defeated, and combat was incredibly dangerous. If you could find a way to sneak in and nick the treasure without ever meeting a monster, that was a perfect adventure (at least from a rules-incentives point of view).

2E was the edition that made monster-battling the primary source of XP.

The way I see it, if there is a substantial treasure, then there will almost always be guards. In a novel, the author can write cool ways for the protagonist to avoid them, but that's a bit harder to do in D&D.

For example, let's take a 1E Ogre lair (the example in the DMG) and let's roll average rolls:

2-20 = 11 Ogres
11 Ogres = 1 Ogre Leader
2-12 = 7 Ogre females
2-8 = 5 Young Ogres

Ogres are 4HD+1 creatures with 19 hit points = 90 XP + 95 XP each.
Ogre Leaders is 7 HD with 31 hit points = 225 XP + 128 XP each.
Ogre females are effectively 4 HD creatures with 16 hit points = 60 XP + 64 XP each.
Ogre young are 1 HD creatures with 7 hit points = 10 XP + 7 XP each.

Total XP for monsters alone: 3341 XP.

The adults have 45 gold each or 885 XP.
The lair has 2250 copper = 11.25 gold plus 1050 silver = 52.5 gold plus 625 electrum = 312.5 gold plus 500 gold plus 1.35 gems = 371.25 GP plus 0.5 jewelry = 1402.5 GP plus 1.25 gems = 342.75 GP = 2992 GP = 2992 XP
The magic in the lair is 0.1 sword, armor or misc ~= 5000 GP or 833 XP plus 2 potions = 1000 GP or 600 XP

So from this, 3341 XP came from monsters and 5310 XP came from treasure (course, I was being very generous with the treasure by allowing the chances of high value items into the calculations which most DMs would not introduce into the game, upping the overall XP of treasure).

5310 of the 8651 XP came from treasure or 61%. This is a solid majority, but I would not call it "the bulk". And most DMs I know would not allow things like Vorpal weapons or 5000 GP gems into the mix, so the treasure total here is a bit high. Plus this does not take into account other expenses that eat into the GP profit (and hence the XP total which is based on GP profit, not GP total) like hirelings, or giving a magic item to a henchmen to keep him happy, or paying tariffs to a local lord, or raising one or more PCs from the dead, etc.

So yes, if killing the monsters was about half of the XP (and a party typically had to get past them anyway), chances are that most PCs in most 1E games got a significant chunk of their XP from killing stuff. They might have gotten more XP from GP over the lifetime of the PCs (no doubt this often happened), but the majority of the time, they had to get the XP from killing stuff first before they got the XP from the gold. If they failed killing the monsters, they got 0 XP.


Plus, people are people. Many people playing D&D want to roleplay their characters. That means fighters and monks fight, magic users cast spells, and assassins assassinate. The Fighters are not fighting if the thief PC convinced everyone to sneak past all of the fights (and the fighter in armor typically cannot do that anyway, magic users have invisibility, but it is one PC per casting and most 4th level party facing 4th level ogres typically has one such spell at most). The ability and motivation of the party to be sneaky just isn't there in most 1E groups/campaigns, at least based on the capabilities of PCs in 1E and IME.

Many people also use D&D as escapism and just want to kick down doors and bash skulls. That did not change when 2E came out, 2E was a result of how everyone played the 1E game. Many PCs went into the various A, B, C, ... X series modules and fighting was a major staple of those adventures (ditto for Judges Guild, etc.).

I'm not quite sure what version of 1E you were playing. Sure, a lot of XP came from gold in 1E. But in order to get the gold, the majority of the time, PCs had to fight first as a general rule. No fight = no gold if there was no way to sneak past (and most DMs would not have any significant treasure unprotected).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The person made the assertion that it was always better to kill rather than heal.

I can't find anyone in this thread saying "always", only "usually", which you seem to agree with. Maybe I am missing something?

As for frontage, the problem with that is that the Cleric is the second-toughest PC in melee, in a normal 4-person, 1 class each Basic party. If you have lots of Fighters or the like, hanging back makes sense, but I dunno how common that is (even with the Starter Set, which has two Fighters, the Cleric is pretty much second-toughest, IIRC).

 

[Blackbrrd]

Not always. The cleric's initiative might be immediately before the fighter's. If the cleric heals, then he has wasted an opportunity to damage a foe. If he does not heal, he tries to damage a foe. The fighter then tries to damage a foe. At some point, the foes attack. Some might attack the fighter simply because he is still up and still low on hit points (NPCs do not know the hit points, but probably do know that the fighter got hurt). That might be better for the party than attacking the wizard or rogue (due to their lower ACs and overall hit points). If the cleric heals the fighter, then sure, the fighter is better off. But, the wizard might be dropped that next round and the cleric can no longer heal him, etc.

I have played in a lot of games where as a healer, I waited to heal downed PCs in many cases. It just depends. I was once in a 4E game with a hybrid leader/leader where one PC went down to 4 hit points. For several rounds, he wanted me to heal him but I didn't. Two other PCs ended up going unconscious and I healed them right away (because as a hybrid, I could cast my only 2 minor heals in a single turn). The 4 hit point PC never got hit again and it worked out that the party saved more resources the way I did it.

It will not always turn out that way, but waiting until a PC drops to heal him is often (not always) a viable tactic in a game where PCs do not go to negative numbers and start healing at zero hit points and there are few penalties for going unconscious.

Sure, but it isn't a trap to heal people. Which was the point I was trying to make. You just don't want to do it at every opportunity you get. I like decision points like that, where you don't always want to use power/spell/ability x.

Btw, when you go down, you drop your stuff and fall prone. A smart enemy would probably take a free action to kick your weapon away after dropping you. If that happened often, it would probably be smarter to keep people up than to save on the hp due to the heal-from-zero rule.