D&D 5E Healing in 5e

[Charles Rampant]

TL;DR: for just the proposed house rule, check the bolded bullet points below.

Hey all,


So another thread on the forum made me remember that I'd done some thinking on the commonly-accepted tendency (or "problem") in 5e for the party to only heal once someone is on the ground. Let me quickly summarise this:

• The party doesn’t heal anyone until they are on 0 hp.
• This leads to ‘whack-a-mole’ healing, where someone falls over repeatedly and gets up, cheerfully soaking all the excess damage done since there is no -1 to -10 or instant-death-at-0hp rules anymore.
• Solutions to whack-a-mole can include having monsters murder the downed character, or various nerfs to the Death Saves mechanic that range from mild to hellish.

Okay, so we’re all up to speed. I wanted to come at this from a different direction from that usually done, where the usual one is to nerf the ability of characters to be downed consequence-free. I myself tried out ‘going to 0hp gives a level of exhaustion’, and found that it did little to solve the problem, and indeed just felt punitive to the players; it didn’t make the game more fun, which is kind of my no. 1 requirement for a houserule. When I tried out this houserule, the players didn’t act differently because the underlying cause, as they had identified it, remained: healing spells are dreadful. The cleric in my Wednesday game - who kind of hates the class, and thus at level 17 deeply regrets picking it for a 1-20 no-multiclassing campaign - puts it thus: “I can heal the Paladin, for 3d8 of damage. Then the monster will hit him twice, each time doing 3d8 of damage, and he’ll go right back down again. What’s the point?”


So, here is my suggestion, offered not as a means to get validation for my home game, since I have no intention of adopting them myself, but simply to broaden the debate: make combat healing better. Now, I deeply hate and despise all PCs - as my DM’s Guild membership dictates - so I do not intend this to be a straight buff. Instead, we will tinker with the overall healing of the party. 5e includes the ‘Hit Dice’ mechanic for healing damage on a short rest - a modified version of 4e’s ’Healing Surge’ mechanic, for those curious - and this Hit Dice mechanic really promotes not bothering with spells-for-healing. The party now has an additional resource which doesn’t require the Cleric to give up fun Call Lightning or Guiding Bolt spells, and which can be used at their own leisure. Healing Spells do very paltry amounts in comparison, when you consider the other potential uses of the spell slots, and so it is no surprise that Bards and Clerics rather resent casting them when the Barbarian could simply man up and use his hit dice. So the overall look, given very tentatively as I am definitely not a maths guy, is:

• Healing spells do double their current healing, applied after all class and spell modifiers are applied.
• Hit Dice can only be spent after a long rest, and only recharge between adventures.

It is worth noting that this is very likely to return us to 2e style ‘mandatory clerics’, who must accept being healers primarily, rather than front-line buffers and controllers. After all, 5e introduced the Hit Dice and Death Saving Throw mechanics expressly to avoid mandatory clerics and boring 'deadtime' in games for the downed players. However, I would observe that many posters seem to really want the party Cleric to cast more healing spells, so that might not be an issue.

I hope that this is of interest.

 

[Lancelot]

Y...eah. Okay. Kind of an interesting premise, and an even more interesting resolution.

I'd dispute the thought that healing spells are crap. Your hypothetical 17th level cleric is complaining about healing the paladin for 3d8 damage, and then he goes down again, so what's the point of healing spells? Firstly, that paladin has an 85 HP lay-on-hands of his own, right? That's clearly not shabby healing. If he's in dire straits, he can help himself. Secondly, what 17th level cleric is burning a 3rd level slot to chuck cure wounds in the heat of combat? If the paladin needs serious healing, you drop heal. Boom; 70 HP back. If you don't want to burn a big slot, then chuck a healing word. You've only spent a Bonus Action, letting you (the cleric) smash away with your mace, or drop a damaging cantrip, or drink a potion of something cool.

The most common complaint from experienced players is that high-level 5e D&D (and, in truth, high-level D&D in every version) is too easy. The players have access to too many potential resources, too much healing, and can safely ignore death in most cases. I don't see how doubling the power of all healing spells fixes this. Combats become much longer, which means more boring. To threaten the party, you have to add more monsters to the encounter, which increases complexity. You all have to make massive changes to a ton of things for balance reasons. Rangers will hate short rests because they gain literally nothing from them (they don't have short rest recharge mechanics, can't spend HD, and the short rest simply burns the duration of spells like hunter's mark). The cure wounds spell becomes irrelevant at 1st level; if healing word cures double strength after modifiers, then it's probably healing 8 HP minimum with a roll of 1-on-d4... as a bonus action. Feats change; non-healing spells become irrelevant for clerics; magic items change...

[shrug] I'd go on, but I just don't see the point. Why not just leave it as it stands? If you want to play a healing cleric in 5e, you can. As mentioned above, healing spells are not crap... and the Life domain buffs them even further. If you want to play a heal-bot, you can play a heal-bot. But you also don't have to! I personally play a cleric (Arcana domain) who has healing word and mass healing word as my only healing spells. Both are bonus actions, which means I get to do cool things on my turn even if I'm healing someone else. My party knows that I'll be burning slots on other things as well. I'll cast animate dead to give us some meat-shields, silence to lock down enemy casters, spiritual weapon to add some punch to our combats, and magic missile (domain spell) to do some direct ranged damage. Could I do more healing? Sure. But the party fighter has Second Wind, and the monk can heal himself, and the rogue can halve damage from most attacks, and the ranger/bard/druid/paladin have healing spells of their own, and the wizard has shield and mirror image. And, if all else fails, they can burn HD between rests. They're less reliant on me as a heal-bot than most (or all) previous editions, which is great. They can play what they want to play, and I can play what I want to play.

5e: D&D for people who enjoy choices, and don't want to pigeon-hole clerics into a single role.

 

[sword3274]

My personal opinion is that upping the healing for spells (in combat or not) only trivializes damage. To your point/story about the party cleric lamenting his job, healing 3d8 points of damage in a combat where his target is going to take 6d8 damage next round sound - to me - that the cleric (or the group as a whole) isn't addressing the problem (6d8 damage) with the right tool (3d8 healing). I don't think it's a problem with the healing spell itself. As Lancelot pointed out, there are bigger and better tools available that will address the problem, and I don't think overhauling the healing spells are the answer. But, that's me.

As an aside, I do use the 0 hp = 1 level of exhaustion. I like it, as it replicates a "death spiral"/condition track of sorts. It makes dropping to zero hp more deadly and mean a bit more and my players actively avoid dropping too low, which mitigates the "whack-a-mole" scenario the OP is concerned with. But I know it might not work for everyone.

 

[CydKnight]

My players would rebel against any changes to the mechanics. As such I choose, and embrace, working with the rules as they are written. Healing spells are the way they are for a reason. Making them more or less powerful likely will have an effect on the way something else is meant to work either immediately or later down the road.

The players are being penalized for going down if only indirectly by the Cleric or Healer who must spend an action to get the downed player on his/her feet. If that player then chooses to attack instead of Disengaging, Healing themselves more, or otherwise putting themselves in a position not to go down again, then they could be penalizing someone else to revive them yet again or simply allow them to take their chances with Death Saves. The game is about choices and players will choose what they think works best for them. Make them feel otherwise.

Use the mechanics and rules available to force the player's make different choices. Legendary Actions by Creatures that possess them could put you at 2 Death Saves before someone can stabilize you. There are also damage types (necrotic?) which reduce Hit Point Maximum possibly to zero effectively making the character Dead and at the mercy of a Resurrection. I'm sure there are other things that I'm not naming here but I am certain there are more.

 

[Kalshane]

Necrotic Damage doesn't reduce max HP by default, though most effects that do reduce max HP do necrotic damage.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

When I tried out this houserule, the players didn’t act differently because the underlying cause, as they had identified it, remained: healing spells are dreadful. The cleric in my Wednesday game - who kind of hates the class, and thus at level 17 deeply regrets picking it for a 1-20 no-multiclassing campaign - puts it thus: “I can heal the Paladin, for 3d8 of damage. Then the monster will hit him twice, each time doing 3d8 of damage, and he’ll go right back down again. What’s the point?”

...thus illustrating how clerics are actually pretty poor healers in 5E. Lore Bards and Paladins are where it's at.

 

[GMMichael]

The players are being penalized for going down if only indirectly by the Cleric or Healer who must spend an action to get the downed player on his/her feet. If that player then chooses to attack instead of Disengaging, Healing themselves more, or otherwise putting themselves in a position not to go down again, then they could be penalizing someone else to revive them yet again or simply allow them to take their chances with Death Saves. The game is about choices and players will choose what they think works best for them. Make them feel otherwise.

This. And characters don't go down "consequence free." The consequence, it seems by the RAW, is to get whack-a-moled.

I'm off to look up Einstein's definition of insanity...

 

[Flamestrike]

A rule Im considering for my own games is bring back negative HP and implementing the following rule:

Death: You die at -10 HP or ¼ of your Max HP (whichever is higher). When reduced to 0 HP or lower you must attempt a DC 15 Con check at the end of each of your turns. On a success your HP remain the same. After three successes, you stabilise. On a failure, you lose 1 HP.

Im going for that higher lethality OSR feel.

I considered giving out exhaustion as well, but that was too dealth spiraly for me and messes with pacing too much.

Im also dropping Wizard, Bard, Sorcerer, and Warlock HD down a die step (d4/d6) with Valor college and Blade pacts getting +1 HP per HD.

 

[Blue]

When I tried out this houserule, the players didn’t act differently because the underlying cause, as they had identified it, remained: healing spells are dreadful.

A variation that I was playing with took inspiration from 13th Age and 4e.

When you are healed by a healing spell with a casting time of an action or longer, you may also spend a number of HD equal to half the level of the spell.

So a level 2 cure wounds, which would normally be 2d8+WIS, would be 2d8+cleric WIS+d10+fighter's CON on a fighter - if they wanted to spend the HD.

A mass cure woulds in 3d8+WIS, but each target could also spend 2 HD. Pump it to a 6th level spell and it's 4d8+WIS and they can each spend 3 HD.

Alternately, allow HD to be spent on bonus action as well, but maybe not as much. Maybe Spell lvl/3 so a Mass Healing Word gives everyone the option to spend a single HD.

Either way, this doesn't increase the total healing for the day, it just makes the spells more efficient in doing so. It might make short rests less common though, so you may want to give some thougth to that if you have some characters that recharge on short rest and others that don't.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Nothing sucks more than rolling low on a healing spell. In my campaigns, helping spells and potions heal their max amount automatically. I find that approach solves most helping issues.