Pathfinder 2E Healing in PF2

[billd91]

Sorry, that didn't clarify the wounded condition for me- what does it actually do in play? How does it affect you if you aren't dying?

I think an easy way to describe it is - the various dying conditions are the stages you're in as you're failing death saves. When you bounce back due to healing, you pick up a level of wounded condition to mark your place so you can resume dying at the same dying condition if you drop below 0 hit points again.

 

[Retreater]

No - please read up on Wounded.

When you fall to zero hp you gain the Dying condition with a value of Wounded +1 (Wounded +2 if you were felled by a crit). Normally this means you gain Dying 1 when you fall unconscious, since you didn't have any Wounded condition.

Once you do become Dying, your Wounded is increased by one, ready to make dying again more dangerous:

A character with Wounded 2 (having fallen unconscious twice before in this battle), for instance, would gain Dying 3 upon falling to 0 HP, and would be killed outright if felled by a crit. (You die at Dying 4)

I would say this instantly makes any tactic that relies on the game not tracking negative hp evaporates. A good thing.

That is what I wrote, without all the explanation. The simple answer is that, yes, Wounded makes it easier to fail your death save. HOW it does that is by raising the saving throw DC and decreasing the number of fails you are able to accumulate before you die. Otherwise, it has no lingering effect on the character (no penalties to ability checks, attacks, slower movements, removal of actions.) [Other game systems, such as Savage Worlds have penalties for being wounded. The condition in P2 is nothing like that.]

I really wish people would actually learn the rules before responding.

My only confusion with the way I was running it was thinking that Wounded disappeared with magical healing. We were playing that wrong. I corrected that earlier in the thread. Otherwise, I think my understanding of the rules are pretty good, but if you'd prefer to be ENWorld's sole consultant on PF2 rules (because, let's face it, there aren't many of us on here), I can let you handle all the crunch questions that arise.

 

[Porridge]

I really wish people would actually learn the rules before responding.

In all fairness, there are a lot of rules in PF2, and it’s hard not to miss some of them. I find posting on sites like this is one of the best ways to learn when there’s a rule you’ve missed!

You remove Dying by receiving even a single HP. That isn't controversial or strange. Every edition of D&D has featured this - that once you get healing you're no longer bleeding unconscious on the ground (which is what "dying" is), you're instead fully functioning ready for action. In PF2 you probably need to stand up, and grab your weapon, so that cost (2 actions) is not nothing. Also your Wounded condition increase by one from becoming Dying.

Wounded is only removed by out of combat healing, simply speaking. You do not remove Wounded just because you drank a healing potion or got a healing spell. So the whack-a-mole problem of 5E is emphatically fixed by PF2, believe me.

There are other conditions that can't easily be removed. At really low levels, you have Diseased. You have Poisoned. At high levels you have Doomed.

I would say Retreater's characterization is not accurate.

Yeah, this matches my experience — going down is a big deal, and PF2 can be quite deadly.

In my games, about half the times someone goes down it’s the result of a boss crit. And since bosses crit all the time, just getting up to get crit again is a recipe for almost certain death. Very tense and scary moments.

Persistent damage is also pretty common in PF2. And going down while suffering from persistent damage or poison makes it very easy to die.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Any party without the Medicine skill comes close to what you want. You might also want to look at the Paladin, which I believe is specifically designed to be able to bring up party members between fights.

Confirmed (well, if by look at, you mean remove). A paladin’s “Lay on Hands” renews indefinitely after 10 minutes available at level 1, so in our group (before the undead sorceress joined), the paladin would heal us between battles when we missed the Medicine roll (which we did often, since our 4-person group had no Wis based characters).

 

[the Jester]

Hmm. Well, I really prefer a higher element of attrition in my games- I am a huge fan of games where years go by before pcs are high level, and of generational play, where pcs are eventually succeeded by their children. So I don't think the default PF2 healing style would appeal to me. However, I really like the sounds of the wounded condition and how it alleviates the whack a mole problem, even though I don't see that very much in my own games.

Thanks, everyone, for helping to educate me on this!

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think an easy way to describe it is - the various dying conditions are the stages you're in as you're failing death saves. When you bounce back due to healing, you pick up a level of wounded condition to mark your place so you can resume dying at the same dying condition if you drop below 0 hit points again.

Kudos, this is the best way I’ve seen of describing the mechanic.

 

[Celtavian]

It prevents whack-a-mole - the minmax tactic where you (in 5E) observe that any monster damage that takes you below zero hp is "wasted" - 5E doesn't track negative hit points.

This makes it far too useful to waste monster attacks on heroes with only a single hp, since 99% of the damage gets soaked by the game rules. Then you bring back the "tank" using the bonus action Healing Word level 1 spell. You really only want it to give a single hit point, so you never upcast it using a higher levelled slot. Even martial characters can learn this spell. You can also use cheap low-level healing potions.

I'm not saying this tactic isn't ridiculous. I'm saying 5E enables it.

I'm also saying that Wounded is a mechanism that comprehensively shuts it down, and more in general makes it undesirable to fall to zero hp (which I want my D&D game to do).

I hated this so much in 5E. This is one of the few 5E mechanics that I truly despise as a DM. I'm sure all the super easy going, casual gaming crowd doesn't even notice this, but man, this just looks like some kind of comedy healing in my mind's eye. We call it pop up healing like some kind of toy that falls over but quickly bounces back up with some kind of ridiculous painted on toy face. I don't despise 5E overall, but this mechanic I do despise.

 

[CapnZapp]

Kudos, this is the best way I’ve seen of describing the mechanic.

Though it is not accurate. Your level of Wounded (broadly) tracks the number of times you have fallen Dying.

It is not really related to your level of Dying.

 

[dave2008]

I hated this so much in 5E. This is one of the few 5E mechanics that I truly despise as a DM. I'm sure all the super easy going, casual gaming crowd doesn't even notice this, but man, this just looks like some kind of comedy healing in my mind's eye. We call it pop up healing like some kind of toy that falls over but quickly bounces back up with some kind of ridiculous painted on toy face. I don't despise 5E overall, but this mechanic I do despise.

That is one reason 0 = dead in our games. We will change the dying rules to match if we play PF2e too.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

That is one reason 0 = dead in our games. We will change the dying rules to match if we play PF2e too.

Fair warning: if 0 = dead in PF2 characters will die with about as much frequency as they did back when you had to roll HP at 1st level so surviving more than 2 hits at 1st level was surprising.