D&D 5E Healing Spells Fixed

Antonlowe

First Post
After reading the discussion. Here is what I am going with personally. Thank you all for the help.

Cure Wounds
1st level Necromancy
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: Touch
Components: VS
Duration: Instantaneous

A creature touched may immediately spend a hit die to recover hit points. The character adds your spell casting ability modifier to the amount of damage healed.

If you use a spell slot of 2nd level or higher to cast this spell, The recipient can spend a number of hit die equal to the spell level. You add your spell casting ability modifier to each hit die used in this way.
 

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jaelis

Oh this is where the title goes?
After reading the discussion. Here is what I am going with personally. Thank you all for the help.

Cure Wounds
1st level Necromancy
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: Touch
Components: VS
Duration: Instantaneous

A creature touched may immediately spend a hit die to recover hit points. The character adds your spell casting ability modifier to the amount of damage healed.

If you use a spell slot of 2nd level or higher to cast this spell, The recipient can spend a number of hit die equal to the spell level. You add your spell casting ability modifier to each hit die used in this way.

That's cool and you should play with a version you like. But it is confusing, I thought you were saying that you felt like the book version of CW was too weak compared to Healing Word. Isn't this version basically worse than the book version? It's about the same amount of healing typically, but adds the cost of a hit die?
 


Antonlowe

First Post
It is even worse if my hit die is D8 or less, unless it gives max HP restored which may be a bit better.

I was thinking of the extremes rather then minimums. At high level if used on a fighter this spell will heal 1d10 +10 hp per level. That assumes a Con and WIS of 20. Giving the roll the maximum result might make it too good.

If used at low levels on a wizard it would probably heal 1d6 +4(ish) which is weak, but not bad.

Should it give the max result? I am not sure.
 

aco175

Legend
I was thinking of the extremes rather then minimums. At high level if used on a fighter this spell will heal 1d10 +10 hp per level. That assumes a Con and WIS of 20. Giving the roll the maximum result might make it too good.

If used at low levels on a wizard it would probably heal 1d6 +4(ish) which is weak, but not bad.

Should it give the max result? I am not sure.

At high levels, what is 20 HP to the fighter, but at low level- giving the full 10HP can save the mage.

I still think that it would not be worth taking unless it either gives more healing such as the normal d8 plus the surge, or if you leave it like this, but make it a bonus action. This way it makes it useful early in the day when you have lots of surges and even ok late in the day when you are out.
 

Antonlowe

First Post
At high levels, what is 20 HP to the fighter, but at low level- giving the full 10HP can save the mage.

I still think that it would not be worth taking unless it either gives more healing such as the normal d8 plus the surge, or if you leave it like this, but make it a bonus action. This way it makes it useful early in the day when you have lots of surges and even ok late in the day when you are out.

After some more thought, yeah. It should maximize the healing surge. That means it might be worth casting outside of combat.

Having it be a bonus action would step on the toes of healing word, so I just dont want to do that.
 

While I certainly agree with the comments that cure wounds should have a bit more "omph" to it (maybe make it 1d12 + mod or add caster mod to every level of spell? Or at the very least make it 30ft range instead of touch) to help it compete with healing word, I have a fundamental issue with your the proposed changes the OP is proposing. I don't like the idea of forcing the players to spend healing dice in order to gain healing from a spellcaster.

First, it defeats the entire purpose of giving players short rest dice, to help make it so the cleric/druid doesn't have to spend ALL his/her spell slots each day to keep the party up and active. The monsters in 5e tend to get very swingy, especially at higher levels and the game expects players to have access to these dice to help offload the healing. With forcing to party to spend these dice when the cleric casts a heal on them you are effectively double punishing the cleric, who already has already chosen to spend his spell slots on healing instead of something interesting (whether combat healing is effective is irrelevant in this regard), and by reducing the rest of the party's self healing you make it more likely they will need more spell slots dedicated towards heals than normal.

Second, giving players short rest healing is to incentive every class to be willing to take short rests. Many classes regain features when the party short rests and spending healing dice to heal is another carrot to convince barbarian and rogue that maybe they are better off if they let the warlock take a quick breather rather than kick in the next door in search of heads to bash and loot to steal. Players short resting can even be good for the DM, as it gives intelligent monsters time to place traps or make plans if the party decides to take a nap in their foyer. This change drastically alters the amount of healing for the party and therefore the pace of the game.

Third, this has a larger impact than just player characters. If you change the cure spells, how do you handle NPC spellcasters? Do they use these same rules in combat? What about out of combat, like if they hire a priest to heal them? If they function differently than the player characters, why? With commoners or more accurately npcs who can afford magical healing from other npcs, why would they bother to seek out a priest from a mechanical standpoint (the class in trope of a group of farmers bringing an injured child to a church and begging for care or pooling their wages) when they could short rest for roughly the same amount? What about healing potions? Or the healer feat? I could keep going. It brings up a LOT of potential questions...
 

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