D&D 5E Healing Spells Fixed

[The Crimson Binome]

I found healing word to be a good spell, but Cure wounds was pretty useless in comparison, it only heals an average of 2hp more per level. Cure Wounds needs a boost if it is going to be an alternative to healing word.

The easiest solution to make Cure Wounds useful is to remove Healing Word from the game. If you want to heal someone, it should take an action.

 

[Caliban]

The easiest solution to make Cure Wounds useful is to remove Healing Word from the game. If you want to heal someone, it should take an action.

That sucks because it reduces the cleric to being a healbot. I know some players enjoy that playstyle, but others prefer to be able to play a cleric and do more on their turn than just cast a cure spell.

It's a hard balance to strike - finding ways to allow the cleric to both heal and contribute without making them (or certain spells) completely overpowered.

In the case of cure wounds - I think being able to do 3d8+wis healing as opposed to 3d4+wis healing when you upcast to a 3rd level spell is fairly significant. (you can go higher, but generally there are better healing spells at those levels.)

 

[Antonlowe]

The easiest solution to make Cure Wounds useful is to remove Healing Word from the game. If you want to heal someone, it should take an action.

I disagree. As written, Cure Wounds is horrible. It heals less damage then a cleric could do just by attacking or using a spell. If you remove healing word, Clerics just wont heal.

Healing spells have to compete with other spells for attention.

I cant think of a worse 1st level cleric spell then cure wounds. So why would I waste my time preparing it?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I disagree. As written, Cure Wounds is horrible. It heals less damage then a cleric could do just by attacking or using a spell. If you remove healing word, Clerics just wont heal.

A cleric making an attack has to contend with the possibility of missing, and accomplishing nothing for the round, where Cure Wounds is almost guaranteed to be successful.

Without bonus action healing, the cleric will be forced to choose between healing and attacking each round. Generally speaking, healing won't always be worth spending an action, given the cost in resources and the limited throughput. You might only want to heal when it is situationally appropriate, rather than as a low-investment pseudo-obligation whenever you don't have something better to do with your bonus action. That means you get to conserve spell slots, and combat will be over more quickly, which is a win-win situation for everyone.

 

[Antonlowe]

A cleric making an attack has to contend with the possibility of missing, and accomplishing nothing for the round, where Cure Wounds is almost guaranteed to be successful.

Without bonus action healing, the cleric will be forced to choose between healing and attacking each round. Generally speaking, healing won't always be worth spending an action, given the cost in resources and the limited throughput. You might only want to heal when it is situationally appropriate, rather than as a low-investment pseudo-obligation whenever you don't have something better to do with your bonus action. That means you get to conserve spell slots, and combat will be over more quickly, which is a win-win situation for everyone.

See this is where we disagree. Cure wounds heals less damage then the Avg attack of the appropriate level. So trading a cure spell for a hit is always a bad trade. The only reason to cast it in combat is if a party member is at 0hp.

If you cast it out of combat, you burn all of your spells you could have used to do 'cool' stuff. And you are still not getting a good deal for the resources used.

In the end, combat will take longer, and you wont get to be very effective.

 

[Caliban]

See this is where we disagree. Cure wounds heals less damage then the Avg attack of the appropriate level. So trading a cure spell for a hit is always a bad trade. The only reason to cast it in combat is if a party member is at 0hp.

If you cast it out of combat, you burn all of your spells you could have used to do 'cool' stuff. And you are still not getting a good deal for the resources used.

In the end, combat will take longer, and you wont get to be very effective.

This is a very narrow view that doesn't take all factors into consideration.

The main one being the damage mitigation capabilities of the other characters. If you have someone with resistance to damage (raging barbarian), or damage reduction (fighter with heavy armor master feat) or a way of getting temp hit points (various spells or abilities from Warlocks, Paladins, and some monks), then the effect of your healing is amplified.

And even without that - giving the right PC one more round of action before they go down can be hugely significant, if they can affect the battle with their action more than you can with yours.

Combat is more than just standing in one spot, swinging away in a race to 0 HP.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

See this is where we disagree. Cure wounds heals less damage then the Avg attack of the appropriate level. So trading a cure spell for a hit is always a bad trade. The only reason to cast it in combat is if a party member is at 0hp.

It would usually be a bad trade, but there might be some situations where you need to keep a particular party member up, because their own contributions are more important than your own. If you're fighting trolls, for example, and only the wizard can deal fire damage; or the enemy is far enough away that the ranger is the only one being effective, but they are also being targetted with return fire. It means you usually won't want to cast a Cure spell during combat.

If you cast it out of combat, you burn all of your spells you could have used to do 'cool' stuff. And you are still not getting a good deal for the resources used.

Under the default settings of 5E, any magical healing that you bring to the day is a bonus. You can usually get through six level-appropriate encounters with just your Hit Dice, unless you're tackling things way out of your league. If you want to use some of your spells for healing, then you have that option.

In the end, combat will take longer, and you wont get to be very effective.

This doesn't logically. Combat would go more quickly if in-combat healing was a rare event. Spending your actions on healing would not be the most effective use of your turn, which would result in fewer clerics spending their actions on healings; your other options would remain just as effective as always.

 

[Leatherhead]

Without bonus action healing, the cleric will be forced to choose between healing and attacking each round. Generally speaking, healing won't always be worth spending an action, given the cost in resources and the limited throughput. You might only want to heal when it is situationally appropriate, rather than as a low-investment pseudo-obligation whenever you don't have something better to do with your bonus action. That means you get to conserve spell slots, and combat will be over more quickly, which is a win-win situation for everyone.

Being forced to pick between healing and doing some other useful thing makes for bitter players. This is because healing is the key to other players actually playing the game (you can't play if you don't have HP).

I am all for limiting combat healing (even up to the removal of it), but there is a reason why bonus action healing for leaders was the default in 4e, and easily accessible in 5e.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Being forced to pick between healing and doing some other useful thing makes for bitter players. This is because healing is the key to other players actually playing the game (you can't play if you don't have HP).

If you don't want to sit out while you're unconscious, then maybe you should avoid taking damage in the first place. That's not a lesson that anyone will learn if you have one character that is forced to sit around and babysit them. Easy in-combat healing, such as exemplified by Healing Word, lets people get away with playing recklessly.

 

[Horwath]

For cure spells I would go with 1d12+modifier per level + HD+con of a target per spell level.

If target has not have HDs to spend any spell level that is is not supported gets healed only for casters ability modifier.

This gives big boost to single cast of cure spells but it is limited in daily usage by both the caster and the target.