D&D 5E Healing Word "HD" House Rule

[Stalker0]

I saw a more generic form of this idea from @Garthanos and I thought it might make an interesting house rule for healing word.

Healing Word: (remove base healing). The target may spend 1 hitdice. For every level above 1st this spell is case, the target may spend an additional hitdice.

A nice way to make the spell a little more costly as it pulls from your "reserves" and puts an implicit limit on it. This contrasts with cure wounds which is "endless" magic but slower, which seems a nice differentiator between the two.

 

[NotAYakk]

I'd propose:
1. All magical healing requires using a HD. This HD adds to the amount healed. (exceptions: Regeneration, Heal, Mass Heal, Power Word Heal, Ring of Regeneration, Life Transference, Soul Cage).
2. Cure Wounds can use the HD spent instead of the d8s.

(This is 4e inspired.)

 

[MoonSong]

I'd propose:
1. All magical healing requires using a HD. This HD adds to the amount healed. (exceptions: Regeneration, Heal, Mass Heal, Power Word Heal, Ring of Regeneration, Life Transference, Soul Cage).
2. Cure Wounds can use the HD spent instead of the d8s.

(This is 4e inspired.)

Not a fan. 5e has eroded too much the spotlight for healers already. This change means healers -which are increasingly irrelevant already- are even less relevant. Cure wounds isn't the problem, the problem is healing word. Just banning or weakening healing word is enough -and in fact would make healers interesting to play again.

 

[jgsugden]

I saw a more generic form of this idea from @Garthanos and I thought it might make an interesting house rule for healing word.

Healing Word: (remove base healing). The target may spend 1 hitdice. For every level above 1st this spell is case, the target may spend an additional hitdice.

A nice way to make the spell a little more costly as it pulls from your "reserves" and puts an implicit limit on it. This contrasts with cure wounds which is "endless" magic but slower, which seems a nice differentiator between the two.

This may drastically increase the amount of healing a PC gets. For example, a barbarian would heal d12+con, instead of a d4+caster ability. If the party has a healer, the 'using of dice' may not be that important overall.

If you don't like the 'whack a mole' healing, the best thing is to eliminate the bonus action ranged heals and force the PCs to use actions and be within touch, or use higher level slots.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not a fan. 5e has eroded too much the spotlight for healers already. This change means healers -which are increasingly irrelevant already- are even less relevant. Cure wounds isn't the problem, the problem is healing word. Just banning or weakening healing word is enough -and in fact would make healers interesting to play again.

In what way does it make them less relevant? They still heal you, which is still important. There’s just a limit to how much healing you can benefit from, which makes it much easier for the DM to balance adventuring days, since they can actually reliably predict how much HP the party has per day and can therefore properly budget it.

 

[NotAYakk]

Not a fan. 5e has eroded too much the spotlight for healers already. This change means healers -which are increasingly irrelevant already- are even less relevant. Cure wounds isn't the problem, the problem is healing word. Just banning or weakening healing word is enough -and in fact would make healers interesting to play again.

Eroded compared to when?

A 5e cleric provides far more HP per day past T1 that a 5e barbarian or fighter. Of course, use of those slots for non-healing tends to be more optimal, especially in a fight, as dead foes don't do damage.

But a level 5 cleric with 16 wis has 9 spells of total level 16; if used inefficiently with cure wounds, that is 16d8+27 or 99 HP. (prayer of healing is more efficient, for example).

The cleric with 14 con also has 37 HP. So 136 HP in total (plus more via channel divinity or whatever). And 5d8+10 self healing HD for a total of 168.5 HP per day.

A L 5 fighter in a 2 short rest day and 16 con contributes 3d10+15 second wind, 49 HP, 5d10+15 HD healing, for 44+30+49=123 HP per day.

Barbarians compete with clerics via rage; at 14 con, they have 51 HP and 5d12+10 HD healing for 61+32.5 or 93.5. But if they can reliably rage this doubles to 187 HP per day. However, this also doubles cleric healing on the barbarian!

The healer's problem is not healing fast enough in combat for it to be a good idea.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

And it is good that way. We had a cleric with the healing domain actually using healing spells... that drageed out combat quite a lot.
(I think it was one of the later playtest versions, I am happy that combat healing is toned down.)
I also think healing word pop up is no problem, but allowing the spending of a hit die to increase healing is a good idea.

 

[Lyxen]

What is the point of this exactly ? The point of 5e is to be fun by leaving no-one on the ground for hours during combat, in an age when it is all too easy to disengage and disappear on one's phone or on a nearby console. And for that combat needs to be fast to resolve and not last for hours anyway. This proposed modification will not make people hesitate about using healing word for the above reason but also because having a combattant on the ground is far less efficient. So what will it do ? It will in the end just mess with recovery outside of combat and the already controversial way to deal with number of encounters, types of recovery (short/long), and amount of recovery. What it must not do is prolong combat by having efficient healing (this is why you have to choose between cure wounds which heals better but takes time and healing word which is time-efficient and does not prevent people from playing other things than healers - I know some people like it, but they have always been in the very minority of players), and there is a risk of that by providing very efficient healing at little cost. Not a good idea IMHO.

 

[Leatherhead]

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize there are sufficient differences between Healing Word and Cure Wounds. Not the actual number of health provided, obviously. Raw healing potential is kind of out the window thanks to how being knocked out works. But rather the metagame differences between the two:

Cure Wounds is on more spell lists, which indicates it's intended to be a "more basic" healing spell.
Healing Word uses a bonus action, which sounds great at first, but most "support-style" classes and subclasses have really powerful uses for their bonus action already. The Circle of the Moon, as an extreme example, would normally have to spend their bonus action to revert back into the caster form in order to use any spell at all. Additionally, using a bonus action spell prevents you from using reaction spells for that round.

And when you get down to it, that's all you need to justify the existence of the two different spells. One spell can be better in a vacuum, but not everyone is going to be able to use that spell, or even want to use that spell given their situation. Trying to force everyone who has both to favor Cure Wounds is kind of treating the symptoms of your frustrations rather than the actual cause of them. Because Cure Wounds is already sometimes better, or sometimes simply the only option.

 

[Lyxen]

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize there are sufficient differences between Healing Word and Cure Wounds.

Indeed, but I think that you have glossed over the main difference in fights: Cure Wounds is touch and Healing Word is ranged, and actually reaches quite far at 60 feet. Combined with the bonus action only, it makes for a very different sort of healing, and very desirable in itself. Cure Wounds is really if you want to give more points, which I think we have agreed is not efficient in combat anyway (most of your offensive abilities will have a greater effect to the combat than casting a Cure Wounds). But of course, with Healing Word being far more restricted in terms of character availability, sometimes it's the only option, which in turn makes Healing Word even more desirable overall...

But while I understand wanting it "harder" to use because of the Whack-a-mole healing problems that some people have, I still think that it goes around the design philosophy of 5e, don't prevent people from having fun by having the lay in a pool of blood for multiple turns...