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

[Nefermandias]

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.

I'd say leave Healing Word as it is. Back in 4e, Healing Surges were the primary daily resource a party had to manage. Now in 5e, it's spell slots. I don't see why you would want to impose an additional cost to Healing Word.

Just think like that: a 1st level Cleric in 4e could use Healing Word twice per encounter. A 1st level Cleric in 5e can use it twice in a day and at the opportunity cost of casting something more useful like Bless or Spiritual Weapon.

 

[Fanaelialae]

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.

A consequence of this is that Healing Word is arguably worse at low levels (ie, at 1st level each character can only benefit from it once per day). It's also arguably better at high levels, since hit dice can heal more and at high levels you have plenty. Preparing both CW and HW is a high opportunity cost for low level casters. I think that a potential outcome would be that low level parties either eschew the use of HW, or would be encouraged to long rest as soon as someone (particularly a front liner) runs out of HD (which is accelerated by the use of HW). Or the healer bites the bullet and takes one for the team, prepping both in lieu of a more interesting spell.

That's not to say that this is a bad change per se, just something to keep in mind. 4e didn't have this issue because healing surges scaled quite differently. You got the bulk of you HS at level 1.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Seems to me the only issues you'll have here are that HD are terribly limited in 5e. Your maximum is equal to character level, and you only get back half your maximum from a long rest--meaning you can only really rely on having the half amount, not the full amount.

So if you're fine with limiting healing to half-level HD per day, go right ahead, but I'm pretty sure that's gonna fall rather short of the amount of damage expected even in the "fewer combats and fewer short rests" thing--and you'll simultaneously be removing the only other healing resource characters naturally have.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

This has the problem of having a low-level character only being able to be healing word-ed once per day, and blocking short rest HD recovery for the rest of the day. This make the low level party even more squishier.

Do deal with the ''cheapness'' of HW, I usually add the line ''one creature that can hear you that you can see'', so an unconscious character that is ''unaware of its surrounding'' would be unaffected by HW.

 

[clearstream]

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.

I considered making the same change in my campaign. I do like that spending a hit die depletes longer term resources. I assess at healing word like this

• strong tempo due to bonus action and range
• almost always relevant due to spell level and range
• not strongly enough differentiated from cure wounds in terms of healing power, due to adding spell modifier
• hugely boosts survivability due to death saves reset

High up-time, low cost of use, powerful effect. In the end I made the spell 2nd-level (1d4+mod, scaling from there) and every caster with access to it in my campaign still takes it and regularly uses it!

 

[Lyxen]

Do deal with the ''cheapness'' of HW, I usually add the line ''one creature that can hear you that you can see'', so an unconscious character that is ''unaware of its surrounding'' would be unaffected by HW.

If it does not work on unconscious characters, this spell is basically useless. It is already limited by slots. Do your players enjoy spending long stretches of combat unconscious ?

 

[Nefermandias]

By

This has the problem of having a low-level character only being able to be healing word-ed once per day, and blocking short rest HD recovery for the rest of the day. This make the low level party even more squishier.

Do deal with the ''cheapness'' of HW, I usually add the line ''one creature that can hear you that you can see'', so an unconscious character that is ''unaware of its surrounding'' would be unaffected by HW.

By removing the ability to pick people up from the ground, you are removing the main purpose of this spell.

 

[clearstream]

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.

Have you much experience of both in play? I've been running roughly weekly sessions since 5th launched, and healing word is without any doubt at all far more useful, tempo-efficient and net-powerful than cure wounds. The metagame differences you suggest don't play as strong a part as you could be tempted to predict. Bard, Cleric and Druid don't have a plethora of bonus actions. For example, moon druids have far fewer uses of wild-shape than of their spells. It's more probable they'll use healing spirit over healing word, and both are bonus action spells.

I believe that the problem is not quite rightly stated as - should there be healing word and cure wounds? The more significant problem in my view, is of healing word having a negative impact on play due to the whack-a-mole combat it opts into.

 

[clearstream]

By
By removing the ability to pick people up from the ground, you are removing the main purpose of this spell.

I feel like one of the first fixes to revert to for spells is always to ask - is this spell the right level for the impact it has on play? One way to state the problem is that healing word is overpowered. Another way is to say it is under-costed.

So I just made it a 2nd-level spell (1d4+mod, scale from there.)

 

[Amros]

A nice way to make the spell a little more costly as it pulls from your "reserves" and puts an implicit limit on it.

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...

I do agree here that if the rationale behind making the spell more costly/limiting its uses is to avoid/cut down the whack-a-mole issue, you are not addressing it by this modification: sure, they will use it less, but they still will use it. And maybe Healing Word is not the only problematic spell.
In my table, I found better just imposing a toll for coming back mid-battle after going 0 HP: you gain one level of exhaustion, and/or receive a lingering injury (DMG p. 272) based on the damage you received. Now you don't want to risk going down at any cost.
And Healing Word and Cure Wounds are still different:

• Healing Word: I cannot reach that PC, and he/she may not survive another hit if not healed, but I can contribute to kill it faster --> Healing Word just in case and attack.
• Cure Wounds: I can reach that PC, and healing him/her will make us survive, even if I don't attack

And of course, linking the spell to the target's Hit Dice makes the spell to heal much more to a Barbarian than to a Wizard, for example (double the healing!).