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

[MoonSong]

I would be willing, were it possible to reliably test the hypothesis and I hadn't already spent it as a down payment on a car, to bet the entire $7,000 insurance check my wife and I just got, that less than 20% of people who played healers in older editions enjoyed fights where their only contribution of any meaning was healing. Where every action was spent healing. I am absolutely certain that most people don't think that hitting the "heal bob the fighter back up to full as my entire turn" is especially fun, compared to "get bob the fighter back into the fight and also use turn undead to scare away some of the zombies or wade in and smack down the demon that raised them because I'm a war cleric or a paladin or whatever.

The biggest problem with healing word is simply that it precludes casting another leveled spell with your action, and clerics have boring cantrips.

Hell, most people I know consider a devotion paladin more fun as a healer because they can use healing word and lay on hands in the same turn, while clerics can't do anything especially powerful in the same turn they use healing word.

Of course, healers get even more fun at high levels when you get group heals and healing auras that also buff, and stuff like that, but it's nowhere close to how fun healers were in 4e, where you could hit an enemy with holy fire and while the fire lingered on them your allies got healed every time they hit the thing and fun stuff like that, and your minor action heal didn't interfere with casting powerful prayers.

What you describe is less of a healer, and more someone who does healing as a side job. Which is fine, but "I love that I can heal and do something of actual worth on the same turn" is far from someone who enjoys healing. Healing in older editions wasn't really casting a heal every turn, but it was far far more involved than the current "I heal as an extra during combat." It was about hard choices, to tinker with the right ratios of spells prepared to ensure the party remained functional across days, to patch after combat, to prevent others from dying during combat and well, in the editions without insta-death to heroically rush to your fallen comrades to save them. As of 4e and later, being a healer is less and less involved and less and less enticing as a result.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Yup, I've been thinking along those lines, too. Perhaps the right solution is to persist death saving throw fails to the next rest (or long rest, but I suspect rest would be enough). I agree about healing being too close to one hit's worth of HP. Have you played any game sessions with your proposed rule? It looks like it has potential.

I've played under these rules (not with Steampunkette) - they work as advertised, although the impact wasn't as big as you might imagine.

 

[clearstream]

I've played under these rules (not with Steampunkette) - they work as advertised, although the impact wasn't as big as you might imagine.

When you say work as advertised, were there combats in which whack-a-mole healing was mitigated because depleted death saves caused character deaths?

 

[jmartkdr2]

When you say work as advertised, were there combats in which whack-a-mole healing was mitigated because depleted death saves caused character deaths?

Actual deaths? I don't think so. But whack-a-mole was reduced the couple of time I would have expected to see it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And all that left me completely cold with 4e, again just too purely technical with little narrative explanation, exactly like a MMORPG.

Well, nothing at all even remotely similar to an MMO, but okay. Describing the thing you do shouldn’t need any particular narrative explanation. You…heal your allies with a prayer. That is, in universe, the thing that happens.

What you describe is less of a healer, and more someone who does healing as a side job. Which is fine, but "I love that I can heal and do something of actual worth on the same turn" is far from someone who enjoys healing. Healing in older editions wasn't really casting a heal every turn, but it was far far more involved than the current "I heal as an extra during combat." It was about hard choices, to tinker with the right ratios of spells prepared to ensure the party remained functional across days, to patch after combat, to prevent others from dying during combat and well, in the editions without insta-death to heroically rush to your fallen comrades to save them. As of 4e and later, being a healer is less and less involved and less and less enticing as a result.

I just disagree, I guess. Being able to do a single strong heal as a minor action and then burn a big group heal as an action was pure healer play. The rest is more a loss of the “plan for the day with spells prepared” dynamic of older editions than anything specific to healing.

 

[Lyxen]

Well, nothing at all even remotely similar to an MMO, but okay. Describing the thing you do shouldn’t need any particular narrative explanation. You…heal your allies with a prayer. That is, in universe, the thing that happens.

For me, 4e has been the desperate attempt to capture the MMO feel in a TTRPG, with specific classes and progression paths with options, I felt right at home after WoW... Note that it's just a matter of taste and perception, not negative, some people really liked it that way.

But I have trouble envisioning a prayer that heals my allies only when they hit the bad guy, that's all.

 

[Fanaelialae]

For me, 4e has been the desperate attempt to capture the MMO feel in a TTRPG, with specific classes and progression paths with options, I felt right at home after WoW... Note that it's just a matter of taste and perception, not negative, some people really liked it that way.

But I have trouble envisioning a prayer that heals my allies only when they hit the bad guy, that's all.

That seems like an odd objection to me (of course, to each their own). Spells like Vampiric Touch have existed in every edition (and specialty priests have potentially had access since at least 2e).

IMO, there are a plethora of explanations for why it works that way depending on your desired flavor, with the simplest being that the cleric is siphoning the target's life force to heal their Ally.

 

[Lyxen]

That seems like an odd objection to me (of course, to each their own). Spells like Vampiric Touch have existed in every edition (and specialty priests have potentially had access since at least 2e).

IMO, there are a plethora of explanations for why it works that way depending on your desired flavor, with the simplest being that the cleric is siphoning the target's life force to heal their Ally.

That's the problem for me, it's a technical effect that people try later to "narrativise", but for me it's not as simple and elegant as something that looks cool in fiction (a draining touch) and that the game captures. I try and tend to start from the story, not from the rules. Anyway, we are drifting off track...

 

[Nefermandias]

What you describe is less of a healer, and more someone who does healing as a side job. Which is fine, but "I love that I can heal and do something of actual worth on the same turn" is far from someone who enjoys healing. Healing in older editions wasn't really casting a heal every turn, but it was far far more involved than the current "I heal as an extra during combat." It was about hard choices, to tinker with the right ratios of spells prepared to ensure the party remained functional across days, to patch after combat, to prevent others from dying during combat and well, in the editions without insta-death to heroically rush to your fallen comrades to save them. As of 4e and later, being a healer is less and less involved and less and less enticing as a result.

Being a healer in 3e was about crafting a bunch of Wands of Cure Light Wounds (or Wand of Lesser Vigor if you had access to the splat).

 

[Stalker0]

Sooooo…anyone else want to comment on the houserule…aka the reason this thread exists?