D&D 5E How has 5e solved the Wand of CLW problem?

[chriton227]

That's the gist of why I raise my eyebrows to this alleged problem so many people appear to have. As a DM, there simply was no magic item shop, nor were wands of cure light wounds available at every street corner.

Problem solved.

I saw it in my games. Cleric and Druid PCs would take Craft Wand just so they weren't at the mercy of the marketplace; they actually preferred to take the feat and do the crafting themselves instead of buying the items. For 375gp and 30xp they got a 50 charge CLW wand, or even better for between combat healing was a wand of Lesser Vigor for the same price. It only took a single day to make, so time wasn't an issue either. CLW healed 1d8 per charge, LV healed a guaranteed 11hp per charge but took 11 rounds to take effect. The whole party chipped in for the expense since it would benefit the whole party, and the divine casters were happy that they could comfortably devote fewer spell slots to healing spells.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One thing about the WoCLW 'problem,' is what the problem really was.

To some, it's that there were WoCLW, at all, because they were silly, cumbersome, and contrary to genre (part of a larger problem with modeling genre, perhaps).

To some, it's that the WoCLW was so cheap/easy to make/buy (part of a much larger problem with item creation and wealth/level, perhaps).

to some, it's that the WoCLW freed up too many caster resources that 'should' have been used for healing, making CoDzilla that much more radioactive.

And, to some, it's that the game 'needed' the WoCLW to keep everyone at full hps so they could actually go through a full-length 'day' instead of a "15min" one.


5e has fixed (or not) each of those problems differently.

 

[RotGrub]

It's not a matter of 'playing that way,' it's a matter of how hps work. Loss of hps does not inflict penalties, and recovery of hit points can be relatively quick. That's consistent, as it stands.

Now, if you want hp loss to be very slow to recover, /then/ you'd need a wound-tracking sub-system to deal with the penalties of those more severe injuries. If you wanted to remain consistent.


Hit point damage doesn't factor into anything else, though. If you want mere hp loss to represent severe enough injury that it takes a long time to recover from, then you have created an inconsistency in the system. You have characters walking around with severe injuries, yet able to perform any difficult task - even, say, run marathons - at no penalty.

There is no need to do so. There is also no need to make hp recovery extremely slow.

Wow I thought the one-true-way ism died with the last edition. Of course, it's all about how you desire to play. My style of play doesn't at all conform to your definition of hit points. You can say I've been playing wrong all you want, but I've been playing that way since AD&D and I've never had any issues at all.

Anyway, I certainly don't need a wound system to describe physical wounds all the time, especially if the character goes down from the damage or magical healing is just around the corner. In addition, in most cases damage is tagged with the physical condition associated with it. Spells like Heat Metal and magical items like the sword of wounding, etc are good examples. If the DM thinks that a physical condition should be attached he can assign anything that's reasonable, no system required.

 

[RotGrub]

The problem is how this doesn't work for all narratives.

For some stories, healing up full just because you got a night's sleep will mess with pacing or challenge.

To this many say "so choose one of the optional DMG rules then"

But this, or any singular suggestion, misses the point.

Which is: you want rules that support different pacing during different times, often within the same campaign!

No matter what the rules say it will be a bad fit for many adventures.

It is the very notion that whatever solution you choose, you should choose only that, and stick with it. And if you're not happy, completely throw it out and exchange it for some other singular rule.

I agree, you would have to change the rate of healing for overland travel for random encounters to have any lingering consequences.

 

[RotGrub]

I have never read of any such thing in fantasy books. I play these games to simulate fantasy stories. Going to the store and buying a box of little magic sticks to heal destroys verisimilitude for myself. If it doesn't for you, the usual tastes differ applies. You hate wizards as they are with the overabundant spell options, I hate easily attainable wand healing. It didn't exist in any edition save for 3E from what I remember. I like magic healing kept to a minimum. 5E has done that. I might go farther once I do a few campaigns. I don't know how much I like paladin weeble wobble healing where he uses one point of his LoH to keep a warrior up every round swinging indefinitely. I definitely don't want easily accessible CLW wand healing back.

I've read many D&D fantasy books in which a particular character suffers a real physical wound from a weapon and is subsequently healed by magic. For example, I'm reminded of all the times Goldmoon healed the companions physical wounds with magic.

Personally, I think a wand of CLW is a cheap magical item that should never have entered the game. I'm not upset with divine healing doing all the work, I just think that divine magic from other sources like a staff, potion, or spell would be more appropriate. As for magical healing being needed, I like to think that it's only thing making the adventuring day remotely plausible. A serious injury is inevitable with all those Sharp objects, explosions, deadly traps, and horrific monsters about.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is such unbelievable horsecrap. For "many adventures", really? How does it not work for many adventures? Give me an example of what you would run where this wouldn't work?

...

I would like to know what pacing and challenge you could not simulate using a combination of 5E healing and exhaustion rules?

None of those require different pacing and resource management. Hex crawling would be travel by hours unless the valley is very small. You could easily create 5-8 interesting encounters wilderness hex crawling. Not to mention everything doesn't need to be combat.

...

Those examples don't stand up to the litmus test.

I don't understand what it is that you disagree with. But you're also obnoxious and confrontative, so I'm going to make this quick.

Spending an hour or a day can be impossible in one scenario and absolutely trivial in another. Both offer the same combats against the same opponents. The first scenario will be very hard and the other a cakewalk. For no good reason - it's the peculiarities of D&D recovery that break the game part of both scenarios. What's so difficult to understand about that?

If you can't be more specific about where the "horsecrap" is and what your "litmus test" means, I want you to stop puking all over my discussion. Thank you.

 

[CapnZapp]

I agree, you would have to change the rate of healing for overland travel for random encounters to have any lingering consequences.

Thank you, but the point I'm trying to make is that you should not think in terms of changing from one solution to another.

As in, "before the rate was A but now we change it to B".

The whole point is not to choose between A or B (or C, or D...). What I'm saying is that the rules should set the rate of healing at "A or B depending".

 

[chriton227]

Thank you, but the point I'm trying to make is that you should not think in terms of changing from one solution to another.

As in, "before the rate was A but now we change it to B".

The whole point is not to choose between A or B (or C, or D...). What I'm saying is that the rules should set the rate of healing at "A or B depending".

I'm sorry, but to me saying that the rests should be "A or B depending" is like saying in real life that sometimes you can get a good night's sleep in an hour, sometimes it takes 8 hours, and sometimes it takes 36 hours, all based on what is currently scheduled on your calendar. If the party has someplace safe and secure where they can rest uninterrupted, the rest should take a predictable amount of time and should have predictable results regardless of what adventure schedule the DM is trying to impose on the players.

If you don't like the effects of a short or long rest, that's fine, just house rule the changes and inform your players, but be consistent and inform your players in advance. If the changes you need are too big to comfortably apply as a house rule, then find a system that fits what you are trying to portray better. Something like FATE has a situational narrative approach to removing consequences that sounds more like what you are going for, where removing or downgrading consequences is based on reaching story milestones, not time on a clock; something like Shadowrun has a very codified approach to healing over time where more severe wounds take exponentially longer to heal - a single box light wound might heal within hours but a 10 box deadly wound might take weeks or months just to drop to the serious category.

The players rely on the rules to help them understand how the game world works, if the GM is changing basic rules on a whim, the players may start to expect the GM will change anything on a whim, making it pointless to even have rules. If a rest takes an unpredictable amount of time, can the players predict how long 10 mile journey on typical roads will take? How about how long a ritual will take to cast? Or going to the point of absurdity, can they even how long it will take to make an attack?

 

[SirAntoine]

The number of encounters between rest intervals is not something the rules can predict. It will vary much more widely than 5-8, and as it happens that estimate itself is too wide to be much use. Going from 5 to 8 is a 60% increase. That isn't what I'd call precise. I'd recommend against trying to control these things.

 

[travathian]

That's the gist of why I raise my eyebrows to this alleged problem so many people appear to have. As a DM, there simply was no magic item shop, nor were wands of cure light wounds available at every street corner.

Problem solved.

Agreed. Still don't understand why DMs and Players don't understand or use Rule 0, then complain a game is broken.

I saw it in my games. Cleric and Druid PCs would take Craft Wand just so they weren't at the mercy of the marketplace; they actually preferred to take the feat and do the crafting themselves instead of buying the items. For 375gp and 30xp they got a 50 charge CLW wand, or even better for between combat healing was a wand of Lesser Vigor for the same price. It only took a single day to make, so time wasn't an issue either. CLW healed 1d8 per charge, LV healed a guaranteed 11hp per charge but took 11 rounds to take effect. The whole party chipped in for the expense since it would benefit the whole party, and the divine casters were happy that they could comfortably devote fewer spell slots to healing spells.

Rule 0, problem solved. Either players can't make them, increase the cost, require rare ingredients, put limits on the item, etc.

5E hasn't fixed anything, because there was no problem in the first place. If DMs didn't like how something worked in 3E, there was nothing stopping them from changing it.