D&D 5E How should 5E handle healing?

[tlantl]

Good questions.

I have never had a problem with clerics healing during combat, but I have had a MASSIVE issue with clerics being obligated to give up spells during resting. I like that you had the option for the healing skill to be effective out of combat....Thats the ticket!

Edit : Im surprised by the number of people that voted for "It takes days, if not weeks to regain hit points by resting"...that what turns the cleric into a healbot and makes no-one want to play it.

In a system where you have to heal over time you will likely need to find a safe place to rest for the healing to be effective. in most cases that means you have to return to your base of operations or the nearest town. In those situations if the only thing you are doing is resting then the cleric can just quickly calculate the healing effects of her spells and get back to the dungeon. also there is likely going to be a dedicated healer in the town where you are staying who can do the healing for you. For free in a lot of cases. for a fee otherwise. I always give the players in my games the option of bringing a cleric along to do the healing chores if none of the players wants to play the healer, even if one or two are clerics.

I use the specialty clerics rules from 2e. several of the deities in my world do not grant healing spells. Clerics worshiping them have to rely on the same forms of healing as any other class.

 

[BobTheNob]

In a system where you have to heal over time you will likely need to find a safe place to rest for the healing to be effective. in most cases that means you have to return to your base of operations or the nearest town. In those situations if the only thing you are doing is resting then the cleric can just quickly calculate the healing effects of her spells and get back to the dungeon. also there is likely going to be a dedicated healer in the town where you are staying who can do the healing for you. For free in a lot of cases. for a fee otherwise. I always give the players in my games the option of bringing a cleric along to do the healing chores if none of the players wants to play the healer, even if one or two are clerics.

I use the specialty clerics rules from 2e. several of the deities in my world do not grant healing spells. Clerics worshiping them have to rely on the same forms of healing as any other class.

All valid solutions, but ones Im not particularly fond of personally.

I just like the idea that getting HP back after a fight shouldnt be such a chore. If you couple that with a smidge of self healing you dont even NEED there to be a healer. No need to go back to town. No obligating a player to take a healbot. No putting in a fudge NPC when no-one wants to. No sitting there doing the maths to figure out "total cleric healing potential" (if I wanted to do maths, I would take up accountancy as a hobby). Just keep play moving forward.

Preference I guess.

Maybe what they should do is present multiple models for recovery and let group decide which they want to take.

 

[Mengu]

I don't see anything wrong with abstraction and letting the DM/Players decide what HP's represent. Maybe my halfling fighter likes to think it is his luck that keeps him alive (I surely couldn't have as many health points as a troll could I?), and he will go to the cleric of tymora for a prayer to replenish his supply of luck. Or my ice mage might imagine his ice armor cracks with each hit, and with an arcane infusion (second wind), he mends those cracks, or the runepriest could use mending runes to repair the cracks on the mage's ice armor. I might play a warforged, that generates a force shield, represented by my hit points, and the artificer could boost my force shield when needed, so necessary repairs would be minimal and could be taken care of during down time. Or in a gritty Hyborian game, every hit could represent a cut, a bruise, a cracked rid, a lost tooth, or a smashed toe. The "system" should not invalidate any of these play choices.

You could even mix and match "case by case". As DM, I could determine the troll is actually taking a lot of hits, but his resilience is keeping him up, while the Quasit is a tiny little thing you could squash under your foot, but it cunningly slips around your leg, avoiding lethal attacks, until it make a vital mistake.

Also when you put a system-wide restriction like "only divine magic can heal", you are hampering the system with an arbitrary world-rule. It is perfectly viable to decide that in a campaign world, divine magic is the only kind of healing magic available. This would be a campaign based restriction. Much like the campaign based restriction of Dark Sun, where there is no divine magic. Similarly DM's can decide what kind of effects they want wounds to have in their world, or a DM might not want to ever deal with wounds, wanting to run a more heroic campaign, where PC's run through endless challenges in an upbeat 24-style tempo, that would be deterred by a crippling wound system. So long as the wound system is presented in a "take it or leave it" sort of way, both styles can be accommodated for.

I'm starting to think, what a lot of people are looking for is a set of rules to play World of Greyhawk. I seem to be in my own little world, thinking, I can make a home campaign using my imagination, and a robust and versatile set of D&D rules.

 

[mkill]

I don't really know what to vote here, but I poked some buttons anyway, based more on concept than actual agreement with the poll choice... This poll seems to make the assumption that hit points are your "health bar". I don't see it that way. I see it as just another defense, whether it be, luck, skill, or resilience.

Well, I tried to give different choices based on different assumptions. But you're right in the observation that the idea how healing should work is based on the concept of what hit points should represent. But that's a different poll...

 

[steeldragons]

BIG WORDS at the start of the Hit Points section:

Hit points represent your vigor to avoid actual wounds.

WOW. I thought "Hit Points represent your ability to take hits." Period. End of story.

Get hit, have a wound. Get hit again, have another wound. Might be serious/deep, might not...but it was..a "HIT"....which did damage against your "HIT points." Get hit for amazing/critical damage, you may very well die.

All of this "abstract" hit points are/count against your "vigor", your "ability to avoid or ignore damage", your "I'm hurt but, OH!, not really. I can go on"....is crap, imho.

When an attack deals hit point damage, if you still have HP afterward that attack only grazed you, or it caused pain that can be overcome. When an attack reduces your HP to 0, it knocks you down and leaves you unable to keep fighting. You're disabled until you either regain hit points or you die. While disabled, you can take no actions but you are aware of your surroundings.

You cannot have negative hit points. When you're out of HP, further damage becomes critical damage. If you have any critical damage, you're wounded. If you have critical damage greater than one-quarter your normal maximum HP, you're severely wounded. Once you take more damage than half your maximum HP, you die.

Interesting. Not bad...but interesting.

Getting Back on Your Feet
Various effects can let you can regain HP, up to your original maximum. Most often this represents you getting your second wind and rallying your strength, or an ally inspiring you to keep fighting. Sometimes these are spells that physically heal minor injuries or infuse you with vigor. Once you have any HP you are no longer disabled.

THIS is a load of crap. No offense, RW, but I disagree with your proposed system/mechanic. Any class can do this, huh?

When you take a short rest (5 minutes) you regain all your HP.

"When you"..."FIVE MINUTES!!!" Good gods, man..."Gain all of your hit p[oints...in FIVE MINUTES!!!" That doesn't strike you as ridiculous?

When you take an extended rest, reduce your critical damage to 0. However, this does not remove the wounded or severely wounded conditions. Those have to heal on their own.

Blessed goddess...you already mentioned three things...at least, in that statement that make no sense to me!

Wounds
When you are wounded, you take a -2 penalty to all d20 rolls and you grant combat advantage. While severely wounded, you take a -5 penalty to all d20 rolls, you grant combat advantage, and you can only take one action per turn.

If left to natural healing, make a DC xx {{Endurance/Constitution/whatever}} check each day to remove the wounded condition, or a DC yy check each week to remove the...-SNIP-

RW, ya know I love ya, more than my luggage, but have your seen the complications of your ways? It's just "this and that" and THEN "that and this" and a minus here and a plus there...WHAT?!

The Heal skill can let an ally treat your wounds so you heal faster. Some magical effects can remove the wounded condition in just a few moments, or reduce the severely wounded condition to just wounded.

Well, thank the gods we can make the "severely wounded condition" just a "wounded condition"....

The availability of magical healing depends on your setting.

For goddess sake, why couldn't you have just this in the first place?!?

Classic D&D makes healing plentiful. Low Fantasy D&D requires long rituals to heal wounds.

Noooo. Low Fantasy D&D makes healing very sparce...there are not "long rituals" to heal wounds...in "low fantasy" D&D. Not any that I've ever read.

Grim D&D has no magical healing.

It doesn't? huh.

Optional Rule - No Wounds
Some gamers prefer simpler rules. You still die when your critical damage is equal to half your normal maximum HP, but you never become wounded.

Optional Rule - Gruesome Wounds
When a critical hit causes you to become wounded, make a save (DC xx). If you fail, you suffer a gruesome wound appropriate to the attack. These wounds should be something that won't end your adventuring career. You might lose a hand or an eye, but not a whole limb.

If the crit caused you to become severely wounded, the wound should be even more gruesome, of the sort that renders you almost incapable of adventuring unless you can receive magical healing.

Imagine...if you can (and I know RW can, but I mean the rest of you)

 

[steeldragons]

double post...oops.

 

[JohnSnow]

WOW. I thought "Hit Points represent your ability to take hits." Period. End of story.

Get hit, have a wound. Get hit again, have another wound. Might be serious/deep, might not...but it was..a "HIT"....which did damage against your "HIT points." Get hit for amazing/critical damage, you may very well die.

All of this "abstract" hit points are/count against your "vigor", your "ability to avoid or ignore damage", your "I'm hurt but, OH!, not really. I can go on"....is crap, imho.

Take it up with Gary.

Hit points don't, and have never been intended to, represent "real damage." They have always been abstract. That's why taking hit point damage has never, in any edition of D&D diminished your fighting capability.

I could point you to the appropriate passage in every edition of the game, but suffice it to say that your "interpretation" clashes with what's been said about hit points for the entire nearly 40 years of the game's history.

Are you one of those people who thinks a high-level NPC can't take a freak fall off a horse and break his neck? Or that he just can't die from one (nonmagical) arrow to the eye?

Those are important questions to answer if you're going to participate in the: "what are hit points?" debate.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The consensus seems to be that you can have leaders of all sorts, that can heal, but the divine healer should be the best at it (that's OK, there are other leader functions), that everyone should second wind, but without healing surges, somehow, and that the heal skill be useful, but not in combat (which means no more triggering second winds, granting saves, or stabilizing dying characters, which is pretty harsh, IMHO).

 

[RangerWickett]

Steel Dragons, perhaps I should have said "HP represent your ability to avoid debilitating wounds." I'm just trying to model 'action movie' combat, and even a bit of 'classic Tolkien Fellowship of the Ring' combat, where people only usually suffer one 'wound' per fight, and that's the wound that drops them.

I did propose a system in a different thread where getting hit was actually, y'know, getting hit. You always have about 10 hit points, from 1st level to 20th level, and the methods of increasing survivability at higher levels included improving your AC and saves, and getting things like damage reduction or magical shields that soak damage.

In that system, a sword always does 1d8*, so it's very easy to say "He hits you and digs his sword into your thigh." Numbers easily match to actual effects. Bigger things have more HP, because they have more flesh to get through before you hit something vital. PCs only healed 1 HP every couple days without the aid of magic, because that's realistic . . . or at least it's realistic when HP = physical wound.

*Maybe a high-level fighter does 1d8+5, but at the same level a PC's magic armor might soak up 5 points of damage per hit.

I loved that system, but most gamers apparently want HP to increase as they level, and to get bigger damage numbers to show how cool they are. So if you're going to do that, there's simply no way for a "successful attack roll" to actually be a "solid hit" unless you really like the mental image of heroes with a dozen horrid wounds gushing blood all over the place at the end of each combat. Even John McClane in Die Hard only gets a little scraped up in any given encounter.

My system above just changes the definition of HP. Hit Points represent your stamina, and physical wounds are their own thing. And yes, if you play football for a couple plays, get shoved around and tackled, but aren't really injured, then if you rest for five minutes you'll probably be good to get back into the game. If you spar in martial arts and get into joint locks or get bruised from kicks and punches, you'll hurt, but after a few minutes' rest you'd be able to have another bout.

I admit, my system has flaws to its aesthetics. It's less 'hack and slash' than some would like. You wear down a foe before delivering a killing blow, instead of stabbing him a dozen times before he goes down.

And perhaps you should have a limit to how often you can heal HP due to 'getting your breath back.'

And stuff like giant monsters end up a little weird, because you actually do hack into their flesh a lot before they die. Which is why I preferred my other system, where HP never scaled.

 

[steeldragons]

Take it up with Gary.

I just might... OOGA BOOGA! Where's my damn ouija?!

Hit points don't, and have never been intended to, represent "real damage." They have always been abstract. That's why taking hit point damage has never, in any edition of D&D diminished your fighting capability.

Is that why? I always wondered about that.

I could point you to the appropriate passage in every edition of the game, but suffice it to say that your "interpretation" clashes with what's been said about hit points for the entire nearly 40 years of the game's history.

Save ya the trouble...

From the PHB, 1e, p. 34: "Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed.*^ A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels*, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors."

*Bold, italic, applied by me.
^ Certainly doesn't sound like physical damage to me! Oh...wait...

Are you one of those people who thinks a high-level NPC can't take a freak fall off a horse and break his neck? Or that he just can't die from one (nonmagical) arrow to the eye?

No. I'm not. But that's story based/NPC stuff...not PC applicable.

Those are important questions to answer if you're going to participate in the: "what are hit points?" debate.

Due respect, JohnSnow...but I've been doing this [playing D&D and AD&D...since that seems a necessary distinction these days] for a good long time. I don't need anyone to tell me "what hit points are" nor any "permission" to enter into debate with anyone about them.

But thank you for your vehement support of...what were you supporting again? Oh yes, my wrong-ti-tude.

--SD

 

[steeldragons]

Steel Dragons, perhaps I should have said "HP represent your ability to avoid debilitating wounds."

Well, that certainly would have played differently than, "
Hit points represent your vigor to avoid actual wounds."

I'm just trying to model 'action movie' combat, and even a bit of 'classic Tolkien Fellowship of the Ring' combat, where people only usually suffer one 'wound' per fight, and that's the wound that drops them.

I get that...I do...But why? In the fantasy, table-top, imagination, role-playing game of Dungeons & Dragons...why do we feel the need to model "action movie" combat?

Why do we feel the need to define everything that is going on in the game? Where's the imagination?!

Do we really need 12 types of damage to account for every permutation of what Hit Points COULD mean/represent?

Do we need 12 different ways to heal said damage? (yes, I know you didn't present 12...I'm prone to hyperbole )

Is this what "fun" is in a fantasy role-playing game?

That's where I get lost in all of this 5e stuff...on any given topic, not just this one! More rules, does not = more fun, to my eyes/mind. More options, yes. More rules of how to do/account for every possible things
...no.

I'm sorry, just no.

--SD

 

[Minigiant]

BIG WORDS at the start of the Hit Points section:

Hit points represent your vigor to avoid actual wounds.

When an attack deals hit point damage, if you still have HP afterward that attack only grazed you, or it caused pain that can be overcome. When an attack reduces your HP to 0, it knocks you down and leaves you unable to keep fighting. You're disabled until you either regain hit points or you die. While disabled, you can take no actions but you are aware of your surroundings.

You cannot have negative hit points. When you're out of HP, further damage becomes critical damage. If you have any critical damage, you're wounded. If you have critical damage greater than one-quarter your normal maximum HP, you're severely wounded. Once you take more damage than half your maximum HP, you die.

Getting Back on Your Feet
Various effects can let you can regain HP, up to your original maximum. Most often this represents you getting your second wind and rallying your strength, or an ally inspiring you to keep fighting. Sometimes these are spells that physically heal minor injuries or infuse you with vigor. Once you have any HP you are no longer disabled.

When you take a short rest (5 minutes) you regain all your HP. When you take an extended rest, reduce your critical damage to 0. However, this does not remove the wounded or severely wounded conditions. Those have to heal on their own.

Wounds
When you are wounded, you take a -2 penalty to all d20 rolls and you grant combat advantage. While severely wounded, you take a -5 penalty to all d20 rolls, you grant combat advantage, and you can only take one action per turn.

If left to natural healing, make a DC xx {{Endurance/Constitution/whatever}} check each day to remove the wounded condition, or a DC yy check each week to remove the severely wounded condition.

The Heal skill can let an ally treat your wounds so you heal faster. Some magical effects can remove the wounded condition in just a few moments, or reduce the severely wounded condition to just wounded. The availability of magical healing depends on your setting. Classic D&D makes healing plentiful. Low Fantasy D&D requires long rituals to heal wounds. Grim D&D has no magical healing.

Optional Rule - No Wounds
Some gamers prefer simpler rules. You still die when your critical damage is equal to half your normal maximum HP, but you never become wounded.

Optional Rule - Gruesome Wounds
When a critical hit causes you to become wounded, make a save (DC xx). If you fail, you suffer a gruesome wound appropriate to the attack. These wounds should be something that won't end your adventuring career. You might lose a hand or an eye, but not a whole limb.

If the crit caused you to become severely wounded, the wound should be even more gruesome, of the sort that renders you almost incapable of adventuring unless you can receive magical healing.

My suggestion for the negative HP system is close to this.

Hit point damage represents minor cuts, light bruises, loss of stamina, the drain of combat focus. Temporary hit point represent vigor and confidence that is on top of their normal skill.

A character is bloodied when they are hit with a critical hit, take massive damage, or drop to 0 HP. Characters can’t be reduced to negative hit points. 0 HP is the minimum. Instead, any character who takes damage that reduces his hit points to 0 must make a Constitution/Endurance save to avoid being disabled or dying.

Disabled characters are hurt badly but still able to function somewhat. Dying characters are so hurt badly they are unable to act. Disabled and dying characters are people with concussions, heavily bleeding wounds to the limbs, or minor broken bones to various degrees. A Con/Endurance check is needed to see if they get worse (after every action for the disabled, every round for the dying).

A Wisdom/Heal check can remove the disabled or dying states. Another check is used to remove the bloodied state. Long term rest allows the character a Con/Endurance check to remove the disabled or bloodied state.

Certain spells can remove the bloodied, disabled, or dying states.

Then each class can heal differently.

Clerics would have the most powerful hit point damage heals, be able to remove bloodied, disabled, and dying states, and grant temporary HP.

Druids would be the same healing spells as Clerics but use a spell slot one level higher.

Bards can use some spells to heal damage and use songs to grant a lot of temporary HP.

Warlords grant a whole lot of temporary HP but not heal actual HP damage. Some are trained field medics and have a bonus to the heal skill.

Paladins can heal via Lay on wounds but can't grant temporary hp.

Rangers and Paladins that choose to learn spells can heal HP.

Monks can heal HP damage themselves outside of combat via meditation.

Wizards and Sorcerers can only grant themselves temporary HP.

 

[RangerWickett]

In the fantasy, table-top, imagination, role-playing game of Dungeons & Dragons...why do we feel the need to model "action movie" combat?

That's the kind of action I like, so I want the rules to emulate it. What do you want the game's rules to emulate?

 

[steeldragons]

That's the kind of action I like, so I want the rules to emulate it. What do you want the game's rules to emulate?

Ok. Yes, "action movie combat" is cool.

I would like "Comic book" combat better...with Thundercats acrobatics but with Dungeons & Dragons (the cartoon) power weapons...Masters of the Universe punchin' Skeletor in the face (er...skull) with the Sorceress' magic kickin' arse from her tower on Castle Greyskull...while G.I.Joe laser rifles their way into C.O.B.R.A.'s secret ultra-hidden lair (only to have Serpentor kick their butts back to boot camp)...while the Smurfs were sippin' tea (magic potion tea, of course) with the Mon-Chi-Chis and Snorks...And the X-Men, Tarzan, Thundarr the Barbarian and the Silverhawks have a square-dancin' hoe-down...with Ookla playin' the fiddle and Orko on harmonica.

...all at the same time.

The "game's rules" don't need to "emulate" any of that for me.

I have the "rules" that I need: the cleric comes over and casts "Cure Light Wounds"...or the mage comes over and applies an herbal salve....or the thief comes over and bandages the slice and/or makes a splint ffor the broken bone...or all of the above...however you want to flavor/describe/fluff it!

Without x-teen different ways to heal people or account for damage or account for wounds...and vigor points and fortitude points and Strength but not really strength more like constitution but sorta temporary inspirational points...oh yeah, and HIT points...with what kinds of damage they have, they take from what kind of attack, but not this attack only that attack...this attack gets shrugged off by the "HEY!"...and that sortsa healing fixes which kindsa damage and which kindsa healing fixes THIS kind of damage but THAT damage is still floating around and...

Imaaaaaginaaaaation...that's wut I'm tawkin' about!
--SD

 

[RangerWickett]

Cool. So fewer rules are, in general, better for you, because you'd rather adjudicate the results of a character's actions with a simple game system, than have to be beholden to complicated rules of a complex game system. Is that what you're saying?

In that case, I think a fairly simple system, with optional add-ons, would please us both. I mean, you're not just winging everything. Some rules help everyone grasp what's going on, and make it easier to tell a shared story. And for the type of stories you mentioned above, I think the following makes real smart sense.

You have hit points. When you take damage, you lose hit points. When you're out of hit points, you're out of the fight. If someone deals more damage to you, you die. You can regain hit points, too.

Easy. That allows various narrative conceits to work. HP they a little of everything: wounds, luck, grit, plot immunity.

It works easily for a game, but for some people it's too abstract, because they want the rule mechanics to let them consistently parse game events into either narrative events or simulational events.

As Mark Rosewater, lead designer of Magic: the Gathering, says, restrictions inspire creativity. If there are specific mechanics for wounds or for, say, special types of armor that are good against special types of weapons, some gamers will latch onto those and be inspired.

In a simpler system, a player might be content to just swing his sword against every monster and add whatever flavor to his description that he thinks up. But in a middle-complexity system a player might like the reward of being more successful if he uses the rules well. He might try out something even more creative, because seeing lots of options encourages him to try them out.

In 2e, one of my players made a fighter who hit things with his sword. In 3e, the same player saw the list of a lot of combat options, and he made a fighter who liked to grapple people and bite their ankles off. And there were actual mechanics so he could know what to expect -- the person would be immobilized, have X% chance of escaping, and, after his ankles were gnawed, he'd be prone, which would grant other benefits. He liked having the rules inspire him to try things.

Anyway, I'm rambling. It's late. I like rules with more granularity, because . . . well, I just do. It's the design philosophy I enjoy. But I recognize the value of a simple core system. So yeah:

You have hit points. When you take damage, you lose hit points. When you're out of hit points, you're out of the fight. If someone deals more damage to you, you die. You can regain hit points, too.

 

[steeldragons]

Cool. So fewer rules are, in general, better for you, because you'd rather adjudicate the results of a character's actions with a simple game system, than have to be beholden to complicated rules of a complex game system. Is that what you're saying?

That would appear to be...in much more eloquently put terms than my own...what I'm sayin', yes.

In that case, I think a fairly simple system, with optional add-ons, would please us both.

Could not agree more...and have been trying to advocate that at every turn I can in the 5e threads.

I mean, you're not just winging everything. Some rules help everyone grasp what's going on, and make it easier to tell a shared story. And for the type of stories you mentioned above, I think the following makes real smart sense.

You have hit points. When you take damage, you lose hit points. When you're out of hit points, you're out of the fight. If someone deals more damage to you, you die. You can regain hit points, too.

Sounds about right.

Easy. That allows various narrative conceits to work. HP they a little of everything: wounds, luck, grit, plot immunity.

It works easily for a game, but for some people it's too abstract, because they want the rule mechanics to let them consistently parse game events into either narrative events or simulational events.

Seems like...I do feel sorry for those people.

As Mark Rosewater, lead designer of Magic: the Gathering, says, restrictions inspire creativity. If there are specific mechanics for wounds or for, say, special types of armor that are good against special types of weapons, some gamers will latch onto those and be inspired.

In certain cases, sure.

In a simpler system, a player might be content to just swing his sword against every monster and add whatever flavor to his description that he thinks up. But in a middle-complexity system a player might like the reward of being more successful if he uses the rules well.

"uses the rules well"? This sounds...suspiciously close to powergaming. Of which, I'll admit it, I do not approve.

He might try out something even more creative, because seeing lots of options encourages him to try them out.

Yeah, I see your point.

In 2e, one of my players made a fighter who hit things with his sword. In 3e, the same player saw the list of a lot of combat options, and he made a fighter who liked to grapple people and bite their ankles off. And there were actual mechanics so he could know what to expect -- the person would be immobilized, have X% chance of escaping, and, after his ankles were gnawed, he'd be prone, which would grant other benefits. He liked having the rules inspire him to try things.

Try things like nibbling off ankles while people were grappled? Hey..different strokes to move the world...What was he some stretch-armstrong cannibal rat?

Anyway, I'm rambling. It's late. I like rules with more granularity, because . . . well, I just do. It's the design philosophy I enjoy. But I recognize the value of a simple core system. So yeah:

You have hit points. When you take damage, you lose hit points. When you're out of hit points, you're out of the fight. If someone deals more damage to you, you die. You can regain hit points, too.

Sounds good to me, Ryan. Have a good night. Should be gettin' to bed myself...before the sun comes up. lol.