D&D (2024) How to buff healing, make it reliable and discourage whack-a-mole?

[Mirrorrorrim]

I understand your way of thinking here and can appreciate it... but I'll be honest, that sort of narrative-to-mechanics overlap in the "PC is dying" sphere is just one of innumerable places where the whole thing doesn't make any sense. The entire Hit Point system doesn't align mechanically to any sort of cohesive narrative.

I mean if you wish to make the point that going from 0 HP to being healed some amount of HP means narratively you are going from "I'm dying!" to "Up and at 'em, I'm good!"... then I would counter with the entire run of a character going from Full HP to 0 HP is "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "Oops, I'm dying!". Mechanically you are perfectly fine with no loss of ability while you have any sort of HP at all, and it's only when you drop under that threshold of 0 HP when suddenly you are now on Death's Door. And there's no logical narrative description we can use for any of that. Two different sections of the rules that both have narrative that misaligns to the mechanics. So to me I would say either be bothered with both parts or neither parts... but only being bothered by one of them but not the other seems illogical.

So at least for me... if the narrative paper we are using to wrap the hit points and death and dying mechanics in is rather flimsy and doesn't do a great job in so many ways over so many parts... at some point it seems easier to just change the paper rather than trying to change the gift the paper is wrapping up? Others might disagree.

In my game's narrative, any kind of magical healing, even 1 point, completely heals the major trauma of all wounds and broken ones (though the hurt person may still feel worn down from being low on HP). That way, HD healing from short rests and full HP recovery from long rests now work narratively for everyone. (Being healed from 0, back up to 5hp out of 100hp, means they have no wounds and are fully effective, even if weary.) That said, walking around with low HP still makes the person more susceptible to dropping if they get hurt further.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I understand your way of thinking here and can appreciate it... but I'll be honest, that sort of narrative-to-mechanics overlap in the "PC is dying" sphere is just one of innumerable places where the whole thing doesn't make any sense. The entire Hit Point system doesn't align mechanically to any sort of cohesive narrative.

I mean if you wish to make the point that going from 0 HP to being healed some amount of HP means narratively you are going from "I'm dying!" to "Up and at 'em, I'm good!"... then I would counter with the entire run of a character going from Full HP to 0 HP is "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "I'm fine!" "Oops, I'm dying!". Mechanically you are perfectly fine with no loss of ability while you have any sort of HP at all, and it's only when you drop under that threshold of 0 HP when suddenly you are now on Death's Door. And there's no logical narrative description we can use for any of that. Two different sections of the rules that both have narrative that misaligns to the mechanics. So to me I would say either be bothered with both parts or neither parts... but only being bothered by one of them but not the other seems illogical.

So at least for me... if the narrative paper we are using to wrap the hit points and death and dying mechanics in is rather flimsy and doesn't do a great job in so many ways over so many parts... at some point it seems easier to just change the paper rather than trying to change the gift the paper is wrapping up? Others might disagree.

oh i'm aware that HP having no influence until zero is as much of a mechanical-narrative failure as any of the rest of it, but the whacka-mole healing is just where it becomes especially blatant and in your face, but HP functions 'well enough' until that point and trying to make a new more accurate system is likely to be inefficiently complex so HP can remain to me, we just need to make some tweaks around the problem areas, ie: hitting and recovering from zero.

 

[tetrasodium]

oh i'm aware that HP having no influence until zero is as much of a mechanical-narrative failure as any of the rest of it, but the whacka-mole healing is just where it becomes especially blatant and in your face, but HP functions 'well enough' until that point and trying to make a new more accurate system is likely to be inefficiently complex so HP can remain to me, we just need to make some tweaks around the problem areas, ie: hitting and recovering from zero.

That's how hp works yes. It's a metric that works "well enough" until yoyo/wackamole healing makes a mockery of it as you noted. The reason that yoyo/wackamole healing is even capable of doing that is very specifically and very obviously because of phb197 where death saves and the erasing of damage beyond zero with even 1hp of healing, that is not a complicated thing to fix because prior editions simply didn't include such an obvious problem. That's probably why there have been so many posts in the thread suggesting a reversion to something closer to a last known good set of rules for what happens at zero hp

 

[Yaarel]

I am against HD as healing surges or cure wounds mechanics.

Requiring the spending of HD completely nerfs the overall healing for the day. A level 3 fighter only has 3 Hit Dice. They can benefit from only 1-3 healing effects (depending on how many HD those effects allow you to spend), and afterwards a short rest does nothing for healing, because they are out of HD.

I can see 2 spells potentially enabling the use of HD.

1. A Catnap-like spell that lets you take a short rest faster (and therefore spend HD).
2. I can see Spare the Dying not curing with free healing, but stabilizing and allowing the target to spend only 1 HD to get a little HP and wake up if they have a HD to spare. It makes Spare the Dying worth more than a Medicine check, but it utilizes a limited resource for balance.

To be clear, healing spells wouldnt grant hit dice. These healing spells refer to the hit dice to determine how much the target benefit from the healing.

To actually grant hit dice, which the target could spend later, would be a different concept.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

To be clear, healing spells wouldnt grant hit dice. These healing spells refer to the hit dice to determine how much the target benefit from the healing.

To actually grant hit dice, which the target could spend later, would be a different concept.

So as long as you have 1 level of Barbarian, you can roll d12s for healing?

Or do you only have 1 of those d12s, and the rest are d10s from fighter levels? If so, that is super confusing if you're not spending them.

Still, don't like either way that shakes out.

 

[Yaarel]

So as long as you have 1 level of Barbarian, you can roll d12s for healing?

Or do you only have 1 of those d12s, and the rest are d10s from fighter levels? If so, that is super confusing if you're not spending them.

Still, don't like either way that shakes out.

A multiclass Barbarian uses d12s for healing, or 7s, casters choice. Even a dip into Barbarian means the character concept is tough.

 

[CreamCloud0]

A multiclass Barbarian uses d12s for healing, or 7s, casters choice. Even a dip into Barbarian means the character concept is tough.

I’d rather their entire set of hit dice didn’t become d12s after a 1 level dip in barb, what about if you multiclass with a class with a higher die size than your original class your hit die size gets bumped up by 1 size? Like the tough feat, Wiz dips barb and their d6 becomes a d8

 

[Yaarel]

I’d rather their entire set of hit dice didn’t become d12s after a 1 level dip in barb, what about if you multiclass with a class with a higher die size than your original class your hit die size gets bumped up by 1 size? Like the tough feat, Wiz dips barb and their d6 becomes a d8

For multiclass, I doubt the healing boost from the higher hit dice matters.

If anyone cares, or if it turns out to be statistically exploitable, maybe use the hit dice of whichever class was last leveled. Even a level 10 Fighter dipping into a level 1 Wizard might be off ones fighty game thus use the d6 healing until leveling in Fighter again.

 

[CreamCloud0]

For multiclass, I doubt the healing boost from the higher hit dice matters.

If anyone cares, or if it turns out to be statistically exploitable, maybe use the hit dice of whichever class was last leveled. Even a level 10 Fighter dipping into a level 1 Wizard might be off ones fighty game thus use the d6 healing until leveling in Fighter again.

i mean, if it's bumping your entire base health pool 1hp/level, and your hit die healing, that's still a decent up in survivability, and i think it's more fair of a benefit across all classes rather than favouring the lower hit die classes as much to take a single level in a high-HP class and bump their healing die several sizes (sure high HD classes get less benefit but they don't have any drawbacks from investing in a lower HD class).

 

[Horwath]

For multiclass, I doubt the healing boost from the higher hit dice matters.

If anyone cares, or if it turns out to be statistically exploitable, maybe use the hit dice of whichever class was last leveled. Even a level 10 Fighter dipping into a level 1 Wizard might be off ones fighty game thus use the d6 healing until leveling in Fighter again.

this is why 4E healing surge is superior to HD healing.
It's 25% of max HP, that always scales with level, no matter the multiclass or Con score change.
It is also 100% reliable as fixed healing.