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

[Horwath]

The idea is sound. The amount is too high. That draws out combats too much.

I'd reduce the base amount and still allow HD to spend.

amount is little above the average of new playtest for Cure wounds, and it's a nice round number.

The added HD is just an option if you want even more healing, but both are on a long rest recharge so it's in the daily budget.

 

[Horwath]

Yeah, I agree. We could do all kinds of complex changes, or we could just double the dice and see whether that's enough of a fix.

sure, but I feel that healing should be reliable and damage chaotic(represented by dice).

 

[Horwath]

till playtest 6 reverted away from it and went back to this looks like 197 where players can go down to zero & then have all of the damage beyond that simply erased by as little as a single point of healing. I don't think they can fix wackamole/yoyo healing until wotc is willing to make death saves the variant option & go back to requiring all damage beyond zero to be healed away point for point.

having negative HPs should be a nice idea to explore again in next PT.

you can have negative HP equal to your Con score plus your level. more than that and you are dead.
this will address multiple thing:

1. reduce whack-a-mole effect with few HPs of healing being the best option for combat healing
2. reduce overhealing(if you use fixed healing value for spells) even at 1st level, 15 pts of healing at 1st level is almost always overheal, unless used on 16 Con barbarian.
3. Reduce the effect of overkill, as any damage beyond getting someone to "0" will be used against future healing.

however, if you finish Short rest with negative HPs, 1st you get healed to 1 HP and then you spend HDs(if you want or if you have them) for healing. That way, even if you are out of healing, you get to 1HP on every short rest.

or just remove HDs and use 4E healing surges.

 

[James Gasik]

Well you could give everyone a Second Wind that gives them a defense bonus and allows them to heal 25% of their hit points and make Healing Word heal 25%+spellcasting modifier hit points, and give monsters special abilities that they can use on enemies at or below 50% hit points so that you want to keep people above that threshold.

Nah, who am I kidding, that'd never catch on.

 

[Charlaquin]

That is only point that can be taken, but there is another much worse.
It is factor of non-fun.
Suffering unlucky crit in 1st round and being bored to death for next 2 hours or so does not sound like a good promotion for the game.

This is why hard CC spells and effects only last 1 round or get a save every round to end.


We had a 3.5e campaign a year or so ago, 3rd level characters, friend failed Will save vs Cause fear, DM rolled 4 on d4 rounds, spend next 4 round running from fight and 4 rounds running back, had zero actions in combat. Luckily, we played online so he spend half the session playing video games.

Ok. Then the other option to solve the whack-a-mole problem is to buff healing to the point that it outpaces damage. The likely result being that there’s a lot of pressure for someone to play a healer, and fights become battles of attrition where the side that runs out of healing resources first loses.

These are all valid options, it’s just a matter of which ones has consequences you’re most willing to accept.

 

[Horwath]

Ok. Then the other option to solve the whack-a-mole problem is to buff healing to the point that it outpaces damage. The likely result being that there’s a lot of pressure for someone to play a healer, and fights become battles of attrition where the side that runs out of healing resources first loses.

These are all valid options, it’s just a matter of which ones has consequences you’re most willing to accept.

then there can be more shift in tactics to focus healer if the opponents are smart enough to recognize who is healing.
maybe more usage of metamagic feat and subtle spell, or multiclassing with sorcerer.

 

[CreamCloud0]

1st thing:
combine Cure wound as Healing word into one spell:

Heal
1st level
range 60ft
Bonus action:
heal one target in 60ft for 15HP. Increase amount of healing by 10HP for every spell slot higher than 1st.
Caster can split this healing between target and caster.
(optional) when you are healed by this spell, you can spend an HD to increase healing. You can spend a number of HDs equal to spell level.

Healing domain: increase healing from spells by 3 HP per spell level. (2+ SL is horrible scaling for later)

rather than combining the two spells i think i'd go with something more like this to tweak the existing spells: (as i general idea i don't know how this balances)
Cure wounds
1st level
range: 5ft/10ft?
casting time: 1 bonus action
-at 1st level this spell heals HP equal to the target's max hit die size + 2d4 + casting mod, when cast at higher levels this spell heals additional HP equal to the average roll on the target's hit die + 2d4.

Healing word
1st level
range: 60ft
casting time: 1 action
-at 1st level this spell heals HP equal to 2d6 + casting mod to up to two creatures within range, when cast at higher levels this spell heals an additional 1d6 per person.

2nd:
when you drop to 0HP, you gain exhaustion level.
This exhaustion level goes away if you are healed to 100% or after a Short rest. This amount can be tweaked to 75% or 50% of max HP, however you like the game to be gritty.

if this is the '24 -1 penalty per stage of exhaustion then sure, but otherwise no, the current exhaustion ramps up way too quick and is too biased against martials.

 

[Horwath]

if this is the '24 -1 penalty per stage of exhaustion then sure, but otherwise no, the current exhaustion ramps up way too quick and is too biased against martials.

The 2024 version.
We have been running similar version for years and it works great.

-1 to every d20 rolls per exhaustion level
-1 to AC and all DCs per level
-5 ft speed penalty. or -5/2 levels(round down) if we use 10 levels in 2024 version.

 

[tetrasodium]

Well you could give everyone a Second Wind that gives them a defense bonus and allows them to heal 25% of their hit points and make Healing Word heal 25%+spellcasting modifier hit points, and give monsters special abilities that they can use on enemies at or below 50% hit points so that you want to keep people above that threshold.

Nah, who am I kidding, that'd never catch on.

The surges like that really only worked because you were limited to only having the right amount I had forgotten (correctly described in #40)and healing spells consumed them rather than adding to them

Ok. Then the other option to solve the whack-a-mole problem is to buff healing to the point that it outpaces damage. The likely result being that there’s a lot of pressure for someone to play a healer, and fights become battles of attrition where the side that runs out of healing resources first loses.

These are all valid options, it’s just a matter of which ones has consequences you’re most willing to accept.

That's a healbot not a healer, most groups of newbies quickly learned they were a poor solution & I embedded a pretty good video talking about the distinction & resulting ramifications earlier.

The bigger pressure is for things like teamwork, tactics , & battlefield control with teamwork including things like buffing allies strategically debuffing opponents positioning & working to defend each other's weaknesses.

 

[Staffan]

The surges like that really only worked because you were limited to only having four(?) and healing spells consumed them rather than adding to them

4e classes (at least in PH1) had 6+Con bonus surges as a baseline, with clerics and warlords getting 7+Con bonus, fighters getting 9+Con bonus, and paladins getting 10+Con bonus. The main limit to in-combat healing was that Healing/Inspiring Word was a 2/encounter power (3 at level 16+ (out of 30)). You could get additional powers that would trigger healing surges, but that was the baseline.