Sacrosanct
Legend
Our best healer is sleeping for 8 hours. Voila! Everyone is now up to max HP and resources just like that! 
D&D 5E Life without a healer
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Our best healer is sleeping for 8 hours. Voila! Everyone is now up to max HP and resources just like that!
Works great for HP. Not so great for recovering from perma-stun after an Intellect Devourer eats your brain, or a Medusa turns you to stone.
IMO, the most important jobs of a healer are Greater Restoration and Revivify. But that might just be my paranoia speaking; I can understand those who just roll up a new character and start over.
matskralc
Explorer
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Sounds like you need to kill it faster!
Nope. Offense doesn't scale and doesn't work against surprise--are you going to kill that raggedy peasant girl "just in case" she has an intellect devourer hiding in her skull? Carrying out preemptive strikes against everyone and everything is no way to live.
Just get a healer already.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Merric, I think you're missing an option. We've got two characters in my main group that can heal, they just DON'T. Well, unless someone goes down. In combat healing is limited and it's usually better to do a more proactive option. Out of combat HD is the majority of healing, not spell slots.
I guess the cleric is the "better healer" because they can stand someone up with a bonus action vs. the paladin needing to use a standard action. But really, healing in combat doesn't happen much.
I guess the cleric is the "better healer" because they can stand someone up with a bonus action vs. the paladin needing to use a standard action. But really, healing in combat doesn't happen much.
The question isn't entirely about healing in combat. It helps people not bleed out. However, I agree it's rarely a good option otherwise. However, when you don't heal *between* combats, the dynamic changes as well.
Cheers!
"Value during combat" is not to be dismissed lightly.And any character getting enough HD healing to approximately heal from 0-full, once, is a different "lot of healing" than a range of more 'fragile' characters being able to do so ~1.5x (6 surges) to tougher defenders being able to do so 2-3 or more times (8-12 surges +).
It's different but it's not that different. What I find is that healing during combat isn't that common. Even in older editions we tried to save the healing for after the fight, but we did have to use spells or else camp out in the wilderness for quite some time. 4e and 5e both moved away from magical healing in a big way.
As it is, HD roll plus CON mod * level for # of rolls per day used during short rests tends to simply be more proactive in healing (by resting) than reactive in combat. I find that the tougher vs more fragile component remains because the tougher characters already get better mileage out of the hit points in having more hit points, generally better defensive options, and more healing in the hit dice on those short rests. Some of them have additional healing. That gets right up to a shield style HAM champion with survivor, second wind, healer feat, and however many healing potions purchased off of the basic equipment list. That champion gets a lot of benefit from those d10 HD spent on a short rest.
Damage isn't done in percentages of total the percentage of "full" (ie filling up once or twice or parts thereof) doesn't matter. The difference between d12's and d6's is 100 hp of healing for the barbarian over the day that the wizard would not have, assuming equal CON score investment, because of the capstone CON bonus on top of the higher hit die. Given perma-rage and bear totem it works out even better out of those hp.
It's more typically d8's vs d10's but it's still a healing difference based on hit die and the point is that there's a lot of healing going around through hit dice on short rests, regardless. A group of 5 characters when the most common hit die is d8 starts with 5 dice worth and ends with 100 dice worth, which is the equivalent of nearly 100 cure wounds spells (in my experience caster stat tends to be a bit higher than average CON) in healing. Add in 2 healing kits and the healer feat, and those 5 20th-level characters are looking at an equivalent of almost 45 more cure wounds spells. Add in 2-3 healing potions each in inventory. That gives in-combat healing if necessary with the feat and the equipment.
I agree that in combat healing is important for emergencies. The group I'm in currently are 12th-level characters. Three d8's and two d10's for nearly 60 cure wounds worth of healing. The healer feat is worth approximately 30 cure wounds spells. The mass cure wounds spell is worth 10 cure wounds cast on all 5 of us. I'm casting it 2-3 times in a given day (usually once before each of the two short rests, give or take, and once before the long rest). We heal more from the feat and we heal much more from the hit dice than we do from spells. We heal a bit from healing potions. I don't think the spells cover 1/5th of our total healing, just to quantify it a bit.
I need the spells a bit more in subsequent days because we only heal 1/2 hp on a long rest, and have less hit dice recovered. That's when we might see a few healing words or an aura of vitality from the paladin.
TheLoneRanger1979
First Post
"Value during combat" is not to be dismissed lightly.
This essentially!
Insofar as providing support and enabling expending of healing surges yes. Though tactical were more in the line of nova providers.
mach1.9pants
Hero
I've played a Paladin and had to divide my slots between smites & cures. But we're a 3 person group running HotDQ and the DM was stingy on short rests. We often achieved the recommended 8 enc per day and often with no short rests.
Cristian Andreu
Explorer
The campaign I'm currently DMing has an aasimar cleric as the main healer, and she's been able to handle the party's amazingly suicidal tendencies with quite the skill.
However, publicly the "healer" of the group is a human sorcerer who tries to convince everyone he's a Cleric of Lathander, using his Wand of Cure Minor Wound to prove it at an awe-inspiring rate of 1d4+1 hp. The actual cleric just lets him have the spotlight on that, at least when he's not running away.
Note this is a 16th-level Planescape campaign, so you can imagine the effectiveness of the sorcerer's healing repertoire.
However, publicly the "healer" of the group is a human sorcerer who tries to convince everyone he's a Cleric of Lathander, using his Wand of Cure Minor Wound to prove it at an awe-inspiring rate of 1d4+1 hp. The actual cleric just lets him have the spotlight on that, at least when he's not running away.
Note this is a 16th-level Planescape campaign, so you can imagine the effectiveness of the sorcerer's healing repertoire.
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