D&D 5E Low level healing to stay up in a kids game

[Blue]

So, one of the games I run is for my kids and niece and nephew. They have a drow rogue (scout) 4, a red dragonborn barbarian (ancients) 4, a half-elven sorcerer (wild magic) 3 / warlock (hexblade) 1, and a eladrin bard (glamour) 4. The rogue is melee focused and the sorlock often is in melee as well.

Having the character hit zero is a traumatic experience, and they attempt a lot of pre-healing to prevent that. Which, as everyone knows, is not the best in 5e. On top of that, the bard is the only healer (plus some potions) and is doing things like using 2nd level slots with Healing Word and getting roped into being a faux heal-bot. I've even "forgotten" the rules a few times and allowed casting a bard spell the same round as the bonus action healing word just to let them do something bard-like. (And the player wants to be a bard, not a heal-bot.)

I'm looking for ideas I can do to help shift and lighten the healing load. I've pointed out several times the tHP from the bard's Mantle of Inspiration to the player, but it's never seen use. The sorlock doesn't want a shield (hexblade gives proficiency) because she wants a hand free for casting - and aesthetics. She has the Shield spell, but has been using Hellish Rebuke if hit instead. The rogue does their best and has a good AC but has the lowest HP in the party. And does like to take a second d4+0) attack with an offhand dagger rather than disengage and move back. She's rather bloodthirsty. (The barb is just fine, just he's not the only one getting attacked.)

I've floated the idea of having a healing sidekick with them, but the players aren't up for that. I do want this to be a training game to some degree so I'm not going to load them up with lots of defensive magic items or a staff of healing (rare) at this level. Heck, even if I gave a staff of healing, it would still be a single character (and that's the bard again as the only one who can attune) dedicating their actions to using it.

I'm detuning combat encounters to some degree, but remember they are mostly calibrated not to go down which takes a lot mroe resources than popping up after going down.

Assume the players are happy with their characters, so no one is rerolling a new character and the rogue is staying primary-melee and the sorlock as occasionally melee. And that I don't want to flood them with items that change the experience.

So, what are your ideas? Out of the box or in plain sight that I've overlooked.

 

[aco175]

I like items myself and gave a party of two a ring that could heal 3/day for like 1d8, but as a bonus action. It was more like free healing which helped. Other times I add healing to a magic weapon. A +0 sword is good only to hit monsters needing magic, but add 1/day it can heal out to 30ft for 2d10hp and it becomes something they will keep. I usually add another power like 1/day you can reroll an attack to aid as well.

Another thing you can do is add to their AC to prevent being hit. A floating shield is cool and keeps your hands open while making you 10% less hittable.

Some rules changes like flanking allow the PCs to hit more and kill faster. You control the monsters, so they can flank as much as you think. I mostly have skeletons and such not flank much, but soldier-types flank as often as the PCs.

 

[commandercrud]

I run a game for kids. Just remind them to buy healing potions when in town and make sure they happen to find them as the need arises. No other changes necessary.

 

[jgsugden]

The easiest thing is to drop healing potions into the game often, and to provide a "potion belt" that makes it a bonus action to pull out and use a potion. That solves a lot of problems.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Well ideally the Bard just learns to use their Mantle of Inspiration, as it is some pretty clutch light healing, and will get better next level when it goes up to eight points and inspiration starts refreshing on short rests. Next time they want to use Healing Word with another full spell on the action you might want to remind them that can't do that, but they can use a full spell with their Mantle of Inspiration. If they take advantage of that they will have more healing potential than most parties in most campaigns I've been involved.

But I get it, I've played with kids.

Are they taking short rests? The only real tweak to healing I've ever actually implemented was on some campaigns letting characters get all their hit dice back on long rests so that they could benefit from more short resting, but even without tweaking that, this is the basic form of healing available to everyone and they even get an extra d6 of healing when they do it because there is a Bard in the party.

You could just have them find more healing potions amongst loot and find more available in stores.

But fundamentally it sounds like they have adopted a playstyle based around what they like in the game rather than how the game is designed to opperate and you have to make a decision about how much you are going to adapt the game to their playstyle and adjust for whatever consequences that has. If they want to go for risky behavior, burn through HP, not use every healing opportunity available, and not even let an NPC healer follow them around then the game is designed for there to be an eventual reckoning in the form of death and or defeat. Obviously that is always a tricky thing to allow as DM and way more so with children, but as DM you have a lot of leeway to bring characters back from death or make defeats survivable (and heck, prison breaks can be a lot of fun).

 

[Swarmkeeper]

By "detuning combat encounters" do you mean making them easier? One way to do that to ensure that you don't make them too easy by accident is to have a 2nd wave of baddies waiting to join the fray. If the battle is becoming a cakewalk, introduce the 2nd wave (could be even just 1 or 2 more of the enemy). If the battle is a challenge, the 2nd wave doesn't need to show up at all. Another way is to sometimes have enemies leave the combat - perhaps its a morale thing after being wounded, or perhaps it is under the pretense of going for some backup to crush to party, or...

Another thought is to have an in-game mentor for the group who is a grizzled adventuring veteran who could give the PCs some interesting pointers in exchange for them sharing some of their battle stories. Pointers could be: focus fire, know when to retreat and live to fight another day, use buffs/debuffs strategically, seek to control the high ground, force the monsters into a bottleneck/pinch point, etc...

 

[Boarbot 78]

Just don’t let them hit zero? Have them fight easy stuff, and make the fight go their way when they are loosing! Personally I hate healing potions and they seem like the biggest rip-off in dnd. Are you sure all of them are opposed to the sidekick, cause I loved that idea. In the end if they are getting very upset you could always just slightly adjust damage to leave them on 1 or 2 hp, and if they don’t run then, well they just deserve to die!

 

[Oofta]

I kind of hit this in my current campaign. I made drinking a potion a bonus action, and maxed out healing potions. I justified the max healing potions as the church recognizing the good work they were doing.

If you want to justify drinking healing potions as a bonus action in-game you could also have potion hats

 

[NotAYakk]

1. When you magically heal you have to also roll a HD. If you are out of HD magic can only stabalize you when KO.

2. Healing potions are a bonus action to drink.

3. Cure Wounds can replace its d8s with the HD you roll (Healing Word cannot).

4. Add Lesser Healing Potions (1d4+1) for 10 gp.

This should move the responsibility of healing away from the Bard. Players csn burn their own resources to stay up (healing potions, actions), instead of relying on the bard.

And if they use up their HD, they cannot rely on the bard anymore. So there is some danger still.

Better healing potions make the HD spent more efficient.

 

[FireLance]

Have you considered using the Healing Surges option (DMG p. 266) and maybe the Epic Heroism option (DMG p. 267) for this game?