D&D 5E Magic and Non-Magic Healing Proposal

[Pour]

Something that Mike Mearls mentioned on the Google+ Hangout kind of sparked an idea. He was talking about the Warlord in Next and where non-magical healing fits into the game given the abstractness of hit points. Then he said something I actually never knew was a design intent, that with the bloodied mechanic in 4e, all damage up until being bloodied (brought to half hit points) was largely superficial, stamina, morale, and energy, while everything afterward, into negative hit points and eventual death, were the actual, serious wounds.

Expanding that idea, and if you're willing to accept the abstractness of hit points, what if non-magical healing only worked on characters at the bloodied threshold or higher, and could only affect hp within the 50%-99% threshold. Magical healing then only works on characters below their bloodied threshold, and only affects hp within the 49%-0% hp and lower threshold. So a Cleric's prayers literally close wounds, while a Warlord's commands keep people going, replenish morale, push them back from the brink.

That said, I do believe there should be some cross over, unique powers to keep a man conscious on the Warlord's side or give him one, last heroic surge, while the Cleric might inspire men with religious fervor, but these types of powers don't necessarily have to do with healing.

Ultimately, I believe dividing the hp threshold and making each the master of one side of the pie gives both non-competing space to work in the same business of keeping players alive and well, using largely the same mechanics, but not stepping on each others' toes. I also think it creatively colors the type of aid a Warlord or Cleric could offer, the Warlord weighted toward the early rounds, more or less directing combat (Warlords do use strategy, don't they) by choosing who stays healthiest and who receives their commands/boons. Clerics in combat come into play later or after particularly brutal onslaughts which drop characters below bloodied, times when you're 'living on a prayer'. This also takes some of the pressure off being a heal-bot because clerics by RAW can only really intervene when a player is 49% hp or lower.

In terms of out of combat healing, I imagine both would be able to apply their art to some degree, whether through field medicine or additional prayer, though even then it might be better to keep these proposed hp threshold limits.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

The idea has promise, but as they mentioned it still breaks down, when you have a 20th level fighter with 150hp his bloodied is still 75, that's way more damage than he should be able to physically take.

How about all HP are just luck and whatever except the last few equal to your con score.

Con of 12 and 60 hp, youve got 58 points of luck and 12 points of health.

 

[GreyICE]

Hmmm, maybe the cleric healing could be more powerful, but a limited resource that the cleric can only use occasionally, while the Warlord healing is much less powerful, but can be used virtually every round (to represent the Warlord's inspiring presence keeping allies going even if they're slightly bloodied).

Something like Warlords providing a constant aura that heals 1d6 (scale at higher levels) each round, to represent the healing from the ongoing inspiration, and the cleric can use a standard action to do 5d6 (scale, obv) to a single target. Something like that. That way the Cleric is really needed to heal serious wounds, but the Warlord can inspire people to keep going constantly.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

My big problem with all the people who don't want any non-magical healing in the game is why can't they just not allow it in their setting.

I want to be able to run a game without magic. I want to ban Clerics and Wizards and still run the game. Why is everyone so dead set against me having the option to do that?

 

[Pour]

The idea has promise, but as they mentioned it still breaks down, when you have a 20th level fighter with 150hp his bloodied is still 75, that's way more damage than he should be able to physically take.

How about all HP are just luck and whatever except the last few equal to your con score.

Con of 12 and 60 hp, youve got 58 points of luck and 12 points of health.

I see your point, but again it goes back to hp abstraction. If you can accept morale, stamina, and energy numerically increasing with level (my proposed 50%-100% of hp), what stops us from accepting the other half representing a larger threshold of pain, punishment, and hard-boiled toughness without the signature feats?

I agree, a body is a body, and curiously unless we want to get into something like race determining maximum or minimum hit points (fascinating, but not where I see it going), I could live with a high-level fighter surviving more deep gashes and broken bones then I could a low-level blacksmith's apprentice. If something so lethal is being used against a character, there should be conditions, maybe even *duck* save versus riders.

There is something to that Con score, though. I mean it already is helping determine hp, that is pretty significant in itself, and feeds into this pool.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

My big problem with all the people who don't want any non-magical healing in the game is why can't they just not allow it in their setting.

Why can't you just allow it in yours?

I want to be able to run a game without magic. I want to ban Clerics and Wizards and still run the game. Why is everyone so dead set against me having the option to do that?[/QUOTE]

We're not. I just don't want it as the default. It's fine as an optional sidebar, but not as the default. It changes D&D into a different game. Yelling my wounds away is the main reason I stayed away from 4e.

 

[Pour]

We're not. I just don't want it as the default. It's fine as an optional sidebar, but not as the default. It changes D&D into a different game. Yelling my wounds away is the main reason I stayed away from 4e.

Well hopefully the answer to both of your issues comes in simply disallowing either the Cleric or the Warlord, depending what kind of feel you're going for, but I argue both should be default and with them magical and non-magical healing. I don't see how either of them affects your games if you simply ban one or the other. If this edition is truly modular, default should be whatever you want, from a large smorgasbord we choose from. They both deserve a spot in the PHB and shouldn't be the only classes to have their respective healing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

We're not. I just don't want it as the default. It's fine as an optional sidebar, but not as the default. It changes D&D into a different game. Yelling my wounds away is the main reason I stayed away from 4e.

Well, based upon the design tenets that they've been following... you could easily look at it even right now that there is no "non-magical healing" as the default... because the "core" of the game (as Mearls and company have continually made mention) is Fighter / Rogue / Cleric / Wizard. So by default all healing is magical, because the Cleric is the only class capable of healing as part of the "core".

The Warlord (along with all the other classes besides the big 4) are being treated in this edition more as niche extras, rather than the base of the game. So anything those class do, are built upon the default game, rather than a direct part of it. Thus, there's no reason why you need to worry regardless of which side of the fence you lie... because if you don't want it, you don't have to allow any or all of niche classes into your core game (thereby keeping the Warlord out)... and if you do, you already are going along with the idea of not playing just core, and thus using the Warlord isn't any big deal. You can use him and have his non-magical healing without issue.

 

[FireLance]

Yelling my wounds away is the main reason I stayed away from 4e.

Not liking the idea of non-magical hit point recovery is one thing. Deliberately misrepresenting the in-game fiction of non-magical hit point recovery is another. A warlord restores hit points by inspiring his allies and restoring vigor and fighting spirit. If you don't like that, or think that it does not gel with your idea of what hit points represent, please say that instead of deliberately trying to describe what the warlord is doing in the most ridiculous terms you can think of. Much appreciated.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Not liking the idea of non-magical hit point recovery is one thing. Deliberately misrepresenting the in-game fiction of non-magical hit point recovery is another. A warlord restores hit points by inspiring his allies and restoring vigor and fighting spirit. If you don't like that, or think that it does not gel with your idea of what hit points represent, please say that instead of deliberately trying to describe what the warlord is doing in the most ridiculous terms you can think of. Much appreciated.

Sorry, I call 'em like I see 'em. You get hit with a sword, you bleed, you lose hit points. Someone yells at you, you regain hit points. That's yelling wounds away. I'm not misrepresenting anything. Unless the dm says "the barbarian's sword goes into your rib cage, and suddenly you just want to be held."