D&D 5E (2014) Mundane Healing

[Wepwawet]

Honestly, I would probably keep the d8 listed in the Cure Wounds spell.

But Healing Word is ranged, that's why the amount healed is lower. (Actually I've never seen a wand of cure wounds in 3.5, was it touch?)

 

[Tormyr]

Honestly, I would probably keep the d8 listed in the Cure Wounds spell.

Is it working though? No issues?

The thing is, this is a 3.5 adventure, and I have pretty much carried over the magic items as is. We have only made it through 2.5 chapters of the 12 chapter AP. They are level 5 and have +1 plate, +1 splint, a couple wands of healing word, a couple rings of protection, a +1 quarterstaff, +1 short sword, +1 flail, +1 crossbow. On top of that, they found a 200lbs. table of shiny red space metal that they decided to haul back to the awesome smithy in town. He made them a bunch of +1 gear out of it. I am not worried too much about it imbalancing things. It just means they will get +1 items a bit sooner. I figure I will limit things when we start getting into the ridiculous +3 to +5 territory.

3.5 wands had a limited number of charges and that was it. 5e wands also last forever if you do not use the last charge. They did not even find all of the wands as written the AP. Because there are so many wands of cure light wounds in the AP and in my mind wands should be ranged instead of touch, I went with healing word. This had the added benefit of not doing too much healing while allowing them to keep each other alive. In practice, they do not abuse it (they can't really), and it does not seem to imbalance things. Most encounters in this AP are Moderate to Hard with the heroes outnumbered, so after the first encounter after a long rest, the cleric is already low on spells.

Back on topic, though, I honestly don't know how they would do this AP with just mundane healing.

 

[Wepwawet]

Actually 1d4+2 sounds like a good amount of healing for a character proficient in Medicine using a Healing Kit. Or rather 1d4+Wis. mod.
Enough to make a difference, but low enough not to be used all the time...

Well, the truth is that I'm worried about the first episode of HotDQ with several different missions and all those encounters with raiders. I'm worried that those 1st level characters won't survive till the end. That's why I'm trying to find more ways to heal.

But really, how deadly is 5e? Are the players generally fine with only one "healer", even if it's a Bard?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've been looking at this since it's a topic pretty near and dear to my own heart...

• "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Bounded accuracy means a high AC is always valuable. Everyone can take the Dodge action (and this would be a good idea for the person who ran up to the front lines of combat!). Do NOT overlook your defenses.
• Rests mostly do fine for in-between encounters. A rest is no joke, but it's not typically hard to get if you do some thinkin' about it. It's not automatic, but it's reasonable if you try.
• Proficiency with an Herbalism kit will allow you to make Potions of Healing. These are not bad, at least at low levels, at bringing someone back into the fight. They'll solve your temporary action economy problem when a PC goes down quite nicely. Higher levels might demand more powerful magic items.
• Healer's kit. Not great. Stops someone from dying.
• Feats might include Healer, but also Inspiring Leader, Lucky, Durable, and Toughness (for that "ounce of prevention"). Magic Initiate can give you Cure Wounds, and Martial Adept can give you Rally, Parry, and Goading Attack, all of which help a lot with your defenses.

I think the best strategy is to play more defensively. Use cover your allies grant you. Get a high DEX or some armor proficiency. In a pinch, you can drop some potions, but you're much better off avoiding hits in the first place than you are in getting HP's back.

 

[Tormyr]

But Healing Word is ranged, that's why the amount healed is lower. (Actually I've never seen a wand of cure wounds in 3.5, was it touch?)

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wands
Considering that wands are just a store and fire mechanism for spells, I would say, yes, it is touch.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Inspiring Leader is mundane kinda-sorta healing, as is the battlemaster rally maneuver.

 

[Tormyr]

Actually 1d4+2 sounds like a good amount of healing for a character proficient in Medicine using a Healing Kit. Or rather 1d4+Wis. mod.
Enough to make a difference, but low enough not to be used all the time...

Well, the truth is that I'm worried about the first episode of HotDQ with several different missions and all those encounters with raiders. I'm worried that those 1st level characters won't survive till the end. That's why I'm trying to find more ways to heal.

But really, how deadly is 5e? Are the players generally fine with only one "healer", even if it's a Bard?

5e is very deadly. Especially at 1st level. A wizard with 6hp needs to hide and invest in shield and mage armor. Even at 5th level, things can be deadly. Last week, the party was working their way through a swamp. They had just finished a long rest. A giant crocodile (CR5) got the drop on them. It bit down on the rogue/monk and did 27 damage. The halfling rogue was grappled in the crocodile's mouth and left with 1 hp. The tail swung around and clubbed the cleric (21AC) for another 17 points of damage. Some quick thinking (shrink on the crocodile, wand of healing word) kept the rogue from dying after the crocdile crunched down on the rogue again. The party has a war cleric and a paladin. I push the party to go as far as possible before taking a long rest, so everyone is usually pretty drained, but I think you could do it with a bard if everyone was careful.

 

[Paraxis]

An idea I am toying around with is letting someone spend a hit die when they receive any other form of healing to augment it.

So a character drinks a healing potion he gets the 2d4+2 like normal and can also spend a hit die for extra hit points recovery. Same would go for, someone using the healer feat, a caster using healing word or cure wounds, whatever.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, the truth is that I'm worried about the first episode of HotDQ with several different missions and all those encounters with raiders. I'm worried that those 1st level characters won't survive till the end. That's why I'm trying to find more ways to heal.

With good reason. Between sneaking into town and Seek the Keep the party could face anything from 4 to 8 encounters (8 being pretty unlikely, they'd have to not sneak at all, and you'd have to roll a lot of 50/50 random encounters, even everyone in a 4-PC party failing stealth would only get you two random encounters for a total of 6). That's about a day's worth of encounters without even a short rest among them.

And, if you get out your DM basic pdf, and run the numbers on those encounters, a lot of them are hard, and the 8 kobolds chasing the family are technically 'deadly' to a party of 4 first-level characters.

So, you could go through and try to get the total exp for that first 'mission' down to 100 per PC, which is what the guidelines suggest the party be able to do before needing their first short rest of the day. If you skip the random encounters and just run the family chased by kobolds and the 3 patrols to get to the keep, each of those 4 encounters would need to be with only about 4 kobolds (which, BTW, is still a 'medium' encounter for 4 first-level PCs, thanks to the multiplier for a 'group' of 4 monsters). You could make it, say, 6 kobolds chasing the family (exactly 'hard'), and 2 kobolds & a cultist (easy-med) for each patrol.

That might not seem very challenging, but there's very little margin for error (and bad dice rolls) with 1st level characters, /especially/ if you lack the ability to get fallen allies back up after being dropped to 0 (stabilizing them is fine, but they take 1d4 hours to wake up!).


The other thing you can do - if you're not running an official AL game - is just start them at 2nd or 3rd level. The extra hps & HD will see the party through the occasional bad die roll, and there are some nice class features that kick in, as well.

 

[Joe Liker]

I'm with Kamikaze Midget. If the party can't be bothered to take a level or two of a healing class, they need to learn to be smart and very defensive, or at least pick up an NPC associate who can heal.

I definitely wouldn't make up new rules for them. The most fudging I'd do is let them make friends with a nice druid who takes a full share of XP in exchange for keeping them alive.