Ahnehnois
First Post
Personally, I'm a vegetarian and I hate broccoli.
As for healing, I prefer it as optional, infrequent, detailed, and treated as special within the game world.
D&D 5E On Healing and Broccoli
As for healing, I prefer it as optional, infrequent, detailed, and treated as special within the game world.
Tony Vargas
Legend
So exactly the opposite as it's always been in D&D: obligatory, frequent, abstract, and ubiquitous.
If I can draw any conclusion from the long-standing controversies surrounding hit points and healing (how does a 10th level fighter survive a 100' fall? why does CLW heal a nearly dead peasant back to full, but can't even completely heal a scratch on a high level character? etc, etc), it might be that "healing" wasn't the best thing to call hit-point-restoration mechanics.
In genre, magical healing is, as you say, infrequent, detailed, and special. But, in genre, protagonists have 'plot armor,' and don't get seriously wounded enough to require magical healing /nearly/ as often as D&D characters get 'hit' and receive a CLW or down a healing potion. Hit points pulling double-duty as both ablative plot armor and actual wound tracking seems, to me, to be the root of the 'problem.'
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Ahnehnois
First Post
It's not really obligatory. In-combat healing has definitely not been obligatory and out of combat healing is relevant only in some scenarios. Other than that, pretty much, yes. Not a big fan of D&D's RAW take on health or healing.
Depends on the genre. D&D explicitly draws from diverse sources, and individual DMs bring even more styles in to their games.
True.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Given that the obvious alternative to healing is running out of hps and dying, I don't think 'obligatory' is out of line.
I can't think of a single non-D&D-contaminated story (genre or myth) that features the level of 'magical healing' that D&D depends upon to run smoothly. Y'know, the protagonist having such reliable access to healing that he gets wounded and healed in virtually every battle.
As for the issue of hps being both 'plot armor' and wound-tracking, I think the obvious solution of having two different pools of hps, one for each, isn't that viable. Bypassing the 'plot armor' pool would inevitably come up and be far too powerful, and simple bookkeeping for both fails to differentiate them (the "detail" aspect we're missing currently).
If hit points, about as they are, mechanically, were retained for 'plot armor' uses, and wound-tracking were some more detailed, less abstract/numerical add-on, it might work out pretty well.
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cavalier973
Hero
Broccoli is good if you put cheese on it. For some reason, that makes me think about the D&D4e Essentials Warpriest.
I played one at a D&D Encounters session a couple of years ago, and had a blast. He was a level 2 half-elf Sun Domain Warpriest, and though I built him to be good at healing, he was definitely more than a healbot. He was all over the battlefield, taking down a monster, then rushing over to pull the paladin from the brink of death (twice), then healing another ally; he was a busy cleric, and a lot of fun to play.
His healing repertoire included two uses of "healing word", plus the "cure light wounds" power, so he had three instances of healing that were not tied to some attack power. His two at-will attack powers didn't grant straight healing, though. One gave damage resistance to himself or an ally within range, and the other granted a saving throw to himself or an ally.
The first thing I had him do was burn his daily, which gave everyone a +2 to all defenses until the end of the encounter. So he healed, granted a boost to his allies' defenses, and was a competent fighter as well; as I say, a lot of fun to play.
I played one at a D&D Encounters session a couple of years ago, and had a blast. He was a level 2 half-elf Sun Domain Warpriest, and though I built him to be good at healing, he was definitely more than a healbot. He was all over the battlefield, taking down a monster, then rushing over to pull the paladin from the brink of death (twice), then healing another ally; he was a busy cleric, and a lot of fun to play.
His healing repertoire included two uses of "healing word", plus the "cure light wounds" power, so he had three instances of healing that were not tied to some attack power. His two at-will attack powers didn't grant straight healing, though. One gave damage resistance to himself or an ally within range, and the other granted a saving throw to himself or an ally.
The first thing I had him do was burn his daily, which gave everyone a +2 to all defenses until the end of the encounter. So he healed, granted a boost to his allies' defenses, and was a competent fighter as well; as I say, a lot of fun to play.
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
My group, while I've been playing as well as when I've been running things, have used natural healing to great effect. And I don't think that's what people mean by "healing", so yeah. I don't think it's necessary. Just convenient. As always, play what you like
You had most of that in 3.5Ed, if you knew where to look.
One of my main problems with 4Ed healing was that so many of them depended on your PC's resevoir of HSs. For some of them, this is OK- I didn't care for it, but it wasn't anything that kicked me out of my zone of enjoyment.
The magical ones that depended on you having a HS, though, felt entirely unmagical. Magical healing should heal you based on the power of the magic, not on unlocking your personal reserves...and what is more classic D&D than pouring a healing potion down a felled ally's throat? Doesn't work in 4Ed if his HSs are tapped out.
I liked that part of 4E. There was a limit to the amount of magic healing your body could take in a day, unless it was impressive magic, the surgeless kind. You could just magic wand or potion someone back up if they were really hurting. I get why people didn't like that, but I thought it was wonderful that it took powerful abilities to get you to go pass a certain limit of being beat on.
Tony Vargas
Legend
I'm not sure I follow the distinction. And how is being brought back from the brink of death and back into the fight a mere 'convenience?'My group, while I've been playing as well as when I've been running things, have used natural healing to great effect. And I don't think that's what people mean by "healing", so yeah. I don't think it's necessary. Just convenient. As always, play what you like
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