D&D 5E (2014) On the healing options in the 5e DMG

[Mouseferatu]

This all reminds me of a great book that Monte Cook's wrote called A Magical Medieval Society.

That was actually Joseph Browning and Suzi Yee, at Expeditious Retreat Press. Monte's done a lot of cool stuff, but this one isn't his.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The passing of those rules though could be viewed by the teams using the above strategy as malicious. You are destroying our playstyle they might say. And they would be right. It is a deliberate attempt to suppress that playstyle.

In the case of D&D, getting rid of some rules or not providing others while good in their eyes could result in the suppression or ghetto-ization of a playstyle. So the people being suppressed would be right in viewing those changes as malicious. Malicious to their playstyle anyway.

No, dude. WOTC has no desire to "suppress" any particular play style, any more than the NFL is suppressing how you play tag football in your backyard. They've made it quite clear that they want to include all d&d players, and if you don't see an option you prefer, it's not an intentional slight on their part.

In this case, they clearly do provide options that address your concerns about natural healing, so everybody's happy!

 

[CapnZapp]

No, unlike many other situations the healer needed/not needed is a discrete question. either the party needs a healer -in which case playing a healbot is superfun for players like me and super awful for players like the one you describe- or not needed -in which case playing a healbot is superfluous at best and actively hurting the party at worst-. Generous self healing clearly makes a healer not needed -of course you can benefit from a PC that sometimes heals, but that is not a healer, though it makes it less of a burden for people who don't want to play healers-, it doesn't bring this flexibility you claim. This is an issue each table has to handle and is an either/or issue. There is no true middle ground here.

Sorry what?

I'm not trying to ruin your fun. Feel free to continue running your game with the rules as written in the PHB.

I am hoping for an optional set of rules that allows

Groups to adventure without anyone forced to play a healer

and

Players to choose classes like Clerics without being forced to spend their time on defense

How can any of this make you go ballistic?

The very nature of the D&D game means that healing is not really optional, no matter what people might think.

I am just trying to find an alternative where the responsibility for managing this healing and spending your adventuring actions on support spells is not put on any single player, but instead collectively shared by everyone.

In what way does this make you feel you must go confrontational? Either that, or I am massively misreading your post...

 

[CapnZapp]

This has not been my experience in 5e at all. I've found that healers are always welcome, but seldom necessary. (This is less true at level 1, but level 1 is exceptional in many, many ways.)

Sorry I don't buy it.

I fully expect mid- to high-level play to absolutely require in-combat healing, where a dedicated healer spends most if not all his attention (and rounds) on support spells, to keep the rest of the party standing up.

Sure, I haven't played that much 5E (yet ) but I'm definitely seeing how monsters can take a character from 100% hp to single-digit hp in a single round, and having a healer spend a round on healing spells will then be the difference between getting that PC back out on the field and having him or her sit out the action (=acting cautiously, slowly nursing her wounds by quaffing a string of potions, trying to "buff out" with invisibility or other spells, etc)

Any combat where this is not the case, is - for me - simply a combat not dangerous and exciting enough. Sure there will be many such combats, but what defines D&D are the exciting showcase combats against hard opposition.

People like having the assurance that someone will be able to get them back in the fight if they go down, but healing your still-conscious companions is seldom the most efficient use of your action. Your time is nearly always better spent buffing or attacking rather than shoring up hit points. In many cases, casting healing spells only serves to prolong the battle.

I agree. And this makes me optimistic, if only faintly so: I still have a very hard time seeing how the party can manage as well without a Cleric or other healer.

There simply always will be a tense moment - or three - during a significant combat where a Combat Medic is desperately needed, and where the lack of a healer character will risk a PC death.

But you are still right. If the Cleric's use of Cure Wounds (etc) isn't the difference between having four heroes in the fight and only three, then yes, it is far more efficient for the Cleric to go on the offensive.

Only catch is that any such round where no fellow party member couldn't do with a substantial dose of new hit points is a luxury you won't see when things matter the most.

The best time to heal is during a short rest. Again, a healer is very useful in this capacity, so people are happy to have one. But the show does not stop without a healer. You can spend Hit Dice and get by just fine. It's debatable whether the healer allows you to have more encounters in a day because if the healer were to spend his spell slots making enemies die faster, you wouldn't need to spend as many Hit Dice during downtime (which means a non-healing class could have been just as useful).

This reasoning completely ignores between-combat-but-still-not-a-short-rest healing, but okay, let's discuss rest healing.

"People are happy to have a healer"
Not disputed. I'm trying to look at this from the perspective of the player who sees his character's spell slots drain because "we don't have time for a short rest", because "I'm out of hit dice, but we really need to move on", and "you're a cleric, we expect you to sacrifice your spells and your actions on making us look good in combat".

"You can spend Hit Dice and get by just fine."
That is simply untrue.

Yes, if the DM adjusts his adventures to match the severely reduced healing capacity of such a group. But a DM can adjust to anything, so this isn't saying much.

What you really are saying with this is: Clerics arent cost-effective.

While that would be... interesting... if true, I simply don't believe it. Wouldn't the boards be aflame with complaints "my Cleric does nothing, my group wants me to reroll a Rogue!!" if that were true.

Besides, just a cursory glance on the abilities of a Life Cleric should put that particular notion to rest.

I am happy healers can't simply out-heal the monsters' capacity to hurt you, but a Cleric can still be required, since it gives the group the important ability to focus energies on healing, to sacrifice offense for defense in order to ensure all heroes keep standing. Without the heroes standing up, there cannot be any offensive.

Another way to signal that you don't want to be a healbot is to not prepare healing spells. Of course, before the campaign even begins, you might want to mention you are doing this. Or you could be a bard and not even learn any healing spells -- that way, you still have Song of Rest to help with recovery, but no one can expect you to use your spell slots on it.

If only....

Yes, this is correct.

This is also utterly neglecting the strong pressure a desperate group will exert on the Cleric's player - not back at the inn where they all agree to let that character "do her thing" - but down in the Orc warrens, where one or several characters lives depend on the Cleric dishing out some of that sweet sweet healing after all.

And yes, you could be that Bard.

But then the problem of having a healer remains unsolved.

Congrats on creating a character and shifting the healing workload onto somebody else.

The fact you rolled up a Bard is in this way no victory - you could just as easily have made a Rogue.

Yes, the game allows for four Barbarians to strike out on glorious adventure. But how is that a commentary on the game's implicit requirement on healing...?

So, in summary, please don't get caught on the premise of my post.

I am far more interested in hearing what your suggestions are to make my wish come true, than defending my right to have that wish.

 

[CapnZapp]

Never mind the rest of the party is going to want to make sure you stay upright.

I do mind.

 

[Lanefan]

I think a big part of the problem with trying to find the perfect healing rate is that hit points represent a bunch of things. Per the PHB, they are a "combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck." Has anyone ever tried splitting up HP in to 2 categories- physical / mental and given them different healing rates?

Yes.

We call them body points (BP) and fatigue points (FP); the total of which is your hit points (HP).

Every living thing has a few BP, most adventuring races have between 3 and 5 - these are also the same "hit points" a peasant has, for example. FP are what you get from rolling h.p. for a class (and yes, this means everything in our game has a few extra total hit points because FP go on top of BP). Death is at -10, and everything between 0 and -9 also counts as BP.

BP are harder to magically cure and much harder to rest back. FP are easier, relatively speaking. Except in very rare circumstances (i.e. I've maybe seen it happen 5 times in 30+ years) you cannot rest into or be cured into FP by any means until you are at full BP.

Play-wise, the only change is one extra die roll during character generation and a bit more complication as to what dice to roll for cures based on whether the recipient is currently in BP or FP.

Lan-"can anybody confirm or deny the rumoured wound-vitality option that was going to be in the 5e DMG?"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I am hoping for an optional set of rules that allows

Groups to adventure without anyone forced to play a healer

How is this different than someone being forced to play a Thief, or a Fighter, or a Wizard? Most well-rounded parties usually have at least one of each of these.

and Players to choose classes like Clerics without being forced to spend their time on defense

How does any team get anywhere in any competition without looking to defense as well as offense.

The game is more than just damage output per round.

I am just trying to find an alternative where the responsibility for managing this healing and spending your adventuring actions on support spells is not put on any single player, but instead collectively shared by everyone.

By the same token, then, shouldn't magic use be collectively shared by all; and sneakery, and heavy melee? Taken to its obvious conclusion, all characters would be pretty much able to do a bit of everything, rendering the class system pointless. And this, while probably fine for some, is no longer definably D+D.

I do mind.

You mind if the rest of the party want to keep you alive???

Lan-"and I thought *I* played my characters with a death wish"-efan

 

[CapnZapp]

I can't speak for 5e yet, but I will say in 2e,3e,and 3.5 I saw a lot of arguments over "Don't prep/cast that we need you for healing" it was only 4e that ever gave us clerics that didn't do so... and better yet whole games with 0 religion because our healers where warlords...

the worst reminder of this whole thing is that I just ran a 1 off game for some friends based on an argument here on the boards and when I posted the results one of the first things I was told was it didn't count cause I didn't have a full cleric, because everyone know you need one...

Thank you.

To clarify: I don't want a game where healing isn't a significant tactical and strategical component.

I just don't want the game to put that responsibility on one of the four players if nobody cares to play that role.

If you want to play a healbot, fine. Then we're all good.

But what if you don't? And I don't. And neither will Ann and Bob.

THEN WHAT?






...

Then I don't want "but play a game without healing, you'll do fine with hit dice alone".

Because I know that affects the game. Makes it less intense.

What I want is optional rules to make some - not all, but some - of that healbot healing available to the party anyway.

For example, picture if the DMG contained the following optional rules:

1) characters could spend up to half their level number of Hit Dice (round up) by taking an action
2) you can regain all lost HD during a short rest, but only once per long rest
3) you no longer regain all lost hit points during a long rest, but you do regain HD

Wouldn't that mean that a lot of the load is taken off the healer character, and perhaps even allow groups to do without any capability for magical healing altogether?

If so, that would be super sweet

 

[CapnZapp]

I really don't mind playing in a game that depends on divine magic via a cleric. That's how I've always played and the game works perfectly.

Yes the game is indeed geared towards that play style.

And I am happy you like playing a healbot!

What? "Me playing that healbot?" you say. "No way!"

Perhaps you meant you really don't mind playing in a game where somebody else gives you the magical healing the game depends on...?





...

(Sorry. I do not mean to target you, and I don't mean to imply you are that player. I just couldn't resist making fun of that very common sentiment)

 

[CapnZapp]

Yes, this is a saddening fact, every edition makes more and more to dilute the healer role. What happened to the times when "don't make the cleric angry at you" was the best survival advice you could get?

Just to make sure:

I am not advocating to "dilute the healer role" by handing out Mass Heal Word to everyone. (Woot! Mass Heal Word to EVERYONE )

I am asking for optional rules that only come into effect for groups where nobody happens to want to play the healer just this once.

I still want a Cleric-healbot to make a difference.

I just don't want to have to choose between the wondrous healing of a healbot and "just use your Hit Dice and you'll be fine".

I want the healer-less bottom line to be at, what do I know, perhaps 50% or 80% of the healer's capacity. (Enough to make adventures work, but not so great that a dedicated healer wouldn't be even better.)

Certainly not the 20% or so you get from the RAW: your Hit Dice and free hp at long rests.

Thank you for understanding.