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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9058631" data-attributes="member: 6877472">The fundamental question when regarding the efficacy of in-combat healing comes down to this: how many player characters can be removed from a combat, and allow it to still be winnable?In a way, it's like a death spiral; an event that makes it much more likely for the group to fail.For example, let us suppose that with 4 players, the average encounter is winnable, call it, 90% of the time within 4 rounds.  If one player is removed from the equation due to being reduced to 0, paralyzed, petrified, banished, and so forth, the chances of victory are therefore reduced.  And so, then, the chances another player is removed from the equation increases.The presence of a healer to reverse this trend is vital, otherwise any encounter which has the potential to reduce a character to 0 hit points has the potential, no matter how slight, to end up in a TPK; or at the very least, for the players to be at the mercy of the DM with regards to the possibility of escape.The classic approach is simply to reward players for not engaging in encounters, avoiding them if possible, unless the circumstances are largely in their favor.  Given that more of the game's rules and systems support combat and players surviving combat, it feels like this is at odds with the game's design; thus, we often see people saying "healing is too good, death needs to be more common".  But the increased commonality of death means that it's more likely that all the players die, any time they enter a dangerous situation, ie, the standard combat encounter.  That the game's primary metric for advancement is facing combat encounters, with a set number being the "sweet spot" for making players use most of their resources, the "combat is war" approach will mean that players will likely only engage in a very few encounters, which they will expend most of their resources on, then look for a place to rest, hence, the "five minute work-day" becomes the optimal model of play.The "combat is sport" approach, will see players engage in many combats over the course of a game-day, as each combat is assumed to be winnable by default.  The current healing model places a great deal of onus on the ability of players to take short rests whenever they are badly wounded, to take advantage of their Hit Dice and out-of-combat resources, as in-combat healing is woefully bad, only really good to get someone back into the fight briefly.Most DM's balk at the concept of "rest anywhere, anytime" which the system supports; thus we find ourselves debating if healing should be better to support limited rests.  The counter argument becomes, however, that it's already too easy to get people back into the fight, so better healing would force bigger challenges.It comes down to the fact that WotC's game design does not reflect the individual preferences of a group.  If you have limited rests, resources are spread thin, and you notice healing, basically, sucks, and people rarely spend Hit Dice on anything.There is no single solution to this issue; one could say, if you want grindier encounters and more limited in-combat healing, then avoiding combat, fleeing combat, scouting ahead, and easy resting would all have to occur.But while that is a solution, not every DM is going to be happy with that, because it affects their verisimilitude.  The universe shouldn't warp in favor of the players.  On the other hand, if the game becomes too grindy, it may become frustrating to some people, and eventually lead to a ragequit, which is why WotC doesn't design the game in that fashion.  And making healing better, which suits the playstyle of people who want healers to heal in combat, leads to a scenario where you might have to limit resting, so that players don't have both good in-combat healing and good out-of-combat healing!TLDR; there is no simple solution to this issue.  The game is not built to satisfy adjusting healing without making large adjustments elsewhere.  There is a knock on effect when you make resources more or less common that has to be accounted for.  I'm not happy with the current model, but I feel that fixing it to suit me would require redesigning a large chunk of the game.  I imagine I'm not alone here.</blockquote>

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