Radical Houserule: No in-combat healing for anyone

[Roger]

Thinking about taking a more radical approach to healing: No one gets to heal anything while in-combat. Out of combat, sure, go nuts, stuff your guts back in.

Haven't playtested this one yet though. So there might be some horrible problem with it that I just haven't thought of yet.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Gargoyle]

I think it would be fine, just grittier and deadlier, and if that's what you want, go for it. The advantage would be that you could take away the "healbot" problem (if you see it as a problem) of players who feel forced to cast nothing but healing spells. The disadvantage is that player character death will be more common (only a disadvantage if you see it as such).

An explanation of why healing doesn't work during combat would be advisable though, maybe healing spells simply take a long time to cast, say a minute per level? You still may have a player argue that they should be able to cast during combat, even if it takes many rounds, but that would be rare and could actually be interesting now and then. "Defend Broderick while he heals our fighter!"

 

[MoonSong]

Basically it removes healbots, whether you like it or not. Whihc is da because many enjoy being healbots. It also removes any chances of very detailed, dramatic and tactical fights. In order fot that kind of battles to unfold, characters need to be hit, and if characters are hit, they need in combat healing.

 

[Fanaelialae]

It's certainly feasible, though I think it would require a redesign of the combat system (or at least the encounter system) to work well.

The biggest flaw that I can see is that, as others have said, it removes an archetype from the game (the healer). I've played two pacifist healers (non-BOED) myself, although I admit that there have also been times when I didn't enjoy being forced into the role of the healbot.

That said, I do think you could have exciting fights without the need for healing. You could use a mechanic like the wounds system from Tenra Bansho Zero.

The basic idea is that in addition to hp, you have wound boxes. Each wound box can completely soak the damage from one attack, but wounds have both positive and negative consequences (for example, you might get a boost of adrenaline to help you fight harder, but you might also be losing hp every round due to bleeding). Essentially, you're shifting the resource management mini-game of healing to one of individual damage prevention (with pros and cons).

I don't think you could remove healing without making other adjustments and have it work well though. We tried that in 3.5, and my group found the results to be clunky at best.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think it is a valid playstyle choice and it'd be interesting to see how it works during playtesting.

I think the only concession to in-combat healing I might suggest for you would be that a PC could spend an action to make a DC 10 Wisdom check to stabilize a fellow PC who is unconscious and dying. That way dying PCs have two ways to possibly stabilize... their own DC 10 CON check on their turn, and another PCs DC 10 WIS check on their turn. This would keep PCs from dying with as much frequency... but at the same time they also would be unable to get up and rejoin combat after falling unconscious. It would certainly help speed up combat, that's for sure.

 

[the Jester]

Hmm, my objection would be based on my playstyle, so I'm curious to hear how this works out if you try it.

 

[Rhenny]

Many of the healing issues, including this one, are difficult to really decide upon when monsters don't hit often enough.

As the playtest is right now, I think it is fine to eliminate in-combat healing. At low levels, average combats last about 2 rounds; many of them can be over in 1 round if the PCs are lucky (especially if they gain surprise or many of them win initiative). If the fighter and cleric are in positions that make it difficult for the opponents to attack the wizard and rogue, chances are that nobody will take any damage. At mid levels, pcs might get hit a little more, but they will have extra hit points so they should be able to survive 2 or 3 hits from any equal level monsters over a few rounds. As long as the DM doesn't swarm the PCs with overwhelming numbers, or attack with too many multi-attack monsters, or attack with a number of more powerful creatures, or purposefully attack the wizard or rogue, no healing will be necessary.

The problem is really the swinginess of any combat. When monsters don't hit too often, but when they do hit they do a lot of damage, that means that luck will play a huge role determining whether or not characters need healing. Everything could be great for 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 5 combats...but any single combat (with bad die rolling) could become a disaster leading to TPK.

 

[Roger]

I think the only concession to in-combat healing I might suggest for you would be that a PC could spend an action to make a DC 10 Wisdom check to stabilize a fellow PC who is unconscious and dying.

Yeah, I could go for that.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Gives me some things to chew over.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[GX.Sigma]

I think the main problem with in-combat healing is the thing where, if the target is in negative numbers, they go up starting from 0 and are instantly fine. I think that makes healing way too good, and leads to silly situations where you want your ally to go down before healing him, because healing is more useful on characters in negative hp.

 

[Li Shenron]

Thinking about taking a more radical approach to healing: No one gets to heal anything while in-combat. Out of combat, sure, go nuts, stuff your guts back in.

Haven't playtested this one yet though. So there might be some horrible problem with it that I just haven't thought of yet.

I think the problem is simply similar (in all editions excluding 4e) to playing a party of PCs without a Cleric*.

Which may be a huge problem or a small problem, depending heavily on your DM's skills and wisdom.

*and healing potions?