Reforms so you don't need healing surges

[ferratus]

I don't think that there is much point debating whether there should be healing surges or not. They are either in or they are out, and given the strong backlash against them, they are probably out.

I like healing surges a lot for smoothing out pacing, but I understand why some people wouldn't like them. It certainly never broke my suspension of disbelief, because there is already stuff which is very gamist about how combat works. But it is a very gamist solution to D&D's already gamist way of tracking injuries.

If people don't like healing surges or other ways of healing, then we have to consider how they can game at the same table with people who like how well healing surges work keeping the game going.

So I'd suggest these reforms to how healing and taking damage works, and I would suggest others to chime in as to what they'd like to see, or what they already do, aside from healing surges and carrying around wands of cure light wounds.

1) Rituals to heal the wounded overnight. For those times when you just can't wait a few weeks to heal up. A cleric's healing mass, a bard's song of renewal, a druid's womb of earth, a monk's meditative circle, whatever. Put a cost on it to make it a sacrifice for low level characters (so that they will still choose to take a couple weeks to heal up instead of spending the gold) but an expected expense for high level characters (on par with buying healing potions).

2) Healing potions and spells which actually heal you. Does anybody like tracking the minutae of healing? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd rather take the actions that it actually takes to drink a healing potion, and be healed to full hp rather than use a minor action to do 2-10 hp in the middle of combat.

Plus, having potions that actually heal you (or a % of total hp) would solve the "cure light wounds heals a 1st level PC to full" dissonance problem. If a cure light wounds potion heals 25% of your hp, then it actually would be a potion of cure light wounds. But my personal preference would be for potions to heal you so that after a battle you can drink one and be restored to full hp and get ready for the next encounter. I would also rather have clerics heal you completely, so you know it is worth giving up your attack or spell action for.

3) Embrace the 15 minute adventuring day in low level adventures and have guidelines on how to structure adventures around it. If we can't clear out a dungeon in one go at low levels, at least let DM's know how many encounters players can generally handle in a day so they can structure their adventure accordingly.

For example, B2 and B4 are both adventures that can handle the 15 minute adventuring day fairly well. These "dungeons" are divided up into factions in discrete locations (that feud with each other), with a safe area for PC's to retreat to. Therefore you can sally forth, raid, and retreat without having to rewrite all the encounters of the dungeon complex to maintain realism.

The Moat Keep, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Maure Castle are examples of places that don't handle the 15 min. adventuring day very well without a lot of DM work to explain how the complex reacts to the PC's repeated forays. Most of the time, DM's just handwave away that there is any change in the dungeon inhabitants behavior (essentially putting them in stasis while the PC's rest) so they don't have to redo their prep. However, some good guidelines on how to plan adventures could turn this weakness into a strength. It simply shows that low level characters aren't superhuman enough (or haven't gained enough magic) to recover from a lot of combat.

I imagine that those who say they haven't noticed the 15 min. adventuring day already plan their adventures consciously/unconsciously around this. I suppose they are lying to themselves, but I'm going to assume they just plan their adventures to have logical breaks in the action to recover.

4) More options for resolving and avoiding conflict without violence. There wouldn't be a need for so much healing if there weren't so many fights. Sure you can roleplay it out, but generally the system (not matter what the edition) punishes you for choosing options other than killing people and stealing their stuff.

If I had my way, I would give XP out according to situations or threats being resolved, rather than monsters/NPC's being murdered. XP for treasure accumulated would be a good start, but we can do so much more than that.

Ranger disguises your camp so you avoid a random encounter? XP equal to threat averted. Party resolves the outlawry that segregates the bandits from returning to their homes and farms? XP equal to the bandits that they otherwise would have all slaughtered.

Sure you can do this with "story award" XP, or "roleplaying XP" but generally there were no hard and fast rules for getting XP for neutralizing threats, and if you chose a non-violent route it was usually a paltry XP amount compared to killing everything, and it took just as much (if not more) effort and time. While I don't want to punish people for taking the violent route, or make non-violence a better way to resolve conflict, I don't see the system penalize it as much as it alreay does.

 

[ferratus]

Hmm... it cut off "so you can ignore healing surges" from the thread title. It must be too long for a thread title.

Can I get an thread title edit for this? "Reforms so you don't need healing surges" would be good.

 

[KarinsDad]

If healing potions healed a PC up all of the way, then it would create the bag of healing potions problem.

One possible solution:

1) Healing potions heal up (Potion of Cure Light) 25%, (Potion of Cure Moderate) 50%, 75% or 100% of hit points. A PC can safely use 1 healing potion per ability modifier point of CON per day. After that, it becomes unsafe and bad things could happen (random die roll).

2) PC healing is limited to x times per day. Cure Light cures 25%, etc. (without a ton of bonuses to this). Whether one calls it Vancian magic or Daily spells, the healer PC has limits. A sthis PC gets higher level, this PC gains more Daily spells.

3) More temporary hit points and resistance should be available.

4) Vigor spells and potions that result in regen 1 (or 2, etc.). Again, same limits as above. Only so many potions can be safely used, and only so many spells per day.


One problem with earlier editions of the game was that a Cure Light cured an average of 4.5 points of damage. That's a good sized chunk at level 1, but hardly anything at level 12. So, healing should be percentages.

Note: In 4E, the healers can heal a party of 5 close to 50 times per day at 25% to 50% per shot. That's a lot of healing. Is it too much? It depends on how much average damage monsters do.

 

[Hassassin]

1) Healing potions heal up (Potion of Cure Light) 25%, (Potion of Cure Moderate) 50%, 75% or 100% of hit points. A PC can safely use 1 healing potion per ability modifier point of CON per day. After that, it becomes unsafe and bad things could happen (random die roll).

I think the percentages are a good idea, but why a limit?

Edit: Although an OD mechanic could be fun, enforcing the idea of adventurers as crazy thrill-seeking addicts...

 

[ferratus]

One big problem with healing magic is that you wonder why bad guys don't use it. The other big problem with healing magic is that when bad guys do use it, combat takes forever and you don't get any healing loot.

Any solutions for how to get around this?

 

[Hassassin]

One big problem with healing magic is that you wonder why bad guys don't use it. The other big problem with healing magic is that when bad guys do use it, combat takes forever and you don't get any healing loot.

Any solutions for how to get around this?

No/less in combat healing magic?

 

[KarinsDad]

I think the percentages are a good idea, but why a limit?

Healing always has had and always should have a limit.

And of course, we don't want to go back to the Bag of Holding of Cure Light Wounds potions or the Wands of Cure Light Wounds.

In earlier versions, the limit was gold. The more powerful potions were expensive, so the PCs might buy or craft a bunch of low level ones. In 4E, the limit was healing surges.


But it would be nice if hit points were basically wounds again (the abstraction of actual wounds and turning heavy hits into glancing blows) and that magic were required to heal them, but that magic had limits.

I don't mean a limit that one cannot use a potion at all (like in 4E where healing surges limited it), but one where only the safe application is limited. The PCs could still drink 20 potions in a day, but there would be a downside of some sort as the body adjusts.

 

[KarinsDad]

One big problem with healing magic is that you wonder why bad guys don't use it. The other big problem with healing magic is that when bad guys do use it, combat takes forever and you don't get any healing loot.

Any solutions for how to get around this?

I do think that bad guys should have healing, especially healing potions. I have NPC healing in maybe 10% of my encounters. It would be more, but 4E doesn't support it too well.

The solution is to have limited NPC healing and suggestions in the DMG that bad guys shouldn't typically use healing until they are bloodied.

So, say you are fighting 5 guys from the Thieves Guild. They all have a potion of Cure Light Wounds. 3 of them manage to drink them, but 2 get killed or knocked unconscious before they can. The PCs just picked up 2 potions of Cure Light Wounds.

These Thieves have potions, but they do not have the full blown healing resources that the PCs have.


As for making combats last longer, there really is nothing wrong with that. As long as the players are having fun, it's all good. The DMG should also have a suggestion to throw slightly lower level foes at the PCs than normal for a given encounter if the NPCs have healing. Although the NPCs have healing, they are easier to hit and faster to take out, hence, the combat probably won't be that much longer anyway.


Finally, I think that many BBEG fights, especially with humanoid foes or intelligent foes, should have NPC healing. BBEGs should be the place to acquire healing resources like potions and scrolls from. That's why they are called BBEGs. Remember the 'BE' part of it.

 

[Izumi]

If D&D was a Naval Wargame, used the same combat system, and Class represented type of ship.....What would you think of these Healing Surges?

 

[ferratus]

If healing potions healed a PC up all of the way, then it would create the bag of healing potions problem.

I presume that having potions do less healing would cause more of a healing potion problem. After all, if you need 4 healing potions to cure you to 100%, then you'll carry 4 healing potions right?

1) Healing potions heal up (Potion of Cure Light) 25%, (Potion of Cure Moderate) 50%, 75% or 100% of hit points. A PC can safely use 1 healing potion per ability modifier point of CON per day. After that, it becomes unsafe and bad things could happen (random die roll).

I like this compromise because it allows us to keep the "cure spells" intact for the platonists who want to have it "feel like D&D" but makes good mechanical sense. It also takes away the idea that higher level characters need more potions to heal, which is just as gamist as healing surges in my opinion.

2) PC healing is limited to x times per day. Cure Light cures 25%, etc. (without a ton of bonuses to this). Whether one calls it Vancian magic or Daily spells, the healer PC has limits. A sthis PC gets higher level, this PC gains more Daily spells.

This is good (along with limiting the amount of times for characters can accept healing magic) for getting players to rest (the opposite of the 15 min. adventuring day). It also gives you a palpable penalty for getting hit, and a reason to avoid damage even though you have plenty of healing available. That is certainly something I want to keep from healing surges.

3) More temporary hit points and resistance should be available.

Temporary hp don't seem to have provoked the backlash that healing surges have, even though they function pretty much the same way. Temporary hp for fighters and barbarians should definately be part of their build to reduce the amount of healing the cleric needs to do. If a barbarian regains 1d8 hp per round when raging, then after the fight he will be cut up, but he won't need to drain the cleric's spell slots to keep going.

I think it is also high time that armor gave out DR. You could argue that AC means that you hit less often, and therefore you are getting "damage resistance". However, in practice usually the DM wants his enemies to be able to hit (and scare) the fighter, not flail away uselessly just because the fighter is wearing plate. So DR would allow the DM to hit the fighter, while the fighter doesn't drain the cleric dry.