D&D 5E Should healing magic be based on HD or not?

[DND_Reborn]

Thanks for the further clarification! But just to be clear...

As others noted, though, HP scale statically with level, no Con mod applied. So you start out with seemingly high HP, closer to a 3-6th level character in 3e or 5e, but by the early teens, anyone who has a decent Con score has caught up; many 20th level characters in 3e/5e have more HP than 30th level 4e characters!

(bold added)

Really, I must have missed that if people said it. I thought in 4E you added your Con mod to all the hit dice (or levels)? So, are you saying you only add the Con mod per die at level 1? Or am I misreading something?

 

[BrokenTwin]

Thanks for the further clarification! But just to be clear...


(bold added)

Really, I must have missed that if people said it. I thought in 4E you added your Con mod to all the hit dice (or levels)? So, are you saying you only add the Con mod per die at level 1? Or am I misreading something?

You don't add your Con mod to HP at all in 4E. You add your Con score to your HP at level 1, but that's it. After that it's just your class hp.
So you start out with more HP, but have less in the long run.

 

[DND_Reborn]

You don't add your Con mod to HP at all in 4E. You add your Con score to your HP at level 1, but that's it. After that it's just your class hp.
So you start out with more HP, but have less in the long run.

Ok, thanks! I must have missed that if people mentioned it before. So, my oversight.

Hmm... that changes things even more! In our 5E mod we did the same thing, removing the CON mod per HD, but awarding your highest ability modifier (not likely CON) at level-0 (our prologue level).

Huh, it seems in many ways our table is almost reinventing 4E LOL with even realizing it.

 

[aco175]

Thanks for the further clarification! But just to be clear...


(bold added)

Really, I must have missed that if people said it. I thought in 4E you added your Con mod to all the hit dice (or levels)? So, are you saying you only add the Con mod per die at level 1? Or am I misreading something?

You added your Con score, not the modifier. If you have a 14 Con, you add 14, not +2. Took a while to get that one.

I liked the fighter's 2nd wind power. It let the fighter spend a surge each encounter and freed the cleric to do more than heal. I could see something like this for 5e fighters. Although at some point 2nd wind is better than a hit die- like 4th level.

Maybe- Improved 2nd wind; 7th level feature that lets you gain normal 2nd wind healing plus you can spend a hit die, or a hit die up to your Con modifier (This may make the power a 11th level feature)

 

[BrokenTwin]

Ok, thanks! I must have missed that if people mentioned it before. So, my oversight.

Hmm... that changes things even more! In our 5E mod we did the same thing, removing the CON mod per HD, but awarding your highest ability modifier (not likely CON) at level-0 (our prologue level).

Huh, it seems in many ways our table is almost reinventing 4E LOL with even realizing it.

4E wasn't a perfect edition by any means, but there was a lot of good design choices in it that I wish they had carried over into 5E.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thanks for the further clarification! But just to be clear...


(bold added)

Really, I must have missed that if people said it. I thought in 4E you added your Con mod to all the hit dice (or levels)? So, are you saying you only add the Con mod per die at level 1? Or am I misreading something?

You added con score to HP at 1st level only, and you add con mod to your number of healing surges per day. So, con didn’t directly add to your HP after 1st level, but it still added quite a bit to your overall survivability via healing surges.

 

[NotAYakk]

• When you are magically healed, you must also spend and roll a HD. You regain the HD roll as well.
• If you have no HD to spend, the magic can at best grant a death saving throw (failure on this does not add to your failed death saves).
• Heal, Lay on Hands, Mass Heal, Power Word: Heal, Regeneration and Regeneration effects, and life-transfer magic are exceptions. They do not require nor permit HD expendature.
• "Gritty" rests. A short rest is overnight. A long rest is a week of downtime.
• At the end of a short (overnight) rest, roll all expended HD to attempt to recover. All even rolls 4+ are recovered.
• Cure Wounds and Mass Cure Wounds can replace the d8 with the expended HD.

Low-die healing is inefficient in that it mostly draws out the subject's life force.

 

[DND_Reborn]

You added your Con score, not the modifier. If you have a 14 Con, you add 14, not +2. Took a while to get that one.

Oh, I am so used to CON mod I just misread it again. Man, I gotta pay better attention LOL!

You added con score to HP at 1st level only, and you add con mod to your number of healing surges per day. So, con didn’t directly add to your HP after 1st level, but it still added quite a bit to your overall survivability via healing surges.

Got it! Thanks.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Oh, I am so used to CON mod I just misread it again. Man, I gotta pay better attention LOL!


Got it! Thanks.

One possible reason why you might have misunderstood is that some folks mentioned that if you increase your Constitution score later, you get the bonus HP. So, for example, at level 11 and 21, every character gets +1 to all stats. This means that every character also gains +1 HP at those levels, since increases to your Constitution score directly give you extra HP--but only the one time, since Con mod has zero effect on HP themselves. It also means that most if not all characters should gain an additional healing surge at level 21 (as your Con mod does not normally add to your surge value, that is the HP restored by a surge, but rather gives you more surges). E.g. a level 1 Wizard would normally start with 6 surges, but if their Constitution score is only 8, they'll only have 5 surges in total (because you add the Con mod of -1 to the base number of surges.)

As I hope has been made clear, while having a lot of surges is really quite useful and Constitution was a desirable stat in general, in a certain sense 4e was designed such that pursuing tons of HP and surges at the cost of other things is not actually very effective--unless Constitution powers some other aspect of your character, it's generally at best a tertiary stat. Certain classes or subclasses, e.g. Barbarians, Warlocks with the Infernal pact, Iron Soul Monks, or Elementalist Sorcerers, got other benefits from having high Constitution, and thus tended to be particularly beefy characters...but it's still pretty easy to threaten them, because most groups can't easily pull out more than a couple surges' worth of healing in a single round. Hence why I mentioned "volatility" earlier--yes, you have a theoretical crapton of restore-able HP (for some characters, more than 2x their max HP!), but accessing those HP is gated. Characters can quite easily die while still having lots of healing surges left in the tank, if the damage simply comes out too fast (as happened to my character mentioned above).

 

[HammerMan]

To be more specific, a 1st level character started with a fixed amount of hit points based on their class (generally 10-15) plus their constitution score - not modifier. That tripped a lot of folks up their first time. After that, they gained a fixed amount per level, again based on class (generally 4-6), no adjustment based on con, though IIRC, if your con score increased after 1st level, you’d gain HP equal to the amount increased. So, a 1st level fighter would have 12 + Con score hit points; somewhere between 20 and 30 total.

yeah I miss front loaded HP...

I think smaller increases would work better and smaller total hp, but more front loaded.