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

[HammerMan]

I strongly dislike the idea of expending a target's hit dice when using a healing spell or other healing magic. It's an external source of intervention - it should be based on an external source of power, not the target's internal resources. I didn't like it for 4e healing potions and various powers, I still don't like it.

Basing the amount healed on the target's hit die size is an interesting idea, though. Proportionality was the one thing that 4e's healing did right.

I like it to be BOTH... some powerful magic should just act "as if you spent" but I think basic healing and everyday healing just being the magic/power to tap into your own limited reserves.

 

[payn]

I'd be all for giving Con mod more to do, but then we're adding complexity instead of changing complexity, which has its own issues.

Perhaps, but I'll take all day every day over the mini game mess Paizo made over there in PF2 when it comes to healing.

 

[HammerMan]

I think the weakness of 4e was that it only had one type, which basically was the same situation as before, but reversed. 5e, on the other hand, has both, and it gives greater flexibility and possibilities.

how did 4e not have both? did you never see a 2nd level or higher cleric in your 4e games?

 

[HammerMan]

The problem about forcing Hit Dice, as mentioned before, is that it creates a single source of healing, internal, rather than having multiple ones, and it prevents the rather nice distinction between healing word and cure wounds, one healing more than the other but the other being ranged and a bonus action.

not much of a problem since both were diffrent in 4e...

Healing word bonus action spend a HD
Cure Wounds standard action heal as if you spent a HD

 

[HammerMan]

One of the disadvantages with using 5E's hit dice as the primary source of healing (as opposed to the 4E Healing Surges) is that lower level characters have a lot fewer HD in 5E than HS in 4E. Which would make the disparity between low level and high level lethality even larger.

I see that as a plus... it limits the healing at low level.

 

[HammerMan]

So how much a 20th level Life Cleric can heal depends upon the target and not the power of the cleric and their deity?

Yea, no. Not for me.

it would depend... if they cast a 1st level spell why not? I mean by 20th level they would have Heal, Regenerate, Raise Dead, Resurrections, True Resurrections. They are not hurting for showing off the power of themselves or there deity.

 

[BrokenTwin]

The 4E Healing Surge system was a fantastically robust system that gets constantly misrepresented. It handled getting worn out over an adventuring day, removed the oddity of it being more difficult to heal the beefy warrior than the frail wizard, represented the martial's ability to keep on trucking outside of just giving them more hit points...

Imagine if we had them in the 5E chassis as a universal resource that could be expended in multiple ways and represented a character's long-term endurance alongside Hit Points' short term endurace. Spend them to recover hit points, clear exhaustion or other status effects, lose them to traps or failing to navigate difficult terrain, burn them to add to damage rolls...

 

[DeviousQuail]

A mix of both sounds good to me. Keep the magical healing abilities that are already in place for most classes. Burning the spell slot, lay on hands, dice pool, etc to heal doesn't need to change. But I've always been a fan of making the Dwarven Fortitude healing ability something that any of the martial classes can do (when taking the dodge action you can spend a HD and recover HD+Con).

 

[jgsugden]

I was critical of how healing worked as an 8 year old in 1981. So, I started experimenting.

% of max hp healing. No combat healing. Only temp hps. Etc...

None of it worked. Nothing felt right ... so I changed how I felt by reframing what wounds and hps are.

In my game, hps are your toughness. When you lose hps, unless it is your last, all you're doing is taxing your toughness through superficial wounds, 'exhaustion (not the game mechanic), and pain. If a dragon breathes fire on your PC and does 92 of 108 hps, your PC threw themselves on the floor and directed the blast away somehowm getting singed - but not wounded.

Thus, healing can be restoring your toughness by giving you emotional strength to endure more. This works for Divine healing, Marital healing, Arcane healing, etc...

When I made that mental switch, the entire hp structure makes a heck of a lot more sense. It also allows you to introduce a wound system as well that is separate from hp loss, and that can add a lot to a game (although I elect not to use it).

 

[Oofta]

I make heaven wherever I am.

I don't think you have a prayer of that being correct.