D&D (2024) The Problem with Healing Powercreep

[Micah Sweet]

I think it would work better on NPCs, their hit die size is right there, no need to change anything. The tricky bit would be what happens with multiclassed PCs, do you use their highest die, their lowest, the die size based on their highest level? Single classed works fine, multi class confuses things. Otherwise, I like the idea of healing being affected in some way by hit dice.

I would consider basing the amount of healing received not on hit dice, but instead on maximum hit points. A simple chart could determine a base healing rate, and multiples of that rate would be used for different degrees of healing.

 

[Staffan]

Back to the point, was Monte the one who added healing spells swapping to 3E?

I'm guessing it was a group effort. Come to think of it, the primary blame would likely fall on Jonathan Tweet as he was the lead on the PHB. That said, Monte Cook (at least at the time) was kind of notorious for juicing up casters, with things like the Book of Eldritch Magic and the quite flexible magic system in Arcana Unearthed/Evolved.

 

[tetrasodium]

No, that's pretty much how I understood it. Except 5e doesn't have cure light/moderate/serious/critical wounds, it just has cure wounds which gets stronger if you cast it using a higher-level slot.

The problem is that the power of healing here multiplies the level of the target with the level of the healing spell, so you're basically double-dipping on level when healing.

What I primarily want is non-divine healing. In a system with 12-13 classes, no one class should be essential to an adventuring party. Especially not one that has the worldbuilding requirements of the cleric.

Often far more than double dipping since damage beyond zero just goes away. 2024 dmg almost has an optional rule that requires a spell like greater/lesser restoration★ but that rule is baked into the PCs never die thing. I feel like using half of that rule would just make the efforts to enshrine toontown over something like death at 0 all the more obvious. A lot of my 5e players have never played anything other than 5e so without a "yes it's a valid way of playing, see page xx" type shield they can join the game with no intention of adapting to that & "prove" that it makes the game unfun or whatever by choosing to continue playing as if death saves & yoyo healing were still available as a shield☆.

I would very much prefer seeing a return to the old cure light/moderate/serious/critical spells over upcast a single spell and have tried including them at times, but the two standard curewounds/healing word with upcasting are so good that you run into the same self fulfilling tree spike being carried by players who went in totally aware of the change & claiming to be onboard

★I'm not going to dig to find out what the specifics were.
☆Kinda what I've seen a few times with similar efforts at fixing 5e's excess. The result is that the self fulfilling tree spike enacted by the player gets used as a weapon against the "killerGM" or whatever.

 

[cbwjm]

I would consider basing the amount of healing received not on hit dice, but instead on maximum hit points. A simple chart could determine a base healing rate, and multiples of that rate would be used for different degrees of healing.

Yeah, that might work better and once set up you would just need to cross reference your hit point total on level up and then write in your new healing rate.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Well the 2024 rules have allowed the wand of cure light wounds to return, albeit in some lesser form. But those limitations can be overcome by buying a dozen of them...

 

[pemerton]

I would consider basing the amount of healing received not on hit dice, but instead on maximum hit points.

We could even call it a healing surge!

 

[Retros_x]

What I primarily want is non-divine healing. In a system with 12-13 classes, no one class should be essential to an adventuring party. Especially not one that has the worldbuilding requirements of the cleric.

I cannot speak for 5e 2024, but in 2014 divine-healing is not essential to an adventuring party. Every class has the most effective healing available (resting) and in-combat healing spells are not as needed as many think. Stopping the combat quickly or other sorts of damage preventions are most of the time the better use of your resources in-combat.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The healing amount though is just like a surge. I use dice because it's more D&D like but that is the idea. The difference is you get unlimited surges but they can only be activated by magic. But for those of you liking non-magical healing, you could have one rest do your hit dice in healing. You could have a long rest do half your level rounded up in HD of healing.

Yeah, every time I hear this, I think of all the 5e experience I've had.

And I laugh. Because this amount of "non-magic healing" would have guaranteed every single group I've been in would have suffered not just one TPK, but multiple.

It's always hilarious to me how much people misjudge the value of hit dice in 5.x. They absolutely are not sufficient healing on their own.

This whole thing was a solved problem in 4e. Characters could heal somewhere around 200%* of their total HP per day....and that was about it. Yes, the well was (slightly) more accessible than it's been in other editions (people somehow always forget that a character cannot access more than 1 healing surge per combat on their own power normally...and it eats their whole action to do so!), but once it's dry, it's dry.

Healing surges, as they actually existed in 4e, were a very effective attritional resource. Sure, when you start the day, you're riding high and don't have a care in the world.

After your third combat where you've been beat all to hell, and suddenly realizing you have just one surge left...well gosh would you look at that, you're suddenly incredibly cautious and treat every blow as a Very Scary Issue!

The size of the pool of healing is much less important than how easy it is to refill. And that's the problem with spellcaster healing. You siphon off as many spells as needed for healing. If you need more, you need more. If you don't, awesome, funnel that resource into blasting. Making healing have an almost entirely hard cap per day? That'll put the fear of God into players right quick once they realize they're staring down the barrel of oblivion and literally don't have any more resources to draw upon.

*Technically, a Paladin that goes absolutely bugnuts for healing surges could theoretically get something like 550% before Epic tier, but this would be exceedingly wasteful in most cases.

 

[Emerikol]

Yeah, every time I hear this, I think of all the 5e experience I've had.

And I laugh. Because this amount of "non-magic healing" would have guaranteed every single group I've been in would have suffered not just one TPK, but multiple.

It's always hilarious to me how much people misjudge the value of hit dice in 5.x. They absolutely are not sufficient healing on their own.

For my groups I seriously doubt this would be true. We played without any hit dice and just basic cleric healing. And I don't think they made 5e harder.

This whole thing was a solved problem in 4e. Characters could heal somewhere around 200%* of their total HP per day....and that was about it. Yes, the well was (slightly) more accessible than it's been in other editions (people somehow always forget that a character cannot access more than 1 healing surge per combat on their own power normally...and it eats their whole action to do so!), but once it's dry, it's dry.

200% is patently ridiculous from a verisimilitude perspective. This is also why I rejected 4e.

Healing surges, as they actually existed in 4e, were a very effective attritional resource. Sure, when you start the day, you're riding high and don't have a care in the world.

After your third combat where you've been beat all to hell, and suddenly realizing you have just one surge left...well gosh would you look at that, you're suddenly incredibly cautious and treat every blow as a Very Scary Issue!

The size of the pool of healing is much less important than how easy it is to refill. And that's the problem with spellcaster healing. You siphon off as many spells as needed for healing. If you need more, you need more. If you don't, awesome, funnel that resource into blasting. Making healing have an almost entirely hard cap per day? That'll put the fear of God into players right quick once they realize they're staring down the barrel of oblivion and literally don't have any more resources to draw upon.

*Technically, a Paladin that goes absolutely bugnuts for healing surges could theoretically get something like 550% before Epic tier, but this would be exceedingly wasteful in most cases.

My point is that I don't like the whole 4e notion of healing which in some ways carried forward into 5e. I'm never going to play that way. I agree though with you I wouldn't have unlimited healing wands like they did in 3e. That was not true in 1e, 2e.

And you should read my post more carefully. HD in my suggested approach was just to even out healing at all levels.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah, every time I hear this, I think of all the 5e experience I've had.

And I laugh. Because this amount of "non-magic healing" would have guaranteed every single group I've been in would have suffered not just one TPK, but multiple.

It's always hilarious to me how much people misjudge the value of hit dice in 5.x. They absolutely are not sufficient healing on their own.

I disagree. I can't speak to your experience, but that is not our experience. In my group there no character with healing spells: 2 Fighters, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard. They have made it to level 15 with just HD healing.

Healing surges, as they actually existed in 4e, were a very effective attritional resource.

I do agree with this though. We called them heroic surges in 4e and you could spend them on more than healing (recharging powers, more speed, etc.). We eventually modified HD usage to do basically the same thing in 5e.