To Heal or Not to Heal

[Minigiant]

I thought about this topic for a while and discovered my preferences.

Core HP Management:
First Aid: Make a Wisdom/Heal check to administer first aid on a dying character or a dying character can make a harder Constitution/Endurance check to stabilize themselves.. Success means the dying character heals back to 0 HP and is disabled.

Available to: All characters

Rest: Rest for 8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per level. Resting for 24 hours double that. Being tended to doubles that (trained if by a trained healer).

Available to: All characters

Brew Potions: Craft healing potions in a lab that can be consumed for HP gain.

Available to: Any character trained in the appropriate crafting skill or with the appropriate theme.

Collect Herbal remedies: Search for plants that can used to treat injury or restore vigor.

Available to: Rangers and any character trained in the appropriate terrain skill.

Cure X spells: Casting spells that magically heal wounds and restore vitality.

Available to: Bards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Rangers

Song of Heroism: A special song that grants allies with temporary hit points.

Available to: Bards and people with the minstrel theme

Lay on Hands: Touch another character to heal their wounds.

Available to: Paladins

Inspiring Word: Call out inspiring words to a wounded ally to grant them temporary hit points

Available to: Warlords

Rage: Get angry and get a bonus to Str and Con (which then grants bonus hit point for the increase Con).

Available to: Barbarians


Non-Core Module Character Options

Battlerage: Gain Temporary HP when hit

Available to: Fighters

Wholeness of Body: Heal your own HP via meditation

Available to: Monk



Campaign based Module Options

Healing surges: Character get Healing surges. Whenever they are healed, they spend a healing surge.

Second Wind: A character can dig into their reserves and heal themselves in battle.

Half Meat: Once a character is dropped to lower than half their maximum HP, they cannot heal greater than half their max HP except by magic or bed rest.

All Meat: Only magic and bed rest recovers hit points

Half Stamina: A few minutes of rest recovers a character back to half maximum HP.

All Stamina: A few minutes of rest recovers a character back to maximum HP.

Stamina & Wound points: One of those

Reserve Points: One of these

 

[MoonSong]

Spell casters who can heal should be able to have fun, not be forced into providing healing.

But Healing is part of the fun of playing a healing caster, to me it is the only reason to play a divine caster at all, and half the fun of mystic theurges in 3e, if I wanted to make damage I'd play a blaster or a pure fighter, to me it is very fun and rewarding the moment combat ends as it is the time when I go and heal the other members of the party. I really enjoy caasting healing spells in and out of combat and knowing you are contributing to the long term viability of the party, because they wouldn't be at their top without you. Needless to say stuff like healing surges and the like makes me very unhappy as it makes one of my favorite roles moot.

 

[Hussar]

KaiiLurker - I think you're missing the point though. There's nothing wrong with wanting to play a healer. That's a perfectly fine choice and the rules should support that.

What the rules shouldn't do though, is force anyone who plays a cleric to be the healer. Ok, maybe force is too strong a word. How about, very strongly push in the direction of? If I play other classes, I get a pretty wide range of choices for what that class can be. I can be a summoner wizard or a blaster wizard and they will play very differently. I can be an archer fighter or a sword and board fighter and both those options are supported.

I shouldn't be automatically slotted into a single purpose simply virtue of choosing a particular class.

 

[MoonSong]

But if the baseline is "No healer needed", wanting to play one automatically disrupts the group balance, as it automatically forces the party to use a "healer needed module" which substracts from everybody's ability just to acomodate a single player. In contrast if "Healer truly needed" is the baseline and nobody wants to play a healer, the whole group can then adopt a "no healer needed" module by consensus or recurr to something else entirely. (As a DM I've found useful to add a NPC to the party who covers this niché and nothing else in those cases were nobody plays a healer or nobody wants to expend resouces healing).

 

[billd91]

I shouldn't be automatically slotted into a single purpose simply virtue of choosing a particular class.

Frankly, I thought 3e's spontaneous healing take on this was a very good fix - you can prep for anything you want but still bump it over to healing as needed.

Other relatively minor changes to the rules can greatly extend even that. I've been experimenting with the PCs regaining half the hit points sustained in the fight by catching a short rest after the fight. It has reduced the drain on resources for healing between fights without eliminating the need for PCs to gauge their resilience and plan ahead. And in-combat healing for emergencies still has the edge-of-seat feeling to it.

 

[Endur]

I thought about this topic for a while and discovered my preferences.

Core HP Management:
Non-Core Module Character Options
Campaign based Module Options

<options snipped>

I think you provided a great summary. I agree with your way of looking at things.

 

[Hussar]

Frankly, I thought 3e's spontaneous healing take on this was a very good fix - you can prep for anything you want but still bump it over to healing as needed.

Other relatively minor changes to the rules can greatly extend even that. I've been experimenting with the PCs regaining half the hit points sustained in the fight by catching a short rest after the fight. It has reduced the drain on resources for healing between fights without eliminating the need for PCs to gauge their resilience and plan ahead. And in-combat healing for emergencies still has the edge-of-seat feeling to it.

I'd agree with that. Like I said earlier, either here or the other healing thread, I'd go with full healing after a short rest, but, that's just a preference thing.

Really, I think this is a great place for a slider. You could go with Kaiilurker's preference and a 0% hp recovery after encounters with a slow hp recovery per day and get a real AD&D vibe going. Move either or both slider upwards as tastes warrant.

 

[concjo]

I think you should have a heal skill that is available to all classes. Takes a minute and heals your skill ranks in HP. Maybe add 1/2 ranks in HP to any healing spell cast. Great for a party of rogues that want to heal up after combat, but gives party a reason to have a cleric for in combat healing.

I also like the idea of the Pathfinder Turn Undead to channel positive energy that heals. Heck, if you blow enough feats you can do it as a swift action and still be able to play your character.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think it might be possible for them to make healing optional by determining a damage to healing equivalence.

A battle is essentially (barring things like surrender) a contest to see which side which side can deplete the other side's hp pool first. Assuming average attacks, there should be some number for which restoring your own side's pool has roughly the same end result as depleting the other side's pool. If they can find that magic number, it should be feasible to make healing a matter of preference.

Damage would be the straightest (quickest) way through a battle, whereas having healing on hand would allow the group to better deal with complications (such as the rogue being dropped below zero by focus firing). Generally speaking, however, the outcome would be the same regardless of whether you brought a cleric or a rogue along.

If they can find that magic number, both sides might be satisfied.

 

[Fanaelialae]

And how many of the Black Company survived to old age?

You can have those, just expect the high mortality.

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser didn't exactly die every story, you know.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to model tales in which magical healing is rare or unavailable, without high mortality. There's nothing mutually exclusive about those two styles, beyond that D&D (prior to 4e) didn't do it well.