D&D 5E Too Much Healing Going On?

[oriaxx77]

After the thread about 4E Healing Surges, I looked at our main campaign when we played yesterday and realized something disturbing:

We have so much healing, we enter each encounter general 90+% of maximum HP. Rarely, we have a string of fights, with little to no time in between, and then HP attrition becomes an issue, but those are rare.

We have a PC with the healer feat and several PCs are MC healing spellcasters such as a bard, 2 clerics, a druid, and a paladin. In Tier 3, with Beacon of Hope, Mass Cure Wounds, Healing Spirits, etc. we can heal several hundred HP if needed. Throw in short rests and healing potions, and it is really over the top at this point.

In a major battle against 3 dragons on Saturday, we probably healed maybe 1000 points or more of collective damage to the party.

So, granted, we are a large party, nearing Tier 4, but still it seems crazy when I actually think about it.

Do you find this to be about the same in your game? Or is healing hard to come by? I know level plays a big factor, but what about in general terms overall?5e hhas too much healing.

After the thread about 4E Healing Surges, I looked at our main campaign when we played yesterday and realized something disturbing:

We have so much healing, we enter each encounter general 90+% of maximum HP. Rarely, we have a string of fights, with little to no time in between, and then HP attrition becomes an issue, but those are rare.

We have a PC with the healer feat and several PCs are MC healing spellcasters such as a bard, 2 clerics, a druid, and a paladin. In Tier 3, with Beacon of Hope, Mass Cure Wounds, Healing Spirits, etc. we can heal several hundred HP if needed. Throw in short rests and healing potions, and it is really over the top at this point.

In a major battle against 3 dragons on Saturday, we probably healed maybe 1000 points or more of collective damage to the party.

So, granted, we are a large party, nearing Tier 4, but still it seems crazy when I actually think about it.

Do you find this to be about the same in your game? Or is healing hard to come by? I know level plays a big factor, but what about in general terms overall?

Definitively too much healing. Play gritty Gritty Campaigns. How you play one?

 

[Neonchameleon]

What healing is too much depends on your play style. I've said in the past and I'll say again the second biggest change ever made to D&D was 3.0 making the Wand of Cure Light Wounds easily buyable or even makeable by your average adventuring party. (The biggest change, of course, was the removal of XP for GP leading to a much more hack and slash play style as you no longer got most of your XP from loot).

Having enough healing to bring your party back to full HP every fight is just how things have been for the past 20 years. oD&D was very much balanced around an attritional "test your luck" playstyle where the question was always "Will I have enough hp (or, at low level, hirelings) left to make it home safely" and although the slings and arrows of outrageous kobolds weren't individually quite so threatening they were expected and intended to add up over the course of a dungeon delve.

3.0 made a mistake by adding item creation rules that lead to a first level wand of Cure Light Wounds costing a mere 750GP (or less than a third of the price of a +1 sword counting the Masterwork Weapon cost) and had an average of 275 hp. This made healing readily available both relatively cheaply and in massive quantities almost by mistake meaning that any encounter that only reduces some of the PCs hit points to about half just isn't scary and the only thing that really matters short of death is whether you can bait out spells. So you need to actively threaten the party with every encounter.

4e provided a relatively hard cap on healing so attrition actually mattered again (there is some magical healing that doesn't spend surges including the Cure Wounds daily ability but it's rare). 5e took off the cap, with a lot of magical healing - but lowered the PC backup hit points from about twice their starting amount but slightly under the starting amount. And (thank goodness) didn't bring back the wand of CLW.

Although both 4e and 5e have theoretically limited healing both assume that (like 3.0 and 3.5) the default is that the PCs go into every fight at full health. An average 5e PC has the endurance to be taken to 0hp every day and stand back up again at pretty near full hp even before magic adds more hp; a 4e one can do it twice but gets a whole lot less magic to help (and normally will have spent some of those surges in the fight so aren't likely to do it fully twice).

So ridiculous amounts of trickle (rather than burst) healing have been the D&D default for 20 years now. It makes encounter design mean that you should be going almost full force or having the bad guys run, and baiting out the spells is a triumph.

 

[Undrave]

It's doable of course... but it is certainly a bit noticeable when once the PCs hit 5th level and three to five of them gain Extra Attack that suddenly the monsters jump up in power all in an effort to cause a bit of threat before they get decimated under the sheer volume of PCs attacks generated each round.

I'm pretty sure the game is calibrated so that when you reach certain levels, like lv 5, you feel POWERFUL and can dominate enemies, but as you level up you start to encounter stronger and stronger enemies and you start to feel the pressure until you reach the next plateau of power.

Don't be annoyed when your PC start to dominate, it's a reward for going through the previous levels and just let them have some fun.

This is different than 1e/2e, where getting back hp was really hard so watching hp go down over the course of the adventure did show the pc's getting worn out. But that's just not what hp means in 5e.

Yeah it's a different philosophy.

Now, I think more to the point is you never know when that dangerous encounter is coming up, so yes you want to be as full in HP as you generally can. The issue then becomes, the medium and hard encounters might drain some resources, but they really aren't a challenge.

Is that really a problem though? It sounds to me like your players are just good at managing their HP and they should be rewarded for it by making encounters easier. At they having fun?

Add in that they're using HD and potions sensibly, and it sounds like what you're complaining about is a big fat case of "Working As Intended". A big clue is in the healing potions. If they weren't being pressed at all, if they felt totally safe, they wouldn't be using consumables like that. They'd just stay in their bags to rot.

That too. You use potions when you got no other choices, because otherwise you hoard them.

When I DM, I see the other side. It seems like a waste of time to have encounters simply designed to drain resources. Now, don't get me wrong, from a story and "realist" point of view, it makes perfect sense. Not everything running around out in the world will be a threat after all.

Welllll... that 4e healing system you didn't like could be calibrated to make all encounter more dangerous.... You could always adapt the concept and reduce MAX hp (reduce HP gained at level to just CON mod?) and add a few more HD so they'll tap into them more often?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Is that really a problem though? It sounds to me like your players are just good at managing their HP and they should be rewarded for it by making encounters easier. At they having fun?

Welllll... that 4e healing system you didn't like could be calibrated to make all encounter more dangerous.... You could always adapt the concept and reduce MAX hp (reduce HP gained at level to just CON mod?) and add a few more HD so they'll tap into them more often?

Actually, it is all your fault. (j/k)

The discussion on healing surges and the idea of beginning each encounter with max HP made me realize we (more or less) already start each encounter with max HP!

So, I got to thinking that moderate and hard encounters could be more challenging if I did reduce max hp (like you suggest), but include the "surge pool" to tap into for the deadly encounters. PCs could use them for other encounters, but would hesitate to do so and only resort to that if absolutely needed as recovering surges would take longer.

My thoughts have been to remove CON actually, and just base HP off of HD, maybe even reducing the HD size, but adding a healing pool for surges to be used in combat when needed to bolster waning HP.

I have to think it over more and play around with the numbers to find a balance I like. This idea does also lend itself to another idea I want to implement, so I think it is a good start.

Another good side effect of this (which I thought I mentioned in the other thread) was natural hazards, like falling, become more lethal since you have less max HP.

So, it is funny you brought it up, because that is what got me thinking about it all in the first place. I don't like (from the sounds of it) just how surges were used in 4E, but I don't think it is a bad design concept.

 

[NotAYakk]

The main difference between "healing surge" based healing and 3e/5e healing is, past low levels:

In 3e/5e your daily HP comes mostly from your healer.
In 4e, your daily HP comes mostly from your healing surges.

This means to add more HP to the party in 4e, you add a tough warrior.

In 3e/5e you add someone with more healing magic.

5e attempted to reintroduce old-D&D attrition; but the attrition is via healing magic in most parties, not HP like it was way back in the day.

Way back in the day, the healing budget of a cleric wasn't large relative to players HP pools. There was no healing surges. So the cleric was still key for healing up, but a cleric couldn't heal a party to full HP easily. You would go through the day with a decreasing HP total, and retreat when you ran low. Then you'd spend possibly days while the cleric healed you all to full, then went out again.

The Kobolds who threw spears at you where dangerous because you'd lose HP, not because you'd risk death. In 3e, there is no danger from them. In 5e, it could cost you spell slots, but was otherwise free.

My system, where heals both activate and require a HD, is an attempt to get some of that back. You won't run out of HP before you run out of HD probably, but you will run low on HD over an adventuring day, and when you run out, your current HP is what you got. Don't matter how many spells the cleric has left.

And healing spirit is great in that it heals 1d6 HP and activates a HD every round... but it sucks because it drains your HD like crazy. A cast of Heal costs 1 HD, as does a healing potion. Choose wisely.

A healing word to get you up from 0? That's a HD.

 

[Undrave]

Actually, it is all your fault. (j/k)

Hahaha

the more we talk the more it seems HP is just an overall problematic system in its presentation. A lot of its sounds like HP=meat, but HP=meat doesn't work with current HP recovery system... And even if you go back to old school '1 HP recovered per day' (which, strangely, makes recovery of stronger characters take longer than on weaker ones?!) instead and were to cut most healing magic and items, you would still run into the issue of damage not having an impact until 0 HP...

But if you try to be too simulationist you end up with one random roll disabling your character for months of in-game time, and even just a penalty from damage can lead to a death spiral where you just get easier and easier to hit the more you get hurt...

But since I'm more of a gamist I don't really mind that much, as long as it's INTERESTING.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Hahaha

the more we talk the more it seems HP is just an overall problematic system in its presentation. A lot of its sounds like HP=meat, but HP=meat doesn't work with current HP recovery system... And even if you go back to old school '1 HP recovered per day' (which, strangely, makes recovery of stronger characters take longer than on weaker ones?!) instead and were to cut most healing magic and items, you would still run into the issue of damage not having an impact until 0 HP...

But if you try to be too simulationist you end up with one random roll disabling your character for months of in-game time, and even just a penalty from damage can lead to a death spiral where you just get easier and easier to hit the more you get hurt...

But since I'm more of a gamist I don't really mind that much, as long as it's INTERESTING.

Yeah, that is why, even though it is just a slight difference in mechanics and name, I love the SW d20 Vitality and Wounds. Vitality (HP) is your energy level, luck, skill, etc. which wears away from attacks and Wounds = meat (more or less). But, even then, you getting into the idea of "hitting and doing damage" without even necessarily "hitting."

Myself and our other DM often narrate hits as real efforts by the PCs to actually avoid being hit, the amount of "damage" representing the amount of "energy, luck, skill, etc." needed to avoid the hit (or lessen it to being "ineffective").

In a similar light, sometimes I narrate misses as actual "hits" but they are completely ineffective. The idea being, "Sure, you hit him as in your punch made contact with his body, but he shrugged it off" (i.e. you actually missed, so deal no damage).

I would prefer system where a "hit" is a hit and "damage" is damage, but D&D and HP will never get there.

In that manner, the idea in the OP about starting encounters at full HP is basically like, "Ok, fellas, back into the fray!" and you charge into the next battle, feeling good and energetic and ready to fight.

With all the difference mechanics available, HP, CON, critical hits, exhaustion, conditions, etc. it seems like D&D could come up with a system that allows incredible 1500-foot falls and critical bites by dragons a chance of killing even the mightiest of D&D heroes (I don't care of the odds are 1 in a million, the point is they would be there!). The opposite side of the coin, is a system that can accomplish that, but isn't bogged down by making a dozen checks and such or tracking half-a-dozen numbers for its mechanics.

 

[NotAYakk]

I've played around with making HD oppose damage by rolling.

Imagine if you have a pool of various defence dice. Each is mechanically and narratively connected to some defence.

When someone attacks you, they roll their accuracy and impact dice. You have to defeat the attack; either beat the accuracy dice, or the impact dice. Beating accuracy dice makes it miss; beating impact makes it bounce.

Both attackers and defender can have second order abilities, like:
"When an enemy defeats your impact but not your accuracy, you gain +1d10 impact momentum against them until they defeat your accuracy".
"When you defeat an enemy's accuracy, you gain +1d12 accuracy if you attack them next turn."

The first would represent precision attacks finding a weakness in the enemy's armor, the second a riposte.

Giant attacks would be represented by huge impact, low accuracy.

A duelist or a shortbow, high accuracy low impact.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I've played around with making HD oppose damage by rolling.

Imagine if you have a pool of various defence dice. Each is mechanically and narratively connected to some defence.

When someone attacks you, they roll their accuracy and impact dice. You have to defeat the attack; either beat the accuracy dice, or the impact dice. Beating accuracy dice makes it miss; beating impact makes it bounce.

Both attackers and defender can have second order abilities, like:
"When an enemy defeats your impact but not your accuracy, you gain +1d10 impact momentum against them until they defeat your accuracy".
"When you defeat an enemy's accuracy, you gain +1d12 accuracy if you attack them next turn."

The first would represent precision attacks finding a weakness in the enemy's armor, the second a riposte.

Giant attacks would be represented by huge impact, low accuracy.

A duelist or a shortbow, high accuracy low impact.

Sure, something along those lines might work. I sort of like the idea of spending HD to "absorb" part of a hit instead of being part of your HP to begin with.

Maybe something like you have "meat" hp and "soak" HD. I've been a big fan of the soak mechanic in other systems like Vampire and Shadowrun.

Another thematic element missing from DND is the stagger. You see it all the time when someone lands a solid blow and the other person is sent backwards a step or two from the hit. Before the target has a chance to recover, the attacker moves in for another strike.

I don't know. There are so many ways to run all this stuff... my head is beginning to be "staggered".

 

[Umbran]

Imagine if you have a pool of various defence dice. Each is mechanically and narratively connected to some defence.

When someone attacks you, they roll their accuracy and impact dice. You have to defeat the attack; either beat the accuracy dice, or the impact dice. Beating accuracy dice makes it miss; beating impact makes it bounce.

There's any number of games that use active defense rolls. In concept, that's fine. In practice... they tend to slow things down, as you are now doubling the number of rolls that have to happen before an attack can be resolved.