D&D 5E Too Much Healing Going On?

[DND_Reborn]

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?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Depends entirely on party make up and style. The campaign we just finished, we had a cleric, paladin, Druid, fighter, warlock, and ranger. So plenty of healing.

Now? Two clerics, sorcerer, fighter, rogue, ranger. You’d think a lot of healing, but only the clerics have been using healing spells as the ranger is always hunters mark and the paladin is always smite. Also, the opponents are mich tougher. We just about TPK’d last night fighting a CR3 assassin and CR4 helmed horror. We are all level 3, with no magic items. So healing is critical. As is, two of the party is unconscious after the battle and we’re still in the villa with zero spells to heal with.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Ugg...Healing Surges...not my favorite.
Party composition plays a major role in this, but yes in my experience, groups often retreat from a battle not due to lack of HP, but due to lack of other resources.

Other spells can contribute to this as well. Generating and keeping Stealth/Surprise through use of Pass with Out Trace and Silence (through two separate casters), often ensures no one takes damage, or just scratches, and healing is just not required.

 

[NotAYakk]

HP, like in 3e, flows from healers, not from warriors.

Warriors just store HP that the healers generate.

As efficient healing is slower than fast healing, pre-healing damage is better than doing it in a fight. So with ample healing, you'll start fights within rounding error of full HP.

Few in combat spells match efficient out of combat healing in utility, so when you run out of out of combat healing you are plausibly 2 hard fights from a TPK. Balancing adventure days that tightly is hard, unkess you do the thing where PCs pick when they rest, with story consequences for every step less than infinity they reach. (example: rear guard for retreating refugees. Every encounter in a row means 1d12*100 more refugees make it. A 10 minute rest means die size shrinks by 1; a short rest 2, a long rest means remaining refugees are overrun. PCs can now win or lose as much as they want; but will eventually be overrun or have to retreat. The exact mechanics needs work, as I can see the system described as getting tedious, but I hope you get the idea.)

 

[DeviousQuail]

I don't think healing, and having too much of it, is the issue here. Everything is a trade-off and it's clear that your party has traded levels, feats, and gold for the capacity to heal. Had you not done that then hopefully you'd be taking less damage by using levels, feats, and gold to resolve encounters faster/differently.

As for 1000 HP in absolute terms I have no idea if that's really high or just what you'd expect from being a large group all at high levels. I do know that Hit Dice recovery on average gives you back almost max HP without any kind of bonuses. So if you have a group of 5 characters who average 100 HP (not hard to do at high tier 3 play) then you're looking at ~500 hp worth of healing right there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In 5e, design encounters based on the assumption that a party will enter them with close to full hp. It's just the way the game works.

 

[AngryTiger]

In my games healing seems there isn't enough healing. I usually try to stick to 6-8 encounters per day, with shorts rests after ever 2-3 encounters.
Hit Dice, class abilities and spells never seem to be healing enough to get trough the adventuring day and still have spells left to use for offence at the boss encounter.
My players have started to use downtime to craft and buy as much healing potions as they can afford, and even still seems like it's not enough. Last adventure ended up in almost TPK with 3/4 of the party dead, and one managing to escape, even though they went trough 20+ healing potions between fights.

Group composition is fighter, paladin, bard and druid, and they are currently level 5.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Healing in 5e is easy to but I don't find it to be a huge issue. In fact, I like designing tough encounters, and easy healing helps make those work. Also, it allows me to focus on encounters that can't be overcome just by having a lot of HP.

FWIW, I give PCs max HP at every level too, and all healing spells/potions provide max benefit when used.

 

[Shiroiken]

By RAW, there's a ton of healing available. Until they errataed Healing Spirit it was crazy healing. Potions of Healing are as plentiful as wine. Add in the fact that you're party has 4.5 healers in it (paladins should only be using Lay on Hands, using slots for smites), and you've got ridiculous potential healing.

I limit Potions of Healing, because I consider them an actual magic item, not standard equipment. Players still snap them up when they can, but usually they can only get 2-5 in a town (taking over a week before they have any more). Also, our group as a whole doesn't short rest very much; usually taking 1 per day.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yes, there absolutely can be too much healing (depending on how you build encounters and run combats).

I sincerely believe monster design is built around a party of 4 Basic Rules PCs (with one of them being a Cleric with healing.) As soon as you add in more PCs above 4 or more classes that can do healing, the ability to challenge the group by using monsters straight from the MM without adjustment is made much more difficult. You either need to throw monsters with much higher CRs (thereby throwing off the narrative aspects of the campaign with lower-level PCs facing off against traditionally more powerful monsters really early in the game)... or you need to put so many enemies on the battlefield that it just extends combats longer and longer with so much hit point attrition to go through.

I have been running tables with 7 players for years now, and there are always at least three (if not more) characters that can heal during a fight, and always at least one person "free" each round to go over and stabilize a downed PC should that ever be necessary. If there are only 4 PCs in the party, someone stabilizing a downed PC means that half the group is currently not fighting and dealing with the enemies. With 7 though? A downed PC and another one running triage means there are still 5 fully-functioning characters on the table handling the enemies as they come (one of which is probably a raging Barbarian taking only half damage a lot of the time, and another being an armored tank with a high AC that is rarely getting hit). Trying to challenge that kind of group to make them feel occasionally worried requires me to basically add extra monsters, give them more multiattacks each round, adding 2-4 more damage dice to each successful hit, and then stringing together several encounters in a row giving them little time in between.

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.