D&D 5E (2014) Tweak Instant Cure spells to fix whack-a-mole

[jasper]

Or you could be EVVVVVIIIIIIIILLLLLLLL DM. Any humanoid with Int 10 + swings twice at downed PC. Any monster with Int 13+ does the same. Takes out 1 pc for most of the adventure.

 

[Yunru]

Or you could be EVVVVVIIIIIIIILLLLLLLL DM. Any humanoid with Int 10 + swings twice at downed PC. Any monster with Int 13+ does the same. Takes out 1 pc for most of the adventure.

I once had goblins attacking in pairs that accidently caused this. An unusually high damage roll knocked him out, the other goblin made him auto-fail two death saves, and then his turn came around and he bled out.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So here's the idea to fix whack-a-mole:

If you're 1 hp or above, cure spells are instant. If hp 0 or below, cure spells take 1d3 minutes to work before the target is healed.

No more whack-a-mole?

What do folks think?

If I'm following the problem isn't that there's in-combat healing, but that there's too much incentive to use it after an ally drops, because of the simplification (no tracking negative hps) of the heal-from-0 rule?

You could re-instate negative hps (down to death at negative max hps), so there's no special benefit to waiting until they drop.

What your proposal does is leave the incentive in place, but punish it. It could lead to just not healing allies, at all, which could impact other dynamics in the game...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Or you could be EVVVVVIIIIIIIILLLLLLLL DM. Any humanoid with Int 10 + swings twice at downed PC. Any monster with Int 13+ does the same. Takes out 1 pc for most of the adventure.

Which is actually the main problem that this house rule would fix. If a simple cure spell will bring a downed character back into the fight, then a smart enemy has to treat a downed character as a high-priority combatant that is worth attacking.

If a downed character cannot be returned to the fight via healing magic, then a downed character is a non-combatant and there's no point in finishing them off. This rule would actually make combats less deadly, against intelligent foes.

 

[Yunru]

I'll restate my previous post because it fixes the problem in the most intuitive way:
Failed death saving throws only reset after a short/long rest, or on death.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I'll restate my previous post because it fixes the problem in the most intuitive way:
Failed death saving throws only reset after a short/long rest, or on death.

That won't fix whackamole, if anything it will increase the problem because it's now even more important to get a downed PC back up before his turn comes and he has to roll death saves.

 

[Yunru]

That won't fix whackamole, if anything it will increase the problem because it's now even more important to get a downed PC back up before his turn comes and he has to roll death saves.

Sure it does. They can risk playing whack-a-mole if they want, it even gives them two lives. But they either adapt and heal before falling, or risk losing their third life. And since lives don't reset until a rest is finished, they're left all that much closer to death until they do so.

Aftwr all, whack-a-mole isn't just a mechanical problem, it's a playstyle one. Players aren't concerned with healing until a character hits 0 because there's no consequence for it. My proposal changes that. If they're still not getting hit, hit them when they're down, just once. You wont have to again.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Aftwr all, whack-a-mole isn't just a mechanical problem, it's a playstyle one.

I'm pretty sure it is only a play-style problem, not a mechanical one, since tables that don't have a whack-a-mole problem to fix haven't had to change any mechanics to reach that state.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Sure it does. They can risk playing whack-a-mole if they want, it even gives them two lives. But they either adapt and heal before falling, or risk losing their third life. And since lives don't reset until a rest is finished, they're left all that much closer to death until they do so.

Aftwr all, whack-a-mole isn't just a mechanical problem, it's a playstyle one. Players aren't concerned with healing until a character hits 0 because there's no consequence for it.

Your fix might work for certain kinds of players, but it will cause other players to double down on whackamole healing. As such it is not a complete solution to the problem, even if it may seem so in your limited perspective.

 

[Yunru]

I'm pretty sure it is only a play-style problem, not a mechanical one, since tables that don't have a whack-a-mole problem to fix haven't had to change any mechanics to reach that state.

There's no lasting mechanical consequence to dropping below 0. That's what causes whack-a-mole mentality.