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

[CapnZapp]

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Is -10 the highest negative you record? yes
Is it like the old 2e system where every round they gain an additional -1? no
-10 hit points does not equal death? correct
The 5e Death Saves are removed? no, they work as normal

Answers in gold above.

 

[Tony Vargas]

the players used to try the Healing Word strategy (the fancy term for "let's whack a mole"). Now they don't.

Instead, they switched to "dotting" the fallen ally. (Ideally a 1 point Lay on Hands heal, but the Healing Word spell will do too)

OK, that's how they cope when someone's dropped.

Have you seen their tactics change ahead of that - do they use more damage mitigation, or heal an injured ally to keep him from dropping in the first place, or is it otherwise a minor variation on the 'no healing' outcome?

 

[CapnZapp]

OK, that's how they cope when someone's dropped.

Have you seen their tactics change ahead of that - do they use more damage mitigation, or heal an injured ally to keep him from dropping in the first place, or is it otherwise a minor variation on the 'no healing' outcome?

I would love to answer yes to that question.

But to be honest I have had trouble challenging the party lately to the extent the rule is invoked.

There was probably a small window of evaluation from where I instituted the change, to where they levelled up sufficiently to leave that problem behind. By that I mean - at higher levels you don't drop just because one unlucky swing, and you don't drop as often period. So even if you could still use whackamole tactic it would arguably be less of an issue, since it would be deployed much less often.

I have managed to down a character. Once the monk stepped a little too close to four berserk Barlguras. Two crits later and all his hp were poof, gone. I *think* the Cleric laid down some serious healing that time, probably because that happened at the very start of the fight when the overall difficulty was still unknown to them.

But generally, the ability to change my rolls after the fact (bard ability, battlemaster AC boosts, Lucky feat) together with very solid AC makes for a nigh-impregnable defense. And since few hits penetrate the regular AC, the relatively few charges of the super abilities mentioned go a long way. A feat like Lucky is not particularly strong if you get hit all the time. It is very strong when you only hit on a 20. Since by that time you're only vulnerable to criticals, it essentially negates all your criticals, and I seldom roll more of those than the number of luck points awarded by the feat. The end result is that you become practically invulnerable to attacks

So all I can honestly say is that when I made the change, whackamole tactic evaporated (or at least decreased in frequence to a point where it no longer was a nuisance).

Feel free to report back with your findings!: ) I'm afraid we're slowly reaching the end of OotA; it might be a while before we play at low level again.

 

[CapnZapp]

For the record, I think the "healing surcharge" sort of rule so that the PCs heal from near to zero rather than always from zero is probably the most elegant and low-impact alteration suggested so far.

I would allow for one other useful houserule with similar (lack of) complexity:

That you don't stop counting failed death saves just because you recieve healing.

If you go from zero to hero with a simple Healing Word, but you still carry around one or two failed death saves, you are not the whack-happy mole you used to be.

For instance, failed death saves could fade away
a) once you have been healed to half maximum hp (when you are no longer bloodied in 4E parlance)
b) once one minute has passed
c) as soon as you get to spend any Hit Dice
or of course
d) all of the above

This would not only mean that you would hesitate throwing yourself back into the fray once you've recieved a "black mark", but probably also mean the party would try harder to avoid falling to zero in the first place.

As an alternative to the -10 thing, that is.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

That you don't stop counting failed death saves just because you recieve healing.

I wouldn't use either house-rule myself (because my players do not have the mentality required for the problem described in this thread to occur), but I would suggest the other before suggesting this one because not resetting death save failures is a much higher-impact change - it doesn't just make intentionally using the effective damage negation of dropping to 0 hp less efficient, it makes characters more likely to end up dead as well.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I feel the -10 rule would solve the whack-a-mole issue, but not the "more dangerous/deadly" objective, but that's really another topic

 

[Yunru]

Maybe just increase the casting time of healing spells? It also has the pleasant side effect of making Spare the Dying worth something.

Bonus action => Action
Action => 1 minute?

 

[canucksaram]

No need to tweak spells.

Instead, tweak what it is like to recover from being at death's door.

If the player is at 0 HP and is not forced to make death saves, allow healing spells to whack-a-mole.

But if the player character is forced to make even one death save because of HP loss, things change: upon recovery to any HP level after being forced to make death saves, have the character suffer two levels of exhaustion for each death saving throw that was failed. In the RAW, exhaustion recovery is paced at one level of exhaustion per long rest. Now being forced into making death saves has a more desperate set of consequences.

 

[Yunru]

Hmm. Allow 5 failed saves (if you're generous), they don't go away until a long rest, and you have to make a save immediately upon dropping to 0?

 

[delericho]

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.

What do folks think?

I'm not keen on in-combat healing, but I suspect simply removing it from the game (or removing the "whack-a-mole" aspect) may well alter the balance of the game quite significantly. In particular, I expect you'd see your Fighters and Barbarians spending quite a lot of time sitting out the game while everyone else has fun without them.

In any event, to remove the 'whack-a-mole', I don't think I'd adjust the spells. Instead, I'd add a rider to the "Unconscious" condition that, "If unconsciousness is caused by the character dropping to 0 hit points, it remains until the party takes a short or long rest." Though I'd probably also allow a restoration or similar spell to remove it, too.

That way, the character can still regain hit points, but it doesn't do them too much use since they remain unconscious and so unable to act.