D&D 4E What do you like about 4e healing?

[Henry]

I like the soft cap on healing per day. I think the issue many folk have is a "second wind" or a non-magical use of a healing surge.

I don't even have a problem with second wind -- I just dislike the dynamic of multiple healing surges being used in combat; I've thought before of house-ruling it so that you can only each use ONE healing surge in combat, whether it be by spell or mundane. That way, you get your ONE healing shot to stay alive, but combat doesn't get drug out by "oops, I'm bloody -- now I'm not -- OOPS, bloody again -- now I'm not -- OOPS, bloody again..." and between the cleric and the warlord in the group you don't have a half-dozen discretionary healing words, etc. floating around.

Then, make the healing utilities like cure light, etc. the only other way to heal. What happens is that combat goes a lot faster, and you don't get quite so much of the "I got hit for 73 points of damage -- but look, it was only a flesh wound."

However, one thing about the alternative in 3E style games does bug me -- I HATE HEALING STICKS. I'm more for healing magic to be a bit more rare like in 1E than in 3E, but I do think that 1E could have benefited from a 3E-style natural healing rule - being able to heal up in say 4 or 5 days, instead of a month, mainly because simulation is fine, but simulating a hospital stay is pretty boring from a real world standpoint for me.

 

[Hussar]

Henry - if you did that, wouldn't you have to reduce monster damage considerably as well? I mean, I look at the last combat that I ran, and the only reason that the ranger survived was because of several surges during combat. If PC's were limited to only one per combat, wouldn't that make combat very, very lethal to the PC's?

 

[nightwalker450]

I'm in favor of all except perhaps:
"Common rest cycle for hit points, spells and abilities"

For the most part I agree with it, but there should be something in place to represent critical injuries, or things that will take longer to heal from. This type of damage though shouldn't be the "norm" though, perhaps certain creatures are better at it (Dragons, definitely dragons). Or only when you are actually brought to 0 or less, or even just when you're critically hit. But I don't want the standard to be it takes weeks for you to heal... oh wait you have a (cleric/bag of wands/bag of potions) never mind.

 

[Mengu]

All of the above. But most important is not wasting actions on heals.

 

[Hassassin]

All of the above. But most important is not wasting actions on heals.

If it's seen as wasting, there are other things wrong with healing, IMO.

 

[nightwalker450]

If it's seen as wasting, there are other things wrong with healing, IMO.

It's not wasting, it just not fun. Cleric should have more choice in what they do, not just keeping their friends looking awesome. It's better to be able to heal your ally, and do something else productive, than have to decide between doing something awesome (and making the other player angry), or healing your ally.

 

[Hassassin]

It's not wasting, it just not fun. Cleric should have more choice in what they do, not just keeping their friends looking awesome. It's better to be able to heal your ally, and do something else productive, than have to decide between doing something awesome (and making the other player angry), or healing your ally.

That's my point: healing your ally should be awesome.

 

[Mengu]

That's my point: healing your ally should be awesome.

Sure, if it gives them a free attack when you heal them, it would be awesome. Otherwise, the healing needs to be as much as all the damage the PC took the previous round, plus all the damage he will take in the next round, so that you can do something awesome next round like a flame strike, instead of healing again. If healing is all you're doing every round, that's pretty boring. I expect there is a balance in there somewhere, to make standard action healing work fine, but free/minor action healing just works rather nicely once you get used to it.

This view could change, if healing suddenly becomes much less necessary in the system. If people's hit points last them for the duration of an encounter, without a particular need for healing (allowing us to play without a cleric normally), then standard action healing might be fine. It all depends on what else is going on with the system.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, (standard action) healing has to be pretty amazing (Heal, Mass Heal, a heal on a downed friend whose actions are better than yours, etc) to justify using it in combat when you could just use your action to end the combat faster. Particularly so when it also has to compete with a having fun factor.

And healing can't be pretty amazing if they want you to have the option of not having a cleric in the party. That's a tricky balance to manage, but if a group with a cleric is tossing around Heal spells and a group without a cleric is just falling down one by one. Well... failed goal, there.

4E healing actually addressed a number of problems. It'd be good if they considered each of the solutions and what's worth taking from them. It's not perfect, it's not even great. Certainly I'd have cheerfully accepted solutions like the "You can spend max 1 surge per combat"

But I still liked it better than healing post-combat with wands of cure light wounds or vigor. I'll be particularly disappointed in WotC manages to nail super fast combats, but we have to spend as long or longer on the combat as the healer slowly rolls d8s while people adjust their hp in a post-battle topping back up.

 

[Hassassin]

And healing can't be pretty amazing if they want you to have the option of not having a cleric in the party. That's a tricky balance to manage, but if a group with a cleric is tossing around Heal spells and a group without a cleric is just falling down one by one. Well... failed goal, there.

I don't see why (in-combat) healing cannot be both awesome and balanced in terms of how required it is. Healing spells basically cancel actions already taken by enemies, so can't they be evaluated like any other action removal abilities? Having a Wizard who stuns a monster or a Cleric who heals the damage it did could probably be balanced into viable alternatives.

But I still liked it better than healing post-combat with wands of cure light wounds or vigor. I'll be particularly disappointed in WotC manages to nail super fast combats, but we have to spend as long or longer on the combat as the healer slowly rolls d8s while people adjust their hp in a post-battle topping back up.

I'd like to see most healing happen post combat. No need to roll d8's, a percentage is fine. If in-combat healing is rare, it is more easily seen as a cool ability.

I'm not sure if you only meant wands of vigor, or also the spell itself. Vigor is basically a ritual of healing already, so it could be easily fluffed as such. Wands are an issue with the magic item system in general, and I wouldn't want to see them common, much less required.