D&D 5E What if healing spells only created Temp HP?

[CubicsRube]

What would happen if all magical healing and healing potions did not increase hitpoints, but only created temp HP? I can think of a few impacts:

• Clerics, Paladins and Druids might think of using spells to buff characters before they go into a fight
• If a character is downed, magical healing will not get them up for the fight
• D&D as a society would have less cleric types healing people of cuts, bruises and other physical ailments
• Allowing a PC to have only one "lot" of temp HP puts a cap on buffing, and strongly encourages upcasting/using higher level heal spells
• Might affect player psychology and PC behaviour going into a fight with a large temp HP pool
• Might still be used in combat
• Makes magical healing less appealing overall

The inevitable question for all these posts is "why?" which apart from just for fun, I think the intention behind this would be:
To make magical healing less immersion breaking (for me), and to change the incentive from clerics to being healbots to being precombat buffers.

I like the idea of a cleric or paladin conducting a rite before a battle and buffing up the party, or a druid conducting some kind of ritual to do the same. It both feels more thematic to me, and also I'm hoping it would disincentives the choice that many healing classes have to either get to act on their turn, or to heal someone else in the party. For some players that's not a problem, for others, it feels like a tax.

Secondly, and this is my personal preference, i'd like to see mundane healing get more focus. I like the idea of a cut down healer's feat where a use of a healers kit and a successful medicine check could restore 1d6 hitpoints flat with the same caveat that a PC/creature can only beneft from this healing once per rest. The healer feat would still be a boon because of the +4+hit dice bonus to healing, as well as being able to restore a dying creature to 1 hitpoint which would with the above ruling make this the only way to get someone back in the fight in the middle of combat. This to me opens up more possibilities for any character to being a healer and I like that.

I suspect some of you would not like this at all. But whether you do or you don't, I'd be interested in your thoughts as to what you think it'd change.

 

[commandercrud]

I think this is a fantastic idea. I currently use the gritty realism and lingering injuries variants, but I wish I had thought of this when I started my current campaign. I'm totally using this next time.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

So my only thoughts from a mechanical standpoint:
1) Consider implementing house rules for more advanced medical technology, mundane healing and frankly technology in general. Crafting will certainly be a big part of this. Even if you are trying to simulate a "historically accurate" medieval setting (in which case my first question to you is which region and time perod specifically?), one must remember that while they did not possess electricity or knowledge of germ theory they were NOT the bumbling idiots completely unaware of all life's ills modern society seems to think they were. They understood the idea that you don't drink from water when someone was sick, quarantining, and had quite a wide variety of mixtures of various herbs and aides for healing. They also had quite a few customs in society designed to help prevent the spread of disease: hint, people drinking or eating with their pinky up comes from one such tradition, where they washed their hands upon entiring a dining hall and were expected to keep their pinky clean and unused so that they didn't taint the spice bowls. It was a BIG breach of etiquette to not follow said customs as well.

The biggest difference removing healing magic as a potent cure all would be disease being far more prevalent. To be perfectly blunt, from a world impact standpoint the big game changing spell is NOT cure wounds, but Lessee Restoration. Do not underestimate the value of a 3rd level priest or druid being able to outright cure even just the common cold with a brief touch. Possessing even just two or three such spellcasters in town would literally save entire villages during the winter (and widescale it would likely also stagnate medical advancement significantly. After all why learn what causes colds when someone can just Cure it? I mean it is often depicted in fiction that during the dark ages that priests were actively shunning science and "praying" for their patients (which fyi while it happened is also a bit of a hyperbole), but in such a d&d world? It actually WORKS!

2) More relevant to players, changing healing to temporary health would outright destroy any class feature or spell that current generates temporary health and should probably be monitored. Personally I would advise you change temerpory hp rules as well if you would go this route. Find a reasonable "cap" and let temp hp stack up to that point. (Twice or thrice their level perhaps? Con mod per level?)

Honestly if I wanted to do something like that, I'd probably make some sort of wounds/vigor system and differentiate that somehow, but that's kind of off topic.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I agree it would be better.

• Make most ''instant'' healing spell grant THP (Ex: Healing Word)
• Make those that already grant THP ''in advance'' grant more (ex: False Life)
• Make those that actually cure wound (ex: Cure Wounds) allow to recover HP, but only in a regen style. Something like: For 1 minute, or until it falls to 0 HP, the target regain 2-3 HP per turn.

 

[jgsugden]

I think this would shift the emphasis from whack a mole when people go down to trying to time the whack a mole to just before they go down.

If you want the clerics to spend less time healing, do less damage. PCs can be threatened by things other than death. Superman, Spider-man and Batman don't have t have every battle be a life and death struggle they barely survive - in fact if every battle is like that it gets to feel either boring or contrived. The tension in their batttles often comes from what happens to others should the hero fail.

 

[aco175]

I was thinking of a cool idea to have some sort of drug to symbolize the temp HP, then I thought of this from Batman.

 

[embee]

people drinking or eating with their pinky up comes from one such tradition, where they washed their hands upon entiring a dining hall and were expected to keep their pinky clean and unused so that they didn't taint the spice bowls. It was a BIG breach of etiquette to not follow said customs as well

That is not even remotely true.

Per Miss Manners, in the 17th Century, when tea was first brought to Europe from China. It was sipped from handle-less cups and "anyone with any sense kept as few fingers as possible on the (yeow!) hot cup." Since only the rich could afford to drink the expensive, imported tea, the gesture became an affectation, sticking around even after teacups with handles came along.

Extending your pinky outward is bad etiquette. Your tea sandwich should only require three fingers to pick up. Same with your teacup.

What should you do with your pinky?

TUCK IT UNDER!

Pinky out tells the world that you were raised in a barn. Or by wolves. Or by barn wolves. In a barn.

 

[auburn2]

I don't know anyone who actually plays a 5e cleric as a healbot. Considering that,I don't really think it is necessary.

 

[DND_Reborn]

What would happen if all magical healing and healing potions did not increase hitpoints, but only created temp HP?

It is an interesting idea.

It would allow buffing of a temp HP pool prior to losing them, freeing casters and other healers to do other things during combat. However, it might also lead to players being a bit more reckless with the "extra" temp HP going into the fight. There would be an experience curve in learning to curtail enthusiasm.

Spell slots would be used prior to combat, and thus if the temp HP end up not being needed, the slots could be wasted in essence, when they might have been used for something more important later on, possibly during a fight.

D&D having a bunch of cleric healing minor things depends entirely on how common you want them... In my games, a healer doesn't go around using spells all the time because you never know when they might really be needed.

Capping the temp HP (as per normal rules) would keep this to a minor buff, and I can't see many casters upcasting spells when, again, more powerful slots might be vital for other uses later on.

So, while I think this idea has some merits, I think it has a lot of potential pitfalls, especially at higher levels when a small buff of THP is not as useful.

I am still more in your idea here:

D&D 5E - Half HP, Full heal variant

I'm thinking about a variant where PCs have half their normal HP, but after a nominal time at the end of the fight (say 1 minute) the PCs are back at their max HP. The intent is to have each fight that can be risky/potentially deadly rather than an attrition model which I think is difficult in...

www.enworld.org

About reducing the HP pool, but allow it to auto-replenish after each encounter. It makes individual encounters more dangerous.

 

[CubicsRube]

Thanks all for your comments.

I like to ponder these "what-ifs" from time to time.