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

[CubicsRube]

I do play healbots.

That's right. And I'm in campaigns who cleric who play them as well. Everyone's different!

 

[CubicsRube]

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

Your experience is valid, but you've missed two points about this post.
1) your experience is not necessarily everyone else's, and
2) this thread is not about making a fix to d&d, necessary or otherwise.

 

[CubicsRube]

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.

Well if you do, let me know how it goes! I haven't run 5e game for a long time, but I have a tonne of ideas I'd like to test out sitting in the back of my brain.

 

[CubicsRube]

It is an interesting idea.

...snip...

So, while I think this idea has some merits, I think it has a lot of potential pitfalls,

Yeah one of the difficulties of changing anything in d&d is how intertwined many little sub rules are. Temp HP is definitely on of them.

Why most of these things stay as a thought pastime for me is that once you tap into something so interlinked, you may as well write the system up from scratch.

Still I enjoy pondering possibilities.

 

[CubicsRube]

This could be pretty cool. It would largely solve the yoyo healing thing everyone goes on about, might even make some fights more deadly because of it since it won't be easy to get people back up during the fight.

I think there'd be a few ways to do that, most simple of all is house rule that if someone drops to 0 they don't regain consciousness for 10 minutes or so.

In my experience however I've never really experienced the yoyo healing much, so it doesn't much concern me.

 

[CubicsRube]

Yeah IMC magic only restores HP it doesnt mend wounds - so anyone who doesnt also get some First Aid skill will contiunue to bleed out or be infected or be dead from drowning.

Nice i like it.

One of the things I liked about dungeonworld was the good old mundane healers kit that could expend a use to gain healing. The caveat was it took a minute to administer.

I think combining some level of hp healing and wound healing like you've mentioned is my level of happy.

 

[CubicsRube]

I think the OP sees those as benefits, not problems.

Correct.

 

[CubicsRube]

So you wind up with a game, with everyone constantly dying all the time?

Cant see how that's a benefit.

No, you require PC'S to use healer's kits.

The difference is that it can be any player, it doesn't have to be the cleric.

 

[CubicsRube]

You can have a party with no magical healing at all and they won't be "dying all the time."

So... no.

^ This guy gets it.

 

[Flamestrike]

No, you require PC'S to use healer's kits.

And then what? Cast cure light wounds on them? They now have around 7 or 8 hit points with no mechanism of gaining more other than falling back to rest.

This doesnt stop the 5MWD; it mandates it.

 

[CubicsRube]

So I can see two ways to go about this:

1) Temp HP as a "buffer", that extends your hitpoints. Effectively an energy shield for all intensive purposes. The main question here is...how much buffer can various spells grant. Does CLW give 1d8 + wis temp hp.... can I cast two or three casts of the spell to get triple the hp?

In flavor context, in this model regular people would rarely utilize clerics, unless the job they were undertaking was particularly difficult or dangerous.

2) Temp HP as a "temporary stitch". Kind of like that fix a flat substance you put in a car tire to keep it going for a while, in other words a temporary "hold off" of the damage taken. This model might be better served with a new damage type (similar to subdual). Effectively a healing spell converts damage into "delayed damage". Delayed Damage doesn't effect a character until the magic wears off, and then the delayed damage becomes regular damage again....with any and all consequences.

This works more closely to traditional healing (aka you only apply the effect as the result of injury, not as a buff before the injury) while at the same time still allowing for regular injuries to require a good amount of time to heal.

In this model, people would go to the cleric for a "patch". Mr Farmer broke his leg, and the cleric is keeping the leg workable so the farmer can still work...but the leg will still require a longer time to heal. In this version, people would need to go to the cleric more regularly than the base model to maintain a similar benefit.

For number 1 it'd still follow the no temp hp can stack rule, so instead of casting cure wounds 3 times, you'd have to upcast it. This certain makes lower spell slots less appealing for the use of healing.

I kinda like the idea of it as flavour because I imagine a cleric before a medieval battle inspiring their troops with a blessing.

For number 2 definately. The town cleric can cast spells daily on farmer joe to keep him going, but he'll have to rest.

 

[CubicsRube]

And then what? Cast cure light wounds on them? They now have around 7 or 8 hit points with no mechanism of gaining more other than falling back to rest.

This doesnt stop the 5MWD; it mandates it.

Never said it did stop the 5MWD. Maybe you should reread my post?

 

[cbwjm]

I think there'd be a few ways to do that, most simple of all is house rule that if someone drops to 0 they don't regain consciousness for 10 minutes or so.

In my experience however I've never really experienced the yoyo healing much, so it doesn't much concern me.

I'm actually the same, it's the sort of thing I hear others talk about but it never seems to come up in my games.

 

[FireLance]

You can have a party with no magical healing at all and they won't be "dying all the time."

^ This guy gets it.

The argument cuts both ways. If a party without magical healing can survive a fight, you don't need to heal during a fight to survive it, either.

It is not clear to me why the OP considers magical healing to be immersion breaking, and I think that some of the issues that the OP raised could be fixed with a house rule that a character who receives magical healing while at 0 hp still remains unconscious for an hour.

 

[Flamestrike]

Never said it did stop the 5MWD. Maybe you should reread my post?

Why would you want to mandate the 5MWD though?

All that's gonna happen is you enourage nova strikes and the 5MWD.

Your players will routinely hit an encounter, then fall back to rest, meaning the game will fall apart elsewhere.

 

[dave2008]

So you wind up with a game, with everyone constantly dying all the time?

Cant see how that's a benefit.

Not in my experience. Heck my current group doesn't have a healer at all and made it to lvl 15 without anyone dying. So, IME, magical healing isn't really needed. It all depends on your playstyle.

 

[MoonSong]

That's right. And I'm in campaigns who cleric who play them as well. Everyone's different!

If you have a healbot player, why do you want so hard to force them to play something they don't enjoy? Playing healers in 5e is already too unrewarding, in-combat healing is all that is left. Why do you want to take that away?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Frankly, the game works fine by just removing all the healing spells in their entirety from the game too if you want really gritty.

I did that for my Curse of Strahd game. No magical healing spells worked in Barovia. The only "healing" came from spending hit dice during rests, the paladin's Lay on Hands (which I allowed for roleplay reasons) and the Healer feat. Doing that made things plenty gritty which is what I wanted for that campaign. It took a bit of time for the players to learn these new expectations... but that was part and parcel for learning how to deal with being in Barovia. Not much worked "normally" in ways they were used to.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If you have a healbot player, why do you want so hard to force them to play something they don't enjoy? Playing healers in 5e is already too unrewarding, in-combat healing is all that is left. Why do you want to take that away?

I would imagine the game that has the healbot player isn't the game he's pondering the rule for.

 

[MoonSong]

Frankly, the game works fine by just removing all the healing spells in their entirety from the game too if you want really gritty.

I did that for my Curse of Strahd game. No magical healing spells worked in Barovia. The only "healing" came from spending hit dice during rests, the paladin's Lay on Hands (which I allowed for roleplay reasons) and the Healer feat. Doing that made things plenty gritty which is what I wanted for that campaign. It took a bit of time for the players to learn these new expectations... but that was part and parcel for learning how to deal with being in Barovia. Not much worked "normally" in ways they were used to.

But cure spells is a key subclass feature of life clerics and divine souls... Did you ban them?