I think it's quite sad the rules make it impossible to play certain characters. Personally I love playing healers and supporters, but the healing spells are too weak to make this a viable concept in D&D. And I'm not even sure the "support" spells are much better. Seems like the only allowed casters are crowd control and evocation.
At least raining something between three and five fireballs on the only encounter in a given day ends the battle quickly.
I think it's quite sad the rules make it impossible to play certain characters. Personally I love playing healers and supporters, but the healing spells are too weak to make this a viable concept in D&D. And I'm not even sure the "support" spells are much better.
The problem with support spells isn't that they're bad, it's that almost all of them cost concentration so you're limited to one use per battle.
I’m not sure what the OP is saying the problem is. D&D isn’t a game where the “healer” classes don’t get anything else to do. Even clerics (the “default” healer class) have plenty of spells that deal damage, buff allies, and provide utility functions out of combat. So a “healer” shouldn’t be feeling inefficient unless they want to be pigeonholed into just healing
I’m also not sure what your balancing efforts would do to the overall game. If you are still spending hit dice, that’s still a limiting factor on overall healing between long rests (and probably removes or severely reduces the value of short rests to gameplay). Also, if you are trying to balance healing vs. damage amounts the game already accounts for that with the exact death save/healing relationship the OP mentions.
In most RPGs where healing output is balanced more equally to damage output (I’m mainly thinking video games here), there is no “intermediate” state between active and inactive party members, while the D&D death save feature is exactly that. In those games, you see a few patterns that are different than the D&D gameplay that balance that:
Enemy vs party Hitpoints are often wildly out of sync. In D&D, the strongest enemy a party member faces generally only has a few times more hitpoints as the party member, and it often balances out or close when party vs enemy total hitpoints are compared. In other games, enemy hitpoints can be many times greater than the party’s hitpoints. This means fights last longer with more hits between sides, and healing becomes more important to the party.
Other RPG’s mostly have no ‘death save’ feature, so healing prior to dropping to 0 (and healing efficiently) is a priority as it becomes useless the moment someone drops. In D&D, barring massive damage (which is rare) and special abilities (which are also rare), there is no way to kill a party member without first going through the death save mechanic.
Finally, enemies in D&D and in other games don’t often have access to healing abilities, meaning that healing is a boon to the party that 80-90% of the time the other side doesn’t have.
I would argue this whole complaint is a non-issue, except for the very rare sort that wants to play a “healing-only” character, and that any changes to fix perceived balance issues are either not taking into account the full nature of the balancing act of the game, or are not considering the long term effects that changing healing can make to a game structured in this manner.
Well, the issue is that (absent a DM playing it differently), enemies in 5E don't explicitly benefit from the ability to go unconscious and make death saving throws prior to dying. That section is phrased as "you" (i.e., player characters), not "a creature," and I've never known a DM to roll death saving throws for enemies. The inability for enemy teams to raise their unconscious allies before dying is one edge that players have, and an important part of keeping combats short and snappy instead of dragging on.
But, nothing explicitly says that a DM can't track unconsciousness for enemies, and they might well choose to do so in a combat where it's in question due to the enemy team having a healer.
Finally, enemies in D&D and in other games don’t often have access to healing abilities, meaning that healing is a boon to the party that 80-90% of the time the other side doesn’t have.
I just want to speak to this, since it was brought up earlier too. It really depends on the campaign. Not every campaign has the party going up against mindless beasts. If up against sentient humanoids, why exactly doesn't said opposition have any healers? Enemies that care if they live or die are more interesting than those who just fight to the death.
That’s the 10-20% of the cases I mentioned (and there are a lot of interesting encounters with other sentient creatures who might not have access to healing without homebrew btw), but even if it was 80-90%, 1) the party has a healer 100% of the time if they want, and 2) they are limited by the same healing mechanics and the fact that unless you play your enemies with death saves, enemy humanoids don’t have that mechanic and drop dead at 0 hitpoints
For me the system works as it is, but it just feels wrong. What would be perfect is a system that doesn't reward only pulling up allies from 0hp (meaning healing is a meaningful choice when they are still fighting), but still minimises the downtime of the downed.
To that end we tried implementing a system that introduced scaling negatives for hitpoint loss (currently one exhaustion point at each 25%hp threshold, removed when healed) and maxed healing dice. However, this unbalances the healing spells both with respect to each other, and compared to short rest healing.
I understand that for most the current system is fine, but do you have any suggestions for the holy grail system that rewards combat healing without unbalancing existing features?
Well, the issue is that (absent a DM playing it differently), enemies in 5E don't explicitly benefit from the ability to go unconscious and make death saving throws prior to dying. That section is phrased as "you" (i.e., player characters), not "a creature," and I've never known a DM to roll death saving throws for enemies. The inability for enemy teams to raise their unconscious allies before dying is one edge that players have, and an important part of keeping combats short and snappy instead of dragging on.
But, nothing explicitly says that a DM can't track unconsciousness for enemies, and they might well choose to do so in a combat where it's in question due to the enemy team having a healer.
The gist of this is correct, but after reading it (when this thread was bumped back to near the front of the R&M page), I was sure I had read PHB text on this topic. I found it; A DM absolutely can use death saves for monsters, but as you say, even this text says that is uncommon.
To give someone who wants to play a healer an actual role, clearly. I agree that is easier said than done, but nevertheless it is an understandable goal.
The thing is that healing is not only about increasing hit points totals. I think you can already play a fairly good healer with bringing people back from unconscioussness and keeping them alive, but also with curing all the nasty conditions that can hit you in the game. Buffing is an additional role that can be contributed to, with things like aid. In fact, all the previous hallmarks of a D&D healer are there, it's just that the "healing hit points during combat" part is not efficient. But out of combat, healing spirit (which is for me not right to be restricted the way it is) is still fairly efficient.
Moreover, in the previous editions, almost no one wanted to play a healer anyway... :p
It has always been a problematic role. However, when it does work, there are actually people who like the role. Also though, even healing people who go down there is still the matter at low levels of saving your spells and casting little to not at all in combat, 'just in case.' That is a lot less fun than a more active role.
Indeed, although there again 5e is much better than previous editions thanks to cantrips. There are not many of these which are really "healing" but still it gives you something to do even if you keep your spells for emergencies.
Very true. And definitely an improvement in 5e.
The Devs have clearly said that no cantrip should ever be allowed to actually heal, as healing is supposed to be a finite resource to be managed over time (via spell slots, potions, magic items, etc) and making it infinite removes all benefits of resting and would allow unlimited healing outside of combat. That said, cantrips are a great way for a healer to still participate and even "heal" (via spare the dying) without using all of their spell slots in a damage vs healing decision in combat.
I don't know any player that would want to fully restrict themselves to a "nothing but healing" role, and there are plenty of options for those who like to be the "healer" amongst the classes (spells, lay on hands, etc) that would give a lot of flexibility to be other things, to the point that someone who actually did want to be a "nothing but healing" PC would have to deliberately ignore the vast majority of their class abilities to do so.
Indeed, although there again 5e is much better than previous editions thanks to cantrips. There are not many of these which are really "healing" but still it gives you something to do even if you keep your spells for emergencies.
Very true. And definitely an improvement in 5e.
The Devs have clearly said that no cantrip should ever be allowed to actually heal, as healing is supposed to be a finite resource to be managed over time (via spell slots, potions, magic items, etc) and making it infinite removes all benefits of resting and would allow unlimited healing outside of combat. That said, cantrips are a great way for a healer to still participate and even "heal" (via spare the dying) without using all of their spell slots in a damage vs healing decision in combat.
Yes, this is why I was referring as "healing" with quotation marks, and I was indeed thinking about spare the dying.
After that, obviously having a cantrip that actually heals would indeed make unlimited healing, but how about a cantrip that provides temporary hit points ? This dont cumulate, and if you put a limited duration on them like one minute, I don't think that it would be overpowered. Still not really healing, but closer.
I don't know any player that would want to fully restrict themselves to a "nothing but healing" role, and there are plenty of options for those who like to be the "healer" amongst the classes (spells, lay on hands, etc) that would give a lot of flexibility to be other things, to the point that someone who actually did want to be a "nothing but healing" PC would have to deliberately ignore the vast majority of their class abilities to do so.
The problem I think comes from people coming from MMORPG where healing is really different... In this sphere, really good healers are valued, but unfortunately they have no direct counterpart in D&D.
false life is already a 1st level spell, and the temp HP added is pretty minimal at that level (1d4+4). I'm not sure how to scale that down to a cantrip form (maybe just the 1d4 with an additional d4 as you pass the level thresholds?), but not sure how that's worth it to cast over and over in combat, same as healing magic, really.
false life is already a 1st level spell, and the temp HP added is pretty minimal at that level (1d4+4). I'm not sure how to scale that down to a cantrip form (maybe just the 1d4 with an additional d4 as you pass the level thresholds?), but not sure how that's worth it to cast over and over in combat, same as healing magic, really.
Coincidentally, I just wrote a Cantrip version as a prototype to start playtesting. I‘m sure someone will get the reference:
Quen Sign
LEVEL
Cantrip
CASTING TIME
1 Bonus Action
RANGE/AREA
Self
COMPONENTS
S
DURATION
Concentration 1 Minute
SCHOOL
Abjuration
ATTACK/SAVE
None
DAMAGE/EFFECT
Warding
The Quen sign is a simple magical sign used by Viethmatr that forms a protective field around you that absorbs a limited amount of damage.
You gain 1d4 + 1 temporary hit points for the duration.
The number of temporary hit points increases by 1 when you reach 5th level (1d4+2), 11th level (1d4+3), and 17th level (1d4+4).
Going back to a point I mentioned earlier: my big issues are that playing whack-a-mole because of bonus action healing word isn't a game style I like (and solving that problem by using finishing blows on downed targets also isn't appealing), and spending a standard action on cure wounds is very unappealing.
Ponder:
Healing on targets that are not stabilized is reduced effect (say, auto stabilize, but reduce amount healed by X).
Cure Wounds becomes a bonus action spell; thus, the tradeoff is just "touch, d8" vs "60' range, d4"
...This is why, at this stage, I wonder why yuo want more combat healing, more effective ?
The aim is for healing to ba a valid choice while in combat, not just when somebody is down. It can be fun to heal but is currently one of the least useful things to do.
I agree completely that limiting downtime are of paramont importance. Pacing is important, but less so in my opinion - if you don't enjoy the fights then you could have fewer, if they are fun for a long time then that is fine as well (of course a healing slog should be avoided, but this comes into the resources game mentioned later). It is my opinion that fights are too short as designed, but I agree with their reasons for doing this.
As for resource management, the basic full health on a long rest devalues hit points and makes all but the best out of combat healing less valued (off topic, I think Healing Spirit should apply for the full time but only once per round). Spending spell slots for hit points has to be reasonably efficient or the tradeoff won't be worth it from a resources standpoint. Get it too efficient though, and healing is used all the time and simply extends combat. Getting the balance right is what I'm looking for.
I have read other suggestions and forums which try to limit one problem by instead devaluing the pop up healing, but that makes healing in general a bit less appealing and doesn't adress the main problem that healing is usually inefficient.
Healing should be inefficient. If I get disemboweled,, that takes a few seconds, and multiple hour surgeries in real life to fix (assuming it can be at all). Magic allows that fix in a few more seconds than it took to do the harm in the first place, and you are saying that is too slow or inefficient?
also IRL, combat medics don’t go around patching grazed arms, minor wounds, or bruises mid-combat...they perform battlefield triage and stabilization. That’s exactly what healers in D&D combat do by focusing on those who’ve gone down. D&D is not real life, but I’m actually happy that they mimicked battlefield behavior in this way.
The difference for me I guess is my villains have absolutely no problem kickin’ a PC while their down to drop two instant Death Saving Throw fails on them. 🤷♂️
The difference for me I guess is my villains have absolutely no problem kickin’ a PC while their down to drop two instant Death Saving Throw fails on them. 🤷♂️
A DM can always arbitrarily or casually kill off PC's. Sure in theory it creates tension but if it is happening regularly, you either need to replace players constantly, or you have replacement characters creating exactly the kind of tedium you are trying to avoid.....
I didn’t say I kill PCs casually. I kill no one.
What I said was that the Players are aware that the villains are willing to kill them if they drop. (Not me, I didn’t do it, the Archlich’s minions or whoever.) That motivates them to heal before they drop instead of waiting to yo-yo.
The difference for me I guess is my villains have absolutely no problem kickin’ a PC while their down to drop two instant Death Saving Throw fails on them. 🤷♂️
That makes for worse gameplay than simply removing combat healing completely.
While everyone makes good points I would like to address the one made by Lyxen.
I absolutely agree with him about the reasons heals can't be too powerful, I just disagree about the power level that tips the scales and the level of power between spell effects that cause damage and those that heal. I play a Grave Cleric and I get some special perks, I can negate crits, I can cast Ray of Enfeeblement which will guarantee half damage on STR based attacks for a round. I have so many useful non-healing spells that increase party survivability and offensive capabilities, as well as incredible damage and debuffing against the enemies. Healing is almost the last resort as it is so inefficient, that is unacceptable to me.
You can make any argument you want but, it's all semantics. Having a powerful Healer in the group would turn the tides no more that having an AoE damage dealer that can wipe out half of all enemies by themselves. Different method, same effect, you win.
Yet you don't even mention that grave clerics WANT to wait to the last moment to heal. Why? because if they PC being healed as 0 HP, they get max HP back on a heal. Grave Clerics don't want to waster their heals early because they are so poor before hand. - that's a big argument for why healing should be better.
I still don't think healing needs to be improved in anyway. Look again to the point. Everyone wants those big heals, until combat takes 12 hours due to both sides being able to negate and over heal the damage taken. Frankly (as seen in prior editions) that was not fun.
yep thats the whole point of grave domain clerics. it works for them,
but i wished they made the other domains shine. i think healing could be improved.
my idea is to let a healer double a healing spell, spend the appropriate spell slots...so cast cure wounds twice, at the same time, same cost as 2 cure wounds spell but less actions.
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I think it's quite sad the rules make it impossible to play certain characters. Personally I love playing healers and supporters, but the healing spells are too weak to make this a viable concept in D&D. And I'm not even sure the "support" spells are much better. Seems like the only allowed casters are crowd control and evocation.
At least raining something between three and five fireballs on the only encounter in a given day ends the battle quickly.
The problem with support spells isn't that they're bad, it's that almost all of them cost concentration so you're limited to one use per battle.
That is just wrong thinking. Every character is viable. Play what feels good.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I’m not sure what the OP is saying the problem is. D&D isn’t a game where the “healer” classes don’t get anything else to do. Even clerics (the “default” healer class) have plenty of spells that deal damage, buff allies, and provide utility functions out of combat. So a “healer” shouldn’t be feeling inefficient unless they want to be pigeonholed into just healing
I’m also not sure what your balancing efforts would do to the overall game. If you are still spending hit dice, that’s still a limiting factor on overall healing between long rests (and probably removes or severely reduces the value of short rests to gameplay). Also, if you are trying to balance healing vs. damage amounts the game already accounts for that with the exact death save/healing relationship the OP mentions.
In most RPGs where healing output is balanced more equally to damage output (I’m mainly thinking video games here), there is no “intermediate” state between active and inactive party members, while the D&D death save feature is exactly that. In those games, you see a few patterns that are different than the D&D gameplay that balance that:
Finally, enemies in D&D and in other games don’t often have access to healing abilities, meaning that healing is a boon to the party that 80-90% of the time the other side doesn’t have.
I would argue this whole complaint is a non-issue, except for the very rare sort that wants to play a “healing-only” character, and that any changes to fix perceived balance issues are either not taking into account the full nature of the balancing act of the game, or are not considering the long term effects that changing healing can make to a game structured in this manner.
Well, the issue is that (absent a DM playing it differently), enemies in 5E don't explicitly benefit from the ability to go unconscious and make death saving throws prior to dying. That section is phrased as "you" (i.e., player characters), not "a creature," and I've never known a DM to roll death saving throws for enemies. The inability for enemy teams to raise their unconscious allies before dying is one edge that players have, and an important part of keeping combats short and snappy instead of dragging on.
But, nothing explicitly says that a DM can't track unconsciousness for enemies, and they might well choose to do so in a combat where it's in question due to the enemy team having a healer.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
That’s the 10-20% of the cases I mentioned (and there are a lot of interesting encounters with other sentient creatures who might not have access to healing without homebrew btw), but even if it was 80-90%, 1) the party has a healer 100% of the time if they want, and 2) they are limited by the same healing mechanics and the fact that unless you play your enemies with death saves, enemy humanoids don’t have that mechanic and drop dead at 0 hitpoints
For me the system works as it is, but it just feels wrong. What would be perfect is a system that doesn't reward only pulling up allies from 0hp (meaning healing is a meaningful choice when they are still fighting), but still minimises the downtime of the downed.
To that end we tried implementing a system that introduced scaling negatives for hitpoint loss (currently one exhaustion point at each 25%hp threshold, removed when healed) and maxed healing dice. However, this unbalances the healing spells both with respect to each other, and compared to short rest healing.
I understand that for most the current system is fine, but do you have any suggestions for the holy grail system that rewards combat healing without unbalancing existing features?
The gist of this is correct, but after reading it (when this thread was bumped back to near the front of the R&M page), I was sure I had read PHB text on this topic. I found it; A DM absolutely can use death saves for monsters, but as you say, even this text says that is uncommon.
The Devs have clearly said that no cantrip should ever be allowed to actually heal, as healing is supposed to be a finite resource to be managed over time (via spell slots, potions, magic items, etc) and making it infinite removes all benefits of resting and would allow unlimited healing outside of combat. That said, cantrips are a great way for a healer to still participate and even "heal" (via spare the dying) without using all of their spell slots in a damage vs healing decision in combat.
I don't know any player that would want to fully restrict themselves to a "nothing but healing" role, and there are plenty of options for those who like to be the "healer" amongst the classes (spells, lay on hands, etc) that would give a lot of flexibility to be other things, to the point that someone who actually did want to be a "nothing but healing" PC would have to deliberately ignore the vast majority of their class abilities to do so.
false life is already a 1st level spell, and the temp HP added is pretty minimal at that level (1d4+4). I'm not sure how to scale that down to a cantrip form (maybe just the 1d4 with an additional d4 as you pass the level thresholds?), but not sure how that's worth it to cast over and over in combat, same as healing magic, really.
Coincidentally, I just wrote a Cantrip version as a prototype to start playtesting. I‘m sure someone will get the reference:
Quen Sign
The Quen sign is a simple magical sign used by Viethmatr that forms a protective field around you that absorbs a limited amount of damage.
You gain 1d4 + 1 temporary hit points for the duration.
The number of temporary hit points increases by 1 when you reach 5th level (1d4+2), 11th level (1d4+3), and 17th level (1d4+4).
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Going back to a point I mentioned earlier: my big issues are that playing whack-a-mole because of bonus action healing word isn't a game style I like (and solving that problem by using finishing blows on downed targets also isn't appealing), and spending a standard action on cure wounds is very unappealing.
Ponder:
The aim is for healing to ba a valid choice while in combat, not just when somebody is down. It can be fun to heal but is currently one of the least useful things to do.
I agree completely that limiting downtime are of paramont importance. Pacing is important, but less so in my opinion - if you don't enjoy the fights then you could have fewer, if they are fun for a long time then that is fine as well (of course a healing slog should be avoided, but this comes into the resources game mentioned later). It is my opinion that fights are too short as designed, but I agree with their reasons for doing this.
As for resource management, the basic full health on a long rest devalues hit points and makes all but the best out of combat healing less valued (off topic, I think Healing Spirit should apply for the full time but only once per round). Spending spell slots for hit points has to be reasonably efficient or the tradeoff won't be worth it from a resources standpoint. Get it too efficient though, and healing is used all the time and simply extends combat. Getting the balance right is what I'm looking for.
I have read other suggestions and forums which try to limit one problem by instead devaluing the pop up healing, but that makes healing in general a bit less appealing and doesn't adress the main problem that healing is usually inefficient.
Healing should be inefficient. If I get disemboweled,, that takes a few seconds, and multiple hour surgeries in real life to fix (assuming it can be at all). Magic allows that fix in a few more seconds than it took to do the harm in the first place, and you are saying that is too slow or inefficient?
also IRL, combat medics don’t go around patching grazed arms, minor wounds, or bruises mid-combat...they perform battlefield triage and stabilization. That’s exactly what healers in D&D combat do by focusing on those who’ve gone down. D&D is not real life, but I’m actually happy that they mimicked battlefield behavior in this way.
If healing were as efficient as damage then combat would have very little tension and just drag on forever.
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Yes, that's what healing word spam does.
The difference for me I guess is my villains have absolutely no problem kickin’ a PC while their down to drop two instant Death Saving Throw fails on them. 🤷♂️
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I didn’t say I kill PCs casually. I kill no one.
What I said was that the Players are aware that the villains are willing to kill them if they drop. (Not me, I didn’t do it, the Archlich’s minions or whoever.) That motivates them to heal before they drop instead of waiting to yo-yo.
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That makes for worse gameplay than simply removing combat healing completely.
yep thats the whole point of grave domain clerics. it works for them,
but i wished they made the other domains shine. i think healing could be improved.
my idea is to let a healer double a healing spell, spend the appropriate spell slots...so cast cure wounds twice, at the same time, same cost as 2 cure wounds spell but less actions.