So, one of my players and I don't quite see eye-to-eye when it comes to Lay on Hands to heal another party member.
He feels that, through the wording in PHB "As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool" that the divine energy would cut off if it got to the PC's max HP.
I, however, feel that the more important part of the quote is 'up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool'. I feel that this means a level 3 Paladin could expend all 15 LOH HP (if they chose to do so) but anything over the HP needed by the heal-ee would be wasted.
We used an analogy of a petrol pump. His way is a modern petrol pump - it cuts off when it knows there's no more healing to be done. My way is an old fashioned pump where the petrol flows for as long as there's someone with their finger on the pump trigger. Anything pumped out that the petrol tank can't take - it's just wasted on the floor.
I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this?
There is no RAW on this because it's assumed that the player being healed by the paladin will tell the paladin how many hit points they need. As such, you don't have to worry about 'wasted' healing for lay on hands, the paladin can just heal as much as is needed.
There is no RAW on this because it's assumed that the player being healed by the paladin will tell the paladin how many hit points they need. As such, you don't have to worry about 'wasted' healing for lay on hands, the paladin can just heal as much as is needed.
There is no RAW on this because it's assumed that the player being healed by the paladin will tell the paladin how many hit points they need. As such, you don't have to worry about 'wasted' healing for lay on hands, the paladin can just heal as much as is needed.
Wouldn't that count as metagaming though?
It would be as much an abstraction of the paladins ability to intuit how much to heal as HP is an abstraction of luck, endurance, health etc.
Not all metagaming is bad, some of it is essential to the conceit of the game.
And as IamSposta said, the paladin can just heal 1 hit point at a time until they can magically tell that their ally is 'full' because attempting to use an ability with invalid targets causes the ability to fail
There is no RAW on this because it's assumed that the player being healed by the paladin will tell the paladin how many hit points they need. As such, you don't have to worry about 'wasted' healing for lay on hands, the paladin can just heal as much as is needed.
Wouldn't that count as metagaming though?
It would be as much an abstraction of the paladins ability to intuit how much to heal as HP is an abstraction of luck, endurance, health etc.
Not all metagaming is bad, some of it is essential to the conceit of the game.
And as IamSposta said, the paladin can just heal 1 hit point at a time until they can magically tell that their ally is 'full' because attempting to use an ability with invalid targets causes the ability to fail
It’s up to the Paladin how much they choose to heal. They could only ever do 1 HP at a time of they chose to.
The only problem with this is in combat, as each application of Lay on Hands costs one action and therefore probably one turn/round. It's fine for out of combat, though.
Poring a Healing Potion into someone also costs an Action. 99% of the time healing is used to pick someone up from unconsciousness. In 5e, that only takes 1 HP. If you give them 10 HP, the next hit will drop them just as quickly again, so anything more than 1 HP at a time is generally considered “wasted” by most players anyway.
There is no RAW on this because it's assumed that the player being healed by the paladin will tell the paladin how many hit points they need. As such, you don't have to worry about 'wasted' healing for lay on hands, the paladin can just heal as much as is needed.
Wouldn't that count as metagaming though?
It would be as much an abstraction of the paladins ability to intuit how much to heal as HP is an abstraction of luck, endurance, health etc.
Not all metagaming is bad, some of it is essential to the conceit of the game.
And as IamSposta said, the paladin can just heal 1 hit point at a time until they can magically tell that their ally is 'full' because attempting to use an ability with invalid targets causes the ability to fail
I'll admit, I hadn't considered it in that way...
How would that constitute an invalid target? The only invalid targets for LoH are Undead and Constructs. There are no restrictions on the target needing to be at less than 100% of HP.
I personally do think the ability shouldn't drain more of your resources than needed, but it's going to depend on your DM's view of what constitutes "meta-gaming". I think an appropriate resolution for any game would be for the Paladin to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check to know how much healing to provide.
For more casual games there's always the "On a scale from 0 to (max HP), how do you feel?"; "About an X" :p
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
There is no RAW on this because it's assumed that the player being healed by the paladin will tell the paladin how many hit points they need. As such, you don't have to worry about 'wasted' healing for lay on hands, the paladin can just heal as much as is needed.
Wouldn't that count as metagaming though?
It would be as much an abstraction of the paladins ability to intuit how much to heal as HP is an abstraction of luck, endurance, health etc.
Not all metagaming is bad, some of it is essential to the conceit of the game.
And as IamSposta said, the paladin can just heal 1 hit point at a time until they can magically tell that their ally is 'full' because attempting to use an ability with invalid targets causes the ability to fail
I'll admit, I hadn't considered it in that way...
How would that constitute an invalid target? The only invalid targets for LoH are Undead and Constructs. There are no restrictions on the target needing to be at less than 100% of HP.
Because:
Lay on Hands
Your blessed touch can heal wounds. You have a pool of healing power that replenishes when you take a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit points equal to your paladin level × 5.
As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool.
Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one.
This feature has no effect on undead and constructs.
If the target is already at full HP, then there are no more HP to “restore.”
A sick person can come up to you and you can cure their diseases and neutralize poisons afflicting them. The ability doesn't say you need to diagnose the individual, the DM just tells you the cost and you pay it from your HP pool for 5 HP each. I don't see why having a solid idea how much to heal someone would be what breaks the suspension of disbelief for you, lol.
If you wanted to do the “old fashioned petrol route” I’d recommend a free action medicine (or possibly religion due to the nature of the healing) check to determine the “max” needed. That’s homebrew but it seems fair to me
but in reality if you are that close to full health to use this ability to get you to full you might not ask for healing anyway. Usually I only see healing done on unconscious (or nearly so) creatures
New petrol pump but I personally interpret it as activating a conduit between the life force of the target and the healing essence available to the paladin. The paladin can cut off the conduit at any time and can sense when it's too much.
Essentially whenever someone heals anyone, they establish a link and through that link they have full view of the target "life force" (numerically represented by HP).
It’s up to the Paladin how much they choose to heal. They could only ever do 1 HP at a time of they chose to.
The only problem with this is in combat, as each application of Lay on Hands costs one action and therefore probably one turn/round. It's fine for out of combat, though.
Poring a Healing Potion into someone also costs an Action. 99% of the time healing is used to pick someone up from unconsciousness. In 5e, that only takes 1 HP. If you give them 10 HP, the next hit will drop them just as quickly again, so anything more than 1 HP at a time is generally considered “wasted” by most players anyway.
That's more like 80% in combat and much less overall.
This is how it "should" work (or at least does in most games).
PC1 loses a bunch of HP. PC2 (paladin) says "I'm going to use Lay on Hands and restore X HP to PC1". If X is equal to or less than the amount PC1 has lost, they regain that many HP. If X is more than that amount, anything above it is wasted. It's not any different from using Lay on Hands to try to cure a condition that LoH doesn't work for, using a second level spell when a first level spell would've been enough or firing an arrow at something that is immune to piercing damage. The resource is spent and the effect are applied. Any kind of metagaming is between the players and their DM.
This is ridiculous! Every game I've every played has used the new petrol pump. Paladin may be overpowered, but you can't just assume a weird RAW that is neither RAI nor RAF. This is obviously a RAI of the new petrol pump. You spend X HP from your pool, the target heals that much. Any HP the target can't use is put back in your pool. If you use a different pump, you've turned the paladin from a (overpowered)holy warrior into a overpowered fighter with a little spellcasting.
This is ridiculous! Every game I've every played has used the new petrol pump. Paladin may be overpowered, but you can't just assume a weird RAW that is neither RAI nor RAF. This is obviously a RAI of the new petrol pump. You spend X HP from your pool, the target heals that much. Any HP the target can't use is put back in your pool. If you use a different pump, you've turned the paladin from a (overpowered)holy warrior into a overpowered fighter with a little spellcasting.
Not really. Also, no-one is assuming anything so no need to get upset. But you do realize that there is more to the Paladin than just Lay on Hands, right?
Also, there is nothing that forces you to spend a certain number of HP when using Lay on Hands. Just keep track of your party members HP if you feel that you need to. Especially since there are literally no rules for putting back HP in your pool. How would that even work? Do you also think that if someone uses a second level spell slot to cast Cure Wounds when a first level spell slot would suffice to fully heal someone, they should get some kind of "return"? It's up to the player to decide how to spend their resources according to the rules. And, just as with the examples I gave you (and most other resources in the game), you can overspend. That is part of the game.
New petrol pump all the way. You cannot waste healing over unrestored HP. Each restored HP removes 1 from your pool of healing power.
Can't is a strong term (what if the Paladin wants to waste healing?), and Davyd answered correctly up in comment 2. All of the following are DM fiat, because the RAW is utterly silent; I will give at least 2 answers to each question, to emphasize that it's up to your DM and the RAW doesn't clarify:
What happens when a Paladin targets someone who has >= 1 disease and >= 1 poison with the curative version of LOH, using insufficient points to cure everything?
Possible answer 1: the DM decides (by any metric they like, which can include rolling dice) which to cure.
Possible answer 2: the DM tells the PC to prioritize poisons over diseases or diseases over poisons, and the LOH attempts to cure in that order, falling back to answer 1 to choose among poisons or among diseases.
Possible answer 3: the DM allows the PC to target specific diseases or poisons they think the target has - if they are right, those are cured first, and if they are wrong, default to 2 or 1.
What happens when a Paladin targets someone with the curative version with too many points (for example, 5 points, and the target has no poisons and no diseases)? This is directly related to OP's question.
Possible answer 1: The Paladin's points are refunded, informing the Paladin the target has no poisons and no diseases.
Possible answer 2: The points are spent to no effect, like casting a spell on an invalid target.
What happens when a Paladin tries to heal or cure an object with Lay on Hands?
Possible answer 1: the ability fails to do anything - the PC keeps the points and now knows the target was a creature (since they must know the points aren't spent).
Possible answer 2: the points are spent and nothing happens, just like if it was a spell.
What happens when a Paladin tries to overheal a creature (which is OP's question)?
The points are spent and nothing happens, like if it was a spell.
The points are not spent and the Paladin knows the target is at full health.
Of course, mixing these can change consequences - if LOH fails on both objects and full-health creatures, when the points fail to spend the Paladin only knows the target must fall into one of the two categories (same if you rule equivalently on curing). Regardless, the PHB RAW doesn't clarify, and Xanathar's doesn't either, since it isn't a spell (it isn't even magical, and works in an AMF).
A Paladin use a pool of healing power points to restore HP, cure diseases or neutralize poison. A target without HP to restore, disease to cure or poison to neutralise shouldn't see any healing power points being expended.
Lay on Hands target creatures, objects are not eligible target to draw power from the pool.
Hey all.
So, one of my players and I don't quite see eye-to-eye when it comes to Lay on Hands to heal another party member.
He feels that, through the wording in PHB "As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool" that the divine energy would cut off if it got to the PC's max HP.
I, however, feel that the more important part of the quote is 'up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool'. I feel that this means a level 3 Paladin could expend all 15 LOH HP (if they chose to do so) but anything over the HP needed by the heal-ee would be wasted.
We used an analogy of a petrol pump. His way is a modern petrol pump - it cuts off when it knows there's no more healing to be done. My way is an old fashioned pump where the petrol flows for as long as there's someone with their finger on the pump trigger. Anything pumped out that the petrol tank can't take - it's just wasted on the floor.
I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this?
There is no RAW on this because it's assumed that the player being healed by the paladin will tell the paladin how many hit points they need. As such, you don't have to worry about 'wasted' healing for lay on hands, the paladin can just heal as much as is needed.
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Wouldn't that count as metagaming though?
It’s up to the Paladin how much they choose to heal. They could only ever do 1 HP at a time of they chose to.
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It would be as much an abstraction of the paladins ability to intuit how much to heal as HP is an abstraction of luck, endurance, health etc.
Not all metagaming is bad, some of it is essential to the conceit of the game.
And as IamSposta said, the paladin can just heal 1 hit point at a time until they can magically tell that their ally is 'full' because attempting to use an ability with invalid targets causes the ability to fail
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I'll admit, I hadn't considered it in that way...
Poring a Healing Potion into someone also costs an Action. 99% of the time healing is used to pick someone up from unconsciousness. In 5e, that only takes 1 HP. If you give them 10 HP, the next hit will drop them just as quickly again, so anything more than 1 HP at a time is generally considered “wasted” by most players anyway.
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How would that constitute an invalid target? The only invalid targets for LoH are Undead and Constructs. There are no restrictions on the target needing to be at less than 100% of HP.
I personally do think the ability shouldn't drain more of your resources than needed, but it's going to depend on your DM's view of what constitutes "meta-gaming". I think an appropriate resolution for any game would be for the Paladin to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check to know how much healing to provide.
For more casual games there's always the "On a scale from 0 to (max HP), how do you feel?"; "About an X" :p
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Because:
If the target is already at full HP, then there are no more HP to “restore.”
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A sick person can come up to you and you can cure their diseases and neutralize poisons afflicting them. The ability doesn't say you need to diagnose the individual, the DM just tells you the cost and you pay it from your HP pool for 5 HP each. I don't see why having a solid idea how much to heal someone would be what breaks the suspension of disbelief for you, lol.
If you wanted to do the “old fashioned petrol route” I’d recommend a free action medicine (or possibly religion due to the nature of the healing) check to determine the “max” needed. That’s homebrew but it seems fair to me
but in reality if you are that close to full health to use this ability to get you to full you might not ask for healing anyway. Usually I only see healing done on unconscious (or nearly so) creatures
New petrol pump but I personally interpret it as activating a conduit between the life force of the target and the healing essence available to the paladin. The paladin can cut off the conduit at any time and can sense when it's too much.
Essentially whenever someone heals anyone, they establish a link and through that link they have full view of the target "life force" (numerically represented by HP).
this is clearly you spending any amount of HP in your pool to have the target heal that much HP.
That's more like 80% in combat and much less overall.
This is how it "should" work (or at least does in most games).
PC1 loses a bunch of HP. PC2 (paladin) says "I'm going to use Lay on Hands and restore X HP to PC1". If X is equal to or less than the amount PC1 has lost, they regain that many HP. If X is more than that amount, anything above it is wasted. It's not any different from using Lay on Hands to try to cure a condition that LoH doesn't work for, using a second level spell when a first level spell would've been enough or firing an arrow at something that is immune to piercing damage. The resource is spent and the effect are applied. Any kind of metagaming is between the players and their DM.
This is ridiculous! Every game I've every played has used the new petrol pump. Paladin may be overpowered, but you can't just assume a weird RAW that is neither RAI nor RAF. This is obviously a RAI of the new petrol pump. You spend X HP from your pool, the target heals that much. Any HP the target can't use is put back in your pool. If you use a different pump, you've turned the paladin from a (overpowered)holy warrior into a overpowered fighter with a little spellcasting.
Not really. Also, no-one is assuming anything so no need to get upset. But you do realize that there is more to the Paladin than just Lay on Hands, right?
Also, there is nothing that forces you to spend a certain number of HP when using Lay on Hands. Just keep track of your party members HP if you feel that you need to. Especially since there are literally no rules for putting back HP in your pool. How would that even work? Do you also think that if someone uses a second level spell slot to cast Cure Wounds when a first level spell slot would suffice to fully heal someone, they should get some kind of "return"? It's up to the player to decide how to spend their resources according to the rules. And, just as with the examples I gave you (and most other resources in the game), you can overspend. That is part of the game.
New petrol pump all the way. You cannot waste healing over unrestored HP. Each restored HP removes 1 from your pool of healing power.
Can't is a strong term (what if the Paladin wants to waste healing?), and Davyd answered correctly up in comment 2. All of the following are DM fiat, because the RAW is utterly silent; I will give at least 2 answers to each question, to emphasize that it's up to your DM and the RAW doesn't clarify:
Of course, mixing these can change consequences - if LOH fails on both objects and full-health creatures, when the points fail to spend the Paladin only knows the target must fall into one of the two categories (same if you rule equivalently on curing). Regardless, the PHB RAW doesn't clarify, and Xanathar's doesn't either, since it isn't a spell (it isn't even magical, and works in an AMF).
A Paladin use a pool of healing power points to restore HP, cure diseases or neutralize poison. A target without HP to restore, disease to cure or poison to neutralise shouldn't see any healing power points being expended.
Lay on Hands target creatures, objects are not eligible target to draw power from the pool.