I am playing level 3 circle of the arctic druid in a campaign with an unusually large party, 7 people (me included), and we're going through a dungeon, and we keep on having people get on death throws , about 2 each fight. You guys got any ideas to reduce the amount of spell slots we use on cure wounds?
Heal players when they go down instead of sustained healing, focus more of your actions on dealing damage than sustaining your parties health or finding ways to disrupt the enemy.
Also I think the only time sustained healing is good is when you are healing the tank of the party if they have resistances to damage, and they are constantly being targeted.
I mean, this isn't much good once you're in the dungeon without one, but a Healer's Kit is a 10 use item that a player can use to automatically stabilize someone. Purely in terms of reducing the need for cure wounds to keep people from going all the way, it's helpful, but it's not going to actually restore HP. Honestly, if you guys are feeling too taxed, might want to just talk with your DM about it. Balancing is always tricky, and a large party tends to make it worse.
For group healing: It's been nerfed a bit but there is healing spirit (lev2). Aura of vitality (lev3) is better but you aren't lev5 yet. You could have everyone get a healing kit...to stabilize people without rolling medicine...10g each. Also, have people carry healing potions and they can save each other that way.
With a large party the DM has to put you up against either more powerful monsters or larger groups of monsters. Having lots of enemies will make combat very slow (it will be slow with 7 PCs anyway). If the DM uses more powerful monsters then they hit harder and are more likely to knock you unconcious. With a large party however you will have more spell slots available to the party and probably multiple healers so it should not be a problem as long as the monsters do not attack unconcious pcs.
The other thing that can increase the amount PCs are knocked out is encounters per day. The game is balanced around 6 to 8 encounters per day but very few campaigns have that on a regular basis. If the difficulty is ramped up so you are expected to need all your resources in 1 or 2 encounters some of those resources will be needed to get people back up.
If everyone in your group is scattering to take out whatever they feel like, then they will start to go down - as others have said, the game calls for more powerful monsters to balance this size party. You need t odiscuss, as a group, what you're going to do, in character. If someone is barging forwards and opening doors without discussion, call them out on it. Let the Rogue peek through the keyhole and tell you what there is to fight, make a game plan, and then stick to it.
If someone is almost down, they need to fall back out of the fight, rather than trusting that they will be popped up. How would you play if death saving throws weren't a thing, and your characters just died at 0hp? Play like that!
Heal players when they go down instead of sustained healing, focus more of your actions on dealing damage than sustaining your parties health or finding ways to disrupt the enemy.
Agreed, also (to OP) you can use healing word instead of cure wounds because it's a bonus action.
I have healing word prepared, but I haven't really been using it cause everyone in the party charges into battle as one massive crowd, so i can just cure wounds them all
I am also a DM and a player in a group of seven PCs. (Myself and the other DM alternate campaigns every few months).
As a player, resource management and tactics are key. Try not to get grouped up where the party can be subjected to AoE effects. Do what you can to funnel the enemy's damage into one or two "tanky" PCs that can take the damage and use defensive abilities to help mitigate some. Having a cleric stand back with Shield of Faith on a high AC tank can sometimes be more effective than several Cure Wounds spells. Bless the damage dealers and concentrate on finishing off the wounded enemies. Dead creatures (generally) don't deal damage to your party. We have a fairly new player so as experienced players we try to offer advice to him. Just because the player isn't fully familiar with their class, the character would be. Make sure your group is using all of its resources. It's not always about how many spell slots you have left.
As a DM, the combat encounters have to be amped up for a larger group. Those encounters are generally going to be tougher than say for a group of 4-5. Otherwise, you would steamroll everything and not have any challenges. It is a very fine line between a tough encounter and one that can cause a TPK. Granted not every encounter should be deadly to a large adventuring group. As the DM, I have to be familiar with the PCs abilities (all of them) to be able to try to balance the encounters. Make them feel challenged without making a fight seem hopeless. If you feel this is not the case with your DM, talk to them and see what can be done to keep the game fun for everyone involved.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I am playing level 3 circle of the arctic druid in a campaign with an unusually large party, 7 people (me included), and we're going through a dungeon, and we keep on having people get on death throws , about 2 each fight. You guys got any ideas to reduce the amount of spell slots we use on cure wounds?
Heal players when they go down instead of sustained healing, focus more of your actions on dealing damage than sustaining your parties health or finding ways to disrupt the enemy.
Also I think the only time sustained healing is good is when you are healing the tank of the party if they have resistances to damage, and they are constantly being targeted.
I mean, this isn't much good once you're in the dungeon without one, but a Healer's Kit is a 10 use item that a player can use to automatically stabilize someone. Purely in terms of reducing the need for cure wounds to keep people from going all the way, it's helpful, but it's not going to actually restore HP. Honestly, if you guys are feeling too taxed, might want to just talk with your DM about it. Balancing is always tricky, and a large party tends to make it worse.
Thank you! I'll be using this
For group healing: It's been nerfed a bit but there is healing spirit (lev2). Aura of vitality (lev3) is better but you aren't lev5 yet. You could have everyone get a healing kit...to stabilize people without rolling medicine...10g each. Also, have people carry healing potions and they can save each other that way.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
You might just have to accept it as normal.
With a large party the DM has to put you up against either more powerful monsters or larger groups of monsters. Having lots of enemies will make combat very slow (it will be slow with 7 PCs anyway). If the DM uses more powerful monsters then they hit harder and are more likely to knock you unconcious. With a large party however you will have more spell slots available to the party and probably multiple healers so it should not be a problem as long as the monsters do not attack unconcious pcs.
The other thing that can increase the amount PCs are knocked out is encounters per day. The game is balanced around 6 to 8 encounters per day but very few campaigns have that on a regular basis. If the difficulty is ramped up so you are expected to need all your resources in 1 or 2 encounters some of those resources will be needed to get people back up.
Tactics.
If everyone in your group is scattering to take out whatever they feel like, then they will start to go down - as others have said, the game calls for more powerful monsters to balance this size party. You need t odiscuss, as a group, what you're going to do, in character. If someone is barging forwards and opening doors without discussion, call them out on it. Let the Rogue peek through the keyhole and tell you what there is to fight, make a game plan, and then stick to it.
If someone is almost down, they need to fall back out of the fight, rather than trusting that they will be popped up. How would you play if death saving throws weren't a thing, and your characters just died at 0hp? Play like that!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
got it
Agreed, also (to OP) you can use healing word instead of cure wounds because it's a bonus action.
And the range is 60 feet and not touch.
I have healing word prepared, but I haven't really been using it cause everyone in the party charges into battle as one massive crowd, so i can just cure wounds them all
Cure wounds has only one target... And the party doesn't have mass cure wounds at this level...
I am also a DM and a player in a group of seven PCs. (Myself and the other DM alternate campaigns every few months).
As a player, resource management and tactics are key. Try not to get grouped up where the party can be subjected to AoE effects. Do what you can to funnel the enemy's damage into one or two "tanky" PCs that can take the damage and use defensive abilities to help mitigate some. Having a cleric stand back with Shield of Faith on a high AC tank can sometimes be more effective than several Cure Wounds spells. Bless the damage dealers and concentrate on finishing off the wounded enemies. Dead creatures (generally) don't deal damage to your party. We have a fairly new player so as experienced players we try to offer advice to him. Just because the player isn't fully familiar with their class, the character would be. Make sure your group is using all of its resources. It's not always about how many spell slots you have left.
As a DM, the combat encounters have to be amped up for a larger group. Those encounters are generally going to be tougher than say for a group of 4-5. Otherwise, you would steamroll everything and not have any challenges. It is a very fine line between a tough encounter and one that can cause a TPK. Granted not every encounter should be deadly to a large adventuring group. As the DM, I have to be familiar with the PCs abilities (all of them) to be able to try to balance the encounters. Make them feel challenged without making a fight seem hopeless. If you feel this is not the case with your DM, talk to them and see what can be done to keep the game fun for everyone involved.