Ideas to make Heal skill more useful, and a change to HP, damage, and critical hits as a result - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Ideas to make Heal skill more useful, and a change to HP, damage, and critical hits as a result

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Foxface
May 11, 2010 4:24:06
I wasn't ever really much for houserules, mechanics-wise. I'd homebrew a setting, but I generally didn't muck with the rules themselves. I mean, the only houserule I used until now in my current game was free Expertise feat at level 5.

But the Heal skill got me thinking. It started when the party cleric had to ask why it was important. I told her it was used to stabilize the dying, enable second winds, and help treat disease. She responded with "Why stabilize the dying when I could use a power and heal him? Why use a second wind when I could use a power and heal him? Other than disease and a few rituals, Heal seems redundant..."

And she was right.

So I started thinking of ways to make Healing a more valuable skill to train. I went back and forth until I realized the only way Heal could become more valuable would be if it did more to affect HP totals. That meant either lowering the amount of power-based healing available (which would require changing multiple classes), or changing how things heal (which would only change the HP system itself). I decided to try the latter.

To be fair, some of this is a fluff change, mostly in regards to divine magic. Like many probably do, I envisioned divine magic as being, well, MAGIC. The cleric casts the spell, and the wound knits together before your very eyes. No more blood, no more being Bloodied! But this posed a problem when dealing with the Warlord. He heals as effectively as the cleric (in that a PC could be dying and then stand up) merely by yelling. I know that the fluff is that the Warlord is getting the PC to deal with the pain, through motivation/inspiration. Totally fine with that. Love it, actually. But if you got impaled by a spear and now are Bloodied, no amount of yelling will stop the bleeding.

So rather than "buff the fluff" of the Warlord, I nerfed the cleric's "fluff". Divine (or primal, or arcane) Magic no longer knits wounds together. The magic merely washes over you, taking away your pain, allowing you to keep going despite the injuries. This is more inline with the Warlord, and fits together well with the abstract nature of HP. So what changes mechanically? Well, since the wound never was actually "healed", you're still Bloodied.

How does this work? Simple. Bloodied is a condition gained when you lose half your HP, and lost when you or an ally uses the Heal skill to allow you to spend a Healing Surge (DC = 15+1/2 level) and you have more than half your HP afterwards. Anyone can attempt this check outside of combat, but using it in combat requires training in the Heal skill. A failed check means you don't spend the surge and you lose nothing. A check failed by more than 5 means you spend the surge but gain no HP. Fail by more than 10 and you lose an additional surge.

What this represents is treating a wound, and requiring knowledge or a great instinct to help actually heal. If you are woefully unprepared, you run the risk of accidentally doing harm.

A Medic's Kit grants a +2 to the check, and each day of bedrest (in a comfortable setting, like an inn, and NOT a dungeon floor) adds a cumulative +1, so that someone without training can eventually heal themselves given time.

Another system I came up with is very similar, but has a few added details.

Divide Total HP into two equal pools: Rested HP and Bloodied HP. All damage is dealt to Rested HP unless there is:
A) no more Rested HP, or
B) the damage is from a critical hit, or
C) the target has vulnerability to the damage type

When you have lost any HP from your Bloodied HP pool, you are considered Bloodied. When you have 0 Bloodied HP left, you are dying, no matter how much Rested HP you have. Furthermore, all crit damage is rolled (Crits represent less "massive damage", and more "strikes to vital areas").

The only way to heal Bloodied HP is through the use of the aforementioned Heal check (which heals a Surge's worth of either Bloodied HP OR Rested HP). Other forms of healing (powers, Second Wind, potions) heal Rested HP normally.

As an example, a character has 25 BHP and 25 RHP. He is "hit" by a goblin for 7 damage. He narrowly dodges, losing 10 RHP. Another goblin throws a stone from across the room, dealing 8 damage. The stone bounces of his helm, rattling his senses, but he remains relatively unharmed. He now has 10 RHP left. A third goblin sneaks in from behind and shanks him inbetween the scales of his armor (a critical hit). The dagger is small, and the wound isn't deep (only 4 damage), but blood has been drawn. The PC now has 21 BHP and 10 RHP. A hobgoblin steps forward a swings a large hammer at the PCs chest. The hobgoblin dealt 10 damage. His armor saves his vitals from being crushed, but he is rattled and won't be able to dodge another blow (0 RHP). Just then, his ally slips him a potion. He takes a swig, and feels his energy return, and his pain slip away (Gain 12 RHP). He is still bleeding from his side, but now he has the energy to face his attackers.

The first houserule system adds a little "grit" to the system, and tones down the high magic, thus placing more importance on the mundane.

The second adds a lot of grit, and certainly is more deadly, since a few too many criticals will kill. Granted, crits aren't huge amounts of damage automatically, but they still target a smaller pool of HP that isn't easily healed.

Note that in both systems, monster HP is treated normally, and PC crits always deal max damage. Monsters don't have second winds, or skill checks, or bedrest. Any wounds they suffer and subsequently recover from are fully under the purview of the story and thus the DM. Monsters heal offscreen, if at all.

Anyways, what do you think?
#2
pluisjen
May 11, 2010 4:43:15 I think the idea is not bad, although you'd have to see it in play to see how it goes.

However, I do think the skill check is a bit on the high side; even a really dedicated healer (one with training and an 18 Wis) has a chance of costing the player his surge. A party with nobody actually having a massive Heal bonus will burn through surges like mad, making Heal basically a required skill, along with someone with a massive Wis, because a simple +5 or +6 will still mean you lose a surge a lot of the time.

But I also think your premise is wrong. Heal isn't useless, it's on par with all the other skills. It has a bunch of uses (as you mentioned) and it has some Powers that do the same kind of things, only better.

This goes for a lot of skills (Stealth is nice, but why bother if you have Invisbility? Thievery is nice, but why bother if you have Knock? Athletics is nice, but why bother if you can fly?)

Skills are the things any character can accomplish, and they should be overshadowed by powers, because that is what powers are, specialisation and doing things nobody else can match.

Heal is still important for the non-Leaders to give a surge to their fallen leader, can be used to treat disease (something you cannot do with powers), is used in Skill Challenges, can grant you an extra saving throw, plus anything else the DM can come up with (determine cause of death, for example)
You can't do those things with Healing Word.

So far I've found that players consider Heal one of the better skills to have due to the number of uses they can find for it.

Also, Dragonborn are going love the ability to be Bloodied at full hitpoints. +1 to attacks, all the time? Yes please.
#3
Foxface
May 11, 2010 13:50:33 Hmm, check might be too high? Let's assume someone has great capacity for healing but is not super optimized for it: 18 Wis with Training. At level 1, they have a +9. The DC is 15. On a 6 or better, the target heals. Less than 6, and nothing happens. Even on a 1, he fails by 5 which does nothing.

If he's super optimized (18 Wis, Training, Racial Bonus, Background Bonus, Skill Focus), he's at a +16, making it impossible to ever fail the check. He could lose the racial or background bonus and still succeed on anything but a 1.

I think the check is fine. Easy enough for anyone who really wants to make sure they do no harm, but hard enough that Training does matter. A group with no one Trained can get by, as long as they have someone who is wise (they just can't unbloody someone in combat). Just like a group without stealth won't likely be sneaking up on anybody.

AS for my premise being off, that's fair. The heal skill isn't completely useless. It just seems that there are enough more useful skills that are taken instead, like perception, intimidate, and athletics.

And yes, Dragonborn would refuse a band-aid.
#4
iamlucek
May 11, 2010 14:16:30 heal skill isn't pointless. I had a cleric (that just died, Corellon rest your eladrin soul) I had my healing word and healing strike but after the 3 heals the only option I had for healing was astral seal. witch requiters that I hit then the person needing healing hits the same target (kinda hard when they're unconscious) so yes the heal skill was a Corellon sent when 2 party members dropped and I couldn't heal them magically.

Hmm, check might be too high? Let's assume someone has great capacity for healing but is not super optimized for it: 18 Wis with Training. At level 1, they have a +9. The DC is 15. On a 6 or better, the target heals. Less than 6, and nothing happens. Even on a 1, he fails by 5 which does nothing.
And yes, Dragonborn would refuse a band-aid.

and what about the ones like my new gnome bard that have an 8 wis so that at lvl2 he has to roll a 14 or better. perhaps a crit ranking is more in line 10 not dieing any more natural 20 not just stabilized but get a healing serge, natural 1 loose a surge or make a save against death (got to give the out for 0 surges).
#5
Diachronos
May 11, 2010 15:01:32 The only problem I see with Heal as it is right now is that the "heal" you perform with it is actually just letting them use their Second Wind without using up an action. If it let them use a surge without wasting their Second Wind (maybe giving it limited uses per target), it'd be a lot better in my opinion.
#6
pluisjen
May 11, 2010 15:25:34
Hmm, check might be too high? Let's assume someone has great capacity for healing but is not super optimized for it: 18 Wis with Training. At level 1, they have a +9. The DC is 15. On a 6 or better, the target heals. Less than 6, and nothing happens. Even on a 1, he fails by 5 which does nothing.

Yeah, but most character aren't going to have an 18 Wis and training. You are using the Hard DC's for this check, which means that you need a top of the line Wis and training to really be able to hit it.

Yet from your description it sounds like something most people should at least be able to have a chance at; I'd go for a medium DC (10 + 1/2 level) instead.

It's more in line with the other DCs that 4e uses.

#7
stargazer_dragon
May 12, 2010 6:32:20
The only problem I see with Heal as it is right now is that the "heal" you perform with it is actually just letting them use their Second Wind without using up an action. If it let them use a surge without wasting their Second Wind (maybe giving it limited uses per target), it'd be a lot better in my opinion.

Though slightly off topic, if the target is down and can't use second wind you can allow the heal to get them to 1 hp, just a idea
#8
adun_irving
May 13, 2010 0:48:54 At higher levels, being Bloodied can be very, very bad for the characters, as more than one monster at Paragon and Epic gain quite the advantage over Bloodied characters. As long as you stay away from things like that that obviously unbalance the game in favor of the monsters, you should be fine, but as others have said the Heal skill does have plenty of uses, and especially for healers, using a Standard Action to pop somebody else's second with with Heal leaves the Minor open to cast a Word spell to heal somebody else, so that's always good.
#9
stargazer_dragon
May 13, 2010 1:46:07 you can also use standard to allow second wind then use minor for a healing power to bring there health most of the way back up. Bloodied condition holds a lot of in game effect so would advice against prolonging the bloodied keyword any longer then the game designed it to be unless you cazrefully concider the grand effects it would have
#10
Neutronium_Dragon
May 15, 2010 6:46:24 > Why stabilize the dying when I could use a power and heal him?

You'll be out of powers from time to time - especially at lower levels. Some classes also have a much more difficult time granting extra saving throws.

"Trained in Heal" is also among the likely candidates as a prerequisite for feats that affect healing powers.

It's certainly called upon for a number of healing rituals, which the cleric gains access to due to his Ritual Caster feature.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Foxface May 11, 2010 4:24:06	I wasn't ever really much for houserules, mechanics-wise. I'd homebrew a setting, but I generally didn't muck with the rules themselves. I mean, the only houserule I used until now in my current game was free Expertise feat at level 5. But the Heal skill got me thinking. It started when the party cleric had to ask why it was important. I told her it was used to stabilize the dying, enable second winds, and help treat disease. She responded with "Why stabilize the dying when I could use a power and heal him? Why use a second wind when I could use a power and heal him? Other than disease and a few rituals, Heal seems redundant..." And she was right. So I started thinking of ways to make Healing a more valuable skill to train. I went back and forth until I realized the only way Heal could become more valuable would be if it did more to affect HP totals. That meant either lowering the amount of power-based healing available (which would require changing multiple classes), or changing how things heal (which would only change the HP system itself). I decided to try the latter. To be fair, some of this is a fluff change, mostly in regards to divine magic. Like many probably do, I envisioned divine magic as being, well, MAGIC. The cleric casts the spell, and the wound knits together before your very eyes. No more blood, no more being Bloodied! But this posed a problem when dealing with the Warlord. He heals as effectively as the cleric (in that a PC could be dying and then stand up) merely by yelling. I know that the fluff is that the Warlord is getting the PC to deal with the pain, through motivation/inspiration. Totally fine with that. Love it, actually. But if you got impaled by a spear and now are Bloodied, no amount of yelling will stop the bleeding. So rather than "buff the fluff" of the Warlord, I nerfed the cleric's "fluff". Divine (or primal, or arcane) Magic no longer knits wounds together. The magic merely washes over you, taking away your pain, allowing you to keep going despite the injuries. This is more inline with the Warlord, and fits together well with the abstract nature of HP. So what changes mechanically? Well, since the wound never was actually "healed", you're still Bloodied. How does this work? Simple. Bloodied is a condition gained when you lose half your HP, and lost when you or an ally uses the Heal skill to allow you to spend a Healing Surge (DC = 15+1/2 level) and you have more than half your HP afterwards. Anyone can attempt this check outside of combat, but using it in combat requires training in the Heal skill. A failed check means you don't spend the surge and you lose nothing. A check failed by more than 5 means you spend the surge but gain no HP. Fail by more than 10 and you lose an additional surge. What this represents is treating a wound, and requiring knowledge or a great instinct to help actually heal. If you are woefully unprepared, you run the risk of accidentally doing harm. A Medic's Kit grants a +2 to the check, and each day of bedrest (in a comfortable setting, like an inn, and NOT a dungeon floor) adds a cumulative +1, so that someone without training can eventually heal themselves given time. Another system I came up with is very similar, but has a few added details. Divide Total HP into two equal pools: Rested HP and Bloodied HP. All damage is dealt to Rested HP unless there is: A) no more Rested HP, or B) the damage is from a critical hit, or C) the target has vulnerability to the damage type When you have lost any HP from your Bloodied HP pool, you are considered Bloodied. When you have 0 Bloodied HP left, you are dying, no matter how much Rested HP you have. Furthermore, all crit damage is rolled (Crits represent less "massive damage", and more "strikes to vital areas"). The only way to heal Bloodied HP is through the use of the aforementioned Heal check (which heals a Surge's worth of either Bloodied HP OR Rested HP). Other forms of healing (powers, Second Wind, potions) heal Rested HP normally. As an example, a character has 25 BHP and 25 RHP. He is "hit" by a goblin for 7 damage. He narrowly dodges, losing 10 RHP. Another goblin throws a stone from across the room, dealing 8 damage. The stone bounces of his helm, rattling his senses, but he remains relatively unharmed. He now has 10 RHP left. A third goblin sneaks in from behind and shanks him inbetween the scales of his armor (a critical hit). The dagger is small, and the wound isn't deep (only 4 damage), but blood has been drawn. The PC now has 21 BHP and 10 RHP. A hobgoblin steps forward a swings a large hammer at the PCs chest. The hobgoblin dealt 10 damage. His armor saves his vitals from being crushed, but he is rattled and won't be able to dodge another blow (0 RHP). Just then, his ally slips him a potion. He takes a swig, and feels his energy return, and his pain slip away (Gain 12 RHP). He is still bleeding from his side, but now he has the energy to face his attackers. The first houserule system adds a little "grit" to the system, and tones down the high magic, thus placing more importance on the mundane. The second adds a lot of grit, and certainly is more deadly, since a few too many criticals will kill. Granted, crits aren't huge amounts of damage automatically, but they still target a smaller pool of HP that isn't easily healed. Note that in both systems, monster HP is treated normally, and PC crits always deal max damage. Monsters don't have second winds, or skill checks, or bedrest. Any wounds they suffer and subsequently recover from are fully under the purview of the story and thus the DM. Monsters heal offscreen, if at all. Anyways, what do you think?
#2 pluisjen May 11, 2010 4:43:15	I think the idea is not bad, although you'd have to see it in play to see how it goes. However, I do think the skill check is a bit on the high side; even a really dedicated healer (one with training and an 18 Wis) has a chance of costing the player his surge. A party with nobody actually having a massive Heal bonus will burn through surges like mad, making Heal basically a required skill, along with someone with a massive Wis, because a simple +5 or +6 will still mean you lose a surge a lot of the time. But I also think your premise is wrong. Heal isn't useless, it's on par with all the other skills. It has a bunch of uses (as you mentioned) and it has some Powers that do the same kind of things, only better. This goes for a lot of skills (Stealth is nice, but why bother if you have Invisbility? Thievery is nice, but why bother if you have Knock? Athletics is nice, but why bother if you can fly?) Skills are the things any character can accomplish, and they should be overshadowed by powers, because that is what powers are, specialisation and doing things nobody else can match. Heal is still important for the non-Leaders to give a surge to their fallen leader, can be used to treat disease (something you cannot do with powers), is used in Skill Challenges, can grant you an extra saving throw, plus anything else the DM can come up with (determine cause of death, for example) You can't do those things with Healing Word. So far I've found that players consider Heal one of the better skills to have due to the number of uses they can find for it. Also, Dragonborn are going love the ability to be Bloodied at full hitpoints. +1 to attacks, all the time? Yes please.
#3 Foxface May 11, 2010 13:50:33	Hmm, check might be too high? Let's assume someone has great capacity for healing but is not super optimized for it: 18 Wis with Training. At level 1, they have a +9. The DC is 15. On a 6 or better, the target heals. Less than 6, and nothing happens. Even on a 1, he fails by 5 which does nothing. If he's super optimized (18 Wis, Training, Racial Bonus, Background Bonus, Skill Focus), he's at a +16, making it impossible to ever fail the check. He could lose the racial or background bonus and still succeed on anything but a 1. I think the check is fine. Easy enough for anyone who really wants to make sure they do no harm, but hard enough that Training does matter. A group with no one Trained can get by, as long as they have someone who is wise (they just can't unbloody someone in combat). Just like a group without stealth won't likely be sneaking up on anybody. AS for my premise being off, that's fair. The heal skill isn't completely useless. It just seems that there are enough more useful skills that are taken instead, like perception, intimidate, and athletics. And yes, Dragonborn would refuse a band-aid.
#4 iamlucek May 11, 2010 14:16:30	heal skill isn't pointless. I had a cleric (that just died, Corellon rest your eladrin soul) I had my healing word and healing strike but after the 3 heals the only option I had for healing was astral seal. witch requiters that I hit then the person needing healing hits the same target (kinda hard when they're unconscious) so yes the heal skill was a Corellon sent when 2 party members dropped and I couldn't heal them magically. Hmm, check might be too high? Let's assume someone has great capacity for healing but is not super optimized for it: 18 Wis with Training. At level 1, they have a +9. The DC is 15. On a 6 or better, the target heals. Less than 6, and nothing happens. Even on a 1, he fails by 5 which does nothing. And yes, Dragonborn would refuse a band-aid. and what about the ones like my new gnome bard that have an 8 wis so that at lvl2 he has to roll a 14 or better. perhaps a crit ranking is more in line 10 not dieing any more natural 20 not just stabilized but get a healing serge, natural 1 loose a surge or make a save against death (got to give the out for 0 surges).
#5 Diachronos May 11, 2010 15:01:32	The only problem I see with Heal as it is right now is that the "heal" you perform with it is actually just letting them use their Second Wind without using up an action. If it let them use a surge without wasting their Second Wind (maybe giving it limited uses per target), it'd be a lot better in my opinion.
#6 pluisjen May 11, 2010 15:25:34	Hmm, check might be too high? Let's assume someone has great capacity for healing but is not super optimized for it: 18 Wis with Training. At level 1, they have a +9. The DC is 15. On a 6 or better, the target heals. Less than 6, and nothing happens. Even on a 1, he fails by 5 which does nothing. Yeah, but most character aren't going to have an 18 Wis and training. You are using the Hard DC's for this check, which means that you need a top of the line Wis and training to really be able to hit it. Yet from your description it sounds like something most people should at least be able to have a chance at; I'd go for a medium DC (10 + 1/2 level) instead. It's more in line with the other DCs that 4e uses.
#7 stargazer_dragon May 12, 2010 6:32:20	The only problem I see with Heal as it is right now is that the "heal" you perform with it is actually just letting them use their Second Wind without using up an action. If it let them use a surge without wasting their Second Wind (maybe giving it limited uses per target), it'd be a lot better in my opinion. Though slightly off topic, if the target is down and can't use second wind you can allow the heal to get them to 1 hp, just a idea
#8 adun_irving May 13, 2010 0:48:54	At higher levels, being Bloodied can be very, very bad for the characters, as more than one monster at Paragon and Epic gain quite the advantage over Bloodied characters. As long as you stay away from things like that that obviously unbalance the game in favor of the monsters, you should be fine, but as others have said the Heal skill does have plenty of uses, and especially for healers, using a Standard Action to pop somebody else's second with with Heal leaves the Minor open to cast a Word spell to heal somebody else, so that's always good.
#9 stargazer_dragon May 13, 2010 1:46:07	you can also use standard to allow second wind then use minor for a healing power to bring there health most of the way back up. Bloodied condition holds a lot of in game effect so would advice against prolonging the bloodied keyword any longer then the game designed it to be unless you cazrefully concider the grand effects it would have
#10 Neutronium_Dragon May 15, 2010 6:46:24	> Why stabilize the dying when I could use a power and heal him? You'll be out of powers from time to time - especially at lower levels. Some classes also have a much more difficult time granting extra saving throws. "Trained in Heal" is also among the likely candidates as a prerequisite for feats that affect healing powers. It's certainly called upon for a number of healing rituals, which the cleric gains access to due to his Ritual Caster feature.