The heal skill isn't very helpful, either. It doesn't really cure you very well. The long-term care use of it is okay, but the only use I see of it in combat is to keep someone from dying. The problem with this skill is that it doesn’t cure any wounds right then and there.
Healing potions are good, but only if you can afford them. They are way too expensive. I play Diablo and Diablo 2. If you do too, you'll notice that healing potions are cheap and easy to find in shops, as well as on the ground. I'm wondering why it can't be like that in D&D. You might say it will give the players too much of a chance to escape death, but look at Diablo. No matter how many healing potions you have, those monsters can still keep you running for cover.
2. D&D is not a video game. Have you heard of "suspension of disbelief?" Mine would be shattered if, everywhere I went the floor was littered with healing potions.
People see the cleric too much as a first aid kit. Spontaneous casting is not that great. Sure, you always have some spells that are useless because you anticipated another situation. Spells like hide from undead are great if you encounter some undead, but a lost slot if you don't encounter them. Spontaneous casting can turn this lost slot into a useful spell.
The problem is when you have the choice of burning potential useful spells. Without these useful spells the cleric is a second rank fighter. I seriously question the wisdom of burning useful spells. When I do I get the feeling that if I cast the spell instead of keeping it to burn, the whole cure spell would not have been necessary in the first place. A bless, magic weapon or divine favor could have meant we dropped that monster before it did it's damage. A protection from alignment, shield of faith could have made the damaging attack miss altogether. For classes without spontaneous casting, it is even worse. They have to make the choice blindly.
Therefore, get your arcane or bardic curespell-vending-machine a wand. Not only will the curing goodness stop suffering from the no-spells-anymore-bug, it will also do more useful things then curing.
You also seem to forget that you can heal yourself by resting. If a party gets injured, they'll retreat, rest, then come back.
As for normal healing, how long does it usually take a broken leg to recover? How long would it take someone slashed open by a sword to recover?
D&D healing almost approaches the "silly" level already- D&D is not a video game, and getting hurt in a RPG should mean something (whereas getting hurt by a RPG would mean very little in D&D long term).
In my game I made all new core classes, to better fit the setting and to improve the fun factor. The only healing magic in the whole system is the ability of some humans to drain hp from the dying. That's right, no cure magic at all. If you want to stabilize your buddy use the heal skill. If you don't want to be hurt stay out of trouble. We've only had a short session so far but it worked out just as planned. There was some tense action.
That's the problem with D&D: things have to make sense. If you find a scroll of teleportation on the necromancer after killing him, people are going to ask why he didn't teleport away. If you find a potion of bull's strength on the blackguard, they're going to wonder why he didn't use it during the fight with you.
So the next question you might be asking is: why does anyone find any single shot items at all? Well, there are certain situations where the bad guy doesn't get a chance to use all of his/her resources. If you managed to sneak attack the necromancer twice before his initiative, he may not have had the chance to use the scroll. The same applies to healing potions. An instant death attack or lucky critical may kill or incapacitate a foe before he gets a chance to use up his potions.
The other possibility is that the items are found in the horde of a monster that has no use for them. Why would a monster own something they have no use for? Because its shiny is one good reason. Another is its part of the gear of someone who tried to take on the monster and failed (put some skeletons nearby to make it more convincing).
Let's face it, though--healing stinks like a porta-potty in D&D.
For starters, your basic Cure spell won't cure as much damage as an attack you just took. At most levels, attacks deal more damage than a Cure spell can heal.
Mathematically, of course, that means that combat Curing kinda stinks. I mean, granted, if a cure spell will mean your friend won't die, that's fine, you have to do it. However, if your enemy just dealt 7d6 (average 24.5) damage with a fireball to even one single guy, the 4d8 + 7 damage you heal (average 25) just barely covers the spread--and it's a higher level spell, to boot. If that fireball hits 2 targets, well, not only do you have to use a higher-level spell to fix the damage, but it's only for one of your friends--the other one still took the 24.5 damage.
So, numbers-wise, healing < damage.
I guess that's not a big deal in and of itself--until you consider that it took the absolute best healing you can do at 7th level to make that comparison.
This is my other problem with healing in D&D--it sucks.
Only the cleric even comes close to viable in-combat healing; the other classes all suck at it. Even worse, if you don't have someone with Cure spells on their list, you are sort of screwed for healing out of combat--the only economically viable source of out-of-combat healing (besides, y'know, just casting the Cure spells) is a Wand of Cure Light Wounds.
This is unfortunate. It means the Heal skill is pretty much worthless, because it doesn't really heal, and it means that any part needs at least one guy with Cure Light Wounds (or a nice Use Magic Device check), and a whole bunch of Cure Light wands.
Ideally, the Heal skill could, well, heal people, and a character dedicated to being a combat medic could keep up with damage output, and maybe not even be a Cleric to do so. However, neither is currently the case.
On second thought. Making a heal check DC 15 could give 1d4 temporary hp which last 1 minute. That way you can heal up those HP but it doesn't break the game. Whatever you do, keep in mind you have to deal with the consequences. Making the heal check cure wounds can potentially make magical healing useless without restrictions.
You're right, at early levels, healing spells and potions are for emergencies, you regain health by resting.
If they changed D&D to be like what you suggest, I'd stop playing.
Imagine if they had that sort of power in LotR, or any other fantasy outside of video games.
Personally, I'd like to think one could play the game -without- a magic-based healer in every party. Sure, you can't storm a dungeon straight on, but that just means you're forced to use clever tactics and avoid a dozen fights a day.
I think you guys are being overcritical. These are style of play issues. Saying "it should be- this" or "you should do- that", seems inappropriate to me.
In D&D natural healing is all but obsolete. Clerics renew their spells everyday. A few days "healing" means resting and letting the cleric do his job.
That's it. The way that the current system is set up, you will lose hit points, and you'll lose them a lot, especially if you step up to the front line.
An entire paradigm shift would be in order to remove the commonality of healing, a paradigm akin to comic books and injury.
Yeah, this paradigm has two main features:
1. Combat is surprisingly nonlethal given the power level of the combatants. In Comic-Book Land, Superman never, ever kills someone with his super-strength (he can lift over 100 tons), even though there is a wide range of "super-endurance" in the universe. In comic books, the very need to heal is lessoned because the stakes are honestly lower and much less lethal.
2. People heal on their own quickly. Seriously, even between scenes, people get "a second wind" or whatever and are fine and kicking tail by the next scene. This reduces the need for healing power because people heal really, really well on their own. This even applies to non-powered humans such as Batman.
Honestly, if you're not going to adapt this paradigm--than healing is vital. You can't have games where an opening attack can deal 35 points of damage to each member of the party if you don't have resources that can strike most of this damage between battles. You can't have 4 encounters a day. You can't have encounters each day.
So, I'll be so bold as to claim that if someone wants to make healing ultra-rare in D&D, and that's the only change they'd make to the system--they haven't really considered what they're talking about.
Disintegrate deals 22d6 damage on a failed fort save from an 11th level caster. That's average 77 damage. Heal by an 11th level caster cures 110 damage. And it gets even worse with Mass Heal.
As for natural healing, the 3.5 rules say that the average wizard can recover from 0 to maximum in four days, while it takes the average barbarian almost two weeks. It hardly even slows down your travel rate.
If you want a game where healing is tough, try CyberPunk 2020. Best you're going to get back is 3 points/day, total bed rest, with nanosurgeons (read lotsa $$$). From a critical wound that you survive, you'll be laid up a minimum of five days.
Leave video games out of your equation, unless you think the DM's name should be "Monty Haul".
Imagine a peasant (God bless them) who has been attacked by a wolf. He gets away with 50% of his hit points intact (so maybe 4 of 8). A friendly cleric's CLW spell does d8+1 (at first level), healing him for the average of 4.5 completely healing him. Yay! He goes to the pub and there's a pint for him as he tells his story.
A twentieth level fighter comes in with 50% of his hit points gone (let's say 112.5 i.e. the average). The same level cleric heals him for the same amount of hit points. The fighter looks at how just under 4% of his total hit points are restored. The fighter slaps the cleric and tells him to, "Heal my wounds!” (possibly because he drives a HiLux).
So a CLW spell actually cures less wounds on a character (or monster) that has more hit points. And as you go up levels CLW does proportionally less healing to you. Do you develop a tolerance to the CLW spell (like a drug)? Nope, that doesn't make sense as a character with 100 hit points who has never received a CLW still gets the same effect as one who uses CLW every day.
In effect, the CLW spell discriminates between people with high hit points and those with low. 'You, Paladin who has just been through the Nine Layers of Hell with naught but a spoon, albeit adamantite, have 4% of your hit points back. You, the kitty who has hurt your paw whilst trying to scratch that inquisitive puppy, have all you hit points back, with some extra's floating off into the air."
Weird.
However, I think I lot of people are missing a pretty simple idea...if you don't take the damage, you don't have to heal it. Counterspells are a great idea. With a couple feats, you can become a counterspelling machine. I have a cleric based on that idea: I can help my party out more by preventing a Fireball through counterspelling it (a little luck and a 3rd level spell, or a 4th level spell with Imp. Counterspell) than I could ever cure back with that same spell.
I think healing is fine right now. A bit too easy perhaps, but I certainly wouldn't Diablo-ize it.
Originally posted by nick012000
In D20 modern an RPG-7 deals 6d6 damage, which will most likely be over your massive damage threshold (aka your Con score), forcing a DC 15 Fort save or drop to -1 HP and dying instantly.
Care to relate this to the subject matter of the post? ;)
You appear to be missing the line that says "Therefore, D20 Modern is more realistic when it comes to healing" or "Therefore you're luckier than you think, because it's worse in Modern."
Originally posted by Addi83
For every day a character rests, he gains his level in hit points. Twice that if he does nothing but rest. More if someone takes care of him with the heal skill...
Class level or ECL?
That said, I'm wondering what your experiences have been that you feel that clerics are prone to running out of spells long before it's time to rest and regain them. If the DM is running the game in a reasonable manner according to the guidelines in the DMG, then clerics shouldn't be consistently running out of spells, unless they're a) low level or b) healing in a wasteful manner. It's also possible, of course, that the DM(s) in your experience have been pitting you up against encounters that are too difficult.
The encounters of Diablo are necessarily different than D&D, since one's a video game and the other is a human interface. It's a lot easier for a video game to adjudicate a larger-scale combat with dozens of enemies. D&D is more of a skirmish-oriented battle system--you're more likely to find yourself fighting four orcs rather than forty. A Diablo character is probably going to fight ten times as many monsters/battles in a day than a D&D character, and for this reason more healing is required. But if healing in D&D becomes cheapened too much as you seem to be suggesting, then characters would no longer need to "budget" their spells for a greater need later in the day, which IMHO is one of the great challenges of D&D!
D&D's "battle plan" tends to involve "I don't know what I'm going to face before I regain my spells tomorrow morning, so I might have to weigh carefully the spells I cast now which I might need later." Video games, on the other hand, usually involve a limitless supply of monsters in a central location, so the "battle plan" tends to fall along the lines of "let's go out and fight until we can't anymore and then we'll go home."
I wouldn't call it a weakness in the system. It's just apples and oranges.
I think that hit point healing is fine in D&D, it's just the right balance. What is weak is healing nasty effects like ability damage, and especially ability drain. Drain can't be cured below level 7, and getting NPCs to cast Restoration costs a fortune.
--WotC_Mel]I don't know about your party, but in the unlikely situation my party ever fights long enough to deplete all spell slots, I trust my team enough to know they'll run.
So, healing can be a problem. Doubly so in the lower levels. Everyone has around 6 hp, money's low, spells per day are low, availability of cure spells is low, and the most ranks in the heal skill you can have is 4 or 5.
I have no doubt that in D2, weaker, lower-level players will be worse than higher-level characters...that's just how the game, works. If you take tons of damage from someone/thing, you should not expect to live through it if you're only first level with 5 hitpoints. However, if you survive to higher levels you are going to have an easier time surviving because of your experience and skills in fighting and enduring.
The heal skill isn't very helpful, either. It doesn't really cure you very well. The long-term care use of it is okay, but the only use I see of it in combat is to keep someone from dying. The problem with this skill is that it doesn’t cure any wounds right then and there.
I don't know about you, but dying when you could be alive (but unconscious) sounds like a bummer. Why waste your gold trying to resurrect someone when you could prevent death in the first place?
Healing potions are good, but only if you can afford them. They are way too expensive. I play Diablo and Diablo 2. If you do too, you'll notice that healing potions are cheap and easy to find in shops, as well as on the ground. I'm wondering why it can't be like that in D&D. You might say it will give the players too much of a chance to escape death, but look at Diablo. No matter how many healing potions you have, those monsters can still keep you running for cover.
(The following is purely my opinion and not meant to be offensive to anyone)
D&D is a role-playing game. D2 is an action game.
In a role-playing game one should not fear death just because his long hours in front of his computer or DM would go to waste. A role-playing game cannot be based around getting more powerful items, or better weapons. An action game can contain all of those goals while getting great reviews from the public.
A D&D party trying to achieve that is a shame to the RPG community.
RPGs are about roleplaying your character and doing things he would do. If your character would run away from a hard opponent because he doesn't want to die, then do so. But also be prepared to stay and lose all of your possessions if your character would do the same. A character in D2 and his possessions matter a lot to a player, since those little bits of code in cyberspace can be sold for real-life cash. How much is a character sheet and a pencil worth? To use D2 as a comparison to D&D is not a valid point to make.
Originally posted by Oberoni
Mathematically, of course, that means that combat Curing kinda stinks. I mean, granted, if a cure spell will mean your friend won't die, that's fine, you have to do it. However, if your enemy just dealt 7d6 (average 24.5) damage with a fireball to even one single guy, the 4d8 + 7 damage you heal (average 25) just barely covers the spread--and it's a higher level spell, to boot. If that fireball hits 2 targets, well, not only do you have to use a higher-level spell to fix the damage, but it's only for one of your friends--the other one still took the 24.5 damage.
So, numbers-wise, healing < damage.
What you do not count into your calculation is that many characters will make their saves vs the fireball, thus only getting half damage. The party rogue has evasion and gets no damage, while the mage is maybe buffed vs fire and gets no damage also. So healing is ok again.
Another thing: You don't need to keep all characters at full health, so healing need not be equal damage taken. It is enough to let the characters survive until the end of the encounter, when they can rest again.
Of course, you've also got to find X number of people who agree with you, so there you go. Self-balancing is GOOD.
I know in besmd20 they work the protective value of armor as damage resistance (effectively energy(kinetic) resistance if you will ;)) and I think there is a variant in Unearthed Arcana that does the same thing. This works to help the survivability of lower level parties a lot, but higher level parties will be facing enemies that do considerably higher amounts of damage, enough to bypass the protective value of their armor and hit their real hp, but having more hp means this is less risky, having likely acquired better defensive/protective items also mitigates this. So really, the problem with the hit-normally-or-miss-totally mechanic of AC is the root here, and its a problem generally only in the lower levels.
Possible Solutions
Potions of cure light wounds:
These could be so cheap to make, from herbs that are just that common, that they effectively replace the "medical kit" for rescue healing, but expensive enough that for "downtime" healing, one is generally better off using the heal skill and resting in a comfortable bed somewhere. If the cost were around 10gp/potion when sold, or about 5gp in materials and an alchemy DC of 15 to make, then players aren't about to make a vast fortune.
As for "well they'll sell them for easy money!" Remember basic economics. If something becomes abundantly available, competition will drive the price down. There also has to be demand, if people just aren't getting hurt, then they won't be buying scores of healing potions anymore than I buy a first aid kit every week if I haven't used up the one I already have. Lastly, in a medieval society, such things are run by guilds, who have a charter to do so from the local nobility or the local church (or maybe both, or they are the same). Selling without a license would be impossible, and if it’s a local church that sells them as a fund-raising vehicle, it may be impossible to get said license. They could try and sell them on the black-market of course, but then they are walking right into the welcoming arms of the GM who decides the local rogue's guild doesn't like the muscling in on their turf, and the legitimate suppliers will not be pleased either.
In D&D natural healing is all but obsolete. Clerics renew their spells everyday. A few days "healing" means resting and letting the cleric do his job.
That assumes there is a cleric in the party. For most of our last campaign there wasn't.
My preference would be for magical healing to be less easy, but for non-magical healing to be a little better.
Healing as easy as it is in standard D&D should have major effects on society making it very different from the sort of world I prefer to play in. Ignoring it causes problems with suspension if disbelief.
Next time I run a game I am thinking about experimenting with the idea that magical healing and curing works by infusing the body with energy which the body then has to turn into healing, if it can. That if would be implemented as a DC 15 fortitude save. Then magical healing will be unreliable for low level characters, the majority of the population. The GM has more freedom as it is no longer silly to have rich NPCs die of poison or disease. Being injured is no longer something low level PCs can laugh off, but high level PCs can still heal quickly.
From the Modern SRD:
Restore Hit Points (DC 15): With a medical kit, if a character has lost hit points, the character can restore some of them. A successful check, as a full-round action, restores 1d4 hit points. The number restored can never exceed the character’s full normal total of hit points. This application of the skill can be used successfully on a character only once per day.
Also:
Surgery (DC 20): With a surgery kit, a character can conduct field surgery. This application of the Treat Injury skill carries a –4 penalty, which can be negated with the Surgery feat. Surgery requires 1d4 hours; if the patient is at negative hit points, add an additional hour for every point below 0 the patient has fallen.
Originally posted by The Unspeakable
Or is it? There are a bunch of video games around either using D&D rules or based on D&D rules (Diablo II being one that springs to mind).
Diablo II neither uses the D&D rules nor is it based on D&D rules.
There's also a D&D version (and even an AD&D 2e version) of Diablo II as a pen & paper, but this has nothing to do with the Diablo II video game (as far as the rules are concerned).
Actually during the early development of the Diablo II video game there was indeed some talk about using (A)D&D rules or at least parts of the (A)D&D rules, but this plan was thrown away during the further development.
The Diablo II video game which was finally released and is known today has no parts of it's rules taken from (A)D&D.
About the guys suggesting resting as an replacement for magical healing:
A good DM should never make a static world that only moves around the PCs, as it is the case in almost all video game RPGs. If the PCs enter a dungeon and clear one and two rooms, they shouldn't be able to just leave for one or two days of healing and return to find everything exactly how the left it. The environment should react based on their actions. E.G. the inhabitants should become worried and warned that some invaders broke in and murdered some of them.
Locks the PCs picked a few days ago should be renewed, traps reset, new traps constructed, patrols increased, broken doors replaced, fortifications built. Maybe the monsters were so frightened upon discovering their slain friend that they fled their home (and took their treasures with them) and the PCs only discover an empty dungeon upon their return.
Originally posted by Addi83
For every day a character rests, he gains his level in hit points. Twice that if he does nothing but rest. More if someone takes care of him with the heal skill.
You're right, at early levels, healing spells and potions are for emergencies, you regain health by resting.
If they changed D&D to be like what you suggest, I'd stop playing.
I do it where each day a character rests they get their hit dice + con mod. More realistic if you ask me.
Now, on to clerics. There is only one case where I will tell a cleric to be the "healer," other than using a wand of cure, and that is when the player is new to the game or just plain bad at it. The cleric should be a spellcaster and support fighter. In closing, healing is far from balanced in DnD, but it seems fitting the way it works.
Moving it another step towards video gamehood would be a mistake in my opinion. Healing is quite common as it currently stands. Bards, clerics, druids, paladins and rangers have at least some healing ability. And characters heal at an obscene rate if they are allowed to rest.
Originally posted by Oberoni
Let's face it, though--healing stinks like a porta-potty in D&D.
For starters, your basic Cure spell won't cure as much damage as an attack you just took. At most levels, attacks deal more damage than a Cure spell can heal.
Mathematically, of course, that means that combat Curing kinda stinks. I mean, granted, if a cure spell will mean your friend won't die, that's fine, you have to do it. However, if your enemy just dealt 7d6 (average 24.5) damage with a fireball to even one single guy, the 4d8 + 7 damage you heal (average 25) just barely covers the spread--and it's a higher level spell, to boot. If that fireball hits 2 targets, well, not only do you have to use a higher-level spell to fix the damage, but it's only for one of your friends--the other one still took the 24.5 damage.
So, numbers-wise, healing < damage.
And this is supposed to be a problem? "Let's all drop the guns and get out the bandages. They'll run out of bullets"
If healing > damage, combats would last literally for ever.
Besides, compare this to the real world where comparatively minor scrapes take you days to recover from and broken arms take weeks. When was the last time it took your character weeks to recover from a broken arm in D&D?
This is unfortunate. It means the Heal skill is pretty much worthless, because it doesn't really heal, and it means that any part needs at least one guy with Cure Light Wounds (or a nice Use Magic Device check), and a whole bunch of Cure Light wands.
This I'll agree with- but your reason is wrong. The problem is that CLW is too good (although heal should be boosted to compensate).
Diablo 2 is a computer game. Downtime is pointless since the game is meant to be played but at the same time stay challenging. If you had to sit down to regain health it wouldn't stay at that fast paced 'fun' game it was designed to be.
D&D is a different game. In D&D you can declare what you do in downtime in 30 seconds and 2 years can pass. D&D is not all about combat and because of that you don't need healing potions out the wazoo to heal you upto full to be ready for the next monster in 2 seconds time.
In fact, lower level healing is not that big of an issue. When the numbers are all so low it would take several encounters in the first place to kill a low level character without some terrible unluck on the players behalf. When the PC are low on hp, and the grudges against the PCs are still minimal they can afford to say "We go to town and spend 4 days to heal up completely." Game time has passed, but play time has amounted to 30 seconds.
Diablo 2 needs a mechanic for healing fast to keep the players moving but the D&D mechanic of healing is ensuring someone won't die because downtime is implied in a D&D session, while in Diablo II it's just minimized.
Wand of Cure Light Wounds = 50(0.5+4+1)/750 = 0.3666...
Healing Salve = (0.5+4)/50 = 0.09
We have then, that a Wand of Cure Light Wounds is roughly 4 times more efficient than a healing salve. The only advantage the salve holds over the wand is that the party doesn't require a cleric to heal them, and the salve can be bought in more exact quantites, which is better for low level parties.
If you plan on healing without clerics, be prepared to pay a lot more.
Originally posted by lordconservative
Class level or ECL?
That’s per hit dice, so class levels and monster hit dice count, but LA doesn't count.
DM invites everyone around two weeks later.
Players start at third level (or thereabouts, maybe 6th level) but there's a vague sense of cheating. How did my character get here? It's hard to be a hero when you know the farmers (Com1) with the pitchforks can use you as fertilizer. But D&D appears to be designed so that it can be played over HUGE periods of time. I have some reservations about this because sometimes three year campaigns require the sort love and commitment which girlfriends and pets find hard to understand. ;) Maybe the system can be rigged to prop up low level players more. Healing scratches (1d6) for high levelers is just a waste of time. And later, well there's them resurrect spells - if your friends really like you - at a price.
Incidentally in computer games like Diablo and many RPGs smaller heal potions become a hindrance - you just can't drink ‘em fast enough and they weigh enough.
I like low level games but the monsters and damage can be humiliating and disempowering. Consolations about how great you'll be at 7th level just doesn't always wash with new PCs falling into 10ft pits. I like to have the first levels of dungeons to have healing fonts and places of rest - of course there may be a price to pay - gold, addiction, temp curse, wisdom loss . . . Blah. I know, I know, game balance, etc. This debate is at the heart of D&D and used to result in the purchase of other systems so it's worth plenty of discussion.
Regards
W.
As to how unrealistic healing is: I'm a DM and I think that the "realism" doesn't get hurt too badly if the characters happen to find a CLW potion or 2 in the horde of a dead bad guy. Why didn't the bad guy drink it? Because it was either: a) in his stash and he couldn't get to it; b) he didn't expect a fight; c) he didn't expect the PCs to be a real threat; d) he didn't know what it was, like a hobgoblin can tell the difference between a potion of CLW and poison; and finally e) maybe he was saving it for either someone else, or a rainy day.
Also, why do people always forget about scrolls? A cleric can take scribe scroll, and have more than enough healing, while not wasting his spells.
Finding a potion (or scroll) or 2 can make the difference between a fun game and a total party kill. This is especially the case at lower levels. As for peasants living with illness, it depends on their access to, and quality of, the local cleric. Most peasants can't afford even a 10gp tithe, the absolute minimum cost, excluding clerics who owe favors. The amount of time it would take to heal the 4 or 5 hp lost by a commoner near death, would take less than a week. A week of common labor is worth about 1 sp. That pretty much sums it up, I think.
Argue with me
Bill
What I'd really like to see is a rework into using a vitality point system like in the StarWars d20 game. It really makes tons more sense.
Been looking at the VP for D&D from Unearthed Arcana(based on SW game)
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040206a&page=3
As you say it would need to be reworked more to fix many of the healing criticisms posted above. The question is with higher numbers will the number crunching start swamping combat and healing?
Re. Potions as treasure. Perhaps many monsters don't have the right technique of pulling the corks out of the bottles? ... they just like the preeetty coloured glass ... ;)
On one hand, you have those who wish D&D healing was more easily accessible, so that combats could be higher powered and more lethal challenges could be faced because characters could be continually bolstered by the effects of additional help in the form of healing potions, spells, etc. This is like what one finds in comic books and video games (as mentioned above).
On the other hand, you have those that think healing is already too accessible in D&D. If it were that easy in fantasy literature, Eowyn fighting the Witch King wouldn't have been that big of a deal, Theoden could have been saved, Boromir could have been healed, Frodo's wound would have gone away like a bee sting, etc. - and those are just from the easy Tolkien references from the movies everyone's seen.
Of course there are those in the middle too.
But the two examples I see above look like an age-old conflict: kids versus adults. Personally, I side with the adults. If I want to play Diablo II, I sit down at the computer. If I want something a bit more mature and sophisticated, I get some friends together and play D&D. In my campaigns, realism isn't cheapened by omnipresent solutions to PC's problems - they need to act responsibly and deal with their own problems, not have a red potion plop out of every monster they kill.
Simply because you can't, when money and magic are tight, skip merrily through hordes of opponents at a time, never effected by what is being portrayed, this is considered a weakness? How exactly can you role play this kind of indestructibility and still call it Role Playing?
The ability of a Cleric at low levels to bring a person sorely wounded back from death's door (8 hp normally, hit a few times for seven points of damage) to utter and complete functionality in an instant is beyond astounding. It truly is miraculous. Now because your starting character can't have it done after every scraped knee it isn't enough? And now add that he can bring this same person back from that same near death condition multiple times in a single day and this isn't enough? Now add what a few healing potions can add to this and even THIS isn't enough?
Exactly what is being role played in such a state? Spoiled young deities?
Isshia
However... There are also people who don't like to kick in the door and start hackin' and slashin' at enemies, but they want a fantasy world that isn't over the top. Why bother keeping out of harm's way at all if the cleric can heal you the next instant? Why weep over a fallen companion if you can resurrect him at any given town? Having less healing could provide extra suspense and more 'realism' to your game.
It's more of a difference in style of play then it is a discussion over what is best. If you like to keep the action going, then by all means, make it rain potions. If you like the extra suspense and roleplaying in your game, limit the healing. It's that simple.
Part of the problem comes from how default AC works in D&D. Its an all-or-nothing hit-or-miss, and in lower levels that's pretty catastrophic. Someone who has a 50% chance of being hit, but only has 6hp, and an enemy that has an average hit of 10hp, is very likely going to be dead after 2-3 rounds of a fight, unless they're lucky.
The way AC works in D&D is not a problem at all. I used to do armored combat
in the SCA and after experiencing how armor works 1st hand and reading about it. Thats pretty much what happens A- it deflects the blow or B-it hurts like hell.
The one thing D&D does not take into account is skill. BAB should somehow affect AC.
Personally, I've always felt that healing is far too easy and common in D&D. Something that new players and new DM's seem to forget when this topic comes up is that getting injured HURTS, even if there are miraculous cures in a bottle, or wand or simply in the mind of the party Cleric
Ain't that the truth. People use a cleric as a crutch way to often. It also comes down to how the DM runs the game.
My current char is a 23rd lvl forest gnome 18cleric/shadowdancer/monk. (Ninja cleric) U would figure at that level healing would someone would be easy. Well its not. Why because the way healing works in D&D is pretty balanced. During non-combat situations its a breeze. Come time for a battle its not. 1st off who knows who is gonna take a hit or maybe 2 people. Second you have to get close in enough to touch them. Leaving yourself vulnerable. 3rd PC's can get swallowed by lots of monsters. 4th Our epic lvl group still has to run (mainly Teleport now )etc etc...
Point is that healing is balanced just fine in D&D if your group and DM make it so.
So, numbers-wise, healing < damage.
I guess that's not a big deal in and of itself--until you consider that it took the absolute best healing you can do at 7th level to make that comparison.
There isn't a weapon of mass healing in the USA to the best of my knowledge. But let's all try not to shudder when we think how many weapons of mass destruction there are.
Healing < damage.
It's just realistic. It's always been that way, and D&D I think is feeble at reflecting that reality. And D&D is supposed to be believable. The farther you drift from concepts of reality, the harder it is to suspend disbelief.
I won't go into how magic is just an index of technology right now. But frankly, D&D is rich with healing compared to this world. And this world is real. So one might say D&D is unrealistically rich in healing. And damage too? I dunno, I could do things with a glock that a 2nd level mage couldn't even hope for.
Healing < Damage. That's the intent. Constant heals and easy breaks are for games with a 'save' feature.
I won't go into how magic is just an index of technology right now. But frankly, D&D is rich with healing compared to this world. And this world is real. So one might say D&D is unrealistically rich in healing. And damage too? I dunno, I could do things with a glock that a 2nd level mage couldn't even hope for.
On that note, how big a circumstance bonus does a doctor get to heal checks when in a modern hospital with all necessary equipment, medications and operating rooms? (Not counting synergy bonuses for Profession [Doctor] and Knowledge [Medicine] or Aid another bonuses from other doctors or nurses.)
The way AC works in D&D is not a problem at all. I used to do armored combat in the SCA and after experiencing how armor works 1st hand and reading about it. That's pretty much what happens A- it deflects the blow or B-it hurts like hell.
The one thing D&D does not take into account is skill. BAB should somehow affect AC.
Ain't that the truth. People use a cleric as a crutch way to often. It also comes down to how the DM runs the game.
My current char is a 23rd lvl forest gnome 18cleric/shadowdancer/monk. (Ninja cleric) U would figure at that level healing would someone would be easy. Well its not. Why because the way healing works in D&D is pretty balanced. During non-combat situations its a breeze. Come time for a battle its not. 1st off who knows who is gonna take a hit or maybe 2 people. Second you have to get close in enough to touch them. Leaving yourself vulnerable. 3rd PC's can get swallowed by lots of monsters. 4th Our epic lvl group still has to run (mainly Teleport now )etc etc...
Point is that healing is balanced just fine in D&D if your group and DM make it so.
I'm sorry, but I've got to disagree with almost all of this.
First up, I was in a group in So. Cal. in 79&80 called Authentic Recreations (who were still not able to live up to that name of course) who did "live steel" combat and the like with fairly period (circa 900's European) accurate armor. Now these "recreations" were choreographed to the teeth, every swing and counter was a set piece, but sometimes (not all that unoften unfortunately, which is what finally shut us down) there would be accidents.
The difference between, even with heavily dulled weapons, getting hit in an area where you were armored and an area where you weren't armored wasn't that one deflected the blow and the other hurt like hell. The difference was that in the armored area you got a (sometimes bad) bruise while in the unarmored area, you bled (sometimes badly) AND got a bad bruise. The armor did exactly what it was supposed to do, it reduced, (it did most decidedly NOT negate) the damage you took.
Look, the SCA's way of doing this is FAR smarter and safer for the recreationist or anachronist who wants to have some fun, but those padded weapons are NOTHING like even the most heavily dulled real deal.
Too, in combat or outside of it, the healing is (IMO) immensely over blown. IN combat there is absolutely NO opportunity to heal in any situation that isn't specific to a game, yet simply being vulnerable for a few seconds means that a cleric, who if he's smart isn't going to be all that vulnerable any way since there are ways around that vulnerability through spells and by other means, can bring another character, or himself, back from the brink time and again and again and again.
Epic level is one thing, with characters who are walking gods the normal D&D healing isn't quite as absurd, but FAR and away most of the games I've seen run or have run over the past 27+ years haven't pitted the Young Deities against the Titans, but rather have been people who, while a mighty cut above the average (I'd say the average game range I've seen is anywhere between 5-12th levels when at it's best), are still people, not nascent godheads.
For campaigns where there are HEROES as opposed to super heroes (and most epic level characters could walk right in and dominate an X Men power level Marvel campaign) the ability to heal with no repercussions is just ludicrous.
It is too, however, a part of the game that does achieve at least a rudimentary amount of balance from what D&D is teaching people should be a reasonable frequency of encounters, so what the heck. I was never arguing that healing was unbalanced... just that there did most definitely NOT need to be anything in place that made it any easier or more common. Also, without overhauling the entire system to the point that it would no longer be D&D I don't see a way to make armor work the way it's supposed to work either. The all or nothing may not be terribly reasonable, but within the context of the game it works ok, so why "fix" it?
Isshia
But not for the reasons people are saying. I play Magic, and one basic, fundamental tenet of the game is, "Life gain is WEAK."
The reason for this is that you're spending resources (in Magic, usually a card and mana, in D&D, a vital round and a potion/spell) to avoid losing, rather than winning. What exactly do hit points do? Nothing---they're only important when they're not there. If a wizard sat there frying a cleric, and the cleric kept healing himself, the cleric would get destroyed. Healing can't stand up to that sort of abuse. Spell for spell, it doesn't match the numbers of damage spells. You lose the war of resources. It's a crappy combat action best used out of combat. There are the times when you need to heal your barbarian killing machine so he can keep on dispatching foes with his greatsword, but that begs the question---why aren't you the killing machine? Last I checked, you're one of the supposedly most broken classes in the game, blessed with divine favor, divine power, etc.
What hit points give you is time. The only use of time (in combat) is an action. Let's run the numbers---say you have two fighters v. a fighter and a cleric. Say it takes three hits from a fighter to drop a fighter, and two hits from a fighter to drop a cleric (not at all unreasonable at lower levels). Finally, we'll give healing a break and say that one cure spell=one hit, though in practice, healing will be far outstripped (ever had a critical cure? Or used a cure spell two-handed?)
Round 1---the fighter of the cleric team takes two hits and deals a hit. The cleric heals a hit so his fighter effectively only takes one hit.
Round 2---same
Round 3---same, except in this round, two fighters drop. Now we have a cleric vs. a fighter! I'd point out that the cleric cannot win this battle, even with cure light wounds at will! If he hadn't uselessly burned his spells on the fighter, he might perhaps have had them to buff himself and pull off a win, but he did, and he can't!
The best defense in D&D is a good offense. (Roll high on init.
)Myself? I think 3rd edition healing is just right. You have to have enough healing around so that a single sword blow won't sideline your character for a year, but not so much that you don't have to think before leaping into a dangerous combat situation.
D&D is not Diablo. It is a *roleplaying* game which occasionally slips into being a tactical warfare game. Diablo is the hack'n'slash equivalent of Doom.
Unfortunately, this all falls back on the shoulders of the DM, who should balance his adventure/encounters such that a reasonably prudent and capable party would be able to overcome whatever challenges he throws at them, using the resources available to them at their level. This won't save a party that acts recklessly, like attacking a monster horde that they should parley with, but at the very least it's fair.
There is nothing wrong with how healing is set up in the basic rules.
Diablo has corrupted our youth.
In my game I made all new core classes, to better fit the setting and to improve the fun factor. The only healing magic in the whole system is the ability of some humans to drain hp from the dying. That's right, no cure magic at all. If you want to stabilize your buddy use the heal skill. If you don't want to be hurt stay out of trouble. We've only had a short session so far but it worked out just as planned. There was some tense action.
Agreed. Healing makes injury worthless. Use the grim and gritty system. Best idea ever. Low hit points, slow healing and magical healing basically just converts normal damage to subdual damage, which is still miraculous but does not result in instant healing. Even under the care of the best healers you can find you still need to rest all night to be functional (since subdual damage goes away at one point per hour).
...But it does have a few oddities. Comparing D&D to fantasy novels is difficult because ALL magic in D&D is very powerful when compared to that in most fantasy novels (how many fireballs did Gandalf fire off?). Given the power of magic in general, healing magic should be powerful too.
But it's rather odd that raising the dead is actually easier than curing a wounded adventurer with one spell (Raise Dead 5th, Heal 6th). I suppose this would make sense if Raise Dead was like modern CPR, but in D&D the corpse could have been thoroughly cold and dead for days.
Healing is poor in D&D.
But not for the reasons people are saying. One basic, fundamental tenet of the game is Life gain is weak.
Wizard is correct.
(heh--will you add this to your sig?) :D
Think of it in terms of a video game (again), say Warcraft II. If you are forced on the defensive, 99 times out of 100 you're going to lose (all else being equal). In D&D, healing is defensive.
The two best ways to win a combat are preventing damage: 1) by pre-combat (or early combat) buffing, or by killing the baddies before they kill you.
Of course, if the only (or best) way to prevent yourself or your party from dying is through healing in combat, by all means that's your best course of action. But if you're forced into that scenario, then maybe you could have done something different before that.
This is based on 3rd Edition, but several things have been changed to facilitate computer play.
- The Heal skill heals HP. When using a healing kit, you heal your check result + skill ranks + kit bonus. This means, even at first level, out of battle you will be healing at least 21 points of damage, since you automatically take 20 with no time penalty.
- Healing potions are incredibly common. You can walk into a commoner's house, raid their chest of drawers, and make off with a potion of CLW and 10 gold. In a tabletop game, you would have just robbed that poor man of his life savings, gaining you a bit of an Evil alignment change and attention from law enforcement. In-game, the commoner does nothing. This is even more absurd at higher levels, where that same chest will hold a potion of Cure Critical and over 100 gold.
- Resting heals you fully. If you've taken some damage, you can just retreat a bit, sit down for 10-15 seconds, and bam. Ready to charge back in after you reapply your buffs. Which, at almost any level higher than 4, last until you next need to rest.
Someone above mentioned the dichotomy between role-playing games and action games, and I agree. D&D is a role-playing game, and benefits from its relatively slow healing rate. NWN is an action game based on D&D rules, and so benefits from a faster/more abundant healing. Any attempts to make either like the other fall flat, in my opinion. I have run into some good compromises for NWN, though. Like resting still healing you fully, but you can only rest every 8 game hours (8 minutes in real terms. That's still plenty long enough to die if you're not careful).
Bottom line, I'd say that healing vs. damage could use a few tweaks, but doesn't need to be ramped up or down significantly. Others don't feel that way, however, and are free to run their games the way they feel. If I'm in one of those games, I'll go along with it, too.
We ended up allowing a Cure Lt. wounds to heal 10% of the targets total HP, Cure moderate healed 25%, Cure serious healed 50%, Cure critical healed 75%, and a heal spell cured 99% of a targets total HP. After playing that way for over a year I had to admit it works out rather nicely by allowing a cure spell to function more by its power level than by who was the receiver. The low level guys got shafted a bit (10% of 6hp is only 1 hp from the cure light wounds spell, but healing skill became a lot more useful. The cause wounds versions of the spells became a bit high powered, a mere cause serious wds depleted a target of 50% of its HP in one touch attack, but the bad guys could do it to so it was balanced in a combat fairness sense. The cleric became a bit more of a combat role than normal also.
We have since finished that campaign and play primarily Living Greyhawk so we don't use those home rules anymore. Some of us do miss them.
Good Gaming...
I completely disagree. Healing in D&D is WAY too common, so much so that it takes all the drama out of being wounded. Even if a player DIES, it ain't no thing to run down to a church and have him resurrected.
Actually, in our campaign, we can't just run down and get them resurrected. We have to do all this crazy stuff to have the church resurrect him, and if the DM decides it's been too many times, or the player has a discussion, the DM just tears up the character sheet. It all depends on how you play.
I believe the primary thing thats being overlooked in this thread, and most games, is that your hitpoints arnt specifically your wounds. Its a representation of your vitality, physical endurance and stamina.
You take "damage" not because youve been struck by a weapon but because you were able to turn yet another life threatening injury into a nick or glance. Open gashes and broken bones are what critical strikes are for, under the D20 system they are uncommon at best requiring threat then confirmation. Such injuries require specified applications of magic or expertise to heal proporly while nicks, cuts and bruises can recover overnight.
The heal skill in combat represents bandaging, plugging holes and splinting... theres not much more a real combat medic can do either, but it gets the subject back up or at least stable.
Out of combat, in my opinion, the heal skill represents a broad spectrum of talents from pharmacology to surgury. How far your DM will allow your imagination to take it is really up to them. Dr Frankenstein was a DR after all, he wasnt a wizard or a cleric.
Application of magic to cure injuries is likewise not specific. A simple cure spell can be applied to instantly mend a broken bone, but it does not heal hitpoints at the same time. a high level cure spell does the same thing, maybe more at once, the difference is that if its used to restore hitpoints its like bandaging, the subject is revitalized and restored to operating condition where they can get themselves out of harms way. Its not meant to bring them from deaths door to full hitpoints to resume combat otherwise the game loses its excitement.
If your players are constantly taking more damage than they can handle then its a question of, are you facing them up with too large a challenge, are they thinking thier way through or just barreling in guns blazing, are you providing them what they may need to survive such as retreat, cover, mercy, are they taking advantage of it ?