Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Zardnaar Nov 28, 2014 13:26:40	A long time ago on these forums I said something along the lines of in combat healing is a waste of time. What I probably should have said is in combat healing is inefficient and we generally do not do it unless it is a bonus action of some kind.    We do heal in combat if it is an emergency or if option B is death. Otherwise we wait until the fight is over.   The Math.   Consider the following examples.   Cure Wounds level 1. 1d8+3 (7.5 avg) Healing Word level 1. 1d4+3 (5.5 avg)   Cure wounds is almost 50% more effective than Healing Word although healing word is a bonus action but how important is it to heal your PC right now?   Now how about this.   Cure Wounds level 1. 1d8+3 (7.5 avg) Goodberry level 1. 10 hit points (over 10 rounds)   Goodberry is around 33%more efficient than cure wounds and almost 100% more effective than healing word. It is out of combat healing really though although I suppose a Thief could munch on a berry as a bonus action.   Now I will look at some level 2 spells.   Prayer of Healing 2d8+3 Cure Wounds lvl 2 spell slot 2d8+3   Both heal the same amount of hit points, Prayer of healing has a 10 minute casting time and can effect multiple targets. Once again the out of combat healing is more effective.   There is one exception to this rule though and that is the life cleric. They are very effective at healing and something like a mass healing word for them heals 3d4+8 as opposed to 3d4+3 so 10.5 healing on average vs 15.5 is an increase of almost 50%. The life cleric also gets funny if they gain access to Goodberry or Aura of Vitality via multiclassing.   Consider Lore Bard 6/Life Cleric 1 Goodberry heals 40 hit points.   Aura of Vitality goes from 20d6 (70 avg) to 120 average hit points.   This means a level one spell is over half as effective as a level 6 heal spell. A level 3 spell heals 50% more hit points than a level 6 heal spell even if a life cleric casts that heal spell. Aura of Vitality is mostly an out of combat spell IMHO but it can do a reasonable job in combat if the spellcasters doesn't get interrupted.   I also said something like a Mass Cure Spell is not that effective. It is great for a life cleric but 3d8+wisdom modifier to everyone in the party is often not as good as it could be for 2 main reasons probably related to how the DMs run the encounters.   1.     We use focus fire a lot. This means there is often no damage spread out and a mass heal spell is no better than a level 3 cure wounds spells.   2.     Incoming damage exceeds any amount of healing short of a heal spell.   We almost always take the healing feat as well. This is probably why the DMs (including myself) use focus fire so much. Both of our groups win a lot of fights with attrition. For example we have a rogue (thief) with the healers feat and he can use via a healers kit as a bonus action. Once per short rest he can heal 1d6+4+level in hit points or he can stabilize someone and they gain 1 hit point. 1 hit point is enough to stay conscious and have an attack.    This means a lot of the time we heal a downed PC to 1 hit point instead of using a limited resource (magical healing) to give them hit points which are often wasted. In terms of getting KOed 1 hit point is just as good as 10, 15, or 20 if the incoming damage is 10, 15 or 20 damage. We tend to face a lot of things like Giants and Gladiators so healing someone for more than 1hp is inefficient. If they get hit and get KOed again it is only a bonus action to give them 1 hit point again as there is no limit to how often you can stabilize someone. The downside is a critical hit can kill some of the squishier PCs but that hasn’t killed anyone get. Not healing someone while they are down has killed people though although that has been bad luck (rolling a 1 on stabilization check), circumstances (healers pinned/incapacitated) or a plan old screw up causing that.   In terms of some of the crazier fights we have had.   1.     An encounter roughly triple the xp of a deadly fight (10k deadly fight, we fought a 28k encounter) of multiple opponents including multiple spell casters.   2.     Encounters where if you use the xp multipliers for swarms we have been fighting around triple to X6 the xp limits of a deadly encounter.   3.     A deadly+ encounter where all short rest and daily resources have been expended. Healers kit for the win (3 PCs on 1hp).   4.      7 deadly encounters +half a dozen easier encounters with no short rest. That is 13 or 14  encounters maybe more with no break. That adventure took 3 sessions.     Most of the time we get around 1-2 short rests and 3-7 encounters just our easy encounters RAW are usually hard, the average encounter is deadly and the deadly encounters are deadly+. DMs sometimes attack PCs who have been KOed depending on the circumstances and intelligence, abilities and expectations of NPCs. We usually have a 5 or 6 man party as well so the RAW encounter guidelines can get to some impressive numbers. 40 kobolds for example counts as an easy fight for level 8 PCs. We have no idea how many encounters we will have per day. It might be 1 it might be more than 10.    So depending on how your DM runs encounters can also determine how important healing is along with party composition. Out of combat healing is always more efficient than in combat healing though and short rests allow HD to be spent and recharge things like a healers kit and the life clerics channel divinity ability.
#2 DaveDash Nov 28, 2014 14:12:34	Until a dragon breaths on you. What's better than healing in general is not being hit at all (shield of faith, haste, dodge, mirror image, invis, greater invis, blink, stealth, summons, shield spell, darkness, foresight, holy aura, ranged vs melee, arcane ward, cutting words, flare, levitate). What's most efficient is crowd control (hold person, hold monster, banishment, wall spells, force cage, calm emotion, hypnotic pattern, minor illusion, bestow curse, contagion DM depending, ottos irresistible dance, mass charm).
#3 Lawolf Nov 28, 2014 14:06:01	Because you can fight just as well at 1 HP as at 100, bonus action healing spells like Healing Word do have a place. Use these spells to stabilize dying allies and bring them back to combat.   Otherwise, yes, out of combat healing is vastly more effective than in combat healing.
#4 Zardnaar Nov 28, 2014 14:09:20	DaveDash wrote:
#5 DaveDash Nov 28, 2014 14:23:58	What I am trying to say with my post above is your #1 priority should be not allowing the enemy to attack at all. That starts with crowd control. #2 is then to focus on not getting hit. #3 is then probably healing (in or out of combat), but healing has always been poor in most games, unless its in combat regeneration, which doesn't exist for players in 5e I don't think. All the above starts with good scouting. Know your enemy, strike their weakness, don't let them strike yours. If you're more offensive focused without covering your weaknesses then you'll end up with rocket tag.
#6 Shirebrok Nov 28, 2014 14:39:05	What I'm getting from this is that healing (among other things) is easier or more efficient when you're not in a rush, as opposed to when you're in a stressful situation. I'm not sure that's a problem.   I'll echo DaveDash here and add that in-combat healing in 5e is more of a panic button for when things go bad. I haven't played that much yet, but I'd say the Rogue in our group has been one of the most useful characters, simply by scouting ahead and taking out key targets before combat even starts (like the wizard in Old Owl Well). Now that the Bard knows the Invisibility spell, the Rogue is even better at it.
#7 Emerikol Nov 28, 2014 14:39:15	I would think that the system is working as intended.  Out of combat healing is better.  There is a price for rapid emergency availability.
#8 DaveDash Nov 28, 2014 14:42:05	Yeah I think its a design goal to reduce reliance on in combat healing classes.
#9 Zardnaar Nov 28, 2014 14:47:14	I'm not saying its a problem BTW, just adding context why I said in combat healing sucks and we rarely do it beyond healers kits and the occasional healing word.
#10 Shirebrok Nov 28, 2014 14:52:36	Well, if you ask me, if it isn't a problem, then it doesn't suck. To say that something sucks implies there is a problem, IMO. I think a better way of putting it would be that in-combat healing is adequate, but out-of-combat healing is better.
#11 EnglishLanguage Nov 28, 2014 16:44:57	It's D&D, in-conbat healing is rarely worth it when you can just spend that turn killing/helping kill the enemy.
(Reply to #11) 1eejit	EnglishLanguage wrote:
#13 FFSAA Nov 28, 2014 18:17:23	Zardnaar wrote:
#14 Zardnaar Nov 28, 2014 18:19:08	Second wind is competing with extra attacks or a shield bash in some cases via feats so it depends on the situation IMHO.