An elegant solution to unfun combat healing

[fuindordm]

All right, I was thinking about that sample combat with the dragon some more--in particular the round where a cleric hits the dragon and heals an ally simultaneouly.

I understand that forcing the cleric to heal in the middle of combat every round makes the game less fun for that player. Once in a while should be not only OK, however, but expected. Let's say that we would hope a cleric has to use their main action to heal an ally no more than once in an average combat.

We don't really know how this will be resolved, but I just had a nice idea:

Why not allow the cleric to heal before combat? I can think of two ways to accomplish this:

1. This works in any edition: allow any excess HP given by a cure wounds spell to serve as temporary HP, lasting one hour per spell level. This way, if the party expects a combat and has time to prepare, the cleric can lay down some nice boosts before the party wades in.

2. Offer a category of contingent healing spells (probably of the 1/day variety) that activate automatically when their target drops below a certain threshold. Their duration should probably be 1 day, or on the order of 1 day per spell level.

In some ways, the two ideas amount to the same thing. And both go a long way towards alleviating the cleric's responsibilities during combat.

What do you all think?

 

[JDJblatherings]

method-1: don't like it, more bookkeeping = bad. Hp over norma MAx HP doens't concetpually = heaing.

method-2: like this one more, it might work fine. What woudl you call it "Wound Ward"?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

This just doesn't seem all that interesting an idea to me. There is little consequence to buffing up with extra HP. I prefer the choices that need to be made - do I heal the fighter now, or attack the beast and hope we drop it before it can kill him?

 

[Cadfan]

Part of the value of HP is that you lose them and get close to dying, and that creates tension. Giving HP boosts in advance of combat would either eliminate that, or it would force the designers to increase damage to account for it, mooting the issue.

I think that in combat healing is a fun aspect of the game, and should be preserved. Its one more resource the party has to juggle in battle. The problem isn't healing in combat, its when the players end up in a fight where the cleric just runs from person to person healing them, and never gets to do anything else. This can be fixed by making healing happen through mechanisms like the Crusader's healing strikes, or by letting the cleric heal as a Swift Action. To preserve a bit of the old flavor, I'd give the cleric some other good swift actions, so that he has to make a legitimate choice about how to allocate the action.

 

[Cadfan]

For the record, one of my favorite characters was a cleric/combat medic who did exactly that. He had a Spiritual Weapon that was a giant boot (cleric of mercury, spiritual weapon was a winged shoe... don't ask). It was his primary attack method because the campaign was so deadly that the rest of the time he ran around healing people. Everyone laughed, but my damage output was close to the rest of the party, and they'd all have died every single fight without me.

 

[The Souljourner]

Healing in D&D reminds me of life gain in Magic: The Gathering. Unless the amount healed is huge, it's almost always better to spend your action & other resources trying to remove threats rather than patch the damage already done.

In Magic, most life gain spells that see any use are fairly cheap, can be done instantly at the end of the other person's turn (so they don't spend actions or resources on your own turn), and give a huge return on investment. Usually healing spells in magic give at least double the effect of damage spells with the same cost.

Many life gaining methods in magic are a secondary effect - summon a creature, get some healing, too...

I think D&D needs to look to Magic to figure out how to do healing right. There need to be more free action/immediate action healing spells, and healing spells need to be MUCH more efficient. A 5th level caster casting a healing spell heals 18 points on average, to one person with touch range. A 5th level caster casting a damage spell deals 18 points of damage on average, to a huge area at a long range. That's not balanced at all.

If you have a healing spell that is a standard action, that healing spell ought to heal a crapload of damage.... I'd like to see the current healing spells made as free actions, and new healing spells made that heal at least twice as much as standard actions.

Also, spells and actions that heal as a side effect would be great.... anything that can make the cleric feel useful and not just a big healing battery.

-Nate

 

[Numion]

method-2: like this one more, it might work fine. What woudl you call it "Wound Ward"?

Fortunate Fate in Magic of Faerun. Level 7 cleric. 10 min / level, if target dropped below zero - BOOM - Heal cast on target. Pretty ridiculous spell. Long duration made it standard buff at those levels when I was running RttToEE, where it came in handy.

 

[Henry]

Fortunate Fate in Magic of Faerun. Level 7 cleric. 10 min / level, if target dropped below zero - BOOM - Heal cast on target. Pretty ridiculous spell. Long duration made it standard buff at those levels when I was running RttToEE, where it came in handy.

Darn, Numion beat me to it. Fortunate fate is a cool spell - Heal without the cleric present.

I honestly don't like the "I'll heal AND do something cool" myself, and this is coming from a regular player of a cleric. It's never made any kind of plausible sense to me to heal from watching an attack, and its aesthetic leaves me a bit cold. I'm soon to play a character that does this very thing, but from an objective view I can't make a plausible reason for it. Renewed vigor? Why not temporary hit points, or a temp CON boost?

 

[frankthedm]

In 3E, I'd say no blanking way to something like that. The cleric was made such an uber character because his actions are supposed to be spent healing others. It could work in 4E provided the cleric was not as overpowered as they are currently.

 

[The Souljourner]

In 3E, I'd say no blanking way to something like that. The cleric was made such an uber character because his actions are supposed to be spent healing others. It could work in 4E provided the cleric was not as overpowered as they are currently.

I've played a lot of clerics in 3e and I've never felt overpowered. Yes, *in theory* the cleric can be better than the fighter and the wizard, but it never happens that way in reality. The only thing that can really make clerics uber is if you play very high level campaigns with persistent spell (or allow crazy custom magic items).

Really, by the time your cleric casts righteous might, divine favor, and divine power, the battle's 80% over.

And yes, many times you waste a lot of your time in combat keeping people from dying. And that's not really fun unless you specifically want to play the combat medic.

Also.... I think bumping the power of healing spells would actually allow the rest of a cleric's abilities to be toned down somewhat, since they wouldn't have to "make up" for the wasted time healing.

-Nate