Redbadge
Explorer
5e has great rules, but one legitimate concern I see often is the "Whack-a-Mole" issue. You've probably seen it as well: during a fight, rather than try to heal damage as it occurs to prevent a party member from dropping, they will wait to use healing word or a potion until after a PC has fallen. I can't fault it, because it makes strategic sense (assuming instant death from too much damage isn't likely); by waiting until after a PC goes down, the party effectively gains extra healing economy by ignoring all the extra damage past 0. Often the only risk that needs to be weighed is whether the dying PC would miss an action due to being down on their turn.
Unfortunately, this creates the aforementioned "whack-a-mole" phenomenon. Fighter goes down. Receives healing word for a few HP and pops back up. Because of the low remaining hp, the fighter immediately goes back down. Repeat until the party wins or runs out of healing. I don't mind a party member fighting on the edge of disaster the entire time while the healer tries to keep them up. It's specifically the fall down, dying, stand back up cycle that I'm having cognitive dissonance with and which the rules as written actually encourage.
Here are my proposed house rules, presented for comment:
1. Unconscious (or dying, if you prefer) creatures have Resistance to Healing (that is they receive half of any healing they would have received, rounded down); and
2. Whenever an unconscious (or dying, if you prefer) creature receives healing, they must make a DC 20 Constitution save in order to regain consciousness; otherwise they remain unconscious but stable. They gain a bonus to the saving throw attempt equal to the amount of healing actually received.
The bonus to the saving throw is encouraged in order for the healer to consider using more powerful healing on their unconscious ally, otherwise only the smallest heal possible would be incentivized due to the other half of the healing that is lost. Powerful enough healing would automatically awaken the target (i.e. heal).
If you use the rules for dying creatures only, then obviously the rules revert to the default RAW if the first saving throw is failed (i.e. subsequent healing will be at full power and automatically awaken the creature unless damage had reduced it to 0 again in the interim). I think I would prefer applying the house rules to both dying creatures and stabilized creatures.
To what extent do you think the proposed rules address the whack-a-mole issue?
Unfortunately, this creates the aforementioned "whack-a-mole" phenomenon. Fighter goes down. Receives healing word for a few HP and pops back up. Because of the low remaining hp, the fighter immediately goes back down. Repeat until the party wins or runs out of healing. I don't mind a party member fighting on the edge of disaster the entire time while the healer tries to keep them up. It's specifically the fall down, dying, stand back up cycle that I'm having cognitive dissonance with and which the rules as written actually encourage.
Here are my proposed house rules, presented for comment:
1. Unconscious (or dying, if you prefer) creatures have Resistance to Healing (that is they receive half of any healing they would have received, rounded down); and
2. Whenever an unconscious (or dying, if you prefer) creature receives healing, they must make a DC 20 Constitution save in order to regain consciousness; otherwise they remain unconscious but stable. They gain a bonus to the saving throw attempt equal to the amount of healing actually received.
The bonus to the saving throw is encouraged in order for the healer to consider using more powerful healing on their unconscious ally, otherwise only the smallest heal possible would be incentivized due to the other half of the healing that is lost. Powerful enough healing would automatically awaken the target (i.e. heal).
If you use the rules for dying creatures only, then obviously the rules revert to the default RAW if the first saving throw is failed (i.e. subsequent healing will be at full power and automatically awaken the creature unless damage had reduced it to 0 again in the interim). I think I would prefer applying the house rules to both dying creatures and stabilized creatures.
To what extent do you think the proposed rules address the whack-a-mole issue?