D&D (2024) Just DMed my 1st session of 5.5. Healer's Kit!?!?!

[DarkCrisis]

Decided to play it straight before doing houserules.

Things that came up:

Paladin somehow doing 20 plus damage at level 1. That's a good smite.

(Healing) Potions as a Bonus Action. This was not unknown to me.

Lay on Hands is also a Bonus Action. What?

Healer's Kit is 5gp for TEN auto stabilizes. Oh and it can be used as part of another action. So, Attack and stabilize NO ROLL! plus my bonus action!

Edit: misread of the utilize action.

Healer's Kit thing is blowing my mind. My players were also quite surprised. One of them joked "Just kill me!" and I said "I can't the game won't let me!" We all laughed.

But yeah I have to think of house rules because good lord stuff like the Healer Kit is a step to far IMO.

 

[Maxperson]

Decided to play it straight before doing houserules.

Things that came up:

Paladin somehow doing 20 plus damage at level 1. That's a good smite.

(Healing) Potions as a Bonus Action. This was not unknown to me.

Lay on Hands is also a Bonus Action. What?

Healer's Kit is 5gp for TEN auto stabilizes. Oh and it can be used as part of another action. So, Attack and stabilize NO ROLL! plus my bonus action!


Healer's Kit thing is blowing my mind. My players were also quite surprised. One of them joked "Just kill me!" and I said "I can't the game won't let me!" We all laughed.

But yeah I have to think of house rules because good lord stuff like the Healer Kit is a step to far IMO.

I'm a big fan of healing as a bonus action, but really only applies to spells and abilities like lay on hands. I can't tell you how many rounds I've felt were wasted because all I did was heal someone who just lost the hit points the next round anyway, sometimes going unconscious and making the heal worthless.

That said, using healing skill takes time. How I would do it is 1) if it's out of combat, you automatically stabilize the person with no roll. 2) if you use your action to stabilize the down PC, you roll with advantage to succeed. If you use the bonus action, then you roll with disadvantage to succeed.

 

[Charlaquin]

Decided to play it straight before doing houserules.

Things that came up:

Paladin somehow doing 20 plus damage at level 1. That's a good smite.

That’s entirely possible in the 2014 rules; if anything, smite is weaker in 2024 since it requires a bonus action now.

(Healing) Potions as a Bonus Action. This was not unknown to me.

Lay on Hands is also a Bonus Action. What?

Yes, healing is generally easier in 2024, since it was objectively a suboptimal use of your action in 2014 unless you were healing someone from 0HP to get them back into the fight. Now it’s worth considering using to keep your party from falling to 0 in the first place, hopefully helping alleviate the whack-a-mole problem somewhat.

Healer's Kit is 5gp for TEN auto stabilizes.

That was also the case in the 2014 rules.

Oh and it can be used as part of another action. So, Attack and stabilize NO ROLL! plus my bonus action!

That’s incorrect. It takes a utilize action, which… is an action. You have to use your action for it.

Healer's Kit thing is blowing my mind.

Yeah, it would certainly be very strong if it actually worked the way you thought it did.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I don't understand what you don't like about the Healer's Kit. That you don't have to roll Medicine? I mean, it's weird that the skill almost becomes useless once you have the gear, but it's probably just a time saver.

I also don't know what you mean by "It can be used as part of another action" - no it can't. It's a Utilize Action. An Attack Action is a different thing, so there's no "Attack and stabilize" at the same time.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Decided to play it straight before doing houserules.

Things that came up:

Paladin somehow doing 20 plus damage at level 1. That's a good smite.

(Healing) Potions as a Bonus Action. This was not unknown to me.

Lay on Hands is also a Bonus Action. What?

Healer's Kit is 5gp for TEN auto stabilizes. Oh and it can be used as part of another action. So, Attack and stabilize NO ROLL! plus my bonus action!

The healer's kit in 5e has always had 10 uses with no roll.
It also states it needs a utilize action. So...?????

Healer's Kit thing is blowing my mind. My players were also quite surprised. One of them joked "Just kill me!" and I said "I can't the game won't let me!" We all laughed.

But yeah I have to think of house rules because good lord stuff like the Healer Kit is a step to far IMO.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah, I don't want to harp on you too hard, @DarkCrisis, but there's nearly nothing in your first post that is actually different in 2024 than it was in 2014, other than that Lay on Hands is a bonus action, so is Smite, and the use of the term "utilize" instead of "use item".

The results would have been otherwise the same.

 

[DarkCrisis]

That’s entirely possible in the 2014 rules; if anything, smite is weaker in 2024 since it requires a bonus action now.

Yes, healing is generally easier in 2024, since it was objectively a suboptimal use of your action in 2014 unless you were healing someone from 0HP to get them back into the fight. Now it’s worth considering using to keep your party from falling to 0 in the first place, hopefully helping alleviate the whack-a-mole problem somewhat.

That was also the case in the 2014 rules.

That’s incorrect. It takes a utilize action, which… is an action. You have to use your action for it.

Yeah, it would certainly be very strong if it actually worked the way you thought it did.

Oh yeah misread of the utilize action. Thanks!

 

[el-remmen]

It is (some of) the stuff like this that led me to houseruled my own version of 5e from the ground up. So for example magic healing is weaker not stronger and a medicine check result replaces a death save.

But at the same time that’s the beauty of D&D just change what you want. I prefer D&D where hard choices are common - do I heal or do I keep fighting? - and not when the optimal choice is the easiest, or worse yet when you can do both with no stress. I’d never allow bonus action potions, for example.


But to each their own.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is (some of) the stuff like this that led me to houseruled my own version of 5e from the ground up.

Misreading rules as the OP?

So for example magic healing is weaker not stronger and a medicine check result replaces a death save.

You mean if someone uses a medicine check, it just counts as anither save which can be a failure or success? So 3 medicine checks to stabilize?

But at the same time that’s the beauty of D&D just change what you want. I prefer D&D where hard choices are common - do I heal or do I keep fighting? - and not when the optimal choice is the easiest, or worse yet when you can do both with no stress. I’d never allow bonus action potions, for example.

So potions are out of combat stuff?

But to each their own.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

That’s entirely possible in the 2014 rules; if anything, smite is weaker in 2024 since it requires a bonus action now.

In 2014 rules the Paladin wouldn't have any spellslots yet, so no Divine Smite until Level 2. Once you get to Level 2, Divine Smite is far weaker in 2024 rules, but for that one specific situation of Level 1 it's actually stronger

Lay on Hands is also a Bonus Action. What?

At first glance this seems like a great buff but remember that Divine Smite is now nerfed to require a Bonus Action. So you still can't smite and lay on hands in the same turn, making the buff to lay on hands be nice in a few situations, but usually irrelevant. Lay on Hands remains mainly an out of combat ability, where action vs bonus action doesn't matter