How can healing be made better*?

[Ilorin Lorati]

*More interesting, stronger, anything but a waste of time outside of emergency situations

I'll admit it: I'm a fan of healing. When starting an MMO or another video game, I'll look for the healer first: the Medic, the Priest or Resto Druid, White Mage, Banana thrower, or anything else under the sun: if it's been done it's the first thing I'll pick when it comes time to queue or pick. I don't really know what it is, and even when I'm simply reading a story I'll gravitate towards the characters who heal the sick and wounded.

D&D, however, is a far different beast than other games and having a primary healer is hard to place anywhere but the trash-can optimization or fun-wise, and I'd like to figure out how to change that around. The only time I've seen it successful is with DSP's Vitalist, which is still by no means a non-violent concept.

To that end, I'm doing some research and trying to figure out what could possibly be done in d20 games to make healing an adequate combat job. A primary role, where damage or other methods of removing an enemy from the fight aren't necessary to be able to say they've legitimately contributed. As much as I love the Vitalist and Silver Crane from DSP and other options that turn damage against an enemy into healing, I'm not looking for those.

Any help that could be given in regards to options hidden away in materials from 3.5 or PF, even 3pp and homebrew options would be appreciated. I have some ideas for 'brews, mostly feats to make healing easier and spells that provide buffs based on the target's health, but I can't have been the first person to think about this so I wonder what the Playground thinks about it.

[Almarck]

Hey Lorati.

To elaborate further, we've both spend a few days on and off talking about the subject. Part of the problem we (Or rather Lorati) found was that in d20, healing didn't scale well to damage and people never healed except for when it was risking being killed over sticking to fighting. Offense is prefered in all cases, except in the direst of straights.

As a result, something has to be done to encourage healing as a viable battle action.

[Ilorin Lorati]

As a result, something has to be done to encourage healing as a viable battle action.

Has is a strong word, I feel. The game functions fine without it, I'm just trying to figure out if there is a way it could function with it outside of a massive rewrite.

[eggynack]

My advice would be to create healing spells that offer secondary benefits. Blasting spells face a lot of the same issues as healing spells do, and the best way to make a good blasting spell is to give it a strong rider, or make the damage a rider for a larger effect. Heal+buff is a pretty classic option, but there's no reason you necessarily have to limit it like that. Consider trying out things like heal+BFC or maybe even heal+debuff. The classic form on a blast+BFC is something that impedes motion and damages in an area, so perhaps a heal+BFC is one that enhances motion and removes damage in that selfsame area, either with the benefits restricted to selected allies, or the benefits allowed to anyone, depending on what kinda thing you're trying to do. In the game's current form, a round spent healing is usually a round spent having no impact on the tactical state of an encounter, so the goal is to make that less true.

Edit: As an arbitrary example, how about a healing version of boreal wind? Everything would be identical, except the cold damage would be replaced by an equivalent amount of healing that applies only to allies. The main idea is that your friends would be able to take advantage of the wind to reach distant stuff faster, while foes would take more effort to reach you. It might be worth making the movement optional to friends as well, while still requiring the save for foes, thus making it a straight speed bump along one direction. I don't think any of that would be particularly overpowered, as despite the advantages over boreal wind in the nature of the selective effects, healing is generally less powerful than blasting. Those benefits might make up for the loss without going too far.

[OldTrees1]

An action is efficient if it contributes an action's worth towards the goal, or provides an investment that increases contribution over the course of the encounter that slightly exceeds an action's worth. Healing is an investment that pays off by increasing the duration of encounter your party can field. Therefore an action of Healing is efficient if it extends the combat by slightly more than an action.

In short: Healing must cure more wounds and remove more status effects than an equivalent level effect can inflict.

[Deophaun]

Give the cure line of spells swift action casting times.

[Afgncaap5]

Weird question, but have you ever looked at the Healer class in the Miniatures Handbook? I don't really consider myself much of an optimizer, but I looked into a few options for it that people suggested, and I was regularly healing literal scores of damage (Generally ranging in the twenties, forties, or sixties for health restored) sometimes before the damage even happened, effectively neutralizing things like poison. It was a throwaway character I made in a campaign while I waited for the other players to bring my actual character back to life, but I actually really, really got to like healing with that class. It was active, and pretty much all I could do, and it really, *really* annoyed my friend who always likes to play undead characters. ...okay, maybe that last part's more a benefit for me than anyone else.

Anyway, if just "Healing a lot more" and "Healing faster" doesn't work for you, then it may behoove you to look outside of Vancian magic for solutions. I think my favorite healer-style characters were ones that people made in City of Heroes, called Defenders. The trouble with City of Heroes is that they didn't "heal" so much as "kept people from dying." Some of them were straight up healing, some of them gave DR, some of them increased your ability to avoid damage as it came closer, etc. Tragically, MMO healing doesn't always translate to tabletop healing without making some concessions. (Also, since CoH used "Archetypes" for their powers, it's hard to point to a specific example. If each possible pair of primary and secondary techniques used by a Defender could be considered a "class", then there were 169 possible "classes" of Defender. And that's not even counting the healing done by other archetypes, they were just the best at it.)

If you regularly use miniatures and battle grids and such, it might be possible to create a class that combined vancian magic with item creation and area-of-effect techniques. "All friends in that area take 1d4 points of soothing healing warmth per round while all enemies take 1 point of fire damage per round thanks to the Flame Spirit, and all friends in THAT area take 1d2 points of cooling minty balming from the air spirit per round while enemies take 1 point of cold damage per round. Allies where they overlap takes 1d4+1d2 points of healing, but enemies are unharmed." Unfortunately, most D&D tactical play I've seen doesn't move briskly enough for that kind of thing to run smoothly.

What about a weird sort of time-based magic healer that didn't cure or prevent damage so much as it "delayed" damage. It could heal slowly, and gradually ebb away damage that it's prevented, but eventually the 7+12+3+1+1+4+4+6+14+2+14+7+9+12 points of damage that the party fighter took is all going to come crashing down on him, and if you can't get him to a proper leyline in time then the fight might kill the Fighter before you make camp for the evening.

Another solution might involve making the things needing to be healed be more "pervasive." Diseases and curses and poisons aren't as high a threat as they could be, and a lot of them don't... matter. If those kinds of things were more malevolent, then I think that healers would have more to worry about, and different sorts of play could be introduced to fight them. ("Coming this fall, D&D becomes Fantastic Voyage...")

I dunno. There's a lot that *could* be done, but it's sorta hard to spice it up without making it more clunky.

[zergling.exe]

A quick and dirty fix would be to give the cure spells the Maximum Damage for Arcane Spells, from the DMG p36, amount of dice for their level. This would allow healing to at least keep pace with damage spells.

Still wouldn't be as good as heal, but not many can cast that one spontaneously.

Edit: You would also probably want to stagger them. Each upgrade being two spell levels ahead of the previous, except for minor to light. This could also let you get the mass versions sooner for most of them.

0: Cure Minor
1st: Cure Minor, Mass; Cure Light
2nd: Cure Light, Mass
3rd: Cure Moderate
4th: Cure Moderate, Mass
etc.

[Troacctid]

Making it a swift action is all you really need. 4th edition proved as much.

[Karl Aegis]

White Mages fulfilled the same role in Final Fantasy XI as healing does in D&D: to reduce downtime between combats and increase the efficiency of gaining experience. How different do you want them to be from the traditional White Mage? Did you want them to be a reactive healer like the EchoBoon Ninefingers Dervish/Mesmer of Guild Wars or the Word of Healing/Infuse Health Healing Prayers Monk, also of Guild Wars? Or the proactive healer like the Protection Prayers Monk of Guild Wars? Or maybe the hybrid monstrosity of the Smiter's Boon Monk of Guild Wars that was both proactive and reactive and had to be changed enough that to "Smiter's Boon" something became synonymous with making it unusable?

[ericgrau]

In low op it's plenty strong. Healing can in fact exceed enemy damage. I saw a comparison once that showed that enemy damage per hit barely exceeded healing... except the enemy doesn't always hit. As you get into higher op and higher damage numbers you should buff the healing amount depending on group optimization. OTOH feats like augment healing and spells like shield other already help a little bit. Dealing with status effects at the same time becomes more important as you get into higher op too, as is damage prevention. Especially once you reach the point of 1 hit kills and save-or-Xs.

But whether low op or high op, it's boring. There are a lot of ways to approach this. But I have had a lot of fun with a shield other healer with enlarged shield other kept up 24 hours, mass heals, swift/immediate/move action heals, and imbue with spell ability => close wounds spamming. "I'm almost dead". "Oh I close wounds him." "I close wounds him too." "I'll close wounds myself too". "And me of course." "Ok nevermind I'm fine." Pathfinder Oracle healing abilities were also fun. So there are a lot of cool things you can do with healing already out there. If you wanted to homebrew more weird ways to heal and/or remove status effects then that could also help keep things interesting.

[Xerlith]

Best healing options, speaking from my experience:
- Small stuff: Any class (so, Cleric or Healer) with Close Wounds on their spell list + a Bard level with the Healing Hymn ACF. If you're singing the Healing Hymn, you add your Perform ranks to a healing spell. Immediate Action 1d4+5+CL+3 healing.
- Crusader class -> the Devoted Spirit discipline. Healing strikes are a big thing and being able to attack+heal means you don't fall behind in action economy (too much).

Pathfinder:
Oradin is a great combo for the martially-inclined who want to throw heals around. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?257365-PF-Oradin-Mini-Guide-Or-How-to-be-a-Healbot-minus-the-bot)

For more buffing/smashing/healing, there's the Battle Templar (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/prestige-classes/battle-templar) who:
- progresses Lay on Hands
- has resourceless healing (Martial Healing - when initiating a strike it grants a rider effect that allows spending a swift action to heal 1d4/maneuver level+class level. To himself or an ally in close range).
- may cast benevolent spells as a move action (as long as he uses a strike in the same round) on himself.
- The capstone is basically free action healing (10hp/spell level expended, all allies in a 60ft radius).

It also allows for an Oradin alternative other than the Vitalist (psionic class, Dreamscarred Press as well). Because a Warder1/Cleric4 works wonders (it needs those higher-level slots to power the abilities) with this class.
Then again, Paladin2/Oracle4 entering through Martial Training has an Initiator Level advantage due to how Martial Training works.

There's the Martial Power feat that grants you +2 temp HP for a -1 to attack (+3 if using a shield) per 3 points of BAB. It's basically a free HP pool to power the Life Link feed.

I know you didn't ask for something for smashing heads and healing in one action, but this class is just too good not to mention it.


Here's a homebrew healer retool (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?133118-Retooling-the-Healer-(Heal-it!-Heal-it!-No-one-wants-to-be-defeated!)), but it still doesn't address the fact healing's a bit dull.

[Max Caysey]

Hey Lorati.

To elaborate further, we've both spend a few days on and off talking about the subject. Part of the problem we (Or rather Lorati) found was that in d20, healing didn't scale well to damage and people never healed except for when it was risking being killed over sticking to fighting. Offense is prefered in all cases, except in the direst of straights.

As a result, something has to be done to encourage healing as a viable battle action.

It fits average damage, and add saves for half. Its more than enough. IMO

[Debihuman]

My question is what do you find that is lacking in current healing? Are you looking for items that heal more damage? Are you looking to speed up the healing process? I am not sure where your dissatisfaction lies.

[Doctor Awkward]

Well you are largely correct. In 3.5, the reason that healing is considered a sub-optimal role is that roughly around levels 8 or 9 (sometimes lower, depending on the overall optimization level of the game) the enemies you encounter will, on average, deal about as much damage every round as you can heal in your round. So they spend their actions dealing damage, and you spend your action healing it up, and you are right back where you started, barring whatever your allies did in the mean time.
There also aren't many efficient mass healing spells that function quickly, so if the enemies spread that damage around, it becomes extremely difficult to keep your whole party healthy.
This comes to a head at the highest levels of play (say 12-15 or higher) when enemies you encounter will almost always deal far more damage than you can heal in a round, at which point you are wasting your actions delaying the inevitable.

Solution #1 is to simply to decrease the amount of damage that enemies are capable of doing. The problem is in a lot of cases, like enemies that don't rely on weird abilities or natural attack routines, it's very difficult to do this without also affecting your party's ability to do damage. This will slow combat down to a crawl, and encounters that would have previously taken about five minutes to solve now take half an hour or longer.

Solution #2 is increase the amount of healing that your spells do. This is fine, but also eliminates much of the risk during combat. The barbarian won't think twice about charging that fort with the manned archer towers, soaking up four rounds worth of arrows because he knows that you will just heal it off once the party reaches the gate.

Unfortunately neither of these can be done without a pretty massive rewrite.

There are also a multitude of ways that enemies can damage you besides just going after your hit points, and you only have a limited selection of spells in order to deal with them. Of course, you can always decide to use the spell point variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm) from Unearthed Arcana, but the problem with that is you have to consider how it will affect the overall tone of the game.
To illustrate, let's compare Final Fantasy I (a game that ripped off took a huge amount of inspiration from Dragon Quest and Dungeons & Dragons), to Final Fantasy XIII (the first one).

Most of the time, in order to progress in Final Fantasy I you had to go into a dungeon, reach the bottom, defeat some kind of boss, and retrieve an item. The dungeons all have branching paths, and you are never given any maps. Most of the time you want to explore the dungeon because there are treasures and equipment, which aren't sold in stores, and are invaluable. You'll also want to win battles to earn more money and experience. With the spell charge system and limited inventory, your party only has so many ways to recover health before you have to retreat. The more you explore, the more monsters you encounter, and the more resources you have to expend to keep yourself alive. Much like table-top D&D, Final Fantasy I is a game about resource management, and taking calculated risks in and out of battle.
Now compare that to Final Fantasy XIII. In that game your entire party is restored to full health and status neutrality at the end of every battle, thus nullifying the entire resource management aspect of the game. Without that there is absolutely no point to fighting the same battle more than once. Once you figure out how to defeat the encounter with the goblin warriors and the shaman, that's it, you've solved it. But instead you are forced into redundant and time-consuming battles where you follow the same routine over and over again until you hit the next cutscene trigger point. It's basically Halo translated into an RPG.

I can understand you liking the healer in stories. It's a noble pursuit and one of the highest virtues you can strive for. Here's the thing though with MMO's: they are boring. They are extremely limited games with a simplified interface designed expressly to appeal to as many people as possible. This is the reason that end game content largely consists of establishing a routine and wailing on a single giant monster over and over again for an excess of fifteen minutes at a time, which starts over if anyone makes even a single tiny mistake. The basic game design doesn't really allow for anything more complex. The tanks tank, the DPS DPS's, the healers heal. I've always felt that the greatest strength of table-top gaming is that they are almost nothing like MMO's and it's very difficult to come up with a standard catch-all routine that you can use to solve every encounter.

[Ilorin Lorati]

My question is what do you find that is lacking in current healing? Are you looking for items that heal more damage? Are you looking to speed up the healing process? I am not sure where your dissatisfaction lies.

My dissatisfaction largely comes from healing being at the very bottom of the list of things people want to do in combat. Simply making healing easier or its numbers larger doesn't seem like it will resolve the issue of "it's better to just remove the thing that's killing my allies from combat," because it's still something you do for a round or half a round before getting back to the something else you do.

Swift action healing, et. al. are very good things to have as part of the toolkit, as are the Oradin, Vitalist, and various martial healers that are among my standard go-tos when I do want to heal. I love them, and they're some of my favorite things to play.

To put it into a sentence, I guess I'm asking if there's anything non-HP-damage related (with either as the rider) that already exists in d20. eggynack's arbitrary example, the "healing boreal wind", was exactly the kind of thing I'm curious about. In retrospect, my topic could have probably been more specific.

That said, thanks to everyone that has provided input so far. I really do appreciate the help and advice.

[Thiyr]

I feel like this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?362711-House-rule-cure-spells-are-swift-actions) may have some value. Both in the realm of "Why do people want to heal", and some potential ideas to work with.

[Almarck]

It still means that characters will still try to fight and deal damage, not caring about maintaining healing and such.

It does not help the problem of healing being a low priority except for when in danger.

[eggynack]

To put it into a sentence, I guess 'm asking if there's anything non-HP-damage related (with either as the rider) that already exists in d20. eggynack's arbitrary example, the "healing boreal wind", was exactly the kind of thing I'm curious about.
There's not much in the actual game like that, to my knowledge. Healing spells tend to be designed in a pretty boring way. Your best bet, for my money, is to translate some of the more interesting blasts into heals, because the designers were much more creative with blasts. It's probably because those designs are just a lot more intuitive. I mean, how do you make orb of fire into a healing spell? Do you assign two targets, one for the healing and one for the daze, or do you apply a secondary roll with some set DC to apply a buff? I'm just not all that sure.

A core question, I think, is how selective you want to be. For example, imagine something like a healing version of arctic haze or freezing fog. Allies wouldn't usually want to go into those effects, because they have really detrimental secondary effects, but if you make allies immune to the secondary effects of "healing fog", then you've basically created selective super solid fog, rather than a healing spell. Arctic haze is less good selective, so that one would probably be fine, so I suppose it really depends on the dominant effect of the spell. Point is, there are some interesting design possibilities, perhaps including some that have drawbacks for allies, or some that heal foes as well, but pulling it off could be complicated.

[Morphie]

It would be nice if there was some sort of feat that could substitute the energy of a spell to healing energy. Positive energy substitution or something.

[Quirp]

Adding additional effects to healing spells can be done with the Imbue Healing feat from Complete Champion (I think that's the name, adds a small buff dependent on domain access) and the favored soul ACF in PHB2 (adds temporary HP). This combined with spells like close wounds, heal and healing spirit allows for distribution of healing and buffs for low action costs.

[Max Caysey]

Just want to say that I can get 14 HoT at level 5 for 17 rounds. My cure lights heal 1d8 +9, at levels 5. My cure serious healer 3d8+19.

[jjcrpntr]

I think giving the cure light/moderate/serious/critical spells a range instead of just touch would be a nice start.

I like the idea of having them remove status effects. Maybe have as spells get higher in level the spell heals the dmg but also removes fatigue,daze or whatever.

The idea of a HoT after effect is pretty cool I may have to look in to consider that for my group.

I'm with you OP I enjoy playing support classes. My first dnd character was a cleric that my intent was to have him be a battle field medic. I always played the support in MMO's. From my priest in WoW, all the way back to my Bard, Aug healer, Druid back in Dark Age of Camelot. I get the idea that taking a turn to heal damage versus buffing, or just killing the creature is generally a waste of a turn except in "oh crap" type moments. But it still would be nice if a support character was more fun.

Though I have a guy that plays at my table that played a pure healbot cleric for awhile and he enjoyed it, was a popular character in the group and everyone loved it. Then again the character was a heavy pacifist and would do random stuff that was hilarious. The player had a table he'd roll in stressful situations when his guy would pray. It ranged from Sarenrae telling him to take up arms and fight, run away, and the worst, lay down and accept death. He rolled and get accept death in the middle of a fight and just dropped his gear and sat there. It was hilarious.

[dextercorvia]

Human Bard1/Cleric5

Class Features to consider:
Healing Hymn ACF for Bards (Add your ranks in Perform to the amount you heal for 5 rounds after you stop performing), Inspire Courage (We aren't optimizing it, but it gives you something nice to do in the first round of combat before anyone needs patched up.), Healing Domain (+1 CL for healing is a minor benefit, but we might as well stack in what we can), Spontaneous Domain ACF (Take healing domain, it makes it almost the same as usual for good clerics, except you can cast Heal spontaneously later on.)

Feats:
Flaw: Maximize Spell
Flaw: Augment Healing
Human: Chain Spell
1: Divine Metamagic (Chain Spell) (won't apply to most healing spells, but is nice with Close Wounds)
3: Sacred Performer (stack cleric levels when determining bardic music uses per day)
6: Mastery of Day and Night (maximize your cures for no level cost)

Healing Spells of Note:
Insignia of Healing (RoD): 3rd level Cleric spell heals all members of your party that wear a special insignia.
Close Wounds (SC): 2nd level Cleric spell, Immediate action heal at range, can prevent damage before it happens, thereby preventing death. It's a targeted spells, so it's allowable to Chain.

So, at ECL 6, if you spend the first round of combat starting a Healing Hymn, you can heal 1d4+5(CL)+4(Augment Healing)+9(Perform) = 20.5 average health to every member of your party as an immediate action with a Chained Close Wounds. The next round you can use Insignia of Healing to top them off with 1d8+6(CL)+6(Augment Healing)+9(Perform)=25.5 health to every member of your party.

Or, if one guy is hurt badly, your Cure Serious Wounds heals one person for 24(maximized roll)+6(CL)+6(Augment Healing)+9(Perform)=45 points of health. Even a Cure Light Wounds will heal for 24.

**If Flaws aren't available in your game, you can drop Chain/DMM Chain and not lose too much of your ability for now. I'd work on getting a Rod of Chaining ASAP, though.

[PaucaTerrorem]

If you're playing the cleric, don't worry about it. If your companions die I'm sure you'll find more. Just look out for number 1. The cleric. As all clerics are number 1.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I suppose you could try to make HP damage more dangerous. Currently, so long as you're above 0 HP you're perfectly fine.

For example, I think there's a suggested optional rule called "Clobbered" that if you take more than half your current HPs in one blow you only get a Standard action next round. Or something like that. I can't remember the source, but it notes that this gives the healers a motivation to top off the front-liners' hp to keep them from suffering this.

Another idea might be to impose increasing penalties depending on what percent of HP you've lost.

Finally, in GURPS, if you take damage then next round you have a 'shock' penalty equal to the amount of damage you've taken. In D&D you'd wouldn't want it to be a 1:1 ration, obviously.

I'm not saying these are good ideas, just a few that came to me off the top of my head. They make healing more of a priority, which seems to be what you mean by 'better.'

[Coidzor]

Give the cure line of spells swift action casting times.

That and/or make them scale higher/faster/better.


I suppose you could try to make HP damage more dangerous. Currently, so long as you're above 0 HP you're perfectly fine.

For example, I think there's a suggested optional rule called "Clobbered" that if you take more than half your current HPs in one blow you only get a Standard action next round. Or something like that. I can't remember the source, but it notes that this gives the healers a motivation to top off the front-liners' hp to keep them from suffering this.

Another idea might be to impose increasing penalties depending on what percent of HP you've lost.

That'd have a downright amusing effect on combat at level 1, I think. :smallamused: Though that does remind me of the Bloodied condition from 4e which I rather liked as a form of worsening penalty as one's current HP dipped below one's max HP, IIRC it kicked in at 1/2 HP and gave a penalty to basically everything as long as one was at half HP or below.

I had thought of potentially breaking it down into 3/4, 1/2, and then 1/4 of max HP, progressively worsening, but it's one of those things that doesn't seem like it would work all that well when you compare a level 1 character's HP with a level 20 character's HP.

[nedz]

Something like a Beguiler with Arcane Disciple (Healing) seems to work. You spend most rounds engaging in Battlefield Control — shutting the enemy down so that they can't do damage — and then cast the occasional in-combat healing if required.

[Ruethgar]

My healers always do damage, my favorite thing is to get them Chain Shield Other and Shared Sacrifice, maybe a Wrathful Healing prestige race and Martial Spirit Stance for healing from unarmed. My favorite healer is the Discipline DPS from Warcraft Cataclysm and to that end I made these spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?386370-Healing-Transference-PEACH) to make use of the exorbitant amount of self healing you can get through various effects to heal the party. One problem with healing is efficiency, by the time you can get the full benefit of a healing spell you are dangerously low on health and so overhealing becomes commonplace to keep people at full. I would suggest making something that grants temporary HP based on overhealing done. Also, unlike in many other games, the best option in D&D is to prevent damage from happening at all which is why I would add in Power Word: Shield from the Warcraft RPG to further that endeavor. As mentioned before, adding rider effects is very nice, I believe there is a feat that adds an effect based on your domain but I can't remember it right now.

[Jack_Simth]

Well, to make healing worthwhile, you need enough of it every round to negate whatever-it-was that the opponent just did. If your actions are fully negating the actions of the biggest baddest opponent you're facing, then the healing is worthwhile. Thus, it depends on what your opponents are able to do, and thus the optimization level of the table.

Take a cleric-6/Radiant Servant of Pelor-2. Casts as a Cleric-8, so can do up to Cure Critical Wounds. As a Radiant Servant, that Cure Critical is empowered, so does 1.5*(4d8+9) healing, or an average of something like 40.5 points of healing to one target. If you're fighting a blaster caster 10 that throws around d6/level spells and doesn't boost caster level, that's 35 damage on a failed save - so if only one friendly target is in the range of damaging effect, you've met your goal.

If that blaster caster-10 is instead throwing around Empowered d6/level spells, or catching multiple people in the area, then you'll need to up your game with a Rod of Maximize Spell or Chain Spell (depending), and perhaps Divine Metamagic (reach Spell), as well as some caster level boosting. Up until the point where you get Heal, you simply need to optimize better.

[georgie_leech]

That'd have a downright amusing effect on combat at level 1, I think. :smallamused: Though that does remind me of the Bloodied condition from 4e which I rather liked as a form of worsening penalty as one's current HP dipped below one's max HP, IIRC it kicked in at 1/2 HP and gave a penalty to basically everything as long as one was at half HP or below.

I had thought of potentially breaking it down into 3/4, 1/2, and then 1/4 of max HP, progressively worsening, but it's one of those things that doesn't seem like it would work all that well when you compare a level 1 character's HP with a level 20 character's HP.

Erm... Bloodied in itself doesn't actually apply a penalty to anything, alas. What it does do is act as a trigger for other things; sometimes Monsters will have Immediate Reactions to being bloodied, some Powers do different things while Bloodied or against Bloodied targets, etc.

[NichG]

One of the big problems with healing is that it's primarily reactive.

When you have a very big army you're supporting, such as in an MMO raid, then the pattern and pacing of distributing healing can be a tactically interesting thing to manage because you always are going to have more targets for healing than healing you can contribute, so in that case its more proactive. For a smaller party, however, healing is often just 'heal the guy up front' or 'heal the most damaged guy'.

The other big problem is that healing is a force that tries to retain the status quo rather than one which leads a conflict towards conclusion. That means if you make healing actually strong enough to keep up with attacks, either the supply of healing powers becomes a secondary hitpoint track (which is what happens in 4ed with Healing Surges and Encounter Powers) or you can get into a situation where neither side of a fight can actually take down the other and the fight just drags on.

To fix the former, one thing you can do is design a system around applying and removing various low-power status effects, such that the healer gets to be the one to make the choice 'who will not be debuffed'. Similarly, using damage-over-time stuff that persists even if the source is killed and giving healers the ability to remove that can mirror how attackers are removing damage sources by killing opponents. The thing is, that's basically the same as being a buffer except that you have to wait for someone to debuff everyone before you can apply your buff, so its not great. Another option though would be to make the mechanism of healing force the other side to make difficult decisions. For example, mechanisms like: target A receives half of the damage that is dealt to target B as healing.

Another possibility is to re-envision the healer as a supplier of extra juice for limited resources. So its not just giving them the ability to help people recover hitpoints, but also things like spell slots or uses of per-day abilities.

[lsfreak]

Well, to make healing worthwhile, you need enough of it every round to negate whatever-it-was that the opponent just did.

That's not the only way, you can also have actions that do other things, and the combined healing + other things make them worthwhile. The Crusader maneuvers, at the levels they're gotten, I think are examples of this. The 1st and 3rd level ones deal near-full damage with a decent amount healing, even if it's not enough to guarantee it counters what the enemy just did. The 6th level one is worse, it deals one hit of damage plus what's at this level fairly minor AoE healing (3d6+11 counters ~6d6). 9th level is hard to judge because at that point the game comes down even more to how the group optimizes; it counters a rogue that reliably gets sneak attack, another 9th level maneuver, or a caster with an energy admixtured orb of fire, but not a shadowpouncer, a barbarian charger, or mailman.

This comes into design more than actually building the character, though, I don't think they exist much beyond the Crusader maneuvers. If you design things that intrinsically have additional effects (2nd level Close-range spell heals 1d6/2 levels, adjacent enemies blinded on failed Reflex) or allow healing along with another ability (feat to allow a paladin to heal an ally for Cha*Lvl whenever they smite) you can make healing a meaningful part of the game, without requiring it to necessarily compare in numbers to damage output. Or without the work of redesigning other aspects of the game, as I believe implementing a more MMO-type healing, as NichG talks about, would require (introducing meaningful DoTs and counters to them, which requires balancing around the game's penalization of slow/spread damage due to the binary alive-unconcious health system).

[Coidzor]

Erm... Bloodied in itself doesn't actually apply a penalty to anything, alas. What it does do is act as a trigger for other things; sometimes Monsters will have Immediate Reactions to being bloodied, some Powers do different things while Bloodied or against Bloodied targets, etc.

Oh well, memory is a funny thing after several years. Much simpler to give a penalty to saving throws and the like than to go through and rewrite most of the spells and special abilities in the game though. :smalltongue:

[dantiesilva]

The best 3.5 healer I have ever made was a cleric 4/Healer 1(Miniatures handbook)/ Combat medic 5(Heroes of battle)/ Radiant Servant of Pelor

Cleric is mostly to get into RSoP with the sun domain
Healer gives Cha to all your healing spells (so that useless Cure minor wounds becomes very useful)
Combat medic gives a few interesting abilities. If you are building a DC focused character you could get a good amount of mileage out of the sanctuary ability, otherwise Aid is over all the best one for the healing kickers. Mobility bonus feat and evasion are nice. The best part about this however is getting the ability to cast heal any time so long as you have a slot high enough open.

RSoP nets immunity to disease, +2 to everyones will saves which is useful, Bonus domain (I normally choose glory so I can turn those turn attempts into something useful), Positive energy burst which is iffy. The icing in this happens to be free maximized and empowered healing spells.

So looking at this without feats using Cure light wounds at level 20 you heal 19+Cha+1d8+10 points of damage. This is not including feats mind you.

Now you add Augment healing and Magic of the land which together add an additional 4hp for this spell
If you took vow of poverty your cha should be threw the roof, and well lets face it if you are focusing on healing why not, it fits the theme well after all. So +8 to charisma meaning if you started with say an 18 in cha and kept bumping it each level (18+8+5+6[item]+5[book]) 42cha or +16 modifier

So again cure light wounds 49+1d8 hp...So with a first level spell you just nullified a non optimized to perhaps mid optimized attack.

Hope this helps you some.

[Just to Browse]

I'm in agreement with NichG. "Solutions" involving healing for huge amounts or healing at minimal action cost are not what you want -- they might solve the problem, but they're guaranteed to create problems of their own. Healing needs to be tactically interesting and limited in its application or you will have 4e-style grindfests and/or mandatory party healers a la Final Fantasy. Those are not situations things you want in your game.

"Healing" will be best as status removal, temp HP, HP transfers (like Soraka), or buff spells that happen to restore a few HP. Pure healing must be an out-of-combat thing because there aren't enough alternate tracks to victory in D&D combat.

[dextercorvia]

The best 3.5 healer I have ever made was a cleric 4/Healer 1(Miniatures handbook)/ Combat medic 5(Heroes of battle)/ Radiant Servant of Pelor

Cleric is mostly to get into RSoP with the sun domain
Healer gives Cha to all your healing spells (so that useless Cure minor wounds becomes very useful)
Combat medic gives a few interesting abilities. If you are building a DC focused character you could get a good amount of mileage out of the sanctuary ability, otherwise Aid is over all the best one for the healing kickers. Mobility bonus feat and evasion are nice. The best part about this however is getting the ability to cast heal any time so long as you have a slot high enough open.

RSoP nets immunity to disease, +2 to everyones will saves which is useful, Bonus domain (I normally choose glory so I can turn those turn attempts into something useful), Positive energy burst which is iffy. The icing in this happens to be free maximized and empowered healing spells.

So looking at this without feats using Cure light wounds at level 20 you heal 19+Cha+1d8+10 points of damage. This is not including feats mind you.

Now you add Augment healing and Magic of the land which together add an additional 4hp for this spell
If you took vow of poverty your cha should be threw the roof, and well lets face it if you are focusing on healing why not, it fits the theme well after all. So +8 to charisma meaning if you started with say an 18 in cha and kept bumping it each level (18+8+5+6[item]+5[book]) 42cha or +16 modifier

So again cure light wounds 49+1d8 hp...So with a first level spell you just nullified a non optimized to perhaps mid optimized attack.

Hope this helps you some.

Healing Hands applies only to spells cast as a healer, so no +Cha to cleric spells.

[NichG]

Another thought as to making healing interesting would be if you have a system where initiative order is flexible due to abilities that alter it or actions having different time-costs or things like that. In such a system, if you also design it so that health tends to be very unstable (e.g. a person is likely to go from full to more than half-dead in a single round of attacks) but where healing tends to fully refill people, then healing can have a sort of strategic timing game aspect to it. Combat is therefore decided by the side which slips up on the timing first.

I don't know if its such a good model for tabletop games because combat could really go on for a long time if both sides manage to stay on top of the timing, and it also makes having a healer absolutely essential (along with probably requiring mechanics that prevent two healers from being twice as good). This particular model sees a lot of use in console RPGs, where the enemies usually would have much more in the way of hitpoints but no access to healing. So a fight would basically be a fixed-time trial for maintaining the proper tempo. In a tabletop game where the opponents would also have a healer, I'm afraid it'd just be tedious unless you had some way to address that.

Edit: Probably the mechanism would be something which monotonically continues to increase the randomness/unpredictability until one side falters. Something like a tension/battle intensity meter.

[Seerow]

Making it a swift action is all you really need. 4th edition proved as much.

4th edition made most healing a swift action and heal 25% of the target's HP as the baseline minimum, with most abilities adding several extra dice or even allowing extra healing surges to be spend on recovering the HP. It also made most abilities that healed usable on a per encounter basis, with the overall daily limit being set on a per character basis. Swift action healing alone doesn't cover even the tip of what 4e did for healing.


Now things that healers in general need:
-Range
-Better Action Economy
-Higher baseline effect


Those are three things that objectively healing could use to be more effective.

My personal feeling is that what makes healing in an MMO so engaging is the reactive element. In an MMO while a tank or a DPS always hits their buttons in more or less the same order, the healer is constantly having to judge who to heal, how much mana to spend on a heal, react to spike damage, prepare for the upcoming big hit, etc.

Ideally I would like to see some of this work its way into a tabletop format for a dedicated healer. I am imagining things like Immediate Action heals, and more effective use of Delay/Readied Actions. Probably also some more stuff like buffing and status removal being tacked on to heals.


So basically if I were going to fix healing, step 1 is redesign the Cure X spells. Either make one set of customizable spells (ie start with high healing, trade out healing for benefits like extra range or faster actions), or make a whole series of cure spells each with a different niche.

Step 2 then is to design a series of feats interacting with these Cure Spells providing some of the more interactive elements described. Things like "When you ready a Cure spell, if the readied action is triggered you do not change your initiative count" or as a later feat "When you ready an action you can specify you are readying a "Cure Spell" and choose which cure spell you want to use at the time the action is triggered". Or "You can cast a swift action cure spell as an immediate action". Other things worth looking into include more feats similar to Imbued Healing, ways to extend the benefits of the buffs from that. A feat to let you trade out healing from a cure (or one of the buff riders) spell to remove status effects.

Basically make enough feats so that you can actually design a character as a dedicated healer. Ideally make enough feats so you can have 3 or 4 different characters designed as a dedicated healer, and none of them have more than 1 or 2 overlapping feats. That would be ideal. If you got to that point, from there it's a hop skip and a jump to make the Healer class viable (or at least interesting) by giving it spontaneous casting access and a half dozen bonus feats.

[SinsI]

Healing spells in D&D are extremely illogical due to the nature of HP:
characters get more HP as they progress to show that the character has learned to protect himself better (as opposed to, say, having a fixed or almost fixed amount of HP and scaling defensive values instead in other systems). So a 25% loss of HP should represent exactly the same injury regardless of character level .
But this means that healing spells are LOSING THEIR EFFECTIVENESS as characters level up - a completely astonishing idea.
Cure Light Wounds cast on a 1st level farmer heals life-threatening injury, but cast on a lvl 20 character barely fixes a scratch...

So if anything should be fixed about healing in D&D, it is that.

P.S. same problem with all other forms of restoring HP

[OldTrees1]

Healing spells in D&D are extremely illogical due to the nature of HP:
characters get more HP as they progress to show that the character has learned to protect himself better (as opposed to, say, having a fixed or almost fixed amount of HP and scaling defensive values instead in other systems). So a 25% loss of HP should represent exactly the same injury regardless of character level .
But this means that healing spells are LOSING THEIR EFFECTIVENESS as characters level up - a completely astonishing idea.

So if anything should be fixed about healing in D&D, it is that.

If Healing did not get diminishing returns as PCs gain levels, then Damage sources would need to outpace the increase in hp in order to keep parity with the higher level healing spells. So this "fix" would result in high levels being forced into rocket tag at even Low OP.

[SinsI]

If Healing did not get diminishing returns as PCs gain levels, then Damage sources would need to outpace the increase in hp in order to keep parity with the higher level healing spells. So this "fix" would result in high levels being forced into rocket tag at even Low OP.
...OR there would be no need for higher level healing spells, allowing to instead spend them on spells that not only heal, but do other things, too - just as has been suggested multiple times in this thread...

[OldTrees1]

...OR there would be no need for higher level healing spells, allowing to instead spend them on spells that not only heal, but do other things, too - just as has been suggested multiple times in this thread...

That does not alleviate the problem. If the only healing spell is a 1st level spell that heals 25%, then 1st level damage spells will need to deal (25/c)%. If 1st level spells deal damage based on percentages, then 9th level spells would need to deal damage in percentages that are higher by the equivalent of 8 spell levels. If the 1st level spell dealt 20% and if each spell level is merely 125% as strong as the prior spell level, then a 9th level spell would deal more than 100%. Note that I used conservative estimates. Also remember that the specific numbers are not the point, the point is that your change requires damage to scale faster than health which in turn leads to rocket tag.

[SinsI]

1st level spell heals 25%, 2nd level heals 25-50%, 3rd level heals 25-100%. No spells heal more - all other healing spells would do things like combination with Buffs, Restoration, Dispel Magic or multiple targeting.

And spells that Deal damage absolutely shouldn't work as % of HP. Characters learn to protect themselves better - so the effect of damage spells diminishes.

The only "problem" is that out-of-combat, party can be easily and cheaply healed by 1st level NPC cleric with no serious loss of efficiency.

[Curmudgeon]

There's a Heal skill, which with several levels of maximum skill point expenditure (and 10 minutes of work) can do less than a level 0 spell (and just seconds of work). The same DC in another skill (Survival) will let you predict the weather 24 hours in advance, which takes us modern folks a satellite in geosynchronous orbit.

So, make the Heal skill worthwhile.

One possibility would be reducing character effectiveness before getting down to 0 HP (as has already been mentioned by NecessaryWeevil) — maybe penalties to AB, caster level, and dodge bonuses — and a way for the Heal skill to alleviate the loss of effectiveness with something like Miyagi-san's laying on of hands. It wouldn't be necessary for Heal to restore more than a single HP of damage, but removing the penalties for the duration of the encounter would be significant.

[ILM]

I just want to point out, for starters, that an investment in a few feats can allow you to automatically quicken, maximize and empower any cure spell once per round (in fact, you automatically maximize all your cure spells, all the time).

That said, I would suggest:
a) extending that to any conjuration (Healing) spell, or
b) adding Cure spells beyond Cure Critical, or even
c) replacing all Cure spells with a single one that is considered level 1 for the purposes of learning it (if applicable) but which you can prepare as a spell of any level, and which heals 1 or 2 (depending on how much punch you want Cure spells to have) d6 per spell level.

Personally, I've added a houserule that makes:
a) every save or die effect sends you straight to -10 hp instead of killing you outright, which is relevant because:
b) whenever a character hits -10 hp or less, he enters his Death Throes, which is basically a fancy way of saying that his death is delayed by one round and averted if he is healed back to -9 or better.

This has made healing a little more useful at my table and has worked well so far.

[OldTrees1]

1st level spell heals 25%, 2nd level heals 25-50%, 3rd level heals 25-100%. No spells heal more - all other healing spells would do things like combination with Buffs, Restoration, Dispel Magic or multiple targeting.

And spells that Deal damage absolutely shouldn't work as % of HP. Characters learn to protect themselves better - so the effect of damage spells diminishes.

The only "problem" is that out-of-combat, party can be easily and cheaply healed by 1st level NPC cleric with no serious loss of efficiency.

Spells of type A should scale with both HD and Spell level.
Spells of type B should only scale by Spell level and not by HD.
Therefore: The spell system should be inherently contradictory and imbalanced?

The same argument applies to warriors. If healing scales with hp without increasing in level, then warriors have to scale faster than hp. If warriors scale faster than hp, then rocket tag will result. If warriors do not scale faster than hp, then 20th level warriors are outpaced by 3rd level spells.


PS: Your out of combat concern is better solved with long duration fast healing than with the consequences of instant %healing.

[Raimun]

Healing is brilliant but only if you don't have to use any time in combat to do it.

What this means is that healing is usually done between the battles.

4th edition D&D had a pretty elegant solution to healing. Using a basic healing power was a Minor Action (for most purposes, almost like a Swift Action). They had some range too so you were able to walk next to an enemy, bash his head in and then some guy would be all like: "But I need teh healz!" and you would then heal him as an after thought across the room.

So, this might be a rather high level solution but Quicken Spell would make the healing a bit better... if you were willing to use 5th level spells or higher to do this.


I just want to point out, for starters, that an investment in a few feats can allow you to automatically quicken, maximize and empower any cure spell once per round (in fact, you automatically maximize all your cure spells, all the time).

Hmm, which Feats are these? Are they D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder Feats? Even just Quickening a Cure spell once per round (for no additional spell levels?) would be huge.

[georgie_leech]

Healing is brilliant but only if you don't have to use any time in combat to do it.

What this means is that healing is usually done between the battles.

4th edition D&D had a pretty elegant solution to healing. Using a basic healing power was a Minor Action (for most purposes, almost like a Swift Action). They had some range too so you were able to walk next to an enemy, bash his head in and then some guy would be all like: "But I need teh healz!" and you would then heal him as an after thought across the room.

So, this might be a rather high level solution but Quicken Spell would make the healing a bit better... if you were willing to use 5th level spells or higher to do this.


Quibble: You're playing a vastly different game than I am if CR 9-ish opponents care about 1d8+5 points of healing.

[SinsI]

Spells of type A should scale with both HD and Spell level.
Spells of type B should only scale by Spell level and not by HD.
Therefore: The spell system should be inherently contradictory and imbalanced?
What, exactly, do you find contradictory or imbalanced?


The same argument applies to warriors. If healing scales with hp without increasing in level, then warriors have to scale faster than hp. If warriors scale faster than hp, then rocket tag will result. If warriors do not scale faster than hp, then 20th level warriors are outpaced by 3rd level spells.
Did you mean "warrior's damage"? How do "warriors" scale?
What, exactly, is wrong with being "outpaced by 3rd level spells"? If you are attacking a very well protected target that is being repaired/healed, you have to out-DPS the healing amount. The more your damage is reduced by its protection, the harder it should be to do that. You can get exactly the same result if you increase AC of yor character...

[Segev]

Regarding making healing do something other than consume actions fruitlessly, what you need is for it to do "something else."

I recommend looking at the Crusader in Tome of Battle; it has a number of maneuvers (Devoted Spirit discipline) which allow you to attack somebody and heal somebody else at the same time.

That kind of thing might help.

Healing spells in D&D are extremely illogical due to the nature of HP:
characters get more HP as they progress to show that the character has learned to protect himself better (as opposed to, say, having a fixed or almost fixed amount of HP and scaling defensive values instead in other systems). So a 25% loss of HP should represent exactly the same injury regardless of character level .
But this means that healing spells are LOSING THEIR EFFECTIVENESS as characters level up - a completely astonishing idea.
Cure Light Wounds cast on a 1st level farmer heals life-threatening injury, but cast on a lvl 20 character barely fixes a scratch...

So if anything should be fixed about healing in D&D, it is that.

P.S. same problem with all other forms of restoring HP

It actually still works, if you extend the concept: Healing magics are restoring your ability to turn lethal blows into minor cuts and bruises. They're bolstering your ability to function normally.

Note that even the level 1 kobold commoner is going to be at 100% effectiveness whether he's at 4, 3, 2, or 1 hp. So even he is actually probably just minorly scratched up - albeit highly shaken and pressed to the limit of his ability to dodge or the end of his luck to escape deadly blows - when he's been hit for 3 of his 4 hp.

That last hp is a grevious wound.

In fact, it would probably be better if people thought of being staggered or at negative hp as the only time they've actually taken serious damage. Before then, you're winded, you're twitchy, you're getting tired and you're slowing down, but the worst you've taken is a knick or cut or a painful bruise. Nothing that will impede your functionality. Losing your last hp is when you take a genuinely bad blow. That's the sword-thrust that finally pierces your gut, or the ringing hammer blow to your temple. And it's just one major, bad injury.

Even minor healing magic, apparently, can do a lot to repair physical harm. Stopping the bleeding from that sucking chest wound is a matter of 1 hp of curative magic. Closing it is usually doable with a simple Cure Light Wounds. As soon as you're back in positive hp, you don't have any serious injuries. You might still be a bit sore, you might still be slower than you should be, and thus might be more likely to take another hideous wound, but you're more or less physically whole.

Further healing magics go into restoring your luck, your energy, your confidence and prowess in combat which lets you keep from being seriously injured. Your ability to turn blows into glances, and to ensure that you only get a cut on your arm rather than a severed artery when that spear is thrust at your torso.

Healing magic doesn't get less effective, in that respect; you just become capable of holding more of that kind of energy, as the prowess you innately have is greater and represents a greater energy you can put into the fight to begin with.

[ILM]

Hmm, which Feats are these? Are they D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder Feats? Even just Quickening a Cure spell once per round (for no additional spell levels?) would be huge.
Relevant feats are Mastery of Day and Night (PGtE) to auto-maximize cure and inflict spells, Prophecy's Shaper and Prophecy's Shepherd (both MoE) to auto-empower one spell per round, and auto-quicken one cure spell per round respectively. The latter two require a third feat as prerequisite, so I guess that's 5 feats total to get it to work, which admittedly is a pretty hefty tax.

edit: most importantly in combat, the Prophecy feats require wasting a full-round action to enter a special state, so you're basically wasting the first round.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I love this community for conversations like these, out of what I had figured would be a simple advice thread.

Short of making base changes to the rules to provide penalties for getting lower in health, would debuff and buff effects that do much the same thing be an interesting way of handling it? For example, say there's a spell (or something else) that provides a bonus to attack rolls, an extra die of damage, or other bonus non-damage effect to its targets, but only while they're at or near full health, and/or a similar effect that forces a penalty on people not at full health, would that help make healing more interactive in the game at all, or would it just make it so that everyone would want to have some kind of self heal to keep it up for themselves and push the "healer" concept even further into other primary roles (ie. buffer)?

[OldTrees1]

What, exactly, do you find contradictory or imbalanced?
1) I find a low level spell negating a 9th level spell to be imbalanced.
2) I find spells scaling by different orders (logarithmic vs linear vs quadratics vs cubic vs exponential) to be contradictory and imbalanced.


Did you mean "warrior's damage"? How do "warriors" scale?
What, exactly, is wrong with being "outpaced by 3rd level spells"? If you are attacking a very well protected target that is being repaired/healed, you have to out-DPS the healing amount. The more your damage is reduced by its protection, the harder it should be to do that. You can get exactly the same result if you increase AC of yor character...

Warriors are diverse. Some will focus on dealing damage. Since the ideal game is relatively balanced, the damage focusing warriors should be viable 20th level characters. If their DPS scales like damage spells then they are negated by a 3rd level spell. At 20th level a warrior should not be negated by a 3rd level spell. If their DPS scales like healing spells (so that equaling the healing spells is possible) then they advance towards dealing 1 hit kills (aka rocket tag).

Strangely you asked what is wrong with a 20th level character exerting 20th level effort being negated by a 20th level character exerting 5th level effort(3rd level spell). I am startled by such a question so I will say that 20=20=20=/=5. A 5th level effort should not overcome a 20th level effort.

[Sam K]

It still means that characters will still try to fight and deal damage, not caring about maintaining healing and such.

It does not help the problem of healing being a low priority except for when in danger.

There is another reason why healing is such a low priority:

Most people don't care for it. In every MMO I've played, healer is the hardest role to find. People don't seem to like playing one. And while we can list "reactive playstyle" or "boring mechanics" or "douchebag DPS who steals aggro and then complain that you didn't keep them alive" as reasons for that, I think a big part of it is just that people want to play cowboys, not nurses. There are simply more people who get their kicks out of being the person who does the damage than the person who heals it. Even if healing can be made interesting (well, as interesting as bashing buttons for damage anyway), more people would rather not do that.

While you can make the mechanical aspect more appealing, I don't know if you should. Forcing people to play healers doesn't seem like it would make the game more fun.

That being said I think Eggynack has the right idea. Add rider effects; personally, I would suggest powerful but very short term riders, like high DR for one or two rounds, immunity to crits for one round, or such. Short durations keeps it relevant to cast healing spells regularly; it might even be worth casting a low powered heal to get the rider effect.

Another option is to let the rider effect build up through doing something else. Maybe every time you hit someone in melee, you build up the power of your next rider effect for a heal, or casting a heal empowers your next melee attack (that way even beatstick clerics would have some reason to heal sometimes). Ofcourse, all this would make clerics more appealing...

[nedz]

Healing Hands applies only to spells cast as a healer, so no +Cha to cleric spells.

True, but it's a reasonable Healer fix — well part of a fix anyway.

[Coidzor]

If Healing did not get diminishing returns as PCs gain levels, then Damage sources would need to outpace the increase in hp in order to keep parity with the higher level healing spells. So this "fix" would result in high levels being forced into rocket tag at even Low OP.

Damage already scales though for the damage spells that aren't garbage or spells that do other stuff and have a minor blast as a rider effect. Blasting is a problem of its own, of course, but generally blast spells scale and then have better versions at higher levels as well. Healing spells don't scale, not really, one instead has to upgrade to the next spell level to increase one's amount of healing per spell. (Oh, golly, gee, I have a +5 to my 1d8 instead of a +1, what a major difference!)

So there's no parity between them in the first place that you'd have to upgrade damage spells in order to keep up as a matter of linkage.

[OldTrees1]

Damage already scales though for the damage spells that aren't garbage or spells that do other stuff and have a minor blast as a rider effect. Blasting is a problem of its own, of course, but generally blast spells scale and then have better versions at higher levels as well. Healing spells don't scale, not really, one instead has to upgrade to the next spell level to increase one's amount of healing per spell. (Oh, golly, gee, I have a +5 to my 1d8 instead of a +1, what a major difference!)

So there's no parity between them in the first place that you'd have to upgrade damage spells in order to keep up as a matter of linkage.

You might want to reread the argument you jumped into. I am not arguing against scaling healing spells, I am arguing against
1: Spells that scale on different orders (which also means I think current healing spells do need a boost)
2: Healing spells scaling fast enough that a 3rd level spell negates a 9th level damage spell/20th level warrior OR makes 9th level damage spells/20th level warriors be one hit kills against 20th level characters.

[Coidzor]

1: Spells that scale on different orders (which also means I think current healing spells do need a boost)

What does that even mean? Is that a reference to the % of max HP idea mentioned in one of the linked threads where this has been touched upon in the past?


2: Healing spells scaling fast enough that a 3rd level spell negates a 9th level damage spell/20th level warrior OR makes 9th level damage spells/20th level warriors be one hit kills against 20th level characters.

I read back up the thread before I posted and I saw that you made the assertion that someone is/was arguing for level 1 or level 3 healing spells negating level 9 spells, but I don't see any evidence as to what someone said that unintentionally made that argument and I didn't see anyone explicitly make the argument for the position you're arguing against here.

[squiggit]

For healing to be better three things have to be true

-Damage needs to be the primary way threats are dealt with. Oftentimes the biggest threat to a PC isn't getting hit, but getting stuck with some nasty consequence, many of which don't fall under the purview of normal curative effects.

-Soaking damage has to be a viable defense. When getting hit is a big threat, it's usually because the enemy has enough firepower to drop the PCs very quickly. Healing isn't worth much if the enemy is dropping you in one round, or vice versa really and the PCs are dropping the enemies too fast to let them deal any meaningful damage.

-Non-healing defenses need to not be the dominant option. This partly falls back into one, but when a single spell slot can prevent three enemy attacks versus healing up the damage from one (or not even that), healing loses.


Incidentally, all of those sound like stuff you see in very low-op play... which is also a level of play where a party healer is expected. So, yeah, correlation there. Or something.

Other thoughts

-Damage should probably have a meaningful effect. In DND your health pool is binary. Either you're alive and on your feet, or you aren't. Anything in between doesn't matter. If being hurt actually had some sort of negative impact for the player, then treating healing as an immediate concern rather than something to be patched up after the fight might be more relevant

-Healing should probably be more slot efficient. This goes back to 3 to an extent, but even in a vacuum cure spells aren't very efficient and if I am playing in an attrition type battle where a cleric healer is an expected part of the team... you're going to be probably out of spell slots by the end of an encounter.

[georgie_leech]

What does that even mean? Is that a reference to the % of max HP idea mentioned in one of the linked threads where this has been touched upon in the past?



I read back up the thread before I posted and I saw that you made the assertion that someone is/was arguing for level 1 or level 3 healing spells negating level 9 spells, but I don't see any evidence as to what someone said that unintentionally made that argument and I didn't see anyone explicitly make the argument for the position you're arguing against here.

The concern was a post saying that Level 3 spells should heal between 25-100% of hp; in other words, a level 3 spell has to potential to heal any amount of damage.

[OldTrees1]

What does that even mean? Is that a reference to the % of max HP idea mentioned in one of the linked threads where this has been touched upon in the past?

I read back up the thread before I posted and I saw that you made the assertion that someone is/was arguing for level 1 or level 3 healing spells negating level 9 spells, but I don't see any evidence as to what someone said that unintentionally made that argument and I didn't see anyone explicitly make the argument for the position you're arguing against here.

Different orders: Logarithmic vs linear vs quadratic vs cubic vs exponential.

SinsI suggested the idea that a healing spell heal a fixed percentage of hp per casting.

I pointed out that since each spell level is stronger than the one before, if healing and damage scaled on the same order, then damage would quickly rise to the point of being one hit kill (aka rocket tag).

SinsI countered by saying that healing spells would be capped at a low level healing spell that healed 25-100% per casting.

I pointed out that 9th level spells ought to be 6 spell levels stronger than 3rd level spells. Even accounting for how healing should be larger than damage, it still results in damage spells reaching the OHK range.

SinsI countered by saying damage spells would scale on a lower Order than healing spells.

I said that it was contradictory to have spells scale on different orders and the same problem arises with Warriors vs Healing spells.

SinsI saw nothing wrong with a 3rd level spell trivializing a 20th level warrior.

That is the argument you came in on.


Now I do think that healing needs a boost because it currently does not scale while damage spells do. However I do not think we want spells to deal percentages unless we also remove spells improving by spell level or unless we want rocket tag at high levels.

[SinsI]

1) I find a low level spell negating a 9th level spell to be imbalanced.

They are not. It is low level spell plus the Warrior's excellent Protective Skills (a.k.a. high HP) that negate it. Weaklings won't even get a chance to be healed.
Do you find anything wrong with Saves? AC? Miss chances? Resistances that reduce damage by half? It is exactly the same thing.

If a 9th level spell wants to deal with it, it should do something about that Protection (by i.e. damaging his Con score, or by directly applying debuf "can't be healed for x rounds. Healing spells instead work as Dispel Magic against this effect only"), and not try to break through adamantine meter-thick wall through brute force.


2) I find spells scaling by different orders (logarithmic vs linear vs quadratics vs cubic vs exponential) to be contradictory and imbalanced.

Healing spells won't scale at all. Damage spells scale proportionally to the skill of the caster - just as Defense skills of the characters.
And even 3rd level healing won't cure 100% of HP 100% of the time. It is listed as 25-100% for a reason.

[OldTrees1]

They are not. It is low level spell plus the Warrior's excellent Protective Skills (a.k.a. high HP) that negate it. Weaklings won't even get a chance to be healed.
Do you find anything wrong with Saves? AC? Miss chances? Resistances that reduce damage by half? It is exactly the same thing.

If a 9th level spell wants to deal with it, it should do something about that Protection (by i.e. damaging his Con score, or by directly applying debuf "can't be healed for x rounds. Healing spells instead work as Dispel Magic against this effect only"), and not try to break through adamantine meter-thick wall through brute force.

Healing spells won't scale at all. Damage spells scale proportionally to the skill of the caster - just as Defense skills of the characters.
And even 3rd level healing won't cure 100% of HP 100% of the time. It is listed as 25-100% for a reason.

We are retreading old ground.

Your suggestion (have a low level healing spell scale faster than higher and higher level damage spells/warrior DPRs) ends up invalidating all damage spells and any other damage based strategy (even including ones that use a much higher level resource). Yet you remain oblivious to the imbalance.

I am done trying to convince you.