Would a healing cantrip really be that bad?

[Oramac]

Near as I can tell, it wouldn't have that big an impact.

1) You can heal to full on a short rest, but you do NOT regain spells or any other long rest features. It would probably be very powerful for a Warlock, but in my experience they don't often get hit anyway.

2) Hit Dice become useless.

Other than that, I can't really think of a reason not to have one.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm not sure what point number 1 is trying to express. A cantrip that heals, say, 1 hp ("Cure Minor Wounds") would ensure that your party enters most fights with full health, provided you have a few minutes to recharge. It would make hit point attrition more-or-less a nonissue, and help stretch out the party healer's spell slots a bit. You'd probably need a few more encounters to drain people's resources.

[Oramac]

I'm not sure what point number 1 is trying to express. A cantrip that heals, say, 1 hp ("Cure Minor Wounds") would ensure that your party enters most fights with full health, provided you have a few minutes to recharge. It would make hit point attrition more-or-less a nonissue, and help stretch out the party healer's spell slots a bit. You'd probably need a few more encounters to drain people's resources.

That pretty much is the point. You'd have the party starting almost every fight at full HP, but other than that there's not much else it would do.

[imneuromancer]

If you want to change something, instead of a cantrip I would experiment with making Cure Wounds a ritual.

[StoicLeaf]

I don't like it.
current 5e combat (from a DMs perspective) is trying to get the players to spend resources and create immediacy so that:
a) player choice matters
b) the boss doesn't get alpha-striked by rampaging murderhobos.

You're removing a layer of that by getting rid of hit die.

I suppose another consequence would be that fighters/warlocks/anyone else that needs a SR to regenerate abilities will be waaaay more effective than LR regenerators.

[Joe the Rat]

You could build off of Second Wind and the Healer feat - a small recovery, but the recipient can only benefit from the spell once per short rest.

[Oramac]

I don't like it.
current 5e combat (from a DMs perspective) is trying to get the players to spend resources and create immediacy so that:
a) player choice matters
b) the boss doesn't get alpha-striked by rampaging murderhobos.

You're removing a layer of that by getting rid of hit die.

I suppose another consequence would be that fighters/warlocks/anyone else that needs a SR to regenerate abilities will be waaaay more effective than LR regenerators.

All true. To clarify, I'm not planning to introduce a healing cantrip in my game. Just kinda thinking out loud.

And yes, short rest classes would gain quite a lot of power.


If you want to change something, instead of a cantrip I would experiment with making Cure Wounds a ritual.

That I like. Possibly with the restriction that whoever is casting it doesn't benefit from the rest.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Clearly the 1HP over and over again is too powerful for a cantrip.

What if the cantrip gave 1 hp but took 2 from the caster...

...or more to stabilize, say 5 hp like the paladin's ability to do minor restoration-y things.

[Chaosvii7]

Probably not with the advances in healing mechanics that have been made recently. If there was a cantrip that perhaps spent a hit die for a player to heal them and only worked once per day, or a spell that capped the healing at half health (as abilities like Survivor do) then I could imagine it wouldn't totally break the game, but it would probably still require some modifications to rests to make it work.

That said, the healer's kit has kind of filled that void, and made emergency healing a lot more accessible all in one neat package.

[Captain Morgan]

I don't know that it would be the end of the world, but I think the most profound effect wouldn't be walking into battle at full health. It would be removing the question of "when should I heal between battles." Spell slot management is the biggest day to day challenge for casters. Normally, if the fighter gets hurt, the cleric has to weigh burning spell slots to heal him against the future spells he could cast. When does healing become worth it? 50% health? 30? 75? Now that will never be an issue.

[ChubbyRain]

I'm not sure what point number 1 is trying to express. A cantrip that heals, say, 1 hp ("Cure Minor Wounds") would ensure that your party enters most fights with full health, provided you have a few minutes to recharge. It would make hit point attrition more-or-less a nonissue, and help stretch out the party healer's spell slots a bit. You'd probably need a few more encounters to drain people's resources.

For a basic game, maybe D&D could/should go the route of videogames.

Most videogames allow you to get to full health easily. Be it sitting behind cover till your health comes back, eating food out of the garbage, or hitting a save point.

What these games have that D&D doesn't is players taking more risks in battle, battles where players can give it their all, and a battle where the computer (DM) can put out a single encounter and not have to worry if the player will have 1 HP or full HP. This means designing the encounter would be much easier.

So while for a grittier game, that I enjoy from time to time, perhaps for the normal game HP attrition is archaic and not really needed?

I'm going to have to do some investigating.

[Sir cryosin]

For a basic game, maybe D&D could/should go the route of videogames.

Most videogames allow you to get to full health easily. Be it sitting behind cover till your health comes back, eating food out of the garbage, or hitting a save point.

What these games have that D&D doesn't is players taking more risks in battle, battles where players can give it their all, and a battle where the computer (DM) can put out a single encounter and not have to worry if the player will have 1 HP or full HP. This means designing the encounter would be much easier.

So while for a grittier game, that I enjoy from time to time, perhaps for the normal game HP attrition is archaic and not really needed?

I'm going to have to do some investigating.

Ya 4e had that with healing surges right? I never played so can say for sure.

[Captain Morgan]

For a basic game, maybe D&D could/should go the route of videogames.

Most videogames allow you to get to full health easily. Be it sitting behind cover till your health comes back, eating food out of the garbage, or hitting a save point.

What these games have that D&D doesn't is players taking more risks in battle, battles where players can give it their all, and a battle where the computer (DM) can put out a single encounter and not have to worry if the player will have 1 HP or full HP. This means designing the encounter would be much easier.

So while for a grittier game, that I enjoy from time to time, perhaps for the normal game HP attrition is archaic and not really needed?

I'm going to have to do some investigating.

Eh... Video games also tend to have much lower consequences for characters dying. Usually just resetting to before that fight so you can try again. Sans spells like Raise Dead with all their limitations, D&D doesn't have save points, and for many the risk of a character actually dying is part of the allure. Also, games that let you recover health and other resources that easily often do it because it's almost impossible to avoid them being depleted. Try playing a FPS and not taking a single hit. It's a lot easier to pull that off in d&d.

[Segev]

One way to approach it would be for the cantrip to allow the target to roll one of his hit dice for healing. But to have that hit die still be expended until a long rest, so it's not available to roll during a future short rest. Can be used to accelerate the "roll hit dice for healing" portion of a short rest (at the expense of everything else, since you would not actually be short-resting) and be a cantrip in-battle minor heal, but still relies on a limited resource.

[DireSickFish]

A lot of this games difficulty and challenge come via attrition. That's why when people throw our threads where they can't challenge players. And the BBEG fights are being trampled over. The #1 most useful piece of advice is to follow adventuring day xp allotments to wear down the parties resources.

This isn't just HP, it's spell slots and per long rest/short rest abilities as well. But HP is a big part of the attrition. A cantrip that could get everyone up to full would undercut this battle of attrition and make challenging the party more difficult and less fun. Less fun because each individual fight would have to be ramped up, and taking a hit wouldn't be a big deal as long as you survived the fight.

[Typhon]

With the current power scheme and mechanics of 5e, I see little trouble with a 1hp healing cantrip. My only thought on a limitation is maybe have it not work on characters past a certain level of health, like half. Otherwise, unless you are going for a more constrained feel, I don't see too much issue.

On the other hand, as someone mentioned, a healing/cure ritual 1/long rest could work without offsetting a games power setting too greatly. It allows the party to heal to full, but not between every fight.

The healers kit/medicine bag do a tremendous amount to alleviate heal fatigue from certain characters. I know I tend to try and have my characters be useful individually as well as group useful, everyone should gain experience healing if they get the chance.

[LVOD]

I mean, with the magic initiate feat, you could have an army of martials that were always at full health. And martials are much less reliant on rests already...
It would be pretty broken from a gaming perspective, but honestly you're right: with how much time it takes to get use out of it (one hp every six seconds) you might as well just take a short rest.

[DracoKnight]

All true. To clarify, I'm not planning to introduce a healing cantrip in my game. Just kinda thinking out loud.

And yes, short rest classes would gain quite a lot of power.



That I like. Possibly with the restriction that whoever is casting it doesn't benefit from the rest.

Before you make cure wounds a ritual look at prayer of healing. It's a 2nd-level spell with a casting time of 10 minutes and heals three people for 3d8 + spellcast mod. There's your ritualized cure wounds. PoH might also be a ritual itself, I'm not sure.

[Steampunkette]

I feel like Segev hit the nail on the head. Allow the target to expend a hit die, with the option of allowing the caster to spend their hit dice on behalf of the target on a 1 for 1 basis.

I do like the Ritual Cure Wounds, though. Gives the party Cleric/Druid/Bard something to do during Short Rests they wouldn't get abilities back during. Still make it single target, though. 10 minutes per party member for 1d8+(Statmod). I wouldn't allow the ritual to be performed with a "Higher Level Spell Slot" as a ritual, though.

[Joe the Rat]

"Healing Surge" mechanics would be an interesting approach - it's not adding healing, it's moving its potential around.
Interestingly, this could work as a scaling cantrip: You can spend up to 1 (1-4), 2 (5-10), 3 (11-16), or 4 (17-20) hit dice.
Then it's a question of if it is an automatic effect (you cast, target may spend HD), requires action (you cast, target may as a reaction spend HD), or requires their turn (Duration 1 round; target may as an action / bonus action spend HD). I think it should always be a target choice effect - you can opt not to spend any, or if it scales you can limit the number you spend.

Requiring action on the part of the recipient would mean you can't use it on incapacitated characters. That might be a factor to consider.

[Segev]

I hadn't thought of using your HD to heal others; that's an interesting idea. Not sure how I feel about it, yet.

I would recommend that this, like any other healing spell, simply lets the target heal without his own action(s) being consumed. It's already taking the caster's action and the target's HD as resources.

Scaling it is perhaps not bad. "Up to a number of HD equal to 1/3 your level, minimum 1," perhaps? (Requires a willing target, just to avoid stupid shenanigans forcing people to waste HD of healing when they're full. Not sure that would ever be wise from a caster's standpoint, but you never know, and avoiding unintentional offensive use is worth it.)

[coredump]

That pretty much is the point. You'd have the party starting almost every fight at full HP, but other than that there's not much else it would do.

But that is pretty huge. Not only is everyone at full.... but it means less need to cast healing, so more spell slots available for offensive. It means the paladin can save all LoH for emergency use in combat. etc. It has repurcussions into lots of resource areas.

The entire encounter concept in 5E is dealing with resource management. A Medium encounter (and really most Hard ones) are not very challenging...but they use up resources. Now later Hard encoiunters may really be challenging.

And don't be fooled by that Short Rest theory. People can already fully heal via short rest.... but now you are talking about healing 10 hp/rd. When you can heal 100 hp in 10 minutes, it means *less* need for a Short Rest.


Lets reverse this, what problem are you encountering in DnD that you feel would be alleviated by this solution?

[Belac93]

Random thought slightly related: What if spare the dying at, say, 5th or 11th level, healed 1 hit point when it was used on a creature with 0 hit points.

[ChubbyRain]

I hadn't thought of using your HD to heal others; that's an interesting idea. Not sure how I feel about it, yet.

I would recommend that this, like any other healing spell, simply lets the target heal without his own action(s) being consumed. It's already taking the caster's action and the target's HD as resources.

Scaling it is perhaps not bad. "Up to a number of HD equal to 1/3 your level, minimum 1," perhaps? (Requires a willing target, just to avoid stupid shenanigans forcing people to waste HD of healing when they're full. Not sure that would ever be wise from a caster's standpoint, but you never know, and avoiding unintentional offensive use is worth it.)

I could see using a HD in order to allow another creature to do something.

Like when a doctor is sweating and giving it their all and say "don't you dare die on me you basterd"... And the patient lives but the doctor is suddenly exhausted.

#shrug

[Joe the Rat]

Random thought slightly related: What if spare the dying at, say, 5th or 11th level, healed 1 hit point when it was used on a creature with 0 hit points.
Make that may heal, and I think it's a solid idea. You could also potentially extend it into a scaling die as it goes up.
Having the option of making someone stable but unconscious would be useful for stabilizing prisoners; you can always come back and hit them again with spare the dying since they're still at 0.

[Oramac]

Lets reverse this, what problem are you encountering in DnD that you feel would be alleviated by this solution?

No reason. I'm just thinking out loud, as they say.

[Vogonjeltz]

I'm not sure what point number 1 is trying to express. A cantrip that heals, say, 1 hp ("Cure Minor Wounds") would ensure that your party enters most fights with full health, provided you have a few minutes to recharge. It would make hit point attrition more-or-less a nonissue, and help stretch out the party healer's spell slots a bit. You'd probably need a few more encounters to drain people's resources.

So it'd destroy core gameplay and balance...yeah, I guess that would really be that bad.

Not surprising.

[Mellack]

It would dramatically alter gameplay. All characters would start nearly every fight at full hp. And they do not have to use spells to later heal, opening them all up for offense. It also means that any weaker fights are now useless as they take up little to no resources. If you think you will win, no reason to use resources to minimize damage, you can freely heal them all back up without cost. You would essentially force every encounter to need to be possibly deadly.

[Nifft]

I liked Healing Surges. A 5e mechanic which emulated those would be neat.

The other way to go would be to say that you get a Healing Cantrip which only works under restrictive conditions. Maybe one of these:
- When the target is at 0 HP.
- As a bonus action right after you score a critical hit in melee.

[Sigreid]

It would dramatically alter gameplay. All characters would start nearly every fight at full hp. And they do not have to use spells to later heal, opening them all up for offense. It also means that any weaker fights are now useless as they take up little to no resources. If you think you will win, no reason to use resources to minimize damage, you can freely heal them all back up without cost. You would essentially force every encounter to need to be possibly deadly.

I don't know about starting all fights at full hp. Really it would be just 10hp per minute or 600 per hour. How much benefit it would provide would really depend on how much time they have to just stand around.

[BillyBobShorton]

In short, it would amount to regeneration for a whole party available at first level, so, pardon my french, but $%@! yes it'd be too powerful.

Basically removes a HUGE chunk of build mechanics and spell/ability allocation from the game.

It's kinda like saying, "would giving every monster only 7 HP no matter its CR break the game?"

No. It would absolutely ruin it.

[Cespenar]

As others have said, have it work only up to half health. Problem solved. Or if even that sounds high, start it at 1/4 HP, increasing to 1/3, 1/2 and 2/3 at caster levels 5, 10 and 15.

Another cantrip idea: Temporary HP equal to proficiency.

[Toadkiller]

Cantrip seems like a bad idea for the reasons above.

A ritual (widely available across classes) that requires something like 1d6 per hit point in cold (silver?) as a consumed material component might be worth testing.

Want to heal via ritual? Roll once to set the rate and then figure out how much you have to spend. My thought is one would only roll once to set the rate for each casting.

[Davemeddlehed]

That pretty much is the point. You'd have the party starting almost every fight at full HP, but other than that there's not much else it would do.

At 100 hp recovered per hour, it would make hit dice obsolete until very high levels. It's basically never-ending Goodberry. Game balance goes out the window unless you average at least 2 more encounters per day to compensate for the continual full hp and hit dice all the time.

[Christian]

The earliest iterations of the playtest rules for 5E includes a Cure Minor Wounds cantrip that healed one hit point to targets with three or fewer hit points. This quickly vanished and was replaced by Spare the Dying in something pretty close to its final form in later iterations.

I'm not sure exactly what issues they found with it in the playtest feedback, but this is not something that's been ignored or rejected out of hand. It was tried and found to be problematic in some way, even with that much heavier restriction than 'less than half hit points' that's suggested above. I would be very reluctant to add it back in without a complete understanding of why it was axed in the first place ...

[The Ship's dog]

In 4e, a Paladin could choose to take Lay on Hands as a class feature from level 1. It was basically the 4e equivalent of a Cantrip (at will ability) that could be used as many times per day equal to the Paladins Wis mod or 1 time per day (whichever was higher). The way it worked was the Paladin spent a Healing Surge but didn't recover any health from it, instead the health that they would have recovered from it is gained by an ally that they touch.

Healing Surges could be used as an action once per encounter and they healed you for a 1/4 of your HP. The number you had per day was based on your class, Con score and race (Minotaurs had bonus Healing Surges)

This version of Lay on Hands was really good and, in my opinion, better than the 5e version because it encouraged you to be able to create a Wis/Con focused character that wore the best armour around, could take massive hits because they had high Con and heal for almost half an entire character's health bar if they had low health quite a few times a day. Sure you wouldn't be the best at dealing damage in combat but that wasn't the point.

I think if you ported this ability into 5e it would be not only very useful, but also would make for some cool combos and could be balanced with a few adjustments such as replacing Healing Surges with your highest value HD + your Wis mod

[Dimers]

A healing cantrip would tilt the game a bit toward Combat As Sport and lessen immersion. It would also lean away from the way adventuring looks in most literature. So I don't think it'd be well received.

It would also become something of a 'tax' for the party because if nobody takes the cantrip, that's suboptimal. (OMG, the horror.)

[mealar]

What if instead of actual healing what if it was a cantrip that gave temporary hit points, that way it has no use between fights but in combat allows the healer to maintain a "shield" on someone.

It would have to not be stacked and relatively small maybe starting at 1d6 then lvl up like dmg cantrips

[Tanarii]

One that restored Hit Points? Yes. It would wreck the entire game as written, and change it into something completely different.

One that allowed a touched creature to spend a HD immediately without a short rest, possibly with a limitation of once per minute? Yes. It would wreck the balance between classes, completely throwing out the need to short rest for many classes. So expect nova combats, 5-minute workdays and warlocks and monks complaining even more that the casters always want to long rest.

Same as above but a limitation of once per creature until the next short rest, or once per creature per combat and combat use only? That'd probably be fine. Edit: actually it'd still cause the same problem as low levels, because so few HD. But by level 5-6 it'd probably be fine.

[Steampunkette]

How about a cantrip that allows the caster to expend -their- hit dice on allies?

1 hit dice at level 1, 2 at 5, 3 at 10, and 4 at 15.

The target's Constitution Modifier applies to the HP gain.

With the limitation of once per target per short rest.

Or, 1HD per casting, but able to use it on the target more times per short rest based on level. So 2 uses on the same target at 5th level, each granting 1d8+Con Mod healing.

[Yagyujubei]

"as we walk through the dungeons between every fight i cast my healing cantrip as often as possible to heal my party....assuming its been what? 7 minutes since our last encounter? and lets say 10 seconds to cast the cantrip that means i have 42 points of healing to spread around in the pt as i please"

yeah that wouldnt be broken at all.

[Spectre9000]

Hmm, so, everyone's concerned about a healing cantrip being OP because it revitalizes HP and "trivializes" damage taken from encounters.


How about this:

Minor Regeneration
Necromancy Cantrip
Casting Time: 1 Minute
Duration: Varies
Range: Self
Components: V, S

You've learned to channel divine energy to heal faster than most others. When you cast this spell, expend one Hit Die, and regain 1 HP per round to the maximum of that Hit Die. For example, if you chose a 1D8, you would regain 1 HP per round for 8 rounds, totaling 8HP healed, or the max of that Hit Die. This effect ends if the character drops to 0 HP.



Now, this cantrip will require concentration to cast via the rules on longer than 1 action casting. It will also expend 1 Hit Die, limiting you to the number of Hit Die you have, which only replenish on a long rest. It also obviously won't stack, so you can't heal more than 1 HP per round. It also can't be cast in combat (not that 1 HP per round would matter much in combat). Furthermore, it has a range of Self, so you can't heal others. Sure, it allows a character to heal outside of a short rest, which reduces its necessity, but there are so many things that will still demand a short rest.

Basically all this cantrip does is help out in those grittier situations (though still requires 1 minute to cast), but doesn't give you anything more on a long rest than you'd already get.

[RickAllison]

Hmm, so, everyone's concerned about a healing cantrip being OP because it revitalizes HP and "trivializes" damage taken from encounters.


How about this:

Minor Regeneration
Necromancy Cantrip
Casting Time: 1 Minute
Duration: Varies
Range: Self
Components: V, S

You've learned to channel divine energy to heal faster than most others. When you cast this spell, expend one Hit Die, and regain 1 HP per round to the maximum of that Hit Die. For example, if you chose a 1D8, you would regain 1 HP per round for 8 rounds, totaling 8HP healed, or the max of that Hit Die.



Now, this cantrip will require concentration to cast via the rules on longer than 1 action casting. It will also expend 1 Hit Die, limiting you to the number of Hit Die you have, which only replenish on a long rest. It also obviously won't stack, so you can't heal more than 1 HP per round. It also can't be cast in combat (not that 1 HP per round would matter much in combat). Furthermore, it has a range of Self, so you can't heal others. Sure, it allows a character to heal outside of a short rest, which reduces its necessity, but there are so many things that will still demand a short rest.

Basically all this cantrip does is help out in those grittier situations (though still requires 1 minute to cast), but doesn't give you anything more on a long rest than you'd already get.

I approve of this. It is always potentially useful, but has a high cost for use. One thing to think about is that this would actually be a powerful pre-combat buff for a barbarian or fighter if he can wait a minute before entering the battle (so situational) because not actively using concentration means that if the warrior gets knocked to 0 HP within the twelve/ten rounds, he will be raised when the healing activates.

[Dalebert]

What if the cantrip gave 1 hp but took 2 from the caster...

It's a little off topic but I think that's the brilliant fix to Spare the Dying, which currently sucks considering you can do the exact same thing with one use of a healing kit for 5sp.

That's going to be my homebrew fix for StD. It brings an unconscious character up to 1 hp while the caster takes 2 hp of necrotic dmg. Now it's better than a Healing Kit and you don't have to burn a spell slot to get a character back into the fight making it a worthwhile cantrip to learn.

[RickAllison]

It's a little off topic but I think that's the brilliant fix to Spare the Dying, which currently sucks considering you can do the exact same thing with one use of a healing kit for 5sp.

That's going to be my homebrew fix for StD. It brings an unconscious character up to 1 hp while the caster takes 2 hp of necrotic dmg. Now it's better than a Healing Kit and you don't have to burn a spell slot to get a character back into the fight making it a worthwhile cantrip to learn.

And with this, we can perhaps adjust the Undying Warlock's Defy Death to actually be useful!

[Spectre9000]

I approve of this. It is always potentially useful, but has a high cost for use. One thing to think about is that this would actually be a powerful pre-combat buff for a barbarian or fighter if he can wait a minute before entering the battle (so situational) because not actively using concentration means that if the warrior gets knocked to 0 HP within the twelve/ten rounds, he will be raised when the healing activates.

Made the effect end if the character drops to 0 HP. Should fix that concern.