Healing in 5e

[Chugger]

Am familiar w/ new phb and have had a chance to play a bit, but am still getting used to the new rules (have not played for a LONG time - stopped back during ad&d).

Have been doing some Adventure's League gaming locally, and the DM hinted that when he plays, he doesn't heal until someone hits zero hit points.

Our old mantra (back in ad&d) was "keep your hitpoints in your body", and we were successful with it (my friends and I took first place at a big city con/tourny long ago because we knew the rules like lawyers, we knew tactics pretty well, and we used that mantra). But everything is radically different, and I'm starting to see that the dm's comment may be quite true for 5e. At zero or below you were usually "dead" in the old system (and needed a rez to come back, and the con or system shock roll and all that risky stuff), unless alt "uncons." rules were in effect (and those were usually like at -6 you are dead, so we healed - it was really easy to go to -6; we did not have the "zero" rule like today, at least not that I saw) -- (and in the original version from the pamphlets, which I also played, you were very much dead at zero). So, long ago you really did fight hard to keep anyone on your side from hitting zero hp or lower.

The penalty for hitting zero hp but not dying (being uncon) is different and not always all that bad. I'm guessing that the reason for not auto-healing anyone who gets hurt is that combat is funky and the lvl 2 rogue who starts off taking 9 hit points damage and is over half dead may get missed from there on out - while a round later the wiz may drop to zero. And the fighter may drop to zero. I'm going to run out of spell slots fast if I just toss heals at the first sign of blood (I'm trying out a cleric). I had a session where we successfully healed back zero-hp people, who then used movement to stand and whack whatever badguy was left - because apparently burning down badguys asap (which was always a good tactic measured against the need to pace out your assets) is even more important in 5e than it was before. I saw that a zero-hp char might not really suffer a penalty at all (except being prone) from hitting zero. In the monster's turn they dropped - then my turn came and I did cure w or healing w - and their turn came, they stood (using half movement), and they blasted the enemy down. All good...weird, but good.

But in another session we had a cleric heal a zero-hp monk, and the turn order was possibly against us (also this dm had the monsters each rolling separate initiative, not group monster init - something to consider here) - then a creature whacked the monk and put him right back down to zero - before the monk could do squat. Again the cleric healed the monk and again a creature whacked him down to zero before he could do squat. We killed the creatures and won, but that was forcing me to process this and try to figure out what is the best procedure re healing. Was this incident "okay" for the party because, as emotionally frustrating as it was for the poor monk, the creatures were letting other party members stay healthy and firebolt and shoot arrows and so on? We did win. The cleric could have stabilized the monk had his death saves been going bad but left him down, presumably not of interest to the creatures - but - the creatures would have attacked and possibly dropped someone else. So even if he's put right back down, as weird as it is - is it usually best to heal back up a party member? If he only becomes a target to spare someone else? (I'm already seeing that this may be the case, but am I missing something?)

I guess I've realized I don't have enough data or experience yet to formulate a comfortable sense or set of guidelines on "when to heal" - "when to stabilize" (with kit, with cantrip, or with a good med roll) - when to let the zeroes roll (though sometimes this is obvious - a really bad roller can go two rounds safely in most fights provided someone can zap him with a "guaranteed" stabilizer like the kit before he/she actually dies). I'm seeing that if what we really need to do is burn down the badguys asap, a cleric should possibly be causing damage instead of healing. Or I can healing word (a bonus a.) while meleeing or throwing a jav or cantripping. I'm level 3 now, and I have a basic sense of things (though tell me if you think I have something wrong so far, please). Anyway, if experienced players have a sense of at least some sort of "guideline" or logical break-down (beyond simple common sense - which I at least think I'm okay with) on when to heal and when to let someone just go to zero or not go to zero, please let me know. Thanks.

(also if there's a thread where this has already been discussed (which I didn't see) and you know of it, pls tell me)

(this 5e system seems to allow for much less conservative play and much more splashy fights - which is interesting - I guess this is a function of being in a post-WoW universe or something)

[Foxhound438]

Not sure if I can give you a comprehensive breakdown of when to pick someone up, but it is very true that the only hit point that matters in 5e is the last one. Since there's no condition track or HP remaining based performance drop, healing things that are still standing in combat is generally bad. Not to mention the natural short rest healing system that 5e has makes it so your allies don't really need to be eating up your slots to sustain through the day.

In the case you had with your monk I would have probably drawn the thing's attention to myself- clerics are relatively tanky after all- and after the monster has engaged me I would healing word the monk.

[toapat]

in 5E the best possible healer is a Life Cleric 1/Lore Bard 19, using only Vicious Mockery + Aura of Vitality in combat

this is notably so powerful that most DMs will react by throwing pure overkill at the players

[Chugger]

Not sure if I can give you a comprehensive breakdown of when to pick someone up, but it is very true that the only hit point that matters in 5e is the last one. Since there's no condition track or HP remaining based performance drop, healing things that are still standing in combat is generally bad. Not to mention the natural short rest healing system that 5e has makes it so your allies don't really need to be eating up your slots to sustain through the day.

In the case you had with your monk I would have probably drawn the thing's attention to myself- clerics are relatively tanky after all- and after the monster has engaged me I would healing word the monk.

Thanks! That helps me a lot - confirming what I suspected.

The cleric in the monk battle wasn't me (I was allowed to convert my character to a cleric later on - in adv L you can switch around til lvl 5 I think, which might sound weird - but it's because you sometimes start off with a premade they give you (as I did) and you don't wanna be stuck with that one) - but you're right. This cleric also only used cure w and didn't know they could do heal w as a b.a. and hit with mace or cast cantrip on action. We were beginners.

The mega heals on rests - yeah - it is really weird to me. Seems so abusive compared to AD&D! Well, 5e has many merits - I love there are almost no save or die moments (that made old DnD stink, imho!). I guess the idea is to get a whole lot more done in a day in 5e, even if getting healed that much by resting an hour seems weird (I supposed it is justified in that most of our hit points are physic and not physical - or something like that).

[Chugger]

in 5E the best possible healer is a Life Cleric 1/Lore Bard 19, using only Vicious Mockery + Aura of Vitality in combat

this is notably so powerful that most DMs will react by throwing pure overkill at the players

Thanks! I will have to look into that. I'm not sure if I'd do it, but I love exploring systems and seeing where they break or get strained. I did notice that aura of vit is a rather amazing spell - and yes, coupled w/ the life healer's bonus ... wow. I'm guessing you can heal extravagantly.

Iirc Aura of Vit is a concentration based spell. What would you do to keep from losing concentration? I've read that a cleric can ward you and siphon off half your damage, and with (o gosh, a bard!) bonuses to the CON ST and 20 pts of dam being halved and shared with a cleric - you may not be losing concentration. Are there other approaches to this please?

[Coidzor]

High Constitution, Resilient(Con), and War Caster should make it so that maintaining Concentration is easy in all but the most extreme circumstances.

[Chugger]

High Constitution, Resilient(Con), and War Caster should make it so that maintaining Concentration is easy in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Thanks! You're right. And I forgot about Warcaster - that would help a ton.

I saw on some thread how using Ward to get damage resist and all sorts of con bonuses made breaking concen. very hard (but lost it) - I think now I can see at least most of the ways to get that. Thanks again!

[some guy]

There's still the Instant Death rule, (if a pc is reduced to 0 hp and the remaining damage could put them at minus their max hp, that damage will outright kill a character). But that will probably only come up in low level games, with heavy hitting monsters. If a lvl 2 wizard with 12 max hp and 3 current hp, is in melee range of an ogre and the initiative order is Cleric-Ogre-Wizard, then it's a safe bet to heal the wizard. But that's a very specific situation.

Healing a raging barbarian on low hp might also be worth it, as rage is lost when they go unconscious (rage is a rare resource on low levels) and thanks to resistances when raging every hp healed are worth 2 damage dealt.

That might be it, for healing conscious characters during combat.

As for healing unconscious characters, it's usually worth it to use healing word if you have enough spell slots (except in that monk-example).
If you can't heal with a bonus action, it's a bit more costly. It might be worth it if the dying character has failed one or two death saves (a natural 1 on a death save counts as two) or has 1 failed death save and there are murderous enemies near the fallen ally (an attack on an unconscious, made within 5ft of that character is a crit, and crits inflict two failed death saves).

[CursedRhubarb]

Healing is definitely a lot easier in 5e but at lower levels it can feel like there is never enough in fights. While you can easily get brought back up with just 1hp, 2 hits while down and you die. There is also the madness table and if you go down to 0hp multiple times in a fight, you might be rolling on it if you survive, how bad of a madness depending on how many times you go down. Some of those can be pretty rough and costly or time consuming to get rid of.

[Chugger]

There's still the Instant Death rule, (if a pc is reduced to 0 hp and the remaining damage could put them at minus their max hp, that damage will outright kill a character). But that will probably only come up in low level games, with heavy hitting monsters. If a lvl 2 wizard with 12 max hp and 3 current hp, is in melee range of an ogre and the initiative order is Cleric-Ogre-Wizard, then it's a safe bet to heal the wizard. But that's a very specific situation.

Healing a raging barbarian on low hp might also be worth it, as rage is lost when they go unconscious (rage is a rare resource on low levels) and thanks to resistances when raging every hp healed are worth 2 damage dealt.

That might be it, for healing conscious characters during combat.

As for healing unconscious characters, it's usually worth it to use healing word if you have enough spell slots (except in that monk-example).
If you can't heal with a bonus action, it's a bit more costly. It might be worth it if the dying character has failed one or two death saves (a natural 1 on a death save counts as two) or has 1 failed death save and there are murderous enemies near the fallen ally (an attack on an unconscious, made within 5ft of that character is a crit, and crits inflict two failed death saves).

Thanks! Good stuff to consider.

So a "mean" DM having monsters crit zero-health-chars can get bad fast - good reason to intervene and tank them off if possible and/or heal. I'll have to think about this and prepare for it.

The monk ended up not dying (we were all lvl 1 and getting used to 5e), and as I said, weirdly, though it was stressful for him - he served as a monster punching bag while we killed them.

And yes, I understand there is still instant death - but you're also showing me ways where a party that is too lax about zero-health pc's can lose a pc. I'm not seeing system shock and all that nightmare (from the old rules) for a rez, and at level five I'll have a baby-rez - so death won't be that huge (cept a dead char will lose some exp and so on - and if I die... not good). Thanks again, will process this and work on it.

[Chugger]

Healing is definitely a lot easier in 5e but at lower levels it can feel like there is never enough in fights. While you can easily get brought back up with just 1hp, 2 hits while down and you die. There is also the madness table and if you go down to 0hp multiple times in a fight, you might be rolling on it if you survive, how bad of a madness depending on how many times you go down. Some of those can be pretty rough and costly or time consuming to get rid of.

Thanks! I didn't think of that. I've seen the madness table but haven't considered or gone through it much (I thought it was mostly a possible "if you go to the underdark or someplace "crazy" phenom" - but makes sense that too many zeroes would be mentally bad. Does lesser resto ... well, I can look that up, and I don't think it cures madness (iirc). Madness would be bad. So there are reasons to keep people from dropping to zero. But overall, the 5e mechanic - unless a DM angles it otherwise - seems to be to go ahead and let people drop to zero and bring em back - which I find really really weird and unsettling - but - maybe that's mostly cuz I'm programmed to keep people alive from the old rules.

[Laurefindel]

First 5e game I played, we used the slow healing variant in the DMG. Basically, no automatic healing during long rests. Typically, we would use all our HD for healing during long rests, meaning there was precious few left for short rests. And since you only regen half your HD on long rests, oftentimes we would not wake up full hp the next morning.

[Theodoxus]

in 5E the best possible healer is a Life Cleric 1/Lore Bard 19, using only Vicious Mockery + Aura of Vitality in combat

this is notably so powerful that most DMs will react by throwing pure overkill at the players

???

That requires level 7 before it even comes online. At that level, you'll be facing casters who can counterspell or dispel the bard, shutting that down without having to throw pure overkill...

I mean, I wouldn't do it every time, but I was laughing pretty hard last week when the DM had 3 thugs with bows shooting at us, carrying large sacks. The wizard did his Sleep opening maneuver, as he's done every fight (and has become notorious for it) putting all the rats in the bags to sleep. Now, the DM did promise he wouldn't use that particular defense again - but the wizard was a bit shocked... much like any bard who cast AoV in combat, only to see it dispelled with prejudice the next round...

[Finger6842]

In practice once a party member gets their first failed death save you need to heal them immediately. I've seen the second roll be a 1 and while the nice lady rolling a new character was, well, nice about it, I still felt guilty. As a Lore Bard myself I would advise holding off on Aura heals until combat is either over or under control. Then interruptions are not a real concern. As already noted you wouldn't get Magical Secrets until 7th level anyway (1 Priest 6 Bard) Take the War Caster feat for sure if allowed.

There are several great healer setups out there including straight wizard, priest or bard; bard/priest; bard/priest/warrior; priest/paladin; and sorcerer/priest. There are more but I recommend you consider battlefield control as healing when you choose. I personally went Bard 18/Warrior 1/Wizard 1 for exactly that role and managed it pretty well once I learned to stay off the front lines and quit sneaking around.

[Gastronomie]

As others mentioned above, the only one point of HP that matters is the very last one.

This is for one because, generally speaking, "the damage the entire party takes per round" >>>>> "the damage the Cleric can heal per round". Meaning, even if the Cleric devotes himself entirely to healing, it will never be enough.

And the more important reason is that if you have that one Action, you should use it to first kill off enemies and lessen the number of attacks your team takes per round, and then heal the party after the fight is over, or when someone drops to 0 HP (someone being knocked unconscious results in your team taking less actions per round, meaning the enemies take less damage. If your enemies take less damage, it will take more time for your party to kill them all, and as a result, your team will take more damage in the process).

It's not really that difficult in terms of logic. In a majority of games, attacking is the best means of defense.

[toapat]

Thanks! I will have to look into that. I'm not sure if I'd do it, but I love exploring systems and seeing where they break or get strained. I did notice that aura of vit is a rather amazing spell - and yes, coupled w/ the life healer's bonus ... wow. I'm guessing you can heal extravagantly.

Iirc Aura of Vit is a concentration based spell. What would you do to keep from losing concentration? I've read that a cleric can ward you and siphon off half your damage, and with (o gosh, a bard!) bonuses to the CON ST and 20 pts of dam being halved and shared with a cleric - you may not be losing concentration. Are there other approaches to this please?

thats the point of Vicious Mockery. you dont deal great damage, but your opponents now have randomly generated dice cancer, and you use your bardic inspiration on Cutting words.

the end result is a robust caster whose tedious to play In Combat but youre Out of Combat options are basically completely open to fun


???

That requires level 7 before it even comes online. At that level, you'll be facing casters who can counterspell or dispel the bard, shutting that down without having to throw pure overkill...

its also a complete waste of resources to attempt to stop a Healbard rather than outright kill them. They have more 3rd level spell slots, their opponents have more things to kill.

[Chugger]

In practice once a party member gets their first failed death save you need to heal them immediately. I've seen the second roll be a 1 and while the nice lady rolling a new character was, well, nice about it, I still felt guilty. As a Lore Bard myself I would advise holding off on Aura heals until combat is either over or under control. Then interruptions are not a real concern. As already noted you wouldn't get Magical Secrets until 7th level anyway (1 Priest 6 Bard) Take the War Caster feat for sure if allowed.

There are several great healer setups out there including straight wizard, priest or bard; bard/priest; bard/priest/warrior; priest/paladin; and sorcerer/priest. There are more but I recommend you consider battlefield control as healing when you choose. I personally went Bard 18/Warrior 1/Wizard 1 for exactly that role and managed it pretty well once I learned to stay off the front lines and quit sneaking around.

Thanks, that's good to know - don't fool around. Save the heals for zero-hp chars but heal them fast and do prevent outright death.

I'm still really bad on the combo characters ... am still getting my head around it. Many of the old old campaigns frowned on it or only allowed a few versions of it - what we can do now is pretty dazzling (and takes some processing to understand fully).

I'm doing for now (of all things) a war domain cleric, and yes I fully know a paladin would do more damage - but I see versatility in the war cleric build (and I've had already at level 2 some wicked good bursts where I used extra attacks, inspiration, and the +10 to burst damage on monsters that needed to be made dead fast - and they dropped) - some burst damage but also a full cleric (yeah the domain spell list has some stinkers but some are ones I'd use often). I also am role-playing him and have a vision for that which is so outrageous it's fun.

But you've given me a ton to think about, and I will. Thanks!

[Chugger]

thats the point of Vicious Mockery. you dont deal great damage, but your opponents now have randomly generated dice cancer, and you use your bardic inspiration on Cutting words.

the end result is a robust caster whose tedious to play In Combat but youre Out of Combat options are basically completely open to fun



its also a complete waste of resources to attempt to stop a Healbard rather than outright kill them. They have more 3rd level spell slots, their opponents have more things to kill.

Ah, right - VM would help keep you from being interrupted. We also discussed war caster, and Bard has a ST plus iirc (or several - I gotta go back and study bard again) - and several others. Bless I think gives a plus 1 to 4 to ST - there are ways to get a good roll.

I noticed someone coming after you with a "my DM would dispell you every time" kind of response, which I felt you'd already covered - you'd already admitted that the tactic would probably get the wrong kind of DM attention. I have to laugh. If a player is not rattling the DM's cage at least every once in a while, that player's not alive, imho!!! Hah. (hm zombie players...?....hmmm)

Well, I get the tedious part, but you'd have all the cool Bard options for non-combat encounters - high charisma - tricksy spells to do sneaky things - and in combat where aura is a bad idea (like they got some dispeller bots) then you have the whole other list of Bard things you can do. And as someone else said (kudoes to this person!), a char doing this aura thing could just wait a few rounds til the dispeller-bot is taken care of or decides to use up his spell slots for other things - then heal away. And of course this aura lasts after most combats are over, giving extra rounds to heal up players who didn't get healed in combat - all for the initial price of the spell that's already been paid. So it seems like a usable option, even if a DM gets all huffy and cheaty on it. In other words, DMs can sack of rats you (he didn't invent this, by the way - this goes waaay back) - and you can and should have tricks up your sleeve as a player to hit back at the DM's new tactic. The only bad thing here is getting in a rut and thinking the same old trick will always work. That doesn't mean the trick is bad. It's the complacency that's bad.

[Chugger]

As others mentioned above, the only one point of HP that matters is the very last one.

This is for one because, generally speaking, "the damage the entire party takes per round" >>>>> "the damage the Cleric can heal per round". Meaning, even if the Cleric devotes himself entirely to healing, it will never be enough.

And the more important reason is that if you have that one Action, you should use it to first kill off enemies and lessen the number of attacks your team takes per round, and then heal the party after the fight is over, or when someone drops to 0 HP (someone being knocked unconscious results in your team taking less actions per round, meaning the enemies take less damage. If your enemies take less damage, it will take more time for your party to kill them all, and as a result, your team will take more damage in the process).

It's not really that difficult in terms of logic. In a majority of games, attacking is the best means of defense.

Thanks, I can see the point. Yes, healing is very limited - you're right - and incoming damage can be big. I noticed that there really are not many good low-mid-level heal spells for clerics - unless you do cure w or healing w with a lvl 3 slot say (and even that is not really all that good; in fact it's making me wonder when I'd do that when I have other really good spells possibly to cast with that slot - is that extra dice or two worth it? could be hard to know). Mass Healing Word, while not useless, is kind of weird - you do teeny healing to the party - meaning it would be good if everyone took big damage and say two or more players went down to zero, or I'm guessing this is its main use at this point (still thinking about it).

Yes, kill before they can hurt you is a basic tactic in real battle and always has been in these games (balanced by the need to pace things - you know these six zombies aren't the boss - kill them fast, yes, but use appropriate spells only - save some big stuff for the boss or suffer the consequences, if you can't sleep before the boss fight). I believe I already spoke to it several times above - but I get you're trying to help me, so thanks. What I perhaps have not made clear is how important it was to not let someone die in the old days. And that's ingrained in me - but I'm working on adjusting. Anyway, please don't feel that I'm not grasping that there's been a change and why. I get that - it's easy. The hard part is knowing when to blow a spell slot on a heal or wait, because letting people go to zero is weird - but again, I can get used to it. And there may not be a precise "right or wrong" formula here. It may be forgiving - could be that no one "sytem" or "rule set" governs here and you just try your best and take your chances - and mostly - as some are pointing out - don't let a zero'd character go to actually dead - try to get them back into the fight pronto and hurting badguys. Thanks.

[Chugger]

First 5e game I played, we used the slow healing variant in the DMG. Basically, no automatic healing during long rests. Typically, we would use all our HD for healing during long rests, meaning there was precious few left for short rests. And since you only regen half your HD on long rests, oftentimes we would not wake up full hp the next morning.

How did this game version feel to you? Was it better than "normal" 5e with the extravagant healing you get in short and long rests? Thanks for mentioning this - I'll go get the DMG and check up on it.

[Tanarii]

The biggest concern when considering healing before an ally drops to 0 how is how willing the DM is to have creatures attack / kill a downed PC.

Most of the games I've played in 5e were AL, and it wasn't that common for a DM to do it. But it's worth finding out what your DMs play-style is first if you're not familiar with it.

(Edit: personally as a DM I consider it to make perfect sense that intelligent enemies will strongly consider finishing off a PC if they've seen them healed from unconsciousness already, and it's not ridiculous tactically that they might take the time to do it. But more often they're kinda too busy dealing with alive enemies to take the time.)

If creatures commonly finish off wounded enemies, even if it's after they've seen them healed from unconsciousness once or twice, it's worth considering what you can do tactically to handle that. Including healing, and wounded characters backing up behind the line of combat. Assuming you *have* a line of combat of course. Not easy to do if you're in an open space.

[Laurefindel]

How did this game version feel to you? Was it better than "normal" 5e with the extravagant healing you get in short and long rests? Thanks for mentioning this - I'll go get the DMG and check up on it.

I think it made for a smoother transition from 3e to 5e (skipped 4e), but I'm not sure it made for a better game. In retrospect, it kept to the paradigm that most healing comes from magic that we were used to in previous edition. Since we had a cleric in our party, all it did, ultimately, was to reduce the cleric's spell slots.

In the end, I prefer to play it RAW, or use the gritty realism variant (which I really like for a bunch of reason, healing included). Thing is, healing in 5e only feels extravagant in the beginning, and it's nice to be able to play a group without a dedicated healer. After a while, you adapt your game play to that principle of quickly renewable ressources, and the game is just as fun.

[BW022]

It's a complex topic.

The main reasons for not healing immediately are (a) the action economy (preventing damage is much better than healing) and (b) resource management (non-combat healing/short rest is typically 'free' vs. spell slots). In AL, I've also seen not healing sometimes when players are reckless or otherwise don't use their own abilities to prevent damage.

However, I'd never go so far as to not heal until someone actually dropped. While it is rare in 5E to actually kill an unconscious character, it is usually a massive issue.

a) If the enemies do attack the unconscious PC it can be extremely bad. A hill giant virtually can't miss an unconscious PC and is effectively two failed saves a round -- meaning the PC comes down to one save. Likewise, area spells can quickly count as another failed save.

b) Even if they don't attack the unconscious PC, they could drag him off, kick his weapon aside, stand on him, push him off a cliff, etc. Standing up in an ooze with your weapon destroyed isn't fun.

c) Being so low on hit points, basically means they'll drop again next round. You typically can't get away easily (half your movement is gone from standing and you probably can't take another hit from an opportunity attack). This often forces the PC to make lots of sub-optimal choices (drink potions, disengage, go defensive, etc.) and/or end up dropping again.

d) Typically those dropping are front-line characters. Them dropping often means enemies move over them (possibly preventing you from getting next to them) and going after characters who aren't designed for it. Having an ogre get next to the archer and caster means they end up wasting their actions in protecting themselves.

e) You tend to erode party trust in not healing. If you aren't willing to take a character 'topped up'... then they typically won't be willing to stand in front of you, share treasure, etc.

This is always a judgement call. IMO, you want to keep font-line characters above half or at least to the point where they can't be dropped in one round. If your monk is facing a hill giant -- I'd wouldn't want the monk below about 40hp. Then again, if the monk had a good defensive ability... maybe one hit (say 25hp, enough for one non-crit hit).

In home games, we typically know each others strengths. In AL play... if I'm a healing, I will just ask "Do you need healing?" and leave it to the player to judge their own ability to avoid/handle/etc. damage. Most players won't accept it if it isn't necessary and if they say No and end up dropping, it isn't my call. Most players know that characters have better thinks to do than healing and won't ask for it unless they really need it.

[Finger6842]

Thanks, that's good to know - don't fool around. Save the heals for zero-hp chars but heal them fast and do prevent outright death.

I'm still really bad on the combo characters ... am still getting my head around it. Many of the old old campaigns frowned on it or only allowed a few versions of it - what we can do now is pretty dazzling (and takes some processing to understand fully).

I'm doing for now (of all things) a war domain cleric, and yes I fully know a paladin would do more damage - but I see versatility in the war cleric build (and I've had already at level 2 some wicked good bursts where I used extra attacks, inspiration, and the +10 to burst damage on monsters that needed to be made dead fast - and they dropped) - some burst damage but also a full cleric (yeah the domain spell list has some stinkers but some are ones I'd use often). I also am role-playing him and have a vision for that which is so outrageous it's fun.

But you've given me a ton to think about, and I will. Thanks!

Bards also add hit die to heals during down time via song of rest which never gets powerful but on average effectively doubles the out of combat hit die heals.

BW022 makes some great points as well which apply no matter which class you end up with.

[Chugger]

I think it made for a smoother transition from 3e to 5e (skipped 4e), but I'm not sure it made for a better game. In retrospect, it kept to the paradigm that most healing comes from magic that we were used to in previous edition. Since we had a cleric in our party, all it did, ultimately, was to reduce the cleric's spell slots.

In the end, I prefer to play it RAW, or use the gritty realism variant (which I really like for a bunch of reason, healing included). Thing is, healing in 5e only feels extravagant in the beginning, and it's nice to be able to play a group without a dedicated healer. After a while, you adapt your game play to that principle of quickly renewable ressources, and the game is just as fun.

Thanks for the insight. As (I think) I said before, we're in a "post WoW universe", meaning w. o. warcraft and many other games like it have a lot of us used to a "faster" pace with lots and lots and lots of fighting and little downtime. I have a feeling the 5e changes to healing were made to keep up with where at least many of us are, after playing some mmorpg's.

The danger with this is that WoW as it is currently is stupid as crud. I guess you still need a tank and healer on dungeon missions, but normal fighting is just smack the thing down before it kills you - and unless you're fighting something substantially more powerful than you, you're going to kill it. I played EQ back when it was hard as heck and you needed a tank, a healer, a crowd controller - and the rest dps. Actually in vanilla wow (which is crazy-popular - I have no idea why bliz won't revive vanilla) you often needed crowd control to win a fight, at least in dungeons. It wasn't like eq where you needed a class that was substantially dedicated to it, but you needed a class that could cc the dungeon you were hitting ... well, the point is that it was very very challenging. Maybe it got tedious. Maybe so many people (kids w/ mommy's visa card?) wanted a simpler game that they relented.

So as far as choosing a rule variant - well, if a group wants to go fast and fight often - why not? And if people like it old school, there are ways to dial it back. I guess we have choice, so it's good. You're right - it has to be fun. And that's a subjective thing.

[Chugger]

The biggest concern when considering healing before an ally drops to 0 how is how willing the DM is to have creatures attack / kill a downed PC.

Most of the games I've played in 5e were AL, and it wasn't that common for a DM to do it. But it's worth finding out what your DMs play-style is first if you're not familiar with it.

(Edit: personally as a DM I consider it to make perfect sense that intelligent enemies will strongly consider finishing off a PC if they've seen them healed from unconsciousness already, and it's not ridiculous tactically that they might take the time to do it. But more often they're kinda too busy dealing with alive enemies to take the time.)

If creatures commonly finish off wounded enemies, even if it's after they've seen them healed from unconsciousness once or twice, it's worth considering what you can do tactically to handle that. Including healing, and wounded characters backing up behind the line of combat. Assuming you *have* a line of combat of course. Not easy to do if you're in an open space.

Thanks, that's very useful! I wonder if it would make sense to "sanctuary" a zero'd player in this case instead of healing. Then heal or stabilize or w/e is appropriate. I assume we can sanc a person even if they are uncon. But I can see that knowing the DM's style would be very appropriate and nec. to know how to approach this.

[Chugger]

Bards also add hit die to heals during down time via song of rest which never gets powerful but on average effectively doubles the out of combat hit die heals.

BW022 makes some great points as well which apply no matter which class you end up with.

Right, am seeing that a bard would make an awesome healer - better than my war domain cleric! Hah. Thanks - I'll go read Bwo22 now.

[Chugger]

It's a complex topic.

The main reasons for not healing immediately are (a) the action economy (preventing damage is much better than healing) and (b) resource management (non-combat healing/short rest is typically 'free' vs. spell slots). In AL, I've also seen not healing sometimes when players are reckless or otherwise don't use their own abilities to prevent damage.

However, I'd never go so far as to not heal until someone actually dropped. While it is rare in 5E to actually kill an unconscious character, it is usually a massive issue.

a) If the enemies do attack the unconscious PC it can be extremely bad. A hill giant virtually can't miss an unconscious PC and is effectively two failed saves a round -- meaning the PC comes down to one save. Likewise, area spells can quickly count as another failed save.

b) Even if they don't attack the unconscious PC, they could drag him off, kick his weapon aside, stand on him, push him off a cliff, etc. Standing up in an ooze with your weapon destroyed isn't fun.

c) Being so low on hit points, basically means they'll drop again next round. You typically can't get away easily (half your movement is gone from standing and you probably can't take another hit from an opportunity attack). This often forces the PC to make lots of sub-optimal choices (drink potions, disengage, go defensive, etc.) and/or end up dropping again.

d) Typically those dropping are front-line characters. Them dropping often means enemies move over them (possibly preventing you from getting next to them) and going after characters who aren't designed for it. Having an ogre get next to the archer and caster means they end up wasting their actions in protecting themselves.

e) You tend to erode party trust in not healing. If you aren't willing to take a character 'topped up'... then they typically won't be willing to stand in front of you, share treasure, etc.

This is always a judgement call. IMO, you want to keep font-line characters above half or at least to the point where they can't be dropped in one round. If your monk is facing a hill giant -- I'd wouldn't want the monk below about 40hp. Then again, if the monk had a good defensive ability... maybe one hit (say 25hp, enough for one non-crit hit).

In home games, we typically know each others strengths. In AL play... if I'm a healing, I will just ask "Do you need healing?" and leave it to the player to judge their own ability to avoid/handle/etc. damage. Most players won't accept it if it isn't necessary and if they say No and end up dropping, it isn't my call. Most players know that characters have better thinks to do than healing and won't ask for it unless they really need it.

Thanks! Definitely gives me stuff to think about. So in some or even many instances, I would consider healing to keep someone from even getting near the red-zone - kind of like in older versions of the game. Because zero-hp could begin a cycle of problems - maybe even a bad domino effect - that might be very hard to counter or win against.

I have cure wounds and healing word for the reason you state - so I have a ranged heal (also it's a bonus action cast - I can do damage with my action). I'm role-playing a war domain cleric (I know, he's not perfect, but I'm teamed w/ a moon druid and a wolf totem barb and and picked war because I'll actually be able to do some damage off the barb giving advantage to us if he's raging and if we're close to him). He'll be vulnerable as wolf to non melee damage, but the moonie ... you know, I wonder if ... I was totally forgetting the moonie won't need any healing. Well, I suppose we could let her drop to zero - which would mean she'd be herself in caster form (and maybe have a pit of carry over damage) but next tern poof, she's a bear or w/e again. We only just started this group and are still getting used to it. I'd go Pal or fighter but I want access to some of the powerful cleric spells, including the utility spells - or I think I do (and I have a vision for role-playing a war domain cleric). Anyway, this is getting way way off topic, sorry.

So, if I were a Life Cleric - or if I were a lvl 6 bard having stolen Aura o Vit (or a lvl 7 bard/life cleric w/ aura o v) - I'd be a monster healer, and I'm thinking sure, keeping front line tanks and meleers at half would be much easier. But maybe I have to try to do this, anyway - and - as a war cleric I do use non-spell-slot-using attacks a lot (2 hand maul and the extra attack if I don't have to do healing word - and that occasional +10 to hit - I've had some excellent burst damage rounds landing two big maul hits (and my str is high, so the damage bonus is good)!). So even as a war cleric I could slap on some battle heals if it was prudent to keep a player well away from going zero - and I can see your point - there will be fights were this is a good thing. Especially if a DM goes after zero'd players. Thanks again, and I'll be processing all this and try to figure out the right thing to do. Still am low level, so have a while to learn this - at least I hope I do!

[Sir cryosin]

I don't know if anyone has said this but. In 5e in battle your spell slots are best served doing damage, reducing damage, or cc. Im the one that plays there group doctor. I rarely use my slots for healing I swear by healing word and the healer feat. A Vhuman with healer feat life cleric1/ OoA paladin with the inspiring leader feat. Is one of my favorite healer builds.

[Easy_Lee]

Thanks for the insight. As (I think) I said before, we're in a "post WoW universe", meaning w. o. warcraft and many other games like it have a lot of us used to a "faster" pace with lots and lots and lots of fighting and little downtime. I have a feeling the 5e changes to healing were made to keep up with where at least many of us are, after playing some mmorpg's.

The danger with this is that WoW as it is currently is stupid as crud. I guess you still need a tank and healer on dungeon missions, but normal fighting is just smack the thing down before it kills you - and unless you're fighting something substantially more powerful than you, you're going to kill it. I played EQ back when it was hard as heck and you needed a tank, a healer, a crowd controller - and the rest dps. Actually in vanilla wow (which is crazy-popular - I have no idea why bliz won't revive vanilla) you often needed crowd control to win a fight, at least in dungeons. It wasn't like eq where you needed a class that was substantially dedicated to it, but you needed a class that could cc the dungeon you were hitting ... well, the point is that it was very very challenging. Maybe it got tedious. Maybe so many people (kids w/ mommy's visa card?) wanted a simpler game that they relented.

So as far as choosing a rule variant - well, if a group wants to go fast and fight often - why not? And if people like it old school, there are ways to dial it back. I guess we have choice, so it's good. You're right - it has to be fun. And that's a subjective thing.

As I too played EQ, I think I can help you with a parallel.

EQ did a great job with variety. The tactics for approaching Dalnir were very different from lower guk. In turn, fighting in blackburrow was quite a bit different from fighting in estate of unrest. The key was always to know the area and adapt your strategy according to the party and mobs. Sometimes all you had was a ranger and a necromancer, so fear + snare kiting was the best tactic. Other times, with an enchanter and a bard in the party, making liberal use of charm and mesmerize was the trick. You had to adapt.

D&D is the same. Whether playing AL or a home game, purchased campaign or custom, the DM strives to challenge the players. That means a given tactic shouldn't work every time.

There are exceptions; a raging barbarian attacking with a magic weapon works just about every time. But that's all the barbarian can do, so that's not a problem.

Applied to healing, best practices vary by encounter. A few examples:

One or two hard-hitting monsters - action economy is in the party's favor. Keeping everyone topped off will be hard, but bringing people up after they go down will work well.
A hoard of flying monkeys - action economy is against the party. If someone goes down, the monkeys might carry them off or drop the player off a cliff. Keep everyone at 50% or more if possible.
Gelatinous cube - it just wants to eat someone, and escaping from inside it is difficult. Heal damage immediately because going down could be a death sentence.
Any - a player keeps going down and you're out of slots to heal them. Do you have a bag of holding? Shove the player's unconscious body in there.

Additionally, take steps to fix your own weaknesses. The lore bard / life clerics with aura of vitality and vicious mockery is indeed a good tactic. Back it up with counterspell so the enemy can't stop you.

Above all else, adapt. Healing is not so different from any other role. You figure out how best to do it based on the situation.

[Laurefindel]

Thanks for the insight. As (I think) I said before, we're in a "post WoW universe", meaning w. o. warcraft and many other games like it have a lot of us used to a "faster" pace with lots and lots and lots of fighting and little downtime. I have a feeling the 5e changes to healing were made to keep up with where at least many of us are, after playing some mmorpg's.

Yes, the current trend in RPGs is about fast and furious games (although I'm starting to see a new trend in indie games such as Blades in the Dark). I think MMOs have some influence on that, but mostly I think that MMOs and modern RPGs are built on the same modern design philosophy that RPGs are to be played like action-packed movies rather than long-winded novels, or even episodic series.

That's why I prefer the gritty realism variant, mainly because its slows the pace of the game down from a daily basis to a bi-weekly basis (i.e. it has nothing to do with neither grittiness nor realism), but I'm otherwise ok with fast hp regen.

[Finger6842]

As I too played EQ, I think I can help you with a parallel.

EQ did a great job with variety. The tactics for approaching Dalnir were very different from lower guk. In turn, fighting in blackburrow was quite a bit different from fighting in estate of unrest. The key was always to know the area and adapt your strategy according to the party and mobs. Sometimes all you had was a ranger and a necromancer, so fear + snare kiting was the best tactic. Other times, with an enchanter and a bard in the party, making liberal use of charm and mesmerize was the trick. You had to adapt.

D&D is the same. Whether playing AL or a home game, purchased campaign or custom, the DM strives to challenge the players. That means a given tactic shouldn't work every time.

There are exceptions; a raging barbarian attacking with a magic weapon works just about every time. But that's all the barbarian can do, so that's not a problem.

Applied to healing, best practices vary by encounter. A few examples:

One or two hard-hitting monsters - action economy is in the party's favor. Keeping everyone topped off will be hard, but bringing people up after they go down will work well.
A hoard of flying monkeys - action economy is against the party. If someone goes down, the monkeys might carry them off or drop the player off a cliff. Keep everyone at 50% or more if possible.
Gelatinous cube - it just wants to eat someone, and escaping from inside it is difficult. Heal damage immediately because going down could be a death sentence.
Any - a player keeps going down and you're out of slots to heal them. Do you have a bag of holding? Shove the player's unconscious body in there.

Additionally, take steps to fix your own weaknesses. The lore bard / life clerics with aura of vitality and vicious mockery is indeed a good tactic. Back it up with counterspell so the enemy can't stop you.

Above all else, adapt. Healing is not so different from any other role. You figure out how best to do it based on the situation.

Yes... more wisdom.

[Chugger]

As I too played EQ, I think I can help you with a parallel.

EQ did a great job with variety. The tactics for approaching Dalnir were very different from lower guk. In turn, fighting in blackburrow was quite a bit different from fighting in estate of unrest. The key was always to know the area and adapt your strategy according to the party and mobs. Sometimes all you had was a ranger and a necromancer, so fear + snare kiting was the best tactic. Other times, with an enchanter and a bard in the party, making liberal use of charm and mesmerize was the trick. You had to adapt.

D&D is the same. Whether playing AL or a home game, purchased campaign or custom, the DM strives to challenge the players. That means a given tactic shouldn't work every time.

There are exceptions; a raging barbarian attacking with a magic weapon works just about every time. But that's all the barbarian can do, so that's not a problem.

Applied to healing, best practices vary by encounter. A few examples:

One or two hard-hitting monsters - action economy is in the party's favor. Keeping everyone topped off will be hard, but bringing people up after they go down will work well.
A hoard of flying monkeys - action economy is against the party. If someone goes down, the monkeys might carry them off or drop the player off a cliff. Keep everyone at 50% or more if possible.
Gelatinous cube - it just wants to eat someone, and escaping from inside it is difficult. Heal damage immediately because going down could be a death sentence.
Any - a player keeps going down and you're out of slots to heal them. Do you have a bag of holding? Shove the player's unconscious body in there.

Additionally, take steps to fix your own weaknesses. The lore bard / life clerics with aura of vitality and vicious mockery is indeed a good tactic. Back it up with counterspell so the enemy can't stop you.

Above all else, adapt. Healing is not so different from any other role. You figure out how best to do it based on the situation.

Thanks! Very good advice - really helps see when to go one way and when another. We did forget about counterspell when discussing DMs shutting down aura of vit, didn't we? I agree I'm going to have to learn to correctly ascertain situations and be able to adjust, thanks.

Ah the good old days of old EQ - such memories - and yes - I well remember my lil halfling druid and his premade button, jamming it to say "/p The "whatever" is now snared - FEAR IT!" or something like that. In a jam I would root - and no no no don't hit it you broke my root. "But I was gonna off-tank"...and healer missed the off-tank and the off-tank drops...and I either land or don't land a second root attempt in time - and we wipe or we don't...good times!

[Chugger]

Yes, the current trend in RPGs is about fast and furious games (although I'm starting to see a new trend in indie games such as Blades in the Dark). I think MMOs have some influence on that, but mostly I think that MMOs and modern RPGs are built on the same modern design philosophy that RPGs are to be played like action-packed movies rather than long-winded novels, or even episodic series.

That's why I prefer the gritty realism variant, mainly because its slows the pace of the game down from a daily basis to a bi-weekly basis (i.e. it has nothing to do with neither grittiness nor realism), but I'm otherwise ok with fast hp regen.

Understood. Vanilla EQ and Vanilla WoW servers are red hot and popular. They're migrating to Russia or places like that where US trademark and copyright lawsuits are slower and harder to affect them, or so I've been told. Why bliz won't just admit they goofed and alienated a large chunk of their player base - and just do a vanilla server themselves, I have no idea (ego, I'm guessing, they non-vanilla's who took over must still be in charge and still delusional that they didn't break WoW). I'm glad I refound DnD - I like 5e so far a lot and am getting used to it - I'm meeting cool, nice people for the most part - and though I'm hard on DMs I must admit so far there is a good base of reasonably cool and talented DMs in my local area. So all good. I'm happy - and I like this community here at Giant in the P. ! People here are smart and knowledgeable and nice, for the most part - healthy good community - glad I found you all.

[toapat]

Thanks! Very good advice - really helps see when to go one way and when another. We did forget about counterspell when discussing DMs shutting down aura of vit, didn't we? I agree I'm going to have to learn to correctly ascertain situations and be able to adjust, thanks.

counterspelling the counterspell is a valid action (i think?), since your incombat function as the "Abyss Bard" is to simply stop badthings from going down.

the general problem with using Counterspell to kill Aura of Vitality is it costs proportional resources for the enemy, and since casters will rarely have a superior spell economy to the party casters, trying to stop Aura of Vit from going on is a worse idea than trying to straight up kill the bard.

[Yanecky]

I've been struggling with healing too, especially "mega heal," and recently concluded that it all boils down to the assumption that the PCs are expected to have 8 (?) encounters between rests. We never play like this, too much combat is boring. However, with so many encounters I can see how constant heals and the mega heal are useful, or even necessary.
I've recently picked up "Adventures in Middle Earth" which is a Tolkien OGL conversion for 5e. What I immediaely loved is the journey mechanics and the assumption that the PCs can't restore their hp until they're in a "safe haven", making journeys dangerous (especially coupled with the low-magic setting). Now I'm going to try to adapt this to my regular DnD and see what happens :)

[Theodoxus]

trying to stop Aura of Vit from going on is a worse idea than trying to straight up kill the bard.

Or force concentration checks... it's not about killing the bard. Even 1 point of damage will force a check. If you have mooks who are following even a reasonably intelligent leader, they'll be told to focus fire the bard. 10, 15, 20 sling bullets a round, and your bard is making a lot of con checks... yeah, DC 10 is pretty easy, especially if you have the luxury of picking up Warcaster or Resilient Con - but some players like maxing out their casting stat first... and all it takes is missing it once and your spell slot is wasted.

I'm sure I'm going to be assumed to be purposefully going against your amazeballs healing bard - but I'm really not. I'm just trying to point out that there are a LOT of different ways to shut him down. Covering every contingency is a noble goal; and you'll probably succeed at the task more often than not - afterall, one shouldn't be purposefully picking on a legal build, even if it's annoying... but I don't want Chugger falling into the same trap I see lots of players who only read "how to make the best X" builds online and assume that they're going to run the table - not realizing that DMs also read such builds and plan around them.

[Chugger]

counterspelling the counterspell is a valid action (i think?), since your incombat function as the "Abyss Bard" is to simply stop badthings from going down.

the general problem with using Counterspell to kill Aura of Vitality is it costs proportional resources for the enemy, and since casters will rarely have a superior spell economy to the party casters, trying to stop Aura of Vit from going on is a worse idea than trying to straight up kill the bard.

Good point! Thanks. Was more thinking counterspelling dispell - didn't think of counterspelling counterspell! Yeah, that's a doozy. Good point about most enemy casters. Also a bard could recast aura in a big, important fight if he/she had another slot open. And a wiz or sorc spending two rounds shutting down a bard and causing no damage while presumably the rest of hte party is causing damage to the badguys seems like win sauce for the party.

[Chugger]

Or force concentration checks... it's not about killing the bard. Even 1 point of damage will force a check. If you have mooks who are following even a reasonably intelligent leader, they'll be told to focus fire the bard. 10, 15, 20 sling bullets a round, and your bard is making a lot of con checks... yeah, DC 10 is pretty easy, especially if you have the luxury of picking up Warcaster or Resilient Con - but some players like maxing out their casting stat first... and all it takes is missing it once and your spell slot is wasted.

I'm sure I'm going to be assumed to be purposefully going against your amazeballs healing bard - but I'm really not. I'm just trying to point out that there are a LOT of different ways to shut him down. Covering every contingency is a noble goal; and you'll probably succeed at the task more often than not - afterall, one shouldn't be purposefully picking on a legal build, even if it's annoying... but I don't want Chugger falling into the same trap I see lots of players who only read "how to make the best X" builds online and assume that they're going to run the table - not realizing that DMs also read such builds and plan around them.

Right, but if the bard is ready for concentration checks - well, the bard and party have things they can do to mitigate that. The basic dc check for conc iirc is dc 10 const - bard could be resil con (feat) - have a sta bonus - and possibly have other + modifiers on the roll (the usual suspects - plus ward to drop damage and keep the ST low, edit). Mirror image is not, iirc, a conc. spell - and if the bard has that too, it's a big mitigator. The point is that a DM can make it more challenging by making it harder on the bard using vit, but the bard and party have a few simple things (besides bard hiding behind natural cover - possibly other spells - a dip in trickster to be casting from an illusion (which might or might not be silly) - and so on.

Don't assume I'm falling into any traps here - I'm not a child - I freaking started D&D _before_ AD&D, thank you very much (yes, on the old-timey pamphlets - one of my buddies even had a copy of (gasp) --> Chainmail <-- which we sometimes consulted). I creak when I roll, m'kay? :smallbiggrin:

I appreciate that you want to help, but helping isn't taking on a "now look here young man you don't want this hotrod - you'll shoot yer eyes out ... er wait " - understanding the rules and where they break is very VERY important to understanding this game. And look, if a party has a dazzlingly good healer, then maybe they get to fight two extra giants - or w/e. Like was said by the person who originally brought this up, DMs prepare to throw harder stuff at you when you bring this combo. That, by the way, is in most cases the _proper_ response. If a DM gets all butthurt and doesn't like something I'm doing and breaks the fourth wall and comes after me specifically, meaning to "control" the party or "teach me a lesson" - I'm gone. That is not good DM'ing. That is petulant, tyrannical, sucky DM'ing, and unless I live in some tiny town (I don't), I'm finding another table - not where there's a DM who lets me do whatever I want (which is equally not good) - but to find a DM who is mature and wise and knows how to properly balance and offer challenges and keep the game a good thing (and not some finger-wagging puritan-hat-wearing omg-really - you really think that is wise? kind of thing - i.e. a fuster cluck). No fuster clucks for me, thank you.

[Chugger]

If we want to discuss what is broken, maybe bard w/ vit and a dip in life is powerful healing, but a level two moon druid is broken-broken - I mean seriously. The party's fighter has maybe 22 hp but good ac - but the moon druid can become a 34 or so hp animal with a special, like attack with advantage - multi attack - or web-shoot and spider climb - stuff like that. The dire wolf hits like the fighter with a greatsword (2d6+3), if near a friend has advantage (rarely misses) and forces a save or go prone on most things she hits!

On top of that the moonie drops to zero (her ac is not that good - except dire wolf ac is not terrible) - she's a druid again - and become -------> another nasty mean animal! Or cast some helpful or harmful spells - and then become an animal if needed.

The thing we say to that is "It's not broken, at lvl 5 meleers get double attack mostly and start passing the moonie as animals aren't so imba and op any more, and any DM knows that if there is a Moonie in the party the encounters have to be a lot tougher to be a challenge." <--- See? We don't say "the DM has to invent some stupidly difficult and hard to justify rule interpretation or test of reality type intervention ('hey, animal, DC con or you just caught mange' - 'hey, animal, I'm rolling to see if the Animal Catcher spots you!' :smallbiggrin:)" - right? The DM throws harder stuff at the party. Okay, maybe they level a little faster - so? The point is that challenges do not always have to come in the form of "I'm a big bad mean DM and I'm going to single you out for punishment because you understood the rules better than someone else" - there are much, MUCH better ways of handling this. And a subtle increase in challenge - look, if party's never ever run into monsters that mess with casters - this is good? Why not have caster-challenges regardless of whether or not there is a bard doing vit??? A sorc who nova's can be bad too. There are a lot of caster abuses. What I'm saying here is why put your wheels off the rails over this and "over-respond" when a more balanced and level and sensible response is better. Maintain the challenge is the goal - not suck out all the air from the game so no one can do anything (just as allowing abuse and too-easy destroys the game). It's not your desire to seek balance that I question - it's your knee-jerk (seeming) reaction to heavy-handedness that alarms me. I do hope I'm wrong - that I misread you somehow - and I apologize in advance if that is what happened.

[Finger6842]

If we want to discuss what is broken, maybe bard w/ vit and a dip in life is powerful healing, but a level two moon druid is broken-broken - I mean seriously. The party's fighter has maybe 22 hp but good ac - but the moon druid can become a 34 or so hp animal with a special, like attack with advantage - multi attack - or web-shoot and spider climb - stuff like that. The dire wolf hits like the fighter with a greatsword (2d6+3), if near a friend has advantage (rarely misses) and forces a save or go prone on most things she hits!

On top of that the moonie drops to zero (her ac is not that good - except dire wolf ac is not terrible) - she's a druid again - and become -------> another nasty mean animal! Or cast some helpful or harmful spells - and then become an animal if needed.

The thing we say to that is "It's not broken, at lvl 5 meleers get double attack mostly and start passing the moonie as animals aren't so imba and op any more, and any DM knows that if there is a Moonie in the party the encounters have to be a lot tougher to be a challenge." <--- See? We don't say "the DM has to invent some stupidly difficult and hard to justify rule interpretation or test of reality type intervention ('hey, animal, DC con or you just caught mange' - 'hey, animal, I'm rolling to see if the Animal Catcher spots you!' :smallbiggrin:)" - right? The DM throws harder stuff at the party. Okay, maybe they level a little faster - so? The point is that challenges do not always have to come in the form of "I'm a big bad mean DM and I'm going to single you out for punishment because you understood the rules better than someone else" - there are much, MUCH better ways of handling this. And a subtle increase in challenge - look, if party's never ever run into monsters that mess with casters - this is good? Why not have caster-challenges regardless of whether or not there is a bard doing vit??? A sorc who nova's can be bad too. There are a lot of caster abuses. What I'm saying here is why put your wheels off the rails over this and "over-respond" when a more balanced and level and sensible response is better. Maintain the challenge is the goal - not suck out all the air from the game so no one can do anything (just as allowing abuse and too-easy destroys the game). It's not your desire to seek balance that I question - it's your knee-jerk (seeming) reaction to heavy-handedness that alarms me. I do hope I'm wrong - that I misread you somehow - and I apologize in advance if that is what happened.

What's truly broke is the druid is supposed to have seen one, studied it, to be able to shift into it. No one seems to follow that, they just choose something from the monster manual. To shift into a dire wolf they should need to see one in action several times, they are not a doppelganger to ape something immediately. Enforce this and they can wild shape kitten or dog etc. until that point. My world doesn't have dinosaurs in petting zoos for easy observation. Write all the backstory you want but you haven't seen enough yet.

[Chugger]

What's truly broke is the druid is supposed to have seen one, studied it, to be able to shift into it. No one seems to follow that, they just choose something from the monster manual. To shift into a dire wolf they should need to see one in action several times, they are not a doppelganger to ape something immediately. Enforce this and they can wild shape kitten or dog etc. until that point. My world doesn't have dinosaurs in petting zoos for easy observation. Write all the backstory you want but you haven't seen enough yet.

That's a way to handle it, possibly. But one warg-rider and they've pretty much seen a large dire wolf equivalent. And so they become lvl 3 and get Locate Animal and waste a lot of time going off to study bears and wolves ... and why are there so FEW animals to pick from? Nature has zillions to select from, but there are only about 4 to 6 CR1 animals, iirc (w/ no swim or fly speed - brown bear, dire wolf, giant toad, tiger and lion - something like that). Handling it this way, however, has consequences, one of which I spoke to above. Also, people living close to nature _would_ have seen a large bear. They _would_ have seen wolves - maybe not dire wolves, but wolves yes (or alpha-equiv predators for their area - animals that wrongly aren't even in the MM or available!). If you live in rural Alaska, you've seen wolves and grizzly or brown bears, almost certainly - black bears at least. I assume you live in a city (or am I wrong?) - have you spent much time in a truly remote area? I have. I've seen and spent time with wild lions, leopard (very hard to see, didn't get to study these much tbh), hyenas, elephants, rhinos - I lived in Africa, obviously, for a while - and in the US I've seen elk (if giant elk existed I might have seen one), wolves, coyotes, bobcats, bear, bison - but never a wild mountain lion - but I never went looking for one. I'm not a rural person. Had I been born on the frontier 150 years ago, however, there's a good chance I would have seen one. So, I'm not in love with your "logic" here. I fear you're transposing your modern sense onto people who, in this game, would have grown up in a completely different world from us. It's a noble effort to try to address this problem, but I worry that it's not the best way - and it's not what I would choose. Clearly the thing to do is for the rule-makers to make _more_ animals - lots more - available and perhaps have more CRs, like 3/4 CR and start w/ a wild shape to a 3/4 CR animal and not a CR 1 - but that ain't gonna happen. So I really like just letting the party fight harder monsters. Now look, if your players buy your logic - fine - I'm not saying you're "bad" or "wrong". If it works for you and your friends, more power to you. It's not for me, but that's okay - the game allows us to run different tables in different ways. No one's table is gonna be perfect. (so please understand, I'm very much not judging you or anything heavy - I can see why you made your choice).

(children growing up in "extreme" places see amazing things - I would humbly submit that we should not casually dismiss this and say that backstories aren't allowed to be all that far-reaching or creative - are you sure you're imaging what it's like to grow up in a cottage in a forest or among nomads in a DnD world correctly? Fully? Or am I off? Maybe I am. The argument against me might be how could such a child have survived - and the answer would be some of the kids didn't - that's why people had 7 kids per family - cuz some families got thinned and some got wiped out - and those who survived had already seen some rather interesting and scary things before their 16th birthday (and those are the ones who become player characters). Look, this moon druid thing is a problem begging to be solved - you're right to want to do something about it - and what you said is one way to try to tackle it - and again, if your players buy it and are happy - okay - peace. I won't argue. But again, I'm not running my table this way. And I think it's okay that we are different - and happy)

(Let me give an example, because what I've said above is extreme, and I can imagine a lot of people not liking it. In Africa I met children - little kids - who lived in the bush and who had seen everything - lions, hyenas, leopards, elephants, rhinos, crocs, hippos, pythons, other dangerous snakes, and cheetahs - probably not wild dogs. I made friends with a Zula, and I asked him what his life had been like - what his father did (my friend worked in a hotel). My Zulu friend told me his father's job was to protect the family's cattle, something he'd done since he was young (he implied a teen). Protect them, I asked - from what? Well, lions, of course, my Zulu friend told me. He explained that lions - sometimes leopard and hyena, but mostly lions - loved to steal the Zulu's cattle. So, I asked, your dad had a rifle or shotgun? He looked at me - no, of course not. Wait, I said - then how did he protect the cattle? With a stick, my Zulu friend said quite matter-of-factly. A _stick_?! Well, he added, a stick and he also would pile up stones. Stones? Yes, the lions hated it when he threw stones at them - it drove them away. Holy cow - this is a man standing up to hungry lions - and all he has is a "stick" - a cudgel or club - and some baseball sized stones to throw at them. I had seen lions in action, watched them hunt while I was sitting in Range Rover - and it had scared me to be so close to them (there was no cage or anything - the lions could have easily come after us but didn't). And here is this hotel worker, my Zulu friend, telling me how his father drove off lions from his family's cattle with nothing but a STICK and some STONES! Okay, I would float the idea that my Zulu friend and his father had a _lot_ more in common with a typical Outlander or Hermit background character than any modern, westerner (such as myself) - are we still going to say that children don't grow up not having the chance to study dangerous CR1 wild animals? Some children don't sure - a noble or urchin background (urban) could be a problem. But lots of DnD world kids clearly would have grown up seeing things we can only imagine (in movies, zoos and whatnot). Sorry I'm dragging this out and running long here. It's a subtle and hard-to-make point. And if you don't dig it, that's cool. I just wanted to have my say and see if I could inspire people to think about the world (and their imaginary world) differently - and that my thoughts on this matter come from my experiences over many decades - and again I do not mean to judge or sound high-handed (but of course I am opinionated - can't help that at all). Good luck!)

[Finger6842]

That's a way to handle it, possibly. But one warg-rider and they've pretty much seen a large dire wolf equivalent. And so they become lvl 3 and get Locate Animal and waste a lot of time going off to study bears and wolves ... and why are there so FEW animals to pick from? Nature has zillions to select from, but there are only about 4 to 6 CR1 animals, iirc (w/ no swim or fly speed - brown bear, dire wolf, giant toad, tiger and lion - something like that). Handling it this way, however, has consequences, one of which I spoke to above. Also, people living close to nature _would_ have seen a large bear. They _would_ have seen wolves - maybe not dire wolves, but wolves yes. If you live in rural Alaska, you've seen wolves and grizzly bears, almost certainly. I assume you live in a city (or am I wrong?) - have you spent much time in a truly remote area? I have. I've seen lions, leopard, hyenas, elephants, rhinos - I lived in Africa, obviously, for a while - and in the US I've seen elk (if giant elk existed I might have seen one), wolves, coyotes, bobcats, bear, bison - but never a wild mountain lion - but I never went looking for one. I'm not a rural person. Had I been born on the frontier 150 years ago, however, there's a good chance I would have seen one. So, I'm not in love with your "logic" here. I fear you're transposing your modern sense onto people who, in this game, would have grown up in a completely different world from you. It's a noble effort to try to address this problem, but I don't think it's the best way - and it's not what I would choose. Clearly the thing to do is for the rule-makers to make _more_ animals - lots more - available and perhaps have more CRs, like 3/4 CR and start w/ a wild shape to a 3/4 CR animal and not a CR 1 - but that ain't gonna happen. So I really like just letting the party fight harder monsters. Now look, if your players buy your logic - fine - I'm not saying you're "bad" or "wrong". If it works for you and your friends, more power to you. I don't like it, but that's okay - the game allows us to run different tables in different ways. No one's table is gonna be perfect. (so please understand, I'm very much not judging you or anything heavy - I can see why you made your choice).

I grew up in the country but not the wilderness like Africa. Wolves, Bear, Boar, Snakes, Deer and Birds about cover it (outside a zoo).

I agree with you here. Game wise I'm pretty lucky, none of my players are power players and as such rarely choose Druid. Those that do enjoy "doing the work" as it were to obtain a list of shapes. I find that giving players the chance to thematically acquire what they seek to be a great compromise. So wolf but not dire wolf etc. I have them "observe" the NPC for at least 10 minutes to acquire the shape, which is usually longer than a single fight. One interesting side effect is they go out of their way to resolve wildlife encounters without combat. Now if I can just get them to quit killing most of the humanoids they encounter outside a town.

I've also enjoyed playing at tables where the DM bumps the encounter. I'm just too new at the head of the table to be comfortable with a lot of encounter tweaking. As I believe is the case with most newer DMs, I still cling closer to the theme park than the sandbox. I do appreciate your advice and point of view though. Thanks.

[Finger6842]

That's a way to handle it, possibly. But one warg-rider and they've pretty much seen a large dire wolf equivalent. And so they become lvl 3 and get Locate Animal and waste a lot of time going off to study bears and wolves ... and why are there so FEW animals to pick from? Nature has zillions to select from, but there are only about 4 to 6 CR1 animals, iirc (w/ no swim or fly speed - brown bear, dire wolf, giant toad, tiger and lion - something like that). Handling it this way, however, has consequences, one of which I spoke to above. Also, people living close to nature _would_ have seen a large bear. They _would_ have seen wolves - maybe not dire wolves, but wolves yes (or alpha-equiv predators for their area - animals that wrongly aren't even in the MM or available!). If you live in rural Alaska, you've seen wolves and grizzly or brown bears, almost certainly - black bears at least. I assume you live in a city (or am I wrong?) - have you spent much time in a truly remote area? I have. I've seen and spent time with wild lions, leopard (very hard to see, didn't get to study these much tbh), hyenas, elephants, rhinos - I lived in Africa, obviously, for a while - and in the US I've seen elk (if giant elk existed I might have seen one), wolves, coyotes, bobcats, bear, bison - but never a wild mountain lion - but I never went looking for one. I'm not a rural person. Had I been born on the frontier 150 years ago, however, there's a good chance I would have seen one. So, I'm not in love with your "logic" here. I fear you're transposing your modern sense onto people who, in this game, would have grown up in a completely different world from us. It's a noble effort to try to address this problem, but I worry that it's not the best way - and it's not what I would choose. Clearly the thing to do is for the rule-makers to make _more_ animals - lots more - available and perhaps have more CRs, like 3/4 CR and start w/ a wild shape to a 3/4 CR animal and not a CR 1 - but that ain't gonna happen. So I really like just letting the party fight harder monsters. Now look, if your players buy your logic - fine - I'm not saying you're "bad" or "wrong". If it works for you and your friends, more power to you. It's not for me, but that's okay - the game allows us to run different tables in different ways. No one's table is gonna be perfect. (so please understand, I'm very much not judging you or anything heavy - I can see why you made your choice).

(children growing up in "extreme" places see amazing things - I would humbly submit that we should not casually dismiss this and say that backstories aren't allowed to be all that far-reaching or creative - are you sure you're imaging what it's like to grow up in a cottage in a forest or among nomads in a DnD world correctly? Fully? Or am I off? Maybe I am. The argument against me might be how could such a child have survived - and the answer would be some of the kids didn't - that's why people had 7 kids per family - cuz some families got thinned and some got wiped out - and those who survived had already seen some rather interesting and scary things before their 16th birthday (and those are the ones who become player characters). Look, this moon druid thing is a problem begging to be solved - you're right to want to do something about it - and what you said is one way to try to tackle it - and again, if your players buy it and are happy - okay - peace. I won't argue. But again, I'm not running my table this way. And I think it's okay that we are different - and happy)

(Let me give an example, because what I've said above is extreme, and I can imagine a lot of people not liking it. In Africa I met children - little kids - who lived in the bush and who had seen everything - lions, hyenas, leopards, elephants, rhinos, crocs, hippos, pythons, other dangerous snakes, and cheetahs - probably not wild dogs. I made friends with a Zula, and I asked him what his life had been like - what his father did (my friend worked in a hotel). My Zulu friend told me his father's job was to protect the family's cattle, something he'd done since he was young (he implied a teen). Protect them, I asked - from what? Well, lions, of course, my Zulu friend told me. He explained that lions - sometimes leopard and hyena, but mostly lions - loved to steal the Zulu's cattle. So, I asked, your dad had a rifle or shotgun? He looked at me - no, of course not. Wait, I said - then how did he protect the cattle? With a stick, my Zulu friend said quite matter-of-factly. A _stick_?! Well, he added, a stick and he also would pile up stones. Stones? Yes, the lions hated it when he threw stones at them - it drove them away. Holy cow - this is a man standing up to hungry lions - and all he has is a "stick" - a cudgel or club - and some baseball sized stones to throw at them. I had seen lions in action, watched them hunt while I was sitting in Range Rover - and it had scared me to be so close to them (there was no cage or anything - the lions could have easily come after us but didn't). And here is this hotel worker, my Zulu friend, telling me how his father drove off lions from his family's cattle with nothing but a STICK and some STONES! Okay, I would float the idea that my Zulu friend and his father had a _lot_ more in common with a typical Outlander or Hermit background character than any modern, westerner (such as myself) - are we still going to say that children don't grow up not having the chance to study dangerous CR1 wild animals? Some children don't sure - a noble or urchin background (urban) could be a problem. But lots of DnD world kids clearly would have grown up seeing things we can only imagine (in movies, zoos and whatnot). Sorry I'm dragging this out and running long here. It's a subtle and hard-to-make point. And if you don't dig it, that's cool. I just wanted to have my say and see if I could inspire people to think about the world (and their imaginary world) differently - and that my thoughts on this matter come from my experiences over many decades - and again I do not mean to judge or sound high-handed (but of course I am opinionated - can't help that at all). Good luck!)



Yep, I agree with all of this, but then just 2 quick points to ponder.

Backstory. I've had players write receiving things into their backstory (not background) that was plausible. One half elf, specialized as a diplomat (as all half elves are Natural Diplomats as stated in the PHB) and was awarded Gauntlets of Ogre Power by Bruenor Battlehammer himself. In another campaign a young urchin was scarred by magic, granting him resistance to all types. In both cases the story was detailed, plausible and well argued. In neither case did the level one character get what he wanted to start with. I did however give both an eventual path to improve resistance to a magic or obtain gauntlet at a more appropriate level.

Starting Character. The level 1 toon has undoubtedly seen many animals but he can only see the basic ones provided before the campaign begins. After all Rangers have undoubtedly hunted all the same animals before the adventure begins, they still have no advantage to fight the bear inside the campaign despite a clear understanding of his physiology.


I don't want to deny the Druid access, I just want to have a level playing field at the start.

[Theodoxus]

Right, but if the bard is ready for concentration checks - well, the bard and party have things they can do to mitigate that. The basic dc check for conc iirc is dc 10 const - bard could be resil con (feat) - have a sta bonus - and possibly have other + modifiers on the roll (the usual suspects - plus ward to drop damage and keep the ST low, edit). Mirror image is not, iirc, a conc. spell - and if the bard has that too, it's a big mitigator. The point is that a DM can make it more challenging by making it harder on the bard using vit, but the bard and party have a few simple things (besides bard hiding behind natural cover - possibly other spells - a dip in trickster to be casting from an illusion (which might or might not be silly) - and so on.

Don't assume I'm falling into any traps here - I'm not a child - I freaking started D&D _before_ AD&D, thank you very much (yes, on the old-timey pamphlets - one of my buddies even had a copy of (gasp) --> Chainmail <-- which we sometimes consulted). I creak when I roll, m'kay? :smallbiggrin:

I appreciate that you want to help, but helping isn't taking on a "now look here young man you don't want this hotrod - you'll shoot yer eyes out ... er wait " - understanding the rules and where they break is very VERY important to understanding this game. And look, if a party has a dazzlingly good healer, then maybe they get to fight two extra giants - or w/e. Like was said by the person who originally brought this up, DMs prepare to throw harder stuff at you when you bring this combo. That, by the way, is in most cases the _proper_ response. If a DM gets all butthurt and doesn't like something I'm doing and breaks the fourth wall and comes after me specifically, meaning to "control" the party or "teach me a lesson" - I'm gone. That is not good DM'ing. That is petulant, tyrannical, sucky DM'ing, and unless I live in some tiny town (I don't), I'm finding another table - not where there's a DM who lets me do whatever I want (which is equally not good) - but to find a DM who is mature and wise and knows how to properly balance and offer challenges and keep the game a good thing (and not some finger-wagging puritan-hat-wearing omg-really - you really think that is wise? kind of thing - i.e. a fuster cluck). No fuster clucks for me, thank you.

Thanks for the bonafides... why you'd assume I'd of known you were a grognard and not some wet behind the ears newb, I can't fathom... but great. We have similar backgrounds. And for what it's worth, I'm not protagonistic towards players who find legit combinations that enhance their survival rate.

And yes, moonies in white rooms and paper are amazing. Moonies who actually play, and think they're going to replace the 19 AC fighter with a 14 AC dire wolf and be amazing find themselves shocked when they've burnt all their spell slots on healing (a not so wise use of said slots) or they quickly realize that animals kinda suck, and is one reason that beast master kinda sucks and use their wildshape for less combat oriented tasks.

Now, sure, if the party has a main frontliner and a secondary frontliner and can spare a full caster to be out front in melee too - then a moonie can shine. But typically at the detriment of the rest of the party who'd more than likely be able to take on stronger encounters (and thus earn more XP per hour and level faster) if they were a land druid with amazing control spells and not playing animal companion to the fighter/barbarian/ranger. But then again, the game should be about fun, not fastest XP gain possible, and sometimes pretending to be Summer for the parties' Bran is more fun than being Thorn Whip, Fog Cloud and Spike Growth casting druid #34823.

[Beelzebubba]

Yes, the current trend in RPGs is about fast and furious games (although I'm starting to see a new trend in indie games such as Blades in the Dark). I think MMOs have some influence on that, but mostly I think that MMOs and modern RPGs are built on the same modern design philosophy that RPGs are to be played like action-packed movies rather than long-winded novels, or even episodic series.

I think there's also the idea that the original D&D players came to fantasy via literature, and newer players are coming to it via movies. Movie fantasy is far more heroic, larger than life, and fast-paced than even the books they are inspired from (*cough* LOTR *cough*). The idea of taking several days off to heal seems like a huge waste of time when EVIL IS AFOOT. Bouncing back quickly is how it plays out now.

Mechanically, it's mostly the same, except for fewer opportunities for downtime things like rumor mongering, foraging, hunting, etc. so that stuff tends to get hand-waved away into a quick 'montage' sequence, like the movies. Same reason things like 'torch durations and marking off minutes left in a turn' are demoted - we're out of wargames won or lost on logistics, and on to cinematic heroism.

But, there are variant rules for all of that OG stuff like more strict encumbrance, slower healing, random monster encounters, etcetera, in the PHB and DMG so you can push it somewhat back towards it's roots quite easily. You just need a willing gaming group.