What would you do in a world without healing?

[Kyutaru]

The holy trinity has been in the game since the beginning with the Fighting man, magic user, and cleric. Healing has been one of the pillars of Dungeons and Dragons for as long as its inception. But what if your DM has declared that magical healing that instantly closes up wounds, replaces limbs, and brings back the dead were not to exist? That instead of being restorers of wounds, Clerics were little better than undead hunters and support priests. That Druids were basically wizards with a different spell list. That Paladins couldn't lay on hands.

Due to the abstract of HP, I would think Hit Dice healing on short rests still works. It and long rests are essentially your only sources of health replenishment and staying alive is more important than beating the bad guys. Defensive buffs become paramount while offensive spells become more devastating. How would you react to a world without healing and what precautions would you take?

More importantly, can such a thing even be done in a D&D campaign and still lead to a successful lvl 20 character who has never died?

[Tanarii]

Take the Healer feat.

Actually, it's a good Feat even in a world with Magical Healing. So is Inspiring Leader.

[Lunali]

If you stick with the idea that losing hp and getting injured are not the same thing, there's no reason magical healing couldn't still restore the fatigue that the hp represent, you just wouldn't be able to fix people that had taken a fatal wound (Revivify) or that had actually died.

Now if you wanted to remove magical healing independent of that idea, it is completely possible to get to 20 using only hit dice for healing. My current character is level 8, and while he has received magical healing, so far it has never made a difference in a fight.

[Kyutaru]

My current character is level 8, and while he has received magical healing, so far it has never made a difference in a fight.

Magical healing seldom makes a difference in a fight. It's used to recover after the fight. At high levels, the Heal spells of the past were great for saving someone from the brink, getting downed party members back on their feat, or instantly purging all status effects. But most of the healing happened out of combat between encounters to allow the party to push through the typical rest allowance. In dungeons where resting isn't possible because of patrols or an active base, the party has to make it to the next "checkpoint" with just their health totals. Many video game RPGs have a similar approach but provide consumable and character healing between battles. This aims to eliminate the majority of that.

[Tanarii]

Magical healing seldom makes a difference in a fight.
Healing Word makes a huge difference to a downed character.

[Lunali]

Magical healing seldom makes a difference in a fight. It's used to recover after the fight.

To clarify, from the time I've received healing to the next long rest I've only been reduced below the amount of hp recovered via magic once, and that time dropped me to death saves in a single hit even with the healing.

A party without magical healing will have to choose a different sort of campaign if they want to level to 20, but there's no reason they shouldn't be able to do it unless the DM wants to prevent it. If my DM banned magical healing and forced the party into a situation where we needed regular healing but couldn't rest, I'd probably stop playing with them.

[elyktsorb]

If you can't heal damage, prevent it.

[jjordan]

If you can't heal damage, prevent it.This. A lot more planning, a lot more stealth, a lot more attacks at range. And maximizing non-magical healing.

In game terms this would have a huge effect on the design of modules/scenarios/adventures.

[Anymage]

Without resurrection, you make SoDs and lucky strikes on the part of monsters a lot more impactful. World without resurrection is a separate thread. Similarly, removing Cure Disease and Regenerate spells will really screw the players over if you throw monsters that can inflict diseases or lost limbs, so don't do that unless you want to upset your players.

Removing the Cure line and other spells that recover HP won't mean as much as you think, because HD healing is a thing and because everybody gets topped off after a long rest. Minionmancy becomes more attractive, dungeons and strongholds get a little harder to breach (the major point of cure spells is to top people off when you don't have the time for a short rest), but overworld adventures where you can expect a breather before your next big encounter shouldn't be too changed.

If you slow natural healing down to a pace closer to 3e or before, players quickly learn that they need extensive downtime between encounters. Unless you change how rests work, the players will have plenty of long rests between encounters, so you're encouraging everybody to play long rest classes and nova the hell out of whatever encounters they face. (You can try to press your players into multiple chained encounters. They'll run if they can, and most likely die if they can't.) At that point, though, I'm forced to ask what you're trying to do and if there wouldn't be some more effective way of going about it.

[Fable Wright]

What would I do in a world without healing?

The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over THE WORLD.

More seriously, Shepherd Druid. Extra dispensible HP from Wild Shape? Check. Party-wide THP? Check. Disposable melee summons to keep my (ranged) party safe? Check. If Goodberry still exists, that's even better.

...Then again, Shepherd Druid is my answer to about half my problems. The answer to the other half is an Illusionist Wizard.

[Pex]

I wouldn't play his game.

[Ironheart]

I’d actually take a look at the Purple Dragon Knight that takes the Healer feat as a pretty viable option, although I can see the healing factor dropping off when you get into the 4th tier of play. Playing Aasimar also makes this better, but I imagine they fall under the ‘no magic healing’ clause since their ability basically functions like Lay on Hands. They cover the ‘I need to bring a friend up now with a bonus action’ need if you permit that unconscious creatures can see or hear the PDK, though that means your crossing into the territory that HP are ‘Hero Points’ rather than hit points, and having 0 HP means that you stop being able to do heroic things.

It’s not magical healing, but it covers the bill as long as the fighter is careful with his second wind.

[dragoeniex]

To me, one of the biggest factors to address would be whether other types of "healing" spells would be banned. Lesser and Greater Restoration fit right alongside other curative options, and if they're stripped out, suddenly there's much less recourse for being hit with a debilitating status effect. Said effects become more lethal and could be insanely frustrating to a group who was set up to face opponents they could never afford to fail against.

[Mercurias]

It depends.

If Spare the Dying stays effective, it’ll be the most-selected Divine Caster cantrip.

Alchemical healing would be more common, though also probably more relegated to healer kits.

The Aid spell would be a must-have.

Multiple aspects of D&D would need to be reworked to accommodate a series of specializations made unusable.

Frankly this would be a better thing to do with a different game, like something going off of the Fate system.

[nickl_2000]

Die.

Words for length

[djreynolds]

War of the Spider Queen kinda focused on this where the gods were not answering prayers, so only mundane means of healing existed, and stock piles of potions were a big deal