Cure Wounds--accelerated

[PhoenixPhyre]

It's widely believed that healing spells (especially cure wounds) are too weak for effective use in 5e. That saddens me. So here's a modification (modified parts in red:

Cure Wounds
1st-level evocation

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous

A creature you touch regains a number of hit points equal to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier and can spend one hit dice as if at the end of a short rest.

This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the healing increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 1st and the number of hit dice that can be spent increases by one for every two slot levels above 1st (2 at 3rd, 3 at 5th, etc.)

This also ties hit dice into more things, a longstanding wish of mine. Yes, it's shades of 4e healing surges, but I think it's a good thing that was abandoned for no real reason.

[Morphic tide]

This style of healing seems more useful as a subclass feature of some sort, as it would otherwise result in pretty massive healing potential for combat uses. Maybe for a healing-focused Druid subclass, to differentiate from the Life Cleric's flat boost. And make Goodberry not be as ridiculous, because it's just activating a limited pool.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This style of healing seems more useful as a subclass feature of some sort, as it would otherwise result in pretty massive healing potential for combat uses. Maybe for a healing-focused Druid subclass, to differentiate from the Life Cleric's flat boost. And make Goodberry not be as ridiculous, because it's just activating a limited pool.

I actually want healing to be a good use of spell slots in combat. But it really just front-loads the healing, moving it away from short rests into combat--it's still depleting HD. I'd probably change that it doesn't use your CON mod, so just the straight up HD

At 1st level, the most it can heal is on a Barbarian--1d8 + MOD + 1d12 ~ 11 + MOD (up from 4.5 + MOD); the least is on a wizard (~ 8 + MOD). This will generally boost someone to full, at the cost of 1/2 of your spell slots and your only HD for the day.

Cast out of a 6th level slot (to match it to Heal), it heals 6d8 + MOD + 3d12 ~ 46.5 + MOD (a bit better than half of heal at 70 HP flat, but not curing conditions and costing ~1/4 of daily HD). Heal also scales better.

My problem with healing is that after 1st level, upcasting cure wounds does on average about 20-40% of your health pool, cast out of the maximum level of slots you can have. As an action, at touch range. That's pretty poor. This would give more options. Spend the HD for bigger boosts or save them for short rests? Upcast for more HD usage for spike healing?

[JBPuffin]

I think to make combat healing viable, you’ve got to up the dice on Healing Word and Cure Wounds - make HW a d6 again (like 4e had it), and bump Cure to a d10 or 2d6 (+1 die/level) or something. Add on being able to spend a hit die if you want to onto a that...and it might make in-combat healing workable.

Tbh, my party goes through Hit Dice like candy some nights even with a UA-updated Spellless Ranger rocking those 2d6 poultices and our Cleric using about 1/3rd their slots on healing. I’m either dead or unharmed (Shield+Blade Ward+bonus action to GTFO via Cunning Action, or shred things with shortswords and fire bolts...tough choice every round), and the rest of the group ends up at below half at best after a couple fights. I get using hit die for other stuff sounds cool, but our group at least...it’s a close thing, and I’m not sure any of us would trade them for anything besides more healing.

[LeonBH]

I really like the Accelerated Cure Wounds idea. But I think this iteration falls short on a few things.

1. It's not simple. You have to roll healing dice and then you have to spend hit dice. It might seem easy but the added complexity seems out of place to me.

2. It's still a weak healing effect even if you can roll the HD with the Con mod, because the healing you gain from this does not offset the fact it still requires an action to heal. It's slightly accelerated, but it's not accelerated enough.

There is a Healing Surge variant rule in the DMG (266-267). Why not just copy it? This is my take on your idea in a further direction:

Cure Wounds
1st-level evocation

Casting: Time: 1 bonus action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous

A creature you touch can spend up to half their Hit Die. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the target rolls the die and adds their Constitution modifier. The character regains hit points equal to the total.

This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the target may spend 1 more Hit Die, but may not spend more Hit Die than they currently have.

[demonslayerelf]

I really like the Accelerated Cure Wounds idea. But I think this iteration falls short on a few things.

1. It's not simple. You have to roll healing dice and then you have to spend hit dice. It might seem easy but the added complexity seems out of place to me.

2. It's still a weak healing effect even if you can roll the HD with the Con mod, because the healing you gain from this does not offset the fact it still requires an action to heal. It's slightly accelerated, but it's not accelerated enough.

There is a Healing Surge variant rule in the DMG (266-267). Why not just copy it? This is my take on your idea in a further direction:

Well, 2 problems, I think. Firstly, this doesn't sound "Cure Wounds" to me. It's just the name, but the cleric isn't doing anything here. This might as well be a localized time-based effect. "You gain the benefits of a short rest." End of story.

Actually, I guess that's both problems I have with it. The cleric isn't doing anything here; IE, the Cleric isn't even curing wounds. They're letting the other guy heal themselves.
This is, first of all, off-theme for the healer class. Call it "Natural Healing" and make it a druid thing, but not horrible.
Secondly, though, it drains heavily from the other guy's resources. A person can only be well-healed twice, now, across the entire day. And you can't take a short rest for any benefit, unless you have a bard, or Arcane Restoration.

Also, there's no reason to cast at higher levels. It scales absolutely horribly. At 20th level, you're already burning 10 Hit Dice for healing. Why waste higher spells for one or two more hit dice?

[LeonBH]

Well, 2 problems, I think. Firstly, this doesn't sound "Cure Wounds" to me. It's just the name, but the cleric isn't doing anything here. This might as well be a localized time-based effect. "You gain the benefits of a short rest." End of story.

Actually, I guess that's both problems I have with it. The cleric isn't doing anything here; IE, the Cleric isn't even curing wounds. They're letting the other guy heal themselves.
This is, first of all, off-theme for the healer class. Call it "Natural Healing" and make it a druid thing, but not horrible.
Secondly, though, it drains heavily from the other guy's resources. A person can only be well-healed twice, now, across the entire day. And you can't take a short rest for any benefit, unless you have a bard, or Arcane Restoration.

Also, there's no reason to cast at higher levels. It scales absolutely horribly. At 20th level, you're already burning 10 Hit Dice for healing. Why waste higher spells for one or two more hit dice?

I had a thought to not consume the hit die if they were spent this way. It really amps up the healing.

The cleric is expending their spell slot and bonus action to cast it. I'd say that's the cleric's participation. I was just keying off the name "Accelerated Cure Wounds" as well as the idea of letting players roll hit die.

As for the scaling, I didn't care too much about it. I suppose it can just be removed, but I felt removing the scaling effect would be too drastic. I don't see that version being cast at level 2 either, TBH.