Healing in D&D sucks.

[SiggyDevil]

Just my two cents: Am I the only one here that would find it alarming if as I grew closer to dying from damage I got less capable of resisting and dealing damage?

Now, I don't care anything about it being "more realistic." This would have lots of ramifications. First Blood would mean a lot in combats since you can debuff with early attacks. Extra actions just to make more attacks become attractive.

You're not alone.
Simpler is better.

Also, no way in hell I'm recalculating attack bonus and spell failure (!) with an ever-decreasing HP.
That's MORE MATH on EVERY TURN.

[Kuroimaken]

Just my two cents: Am I the only one here that would find it alarming if as I grew closer to dying from damage I got less capable of resisting and dealing damage?

Now, I don't care anything about it being "more realistic." This would have lots of ramifications. First Blood would mean a lot in combats since you can debuff with early attacks. Extra actions just to make more attacks become attractive.

This wouldn't be a terrible idea to implement however if for some reason full BAB types received fewer penalties and those penalties lasted less time than lower BAB types. By class features, or by general rule, I don't care.

Of course, you would need caster types to actually fear hp damage (as in, screw mirror image, displacement, blink, gaseous form, etc, etc).

This has nothing to do with realism. It has to do with making HP damage and in-combat healing mean something. Clerics are notable for things like Persisted Delay Death making HP loss meaningless.

[Midnight_v]

Just my two cents: Am I the only one here that would find it alarming if as I grew closer to dying from damage I got less capable of resisting and dealing damage?

Now, I don't care anything about it being "more realistic." This would have lots of ramifications. First Blood would mean a lot in combats since you can debuff with early attacks. Extra actions just to make more attacks become attractive.

This wouldn't be a terrible idea to implement however if for some reason full BAB types received fewer penalties and those penalties lasted less time than lower BAB types. By class features, or by general rule, I don't care.

Of course, you would need caster types to actually fear hp damage (as in, screw mirror image, displacement, blink, gaseous form, etc, etc).

No. You are certainly not Bkdubs123
I agree with you... that is a terrible idea that would affect much of everything. Reminds me of being "bloodied in 4th". Generally speaking making everything else weaker to make one thing stronger is bad game design.

This has nothing to do with realism. It has to do with making HP damage and in-combat healing mean something. Clerics are notable for things like Persisted Delay Death making HP loss meaningless 

This is because you have to be able to out heal damage. Period.
If you can't out heal damage then healing in combat will always suck. . . I mean you could make (melee) combat suck but on too many levels it already does.
.... God thats a bad idea... *sigh*
No. Healing in combat needed to be fixed at the numbers level.

How about this.
1. Increase the numerical amount of Hp healing spells correct.
2. Casting a healing spell in combat heals the cleric as well.
3. Its positive energy or whatever so if you reach max health through a healing spell the rest bleeds over as temporary hp.
4. Works this way for inflict as well, but only for purposes for those who "heal" using negative energy.
(inflict as a weapon works normally, as does "healing" when used as an anti undead weapon)

maybe make combat healing a feat..... as well as something people with the healing domain do.
Yeah... definately. I don't think dedicated healers should have to pay for it. Everyone else should have to pay a feat to become a dedicated healer.

With that said, it would make the vigor line completely obsolete.

JaronK

Vigor can be made combat workable as well, but one variable at a time, y'know?

[dman11235]

How about this.
1. Increase the numerical amount of Hp healing spells correct.
2. Casting a healing spell in combat heals the cleric as well.
3. Its positive energy or whatever so if you reach max health through a healing spell the rest bleeds over as temporary hp.
4. Works this way for inflict as well, but only for purposes for those who "heal" using negative energy.
(inflict as a weapon works normally, as does "healing" when used as an anti undead weapon)

This does not fix the problems with healing or the fact that HP damage does not affect you in any way until you reach 0.  That is what my proposal was trying to fix.  All this does is increase the numbers to a point where healing in combat means that it's not a WASTE of an action, but it's still not going to be a good action, no matter how high you put the healing amount.  In order for it to be a viable action choice, it needs to advance combat, making you closer to winning, otherwise you're almost always better off using a spel that incapacitates the enemy (which exist), kills the enemy (which exists), makes the enemy suck (which exist), all of which actually will heal more than any amount of healing, since they prevented damage.

What my proposal does (and as I said, it's still not complete, I need something that affects casters, special mechanics, balance the darn thing, etc.) is make not healing a problem.  You either have massive penalties eventually (also note: the first 25% is not that bad, the next 25% will still be workable, but after 50% you'll start having some problems) or you'll use a healing spell, which now will give you boosts in some skill checks, attacks, and AC.

Generally speaking making everything else weaker to make one thing stronger is bad game design.

What's being made weaker?  I'm seeing healing being made stronger and a viable option, HP being an important stat now (good game design...all stats you're given should mean something), possibly melee being made weaker (all melee, not just mundane, but mundane being made a little weaker than non-mundane, depending)

This is because you have to be able to out heal damage. Period.

Not if healing carries other effects that make you more apt at winning.  If healing carried an effect that made you better than the enemy, but didn't heal all the damage plus some, then it could actually be better than healing all the damage plus some.  Say healing carried an AC boost (which my system does).  That provides the recipient with the means to prevent more damage, thus it even heals more than that healing it plus some.  I feel that making healing heal more is the wrong answer completely.  That making it heal a sufficient amount (averaging 10% per spell level of your HP) would be good when it also carries effects that make you better in combat.  That last part I feel is a necessity to make healing a viable option in combat.

Am I the only one here that would find it alarming if as I grew closer to dying from damage I got less capable of resisting and dealing damage?

Note that the enemy is becoming easier to hit, and is having a harder time hitting you as well.

In addition, the way I proposed it, it never goes as far as 100%, but it still gets pretty high.

It should not be crippling, but painful.  I think 20% (1/5th of your spells fail....that's a large chunk) would be almost right.  Possibly 25%.  You shouldn't have it be impossible to defend yourself, but it should be made harder.

Also, no way in hell I'm recalculating attack bonus and spell failure (!) with an ever-decreasing HP.
That's MORE MATH on EVERY TURN.

Note that you can plan it all out in advance, and that the penalties won't be much.  You could have a table that has all of the penalties already added up (won't take but 2 minutes), and just leave a blank column that you put HP values at when you incur that row's worth of penalties.  Then when you make the appropriate roll, consult and subtract one number.  Only one of those steps takes place on your turn, and it's nothing that you don't already do, I assume you buff in combat and the enemy debuffs you, at least occasionally.

This has nothing to do with realism. It has to do with making HP damage and in-combat healing mean something. Clerics are notable for things like Persisted Delay Death making HP loss meaningless.

It does have the side effect of being more realistic, but otherwise the main point of this was to make healing a viable option in combat and to make HP a viable stat to keep track of.  As for melees resisting it more: they have more HP.  Therefore they resist it more (takes more HP to make them feel it).  I should probably let a barbarian's rage increase the numbers, but I felt that having the HP amount change outside of level up would actually introduce a measure of complexity that would be too much.  I suppose if you only have one rage value you could have two HP entries in that table, one for normal and one for rage, that would make it bearable.



Something else I thought of: have all Cure spells heal a certain amount (not too much, they won't be as powerful as Heal with proportion to level availability because of this second bit) and give temp HP equal to that amount or half that amount.

[bkdubs123]

Am I the only one here that would find it alarming if as I grew closer to dying from damage I got less capable of resisting and dealing damage?

Note that the enemy is becoming easier to hit, and is having a harder time hitting you as well.

This all depends. If you are getting your ass handed to you, because of whatever reason, bad dice luck, or perhaps you were ambushed, or you rolled shitty initiative right next to that Claw/Claw/Horn/Tail/Bite routine, not only are you closer to death because just took over 100 damage, but now you are less capable of dealing and resisting damage and your enemy is just as strong as ever!

Even if it did work the way you want it, now there really is no reason for it to exist at all, because if by some divine mandate you were in a combat where the numbers perfectly aligned so that as you lost hp so did your foe in equal percentage proportions, the both of you would have equal penalties. Rules that add equal amounts of math to both the player and enemy side of the equation are unnecessary. It's like adding +2 to both sides of an algebraic equation. It's completely unnecessary.

You want in combat healing to not suck? You do it like the Crusader does it. Make it healing attached to useful actions. The Cure line of spells does not need to exist.

[bihlbo]

White Wolf's Exalted game (probably others too no doubt) uses a system like this. You have health levels and when you get hit you lose one level. There's a -0, -1, -2, and -4 section of health levels and when you get into the next-lower section you start to take that penalty to near everything you do. In that game it's easy, you get hit and you X out a box. In D&D it's harder because you're dealing with numbers and that means lots of math. I mean, every time your hit point max changes you have to recalculate the 5% marks for 19 levels of damage! Though I like the reason behind this, the implementation is the opposite of a fix.

[dman11235]

Though I like the reason behind this, the implementation is the opposite of a fix.

And this is why I just threw it out as a basic idea.  The specifics and balance haven't been thought out (by me at least) yet.

Even if it did work the way you want it, now there really is no reason for it to exist at all, because if by some divine mandate you were in a combat where the numbers perfectly aligned so that as you lost hp so did your foe in equal percentage proportions, the both of you would have equal penalties.

This is where the healing comes in.  If you heal and your opponent doesn't, you're now at an advantage over him.  Also: different characters would be more or less resistant to the penalties than others, and that provides even more variation.  You do have a point though, and it was kinda stupid of me to use that as a rebuttal.  And the whole riding effects thing was something that I was attempting to accomplish with this.  Only instead of healing doing something besides affecting HP totals, your HP total now carries penalties for being lower.  Two birds with one stone, really.

[bkdubs123]

Someone already pointed it out, sorry I don't remember who, but yes, with healing you can come back with the advantage, but all that does is make a party VERY, VERY reliant on healing to the point of nearly absolutely needing one.

But also, there's nothing to stop certain enemies from healing as well, through fast healing, regeneration, or outright casting healing spells.

[dman11235]

It doesn't make them very reliant on healing if the penalties are low enough that you can live with them, but high enough that they actually matter, which is the goal here.  And I can easily live with the -1 attac/-2 AC/-4 skills (approx) that 60-75% HP gives you.  It's a lot harder to deal with the 5-25% HP range, where the penalties are larger (-4 attack, -9 AC, etc.).

But also, there's nothing to stop certain enemies from healing as well, through fast healing, regeneration, or outright casting healing spells.

This is true.  It adds another layer to combat: who heals more and who doesn't need to heal as much tend to have a bigger advantage.

You must understand: I am dealing with this in a purely theoretical state right now.  Getting the base idea and what would have to happen to be base mechanics if this was implemented, and the problems it would face in the new mechanics and existing ones.  A lot of what I've been arguing is just seeing if it would hold up.



Another thing that might be necessary with this is allowing mundane classes better access to healing, primarily this would be the Heal skill, I suppose.  My thoughts on this skill: Knowledge (anatomy) is what it becomes, and in addition to allowing you to heal things, it allows a check much like Knowledge Devotion, only it applies to damage and not attack and damage, and the values would be different.  And the check would be based on similarity to your own (humanoids are easier to check against than aberrations, for instance) with a penalty for identifying other forms' anatomical structure.  The healing aspect would have to be buffed, probably playing off the 1/hour HP regen, and add in the ability to treat more powerful things such as supernatural diseases with a much higher check.  I'm thinking that a check that adds temp HP up to you max HP (if you're wounded, patch it up but don't fix it, if you didn't have time or something) would not be out of line either.

[veekie]

White Wolf's Exalted game (probably others too no doubt) uses a system like this. You have health levels and when you get hit you lose one level. There's a -0, -1, -2, and -4 section of health levels and when you get into the next-lower section you start to take that penalty to near everything you do. In that game it's easy, you get hit and you X out a box. In D&D it's harder because you're dealing with numbers and that means lots of math. I mean, every time your hit point max changes you have to recalculate the 5% marks for 19 levels of damage! Though I like the reason behind this, the implementation is the opposite of a fix.

You can do it with 4 'levels' of hp, more would be awkward to fit. Just set thresholds of 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 of permanent hp(that is to say, temp hp and magic con boosts not counted), and have the penalties kick in at those thresholds. I like to tie differing rates of natural healing to that as well(mostly accelerated healing of the first 1/4 damage taken out of combat), but thats not immediately relevant to this.

And, assuming the penalties are severely inconveniencing, it still makes healing an action on par with other actions, particularly spell benefits(which is what healing is competing with, most healers are casters). It doesn't make a party absolutely reliant on healing, any more than they are reliant on buff spells. That same action shooting off a Cure Light Wounds can be made equivalent to a Bless spell, though it affects only a single target(weaker), but staves off death(stronger).

[Straw_Man]

  I'm a fan of penalties to make damage a significant factor in combat; presently its binary. Your either alive or dead  . 

  I use -2 at below half and -8 at 4 or below. I'm trying to balance these out by attaching a bonus to heal spells, ex. CLW gives a +1 morale bonus for every 4 cleric levels, Vigor gives a 5ft. move increase, but on the whole I'm not happy with it.

  Also played around with the cure series healing 1d8+targets Con bonus (max 20), 3d8 targets Con bonus (max 50), etc. and it worked very well. But had the odd result of making it easier to heal Wiz's and Sorc's percentage wise  ex. Fighter 5, Wiz 5, both Con 15. Both heal 4.5+15, but thats less than hald the fighters total HP, and almost a full heal for the Wiz. That seems wrong to me.

 

[Ashtagon]

Make the various cure spells into swift actions when used for their curative value (and vis a vis inflict spells are swift when used to heal undead). Problem solved.

[Straw_Man]

Make the various cure spells into swift actions when used for their curative value (and vis a vis inflict spells are swift when used to heal undead). Problem solved.

  Not really  . They still heal piddly amounts, and now even swift action are valuable.

[Ashtagon]

The point is, by making it a swift action, it doesn't distract from their full attack or other "real" combat action. Healing is no longer a "do something useful or heal" decision.

[veekie]

It still expends resources though, and using Vigor after the fight continues to be more effective.

On the other hand, it REALLY bones Direct Damage.

[Ashtagon]

It still expends resources though, and using Vigor after the fight continues to be more effective.

Vigor also expends resources, and it doesn't help much after the fight if your ally reached 0 hp during the fight.

I like to think of the cure/vigour decision as a useful opportunity cost decision to make. It may even be worth allowing both spell chains to be freely cast spontaneously, so it is a genuine free decision between the two.

[Straw_Man]

It still expends resources though, and using Vigor after the fight continues to be more effective.

Vigor also expends resources, and it doesn't help much after the fight if your ally reached 0 hp during the fight.

I like to think of the cure/vigour decision as a useful opportunity cost decision to make. It may even be worth allowing both spell chains to be freely cast spontaneously, so it is a genuine free decision between the two.

  Assuming we're talking clerics, its usually not a hard choice. And mechanically, an out of combat resource is less 'expensive' than an in combat one. By expensive I don't necessarily mean gold, but tactically. It's also good to keep in mind that NPC's will also be using these spells; fights go on long enough without NPC clerics swift healing themselves.

[EjoThims]

I still don't see any way to make healing viable except through punishments for not healing (this is what your plan is Dman) unless you change the damage to health ratio and get rid of (or heavily overhaul) SoD spells.

Even DD scales way faster than health, and SoD makes any kind of healing irrelevant.

I'll point everyone back to my first post in the thread.

[Midnight_v]

I still don't see any way to make healing viable except through punishments for not healing (this is what your plan is Dman) unless you change the damage to health ratio and get rid of (or heavily overhaul) SoD spells.

Even DD scales way faster than health, and SoD makes any kind of healing irrelevant.

I'll point everyone back to my first post in the thread.

+1
Amen and pass the ammunition.
I'll never be able to agree with the suck more when you're ambushed.

You want in combat healing to not suck? You do it like the Crusader does it.

Hmm... you may be right there.

The Cure line of spells does not need to exist.

Daaammn... is that really the truth? Assuredly we can do something other than bend people over if they refuse have a guy casting heal. . .
Are there any useful actions it could be tied to?
Perhaps somethign like "dazzling" opponents for one round?
....
Why does there need to be a combat healer again? *goes off to re-read the first post*

[Straw_Man]

  Maybe, just maybe, we should consider using the healing surge, or equivalent mechanic?