Player healing if you eliminate the cleric

[sulldawga]

Let's say you ban the cleric, and eliminate all magical healing from the game. How do you adjust the rules for PC healing to compensate?

Right now, it looks like the only natural healing possible is one HP recovered per two days of complete rest. That's going to make for some short dungeon excursions...

[Ynas Midgard]

You could do several things that come to mind:

[*]Hit Dice are re-rolled each day
[*]characters start each day with maximum HP (based on either HD or previously determined maximum)
[*]characters regain 1 hp for each turn spend resting and recovery; perhaps this must be beyond the regular resting turns
[*]a single turn spent resting returns HP to maximum; usable once per delve
[*]spending a turn and using a healing kit replenishes HP (or a portion of it, depending on price)

[snorri]

[*]PCs recover as much hps as their level per day of rest. [the 3x way]
[*]PC recover half their lost hp after one turn of rest. That's the luck and endurance part. The other half are actual wounds.
[*] "After that, all hit points (hp) are restored back their initial score. After all, hit points reflect the capacity to escape or stand hits. If a PC has been sent below 0hp, he may needs a longer rest, or even healing magic like a potion of healing), because he’s wounded. [the SotU way]

[mgtremaine]

Put the cleric list into the Wizard list and be done with it

-Mike

[strangebrew]

Sept 23, 2013 14:09:39 GMT -6 mgtremaine said:

Put the cleric list into the Wizard list and be done with it

-Mike

Yep, combine the lists, which would preserve some interesting spells. And also have an optional, 1-turn rest period following any combat, where all characters regain some hit points. I would say perhaps 1d4, or 1d6 if doing away with cleric spells completely, but only hits from this most recent combat can be recovered.

[scottenkainen]

Acknowledge that the rules are ambiguous as to what constitutes a day of rest -- is it a 24-hour period or a full night's sleep? Then use that as an excuse to tweak the hp recovery rule by CON. You might do it like this -
CON # of hours to
heal 1 hp
3 24 hours
4-5 16 hours
6-15 12 hours
16-17 8 hours
18 4 hours

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[cooper]

Whats wrong with advancing the campaign calendar by a week or even a month? It's actually beneficial to large group play (1 DM with various groups) if people don't run back to the dungeon six times a week. If 3 characters are resting for 3 weeks, it gives other characters time to come back from a trip, finish research, do their own delve etc. I don't think people play with attention to campaign calendars.

[oakesspalding]

Sept 23, 2013 14:09:39 GMT -6 mgtremaine said:

Put the cleric list into the Wizard list and be done with it

-Mike

I would do that, but I wouldn't stop there, because in order for that to approximate what you had before you would need a Magic-User who knew Cure Light Wounds standing in for each lost Cleric. This fusses things up, sort of resurrects Clerics via the backdoor, and in any case, doubles the number of Magic-Users, which bothers me from an aesthetic point of view.

How about simply allowing the characters themselves to do essentially what Clerics used to do? This makes sense if you treat lost hit points not as actual "injuries" or "wounds" per se, but lost luck, fatigue, etc. This squares better with the philosophy of hit points anyway. Try this rule:

Rest: At the end of each day the adventuring party has the option of either 1) choosing to restore 1 hit point per character or 2) choosing to focus hit point re-covery by restoring to one or more characters one die of damage for every five full levels of the adventuring party. For example, a party consisting of three 3rd Level, three 2nd Level and four 1st Level types—a total of nineteen levels—would be able to heal three dice of damage. These three dice could all be used on one character or broken up and applied to two or three characters. In this way even a lone character of 5th Level or higher could recover at least one die of damage. Of course, lone characters of under 5th level, or characters in parties containing fewer than five total levels, may each recover 1 hit point per day as per 1).

So you're basically simulating what a Cleric would have done (or what two Clerics would have done in a larger party) without an actual Cleric. Admittedly it's abstract. But since hit points are abstract anyway, I think it works.

[snorri]

The natural method : if PCs use bandages and first aid after a fight, it cures lights wounds (1d6+1). They all learn to do this at level 2. If they need surgery with an expert, it cures serious wounds (2d6+2). Experimnteds PCS learns to do that at higher level. No cleric, same effect.

[waysoftheearth]

Given Sully's parameters...

Sept 23, 2013 12:19:55 GMT -6 sulldawga said:

Let's say you ban the cleric, and eliminate all magical healing from the game.

There appear to be three possibilities (mostly already noted above)...

1) Do nothing. Healing takes a long while, so campaign time can be advanced quickly to allow healing to occur between adventures.

2) Exaggerate the importance of rest. Resting for a dungeon exploration turn heals 1-6 hp. Resting overnight allows a complete reroll of all HD. (this is what I tend toward in my own games).

3) Exaggerate the importance of mundane healing. Allow adventurer's first aid to heal perhaps 1-3 hp per day. Allow proper "physicians" to heal 1-6 hp in the field, or 2-12 hp overnight in a hospice.


FWIW -- the cleric as the company healer has always seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me. In one particular mindset/genre of play, the healing and "mopping up after" is something for hirelings and NPCs to do -- clerics are for exorcising demons, staking vampires, and vanquishing undead !

[Deleted]

'That's going to make for some short dungeon excursions...'

Methodical use of tactics may help you to construct a defendable haven within the dungeon to lengthen your stay while you rest - all those empty rooms and choke points that could be barricaded, trapped, guarded by hirelings, friendly/charmed factions etc.

not a rollercoaster ride, rather the long game.

[Azafuse]

Drugs, like in ROLEMASTER.

Or a diet fully based on troll's blood.

[bestialwarlust]

Since I treat HP's as not only wounds but a combo of bruises, endurance and luck. I do this

Resting for a dungeon exploration for each turn heals 1-6 hp, but you have double the normal surprise chance while doing so. Resting overnight allows a complete reroll of all HD or heal back to full, players choice.

Bandage after a fight for 1d3 back

This way the cleric is not the party medic, having a cleric will speed healing up. Since combat and damage is abstract I treat healing as abstract also.

[talysman]

Sept 24, 2013 6:38:52 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Given Sully's parameters...

Sept 23, 2013 12:19:55 GMT -6 sulldawga said:

Let's say you ban the cleric, and eliminate all magical healing from the game.

There appear to be three possibilities (mostly already noted above)...

1) Do nothing. Healing takes a long while, so campaign time can be advanced quickly to allow healing to occur between adventures.

2) Exaggerate the importance of rest. Resting for a dungeon exploration turn heals 1-6 hp. Resting overnight allows a complete reroll of all HD. (this is what I tend toward in my own games).

3) Exaggerate the importance of mundane healing. Allow adventurer's first aid to heal perhaps 1-3 hp per day. Allow proper "physicians" to heal 1-6 hp in the field, or 2-12 hp overnight in a hospice.

#4 would be to add a non-magical healer, perhaps as a partial or split class. In the very first version of OD&D that I played in the '70s, there were some houserules, including a Leech "class" that you could qualify for. There were no stand-alone Leeches, you paid an XP penalty to be a Fighter/Leech or Magic-User/Leech. I don't remember much about the Leech rules, which is why I wound up creating my own Leech class recently. I haven't worked out the split class rules yet, though.

What I've actually done so far is allow a chance to heal 1 hp if you add some comfort to your rest breaks: drinking good wine or ale, cooking a meal instead of eating rations, having someone play music while you rest. A 5+ on 1d6 means 1 point is healed. I had one player character in my game survive death by a quick swig of wine administered by a colleague. I limited this healing to a max of 1 point healable per day, but I'm thinking maybe it should be 1 point max per rest period, 3 max per day. That would fall under category 3 above.

I also combined the category 2 approach with the re-roll hp every adventure idea and gave people the option to re-roll hp and erase all damage before heading out on the next adventure. It didn't work out well for one player who opted for this; he rolled a 1 for his 1st level cleric. It did make him act more cautious than before, so it did kind of emulate a character feeling a bit less lucky his second or third time out.

[cooper]

What is the benefit to a campaign if the timeline of clearing a dungeon takes 3 days instead of 3 weeks or even 3 months if the time "at the table" is identical?

Adding alternate forms of healing don't actually speed up play time for the players, it only effects in game calanders. So, to what benefit?

[waysoftheearth]

Azafuse Diet of Troll's blood! Love it

talysman It seems to me that the notion of a "leecher" is more or less similar to that of a "physican", so #4 is pretty similar to #3 (except that you raise the possibility of appending the leecher capability to an existing PC class).

cooper The answer to your question depends on whether the referee will allow the players to rest safely within, or near to, the dungeon -- or whether he instead requires the players to return to town in order to rest. In the latter case, it may not be possible/convenient to get back to a safe haven for rest midway through a dungeon delve. E.g., the players might find themselves trapped on a lower dungeon level... if they can't make it back to town, they may not be able to "rest".

[mgtremaine]

Sept 25, 2013 17:21:10 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

cooper The answer to your question depends on whether the referee will allow the players to rest safely within, or near to, the dungeon -- or whether he instead

- KEEPS ROLLING d6's to see who will kill them ;p

-Mike

[talysman]

Sept 25, 2013 15:51:48 GMT -6 cooper said:

What is the benefit to a campaign if the timeline of clearing a dungeon takes 3 days instead of 3 weeks or even 3 months if the time "at the table" is identical?

Adding alternate forms of healing don't actually speed up play time for the players, it only effects in game calenders. So, to what benefit?

The longer heal times assume players with multiple characters, and possibly multiple players playing at different times. If you are going to play with a small, stable group of players, each focusing on a single character, then speeding up the calendar is a benefit, especially if the uninjured or less-injured members of the party are low on cash to pay room and board while the severely injured recuperate.

[Zenopus]

Speaking of Elric, how about characters gaining the power (hit points) of defeated opponents? If Bruno defeats a goblin with 4 hp, he gains up to that much back when combat ends. How does it work? Magic, the mythic underworld, life force transference, the quickening, demonic powers, a game of the gods, change of luck, a microorganism that colonizes living creatures, etc - whatever you want.

[Azafuse]

Sept 26, 2013 13:34:10 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

Speaking of Elric, how about characters gaining the power (hit points) of defeated opponents? If Bruno defeats a goblin with 4 hp, he gains up to that much back when combat ends. How does it work? Magic, the mythic underworld, life force transference, the quickening, demonic powers, a game of the gods, change of luck, a microorganism that colonizes living creatures, etc - whatever you want.

Nice but it needs some limits.. otherwise chickens/rabbits/ducks could become the best way to have HPs back.

[sulldawga]

A lot of these first aid/bandaging wounds ideas don't seem to scale well with higher levels, especially if you roll a 1!

I am very intrigued with the idea of incorporating some sort of bonus to healing depending on the PCs Con score.

I also like the idea of making it easier to recover the "first half" of hit points more easily than the "second half", if the two halves represent luck and endurance versus actual physical wounds.

The idea of re-rolling hit points after a night's rest seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. How can you explain a PC losing all but one hit point, sleeping for one night, and waking up with more hit points than the day before?

[talysman]

Sept 27, 2013 12:39:48 GMT -6 sulldawga said:

The idea of re-rolling hit points after a night's rest seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. How can you explain a PC losing all but one hit point, sleeping for one night, and waking up with more hit points than the day before?

That approach is usually connected to the idea that hit points are almost entirely luck and endurance. For example, I assume that characters who fight get bruises, cuts and scrapes in every fight, regardless of whether the opponent rolled a successful "hit" or not, but these trivial wounds are ignored unless the final killing blow is struck. However, I allow some situations to result in actual wounds, like sticking your hand in a trap. Actual wounds always take time (or magic) to heal, but hit points can be more fluid.

[llenlleawg]

When you are done with the thought experiment, implement it and *put the cleric back in*! In other words, the issue should be more about the general pace of healing as such in the game, and what works for you and your players. If a cleric can speed that up, that is all fine and well. Even so, We need not to exaggerate the number of healing spells a cleric has available per day, or for that matter the frequency of finding potions of healing. In short, come up with a healing system you like, and then out clerics and healing magic back in, not a the presumed default for healing, but for a *special* act of healing when necessary.

[waysoftheearth]

sulldawga, I like to remind myself that hit points are an abstract measure that fit neatly with the abstract nature of combat. It all gets a bit harder when we try to work in genuine wounds and injuries.

For me, I like to treat hp as easy come easy go, in equal measure. Keeping hp disconnected from actual injury can make it easy to reconcile re-rolling hp afresh after full night's rest; it's equivalent to, say, wearing yourself out with a full day of physical labour, then waking up refreshed the next morning. In that mindset, one can justify a low hp roll as waking up with a head cold, or being hungry (if rations are running low), or still hurtin' from yesterday's exertions, or having had a poor sleep due to bad dreams, night terrors, visitors during the night, or whatever. High hit point days can be explained similarly; you got a full and proper rest and got up on the right side of the bed.


llenlleawg, I think the cleric's healing capacity comes not so much from spells that can be memorised (which are very few), or even from a staff of healing if he should be so lucky as to possess one (these can only be used on any one person once per day), but more so from his ability to purchase and/or create cure light wounds scrolls. These are only 100gp each, and would be a good investment for most PCs. Of course the referee can limit the number that are available, and creating them personally takes a week per scroll, so even these aren't endlessly available

[Deleted]

PCs recover hp at the rate of 2 + Con modifier/level/day. If a PC is reduced to 0 or lower hp, it takes him 2-6 weeks of healing to regain 1 hp.

[ratikranger]

What's wrong with using CON as "actual" hit points and the rest as luck/endurance/experience/etc? For the first few levels when PCs have fewer HP than CON you can always say "You have not yet learned how to use your natural advantage well enough" and later it makes it obvious when there is actual bleeding/injury involved: any hit that digs into the CON score baseline is an actual injury. For those you need get bandaged and magically healed and whatnot, for the others you just need a shorter rest. Note that I've never used this in play, I just stuck with "HP are abstract" and never much thought about it. But if you want faster recovery times without a cleric it seems viable, at least post 3rd-4th level.

[waysoftheearth]

Oct 13, 2013 21:13:14 GMT -6 ratikranger said:

What's wrong with using CON as "actual" hit points and the rest as luck/endurance/experience/etc?

I'm not sure how it works ratik... do you mean that a PC with a constitution score of 10 and 5 hit points would actually be able to withstand 15 points of damage before being slain? The first 5 being luck and stamina, and the last 10 being actual injury?

[ratikranger]

Oct 15, 2013 16:05:24 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Oct 13, 2013 21:13:14 GMT -6 ratikranger said:

What's wrong with using CON as "actual" hit points and the rest as luck/endurance/experience/etc?

I'm not sure how it works ratik... do you mean that a PC with a constitution score of 10 and 5 hit points would actually be able to withstand 15 points of damage before being slain? The first 5 being luck and stamina, and the last 10 being actual injury?

Sorry for the huge delay, I don't visit the boards often enough. As I said in the original post, until the HP actually exceed CON it's all actual injuries. So in your example, PC with CON 10 and HP 5, the poor guy goes down when an orc hits him once with a sword for 5 damage. But a few months later, when he's CON 10 and HP 14, now that same sword swing for 5 damage would just give him a scratch (the 1 damage that went into CON). And by the time he's CON 10 and HP 35, well, now he'll dodge that sword swing fairly easily. Then you split healing into "damage to CON heals 1 HP/day" and "damage above CON heals 1 HP/hour" or something and you're done. The initial question was how to get rid of clerics yet keep "healing" manageable. I think something like this does that. Once again, personally I just prefer to deal with abstract HP and not worry too much about whether something was dodged or not.