5E no-Clerics healing

[Finarvyn]

So I started my crew running through the 5E version of Sunless Citadel (in the Yawning Portal book) and it turns out that the group had no cleric. Now, I know the standard advice is "make sure they have healing potions" but I decided to steal a page from my old OD&D campaigns instead.

An old Judges Guild rule from the 1970's that I used to use all the time was "binding wounds." We used to allow characters to bind wounds after battle, which meant essentially that they would use herbs and bandages to recoup some lost hit points. It had to happen right after the battle (so before they looted bodies and the like), gave them 1d4 hit points back, and the number of HP couldn't exceed the number lost during the recent battle (and could not allow them to go over 100% maximum HP).

I figured that without clerics this would work pretty well. The additional adjustment that I did was that if a character had the Healing skill they could add in their skill bonus (proficiency + stat plus) onto the d4 roll. If a single character was trying to bind wounds for more than one party member, additional rolls would NOT get that skill bonus, but instead was only the d4. Also, the minute a character chose to play a cleric this rule would go away and we would go back to by-the-book healing.

My initial plan was to run some sort of Lankhmar campaign and use this rule there, as in Nehwon there aren't really true clerics, but this opportunity presented itself and I decided to give it a shakedown in this campaign instead. I liked the effect, overall. It gave the characters some freebie hit points, but we nearly had a TPK anyway so it didn't seem overpowered.

Anyone else have healing rules to share?

[waysoftheearth]

I like to extend the CM hero rule to all D&D fighters. So, given a rest immediately following combat, fighters ignore any normal hits sustained.

This won't save them if they're slain outright, but I like that it:

a) Gives fighters capacity to "keep on fighting" especially at early levels,
b) Means players don't need a bunch of clerics/potions to recover from normal combat,
c) Reserves clerical/healing magic for fantastic injuries, which makes it feel more "special".

[hamurai]

I've used the Binding Wounds rule with 1d4 HP healing, too. Worked well in a short game with no healing magic available on-the-fly, only as rituals.

A similar rule which scales with level I've used in my AD&D days: After combat, if you have a chance to catch your breath, immediately restore HP equal to your level plus CON bonus. Fighters regain level plus double CON bonus. So, a 3rd-level fighter with +2 CON bonus restores up to 7 HP after a combat, but never more than before the combat. A 4th-level Wizard with -1 CON bonus regains 3 HP. This worked for our group and I guess it will works as well in 5E.

The DMG has another rule which allows expenditure of up to 1/2 HD to heal as an action, called "Healing Surge" (p. 266) - I believe it's a 4E mechanic as I know it from the D&D board game Ravenloft. Available once per short/long rest. HD refill 1/4 per short rest, full at long rest.

[Finarvyn]

I've pondered various versions of the "healing surge", but at first level a character only gets that one HD and so he would burn that up too quickly.

I also considered taking the character's HP total and dividing by 3.5 and assigning a number of d6 HD instead of using the ones in the book. Doesn't change the total healing ability but makes it more granular and lets them do little heals more frequently. I got onto Excel and threw together a quick chart to show how it might work.
HP --> HD
1 --> 0
2-5 --> 1
6-8 --> 2
9-12 --> 3
13-15 --> 4
16-19 --> 5
20-22 --> 6
23-26 --> 7
27-29 --> 8
30-33 --> 9
34-36 --> 10
37-40 --> 11
41-43 --> 12
and so on....

[jeffb]

Fin, I like the bind wounds thing.

I should state that I have always had a major issue with healing in traditional D&D games- Clerics who bulk up on healing spells at the expense of others that would make more sense to have, bandoliers of healing potions and quivers of wands of cure light wounds. Hate it all with a passion.

First thing I did in 5E, was up the level requirements for revivify, raise dead, etc. In fact I've come to the opinion that revivify should be eliminated, period.

One of the major areas where I think 5E took a huge step backward is in "healing". in 4E I often ran games with no healing magic, whether spell or potion. All "martial" characters games, e.g. Surges give characters plenty of restorative capability as is, and you can run a low/no magic game that way. 13th Age is similar, though it's a bit less predictable because having your "recoveries" (surges) restored is not based on per day or a long rest, but after X amount of battles and per DM discretion considering the fiction/in game reasons. As I run fewer combats , this works out fantastic. PCs would get all their recoveries/surges restored maybe after a couple or three days sometimes. They have a fairly large pool of recoveries, but they are not assured of getting them back after a night of rest or on a "per day" basis.

[Finarvyn]

And often Clerics wind up being a team medic, more of a support role, instead of lending other useful skills to the group. A lot of my Cleric players seem to take very passive roles so that they don't endanger the party's supply of healing. Bringing healing to the whole party through wound binding tends to free up that player to pick some class they want to play instead of NEED to play.

[jeffb]

Mar 21, 2021 9:32:58 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

And often Clerics wind up being a team medic, more of a support role, instead of lending other useful skills to the group. A lot of my Cleric players seem to take very passive roles so that they don't endanger the party's supply of healing. Bringing healing to the whole party through wound binding tends to free up that player to pick some class they want to play instead of NEED to play.

Bingo.

[hamurai]

I've played several clerics in different 5E games and I've never felt held back or passive, despite knowing that I'll probably be the deciding factor when it comes to success of the adventure. The best magic is the one that prevents damage, so I more or less used my spells freely, focusing on buffs which made PCs harder to hit or turned enemies towards other targets and keeping some healing spells as reserve.

Example clerics:
One character was a High Elf Life Cleric - attacks with longbow, with the High Elf racial feat from Xanathar's he could teleport once to get close to a friend that needed a quick Cure Wounds, otherwise Healing Word did a good job at keeping the party alive. He was a very agile one and I was running around a lot on the battlefield to be were I was needed most. Was fun and effective.

Now I'm playing a Human War Cleric and I'm in the front row with the Fighter and the Paladin. I use spells for combat support, so Shield of Faith, Spiritual Weapon, and Divine Strike. Again, I keep at least my last spell slot as a reserve for a healing spell, but I don't feel like I have to hang onto my spell slots.
The Paladin has the Natural Leader feat and can buff us with temp. HP (atm that's about 30 HP total for our party which don't have to be healed when lost), which is effectively a prevention of damage. Once they run out, I can use Aid to give out temp. HP, again "preventing" damage, or rather providing the luxury of not having to heal HP loss.

That's a good thing about short rests in 5E - folks can rather easily heal themselves up. Also, don't forget healing kits.


Another idea I've had is, the cleric could be given the option of exchanging Turn Undead with a Paladin's Lay on Hands. This frees up spell slots for other stuff.

Mar 21, 2021 7:36:20 GMT -6 jeffb said:

I should state that I have always had a major issue with healing in traditional D&D games- Clerics who bulk up on healing spells at the expense of others that would make more sense to have, bandoliers of healing potions and quivers of wands of cure light wounds. Hate it all with a passion.

Same here. I think I've never used the rules for recovery as written, and I still argue that they make no sense at all when you see HP loss as exhaustion and a "running out of luck" or whatever. In any case, HP loss is not actual wounds, so why would we need to heal for ages? That's where I implemented the "catch your breath" rule in our AD&D games first thing when I took the DM scepter.

[Deleted]

The 5e Cleric is definitely not just a heal bot. He or she is a critical support unit. Spells like Bless and cantrips like Spare the Dying are arguably as useful as any healing spell or item, especially since a 5e character recovers a ton of HP through rests, and the Sunless Citadel is in a canyon not terribly far from a settlement if memory serves. If I were still running 5e games (I consider it more of a hiatus than a forever pause. I have some ideas for using the free basic rules in the future), I'd resist the temptation for implementing Healing Surges or making healing much simpler than it already is. The core rules are already very generous in that regard.