Healing balance per spell slot

[CaptMuffinman]

Perhaps it is just me but the healing in this game seems very under powered, boarding on useless. They just don't make any sense to heal beyond 1st level spells. I started noticing the healing problems around act 2.

I started a fresh game and tracked the actual number of heals against the full potential. In this total RNG system they fell well below half the total healing potential. With a range of 7-15, I was getting an average of 8. Shadowheart was averaging 8 hit points per heal using level 3-4 spell slots. I was getting smacked for 32 hit points a round while only healing for 8-12 on higher level healing spells.

So this got me thinking... how does this compare to skipping healing all together and just dumping everything into DPS? Turns out those same spell slots had a much higher DPS range of 6-36, averaging 24 a round with advantage on the next attack roll. Seeing this I stopped healing all together and just dumped everything in damage output. For the first time in 55 hours of game play, not once did I have a hero fall in battle because I killed everything faster than it could kill me.

I up the difficulty and found the same exact outcome. Healing is board-line useless and only good to get characters up off the floor should the RNG be particularly rough in one fight. If I did use healing I didn't use anything above 1st level spell and I only used it near the end of the fight when I knew I out numbered the enemy.

Now I know this comes with the entire ENG because healing is a 1d4 per spell slot, but that potential is just to small considering the alternatives. +3 the bonus of the casters mod, which is fine and all. The only problem is I could just increase each characters AC and take zero damage. Which is exactly what I did. Min Maxing AC made healing even less useful.

Perhaps this is something to do with DnD in general, but in BG3 I think it made it obvious for me to see.

[Detective Costeau]

Yep. In-combat healing in 5e D&D is almost never worth it.

[Bumc]

Bg3 sorta fixes the "healing is bad" problem by giving you items that synergize with healing.

When AoE healing word also gives everyone around your cleric bless and blade ward suddenly it does not look like a waste of a bonus action.

[CaptMuffinman]

Originally posted by Bumc:

Bg3 sorta fixes the "healing is bad" problem by giving you items that synergize with healing.

When AoE healing word also gives everyone around your cleric bless and blade ward suddenly it does not look like a waste of a bonus action.

Yeah when the word sorta is used, it means it's not true. Lol

Blade ward and bless are ok spells and yes can improve the chances of DPS. But again the alternative is the healer is putting out an average of 24 damage a turn. Why would I waste it on bless which doesn't increase damage, just increase the chances of doing damage? The gith fighter has an attack range of 18-28 and was dealing an average of 22 each attack, with 2 attacks each turn. That's 44 on average each round.

Pair that with guiding bolt averaging 24 each round AND giving advantage on the next attack roll was a 99% chance to produce 68 dps each round. That is a far greater chance and by far greater potential than wasting a heal on bless and hoping for the best with bless.

[Wuorg]

Yeah, this is basically how healing in 5e works. The system wants you to use short/long rests for healing, for the most part (with the right setup, Prayer of Healing or certain gear that gives free casts work fine too). If you want in-combat healing to be "worth it," you'll have to mod it.

Edit: All that said, as another commenter alluded to, BG3 has lots of items and things that make in-combat healing more viable. At least enough to succeed in the campaign. Does this mean it will be optimal? No, not really, but if you have fun with it, who cares.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by CaptMuffinman:

Perhaps it is just me but the healing in this game seems very under powered, boarding on useless. They just don't make any sense to heal beyond 1st level spells. I started noticing the healing problems around act 2.

I started a fresh game and tracked the actual number of heals against the full potential. In this total RNG system they fell well below half the total healing potential. With a range of 7-15, I was getting an average of 8. Shadowheart was averaging 8 hit points per heal using level 3-4 spell slots. I was getting smacked for 32 hit points a round while only healing for 8-12 on higher level healing spells.

So this got me thinking... how does this compare to skipping healing all together and just dumping everything into DPS? Turns out those same spell slots had a much higher DPS range of 6-36, averaging 24 a round with advantage on the next attack roll. Seeing this I stopped healing all together and just dumped everything in damage output. For the first time in 55 hours of game play, not once did I have a hero fall in battle because I killed everything faster than it could kill me.

I up the difficulty and found the same exact outcome. Healing is board-line useless and only good to get characters up off the floor should the RNG be particularly rough in one fight. If I did use healing I didn't use anything above 1st level spell and I only used it near the end of the fight when I knew I out numbered the enemy.

Now I know this comes with the entire ENG because healing is a 1d4 per spell slot, but that potential is just to small considering the alternatives. +3 the bonus of the casters mod, which is fine and all. The only problem is I could just increase each characters AC and take zero damage. Which is exactly what I did. Min Maxing AC made healing even less useful.

Perhaps this is something to do with DnD in general, but in BG3 I think it made it obvious for me to see.

Healing in DnD works very differently than compared to something like WoW. Classes designed to have healing in their kit are not intended to just stand around and spend the majority of their time spamming heals. Sometimes its a good use of your spell slots, sometimes its not.

[jk2l]

it is fundamental issue with DND 5e. healing incombat is ineffective because if it is effective then it will be hard to provide challenge for player and it will end up with either:
1) prolonged combat (in dnd we could sit for hours just for one single combat already...)
2) scale up difficulty for monster which at the end just make scaling up healing pointless in the first place.

healing is more for emergency usage. but BG3 improved healing quite a bit (e.g. throw potion on ground for aoe heal), allow use bonus action to drink potion (official 5e potion drinking need an action)

in DND instead of scaling up healing, defense is much better solution because if you never get hit in the first place, then you don't need the healing.

bump AC, bump saving throw, cast shield, cast absorb element...etc

[Detective Costeau]

The issue is just that you can't heal enough to overcome the damage that your opponents can do in a single round, so the result is that your best method of 'healing' is to use damage or crowd control spells to prevent your enemies from doing the damage in the first place.
(this is also why I like Aid as a spell- it's basically healing on your whole party, but done before the fight starts, so much better action economy)

As Wuorg said, there are ways to make it more useful by stacking items that give bonuses when you heal people- when you're restoring HP and applying a buff at the same time, the action economy of using those spells does get a lot better.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by jk2l:

it is fundamental issue with DND 5e. healing incombat is ineffective because if it is effective then it will be hard to provide challenge for player and it will end up with either:
1) prolonged combat (in dnd we could sit for hours just for one single combat already...)
2) scale up difficulty for monster which at the end just make scaling up healing pointless in the first place.

healing is more for emergency usage. but BG3 improved healing quite a bit (e.g. throw potion on ground for aoe heal), allow use bonus action to drink potion (official 5e potion drinking need an action)

in DND instead of scaling up healing, defense is much better solution because if you never get hit in the first place, then you don't need the healing.

bump AC, bump saving throw, cast shield, cast absorb element...etc

Exactly this. When playing the pen and paper version combat takes up a good chunk of time as it is, extending it wouldnt make for a more fun game and the intent for classes that do have healing magic isnt for them to spend every round of a 2hour combat going "I cast cure wounds".

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

(this is also why I like Aid as a spell- it's basically healing on your whole party, but done before the fight starts, so much better action economy)

I also love Aid because it works on undead summons too! If you desperately need to heal your army of zombies, skeletons, and ghouls another cast of Aid can do the trick. Since it increases their HP, overriding the previous cast, their current HP ends up getting the difference, effectively working like a heal spell for undead!

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by ⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩:

Exactly this. When playing the pen and paper version combat takes up a good chunk of time as it is, extending it wouldnt make for a more fun game and the intent for classes that do have healing magic isnt for them to spend every round of a 2hour combat going "I cast cure wounds".

I'd also mention that on tabletop, in-combat healing is (in my experience) mostly used to bring downed PCs up instantly. This is less of a need in BG3, partly because it happens less, but also because of the ability to chuck healing potions at people's faces to heal them.

[Bumc]

Originally posted by CaptMuffinman:

Blade ward and bless are ok spells and yes can improve the chances of DPS. But again the alternative is the healer is putting out an average of 24 damage a turn. Why would I waste it on bless which doesn't increase damage, just increase the chances of doing damage? The gith fighter has an attack range of 18-28 and was dealing an average of 22 each attack, with 2 attacks each turn. That's 44 on average each round.

Pair that with guiding bolt averaging 24 each round AND giving advantage on the next attack roll was a 99% chance to produce 68 dps each round. That is a far greater chance and by far greater potential than wasting a heal on bless and hoping for the best with bless.

You can still guiding bolt the same turn, all good heal spells are bonus actions anyway.
At worst you're losing a hit with spiritual weapon which isn't that much dps loss.

Will all heal synergy you're healing over 30 health on allies with a lvl3 slot and a bonus action while restoring yourself from whatever to full hp.
This probably isn't relevant in act 3, but for act2 its still solid value.

And that's not even saying anything about your damage spells/attacks being able to miss while healing is guaranteed value.

[Hobocop]

As has been said, in-combat healing outside of a few specific abilities is not good in 5e.

For example, Ancients Paladins are one of the best combat healers in BG3 due to how efficient their first Channel Oath ability is, and it gives you two entire turns of Blade Ward and Bless on top of that with the requisite items. All for a single bonus action.

[CaptMuffinman]

Originally posted by ⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩:

Originally posted by CaptMuffinman:

Perhaps it is just me but the healing in this game seems very under powered, boarding on useless. They just don't make any sense to heal beyond 1st level spells. I started noticing the healing problems around act 2.

I started a fresh game and tracked the actual number of heals against the full potential. In this total RNG system they fell well below half the total healing potential. With a range of 7-15, I was getting an average of 8. Shadowheart was averaging 8 hit points per heal using level 3-4 spell slots. I was getting smacked for 32 hit points a round while only healing for 8-12 on higher level healing spells.

So this got me thinking... how does this compare to skipping healing all together and just dumping everything into DPS? Turns out those same spell slots had a much higher DPS range of 6-36, averaging 24 a round with advantage on the next attack roll. Seeing this I stopped healing all together and just dumped everything in damage output. For the first time in 55 hours of game play, not once did I have a hero fall in battle because I killed everything faster than it could kill me.

I up the difficulty and found the same exact outcome. Healing is board-line useless and only good to get characters up off the floor should the RNG be particularly rough in one fight. If I did use healing I didn't use anything above 1st level spell and I only used it near the end of the fight when I knew I out numbered the enemy.

Now I know this comes with the entire ENG because healing is a 1d4 per spell slot, but that potential is just to small considering the alternatives. +3 the bonus of the casters mod, which is fine and all. The only problem is I could just increase each characters AC and take zero damage. Which is exactly what I did. Min Maxing AC made healing even less useful.

Perhaps this is something to do with DnD in general, but in BG3 I think it made it obvious for me to see.

Healing in DnD works very differently than compared to something like WoW. Classes designed to have healing in their kit are not intended to just stand around and spend the majority of their time spamming heals. Sometimes its a good use of your spell slots, sometimes its not.

I am aware of how healing works in both cases. I am not seeking to turn a cleric into a wow priest who just focuses on heals. Just expecting a better result on in-combat healing. Which might be a larger issue with 5E than in BG3 in general.

The original point still stands, healing is sub par in tactical advantage to straight up DPS alternatives which yield far better results when everything is up to chance.

Take the fight against the fight against Yurgir for example. Out numbered it becomes a game of tactics. The gith fighter was eliminating 3 enemies each round. But she also lost 1/2 her health when we were surprised by the fight. I could healer her or... I could eliminate two more enemies that round. By doing so I removed two more chances of the gith going down and insured she live on to fight another day.

There is no greater advantage than to simply remove the threat entirely in a tactical combat game. That literally dropped the enemies damage potential to 0 (zero). There is simply no spell or buff that beats that. Not a single one.

[jk2l]

Originally posted by Wuorg:

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

(this is also why I like Aid as a spell- it's basically healing on your whole party, but done before the fight starts, so much better action economy)

I also love Aid because it works on undead summons too! If you desperately need to heal your army of zombies, skeletons, and ghouls another cast of Aid can do the trick. Since it increases their HP, overriding the previous cast, their current HP ends up getting the difference, effectively working like a heal spell for undead!

pair a cleric that cast Aid and Hero Feast, and having Abjuration wizard provide ward. you pretty much wont' take much damage at all

[CaptMuffinman]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

As has been said, in-combat healing outside of a few specific abilities is not good in 5e.

For example, Ancients Paladins are one of the best combat healers in BG3 due to how efficient their first Channel Oath ability is, and it gives you two entire turns of Blade Ward and Bless on top of that with the requisite items. All for a single bonus action.

Now that is a healing benefit right there.