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.

[1337_h4x0r_xXx_deathlord666_xXx]

Originally posted by CaptMuffinman:

I miss 3.5E which gave healers a necessary role in combat.

I don't...because at the TT and in BG3 it's just as viable running without cleric/heal/bard, while they are still usefull in many other ways to have around.
It opens up the game for so much more potential party-compositions, if you aren't dependent on having a healer around.

[jonnin]

Originally posted by CaptMuffinman:

Originally posted by Bumc:

No, 30 is (less than) the average, if party is not at full hp (i.e. chunked by AoE).
In fact 1d4+4 (wisdom) + 5 (blessed healer) on 4 characters is 40 even if you somehow manage to roll 1 on all 1d4s.

I think one of us has the misunderstanding of the number divided by 4 comes to 10 each. Are you saying you are healing each party member for 30 each or at a collective total. Because even as a collective total, 30 is trash numbers. I have a party with a collective 265 HP, 30 healing as a collective is trash.

this is also talking about the 200+ lowest quality potions that you find all over the place early game and have in large quantities when you start taking real damage in act 3. So look at those numbers a different way: 10 potions overheals your group(300 total vs 265), but you wouldn't ever want/need that many. After a battle, if you got beat up, you have restored at least 50% via a short rest (usually?), so now its only 5 (do I need to say again that these are the lowest junk heals in the game?) potions to overheal you or less than that if you don't mind being scratched and dented a bit going into fights. So for most fights, much of the game, 3-4 of those least quality potions is all you need to top off your group after a short rest. I can't imagine any way you can slice it that this is 'bad' or 'trash' since the potions were probably free or very cheap if you bought some.

spell-wise, yea, 10 is rubbish. But you don't use spells to heal after the early game. Its just not practical to waste high level slots -- even in combat, a big potion is the answer, while the little ones are for out of combat.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by 1337_h4x0r_xXx_deathlord666_xXx:

I don't...because at the TT and in BG3 it's just as viable running without cleric/heal/bard, while they are still usefull in many other ways to have around.
It opens up the game for so much more potential party-compositions, if you aren't dependent on having a healer around.

Yup. Ex: I played in a three-person tabletop party that consisted of a rune knight fighter, a beast barbarian, and my Great Old One warlock for a combat-heavy campaign that went from 1-10. We had no healing spells at all (and rather few spell slots in general :D) it was fine -- chancy at times, but fine.

And even if you do have a cleric -- which is one class where a couple of the subclasses are strong enough that some DMs will just outright ban them, specifically the Peace and Twilight domains -- they're best not played as healbots. Unlike, say, 1e/2e, they have a lot of good alternatives for their time.

[Mike Garrison]

D&D is an "alpha strike" kind of combat, where the best thing to do is to kill your enemies before they can kill you. I know, there are many other game systems where you can out-heal the damage you take, but D&D isn't about that.

If you want in-combat healing in this game, your best options are 1) life cleric, 2) carry lots of potions. Even then, you probably won't keep up with damage taken, so you need to worry more about not getting hit (AC, saving throws, meat shield summons, "crowd control") and killing enemies as quickly as possible.

[guard65]

Huh, you call it alpha strike. IMAO, I call it the glass canon model and if the odds are against you well you break every time.

The game used to have 3-5 tt players (more for two DMs) and each player had a roll and they were played to their strengths and had clear weaknesses for each. You requires team work and the team work together to achieve goals. Now there are no weaknesses, rolls, verticals or dependencies (mutt mode). Just a glass canon fight model with the odds tilted in your favor so you do not break.

Mod the game to your taste but out of the box BG3 and DD5+ was designed to be weak, IMAO.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by guard65:

Huh, you call it alpha strike. IMAO, I call it the glass canon model and if the odds are against you well you break every time.

The game used to have 3-5 tt players (more for two DMs) and each player had a roll and they were played to their strengths and had clear weaknesses for each. You requires team work and the team work together to achieve goals. Now there are no weaknesses, rolls, verticals or dependencies (mutt mode). Just a glass canon fight model with the odds tilted in your favor so you do not break.

Mod the game to your taste but out of the box BG3 and DD5+ was designed to be weak, IMAO.

Wizards are glass cannons, yes, but unless you forget to put armor on your fighters, they are actually pretty tough. Not because they can be healed, but because they are hard to hit in the first place. And clerics? My Shadowheart is walking around right now with AC 25. She pretty much never gets touched.

[Dexter]

Spec Shadowpoop lady into walking, spamming healing factory and You'll change your mind. Tho killing everything before they can react is the way to go.

Like someone said: "why would I heal 20 points of damage when I can unalive the enemy that would deal 20 damage"

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by Dexter:

Spec Shadowpoop lady into walking, spamming healing factory and You'll change your mind. Tho killing everything before they can react is the way to go.

Like someone said: "why would I heal 20 points of damage when I can unalive the enemy that would deal 20 damage"

"If" the enemy only does 20 damage. It's all relative. Depends on the enemy, the difficulty setting and the char's resistance.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by wtiger27:

Originally posted by Dexter:

Spec Shadowpoop lady into walking, spamming healing factory and You'll change your mind. Tho killing everything before they can react is the way to go.

Like someone said: "why would I heal 20 points of damage when I can unalive the enemy that would deal 20 damage"

"If" the enemy only does 20 damage. It's all relative. Depends on the enemy, the difficulty setting and the char's resistance.

Yeah the whole problem is that...well...

Mass Cure Wounds is a lvl 5 spell that heals 3d8

Fireball is a level 3 spell that does 8d6. (or if you want d8, glyph of warding does 5d8)

Heck, even if people make their saving throws fireball will still do 4d6. And it's two levels lower!

Or compare magic missile doing an automatic 3d4+4 to cure light wounds healing...1d8+ modifier. Wow.

And that's just comparing to damage spells - comparing the amount you heal to the amount you prevent from just hitting an enemy with some disabling spells is also pretty bad.

[RoboSauce]

Originally posted by ⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩:

Out of quriosity what was your group looking for and in what system did you find it?
I have something of an interest in learning about and collecting neat RPG systems in my library. :)

I've been looking at Dragonbane a lot recently, it has some great features and really feels like it was made by people who played a ton of tabletop- rules are explained pretty clearly. It's close to 5e yet has a lot of interesting changes.

Some freebies are Cairn and Heroes of Adventure. You can grab a free quickstart to Shadowdark as well. Another system is Low Fantasy Gaming/Tales of Argosa, kind of an OSR/5e hybrid. The Without Number games, Worlds Without Number, Stars Without Number, and Cities Without Number have free versions available. Electric Bastionland is weird, and I really dig the art in it. Speaking of art Mork Borg has some free stuff. Yes I like TTRPG systems :)

[fwhite0782]

Welcome to DnD. Healing will NEVER surpass the amount of damage your enemies can deal. The only healing spells worth having in BG3 are healing word and mass healing word. Aid works also if it isn't cast at the start of the day.
Focus on killing your enemies before they can deal damage. Use gang mentality, everyone focuses on a single target until they die. Rinse and repeat until victory music plays. There is an old line from the first Final Fantasy game that translates to every RPG ever made. "Make sure the enemy is dead. Even at 1 HP, a living enemy can do full damage and use all of their special abilities."

[Dexter]

Originally posted by wtiger27:

Originally posted by Dexter:

Spec Shadowpoop lady into walking, spamming healing factory and You'll change your mind. Tho killing everything before they can react is the way to go.

Like someone said: "why would I heal 20 points of damage when I can unalive the enemy that would deal 20 damage"

"If" the enemy only does 20 damage. It's all relative. Depends on the enemy, the difficulty setting and the char's resistance.

IT IS AN EXAMPLE.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by Dexter:

Originally posted by wtiger27:

"If" the enemy only does 20 damage. It's all relative. Depends on the enemy, the difficulty setting and the char's resistance.

IT IS AN EXAMPLE.

No it wasnt. :3

[Dexter]

Originally posted by ⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩:

Originally posted by Dexter:

IT IS AN EXAMPLE.

No it wasnt. :3

[Mike Garrison]

D&D is far from the only game like this. XCOM is exactly the same way. Healing is for emergencies, not something you can count on.

And don't even *think* about trying the tank/healer thing in Gloomhaven. It's only reasonably possible if you have the "music note" and "sun" characters together, and even then it's tough.

What do these games all have in common? They are turn-based. I think it's much more common in "real-time" games to have healing that keeps up with damage. In turn-based games, it's much more common to be weighted heavily toward attack.