An exercise in understanding basic concepts: healing. (3.5e)

[Drammor]

Let's have a look at one of the simplest concepts of the game... from an in-character perspective.

Krogan the barbarian is obviously a well built and beefy guy. Krogan is injured easily, but also heals quickly.

Elijan the wizard is fit in some ways, but not in others, and certainly not very imposing. Elijan is difficult to injure, but takes more castings of the same spells to heal properly.

Tilek the healer has been volunteering at the infirmary for four years. He's seen almost every kind of injury, and had experience with treating things from cuts to bruises to burns to dragon bites.

Polam the cleric has dedicated thirty years of her life to providing healing in various forms to temples and the people of the city. She has been volunteering at the infirmary for a year and a half.

Krogan are Elijan are both delivered to the infirmary on the same day, and both are unconscious and in critical condition. Although stable for now, it's unlikely that they'll recover on their own. Tilek and Polam are both on staff, and get to their patients at about the same time. Seeing the terrible condition of these patients, Tilek and Polam determine (independently of each other) that mundane healing won't be effective enough to see these people out of the infirmary in less than a week. Since the beds will definitely be filled in fewer days than that, they decide to cast healing spells on their patients, and have them out of the infirmary within hours, at most.

Tilek casts a spell designed to heal light wounds on Krogan. Since he isn't being rushed, Tilek performs the castings slowly, ensuring that they provide at least moderate healing to Krogan. With two castings of this spell, Tilek has provided Krogan with a full recovery.

Polam casts the same spell on Elijan. Since she knows to take her time with a spell in order to ensure its effectiveness, she also performs the castings slowly. With five castings of this spell, Polam has provided Elijan with a full recovery.

Now then. There's more information to be had about all of these characters, but I'd rather not release it just yet. From what you can see, however, what are the most likely reasons for the above information to be true? That is, what statistical truths would you deduce about Elijan, Krogan, Polam and Tilek?

Furthermore, why does healing work this way in D&D?

[SolEiji]

Because healing is weird.

But mostly because hp represents not only obviously physical wounds but general "fatigue" and flesh wounds.  Its best to think of the two coming in, and both look roughed up.  The first is healed and his minor issues leave him.  The second is healed and if given the same amount, he has about the same amount of fatigue as the first.  However, his threshhold is much higher.  Its true the second is now about a healthy as the first, but he can't pull off his normal superior antics without critically messing up and receiving a fatal wound (under 0 hp).

But yeah, it's not very clear.

In the system I'm building I've actually separated wounds and hp.  Hp represents until you pass out and covers fatigue, flesh wounds, and other "hero injury spots" like the shoulder, while the much harder to increase wounds represents severe and serious wounds, broken bones, and grievous blood loss.  I'm hoping that by separating them (besides making combat slightly less fatal since most attacks strike for hp) it will also the solve the difficulty about hp and healing.

[X-Codes]

Krogan, in spite of his d12 HD, has a mediocre Constitution score.

Elijan, in spite of his d4 HD, has a ridiculously good Constitution score, and has probably optimized his HP in other ways, such as a Toad familiar (probably the most optimal familiar for a 1st-level Wizard).  There's also a decent chance that the guy has Spell Resistance, which IIRC is automatically applied while he's unconscious.

Tilek is also a member of the "Healer" class with decent Charisma, meaning that even the weakest healing spells will heal a lot at low levels, in a way similar to how a good Warmage's Magic Missile pretty much instagibs anything at low levels.

Polam is not a "Healer," he's a Cleric.  Therefore, his healing spells scale like shit, and on top of that it's possible he's contending with SR.

[Drammor]

Because healing is weird.

But mostly because hp represents not only obviously physical wounds but general "fatigue" and flesh wounds.  Its best to think of the two coming in, and both look roughed up.  The first is healed and his minor issues leave him.  The second is healed and if given the same amount, he has about the same amount of fatigue as the first.  However, his threshhold is much higher.  Its true the second is now about a healthy as the first, but he can't pull off his normal superior antics without critically messing up and receiving a fatal wound (under 0 hp).

But yeah, it's not very clear.

In the system I'm building I've actually separated wounds and hp.  Hp represents until you pass out and covers fatigue, flesh wounds, and other "hero injury spots" like the shoulder, while the much harder to increase wounds represents severe and serious wounds, broken bones, and grievous blood loss.  I'm hoping that by separating them (besides making combat slightly less fatal since most attacks strike for hp) it will also the solve the difficulty about hp and healing.

I agree that the system currently in place is nothing like clear. That's exactly why I posed the question.

Your system sounds interesting, although I would have concerns about its complexity.

Krogan, in spite of his d12 HD, has a mediocre Constitution score.

Elijan, in spite of his d4 HD, has a ridiculously good Constitution score, and has probably optimized his HP in other ways, such as a Toad familiar (probably the most optimal familiar for a 1st-level Wizard).  There's also a decent chance that the guy has Spell Resistance, which IIRC is automatically applied while he's unconscious.

Tilek is also a member of the "Healer" class with decent Charisma, meaning that even the weakest healing spells will heal a lot at low levels, in a way similar to how a good Warmage's Magic Missile pretty much instagibs anything at low levels.

Polam is not a "Healer," he's a Cleric.  Therefore, his healing spells scale like shit, and on top of that it's possible he's contending with SR.

These are excellent deductions based on the information presented. They're also highly intuitive.

Without being able to see the characters' levels and stats, it would make perfect sense that Krogan is a milk-drinking, flower-picking barbarian, and that Elijan has some serious op-fu concerning his hit points. He's the reality of the characters:

Elijan is a level 9 wizard with Con 12. He entered the infirmary with -5/33 hit points.
Krogan is a level 1 barbarian with Con 20. He entered the infirmary with -5/17 hit points.
Tilek is a level 3 healer with Cha 18.
Polam is a level 8 cleric with the healing domain.

In this example, no one has good op-fu.

Now, my other question... is this the way that healing should be? Should the wizard be more difficult to heal because he's higher level? Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive?

[Jackinthegreen]

This idiosyncrasy is true in pretty much any game with HP that scales by level and so forth.  Characters with more HP take more to get fully healed up, assuming the healing isn't percent-based.  Unless the healing can scale with health somehow, it'll always be more difficult to heal tougher characters.

Is it counter-intuitive?  Depends on how you look at it.  It can be argued that more powerful characters need more powerful healing because they're stronger.  This tends to work for balance too.

However, if we go with more powerful characters need less healing because they're just that hearty, we might eventually come to the problem of no healing being needed at all.  Some games might work like that, but D&D ain't like that and it'd be really difficult to make work.

[SneeR]

Now, my other question... is this the way that healing should be? Should the wizard be more difficult to heal because he's higher level?

Yes!

A higher level character is more difficult to kill, in my eyes, because he can take far worse injuries. He has either overcome lesser pain, has greater willpower, or simply holds organs together in mysterious ways. Whatever the case, a higher-level character can take much more serious, therefore much more difficult-to-treat, wounds. He might be able to survive a stake through the heart by controlling his heartrate through lucid meditation (or whatever the fluff may be), but he still has a freaking stake in his heart, and the surgeon has to contend with that serious-level damage!

[veekie]

You can make use of soak based health, where damage is reduced by class and level. 10 damage delivered to a burly barbarian might actually take only 3 points of healing to recover from(with the rest absorbed by soak). The same 10 points delivered to a wizard takes 8 points of healing to recover, and represent a more significant hit.

In D&D, you might for example, have actual health be Constitution derived(for a fast value, say...Con score). You then roll your hit dice to determine your soak capacity for each round, which is the amount of damage you can ignore, total, per round. This is just a quick demonstration of how it might work of course(the soak value is rolled so as to allow for the risk of injury, rather than being able to flat out ignore pretty much everything). The actual values would need to be adjusted to make it work out(not to mention it'd even more strongly favor SoD effects since they bypassed the enhanced endurance)

[Daedroth]

These are excellent deductions based on the information presented. They're also highly intuitive.

Without being able to see the characters' levels and stats, it would make perfect sense that Krogan is a milk-drinking, flower-picking barbarian, and that Elijan has some serious op-fu concerning his hit points. He's the reality of the characters:

Elijan is a level 9 wizard with Con 12. He entered the infirmary with -5/33 hit points.
Krogan is a level 1 barbarian with Con 20. He entered the infirmary with -5/17 hit points.
Tilek is a level 3 healer with Cha 18.
Polam is a level 8 cleric with the healing domain.

In this example, no one has good op-fu.

Now, my other question... is this the way that healing should be? Should the wizard be more difficult to heal because he's higher level? Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive?

(Sorry for my bad english)

Krogan have a normal amount of "vital energy", for that, requires relatively small amounts of vital energy for full recovery, the cure wounds spells are just vital energy sources.

Elijan have a large amount of that energy, so he requieres more energy to recover that large amount.

[Bauglir]

This does seem counterintuitive, to me, and one possibility for scaling might be to have all healing spells heal xd4 per hit die of the target. Similar to percentage-based healing, in that it automatically scales, but it keeps a die-based system. Doesn't differentiate between different types of hit dice, though (maybe make the roll a particular fraction of the character's hit dice instead?). Also slightly addresses the problem of healing sucking (when your Cure Light Wounds spell heals 20d4 hit points, and higher level ones are multiples of that, healing starts to become a viable use of actions even at high levels, and you'll only be using Cure Critical and the like on seriously damaged, high-hit point characters). I'd use this system with a rule that gives everyone maximum hit points per hit die, though - makes the hit dice more meaningful, and allows the variability here not to result in automatic full healing by Cure Serious or something.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

<snip>

GAAHHH !!
Reminds me of the SAT Logic section.
I stab myself with a 3.0e Soulknife to my right brain hemisphere.
 


Barring the C.O. board,
the 4e "healing" is completely devoid of quirky mechanics.
Over here is your virtual pile of hitpoints,
over there is your virtual pile of game maths.

I take it, something a little less rational than 4e healing
but quite a bit more rational than 3e, is more attractive to you.
(this is a jedi mind reading trick)

[Eldritch_Lord]

This does seem counterintuitive, to me, and one possibility for scaling might be to have all healing spells heal xd4 per hit die of the target. Similar to percentage-based healing, in that it automatically scales, but it keeps a die-based system. Doesn't differentiate between different types of hit dice, though (maybe make the roll a particular fraction of the character's hit dice instead?). Also slightly addresses the problem of healing sucking (when your Cure Light Wounds spell heals 20d4 hit points, and higher level ones are multiples of that, healing starts to become a viable use of actions even at high levels, and you'll only be using Cure Critical and the like on seriously damaged, high-hit point characters). I'd use this system with a rule that gives everyone maximum hit points per hit die, though - makes the hit dice more meaningful, and allows the variability here not to result in automatic full healing by Cure Serious or something.

As a variation of this suggestion, since we already have the precedent of Heal curing a flat amount of damage, perhaps moving the other healing spells to a flat amount of damage healed per HD of the target would work?  Say, [spell level - 1]*2 per HD of the target, counting 0 as 1/2, so CLW heals 1, Cure Serious heals 4, Heal heals 10, some sort of 9th-level Full Heal heals 16, etc.?  It would make resolving the spell faster in play, and a CLW would always heal roughly the same proportion of your HP as you level.  Add on an extra ability/CL/spell level/whatever modifier like the Healer's +Cha or Augment Healing's +2 per spell level to allow for a bit more healing at low levels and to give healers some way to optimize healing amounts, and you're set.

[SneeR]

This does seem counterintuitive, to me, and one possibility for scaling might be to have all healing spells heal xd4 per hit die of the target. Similar to percentage-based healing, in that it automatically scales, but it keeps a die-based system. Doesn't differentiate between different types of hit dice, though (maybe make the roll a particular fraction of the character's hit dice instead?). Also slightly addresses the problem of healing sucking (when your Cure Light Wounds spell heals 20d4 hit points, and higher level ones are multiples of that, healing starts to become a viable use of actions even at high levels, and you'll only be using Cure Critical and the like on seriously damaged, high-hit point characters). I'd use this system with a rule that gives everyone maximum hit points per hit die, though - makes the hit dice more meaningful, and allows the variability here not to result in automatic full healing by Cure Serious or something.

As a variation of this suggestion, since we already have the precedent of Heal curing a flat amount of damage, perhaps moving the other healing spells to a flat amount of damage healed per HD of the target would work?  Say, [spell level - 1]*2 per HD of the target, counting 0 as 1/2, so CLW heals 1, Cure Serious heals 4, Heal heals 10, some sort of 9th-level Full Heal heals 16, etc.?  It would make resolving the spell faster in play, and a CLW would always heal roughly the same proportion of your HP as you level.  Add on an extra ability/CL/spell level/whatever modifier like the Healer's +Cha or Augment Healing's +2 per spell level to allow for a bit more healing at low levels and to give healers some way to optimize healing amounts, and you're set.

That is beautifully elegant.

[Ziegander]

That doesn't sound like a good solution at all. 1st, that formula is bugged, causing Cure Minor and Cure Light to both heal 0 no matter what level you are, Cure Moderate, a 2nd level spell heals 1hp/caster level, and Cure Critical Wounds heals only 3 hp/caster level (to a maximum of 60, okay, so that's slightly better than it used to be). 2nd, even with Wis or Cha mod to healing, that still means that the lower level Cure spells are even more worthless than ever, unless you're talking about Wis or Cha mod/caster level, in which case Cure Minor Wounds becomes a heal anywhere from 3 to 10 hit points/caster level for a 0-level spell slot, which is ridiculous.

[SneeR]

To clarify myself, it is elegant... for another system. The numbers need to be pretty high for that to work in D&D. Do you mind if I snatch that for my own use?

[Bauglir]

Okay, now that I've got a bit more time...

Cure Minor Wounds: Heal 1 HP per Hit Die of the target
Cure Light Wounds: Heal 1 Hit Die for every 2 Hit Dice of target, minimum 1 Hit Die, plus CL.
Cure Moderate Wounds: Heal 1 Hit Die for every Hit Die of target, plus CL.
Cure Serious Wounds: Heal 2 Hit Dice for every Hit Die of target, plus CL.
Cure Critical Wounds: Heal 2 Hit Dice for every Hit Die of target, plus 2xCL, plus Fast Healing equal to target's Hit Dice for 1 minute.
Heal: Full HP, Fast Healing as for Cure Critical Wounds, retain current condition-curing power.

Similar upgrades would be necessary for other healing spells, such as Close Wounds (which I'd just run as a Short Range Cure Light as an Immediate action as a 3rd level spell, or somesuch). Healing hit dice, if it's not clear, means that you roll the same number and type of dice as your HD (so a Wizard rolls d4s, a Barbarian rolls d12s, and multiclass characters grumble about the complexities of the rules; a bit of a drawback, that, but I can't figure out how to fix it).

Cure Serious this way should restore you, on average, to full HP as long as your Con modifier is 1 or lower. I'm not sure if that's desirable, but I didn't want to do smaller fractions of total hit dice than 1/2, at least not in the rough draft. Cure Critical begins to address the other problem with healing; next round, the dragon is just going to hurt you again. Not sure if that should be built-in to all levels, should only come online later on (as I've done it), or shouldn't even be a part of the system.

[SneeR]

Okay, now that I've got a bit more time...

Cure Minor Wounds: Heal 1 HP per Hit Die of the target
Cure Light Wounds: Heal 1 Hit Die for every 2 Hit Dice of target, minimum 1 Hit Die, plus CL.
Cure Moderate Wounds: Heal 1 Hit Die for every Hit Die of target, plus CL.
Cure Serious Wounds: Heal 2 Hit Dice for every Hit Die of target, plus CL.
Cure Critical Wounds: Heal 2 Hit Dice for every Hit Die of target, plus 2xCL, plus Fast Healing equal to target's Hit Dice for 1 minute.
Heal: Full HP, Fast Healing as for Cure Critical Wounds, retain current condition-curing power.

Similar upgrades would be necessary for other healing spells, such as Close Wounds (which I'd just run as a Short Range Cure Light as an Immediate action as a 3rd level spell, or somesuch). Healing hit dice, if it's not clear, means that you roll the same number and type of dice as your HD (so a Wizard rolls d4s, a Barbarian rolls d12s, and multiclass characters grumble about the complexities of the rules; a bit of a drawback, that, but I can't figure out how to fix it).

Cure Serious this way should restore you, on average, to full HP as long as your Con modifier is 1 or lower. I'm not sure if that's desirable, but I didn't want to do smaller fractions of total hit dice than 1/2, at least not in the rough draft. Cure Critical begins to address the other problem with healing; next round, the dragon is just going to hurt you again. Not sure if that should be built-in to all levels, should only come online later on (as I've done it), or shouldn't even be a part of the system.

Basing it on Hit Die falls apart with multiclass characters. Can't base it on most recent level, either, because Barbarian 5/Wizard 1 will get made for rolling d4s. Nor vice versa.

[Bauglir]

Oh, right. 1/2 hit dice is a problem for multiclassed characters. Blah. There's probably a way to do this but I'd like to keep dice involved. I can't think of anything quite so elegant as the one I just proposed right now. I'll give it some more thought and return later. Maybe a scaling number of d4s with a modifier based on total hit points of the target? Not quite right, though...

[DonQuixote]

Could always default to the most common Hit Die size.  If you have five levels in Barbarian and one level in Wizard, enjoy your 6d12.

It's also a pretty magnificent way to make in-combat healing actually a viable option.

[Ziegander]

Basing it on Hit Die falls apart with multiclass characters. Can't base it on most recent level, either, because Barbarian 5/Wizard 1 will get made for rolling d4s. Nor vice versa.

It can be done. For example, if Cure Serious Wounds healed 1 HD/caster level, and was cast by a 7th level Cleric on a Fighter 2/Rogue 2/Barbarian 1/Warblade5, the rule could be that the HD healed are ordered from highest to lowest first and then from new to old. So his HD would be ranked 5d12, 1d12, 2d10, 2d6. As such, the Cure Serious Wounds spell would heal him of 6d12 + 1d10 + 7 × his Constitution modifier.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, those are no problem, the problem is Cure Light. Which hit dice get dropped? We could always say the most favorable ones get kept, but that gets overly complicated in play in my opinion. Similarly using the most common here. Keeping things streamlined with that spell in play requires choosing a single die size, and DonQuixote's suggestion seems an acceptable way of doing that. It's a bit kludgy, though, from an in-world perspective, where if you start out as a Wizard and gain enough Barbarian levels, suddenly healing is a lot more effective for you at an arbitrary point where the latter passes the former. Not sure how or if to address that.

EDIT: Although, capping max number of hit dice healed by caster level might not be a bad idea. Prevents abuse from hiring a bunch of low-level clerics to follow you around.