Aellic Mornbringer
Explorer
Hello everyone, long time reader, first time poster.
In the interests of the 5e "unifying" concept I have been wracking my brains trying to come up with ideas for healing and clerics that meld abilities & features from previous editions while adding some new twists that all players might enjoy.
The goal is to have a cleric who can serve as a healer yet not become a boring healbot. Ultimately I want a cleric class that's fun to play and not assigned to the player who loses at "1, 2, 3, NOT IT!" The following are my musings in that regard.
This post makes the following assumptions for sake of argument..
A. 5e uses the array of Standard/Move/Minor actions.
B. HP are abstracted beyond just physical damage (a combio of physical, stamina, mental fatigue, etc.)
I'll open with 3 non-clerical healing options to put some healing power into the hands of the characters. One is in-combat, the other two for limited recovery afterwards.
In Combat Healing
Second Wind - Regain half hps & make an attack with a +1. Usable 1/day. Allows characters to be heroic and attack. Think of it as a modified Action Point. HPs regained could be temps that disappear at the end of the battle, allowing for player to pass out and/or die once the adrenaline rush is over (see Barbarian from what, 3.x? when their Rage temp hps fade away)
Out of Combat Healing
"Dutch Courage" aka "The Conan Rule" - I see this as a low magic replacement for bountiful CLW potions, etc. d6+1 hps regained after drinking a skin of wine outside of combat. (some rare fey and dwarven spirits heal for more) Usable 1/day with no penalty. Second use requires Save vs (Poison or Constitution) otherwise player takes a -2 penalty to all rolls (drunk). Tempt fate with a third use, make another Save at -2, success you take the -2 penalty, fail and you pass out.
CONS: Needs to scale somewhat if it's to remain a useful option.
Heal Check - Can be performed during a short rest after combat. Recovers half of HPs LOST during the previous fight. This simulates the short term recovery of the non-physical damage to hit points. Usable 1/encounter (combat) but obviously has diminishing returns. (also assumes character has a heal kit with limited supplies still stocked as a resource management angle)
The next idea is to overcome the incredibly long and taxing "bed rest" recovery rates for hps.
Healing Ritual - (for the record I saw someone else suggest a healing ritual similar to this over at WotC's forums, I just expounded on the idea) Clerics/Priests/Druids/(I might even argue Paladins here at later levels) spend a couple of hours performing a ritual that heals everyone to full overnight. (ritual takes 2 hours, effects take say 4 or 6 hours to "take effect"). If the party is attacked during the night, only grant a portion of the hps back. Make the ritual require a consumable spell component (incense for instance) as well as a portion of the cleric's divine power.
A question I pose to the reader base..how would you work this idea with other "healing" classes like say a warlord or bard? Or do we leave this as a special class feature befitting only the "divine" classes?
On that note, maybe to make a priest more "healer" vs the more frontline cleric, maybe the ritual grants a buff if a Priest performs it (similar to Bless as an example).
Now onto the cleric class itself.
Cleric - Cleric prays for his powers and recharges his "divine batteries" at this time. (similar to the # of turn attempts in 3.x) You want a more generic term than "turn attempts" since that implies only one usage.
Scale the cleric's healing as they channel more divine power...
Minor Action - Heals d8+lvl, Range: Touch, Usable x/day
Move + Minor Action - Heals 2d8+lvl, Range: Touch, Usable y/day
Standard+Move+Minor -Heal 2d8+lvl, Range: All Allies within 20', Usable z/day
sidenote:One thing required to make this work is that the heals scale based on level so they're worthwhile (similar to how 4e minor action heals scale)
A full scale channeled heal (S+M+m) taxes the cleric heavily and consumes more of his divine power for the day. If he presses his luck and does a fully channeled heal multiple times, he exhausts his divine power and can't cast ANY spells/utilize ANY clerical special abilities.
So thinking out loud...a 1st lvl cleric starts with say 5 divine power points (DP) + Wis modifier (+1 modifier we'll say) so 6 DP total at 1st level. Every couple of levels another power point is added, a later feat might grant say +4 DP points, etc.
Let's say that for a cleric to use many of their class features, they have to expend DP (which again recharge when they pray for spells). A chart for DP costs might look something like the following..
Attempt to Turn Undead - cost 1 DP (can be empowered by expending another DP point for a bonus to the Turn check)
Cast Minor Heal - cost 1 DP
Cast Move+Minor Heal - cost 2 DP
Cast S+M+m Heal - cost 3 DP
Cast Heal Ritual for overnight healing - cost 2 DP
All other spells are slotted. Normally they do not require any DP to cast though they can be empowered (ability to empower or do other things are a class ability gained with levels) If the cleric drains all of his DP early, he's tapped and cannot cast any other memorized spells (he's frazzled from channeling so much divine energy)
In the end we get the following: All characters have some non-magical healing options but are still restricted by resources to an extent. With the cleric we end up with a class that can cast minor heals multiple times to provide healing but won't require the player to sacrifice his other options. One thing I liked about 4e was the opening of healing to other classes, a feature I would like to see carried forward. I just focused on the cleric's piece of the pie since they're one of the iconic classes cutting across all editions.
Anyway, this topic has been bugging me and I wanted to put these ideas out there. What does the community think? Good ideas? Bad? Would they work in 5e? Since these ideas tend to stray from core maybe they just belong in an "Advanced Healing" module. Thoughts?
In the interests of the 5e "unifying" concept I have been wracking my brains trying to come up with ideas for healing and clerics that meld abilities & features from previous editions while adding some new twists that all players might enjoy.
The goal is to have a cleric who can serve as a healer yet not become a boring healbot. Ultimately I want a cleric class that's fun to play and not assigned to the player who loses at "1, 2, 3, NOT IT!" The following are my musings in that regard.
This post makes the following assumptions for sake of argument..
A. 5e uses the array of Standard/Move/Minor actions.
B. HP are abstracted beyond just physical damage (a combio of physical, stamina, mental fatigue, etc.)
I'll open with 3 non-clerical healing options to put some healing power into the hands of the characters. One is in-combat, the other two for limited recovery afterwards.
In Combat Healing
Second Wind - Regain half hps & make an attack with a +1. Usable 1/day. Allows characters to be heroic and attack. Think of it as a modified Action Point. HPs regained could be temps that disappear at the end of the battle, allowing for player to pass out and/or die once the adrenaline rush is over (see Barbarian from what, 3.x? when their Rage temp hps fade away)
Out of Combat Healing
"Dutch Courage" aka "The Conan Rule" - I see this as a low magic replacement for bountiful CLW potions, etc. d6+1 hps regained after drinking a skin of wine outside of combat. (some rare fey and dwarven spirits heal for more) Usable 1/day with no penalty. Second use requires Save vs (Poison or Constitution) otherwise player takes a -2 penalty to all rolls (drunk). Tempt fate with a third use, make another Save at -2, success you take the -2 penalty, fail and you pass out.
CONS: Needs to scale somewhat if it's to remain a useful option.
Heal Check - Can be performed during a short rest after combat. Recovers half of HPs LOST during the previous fight. This simulates the short term recovery of the non-physical damage to hit points. Usable 1/encounter (combat) but obviously has diminishing returns. (also assumes character has a heal kit with limited supplies still stocked as a resource management angle)
The next idea is to overcome the incredibly long and taxing "bed rest" recovery rates for hps.
Healing Ritual - (for the record I saw someone else suggest a healing ritual similar to this over at WotC's forums, I just expounded on the idea) Clerics/Priests/Druids/(I might even argue Paladins here at later levels) spend a couple of hours performing a ritual that heals everyone to full overnight. (ritual takes 2 hours, effects take say 4 or 6 hours to "take effect"). If the party is attacked during the night, only grant a portion of the hps back. Make the ritual require a consumable spell component (incense for instance) as well as a portion of the cleric's divine power.
A question I pose to the reader base..how would you work this idea with other "healing" classes like say a warlord or bard? Or do we leave this as a special class feature befitting only the "divine" classes?
On that note, maybe to make a priest more "healer" vs the more frontline cleric, maybe the ritual grants a buff if a Priest performs it (similar to Bless as an example).
Now onto the cleric class itself.
Cleric - Cleric prays for his powers and recharges his "divine batteries" at this time. (similar to the # of turn attempts in 3.x) You want a more generic term than "turn attempts" since that implies only one usage.
Scale the cleric's healing as they channel more divine power...
Minor Action - Heals d8+lvl, Range: Touch, Usable x/day
Move + Minor Action - Heals 2d8+lvl, Range: Touch, Usable y/day
Standard+Move+Minor -Heal 2d8+lvl, Range: All Allies within 20', Usable z/day
sidenote:One thing required to make this work is that the heals scale based on level so they're worthwhile (similar to how 4e minor action heals scale)
A full scale channeled heal (S+M+m) taxes the cleric heavily and consumes more of his divine power for the day. If he presses his luck and does a fully channeled heal multiple times, he exhausts his divine power and can't cast ANY spells/utilize ANY clerical special abilities.
So thinking out loud...a 1st lvl cleric starts with say 5 divine power points (DP) + Wis modifier (+1 modifier we'll say) so 6 DP total at 1st level. Every couple of levels another power point is added, a later feat might grant say +4 DP points, etc.
Let's say that for a cleric to use many of their class features, they have to expend DP (which again recharge when they pray for spells). A chart for DP costs might look something like the following..
Attempt to Turn Undead - cost 1 DP (can be empowered by expending another DP point for a bonus to the Turn check)
Cast Minor Heal - cost 1 DP
Cast Move+Minor Heal - cost 2 DP
Cast S+M+m Heal - cost 3 DP
Cast Heal Ritual for overnight healing - cost 2 DP
All other spells are slotted. Normally they do not require any DP to cast though they can be empowered (ability to empower or do other things are a class ability gained with levels) If the cleric drains all of his DP early, he's tapped and cannot cast any other memorized spells (he's frazzled from channeling so much divine energy)
In the end we get the following: All characters have some non-magical healing options but are still restricted by resources to an extent. With the cleric we end up with a class that can cast minor heals multiple times to provide healing but won't require the player to sacrifice his other options. One thing I liked about 4e was the opening of healing to other classes, a feature I would like to see carried forward. I just focused on the cleric's piece of the pie since they're one of the iconic classes cutting across all editions.
Anyway, this topic has been bugging me and I wanted to put these ideas out there. What does the community think? Good ideas? Bad? Would they work in 5e? Since these ideas tend to stray from core maybe they just belong in an "Advanced Healing" module. Thoughts?
