Fast Healing for everyone.


Prerelease Discussion

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One thing I have always hated is the 5 minute adventure day. A big reason this exists is linked to the way HP work and are percieved. Everyone seems to think HP damage is only represented by cuts, gashes or even broken bones.

Forgotten is the effect of being winded after a fight or bruised or sore.

My answer to this would be fast healing 1+con mod (min 1) to everyone. This fast healing would only work if the PC took only a move action or less each round (no attacks, casting or strinuous activity) and was not under the effect of any negative status effect (ie. Bleeding, diseased, poisoned.. Etc.).

So the effect is characters catching their breath or stretching out sore muscles after a battle.

Also this healing would only bring you to a set max. I would have PC's track their full potential HP and they could only be brought to full by magical healing. Healing from this form of fast healing could only bring you to a number equal to what similar to what society play caps at. Thus a D10 hit die PC could get to that full 10 through magic healing but only to 6 via fast heal.


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I dont want 5000 min work weeks. /not signed


Not sure how that would make it such a problem. Can you elaborate?


Some of the most heroic stories have the hero winded, beaten, bloodied but unbent fighting on past all reason. This cannot happen if everyone has fast healing.

Heroic fights in D&D to me have always been when the group is low or out of healing resources and yet fight on. Let us leave heroics in this grand old game.


I think you missed the part where this healing only works when the heroes are resting. The winded hero fighting on through tremendous odds would actually be more noticeable with this rule.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The concern is that with no need for out of combat healing, martials can 'keep going' with the old saw about a sword being combat effective 240 times a day, whereas a caster needs to rest to regain spells and an argument that it makes the game too MMO-ish.

I personally like the idea, it seems a bit more elegant than CLW spamming OR Resolve OR Mandatory Healer Syndrome.


I fogot to add that I would also make a change to critical hits where the crit modifier is done as con damage as well as the increased damage. This would make the endless day a real threat as well.

Though it may also be necessary to add to cure spells that they restore 1 point of con damage per cure level. Example: cure light also heals 1 point of con damage, cure moderate 2 points and so on.


This change as a whole would also eliminate the need for the (in my opinion) clunky resonence mechanic.


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I personally vote no to idea since it doesn't remove the core issue that CLWW spam created: the impossibility of pacing the adventure day. Everyone bopping back to full every time with no limitations (such as what short rest/resolve/actually well priced consumables would do) is just a fresh coat of paint to the same problem.


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IDK, resonance seems less convoluted than this fast healing system. Unlike, resonance, there isnt much of dial on fast healing either. Meaning expected encounters per long rest are going to be increased requiring further design space in class abilities and adventure material.


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Lincoln Cross wrote:
I think you missed the part where this healing only works when the heroes are resting. The winded hero fighting on through tremendous odds would actually be more noticeable with this rule.

Not at all. Why does a party need to be at full health for every fight? What is so heroic about entering a fight always at full health?

Entering that fight already low on health makes the fight heroic, entering at full does not.


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Thurgon wrote:
Lincoln Cross wrote:
I think you missed the part where this healing only works when the heroes are resting. The winded hero fighting on through tremendous odds would actually be more noticeable with this rule.

Not at all. Why does a party need to be at full health for every fight? What is so heroic about entering a fight always at full health?

Entering that fight already low on health makes the fight heroic, entering at full does not.

Entering a fight at low health also gets you dead since the general assumption in D&D derivatives is that enemies generally don't have too many problems hitting PCs and are more than capable of doing it hard. That and the games are not meant to be a Dark Heresy style shamble across the finish line with the guardsman missing his arms, the adept gibbering insane, and the techpriest packing two sticks for legs.

Entering a fight with low resources fits the heroic feel much easier and also doesn't more or less automatically condemn people to a raise dead post fight. The wizard blew his better spells earlier, the barb is low on rage rounds, only 2 smites left on the paladin, etc. The feeling of fatigue is still there but it still leaves everyone an avenue to contribute without the low hp people taking a smoke break outside because the evil wizard could just remove them with a fireball.


Planpanther wrote:
IDK, resonance seems less convoluted than this fast healing system. Unlike, resonance, there isnt much of dial on fast healing either. Meaning expected encounters per long rest are going to be increased requiring further design space in class abilities and adventure material.

To each their own thank you for adding your opinion. I still believe this solution removes much of the issues from before and could also eliminate the idea of resonance which seems contrived to do away with consumable spamming.


Resource management has always been part of the game, and I really don't what problem this is supposed to fix.

It also kills verisimilitude for a lot of people. You're just fighting all of these dangerous creatures and never get hurt even when a fireball hits you, and you horribly fail the save. So then you just take a short break, and all of that fire damage just goes away. Of course you could say the save that was failed or that crit just didnt really do much to you, but it just doesn't make sense to say you were critically hit but nothing really happened.

Not for me. At least the magical healing can somehow explain how you are able to recover some health.


@wraithstrike.
What about the verisimilitude of being hit with that same fireball, 3rd plus degree burns over most if not all of your body but still finishing the fight?

By this reasoning combats should only continue if magical healing is applied. Every sword hit is a gory wound spurting blood everywhere but youre not taking bleed damage from any piercing or slashing weapon.

Where do we draw the line of simplicity and realism?


Lincoln Cross wrote:

@wraithstrike.

What about the verisimilitude of being hit with that same fireball, 3rd plus degree burns over most if not all of your body but still finishing the fight?

By this reasoning combats should only continue if magical healing is applied. Every sword hit is a gory wound spurting blood everywhere but youre not taking bleed damage from any piercing or slashing weapon.

Where do we draw the line of simplicity and realism?

We draw the line where verisimilitude isn't completely thrown out the window and fast healing for everyone does that.

At least by the current rules the guy is still legitimately hurt by crits and fireballs, and he can't take a 5 minute rest to heal no matter what happened to him.


Did you see where I added con damage? Doesnt something like that represent being really hurt better than the arbitrary loss and gain of HP?

I feel like it does. And it still takes magic to heal that.

EDIT: Also that 5 minutes of rest, as I stated would never put any character to 'full' health.


If simplicity is the goal, I say get rid of the average HD heal limit. Use 1+Con mod per day short rest and drop the bookkeeping of critical hits subtracting one until magically healed. This allows folks to dial the amount up or down. Gritty gets 1 per day, and supers get unlimited.


I feel like simplicity is only the goal to the extent that realism isnt trashed.

Much of the changes I see in 2.0 appear to be addressing that issue.

Ive never understood why every combat wounds a PC so grievously that magical healing is the only solution.

How were battles of history ever fought if everyone was wounded to the point that rest did almost nothing?

Needing magical healing only for wounds that damage your con (or to completely refresh someone) addresses this in an elegant, realistic and simplistic fashion.

Is it perfect? No, wraithstrike pointed out one good example. But without making the rule book 5000 pages we must seek these sort of solutions.


Lincoln Cross wrote:

@wraithstrike.

What about the verisimilitude of being hit with that same fireball, 3rd plus degree burns over most if not all of your body but still finishing the fight?

By this reasoning combats should only continue if magical healing is applied. Every sword hit is a gory wound spurting blood everywhere but youre not taking bleed damage from any piercing or slashing weapon.

Where do we draw the line of simplicity and realism?

I see it on a sliding scale. A fireball that dealt more than 90% of a character's max health might cover their body in 3rd degree burns. That scales down to a mild sunburn at less than 10%


I lean towards the simulation side myself, but there comes a time it is best to not make realism the enemy of the game. Some things in the game are an abstraction, like hit points, and you need to just give into the idea its part of the game. That give in limit is obviously going to differ person to person.

The issue I have with this idea is that it works to supply a realistic feel for you, but has changed the entire paradigm of design for everyone. The worst part is it doesn't solve any particular problem folks have with resource management and adventure pacing.


It sounds like you're basically describing Stamina Points from Starfinder?


Sounds like the CLW Wand thread all over again. Let's not fall into the same hole, please.


I'd simply like each class to be able to do something to bolster the group or at least oneself. Like, if everyone in the group can provide a bit of healing or similar stuff, no dedicated healer is necessary. Some ideas might be:

- alchemist could have a limited regeneration ability as long as his mutagen is up
- barbarian receives a good amount of temporary hit points when raging
- sorcerers and wizards can cast false life for temporary hit points, but more efficient probably (d6/level probably)
- rogues can exploit wands to get more uses at a time per resonance out of them
- monks can meditate for healing a few times per day

Temporary hit points eypecially are a thing that allows characters to look wounded but still have a buffer to absorb some more damage for a while.


@leyren. Many of your examples are still magic based though. The mundane is so drastically over looked.


Planpanther wrote:
The issue I have with this idea is that it works to supply a realistic feel for you, but has changed the entire paradigm of design for everyone. The worst part is it doesn't solve any particular problem folks have with resource management and adventure pacing.

Yes it is my idea. Yes I believe in it.

Reducing the necessity of resource management is part of the point. There is no reason that massive amounts of magical healing should be necessary after any simple battle as it so commonly is.

Mundane rest takes days to put a PC back into fighting shape. This is ridiculous.

It should not be necessary to have a priest bring one back from near death multiple times a day.


Why give every one a Healing surge (1/day cures 1/2 Max) as a full rd action.
Not overpowered as it it is only 1/day, but still useful.


Lincoln Cross wrote:
@leyren. Many of your examples are still magic based though. The mundane is so drastically over looked.

The only magic-based example is the sorcerer/wizard one. Or should be. I agree that we need more non-magic or class feature based healing or falselifeing.


Starbuck_II wrote:

Why give every one a Healing surge (1/day cures 1/2 Max) as a full rd action.

Not overpowered as it it is only 1/day, but still useful.

I'd rather have something unique for every class.


Leyren wrote:
Starbuck_II wrote:

Why give every one a Healing surge (1/day cures 1/2 Max) as a full rd action.

Not overpowered as it it is only 1/day, but still useful.
I'd rather have something unique for every class.

Unique but unified system? That is a ton of design and page space to give each class their own healing system.


Planpanther wrote:


Unique but unified system? That is a ton of design and page space to give each class their own healing system.

Not too extensive.

Also, some of those things are in PF1, too. Alchemists can choose a discovery to heal 5 hit points per round. Something like that. Maybe a bit buffed to spread the healer's work across the group a bit.

I could imagine a rogue class feat or a UMD skill feat like this, for example:
When you use the skill Use Magic Device to activate a wand with a cure spell, you can expend three/five/whatever of its charges at once without additional resonance cost.

Things like that shouldn't take too much space.


I dont see any reason to make it class specific. Every core race breaths and gets tired. My idea just lets you catch your breath before continuing.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I've been remembering playing a dragon shaman in 3.5 that had a healing aura that could bring everyone in it up to half hit points. In a group without a cleric it kept us all alive, but tense.

I wonder if a modified rest mechanic would work out in PF2, where a rest would bring you up to half, or halfway between your current hit points and where you were last resting point. Magical healing could still bring you up to full, but resting would have diminished returns showing fatigue.


The fake problem of the 5-minute day is trivial to remedy by simply making the party's goals time-sensitive. Plus, from a game-play perspective, taking single long rest or a bunch of short rests strikes me as the epitome of a distinction without a difference .

Resource-free healing on the scale described likewise has the unfortunate side-effect of rendering specialized healers redundant.

Not sure what solution I'd recommend, but maybe allow characters to store a portion of any excess healing from another source and then apply it later so long as she's not in combat...


as a general feature for all classes this is not something I am interested in. Maybe as features related to certain class feats? sure. Like I could see handing some fast healing to the barbarian as a rage ability or something.


Stone Dog wrote:

I've been remembering playing a dragon shaman in 3.5 that had a healing aura that could bring everyone in it up to half hit points. In a group without a cleric it kept us all alive, but tense.

I wonder if a modified rest mechanic would work out in PF2, where a rest would bring you up to half, or halfway between your current hit points and where you were last resting point. Magical healing could still bring you up to full, but resting would have diminished returns showing fatigue.

There's real merit in this, especially if one still subscribes to the original concept of hit points as described by Gygax himself--and how could we not in a game where even a moderately-statted fighter will have almost forty times as many hit points as a commoner on the street?

Gary Gygax, AD&D 1E wrote:
Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection.

Thus, if one believes that even a moderate portion of a high level character's massive hit points comes from combat skill, the ability to roll with the punches, even a little wink and nod from the Gods, then it seems that proper rest and catching one's breath could help. Consider how much more focused and on your game you are after taking a breather than after you just finished fighting or hauling goods or whatever for hours. A "badly wounded" character according to their hit point totals might be able to take a rest and recover themselves up to, say, 25% of their maximum hit point totals. They've still sustained physical punishment that requires real rest and healing (magical or otherwise) to deal with, but they're on their feet and able to proceed on with the adventure, even though doing so puts them in a dangerous position, health-wise. But that's what heroes do, sometimes!

Note that I'm not necessarily advocating a "rest to a portion of hit point total" system in the game. I feel it would be complicated, especially as you throw in modifiers to what the percentages would be, and so on. But the concept has merit within the world of D&D/Pathfinder, because hit points are more than just raw physical damage inflicted on the character.


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@Ultrace. This is exactly what I am saying. HP is much more than 'I can take more sword cuts'.

This would not affect the overall system, encounter planning or difficulty of fights by much at all.

What it would do is emmerse the players more in their characters, increase the visceral feel of travel and combat, increase pacing somewhat, and allow classes with healing abilities to avoid being relegated to the role of bandaid.

It could never heal someone to full. Doesnt work in combat.
Doesnt work when battling a 'sickness'.
Doesnt work when exerting yourself.

Extreme damage, con damage still has to be healed by magic.
It takes magic to be at full health.

Thus if there is no healer the game goes on.
If the healer is spent or dead the game goes on.
If speed is a factor magic healing is still better.
If the healer wants to save the magic healing until later or even for in combat so be it!

The list goes on.


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Ultrace wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:

I've been remembering playing a dragon shaman in 3.5 that had a healing aura that could bring everyone in it up to half hit points. In a group without a cleric it kept us all alive, but tense.

I wonder if a modified rest mechanic would work out in PF2, where a rest would bring you up to half, or halfway between your current hit points and where you were last resting point. Magical healing could still bring you up to full, but resting would have diminished returns showing fatigue.

There's real merit in this, especially if one still subscribes to the original concept of hit points as described by Gygax himself--and how could we not in a game where even a moderately-statted fighter will have almost forty times as many hit points as a commoner on the street?

How? Pretty easily really.

We play a game where those 40x commoner hitpoints allow that fighter to survive six seconds submerged in lava (possibly 12 if the dice gods favor him)

That being said I don't have a problem with quick nonmagical healing. I prefer Heal Skill to universal short rests (but have zero problem with a Healing Factor being easily purchased with character resources.)


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Something like short and long rest works great. Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.


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Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.

Things like Lava should do Con damage. Right on past HP straight to where it really hurts. 3D6 con damage per round?


Deal breaker
The beauty of HP has always* been that it isn't locked into being "meat" or to being abstract.

PCs can recover quickly, but also get beat up and, lacking magic, take a few days to recover. And the DM is free to narrate damage and recovery based on what makes sense.

If a fighter alone in the wilderness gets beat up by an ogre, but lives, then he shouldn't be back at 100% a few hours later or the next morning. You add a narrative device like healing potions or spells then cool. But it should never be mechanically impossible to put a character out of commission for some period of time.

* - some obvious exceptions but we won't go there


Lincoln Cross wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.

Things like Lava should do Con damage. Right on past HP straight to where it really hurts. 3D6 con damage per round?

I will pass


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.

Except they almost never are. You don't fight worse with 1/4th HP than at Full. You re still just as good at everything at 1 HP as t 100 HP, except it takes 1 Hp to take you out.

Been ages since I played PF so no clue how lava is, but the game just does not treat them as being hurt in almost all cases until you hit 0.


BryonD wrote:

Deal breaker

The beauty of HP has always* been that it isn't locked into being "meat" or to being abstract.

PCs can recover quickly, but also get beat up and, lacking magic, take a few days to recover. And the DM is free to narrate damage and recovery based on what makes sense.

If a fighter alone in the wilderness gets beat up by an ogre, but lives, then he shouldn't be back at 100% a few hours later or the next morning. You add a narrative device like healing potions or spells then cool. But it should never be mechanically impossible to put a character out of commission for some period of time.

* - some obvious exceptions but we won't go there

You call it beauty I call it lazy game design.


Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.

Except they almost never are. You don't fight worse with 1/4th HP than at Full. You re still just as good at everything at 1 HP as t 100 HP, except it takes 1 Hp to take you out.

Been ages since I played PF so no clue how lava is, but the game just does not treat them as being hurt in almost all cases until you hit 0.

Lava is treated the same as any other damage.

It is endured until it overwhelms a character's hit points.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.

Except they almost never are. You don't fight worse with 1/4th HP than at Full. You re still just as good at everything at 1 HP as t 100 HP, except it takes 1 Hp to take you out.

Been ages since I played PF so no clue how lava is, but the game just does not treat them as being hurt in almost all cases until you hit 0.

Lava is treated the same as any other damage.

It is endured until it overwhelms a character's hit points.

So no injury at all into you hit 0


Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.

Except they almost never are. You don't fight worse with 1/4th HP than at Full. You re still just as good at everything at 1 HP as t 100 HP, except it takes 1 Hp to take you out.

Been ages since I played PF so no clue how lava is, but the game just does not treat them as being hurt in almost all cases until you hit 0.

Lava is treated the same as any other damage.

It is endured until it overwhelms a character's hit points.

So no injury at all into you hit 0

Correct, no handicapping/actions impacting injury until you hit 0.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:
Demon Lord of Paladins! wrote:
Really, people need to get out of this idea that HP are wounds, they aren't.

Except when they are? (Re: lava)

As both a GM and as a player I PREFER the narrative of meat points.

Except they almost never are. You don't fight worse with 1/4th HP than at Full. You re still just as good at everything at 1 HP as t 100 HP, except it takes 1 Hp to take you out.

Been ages since I played PF so no clue how lava is, but the game just does not treat them as being hurt in almost all cases until you hit 0.

Lava is treated the same as any other damage.

It is endured until it overwhelms a character's hit points.

So no injury at all into you hit 0
Correct, no handicapping/actions impacting injury until you hit 0.

This to me is why HP's will never be injury. Have you tried 5e's lingering wound option?

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