Hello,
I'm currently trying to rebalance Fast Healing for a homebrew player race, but it's honestly getting to be quite the headache.
I'm thinking to making it scale with level, but I'm not certain of how and to what degrees I want to do that.
Any ideas?
in the race builder rules 'fast healing 1' cost 6 race points (the same as the cost to be able to cast haste at will). and every increase of that increase that amount by one. so fast healing 2 will cost 13 = 6+(6+1). and fast healing 3 will cost 21 = 6+ (6+1) + (6+1+1) etc.
a free floating feat like the human bonus feat is 4 race points.
fast healing is considered a vary strong ability (monstrous) and should be handled with care.
if you still feel like using it for a player race. keep it at 1, it's should prove more then enough. that mean that with waiting one hour a character can heal up 600 hp.
At the same cost a different race could have had energy resistance 5 for fire, acid, electricity and cold AND +1 luck bonus to all saves.
Hmm…
My problem really is that it’s too strong at low levels, but is very meh at higher levels.
At lower levels, it synergizes with Ferocity in a bad way, and it almost negates the need to buy healing items for the character. At higher levels, though, it becomes less and less significant, in both a good and a bad way.
So the point would be to start it off really slow, and have it get better as the character levels-up.
It should probably have it start as Fast Healing 1... and stay there. Have a FCB that can add 1/5 to it, for a maximum of Fast Healing 5 at level 20.
Just give the party a lot of out of combat healing items.
Fast healing is mostly only problematic because it lets you start every fight with full health. If the whole party has that option, there's no imbalance.
I’m not GMing here, I’m creating a race that I want to be usable be most if not all.
It’s part of a much bigger content project, which is why I want to make it generally balanced. Maybe not as balanced as humans, but not too much stronger than that.
I want to make it less of a problem for GMs to balance the game, but it needs to be there because of something else at the core of the race’s concept.
And half the GMs I personally consulted think that I should make it lower at low levels and make it increase with levels.
And I agree with them.
The problem with balancing fast healing is that is is actually balanced as is in being a fairly weak but persistent heal. There is a reason why you don’t typically see anything with more than Fast Healing 5. 5HP per round (6 seconds) is actually quite potent in actual play. Sure 5HP per round might not really seem like much in combat, but when you stack on resistances and damage reduction, 5HP per round starts to feel like 20 or 30.
Note: creatures with more than Fast Healing 5 typically do so through the Regeneration ability. Regeneration is designed to be the overpowered constant healing element, so Fast Healing 10 (or even 20 in the case of a terrasque) is often expected here.
Now if you want scaling FH, I actually would mirror Thelith’s suggestion… but with a bit of an alteration as I see their suggestion as being too strong… 1/3 character level to a max equal to 1/2 HD size.
Are you concerned about the in combat healing, the out of combat healing, or both? There's not much that can be done about the out of combat healing, other than make the ability limited duration.
I'm really wary of unlimited fast healing for PCs. Managing healing resources is a big part of the game even when CLW wands become common. If I were going to give it to a player race, it'd be pretty weak.
How about .1 fast healing? Effectively, heals 1 hit point every minute. You could let that scale to .1 for every 2 hit dice. It's low in-combat healing and for out-of-combat it requires some downtime to get to full health, so you can't just rush from encounter to encounter and be full hp.
Another big concern might be pairing this race with something like a life oracle's life link ability. Your whole party could have fast healing.
I’ve read about it, Melkiador, and I know about how it affects ressource management.
Out-of-combat healing is really a concern until you get to level 8, because then it’d be pretty simple to just get some Boots of the Earth at little expense.
For in-combat healing, 1HP/round is very strong at low levels, but practically useless at high levels, so I’m hoping to make it hit 1HP/round around level 8, and make it reflect the difficulty curve of the game (so no linear function).
By the way, maybe this will affect how you’d balance the healing, but one of the flaws of the race is that they only get a single chance at life; if they die, they die.
To be exact, a miracle, a wish or a divine intervention could bring them back to life, but under some circumstances, even that wouldn’t work. They’re soul is basically destroyed upon death.
Single life doesn’t really do anything to counteract just how strong anything over Fast Healing 5 actually is…
Now if you feel FH1 is too strong before level 8, then I suppose you have your target balance point for when the race should gain FH1 already set on your mind as 8. Beyond that simply figure out when you want it to reach its peak and set that to FH 5 and scale it up at various levels between.
So far, that’s my idea:
1 1 HP/hour
2 1 HP/30 minutes
3 1 HP/10 minutes
4 1 HP/minute
5 1 HP/5 rounds
6 1 HP/3 rounds
7 1 HP/2 round
8 1 HP/round
9
10 2 HP/round
11
12
13 3 HP/round
14
15
16 4 HP/round
17
18
19
20 5 HP/round
Because of what it is, I actually need to start with something above zero.
Because of what it is, I actually need to start with something above zero.
Not necessarily… though I can understand reason why you might want to… but the ability could be worded that a member X-race with atleast 8HD gains Fast Healing 1… it’s not unheard of for a race to gain a racial feature after attaining a specific character level… though that said I do understand why that might not be a desirable course of action with fast healing. If the race is supposed to have innate regenerative abilities, you would want that reflected at level 1, even if it is an almost negligible amount of fast healing (like your listed FH 1/hour)
There are some innate issues with any sort of fast healing below FH 1/round btw…
FH1/hr - when does the healing actually tick. Is it at the start of every hour each day? Is it every hour since birth? Immediately upon being injured and then again every hour thereafter until fully healed? Can they will it to trigger once per hour? Per hour is such a large timespan that any of these can reasonably be a perfectly valid possibility…. And all of them are a book keeping nightmare… what hour of the day did our first combat start? Was I still injured from yesterday? How many hours have we been traveling before this encounter started? Does my fast healing go off now for this hour or on round 5 of combat?
FH1/minute - same exact issues as per hour, though possibly easier to manage.
FH1/x-rounds - best to assume it starts when damage is first received. Most of the book keeping issues will fade away as the rounds between ticks shrink as the amount of health restored quickly reaches “full health” once you get down under a minute per tick.
For FH 1/Hr, you just make it tick out of combat on the hour. It's the easiest way. It's not like we don't have similar abilities. You don't worry about the Druid's longstrider falling off unless it's for out of combat stuff like travelling.
There are some innate issues with any sort of fast healing below FH 1/round btw…
FH1/hr - when does the healing actually tick. Is it at the start of every hour each day? Is it every hour since birth? Immediately upon being injured and then again every hour thereafter until fully healed? Can they will it to trigger once per hour? Per hour is such a large timespan that any of these can reasonably be a perfectly valid possibility…. And all of them are a book keeping nightmare… what hour of the day did our first combat start? Was I still injured from yesterday? How many hours have we been traveling before this encounter started? Does my fast healing go off now for this hour or on round 5 of combat?
FH1/minute - same exact issues as per hour, though possibly easier to manage.
FH1/x-rounds - best to assume it starts when damage is first received. Most of the book keeping issues will fade away as the rounds between ticks shrink as the amount of health restored quickly reaches “full health” once you get down under a minute per tick.
Since it’s basically really good natural healing, you’d have to assume that the healing ticks at the end of the time increment; when you get injured, you’re healed after your body did its job, not right as it starts to do it.
I just got an idea.
I could make it normally really slow, but make it much faster for a few rounds when the creature gets injured.
I could scale the number of rounds and the amount to level without too much trouble.
Also, healing wouldn't stack. You get hit on a round you were already healing, you reset the round count. Get hit multiple times in a round? You only trigger the healing once per round.
As a player character I would want the point of healing when my character drops. It would stabilize the character, and after combat my compatriots could use wands, spells, and lotions to get me up to snuff.
I mean, you wouldn’t drop in the first place, thanks to Ferocity…
But also, since you’d start healing per round after getting damaged, you would be stabilized.
Having any level of Fast Healing makes one immune to Bleed effects, if I remember correctly. I don't know how big of a factor that is, or will be, but I'm pretty sure that is a thing you need to be aware of when handing out Fast Healing all willy-nilly.
Having any level of Fast Healing makes one immune to Bleed effects, if I remember correctly. I don't know how big of a factor that is, or will be, but I'm pretty sure that is a thing you need to be aware of when handing out Fast Healing all willy-nilly.
RAW it doesn’t stop bleed, since it’s natural healing. RAI it does, though.
Two ways I could balance that IMO:
1. Fast Healing only stops bleeding if it heals more than bleeding deals damage.
2. You get a save per round of Fast Healing to stop the bleeding.
I’m open to better ideas.
A couple things…
1) Fast Healing ticks at the start of each increment, not the end… which is why I stated that if it were ruled to start upon taking damage they would be healed right away.
2) be cautious about boosting fast healing upon receiving damage… doing so could very easily undermine your whole reason for not just giving them full FH1 at level 1… if it is boosted from FH1/hr to FH1/round for Lv #rounds then by level 3 they would effectively have standard FH1… both in and out of combat… there are plenty of mundane ways to deal just 1 point of damage to yourself to keep it rolling. Consider hard capping the amount healed from the boosted rate or the number of times per day it can be boosted.
As percentages of one point is already a departure from the main rules, when it occurs and what effect it has are open to discussion. The healing of one minute out of an hour is 1/60th of a point. Using it to stabilize or stop one point of bleed resetting the one hour clock seems fair to me. Thus if they have 2 points of bleed it would take 2 rounds to stop it.
You could limit to (max hp) per day, or something like that, with the rate scaling slowly up. So it'll always stay at a meaningful amount but won't break anything. But until we understand what flavour you're after, we can but guess at a solution.
A couple things…
1) Fast Healing ticks at the start of each increment, not the end… which is why I stated that if it were ruled to start upon taking damage they would be healed right away.
2) be cautious about boosting fast healing upon receiving damage… doing so could very easily undermine your whole reason for not just giving them full FH1 at level 1… if it is boosted from FH1/hr to FH1/round for Lv #rounds then by level 3 they would effectively have standard FH1… both in and out of combat… there are plenty of mundane ways to deal just 1 point of damage to yourself to keep it rolling. Consider hard capping the amount healed from the boosted rate or the number of times per day it can be boosted.
So, I'd already thought about all that.
Number of rounds will be limited, capping at 3-5 consecutive rounds once you take damage, and the acceleration will not be triggered by friendly-fire or self-injury.
I'm still pondering it, but so far, I'm thinking of making it 1 HP*level/hour, with an accelerated rate after taking damage of 1 HP/round, adding 1 HP/round every four levels after level 1, maxing out at 5 upon reaching level 17, and with the number of consecutive rounds starting at 2 and and rising by one every 5 levels after level 1, maxing out at 5 upon reaching level 16.
Why make it any more complicated than it has to be?
If you are capable of adjusting the difficulty of encounters in a way that Fast Healing, in any capacity, won't disrupt the balance of the game... then why not just use regular Fast Healing, with regular Fast Healing rules?
Let them start with Fast Healing 1... let it be awesome at low levels. Then, do not allow it to progress to Fast Healing 2 until Fast Healing 1 is basically useless. Keep the progression of their Fast Healing ever-so-slightly behind the progression of the difficulty increases. Ta-da.
Fractional Fast Healing and time limits and Faster Fast Healing after they take damage is just extra BS that isn't necessary, at all. We already have rules for Fast Healing, if they don't work, then maybe allowing Fast Healing doesn't work, either. I understand this is the homebrew sectiin and we can fix it any way we want, but it isn't broken... doesn't need fixed.
More enemies per encounter... deal more damage per round... outpace their Fast Healing... or don't give it to them at all.
Why make it any more complicated than it has to be?
If you are capable of adjusting the difficulty of encounters in a way that Fast Healing, in any capacity, won't disrupt the balance of the game... then why not just use regular Fast Healing, with regular Fast Healing rules?
Let them start with Fast Healing 1... let it be awesome at low levels. Then, do not allow it to progress to Fast Healing 2 until Fast Healing 1 is basically useless. Keep the progression of their Fast Healing ever-so-slightly behind the progression of the difficulty increases. Ta-da.
Fractional Fast Healing and time limits and Faster Fast Healing after they take damage is just extra BS that isn't necessary, at all. We already have rules for Fast Healing, if they don't work, then maybe allowing Fast Healing doesn't work, either. I understand this is the homebrew sectiin and we can fix it any way we want, but it isn't broken... doesn't need fixed.
More enemies per encounter... deal more damage per round... outpace their Fast Healing... or don't give it to them at all.
Actually, beyond the fact that fast healing is pretty unbalanced, one of the problems I have with it in this case is that it's not really what I wanted anyway for my race, just the best thing I could find for it.
The reason it needs to be constant but not too strong is not just because of the mechanical aspect of it, but because of some traits that are directly tied to the race's concept. That's also why I'm trying to balance it without capping the daily healing.
The race itself has a racial trait very important to the concept that would be best summed up as an extremely conditional and crippling regeneration. It's the race's big gimmick to add real originality to it, and it's pretty hard to justify without an innate ability to heal from damage. It kinda acts as a prerequisite.
Some lore-tied alternate racial traits will completely change the race's dynamic, probably by exchanging one or both of the healing traits.
Basically, the short answer is it's complicated because I want to make something balanced and original, so I'm basically tailoring new traits for it.
And I'm planning a bunch of races like that, though I don't plan on giving that kind of healing trait to another race.
Got it. I like that it is story-driven... not mechanical murderhobo shenanigans.
It has to be constant? It couldn't be something like recovering twice as much HP/ability damage during rest as normal? And maybe each new day, it automatically makes its saving throw to remove temporary negatively levels?
Or maybe something like Reincarnated Druid's Many Lives? The Ghoran race's Seed ability? The Gathlain's thing and the Android/Nanite Bloodline thing has already been mentioned, and both could be reflavored as an innate, uncontrollable regeneration. I'm not exactly sure of how this race regenerates...
Maybe you could just give them Regeneration 1 at Middle Age... Regeneration 2 at Old Age... and Regeneration 3 when they become Venerable?
Honestly, I would just give them regular Fast Healing 1 to start, and have a universal Favored Class Bonus that can be selected for any class [thus "universal"] that adds 1/5 to its existing Fast Healing... for a maximum of Fast Healing 5 at level 20... regular Fast Healing 5 at level 20. No time limits or other restrictions. I would leave it up to the GM to remember to shoot that guy twice... seriously, it's not going to break the game... early levels it might save you from death for being dumb once or twice... later it might save some charges on some wands, oh my. Lol.
The reason I didn’t make it regeneration in the first place is that it would make them impossible to kill unless the enemy had the right type of damage to offset regeneration, at which point it becomes relatively useless.
Besides, my race doesn’t really have an affinity or a weakness to any type of energy…
The Gathlains’ Arboreal Vitality ability is very similar to Undines’ Hydrated Vitality ability, and is way too low for what it needs to be.
To give you an idea of how the regeneration works on my race, they are taking Constitution burn to regenerate their body at a fixed rate, and also recover their burnt CON at a fixed rate. And even then, I’m selling it as better than I made it, since it’s EXTREMELY conditional, requires luck and hits really hard.
So, increasing the food requirement makes a lot of sense, and should probably be part of it in any case, but the problem is that I have no idea of how that works, because the only have I've played (and am still playing) doesn't keep track of food, so I can't yet grasp how that affects the game.
Also, I don't know what the Mephits are.
Tying the healing to a specific damage type wouldn't really make sense, not with the concept. Also, they don't have any innate damage resistance or AC bonus.
When they see food, they have to will save to resist trying too eat it.
In other words, halfling traps.
Halflings are not... food...
Halflings are not... food...
that's skewered... ummm stewed... urr skewed...
still, they leave you hungry a half-hour later...
Anyway, I'm gonna take notes and I'm gonna test my idea, and I'm gonna adapt if it's not significant enough or if it's too much.
I'm referring to things like a pie found in a dungeon. Obviously a trap.
Yeah, that's the kind of reference I wouldn't get, since I've only been paying TTRPGs for a year.