Healing proficiency worthless?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Well now this has always perplexed me. The healing non-weapon proficiency is worthless! Check this out...

If you go to the section on natural healing on pg. 105 of the PHB, it says:

"Characters heal naturally at the rate of 1 hit point per day of rest. Rest is defined as low activity - nothing more strenuous than riding a horse or traveling from one place to another.

If the character has complete bed rest (doing nothing for an entire day), he can regain 3 hit points for the day."

Then go to the PHB on pg. 59 and read the healing proficiency:

"If a wounded character remains under the care of someone with the healing proficiency, that character can recover lost hit points at the rate of 1 per day even when traveling or engaging in non-strenuous activity. If the character gets complete rest, he can recover 2 hit points per day while under such care. Only characters with both healing and herbalism proficiencies can help others recover at the rate of 3 hit points per day of rest."

WTF?



Ok, let's summarize:

Natural Healing (ie no help from someone with healing proficiency)

Recover 1 hp/day of non-strenuous activity, 3hp/day of bed rest

Healing With Healing Proficiency

Recover 1 hp/day of non-strenuous activity, 2hp/day of bed rest

So basically you recover 1 hp/day while riding your horse home whether or not someone with the healing proficiency tends your wounds! Why bother to have someone bandage you up? I guess to humor the poor cleric who thinks he can make a difference? It makes literally no difference.

Laying in bed with no one to minister to your wounds allows you to heal 3 hp/day, but if someone with the healing proficiency tends to your wounds, you only heal 2hp/day? WTF? I know doctors these days to more harm than good with their stupidity and reliance on harmful drugs, and that doctors and medical mistakes are the #1 cause of death in this country now, but good lord, we're talking about bandaging wounds in medieval times!

And it's worse...

If you lay in bed alone getting rest, you heal 3 hp/day. If the poor sucker who took both the healing and herbalism proficiencies tends to your wounds...nothing changes! You still heal just 3 hp/day! I mean, why bother?

I've always added that healing onto the natural healing. In other words, if you're doing nothing more strenuous than riding your horse home, you naturally heal 1 hp per day, but if someone with the healing proficiency tends to your wounds, that means you heal 2 hp/day total.

If you get bed rest, you heal 3 hp/day naturally, and an additional 2 hp/day from the ministrations of a healer (or 3 additional if tended to by someone with both healing and herbalism).

Otherwise, why bother with those proficiencies? I think they dropped the ball on that and confused themselves (TSR) when they wrote that.

[slade88green]

It doesn't say they don't stack though. As such we have always used them that they do. If you don't let them stack, they are worthless. My group and I went one step beyond as well and used the healing proficiency to do first aid to recover 1 hp immediately, 2 if you incorporated herbalism. It made them very handy to have.

[Tarrax Ironwolf]

I changed my healing proficiency as such.

• Not under the care of anyone with proficiencies in healing, standard as per the rules for normal healing.
  
  Under the care of someone who has first aid an additional +1 for every point in the score healed to both low activity or complete bed rest.
  
  Under the care of someone who has herbalism an additional +1 for every 2 points in the score healed to both low activity or complete bed rest.
  
  Under the care of someone who has both first aid and herbalism an immediate d4 points healed, and cumulative +1 for every point in the score of both proficiencies plus any constitution hit point bonus of the injured party added (if applicable) to both low activity or complete bed rest.

Now mind you, the scores for my proficiencies are different than what is from the PHB. I used a new proficiency score system from the article Back In The Saddle (Again!) Dragon 225 which makes them more realistic in terms of scores.

[Beowulf]

I see no problem with stacking 'em. Natural healing is pretty slow at best. I would rather have the PCs spend their time adventuring, not sitting at home with a spreadsheet figuring out their hit points!

[Mira]

Plus those manual spreadsheets can be a pain without any computers...

Though it's probably more reliable than Excel

Mira (Anyone not dying is already dead)

[garhkal]

For my house rules i run it Differently IF THE PLAYERS OPT FOR THIS HR (roughly 80% have NOT bothered)..

Each attack that hits, gets a "tick" on a blank sheet (and each damage is recorded separately).
At the end of combat, IF the healing NWP is successfully used, but PRIOR TO ANY MAGICAL HEALING being applied, for each tick you have, roll 1d2, and that is how many HP got healed (THOUGH NO healing can repair more damage than the wound itself gave, so if you had three ticks, two were for 1hp of damage each, one was for 4hp, you could only heal 1+1+1d2.

EG. Farztu is fighting a trio of orcs with short swords. Over the course of the 5 rounds of combat (before all 3 orcs are slain), he got hit a total of 7 times, taking 1hp, 1hp, 3hp, 4ho, 4hp, 4hp and 6hp damage. This totals 23hp of damage (out of the 34hp he has as a 3rd level dwarf warrior) His friend Peloy, starts using the healing NWP. IF he succeeds on the roll, he can heal 5d2, +2hp of damage (for the two 1hp blows). The check succeeds, and the 5d2 roll comes up, 1hp, 1hp, 1hp, 2hp, 2hp for healing a total of 9hp.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Hmmm. Personally, that seems kinda high to me. That approach would essentially allow a NWP to heal 39% of the damage (9 out of 23 hp lost), which is the equivalent of receiving a cure critical wounds spell (2d8+1 pts, average 9 pts.) If he had taken only 10 hp of damage total, then healing those 9 hp would be akin to a full heal spell from 1E.

[garhkal]

How many wounds would he have taken to take that 9hp of damage? AND You forget, IF THEY GET ANY MAGICAL healing of any sort, prior to the NWP being started, IT NIXES this totally.. How many groups do you know, do NOT immediately after the last round of fighting, start handing out healing like it's candy?

[McDeath]

Was this ever addressed in dragon? I'll have to look at the Back in the Saddle article. Stacking would be nice.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Garhkal wrote:

How many wounds would he have taken to take that 9hp of damage? AND You forget, IF THEY GET ANY MAGICAL healing of any sort, prior to the NWP being started, IT NIXES this totally.. How many groups do you know, do NOT immediately after the last round of fighting, start handing out healing like it's candy?

Right, but that's my point. In the example you gave, that much healing from a NWP is as effective as a 5th level priest spell (cure critical wounds). To me, that's just way too powerful. And again, say the attacker/monster/NPC rolled poorly for his damage, and did a total of 9 pts. of damage but over the course of 5 or 6 attacks, then it'd be like a heal spell. I just think that's a pretty powerful thing for an NWP.

Though I have to say, on the flip side of that, it is a pretty effective way to prevent the cleric from having to be a "healing machine" in that it provides enough healing to allow him to skip a handful of cure light wounds or cure critical wounds spells, so he could use those slots for other spells.

But it still feels pretty overpowered to me, compared to all other NWPs.

[McDeath]

NWPS seem messed up imho. The system feels off. This is where I'd prefer a system where it is % based and has chances to improve as it is used. I wouldn't worry about atrophy of skills unless one really has a bit of OCD autism. This kind of leaves a question about weapon skills. A % based from unskilled to proficient to specialized to even master could work but its a bit beyond the general AD&D models. I don't know shit about the high level campaigns, combat & tactics etc black book series. It has different options. Many times we never bothered with skills.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I think the NWPs add a bit of flavor, similar to skills in 1E. But I agree, a % bases system would be so much more convenient!

[garhkal]

Hal, you're the first who's ever called it overpowered...

Would switching it to a flat 1hp, per 'wound taken', be better?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I guess 1 hp/wound wouldn't be that bad, but even so, if you got hit even 5 times, that's still 5 hp of healing from a NWP, which is as powerful as a cure light wounds spell. I don't think it's a bad idea - it could be very helpful in alleviating the constant need for the cleric to cast spell after spell, especially in minor combats. So that would work very well. I just think a NWP shouldn't be able to do that much healing, especially when you compare it to the healing proficiency.

[garhkal]

As is just healing 1 or 2hp though, is SUCKY for what it does..

[McDeath]

What is the time frame for healing prof to regain? Spells are instant and natural isn't.

[garhkal]

It takes a full turn working with them, and must be done within 1 turn of the LAST damage they took.