Healing As A Percentage - A Very Bad Idea

I have, in the past, seen some players lament the ineffectiveness of low-level healing spells - like Cure Light, Moderate, Serious, or Critical Wounds - when employed on their high-level characters.

For example: Robert the fighter has 160 maximum hit points, but took 80 points of damage during the last fight. And now, it seems almost pointless to him to get a CLW or some such since that hardly will put a dent in the damage. Gone are the days when a single such spell would restore the majority of his lost hit points, or at least make a meaningful difference.

Sadly, a certain cross section of players feel this is unfair, or not good, or certainly not well considered, and they seek a remedy to this apparent plight. The first idea that many come across to remedy that situation is the concept of percentage healing.

Percentage healing is touted as more meaningful, and if a Cure Light Wounds instead restored 10% of one's maximum hit points, and a Cure Moderate Wounds restored 25%, and a Cure Serious Wounds restored 40%, and a Cure Critical Wounds restored 50% (or some other equally arbitrary percentages) they feel this would "fix" things, or improve them, or make them "playable" again.

I can only sigh when I see such suggestions - or can I? No, I decided I could also give my opinion on the matter and explain my reasons why I think such an approach is a very ill considered idea.

For one thing, the "solution" has the opposite effect on lower-level characters. If CLW only did 10% and they only had 10 hit points at maximum (like most low-level characters), at best CLW would only heal 1 hit point (or less). It used to be the case a single CLW could totally heal such lower-level characters.

Of course, some say, yeah, that's bad, so let's slap another cheesy rule on top of that and make CLWs cure a minimum of 4 hit points, or whatever. Apparently they don't really want a percentage heal, but only want characters heavily laden with hit points to escape one of the built-in, natural limitations of the game. They ALREADY have a lot of hit points - and that's already a HUGE advantage - but they want more advantages besides, and do not wish to pay for them at all. Never mind the fact such rules tend to greatly favor high-hit point laden characters and essentially cheat all others. Their motivations are clear. More power for me, yeah!!!

Seems to me if they are so high-level, they should just use more high level spells, like Heal, or more than a few Cure Critical Wounds, since such high-level clerics should have more than a few once they reach such lofty levels. Alas, it's the age old problem of trying to get something for nothing that is at the heart of this suggestion, and that's why I feel it's worth taking a moment to point that out in this article.

But to be fair, a few of these misguided players aren't just trying to get something for nothing, but are instead concerned with the hit point system itself. They can't easily envision hit points as anything but physical strength of body, and like all monsters that have a set number of hit dice, they feel all men and woman (and all PCs) also must have a set number of hit dice. It's hard to see how a tough farmer doesn't have just as many hit points as a high-level fighter, or how they shouldn't heal at the same rate since hit points are (they think) nothing but physical. The solution there, unfortunately, is not a quick or easy one to grasp, yet if one were so inclined, they could read a few articles on it and perhaps see where some of their initial assumptions about the hit point system were erroneously chosen. Just follow the link below if you'd like to see a greater justification for this.

The Justification Of The Hit Point System (Are Hit Points Realistic Or What?)

Another thing many seem to miss about percentage healing is the fact that the reverse spells should also hold the same sort of power - such as Cause Light Wounds (or "Inflict" now), etc. I mean, if Cure Critical Wounds cures 50% of one's maximum hit points, symmetry suggests (and it's only fair) that Cause Critical Wounds would likewise damage somebody 50% of their maximum hit points, too.

Of course we can immediately see the high-level fighters cringing at the very thought that such a relatively low-level spell, let alone two of them, can totally kill them. Naturally, one would have saving throws vs. such unwelcome spells, but the point is made - that's a lot of potentially deadly power in a single relatively low level spell - maybe even too much. Why, a couple of such low-level spells could even theoretically kill an ancient dragon, or a titan, or even a god.

Finally, since this was never meant to be a lengthy article, I'd just like to say that healing more than a few hit points should take more power or energy. Yet the cleric's level has not changed - the spell's level has not changed - nothing has changed that suggests a particular spell should be more powerful when cast just because it's cast on more powerful people, and weaker when cast on weaker people. It's the same spell, after all.

So apparent are the arguments against healing as a percentage of one's maximum hit points, that, let's face it, more DMs should think twice about the wisdom of even allowing the Heal spell to exist - which is pretty close to a 100% cure (or harm) spell. However, at least THAT spell is rather high-level, and one might expect more powerful things from high-level spells. We certainly should not expect them from lower-level spells.

Therefore, if you are playing under a house rule of using lower-level cure wound spells as a percentage, you may be happy with it - particularly if your character is a walking arsenal of massive hit points - but it's unfair to all other characters who do not share such huge hit point reserves. Ultimately, I think the feelings that led one to even suggest such a rule is wrong-headed, and it is a possible sign of munchkinism, and it sort of misses the point of game balance.

Of course this is just my opinion, but I hope everyone who has ever been tempted to play under that suggested variation to the healing rules would consider my words and reconsider what they're doing.

Email Jim Your Comments (Send Praises, Critiques, Complaints, Suggestions, Ideas, Corrections, Or Submissions.)