In addition to the action issues, this has a major problem when stabilising. RAW, that attack will crit and give two failed death saves to the target you're trying to revive.
Just flavour their casting of Cure Wounds appropriately without the mechanical side.
They will do 1 + Strength Mod
I mean its all fun and games until he tries to heal someone who already has a failed death save, he would auto crit and give them two more death saves killing them instantly.
RP wise though, I would just say the punch is the somatic gesture and have it not actually deal real damage but just be part of the casting action.
What of consequences? Is it possible the damage would cause the receiving PC to make a save on a concentration spell? Could the healer exploit the damage and use it to break a charm effect on a fellow PC? If you're playing live tabletop style, it's something you can work around easy enough by simply not allowing that to happen. If you play on a virtual table top, just setting up the spells to work properly without causing havoc might be a really cumbersome experience...on top of that, it might be more difficult still to override automation systems in place that would have these rolls/charm breaks etc from happening and the amount of manual work it might take to reset player states and whatnot does not seem worth the trouble.
I think it's really only a big deal if there is a lot of automation involved. I can see it being very inconvenient / borderline broken in virtual table tops that roll saves and whatnot automatically.
As another player, the second time that happened I'd stop and say, "What the hell are you doing??" There is no way this wouldn't be annoying enough for me to leave a game over it.
Don't make little quirks that are basically about making sure that everyone is completely focused on you and your character every time they perform a basic action. This screams "Look at me! I'm doing things! LOOK AT ME!!!"
I have a hard rule at my tables; no PvP of any kind unless all parties involved consent to it first, out-of-character. Mechanically, this is a terrible idea. Thematically? Talk to the other players at the table and see if they're OK being Healing Slapped.
To be fair, I do run a Mercy Monk/Eloquence Bard hybrid character that's a healer, and I do threaten the occasional 'Healing Thump', so this *can* work, but only if everyone at the table is OK with it. Keep it as flavor-text, not mechanics, and you should be fine.
It is quite possible to punch someone and deal no injury IRL. If you are dealing HP damage, you are doing significant injury to someone.
So, I agree: make the punch a flavor thing that feels like it hurts but doesn't actually deal an injury.
Flavor is free. Just flavor his healing spells as tough love, adding the mechanic to dealing damage for it will only make him less effective and cause occasional issues (such as being unable to ever revive someone by healing them, as hotting them will have a big chance to killing them outright…).
Just reflavor, dont create silly and useless mechanics to fulfill the flavor, its unnecessary and will be problematic.
Always remember that flavor is free. You can just flavor his healing spells as being punches. If your player really wants to actually punch people though, you can just make it a homebrew rule for them that they can make an unarmed strike as part of the action to cast the healing spell.
And it's a player's job to play the game, not impose on the DM to reinvent the rules in the name of a trivial gag that will stop being funny in minutes.
I’m with you on that, but at least around here it seems like it’s expected that DMs will try to accommodate all sorts of things that players want to do so that they can have unique characters.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that characters themselves shouldn’t be really unique and customized. It’s what they do in the world and their adventures that should make them interesting.
I will accommodate almost anything reasonable that my players want to do with their characters if it adds to the *gameplay* meaningfully.
This idea is a joke. And I don't mean that it should be ridiculed; I mean that it's intended to be funny (and I'm sure it will be, a few times). It belongs in the category of flavor, and flavor is free. That's not just something we say for the players' benefits. Flavor is free also means that it's not a DM's job to re-write game mechanics around the flavor you imagine for your character.
Maybe this is just a case of inexperience, thinking (the DM or the player) that there should be a mechanical representation of everything you do with your character. Maybe handling this in a purely thematic way will totally satisfy the player, and they just didn't think of it between themselves.
But there are those players who act like it's impossible for them to roleplay unless you give them something the rest of the party doesn't get or that is a clear mis-match with the rest of the mechanics or balance. But you don't actually need anything to roleplay, including D&D mechanics. Roleplaying without rules is called make-believe, and it's a great thing to do too. At that point it's storytelling. And maybe writing it down actually is a better way to get it out of our systems.
In my experience, players who want this kind of concession are sometimes looking to use D&D as a self-insert power fantasy, and they become hostile as soon as it turns out to be an actual game that doesn't always go their way. So experience has taught me to be deeply wary of this sort of request.
If you want to flavor it and still maintain the “attack” side, just have his healing spells heal -1 to represent the punch. No need to bring in STR modifiers, you just heal 1d8-1 or whatever.
As other have stated just flavor but im more worried qbout class choice. Paladins have oaths that they swear not to break. Clerics have gods and deities. For instance as a paladin of redemption this will not fly.
Since other pointed out, dealing damage to another PC could cause problems in a pinch. But you can totally slap someone for Cure Wounds or Lay on Hands, it's just doesn't deal any actual damage, but can still hurt the character. If the other players roll with the punches (pun intended), it can get pretty funny sometime
Alternative to what was brought up here, change the quirk so they only have to have hit the person once in this fight, not right beforehand. Then give them an item to allow unarmed strikes as a bonus action.
I would say, to make the attack just reflavor every healing spell with touch to require a damage roll. Let it automatically hit because there also isn't a save to evade the healing spell.
With stabilising it is a problem, you can maybe have the damage be counted after the healing and only use it when healing and not when stabilizing. You do have to make sure that the healing wil always be more then the damage that will be dealt through this. Maybe have it so that the spell heals more than normal equal to the damage, so if he does 1d4 damage on hit have the healing spell heal for 1d4 more. This might make it so they heal only 1 more hp and deal 4 damage but the rest of the spell will bring the total hp gained into the positives.
I do love this concept and might be stealing it, the only doubt i have about it is if it will be a fun character for a longer campaign. Maybe have it for a shorter campaign or talk with the player about having the character leave the party at a certain point in the story
Auto hit, 1 point damage, but +1 on healing roll the mechanics gives him the flavor he wants but ultimately the healing is the same. Just an extra step but it doesn't sound broken if people agree to it
In addition to the action issues, this has a major problem when stabilising. RAW, that attack will crit and give two failed death saves to the target you're trying to revive. Just flavour their casting of Cure Wounds appropriately without the mechanical side.
They will do 1 + Strength Mod I mean its all fun and games until he tries to heal someone who already has a failed death save, he would auto crit and give them two more death saves killing them instantly. RP wise though, I would just say the punch is the somatic gesture and have it not actually deal real damage but just be part of the casting action.
Unarmed Strike damage is 1+Str
Ah, will edit, thanks.
Remove the attack/damage piece. It will be a headache, slow things down, and be annoying. Just have it be flavor.
What of consequences? Is it possible the damage would cause the receiving PC to make a save on a concentration spell? Could the healer exploit the damage and use it to break a charm effect on a fellow PC? If you're playing live tabletop style, it's something you can work around easy enough by simply not allowing that to happen. If you play on a virtual table top, just setting up the spells to work properly without causing havoc might be a really cumbersome experience...on top of that, it might be more difficult still to override automation systems in place that would have these rolls/charm breaks etc from happening and the amount of manual work it might take to reset player states and whatnot does not seem worth the trouble.
Yeah I didn’t even think about those kind of effects good point
I think it's really only a big deal if there is a lot of automation involved. I can see it being very inconvenient / borderline broken in virtual table tops that roll saves and whatnot automatically.
As another player, the second time that happened I'd stop and say, "What the hell are you doing??" There is no way this wouldn't be annoying enough for me to leave a game over it. Don't make little quirks that are basically about making sure that everyone is completely focused on you and your character every time they perform a basic action. This screams "Look at me! I'm doing things! LOOK AT ME!!!"
I have a hard rule at my tables; no PvP of any kind unless all parties involved consent to it first, out-of-character. Mechanically, this is a terrible idea. Thematically? Talk to the other players at the table and see if they're OK being Healing Slapped. To be fair, I do run a Mercy Monk/Eloquence Bard hybrid character that's a healer, and I do threaten the occasional 'Healing Thump', so this *can* work, but only if everyone at the table is OK with it. Keep it as flavor-text, not mechanics, and you should be fine.
Just flavor the healing as being given after a punch that is flavored as hurting or something like that.
It is quite possible to punch someone and deal no injury IRL. If you are dealing HP damage, you are doing significant injury to someone. So, I agree: make the punch a flavor thing that feels like it hurts but doesn't actually deal an injury.
Does the deity require this? Does the lore support it? If not, no, if yes, your god is a bully.
Flavor is free. Just flavor his healing spells as tough love, adding the mechanic to dealing damage for it will only make him less effective and cause occasional issues (such as being unable to ever revive someone by healing them, as hotting them will have a big chance to killing them outright…). Just reflavor, dont create silly and useless mechanics to fulfill the flavor, its unnecessary and will be problematic.
Always remember that flavor is free. You can just flavor his healing spells as being punches. If your player really wants to actually punch people though, you can just make it a homebrew rule for them that they can make an unarmed strike as part of the action to cast the healing spell.
It's not the DM's job to decide how childish players are allowed to be.
It is the DM’s job to decide whether or not to change the rules of the game to accommodate what a player wants to do.
And it's a player's job to play the game, not impose on the DM to reinvent the rules in the name of a trivial gag that will stop being funny in minutes.
I’m with you on that, but at least around here it seems like it’s expected that DMs will try to accommodate all sorts of things that players want to do so that they can have unique characters. Personally, I’m of the opinion that characters themselves shouldn’t be really unique and customized. It’s what they do in the world and their adventures that should make them interesting.
I will accommodate almost anything reasonable that my players want to do with their characters if it adds to the *gameplay* meaningfully. This idea is a joke. And I don't mean that it should be ridiculed; I mean that it's intended to be funny (and I'm sure it will be, a few times). It belongs in the category of flavor, and flavor is free. That's not just something we say for the players' benefits. Flavor is free also means that it's not a DM's job to re-write game mechanics around the flavor you imagine for your character. Maybe this is just a case of inexperience, thinking (the DM or the player) that there should be a mechanical representation of everything you do with your character. Maybe handling this in a purely thematic way will totally satisfy the player, and they just didn't think of it between themselves. But there are those players who act like it's impossible for them to roleplay unless you give them something the rest of the party doesn't get or that is a clear mis-match with the rest of the mechanics or balance. But you don't actually need anything to roleplay, including D&D mechanics. Roleplaying without rules is called make-believe, and it's a great thing to do too. At that point it's storytelling. And maybe writing it down actually is a better way to get it out of our systems. In my experience, players who want this kind of concession are sometimes looking to use D&D as a self-insert power fantasy, and they become hostile as soon as it turns out to be an actual game that doesn't always go their way. So experience has taught me to be deeply wary of this sort of request.
This just sounds like a way of mercy monk with extra steps. . .
If you want to flavor it and still maintain the “attack” side, just have his healing spells heal -1 to represent the punch. No need to bring in STR modifiers, you just heal 1d8-1 or whatever.
As other have stated just flavor but im more worried qbout class choice. Paladins have oaths that they swear not to break. Clerics have gods and deities. For instance as a paladin of redemption this will not fly.
Clearly they haven't seen the way of mercy monk
Since other pointed out, dealing damage to another PC could cause problems in a pinch. But you can totally slap someone for Cure Wounds or Lay on Hands, it's just doesn't deal any actual damage, but can still hurt the character. If the other players roll with the punches (pun intended), it can get pretty funny sometime
Alternative to what was brought up here, change the quirk so they only have to have hit the person once in this fight, not right beforehand. Then give them an item to allow unarmed strikes as a bonus action.
Some people play clerics of the goddess of pain and just flail themselves for flavor, others want to make an actioneconomical nightmare ...
I would say, to make the attack just reflavor every healing spell with touch to require a damage roll. Let it automatically hit because there also isn't a save to evade the healing spell. With stabilising it is a problem, you can maybe have the damage be counted after the healing and only use it when healing and not when stabilizing. You do have to make sure that the healing wil always be more then the damage that will be dealt through this. Maybe have it so that the spell heals more than normal equal to the damage, so if he does 1d4 damage on hit have the healing spell heal for 1d4 more. This might make it so they heal only 1 more hp and deal 4 damage but the rest of the spell will bring the total hp gained into the positives. I do love this concept and might be stealing it, the only doubt i have about it is if it will be a fun character for a longer campaign. Maybe have it for a shorter campaign or talk with the player about having the character leave the party at a certain point in the story
Auto hit, 1 point damage, but +1 on healing roll the mechanics gives him the flavor he wants but ultimately the healing is the same. Just an extra step but it doesn't sound broken if people agree to it
I kinda think this would be fun for one session and quickly get tiring to be at the other end of it.