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For better or for worse, manyDungeons & Dragonsplayers have it in their heads that a healer is a necessary component of a complete party. While this couldn’t be farther from the truth, there’s no doubt that having at least one member in a party with access to some kind of healing abilities can make a big difference.
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However, healing in D&D works a bit different from other games due to the death saving throw system. Whereas you may be used to healing characters before they go down in other games, Dungeons & Dragons usually rewards players for healing others after they run out of hit points.
What Is A Healer In D&D?
Typically, healing is used in other games as a method of preventing your allies from running out of hit points. However,players who attempt this method in Dungeons & Dragons will find themselves unable to keep upwith the amount of damage enemies dole out. This is largely due to the fact thathealing spells in D&D aren’t especially effective at restoring tons of hit points.
For example, the only ranged low level healing spell is the1st level spellHealing Word. This spell restores 1d4 + your spellcasting modifier hit points to a single target within 60 feet. In comparison, a goblin with a shortbow deals 1d6 + their Dexterity modifier with one attack. While this might not seem like a huge disparity, it’s clear thathealing falls behind damage from the get-go. In addition,the difference only grows larger as your party levels upand you face more and more terrifying foes.
Instead,healing spells are good for preventing your allies from dyingonce they’ve already been knocked unconscious. A D&D character is just as effective withone hit pointas they are withfull hit points. Consequently, there’s no reason to try and keep your fellow party members' hit point pools topped off.
Classes
There are a lot of classes that can provide healing in D&D, but some are certainly better than others. You can pretty much divide the available healing classes into two categories:primary healersandsecondary healers.
Primary healers consist of theBard, Cleric,andDruidclasses. Each of these classes have access tothe most reliable healing spellsin the game. Quite importantly, they are also full spellcasters with access to enough spell slots to spare some on healing.
Meanwhile, secondary healers are made up of thePaladin, Ranger,and somespecific subclassessuch as the Alchemist Artificer or the Celestial Warlock. These healers have access to some forms of healing, but they’re much more limited in their versatility and breadth.
Ability Scores
As a healer, it’s your responsibility tokeep the party safe. There’s no better ability score for accomplishing this thanWisdomdue to the extreme importance of theperceptionskill. It’s not over-gratuitous to say thatperception is the single most relevant character skill in the game,as it’s used for noticing threats in the world around you.
For this reason alone, both the Cleric and Druid can be seen as superior healers to the Bard. As a Bard, you must place most of your ability score points into your charisma as charisma is your spellcasting ability modifier.
However, Clerics and Druids have the benefit ofWisdom already serving as their spellcasting ability modifier, allowing them to increase their perception skill to heights the Bard can never achieve.
Other skills that are useful for keeping your party safe includeinsight and survival. Insight can be used to get a read on NPCs (non-player characters), giving you some idea of how trustworthy they might be. On the other hand, survival is useful for gathering supplies in nature and finding tracks that your enemies may have left behind.
Funnily enough, the medicine skill isn’t actually all that important for healing though you may want to check with your DM on how they use it in their game.
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Feats
There aren’t too many feats that are useful for healing, butthe ones that do exist are quite good. Firstly,Alertwillprevent you from ever being surprised while also giving you a nice boost to initiative. While you might think that a healer would want to go last, remember that it’s only our job to heal other characters after they’ve already run out of hit points. As a result,going earlier is actually quite nice,as it allows us to enact a usefulconcentration spellfor the rest of our party to benefit from.
Speaking of concentration,War Casteris another great feat for any healer as it will allow you to succeed on concentration checks much more often thanks to providingadvantage on Constitution saving throws made to maintain concentration. Additionally, you also gain the ability tocast a spell in place of an opportunity attackas long as the spell targets a single creature.
While these two feats are standards, you’ve also got some other options in theHealer, Inspiring Leader, Chef, Observant,andGift of the Metallic Dragonfeats. Each of these feats will give you a little extra protection that you’re able to hand out to the rest of your party members. However, they’re often not as useful as the two mentioned above.
CombiningInspiring Leaderwith the 2nd levelAidspell can give your entire party a considerable buffer of extra hit points.
Spells
As a healer, yourspell selectionshould include a number of tools forbuffing allies, removing enemy debuffs, and getting characters back onto their feet from unconsciousness. You’ll most often want tostart combat by dropping a concentration spellthat will have an impact turn after turn. Examples of such spells includeBless, Bane, Hold Person, Hideous Laughter, Entangle,andFaerie Fire.
As far as healing options are concerned,you definitely want access to some sort of ranged healing ability. At early levels, the 1st level spellHealing Wordis almost always your best option. There’s nothing wrong with picking upCure Woundsas well, butthe flexibility that Healing Word allows for with its 60-foot range far outweighs a few extra points of healingin nearly every case.
At later levels, other great healing options includeHealing Spirit, Mass Healing Word, Aura of Vitality, Life Transference, Mass Cure Wounds,andHeal.
Goodberryis surprisingly useful for both Druids and Rangers, and it’s highly recommended for both classes to pick it up, use it every long rest, and distribute berries to party members for safekeeping.
While you can do your job just fine with the above two spell considerations covered, the best healers will also have access tospells that can remove harmful enemy effects. These include spells likeLesser Restoration, Dispel Magic,andGreater Restoration.
Warding spells likeShield of Faith, Sanctuary, Protection from Poison, Aid, Death Ward, and Aura of Puritycan also be very useful tools in a healer’s kit.
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Items
Obviously, a healer should look tokeep their party stocked with as many healing potions as possible.
Some dungeon masters use a variant rule that allows a character todrink a potionthemself as a bonus action. If this is the case at your table, you want to be sure that every character always has a healing potion on hand.
More importantly and often overlooked, though, is an item you can pick up as early as 1st level that will make it much less likely your party members face death. The item in question is ahealer’s kitwhich you can purchase fora small sum of five gold pieces. This item comes with ten charges, and each time you use one,you can stabilize a creature without the need for a medicine check.
Healing And The Action Economy
As mentioned at the beginning of this article,the way combat works in D&D incentivizes you not to heal your allies before they fall unconscious. This is due to what is colloquially known as the’action economy.‘Both the player characters and their opponents use actions in order to further their goals in combat. Usually, the primary goal is to reduce the opposing force to zero hit points.
Every time an enemy is reduced to zero hit points,the enemy forceloses some of their actionsas that enemy no longer gets a turn. In the same vein, every time a player character is reduced to zero hit points,the party loses actionsas that player character no longer gets a turn. Consequently,it’s more efficient to spend your actions trying to reduce the number of actions the enemy hasover healing your party members.
There are some cases where you might want to heal a party member before they go down in hopes it allows them to survive a hit and take their next turn. However,even in these cases, it would likely be better to hold your actionso that you can heal your ally once they are knocked unconscious.
Long story short,healing is truly only great in combat when it’s used to restore actions to your party’s action economy. This is the cardinal rule of healing in D&D.
