"Don't Get Hit."
Healing in Candle'Bre works very differently than it does in "regular" D&D, so the best advice I can give you is the quote just above, from the movie "The Karate Kid."
Getting hurt in Candle'Bre sucks, especially if you're used to "regular" D&D where you can take a 2-hour power nap or whatevs and poof! Magically all of your injuries vanish thanks to the power of Hit Dice.
Yeah, toss that notion right out the window. When you get hurt in Candle'Bre (and you will), you only recover a number of hit points per long rest equal to your Proficiency Modifier.
Let that sink in for a minute.
A first level fighter will start with 15 hit points (10 from his level 1 die roll, +5 Body Points--see
Character Creation Process ), plus a couple more from his/her Constitution Bonus, assuming there is one of those. Let's say that for the purposes of this example, our Level 1 Fighter has a +2 Constitution bonus, which gives him a grand total of 17 hit points (well, 12 Hit Points and 5 Body Points, to be exact).
So if, during the course of an adventure, your fighter gets knocked out (taken to 0 hit points), and worse, whatever he was fighting temporarily reduced his Strength score by 1 point.
It's going to take that character a very long time to fully recover without some kind of medical assistance. Healing Priority is the reason why:
Healing Priority
The first damage to be healed in every. Single. Case. Is Body Damage. That has to happen first and that's tough, because Body Points require 10x the healing resources to fix 1 point, compared to regular hit points.
A 1st level character has a +2 Proficiency Modifier, so without outside help, he's going to be unconscious for 5 days until his Proficiency Modifier provides enough healing to fix 1 Body Point (2hp per long rest * 5 days = 10hp of healing, which is enough to fix 1 point of Body Damage). Then, he'll be flat on his back for another 20 days while the remaining 4 Body Points are healed.
After that, we turn our attention to the 1 Level of Exhaustion that the character earned for being knocked out, and the 1 point of Temporarily lost Strength.
Once the Body Damage is healed, the player running the character gets to pick which of those gets fixed next: Do we recover the point of Strength, or do we recover the Exhaustion level? That's one long rest for each of those, so that's another two days.
Then, finally, we can start working on hit points. These will be recovered much more quickly (2hp per long rest, based on Proficiency Modifier), so in another 6 days to get back to full health.
Note that healing spells or non-magical healing can "jump over" exhaustion levels and the like, working to restore hit points while the character is spending another day of bed rest working off an exhaustion level or temporarily lost ability point.
Finally, once the character is back to full health, if he or she had any Spirit Points and spent them before going unconscious, those begin to return at the rate of 1 per long rest (Rogues get them back faster, but we specified for this example that our character was a Fighter).
All told then, without outside assistance, the character in question won't be back to full health for 33 days! Note though, that even a single Cure Wounds per day can dramatically speed this process, and Candle'Bre has a very robust set of Natural Healing rules, so if the fighter or one of his companions has the Healer Feat or Field Craft: Field Medicine, then the healing process will be significantly shorter.
Even so - as you can see, taking damage in Candle'Bre is no joke, and characters who attempt to solve every problem with combat will probably be short-lived.
What If You're Deep Into Negatives?
Candle'Bre brings back a mechanic from an older version of D&D. Being reduced to 0 hit points doesn't mean you're dead, it just means you're unconscious.
While you're unconscious, you will continue to bleed, suffering 1 additional point of damage per round. When you reach -10, you're a goner and there are only like...three people in the entire Basin who can bring you back, so don't die and don't let that happen to your buddies.
Fortunately, you don't need much skill to bind a wound sufficiently to stop the bleed. The DC is only 5 so even a first level character with no medical training can do it most of the time (note that you will make the roll at Disadvantage and with a Reduced Die if you are unskilled but even with those penalties in place, it's not much to beat a 5). Granted, there's still a chance that you won't be able to stop the bleed if one of your companions is unconscious but if anybody else is nearby, then one of you is bound to succeed).
Anyway, negative hit points are not Body Points, so they are very responsive to magical and non-magical healing. It's only when you get to the 0-5 range that the 10x Body Point rules kick in, and then, once you fix the last point of Body Damage, you're back to smooth sailing.
Magical vs. Non Magical Healing
As with most things Candle'Bre, magical healing doesn't work like healing in "regular" D&D. In regular D&D, a first level cleric can cast the "Cure Light Wounds" spell which restores 1d8 worth of Hit Points.
Yeah, no.
There are three primary religions in Candle'Bre. J'honsa represents Law, Kaylaar represents Chaos, and Reyhue & Laernan represent Balance.
A Cleric's healing ability (which can come either from casting a cure spell or from laying on hands), will be more or less effective based on how similar the Cleric's alignment is vs. the person receiving the healing, so a Chaotic healer's healing efforts will be most effective on a Chaotic target, less so on a Neutral target, and even less so on a Lawful target, and in fact, depending on the Oath or Vow the Cleric has taken, it may be considered a venal sin to heal a creature of some other alignment (another reason to stock up on those Indulgence Counters!). Full details of all of this can be found in the
Splat Books for each class with access to healing magic.
Fortunately, non-magical healing is agnostic. It doesn't matter what your alignment is, or what the injured party's alignment is, the herbs and poultices all work the same. See the Healer Feat and Field Medic feat for the particulars there.
Comments