BASIC FANTASY CLERIC HEALING:

One of the things that has always bothered me about the classic systems is that clerics rarely use non-healing
magic, at least for those spell levels where the Cure X Wounds spells are found.
A long time back, someone suggested replacing the curative spells with the ability to "lay on hands," healing 6
hit points per level of ability, starting at 2nd level.
This statistically is "close enough" to the existing rules to not unbalance the game; at least, that was my
conclusion at that time.

I don't like the straight 6-points-per-level mechanic, though; I want dice involved. Also, I'd like to give this
power to 1st level clerics, making them a bit more useful.

So here's my version: Each cleric can heal 1d6 points of damage for each of his or her levels, by means of
touching the afflicted creature. Starting at 11th level, the cleric gains 2d6 per level, up to a maximum of 30d6 at
20th level. The cleric rolls, applying healing as needed; excess "unused" healing points on any given die roll are
lost.

How does this sound to everyone? I'll be adding this to one of the options supplements (or making a new one)
sometime soon, if no one finds an issue with this idea.

I would think the cleric could break it down to each d6 daily as needed.
So, third level cleric could do 3x 1d6, 2d6 and 1d6, or 3d6 in a given day.
8th level cleric could do 8x 1d6, 4x 2d6, etc. breaking down as needed.

When I house-ruled this ability into some of my games years ago,

I tried this method but discarded it after a while.
This was due to it breaking the "keep it simple" rule.
My method was simple and did not overshadow the spells that a cleric received but complemented them.
It was d6 per level and add the wisdom bonus to the total.
That would allow the range of 1d6 to 20d6+3 which should be enough for even the highest level character to
survive on.

I've never like it the "only once per day" for lay on hands, be it as a whole healing or once per person, specially
if it will replace the healing spells.
I would use the d6 as a daily pool and allow it to be used for other healing spells (poison, disease, etc).

I just make it so clerics don't have to memorize spells.

I like the idea to allow the cleric some other options.

I can't remember where I read it but someone suggested that healing corresponds to a character's hit dice.
So a magic-user regains 1d4+1, fighters 1d8+1.
That way the meat shields get a boost without being to overpowered.

On the First Aid thread I gave this idea that uses the HD for healing.
Each time a character is healed they recover HP equal to a roll of their HD.
The amount of times a character can be healed can vary on GM taste, some possibilities:
-Once per day.
-Once per battle. A character can't gain more points than those lost in the battle.
-Once per wound. A character can't gain more points than those lost in the wound healed.

First Aid takes times and supplies, be it a fixed period or a variable one (either random or based on the
damage healed or to heal).

First Aiding Oneself

Characters can heal themselves but they use a die lesser.

First Aid Knowledge

Every class knows how to apply first aid as they are adventurers, but some classes have a better training:
Fighters can heal themselves with no dice shift, they are used to pain.
Clerics always heals with a better dice (this means one higher dice for everyone and no shift for him) as
healing is part of their training.
They can diseases and poisoning allowing a second save with a +2 bonus.
Thieves can treat poisoning as clerics but with no bonus.
Magic Users can do something that I have yet to think about.
This idea not only frees the Cleric's spells but also frees him from be the obligated healer, but he can also get
some healing powers as to not completely loose that role

I'm actually now leaning toward 1d6 per level, with no bonuses applied. Still thinking about it.
My method would not replace Cure Disease or other non-hit-point curatives, and as Smoot says, it would be a
pool to be applied throughout the day until exhausted.
Actually, considering the math, a straight d6 per level is probably the most balanced option.

I have never considered the die according to class idea mentioned.

That has some merit in my mind, though it does produce an extra layer of complexity:
applied to:
Fighter - d8 dice
cleric - d6 dice
thief - d4 dice
Magic-User - d4 dice
Monsters according to what their assigned saves are (typically fighter for d8, with some exceptions).
This makes sense to me due to healing being more productive on individuals with greater stamina overall.
Better stamina begets quicker bounce back.
The standard way favours weaker characters to bounce back to health easier... counter-intuitive (to me).

It was how the dice pool was being implemented that made it more complicated.
Say you had a 10 dice pool, you would have to decide how much to use, is it applicable to the same character
for the same wounds if the dice rolled low or does the remaining dice have to be used on new wounds then
there is how much or how fast do you regain the dice for the pool.
There were other aspects that I was considering during this experiment in my games but they were just
specific for certain games so they are nothing to be concerned about.
The more simpler way I finally went was just to treat lay on hands ability as a class ability similar to cure light
wounds and usable once a day every third level (once/day till 4th level then it went to twice a day and so on).

A DM could solve this problem by simply adding more healing potions to their game.
If you want your Cleric to stop being the guy that applies band-aids then let others carry some band-aids and
the cleric can use his power for higher level stuff.

The problem with relying on outside sources like healing potions is that in some adventures they will be hard
to find it (possibly).
The main idea is to keep the cleric as the healer while freeing his spells for other uses.

I am not up on spell balance by characters, but what is the difference between giving a "lay on hands" once a
day and just giving the cleric another spell slot.
If a cleric already has multiple spell slots and are stocking up on healing spells why wouldn't he still stock up
on heal spells even if he had an extra lay on hands?
I guess the question I am asking is, for the people who have used any sort of "lay on hands" did it actually
result in a cleric routinely using more non-healing spells?
edit: also, what kind of adventure where a PC can get injured and would allow magical laying on of hands to
heal wouldn't have a chance of finding a heal pot or rod of healing

The idea is to remove the healing spells, so, a cleric could not stock on healing spells and has to use other
spells, the healing power is to not remove their healing capabilities.
When I'm playing with my Paladin, the Cleric lowers the amount of healing spells as he can choose other spells
and help in manners that the paladin can't.

A party is going from point A to point B through an unknown forest.

The travel will be a couple of weeks; they get attacked by wild animals.
Should the forest have healing potions around to be found? should the animals have any on them?

The party has reached an island out of time, filled with dinosaurs and other animals but no humanoids,
perhaps some cavemen with 0 magic knowledge, again, should there be any potion around?
Plus, any setting where potions and magic items are scarce and really valuable.
If you use a set mechanic for a class or for the whole game then no extra mod is needed from the start, if you
rely on potions you'll have to manage the amount you give on each session

So how many spell slots does the new cleric lose?

At 10th level this new cleric will essentially have 10 cure light wound spells plus however many spell slots while
the traditional cleric only has 11 spell slots total.
A traditional 3rd level cleric only has 2 spell slots, but the new cleric will have 3 of the almost cure light would
spells plus the 2 spell slots?

In our games, clerics don't need to memorize healing spells at all, they fill their slots with everything else, but
can always burn an appropriate level slot to cast a Cure X Wounds spell instead.

The problem with allowing changing one spell for a healing one is that the cleric will not use some spells as to
not lose his healing ability.

I like the idea, in general, but rather than the dice pool allow the cleric to lay on hands a number of times per
day equal to their level, with each touch healing 1d6 hp
Or instead of a flat 1d6, their touch restores 1 HD (1d8 for fighters, 1d6 for clerics, 1d4 mages and thieves.
To give it a bit more power the clerics wisdom modifier could be added to the roll.

I just encourage the whole party, not just the cleric, to invest in other healing magic, like potions.
I also allow the option from one of the newer editions of the other game where a cleric can hot swap out any
spell they have prepared for a CLW spell in an emergency.
Or they can hire a healer (low level cleric NPC) to tag along, but I usually make them kind of pacifist and tend
to hang back and wait to heal people, instead of adding another offensive cleric to the party.

I wonder if increasing the die at certain levels would allow it to keep up with the needs of the characters
without making it overpowered at lower levels?
Levels 1-4 - Cleric gets 1d4 per level per day
Levels 5-9 - Cleric gets 1d6 per level per day
10-15 - 1d8
16-20 - 1d10
This could be enhanced by the Cleric's wisdom modifier, but I don't know if that would be too much.
Scaling like this keeps things modest at the lower end, but gives the cleric something to look forward to at
certain levels.
I think I would give this ability to the Priest class in the showcase by Kevin Smoot as it seems to fit a bit better
in my opinion.

One option is to just give a pool of CLW and another of CSW, its the closest to the original but requires a little
more number crunching.
Now, combining the amount of healing per day is easy, and if we go with 1 per 2 levels the values are roughly
the same
Combining the healing value is the complicated part, CLW is a constant value whether CSW increases with
level.
After a lot of numbering I think that 1d6+half level could be a good point.

https://stockingthedungeon.blogspot.com/2017/09/scaling-clerics-cure-spells.html
I'd add more cure X wounds spells instead.
The extra 1d6+1 should be worth another level of the spell when casting, especially when getting up above
5d6+5.
You'd have to cap out at 7d6+7, and leave cureall to cover diseases and poisons and such as well as hp damage.
Cure Wounds*
Level: 1
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Effect: Any one living creature
*This spell may also be reversed, inflicting the listed damage on a single creature after a successful attack roll
by the Cleric.

This spell will either heal damage or remove paralysis.

If used to heal, it will restore ld6+ 1 points of damage, however, it will not heal any damage if used to cure
paralysis.
The Cleric may cast it on himself if desired.
This spell will never increase a creature’s total hit points above the original amount.
As the Cleric becomes more powerful, the effectiveness of this spell increases; for every 3 experience levels he
gains beyond 2nd level(keep in mind the cleric must be 2nd level to cast this spell initially), the cleric may add
an additional 1d6+1 points of damage restored:

LEVEL/HP RESTORED
2/1d6+1
5/2d6+2
8/3d6+3
11/4d6+4
14/5d6+5
17/6d6+6
20/7d6+7
23/8d6+8
26/9d6+9
29/10d6+10
32/11d6+11
35/12d6+12