D&D 5E Long Rest is a Problem

[Cross Posted from WOTC boards]

Right now, a long rest results in, "At you regain all your hit points and half of your Hit Dice (round up)."

This, for my group, completely breaks the believability line, and takes us entirely out of the adventure. Lingering injuries are a reality. It's not just from hacking off a limb too. Even a torn ACL in your foot [Edit - Knights who say KNEE!] can take months to heal, impairing your ability to move (much less run). And we're talking about a game where PCs get clawed, eaten, char-broiled, acidified, chopped, sliced, spiked, electrified, and all manner of scarily-nasty injuries.

As the rules are currently, there is simply no way to emulate any injury other than a relatively minor scratch that is good to go after a single night of sleeping, without a fairly major house rule (major in its variations from the norm as represented by the rules).

We can debate how much of hit points is represented by actual physical wounds, and how much by experience, luck, endurance, blessing from a deity, chaos, whatever. But, I think we can all agree that SOME portion of hit points is usually represented by a physical wound of some sort, and much of the DM's description of the hit involves describing the physical nature of the hit. Generally speaking, the larger a percentage of your hit points that you lose in a single blow, DMs tend to describe a more dire physical injury from that blow.

Given that some portion of hit points is physical wounds, it makes no sense that resting for 8 hours would automatically heal all your wounds all the time. Some wounds would linger, baring the use of magical healing or much more rest than a single nights sleep.

I am not looking for absolute simulation. I get that the game is intended to have a level of cinematic heroism to it. I don't want that torn ASL to be an issue. But I do want SOME mechanic for lingering injuries that can only heal with magic, or rest that involves a time frame longer than a simple nights sleep.

If published adventures are written assuming the party is at max hitpoints every day, that will drastically change things for parties using a house rule to alter this. It also changes the culture of D&D to expect full hit points on a more frequent basis than almost any version of the game thus far. D&D players across the world have certain shared experiences tying them together, and the difference between "we always start the day at maximum hit points without any magic helping us get there" and "we introduced a common house rule to bring the game more in line with almost every other version of D&D such that not all wounds will always heal with a night of rest" will be a fairly notable blow to those shared experiences. Adventure design will flow differently from the two approaches, which can impact the entire gaming experience.

I think the baseline assumption has to include something less than fully healed from a single nights sleep. Otherwise it alters the game all the way to the most extreme you can make the game as far as cinematics go - a cultural shift in expectations for players, and in published adventure design. All house rules, therefore, would have to be in only one direction. House rules that only occur in one direction are a sure sign that something was set at the wrong point on the scale. It's the least flexibility one can choose to set a baseline at.

I would really prefer a bit more simulation in this rule. Something that sets the baseline between "no healing" and "full healing" from a night of sleep, so that house rules can vary it in both directions as they see fit, and it's easier to adjust published adventures.

One possible example would be rolling your hit dice for healing. Or maximizing the healing from a nights rest at half your hit points. Or any of a dozen possible systems that at least have the potential to leave a more lasting wound represented by not being at max hit points after a single rest.

I agree. I've been saying this for a year and a half (perhaps longer?). Healing, magical or natural, is issue 1. You should not seriously expect to build everything else and ignore healing.

With that said, they have a pretty definite direction in mind. And unless you brought a sizable percentage of those playtesting and answering polls with you; we aren't going to make much difference.

Healing is issue 1. Magic vs. Mundane is issue 2. It is that important.

You care about it because of how it informs published adventures. I care because it informs how combat itself works. Combat, as it is right now, assumes that both sides are basically at full at the beginning of any larger combat. That is not okay with me. I like to run a game where the PCs slowly depreciate in supplies and HP over the course of the adventure before meeting the BBEG or LBEG. It makes things more tense that way as they have to use cunning instead of brute force or magical prowess to defeat him. Haven't been able to replicate this in any real way in 5e. *shrugs* But with that said it seems like WotC isn't listening so I don't know what else to say.

At least for me, you are preaching to the choir. My reply may be simple but it is honest: Yeah,.. And..?

Quibble: Your ACL is in your knee, and never heals if it tears completely. (You can learn to walk without one, but the ligament ends never reconnect on their own once they snap.) You do have a cruciate ligament in your foot, but it's a crural cruciate ligament.

Also, ASL is American Sign Language.



That said, I agree. While I get that they don't want to make clerics be necessary in order to keep the party fit enough to adventure, some variety of lingering wound is a must.

I think the simplest option is that 8 hours of rest gets back half your hit dice (round up), but does not itself restore any HP. You can then spend your hit dice to heal, but you probably won't get up to full. And you won't have a reserve to keep healing if you keep adventuring.

Or maybe normally you heal nothing but do get all your hit dice back. Then every day you go without comfortable, safe rest (in an inn or magic domicile, not just lying around in a dungeon), you recover 1 fewer hit die.

Or, hell, keep HP as being 100% verve, dodging, and luck. Then when you reach 0 HP, roll to randomly determine what part of your body is injured. Your HP can return, but that injury lasts until you spend sufficient days getting bed rest, or receive the proper magical healing.

Different strokes, etc. WotC is in an impossible situation. Some people love fully healing at nights, and some will never accept it.

IMO, you shouldn't restrict healing at night. It's too easy for someone to get punished for heroically rescuing a friend (and taking hits while doing so), or the whole party halts because they're too afraid to adventure anymore (something that I've seen in numerous RPGs in addition to D&D). I don't think "healing half you hit points" or "getting back half your Hit Dice" will cut it either, as PCs will simply have to rest two nights.

But if you want "long-term injuries" there should be a mechanic to represent it.

Someone (I can't recall who) drew up long-term injuries such as "broken bone" in 4e, resolved with a disease-like track. You could heal up to full, and get all your healing surges, but your bone is still broken. You're still dragging that foot or not using that arm. That kind of injury could be created by a special trap (maybe something that's specifically designed to break your foot), a special maneuver, or what have you. I wouldn't expect that sort of injury to come up everyday. (The house rule didn't specify whether the Remove Affliction ritual could relieve the condition, but that ritual takes 30-60 minutes to cast, a considerable amount of mystic salves, and botching the skill check could injure the victim even as it fixes the bones.)

Alternatively, long rests might not be allowed if the PCs aren't reasonably comfortable. Perhaps resting in Silent Hill is just a really bad idea. I don't think you can get a "long rest" if you're suffering from nightmares. (That would also make the Nightmare spell useful, and not just against casters.)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:

Different strokes, etc. WotC is in an impossible situation. Some people love fully healing at nights, and some will never accept it.

IMO, you shouldn't restrict healing at night. It's too easy for someone to get punished for heroically rescuing a friend (and taking hits while doing so),

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You're already "punished" by loss of hit points. Would it really be heroic if this had no real consequences?

or the whole party halts because they're too afraid to adventure anymore (something that I've seen in numerous RPGs in addition to D&D).

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This will, with certainty, happen no matter what happens with this particular issue. You WILL run low on hit points and spells, eventually. This is not an issue that can be, or should be, addressed.

I don't think "healing half you hit points" or "getting back half your Hit Dice" will cut it either, as PCs will simply have to rest two nights.

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In prior editions of the game (just about all of them) this is not what usually happened. What usually happened is PCs sought magical healing, or went without a few hit points. The risk of a wandering monster is so great with two full nights and a day of resting, that it simply was not worth it.

But if you want "long-term injuries" there should be a mechanic to represent it.

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What would be your objection to regaining all your hit dice instead of all your hit points? Or some hit points and all your hit dice? Rather than an obscure system to represent a specific injury, all I am talking about is a general system to represent the fact that some injuries last longer than others (whatever those injuries might be).

I don't like the rule as default either. I do think it changes what kind of game is default and makes it difficult to have a gritty dangerous deadly game.

So for full disclosure I use wound conditions on top of hit point loss and I play you can only benefit from one healing per combat encounter (or per day if no combat).

That said, if healing is too quick and you don't want to screw around with subsystems, pay the long rest = 1 week; short rest = overnight. It doesn't change monster challenges, but will change pacing.

The alternate, cleric NPC or CLW wands/scrolls (ala 3e)

How does your group define hit points? Recall that D&D doesn't have an injury system and assumes hp are abstract ...

Your definition of hit points will point you toward a solution,

Olgar Shiverstone said:

How does your group define hit points? Recall that D&D doesn't have an injury system and assumes hp are abstract ...

Your definition of hit points will point you toward a solution,

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Yes I addressed the abstraction issue, and I do not think it solves for this topic.

I think all groups include some form of physical injury at least some of the time, when concerning hit point loss.

Therefore, I think 100% non-magical healing 100% of the time after an 8 hour rest makes no sense, for all conceptions of hit points. I cannot think of a commonly used definition of what hit points are, that does not include some amount of physical injury which is more serious than a mere scratch that heals after a night of rest. Can you?

For example, are you aware of groups that would consider a single blow which costs a 10th level fighter 99% of his hit points, where the DM would describe that blow in such minor terms as receiving an injury that could be described as certainly healed entirely up naturally from a single good night's sleep?

To be more specific, can you imagine describing, in any game, such a fighter taking a direct hit from a full blast of a red dragons fiery breath, losing all but 1 hit point, and then just bouncing back to full hit points the very next day naturally with absolute certainty every time, under any definition of hit points you know of? I can't. Every group I know of would want at least some chance that the fighter would not be 100% healed after just the nights sleep. They'd all assume magical healing would at least possibly be needed for such a quick recovery.