D&D 4E Simple 5e Healing that reconciles pre-4e and post-4e HP styles

[AbdulAlhazred]

According to KD it is historically typical that characters lose half their hit points every encounter.

I think you are not looking closely at this enough. This is an attempt to keep adventurers going without having to rely so much on clerical healing. Though it still can be important to have and viable to have healers because wounds can only be healed by clerical magic or an extended rest.

It is also a way of saying that some hit points lost are the result of fatigue and not just purely physical damage (this doesn't jive for some and that's ok). So there must be a way of getting those hit points back quickly by taking a short rest.

To me it makes sense to have a classes that can heal not so much healing classes. Clerics should not be pigeon-holed into being just healers.

The real question would be whether or not non-magical healing would even be worth bothering with. I get the feeling it wouldn't really. At best you're restoring a resource which will restore anyway. It might be useful to be able to do that mid-battle, but TBH that sort of non-magical healing is the most 'gamist' of all (really, try to do some 1st Aid in six seconds, really). I know it has been long accepted, but it is pretty hokey really.

So, the problem is pretty clear, you're going to HAVE to have magical healing to go on for long. Not perhaps to the degree that it was required in previous editions, but there's little chance your warlord is replacing a cleric, you'll need one, or at the very least a supply of potions.

As for the 'squishy' thing, I don't really see any reason why a wizard should be that much squishier than a fighter really. They are both adventurers, not desk pilots. The fighter may be somewhat tougher but they're all heroes and they'll all tough it out. Squishy magic user is trope that was born out of a failed attempt by AD&D (or maybe we should blame Holmes Basic) to balance magic users against non-casters. It really has little justification and in a game where the martial characters can do cool things is mostly unneeded. In fact I think the game would benefit from a bit easier bleed-over between the two concepts. A wizard should at least have the option to be tough enough to pick up a sword and a clever fighter could easily learn a bit of magic too for that matter.

 

[kiltedyaksman]

Needlessly complex to me. I prefer HP pre-4E.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't see honestly see the need to split out HP into different pools unless you are using death spiral mechanics. Even if you are using the bloodied status you only need to know that 1/2way point.

HP are abstract, damage is abstract. There is never a moment in D&D where you actually know which organ has a sword through it. Unlike rolemaster.

If you don't want non-magical healing to get people back on their feet in mid-combat then simply say "The warlords Inspiring Word cannot raise a characters HP total above 0 once they are down."

Late 3.5 did a lot of experimentation with alternate healing approaches from the dragon shamans "Regen up to 1/2" to the Crusaders "Healing through pugilation." I think there is a lot of value to be mined from this.

It's also kind of ignored that most of the tumult between the earlier editions and the 4e stuff lies in the fluff, not the mechanics.

For example if you replaced non-magical with "Herb Lore, your characters knowledge of healing herbs allows him to make potions and poultices in his down time. These can restore (5e appropriate number) of hit point when applied in combat or twice that when used in combination with the chiurgeon skill outside of combat. However they can only be used X times per day before the herbs can cause toxic overdoses." Then you would have seen far fewer gripes.

Likewise you can, depending on the world and genre, fluff a warriors in-combat healing as boons from the god of war, or battle meditations, or chakra manipulation. Only holy boons are suitable in the oldest of old school approaches to world building, but herb lore always passes the sniff test.

The difference with two totals is there is a built in 'rachet' effect. You can lose vitality all day and it is easily restored. Every time you lose wounds it is hard to heal them up again or at least takes some kind of limited resource.

The result is if the fighter gets the tar pounded out of him in an encounter and he's down to 1/10 of his normal hit points he can stop and rest afterwards and be at 60% but he'll have a harder time going above that, and the next fight will be consequently more dangerous.

I think this system does accomplish something useful and approaches the 4e system in terms of giving the players less reasons to stop and camp. It doesn't however remove the possibility that you got beat up in the first five minutes and retreat. Basically as soon as someone gets into wounds and there's no time pressure you kind of might as well pull out and rest. The virtue of HS was that a couple surges down really didn't mean too much right off. You were as likely tempted to just go on and figure you still had pretty much as good a shot in the next encounter one way or the other. It would catch up to you eventually, but not till the end of the day.

With this system you're really just as tempted to break off NOW as with straight hit points, and that encourages the concept that magical healing accessories are a needed item. It also makes the 4e model of encounter healing resources not work. I'm not sure what I think about that yet, but it was a model that worked pretty well.

Mostly what I like about the 4e HP/healing model is the decoupling of the immediate situation from the long-term situation. You can have plenty of healing POTENTIAL (HS) and yet still be deader than a doornail if you get hit hard enough. Likewise you can be slowly nickeled and dimed to death, which you can't so easily in this system (or it takes a special rule, etc).

 

[the Jester]

Perhaps I am missing something, but rather than seeming like it reconciles old-skool with 4e hit points and healing, this just seems like yetanother, new and slightly more complicated, version of hit points and healing.

 

[Kynn]

Ah, I see what you are saying. I would use the 4e model for death saves. Essentially, in 4e your failed death saves do not reset until after you take an extended rest (i.e. camp).

This is incorrect. Failed death saves in 4e reset after a short rest.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I really hope we don't see something like this in the base system just use the standard HP from the first three editions and tack on options for 4e fans. In other systems, for other styles of play i am fine with ore involved HP methods, D&D does much better, imo with simple HP (any time they ave tried to introduce a new method (whether it s 4e or tweaks in later d20 books, it just never realoy worked for me).

 

[Hassassin]

The OP system removes the only thing I like about 4e healing changes: healing is proportional to target hp. That could of course be changed but you'll have a lot of numbers for health: current/max wounds, current/max vitality, healing number, temp vitality. The main reason I believe hp have been so successful is simplicity, so this would be a step back.

I think it might work well for a science fiction themed RPG, where you have Shields and Health, and the former regenerates whenever you get a chance to wait for a few minutes. For D&D, I don't really want to turn hits into misses, so I don't think I would like it.

One question I have is how non-lethal damage would work in the system.

 

[Derren]

Just use the system Star Wars D20 used.

HP = Vitality = Luck and other stuff which can be healed by prep talks, etc.
Con = Wounds = Physical injuries which are harder to heal.

No Vitality left -> damage goes to wounds.
If you want you can also make some special damage which directly goes to wounds (like 1 wound for ever 10 ft. falling over the first 40ft or something like that)

 

[SensoryThought]

I've suggested something v similar in the past. You get my vote.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The main problem I see with this is that melee type PCs would dip into their wounds points all of the time, almost every encounter.

Spell casters who hang in the back would typically dip into vitality, but not too often into wounds.

Any system that is pro-one group of PCs and anti-another group of PCs is probably not going to fly.


I do think this is good outside the box thinking though.

it could be bettwer if wizards and fighters get an equal amount of wound points, but the fighter gets more vitality.

So a melee type character can take more beating before beeing hurt.