D&D 5E An alternative to eight hour healing

[cthulhu42]

After having played 5E for about three years there's many things I love, a few things that annoy me, and one thing that drives me crazy.

The eight hour healing thing.

Look, I know D&D has never been about realism. I've been playing in one form or another for over thirty years. I remember holing up in a dungeon room for days on end, healing a point a day. When 3E came along and suddenly you healed 1 point per level per day we thought that was hot stuff! Sure, it wasn't realistic to think you could heal from broken bones and sword wounds in a few days, but somehow it "felt" realistic enough and that was fine.

But now, with 5E, you take seriously life threatening wounds, take a nice eight hour rest, and boom, you're back to full! And it's killing me!

Don't get me wrong, I understand why they did it, and I love the fact that it keeps the game moving. There's a lot that's GOOD about the eight hour heal. The problem is, it is the one thing in the game that I just can't see happen without my eyes rolling back into my head. I can rationalize everything else in the game that defies logic and realism. I get that the PC's are Heroes. I get that hit points are not meant to represent just how much pure physical damage you can take. I get that... magic. All of that is fine. But I cannot get myself to suspend enough disbelief to make this eight hour heal work for me.

There's got to be a better way.

Before I get into my idea, I'd love if anyone else has had this issue and has resolved it, either through coming up with some kind of reasonable explanation, no matter how tenuous. Also, my idea is in it's infancy and not at all fleshed out. If you can poke holes in it, fine. If you can figure out ways players can abuse it, so much the better.

So please understand that I'm not out to take away the eight hour heal. I love the fact that it keeps the game moving. What I need is a rational or a mechanic that makes it work. So of course I'm looking into something magical.

My idea is a divine spell available to any divine caster, including druids and paladins, etc, that would essentially do the same thing as the eight hour heal, but ONLY for healing. All other mechanics that rely on short or long rests would remain the same. I'm also not looking to cut into those caster's slots, so I'm thinking it would be a cantrip. I might even allow for an extra cantrip at first level just to keep those casters from losing out on another one.

So it might look something like this...

DIVINE RECUPERATION (cleric, druid, paladin, etc)
Cantrip
Casting time: 8 hours
Range: 60' radius
Components: M (holy symbol, etc)
Duration: Instantaneous, concentration

You begin the spell and concentrate on it for eight hours. At the end of that time, all creatures of your choice gain all hit points back to their maximum. In addition, the caster receives the benefits of rest with regards to exhaustion.

That is a quick first draft, and I'm sure there are problems galore with both it, and my idea. But that's what you guys are for, yes? So please, any and all ideas are appreciated.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Shouldn't the casting time be 1 hour (since it restores 1/8 hp)?

Have you considered making it (also) a ritual? Then a party without a divine caster could still potentially use this via the Rural Caster feat. Finally, have you given thought to when the caster will sleep? If he has to cast this for 8 hours and then rest another 6 to 8 hours (to recover spells) the party will have a fairly short window for actually accomplishing stuff.

 

[cthulhu42]

Yes, you're correct about that 1/8 hp. I originally thought to make it a one hour spell to regain 1/8 hp, but it seemed clunky and easier to abuse, so I changed it to 8 hour casting time /full heal.

As for the clerics sleep, the spell provides for that. He or she would receive the benefits of rest with regard to things like exhaustion, etc.

 

[cthulhu42]

Original post edited to reflect a full hp gain after 8 hour casting time.

 

[iserith]

I think your issue with the standard rules for damage and healing begins with a misunderstanding of the same. See "Describing the Effects of Damage" on page 75 of the Basic Rules. There it tells you that the "broken bones and sword wounds" you mentioned above occur when a character reaches 0 hit points, and maybe not even then ("...it simply knocks you unconscious"). Otherwise, you're taking cuts and bruises between half your hit points and 0 hit points.

So it seems that if you just change the way you're describing injuries on the front end to bring it more in line with the expectation of the rules, you won't have to change the rules for healing on the back end.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the most basic level it seems you are just keeping the 8 hour long rest mechanic for healing exactly the same as it currently stands except that you are adding in that a caster of some type is "occupied" for 8 hours rather than doing something else during a long rest that they ordinarily might. So essentially it is a purely narrative thing rather than mechanical. Which can be perfectly fine. But with this idea, I'm going to see if I can list various things that *would* be different that running with just the baseline long rest:

- You HAVE to have a caster in the party to take a long rest. And narratively-speaking, I'd imagine that you probably would only give this cantrip to those spellcasting classes that have Cure Wounds on their spell list, which means you'd have to have a Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, or Ranger in the party in order to take a long rest to heal (and even then, Paladins and Rangers don't get cantrips and don't get spells until 2nd level so even they might not be included on this "must have" list of classes in the party). That might not possibly be an issue for your group because odds are good that if you know your game was going to be completely martial and arcane (and thus were without magical healing at all anyway), then you'd most likely not insert these rules since you'd never see any healing whatsoever.

- The caster cannot do anything else during the 8 hour long rest, so they can't keep watch, or do light reading, cooking, etc. Probably not a big deal, unless you run an exceedingly small party where being down a person on a watch schedule actually would matter. But my guess is that this problem is essentially negligible.

- The long rest can be interrupted more easily than normal. Usually per the rules there needs to be one hour's worth of "stuff" that occurs during the course of the long rest to "break" it. Even a random combat usually wouldn't do it because a combat only lasts a minute or so, and assuming the party survives, they just go right back into their long rest to complete it. However, with your method being a Concentration spell... a caster can have their concentration broken due to a random combat encounter during the long rest, at which point the spell fizzles and the long rest has to be completely started over (no picking up where you left off.) That MIGHT actually be something a DM could want, depending on how they feel about long rests in general. It could certainly change how nasty random combats during the night can be, and change party methodology as everyone would need to do their level best to not let the caster get hit and to take all the attacks themselves (to reduce the chance of concentration being broken.)

Is there anything else I'm missing here? What happens when one party member has an assigned job during an 8-hour rest? I think I covered the three main points-- you are required to have a caster in the party, that caster can't do another job during a long rest, and the Concentration means the long rest can be broken and you'd have to start over should the caster get damaged in an encounter happening during the rest. Other than that... I think things are exactly the same as the normal rules (except you now narratively give the long rest healing a magical reason for occurring.) So it seems doable if you wanted to run in this direction and were willing to accept those three possible issues.

 

[Sunseeker]

How about rewarding investment in Con? Take it back to 3rd's way of doing things, but give them a bonus of +X/level where X is their Con mod. So, a hearty first or 2nd level character could restore up to half their health in a night. It's not everything and it's not one or two at low levels, I mean, a Barbarian reduced to the brink, 1hp, could take almost 2 weeks of inaction to get their HP back under 3rd's rules at low levels. Instead you're meeting at a reasonable middlepoint of waiting weeks to heal, and waiting hours, with waiting 2-3 days tops on average.

 

[Xaelvaen]

I use three Homebrew rules to address this (when we're playing our typical gamestyle, which is gritty with the expectation of lots of folk dying).

1. Vigor/Health - I divide hit points into Vigor and Health. Vigor is more of stamina; you strain yourself to avoid the giant's club inflicting 30 some odd damage. Once Vigor is gone, your damage goes to Health. This represents actual wounds and is considerably more difficult to recover. (So Damage goes Vigor > Health).
2. Adjusting Healing - Fighter's second wind can only recover Vigor. Hit Dice only recover Vigor. Magical healing is maximized when -only- healing Vigor. It is still rolled to recover Health, even if that health healing would spill over into Vigor recovery. (So Healing goes Health > Vigor).
3. Hit Dice - Since spending Hit Dice only restores Vigor, it no longer requires a short rest (though appropriate class abilities do). Players can even use an action to catch their breath in combat should they choose, once per combat. No single use of spending hit dice can exceed half your maximum hit dice.
4. Rest / Recovery - A Long Rest only restores an amount of Health equal to your Constitution Modifier. It restores all of your Vigor, and Half of your Hit Dice. If a spellcaster is down any Health after this Long Rest, they have to roll a Meditation Check (Key Casting Stat + Proficiency). If they fail this check, they only get half their spell points back / slots back. (In High-Magic settings, I typically disregard the spellcaster roll).

I understand these are fairly complex, but we all played AD&D together and have just always loved a grittier, more realistic threat to our characters - it's just our thing. You won't hurt my feelings by finding them too complex, or even too gritty, but I thought I'd share for those interested in a similar play style.

 

[snickersnax]

I use modified slow natural healing (1hp/level + con bonus on a long rest, nothing on a short rest). Using these rules, the party occasionally has to take a second day of rest to recover full health when the are in uncivilized areas without access to healing temples. Also occasionally the party is not quite at full health at the beginning of an adventuring day; I find that this adds some extra excitement to encounters for that day, but is has never been a serious problem. Most commonly the party is at full health on the next day.

In short I've found nothing but benefits from eliminating HD healing completely:

1) It solves your immersion dissonance
2) It adds occasional roleplaying opportunities with healing temples (Priests can trade for healing for adventure hooks)
3) I know many are concerned that this is a spell slot tax on healing classes, but I find that usually healers have a few slots left at the end of the day they use these slots that they weren't going to use anyway to heal the party. There are already spells that do this very efficiently (prayer of healing, aura of vitality).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I've addressed this by a small modification to long rests and adding an additional rest level:

Short rest (must have access to water, cannot be in a hostile environment (too hot, cold, wet, etc.): unchanged

Long rest (access to water, food, fire, reasonable shelter from the elements, must be defensible/set watches): you do not heal any hitpoints, you may instead spend HD to restore hp. You still regain 1/2 of your HD at the end of the rest, after you spend to recover HD. Any checks to recover from ongoing effects that are checked after a long rest are made a disadvantage, modified as normal for care.

Extended rest: 24 hours in a SAFE location. Regain all hitpoints. Checks to recover from ongoing effects are made normally, modified by care.

Essentially, this keeps regaining hitpoints mostly unchanged, but does put extended pressure on long trips and excursions where you are away from safe locations. A safe location is generally one where you have access to fire, water, food, shelter, and don't feel the need to set a watch.