Ruin Explorer
Legend
5E's HD system is vestigial and unintegrated. The kindest and smartest thing 5.5/6E could do is just straight-up remove it and replace it with a better system.We already had a wound/vitality system in D&D.
It was in 4e. They called wounds "healing surges." It worked really well. But people decried it as "unrealistic" and weird, so it was abandoned.
Now we have hit dice, which look superficially like healing surges, but at this point people know quite well that hit dice cannot serve as a "wounds" system without heavy rewriting.
Something like Healing Surges would probably be the way to go - a suggestion I made in a previous thread was:
Ruin Explorer said:1) Each class has 6 healing surges that fully refresh on a long rest (there's little reason to vary this in the way 4E did, and 4E had too many). Definitely do not add CON bonus to this number.
2) Healing surges are worth a fixed value, let's say 1/4 of your max HP, minimum 5HP (so they're a bit more useful at low levels).
3) Once per combat you can activate Second Wind to use a Healing Surge as an Action (so it doesn't work whilst unconscious), which will cause you to regain 1/4 of your max HP. Fighters get an extra use per combat at level 2, and maybe at level 7 and 14 they get an extra Healing Surge per day.
4) If a healing spell/power that heals at least 1HP is cast/used on you, you can use a Healing Surge as a free action once per round. Obviously it still costs you.
5) Outside combat you can you can freely spend healing surges. They still heal you for 1/4 of your HP. If something added a bonus to HD healing, like Bards, add the bonus to EACH HS used.
The other advantage of a system like this is that it would be relatively easy to remove and replace if someone wanted an entirely different system.