Herremann the Wise
First Post
I could easily imagine such a scenario at some tables. Perhaps though we are only seeing a small slice of the picture here? One of the most comical things in 3e was the heal skill standard action. To have one character stabilize another in combat after moving up to 30 feet in 6 seconds... We comically used to roleplay this as the "kick the intestines back in" standard action. It was ridiculous. 4e took this even further with the Warlord yelling at the cowardly bastard on the ground to get up off his unconscious arse and show some backbone... and it worked.new player: "I'm kinda hurt let's take a rest, I get back some of my hitpoints, right?"
dm: "well, what kind of rest are you taking, a 10-minute short rest, 1-hour short rest, or an 8-hour extended rest. you have 2 of the short rests per day, but only 1 of the 1-hour, that's the one that gives you back half your hp."
new player: "well what does the other short rest do?"
dm: "a 10-minute short rest will give you back your level in hitpoints"
new player: "so that's 1 hitpoint? or am i missing something?"
dm: "yeah, 1 hitpoint."
new player: "ummm... so why would i ever do that one? i want the 1-hour rest, how many of those do i get again? can i trade in 2 of my 10-minute rests for a 1-hour rest or something? what's the point of the 10-minute short rest if we never use it?"
better to have a nice, easy, simple rule for the basic game that actually adds something to the game
Perhaps though, a short rest of 10 minutes allows a mundane healer to help an injured character/party for 1d6 hit points within a somewhat more reasonable time frame? A priest with divine magic may be able to bless a character as a ritual within this time frame as well for 1d8, with the short rest being the trigger, as well as the natural limiter of how many times such things can be done for different characters. With this, that extra level's worth of hit points becomes the mathematical gravy rather than the main course of healing. That would seem a more reasonable scenario I suppose.
Its difficult to evaluate when we only have a small slice of the picture. At this point though, I see no reason not to trust the designers that they've got it sorted.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise