D&D 5E [+]Exploration Falls Short For Many Groups, Let’s Talk About It

[I'm A Banana]

Rituals aren’t free, however. They just use a different set of resources (rather than spell slots) that could still be drained over time. It’s 70 gp of reagents a casting for 12 hours, after all, but I can see how it would need to be adjusted to fit in a more exploration heavy campaign. One thing to do is limit how much reagents are easily available, maybe even pushing PC to break down lesser magic items into residuum. How did you party achieve consistent 40+ Arcana checks to get those flying steeds anyway?

One thing to note that 5e does that could be applied to a 4e system is not automatically recovering every HD on a long rest. That could add to long term challenge if you only recover your CON mod +1 or something during a long rest (I’d give Bards a feature that lets them boost that recovery with a song) or make a full recovery contingent on an Endurance check with penalty based on how rough you’re roughing it.

They really REALLY are not the same thing. Healing Surges were the back bone of pretty much everything healing in 4e. Healing Word? Needs a healing surge. Healing potion? Needs a healing surge. Surgeless healing was incredibly rare and usually limited to slow regeneration or high level Cleric Prayers. And Healing Surge meant that every instance of healing had roughly the same value for every class as it was ALWAYS 1/4 your max HP instead of leaving it to chance. Healing Word was good at every level because of that scaling and a potion that could grant you a healing surge was always useful. It also created a hard cap on how much healing could be used in a day for each characters, creating a universal daily clock. Yes, some class had more surges, but those were the classes that usually took more damage so it all balanced out pretty well in the end. Furthermore, the number of surges you had didn't grow with each level. You started with a class specific number +CON mod and it only increased when your CON mod would. Their value would improve with your max HP, but the number was stable and you started with a decent amount, this meant the number of fights you could endure in a day was fairly stable from level to level based on your role. I think it's stupid a Fighter and Wizard both only get 1 HD per level.

Healing Surges also had uses in rituals and could be drained by traps or environmental effects.

Healing Surges were intertwined with the system in ways Hit Dice can only dream of. The were literally a corner stone of it.

None of that really invalidates the idea of HD being your long-term resource and HP being your short-term resource.

Sure, there were a lot more things you could spend that resource on in 4e. And, spell slots are another long-term resource in 5e that didn't exist in quite the same way in 4e (they're analogous to daily powers, but the comparison isn't quite clean), so some supplemental healing might be included in that long-term resource, optionally.

But the basic idea of HD being a long-term resource and HP being considered a per-encounter resource holds true in 5e.

 

[Hussar]

None of that really invalidates the idea of HD being your long-term resource and HP being your short-term resource.

Sure, there were a lot more things you could spend that resource on in 4e. And, spell slots are another long-term resource in 5e that didn't exist in quite the same way in 4e (they're analogous to daily powers, but the comparison isn't quite clean), so some supplemental healing might be included in that long-term resource, optionally.

But the basic idea of HD being a long-term resource and HP being considered a per-encounter resource holds true in 5e.

Not really though since there are so many ways to recover HP that ignore HD. Even if you don't regain any HD, who cares? You simply cast Cure Wounds spells or Long Rest. HD don't actually do anything because you can't spend them except between encounters. It doesn'T matter if you enter an encounter in 5e with zero HD or full HD. And, frequently, you don't need to spend HD to regain HP. HD are basically spent to save spell slots.

 

[M_Natas]

Not really though since there are so many ways to recover HP that ignore HD. Even if you don't regain any HD, who cares? You simply cast Cure Wounds spells or Long Rest. HD don't actually do anything because you can't spend them except between encounters. It doesn'T matter if you enter an encounter in 5e with zero HD or full HD. And, frequently, you don't need to spend HD to regain HP. HD are basically spent to save spell slots.

The Idea that every kind of healing uses up HD is actually a good one. Because right now, HD are mostly ignored in my games, because the most limiting factor for most players are spellslots and not HP in my experience so they push for a long rest to get those back instead of short rests to regain HP.
That is my experience so far, that PCs use up spellslots way faster than they loose HP.

 

[Hussar]

The Idea that every kind of healing uses up HD is actually a good one. Because right now, HD are mostly ignored in my games, because the most limiting factor for most players are spellslots and not HP in my experience so they push for a long rest to get those back instead of short rests to regain HP.
That is my experience so far, that PCs use up spellslots way faster than they loose HP.

I would agree with that.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Not really though since there are so many ways to recover HP that ignore HD. Even if you don't regain any HD, who cares? You simply cast Cure Wounds spells or Long Rest. HD don't actually do anything because you can't spend them except between encounters. It doesn'T matter if you enter an encounter in 5e with zero HD or full HD. And, frequently, you don't need to spend HD to regain HP. HD are basically spent to save spell slots.

That's all true in the rules as they are currently written.

On the other hand, it's easy to imagine house rules that say certain environmental effects deal HD damage (for lack of a better term) instead of dealing hp damage or causing levels of exhaustion. With that one small change, HD immediately become relevant in long-term exploration scenarios.

 

[Undrave]

None of that really invalidates the idea of HD being your long-term resource and HP being your short-term resource.

Sure, there were a lot more things you could spend that resource on in 4e. And, spell slots are another long-term resource in 5e that didn't exist in quite the same way in 4e (they're analogous to daily powers, but the comparison isn't quite clean), so some supplemental healing might be included in that long-term resource, optionally.

But the basic idea of HD being a long-term resource and HP being considered a per-encounter resource holds true in 5e.

HD just aren't as well integrated as HS in the rest of the system. They feel like a tacked on ressources because free healing does most of the lifting. Even the Healer feat doesn't interact with them for some reason. And the scaling with 1 dice per level is inferior and less reliable.

Also, healing surge are much likely to 'over heal' you compared to the more granular HD, so I think it adds more subtle trade offs when spending them.

HD are basically spent to save spell slots.

the most limiting factor for most players are spellslots and not HP

Yup, spell slots are the only real pacing mechanic of 5e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

HD just aren't as well integrated as HS in the rest of the system. They feel like a tacked on ressources because free healing does most of the lifting. Even the Healer feat doesn't interact with them for some reason. And the scaling with 1 dice per level is inferior and less reliable.

Also, healing surge are much likely to 'over heal' you compared to the more granular HD, so I think it adds more subtle trade offs when spending them.





Yup, spell slots are the only real pacing mechanic of 5e.

Given the fact that WotC chose not to integrate the HD mechanic much (probably because they worried it would look too much like 4e), I'm surprised they bothered with it at all.

 

[Starfox]

What do you girls & guys think?

A large part of why we have rules is to enforce genre. If survival trekking is the genre you want to play in, by all means do. But check with your players if this is the genre THEY want to play in. Personally, I find the resource management part of D&D to be a bore and prefer to handwave supplies most of the time, so for me the original rules work well for me.

 

[Starfox]

Given the fact that WotC chose not to integrate the HD mechanic much (probably because they worried it would look too much like 4e), I'm surprised they bothered with it at all.

The HD mechanic and short rests allows spells to be used for things other than healing. Great for bards, clerics, and druids as long as their chosen role was not to be a healer.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The HD mechanic and short rests allows spells to be used for things other than healing. Great for bards, clerics, and druids as long as their chosen role was not to be a healer.

There are decades of D&D prior to the HD mechanic and short rests where folks used spells other than for healing. Even clerics! That's a player culture problem (if it's even a problem at all), not a rules problem.