Healing Fully With Rest - Is It Really That Big of a Deal?

[Scribble]

A day is just too fast for me...i have a lot of trouble picturing my character seriously hurt, then going to sleep andbeing fine in the morning. This just doesn't work for me.

I have a lot of trouble picturing D&D characters being seriously injured period.



Hit Points are just terrible if you're trying to represent physical injury. Characters can still jump, run, attack, think, etc at full ability no matter how many HP they're missing. THAT to me doesn't seem like injury whatsoever.

Maybe I'm weird, but everyone I've ever seen that is injured does not perform at 100% At BEST they represent some sort of level of fear of being killed or some sort of cosmic death potential percentage.

All missing HPs do is make the player more cautious to do anything that might result in more HP loss... Which in my head translates to the character just thinking "Oh Crap This Shnizz just go real son! I'm not attacking that Goblin I could actually DIE yo!" and not doing anything because he's now scared of his own shadow.


If you want a physical injury model you need something similar to the 4e disease track. Something that includes penalties to other stuff you might do. Like -5 to jump checks or whatever. They could even include penatlies to max HPs or HPs regained through HD...

 

[Bedrockgames]

To be honest my reaction to folks who say they want realism but don't want real realism strikes me the same way as folks who drink diet coke. It's just funny in this weird ironic way.

Well, that isn't really what I said. I appreciate you may have a different sense of how realistic D&D should be (that is fine), but I think if the other side keeps dismissing these issues (just like if we dismiss many of the 4E player concerns for balance) WOTC will find itself splitting the base once again.

For me it is simply an issue of where my immersion in the game starts to break down. For some reason I can swallow a week or more of healing time for heavy HP loss. It is a game and I don't expect 100% genuine modeling of real world healing. But I do expect that healing wont be so unrealistically fast that I find myself only able to picture my hero as a cartoon. Everyone has a different threshold for believability. For me, one day healing is too fast.

Slowing healing down or even speeding it up is easy. You get X hp back per day, X spells back per day, you get X spells back per hour, X hp back per hour, per minute, per second. Going from A to B or B to A really isn't difficult unless the ideology of it is build heavily into the game. Since classically it hasn't been, I don't think making it slower or faster would make a difference.

Sure, we can always change the heal rates no matter what they set it at. The problem that arises is two-fold: if 1 day healing is default, then that is probably baked into a lot of other parts of the system in terms of assumptions about how many HP monsters should have and so forth. It is also just a heck of a lot easier to port in the HD mechanic than port it out. As a matter of convenience, make it an optional add on, with more traditional recovery times as default.

Exactly, you're the protagonist, you get up faster and don't go down as easily. 8 days or 8 hours doesn't make much of a difference, that's still much much much more lucky than normal folks. Normal folks are the guys who took an arrow to the knee and died.

Not everyone emulates fiction in their D&D. There is quite a spectrum in how PCs are viewed and not everyone treats them as so special they can heal a sucking chest wound in 8 hours. And even those who do prefer cinematic games, don't always believe in things like script immunity or handwaving physical damage. If you want this, again that is fine, but it should really be part of a cinematic package, not the core game assumption. to me 8 days versus 8 hours makes a huge difference in how the game plays, in how believable i find it, and in my overall enjoyment.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have a lot of trouble picturing D&D characters being seriously injured period.



Hit Points are just terrible if you're trying to represent physical injury. Characters can still jump, run, attack, think, etc at full ability no matter how many HP they're missing. THAT to me doesn't seem like injury whatsoever.

Maybe I'm weird, but everyone I've ever seen that is injured does not perform at 100% At BEST they represent some sort of level of fear of being killed or some sort of cosmic death potential percentage.

All missing HPs do is make the player more cautious to do anything that might result in more HP loss... Which in my head translates to the character just thinking "Oh Crap This Shnizz just go real son! I'm not attacking that Goblin I could actually DIE yo!" and not doing anything because he's now scared of his own shadow.


If you want a physical injury model you need something similar to the 4e disease track. Something that includes penalties to other stuff you might do. Like -5 to jump checks or whatever. They could even include penatlies to max HPs or HPs regained through HD...

Everyone approaches this different, and I can certainly see why some people want a wound system in D&D. as an option this would be great, but personally I prefer the HP for dungeons and dragons due to their simplicity. They can still roughly handle being injured (you don't get penalties or anything like that, but for me being down on HP and that taking time to recover is enough). In other games with less combat I do tend to prefer wound systems. I just find D&D isn't the best vehicle for such approaches. YMMV.

The point being, a lot of people are going to have issues with one day healing. It is a huge mistake for them to think this won't be an issue in winning back lapsed fans. Personally HD as presented isn't a dealbreaker. I don't like it, but can house rule it away (same with warlords and themes).

 

[Scribble]

Everyone approaches this different, and I can certainly see why some people want a wound system in D&D. as an option this would be great, but personally I prefer the HP for dungeons and dragons due to their simplicity. They can still roughly handle being injured (you don't get penalties or anything like that, but for me being down on HP and that taking time to recover is enough). In other games with less combat I do tend to prefer wound systems. I just find D&D isn't the best vehicle for such approaches. YMMV.

The point being, a lot of people are going to have issues with one day healing. It is a huge mistake for them to think this won't be an issue in winning back lapsed fans. Personally HD as presented isn't a dealbreaker. I don't like it, but can house rule it away (same with warlords and themes).

Yeah I don't personally use a wound system, and never have (only very rarely back in my 2e days of crazy critical hits...)

I also like HPs for their simplicity- I just have a hard time seeing how they can be seen as any sort of physical injury. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Trying to model them as some kind of physical injury breaks MY "verisimilitude" as they say.

I'm in favor of keeping the system they have, and just putting a "Drop this if it bugs you" line into the books for people who's brain can't handle it for whatever reason.

Also I'd be in favor of including a wound system for those that want that as well.

The system that they have adds a number of benefits for people who want to play with various styles, and is easily removed by people who aren't into that style so I don't see any reason to remove it from the base game.

 

[KesselZero]

Here's an outrageous question: what's so wrong about requiring a cleric? I'm kind of just playing devil's advocate here, but go with me.

The elephant in the room in all of this is that WotC's (and most players') baseline assumption is that nobody enjoys being a healer and we should go to any lengths to either let healers do tons of other stuff in addition (a la 4e) or make them unnecessary altogether. I think this is a bit dismissive of many players; see for example the popularity of the Pacifist Healer in 4e, which is so much a "healbot" that it isn't allowed to damage bloodied enemies. It also assumes a certain playstyle or set of priorities among players; I know people who enjoy playing healers. (I won't claim they equal the people who like killing things, but that's for society to unpack, not me.)

If we go too far in that direction, it means that there's basically no reason to ever have a healer. Why waste a character on healing when you could have another high-damage dealer who'll get all his HP back overnight anyway? While no player should be forced to play something they don't want to, having a cleric in your party should be a huge advantage over not having one. If you've got a companion with a direct line to the ear of his god, who can close up wounds with a mere touch, you should be way better off in the dungeon than a party who relies on dirty old bandages and some antibacterial moss they found. In addition, party makeup is part of the resource challenge of the game-- should we get a healer or up our damage output? Will one Cure Light Wounds be enough or do we need to stock up on potions because our cleric worships Moradin and is good at kicking butts instead of patching them up?

Okay, apologies for the rantiness of that. Like I said, I see both sides of the argument and am personally torn, but just wanted to put out there a facet of the argument that doesn't seem to be getting discussed. But it does bother me when WotC talks about eliminating the necessity of a healer from the party. It's true that when you have a cleric, you basically only need to rest two nights to heal fully, enough time for the cleric to burn all his heal spells then get them back. And thinking about that fact has made me more amenable to just saying "May as well save the extra day and give full HP back anyway." But on the other hand, having a healer should give you a big advantage in how fast you can get back to the dungeon. With instant overnight healing, having a healer only gives you a small advantage.

TL;DR: While a party should be able to survive without a healer, since nobody should be forced to play a class they don't enjoy, having a healer should give the party a big advantage. Instant overnight healing changes that to only a small advantage.

 

[FireLance]

TL;DR: While a party should be able to survive without a healer, since nobody should be forced to play a class they don't enjoy, having a healer should give the party a big advantage. Instant overnight healing changes that to only a small advantage.

I think it's a matter of degree: having a healer should be an advantage, but the advantage should be no bigger than having a member of any other class. The healing rate (and, as mentioned previously, the spell recovery rate) should be tweaked to achieve this.

 

[Daag]

I don't know that the current healing appeals to either side of the ball in terms of how much healing their should be. My biggest problem with healing in its current form is it penalizes the class that should be healing fastest. The fighter has always been screwed in terms of healing. The fighter arguably should be the class that recovers the fastest, but is often the one that takes the longest.

To me 8 hp of damage to a fighter doesn't mean the same thing as 8 hp of damage to a wizard. And as the fighter is on the front line, he will often take weeks to recover where the wizard will take a day or two. From reading all the playtest reports, it seems like the 15 minute work day is back, and the current healing only promotes that. The caster will get their spells back, but so to does the fighter get his hp back. So in the current iteration the fighter gets to recover all of his resources just like the casters.

For me, what 4e did in terms of healing, was get rid of the 15 minute workday. It was quite common for my groups to get through 5-7 encounters before needing a rest. I really enjoyed this aspect of 4e, but I understand some people might not. It also made the healing a percentage of a characters hp, which meant the fighter types would healing more with less resources.

On D&D requiring you to have a cleric as a healer, as the only option is a terrible idea. I don't mind that d&d assumes that you will have a healer in the group, but why does cleric need to be the only class that does it? Not everyone or every group likes playing a religion focused caster, and it should not be required.

Lasting injuries should probably be an add on for those who want them, because I'm not sure if it would be accepted as default. Perhaps you can acquire lasting injuries, and the only way to heal naturally when one is acquired is by receiving some sort of magical healing.

In any case, I think most agree that healing isn't where it should be. I think the best bet is to provide many different ways of dealing with healing and hp, and let groups decide on their own which to you. The tricky part is choosing the default assumptions. Hopefully in later playtests they'll provide multiple methods and lets group choose which they want so they aren't immediately turned off by the playtest.

 

[Walking Dad]

But on the other hand, having a healer should give you a big advantage in how fast you can get back to the dungeon. With instant overnight healing, having a healer only gives you a small advantage.

Would it? If you can go back to town, there is a pretty good chance that clerics/healers are available of NPCs. But you would have to pay them, making it a monetary advantage at best.

I also fail any other type of class contributes how fast you can get back into the dungeon. Why should the cleric?

 

[herrozerro]

Personally, "serious" wounds shouldn't be a part of hp, put it with the disease track or something. Then you can have "broken limb" or "festering wound" and have it have its own effects.

Broken limb, serious injury.
(Dcs for improve, maintain or worsen)
If the afflicted limb is used before the next extended rest the heal check takes a -5 penalty.
Stage 0: the target is cured
Stage 1: leg, you are slowed and take -2 to athletics and acrobatics checks. Arm, you cannot lift more than 5lbs with the damaged arm and take a -2 to dex based checks.
Stage 2: leg, same as above but you take a -5, arm, same as above but you take a -5
Stage 3: leg, you are immobilized. Arm, you cannot use this arm.
Stage 3 can only be healed by the cure disease ritual (or equivelant)

 

[Walking Dad]

www.enworld.org/forum/news/324047-d...ons-answered-mike-mearls-jeremy-crawford.html

ExtendedRest: Is there a plan to deal with long term wounds? Right now having all health and everything reset after a long rest seems a little too easy. Especially with as little healing options as a Next party have access to on their own right now.

Jeremy Crawford: We're not likely to make long-term wounds a part of the core, but we have discussed providing a wound option for DMs to incorporate into their campaigns.

Mearls: We erred on the side of letting long rests heal everything, primarily because we were fairly split on how to treat it. Personally, I'd like to see a rule where you get back a certain amount of hit dice each extended rest. It might be based on Con and/or class. I have to admit that the current rule picks at my sense of realism.

To follow-up what Jeremy said, I've toyed with a wound system where you get some effect each time you drop below 0 hp, to represent a bad injury, For instance, broken bones, strained joints, concussions, etc. But that would be a rules module.

Jeremy Crawford: This is another example (the long rest) of us leading with the powerful version of something with the expectation that we might end up dialing it back, based on playtest feedback.