House rule for overnight healing: opinions wanted

[dd.stevenson]

I've been rolling with the rules as they're written for now, just to establish a baseline for what this edition is meant to feel like.

Personally, for our game style, I've found that full hp overnight isn't really problematic--it's the recovery of HD that changes things. (Reason: if they have HD, of course they'll just spend them in the morning anyway to recover their full HP.) When the time comes to house rule, I will probably vary how many HD are refreshed based on the conditions of the rest.

I've also toyed with the idea of just granting a big pool of HD every time they rest in town, and allowing each PC to spend the pool of HD over the course of their foray into the wilderness as quickly or as slowly as they like. (Obviously that would present some problems for urban adventures--I haven't really thought that far into it yet.)

 

[Thank Dog]

If you can use whatever HD you have left before resting and get all your HD back and can use as many as you want after resting... I'm not seeing the functional difference between your method and the default method other than to obfuscate and complicate.

You would actually be worse off in the standard system as opposed to your system. Either way, you heal up to full in one night, except with your system you'll end up with more HD left. This doesn't solve the inherent problem you feel there is with the standard system of healing to full overnight.

 

[GSHamster]

The part about getting all your HD back seems odd to me. Consider the case where a character burns all her HD but comes out of the day relatively unscathed. The next day she has twice as many HD to use during the day than she would by RAW, which changes how the day plays out.

Personally, I'd start with a simpler rule like: A character gains half (rounded up) her HP after a long rest. See if that is good enough.

That way, if you're badly hurt it will take a bit more to get back to full, but you aren't mucking around with the HD economy. It also mitigates a streak of bad luck when rolling HD.

 

[tsadkiel]

I'm considering a house rule that says that you don't heal automatically and completely during a long rest. In fact, you don't heal at all. Instead, you get all of your Hit Dice back overnight (instead of half of them, as is normal.)

This exact rule was an option in one of the playtest packets, and I will be stunned if it isn't listed as an option in the DMG. Should be fine.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

One advantage of only regaining hit dice on a long rest is that hit dice become the sole mechanic for representing natural healing, and I like that.

I also like to imagine hit point loss as including minor injuries. I don't need fully realistic healing rules, but having recovery from hit point loss take a few days is a relatively forgiving nod toward realism.

All in all, I won't be making any such house rules without more game experience, and not until I have digested the DMG.

 

[Henrix]

Getting all hp back in a single night's rest is not about realism to me. Not at all, actually. The healing speed if it were really wounds would still be ridiculously fast.


What matters to me is the interaction with the world, the immersion to use a maligned word.

If the PCs are independent satellites, needing nothing outside themselves, the world only becomes a backdrop. A scene essentially without meaning - like being out of the dungeon in the first Diablo game.

With a slower rate they need to regroup, go out of the dungeon and take a pause. Get to know others.
In particular if it is better for them to go to an inn. Or at least find a spot where there are fewer random encounters*.

Suddenly the outside world becomes much more important.

And, again, if luxuries becomes important, the cost of living becomes meaningful.


And that is a good reason for enforced downtime - like training - is very good.
To train you need a good place, and preferably others, trainers, apprentices & laboratories, sparring grounds and squires, libraries & places of prayer.
But how to implement that is another thread.


* And that is, in my eyes, what random encounters are for. A pacing mechanism.
They should never give XP or much treasure, unless you make an adventure out of them.

 

[Thank Dog]

How about this:

• Whenever the PC reaches 0 hit points, they gain one level of Exhaustion.
  
• Eliminate healing on a long rest.
  
• Can only gain 1/3 of your total HD back from a long rest and can only spend 1/3 of your total HD in-between long rests. This does not round up. Therefore at 1st level it takes three long rests to get back 1 HD, and a 1st-level PC can only spend 1 HD per three long rests.

 

[Sadras]

The idea is that if you get a debility, it will stick around for at least a day, and magical healing just keeps it from lingering long-term.

What do you think?

We ran something quite similar during the playtest run, with HD being affected by creature size and using the fatigue track for wound levels. I'm curious though, have you used your proposal - if yes, how does it play?

I'm thinking about it incorporating it for our group, first have to pitch them the idea

 

[Warbringer]

Welcome to my homebrew

I've being doing something similar for a few years (3e with 4e theft) and we have a "Recovery Pool". This a number of d8s equal to the heroes [hit points/4.5], rounded down, plus Con bonus. So a hero with 31 hit points and Con+2 has 8d8 hit dice in her healing pool.

These refresh on long rest as you suggest, but if you sleep in an advantageous situation, such as fine inn or with healers present (skill check), you may have bonus dice added that can only be used immediately.

This is on average a slightly bigger pool than 5e.

Also, I've kept the bloody condition and if you take a short rest before coming bloodied you regain all your ht points without spending any dice ... its more of a stamina recovery thing

 

[Juriel]

If you slow down 'natural' healing, you just encourage healbots...

That said, I do think we should see more use of the Fatigued condition.