[Houserule] Longer healing times

[CleverNickName]

I think the suggestion Mike Mearls made for playing a more OSR-style game, while not perfect, has at least some merit: Remove HD from play. After a long rest, a character regains hit points equal to his level + Con modifier.

This is what we do in our 3.5E game. It works okay. I'm really interested in this new Hit Dice Healing mechanic of 5E, though. I think it has a lot of potential, so long as they continue to keep its use well-grounded.

Using a healing kit to restore lost hit points? Cool.
Bards singing someone back to health? A bit of a stretch.

Rounded up, I suppose. That said, does this mean that a character who only lost 2 hit points in a battle gains just 1 hit point back for having spent 24 hours in bed resting up?

I suppose it would. But if I were playing the character, and if I were only injured for 2 damage, I would probably just use the healing kit after an 8-hour nap and be done with it.

And you always round down in D&D.

 

[Draloric]

I suppose it would. But if I were playing the character, and if I were only injured for 2 damage, I would probably just use the healing kit after an 8-hour nap and be done with it.

And you always round down in D&D.

Yeah, I know you round down. But unless you round up in this instance, you could never gain back that last hit point under the system you've described. Only lost one hit point? Regain .5 (and round down to 1). Rinse. Repeat.

What about changing what rests do? Remove short rests entirely. Long rests allow you to use one HD to regain 1dx + Con mod. in hit points back. HD are restored at a rate of one per long rest only. If the character is at full hit points, a single long rest restores all used HD.

Thoughts?

 

[CleverNickName]

Yeah, I know you round down. But unless you round up in this instance, you could never gain back that last hit point under the system you've described. Only lost one hit point? Regain .5 (and round down to 1). Rinse. Repeat.

Eh, I suppose. Or just put a caveat of (minimum 1 hit point) in there somewhere. Most players won't want to spend 24 hours in bed trying to recover a single hit point, though. I imagine this will only come up when the entire party has been mortally wounded.

What about changing what rests do? Remove short rests entirely. Long rests allow you to use one HD to regain 1dx + Con mod. in hit points back. HD are restored at a rate of one per long rest only. If the character is at full hit points, a single long rest restores all used HD.

Thoughts?

Interesting...looks feasible to me. It takes a bit longer to heal up than my idea, but that might not be a bad thing.

 

[El Mahdi]

I like this one:

After an 8 hour long rest you regain hit points equal to your current total.


To me this reflects the abstract nature of hit points. The less hit points you have the more hurt you are therefore the longer it takes you to heal.
So if you're down to half your hit points you're fatigued but a good rest will have you back on your feet. But if you're down to your last hit point you are really hurting. It's going to take you a while to feel like stomping critters again.

This is damn good! Simple and Elegant, and provides the desired effect. Consider this yoinked! You need to drop this to WotC in their feedback forums.

 

[Grazzt]

I like this one:

After an 8 hour long rest you regain hit points equal to your current total.


To me this reflects the abstract nature of hit points. The less hit points you have the more hurt you are therefore the longer it takes you to heal.
So if you're down to half your hit points you're fatigued but a good rest will have you back on your feet. But if you're down to your last hit point you are really hurting. It's going to take you a while to feel like stomping critters again.

Interesting idea. And not bad at all. I'd have to see it/try it in play, but it definitely sounds better (to me) than the current incarnation.

 

[VannATLC]

I ran, In 4e, that each time you were reduced to 0hp or less, you lost a surge from your maximum, and 1/8th HP from your maximum. Reduce your adjusted maximum below your natural bloodied level, and you lost a death save.

Healing naturally took a week per surge, and magically was a 24 hour long ritual costing 100gp. Higher level spells could also heal real wounds.

I will probably adopt something similar, using HitDice, for 5e.

I quite like the idea of doubling your current HP each long rest, too.

 

[Dalamar]

In my playtest, I used long rests that restored all lost Hit Dice, but no hit points. So far, so good. Generally speaking, the characters seem to suffer some damage that lasts a bit longer, but it's only a couple of points when they didn't have an extra HD before the long rest or if only one was hurt so they would've felt like they'd "waste" the healing kit use.

 

[Draloric]

Gaining your hit points back equal to current hit points per long rest still doesn't create an equal rate of hit point restoration among all classes in all instances. If a character who has 12 hp and a character who has, say, 65 hp are both down to 1hp (i.e., equally at Death's door), the one with 12 hp would be a fully healed after 4 days of rest, while the one with 65 hp wouldn't be fully healed until after 6 days of rest. Wizards still heal faster than fighters, therefore.

Maybe a set rate per class is in order: 1/4 the HD type (rounded down). Fighters heal 2 + Con mod./level per long rest; Wizards heal 1 + Con mod./level per long rest. No such thing as a short rest.

 

[CleverNickName]

I think we will end up houseruling it as follows. First, I would reword the second paragraph of the "Long Rest" entry (pg. 13) to read:

"At the end of the rest, you regain all of the Hit Dice you expended before the rest. Long rests do not restore lost hit points."

Then, if max healing is still an issue, I will create a new type of rest, called "Bed Rest," like this:

Bed Rest
"Bed rest" follows the same rules and requirements for Long Rest, except your character spends an entire 24-hour period confined to bed. At the end of the 24-hour period, you regain half of your lost hit points and all the Hit Dice you expended before the rest. If you or another character is tending your wounds with a healing kit, you recover all lost hit points and Hit Dice after a 24-hour bed rest."

Actually, this did not playtest well. In fact, everybody hated it (myself included). It felt WAY too slow, and it was just too contrived. Nobody likes being confined to bed; if it ever happens in the game, it should be a plot point...not a game mechanic.

So this weekend, we will change it to this and see how it drives:

Long Rest
At the end of a long rest, you regain all of the Hit Dice you expended before the rest, and you recover lost hit points equal to your Constitution score.

There. Nice and flat, no level-scaling, no modifiers to track. (It's basically a free cure serious wounds spell, first thing every morning.)

More than anything, I am trying to prevent long rests from becoming "reset buttons" for the party. That's not really my style. I feel that spending the night in a dungeon is something that should only be done as a last resort, and always with careful planning, and with lots of risk. Dungeons are not hotels, after all.

 

[Mattachine]

My solution would be to redefine what long and short rests are like. Others have suggested similar changes.

For instance, if short rests are raised to 30 min, or an hour, then they become harder for the adventuring party to take. This would mean fewer rests between encounters.

If a long rest became a full 24 hour period without strenuous activity (combat, spell casting, forced march, etc.), then adventuring parties would not generally benefit from a long rest while out exploring.