D&D 5E On the healing options in the 5e DMG

[mouselim]

[MENTION=82779]MechaPilot[/MENTION]: Dude, Sailor Moon is somewhat right. There are simply too many inconsistencies in the D&D system regarding the hit point and healing mechanism behind it. Let's not take stand and slag it out and try rationalising it one way or another but take a step backwards and see this objectively.

In order to rationalise the high hit points of high level characters, they started to attribute it to ideas of fatigue, winded, luck, morale, etc. That's the sole reason right otherwise, how to account for a 100 hit point human warrior? Maybe instead of trying to patch this up more and more, it may be better to tear it down and say that the entirety of it is actually flawed.

Take secondary effects of a successful hit besides hit point loss. Poison, paralysis, disease, drain. If it's not a hit with flesh wound, how will poison or disease enter the body's system? How about paralysis? Level drain?

Do note that D&D started as table-top battles and in such case, a hit is a hit. It is regarded as a wound and normally, hit points are within the range of 1 (which takes out a character) or at most 10 (if I remembered correctly).

 

[Hriston]

Changing the length of time for a "rest" works well, from a balance perspective, as long as you also scale the number of encounters per day. Spells recovering once a week is not a problem if you are facing 6-8 encounters per week instead of per day.

I don't know if anyone pointed this out yet but the "gritty realism" option doesn't seem to say you can take a long rest once a week the same way the default rules say you can take a long rest once a day. I think what it says is that the long rest takes a week the way the default has it take 8 hours (4 if you're an elf). So unless you're also tweaking the rule that says you cannot engage in adventuring activities for more than an hour at a time and still get the benefit of a long rest, you aren't going to be facing too many encounters while you're regaining your hit dice.

By this I mean to say that I think "gritty realism" means that you regenerate hit dice in what we would call "down time," and I don't see how that necessitates any change in pacing. Once you deplete your hit dice you're due for some down time.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I really don't like the Hit Dice and number of encounters per day as a resource that you have to manage. I want to be able to run as many encounters as is necessary for our game.

 

[Pickles JG]

Twas ever thus. Hp and spells limit your encounters per day. Except 3e with healing wands in a party with no casters..

 

[mouselim]

I don't know if anyone pointed this out yet but the "gritty realism" option ...

The "gritty realism" option in the DMG felt somewhat slapped on as an afterthought. I mean, the designers can actually write up a whole lot more into this than merely tweaking the short and long rest duration.

Anyway, that's their call but I felt let down. I'm going to house-rule it and I already have a grittier version using their D&D miniature "bloodied" state. I'm also designing another one with more in-depth breakdown. I'll share it once I have shaped it more and at least play-test it once or twice.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Problem is, to get poison that causes fatigue etc needs to prick the skin which equates to meat.

The initial hit may be, but the poison itself need not be. That was the point I thought you were inferring. But what you later go on to call a flaw in all editions of D&D, I see as a feature. I agree completely with MechaPilot:

As I see it, the key thing is that HPs can be whatever the DM needs them to be. Go narrative-enabling mechanics!

The hit point system is kept vague enough to not tie any DM into a single explanation and allow them to envision it as they wish.

Question for those that believe 4E was the outlier for the hp=meat crowd. Could it be that 4E just gives too many hit points? I mean, your real hit points are max hp x # of healing surges. It seems like hp=meat gets harder to explain as hit points grow but the target stays human-sized or smaller. A dragon with a boatload of hp seems OK as meat, while a human with the same starts to stretch things. Especially when your hp in 4E grew as such while damage per hit did not. Just wondering if that's a factor in the feel of things.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Question for those that believe 4E was the outlier for the hp=meat crowd. Could it be that 4E just gives too many hit points?

I think it's more the case that 4E was erratic in its HP assignments. Sure, it was weird that you might have 100hp and 7 surges for a combined total of 275hp per day, but then you have some other guy - or possibly a giant - with only 1hp. And then most goblins have at least 20hp. I mean, if some minimum number of HP was just from meat, and you could add more HP from mojo, then you'd expect the minimum HP to scale along with size.

Although, now that I think about it, I could see how sheer number of HP might be an issue for some people. I might be able accept that a level 10 hero is a demi-god who can survive 5 arrows in the back, but what about a level 25 hero with 30 arrows in the back? or 100 arrows? 1000 arrows?

It makes sense that there should be a line somewhere, where people can accept some stuff but other stuff is just too far. Just like I can accept a one-month healing time, and one-week is pushing it, but one-day is absurd to me; so can I accept five arrows in the back, but ten is pushing it, and thirty seems absurd.

 

[MechaPilot]

[MENTION=82779]MechaPilot[/MENTION]: Dude, Sailor Moon is somewhat right. There are simply too many inconsistencies in the D&D system regarding the hit point and healing mechanism behind it. Let's not take stand and slag it out and try rationalising it one way or another but take a step backwards and see this objectively.

In order to rationalise the high hit points of high level characters, they started to attribute it to ideas of fatigue, winded, luck, morale, etc. That's the sole reason right otherwise, how to account for a 100 hit point human warrior? Maybe instead of trying to patch this up more and more, it may be better to tear it down and say that the entirety of it is actually flawed.

I'm not saying there aren't inconsistencies in the way that D&D handles things. I pointed some of those inconsistencies out with regard to AC improving items and missing (using the literal, narrative definition). I'm just saying that the inconsistencies are no greater in any one edition than they are in the others.

Take secondary effects of a successful hit besides hit point loss. Poison, paralysis, disease, drain. If it's not a hit with flesh wound, how will poison or disease enter the body's system? How about paralysis? Level drain?

Sure, some effects other than HP loss don't make as much sense when you remove meat from a certain clump of HPs by describing their loss as an evasion or deflection (other things like proning and disadvantage can still make perfect sense). However, the fact that there are exceptions to that kind of description otherwise making sense is meaningless. Virtually every abstraction in D&D has exceptions and inconsistencies when narrated in certain ways.


Also, I'm not a dude. I'm not offended; I'm just clarifying.

 

[MechaPilot]

. . . but then you have some other guy - or possibly a giant - with only 1hp.

That's sort of a cop out; no one was ever required to use minions, and minions are the only 1 HP creatures that I know of in 4e.

 

[D'karr]

That's sort of a cop out; no one was ever required to use minions, and minions are the only 1 HP creatures that I know of in 4e.

I agree.

Minions just like any other monster in the game are simply a game construct to achieve an effect. They are not real creatures. They exist for effect and for effect only. Just like the special features of a monster exist for effect only. The minion effect is to present multitudes of creatures that require little to no effort to keep track off by the DM. As you said nobody is required to use minions. However, not using them would require the DM to keep track of hit points when the creature is in effect a threat and disposable.

Minions work extremely well for their intended effect. They don't work well when not used for their intended purpose.