D&D 3E/3.5 porting 4E healing surge/second wind into 3.5

[atom crash]

Edit: Updated title thread to reflect my change in thought, still tweaking the system in post #5.

In my game, the party has no cleric, so healing resources are spread thin. They have a wand of cure light and a healing belt, the paladin has a lesser strand of prayer beads, and they drink curative potions like they're soda, but still after a grisly encounter they're ready to beat a quick retreat to the nearest temple to get healed. I'm currently running them through the Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures "Shadows In Freeport," so they've been facing a string of tough encounters.

I don't want the game to screech to a halt under the 9:05 syndrome, so I've devised a mechanic for getting back a few hit points after a combat encounter. I call it the "second wind." It is supposed to represent the heroes bandaging their wounds, catching their breath and just toughing it out. After the battle is over, they may discover that while a wound was bleeding badly a second ago, it's not really that deep or life-threatening after all. That blow to the sword-arm might have popped the arm out of joint but it didn't break any bones. After the arm is put back into place, it feels as good as new.

The idea here is to allow the heroes to replenish a few hit points and continue the adventure rather than consider retreating to a temple for some healing after every encounter. It's not meant to be a replacement for healing magic, but it is designed to help them recover a few hit points without having to expend all their precious limited healing resources.

So here is how I've changed natural healing for my game:

Healing

After taking damage, you can recover hit points through natural healing or through magical healing. In any case, you can’t regain hit points past your full normal hit point total.

Natural Healing
With a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level plus Con modifier plus the maximum of your Hit Die. For multi-classed characters, use the greatest Hit Die. Any significant interruption during your rest prevents you from healing that night.

If you undergo complete bed rest for an entire day and night, you recover twice this amount in hit points.

Healing Ability Damage
Ability damage is temporary, just as hit point damage is. Ability damage returns at the rate of 1 point per night of rest (8 hours) for each affected ability score. Complete bed rest restores 2 points per day (24 hours) for each affected ability score.

Additional ability damage can be bought out of your natural healing total by exchanging 5 hit points to recover 1 point of ability damage.

Second Wind
After a battle ends, you recover 1 hit point per character level plus Con modifier, providing you spend a minimum of 15 minutes resting. If you do not spend a minimum of 15 minutes resting after a combat encounter, you may still attempt to catch a “second wind” by succeeding at a Fort Save against DC 20.

Furthermore, after any subsequent combat encounter you may attempt to catch an additional “second wind,” but the Fort Save DC increases by 5 for each successive attempt. The DC increases by an additional +5 without a minimum of 15 minutes rest.

A full hour of rest, doing no more than light activity, resets the character’s ability to catch his or her “second wind.” After four attempts to catch a "second wind," whether successful or not, you need at least an hour of rest before you can try again.

Other uses of Second Wind
The amount of hit points recovered during your “second wind” may also be used in order to heal ability damage, recover used spell slots, or regain a daily use of a class ability or feat, using the following conversions:

1 spell slot = spell level x 2 hit points (0-level spells cost 1 point each)
1 point ability damage = 5 hit points
1 use of class ability or feat = entire pool of “second wind” recovery

Feats that affect hit points and healing
If you have taken the feats Toughness, Improved Toughness (Complete Warrior) or Faster Healing (Complete Warrior), you recover an additional hit point during your "second wind."

Meta-discussion
I had toyed with the idea that the second wind wouldn't actually heal damage but instead would cause a certain number of points of lethal damage to convert to non-lethal damage after a battle, then normal rest could make the nonlethal damage go away.

But in the end I decided I didn't want to add that much more bookkeeping to the game, so I opted to have the second wind simply heal a small amount of damage outright. That allows the heroes to continue straight to the next encounter and have a series of tough battles in a row before needing to rest and recover.

I also decided that it would be possible (but fairly difficult) to have several second winds before stopping to rest. The high DC on the Fort Save favors the fighter types more than other characters, but then again they are the ones more likely to need healing between encounters. But I also didn't want the second wind attempts to continue indefinitely, so I capped it at 4 attempts (the first one free, the others at Fort Save DC of at least 20, 25 and 30) before the party just needs to rest.

Also, since I made the second wind heal as many hit points as a full night's sleep heals by the book, I decided to balance this by powering up natural healing a bit.

Another use of the second wind is to replenish other limited-use natural resources the character may have. It looks like 4E will be balanced primarily on abilities that are replenished each encounter rather than each day. While I'm not ready yet to take that plunge, I do know how bad it can suck trying to decide when to spend those valuable limited resources rather than hoarding them for another fight.

With the second wind rule, a charcter can regain some of those spent spell slots or recoup one ability or feat to use in the next battle. I had to make the cost suitably high, since currently the rules don't allow anything like it without a full night's sleep. But at least there should always be enough recovered hit points available for a spellcaster to regain his or her highest-level spell slot or any character to get back a precious class ability or feat, even if that's all that is recovered.

I just implemented the second wind rule last night, and it seemed to work well. We ended the previous session after a tough battle, so I allowed them to get a second wind right away. Then they went through three more encounters, trying to catch another second wind after the first, but the fighter and the paladin were the only ones to make the DC 20 Fort save.

If all this helps us in reaching the goal of having the party spend more time adventuring and less time looking for someone to heal their wounds, then it's a success in my book.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

I've had some good success in the following:

All damage is non-lethal. When hit points are exhausted additional damage causes temporary CON loss rather than negative hit points. Standard rules for healing non-lethal damage and ability score damage. This allows a party to rest for a while and catch its breath without adding any new rules.

Also, I have sorcerers, clerics, and druids power their spells through non-lethal damage. Spell level + caster level = non-lethal damage incurred. In order to cast more spells, they must rest throughout the day.

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

I very much like this idea, though I would add to it that characters who fail to get their second wind after combat are Fatigued until they rest for an hour (and reset their second wind threshold).

 

[atom crash]

Thanks for the feedback.

Planeswalker, making the heroes fatigued if they fail to get their second wind after combat would definitely make them think twice about attempting it repeatedly. But having fatigued characters who need to rest would also defeat the point of the second wind, which is to speed up the dungeon crawls in my game. YMMV.

Another alternative would be to simply limit the characters to one second wind before they must rest for an hour to reset their threshold.

 

[atom crash]

I've been looking at 4E previews of healing surges and second winds and thinking of how to implement a similar version into my 3.5E game. The mechanic in the original post tends to allow the PCs to heal a good portion of their HP after a battle once per day (with the ability to try again, but at a steep DC that only the fighter will have a reasonable chance to make). But now I'm thinking what I'd like to do is allow the PCs to recover a smaller amount of HPs after a battle, but more often per day.

I first began playing with a system for determining number of healing surges per day based on level (divided by 4 or 5) plus Con modifier, but I realized I didn't want to make Con affect both number of healing surges per day and the amount of HP recovered. That makes Con too powerful, and it's already a very valuable stat as it stands.

So here's what I'm thinking now: number of healing surges per day is determined by type of hit die and it scales by level. Amount of HP recovered by a healing surge is determined by Hit Die and Con modifier. Amount of HP recovered after full rest remains determined by level, Hit Die and Con modifier, as I've posted above.

# of healing surges per day:
1st-7th level: 1 + Hit Die/2 (d4=2, d6=3, d8=4, d10=5, d12=6)
8th-14th level: 2 + Hit Die/2
15th-20th level: 3 + Hit Die/2

Amount of HP recovered = Hit Die + Con Mod

(Multiclassed characters will use the Hit Die of their primary class.)

This system will favor fighters more than wizards without penalizing low Con characters.

Example: A dwarven fighter8 with an 18 Con will be able to perform 7 healing surges per day, recovering 14 HP each time. A human rogue5/sorceror3 with a 10 Con will be able to perform 5 healing surges per day, recovering 6 HP each time.

Using a healing surge or second wind:
Once per encounter, a character who has been reduced to less than half max HP can use a standard action to use a second wind (this would use up 1 of the character's available healing surges).

When the encounter is over, a character can take a short rest (5 minutes) then use one healing surge to recover lost HP. Once all healing surges have been used for the day, the character will need to take a full rest (8 hours) in order to replenish his healing surges.

I still have some concerns about these modifications. I would like for the amount of HP recovered to scale by level. As it stands, a 1st level character would regain his full hit points with a second wind. Maybe I need to change the amount of HP recovered dependent on level and Con modifier. In the examples above, this would give the dwarven fighter8 6 healing surges per day for 12 HP each time, and the human rogue5/sorceror3 5 healing surges per day for 8 HP each time. That dwarf at 1st level would get 5 healing surges for 5 HP each time, but the human rogue at 1st level would get 4 healing surges but for only 1 HP each time. Hmmm. Maybe amount of HP recovered should be level + Con mod + Hit Die/2.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I've had some good success in the following:

All damage is non-lethal. When hit points are exhausted additional damage causes temporary CON loss rather than negative hit points. Standard rules for healing non-lethal damage and ability score damage. This allows a party to rest for a while and catch its breath without adding any new rules.

I've been doing the same thing in my game. Everstone changes it a bit though, in that instead of applying damage to CON (once you run out of HP), it applies it to STR.

I do rule it that in terms of magical healing, Ability damage is healed first, and then regular HP damage. Normal healing on the other hand allows for HP to be regained back and ability damage too, but ability damage takes longer.

It's worked pretty well, and the group is certainly willing to push on and take chances.

Also, I have sorcerers, clerics, and druids power their spells through non-lethal damage. Spell level + caster level = non-lethal damage incurred. In order to cast more spells, they must rest throughout the day.

So... a 10th level caster casting Magic Missle takes 11 points of damage, and a 2nd level one takes 3, yes? Interesting. I'd considered doing something like that as an alternative form of magic. Have you used this rule very much? Any unexpected funkiness that's cropped up?

 

[Naszir]

One of the things I have been toying with is:

Wounds

Only when a character takes damage equal to 1/3 of his total hit points in one hit is it considered a wound. All other damage is considered fatigue, brusies, luck and minor cuts (non-lethal damage). Once an encounter is over and a character has had a moment to rest they regain all non-lethal damage that they took.

All wounds heal at the normal healing rate in 3.5 or must be cured magically.

 

[joela]

Spell level + caster level = non-lethal damage incurred

So... a 10th level caster casting Magic Missle takes 11 points of damage, and a 2nd level one takes 3, yes? Interesting. I'd considered doing something like that as an alternative form of magic. Have you used this rule very much? Any unexpected funkiness that's cropped up?

I'd like to know how that works as well. The assumption had for the higher nonlethal damage cost for the same spell is payment for the increasing effect based on the caster's level (i.e., more magic missiles).

 

[Li Shenron]

Interesting house rules...

I wanted some days ago to prompt a discussion about how to port 4e "recharging times" into 3e, and here is a good option! I will post a separate thread with what I had in mind myself, so that I don't pollute the discussion here.

 

[atom crash]

The other night I made several spreadsheets, using various formulas I was tinkering with, to get something close to what I wanted for second wind/healing surge, and it occurred to me that I was making things way too complicated. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

I wanted to give each character a number of healing surges per day falling somewhere between 3 and 9, favoring the front-line fighters. So why not use the formula 2 + Con modifier. Much simpler, and it gives me the expected values.

I want the healing surge/second wind to recover a small amount of HP that scales with level. So why not make it 20% of max HP (round up to the next whole number). 4E's 25% healing surge just seems too much for me to handle at the moment; perhaps after I see this system in play I may feel differently.

So, now I have the number ranges I want without having to resort to several unwieldy complicated formulas. Cool.