L&L 5/21 - Hit Points, Our Old Friend

[Savage Wombat]

Well this ought to be an interesting discussion.

Legends & Lore 5/21

 

[GMforPowergamers]

L&L hitpoints and HD

So what does everyone think?
HIT DICE as a healing surge/second wind, and wizards with d6's

I hope we keep "Bloodied" i liked that.

Also a short survey is up

 

[nnms]

This could be a deal breaker for me depending on how things go. Time to go read the article.

EDIT1:

If mundane bandages are all the fighter's companions have on hand, it will take a couple of days for the fighter to return to action.​

Yay! Big fan of this. Also a big fan of the HP of a 1st level fighter could have being low like 10. Not 25-30 at level 1 like 4E.

EDIT2:

Your character gains Hit Dice just as he or she did in editions before 4E, though some classes use different dice now. Fighters gain a d10 Hit Die per level, clerics and rogues gain d8s, and wizards gain d6s. When a character rests, Hit Dice allow that character to regain hit points. Your character is bandaging wounds, applying healing herbs, having some food and water, and otherwise spending time to recover. You can roll one or more of your character's Hit Dice to determine how many hit points mundane treatment allows him or her to recover.​

This sounds alright. It's not like having two or three times you HP total worth of healing surges you can spend at the end of every fight over the course of a day. I wonder how often the HD refresh. It looks like a day's rest will give them back to you. Extended rests to get HD back, short rests to use them. That works for me.

Given that non-magical healing will be a die roll equal to the die roll you rolled to determine your HP, you don't have the 4E issue of becoming instantly fine after a single night's rest. You could be in negative HP and roll poorly for a day or two and not be 100% when the world needs you. But you'll still recover fast enough that when supplemented with some magic, you can probably take a protracted beating and still be heroic.

So is it a deal breaker?

No. I like it and look forward to testing it out.

 

[Jacob Marley]

I think I actually like what he wrote here. Especially this:

First, it's worth noting why we want to reduce the party's reliance on healing magic. One of our goals for the next iteration is to add an unmatched level of flexibility. We want to make a game where one DM and one player can play through an adventure without undue need for house rules or changes to the core system. We'd prefer that if half the group misses a session, the DM can still run something without having to change the basic rules for the campaign.

Of course, I may be the only one.

 

[CM]

The article in question:
Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Hit Points, Our Old Friend)

I'm happy that Mike Mearls and I are on the same page as far as HP.

Edit: So... Hit Dice are the new healing surges? Here's the important part:

It's important to note that Hit Dice come into play to represent mundane healing. Potions and spells restore hit points and ignore Hit Dice. If a character relies on natural healing, it takes quite a while to recover.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I wonder if the "shorter rests" and "longer rests" he's referring to are days vs. weeks, or 5min rest vs. full night's sleep. It seems like the latter.

Anyway, it's an interesting way to do mundane healing. It seems similar to healing surges, but it really isn't. It also makes hit dice a more relevant thing, which I always like.

Edit: 10 min / 1 night.

https://twitter.com/#!/mikemearls/status/204433027462463489

 

[Savage Wombat]

So what we've got here seems to be that we're keeping healing surges, but not by name, and only as a limit on non-magical healing. Other baggage of healing surges (like energy drain attacks) may also no longer apply.

Is this the way to make everyone happy, I wonder?

I also liked the spider description enough to wonder if certain attacks, like poison, aren't more effective against a bloodied or downed opponent. That could just be reading too much into it.

 

[Leatherhead]

Thoughts!

I still think making healing a ritual would solve most of the problems with healing. You could even have a non-magical surgery "ritual".

I don't like the way the new HD mechanic is looking. It seems like it is a healing surge, but worse because of randomness.

I really want to see the condition track sneak it's way into 5e somehow, but that's not really related to hp.

Also, some form of ablative HP would be an interesting rule to test out. Characters can't go back up above bloodied until they rest, for example.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Oh, and would this work better or worse with rolling HP vs. fixed HP?

 

[keterys]

So what we've got here seems to be that we're keeping healing surges, but not by name, and only as a limit on non-magical healing. Other baggage of healing surges (like energy drain attacks) may also no longer apply.

I... didn't see any part of healing surges in there at all?

Let's say that 10th level dwarven fighter has 100 hp (30 hp was a glancing blow)... 10d10... plus 40-50 from somewhere (Con, theme, whatever). Sounds like he can naturally heal 10d10 per day.

If you're a 10th level elf fighter with 50 hp (you don't have that plus 40-50 the dwarf did)... you roll up to 10d10 sounds like.

Doesn't seem _that_ different from the 1-4 x level of 3e, just more rolling, and little easier. It certainly shies away from the 4e 1/4 of your hp, less rolling for healing system.