D&D 5E We have a Legends and Lore this week

[Blackwarder]

I never said it was "fun" or "easy," I only said that it can be done, not just by fantasy heroes, but by people in real life.

[Edit] Besides, the rules never mention anything about being stalked or in hostile territory. It applies whether you're in danger or not. All you have to be is out in the wilderness, and no full HP for you. So yes, it does apply to "fun" and "easy" camping trips just as much as it does to soldiers in trenches.

Neaderthals and prehistoric men aren't people in real life.
And as I pointed in a previous post, I believe that they should change the wording from outdoors to wilderness where wilderness mean beyond civilization. I agree that it doesn't make sense that sleeping in an inn or in the nearby glade will change your rate of healing.

Warder

 

[GX.Sigma]

That wasn't my point, I don't think. The point is that anyone, elven or not, who has the luxury of uninterrupted rest, qualifies towards healing towards maximum hit points. Anyone who isn't getting uninterrupted rest, because they're on watch or because there are enemy encounters or whatever, cannot heal to max.

Elves need 4 hours of meditation, everyone else needs 8 hours of sleep. If you have two Elves, each can get an uninterrupted rest while the other is on watch.

 

[urLordy]

This rule applies whether you're in danger or not. All you have to be is out in the wilderness, and no full HP for you. So yes, it does apply to "fun" and "easy" camping trips just as much as it does to soldiers in trenches.

In all fairness, we haven't seen the actual rule yet. Mearls may have just been summarizing the usual effect rather than the rule itself. At least I sure hope so! Having predetermined 'Safe Rest Zones' would be more metagamey than I'd like -- if it meant that a fun and easy camping trip without any encounters could not be yield uninterrupted rest just because it was outside the city gates and no assuring metaphorical 'Safe Rest Zone' neon sign.

 

[urLordy]

Elves need 4 hours of meditation, everyone else needs 8 hours of sleep. If you have two Elves, each can get an uninterrupted rest while the other is on watch.

Mearls's article mentioned a few days of resting for natural healing to maximum hit points. Also, even if Elf One is on watch, Elf Two doesn't get uninterrupted rest if there's an encounter or whatnot.

 

[GX.Sigma]

In all fairness, we haven't seen the actual rule yet. Mearls may have just been summarizing the usual effect rather than the rule itself. At least I sure hope so! Having predetermined 'Safe Rest Zones' would be more metagamey than I'd like -- if it meant that a fun and easy camping trip without any encounters could not be yield uninterrupted rest just because it was outside the city gates and no assuring metaphorical 'Safe Rest Zone' neon sign.

I dunno, it seems like that is kinda how it would work in real life ("Finally an oasis! Let's rest here for a few days before going on!") and in fantasy fiction ("Rivendell! Here we can regain our courage before pressing on!")

 

[urLordy]

I dunno, it seems like that is kinda how it would work in real life ("Finally an oasis! Let's rest here for a few days before going on!") and in fantasy fiction ("Rivendell! Here we can regain our courage before pressing on!")

"It's an oasis! Let's rest here for a few days!"
"Ya, we'll be safe, guaranteed!"
[6 hrs later] "OMG, is that a Blue Dragon in the sky? It's going to eat us!!"
"Don't worry. We're in a Safe Rest Zone".
"Oh, phew. Then we're safe"
"Well, only until we're at maximum hit points. After that, it can eat us".

 

[Obryn]

So if the adventure assumes a certain amount of pacing and difficulty, changing the HP recovery rules will change the pacing and difficulty. Wouldn't that happen no matter what the baseline is?

Yes? That is why I don't like this baseline.

First of all, it greatly appeals to me because of how well it fits with classic D&D sensibilities, and I think that's reason enough to consider it the baseline. You may not agree, so here are some more concrete points:

I like this definition of hit points as the default for character options, since it's the narrowest definition that everyone can agree on. Everything debatable (warlord healing, etc.) falls outside this definition, and will need a little "this only works if you have a looser interpretation of hit points" disclaimer. That seems like a good way to handle it, rather than saying, "HP is a vague resource that you can restore in various ways, unless your DM is a dick and says you can't."

I like this definition of resting as the default for the system and adventure design, since it encourages designers to give players interesting and fun things to do during downtime. If you like slower recovery with lots of downtime, it's important to have this support. (If you like faster recovery, you can use this stuff if you want to too.) It also helps ease believability issues, like the "1 to 20 in 3 weeks" thing.

I'm a pragmatist about hit points. I'm only concerned with how they affect gameplay. I no more care what a "hit point" means than I wonder what an experience point is, and why monsters release them when killed. They're a number that says how far you are from being knocked unconscious, and stuff makes you lose them or get them back.

For me, the gameplay downsides are (1) it makes magical healing resources too important, and brings back the "cleric problem," (2) it has the potential to turn a 15-minute workday into a 15-minute work week, (3) it becomes that much harder to balance encounters, particularly of the "final showdown" sort after you deal with the lich's minions, and (4) this much back & forth to town seems like too much to me; extended expeditions to dungeons can be cool.

And that's pretty much it.

-O

 

[Hussar]

I never said it was "fun" or "easy," I only said that it can be done, not just by fantasy heroes, but by people in real life.

[Edit] Besides, they never mentioned anything about being stalked or in hostile territory. This rule applies whether you're in danger or not. All you have to be is out in the wilderness, and no full HP for you. So yes, it does apply to "fun" and "easy" camping trips just as much as it does to soldiers in trenches.

There is a danger here in reading too much into things. When Mearls talks about sleeping in the wilderness, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to think that he means, "Dangerous place where there are lots of things that want to eat/kill/erm you". We are talking about adventure design after all.

Do we really need the rules to specifically spell things out that far? "You heal X when in the wilderness (see page XX for the rules definition of Wilderness)" . Do DM's really need that much hand holding?

 

[Hussar]

Yes? That is why I don't like this baseline.


I'm a pragmatist about hit points. I'm only concerned with how they affect gameplay. I no more care what a "hit point" means than I wonder what an experience point is, and why monsters release them when killed. They're a number that says how far you are from being knocked unconscious, and stuff makes you lose them or get them back.

For me, the gameplay downsides are (1) it makes magical healing resources too important, and brings back the "cleric problem," (2) it has the potential to turn a 15-minute workday into a 15-minute work week, (3) it becomes that much harder to balance encounters, particularly of the "final showdown" sort after you deal with the lich's minions, and (4) this much back & forth to town seems like too much to me; extended expeditions to dungeons can be cool.

And that's pretty much it.

-O

To be fair, extended expeditions to the dungeon is what you do after levels 1-3. At least, that was generally how it worked in earlier editions. After all, you couldn't stay down there for days at a time, you couldn't carry that many torches/flasks of oil. But, lo and behold, when you hit 3rd or 4th level (depending on edition) you got Continual Light and that problem went away. At 5th (or thereabouts) you get Create Food and Drink and your other extended camping needs become trivial.

 

[Falling Icicle]

There is a danger here in reading too much into things. When Mearls talks about sleeping in the wilderness, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to think that he means, "Dangerous place where there are lots of things that want to eat/kill/erm you". We are talking about adventure design after all.

Actually, I think Mearls was pretty clear. He specifically stated that you get half hp from rest "in a dungeon or the outdoors." In order to regain full hp, you need to "take refuge in a comfortable place, like a tavern or other point of civilization." He never mentioned danger as having anything to do with it. It's all about "comfort."

Do we really need the rules to specifically spell things out that far? "You heal X when in the wilderness (see page XX for the rules definition of Wilderness)" . Do DM's really need that much hand holding?

It's always better for the rules to be as clear as possible. Still, I would prefer that this rule not even exist. Rest should be rest, as it was in previous editions. Then you don't need to spell out exceptions, since there wouldn't be a rule that needed to have exceptions in the first place.