D&D 5E Long Rest is a Problem

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Oddly, most of the groups I've played with never bothered with an injury mechanic.

I agree the "mundane healing to full" requires some suspension of disbelief, but then again we're playing a game with dragons and elves and magic spells.

There is probably a better solution, but I'm willing to allow the game some leeway to make game play work.

 

[KidSnide]

I agree that automatic complete non-magical healing after a night's rest is unsatisfying. I get the desire for game flow and simplicity that the 4e-style long rest rule provides, but it just doesn't match the fictional aesthetics of any fantasy world I commonly adventure in.

I don't mind if the typical party can patch itself back together with magical healing given night to regain spells, a day to cast healing spells and a second night to prepare for adventure. This strategy is different than the simple rule because (1) it uses magic and therefore doesn't offend the "how fast did my broken bone knit?" aesthetics and (2) is often strategically different from resting for only a single night. I did that all the time in 1e/2e days and can recall many adventures where it was a big deal whether the party was able to fully heal up with the remaining uncast healing spells just before resting the night. In the current packet, this strategy doesn't even require a cleric, as a druid, ranger or paladin can produce credible amounts of magical healing.

-KS

 

[Warbringer]

[MENTION=54710]KidSnide[/MENTION]

re 1e/2e and we routinely hid for several days inside a rope trick while we got healing spells back

I still say the easiest thing is throttle long rest = 1 week; short rest 8 hours (with multiple short rests per day)

 

[darjr]

for me it isn't a wounds issue. It's how the game is played. Fully healed after a long rest leads to a style of gaming and adventure design that I'm finding I don't really care for.

 

[Warbringer]

[MENTION=40886]Dj[/MENTION]ar

Is the issue its too gonzo with full healing?

 

[Gadget]

This is one of those things that is easily controlled by a 'dial' that can be set to a particular group's preference. How does the above mentioned 'a long rest is a week, a short rest is overnight' not solve the problem? Or you only recover hit dice + your level in hit points after a long rest? And for the record, D&D has never modelled injuries very well. I don't care how you ever described the fighter losing 99% of his hit points in one blow, he was never actually hindered by such an injury, other than knowing his ablative script immunity was about out. That's a serious blow to the suspension of disbelief right there, yet threads complaining about this particular quirk seem to rare. In practice this just made the healbot/healstick all the more important for game play.

I think it would be nice to have an injury add on module in a addition to the dial above for those who desire it. Say it would be based on the disease track on 4e and come into effect every time you suffered a critical or went below zero HP. Presumably there would be penalties to go along with the injury and you could not recover overnight. That would be interesting.

 

[Mistwell]

This is one of those things that is easily controlled by a 'dial' that can be set to a particular group's preference.

I agree. Dials like this one should not be set by default to the highest setting possible.

How does the above mentioned 'a long rest is a week, a short rest is overnight' not solve the problem?

You can rest 8 hours in the midst of a dungeon or wilderness setting under many scenarios. It's much more difficult to do that for a week. As I mentioned above, wandering monsters essentially erase the advantage of natural healing, if you stay too long.

You can Or you only recover hit dice + your level in hit points after a long rest?

That would work as a default, in my opinion.

And for the record, D&D has never modelled injuries very well. I don't care how you ever described the fighter losing 99% of his hit points in one blow, he was never actually hindered by such an injury, other than knowing his ablative script immunity was about out. That's a serious blow to the suspension of disbelief right there, yet threads complaining about this particular quirk seem to rare. In practice this just made the healbot/healstick all the more important for game play.

Never done it well is different from abandoning the concept entirely. A wound that requires magical healing or a weeks rest is a lot more believable than a wound that requires 8 hours rest, in that scenario. Neither is perfect, but the later is notably less believable. You didn't hear complaints, because the system did assume magical healing.

 

[Stalker0]

As the rules are currently, there is simply no way to emulate any injury other than a relatively minor scratch that is good to go after a single night of sleeping, without a fairly major house rule

Then i say houserule!

Bottom line, a portion of the population is going to be unhappy with any baseline WOTC sets down. They have fully admitted this fact in their articles, that in game healing is one of THE most decisive things they have been dealing with.

So, they go with your suggestion and someone else is unhappy, or stick with this way and make you unhappy. Or give us a few options, probably none of which will make anyone perfectly happy.

We have debated healing for months, and i think the ultimate truth is simply that burden of healing has to be taken up my the DM in part.

 

[KidSnide]

This is one of those things that is easily controlled by a 'dial' that can be set to a particular group's preference. How does the above mentioned 'a long rest is a week, a short rest is overnight' not solve the problem?

Healing isn't the only part of a long-rest -- I don't want the cleric to wait a week to regain spells. Also, even the old school BECMI/1e/2e provided some healing for overnight. Regaining some (easy to remember) number of hit dice seems reasonable to me.

Either way, the amount of healing produced by a long rest should definitely be on a dial. I just think the current dial doesn't model the pre-3e (or pre-CLW wand) healing model very well, and that its a mistake to put the default value at the most generous to the PCs. I don't think "maximum healing" provides the best experience for new players because it takes away a strategic choice and is at odds with a newbie's intuition about how the world works. And for a DM, it's a lot easier to give the PCs faster healing rules than it is to impose slower healing rules.

-KS

 

[Warbringer]

The trade offs are RL believability/healing magic common/slow gameplay.

The default considers slow game play the worst outcome (IMO)