Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
Lots of things are not as useful at higher levels. There is nothing wrong with that. Things don't have to scale with level.
D&D 5E Starter Set Cleric Sheet
Lots of things are not as useful at higher levels. There is nothing wrong with that. Things don't have to scale with level.
Bonus action is rapidly turning into 5th's minor action but with a different name and only for attacks, and heals. Maybe other stuff too? Might as well have just called it minor action. Many classes will be trying to make sure they get at least one bonus action per round / turn, where before they had no reason to. I know my group loves how quick combat goes, minor actions slowed things down in 4th ed and I'm not too pleased they are back now.
Not sure why they made Second Wind activateable at will. Are fighters gurus with intimate, minute control of their internal body functions? They could have removed the voluntary aspect of it and the need for people to even ask what is a bonus action and how do I use one?
Spamming second wind is not a real problem, if the DM is allowing the party to rest for hours at a time after each fight without issue then they are doing it wrong.
E. Tallitnics
Explorer
Bonus Action is a much needed addition to the game! There are too many things that grant an extra form of attack and no mechanic to limit how many a player could use during their turn. Now there is.
Falling Icicle
Adventurer
I believe you don't get a bonus action on your turn unless you have some special ability that uses one. So no decision paralysis. You either have some effect that gives you a bonus action on your turn, like haste or second wind, or you don't have one at all. At least, that's how I understand it. I could be wrong.
It's not at will. Once you use it you can't use it again until after you rest.
I said activatable at will, not useable each round. The fact that a fighter can choose when his or her body restores its vitality (assuming using vitality module), or stamina, assumes that running out of stamina is even possible, without dying. I believe humans drop unconscious before they die of over-exertion. But my point is, why didn't they just make it a reaction to extreme duress. At least this way the DM could keep it in check without resorting to telling that PC not to use their own ability instead of Hit Dice.
It's bad design. SW should have re-used the hit dice mechanic, and then it would elegantly and instantly have been compatible with HD-as-vitality-restoration without any further mucking around.
It's funny that the barbarian actually gets an ability to spark up some rage juice into HP when they become enraged. Right now I see lots of thematic overlapping between fighters and barbarians without any real reason why they have different mechanical underpinnings. (# rages per day, rages allow HD expenditure in some cases, while also granting Temp HP).
When the vitality module is enabled, will Barbarian rage increase vitality? If not, why not? If so, why have a separate HD restoration mechanic, since it will restore vitality instead of healing wounds.
This is the problem with bundling stamina in HP, it makes modules that ostensibly are there to support other playstyles, to expose the underlying structural flaws of merging wounds and stamina into one number in the first place, then giving HP restoration abilities to all kinds of characters whether it makes sense or not.
Falling Icicle
Adventurer
I don't agree with you that it's bad design. From a purely game design point of view, I think second wind is well thought out. It only takes a bonus action, so it doesn't interrupt a fighter's ability to do what people want to do when playing a fighter - fight. It also reduces the burden on the party healer, allowing them to spend more of their resources on things that they want to do, rather than having to spend so much time keeping the fighter up. IMO it makes the game more fun for both the fighter and the party healer, and that's a good thing.
Hit points themselves are a very unrealistic abstraction. The way D&D has handled injuries has always been far from realistic. It makes no sense at all for someone to be able to be hacked multiple times with an axe, fall off a cliff, or be dunked in lava and survive, and yet these things can easily be survived by a high level D&D character. But this is one thing where Gygax decided that realism should give way to playability. Hit points may not make a lot of sense from a simulation point of view, but from a game design point of view, they make a lot of sense. They make combat quick and easy, and keep the game flowing without the characters having to be hospitalized after every battle, allowing them to keep adventuring. Second wind, likewise, is about the same things. It may grate simulationist sensibilities, but D&D has never been a simulationist game. That's all I really want to say about that matter here. I don't think people would like for us to derail this thread with another long argument over hit points and martial healing.
As for hit dice, I agree with their decision not to use them to fuel second wind. As Mike Mearls explained in the video where they unwrapped the starter set, Second Wind isn't as easy to abuse as it might seem. When you're spending an hour to take a short rest, you're better off using your hit dice to heal yourself and to save your second wind for emergencies later. Sure, you can let the fighter rest for hour after hour, but if you're going to do that, you might as well just take a long rest and recover fully anyway. That, and DMs can easily counter such behavior with wandering monsters, time constraints, etc.
Agamon
Adventurer
I see SW as stopping, catching your breath, focusing and assessing the situation, and digging down deep for that extra something that will get you and your party through the fight. Call it an adrenaline rush, perhaps.
Might have been better represented with temp hp, but replacement of lost hp makes for less bookkeeping, so it's acceptable. And if you think of it this way, it's easy to rule that the player can't spam it or even really use it outside of combat, while still allowing them to choose when it gets used.
Might have been better represented with temp hp, but replacement of lost hp makes for less bookkeeping, so it's acceptable. And if you think of it this way, it's easy to rule that the player can't spam it or even really use it outside of combat, while still allowing them to choose when it gets used.
The Hitcher
Explorer
Bad design in this context is when something isn't fun at the table. Everything else is academic. Mearls explained that the way Second Wind works now was most fun for the playtesters. Until you actually play with the rule, you don't have a counterexample to that evidence. Deal.
