D&D 5E Should the Fighter's "Second Wind" ability grant temporary HP instead of regular HP?

[GMforPowergamers]

damn my goldfish memory

So, in a possible module in which short rest = long rest we come more closer to the 3rd e wizard with no arcane recovery and a bit nerfed cleric with only one turn undead / day but more versatile with more healing power.

I would love a dial/option that will let me have a super tough game where a short rest is 8hrs, require food and sleep and is only can be done once per 24 hours... and a long rest is a week+ and only works if it is somewhere safe and comfy... (imagine also being able to split the arcane recovery so you can recall 1/2 level in spell levels but then can break it up so at 18th level you can recall a 9th level or a 4th and a 5th, or 9 1st level)

but also have a super easy seting on the same dial and options where I can set short rests to 3 min breather then kick in the door, and a long rest is a 2+hr rest with it being limited to 1 time every 12 hrs...

 

[gweinel]

Granted, we've yet to see rogues our any PHB class, but with a slight tweak to turn undead, removing short rests and then lowering the heal rate (lvl per day?) Does seem like a good way to emulate old school play. 1d10+lvl per DAY ain't gonna break the bank, It's basically a free hd of hp at that point.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. I kind like actually this versality.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I would love a dial/option that will let me have a super tough game where a short rest is 8hrs, require food and sleep and is only can be done once per 24 hours... and a long rest is a week+ and only works if it is somewhere safe and comfy... (imagine also being able to split the arcane recovery so you can recall 1/2 level in spell levels but then can break it up so at 18th level you can recall a 9th level or a 4th and a 5th, or 9 1st level)

but also have a super easy seting on the same dial and options where I can set short rests to 3 min breather then kick in the door, and a long rest is a 2+hr rest with it being limited to 1 time every 12 hrs...

Trying to decide if this is ironic or sarcastic.

Normally the healing rules is a pacing mechanism with little correlation to difficulty.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Trying to decide if this is ironic or sarcastic.

Normally the healing rules is a pacing mechanism with little correlation to difficulty.

When you get more rests fights will be easier and just in gener getting those rest are Erastus.

 

[BryonD]

A couple healing alternatives. I’m making these up with minimal thought. If they suck I agree to withdraw them. 

1) You heal 10% (round up) with a long rest. SW is temp HP. HD work as defined with the following modifications:
a. HD healing can never restore you to more than 90% of you max HP.
b. Any time you end a rest (short or long) at less than fully healed your new maximum HD healing is reduced to by another 10% or set to your current HP, whichever is higher (though never above 90%).
2) You don’t heal (AT ALL) with a long rest. SW is temp HP. You regain your level divided by four HD with a long rest. (Round to nearest whole number, minimum 1).

Option One restricts HD to healing “abstract” damage and reserves some damage that must always be healed by some mechanism, be it rest, magic, whatever. It is more fiddly than I like.

Option Two basically takes 3E nightly healing and replaces it with a pretty approximate equal amount of HD healing. I expect the normal case would be to heal up as much as possible as soon as possible, so no major distinction from just healing at night. But there is some narrative freedom provided to the player. And this option also makes a “fully rested” character more rugged. If you rest for four days, you will go out with a fully charged backup of HD, so you can effectively have a bigger buffer of the abstract side of HP. But quickly you get into “stuff that needs to actually heal”. I’ve been including abstract in the mix for over 30 years now. I can happily adjust the blend so long as a non-zero meat is still in the recipe. I also note that at 1st level this option is fully 5E and my complaints still exist. I’m pretty sure I can get over it for L1 only.

Obviously we have a lot of time to look at the actual rules. My current PF game has several months left in it. But I’m playing with ideas.

 

[Hussar]

BryonD, Option 2 is far slower than 3e healing. 3e healing is 4xlevel/day with a heal check. Would you allow healing skills to speed up healing? And, really, it's still far slower even at 1 HD/day (divided by 4). Standard is 1 hp/level/day, meaning that at worst, you heal about 10% of your HP/day (fighter with 10hp/level - a pretty high average) and all other classes heal far faster than that - a 5th level wizard has 20 HP will heal completely in 4 days without any assistance in 3e. In your system, it will take 7 on average.

Not that it's a bad way to go. I'm just wondering why you're suggesting such a slow healing rate.

 

[BryonD]

At fourth level you have 4dX (+4 times CON bonus) hp and you get 1dX+CON bonus per day via HD. So it take 4 days to heal (give or take depending on luck of the dice and neglecting max HP at L1).
At 5th level you will need 5 days. At 6th level your rounding goes to 2/day and you are at about 3 days. By 8th level you are back to 4 days and the cycle repeats.

Four days works for me.

I had not even thought about heal check so far. Off the top of my head I'd either assign a flat HP value or add +1 HD of healing but it must be spent immediately. Probably not worth getting hung up on the fine distinction between those two options. So yeah, 4 days, less with "quality medical care".

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

As a point of reference, here are the healing and rest rules I use for MAGES & MONSTERS:

A character may be healed via natural means, the Heal skill, or magical means. When wounded, for each day of complete rest without assistance, the character recovers one (rolled) Hit Die + CON modifier of hit points. With the assistance of someone with the Heal skill, the Hit Die result is maximized. A character may also use the Heal skill to stabilize a dying character by spending one round applying first aid.

By taking a short rest of an hour, a character can recover up to one (rolled) Hit Die in hit points, up to his or her maximum Hit Points, provided the character still has at least his or her CON Score in hit points remaining at the start of the rest period,. Example: Edda the 3rd level Fighter has a CON of 14, a maximum of 22 hit points, and has 16 Hit Points at the end of a fight. After a short rest, she rolls 1d8 and regains 7 hit points of fatigue and is back to her maximum of 22. However, if she had had 13 hit points at the end of the fight, she could not recover any Hit Points by a short rest, as she has physical wounds which must heal. Multiple short rests may not be combined during the course of a day.

If a character with the Heal skill performs first aid during a short rest, the resting character gains an additional (1 + CON bonus) (minimum 1) Hit Points. These Hit Points are gained even if the character’s Hit Points at the start of the rest are below his or her CON Score. Example: Edda the 3rd level Fighter has a CON of 14, a maximum of 22 hit points, and has 13 Hit Points at the end of a fight. Tended by Neville the Cleric, who has the Heal skill, she takes a short rest and recovers 3 (1 + 2) hit points, to a total of 16. She cannot recover a Hit Die of hit points during the short rest because she started below her CON score. Neville then casts a Cure Wounds spell on Edda, curing 1d8+2 = 6 hit points and restoring her to full strength.

Magical healing (spells, potions) immediately restore hit points. A character cannot have more hit points than maximum.

This approach treats hit points up to the character's CON score as "meat" damage and hit points above CON score as fatigue/luck/etc. It's a simple WP/VP approach without the extra bookkeeping.

 

[RotGrub]

For any who don't like second wind, I was able to compile the following list of potential replacements and/or fixes for second wind that were suggested by various members of the WotC D&D community.

1) replace second wind with the Toughness feat
2) replace second wind with bonus HPs equal to either the average or the maximum that second wind would allow you to recover
3) replace second with with the ability to add +1 to your AC for a number of rounds equal to your fighter level
4) replace second wind with an ability that lets fighters get more out of any healing that is applied to them (additional healing equal to their Con mod)
5) adjust second wind so that it grants temp HPs instead of actual recovery
6) replace second wind with the ability to give the fighter resistance on the next attack that hits her
7) allow second wind to work only when you are at or below half your HP total

A lot of great ideas, but sadly none of them are in the PHB or DMG.

 

[Remathilis]

A lot of great ideas, but sadly none of them are in the PHB or DMG.

Well, that's why we provide Real Live Dungeon Master (TM)!