D&D 5E The "everyone at full fighting ability at 1 hp" conundrum

[DND_Reborn]

I think I have heard some argue they want advancing hit points to actually reflect someone able to take horrible wounds and resist dying with supernatural will force and keep on kicking so there is that... I just wonder why anyone would want that and object to overnight recovery.

Well, I can't speak for others, but my objection to overnight recovery is it takes a lot of the risk out of the game. 5E is super easy IMO. Once you get to level 3-5 or so, character death is pretty rare compared to 1E/2E. Since HD continue all the way to level 20, characters can have huge pools of HP. In our current party, we have two warrior-types with over 100 hp at level 10. Our DM has to be really brutal to beat down that many HP in one battle! Those characters, other than really dumb play or luck, will probably never die.

So, regardless of how you think of HP, I don't like the rest mechanic in 5E with overnight recovery.

Now, more to your point, not having overnight recovery makes a more gritty and realistic game if you think of HP as a lot of physical injury (even an accumulation of minor wounds). IME, people who want to play that way also want the realism of longer recovery because HP represents your body--and wounds take time to heal. They don't do it overnight.

 

[Garthanos]

Well, I can't speak for others, but my objection to overnight recovery is it takes a lot of the risk out of the game. 5E is super easy IMO. Once you get to level 3-5 or so, character death is pretty rare compared to 1E/2E.

I might agree in some ways however I think however I want to see bad guys like an ogre actually knocking the characters around and pinning them under a knee without losing attack options while doing it and inducing interesting conditions to make fights difficult at a different level. I am not interested in character death perse... but I want fights to more often be puzzle like with situational and team combos , you can do tricks with McGuffins so the puzzle is finding the tool to kill an enemy but that is pre-fight.

There is a document someone shared with me showing more potent and interesting 5e monsters. That sounds like it might address the ease factor somewhat.

So, regardless of how you think of HP, I don't like the rest mechanic in 5E with overnight recovery.

Unless you are also restricting magical healing its a faux fix.... if you are talking functionality instead of philosophy.

Edit missed the word magical... probably made no sense to anyone not in my head

 

[Umbran]

Well, I can't speak for others, but my objection to overnight recovery is it takes a lot of the risk out of the game.

With respect, no. It changes the time scale on which we assess risk. But, the overall risk is not inherent to the game rules - it is determined by encounter and adventure design.

If you find 5e has little risk, that's because someone isn't designing encounters/adventures with the healing rates in mind. Toss more, or more powerful, encounters at the PCs, and you increase the risk.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well, I can't speak for others, but my objection to overnight recovery is it takes a lot of the risk out of the game. 5E is super easy IMO. Once you get to level 3-5 or so, character death is pretty rare compared to 1E/2E. Since HD continue all the way to level 20, characters can have huge pools of HP. In our current party, we have two warrior-types with over 100 hp at level 10. Our DM has to be really brutal to beat down that many HP in one battle! Those characters, other than really dumb play or luck, will probably never die.

With respect, no. It changes the time scale on which we assess risk. But, the overall risk is not inherent to the game rules - it is determined by encounter and adventure design.

If you find 5e has little risk, that's because someone isn't designing encounters/adventures with the healing rates in mind. Toss more, or more powerful, encounters at the PCs, and you increase the risk.

You know, whenever someone begins a post with "With respect," it never sounds good to me. It sounds basically like "I am going to disagree with you because I think your view point is totally wrong." It is obviously fine to disagree, so anyway...

If you follow the encounters per day and design blah blah blah suggested in 5E, the game is a like a video game... you just have to keep plugging along and you'll win. There is always the freak encounter where things just don't go your way, but otherwise the game is hardly lethal once you get to a certain point. Even when it is, with so much healing (you can buy potions of healing for crying out loud!), recovery on short rests, and things like Revivify, deaths rarely happen at all IME.

If, like our DM, you break away from the design of 5E, you can make the game harder--which is what we do (hence the bolded reference in my other post).

 

[snickersnax]

To my thinking dagger damage by normal strength human with nominal skill in a full meat attack means dead human (being a tough guy doesnt change what even half a foot of steel in your chest cavity can do.) ... so that is your absolute cap on meat points for most pcs.

I think normal people are much tougher than people think. The mortality rate for gunshot wounds is 22% and knife wounds is 4%. I've seen other studies where it is 27% and 7%.

The Journal of Trauma (36:4 pp516-524) looked at all injury admissions to a Seattle hospital over a six year period. *The mortality rate for gunshot wounds was 22% while that for stab wounds was 4%. *Even among patients that survived, gunshot wounds were more serious -- the mean cost of treatment for these patients was more than twice that for stab wounds.

 

[Umbran]

You know, whenever someone begins a post with "With respect," it never sounds good to me. It sounds basically like "I am going to disagree with you because I think your view point is totally wrong."

Well, yeah. The point is that I can respect the speaker while still thinking that they are, on this point, totally wrong. This is the internet, and expressing that I don't think any less of the person for them being incorrect can go a long way.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think normal people are much tougher than people think. The mortality rate for gunshot wounds is 22% and knife wounds is 4%. I've seen other studies where it is 27% and 7%.

The Journal of Trauma (36:4 pp516-524) looked at all injury admissions to a Seattle hospital over a six year period. *The mortality rate for gunshot wounds was 22% while that for stab wounds was 4%. *Even among patients that survived, gunshot wounds were more serious -- the mean cost of treatment for these patients was more than twice that for stab wounds.

All very good info, but I think part of the disparity is due to the difference between mortality and 0 HP. In 5E terms, actual death is at negative max hp, in the case of a commoner, -4, or failed death saves. So, an attack would have to deal at least 8 hp to kill a common outright.

Withstanding that, if you look at the concept of death saves, you have a 50/50 chance to stabilize (more or less, the 20 and 1 features changes that a bit). Rolling a 4 on a d4 is 25%, half of that is 12.5%. So, a dagger wound has about a 1 in 8 chance to end up in mortality for a commoner. The rest of the time the injury didn't take the commoner to 0 hp or it did and the common stabilized.

Now, stabilizing is really only a PC and important NPC thing... so take that as you will.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well, yeah. The point is that I can respect the speaker while still thinking that they are, on this point, totally wrong. This is the internet, and expressing that I don't think any less of the person for them being incorrect can go a long way.

I get that of course, but I have had too many people use it (or a similar phrase) and then later on it is apparent they were simply covering themselves to sound nice and such. I don't take very much here personally, but I know others do. Personally, I open my rebuttals to ideas I disagree with otherwise, but to each their own.

To the main point, if you think I am totally wrong, no problem. I think you are. It is fine to agree to disagree and I am happy with that.

 

[Garthanos]

I think normal people are much tougher than people think. The mortality rate for gunshot wounds is 22% and knife wounds is 4%. I've seen other studies where it is 27% and 7%.

Stats can be incredibly deceptive the to hit rate by military in police has been measured at 16 percent within 50 yards ... now the problem with that statistic is that most gun fire both by police and military are meant for intimidation and battlefield control. Not to kill. And wounding someone till they are out of the fight messes with more of the enemies man power than just killing them.

And most stats from a hospital are also not war zone nor do they involve someone trained in the use of the tools. The stats are interesting but interpreting what they mean is as usual very tricky.

 

[Garthanos]

Withstanding that, if you look at the concept of death saves, you have a 50/50 chance to stabilize (more or less, the 20 and 1 features changes that a bit).

Ironically I think Death Saves are probably the most realistic mechanic in D&D human response to wounds is all over the board.