D&D 5E How is 5E like 4E?

[Undrave]

I think players who use Short Rests (especially for healing), would give pause at the loss of a single Hit Die.

And we're back to the point where a Healing Surge has the same value for a Fighter or a Cleric or a Wizard. If you're in a party with lots of spell slots available for Healing Spells or who stocked up on Healing Potion, then your hit dice aren't worth anything, but if you don't suddenly they're extremely precious.

A 4e Healing Surge is always valuable. It fuels your healing regardless of source, it can be expended for certain things (Martial Practices, some Rituals, I think some Magic Items even spent Healing Surges!) and there is basically no class combination that can ignore them. But they also completely recover on a long rest. Your Healing Surge are your REAL hit points in a way (with the right tweaks you could make your HP per encounter VERY low, making fights dangerous, while still being able to keep going because you had healing surges to replenish this little pool, making your daily HP and encounter HP two different amount!) , they're the countdown to how much you can exert yourself during a day and everybody's on the same clock.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You could also slap them with a level of exhaustion. They’re really useful.

You can't really use exhaustion in place of Healing Surges.

Surges are a spent resource. Exhaustion is a straight penalty that will jumpstart the death spiral. You spend a surge, you keep going. You get a level of exhaustion, you rest ASAP.

 

[billd91]

You can't really use exhaustion in place of Healing Surges.

Surges are a spent resource. Exhaustion is a straight penalty that will jumpstart the death spiral. You spend a surge, you keep going. You get a level of exhaustion, you rest ASAP.

At least in the point of dealing with exposure due to inclement weather, it's a more appropriate match than a spendable but veiled from the in-game reality resource. So, yeah, in quite a few cases, you really can use it in place of healing surges.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If you want to make all encounters until the next rest harder, which is not what happens when you spend a surge.

 

[Neonchameleon]

At least in the point of dealing with exposure due to inclement weather, it's a more appropriate match than a spendable but veiled from the in-game reality resource. So, yeah, in quite a few cases, you really can use it in place of healing surges.

If you want things to be debilitating and inflict penalties in D&D a good place to start would be getting hit as hard as possible by an orc with an axe.

 

[billd91]

If you want to make all encounters until the next rest harder, which is not what happens when you spend a surge.

Hell, yeah, I do. Push on through weather capable of inflicting hypothermia or heat exhaustion or that keeps you from getting sleep? Yes, I want skill checks harder until they get a good rest. 2 levels of exhaustion - I want the moving slower. 3 levels - I want them struggling through encounters because with that much hardship, they should be harder encounters.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Hell, yeah, I do. Push on through weather capable of inflicting hypothermia or heat exhaustion or that keeps you from getting sleep? Yes, I want skill checks harder until they get a good rest. 2 levels of exhaustion - I want the moving slower. 3 levels - I want them struggling through encounters because with that much hardship, they should be harder encounters.

Yeah, not for me. This is why you always take Tiny Hut. I hate how travel in D&D just exists to be annoying. You hardly ever run into something interesting, just random encounters and penalties.

 

[Undrave]

Hell, yeah, I do. Push on through weather capable of inflicting hypothermia or heat exhaustion or that keeps you from getting sleep? Yes, I want skill checks harder until they get a good rest. 2 levels of exhaustion - I want the moving slower. 3 levels - I want them struggling through encounters because with that much hardship, they should be harder encounters.

I feel like exhaustion starts way too harsh. There needs to be AT LEAST 2 step before the first level of exhaustion and there just... isn't.

 

[Nefermandias]

Yeah, not for me. This is why you always take Tiny Hut. I hate how travel in D&D just exists to be annoying. You hardly ever run into something interesting, just random encounters and penalties.

It is annoying if you treat it as something between you and the real adventure.

You should embrace traveling as part of the adventure. Try not to ignore any rules, keep track of encumbrance and rations, check for weather daily, make proper use of random encounter tables, enforce navigation rules, marching order and make sure to turn Gritty Realism on during travel phases.

Boom! Travel suddenly becomes interesting and your party is dealing with a lot of meaningful choices and unexpected situations, even for the DM. It also helps if you go out of your way to design a few hand placed encounters, land marks and fantastic locations the party might come across during overland travel.

Of course, this style of gameplay only holds up to seventh level or so, since class abilities and access to spells quickly makes these challenges irrelevant at later levels.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, not for me. This is why you always take Tiny Hut. I hate how travel in D&D just exists to be annoying. You hardly ever run into something interesting, just random encounters and penalties.

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. It goes hand in hand with how some people feel the rangers are relatively useless - if you gloss over travel and its complications, the benefits a ranger brings to the party are going to be undermined. You lean into them, and the character's abilities become really useful and travel becomes something other than a screen wipe to get from one scene to another.

But you get the attitude about "existing to be annoying" about literally everything in RPGs depending on the player. Traps exist to be annoying, shopping for stuff exists to be annoying, fights with weaker opponents exist to be annoying, save or suck effects exist to be annoying, etc.