D&D General 4e Healing was the best D&D healing

The campaign I'm (slowly) writing includes a healing house rule.

When you heal, you must also consume a HD. That HD is added to the amount you heal.

This includes most magical healing, except Regeneration effects. It also includes using the Healer's Kit. Fighter's Second Wind is increased to 1/2 Fighter Level d10 (round down) + fighter level but doesn't cost HD (it is, in effect, bonus HD).

Now, it also uses gritty rests (short rests are overnight), but that is a pacing mechanism. ("Dungeons" or encounter sites are budgeted to last a single scene, time between short rests).

There is also a system whereby HD recover faster than baseline 5e (overnight (aka, short rest), you get to roll expended HD to recover: even rolls 4 or greater recover. This recovers about half of your HD on a d12, but 1/3 of your HD on a d6).

All healing is bigger; a level healing word on a barbarian heals 1d12+1d4+3 (12), and a healing potion is 13.5, both of which is are pretty nice. But larger heals are more efficient in terms of HD used. If you use piles of small heals, you'll end up exhausting the person you are healing too fast.

Less hp a vitality wound system and a healingsurge like mechanic would all work well togather...

I proposed lowering al HD die codes (except barbarian keeping d12 and paliden keeping d10) making HD come every other level (odd levels) with even levels getting a fixed amount like 2e post 9th level (so +1 +2 or +3 hp) but 1st character level is always con score hp...

Then healing surges equal to your Wis or con mod + 1/2 level...

So a 20th level fighter would have con score +9d8+30hp and con mod+10 healig surges

I agree that Healing Surges are really nice, and I like it when all characters have access to them.
But for me, HP has never been Meat-Points, it's been #of times I can shrug off a "successful" attack against my HP Defense.

Success ≠ injury; otherwise we'd all be Monty Python Black Knights bleeding all over the place and threatening to bite the legs off our enemies.

Such a traumatic injury would be something that can happen at 0 HP (or if an attack reduces me to 0 HP from whereever). HP represents my morale and inner strength to keep pushing through exhaustion & pain. These are blows that hit my armor, and the armor wasn't able to glance off all the pain of the impact. I'm slowing down a bit, or I would be without the inspiration from the battle-drummer, or from my C.O. telling me to get over it, or from the shepherd of my faith telling me that my god is with me. In each of those cases, they used Healing Word (or some variation of it) on me, allowing me to access my healing surges and push through the pain to find another level of fortitude to keep going.

That said, I feel strongly that HP has some silly overlap with my 4 Defences in 4e - Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will(power). I'd actually prefer a system that got rid of HP entirely and leaned solely on those defences, or one where each defence has its own HP of sorts. 4e was working in the right direction, both here and with minions.

5e threw out a lot of these HP-related questions in favor of bounded accuracy and unbounded HP & dmg die potential to determine the survivability of characters. A minion in 5e is a lower-leveled creature who essentially would be taken out in a single blow, rather than a high level enemy with higher defences but only 1 HP. PCs no longer have healing surges (except Fighters). Healing is more explicitely magical when it's not coming from a healer's kit, and most of it happens outside of the combat stage. This is okay for a less-combat focused game, but it does make having an Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Divine Soul Sorcerer, or Celestial Pact Warlock more essential to the party. You can't get buy without a healer character. It's a more party-focused game, in that sense.

Sacrosanct said:

Obviously this comes from personal preference rather than any type of claim I'm trying to make objectively about 4e. My favorite edition is 1e, so that's where I'm coming from. My preference is towards a lower healing style of play. So frequent healing just doesn't fit my preferences. I'm also a fan of niche protection, so having every class do healing is another thing that doesn't fit my preference.

For the record, this isn't just a 4e thing. The biggest issue I have with 5e RAW is healing back to max after a long rest, followed by frequent hit dice healing options.

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Although I loved 4ed. I totally agree with you on that one. I come from 1ed too but I took 4ed for what it was. A new edition and a new way to play. It was a very balanced edition compared to what was before. Still trapped in the ever increasing need for better magic items but it had some real good qualities.

As for healing in the 5ed. I use the no hp recovered beside the HD you take approach. Players are a lot more cautious, especially if you apply the 5-6 encounters per day and that random encounter gives no exp.

Don't 5E Hit Dice functionally serve the most important functions of 4E Healing Surges?

DemoMonkey said:

Don't 5E Hit Dice functionally serve the most important functions of 4E Healing Surges?

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No, because it doesn't limit or scale magical healing.

jmartkdr2 said:

No, because it doesn't limit or scale magical healing.

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And the responsibility of all (in combat) healing is back in the hands of the cleric. In 4E it was better spread out, and characters had to spend their own resources (hit dice) to recover HP.

NotAYakk said:

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All healing is bigger; a level healing word on a barbarian heals 1d12+1d4+3 (12), and a healing potion is 13.5, both of which is are pretty nice. But larger heals are more efficient in terms of HD used. If you use piles of small heals, you'll end up exhausting the person you are healing too fast.

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So, what happens when someone runs out of HD, but still needs healing? Magic doesn't work anymore?

dnd4vr said:

So, what happens when someone runs out of HD, but still needs healing? Magic doesn't work anymore?

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If it's based on 4e - yup. There's nothing for the healing to draw on, so it doesn't work. (So you can't go longer just because there's a cleric.)

Oofta said:

Except that guy with the 200 HP that takes 20 damage is not "stabbed in the leg". Because of their experience they twist at the last moment and it's a glancing blow or a superficial wound. The guy with 30 HP didn't do that so it's a severe gash. The guy with 10 HP goes down because he has no clue how to take a blow and it severed the femoral artery.

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What you describe is how D&D currently tends to frame things, sure. And if that's the way you like to run your games, go for it.

But I feel like that leads to a need for judgment calls by the GM, and retroactive narration. "He stabs you . . . I think. How much HP do you have? Oh, 10 left? Okay, yeah, he impales you a little."

Whereas in my preferred system, HP is just the ability to keep fighting. If someone simply does HP damage to you, there's never ever at all in any way ever an actual wound that is severe enough to impede your performance. But if someone critically hits you, they actually did cause a real wound that will have real consequences, even if the hit didn't wind you that much. How wounded you are is not related to how much stamina you have.

And if a low-level character with 30 HP is reduced to 0 HP, they aren't necessarily wounded. They're just worn out. Someone smacks them in the chest or slams them in the gut or bonks them on the head, and they fall and can't summon the vigor to get back up. But give them a few minutes, and they'll catch their breath.

That, to me, matches how action movie combat works.