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

[Undrave]

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.

I think an interesting system would be one where you have stamina points that you need to expend to buff your defenses when you get hit, with some martial classes having ability to spend stamina to buff attacks (and also recovery abilities stronger than other classes) and only when you can't spend that stamina do you take real damage that might take longer to repair on their own and hinder your stamina recovery.

 

[RangerWickett]

What fiction should HP model and what gameplay should it create? Because people have conflicting ideas on what those should be...

I want a system that can handle Diehard and The Princess Bride. A system where you usually don't take a solid hit, but it's clear when someone's attack causes pain or fatigue. And occasionally you can get a nasty wound. But some badasses can keep fighting despite several nasty wounds.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I beg to differ.

It's a good movie, and a good scene, but it's not a good fight scene. A comedic movie just doesn't lend itself toward serious role-playing.

 

[Shiroiken]

I think the overall concept of Healing Surges wasn't bad. The 5E HD system works in a similar fashion, allowing each character a level of self healing during a short rest. I've actually implemented loss of HD as part of exploration, similar to the Skill Checks of 4E. The problem is that the concept doesn't work as well without the Powers System of 4E, since spell slots are FAR more limited than encounter/daily/utility powers were. The other downside to them was they gave back far to many HP, causing encounters to take forever.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Thanks to all for the responses! From the sounds of it, 4E wouldn't be for me. Which is surprising because we've had a number of LONG combats at our table (like seriously, dozens and dozens of rounds of combat spanning over 9 hours!) and frankly speaking I love combat.

I don't like the idea of limiting magical healing because it is external, not internal. You might not have much left in the tank, but that magic gives you more. Sure, with lots of healing in 5E you can exceed the total HP pool that healing surges would give in 4E, but it is at a cost beyond what the character is expending IMO. From the sounds of it, I think the tactical elements from 4E would have been nice to have in 5E, even if toned down so the game wouldn't drag maybe? Tactical options are definitely missing in 5E. There are things you can do, but they are less effective than just swinin' away!

I suppose, like every edition, 4E has bits and pieces that if they could have somehow been combined into 5E, they would make it better. shrug For example, I do like the idea of lower HP for an encounter, which you can bolster more in between, because it would make individual encounters more dangerous but allow you to keep your overall survivability high because you can replenish some before the next fight.

I am a big fan of removing HP bloat, however I would be willing to look at a system where HP was lower but had a "daily" pool you could draw on to recover. I think that is some of the idea behind healing surge, but the limit uses, etc. makes it less appealing. Maybe something where PCs had like half the normal HP, but after each fight you rolled half your HD and recovered that much (provided you had a short time to rest, like even five minutes or so?).

I'll have to look into this... I see a new house-rule possibly on the horizon.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I want a system that can handle Diehard and The Princess Bride. A system where you usually don't take a solid hit, but it's clear when someone's attack causes pain or fatigue. And occasionally you can get a nasty wound. But some badasses can keep fighting despite several nasty wounds.

Like others, we incorporate fatigue into combat to represent the bad stuff that really hurts. It only happens on a critical hit (possibly) and when you reach 0 hp. However, CON (instead of granting more HP) gives you "free" levels of fatigue.

 

[DND_Reborn]

@RangerWickett, did you ever play SW 2nd Ed (I think) which used both Vitality (i.e.HP) and Wounds? It has always been my favorite blend of mechanics, the only downside IMO is another numeric to track. Our current system uses fatigue almost like a "condition monitor" from ShadowRun for critical hits and critically failed saves.

 

[Windjammer]

Furthermore, healing spells and healing potions scaled much better (we didn't need multiple Potion of Healing types) and did not result in 'free HP'

Well, that depends on what you played.

I played 4e for many years and up to upper-end Paragon Tier. Player's Handbook cleric was my favorite and most frequently played class. (Never touched that abomination that is in Essentials.)
I loved playing that class but from a DM point of view it was just a campaign killer. After Divine Power came out, I had enough daily's to neutralize every encounter by dishing out 25 hp of free healing per round until the end of the encounter, 3-4 times a day, over the entire party, one round after the other. Since most campaigns will maximally feature 4 encounters a day, and few monsters will dish out 25+hp per PC per round, my build's healing zones nullified 4e as a game.
So no, I don't agree that 4e had the best healing, since it had too much of it. Mechanically, it was great fun to build and play a cleric (name one other iteration of D&D where you can use Turn Undead to blast elementals and demons, if you take the right feats), great fun to provide powerful and flavorful support at the gaming table. But like pretty much everything else in 4e, the thing fell apart mathematically once you applied any pressure to it. The only 'solution' was to scrap the class and replace it with less OP healing classes like that pointless Essentials Cleric. And that's 4E in a nutshell - pick fun but unworkable vs. non-broken but pointless.

 

[Cadence]

Do any of you have experience with the Wounds and Vigor alternate system in PF? Wounds and Vigor – d20PFSRD

I've been interested in something like it and how it fits in with healing and the resource management, but haven't tried it in a game yet.

My least favorite is 13th age ( which feels a lot like 4e in some ways)...but mostly because everything is based on "days" that are measured by number if encounters and not hours. I need more crunch.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Do any of you have experience with the Wounds and Vigor alternate system in PF? Wounds and Vigor – d20PFSRD

I've been interested in something like it and how it fits in with healing and the resource management, but haven't tried it in a game yet.

My least favorite is 13th age ( which feels a lot like 4e in some ways)...but mostly because everything is based on "days" that are measured by number if encounters and not hours. I need more crunch.

There was a UA of rule variants that proposed a Vitality Pool to go with the HP pool. https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA5_VariantRules.pdf

Your Vitality pool is equal to your Con score, you lose 1 vitality point per 10 Hp taken (2 points per 10 HP if its a critical hit), when HP is at 0, all damage goes to vitality. You regain 1 Vitality per 10 HP healed by spells or features and regain 1+Con mod Vitality per long rest. When at 0 Vitality, you fall to 0 HP immediately.