Anybody have any experience with healing surges in 5e? DMG alternate healing rule from page 266.
I haven't used it, but I think it is misnamed. It should properly be called Second Wind if you want to evoke 4e (except that's taken by a Fighter ability), because that's the 4e mechanic it is copying.
In 4e, a healing surge is a resource you can use to heal yourself. On a short rest (which is 5 minutes in 4e, not one hour) you can spend healing surges to recover hp. Each surge recovers 1/4 your maximum (rounded down). There is also an action called Second Wind which all PCs have as an encounter power that you can take to heal using a healing surge. Your number of healing surges varied per class, but was in the range of 6 to 10, plus your Constitution modifier (defender classes clocked in at 9-10, most other classes at 6-7).
In 5e, the rest-healing mechanic is the Hit Die. This differs in fundamental ways from the healing surge, notably in how it scales. Higher-level 5e characters have
more hit dice that each heal
the same amount, while higher-level 4e characters have
the same number of healing surges that each heal for
more. You also have significantly less rest-based healing in 5e: slightly less than 100% of your max hp, with 50% of that recovered per day, whereas 4e has 150% to 350%, all of which recovers each day.
The optional 5e Healing Surge rule lets you spend up to half your hit dice as an action, once per short rest. It also speeds up the recovery of hit dice, so it might actually approach the non-magic healing available in 4e to low-surge classes.