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Alternate solution: Whack-a-mole healing
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<blockquote data-quote="Greg Benage" data-source="post: 8222289" data-attributes="member: 93631"><p>Is two weeks a necro? Hope not...</p><p></p><p>When I DMed 5e for the first time (I'd already been playing in a campaign), I really disliked whack-a-mole and implemented an exhaustion-at-zero house rule to "fix" it. Hated that even more.</p><p></p><p>As [USER=23716]@Gadget[/USER] [USER=7022312]@Azuresun[/USER] and others have said, the system is designed so that you basically don't have to worry about hit points > 0, and this has a lot of advantages. It means players don't feel compelled to attempt healing all the damage coming in, which turns combat into an arithmetical slog. It puts hit points and spell slots in separate (though not completely distinct) resource buckets -- managing the party's hit points and managing spell slots during the adventuring day aren't of necessity the same problem. You don't need healbots (or ubiquitous <em>wands of cure light wounds</em>) and players are free to take other actions in combat that may be more enjoyable.</p><p></p><p>And really, there are no wound penalties, no death spiral, in D&D (feature not a bug), so this all seems appropriate. Hit points don't matter as long as you have some, so don't worry about them until they reach zero. Do other, cool stuff rather than adding back meaningless numbers that have been subtracted -- there will be time for that later.</p><p></p><p>So what's the problem? For me, the problem is characters literally being repeatedly knocked unconscious, standing back up and taking a swing, getting knocked unconscious again, etc., etc., <em>ad absurdum</em>. In other words, there's a little bit of crunch in the problem, but it's mostly fluff.</p><p></p><p>Solution: Change how you narrate and what happens mechanically at 0 hp. I'm doing incapacitated at 0 (no actions or reactions), stunned(1) if you fail a death save (incapacitated, can't move, speak falteringly), and unconscious if you fail a second death save.(2) Mechanically, it's still bad to be at 0 hp -- you're impaired and making death saves -- but you're not dropping, getting up, dropping, getting up, to the point you're yelling at the corner man to "Throw the damn towel!" Now the healers are just using that low-powered magic to keep you away from death's door and in the fight, rather than waking you from a coma every six seconds.</p><p></p><p>(Also, since players are evidently incapable of retreating until at least one character is at 0 hp, this at least allows the afflicted to move, prior to that first death save failure. He probably can't outrun an arrow (okay, he can't run at all), but at least he can try. He can stumble in the direction his comrades are fleeing and groan, "I'm not gonna make it! You gotta go on without me!")</p><p></p><p>(1) It's super weird to me that "stunned" is a worse condition than "incapacitated," but there you go.</p><p></p><p>(2) Yes, I've basically slid three simple "wound levels" in under the hit points. You just don't have to worry about the wound levels until 0 hp, and even then, there's no death spiral as long as there are spells like <em>healing word</em> to keep you in the fight.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Greg Benage, post: 8222289, member: 93631"] Is two weeks a necro? Hope not... When I DMed 5e for the first time (I'd already been playing in a campaign), I really disliked whack-a-mole and implemented an exhaustion-at-zero house rule to "fix" it. Hated that even more. As [USER=23716]@Gadget[/USER] [USER=7022312]@Azuresun[/USER] and others have said, the system is designed so that you basically don't have to worry about hit points > 0, and this has a lot of advantages. It means players don't feel compelled to attempt healing all the damage coming in, which turns combat into an arithmetical slog. It puts hit points and spell slots in separate (though not completely distinct) resource buckets -- managing the party's hit points and managing spell slots during the adventuring day aren't of necessity the same problem. You don't need healbots (or ubiquitous [I]wands of cure light wounds[/I]) and players are free to take other actions in combat that may be more enjoyable. And really, there are no wound penalties, no death spiral, in D&D (feature not a bug), so this all seems appropriate. Hit points don't matter as long as you have some, so don't worry about them until they reach zero. Do other, cool stuff rather than adding back meaningless numbers that have been subtracted -- there will be time for that later. So what's the problem? For me, the problem is characters literally being repeatedly knocked unconscious, standing back up and taking a swing, getting knocked unconscious again, etc., etc., [I]ad absurdum[/I]. In other words, there's a little bit of crunch in the problem, but it's mostly fluff. Solution: Change how you narrate and what happens mechanically at 0 hp. I'm doing incapacitated at 0 (no actions or reactions), stunned(1) if you fail a death save (incapacitated, can't move, speak falteringly), and unconscious if you fail a second death save.(2) Mechanically, it's still bad to be at 0 hp -- you're impaired and making death saves -- but you're not dropping, getting up, dropping, getting up, to the point you're yelling at the corner man to "Throw the damn towel!" Now the healers are just using that low-powered magic to keep you away from death's door and in the fight, rather than waking you from a coma every six seconds. (Also, since players are evidently incapable of retreating until at least one character is at 0 hp, this at least allows the afflicted to move, prior to that first death save failure. He probably can't outrun an arrow (okay, he can't run at all), but at least he can try. He can stumble in the direction his comrades are fleeing and groan, "I'm not gonna make it! You gotta go on without me!") (1) It's super weird to me that "stunned" is a worse condition than "incapacitated," but there you go. (2) Yes, I've basically slid three simple "wound levels" in under the hit points. You just don't have to worry about the wound levels until 0 hp, and even then, there's no death spiral as long as there are spells like [I]healing word[/I] to keep you in the fight. [/QUOTE]
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Alternate solution: Whack-a-mole healing
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