D&D 5E Healing after 29 Oct playtest

[Mattachine]

I want a system that lies between overnight full-healing and the painfully slow natural healing of AD&D and 3e.

The overall slower healing variant in the second playtest packet came close.

 

[NilesB]

It is that healing is too easy. It deprives from the battle the lethality and the sense of danger,

I find that healing is too hard. It paradoxically deprives from the battle the lethality and the sense of danger, Most encounters must be built as a attempt to merely wear down the PCs and force them too expend resources rather than any kind of attempt to actually defeat them or else the game devolves into the 5 minute workday.

"Let's leave them without enough cure spells to handle the fight after the next" is a terrible and boring Orcish Warcry.

 

[darjr]

I find that healing is too hard. It paradoxically deprives from the battle the lethality and the sense of danger, Most encounters must be built as a attempt to merely wear down the PCs and force them too expend resources rather than any kind of attempt to actually defeat them or else the game devolves into the 5 minute workday.

"Let's leave them without enough cure spells to handle the fight after the next" one is a terrible and boring Orcish Warcry.

I think that is a different problem. How does access to more healing change the five minute work day problem when it's only available at a long rest, or the end of the day? The very same way those healing spells are, isn't it?

I grant that you see the problem differently than I do, but catering to different styles is kinda the point of Next.

 

[Li Shenron]

Having lots of options in the book is GOOD.

What I don't understand is why do they have to be so worried about precise rules?

It's very clear to me that different gaming groups want wildly different types of games with regard to healing, so why not just go straight to the core problem?

It would be so much easier if they put these options in the book:

Option A (fast reset): You regain ALL your hit points after each fight, provided you have a reasonable opportunity for a small rest.

Option B (fast recharge): You regain one HD of hit points every hour of non-strenuous activity (DM can "dial" on that "hour" to make it shorter or longer).

Option C (slow reset): You regain all your hit points after a night's rest.

Option D (slow recharge): You regain one HD of hit points every night of full rest (DM can "dial" on that HD to make it faster or slower).

Having more precise rules is pointless, because 99% of the DMs is going to nitpick about something and will want to house rule it anyway.

 

[Cybit]

Because many people see this as validation of their own belief about how the game is supposed to be, rather than as a game and giving people options.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's interesting to me that they're letting you take "extended rests" without letting you recover all your resources. A big element of challenge and pacing is how fast the PC's get to recover their everything.

I don't like the first experimental rule, because it requires me to track hours. Those bits be fiddly as heck. The second rule makes me track 5 minutes, which ALSO ridiculously fiddly.

I do like using bloodied as a marker to slow it out, but I'm not sure I'd have it limit short rests...I like it better as a limited on extended rests, so that it can't all happen in one night.

I also like "refocus," though I'd like it a bit better if it meant you spent HD instead of just regaining HP (let the fighter's refocus be better than the wizard's!), and I'm not sure that the DC 10 Con check isn't just pointless fiddly bits. If there was more variety, it'd be interesting, but as it is it's just a "speedbump."

But I also don't understand what these methods might give you over a simple, quick, time-shifting rest rule.

 

[Tyrex]

Let's be clear. For those of us that began with the original boxed sets, we loved the entire new idea of PRG (in my first running of B2 as a DM, I rewarded PCs for imaginative and quick wit by allowing them to regurgitate their one potion of healing at halved HP value to aid the next player) but quickly out grew the boundaries that were inherent in the sets. Each reinvention of the game allowed for greater clarification (more or less), but in some areas that black and white structure was lacking. I think no more so than in combat in general, healing as one of the sub areas of combat.

I don't know where the answer lies. Having never played 3.x or beyond, I do know that my groups always wanted more realism in terms of at least healing and damage. We tried to incorporate ICE's Claw and Arms Law to give a sense of realism but that made it too fidgety for me. We tried house rules that were constantly reassessed and at times situationally used (for mass melee, we just went by THAC0 and saves. For more detailed battles with monsters on NPCs we brought back house rules).

The fact that the kits specifically state that Hit Points are an abstraction worries me. We are then presented with some B&W rules and then given Optional and Experimental Rules.

I don't see this as beneficial, and think the notion of abstraction needs to be addressed before any other argument can be made. Fail to get past the abstraction and the rewrite is once again critically flawed

 

[gweinel]

Because many people see this as validation of their own belief about how the game is supposed to be, rather than as a game and giving people options.

I don't think anyone is against options regarding healing (at least in this thread). I think more option the better. The problem starts if YOUR option isn't in the game.

 

[Cybit]

IIRC, in every edition of the game it has been flat out stated that HP are an abstraction, including the boxed set. Part of it is that we've kind of grown up, and things we were fine not thinking about now we do think about, and is gnawing at us.

 

[Cybit]

I don't think anyone is against options regarding healing (at least in this thread). I think more option the better. The problem starts if YOUR option isn't in the game.

I've talked to folks who've seen the detailed playtest feedback, and they are coming quickly to the conclusion that people are as pissed about options being IN the system as they are about options not being in the system.

The amount of times they have received "well, the option I want is in the playtest, but this other option shouldn't be in the playtest" is astounding.