D&D 5E Hit Dice and How To Get More From Them

[Charlaquin]

It is a start.

Not really though. Again, the point of healing surges was to insure each character had access to about 2/5 of their daily HP allotment at a time, and to make healing abilities pull from that remaining 3/5, so that the adventure could be designed around taxing the amount of HP the party actually had instead of a rough estimate. Second Winds and 5-minute short rests and Milestones and healing Powers are all just specific ways to utilize the resource, but the real design purpose of healing surges was to carefully regulate HP per day.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

We modified healing surges in 4e and carried it over with HD in 5e. So in our games you can use a Heroic Surge

Heroic Surges. In addition to healing you can spend HD as follows:

• 1 HD, double your speed for 1 round.
• 1 HD double your melee weapon damage die (dice)
• 1 HD recharge a short-rest feature or ability
• 2 HD recharge a long-rest feature or ability

He also use a 5 minute short rest.

Now to get the Healing Surge of 4e you would need to use the alternate DMG rule and then reconstruct healing magic off of HD. A bit more work than I am willing to do as we don't have much healing magic in my group anyway (no cleric, paladin, or druid)

Also, I have started allowing my characters to use 4e "powers" by spending HD: 1 HD for encounter (x 4e tier) or 2 HD for daily (x 4e tier)

Doesn't this enforce long rests being more frequent? If you spend your HD on other things than healing, and you don't have healers and you only get HD back from long resting.

 

[BrokenTwin]

The problem with using HD (IMO) is the way it scales. At 1st level, a HD is worth 100% of your HP pool (very roughly speaking). By 20th level, it is only worth 5% of that pool. IOW, an individual HD becomes worth less as you go up in level. Unlike a HS which is a fixed percentage (25%) irrespective of level (barring feats and the like which might bump that by a small amount).

Small but important distinction: a Hit Die at level 1 isn't worth 100% of your Hit Points, it's worth up to 100% of your Hit Points. That to me is the biggest difference to account for. Healing Surges were a static amount of healing (you always knew exactly how much you were going to get from one), while Hit Die recovery is variable (you're getting 1-X hit points back on a dX). is that uncertainty something you'd want to eliminate as well? Personally, I prefer the randomness of rolling the die to recover, but I can totally see the preference towards the static amount.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Spending hit dice for effects! hope you weren’t complaining about 5 minutes work day.

Never seen it in my games.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Here's some of my uses:

• I use HDs instead of exhaustion level for extreme temperature.
• For a group check, if less than half the party succeed, the party can still press forward, but those who missed lose an HD. If all the party fail, they all lose on HD AND they do not progress forward.
• Poison and Disease might cost an HD.
• Suffocating: all character can hold their breath for a number of round (not minutes) equal to their Con mod. Any round after that cost 1 HD.
• Berserker's Frenzy cost 1 HD instead of 1 exhaustion.
• Sanity crushing visions and horrific sights can cause the lost of 1 HD.

 

[dave2008]

Doesn't this enforce long rests being more frequent? If you spend your HD on other things than healing, and you don't have healers and you only get HD back from long resting.

As with most things in D&D: it depends. I bet it could for some groups, but that hasn't happened with my group. It would be hard for me to tell how these rules affect a typical group as we have other house-rules that change the default assumptions of the game.

Keep in mind this is a straight power-up on top of everything the can do by RAW. So they only spend HD on non-healing options when they need something extra/special. We are at 15th level now and their seems to be plenty of HD for any healing and cool extras in our typical adventure day.

 

[bedir than]

Spending X HD to reduce exhaustion interests me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There are some classes in the Eberron Morgrave Miscellany that make use of hit dice.
The one that comes to mind is the Extreme Explorer, a barbarian fuelled by adrenaline.
You can add a hit die to a number of different checks, but also take damage of the amount you rolled - your prof bonus.

It costs a hit due and hit points? No thanks.

 

[dave2008]

Not really though. Again, the point of healing surges was to insure each character had access to about 2/5 of their daily HP allotment at a time, and to make healing abilities pull from that remaining 3/5, so that the adventure could be designed around taxing the amount of HP the party actually had instead of a rough estimate. Second Winds and 5-minute short rests and Milestones and healing Powers are all just specific ways to utilize the resource, but the real design purpose of healing surges was to carefully regulate HP per day.

I don't disagree with your premise, but I still say it is a start. It is really low-hanging fruit, but still a start. The harder part is changing how all healing spells / magic items work.

PS: this thread is about how to get more out of HD, not how to bring back the healing surge mechanic whole cloth from 4e.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Honestly, I’m tempted to boost in combat healing by just allowing you to spend 1 HD when you receive healing, to gain 1HD (averaged) extra healing, and leave HD gain on a long rest alone.