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

[doctorbadwolf]

the use it for things other than healing that is potentially harder to foresee I do believe... say for instance if a fighter can use them in place of a CS die

And in each case, whatever system you change would be all you’d need to change. Eg, allowing fighter to burn hit dice in place of CS dice. That’s a fair trade, as it is.

 

[Garthanos]

And in each case, whatever system you change would be all you’d need to change. Eg, allowing fighter to burn hit dice in place of CS dice. That’s a fair trade, as it is.

It depends on the kinds of changes you make for instance though that one indeed intuits as a fair trade and for the most part only affects things narrowly I feel (the numbers might be off it is trading out a daily resource for a non-daily both have different scaling etc). There might be other changes possible which are broader like allowing one to spend that extra heroic effort on skill use or being able to make an opportunity attack even though your reaction is already spent.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I debated allowing a wizard spell that allows the wizard to spend one of his surges to be able to have another PC be able to spend on of his surges to gain HP. As a necromancy spell, it sounds ok, but it crosses the healing is clerics only threshold.

Life Transference from Xanathar's is a Wizard spell I think.
It would fit with the theme of some spellcasters are able to move life energy around, but only clerics can truly create it.
- If that was something you wanted to run with.

 

[Don Durito]

I use recoveries at a currency a lot in 13th age.

I let players use them to power rituals. If a player wants to attempt a particularly difficult stunt I'll say it will cost you a recovery.

Basically it's just a go to - if a character wants to do something that pushes balance in terms of rules my go to response is to say "Yes but..." and to name a cost in recoveries.


One of the big issues in 5E is that it can vary so much how much those HD are actually used. I played in one game where my level 10 Fighter ended the day with no HD and 4 hp but that's very much the exception in my experience. Because healing magic doesn't use HD, it becomes questionable how much a hit die is worth. In a party that has lots of healers and doesn't care too much about short rests hit dice are not a particularly valuable commodity.

 

[Don Durito]

I had played around with the idea of letting a Fighter spend a hit die to recover action surge, the reasoning being that if the party isn't getting the combats a day to make their hit die matter, then they could probably use the boost, and if the rest economy is being broken then at least they get a chance to join in.

But I'm not sure that it's really that good an idea for the reasons describe above.

 

[Horwath]

I think that for next campaign I will just set healing surges in 5E same as 4E

They heal 1/4 max HP.
Second wind; Action, use one healing surge. recharge on short rest.

number of healing surges:

1d6 HD, 4+con mod
1d8 HD, 5+con mod
1d10 HD 6+con mod
1d12 HD 7+con mod

number recharges on long rest.

if multiclass, take average value, round down

Durable feat: +1 con, +2 healing surges, use second wind as bonus action.


fighters second wind renamed as "Third wind"
Bonus action; use a healing surge. short rest recharge.

 

[Garthanos]

Eg, allowing fighter to burn hit dice in place of CS dice. That’s a fair trade, as it is.

Hey you know combine this with the Unearthed Arcana that added both flexibility in which maneuvers you knew and abilities like Silver Tongue and Studious Eye and we have the fighters can exert to be better at skills functionality.