D&D (2024) Hit Dice as an alternate resource?

[Kobold Avenger]

Hit Dice have been mainly used as a resource for healing during short rests, and in the playtest can be used outside of short rests with the Durable Feat. I think the rest place they tried to have Hit Dice power something else was in the Dragonlance UA playtest, but I don't think those uses stuck.

But could we see more uses brought forward with Hit Dice as a resource to power things? It would fit into the "expend some of your life force to do something".

 

[rules.mechanic]

I hope so. We use "Heroic Effort" but Hit Dice don't recover as fast in our games

 

[AnotherGuy]

Hit Dice have been mainly used as a resource for healing during short rests, and in the playtest can be used outside of short rests with the Durable Feat. I think the rest place they tried to have Hit Dice power something else was in the Dragonlance UA playtest, but I don't think those uses stuck.

But could we see more uses brought forward with Hit Dice as a resource to power things? It would fit into the "expend some of your life force to do something".

We've been using it for years to enable characters to push beyond their limits as stipulated in the PHB. We have a table. It changes the game ofc and you need to seriously change the rest mechanic.

 

[codo]

I am not a big fan. My biggest issue with it, is that making hit dice a pool of dice you can spend for more power, makes have a dedicated healer character necessary. One of the best things about 5E is a party not having to worry about who has to play the cleric.

That said I do like the narrative element of it, a character pushing themselves beyond their limit to achieve the impossible. I don't actually mind if it was limited to once per day. I just worry if you can always spend them, players will start to see them more as tokens to spend for more power.

I could also see a specific class or subclass that was built around it. Maybe some kind of warlock or sorcerer that used demonic power to sacrifice their own life energy to power their spells.

 

[Horwath]

I like the idea, in general, but HDs are only resource that every class can utilize during short rest.
Giving away short rest healing to do something will even further push the 5MWD.

 

[Lojaan]

I like it. Could be fun if you could add the dice to something so it benefits martials more.

I also like the idea of hit dice fueling class abilities, like using them in place of sorcery points, battle master dice, bardic inspiration etc... It would be an interesting limiter on multi classing if all powers had to draw on the same pool.

Definitely need to change the name tho. "Hit Dice" is a throw back term that no longer means anything and is needlessly confusing.

 

[Pedantic]

Chamomile's Better Backgrounds is built around reworking backgrounds to give you abilities to spend hit dice on, which i think is a good way to make this a generally universal thing.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've tried a few things linked to them over the years but they tend to fall flat IME. PCs just don't have a power budget needing to be filled so it either feels overpowered or a meaningless metering given how easy it is to recover hit dice.

 

[Aldarc]

Hit Dice have been mainly used as a resource for healing during short rests, and in the playtest can be used outside of short rests with the Durable Feat. I think the rest place they tried to have Hit Dice power something else was in the Dragonlance UA playtest, but I don't think those uses stuck.

But could we see more uses brought forward with Hit Dice as a resource to power things? It would fit into the "expend some of your life force to do something".

So like how healing surges worked in 4e?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hit Dice were pretty clearly intended to do more than they did in 5E, but at this point, I suspect we're stuck with them being a weird little vestigial subsystem. I'm not sure you should be able to spend them to get more offensive punch though.

I mean, it's a real pity that they're so vestigial. A number of other games have similar mechanics which work well (System Strain in Worlds Without Number, for example, or yes, Healing Surges in 4E), but I don't anticipate 1D&D doing anything interesting with them at all beyond possibly letting you spend them outside short rests for healing more. I notice the only major real change involving them so far is that where in 5E and the very first packet, you regained 1/2 HD on a Long Rest, in the two more recent packets, you regain all HD on a Long Rest.

Personally I'd really like to see most levelled healing spells give you an opportunity to spend 1 or more HD in addition to the healing they do, at a minimum.

I am not a big fan. My biggest issue with it, is that making hit dice a pool of dice you can spend for more power, makes have a dedicated healer character necessary. One of the best things about 5E is a party not having to worry about who has to play the cleric.

This is certainly a risk. Right now, unless you have a Life Cleric (or wacky house rules), it's likely the majority of healing your party does is via Hit Dice and Long Rests. But if people could spend them to increase power, it's likely they'd blow through them at an incredible rate. Life Clerics are thankfully smacked with the nerf bat in 1D&D, but nothing will convince certain players that relying on others to "heal them up" isn't fine and dandy (MMORPGs and CRPGs have really not helped with this lol), so I think it's something that needs to be addressed mechanically - and that means avoiding translating Hit Dice into really anything but defense/healing abilities.