D&D 5E Hit Point Recovery Too Generous

[Mouseferatu]

I thought it was a bit fast, as in 4e, so I changed a short rest to be a night and a long rest to be a week spent in civilization.

Just for healing? Or for everything?

I can tell you that as a player, if I was playing a wizard (just for instance), I could live with only healing after a week in town, but not regaining spells until a week spent in town would probably drive me away from the class, if not the campaign.

 

[SirAntoine]

I don't think many would change it. Full hit points means very little in 5E. You can die almost every combat. Hit points is not a status level of your wounds. It is numerical way to simulate a combination of skill, physical resilience, physical endurance, and other factors in combat. Recovering them all doesn't mean you can't die the very next battle to an enemy. I would bet the vast majority find slow hit point recovery cumbersome and lacking. It doesn't do a very good job of simulating fantasy heroes that seem to fight every day and suffer very little from doing so.

It's interesting how much disagreement I hear about these subjects. I have read multiple comments saying 5th Edition combats are very easy, and other comments saying 5th Edition combats are hard. I have also read multiple comments that the hit point recovery rate is too generous, and multiple comments that say no. Some say the average fight takes a short time, and others a lot longer.

Even more interesting is the fact that 5th Edition seems to be universally okay, though. Maybe it is just easy to adjust the difficulty to get where you want it, and the hit point rate.

Not everyone has the same willingness to make a change. There is something to be said for playing the game by the book. So some people who dislike the rate will accept it.

Now getting to the substance of your post, I think that regardless how you envision hit points, if they return quickly it can take away challenge and any sense you can have of getting injured in D&D, however little that may be. They're still your characters' hit points, and they still represent how much damage you can take. The character will know he can just take a long rest and recover.

 

[GX.Sigma]

This is only the case if you have easy access to a cleric. If you don't have one of those, it can take weeks to recover. Which is totally a thing that could happen.

Sure, but that just creates a huge divide between groups with and without a cleric. A cleric-less group can't have the same kinds of adventures that a group with a cleric can. If an adventure is challenging for a party with a cleric, a party without a cleric doesn't stand a chance. Someone has to play the healer. That is straight-up poor game design, and not something from the past I want to revisit.

That being said, I agree that Lingering Wounds is probably a good way to represent physical injury in 5E, especially if you decide that Cure Wounds can actually cure wounds.

I've seen a lingering wounds table that actually categorizes wounds as light, serious, critical, and so on. That way, cure light wounds cures light wounds, cure serious wounds cures serious wounds, and so on. It's pretty sweet. You could also reverse it, so inflict wounds actually inflicts wounds.

 

[Sadras]

Due to the dissatisfaction with the Hit Point bloat of 5e and the forced High Magic Setting (Cantrips, Potions of Healing, so many Spellcasting Classes...etc) one of my players has opted to run a Westeros-styled campaign mostly using 2e, with modifications.

Rolling for Abilities, No THACO, Savings Throws redone so they're not these abstract numbers, Magic pulled back, increased Weapon & Non-Weapon Proficiencies for classes, using Attribute split in Skills and Powers, Armour prevents damage (does not add to AC), and there is no ridiculous Hit Point bloat (standard men have d8, large men 2d8, giants 4d8 and dragons 8d8). Everyone's armour classes is around 10-15 (depending on Dexterity and Shields).

So it keeps Bound Accuracy and we can incorporate the Advantage/Disadvantage Mechanic.
We are going to use Weapon vs Armour benefits, Speed Factor and Armour Weight Allowance to determine if one's movement is affected during combat and Called Shots. Hopefully this doesn't slow combat, right now its all theoretical.

I'm thinking it might provide that grittiness our group desires and that we have been missing with the last few editions.

 

[SirAntoine]

Just for healing? Or for everything?

I can tell you that as a player, if I was playing a wizard (just for instance), I could live with only healing after a week in town, but not regaining spells until a week spent in town would probably drive me away from the class, if not the campaign.

DM's interested in making this change should be aware that the wizard and other dedicated casters have fewer spell slots in 5th Edition. If you will change recovery to once per week, consider increasing the number of slots the character can have at a time. This can be tricky. If you double it, that's about as much as you can do without pushing the casters far above the other classes. A simple +1 per level might be better, or +50% rounded down.

Having to return to civilization is actually a big difference. It can throw a monkeywrench into whatever the party is doing. It makes some more sense for healing, but characters should be able to recover individual spell slots in the middle of the day, whenever they want. They shouldn't even need to wait until they rest.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I'm also implementing a "week in town" long rest...

Just for healing? Or for everything?

I can tell you that as a player, if I was playing a wizard (just for instance), I could live with only healing after a week in town, but not regaining spells until a week spent in town would probably drive me away from the class, if not the campaign.

But "a week in town" is the long rest for everybody. It's not like the adventure continues while you're sleeping in the normal rules. You go back to town, the DM says "you rest for a week," and you get all your stuff back. What's the problem?

Having to return to civilization is actually a big difference. It can throw a monkeywrench into whatever the party is doing.

Yes. That is the whole point of the "week in town" rest, in my opinion. Whatever the party was doing (e.g., clearing a dungeon) before the rest is probably irrelevant after the rest. In other words, you go back to town when you've given up on whatever you were doing. In other other words, if you want/need to get something done, you'd better do it all in one expedition. This is essentially a pacing mechanism that forces each adventure to be only one "day"'s worth of resources, and nerfs five-minute workdays.

If you will change recovery to once per week, consider increasing the number of slots the character can have at a time....characters should be able to recover individual spell slots in the middle of the day, whenever they want. They shouldn't even need to wait until they rest.

What? Why?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have read multiple comments saying 5th Edition combats are very easy, and other comments saying 5th Edition combats are hard.

I would tend to agree with them.

 

[Mouseferatu]

But "a week in town" is the long rest for everybody. It's not like the adventure continues while you're sleeping in the normal rules. You go back to town, the DM says "you rest for a week," and you get all your stuff back. What's the problem?

"Everybody" doesn't get less and less effective if the party needs, for whatever reason, to push on. "Everybody" isn't often the reason a long rest is required. Which means it will almost always be the player of one of the spellcasters who has to decide "Do I insist we go back, and thus fail in our objective? Or am I willing to do nothing but throw cantrips for the next two hours of actual game play?"

Some measure of that sort of dilemma is okay and even encouraged. But a campaign where that's almost always the choice to be made is going to get very frustrating for a lot of people. Especially when doing so has become an automatic "we lose" button--something many players, even those who are into the resource management aspects, may well find off-putting.

And honestly, I find the idea of only facing dungeons/challenges that can be completed in a single incursion to be quite limiting.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Sure, but that just creates a huge divide between groups with and without a cleric. A cleric-less group can't have the same kinds of adventures that a group with a cleric can. If an adventure is challenging for a party with a cleric, a party without a cleric doesn't stand a chance. Someone has to play the healer. That is straight-up poor game design, and not something from the past I want to revisit.

I don't know if I would call the design poor, per se. It is certainly something to take into consideration.

Personally, it makes a lot of sense to me that you would want someone capable of magical healing, in any world that supports it. And a world with real magical healing is, to me, a more interesting world than one where magical healing can't fix anything that doesn't come back overnight anyway. You could reduce the impact of magical healing without increasing the base rate of natural healing, though. For people who really enjoy the attrition model.

 

[Mouseferatu]

And the above doesn't even address the (quite common) campaign in which PCs spend months nowhere remotely near civilization.