Hit points & long rests: please consider?

[KidSnide]

On the one hand, you are correct. If you view damage leaving a character unbloodied as near misses, luck or skill to avoid or turn, and damage leading to the bloodied state as a gash, deep bruise or similar, then it makes perfect sense to recover this quickly; the wounds are still there a day later but they are not going to affect your character's performance. We're not talking being in prime footballing form, we're talking fit enough to survive. Bandage up that nasty gash and you'll be fine. As explained and as given, this is all fair and reasonable if you follow the interpretation we are given (and not the one or ones we may have used previously).

However, where the problem arises is when a character hits zero or below. This is the sword in the gut, the broken leg or such forth. And this damage should not be quickly healed except through magic. I'm still working out exactly what happens here but I'm sensing the rules allow an easy progression from stabilized to 1hp and THIS is where the real issue lies for me; and where I will be looking for an advanced module to pick up the slack.

I agree. One of the things I dislike about the hp rules is that dropping below zero can actually be an advantage. If I'm at 2 hp and the cleric only has a d6 or a 1d8+1 to give me, I'd rather take the next 10 point hit and get healed from -8 rather than get healed down and dropped on the next hit anyway. That's even more true now that having to stand up doesn't forfeit a whole move action.

I'd like to see dropping below 0 to have its own penalty (at least in an advanced module), even if you are quickly healed up afterwards. I tend to think that a point or two of Con damage would be the easiest to do. It reduces the characters durability and the effect of their healing dice, but still allows them to "adventure wounded" if that's what the party needs to do.

Also, as an aesthetic matter, I think an overnight rest is too fast for a "total reset." I would prefer rules that required a week (or more at the DM's option) for a total reset to full capacity and overnight provides a more limited recovery.

-KS

 

[Kzach]

I'd like to see dropping below 0 to have its own penalty (at least in an advanced module), even if you are quickly healed up afterwards.

I absolutely support an alternate rule as a modular option however what I'm trying to argue is that the basic, core system should remain pretty much as it is now.

 

[Stalker0]

I am fine with 4e's system, but I actually don't think the rest to full mechanic works with the flavor they have developed.

they went out of their way to say "Above half health its all little bangs and scraps, but at below half health you are really hurt". but the rest to full suggests that is not really true.

 

[drothgery]

Except in the oddball party without a good healer (traditionally a cleric), resting two days will almost always get everyone in the party back to full HPs no matter what overnight healing does. I don't see an advantage in extending a one night rest to a two night rest (or one night rest and the next day is a 15-min adventuring day because the cleric spent half of his spells on healing before breakfast).

 

[KesselZero]

There's a lot of debate here about what HP represent. I think this somewhat misses the mark regarding the long-rest healing rule. Hopefully we can all agree that to a certain extent the very idea of hit points is a necessary game artifice. Because of that, there can never be a solid answer to how HP must be regained, because they mean something different to each player. Some argue that you can't heal all your cuts in a night; others argue that there's no right or wrong way of measuring how much luck or fate or destiny you can get back; etc. etc.

So I think we should instead focus on how HP recovery affects how the game actually plays. A game where PCs start totally fresh every day and a game where they get 1 HP back per day will play very, very differently. In the Caves of Chaos, a party that heals fully every day will be able to clear out entire tribes much faster since the poor monsters will hardly get a chance to set traps, call reinforcements, etc. and will be up against a full-functioning team of adventurers during every sortie. A party that heals more slowly will find that they must make a tough decision-- do we rest for a week and heal up if it means that our enemies will also be more rested, more prepared, more numerous?

A game with full overnight healing will also have far fewer PC deaths and TPKs, for obvious reasons. If you play in a style that prefers PCs only die at dramatic moments, or is more focused on long-term character development, this option may make sense for your group. If you play a game that's more about regular people going up against impossible odds, a more dangerous low-healing game would likely give you a fuller sense of accomplishment when you do survive.

Finally, I would argue that overnight healing will increase (or continue) the prevalance of the "15-minute workday." Not only will your casters get all their spells back, but your fighters will get all their HP back. This strongly incentivizes going all out in a single combat then retreating to heal up, day after day. Perhaps this will give your foes time to prepare for your return, but there is only so much a tribe of kobolds can achieve in a day, and anyway that method of balance works mainly in sandbox-dungeon games such as the Caves of Chaos, and less well in story-oriented games where events tend to move at the speed of plot no matter what.

These are the issues that are more important to me than what exactly HP represent. It doesn't much matter to me at what rate a hero regains his luck. What matters is what style of play the game will support.

As an aside, I believe it would be easier to have low healing be the default and have high healing be a house rule or optional module. It seems to me (and I will readily admit that I've not tested this theory much) that it would be easier to balance monsters against low-healing PCs and then have the option to make survival easier through maxed healing than it would be to balance monsters assuming max healing then take that away from the players. It's not exactly the same, but I once tried to run a game of 4e where the players rolled for their stats. It was a bloodbath, because the game is balanced for a certain level of optimization.

 

[SageofMusic]

It seems a lot of people don't like it because you'll be able to seemingly heal after every encounter. I'll just say this: if you can find safety in a dungeon after every encounter, there's something seriously wrong with your DM. If you're fighting a bunch of orcs in a castle that they recently took over, you aren't going to stop in one room, sleep, then go into the next one fully rested. You're going to be fighting, and in the middle of the fight some other orcs will be alerted, maybe a couple will escape to regroup, but there won't be a time where you can sit down and sleep for 8 hours. If you did, you can be damned sure enemies will attack you in the night.

Remember that PCs are not like normal people. They are stronger, faster, smarter, and better in nearly every way. The rules state that above half hit points, you have absolutely no signs of injury. You are simply being tired out from parrying, dodging, and generally moving around and fighting. At below half hit points, you have a few bruises and cuts because you're becoming slower, but nothing serious. When you hit 0 hp, that was the final straw. You were too tired, too worn out to dodge that last blow and it caught you in the head, or the chest, or the leg. These are the wounds that matter, and they either require large amounts of time to heal, a healing kit (essentially bandages) or magic.

Let's take a look at someone like Drizzt, who has been brought up before. Obviously a character of his power would have large amount of hit points, but this isn't because he's extremely tough. In fact, its the exact opposite. He's a freaking elf, he can barely handle small cuts. Yet he has lots of hit points. Why? Because even when you "hit" him, you aren't actually hitting him. You're putting him off balance, making him parry your blow in an ineffective way, making him dodge in a greater way than he normally would.

So in essence, having full health regen on a rest makes sense for two reasons: It's mechanically more fun, and mechanically more balanced. Sure it's slightly unrealistic, but the whole basis for the game is unrealistic.

 

[Faraer]

To be able to heal all your hurts with a night's sleep feels to me like a weird power of a supernatural hero from Celtic myth -- just too much of a genre clash with most kinds of D&D fantasy and their influences.

 

[delericho]

Since when does losing hit points lead to 'horrific, debilitating injuries'? Not in any version of the game I've played in the last 30 years.

That was, admittedly, hyperbole. Nonetheless, a character brought below 0 hit points is seriously enough wounded that he will die without attention.

That sounds like something it will take more than a quick bandage and 8 hours of sleep to fix.

Again none of this is in any edition of the game I've read or played - not even 1E. Where are these persistent wounds/serious injuries you keep mentioning?

Mearls' article. See the bit about the fighter getting bitten by the spider down to negative hit points.

Look, I've played 4e, which had this same rule in place. I'm sure it plays just fine - it did in 4e. But, as with a great many things in 4e, it's a rule that exists to make the game work, in defiance of even the barest nod to realism.

So fair enough - if they go with it, that's their prerogative. And it is not, by itself, a deal-breaker, or anything of the sort. But I would prefer it to be changed, and I do consider it a strike against 5e as written.

 

[synthapse]

I'm still working out exactly what happens here but I'm sensing the rules allow an easy progression from stabilized to 1hp and THIS is where the real issue lies for me; and where I will be looking for an advanced module to pick up the slack.

I guess this depends on your definition of "easy"-- the rules state that (without magic) it takes 2d6 hours to go from 0 HP to 1 HP, and that's before you can rest at all. It puts a premium on magical healing, and makes 0 HP significant.

Example: let's take the playtest fighter at 3rd level. At the start of the day, he's got 3HD worth of personal healing, so he's feeling pretty good about himself. Unfortunately, the DM's dice don't share that feeling; in the first combat encounter, he gets crited three times and ends the fight at -3 HP.

For the purposes of the example, let's say he has no friendly clerics or healing potions. The rogue uses a healing kit to stabilize him, so now he's at zero. Everyone else takes 10 minutes to use their HD to heal, but even though he has 3 HD like everyone else, he still has to wait 2d6 hours before he can use them, and then he's only a 1 HP-- then he can use another use of the healing kit and spend as many HD as he wants.

If this had happened later in the day, and he had no HD left, then he's effectively waiting 2D6+8 hours to get back to full-- as few as 10 hours, granted, but as many as 20. I personally feel that 2d6 hours may be generous (2d4 +4 may be better), but I feel that it's a good step in the direction of making natural healing take a while, without unduly burdening the narrative of the game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It seems a lot of people don't like it because you'll be able to seemingly heal after every encounter. I'll just say this: if you can find safety in a dungeon after every encounter, there's something seriously wrong with your DM.

Three key words there. "In a dungeon." The problem here isn't with the dungeon. It's that this sort of narrative ties games to the dungeon. If you're going politicking you can probably have your full spell load out every day. And your full hit point loadout. Hell, if you're defending a villiage from undead as part of a siege you can almost certainly set a bunker up to sleep in - it, after all, makes such a difference.

It's a balance method that only works for dungeoncrawls. Which is why the 15 minute adventuring day really started to show up only after D&D moved a lot of adventuring out of the dungeon.