Hit points & long rests: please consider?

[Meophist]

If you don't like long rest healing all HP, Mike just tweeted this

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/206129402579394560

An 8 CON character at level 1 won't be able to heal any HP at all on their own.

 

[darjr]

I like the idea. I'd still play the playtest as written.

 

[darjr]

An 8 CON character at level 1 won't be able to heal any HP at all on their own.

good point.

Add that everyone gets at least 1 hitpoint.

 

[variant]

You could house rule the dying mechanics.

Instead of being knocked unconscious at reaching 0 hit points, as long as you don't drop below your Constitution score in negative hit points and make a saving throw, you are conscious but are considered wounded which means you have disadvantage on attacks and move at half speed. If you fail at your saving throw, you take 1d6 damage.

Once you go below your Constitution score and fail a saving throw, you are knocked unconscious.

 

[SageofMusic]

And just what makes you think that the PCs are all going to sleep at the same time? Rather than in watches?

I would definitely expect the PCs to do that, but how does that change my argument? If the PCs are the only thing blasting the undead back, how is only one character going to hold them back? If my PCs were exploiting the "full heal", then I would have the undead launch a larger assault in order to knock them off balance. There are numerous ways around the "problem" of having people heal once a day over an 8 hour period. Remember, it has to be continuous. If it's broken in any way they have to make up all the lost time.

I think the problem here is that it fails one of the fundamental rules of good design.

Which is what? It seems to me that a lot of people like one way and a lot of people like the other way. If it failed a fundamental rule of good design, you would think that everyone would hate it because it's broken.

To do this you'd better have 4e level balance mechanics. Because a new DM is going to have problems threading the needle. Or he's going to have to keep coming up with excuses to launch yet another attack after four hours. Rules which make the extended rests take an extended amount of time don't force a new DM to navigate between Scylla and Chrybdis here and therefore don't encourage the DM to DM badly.

DMs have been threading the needle for over 20 years before 4e came out, so how is this any different? I've always allowed for full healing when they rest for a full day. If I don't want them resting, I keep them on their toes. It's really not the difficult.

It wasn't the mechanics. It was the design of adventures. Dungeon-stomps are a limited type of roleplaying. Yes, you can have an excellent game that involves dungeons. But you can have an excellent campaign without an actual dungeon to be seen. If it's either-or then I'd rather have no dungeons to just dungeons (I actually prefer a mix).

Ok, then it isn't a problem of D&D at all. It's a problem of the pre-made adventure designers. I've never used a pre-made adventure. Therefore, I've had a good mix of outside and inside adventures.

Remember that all of D&D, every bit, is simply a base ruleset. Everything else rests on the DM. If you don't like full healing, then don't allow it, make up your own rules. I don't particularly like magic items. Therefore in 3.5 and 4e, I lower the power of high level enemies because of the deficiencies of PCs with no magic items.

 

[darjr]

And it looks like the HD and over night healing were part of a module put into the playtest.

We sort of hid the first rules module in the current playtest - remove themes and/or backgrounds and hit dice = old school style game.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/206126172025794561

Heads up was from [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION]

 

[nnms]

Not necessarily. If you remove all the stuff he mentioned, you still have sleep = full hp.

And why hide something that you touted as a feature to entice people with the idea that they can get the type of play they want from 5e by using it?

 

[Kzach]

Friendly warning, lets not start making this personal. Keep comments about what is discussed, and not about the people making them.

--Stalker0

 

[Stalker0]

If you have such a difficult time with the "suspension of disbelief" over regaining full HP. Please explain how you can accept regaining spells overnight. Even accepting spells,dragon, & even magic, that is not "jarring"?

Because Spells and Dragons get something healing doesn't get.....fantasy.

Because we have no spells and dragon in the real world, we don't place any real world expectations on them. They do what they do. If magic refreshes in 24 hours, then it refreshes in 24 hours.

But injury and healing....oh we all have had our share of that. We know how long it takes for a wound to heal. So we place some of these expectations on how they work for the characters we pretend to be. Now because it is imagination, we allow some tolerance....but the tolerance only goes so far, and when it breaks is when "suspension of disbelief" occurs.

 

[Kzach]

What I find most amusing about the whole 'realism' thing is that if you TRULY wanted realism then you wouldn't be playing D&D. But hey, let's run with it.

Every cut deep enough to break through the fat layers is potentially lethal. Infection will set in very quickly if not dealt with right away. Any bruise deep enough to affect internal organs or bones again carries with it the chance of infection but will also probably cause internal bleeding which can't be healed by anything short of magic. Then there are broken bones. Broken bones are adventure-career ending injuries. Without magical healing, bones will not set properly in a medieval setting and so the character will be permanently gimped, not to mention be out of action for at least 3-6 months depending on the severity.

Then there are all the real life-threatening wounds. A stab in the gut is pretty much a death sentence without magical healing. Even a small dagger in the gut is basically life-ending, and that's assuming it doesn't hit any arteries on the way in and doesn't hit the live or kidneys, just the intestines. Game over, friend.