House Rule for Healing in 5th Edition D&D

[canucksaram]

I've decided not to use the healing rules from 5th ed D&D and will be replacing them with these rules instead:

Characters have a pool of healing dice equal to their proficiency bonus (instead of their character level, which is the current rule in 5th ed). These dice can be used during short rests when wounded characters have a chance to assess their conditions and receive treatment for wounds, injuries, and damage. This pool of healing dice refreshes at the rate of one die per long rest. Any extended period of downtime (i.e., in between adventures) completely refreshes the die pool. Otherwise, natural healing will be per 3.5/Pathfinder (the rules are the same for both games). For those using Fate points or the equivalent of "hero points" (or Conviction, from True20): A Fate point can be spent to fully refresh one's pool of healing dice.

Rationale: the current 5th ed. rules state that all HP are healed at the end of a long rest. That seems quite out of balance to me, and it takes away a lot of the specialness of healing spells. If a long rest restores all HP then PCs will be all too happy to rely on combat first and foremost, rather than as one of many options that they could employ to resolve conflicts with NPCs and monsters, albeit one that has real consequences and possible drawbacks for them.

 

[mouselim]

D&D 5e Healing System sucks

Foremost, I honestly feel that WoTC designers (given the time and budget) could have derive a better system that what is offered here...sad.

Imagine a tortured prisoner healing totally after a night's sleep in his cell or injured soldiers in a war fully healed the next day to resume battle...this is totally wrong and the very common excuse given by supporters of this attribute it to "highly magical" realm...really?!

Anyway, I'm also going to house-rule this.

Second wind HP gains are totally temporary - it will be lost during rest (short or long).

There is a bloodied state (which is half of the HP rounded up), any HP loss after the bloodied state will be recorded in a separate slot. These HP gains are only viable on long rest and based on the modifier of CON.

I'll keep the HD gain mechanism and how it is used to gain (non-bloodied) HP loss. However, I'll borrow your concept that only one HD is gained from one long rest.

Lastly, (another one borrowed from your idea) one "fate"/"bennie"/"inspiration" point usage to gain one HD.

Example: A fighter with 25 HP. His bloodied state is 13.

He is hit and his current HP drops to 10. On his character record sheet, his HP is 10/25 and bloodied HP is 3. He is further damaged and he lost another 5 HP. Now he is 5/25 and bloodied HP is 8.

He uses second wind and his HP restores to 15. He takes another 5 damage before the combat is over.

After the fight, the fighter takes a rest in a remote corner and his HP drops back to 5/25 and bloodied HP is 8.
He uses one HD to restore HP and gets a 3. His HP is 8/25. Believing that he is going into a major boss fight later, he uses another two HDs to restore HP and gets a 15. However, that puts his total HP to 23. Hence he can only recover to 15/25 and bloodied HP is 8 (23 - 8 = 15).

However, the cleric decides to heal him and he gains back 3 HP. This puts his HP at 18/25 and bloodied HP is 5.

He faces the big boss and a fierce fight ensues. He is hit and takes 5 points of damages. His HP is now 13/25 and bloodied HP is still 5. Before he finishes off the big boss, he takes another 8 points of damage and his HP drops to 5/25 and bloodied HP is now 13.

In a short rest, he uses the final 2 HD and gets 12 HP. This will put his HP to 17 but since his bloodied HP is 13, he can only be at 12/25 with bloodied HP at 13.

Finally, after a night's rest, he gains back one HD and regains +3 HP (he has a CON of 18). The fighter's HP is now 15/25 with a bloodied HP at 10. At his present state, using HD to heal is pointless as his is wounded at 10. The fighter's state is at equilibrium. He is no longer winded or tired but his wounds are still preventing him from regaining full health.

 

[Jimbro]

I like the 5e healing system because it makes life easier (even if it doesn't make a lot of real world sense), but I do like that there are some more gritty options available. I think what you've laid out makes a lot sense. Let us know how it goes at the table!

 

[Akhena]

Imagine a tortured prisoner healing totally after a night's sleep in his cell or injured soldiers in a war fully healed the next day to resume battle...this is totally wrong and the very common excuse given by supporters of this attribute it to "highly magical" realm...really?!

Personally I prefer the idea that the rules applying to the players are separated from the rules applying to the NPCs (rest of the world). I don't like to have crippled PCs running around unless it's something I want to do for a particular adventure. But for NPCs? Sure! Whatever needs to be done to drive the story forward.

Say I need this dying NPC to give his last bit of information before passing away. He's a commoner with 4hp. Already the problem arises as how many hp he's got left. At 1 he should not be on the ground incapacitated but fully functional. At 0hp he should be dead (as an NPC) or for special NPCs he could be dying like any PCs. But he is then unconscious. Huh. Can't talk! But I'm the DM, so I over rule this and say he's dying at 0 hp, but barely conscious. Just enough to talk a little before dying.
Now the cleric casts healing word. It should work, right? He should heal by 1d4+prof bonus. He might be back to full hp actually. But this does not serve my story. Sometimes it's nice that PCs surprise me with some magic / class features. But in this case I know I will never ever be able to set up a scene with a dying NPC giving his last words of advice.

So I prefer in this case to describe the body as beyond any possible healing. He's just too wounded. He's literally bleeding to death and no magic won't be able to save him. I would not be mean to let the cleric waste a level 1 slot spell on this. I would just point out that it won't help in this situation.

D&D 3 / 3.5 was more trying to have one set of rules for everyone. I feel that with 5th I can reasonably go away from that, and make better stories without the sort of problems you just described (the tortured prisoner fully healed the next morning). I want to have NPCs with broken arms, leg injuries, etc. I don't want a cure wounds spell be the ultimate solution.

Coming back to the original topic, the March 2013 playtest packet had optional rules for healing. My understanding is that the survey showed that there was not one strong preference for one style or another. So they came up with some sort of middle ground and the DMG will provide alternative healing rules.

I also don't like that much the full hp after a long rest. But I'm still trying to figure what would be my preferred method. One alternative method was that you regain no hp at all but all your HD after a long rest. Another version (very very gritty) was that you would regain no hp and a number of HD equal to 1 + Con modifier. But what if your Con modifier is negative? ...

 

[thalmin]

While the above look reasonable, I fully expect to see a lot of variant healing rules in the DMG.

 

[ppaladin123]

While the above look reasonable, I fully expect to see a lot of variant healing rules in the DMG.

Yes, they are offering a wound system and "grittier" healing systems. If you can track down the playtest documents for 5e they included a gritty healing option to get feedback. That would give you some idea of what they are thinking and are likely to offer in the DMG.

 

[MoutonRustique]

While different healing systems would be excellent, I dearly hope they also offer variations on healing magic and items.

Since some classes' spell slots and some items translate to hp, addressing simply the "natural healing" rates seems a poor idea - it basically only influences the value of other sources of healing. If "non-natural-healing" becomes too valuable, it can put tremendous pressure on playstyle (i.e. require a party to have a Light cleric).

I'd rather not go back to a time where healing a party to full capacity went from 3-4 weeks w/o a cleric to 2 days w/ one...

 

[Sadras]

Rationale: the current 5th ed. rules state that all HP are healed at the end of a long rest. That seems quite out of balance to me, and it takes away a lot of the specialness of healing spells.

Foremost, I honestly feel that WoTC designers (given the time and budget) could have derive a better system that what is offered here...sad.

Imagine a tortured prisoner healing totally after a night's sleep in his cell or injured soldiers in a war fully healed the next day to resume battle...this is totally wrong and the very common excuse given by supporters of this attribute it to "highly magical" realm...really?!

I'm of the opinion that WoTC designers got it right! They couldn't possibly cater to every single playstyle and no matter how innovative and ground breaking their HP system was going to be, there would be those that would house-rule anyways. So it is obvious the best thing to do in their position would be to create a simple open system that allows for easy modification:

• Should one wants to treat HP as predominantly meat one can adopt house-rules such as @canucksaram or just remove the entire HD healing mechanic altogether. No mess.

• There is the lot who like "the highly magical realm" (refer above) - they play as is. No mess.

• And finally you have the "gritty" players who prefer a Wound System, where only the first HP (last, depending on your point of view) is a Meat (Wound) and you allow Healing Spells to heal Wounds and Hit Points and you could utilised the Fatigue track for Wounds. No mess.

I think its very unfair @mouselim to attack the WotC designers when clearly their system was designed to cater to all playstyles. Your criticism seems premature considering we still have not seen the options with regards to healing/wounds available in the DMG.

 

[arjomanes]

My healing house rules are pretty simple. On page 186 of the Player's Handbook, I make this change:

"At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character’s total number of them. For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest."

So, in my game, you don't regain any hit points with a long rest. A long rest is different from a short rest in that you also regain up to 1/2 your level in spent Hit Dice. Everything else stays the same.


I also implemented an Injury house rule. On page 197 of the Player's Handbook, under Death Saving Throws I added the following:

"Roll a d20. If the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. A success or failure has no effect by itself. On your third success, you become stable (see below). On your second failure, you are injured (see below). The DM will roll on the Injury Table to determine your injury. On your third failure, you die. The successes and failures don't need to be consecutive; keep track of both until you collect three of a kind. The number of both is reset to zero when you regain any hit points or become stable."

Your first injury of a type is temporary and can be healed with restoration or a certain amount of time. A second injury to the same location is permanent and can only be healed with greater restoration or quests.