House rule for overnight healing: opinions wanted

[SilverfireSage]

I agree with what Joe Liker said above. The immediate thing you have to remember about HP are that they are an abstraction, and have little to do with how much a PC is actually hurt. They are not like wounds in the Dark Heresy game for example, and this is because D&D on its own is more suited towards being adventurous and less realistic. HP can be anything from how much luck your character has, how fatigued they are during a combat, or how much time they have left before they make a fatal mistake. The only time when they really matter at all is when the PC gets down to 0 hit points and are dying. In this regard, I would find it much more realistic to have the PC that is "dying" lack the ability to regain hit points except through hit dice. This would be similar to how you're dealing with it, but also maintains the purpose of the hit points in the game. I could similarly ask you why Hit Dice are any more realistic than Hit Points. I mean, honestly, what do Hit Dice even represent? Why should they regain all of their hit dice at night and not their hit points?

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I sort of don't think the OP's change would ultimately have much noticeable effect except perhaps in cases where the PCs are placed in a very strict time crunch. I personally think Paraxis' variant (possibly with the inclusion of a natural 1 on saves versus damaging spells ALSO adding to the exhaustion level) or some sort of wound mechanic might serve better. For example:

Wounded (Arms)
- Prevents effective use of one arm/hand.
- Applies disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity checks that require two hands.
- The victim may make a DC: 10 constitution save to remove this condition after every 5 days of adequate food and water.

Wounded (Legs)
- Reduces speed by half
- Applies disadvantage on any Strength or Dexterity check involving the use of legs.
- The victim may make a DC: 10 constitution save to remove this condition after every 5 days of adequate food and water.

Wounded (Torso)
- Reduces the character's maximum hit points by 2xcharacter level
- Applies disadvantage on all Constitution checks and saves
- The victim may make a DC: 10 constitution save to remove this condition after every 5 days of adequate food or water (without the disadvantage imposed by this condition)

Wounded (Head)
- Applies disadvantage on all wisdom, intelligence, and charisma based skills and saving throws.
- Applies disadvantage on all concentration checks.
- Applies disadvantage on initiative checks
- The victim may make a DC: 10 constitution save to remove this condition after every 5 days of adequate food and water.

A victim may suffer from a wound when dropped to 0 hp or when the GM feels it appropriate. Wounds can be automatically removed by the use of the Heal, Greater Restoration, and/or Regenerate spells. Any healing spell cast using a 4th level slot or higher allows the victim to make a save to remove the condition.

 

[BryonD]

I've been using heal 10% per long rest + 1/4 HD.
It works great so far.


My thinking is that recovery from "beat all the way down" can recover without magic in 3 to 4 days.
Plus, a well rested party starting out has a full complement of HD on top of being at full HP.
So they have a very nice buffer for short term bounce-back.
If they can take a day or three down time and then adventure for a few days, they stay reasonably padded but still feel HP pressure. If they go several days without a break then it gets more challenging.

So far it is working great.

 

[Johnny Champion]

The rapid 8 hour rest heal all approach doesn't work great IMHO in regard to my narrative as a DM. However, there is much utility in having the party heal quickly.

So, in the next campaign I plan on having elixirs that aid (most if not all) in recovery of HPs only during a Long Rest. In this way the healing becomes magical (it may seem funny to say this but that makes it easier to explain) and may require planned means of obtaining the elixirs. I can also ration the quantity or effectiveness based upon the lethality of the campaign.

 

[Piratecat]

Excellent points about HP being an abstraction—I know it, but it's good to be reminded.

I suspect this is a house rule that makes me happy without appreciably improving the game, so it's probably not worth it. I am leery of trying to solve problems that don't exist.

 

[SilverfireSage]

Excellent points about HP being an abstraction—I know it, but it's good to be reminded.

I suspect this is a house rule that makes me happy without appreciably improving the game, so it's probably not worth it. I am leery of trying to solve problems that don't exist.

Hey, if it makes you happy, who says it doesn't improve the game?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I feel like a reminder is in order here: lost hit points =/= wounds. Not even remotely.

Unless it is. Remember the part where they mention how different people like to narrate HP loss in different ways? To some people, every lost hit point means there is a wound of some magnitude that matters, and the accumulation of those wounds is eventually fatal. Those players have been around forever, and you aren't going to convince them to change that to accommodate overnight healing. They are the target audience for this sort of house rule.

Even if you disagree on that point, I still don't find it any more logical to prolong the healing process by a mere day. A truly serious wound that won't heal in a single night is not going to heal in two nights, either.

That's a fair point, but it's kind of a sliding scale on how bad you think wounds are, and even the goriest of settings have to be tempered for playability. If I had to pick something, I would go with 10% max HP per night, but that still doesn't really work for Hit Dice. Really, it's hard to use HP as any sort of gauge for bodily integrity when they can be recovered so trivially by the use of Hit Dice (and the Hit Dice themselves don't clearly map onto any easily-visible metric of anything).

Personally, I feel like I need to wait for the DMG on this one, because they've indicated that there will be some sort of official variant to address this.

 

[Umbran]

I think you need to look closely at your annoyance. Why is it a problem for folks to gain all their HP back after a rest? If the problem is "unrealism" this might not fix it. After all, what are Hit Dice, anyway? How is spending HD to get back to 139 hp more realistic than just healing to 139 hp without spending HD?

I was thinking this too. If sleeping for a good long night, and getting a whole lot of hit points back is a problem, how is spending a bunch of hit dice and getting them back nigh instantaneously before going to sleep not a problem? The long rest at least has a narrative "fade to black" for the night to gloss over the recovery. Spending hit dice in a bunch doesn't.

 

[RangerWickett]

My HP Philosophy
In 5e, if you have any hit points left, you're still basically uninjured, just a little sore, bruised, and scraped. Heck, even when you're at 0 HP, you might still just be a little jostled, like a boxer who gets knocked out and takes a few seconds to struggle back to his feet.

My Conundrum
A PC in my game got scared by a ghost, and aged 30 years. The player threw a bit of a fit because, in this game you can be buried in lava and climb out, then be fine 6 hours later. You can never sprain an ankle, break a bone, or get a concussion (things which you can actually heal in reality), but you can be magically aged three decades, a condition which can only be reversed if you cast a 7th level spell within 24 hours. Where's the middle ground?

Should there be a middle ground? I think yes, the game should have some element of enduring debility, but it should capture the feel of high fantasy adventure.

My Observation
In heroic stories, characters are either too injured to fight (in Diehard, right after he gets glass in his feet), or they're basically unharmed (every scene afterward, those horrible wounds in his feet never seem to have an effect).

Only occasionally will a character have a Narratively-Significant Injury (Inigo Montoya with a dagger in his gut, Boromir full of arrows, etc.). If you have a NSI, you're probably slowed down a bit, and your opponent might exploit it by punching you in the wounded spot. Otherwise you grit your way through the pain and can save the day just fine despite your suppurating gut wound.

Since these injuries are ultimately narrative, I'm tempted to resolve them with narrative mechanics. In particular, taking the Aspects mechanic from FATE. 5e doesn't have fate points, but we'll make do.

My Proposed Mechanic
Set-Up. You have the usual hit dice and HP, and you regain full HP and half your hit dice with a long rest. This is normal. Remember, HP are just verve and grit, and you recover that pretty fast.

Step One, Knockout. (This replaces normal death saves.) Whenever you drop to 0 HP, immediately make three d20 rolls (unmodified, DC 10) to see the consequence of the hit that dropped you. If you succeed all the saves, there's no lasting consequence. If you fail 1 check, you suffer a minor debility. If you fail 2 checks, you suffer a major debility. If you fail 3 checks, you're dying.

Next, roll a Con save (DC 10). If you succeed, you're semi-conscious, are aware of your surroundings, and can communicate, but are helpless until you receive healing. If you fail, you're unconscious until you receive healing. If you beat DC 20, you're able to keep fighting. You fall prone, but you stay at 1 HP. (This is known as the Boromir Rule.)

Step Two, Consequences. If you're dying, you lose one hit die each round. When you run out, you die. (Note, this can happen even if you're still up and fighting due to beating DC 20 on your Con save.) However, if you receive any healing before you run out of hit dice, you are no longer dying, and even if you actually die, if you receive any magical healing within 5 minutes, you are restored to life, albeit with a major debility.

If you have a minor debility, the GM chooses either arms, torso, or legs. If arms, once per scene the GM can force you to reroll an attack roll, save, or check that involves your arms. If legs, once per scene the GM can grant an opponent advantage to attack you or make you reroll some sort of agility-based check. If torso, once per scene the GM can have you take double damage when an effect damages you.

If you have a major debility, in addition to the effects of a minor debility you move at half speed, and if you take any reactions you cannot move at all on your next turn.

Step Three, Recuperation. Major debilities are reduced to minor after five extended rests, and minor ones are fully healed after a further five extended rests. When you take an extended rest, if you benefited from any cure wounds spells in the past day, add the level of the highest-level such spell you received to how many days the rest counts as. So if you have a major debility, and receive a 7th level cure wounds, when you rest it counts as 8 days worth of extended rests for the purposes of recovery (reducing the condition to a minor debility, but still needing 2 more days of rest to fully heal). Multiple healing spells don't stack in a given extended rest.

The idea is that if you get a debility, it will stick around for at least a day, and magical healing just keeps it from lingering long-term.

What do you think?

 

[Dausuul]

I think you need to look closely at your annoyance. Why is it a problem for folks to gain all their HP back after a rest? If the problem is "unrealism" this might not fix it. After all, what are Hit Dice, anyway? How is spending HD to get back to 139 hp more realistic than just healing to 139 hp without spending HD? It's all metagame stuff, really.

To me, at least, it's more about pacing than realism. Full recovery overnight is too quick for my tastes. For PCs on an overland adventure taking several days, I want injuries to dog them for more than a single day, in order to make it feel more like a single continuous adventure with steadily mounting pressure--not a series of disconnected episodes.

In my case, since I favor wilderness adventures with 1-3 encounters per day, I see the "slow rest" approach as a better fit for my campaign. A short rest is 8 hours' sleep, a long rest is 3 days in a safe location. But that wouldn't work in a more traditional dungeon crawling style.