Immersive Healing- A gritty system of injury and healing for D&D 5e.

[RSKennan]

I have just uploaded Immersive Healing- A gritty system of injury and healing for D&D 5e. to the downloads area.

This is a system to make the prospect of combat scarier, and to make injury more of a long-term concern in the absence of healing magic. This makes magical healing more miraculous, and the tone of a campaign a lot darker.

You can find the file here in the downloads section. Please use this thread for comments.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I have just uploaded Immersive Healing- A gritty system of injury and healing for D&D 5e. to the downloads area.

This is a system to make the prospect of combat scarier, and to make injury more of a long-term concern in the absence of healing magic. This makes magical healing more miraculous, and the tone of a campaign a lot darker.

You can find the file here in the downloads section. Please use this thread for comments.

No kidding this makes the game darker! But even though I'm a fan of quick healing and resurrecting, I love what you've done here. Some excellent little points on all of the types of damage, and some feel especially brutal and realistic (Acid damage is particularly nasty). In fact, the more I think about it, the more I hope some of these types of rules end up in the DM's Guide. For instance, having a character be permanently disfigured if they're dropped below 0 hit points by acid damage, or carry a brutal scar if done so by a slashing weapon. One of my dad's favorite characters is one called "Smilin' Gill" where half of his face is burned off Two-Face style, and he must constantly keep up a minor illusion to hide it. I would love to see that kind of thing soft coded into some optional rules.

 

[MoutonRustique]

From my reading, if you keep the healing spells and caster classes as-is, this mainly affects the non-healing classes as a pretty strong "dependent-to-healing-character" hammer (as a stated goal this has been, without question, reached). It may be more work than you'd consider, but I would suggest restricting magical healing in some pretty severe manners. Otherwise, unless you impose party composition, 50+% of the rules will never see actual use - only the injury tables will be relevant.

My impressions:
It has the effect of making the abjurer "path" a good deal more attractive as easy access to temporary hp is now of great value.

When it comes to combat encounters, the strongest party is a "Seal Team 6" with a bard - stealth and nova are king (even more so).

Low-magic settings usually (in my experience) mean "low-magic for everyone but the PCs" as there will be a, or more, full-caster character in the party. As previously stated, only "Phase 0" is an "actually going to be used" rule when there is a healer in the party.

This can also have some pretty nasty in-game moral consequences on the healers if your players are of a kind to think about the impact of their presence (and their absence) - especially if you wish to portray the plight of those that do not have access to magical healing.


On the whole, not my cup of tea, but I know that many would enjoy it.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Too fiddly. If I ever run 5e, I'll be using AD&D healing rules. It's simple and it works.

 

[edhel]

My go-to gritty rules for combat is getting fatigue from critical hits and from dropping to 0. It works better than ever 5e. Recovering from fatigue might require you to get a good long rest which isn't possible on a dungeon floor.