D&D 5E Long Rest is a Problem

[CM]

I'm pretty sure lingering wounds will be available as a rules module. Look to recent Unearthed Arcana articles on Dragon mag for lots of 4e variants and tweaks that could be made to work with DDN.

Yes, the Injury Deck. My group uses it, and it works well:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dun/UAdeathdanger

 

[Bagpuss]

Right now, a long rest results in, "At you regain all your hit points and half of your Hit Dice (round up)."

This, for my group, completely breaks the believability line, and takes us entirely out of the adventure. Lingering injuries are a reality. It's not just from hacking off a limb too. Even a torn ACL in your foot [Edit - Knights who say KNEE!] can take months to heal, impairing your ability to move (much less run). And we're talking about a game where PCs get clawed, eaten, char-broiled, acidified, chopped, sliced, spiked, electrified, and all manner of scarily-nasty injuries.

Except D&D has never modeled lasting injuries, even with slower hit point recovery, injuries never impair you. Thus hit points can't be modeling significant lasting injuries.

As the rules are currently, there is simply no way to emulate any injury other than a relatively minor scratch that is good to go after a single night of sleeping, without a fairly major house rule (major in its variations from the norm as represented by the rules).

That's been true of every version of D&D, unless something like a Vorpal sword was involved in inflicting the injury.

We can debate how much of hit points is represented by actual physical wounds, and how much by experience, luck, endurance, blessing from a deity, chaos, whatever. But, I think we can all agree that SOME portion of hit points is usually represented by a physical wound of some sort, and much of the DM's description of the hit involves describing the physical nature of the hit.

Agreed but it has never been so grave a wound as to cause any impairment. The worst the rules have ever effectively modeled is a scratch or bruise.

Generally speaking, the larger a percentage of your hit points that you lose in a single blow, DMs tend to describe a more dire physical injury from that blow.

The rules have never really supported the GM's descriptions of dire wounds, except when they actually lead to death.

Given that some portion of hit points is physical wounds, it makes no sense that resting for 8 hours would automatically heal all your wounds all the time. Some wounds would linger, baring the use of magical healing or much more rest than a single nights sleep.

Considering hit point rules have never made no sense for modeling grave, impairing or lasting injuries, if anything previous editions where hit point damage remain for extensive periods of time unless cured by magic makes even less sense than the newer rule.

I can see what you want and even agree with it, but logically it isn't justified by the rules of earlier editions, these rules make more sense, they just don't "feel" right.

 

[pemerton]

We can debate how much of hit points is represented by actual physical wounds, and how much by experience, luck, endurance, blessing from a deity, chaos, whatever. But, I think we can all agree that SOME portion of hit points is usually represented by a physical wound of some sort, and much of the DM's description of the hit involves describing the physical nature of the hit.

<snip>

It also changes the culture of D&D to expect full hit points on a more frequent basis than almost any version of the game thus far.

Culturally, the assumption that a party is at max hit points every day without fail is a cultural change for the game. Most versions of the game did not do this. In the very least, some limited resource had to be expended to heal to max without fail every day, be it a spell, a healing power, or whatever resource was used.

Admittedly I haven't been following the details of the healing rules in the last few iterations of Next, but I don't see how what you describe is very, even any, different from 4e.

If that is correct, then it's not any special cultural change at least for 4e play.

 

[SageMinerve]

Of course, the following reflects only my POV and should be treated as such, but having said that...

People (like the OP) unhappy with how healing currently works seem to think the conundrum of injuries vs healing can be resolved by only looking at the healing part, i.e. if healing is slower and/or doesn't heal you to full HP, it wouldn't break suspension of disbelief.

IMO this is where they are mistaken. Not that the system as it currently stands makes it very hard to suspend disbelief (it does IMO), but in the fact that damage can continue to be simulated as it always has been and that the solution resides solely in fixing healing.

Case in point: a fire-breathing dragon. No matter what level you are, how many HP you have..., if you take enough damage from a dragon's breath, you're toast (literally, in the red variety case). You could require 10000 days to heal from that, outside of explicit use of magic, your PC is dead. End of story.

What's my point? In order to have a satisfying healing system, damage can't all be treated in the same way. Being hit by a club and being fire-breathed by a dragon should have clear, different consequences beside the amount of damage dealt.

But because of many factors...
1) the sheer complexity creep of taking sources of damage into account;
2) the fact that players, in general, despise having "minuses" applied to their character sheet, be it in the form of attribute penalties for certain races, ability drain from undead and other monsters, etc;
3) the fact that many players want to play a game where magical healing isn't a prerequisite;
...this will never happen, I think, outside MAYBE of a module.

The only simple solution I see is to require magic for any healing (maybe over a very small threshold) at all, but that would not be well received by many people.

 

[Mistwell]

The funny part is, a 2 week long rest takes just as long as an 8 hour long rest.

8 hour rest:
Seriously injured party members recuperate.
Less or uninjured go do something else.

2 week rest:
Seriously injured party members receive medical care and recuperate.
Less injured or uninjured party members do something else.

The only difference is from a story-telling perspective.

See above. Answered twice now. Short answer - you can more easily rest in the dungeon, or in a wilderness setting, for 8 hours and avoid wandering monsters, than you can for a week. That's not a story-telling perspective, it's a significant impact on how the game is played.

I find these topics weird because D&D has never simulated serious injures and month-long recoveries. So it's not so much that DDN is not giving you something, but it's more that D&D has never given you this something.

At least not mechanically.

Again, previously discussed. It's not that I, or anyone else, is asking for a high level of detailed simulation into serious injuries. That's not the argument being made here. If you're curious what we are actually arguing - see above.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The "slowing down play" refrain when referring to slower natural healing is a very telling reflection of playstyle. It brings to mind the notion that exploration and adventure are impossible unless the day is begun at full HP, and that "adventure" involves just a string of fixed combat encounters that exist just to test your tactical resource management skills.

IMHO the healing rate greatly affects playstyle. The 15 minute workday is just a condensed version of the heal daily workday. If the PCs begin each day fully topped off it just incentivises them to view themselves as hammers and every adventure opportunity as a nail. Each part of an adventure is a decision point for the players. Decisions are made based on goals, available resources, and current condition. If being topped off in the morning is a given, then the ony worry is survival for the immediate threat. The decision to just kick some ass and plow through obstacles is a no brainer if all resources are tactical. There is no long term strategy to have to consider. Combat is sport and you only have to hold out until the final buzzer. Once you hit the locker room its a new game.

There is more thinking involved in the play process when we add a halftime. The game isn't over when the players get to the locker room every time. Sometimes, bit battered and bruised, they need to play the 2nd half.
Back in the old days, adventuring didn't stop because someone was down hit points. Decisions were made with care and combat was something to try and avoid but the adventure continued. Sure it makes sense to retreat if the whole party is banged up and low on resources but having set encounters expecting full resources is kind of the definition of asking for the 15 minute workday.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Oberani out of the gate

A variant of the Oberoni is the essense of DDN.

If you think it is broken or wrong, then it IS broken or wrong for your style of gaming and the answer is definately to House Rule it (hopefully with one of the provided options, dials, or modules).

In almost every disagreement on DDN rules the Oberoni 'fallacy' is really the first and unspoken option. Although not particularly helpful until we get to the 'No It's Not! Yes It Is!' stage of the discussion.

Now I think it would not be valid for things the Developers would regard as 'broken', such as a Sneak Attack enabling ability that didn't actually allow you to Sneak Attack in melee (say like the wording on Isolated Strike  
Isolated Strike: Once on your turn when you make an attack, you can give yourself advantage on that attack roll if there are no creatures hostile to your target within 5 feet of it.

Isolated Strike on a melee class like Rake just plain doesn't work.

 

[Dausuul]

A variant of the Oberoni is the essense of DDN.

If you think it is broken or wrong, then it IS broken or wrong for your style of gaming and the answer is definately to House Rule it (hopefully with one of the provided options, dials, or modules).

In almost every disagreement on DDN rules the Oberoni 'fallacy' is really the first and unspoken option. Although not particularly helpful until we get to the 'No It's Not! Yes It Is!' stage of the discussion.

Now I think it would not be valid for things the Developers would regard as 'broken', such as a Sneak Attack enabling ability that didn't actually allow you to Sneak Attack in melee (say like the wording on Isolated Strike
Isolated Strike: Once on your turn when you make an attack, you can give yourself advantage on that attack roll if there are no creatures hostile to your target within 5 feet of it.

Isolated Strike on a melee class like Rake just plain doesn't work.

The Oberoni fallacy is not about differences of taste. Rather, it's a rebuttal to the following:

Person A: This system is broken. It causes problems X, Y, and Z.
Person B: It's not broken because you can house-rule it and fix those problems.

Notice that Person B is not suggesting that X, Y, and Z aren't problems, or that the system isn't causing them, or that there are other reasons why the system should not be changed. Those are all legitimate (though often hotly debated) counter-arguments. Rather, Person B is implicitly acknowledging that these are problems and the system is causing them, but saying "It's okay because you can fix them!"

That's the Oberoni fallacy in action; claiming that a problem isn't a problem if the end-user is capable of fixing it.

 

[Mistwell]

Over the last decade plus of using 3.X/Pathfinder I am used to having everyone at full hit points after every fight thanks to cheap wands of cure light wounds, infernal healing, lesser vigor, ect.....

Sure, but that is expending a limited resource for healing. Which does not break a sense of realism. I recall at least a couple times, we ran out of such wands, and the trip back to civilization would have been too dangerous, and we didn't have a safe place to craft such a wand.

I'm pretty sure lingering wounds will be available as a rules module. Look to recent Unearthed Arcana articles on Dragon mag for lots of 4e variants and tweaks that could be made to work with DDN.

As explained, it really isn't as good as a module add-on, as it has significant ramifications for things like 1) the inability of WOTC to use all those dozens of 1e adventures that they've been busily stating up (none assume full hit points every day), and 2) an issue with new published adventures, and 3) a problem with a shared experience amongst players of the game.

Except D&D has never modeled lasting injuries, even with slower hit point recovery, injuries never impair you. Thus hit points can't be modeling significant lasting injuries.

That's been true of every version of D&D, unless something like a Vorpal sword was involved in inflicting the injury.

I've tried to state this a few times, but I suspect I'm not saying it well. I will give it another shot. And this time, I will label it better so I can refer back to it:

NOT ASKING FOR FULLY MODELED LINGERING INJURY: Nobody is asking for a way to fully model long lasting lingering injuries in this game. That's not this game, I agree. The issue is this: On a scale of how you would set natural healing to start each day, on one side you have zero natural healing (which would be much closer to a long lasting lingering injury), and on the other you have full natural healing every day (which is as far as you can get from a long lasting lingering injury). All I am asking for (and many others) is that the default not be set at that extreme of full natural healing every day. That way, while there is not a fully modeled lasting lingering injury, at least there is a chance for a tiny little dose of it. Some way for the DM to say "Well, your arm is still bugging you a bit from that Owlbear who clawed you there, so you're not at max, and you will need to expend a resource to healing fully up if that is an issue".

Agreed but it has never been so grave a wound as to cause any impairment. The worst the rules have ever effectively modeled is a scratch or bruise.

The impairment is the cost of limited resources. Hit Points are, of course, an abstraction that does not perfectly model this. But, at least not being at full hit points can provide some small thing to hang your abstraction on for an injury of some kind.

The rules have never really supported the GM's descriptions of dire wounds, except when they actually lead to death.



Considering hit point rules have never made no sense for modeling grave, impairing or lasting injuries, if anything previous editions where hit point damage remain for extensive periods of time unless cured by magic makes even less sense than the newer rule.

I can see what you want and even agree with it, but logically it isn't justified by the rules of earlier editions, these rules make more sense, they just don't "feel" right.

I disagree, that don't make any more sense than any other rule. Not being at full hit points, being at full hit points, neither makes much sense for this topic. I'd argue at least "not being at full hit points without the expenditure of a limited resource" allows for SOMETHING, however small, to hang your injury on. But even if you think it doesn't make sense, I don't see how it makes LESS sense than natural full healing after 8 hours. At worse, they make an equal amount of nonsense. So, the baseline should be set at what's best for the game. Which is what all my arguments have been - it's best for the game to have at least some chance you won't be at full hit points, for the reasons I stated above (past adventure utility, future adventures, common experience for players, ability to house rule in both directions rather than just one, etc..). These are all, "best for the game" arguments rather than "what models lingering injuries best" arguments.

Admittedly I haven't been following the details of the healing rules in the last few iterations of Next, but I don't see how what you describe is very, even any, different from 4e.

If that is correct, then it's not any special cultural change at least for 4e play.

Yes it is true that 4e had this. However, one goal of 5e is to bring in fans of playstyles represented by all the editions. And to further that end, WOTC has been stating out 1e modules lately, for example. Given that all editions of D&D except 4e required either the expenditure of a limited resource or luck to get back to full hit points after a 8 hours rest, I think it makes sense to make the default at least something less than 100% certainty of full recovery. Which is why I proposed something like rolling all your HD to see how much you recover in HP (and others proposed getting back some hit points and all hit dice, so you could expend those hit dice to get back to full right away). Odds say you will, roughly, recover all your hit points anyway. It's just that it would introduce some amount of chance that you could have a slightly more lingering type of injury, which makes the game far more emulative of a certain playstyle enjoyed by the other editions of D&D. It's a compromise - one that is a relatively minor change for 4e players, but the reverse is a relatively major change for non-4e players (for the reasons I've stated above).

Of course, the following reflects only my POV and should be treated as such, but having said that...

People (like the OP) unhappy with how healing currently works seem to think the conundrum of injuries vs healing can be resolved by only looking at the healing part, i.e. if healing is slower and/or doesn't heal you to full HP, it wouldn't break suspension of disbelief.

IMO this is where they are mistaken. Not that the system as it currently stands makes it very hard to suspend disbelief (it does IMO), but in the fact that damage can continue to be simulated as it always has been and that the solution resides solely in fixing healing.

Case in point: a fire-breathing dragon. No matter what level you are, how many HP you have..., if you take enough damage from a dragon's breath, you're toast (literally, in the red variety case). You could require 10000 days to heal from that, outside of explicit use of magic, your PC is dead. End of story.

What's my point? In order to have a satisfying healing system, damage can't all be treated in the same way. Being hit by a club and being fire-breathed by a dragon should have clear, different consequences beside the amount of damage dealt.

But because of many factors...
1) the sheer complexity creep of taking sources of damage into account;
2) the fact that players, in general, despise having "minuses" applied to their character sheet, be it in the form of attribute penalties for certain races, ability drain from undead and other monsters, etc;
3) the fact that many players want to play a game where magical healing isn't a prerequisite;
...this will never happen, I think, outside MAYBE of a module.

The only simple solution I see is to require magic for any healing (maybe over a very small threshold) at all, but that would not be well received by many people.

Well first, I am the OP, and I disagree that I failed to address this. I did address this issue, though perhaps I didn't phrase it well. But, I hope my responses above help to address it better now.

As for "the only simple solution is magic" portion of your answer, I disagree. There are other simple solutions, and we've discussed a series of them. You could roll for how many hit points you get back, introducing an element of chance. You could get back some hit points and all your hit dice, introducing the expenditure of a limited resources that is not magical in nature. There are simple ways to introduce a mechanic that at least allows for a chance, however small, that you will not start the day at full hit points and must expend a limited resource to get back to full.

 

[jodyjohnson]

So are we arguing about Hit Points and Healing being broken or our preferences on what Hit Points should model?

Or am I referring to the technical meaning of 'Oberoni Fallacy' or the common misunderstanding of what it means?