D&D 5E Monster Healing

[dmnqwk]

I would let the monster heal as much or as little as the story dictated.

If the monster's hit points mattered in the fight, then you could begin it wounded, but otherwise why lower the CR because they failed? Even if the PCs come back partially injured, have the monster fully heal to ensure they don't try to half-ass the job!

 

[Uller]

In practice the monster that survives first contact with the adventurers is incredibly rare - not letting it heal up when the adventurers do would be incredibly unfair.

Monsters surviving combat has not been rare in my game, at least not incredibly so. I tend to play monsters to behave as having a will to live unless I see a reason for them to behave otherwise. Named and important npcs especially try to survive and fight another day.

I've applied HD to monsters a number of times so far.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Looking at it from another direction, HD and most other PC healing resources function to let the party handle a longer day - presumably, the 6-8 encounter/day point at which supposedly, the game aims to balance. Overnight healing, OTOH, is a complete re-set. If you 'penalize' retreat & short-rest by having the monsters benefit from HD, beefing up their defenses, gathering re-enforcements, "re-spawning" or whatever, then players have an incentive to either fight to death or to go for the full re-set of a long rest after retreating.

So it might make more sense to let players come back to relatively the same challenge after a short rest or any other disengagement short of a long rest, and only have monsters heal (and also bring in the classic D&D tricks of having more monsters & better defenses when the PCs return) when the players decide on taking a long rest before taking a second crack at them. It telegraphs that you intend to discourage the 5MWD.

FWIW.

From an entirely different perspective, OTOH, if the PCs are retreating, the encounter might have been too tough, while, if the monsters are getting away, it might have been too easy or just a lead-in to something more significant. In the former case, denying the monsters healing or having the wounded monsters desert might bring the encounter back down to a more reasonable level of challenge. In the latter, the old-school advice of doubling-down on numbers of monsters, levels of preparedness, &c makes sense.

 

[Ath'kethin]

My PCs seem to prefer 5-Hour Healing to Monster Healing. They don't realize that simple coffee would be just as effective, cheaper, and have far less sugar.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I'm not taking track of monster hit dice, I just make them fully heal up when the adventurer's do any kind of rest.

I want to discourage "Damage -> Run -> Damage" tactics for players.

 

[GameOgre]

I don't use the same rules generally for monster hit points as I do with player character hit points. Instead if it's later the same day I use the same hit points as the party left them with unless they could get to magical healing. If it's days later they will generally heal 50% of the damage and if it's weeks later be at full health.

It all comes down to how I describe wounds. See in battle pc wounds are normally left vague. "You feel the trolls stinging claws rake down your side" This could end up being a bloody wound or under the armor just a bruise. I leave it vague because hit points are vague and it lets them heal up afterwards with no immersion break.

Damage to monsters I tend to give as bloody wounds. This is just a choice I guess and I could do it the same way as pc's...I just don't.

If the fighter dang near leaves the orc with his right arm hanging on by a thread then later on that same day it will be the same way or he will have gotten magic healing.

This also gives the party another edge against monsters. If they started to heavily abuse this fact...things might change but they really don't.

Also npc's I treat just like pc's so I guess I'm not even consistent about it.

Shrug

 

[77IM]

I let monsters heal fully on a long rest. On a short rest, they heal fully, but only once per day -- that's easier than tracking hit dice, and produces mathematically equivalent results in the long run.

 

[Endur]

don't forget reinforcements.

 

[jodyjohnson]

don't forget reinforcements.

And sometimes they gain a level for foes defeated.