D&D 5E On the healing options in the 5e DMG

[Ranes]

An addendum to my previous post: a 3e character who stabilises at minus x hp, on his own, by virtue of making the 10% stabilisation role but who has no one to care for him, still loses hp but at a lower rate. He has a 10% chance per hour of becoming conscious (and disabled) but loses 1hp if he does not make that roll. He also doesn't recover hp through natural healing. Even then, a conscious but disabled and unaided character only has a 10% chance per day to start recovering hp naturally; otherwise he loses 1hp. As I mentioned earlier, a DM I played under actually used these mechanics to great effect, constructing a good part of an evening's play out of them.

What would happen in 4e in these circumstances? I'm genuinely curious.

 

[MechaPilot]

Actually my point was quite clear and no matter which edition prior to it, no other edition comes close to the way 4th edition handled healing.

I can agree with you on that, though undoubtedly for different reasons.

4e included proportional healing, other editions did not (meaning that other editions typically took more resources/time to heal a fighter or barbarian than it did to heal a wizard or rogue, even if the fighter was at half HPs while the wizard was at only 1 HP).

4e also limited the abuse of healing magic items by tying magical healing to a limited daily resource, other editions simply limited magic item healing by the number of potions and wand charges you had left.

4e also used static values for a lot of healing (surge value, the healing offered by potions, and so on), other editions didn't. This meant you never ended up with situations where a CLW spell or healing potion only healed 2 HPs.

So yeah, there's plenty of differences in the way healing is handled. However, the rate of HP restoration between 3e and 4e isn't all that different if a group actually wants to heal up, especially given that 3e's long-term care Heal check has a DC of only 15, and that you can care for up to six patients at once. A first level 3e cleric can often take 10 and make the Heal check (often with a one-time investment of 1-3 skill points), assuring the double recovery rate as long as supplies last. And that's without considering any daily healing spells.

Sounds a bit like edition warring to me.

Yes, that is sort of how you are coming off to me.

 

[MechaPilot]

Help me out here. This isn't a 4e bash; I'm just curious. If magical healing and a heal skill check aren't available and if a full day's bed rest is out of the question, the best a 3e character can hope for is 1hp per level per day. What would be the baseline 4e rate in equivalent circumstances? I always had the impression that it was much faster (which I don't claim would be intrinsically a Bad Thing). I'm happy to be enlightened and any explanation would help me take stock of 5e's mechanics better.

Thanks.

Part of that depends on why bed rest isn't possible. If the character cannot achieve bed rest because interruptions occur, then it's possible that the character (under the 4e rules) may not meet the requirements for a long rest (must be at least 6 hours long). In which case, the character regains no healing surges and regains no HPs without spending any remaining surges.

If the character cannot have a full day's bed rest but is still able to achieve a long rest, then she would regain all her HPs and surges under the 4e rules, while her 3e counterpart (assuming average HD results each level, and ignoring the Con mod variable) would recover anywhere between 20% to 50% of her HPs depending on character class.

 

[MechaPilot]

An addendum to my previous post: a 3e character who stabilises at minus x hp, on his own, by virtue of making the 10% stabilisation role but who has no one to care for him, still loses hp but at a lower rate. He has a 10% chance per hour of becoming conscious (and disabled) but loses 1hp if he does not make that roll. He also doesn't recover hp through natural healing. Even then, a conscious but disabled and unaided character only has a 10% chance per day to start recovering hp naturally; otherwise he loses 1hp. As I mentioned earlier, a DM I played under actually used these mechanics to great effect, constructing a good part of an evening's play out of them.

What would happen in 4e in these circumstances? I'm genuinely curious.

In 4e, you start the death save process. This is an unmodified d20 roll: a 1-9 means one failed death save (three kills you), a 10-19 means no change, and a 20 means you spend a healing surge which heals you as if you had zero hps (if you have no surges left, then a result of 20 is also no change).

 

[Ranes]

Part of that depends on why bed rest isn't possible. If the character cannot achieve bed rest because interruptions occur, then it's possible that the character (under the 4e rules) may not meet the requirements for a long rest (must be at least 6 hours long). In which case, the character regains no healing surges and regains no HPs without spending any remaining surges.

If the character cannot have a full day's bed rest but is still able to achieve a long rest, then she would regain all her HPs and surges under the 4e rules, while her 3e counterpart (assuming average HD results each level, and ignoring the Con mod variable) would recover anywhere between 20% to 50% of her HPs depending on character class.

Thank you for that. I'm a little fuzzy on the 4e surge concept but I think I get the gist. The part of your second paragraph that refers to a 3e character - "would recover anywhere between 20% to 50% of her HPs" - I presume you mean to say per hit die? Otherwise, that doesn't tally with my understanding.

Also, am I correct in assuming that your explanation of the 4e mechanic is for characters at 1hp or above? If so, is there a different mechanism for when characters are below 0hp?

Thanks again.

Edit: Just seen your next post. Thank you.

 

[MechaPilot]

Thank you for that. I'm a little fuzzy on the 4e surge concept but I think I get the gist. The part of your second paragraph that refers to a 3e character - "would recover anywhere between 20% to 50% of her HPs" - I presume you mean to say er hit die? Otherwise, that doesn't tally with my understanding.

The 3e rule is 1HP per level for overnight rest.

If we ignore the Con mod, a fighter who rolls a 10 for first level HPs can heal 10% of those HPs per night of bed rest. However, if we assume that fighter makes the average HD roll (5.5) for first level HPs then the fighter heals between 16% and 20% of her HPs with one night's bed rest (depending on whether one rounds up or down).

If we make those same assumptions for a wizard (4 HP, and 2.5 HP), then she heals 25%, or 33% to 50% (depending on whether one rounds up or down).

 

[pemerton]

You could be a lone adventurer in 4th edition and go from dying to full without any aid from a person and bandages and such in no time.

This was addressed by [MENTION=82779]MechaPilot[/MENTION] in reply to [MENTION=4826]Ranes[/MENTION] - a dying character in 4e must make a death saving throw every round, and after 3 fails (ie 3 results of 9 or below) dies. The result required to stabilise is 20. My combinatorics is not up to calculating the exact odds of stabilisation without assistance, but my guess is that it is not much better than 1 in 5.

"Going to full" also requires that the conditions for a long rest be satisfied. The 4e PHB describes these in fairly minimal terms (p 263):

An extended rest is at least 6 hours long. . . .

No Strenuous Activity: You normally sleep during an extended rest, though you don’t have to. You can engage in light activity that doesn’t require much exertion.​

If the conditions do not permit the requisite degree or duration of rest, then recovery will not occur. I know that different groups and GMs interpret this in different ways. For instance, some take the view that you have to return to somewhere safe to rest (a la Rivendell in LotR). In my game, resting beyond a short rest in the Underdark or similar environments that are inherently hostile and oppressive is not possible except in a friendly location; and resting beyond a short rest in the wilderness generally requires success as part of an exploration-oriented skill challenge in order to find somewhere restful.

 

[Ahrimon]

In 4E you could go from 0 to full by spending 4 surges. And anyone could do that with only 5 min of rest. I can see that as being too much for some. But I've always seen 4Es HP system as a little more cinematic. 0 HP didn't necessarily mean dying, it could just be unconscious. The Death Save was that nebulous determining factor. Fail 3 and you were dying. Stabilize with less than 4 surges and you were hurt but you can go on. With more than 4 surges you were unconscious.

That's not everyone's cup of tea, and that's ok.

Depending on how you looked at it, 4E didn't let you heal faster, you just had more HP that could only be accessed in chunks. No system is perfect, but it did what it set out to do. Eliminate the problem crawling through the dungeon with 1/2 HP knowing that if anything else attacks you your dead. 4E kept your HP full but used the number of remaining surges as the "how far can you go" mechanic. Some players and DMs liked the fealing of trying to get out with just a few HP left. Others liked the idea of knowing that they'll probably survive the next fight, but after that they're toast.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

ARRRGGGHHGHG. I've already gone through this TWICE in this thread. NO IT WASN'T. THERE WAS LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 3E and 4E HEALING RATES.

While there may be little practical difference for the PCs, there's a ton of difference in terms of world-building. For anyone who has no access to magical healing, and doesn't have someone with points in the Heal skill - which is to say, about 90% of the population - it could take a week or longer to get back up to full. Not that it really changes gameplay at all, because PCs do have those things, but it could happen.

For some players, the why of the rule is much more important than the what of the rule. Slower healing might do a mediocre job of representing the natural healing process, but it's still representing the natural healing process. (Or at the very least, it could be used as such.) As compared to the 4E (or 5E) thing with healing surges (and hit dice), where it's not entirely clear what everything represents, and you most certainly can't try to shoehorn that to cover natural healing.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't see why. For instance, you could say that it takes a week's rest to spend a hit dice (say, 1 week short rest and 1 month long rest). That will give you a hit point recovery rate comparable to AD&D. (In AD&D, 1 month's rest restores all lost hit points.)

Give the dials that we have to work with, the ability to recover Hit Dice is linked to the ability for a sorcerer to cast spells in a day - it's the duration of a long rest. The ability to spend Hit Dice is linked to the ability for a battle-master to use fancy maneuvers - it's the duration of a short rest.

Merely changing the length of each rest might not produce an experience that is terribly satisfying.