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

[pemerton]

In 4E you could go from 0 to full by spending 4 surges.

Just a small point: it's from 1 hp to full with a short rest (assuming that the surges are available). If you're at zero hp then you're rolling death saves, and can't take a short rest until your status (alive or dead) is determined.

 

[MechaPilot]

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.

Maybe, but it's certainly easy enough to create a third rest. Over on the WotC forums, I called it a "full rest." Simply move full HP recovery and or HD recovery to the full rest and keep the other daily resources on the long rest.

 

[pemerton]

While there may be little practical difference for the PCs, there's a ton of difference in terms of world-building.

I addressed this upthread in post 338: the recovery of hit points ("healing" in the tecnical sense) need not be treated as corresponding to the biological process of recovering from injury ("healing" in the ordinary language sense).

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.

I think it's pretty clear: spending a healing surge represents getting your mojo back. And a long rest represents getting back the ability to get your mojo back. The basic idea is fairly well-exempified in action-adventure literature and film.

This relates to the point above, also: 4e (and perhaps 5e?) defaults to an assumption that most people don't have Conan-esque levels of mojo, and hence that they can't push themselves to the limit, suffering excruciating pain and physical punishment (bruising, minor sprains etc) yet carry on effectively unimpeded.

I assume that this is how most people did it in AD&D too - I assume most people didn't take the view that an injured peasant could always recover fully from any non-fatal injury, however severe, in no more than a week or so of rest.

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.

If the issue is decoupling one form of resource recovery (hit points) from another source of resource recovery (spells) that is a completely different kettle of fish. At a certain point it also becomes irrelevant from the point of view of practical gameplay, because the party cleric/druid/paladin/whatever can always memorise enough cure spells to heal everyone up to full.

At that point, why not just house-rule away healing surges/hit dice and house-rule in whatever natural recovery rate you want to have notionally operating in the background?

 

[Ahrimon]

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.

They're only linked if you want them to. Seperate the resting (HD, healing, etc) times from the ability recover times. WAG: 1 hour: Recover short rest (Battle master, etc). 8 Hours: healing short rest, spend HD. 8 hours: recovery long rest (sorcerer, etc). 24 hours: healing long rest.

 

[Ahrimon]

Just a small point: it's from 1 hp to full with a short rest (assuming that the surges are available). If you're at zero hp then you're rolling death saves, and can't take a short rest until your status (alive or dead) is determined.

Most of the time, yes. But you could be at 0 outside of combat, roll a 20 to spend a surge, then spend 3 more to be at full. It's a bit pedantic, but I think the point is pretty much the same either way.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

THERE WAS LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 3E and 4E HEALING RATES.

There is not that much difference between one day and two days.

I'm a fan of 4E, but I don't think you're comparing fairly here. Just limiting this to the overnight healing rates you're referencing, 3E, as you say, requires 1-2 full days of bed rest to recover. That's 24-48 hours. 4E requires a long rest to heal to full hit points (and surges). That's 6 hours. That's a factor of 4-8x, not the 1-2x as you claim. Each hour can matter. Not always, and maybe never under your playstyle, but that kind of factor might seem extreme to some.

 

[Hussar]

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.

Well, except that 90% of the population is a 1st level commoner with 2 HP, meaning they recover in 1 day of bed rest. The only way they could take that long to get up would be if they were a -9 (which may or may not apply to NPC's depending on campaign), stabilize, and then somehow don't get full rests every day, despite being comatose and unable to move.

Additionally, Healing is not a Trained Only skill, so, anyone can do it. At DC 15, it's certainly not out of reach for a 1st level commoner.

Healing rates are a lot like the economic system - they aren't meant to model anything in the game world.

I'm a fan of 4E, but I don't think you're comparing fairly here. Just limiting this to the overnight healing rates you're referencing, 3E, as you say, requires 1-2 full days of bed rest to recover. That's 24-48 hours. 4E requires a long rest to heal to full hit points (and surges). That's 6 hours. That's a factor of 4-8x, not the 1-2x as you claim. Each hour can matter. Not always, and maybe never under your playstyle, but that kind of factor might seem extreme to some.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=6468812#ixzz3LwERN1kx

Except you cannot take more than 1 full rest per 24 hour period.

And, let's be honest here, how often did you actually use the natural healing mechanics in 3e? There's a very good reason 4e healing looks like it does, and 5e has gone in largely the same vein - the natural healing mechanics were pretty much ignored. It's nothing but blatant edition warring to pretend that earlier D&D healing rates were radically different. They weren't. In AD&D, your cleric had 3 cure lights at 1st level. After two or three days, most parties were back to full hit points. In 3e, it was generally 1 night. The only difference with 4e is they made it explicit.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Just a small point: it's from 1 hp to full with a short rest (assuming that the surges are available). If you're at zero hp then you're rolling death saves, and can't take a short rest until your status (alive or dead) is determined.

Inventing new game mechanics is well beyond the scope of easy customization. It's not quite to the point of just playing a different game entirely, but it's something where you constantly need to be watching for every new thing that comes along to see how it interacts. Instead of having a Short Rest and Long Rest, you have Short Rest A and Short Rest B and Long Rest; whenever some new item or monster or whatever comes along, if it mentions a Short Rest, you have to quickly determine whether that goes into Short Rest A or Short Rest B, which can feel arbitrary.

House Rules are great and all, but they can be annoying to implement.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I addressed this upthread in post 338: the recovery of hit points ("healing" in the tecnical sense) need not be treated as corresponding to the biological process of recovering from injury ("healing" in the ordinary language sense).

I think it's pretty clear: spending a healing surge represents getting your mojo back. And a long rest represents getting back the ability to get your mojo back. The basic idea is fairly well-exempified in action-adventure literature and film.

The premise of the opposing side is that they don't want Hit Points to represent some sort of poorly-defined "mojo" or whatever. They want it to represent the physical integrity of your meat body, (or at the very least, they want it to represent a complex equation where the physical integrity of your meat body is a major component - which is perfectly consistent with every definition of Hit Points that has ever been written).

If the game cannot be tweaked such that this is the case, then the game is worthless to them. There's no reason for them to play such a game. Or at least, it's worthless for telling the kind of stories that they want D&D to create. (I'm not saying that I necessarily belong to this camp right now, as I'm seeing some potential with Lingering Wounds.)

 

[pemerton]

The premise of the opposing side is that they don't want Hit Points to represent some sort of poorly-defined "mojo" or whatever.

Sure, but the fact that you don't like what it represent doesn't mean that it doesn't clearly represent something. Hit point loss, and hit point recovery, in 4e represent being driven to defeat or being roused (or sometimes rousing oneself) to victory. There's no ambiguity.