D&D 5E Should the Fighter's "Second Wind" ability grant temporary HP instead of regular HP?

[BryonD]

Right, just saying it's not exactly 4E expectations either. In 4E you have a lot more HP and a lot more options to recover it, but it's also generally expected that monsters will do a lot more damage, especially with their Recharge and Encounter powers. It seems like with so much less HP, D&DN characters will need less healing in the first place.

I'm not disputing there are distinctions. But the key concept is that even in the absence of any source of healing, all damage is still gone the next day.
When you have 100% healing every night, it doesn't matter if the numbers are bigger or "so much less". The result is exactly the same.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not disputing there are distinctions. But the key concept is that even in the absence of any source of healing, all damage is still gone the next day.
When you have 100% healing every night, it doesn't matter if the numbers are bigger or "so much less". The result is exactly the same.

To be fair, it is pretty different, because many 4E PCs could, over the course of a day, with, say any Leader (let alone a healing-focused leader), and using short rests, potentially heal 250-400% of their HP (or more!) in a day, even ignoring the "heal to full" at Long Rest.

The big difference was, once they were out, they were oooooooouuuuuttttttt. Used all your surges? Pretty much done healing until the Long Rest.

So I'm not sure that is "the key concept" when responding to that post, but rather "the concept most disliked by you".

Compared to 4E, it absolutely does matter. You are wrong to think that 4E's key healing concept was "heal to 100% on Long Rest". In most cases, unless a party was truly embattled, they went into a Long Rest on good HP, usually with most of the party having a number of Healing Surges left (as a 4E DM, I'd argue that they actually had too many Healing Surges, but that's another, 4E-specific, thread). So 4E had only had you regain, say, 50% HP, or even 1 HP for a night of rest, but had had you regain all your Healing Surges (as it did), it'd still have been largely irrelevant, as with a Leader, it's typically only 3 HS to get back to full health from zero (it cannot be more than four, even without a Leader entirely). With a healing-oriented Leader, it could be about 2 (certainly to get very near full health).

So anyway, I understand that you dislike "Heal to full on Long Rest", but it's not the key issue for people who liked more 4E-style healing approaches, I would suggest. It's good, if you like that sort of thing, because it reduces book-keeping and so on. But it's not the main deal.

 

[BryonD]

So anyway, I understand that you dislike "Heal to full on Long Rest", but it's not the key issue for people who liked more 4E-style healing approaches, I would suggest. It's good, if you like that sort of thing, because it reduces book-keeping and so on. But it's not the main deal.

Well, he is responding to a post and direct question from me.

Also, it is a key issue. I'm not claiming that 4E didn't have a lot of other key problem issues for a lot of people. But this was on the list pretty ubiquitously, whether comments about other points overshadowed it or not.

You may be VERY correct that this is meaningless to people who *liked* the 4E approach. I won't claim to know.

If 5E wants to be the game that brings everything together it must retain appeal to 4E preferences while also retaining appeal to other tastes. This specific point clearly defaults to the 4E side of things. And whether the 100% recovery is key to that taste or a coincidental side-effect is not really important. But when the default falls to the 4E side, the options need to strongly allow for alternatives, while still cleanly working as a strong overall system. If it does, then which way is default is completely insignificant. But it does motivate the non-default side to ask the question.

I suspect there are other aspects where the shoe is on the other foot and I completely respect a demand that the system be adaptable in those cases as well.

As I said upthread, I'm very optimistic that this will work out. There are lots of other elements that I really like and I'll take it as a strong benefit of the doubt that it can get there. (Plus, as stated, some house-ruling is always assumed anyway).

But in the mean time, I don't feel any concern about defining my needs to facilitate a question regarding the capacity of the game to meet them.

Whether the 100% healing aspect was meaningless to 4E fans is meaningless to whether avoiding that point is very important to others.

 

[DDNFan]

I'm not disputing there are distinctions. But the key concept is that even in the absence of any source of healing, all damage is still gone the next day.
When you have 100% healing every night, it doesn't matter if the numbers are bigger or "so much less". The result is exactly the same.

Actually after at most a half of a long rest, your party fighter will probably be at full HP, without having spent a hit dice. Meaning tomorrow his hit dice will be maxed up, and he'll have them in his back pocket just in case. No worries here. He's so tough, not only does he not have time to bleed, he doesn't even need to bandage himself since his wounds close automatically.

Grittiness is slain. Verisimilitude is gone. This is mechanically like the dwarf's minor action second wind ability from 4th ed, upgraded to be surgeless. When you look at it that way, yeah, wtf were they thinking. They took all this playtest data about hit dice then completely skip it for fighters only.

 

[Cybit]

Actually after at most a half of a long rest, your party fighter will probably be at full HP, without having spent a hit dice. Meaning tomorrow his hit dice will be maxed up, and he'll have them in his back pocket just in case. No worries here. He's so tough, not only does he not have time to bleed, he doesn't even need to bandage himself since his wounds close automatically.

Grittiness is slain. Verisimilitude is gone. This is mechanically like the dwarf's minor action second wind ability from 4th ed, upgraded to be surgeless. When you look at it that way, yeah, wtf were they thinking. They took all this playtest data about hit dice then completely skip it for fighters only.

If the players can chain short rest; healing is a moot point for all classes.

 

[Remathilis]

Grittiness is slain. Verisimilitude is gone. This is mechanically like the dwarf's minor action second wind ability from 4th ed, upgraded to be surgeless. When you look at it that way, yeah, wtf were they thinking. They took all this playtest data about hit dice then completely skip it for fighters only.

I know! I remember the time our half-orc barbarian was fighting a red dragon. The dragon decided to go hide in a lava flow, so the barbarian used his mighty rage + amulet of mighty constitution to jump in after it and fought the dragon while standing in waist-deep lava. Totally destroyed our verisimilitude. Grittiness was all gone. I can't believe D&D next allowed this!

Then I remembered I was playing 3.5

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If the players can chain short rest; healing is a moot point for all classes.

Not that I disagree, but how so? Healing classes don't get extra stuff back on Short Rest, do they, and eventually (soon) people run out of HD to heal with no?

 

[Cybit]

Not that I disagree, but how so? Healing classes don't get extra stuff back on Short Rest, do they, and eventually (soon) people run out of HD to heal with no?

Actually, the starter sheet cleric can heal everyone to at least half health with chained short rests; Channel Divinity refreshes on a short or long rest, and the preserve life channel divinity can heal the entire party.

EDIT: Oops, didn't notice the 1/2 HP maximum, my bad. Stupid small screen not being able to see all the text.

It appears to be (I say this with no extra knowledge of the situation) that Short Rests are going to be one of the key tuning points in the DMG for making a "4E" version of the game. If that is the case, I suspect a great deal of abilities might have the option of being refreshed during a short rest to give those who want to play a 4E style game the ability to do so.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Actually, the starter sheet cleric can infinitely heal everyone with chained short rests; Channel Divinity refreshes on a short or long rest, and the preserve life channel divinity can heal the entire party.

Oh my.

It appears to be (I say this with no extra knowledge of the situation) that Short Rests are going to be one of the key tuning points in the DMG for making a "4E" version of the game. If that is the case, I suspect a great deal of abilities might have the option of being refreshed during a short rest to give those who want to play a 4E style game the ability to do so.

Wat?!

If you think "infinite weak-ass healing" is something 4E fans want, you are very confused, and if WotC think that, they are too. Healing Surges were powerful but limited (not limited ENOUGH arguably, but LIMITED), not "Sit on yer arse until on full health".

What you are describing isn't appealing to a 4E perspective at all, I'd suggest. It's appealing to a 3.XE "Wand of Cure Light Wounds"-style of play (which was a subset of 3.XE play, not the norm for 3.XE), where you effectively had infinite weak-ass healing. Could people who don't like 4E and/or don't understand the appeal stop randomly claiming things are "4E style", please?

EDIT - Having read the relevant power, I think Cybit is being a little disingenuous. The Cleric one only heals anything at all up to half health, so obviously it can be used to get a party back to half, which isn't exactly a safe place, so it's a bit different. I don't like any kind of infinity healing, though.

 

[Cybit]

Oh my.

To be fair, Mearls did explicitly say that if a DM allows chained short rests, there are probably other things in the game that break as well.

Wat?!

If you think "infinite weak-ass healing" is something 4E fans want, you are very confused, and if WotC think that, they are too. Healing Surges were powerful but limited (not limited ENOUGH arguably, but LIMITED), not "Sit on yer arse until on full health".

What you are describing isn't appealing to a 4E perspective at all, I'd suggest. It's appealing to a 3.XE "Wand of Cure Light Wounds"-style of play (which was a subset of 3.XE play, not the norm for 3.XE), where you effectively had infinite weak-ass healing. Could people who don't like 4E and/or don't understand the appeal stop randomly claiming things are "4E style", please?

Ahh, that's not what I was trying to quite get at. I think what you'll see is that short rest is the dial that a group can tinker with to move between the "base" game and a "4E" style game with encounter powers and 5 minute rests. If you set up, say, fighter abilities and cleric abilities and wizard abilities that come back on a short rest and a long rest, then a group that wanted to play a more 4E style game with encounter powers and encounter refreshing abilities would be able to dial short rests to 5 minutes, and a hit dice now heals the maximum amount on each die, meaning that you can heal up to full between encounters much easier by using your hit dice.

(4E is the edition I've played the most by faaaaaaaaar)