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

[RotGrub]

IMO, there shouldn't be a SW ability for the fighter. I don't like either option, but I do care.

 

[LFK]

The problem with 5th isn't that there are some inspirational HP, it's that they are hard baked into the fighter class and we can't remove it.

It shows a complete disdain on the part of the developers who promised us modularity, because "one size does not fit all". That was a lie. They lied to us.

If you are so implacable that you consider this a sign of "complete disdain" then there is no reason to care about what you think: you will never be happy and your feedback should be shredded, unread.

Seriously, listening to you would be a mistake, and I hope the developers realized that.

I realize there's a certain element to saying "if you don't like the onions just pick them out" but you ordered a modern RPG and are upset that it contains modern elements that show the developers have learned from the last two decades of game development. Because it's a game, and should be fun, and fun is more important than making sure you've sanded off every corner that some grog might get his elbow caught on. That means that characters should be largely self-contained and not reliant on another class for their base functionality. You wouldn't design a warlock class that gets bonus damage against cursed targets, but has no way of cursing. Why would you design a front line defender that expects to chew through hit points, but has to rely on external sources to get hit points back? A wizard that can cast all sorts of spells, but needs a Bookomancer to refresh them?

Hit points are the Fighter's spellbook.

 

[Hussar]

If he can find somewhere to rest for the night, then he will be a 7 HP. Better than before, but he still needs a lot before he is ready to take on another squad of goblins. His capacity to swing the sword is unaffected in either case. But his total combat capacity in the “can’t self-heal” case still reflects the burden of that last battle. In the self healing case he is able to back at full strength with no lingering effects. It is impossible for him to receive any damage from the goblins that isn’t gone in 24 hours.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-HP-instead-of-regular-HP/page5#ixzz35PPIAjeM

But, in 3e, if he rests for a day with a successful Heal check, he gains 20 HP back and is almost completely healed. Thus, any wound he received cannot be so serious that it can't be recovered from in a day, or you have Schrodinger's HP's. How do you justify this in your game?

Or, do you use earlier edition healing rates.

Note, even with this baseline, it's ludicrously easy to fix. Simply limit the number of short rests/Second Winds per day. Done. I mean, they have to set the baseline somewhere, but the modularity means that deviating from that baseline is clear and all implications of deviating from that baseline are known. So, DDNFan's claims about being lied to by the devs doesn't hold any water IMO. There's no reason the baseline has to be set low and then let people raise it. It could be done that way and no problem. They went with pretty fast healing and let the DM's slow it down based on their preferences.

It's an easy peasy fix.

 

[pemerton]

If you have 21 HP and take 20, then take another 1 HP damage, which was the more serious attack? If you say the 1 HP vs the 20 HP blow, I have to just facepalm myself out of the discussion because it's too absurd to respond to.

The 1 hp blow must be more serious than the 20 hp blow, because the 20 hp blow did not kill you/knock you unconscious (depending on edition) whereas the 1 hp blow did have that effect.

It shows a complete disdain on the part of the developers who promised us modularity, because "one size does not fit all". That was a lie. They lied to us.

<snip>

This is either laziness, incompetence, or hubris on their part.

Seriously?

 

[pemerton]

Unless there is subtext I'm missing - you seem to be saying that this is a decent compromise? Yes it isn't ideal, since you lean 4e, but is it an acceptable middle ground?

No subtext. I'm just looking at the way different mechanics work.

I'd have to see the whole game, including the DMG's suggestions on healing, to work out how I ultimately want to handle it. But with the information currently to hand, I would say that if someone wants to go with the approach we're talking about (heal 1d10, then take 1d10), I think there are a few extra tweaks you could look at.

For instance, you might say that if the fighter has a HD left when s/he takes the 1d10 "cool down" damage, s/he can spend the HD instead. This means the character has a way of avoiding unconsciousness death.

Also, you might give the fighter a bonus HD or two. At high levels this has negible effect, but at low levels it makes second wind a bit more of a boost rather than just an alternative way to spend a HD. (This also makes it closer to 4e, where Second Wind does have a resource cost - surges - but the fighter has more of those resources than other PCs.)

One of the issues I've had with this concept in 4e was that it was likely to happen every fight. Pulling yourself off the mat should be dramatic, but if you're doing it every fight, where's the drama?

In addition to [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION]'s point about the actual frequency of 2nd wind use, I would add - shouldn't every fight be dramatic? That's certainly what I am for at my table!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Now, for your case WITH second wind, I'd like to know how YOU justify being able to do all those things after all these "steel swords breaching his armor and not being dodge", being as you have stated these strikes as a fact in your personal case.

I'm glad you asked... no really I was hopeing someone would, but I'll start with your answer first...

In the mean time, here is my answer:
I strongly prefer (near-on demand) that HP retain the ability to build narrative, on-the-fly, that combines abstract and real damage. The DM (with player support) controls where the line is draw here for what makes the best sense and maximizes fun.

I mostly want to start with your answer because that is the best one I have ever heard.

I'm not going to quote the rest of your post (just to save space) but it was all pretty good, and we seem to agree on most of the broad strokes....

now to my answer:
I would say in my narrative 6 goblins jumped him, and in the supries got a few minor nicks on him, and yes most people would have been skewered by them, but he can turn a deadly strike into a graze. They got one or two good hits in (especially the crit) but nothing more then a flesh wound. I would also say that the whole fight took a lot out of him, including that whole 'gee I'm too tired to turn a deadly strike into a graze' until... he second winds and gets 1d10+5 hp back...

 

[BryonD]

Glad to see we more or less agree.

On the topic here: If a second wind provides temp HP then it works fine. If it gives "healing" I would be OK with it as a 1/day limit. (I'd prefer smaller, but not enough to get worked up over).
But 1/short rest with real healing is a not gonna happen. Even if we argue that short rests are hard to come by, a fighter could limp back to the Inn and "second wind" every hour all day long.
Temp HP seems to be a much better solution and an easy house rule.

The HD recovery mechanic seems to be a bigger issue to me. Healing everything with a single long rest also is a deal breaker if it can't be readily house-ruled within the system without wonkiness.
I'm hopeful that some of the vague comments about toolkits for adapting to other systems will cleanly cover this.
There are numerous elements of 5E that are quite appealing to me. I'm eager and optimistic, unlike 4E which which was loaded front to end with hard coded deal breakers.

But we will see. Reigning in self-healing doesn't just need to be an option. I'm going to play the best game out there, and 5E will need to still be THAT GAME even with the corrections. I think it can be based on the system overall.

For the record, since I haven't been in all the conversations: I also consider DOMA really stupid (just my opinion). But, again, that is clearly super easy to house-rule. There are some really stupid things in PF as well and correcting DOMA is no bigger a deal than correcting those things.

 

[Manbearcat]

If you have 21 HP and take 20, then take another 1 HP damage, which was the more serious attack? If you say the 1 HP vs the 20 HP blow, I have to just facepalm myself out of the discussion because it's too absurd to respond to.

PC001 and NPC001 each have 21 HPs left. They each sustain 20 HPs worth of damage so that they have 1 HP left. They decide they'd rather play dice because violence sucks. They drop their weapons and whip out the polyhedrons. For the next 5 hours no one bleeds out, no one vomits or passes out from vasovagal syncope, all of their faculties and motor functions are completely accounted for. NPC001 is getting blungeoned and accuses PC001 of loading the dice. Words are exchanged. Words turn into threats. Threats turn into fisticuffs. PC001's haymaker tags NPC001's jaw, doing 2 points of damage. Down goes NPC001.

Enjoy your facepalm.

 

[Grazzt]

The problem with 5th isn't that there are some inspirational HP, it's that they are hard baked into the fighter class and we can't remove it.

It shows a complete disdain on the part of the developers who promised us modularity, because "one size does not fit all". That was a lie. They lied to us.

So what stops you as DM from removing the ability from fighters and house ruling something else (or nothing) in its place?

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

I am definitely in favor of having it remain as real Hit Points, but for there to exist an option for some sort of Temp HP ability that can be taken instead. Hit points, Hit points are way too immersion breaking for them to actually represent actual physical damage. If a stamina and wounds system existed I would definitely not want it to repair a wound.