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

[Chaltab]

The incentive to rest for two hours instead of one (same thing as twice for one hour each), is something they just added which wasn't a problem before. It never occurred to us to even think of taking two short rests before, because you could use as many hit dice as you wanted in a single hour.

I don't think anybody disagrees with you that PCs have an incentive to rest for two hours. The problem is that it's a trivial detail that will only come up in situations in which the party: 1)Actually has a fighter, 2)The fighter is damaged more than his Second Wind can heal, 3)Doesn't have better options like a potion, and 4) actually has two hours to waste and a place to waste them. In other words, many groups will never even encounter.

Only in a highly contrived game is every short rest you take going to break into combat the second you heal up. I don't buy it for one minute that people won't be taking multiple short rests. If they look at you askance for following the rules that the folks at Wizards came up with after changing Second Wind TO temporary HP, then BACK, maybe people should lay the blame for a poorly thought out game at their feet, instead of gamers.

A fighter starts out with very few HP and needs a reliable way to recover them since getting hit is part of his job. As the fighter progresses, Second Wind restores proportionally fewer and fewer hit points so that it would take more rests than the party reasonably had time for. I get that you play a game with special magic portals between plot points and your players are apparently really push or your DM won't stop them from metagaming, or something, but that's an issue your group will have to deal with, not a universal problem with the game. The fact that each class has six saving throws and half of them will likely suck? That's a universal problem worth getting so worked up over. This can literally be solved with a single house rule.

It's anti-story to imagine that players would only ever rest for one hour at a time, and never explore a bit then rest again another hour. I don't want artificial contrivances to limit reasonable PC behavior as if it's remotely comparable to power gaming.

You're like, Captain Ahab, but your whale is not Moby Dick, it's Pun-Pun.

They will be doing that in 5th edition but for short rests, mark my words. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Well if there's nothing wrong with that then WHY do we have this eighteen page thread discussing how it should have been done?!

 

[Emerikol]

Mike Mearls stated today that there would be no replacement option
for second wind. That means there will be no official way to play
D&D without inspirational style healing. I realize it's a houserule
but they've decided to support Thaco because that is more
Important??

I'm not supporting a company that is apparently trying to phase
out my playstyle.

I'm going to support a different company. Probably C&C.

 

[Obryn]

Mike Mearls stated today that there would be no replacement option
for second wind. That means there will be no official way to play
D&D without inspirational style healing. I realize it's a houserule
but they've decided to support Thaco because that is more
Important??

I'm not supporting a company that is apparently trying to phase
out my playstyle.

I'm going to support a different company. Probably C&C.

To this day, I still don't understand how people worry this much about abstract rpg philosophy.

 

[mechascorpio]

I realize it's a houserule but they've decided to support Thaco because that is more Important??

You will need to come up with another example of something they support that they think is important. Mearls said at Origins that he'd recently written up a sidebar for the DMG about an optional way to incorporate THAC0 into 5E, but he was extremely clear that it didn't mean it was actually going to make it into the book.

 

[thunktanker]

Mike Mearls stated today that there would be no replacement option
for second wind. That means there will be no official way to play
D&D without inspirational style healing. I realize it's a houserule
but they've decided to support Thaco because that is more
Important??

I'm not supporting a company that is apparently trying to phase
out my playstyle.

I'm going to support a different company. Probably C&C.

Ahhh geeze, they are encouraging everyone to tinker with the system to their hearts content. The official rule is go ahead and house rule and here are some ideas for what you could do. The company is not trying to phase out anyone's play style. And given enough time, they will roll out all sorts of options to allow a DM to craft the perfect campaign. At least let the game come out before you rage quit.

 

[Hussar]

Ahhh geeze, they are encouraging everyone to tinker with the system to their hearts content. The official rule is go ahead and house rule and here are some ideas for what you could do. The company is not trying to phase out anyone's play style. And given enough time, they will roll out all sorts of options to allow a DM to craft the perfect campaign. At least let the game come out before you rage quit.

Yknow what? I'm going to stop telling people to rage quit. I sincerely hope they do rage quit and go with whatever game floats their boat.

Just so long as they stop stepping up every day to tell everyone that they have rage quit.

 

[FireLance]

Mike Mearls stated today that there would be no replacement option
for second wind. That means there will be no official way to play
D&D without inspirational style healing.

Unofficially, though, you could:

1. Rule that second wind only provides temporary hit points; and/or
2. Change second wind so that it can only be used as a reaction to dropping to less than half hit points; or
3. Do not allow second wind to be used in combat, but fighters regain 1d10+level hit points each time they take a short rest because they recover from (or get to the point that they can ignore) wounds and injuries faster compared to normal people.

 

[jodyjohnson]

The numbers still say that roughly 2 million players play a fantasy RPG (per Scott Rouse).
Roughly,
500,000+ of those bought the 3e PHB (per former WotC staffer)
300-400k of those bought the 3.5 PHB (per former WotC staffer)
250-400k of those bought the 4e PHB (speculation)
250k+ of those bought the Pathfinder Core Bookbook (per Erik Mona at GAMA)

So effectively at least a million of the existing players have 'Rage Quit' by not buying the most recent rulebook, repeatedly, over every edition. Not including the roughly 20 million people who have only played frpg games for a short time and then drifted away.

I think 5e will survive a fair amount of 'rage quitting'.

 

[BryonD]

The numbers still say that roughly 2 million players play a fantasy RPG (per Scott Rouse).
Roughly,
500,000+ of those bought the 3e PHB (per former WotC staffer)
300-400k of those bought the 3.5 PHB (per former WotC staffer)
250-400k of those bought the 4e PHB (speculation)
250k+ of those bought the Pathfinder Core Bookbook (per Erik Mona at GAMA)

So effectively at least a million of the existing players have 'Rage Quit' by not buying the most recent rulebook, repeatedly, over every edition. Not including the roughly 20 million people who have only played frpg games for a short time and then drifted away.

I think 5e will survive a fair amount of 'rage quitting'.

We will see.

I think it depends significantly on how you define "survive". Based on WotC's comments about their expectations, it will need to last a lot longer than 4E did.
Based on hype it seems to be behind the curve of 4E.
Based on game quality I think it is way ahead of 4E. (My opinion being highly insignificant here)
Based on market position, it is facing a much bigger challenge than 4E with PF already firmly in place plus a fair number of 4E hold-outs. 4E clearly was a master at providing a certain game niche and people who love that niche are well justified in staying there.

I certainly think that 5E can gain traction and become the big game again. It can also come up well short.

There was plenty of presumptive "this is D&D" talk for 4E and that kind of blind faith is just a unfounded now as it was then.

There are plenty of details within PF that I find stupid and houserule without any official support. That has been true of most any RPG I've played beyond a handful of sessions. So this detail is no different and no big deal.

What I find more interesting here is that WotC has made a lot of big talk about wanting to be the game to be the system to bring players together and support all styles. This is one of the points that has been a stark dividing line between camps. To say they have picked one camp and don't plan to offer the other side an alternative is perfectly acceptable. But it flies in the face of claims of trying to be inclusive. So much so that I wonder if the reference above is truly accurate.

But whatever. I'm still interested in the game so far and already have houserules in mind. It remains to be seen if the system can withstand the needed tweaks and still be great. Time will tell. You don't have to "rage quit" to happily take you gaming to something that works better for you. For 5E's success the distinction between rage quitting and happily playing the other game is moot.

5E can fail. I hope it does not.

 

[Sadras]

Unofficially, though, you could:

1. Rule that second wind only provides temporary hit points; and/or
2. Change second wind so that it can only be used as a reaction to dropping to less than half hit points; or
3. Do not allow second wind to be used in combat, but fighters regain 1d10+level hit points each time they take a short rest because they recover from (or get to the point that they can ignore) wounds and injuries faster compared to normal people.

Great ideas! Enworld is like free DMG modules