D&D 4E Simple 5e Healing that reconciles pre-4e and post-4e HP styles

[Dragonblade]

Here is my fleshed out 5e healing model. The terminology of course can change.

Base System:

So all PCs have HP but its divided into two health pools. Half of their HP, round up, goes into the "Vitality" pool. The other half goes into the "Wound" pool. So a 1st level PC with 11 HP would have 6 Vitality and 5 Wounds.

The Vitality pool represents purely intangible forms of damage avoidance. Narrow misses, stamina, luck, morale, etc. Everything but actual physical damage.

The Wound pool represents a mix of actual physical damage and intangibles. Kind of how HP has always been defined before. The key point here is that the Wound pool does represent that some physical damage has been taken. What form that damage is depends on the current situation at the table.

Taking Damage:

By default, successful attacks or spells that deal damage always take from Vitality first, including criticals. Criticals just do more damage. When Vitality is depleted the PC is Bloodied. All further damage comes from the Wound pool. At 0 Wounds, a PC is unconscious and dying. While dying you cease taking damage, but instead start making death saves. 3 failed saves and you're dead, 4e style. If you are hit or damaged again while dying, you automatically fail you're next death save. No negative HP in this system.

Some monster or PC abilities could trigger on Bloodied, kind of like 4e. You could also use Bloodied for the Save or Die trigger that Mearls talked about. In other words, the first time you reach Bloodied in a combat, you are now vulnerable to save or die effects for the rest of the battle, with the option that in grittier games, Save or Die is always on the table. Or in less lethal ones, not used at all or further mitigated.

Also, it makes things like poison make more sense. Until you get down to your Wound pool, you don't have to make poison saves from poisonous monsters. Or alternatively, such monsters do a mix of HP damage that works normally (Vitality first then Wounds), plus maybe does an additional 1 Wound, thus meaning physical damage has been taken and you have to make a save.

Recovering Damage:

The Vitality pool automatically returns to full after every short rest.

The Wound pool only recovers with time or magic. Warlords or martial PCs with self-healing abilities heal Vitality only.

Clerical healing magic normally heals from the Wound pool. Though of course you could have some magic that heals from either or both pools. Its magic afterall. But the advantage is that Warlord and martial healing now makes sense for those who want more verisimilitude in their HP mechanics.

You can never recover Vitality unless your Wound pool has at least 1 HP in it. If you are dying, a Heal check can stabilize you, or perhaps even restore you to 1 HP in the Wound pool depending on how good you want Heal to be. Perhaps only those trained in heal can actually bring you to 1. But anyone can stabilize.

At DM's option, for grittier games, characters who dip into dying can also end up with longer term injuries and penalties that may take weeks or months to recover from, or even require more powerful healing rituals.

Natural Healing:

You heal your CON modifier in Wounds per day, minimum of 1.

 

[KarinsDad]

The main problem I see with this is that melee type PCs would dip into their wounds points all of the time, almost every encounter.

Spell casters who hang in the back would typically dip into vitality, but not too often into wounds.

Any system that is pro-one group of PCs and anti-another group of PCs is probably not going to fly.


I do think this is good outside the box thinking though.

 

[Naszir]

Recovering Damage:

The Vitality pool automatically returns to full after every short rest.

The Wound pool only recovers with time or magic. Warlords or martial PCs with self-healing abilities heal Vitality only.

Clerical healing magic normally heals from the Wound pool. Though of course you could have some magic that heals from either or both pools. Its magic afterall. But the advantage is that Warlord and martial healing now makes sense for those who want more verisimilitude in their HP mechanics.

You can never recover Vitality unless your Wound pool has at least 1 HP in it. If you are dying, a Heal check can stabilize you, or perhaps even restore you to 1 HP in the Wound pool depending on how good you want Heal to be. Perhaps only those trained in heal can actually bring you to 1. But anyone can stabilize.

At DM's option, for grittier games, characters who dip into dying can also end up with longer term injuries and penalties that may take weeks or months to recover from, or even require more powerful healing rituals.

Natural Healing:

You heal your CON modifier in Wounds per day, minimum of 1.

I like this a lot. I thought about this a little after reading it in the other thread. As far a magical healing goes I think it would make sense if a clerical cure wounds spell would read something like "you cure one quarter of targets wounds with this spell". This way you avoid the weird "cure light wounds" effect of being able to bring a 1st level character from 1 hp to max hp but the cleric is barely able touch a 10th level characters hp with the same spell.

Natural Healing may have to change to "You heal your CON modifier plus your level in Wounds per day, minimum of 1."

 

[Dragonblade]

The main problem I see with this is that melee type PCs would dip into their wounds points all of the time, almost every encounter.

Spell casters who hang in the back would typically dip into vitality, but not too often into wounds.

Any system that is pro-one group of PCs and anti-another group of PCs is probably not going to fly.


I do think this is good outside the box thinking though.

Good points. Though in my opinion this is a feature not a bug.

Wouldn't it make sense that the melee types are going to be the ones getting physically hurt more? And isn't that how it works now in a straight up HP system? In editions 1e through 4e, the melee types are always taking more damage than the squishy PCs in the rear.

Now, I see what you are saying though. Melee types are going to be subject to things like poison more often than a rear rank PC would be. But while thats true, I think it opens up an opportunity in the game's design to give those martial PCs class abilities or feats that work with that in mind. Like poison resistance, saving throw re-rolls, that sort of thing.

You could tweak the system to address it in other ways. Instead of restricting clerical magic to Wounds, say it heals both pools, but starts with Wounds first. Or you could give some monsters special attacks that can do some direct Wound damage, though I would use that sparingly. Or you could give squishier PCs a lower percentage of their HP as Vitality and a higher percentage as Wounds. So while a Fighter might be 50/50. Perhaps a caster is 25/75.

 

[Dragonblade]

I like this a lot. I thought about this a little after reading it in the other thread. As far a magical healing goes I think it would make sense if a clerical cure wounds spell would read something like "you cure one quarter of targets wounds with this spell". This way you avoid the weird "cure light wounds" effect of being able to bring a 1st level character from 1 hp to max hp but the cleric is barely able touch a 10th level characters hp with the same spell.

Natural Healing may have to change to "You heal your CON modifier plus your level in Wounds per day, minimum of 1."

Good points. Yes, a percentage instead of flat numbers does make more sense. Since I don't have surges in this system and am trying to stay away from those, there could be a spot on the sheet for your Total HP, Vitality pool, Wound pool, and maybe a Heal pool (or call it a Recovery pool)? And your Heal pool is equal to 1/4 of your max HP (though we could change that percentage but 1/4 worked well in 4e).

Whenever a healing effect is triggered, whether its a Cure Light Wounds, or maybe a Second Wind, the Heal pool is how many points you get back. The triggering ability or spell tells you whether you fill up from Wounds first, or Vitality first. Non-magical, in-battle healing effects would recover Vitality only.

Something like Cure Moderate Wounds (if it even exists in this system) could be heal your Heal pool + 1d6 HP starting with Wound damage and working up. Second Wind would recover your Heal pool amount, Vitality only.

 

[Naszir]

I wouldn't really consider this pro one group and anti another. It sounds like a particularly deadly game if every encounter melee characters are losing more than half their hit points.

 

[KarinsDad]

Good points. Though in my opinion this is a feature not a bug.

Wouldn't it make sense that the melee types are going to be the ones getting physically hurt more? And isn't that how it works now in a straight up HP system? In editions 1e through 4e, the melee types are always taking more damage than the squishy PCs in the rear.

Except that the heavily armored PCs that are not squishy are actually squishy in this model.

The guy in no armor gets hit with a sword or racked by a set of claws and isn't wounded at all.

The guy in heavy armor gets hit more often, so those hits quickly end up in wounds.

To me, the alternate should happen.

The guy in heavy armor gets hit a lot of times and eventually gets wounded.

The guy in no armor getting hit once gets wounded right away because he has no armor. And I don't think that magical armor (like Mage Armor or Shield) from previous editions should necessarily protect better than real armor.

 

[Dragonblade]

Some additional rules to round out the system.

Temp HP:

Any effect that adds Temp HP instead adds directly to your Vitality pool and can take your Vitality above your normal maximum Vitality. Any additional points above max Vitality are lost when the effect granting Temp HP ends.

Non-Lethal Damage:

Non-lethal or Stun damage works like in 3e. It accumulates upwards, whereas Vitality and Wounds are tracked downwards. Whenever Stun damage exceeds your current total HP (Vitality plus Wounds) you are unconscious. Stun damage recovers equal to your Heal pool per minute. You wake up, as soon as your Stun damage drops back down below your current HP total.

 

[KarinsDad]

I wouldn't really consider this pro one group and anti another. It sounds like a particularly deadly game if every encounter melee characters are losing more than half their hit points.

Huh?

Melee PCs have historically lost half or more of their hit points in encounters a lot in every edition of the game system, hence the concept of golf bags full of Cure Wounds Wands and the concept of the 15 minute work day. The 15 minute work day was just as much or more of the Cleric running out of healing as it was the Wizard running out of offensive spells.

 

[Dragonblade]

Except that the heavily armored PCs that are not squishy are actually squishy in this model.

The guy in no armor gets hit with a sword or racked by a set of claws and isn't wounded at all.

The guy in heavy armor gets hit more often, so those hits eventually end up in wounds.

To me, the alternate should happen.

The guy in heavy armor gets hit a lot of times and eventually gets wounded.

The guy in no armor getting hit once gets wounded right away because he has no armor. And I don't think that magical armor (like Mage Armor or Shield) from previous editions should necessarily protect better than real armor.

I disagree. Assuming casters get only 4 HP per level, their total HP and thus their Vitality pool will be lower than a martial PC, so it takes fewer successful attacks to get them into Wounds than it would for a martial PC.

But I still don't think a successful attack should represent actual physical damage right away for a caster any more than it should for a fighter. Even casters should get their share of morale and avoidance based HP.

But you could eliminate the Vitality pool for casters altogether if you want and that would get closer to the effect you are trying to achieve. Where any hit on a caster is Wounds.