D&D 5E Slow Natural Healing in actual play

[5ekyu]

Not to put words in anyone’s mouth here, but I know for some folks it’s less about the players’ specific tactics for preserving the resource, and more about wanting the management of that resource to span a longer unit of play than the management of, say, spell slots. Wanting HP to be something you manage over the course of a whole adventure rather than the course of a day.

It may be but an adventure which spans the time between long rests does this as well. Time pressure is entirely circumstantial.

But taking one resource and stretching its recovery instead increases the impact on the other, not stretched options... Spell slots on healers, healing potions, second winds, various elements to "max" results, etc.

It also changes the balances between defensive choices and aggressive choices. Life cleric vs tempest, shield vs twf, plink and run vs brawl, blur vs ??? etc.

The change has bern portrayed as "simple" and "small tweaks" yo healing times but the actual changes it brings about are most certainly broader and more pervasive to "strategic and tactical" play and chargen choices.

Thats why to me if you want combat to be more scary, more seriously "do we want to" i think solutions which hit COMBAT DIRECTLY are better than ones which only apply "after combat" and then have pervasive choices.

In my experience, damage save systems tend to provide a vehicle for an unpredictable element that can be dialed to make the "decision to fight" no trivial matter. If dialed to do so, it could be that any combat lasting more than a few rounds can reach "i might get dropped by any hit" risk.

But, of course, higher threat encounters can create that too even with HP.

Or even moreso a robust and reactive environment. I mean, wasn't at its base level killing Grendel a lesson in the "just kill it" being a bad choice?
***
Heroes march back into town woth the two missing children after wiping out the cultists. The father pays them then loads children onto liaded eagon and heads for the hills.

Others in town treat them as heroes but seem angry and scared. Still they plan parties and celebrations for three days.

Third day, dark cultists and creatures surround the town and the village sends speaker out to beg for forgiveness and offers up the ones responsible as tribute.

Maybe next time the PCs might ransom the kids? Sneak them away? Find options other than killing the Grendel?

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[pming]

Hiya!

Us too. I think it took all of 15 minutes of play, when it was 'night' for the PC's and we looked up healing. This was session *1*. We immediately didn't like it.

"Ok, you stagger back to the inn, with all of you in single digit hps after defeating that hoard of demons. You eat, even with dislocated jaws, missing teeth, and fractured bones. You get drunk to ease the pain. About 8 hours later, the sun is up. You swing your feet over the side of the bed and stretch. Ahhhh...a fresh new day! Lets get cracking! You all say. ...everyone is fully healed..." O_O

After session 1, which we kept the insta-heal to REALLY give it a fair shake, I implemented my own healing method.

Assumption 1: The PC's have the means to bandage, splint, sew, etc wounds in relative safety.

Assumption 2: The PC's are in an area that they have 'set up camp', so to speak. The more safe, clean, and comfortable, the better (e.g., a small cave off in the corner is 'bare minimum'; a Fancy Room at a top-tier inn would be 'perfect').

The following healing capabilities should be adjusted up or down (I use a 'minimum hp on a die' thing). Each PC will heal, naturally (with A1 and A2, above) one-half, rounding up, their TOTAL HD. A PC can also use his 'normal' HD as usual.

Now, as I said, the adjustments I make are 'minimum hp' ones. So, if you are in a dungeon, with dirty bandages, limited food/water, etc...if you roll a 1, roll it again and use that. If you are in a farmers barn and he brings you some old linens to use as bandages...reroll 1's and 2's. If you have access to the barn, bandages, hot food, and extra blankets/pillows...reroll 1's, 2's and 3's. Etc. It is fairly "case by case", so that allows for unusual items and such to be taken into account.

NOTE: This "minimum hp" thing is ONLY for the 'free' HD's.

So far this has worked very well. Usually the PC's are rerolling 1 to 3's. So healing can still be a bit fast, but my games are not based on any sort of "X encounters per day" BS. The PC's can be constantly harangued if they make bad decisions and/or get unlucky on the Random Encounter Rolls (...yes...I use them...all the time). I guess I'd be called a "killer DM", to some degree. And I'm not sorry at all. Luckily, neither are my players. They all seem to really enjoy the brutality of the adventuring life.

As a side note...the reason for the "POOF you're healed!" rules are, IMNSHO, a designation that the game's focused play style is "Adventure Path Oriented". So the PC's go into a ruined keep, get to the top, beat the bad wizard there, then simply "Return home and rest". POOF! Everyone is healed by morning because Chapter 2 starts at noon where the wizards apprentice and a small army of orcs come looking for revenge! The battle rages on, the PC's get the tar beat out of them but are victorious. They head back to the inn. Everyone is healed by morning because Chapter 3 starts with a scout arriving and telling the PC's that it was all a ruse! The wizard they killed in the keep was an illusion! etc...etc...etc.

Basically, the 5e game assumes (IMO) that the PC's "Grow, advance, and improve via a series of connected story events". Back when I started (a couple years before you, OP), this wasn't really the case. There was no 'set way to play', really, but from what I read and the folks I talked to at the game store (no internet in those days, remember?) a "campaign" was a series of events...the story was made from those, not the other way around...and between those events there was more or less "recorded time". A day by day accounting of any activity. It was rare, IME, for a DM to just say "OK, you rest for a week or two, then this happens...!" In those days (I'm talking 1e AD&D), the DM was encouraged to keep very strict time of the campaign. He was also encouraged to use those nice little tables about "Diseases" in the beginning of the DMG.

With 5e...it's more "clean, heroic, made-for-TV mini-series" type of adventures/stories. Not to say you can't play 5e in a gritty, deadly, serious manner...we've done it...but the 'base core rules' are not geared towards having PC's get diseases, loose limbs, go insane, and die without the possibility of being returned from the dead. Hardcore, 1-life, you die, you make a new PC.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[alienux]

Ok so if you want players to make choices other than combat more often AND do not want to add downtime consequences then i would say the change to require longer and longer periods of downtime is not the way to go.

I don't know where several people are getting the idea that I want less combat as I've never said that. Nothing could be further from the truth. Combat is one of my favorite aspects of D&D.

You are literally hanging up a sword of "stuff you and i wont enjoy -unfun" and hoping they wont cut the thread. Its like holding a gun ppinted at "fun" and saying "dont do it or the ..... gets it."

Um...no. That's so far from what I'm saying. Everything I've said is more about adding more excitement to the game for my group by not making healing overly easy. It has nothing to do with anyone else's idea of fun, and I've made it a point to stay away from any badwrongfun conversation.

 

[alienux]

Okay, so what would protecting that resource ideally look like in play? Jacking up AC? Getting a lot of debuffs on the enemy or situational advantage? Avoiding fights altogether?

Not at all. As I said in a previous post, combat is one of my personal favorite parts of D&D, so avoiding that would be avoiding part of what I love about D&D, and would be counter to my goals as a DM. It's more about the feeling of risk and reward. When the risk is not great, the reward doesn't feel as great. When there is greater risk (and greater tension), for me there is more excitement to the story and greater reward. I do add tension in other ways to the game, but I'm interested in trying the optional DMG rule. WOTC included it as an optional rule for a reason, and over the last several years, I've thought a number of times about trying it out.

 

[iserith]

So much this. Players are actually very good at finding and using the most effective strategy. If players are rushing headlong into combat and relying on rest to heal, that’s probably because it’s the most efficient strategy given the challenges they are being presented with and the resources at their disposal. In my experience, what DMs usually mean by “strategic thinking” is “avoiding combat.” And is what you want players to try to avoid combat, the way to do that is by making avoiding combat the most efficient strategy. Ramp up the encounter difficulty so that players can’t easily rely on high HP totals relative to incoming damage to get them through most encounters. Add time pressure so they can’t easily rely on long rests to refill their HP between encounters. And most importantly, reward the players for avoiding combat as much or more than you do for killing enemies. I guarantee you, changing the way you award XP will have a far greater impact on the tactics players employ than changing the hp and healing rules will. For example, if you don’t award any XP for killing monsters, but award it instead for acquiring treasure, you will immediately start to see players avoiding direct combat in favor of going around the monsters and straight to the treasure they guard. Award XP for each monster that survive an encounter, players will start favoring nonletal methods of resolving encounters, from melee attacks to knock enemies out, sleep and other incapacitating spells, diplomacy, etc. Award XP for discovering hidden areas and you’ll start seeing players scour every room for hidden doors and the like. Because players are excellent strategic thinkers. The key is to reward the strategies you want them to use.

Completely agree.

 

[5ekyu]

I don't know where several people are getting the idea that I want less combat as I've never said that. Nothing could be further from the truth. Combat is one of my favorite aspects of D&D.


Um...no. That's so far from what I'm saying. Everything I've said is more about adding more excitement to the game for my group by not making healing overly easy. It has nothing to do with anyone else's idea of fun, and I've made it a point to stay away from any badwrongfun conversation.

Well maybe its this or other things...

"Grittier would mean working harder to avoid damage when possible (emphasizes planning as much as fighting),"

From my gaming experience the single solitary no holds barred no option even close bestest firstest with the mostest way to plan a way to avoid damage is to avoid combat.

Find a sneak, a talk, a bargain a con and blammo... No weeks of downtime waiting for critical wounds broken bones to set. No permanent limps. (Or other sorts of gritty recovery in lower magic setting.)

But that aside, in my experience withheld healing of ONE TYPE rarely produces the results in FTF rpgs that you seem to be seeking. It just up-values the alternative builds.

In the video game example if there was a second or third option to get you back on your feet quickly, likely slower more difficult approaches would not be so "rewarding."

If you want to drive the players to the choices you think are going to be more fun and "raise the tension" of combat, to succeed you need the combat to be more tense, not change a rule that is an "after the combat is over, some time later" thing.

For my players, i find the tension and enjoyment does not come from "can we heal in a day oy two vs a week" but the consequences and outcomes themselves.



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[Rod Staffwand]

I did this in my first 5e campaign, but only when the PCs took long rests in dungeons or other hazardous environments where attrition would rightfully take its toll. However, like others have pointed out, players tend to just compensate with more clerical healing. I didn't see where it had much of a benefit to anyone's enjoyment of the campaign.

If I ran that campaign today, I'd probably just only allow long rests in towns and other places of safety. It gets to the attrition theme much better by giving the party a good, understandable goal (get back to town!) in order to heal up.

On the other hand, our sporadic beer and pretzels game went with death at 0hp. And while it wasn't necessarily gritty (there was A LOT of beer), I would absolutely use that option in a serious campaign if I wanted to play up the danger aspect of combat.

A good half-measure would be getting a wound with each death save. For simplicity, I crib from the MM and reduce the PCs max hit points by 1HD or so. Multiple wounds stack, naturally. Recover time: let's say 1 week per wound. Reducing max hp gives the player some noticeable pressure, but doesn't gimp the PC with annoying penalties that will get old fast.

 

[5ekyu]

I did this in my first 5e campaign, but only when the PCs took long rests in dungeons or other hazardous environments where attrition would rightfully take its toll. However, like others have pointed out, players tend to just compensate with more clerical healing. I didn't see where it had much of a benefit to anyone's enjoyment of the campaign.

If I ran that campaign today, I'd probably just only allow long rests in towns and other places of safety. It gets to the attrition theme much better by giving the party a good, understandable goal (get back to town!) in order to heal up.

On the other hand, our sporadic beer and pretzels game went with death at 0hp. And while it wasn't necessarily gritty (there was A LOT of beer), I would absolutely use that option in a serious campaign if I wanted to play up the danger aspect of combat.

A good half-measure would be getting a wound with each death save. For simplicity, I crib from the MM and reduce the PCs max hit points by 1HD or so. Multiple wounds stack, naturally. Recover time: let's say 1 week per wound. Reducing max hp gives the player some noticeable pressure, but doesn't gimp the PC with annoying penalties that will get old fast.

I will admit that pne of the goid thing abput forums is experiencing different paradigms.

I dont think i can recall any time where players in games i GM or played in where an 8 hour rest in "a dungeon" (or analog to any uncontrolled hostile situation) would be attempted.

Even if they/we had some form of cover like spells for huts or whatever, it would have been rare that we wpuld think in an already active situation we would have the time and the enemy so few options that we would see it as a successful path.

So for us, 5e was more akin to just not having to fret the healing accountant stage once the mission was over which seemed fine.

I am sure that if i added new rules to change the safe zone healing in a way that realky made a difference, that made that healing less a "easy and done downtime" it would produce a few changes but not the video game playstyle mentioned.

1 likely major drop in fighter or other character who is meant to survive thru high hit points while sucking up damage being chosen. Miss-me factors become much better than I-can-take-it. (That could help DEX in games where DEX is seen as third tier "if i have to" stat behind CON.)

Classes with AC, evasion, uncanny dodge, resistances etc would be much higher valued.

Spell casters with cures and damage mitigation, again, stock goes up.

I would not be surprised to see the "fighter" roles replaced with clerics. An arcane, a Rogue and two different flavor clerics with no "fighter" is already a strong rival to the "classic 4" but make significant meaningful reduction to non-combat heal and it becomes almost no brainer.

Cutting back on *non-magic* resources makes chosing magical options over non-magical ones even more in demand.

"Gritty non-magic healing" and "fantasy high magic healing etc etc" simply shifts the places on the preferences ladder of classes to play.







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[iserith]

Not at all. As I said in a previous post, combat is one of my personal favorite parts of D&D, so avoiding that would be avoiding part of what I love about D&D, and would be counter to my goals as a DM. It's more about the feeling of risk and reward. When the risk is not great, the reward doesn't feel as great. When there is greater risk (and greater tension), for me there is more excitement to the story and greater reward. I do add tension in other ways to the game, but I'm interested in trying the optional DMG rule. WOTC included it as an optional rule for a reason, and over the last several years, I've thought a number of times about trying it out.

I mean, it's worth trying out, I just don't think it will achieve the desired goals. Increasing the difficulty levels of your challenges and the rewards they offer might produce a better result as it pertains to risk versus reward. As might other approaches.

 

[CTurbo]

I played around with slow healing in a one shot level 0 game with no magic and it was a lot of fun. The players all enjoyed it although it does slow things down a lot. I lowered the stats to something like 12, 12, 10, 10, 8, 8 or something similar. Str/Dex added to hit but not to damage. I only gave a +1 proficiency bonus if it made sense with their background. The Farmer(Rogue) used a Sickle, Laborer(Barbarian) used a wood cutting ax etc...

Anyway, in their first encounter, a single Gnoll taken straight out of the MM (except with no weapons and no Str to damage) was a very tough match for 3 players and 1 npc. The Laborer got bit on the shoulder and it nearly killed him. He lost about half his hp on the initial bite and I ruled that he would lose 1 hp every round from blood loss until his wound was dealt with (which was pretty much an auto success to stabilize). The npc actually bled out and died during the fight despite only getting bit once early on. The Laborer regained 1 hp a day until he was back at full hp, but he had to wear his arm in a sling for an undetermined amount of time (to be decided by me). While in a sling, anything he tried to do what that arm was at disadvantage AND with a -2 Str penalty. The Ranger in the party injured his leg and suffered -10 to his speed for a while.

In summation, I didn't use a lot of concrete rules here and kinda made stuff up as I went along at times, but the characters never complained and appreciated the more realistic feel of getting hurt. It made them less likely to fight often going out of their way to avoid combat since the risk of getting injured was brutal. They actually surrendered a time or two without even trying to fight.