D&D 5E Slower Healing and Longer Long Rests

[sable_twilight]

I’ve been thinking about ways to create more challenging overland and wilderness travel experiences while not completely gutting the six-encounter adventuring day for dungeon crawls. My thought is to slow down natural healing, separate natural healing from long rests, and make longer long rests. Short Rests would remain an hour.

So to summarize:

• Characters only recover 1 Hit Die and their level + CON Mod Hit Points per day when they awaken from their sleep.
  • Characters may spend Hit Dice before or after sleeping to regain Hit Points, same as a Short Rest.
    • Considering: Hit Dice spent prior to or after sleeping would restore the maximum amount of hit points per die.
  • Characters engaged in Recuperating as a Downtime activity regain an additional Hit Die.
• Long Rests for recovery of spells and class abilities requires 1 Full Day.
  • A long rest requires a Squalid or better Lifestyle
    • It is up to the DM if the party can find suitable resting conditions away from civilization.
  • During a long rest, characters can engage in things light activity (such as guard duty) and up to one hour of strenuous activity (such as combat and spell casting), but no other downtime activity.
    • A long rest is considered it's own sort of downtime activity can represent things such as:
      • preparing gear, spells, and other elements of their craft
      • meditating or communing with the forces from which they draw their power
      • recovering from stresses of combat exertion or channeling vast amounts of energy

In short, I hope a setup like this would eliminate the daily automatic recovery which makes wilderness travel seemingly trivial while still allowing a party to encamp near a dungeon and launch expeditions every couple of days.

Thoughts?

 

[Don Durito]

I’ve been thinking about ways to create more challenging overland and wilderness travel experiences while not completely gutting the six-encounter adventuring day for dungeon crawls. My thought is to slow down natural healing, separate natural healing from long rests, and make longer long rests. Short Rests would remain an hour.

So to summarize:

• Characters only recover 1 Hit Die and their level + CON Mod Hit Points per day when they awaken from their sleep.
  • Characters may spend Hit Dice before or after sleeping to regain Hit Points, same as a Short Rest.
    • Considering: Hit Dice spent prior to or after sleeping would restore the maximum amount of hit points per die.
  • Characters engaged in Recuperating as a Downtime activity regain an additional Hit Die.
• Long Rests for recovery of spells and class abilities requires 1 Full Day.
  • A long rest requires a Squalid or better Lifestyle
    • It is up to the DM if the party can find suitable resting conditions away from civilization.
  • During a long rest, characters can engage in things light activity (such as guard duty) and up to one hour of strenuous activity (such as combat and spell casting), but no other downtime activity.
    • A long rest is considered it's own sort of downtime activity can represent things such as:
      • preparing gear, spells, and other elements of their craft
      • meditating or communing with the forces from which they draw their power
      • recovering from stresses of combat exertion or channeling vast amounts of energy

In short, I hope a setup like this would eliminate the daily automatic recovery which makes wilderness travel seemingly trivial while still allowing a party to encamp near a dungeon and launch expeditions every couple of days.

Thoughts?

Works well. I've done pretty much exactly that.

The only thing to consider is how this may influence short rests. If combats tend to be days apart then short rests tend to get taken for granted and certain abilities such as the Fighter's Second Wind become more powerful.

You can account for that by basically limiting the number of short rests per long rest to 2 or 3.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Do Long Rests still recover all HP and 1/2 Hit Dice?
Since you're already changing the system, I might suggest taking the opportunity to limit how many fights you can have during a Long Rest and still gain the benefit.
Even during a full 8-encounter adventuring day, you're still not engaging in more than an hour of combat and spellcasting.

 

[Shiroiken]

This might be a bit too slow healing for my taste, with spending HD on a short rest becoming undesirable (better to spend them overnight). I completely agree with the concept, and have worked out something similar by creating a Medium Rest, which replaces the normal Long Rest if not taken in a sanctuary, a semi-safe location (e.g. town). The only change to Long Rests is that they recover all spent HD. Otherwise they only gain the following benefits:

• Recover 50% of maximum HP
• As a Short Rest (including spending HD)
• Recover half maximum HD (minimum 1)
• Recover half number of uses for abilities that have a number of uses per long rest
  • Half rages per day, half Sorcery Points, etc.
• Recover half of abilities that can be used only once per long rest are recovered
• Recover half spell slots per level

This makes adventurers still viable over the course of a full adventuring day, but makes wilderness combats a bit more meaningful, since going nova weakens you for the next day (which might be a full adventuring day).

 

[LordEntrails]

If you haven't already, you might want to look at some of these threads; Search results for query: slow healing

 

[MichaelSomething]

What about spells?

 

[sable_twilight]

Works well. I've done pretty much exactly that.

The only thing to consider is how this may influence short rests. If combats tend to be days apart then short rests tend to get taken for granted and certain abilities such as the Fighter's Second Wind become more powerful.

You can account for that by basically limiting the number of short rests per long rest to 2 or 3.

Have noticed any changes in play style?

In terms of short rests, I see abilities which reset on short rests as designed to be readily accessible. I considered even dropping short rests as down to 10 minutes even as more breather breaks, but that (to me) breaks the flavor of abilities which are done as part of short rests.

I like the flavor of short rests being an hour of catching a breather and resetting some "per combat" type abilities while also making it a potentially risky decision when done in an active and dangerous region.

 

[sable_twilight]

Do Long Rests still recover all HP and 1/2 Hit Dice?
Since you're already changing the system, I might suggest taking the opportunity to limit how many fights you can have during a Long Rest and still gain the benefit.
Even during a full 8-encounter adventuring day, you're still not engaging in more than an hour of combat and spellcasting.

No. Characters would have to heal up over time or spend some spell slots on healing.

My goal is to decouple "natural healing" from the other class abilities and make it it's own thing.

Good thought on the timing. I suppose it would be comparable to character encamping somewhere, spending a day doing downtime, and then delving into dungeon after they get off their work shift.

Yes, sure, I would be good with that. Of course, they might be heading in with those dungeon denizen are getting ready for their own raids to the surface, so yeah sure. It's a choice... smiles

 

[Don Durito]

Have noticed any changes in play style?

In terms of short rests, I see abilities which reset on short rests as designed to be readily accessible. I considered even dropping short rests as down to 10 minutes even as more breather breaks, but that (to me) breaks the flavor of abilities which are done as part of short rests.

I like the flavor of short rests being an hour of catching a breather and resetting some "per combat" type abilities while also making it a potentially risky decision when done in an active and dangerous region.

Depends on the context. It means that players don't try to rest in situations that are somewhat implausible. It also means that wilderness travel flows better. Players don't blow their best spells if they don't know they will be able to regain them. It also puts a bit of time pressure on urban campaigns. If the PCs know they will lose a whole day, then they're reluctant to put aside the time for a long rest unless they really need to.

It basically increases the range of activities you can use in the game in which a long rest is something the players have to decide to do and weigh up, rather than something which happens.

With short rests I just ditch the whole 1 hour thing. 5 Minutes not in combat with a hard limit per long rest. Making sure there are spots in the game to take an hour breather puts work on me. Why should I do that work if I don't have to?

 

[sable_twilight]

This might be a bit too slow healing for my taste, with spending HD on a short rest becoming undesirable (better to spend them overnight). I completely agree with the concept, and have worked out something similar by creating a Medium Rest, which replaces the normal Long Rest if not taken in a sanctuary, a semi-safe location (e.g. town). The only change to Long Rests is that they recover all spent HD. Otherwise they only gain the following benefits:

• Recover 50% of maximum HP
• As a Short Rest (including spending HD)
• Recover half maximum HD (minimum 1)
• Recover half number of uses for abilities that have a number of uses per long rest
  • Half rages per day, half Sorcery Points, etc.
• Recover half of abilities that can be used only once per long rest are recovered
• Recover half spell slots per level

This makes adventurers still viable over the course of a full adventuring day, but makes wilderness combats a bit more meaningful, since going nova weakens you for the next day (which might be a full adventuring day).

Yes, the daily wilderness nova.

I like your idea as well.