D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

[Cybit]

Wow that is really what I'm hoping for.

I don't want to crack open 5e to just start house ruling everything, I want support for the playstyle my group wants to engage.

That said, from my understanding, alternate healing will be coming in the DMG; as will most "Game World" modification / systems.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

First, let me explain the experience I'm going for. I prefer natural healing along the lines of 3e (and no, I'm not including wand of cure light wounds in that--I'm talking about how fast people heal without magic). I hope there is a healing module to support that, by some means other than changing the duration of short and long rests (because that doesn't really accomplish it and it has the added problem of screwing up other things like spell slot recovery that I don't want moved to a weekly basis).

I also am not really interested in any experience where combat time and non-combat time are somehow treated differently. I don't like effects that allow you to do things when you are fighting, but not when you aren't. You end up with the bag of rats, or having fist fights with your buddies to activate your abilities. I understand that some people play D&D in a more narrative style and those issues don't come up, but I play it simulationist and I need there to be a mechanical reason such things won't happen.

I treat hit points in such a way that I'm okay with small amounts of non-magical healing or buffering, but not enough to go from 0 to max in a day or so. (I'm obviously not using the default of fully healing overnight.)

From that perspective, I'll try to explain why Second Wind doesn't work, as written.

1. If a fighter can self-heal 1d10+level hp between hour long short rests, and short rests aren't limited, he can heal himself back to full hp in a day or less (usually much less), without any need for overnight healing. This needs to be somehow addressed in combination with slower healing modules, or fighters have a unique ability
to spit on the slower healing module. "Haha slower healing, take Second Wind!"

2. Even without the game experience I'm going for, it ends up putting wounded fighters into an exclusive situation where they can benefit from multiple short rests in a row, while other classes (unless something major has changed) can't. That can be annoying in play. "Okay guys, we should probably rest for 4 hours so the fighter is back to full hp," or "hey guys, can we take another short rest? My fighter needs a bit more healing."

I'm going to guess that this is exactly the case. Notice that the Second Wind healing amount is the figher's hit die. I imagine it was just simplified for the Starter Set and the pregens.

Actually it is 1d10+level hp. HD is 1d10+Con mod.

 

[Mistwell]

wandering monsters - unlikely to be rolling for this every hour in the wilderness, although I dont know what the rules are.

Playtest rules say once every 10 mins in a dungeon, and once every hour in the wilderness.

Also, there are no wandering monsters in cities.

It's more like wandering encounters. And, I think there are plenty of such, which can turn violent. And if it's a safe zone - then healing is a moot point anyway!

So no, wandering monster tables wont fix it at all

It does. In a region where healing is relevant, it's checked either once every 10 minutes, or once every hour, which addresses it just fine in my opinion. Now if you houserule that and don't check for wandering monsters, then sure it can become more of an issue - but it's an issue of your houserule, not the rules.

You can risk a few hours to get back a bunch of HP for free, provided you dont get unlucky. Not a fix. Two fixes for second wind: (1) temp hp that doesnt stack or (2) optional DM rule that all short rest abilities are capped at 4/day max (ie approx number of expected encounters per day).

The risk is real, and I think that addresses the issue just fine. It doesn't need a "fix" if it is not broken to begin with.

 

[Psikerlord#]

It's a little wonky in that the intended rest mechanic should be Hit Dice between battles; but I think it will make more sense once we see the "4E conversion" DMG kit, which I suspect makes short rest a 5 minute conversion.

Alternatively, if you rule that bonus actions can only happen during a fight, or that second wind may only be used in combat, that also fixes the issue.

oh snap = action surge can be used out of combat, since it just talks about actions. It's even more OP than i originally thought. Sigh.

 

[Cybit]

oh snap = action surge can be used out of combat, since it just talks about actions. It's even more OP than i originally thought. Sigh.

Not quite; in out of combat situations, things are done in minutes, not rounds. So would not be quite as useful in that scenario.

 

[LFK]

oh snap = action surge can be used out of combat, since it just talks about actions. It's even more OP than i originally thought. Sigh.

Yeah, f*** jocks, only nerds get to do cool stuff!

 

[Mistwell]

oh snap = action surge can be used out of combat, since it just talks about actions. It's even more OP than i originally thought. Sigh.

LOL what out of combat "actions" would be at issue here? You want two persuasion checks in one round rather than two? There is no real round-tracking out of combat anyway most of the time, so why would it matter? I get two open-locks checks in 6 seconds rather than in 12 seconds, wheee! I better go rest an hour now to maker up for that extra 6 seconds.

 

[unan oranis]

Good news is that you will have support for the playstyle.

Bad news is that you will have to crack open the game to some extent. But that's sort of the point. Everyone will have to crack the game open. The game is designed to be cracked open. It supports very few "styles" explicitly from the get go, but that's intended. The idea is that the group figures out what kind of playstyle they want, and then uses those rules.

Aside; 8 hours of rest is a full rest, so any amount of second winding beyond 8 hours a day is a little...um...besides the point?

I was talking about literally cracking open the book.

I agree we will all have to do that, to get at the pages inside.

 

[Ichneumon]

No wandering monsters in cities? Depends on the city, really. *cough*Sigil*cough*Sharn...

 

[Mistwell]

No wandering monsters in cities? Depends on the city, really. *cough*Sigil*cough*Sharn...

Yeah Vornheim has some excellent rules for what he calls "Urban Crawling". Basically if you're moving at a speed or in a situation where it would matter what your hit points are, then there is also plenty of chance for a dangerous encounter.