D&D (2024) The Problem with Healing Powercreep

[hoffrg86]

Interesting to see the data, and then the other thread with how many fights before a long rest.. doesn't seem like the PCs are challenged that much?

Is letting people stay at 0 so upright party members can beat the mobs senseless still the general practice?

 

[MichaelSomething]

Who here misses the 5 minute adventuring day???

 

[DarkCrisis]

The attrition isn't to HPs specifically as much as to ways to regain HPs, when they run out and players have no more ways of recovering HPs then they really feel like they're on the knife's edge and I like getting players to that point.


Most likely. And that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, the problem is that right now 5.5e is caught in an awkward place where some of the bones of 5e that they didn't change seem to be built around a more traditional attrition-based model (for example how many spell slots casters get, vs. the lower number in the original 5e playtest) while a lot of people's playstyle is moving away from that, resulting in a mis-match in playstyle and rules. What I mean is:

1. In an attrition based model easy fights serve a purpose since they drain away player resources.

2. In a non-attrition based model easy fights don't serve much of a purpose since the players winning is a given and the fight can't attrit away meaningful resources, leaving it kind of pointless from a game perspective. A non-attrition based game can easily fix this by having fewer harder fights so that every fight matters.

The problem is if you have fewer harder fights a lot of the wheels of 5e start to fall off (for example rogues become pathetically weak is everyone else can nova every fight).

In 5E I hand waved some fights I knew the would dominate. “You guys are far more powerful and can easily heal any damage in your massive pool of HP”


But not in OSE / Basic, which I’ve been running.

Even a few goblins they will easily slay can take 1-6 hp off a 3rd level fighter with 15HP. And healing being low means they have to react different.

That said, diff games. Big Heroes vs Heroes. Domination vs Struggling. Each has their fun

 

[Daztur]

In 5E I hand waved some fights I knew the would dominate. “You guys are far more powerful and can easily heal any damage in your massive pool of HP”


But not in OSE / Basic, which I’ve been running.

Even a few goblins they will easily slay can take 1-6 hp off a 3rd level fighter with 15HP. And healing being low means they have to react different.

That said, diff games. Big Heroes vs Heroes. Domination vs Struggling. Each has their fun

Yeah, I'm starting to get my brain wrapped around what sort of gameplay 5.5e is trying to support and it's pretty different from both Old School and 4e. You couldn't see that as already in 5e as 5e was presented as mostly a compromise edition.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think when you compare healing sources it is the expected number of damge you will receive.

5e Armor is comparatively low compared to attack bonus of enemies.

While in 3e and AD&D your AC could easily be pushed above a treshold were attack have a chance to hit you.

AD&D because dex stacked on heavy armor. 3e had combat expertise.

A level 1 fighter character could quite easily start with AC of 1 or 19 respectively, while foes at that level had THac0 20 or AB of +0.

Now, the best AC you can get at level 1 is 19 and standard foes have an attack bonus of +4 at least.
Being hit at all was nit recommended in older editions and you did everything you can to be not hit at all.

In 4e HP became a resource that is expected to be spent. It isbrather like the rolemaster HP which recovered easily. There long time damage was determined by the kind of crits. So HP is toughness. Easy to be replenished with a short rest (with limits of course).

 

[Horwath]

I think when you compare healing sources it is the expected number of damge you will receive.

5e Armor is comparatively low compared to attack bonus of enemies.

While in 3e and AD&D your AC could easily be pushed above a treshold were attack have a chance to hit you.

AD&D because dex stacked on heavy armor. 3e had combat expertise.

A level 1 fighter character could quite easily start with AC of 1 or 19 respectively, while foes at that level had THac0 20 or AB of +0.

Now, the best AC you can get at level 1 is 19 and standard foes have an attack bonus of +4 at least.
Being hit at all was nit recommended in older editions and you did everything you can to be not hit at all.

In 4e HP became a resource that is expected to be spent. It isbrather like the rolemaster HP which recovered easily. There long time damage was determined by the kind of crits. So HP is toughness. Easy to be replenished with a short rest (with limits of course).

yeah, at 3.5e. a fighter of 6th level could have really high AC even without magic items.

But I do like more hits and more HP, if nothing else, for consistency. It'e easier to calculate CRs with 80% hit rate and X damage than 20% hit rate and 4X damage. you are simply less slave to d20 RNG or other way with 4X HP vs X HP

 

[Vaalingrade]

Who here misses the 5 minute adventuring day???

How can you miss something that's never left and got way worse through making 'Short Rests' unreasonably long?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think when you compare healing sources it is the expected number of damge you will receive.

5e Armor is comparatively low compared to attack bonus of enemies.

While in 3e and AD&D your AC could easily be pushed above a treshold were attack have a chance to hit you.

AD&D because dex stacked on heavy armor. 3e had combat expertise.

A level 1 fighter character could quite easily start with AC of 1 or 19 respectively, while foes at that level had THac0 20 or AB of +0.

Now, the best AC you can get at level 1 is 19 and standard foes have an attack bonus of +4 at least.
Being hit at all was nit recommended in older editions and you did everything you can to be not hit at all.

In 4e HP became a resource that is expected to be spent. It isbrather like the rolemaster HP which recovered easily. There long time damage was determined by the kind of crits. So HP is toughness. Easy to be replenished with a short rest (with limits of course).

Unfortunately, 4e and 5e don't really have long time damage as originally written.

 

[Xeviat]

Healing spells in 5E did less healing than damaging spells. They didn't even match the DMG spell creation guidelines, and damage spells often did more damage than those guidelines. Healing has to be more than damage to make it worth doing over just killing the enemy faster.

 

[hoffrg86]

right.. the aim was 3-4 fights a long rest/burn resources, but with a short rest in between; those fights can be trivial. I started using time mechanics, you have 2 hours before something bad happens.. not all the time, but definitely can spice things up.. the party can maybe get one short rest in. My final battle (5e campaign), they had 0 short rests, i borrowed the 3e scenario Attropus in book of elder evils.. took two sessions, a few battles, but no [short] rest for the wicked, every attempt provoked something and there was a countdown before everything was destroyed, including themselves.