D&D 5E Those who come from earlier editions, why are you okay with 5E healing (or are you)?

[Ruin Explorer]

Twenty damage is enough to KO a warhorse, and sufficient to kill many people outright. A DM is absolutely entitled to make that call, in their attempt to reconcile the mess that the game has made of HP and healing.

No. In D&D damage is not absolute. HP are not "meat points". That's why they grow, and why a high-level Halfing has the same number as a moderately sized red dragon! That's not really a subject for debate. The debate was over in the 1970s, before I was born, probably before you were. This isn't Cyberpunk 2020, or one of any number of other RPGs with relatively absolute damage (a huge amount actually use HP or quasi-HP or soak systems which likewise render damage not absolute). If you want a system with absolute damage, they are out there, and they are not 5E (or any other kind of D&D or close D&D relative).

Further, you continue to fail to address the gigantic problem you create by asserting they are meat points and that damage is absolute, which is that until you hit 0 HP, there are 0 consequences. Again, there are plenty of systems where this isn't true. If this aesthetic/gameplay element of D&D is something you cannot accept, which it appears to be, I would suggest running one of those instead.

The fall problem is also pretty hilarious with the "damage is absolute" thing, given an elephant can walk away from any distance of fall on average, which er, doesn't seem very plausible (less plausible than a human by far, I'd suggest). D&D is simplifying things and using a system that is does not treat PCs as some sort of doner kebab, slowly being carved away at until they keel over.

If there was a consistent solution, and the DM chose to ignore it, then it would be their fault for choosing to do so. As it stands, though, there is no good answer. That interpretation is far from the worst I've seen. At least they're trying to make sense of it.

Again, no, they're actively making an effort to make a mess of it. Claiming someone is "impaled" on a spike, which strongly suggests it's gone in one side of the body/limb and out the other, in a fairly solid way, is going out of your way to mis-portray what has actually happened in most cases.

My example was a 50 HP character taking 20 damage from a spike trap. He's not even "bloodied" in a 4E sense (something 5E doesn't have as a set concept but clearly has a notion of). He's probably winded, battered/bruised, alarmed and has sprains/strains from falling among the spikes, none of which went through him. Maybe some broke on his armour or whatever. But impaled? Is not a legitimate interpretation, and is not "trying to make sense" of anything. It's trying to misinterpret it in order to make HP into meat points. Whereas if he was on 14 HP, and took 20 damage from spikes, I'd say it was legit to say he was impaled (though probably only by one of them if he was still able to make death saves).

It's not that 5E's rules are impossible to improve on, but it's not like vast change is needed. The main issue seems to be the same issue I saw in 2E in 1989 - some people think HP are "meat points".

 

[CleverNickName]

This, once again, assumes that HP = meat points, which Gygax went out of his way to talk his way to explain was not the case. Even the example of a warhorse is straight out of the example he used in his explanation, iirc. Furthermore, even if we accept HP = meat points, how is the character traipsing around a Dungeon, fighting, jumping, climbing.etc. while "impaled" on a spike?

This is what I was talking about. It doesn't matter who "explains" the nature of hit points to me. It doesn't matter if that person is a random fellow on the Internet, or the Father of the Game Himself. In my mind, the only (ONLY) way that my character can be pushed closer to death from an arrow or a sword is for that weapon or projectile to have made deep, damaging impact to my skin and fleshy bits. People can present other points of view, but my imagination rejects them. Arrows don't make me sad, scared, or unlucky; they make me bleed. Full stop.

So unfortunately, I have to ignore "hit points" altogether or else my head starts hurting. I just lean on the math, erase a number on my character sheet and write a different one down. If the nature of my characters' wounds ever becomes important to the scene or the story (which is rare), I have to really stretch to find a way to narrate them in a way that makes sense.

"I slept fitfully last night, with the arrow wound from yesterday still aching. I woke up refreshed, but still very sore. I changed the dressing and chewed a piece of bitterbark to dull the pain. It'll be a week or two before the wound fully heals but for now, I've stopped the pain and the bleeding. It will have to do until we can find a healer." ​

Or something along those lines. If I had to do that for every single wound my character receives/recovers, the game would become too frustrating for me to enjoy.

 

[JeffB]

Just some quotes relative to the discussion

"...whether sustaining accumulative hits will otherwise affect a character is left to the discretion of the referee"- Gary Gygax-Men & Magic (OD&D Volume 1)

"This melee system also hinges on the number of hit points assigned to characters. As I have repeatedly pointed out, if a rhinoceros can take a maximum amount of damage equal to eight or nine eight-sided dice, a maximum of 64 or 72 hit points of damage to kill, it is positively absurd to assume that an 8th-level fighter with average scores on his or her hit dice and an 18 constitution, thus having 76 hit points, can physically withstand more punishment than a rhino before being killed. Hit points are combination of actual physical constitution, skill at the avoidance of taking real physical damage, luck and/or magical or divine factors. Ten points of damage dealt to a rhino indicates a considerable wound, while the same damage sustained by the 8th-level fighter indicates a near miss, a slight wound, and a bit of luck used up, a bit of fatigue piling up against his or her skill at avoiding the fatal cut or thrust. So even when a hit is scored in melee combat, it is more often than not a grazing blow, a mere light wound which would have been fatal (or nearly so) to a lesser mortal. If sufficient numbers of such wounds accrue to the character, however, stamina, skill, and luck will eventually run out, and an attack will strike home...."
Gary Gygax- "Much about Melee" Dragon # 24

 

[Sacrosanct]

The reason this debate never finds agreement is because it’s the most contradictory rule in the game. On one page, it flat out says “hp are also skill and luck”, but everywhere else, it describes hp and attacks and narrates combat as if hp loss is entirely meat.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not "Okay" with healing, but that's because I would rather healing be something like "Level 2. Heal 30 HP, and the target of this spell cannot benefit from another healing spell until they finish a short rest."

In other words, much bigger heals that have to be used sparingly and tactically.

So, here's an interesting point - to me, whether I use a smaller healing spell or my combat cantrip this round is a tactical decision. What you're talking about (to me) lean into being a strategic decision, about overall status of the group, and having significant impact well outside the next few rounds of combat..

 

[Tony Vargas]

The reason this debate never finds agreement is because it’s the most contradictory rule in the game. On one page, it flat out says “hp are also skill and luck”, but everywhere else, it describes hp and attacks and narrates combat as if hp loss is entirely meat.

Honestly, that sounds like contradictory interpretations. Like I said above, compounded by the design decision to write 5e in natural language.

And, yeah, it's always been an issue. All the way back to the beginning. Critics of the game mocked characters gaining hps as meaning they'd have to increase in size as they leveled (that kind of realism issue remains for any 'all meat' interpretation), EGG gave us the mostly-non-physical model of hps to resolve that, settling the issue for the next ~30 years. But, even then, Cure "Light" Wounds could heal a low-level PC from the verge of death to maximum hps. Hardly a 'light wound,' no matter how you're conceiving of hps. And, a high-level character could take a large number of hps of damage and get 'just a scratch' - very clearly a light wound - that Cure Light Wounds wouldn't begin to touch.

But, was the issue really with the hp mechanics and their rationalization?
Or just with taking the name of a spell literally?

It's not just hps. Explaining that armor protects you from attacks that don't penetrate it, for instance, then calling successful attacks 'hits,' even though, according to the concept of D&D armor, attacks can hit you and, in essence, bounce off, is a similar contradiction-of-interpretation. (Which 3e Touch AC and 4e REF defense dealt with, FWIW.)

 

[Dausuul]

The reason this debate never finds agreement is because it’s the most contradictory rule in the game. On one page, it flat out says “hp are also skill and luck”, but everywhere else, it describes hp and attacks and narrates combat as if hp loss is entirely meat.

My solution to that has been to say that every hit point contains some "meat," but how much varies by character. If your PC has 150 hit points, each of your hit points is maybe five percent "meat" and ninety-five percent "intangible defense factor." Anything that deals damage to you has connected and caused some actual harm, but if you only took 1 point of damage, the harm is on the level of a paper cut.

For a character with 5 hit points, they're almost entirely "meat," and a hit for 1 point of damage is a real, painful injury (though not a crippling one, since you can keep fighting unimpeded).

This does not address the weirdnesses of both magical and nonmagical healing; as I mentioned previously, the hit point system is grossly unrealistic on many many levels, and at some point you have to just shrug and live with it. But it gives me as narrator a way to steer between the Scylla of "The game says you were 'hit' and you will need to 'heal' but you were actually missed and are not injured at all" and the Charybdis of "You can be impaled through the liver 5 times in one day and go for a jog afterward."

 

[Chaosmancer]

So, this discussion like many others, leads me to a point of consideration.

Let us assume you are right, @CleverNickName and @Saelorn , let us assume that the hitpoint system is completely broken, unsalvageable, and ruins the game.

Now what?

Scrap Hp and go to a wound system? Con saves versus damage to soak? How far do we go in "fixing" the system?

And, frankly, I've played those systems. They are fun, but they aren't DnD, and I want DnD to have hp just like the games I played like Final Fantasy and Disgaea. So, any "fix" you propose isn't going to feel like the game I like to play. It will change how healing works, resting works, damage works, attacks, saves against spells.

So, you need to redesign the entire game, from the ground up, to fix what most of us don't see as a problem. And, I don't find it necessary

 

[Oofta]

So doesn't it come down to a few options?

1. You ignore what HP means and live with any cognitive dissonance you may have.
2. You create a homebrew wound system that punishes getting physical wounds; whether or not you have stamina points (or similar) depends on the homebrew.
3. Taking HP damage really does mean at least at some level physical wounds.
   1. Healing without magic takes more than overnight.
   2. Healing can happen more quickly than in the real world because of action movie logic and "magic".

The problem with the 2nd option is that it's still not particularly realistic which is what some people seem to want. There is no such thing as "a mere flesh wound". Get shot in the arm and you are frequently talking months of recovery or permanent disability.

I choose the 3rd option. Even with long rests taking longer I still assume that everyone has some innate magic whether they realize it or not.

Are there any other options?

 

[Tony Vargas]

So doesn't it come down to a few options?

1. You ignore what HP means and live with any cognitive dissonance you may have.
2. You create a homebrew wound system that punishes getting physical wounds; whether or not you have stamina points (or similar) depends on the homebrew.
3. Taking HP damage really does mean at least at some level physical wounds.
   1. Healing without magic takes more than overnight.
   2. Healing can happen more quickly than in the real world because of action movie logic and "magic".

Not really, at least, not with exactly those options, as presented, because the 3rd option really is no different from the 2nd in kind, just in degree. You change the meaning of hps and change the rules to reflect that change. Also, 3.1 and 3.2 prettymuch contradict eachother.

I might break down 1 & 2 more like this:

1. You don't change the hp system.
a. You ignore what hp mean or represent, describing or visualizing the results of combat however you see fit in the moment, and not worrying about possibly needing to revise or ret-con it mid-narrative to make sense of it.
b. You think about what hp mean or represent, and try to describe or visualize them consistently, and live with the fact you probably won't always succeed.
2. You change the system.
a. Tweak it slightly: change the length or timing of rests, change recovery of HD.
b. Add significantly: add exhaustion or lingering wounds for coming back from 0 or for crits or whatever.
c. Break it to fix it: radically change the rate of healing, but not other things recovered on a rest, do away with HD, etc.
d. Overhaul from the ground up: possibly choose something other than hps.

Personally, I'd go for (1.a), with a rule of thumb something like: anything that brings you closer to defeat could be modeled as losing hp, anything that brings you back from that precipice could be modeled as restoring them. Restoring hps needn't map to un-doing the source of hp loss, it could merely be compensating for it.