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

[CleverNickName]

We are taking a breather from 5e right now (running a 1e campaign and B/X campaign) but the next thing in the hopper is a 5e campaign with modified rest (short to 1/day, long to 1/week) and natural healing (no HD, 1 hp/day, full recovery takes a week of full rest). Both to re-balance a few things and to put class abilities and spells re: healing in more of a primary position. We did some tinkering before, but this would be more of a teardown and rebuild of 5e (along with some other changes we have been contemplating).

Man, I would love to play a B/X campaign. It's been too long since I've hex-crawled across The Isle of Dread...

I've been thinking about using the longer rest times and natural healing variants in the DMG (p267), but the "gritty realism" feels a little too gritty as written. I think your modifications here are a good balance; you'll have to let me know how it turns out.

 

[Big J Money]

I don't see why healing would be a deal breaker for using 5E unless you're playing AL. It's so easy to just tweak it to suit your needs.

Agreed.

 

[Larnievc]

This happened in one of my games.

12th level half orc champion: “stop pointing that thing at me or I’ll shove it down your throat”

Guard: “k k keep back!”

Initiative- guard wins. Guard fires his xbow and hit’s for 7 hp.

Champion player knocks off 7 hp from his guy and says “I parry the bolt with my sword and give the guard the good news”- rolls his 3 attacks.

Guard grimaces.

Everyone was happy (except the guard, obviously).

The narrative flexibility of hit points is really useful.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[dave2008]

...., even with a critical hit, the PC doesn’t suffer any wounds from said monsters critical hit. Those don’t feel right to me.

That is a thing that gets me as well. However, making it more "realistic" ended up not been as fun for my players.

In my group we have HP and BHP (meat points). Initially, the rule was when you crit you take damage to your BHP to indicate a real hit (typically you have to be at 0 HP before BHP comes into play). However, this resulted in too many player deaths and my players didn't like it. So we went back to RAW crits.

 

[Big J Money]

In my group we have HP and BHP (meat points). Initially, the rule was when you crit you take damage to your BHP to indicate a real hit (typically you have to be at 0 HP before BHP comes into play). However, this resulted in too many player deaths and my players didn't like it. So we went back to RAW crits.

Yeah, in my post above, I was tempted under the Direct Damage optional rule to suggest using crits to take away Vitality, but it's just so apparent that it will result in many unavoidable deaths at any level, in a way that doesn't match with D&D's play (in any edition). Actually, the irony is that it would result in more deaths at higher level, where damage dice are higher.

I still think there is some merit in the concept of criticals being real wounds that bypass defenses. Perhaps give every creature a separate "natural crit damage"? The weakest creatures would get 1d4 + Str, and the most epic of creatures would get 1d12 + Str. There would never be any other bonuses to this die, no matter what. When a creature hits, they roll the crit die instead of their normal attack damage. This should rarely insta-kill anyone but would always result in a wound, and somewhat often in a mortal wound.

Suffering multiple crits in a row is where it gets deadly, but you've had your warning by that point. You have already suffered a grievous blow, and if you continue to fight, that was a risk your hero chose to take. I hope this battle is worth it.

 

[Oofta]

That is a thing that gets me as well. However, making it more "realistic" ended up not been as fun for my players.

In my group we have HP and BHP (meat points). Initially, the rule was when you crit you take damage to your BHP to indicate a real hit (typically you have to be at 0 HP before BHP comes into play). However, this resulted in too many player deaths and my players didn't like it. So we went back to RAW crits.

It's tough to get the right balance and it's going to vary a lot. I had a DM long ago that used a special "critical" die. It had different body parts - if you got crit he'd roll the die and find out what was lopped off. Rolled the head? Too bad! Dead! Roll body? Bummer. Cut in half. Didn't matter if you were fighting kobolds that needed a critical to hit, every monster had super vorpal weapons.

I think he was just tired of DMing and wanted to see how long we'd continue with this (answer: about 2 sessions).

That was an extreme level to take it, but permanent or even semi-permanent effects from criticals are generally quite unbalanced. That front row fighter is going to take a lot more hits than the ranged guy who hides in the back.

That, and any monster that has more attacks is more likely to get a crit than the monster that has one big massive hit. It feels backwards that getting pinchushioned to death is more dangerous than getting hit with a tree.

 

[CleverNickName]

So, as someone who primarily played 1e variants for most of their life (as far as D&D went- lots of other RPGs) ... I have to admit that playing B/X* again is .... refreshing. Amazing. Awesome.

It really is a great ruleset. I forget just how perfect Moldvay/Cook are. Look, 1e will always have a certain primacy in my heart, but B/X is the essence of great D&D, stripped to the core.

*No, not BECMI. And absolutely NO Rules Cyclopedia.

Heretic! Blasphemy!

Just kidding, of course. But unfortunately, until DriveThru RPG offers the "essence of great D&D" as print-on-demand, I'm sticking with the Cyclopedia.

I will - we did the "base" 5e for a long time to get a hang of how the rules are supposed to work; then we worked in feats. Last time through we did slightly modified healing (we used HD, and they recharged at 1/2 rate, but otherwise no healing outside of magic).

How did the game "drive" with those changes? Were there any unintended consequences, like bards and clerics becoming too important? Mangled action economy? any other spooky "what if" scenarios that people whisper about in dark corners here?

When I test this out, I think natural healing wwill be Con mod/day (min 1). But I like the thought of a short rest being a day, and a long rest being a week as you suggest. I think this would slow the game down quite a bit and let the party leverage their downtime more. And that would give me the pacing I want for my next campaign.

 

[Arilyn]

Well yes, healing completely overnight is silly from a realistic point of view, but so is a world populated by so many monsters that heroes on an adventure typically get into combat 6 to 8 times a day (or other potentially lethal encounters.) And within a remarkably short length of time go from kinda competent to a super hero. Games which treat wounds more realistically have far fewer combat encounters.

For me, fast overnight healing just makes potions, cure wands and clerics less mandatory. Slowly healing over weeks if there is no magic around is just going to get hand waved away anyway as "many days pass, while you heal your injuries." You could do this, but many adventures are on a clock and once characters have a few adventures under their belts they're just going to purchase potions or pay a church for rapid healing anyway.

Best not too examine these things too closely, unless you want to alter the game a lot.

 

[Larnievc]

That is a thing that gets me as well.

The way I view crits are like the scene when the Alien Queen tries to pharyngeal bite Ripley when she is in the power loader.

It’s a shocking attack that puts you on the back foot for a second.