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

[Charlaquin]

I admit my perspective comes from TSR era D&D, where non magical rapid healing largely isn’t a thing. yes, I am fully aware that the “hp can be abstract” exists back then in the PHB. But hp loss in combat also represented physical wounds because the mechanics supported that via slow or no non-magical healing options. It fit the verisimilitude.

Even at the time, there were problems with narrating HP loss as wounds. The biggest one being that experience (in whatever form that took for your class) somehow made you able to be stabbed more times without dying, which doesn’t make a lick of sense. HP have always been abstract, which is to say, they have always meant whatever they needed to mean in the narrative to suit the needs of gameplay. That meant sometimes they were wounds, sometimes they weren’t, and when they were or weren’t was largely up to context and the sensibilities of each individual group.

Somewhere along the line, fast non magical healing was introduced. And it feels like in order to justify that, the took the HP are abstract paragraph and took it to extremes where HP aren’t wounds at all. That’s what sort of runs me the wrong way. It wasn’t always like that, and wasn’t a good change IMO. The idea that if a four foot long spike in a pit can do a maximum 12 points of damage, that as long as a PC has 13+ hp, no matter how badly they fall into said spike, it doesn’t do any significant physical damage. Or that if a monster’s six inch long razor sharp teeth do a maximum of 15 points of damage, as long as the PC has 31+ hp, no matter how well the monsters hits, even with a critical hit, the PC doesn’t suffer any wounds from said monsters critical hit. Those don’t feel right to me. And others apparently.

And to many, the fact that a 13+ hp character will always survive being impaled on a spike and not be even slightly hampered by it, or that a 31+ hp character will always survive two bites from said monster and be fine don’t feel right. HP are and always have been an inherently unrealistic mechanic, an abstract resource that is taxed by combat and other adventuring hazzards, which represent whatever the narrative demands. By design.

So while I don’t know exactly when this shift happened and rapid non magical healing was a common thing, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to associate hp loss with wounds, because there’s about at least 15 years of precedence of being so (and I’d argue the entire lifespan since that’s how it’s presented via language in the rules, and how it’s narrated in the actual games)

Well, healing back to full each day has kind of always been standard practice, and it has been a gradual process of removing restrictions to being able to do so. First you needed a Cleric to do it. Then you needed a healer of some sort, which didn’t necessarily have to be a Cleric. Then you just needed some wands charged with heal spells. Then you didn’t need anything special. That last step happened with 4e, but it would feel disingenuous to pretend it was a sudden drastic change, rather than the result of an ongoing process of making healing more accessible.

At any rate, there is nothing wrong with narrating HP loss as wounds if that’s what your group likes to do. It will naturally lead to some unrealistic outcomes if you apply this strictly, but that’s your prerogative. There are optional rules in the DMG to make healing take longer and to introduce more meaningful long-term injuries if you want such things, and there is also the option to house rule your own solutions.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It’s like you didn’t bother to read my post at all, or see the whole point.

 

[dave2008]

1) Are people running this rule as written or have their own approach? Feel free to share any opinions or details.

No, we have our own house rules for hit points, armor, and healing

2) What do you think about the fact that WotC decided to make this the default ruling in 5E? From my perspective it's awkward to have adventure stories where the protagonists are never injured for more than a day, and I'm curious what others' thoughts are on that (either way).

I think it was a good idea for WotC to attract new players. My guess is most new people these days start with video games and insta-healing, damage with not visible or game penalty is typical. Veterans understand it is something that is easily modified and they provided rules to help guide you as well. Not my preference, but the right choice for the game I think.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Big J Money]

It sounds like you are thinking of the trauma and fatigue reflected in HP loss as somehow fully disappearing, with bruises fading away completely, cuts turning into scars, or no mark at all, and fatigue recovered perfectly.

I agree it's not that stark visually, even in my mind. Bruises, cuts and bandages aren't the pain and suffering I'm referring to, though. Visual imagery quibbles aside, my point is that no injury lasts longer than 24 hours that is significant enough to cause the hero to adjust their plans. No PC will ever face a foe that lays them out for a day or more. While D&D can be enjoyed playing this way, I think there is a sense of drama that is lost -- a missed opportunity.

And yes, again I'll say that I'm not personally looking for solutions to something I see as an intractable problem I need help with. It's more my observation of the change in tone of D&D in modern times, and this rule change as a sign of that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thats an example of introducing an inconsistency. The suggested narration of hps, along with other mechanics, including overnight hp recovery, do hold together moderately well.
An alternate narration of hps as serious wounds, is inconsistent with overnight recovery and the lack of wound penalties - so, if you want to go there, use a variant that rests take a lot longer, and use exhaustion, disadvantage or some novel sub-system to model wounds.

As usual for these types of discussion, everything has been rhetorically warped into a caricature of itself.
5e (and 4e is roughly similar but better) treats HP as a measure of progress towards defeat. It doesn't dictate strictly what they represent in a specific case, but they surely encompass all of the things Gygax listed way back in 1979.
Maybe a hit represents a wound that gets bound up and is no longer relevant. This is fine if you want a sort of action hero flavor. Maybe some magic healing represents curing the same wound, even later on in the day etc. Maybe another hit point loss is the same wound reopening instead. It's a flexible system that 'mostly works'.
It's got the huge virtue of being playable due to simplicity and ease of use.
Things like bloodied status and disease track wounds are sauce you can add if it helps, but not really vital. 5e fatigue also falls into this niche (4e could do it by using HS penalties).

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I agree it's not that stark visually, even in my mind. Bruises, cuts and bandages aren't the pain and suffering I'm referring to, though. Visual imagery quibbles aside, my point is that no injury lasts longer than 24 hours that is significant enough to cause the hero to adjust their plans. No PC will ever face a foe that lays them out for a day or more. While D&D can be enjoyed playing this way, I think there is a sense of drama that is lost -- a missed opportunity.

OK. Lets look at it this way:

A PC faces a foe that does lay them out for a day or more.
How is the gameplay experience of the player improved by this?

1) I would assume realism would be one way.
2) Perhaps having to sit out the next couple of sessions of play increases the drama for the player, in that they want to avoid having to miss more sessions if they can help it? The unpleasantness of the experience heightens the enjoyment of when they aren't forced to sit out a session?
- That doesn't really work so well because (assuming the DM is doing their job) there is still drama and risk of loss in the normal rules. (Admittedly the risk is loss of character rather than playing time, which may or may not be viewed as worse.)

What else have we got?

 

[Azzy]

That's the problem. You see this is a game,

It IS a game.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Azzy]

The fast healing started with 4E as far as I know. It stuck around because it makes magical healing less required as the default.

Don't like the default? There are plenty of optional rules that modify that. But, yes the default is that you're playing John McClane in any of the Die Hard movies or any other number of action films.

That doesn't make the change right or wrong, and certainly no rule, option or game is going to be right for everyone.

Exactly. So, if one doesn't like the default, it's pretty easy to modify—you can easily nix HD as a healing thing and have characters heal 1 hp per day if you want a more oldschool vibe. It's really that easy. Just realize that the default is just fine for many of us, too. And it's all okay.