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

[Helldritch]

A bit off topic at first but you'll see my point.

The best character I leveled up to 20th level was a fighter that became a mage (and took the name Helldritch...) I rolled him on 4d6 pick the 3 best. I had 17 in strength, 10 in wisdom but 18 in all other stats. I did not have my own dice so I had use the DM's dice. It was my first character, I was 10 years old (yep that young but got 11 a month after start) and I leveled in fighter level up to level 7 and I was specialized in the long sword. During the first few adventures, I realized that a lot of the treasure was wizards' stuff (wands, scrolls etc...) So I learned the rules and found that I could change class. I became quite a successful wizard but before becoming one, I had to have some good hirelings to protect me. One thing that went for me is that I was using my charisma to get the best hirelings and followers that I could get. I could play multiple characters (our DM was welcoming the fact that I was able to play my own followers). Even if most of them (if not all) were staying at the dungeon's entry way.

These followers were protecting our night's sleep, our treasures and our mounts. I was always keeping a part of my share to give them a bonus in addition to their pay and their loyalty was quite high. (I miss the loyalty rule of that time.) In one adventure, my five hirelings saved us from death with a timely rescue of our bodies. Yes they were lower level than us, but with their equipment they were not that far from our power level. We played them and rescued ourselves. This is an aspect of hirelings and followers that is often overlooked. They can be your saviors in your darkest hour.

With a grittier healing curve, hirelings are useful. I would not (and almost never did) bring them in the dungeon crawl proper but they can mount a rescue expedition, check over your sleep/rest. And let's not forget the fact that they can bring useful skills to the party like herbalism, medicine, alchemy, knowledge and many others.

Since 3ed, followers have seen a steady decline in usage (at least at my table). I am beginning to wonder if the easier healing curve that has been seen in recent editions is the main reason for that decline. The focus is now entirely on the characters (which is not bad per see). Without hirelings as we knew them in 1st and 2nd edition, the ability to recuperate from combat on the morning is more important than ever. This might be the reason why that healing is now where it is at. With the ability to heal all wounds overnight, who needs a cleric for hire? Who needs a healer? It might allow for some great leeway in party composition but it also diminish NPC interactions. And I did see some hirelings become full fledged characters.

The more I think of it, the more I think that I should reintroduce followers into play. Not as player character but as NPC found in the MM.

PS: I know that 3ed had quite extensive rules on how to use followers (leadership) but using them was such a hassle that it was not worth it. The complexity of the characters in 3ed was great and most players had more than enough on their hands with their characters alone. Adding one, two or three more characters (hirelings/followers) was usually out of the question.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

1st, I really like your post.
And yet, there must be a balance between what we had in 1ed and what we have now. I like the fact that now a healbot is no longer required but at the same time, healing overnight is way too fast (without the help of magic) and can easily lead to the 5mwd and unthinking tactics because "Hey! Who cares? We'll get healed overnight". We (I?) want to play heroic narrative, not a cartoonesque one.

I want to see heroes at my table, not reckless, unthinking whirlwinds. I want the heroes to beat the big bad guys but yet I want them to fear for their lives.

If "overnight" is an issue, use the official option and make it "next week" - or whatever time period seems suitable for you.

More importantly, getting your HP back overnight (or whenever) is not going to help you today.

The idea is that the party should be challenged that day (or week, or whatever). - That time until the next long rest. (Outside of more lingering conditions like curses, exhaustion etc.)
The party should know that they have to be careful and use tactics because they have a good risk of dying in one of the 6-8 encounters that day. (Likely the later ones as HP, HD and spells are used up in previous encounters.)

The 5MWD is less to do with Hit Points, and much more to do with spell slots. Letting the casters regenerate their resources much faster than the martial types (for whom hit points are their main resource) is introducing a massive imbalance on top of the already existing issue of power disparity particularly in out of combat activities.

Compare a Fighter and a Wizard. Nominally the two classes are balanced around having to go 6-8 encounters of reasonable and varying difficulty between long rests, with 2 short rests in between. More than that, and the Fighter will tend to shine (until they run out of hit points), less than that and the wizard will get a power boost through better nova.
Forcing the Fighter to spend two Long Rests recovering their resources, while still granting the Wizard full recovery of spell slots every long rest is a massive boost to the power of the wizard. Its close to doubling their spell slots. Longer recovery of HP multiplies this even further.
This gives the Wizard player much more opportunities to take the spotlight and shine than the Fighter player (and the Cleric player, who is forced to concentrate in healing spells rather than being able to use a more interesting range.)

This is why I'm saying that if you want it to take a week to recover HP, you should change the Long Rest time to a week, rather than introduce additional rules that will generally penalise some players more than others.

Now we can have varied party for almost no risk of tpk, which is good. On the other hand, I feel that a riskless environment promotes bad thinking. I want to see players feel the need for magical healing. And if they don't have it, then I want to see them think twice before charging in that room full of goblins/kobolds/orcs or whatever.

Why do they not already think twice about this?
TPKs are generally to be avoided IMO, but individual character death? - Should be an option.

Why do you feel that its a riskless environment? Is your DM challenging you by using a sufficient number and difficulty of encounters per long rest?

Strange, the group I had tried with an (almost) all mage was one that I would not like to see again too. But for a very different reason. They were plowing through adventures like crazy. Nothing was stopping them, even a beholder was not enough... It was second edition at that time. Human mage, human mage, Half elf cleric/magic user, Elf (mage/thief), Elf fighter/mage and... a dwarf fighter (go figure). Calling initiative and hearing Fire ball, fire ball, ice storm, cone of cold and lightning bolt being cast was quite a sight, especially when the dwarf was saying: "I'll wait and kill whatever survive, IF something survives...). By the end, they all had wands, staves and whatever was needed to do their trade. It was quite a group.

Really? How did they perform at lower levels or when they were running out of spells?

Definitely have little to add to your analysis on this whole point. All changing frequency of resource recovery does is force the DM/players to alter the length of the time periods they use in their fiction. That might provide some impetus to have things go a different way, but the truth is that in most games the 'reality' is pretty ill-defined and whether the orcs will take 2 hours or 2 days to decide to clear out and head into the mountains is pretty much an arbitrary choice. Maybe it matters now and then in some aesthetic sense, but usually it doesn't make much difference to anyone.

That is entirely my point.
The only difference between changing the long rest period to a week, and leaving it at a day is pacing, which is already under the DM's control anyway.
Leaving the long rest period as-is but requiring longer to recover HP gives rise to the aforementioned issues in disparity of player experiences.

 

[Chaosmancer]

A bit off topic at first but you'll see my point.

The best character I leveled up to 20th level was a fighter that became a mage (and took the name Helldritch...) I rolled him on 4d6 pick the 3 best. I had 17 in strength, 10 in wisdom but 18 in all other stats. I did not have my own dice so I had use the DM's dice. It was my first character, I was 10 years old (yep that young but got 11 a month after start) and I leveled in fighter level up to level 7 and I was specialized in the long sword. During the first few adventures, I realized that a lot of the treasure was wizards' stuff (wands, scrolls etc...) So I learned the rules and found that I could change class. I became quite a successful wizard but before becoming one, I had to have some good hirelings to protect me. One thing that went for me is that I was using my charisma to get the best hirelings and followers that I could get. I could play multiple characters (our DM was welcoming the fact that I was able to play my own followers). Even if most of them (if not all) were staying at the dungeon's entry way.

These followers were protecting our night's sleep, our treasures and our mounts. I was always keeping a part of my share to give them a bonus in addition to their pay and their loyalty was quite high. (I miss the loyalty rule of that time.) In one adventure, my five hirelings saved us from death with a timely rescue of our bodies. Yes they were lower level than us, but with their equipment they were not that far from our power level. We played them and rescued ourselves. This is an aspect of hirelings and followers that is often overlooked. They can be your saviors in your darkest hour.

With a grittier healing curve, hirelings are useful. I would not (and almost never did) bring them in the dungeon crawl proper but they can mount a rescue expedition, check over your sleep/rest. And let's not forget the fact that they can bring useful skills to the party like herbalism, medicine, alchemy, knowledge and many others.

Since 3ed, followers have seen a steady decline in usage (at least at my table). I am beginning to wonder if the easier healing curve that has been seen in recent editions is the main reason for that decline. The focus is now entirely on the characters (which is not bad per see). Without hirelings as we knew them in 1st and 2nd edition, the ability to recuperate from combat on the morning is more important than ever. This might be the reason why that healing is now where it is at. With the ability to heal all wounds overnight, who needs a cleric for hire? Who needs a healer? It might allow for some great leeway in party composition but it also diminish NPC interactions. And I did see some hirelings become full fledged characters.

The more I think of it, the more I think that I should reintroduce followers into play. Not as player character but as NPC found in the MM.

PS: I know that 3ed had quite extensive rules on how to use followers (leadership) but using them was such a hassle that it was not worth it. The complexity of the characters in 3ed was great and most players had more than enough on their hands with their characters alone. Adding one, two or three more characters (hirelings/followers) was usually out of the question.

We've been using the "followers" rules from Colville's Strongholds and Followers in my most recent game. Big change in how fights end up going, because despite their being only 3 PCs, we often have 10 to 12 bodies on the battlefield.

And in 5e, where quantity is a big deal in the action economy, it has been a struggle for our DM to properly challenge us (made easier by the fact that my two companions are.... really bad at tactical combat, but worse by the fact that I'm actually pretty good at it despite holding back. )

If "overnight" is an issue, use the official option and make it "next week" - or whatever time period seems suitable for you.

More importantly, getting your HP back overnight (or whenever) is not going to help you today.

The idea is that the party should be challenged that day (or week, or whatever). - That time until the next long rest. (Outside of more lingering conditions like curses, exhaustion etc.)
The party should know that they have to be careful and use tactics because they have a good risk of dying in one of the 6-8 encounters that day. (Likely the later ones as HP, HD and spells are used up in previous encounters.)

The 5MWD is less to do with Hit Points, and much more to do with spell slots. Letting the casters regenerate their resources much faster than the martial types (for whom hit points are their main resource) is introducing a massive imbalance on top of the already existing issue of power disparity particularly in out of combat activities.

Compare a Fighter and a Wizard. Nominally the two classes are balanced around having to go 6-8 encounters of reasonable and varying difficulty between long rests, with 2 short rests in between. More than that, and the Fighter will tend to shine (until they run out of hit points), less than that and the wizard will get a power boost through better nova.
Forcing the Fighter to spend two Long Rests recovering their resources, while still granting the Wizard full recovery of spell slots every long rest is a massive boost to the power of the wizard. Its close to doubling their spell slots. Longer recovery of HP multiplies this even further.
This gives the Wizard player much more opportunities to take the spotlight and shine than the Fighter player (and the Cleric player, who is forced to concentrate in healing spells rather than being able to use a more interesting range.)

Not something I had fully considered, but a very good point. I often see resting to restore spells far more often than I see resting to restore hp. And, additionally, I often see people toss out spells very rapidly instead of saving them for harder fights later.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There COULD be a correlation between healing and hirelings. I don't think it is out of the question. HOWEVER, I would say that IME the history of D&D, from this perspective, looks something like:

OD&D - hard healing, henchmen/hirelings/stronghold development expected. Really, from what I have heard and experienced of early 1970's D&D play, the game evolved out of a wargame (a Kriegspiel really) where each 'player' was more like a small country (or at least a 'warlord' who built some sort of state/army). The core rules were fantasy supplement Chainmail and the leader figures were adapted into PCs and dungeon crawls were substituted at some point for (at least most) standard outright battles. Thus hirelings/henchmen were the main focus of the original rules base, and classed PCs only slowly emerged. D&D itself focused a lot more on the PCs, but the rules fully envisaged an evolution of a campaign from low-level dungeon crawling up to being a warlord/mighty wizard/religious leader and then into a realm of land clearing, mass battles, etc.

B/X and following - Early on this was just a simplification and streamlining of the original game (Holmes). It doesn't really get into hirelings and such explicitly, but it was assumed the DM would move on to more complete rules (either D&D or AD&D). I really never played much red box B/X (or BECMI/RC) so I am not sure what they did in terms of hireling/henchman rules over time. Healing was certainly pretty much the same as in the original game though.

AD&D (1e) - I believe a CON bonus was added to healing, but it is still slow. Hirelings and Henchmen have extensive rules, but by this point in time ACTUAL PLAY had largely moved on from the original 'warlord template' of the original game. Some groups leveraged hired help a lot, and they could really add a helpful dimension to parties, but they were EXPENSIVE too. It also took a pretty large amount of time to work out all the logistics and whatnot, so many groups just used them cursorily or not at all. Modules largely seem to assume there will not be any such figures present, and don't provide any opportunities to really utilize them or explain how they would fit in, which further discourages their use. One thing I would note is that clerics get MANY more CLW spells in 1e than in previous editions (3/day with a decent wisdom vs 0/day at level 1 in D&D, and 1/day in B/X).

2e simply carries on with a trend of de-emphasizing hired help somewhat, though the rules remain pretty much intact if you look for them. Healing doesn't really change.

So, IME what I don't see is a strict correlation, but more of opposing trends, which might have reinforced each other. Most groups lost interest in the minutia of running games filled with loads of hired help. This was probably largely a result of D&D transitioning from an older wargamer audience to AD&D & B/X which attracted much more of a highschool/college age audience who didn't want to spend many hours a week in convo's with the DM working through all the logistics.
At the same time, these same players weren't that interested in Gygax's clockwork time keeping ideas and running many characters in parallel, so they really wanted a game where there was a challenge, resource management, but it knew enough bounds that they wouldn't be getting sidelined for half of every one of the much less common sessions.
Gygax was basically running games, or doing 'party related stuff' EVERY SINGLE DAY for several hours a day when he was an active DM! His vision of the game and rule system heavily reflect that, though I give him credit for making things quite flexible. The point being, the game played by most people in, say, 1979 is a lot different from what Gary was playing, and it probably had a lot less hired help and a lot more healing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

IME with 5e, running a wizard mainly, I did hold back SOME with spells earlier on in the campaign, but when you start getting up into the higher levels you have a fair number of ways to recover spell slots or to generate "spell effects" without using slots (items basically, though you can also pen scrolls). That, plus the flexible way slots work in 5e means you really only ever need to worry about your highest level slots. Naturally those are often some good spells you would like to unleash, but for a level 12 wizard, for example, choosing a level 2 or 3 spell and burning a level 4 slot on it is often a pretty good, and moderately painless, option.

It doesn't hurt that most adventures fall FAR short of a 6-8 encounter workday. This is something I really don't think the 5e designers got right. 6-8 is more than any edition has ever really practically allowed for. 4e doesn't come right out and say so, but it clearly models a 5 encounter day, with 4 encounters being quite workable too (but A/E/D/U at least means all day lengths work the same for all classes).

Sadly, reworking 5e's pacing is a hard job, it can't really be achieved without changing the casting rules, which is a tall order. This is one significant reason that my own custom rules are built much closer to 4e than to 5e, it lets you tweak stuff a lot more easily in some respects.

 

[FireLance]

For the record, I'm okay with the way 5e handles non-magical healing and in fact, I would have preferred something closer to the 4e healing surge approach in which hp recovery is based on a proportion of a character's normal hp.

However, for those who want it, perhaps I can suggest a way to simulate the effects of lingering wounds with a minimum of bookkeeping. Each PC also has a Wounds score that abstractly tracks physical wounds. A PC's hp maximum is reduced by his Wounds score, so a PC with 20 hp who has 5 Wounds has a hp maximum of 15.

A PC's Wounds score increases as follows. When a PC takes a critical hit, or fails a saving throw and rolls a natural 1, or is reduced to 0 hp, the PC's Wounds score is increased by half the hp damage taken.

A PC's Wounds score can be reduced by magical healing on a point for point basis, i.e. 5 points of magical healing restores 5 hp and reduces a PC's Wounds score by 5 (which makes the naming of cure wounds meaningful again). A PC's Wounds score is also reduced by Level + Constitution bonus when the PC finishes a long rest (the time needed for a long rest can also be adjusted to taste).

If a PC's Wounds score exceeds one quarter the PC's normal hp, the PC suffers one level of exhaustion which cannot be removed until the PC's Wounds score is reduced to one quarter the PC's normal hp or less. Similarly, the PC suffers two levels of exhaustion if his Wounds score exceeds half his normal hp and three levels of exhaustion if his Wounds score exceeds three quarters his normal hp.

In terms of narration, normal hp damage should continue to be described as near misses, minor cuts and bruises, and so on, while more significant critical hits, critical saving throw failures, and injuries that drop a PC below 0 hp can be described to be more serious and longer-term without magical healing.

 

[Kinematics]

Sorry, long post.

For the record, I'm fine with 5E's way of handling healing. I disagree with @Big J Money's objections, though, mostly due to the issue of framing.

I consider HP to be plot armor, in that it has only circumstantial relation to actual physical damage. To put it in more concrete terms: Swords are sharp (as we're reminded with many katana cutting test videos), and flesh is soft, and you never actually want the two to meet. Same with hammers and watermelons. My barbarian with (currently) ~200 HP has exactly the same physical body as he did at 1st level when he had only 15 HP. Swords will remove arms, and hammers will crush heads, just as easily now as then.

So, the fact that my barbarian's physical body hasn't changed, and that a single sword cut should be deadly to him, implies that that single sword cut should be just as deadly now that he has 200 HP as back when he was fresh off the turnip truck. Thus HP cannot in any way represent actual physical damage, else he'd be a shambling pile of meat chunks by the time he's down in single digits due to all the deadly damage that represents.

However, some don't like the abstract nature of HP, and want that HP to "mean" something. Jumping off a cliff and walking it off as only some minor HP loss doesn't sit well. Being speared by a trap and never having it account for more than a minor graze (once players are high level enough) is annoying. There's the feeling that there is no real sense of danger because HP comes and goes without any non-abstract risks attached.

The issue of recovering all your HP overnight is related to that, but is not actually the same thing. If dropping from 200 HP to 2 HP has no notable impact on the character, then whether I can recover overnight with a rest, recover overnight with several charges of a Cure Light Wounds wand, or recover over the course of 6 months at 1 HP a day, the only thing that impacts is the pacing of the game and management of resources.

By and large, people prefer fast paced games over slow ones, and most people do not enjoy resource management. (I actually enjoy resource management, but I'm also acutely aware that I'm in a very small minority.) So faster healing with less fiddly hassles will almost always be a better experience for the people playing, with respect to the pacing and management axes.

But many people don't like it because it's "not realistic", or other similar reasonings. But it's not the issue of recovering HP quickly that's the actual problem; it's the fact that the abstract nature of HP takes away from the excitement of the gameplay. That's where gritty realism rules and such come into play. The problem is that they're not actually solving the problem, they're just reducing the impact of the simple abstraction of HP so that it feels like something is being done. It's a "theatrical" solution, like security theater, where you make people think you're doing something about the problem without actually doing anything about the problem.

In order to work through what's needed, we first need to go back and understand what HP is. While many people in the thread have provided interesting and creative explanations for what HP represents in-universe, out-of-universe it represents one thing: the ability of the players to engage in longer and more dramatic combat scenes.

With 200 HP, I can fight my way through dozens of swordsmen, or weather the fiery breath of a dragon. With 15 HP, I'd generally be dead in a single round. Further, the HP suggests where I stand in the fight. With more HP, I can be in the middle of everything blowing up. If I were a wizard with half as much HP, I'd be staying on the edges, trying to avoid being noticed.

Now, stop at that point for a moment. Realistically, there is very little difference in the amount of damage it takes to kill a wizard, compared to my barbarian. A sword through the heart will kill both just as dead. But my barbarian can survive vastly greater numbers of hits via the HP mechanic.

What HP is, then, is the opportunity to engage in direct dramatic combat, with the degree to which you can do so being directly correlated with the type of character you are expected to play. The drama a wizard brings to the game is casting spells, so his direct combat opportunity is reduced. The drama the melee fighters bring to the table is directly dependent their exchanges of blows, so they have more HP to increase their dramatic opportunity.

So HP is the opportunity for dramatic flair via combat. However its abstraction also limits its execution of the dramatic. The sprained ankle; the bum leg; the lost fingers; the arrow to the knee; etc.

Going back to the original question: healing all your HP overnight is resetting your character's options. It's saying, you have the opportunity to do something dramatic today, too. Every single day offers you the chance to do something amazing. And that's wonderful.

The problem is that it doesn't provide you with the means to give a commensurate level of risk. Even if injuries only last a single day, and are healed automatically overnight, they are still an important component of the drama of today's events. If you go with gritty realism, you're not improving the drama; you're just taking away the opportunities for being awesome. But without some risk mechanic, your moment of awesome is rather flavorless. By default, the only risk mechanic the game provides is death. The system needs more nuance.

Lingering injuries (from the DMG) do not provide the appropriate level of balance for that. They may provide a sort of character development or change, but they do not work on the same scale of abstraction as HP.

Most of what I see in discussions about HP, that people seem to want, is for HP to represent something actually physical, rather than just 'opportunity for combat'. This is suggested from the common understanding of HP to be correlated to a person's health, and where running out of hit points results in death. The issue is that people need some sort of mechanic to adjudicate and apply this increased risk, and there's not much in the core rules that seems to apply. Thus there are lots of little house rules that try to provide some way to express this desire.



I've had ideas of my own, obviously. I'll put together another idea here, based on what I've written above. (Note: Largely written on the fly, with no guarantee of appropriate balance.)

When you take damage (treat multiple attacks separately) greater than (Con modifier + Level/2 + Hit Die size), make a Con save against a DC equal to half the damage done (minimum DC of 10) [same as a Concentration save]. If you fail the check, you take a minor injury.

You cannot have more than two minor injuries at the same time. (IE: Ignore any further minor injury checks if you already have two.) You heal one minor injury (your choice) per long rest.

Example minor injuries:

• Sprained ankle. -10 to speed, and disadvantage on athletics and acrobatics skill checks.
• Rung Your Bell (headache). Disadvantage on Intelligence skill checks and Concentration checks. Requires an extra 2 hours of rest for a long rest.
• Bruised Hand. -1d4 to attacks made with offhand and two-handed weapons.
• Arrow to the Shoulder. Carry capacity reduced. Disadvantage on Strength checks to push, pull, or lift objects. Cannot use an offhand weapon or bow.
• Black Eye. That shiner is pretty noticeable. Disadvantage on perception checks and Charisma skill checks.
• Whiplash. Difficulty moving your head makes fine control difficult. Disadvantage on Dexterity skill checks, and -1d4 to attacks made with dex-based weapons.
• Gut shot. A strike to your gut makes it difficult to move your body with any agility. You can't apply Dexterity to your armor class.
• Cramps. Muscle overuse caused them to cramp up, and the pain is making you short-tempered. Disadvantage on Wisdom skill checks and Concentration checks.

And feel free to make up others appropriate to the attack that caused the injury.

No minor injury is permanent; it only affects things for the current day (or maybe the next day, if you get a second). It works on the same dramatic scale as HP. It's similar to the exhaustion mechanic, but less broad in the penalties, and no risk that it can directly kill you.

It's a way of saying that physical damage is actually a thing, but largely divorced from HP, because HP is not your real body. At the same time, it works on a daily scale, like HP does, and can be caused by things outside of combat.

Some minor injuries might not inconvenience certain characters at all, while others will be much more frustrating. The injury should be selected to be thematic, rather than specifically to hurt the character. If the barbarian gets his bell rung, he'll just power through it; he's not worried about intelligence skill checks. Same for a wizard that took an arrow to the shoulder. It's fine that the injury may not directly penalize them; it's more about the drama that they kept fighting despite this setback, and that the flavor of the setback can be incorporated into play.

I would also consider this to provide the opportunity for more nuanced combat than simple "Victory or death!" It's a reasonable way to get an opponent to back off, similar to first blood duels, rather than simply run through all of an abstract number until the only available risk — death — shows up.


So those are my thoughts on how to deal with the HP abstraction.

 

[Helldritch]

More importantly, getting your HP back overnight (or whenever) is not going to help you today.

Wrong. It will change a lot of thing. Attrition is part of my games. Healing overnight counters exactly that.

The idea is that the party should be challenged that day (or week, or whatever). - That time until the next long rest. (Outside of more lingering conditions like curses, exhaustion etc.)
The party should know that they have to be careful and use tactics because they have a good risk of dying in one of the 6-8 encounters that day. (Likely the later ones as HP, HD and spells are used up in previous encounters.)

Again, attrition does not have to be a daily thing. If it is at your table. Good for you. It is not a thing at mine. Attrition goes from day to day, taking ressources away more or less slowly but it is inexorable.

The 5MWD is less to do with Hit Points, and much more to do with spell slots. Letting the casters regenerate their resources much faster than the martial types (for whom hit points are their main resource) is introducing a massive imbalance on top of the already existing issue of power disparity particularly in out of combat activities.

That is a point view that would not be valid at my table. Daily powers are there too. Smites, Ki points, Sorcery points, manoeuvers are not spell slots per see and they can affect greatly the 5MWD. With concentration, we no longer see zounds of defensive spells stacking from a single caster.

Compare a Fighter and a Wizard. Nominally the two classes are balanced around having to go 6-8 encounters of reasonable and varying difficulty between long rests, with 2 short rests in between. More than that, and the Fighter will tend to shine (until they run out of hit points), less than that and the wizard will get a power boost through better nova.
Forcing the Fighter to spend two Long Rests recovering their resources, while still granting the Wizard full recovery of spell slots every long rest is a massive boost to the power of the wizard. Its close to doubling their spell slots. Longer recovery of HP multiplies this even further.
This gives the Wizard player much more opportunities to take the spotlight and shine than the Fighter player (and the Cleric player, who is forced to concentrate in healing spells rather than being able to use a more interesting range.)

I couldn't disagree more. Just do not pick wizard. Pick clerics, bards, druids and to some extent other healing capable class. If all their spells goes into healing, then attrition is quite fine. Starting the day with half of your spell slot to make your martial classes healthy again will stop the 5MWD as surely as what you described. Just taking the wizard or the sorcerer is ignoring the other classes. And even if the wizard does have all his spell slots, what good is it if your other spell casters are at half strength? If their allies are too low on resources (for whatever reasons), You can bet your shirt that the wizards will not go on alone. Thus it will not "double" the power of the wizard. We are billions of light years away from a massive boost.

A longer recovery will indeed slow down the pace of adventure as the players will try to find a "safe" place to rest. If they just don't need that safe place, we fall again into the action comic. That is something I wish to avoid.

Why do they not already think twice about this?
TPKs are generally to be avoided IMO, but individual character death? - Should be an option.

Why be careful? I'll get to full strength on the morrow.

Why do you feel that its a riskless environment? Is your DM challenging you by using a sufficient number and difficulty of encounters per long rest?

I am the DM. Character death do happens. So does TPK. I strictly apply the 6-8 encounters per day (long rest for you). Since I have reduce healing to spend HD on rest, character death and TPK dropped significantly at my table as the we will get full on the morrow syndrome disapeared.

In a sense a full recovery almost feels like a save game prior to do a difficult fight. If you know that you will reliably get to full power everytime you rest, the stress and worries of saving some ressources goes down the drain. Why refrain yourself when you don't have to?

Really? How did they perform at lower levels or when they were running out of spells?

They did quite well at low levels. They used a few hirelings, and they did have a dwarven fighter in their group (that was the sixth player). At low level they were running out of spell after 8 to 10 encounters but the sleep spell at that time was a real killer. After that, the various monster summoning spells were providing quite a respectable force (especialy with haste, bless, chant and prayer from the cleric/mage). At high level, with wands, staves and scrolls, it was hard to challenge them (but far from being impossible). The group stopped around level 18th for the single classed characters with the death of the Spider Queen.

That is entirely my point.
The only difference between changing the long rest period to a week, and leaving it at a day is pacing, which is already under the DM's control anyway.

I agree on that. More or less. Pacing can be in the hands of the players. "NO WAY! We will not go in there..." But long rest period being a week long is way to much in my mind. For some reasons, this bugs me to no end. It's probably just me, but it does not add up in my mind. It's way too long for my tastes.

Leaving the long rest period as-is but requiring longer to recover HP gives rise to the aforementioned issues in disparity of player experiences.

Which is a good thing. If all tables were the same, it would be monopoly. (on the other hand I've seen some monopoly players with strange rules...). As I said earlier, it really works out very well at my table. Try it out. Maybe you'll adopt it too

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Wrong. It will change a lot of thing. Attrition is part of my games. Healing overnight counters exactly that.

Again, attrition does not have to be a daily thing. If it is at your table. Good for you. It is not a thing at mine. Attrition goes from day to day, taking ressources away more or less slowly but it is inexorable.

What sort of resources?
HP and healing spell slots I would assume? Potions?

But not non-healer spell slots. Magic item charges? Have you reduced the recovery of anything other than HP?

That is a point view that would not be valid at my table. Daily powers are there too. Smites, Ki points, Sorcery points, manoeuvers are not spell slots per see and they can affect greatly the 5MWD. With concentration, we no longer see zounds of defensive spells stacking from a single caster.

Which bits aren't valid? The idea that getting to recover spell slots (including the high-end ones) more often will raise the respective capability of the wizard (or equivalent non-healing caster)?

Smites are spell slots and so would get to recover more often were it not for the fact that they are likely to have to be spent on healing. Sorcery points recovering, unless its a Divine Soul is boosting a non-healer spellcaster even further in comparison to the martials and healers.
Ki points, maneuvers and such are short-rest abilities, and so are less extreme in the 5MWD environment.

I couldn't disagree more. Just do not pick wizard. Pick clerics, bards, druids and to some extent other healing capable class. If all their spells goes into healing, then attrition is quite fine. Starting the day with half of your spell slot to make your martial classes healthy again will stop the 5MWD as surely as what you described. Just taking the wizard or the sorcerer is ignoring the other classes. And even if the wizard does have all his spell slots, what good is it if your other spell casters are at half strength? If their allies are too low on resources (for whatever reasons), You can bet your shirt that the wizards will not go on alone. Thus it will not "double" the power of the wizard. We are billions of light years away from a massive boost.

Balance between classes (and so respective player enjoyment) in combat is generally based on the concept that the wizard (or equivalent non-healer spellcaster) will have to husband their resources, and fall back on cantrips sometimes. If the wizard knows that the limiting factor is not going to be their spell slots, but the HP of the martial types (and the spell slots of the healers) then they are free to "go nova" more often, which will tend to eclipse the aforesaid martials and healers.

A longer recovery will indeed slow down the pace of adventure as the players will try to find a "safe" place to rest. If they just don't need that safe place, we fall again into the action comic. That is something I wish to avoid.

How will making spell slots and long-rest resources other than HP recover at the same rate as HP impact this?

Why be careful? I'll get to full strength on the morrow.

Are you not worried about dying today?
Why?

I am the DM. Character death do happens. So does TPK. I strictly apply the 6-8 encounters per day (long rest for you). Since I have reduce healing to spend HD on rest, character death and TPK dropped significantly at my table as the we will get full on the morrow syndrome disapeared.

In a sense a full recovery almost feels like a save game prior to do a difficult fight. If you know that you will reliably get to full power everytime you rest, the stress and worries of saving some ressources goes down the drain. Why refrain yourself when you don't have to?

Why do the martials and healers have to contend with that, but the non-healer casters do get to full power everytime they rest?

I agree on that. More or less. Pacing can be in the hands of the players. "NO WAY! We will not go in there..." But long rest period being a week long is way to much in my mind. For some reasons, this bugs me to no end. It's probably just me, but it does not add up in my mind. It's way too long for my tastes.

OK. How long does full HP recovery usually take?

Which is a good thing. If all tables were the same, it would be monopoly. (on the other hand I've seen some monopoly players with strange rules...). As I said earlier, it really works out very well at my table. Try it out. Maybe you'll adopt it too

Heck no. There is enough of an issue with the wizard stealing the spotlight. I'm not going to multiply her capability by two or three times if I can help it.

I'm not talking about disparity in player enjoyment between tables. I'm talking about disparity in player enjoyment around the same table.

 

[Helldritch]

OK. How long does full HP recovery usually take?

I'm not talking about disparity in player enjoyment between tables. I'm talking about disparity in player enjoyment around the same table.

Recovery takes as long as necessary. You spend HD to heal, so...

Wizards or sorcerers do not steal the spot light (at least in the different groups I played so far). We are no longer in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd edition where wizards were all powerful. There are now more tactics other than a high AC to mitigate or even negating damage. One of my groups doesn't even have a wizard (and neither a sorcerer or warlock) and it is a highly successful one.

From what I see in your comments, you seem to be afraid that wizards and their associated ilk take the spotlight from other players. Maybe it was the case in earlier editions and even then, only at some tables. A good DM always gives a chance for every player to shine.

As for a wizard always getting to full power and not the martial ones, he does have to get his HP up too. Do not imagine that monsters and foes will not target the wizard. They will, especially if they are intelligent. So will they target the healer (if any). In fact, most of the time, it's the wizards that are healed last. So they are the ones that have to be extra careful.

And for your other questions, they were all answered in previous post either by me or others.