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

[Garthanos]

Those of you who are used to older editions, what justification to you use for nightly healing?

Hit points != Wounds


intro long pointless discussion 3 ... 2 ... 1

 

[jasper]

AD&D Cleric spell list, near mandatory:

1st level: Cure Light Wounds x4
2nd level: Slow Poison x4
3rd level: Dispel Magic x2, Prayer
4th level: Cure Serious Wounds x2
5th level: Raise Dead

.......

Rod of Resurrection in the clerics hip holster too was mandatory.

 

[jasper]

As the guy with funny hat said hit points are not meat. Long ago I got use to hit points really being plot points, plot armour, what ever you want to call them to make yourself happy.
It took me about six months to get use to the full reset of HP. But I don't have any problems with it. I don't have any problems of discovering the NPC still only has 1 hit point after a long rest. I accept sometimes D&D game rules crash head first into D&D story rules.

 

[DND_Reborn]

We play the NPCs/monsters heal just as PCs do. Seems unfair to do otherwise IMO, but to each their own.

 

[Garthanos]

We play the NPCs/monsters heal just as PCs do. Seems unfair to do otherwise IMO, but to each their own.

Unfair to whom.... the DM LOL

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[DND_Reborn]

Unfair to whom.... the DM LOL

Yep. And the NPCs that a player might be handling for the PCs. What about henchmen or retainers? Saying they are laid up for weeks while the PCs can go merrily about breaks realism for me.

Yeah, I know, for people who want their super-heroic uber-duber characters play it your way. I find those games lame and boring and pointless because I know I'm going to win. What is the fun in that? It is like playing chess by yourself--some people do it and have fun with it, I think it is silly personally. For the same reason it is why I prefer characters who are more "average" but choose to do heroic things at great personal risk.

If the "good guys" get cheap and easy healing, so do the "bad" guys in my games. You don't want a game that is actually a challenge, don't sit at my table.

 

[Oofta]

There are optional rules in the DMG for making the campaign grittier. I use the option for resting that a short rest is overnight and long rest is several days (usually a week or more).

So with that, I don't have an issue. HP are always going to be an odd abstraction, after all a wound that could kill you in the real world could take months, years or even be permanently disabling in the real world. That doesn't work very well for a game like D&D. You have to either assume magical healing or that HP are just an abstraction and don't really mean serious physical wounds. It is a game after all.

Another option is simply that people in a magical world have innate magical healing and don't even realize it. They'd be shocked if gaping wounds didn't heal up overnight. It's action movie logic where a "flesh wound" can be ignored after bandaging it and wincing once or twice.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So this is something which can be both true, and controversial. It is indisputably true that PCs, by being PCs (and thus player controlled) are different than NPCs. It is also indisputably true that for reasons of efficiency (that the narrative spotlight focuses on what PCs are doing, and that the DM is not a supercomputer continually updating the world around the PCs to account for things that the PCs aren't doing, and aren't otherwise important to the PCs) the narrative story will revolve around PCs, and that more care will be taken to account for things that impact the PCs than those things that do not impact the PCs.

And yet, this can also be a controversial statement, because the concept behind it is can also encapsulate the difference between certain different styles of gaming.

For example, some tables prefer that PCs are, for lack of a better phrase, just the same as everyone else. The reason that they become better, become renowned, become "heroes" (or anti-heroes, or retire to their keep) is because of a combination of grit, luck, and (perhaps) skilled play where failure is marked, sometimes often, by death - which is understandable, because PCs are just like everyone else, and adventuring is risky.

Other tables prefer that the PCs are predestined to be heroes; the adventures are basically a set of scenes that the PC will (most likely) triumph in with the dramatic stakes set not by ultimate failure (permanent death, TPK) but by relative failure (moral dilemmas, failure to achieve goals, etc.). Why play a fantasy RPG if you aren't playing a fantasy hero, or a character that you enjoy (which implies, more often than not, triumph)?

There really isn't a wrong way to approach this, but they are different approaches. That said, they often shade into one another. The issue with more gritty and realistic healing is that it can require more downtime, more PC death, and (for some people) less fun. Which is why you often would see people in the past try to find ways around the healing rules; for example, through healbots (Clerics) or CLW Wands (3e) or various other means.

The disconnect comes when you get to standard 5e rules which incorporate this type of waiver into the basic ruleset. Healing as a spell or as an ability is no longer prized or an issue in the game; seriously, when was the last time someone mentioned the Paladin's or the Monk's healing as a bonus? They don't, because healing is so baked into the rules (between healing as hit dice, healing from rest, healing from good berries and low-level spells, and death saves that keep you from dying etc.) that healing doesn't matter in the least as a ribbon ability for classes.

Which is ... okay. For those that like it. It very much fits into the ethos of 5e overall. Instead of worrying about persnickety resting, and downtime, or (in 3e) CLW Wands and the like, it just kinda makes it easy for everyone.

But to answer the OP- for those who came from an older style of play, it is very noticeable and kind of annoying. It is probably the single weirdest aspect of 5e - it (along with the generous death saves) creates the "whack a mole" combats. That said, it's understandable. Different people will have different desires, and the issue of healing/adventuring is one that has long been an issue in D&D, and has resulted in numerous houserulings. The main difference is that in the past, the houserulings were to make healing more generous; now, you would have to make a ruling to make it less generous.

Well said! Hazzah!

As an aside, one player has both a Paladin and a Monk, and we've been grateful for those healing powers but during combat usually, and save those features for combat-only if at all possible. After the battle? Nah, they rarely are needed...

 

[Garthanos]

Yep.

Unfair to the DM is the most silly thing I have heard in the last few minutes and I was on facebook in a group actively opposing pseudoscientific nonsense so that is saying something.

If the "good guys" get cheap and easy healing, so do the "bad" guys in my games. You don't want a game that is actually a challenge, don't sit at my table.

Yeh you can put as many adversaries in the game but its soooooo unfair to you when one is out of the picture for a while I weep for you, I really do.

Umm now I am only tongue in cheek teasing because I am somewhat inclined to make wounds for pcs when they hit zero hit points and have those be something the PCs over come ignoring temporarily via heroics. AND yes most NPCs do not have a chance at ignoring them.

I can challenge PCs without pretending they are schlubs