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

[Sacrosanct]

We absolutely get a useful narrative out of the mechanics. When an attack roll beats your armor class, your ability to remain in the fight is reduced, but you are not injured severely enough that a night’s rest won’t be enough to get you back in fighting condition. I think it’s pretty disingenuous to suggest that we have no idea what went on there. Sure, we have to apply a little creative interpretation (did you get slightly nicked? Did you dodge out of the way but doing so was a little tiring? etc.) But we have to do that anyway, because with HP as meat, there’s no reliable scale for what kind of injury resulted from the hit. Maybe if HP never increased we could work out a very precise narrative about how much HP loss represents what kind of injury, but otherwise, the HP mechanic will always involve some degree of abstraction.

Right, but even with abstraction, the super fast healing doesn’t make sense to me. Even nicks, bruises, etc take longer than 8 hours to fully recover from. Even fatigue (the last 18k I ran, it took two days to recover, and I was 20 at the time). Heck, I’m 45 now and turning to look at someone the wrong way will give me neck pain for days.

The game defines and narrates combat as actual wounds for the most part for reasons I gave upthread. We know there’s abstraction, especially at high levels. But even if you manage to view a violent combat to the death as no one getting hurt until that final last one strike on the opponent (even if that attack does only 1 hp of damage if that’s all it takes), it still doesn’t match with verisimilitude to think everything, even the fatigue and nicks and bruises, are all gone in 8 hours all by themselves.

There’s no simple answer, and no one objectively right. People aren’t wrong for viewing HP as mostly meat (because that’s what the language in the rules treats it as), and they aren’t wrong with not liking super fast non magical healing. And people who have no issue with super fast healing aren’t wrong either. I just wish every time someone voices a complaint about the super fast non magical healing, other people wouldn’t insist on threadcapping with “hp/=meat, so you’re wrong!” HP do equal meat. It’s just that that % changes on situation and varies from person to person.

 

[Xeviat]

I mostly like 5E's healing for standard games (mind you, officially, you regain half your hit dice on a long rest, not all). 5E is not balanced on HP attrition, it's balanced on HD and spell/ability attrition.

 

[Xeviat]

I do think injuries could be handled more like diseases.

 

[Charlaquin]

Right, but even with abstraction, the super fast healing doesn’t make sense to me. Even nicks, bruises, etc take longer than 8 hours to fully recover from. Even fatigue (the last 18k I ran, it took two days to recover, and I was 20 at the time). Heck, I’m 45 now and turning to look at someone the wrong way will give me neck pain for days.

To recover from fully? Sure. To recover to the point where a fantasy hero can get back in the fight and start taking those licks again? Seems fair enough to me,

The game defines and narrates combat as actual wounds for the most part for reasons I gave upthread. We know there’s abstraction, especially at high levels. But even if you manage to view a violent combat to the death as no one getting hurt until that final last one strike on the opponent (even if that attack does only 1 hp of damage if that’s all it takes), it still doesn’t match with verisimilitude to think everything, even the fatigue and nicks and bruises, are all gone in 8 hours all by themselves.

Then adjust your expectations so that the amount of fatigue, nicks, and bruises are minor enough that they could be recovered from with 8 hours of rest (or however long long rests take in your games). Again, not necessarily completely healed, just recovered enough that the character‘s ability to fight is no longer hampered. That’s what HP is at the end of the day, “able to keep fighting” points.

There’s no simple answer, and no one objectively right. People aren’t wrong for viewing HP as mostly meat (because that’s what the language in the rules treats it as), and they aren’t wrong with not liking super fast non magical healing. And people who have no issue with super fast healing aren’t wrong either. I just wish every time someone voices a complaint about the super fast non magical healing, other people wouldn’t insist on threadcapping with “hp/=meat, so you’re wrong!” HP do equal meat. It’s just that that % changes on situation and varies from person to person.

No, nobody is wrong for wanting slower healing, or for being fine with the speed of healing, or wanting faster healing for that matter. What’s wrong is insisting that the speed of healing “doesn’t make sense” or is “a problem” because of its “setting implications.” HP are abstract. They mean what they need to mean narratively to accommodate the gameplay patterns they are designed to facilitate. If there’s a problem, it’s either with the narrative one is ascribing to hit points, or one just doesn’t care for the play patterns they create. Either way, it’s a matter of taste, not a problem with the mechanics.

 

[Helldritch]

From the 1st edition up to today’s 5ed this topic has come up every single time. Whether it is for new players or old ones, it seems that every single player and DM have their idea on what HP represent. For me, and those at my table, only the HPs received at 1st level are ‘meat’. All others are simply luck, skills and divine (however small) intervention.



In my campaign, we use the No hp recover through rest. Only used HD can heal you.



WARNING: HOUSE RULE!

We added the rule that if you are at “0 hp” you automatically use one HD after 1 hour (short rest) if you have one remaining or otherwise, you have to wait 8 hours to automatically use your HD. We also make a difference between being brought to zero hp or being brought to below zero. At zero hp you’re just knocked out for the rest of the fight (unless healed). Below zero, you have to start your death save. We have no limits on how many HP below zero you can go. Any magical healing received bring you up from zero to whatever the spell did. Natural healing (along with medical treatment) starts from the negative points you were at. Each day you are in the negatives, you have to roll a death save. On a failure, you have to make another death save until you have three success (you stabilize) or three failure (you die). Each day you’re in the negatives, you get one exhaustion level. As long as you are in the negative, you only recover one HD per day.



I often give the example of Bob the farmer, Dan the guard and Khor the Barbarian.

Bob the farmer is a beast of man with a grand total of 7 hp. An orc swings at him with its axe and does 7 points of damage. Bob falls down, knocked down. Had the axe inflicted 8 points of damage, Bob would be bleeding and dying. Now he’s just unconscious.



Dan the guard comes to help and fight the orc. The Orc swings at Dan the guard and with a solid hit does a whole 15 points of damage. Dan the guard as a second level fighter has 21 hp. Dan is hurt but still have a good fighting spirit. With a wince he checks his battered shield and chain mail but he can go on. Only luck and skill saved him. He knows that Bob would’ve died from that hit. A second hit from the orc brings Dan to “-8 hp”. Dan is now bleeding out his life, his wounds are terrible and he might not make it.



Khor the barbarian has 150 HPs. He fights the same orcs as the other two. The orc raises its axe and swing mightily at Khor. At the last instant Khor deflects the axe blades but the strain of deflecting such a blow makes him wince (the orc inflicted 15 points of damage). Through out the fight, Khor dodges, deflects, and absorbs 135 points of damages. An arrow is lodged in his deltoid but fortunately, only the skin was pierced. Quite a lucky event, had he not side step at the last moment it would have hit his heart… At the end of the battle, Khor is bruised all over his body. He took quite a beating but he knows that most of it won’t be there on the morrow. He removes the arrow inflicting himself 1 point of damage. He sows the wound himself, biting on a leather strap to avoid screaming.



Now on healing…

Bob is unconscious until the morning where he recovers only 4 hp with his HD roll. Bob is now awake. He’s hurt, but he’s alive.



Dan on the other has stabilized but he’s not out of the woods. With no healer around, he’s in for a tough time. He recovers a HD and rolls only 7 hp. He is still at -1 (treated as zero). He does not wake up. He is still in the woods and people are careful not to move him too much. Dan might get sick from having received such wounds. A con save will be required. A makes it so he is still stable. He can’t spend another HD because he’s still in the negative (-1) so he does not have any. The second day, he wakes up, recovering 9 hp (bringing him up to 8 above zero). He feels like hell but he’s alive.



Khor the barbarian gets a much appreciated rest along with quite a few beers from the village’s grateful inhabitants for his part in saving their skins. He wakes up and spend 5 of his 10 recovered HD on healing. He wants to keep some just in case. He’s relatively unlucky and only recover 45 hp. He’s still bruised and beaten but he will manage as he always has. The arrow wound is still there but it already looks a lot better. Good thing his mother has shown him how to sow a wound.



Although I do not use gritty realism, this way handling healing has shown my players how much magical healing is powerful. They now respect a lot more their healers (whether they be bard, cleric, druid or whatever else is their healer at the time).

 

[auburn2]

The real problem is in the concept of hit points. If a first level fighter with 10 hp gets hit for 9 it would stand to reason thAt he is more greviously injured than a 60 hp fighter that takes 30 damage from a dragon bite.

The explanation in the 1e dmg is that the high level fighter suffers scrapes and minor cuts that wear him down to where the killing blow comes.

If this is the reasoning then all damage is more or less superficial and can be healed in one night. The combat rules tend to support this. That 60 hp fighter can lose 59 hp and he is still getting the same number of attacks, does the same damage and still able to jump dodge etc as when he was fresh, but one more hp and he is incapacitated

To use another mechanic you would need to generate wounds like broken limbs and such and keep track of those in each fight

 

[Tony Vargas]

And so it goes

I get it.
But, it's not so much that hps must be a certain way, as that you can always find inconsistency - it's just a matter of how you interpret the ambiguity both of the language and of what is natural language vs jargon, what is 'fluff' vs 'crunch.'

For that reason, I think it's fair to cut the game a little slack when it comes to claiming an inconsistency or, really, a lot of other "problems."

For instance, it's not fair to claim a contradiction between the way armor works in D&D, and the choice to use the word "hit" in the rules for attack resolution.
You can, instead accept that 'hit' is generally used, in that context, jargon for 'successful attack.'

5e makes that a more complicated task, because it uses a more natural (less formal/precise/technical) style of writing, and does not draw any clear lines between color/flavor text and hard rules.

But by the same token, it leaves DMs great latitude in making the game their own.


One bit of advice I'd give, in making the game your own, though, is to change the notional 'rate of healing' in the fiction by changing the length, timing, and availability of rests, rather than altering the effects or benefits of a rest.
This is because, quite apart from any considerations of realism, 5e depends heavily on relative pacing - rounds to encounters to short rests to long rest - for class balance, significantly, and for the baseline at which the encounter guidelines are calibrated - but, also as a DM tool to affect both those things, and to set the tone, feel, challenge, etc of the campaign.

 

[abirdcall]

I am completely okay with action movie logic applying to D&D.

I find quick healing easier to believe than the kinds of things PCs get hit with and keep going anyway.

The only thing that I'm not happy with is Fighter's Second Wind. But, eh, whatever. It's not a big deal.

 

[Chaosmancer]

DMG variants
or play Pendragon where it can take months to heal up.

Difference?
In Pendragon you only adventure once a year.

This actually reminds me of an anecdote.

A DM in a recent session of mine pulled a truly nasty trick out of their hat for a big fight.

We were in a pocket dimension that seemed to be a planar bleed between the Shadowfell and the Abyss (oh, and we are like 5th level) and fighting a long drawn out battle to reach some heroes that had been sealed. The entire time we were fighting through this forest of statues and there was a poisonous miasma. Every turn, roll a con save, fail and you got a mark. Once you got 5 marks you got a level of exhaustion. I think the next level was at 10 marks, but no one got there.

We win the day, head home, and then nastiness comes out. We have to make another series of saves, lower DC, but one for every mark we had accumulated. Each fail was another level of exhaustion. We had people with seven marks, so they already had level 1, and if they failed five checks, it was death.

The reason I bring it up (other than gushing at how awesome it was, we were all terrified, and we are definitely going to be more terrified of this stuff in the future) is because we were planning some downtime in our home base after this, timeskipping two months. The DM wanted to wait though, because he wanted the exhaustion we had gathered to be meaningful. He seemed confused when I pointed out that he would have to bring the adventure to us in that case. Because none of us were going out adventuring and exploring for our community with multiple levels of exhaustion.

And so, I bring this anecdote back around. Spending long times healing doesn't really affect anything once your players can access a safe haven, unless you force the issue. If it takes a month to heal, and the players have no reason to not wait for that month (because they are not on a time crunch and there are no villainous plots) then they will do so, and it adds nothing to the game except time.

Now, I'm not against downtime, but you actually become more likely to skip it I feel, when it is mostly about healing up for the next adventure instead of a "and now we focus on other things". But, you definitely aren't going to get a lot of parties going out into the wilds at half strength, unless they cannot afford to wait to heal. And, they will be more likely to hire armies of backup, so that they can reduce the risk while traveling, and save their strength for the big fights that only they can win.

Lots of cascading potential effects based around a simple premise. Players want to survive, and will act to maximize that survival by any means you make necessary. If all it takes is a long rest, then they are more willing to take risks and be heroic, because they can easily recover. If it takes 3 months and a cadre of doctors costing hundreds of gold. They will be hyper-cautious and eke out every possible advantage to keep themselves safe... which generally makes for a less fun time for the table. Not always, but generally.

 

[Ogre Mage]

I like heroic play and dislike very gritty play, so the 5E healing rules suit me fine.

I started playing at the tail end of 1E and cleric was my most played class. It has generally remained so throughout the years. Back in the old days, I might as well have had "Healbots R Us" painted on the front of my armor. Because that was what I spent the large majority of my time doing. It was not inspiring and got repetitive. It is much more fun to play a cleric in 5E. Maybe not quite as much fun as the uber-cleric days of 3.X, but I recognize the 3.X cleric was overpowered.

From the 3.X cleric character optimization FAQ --

Q: What is the cleric's weakness?
A: Weakness?