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

[Helldritch]

Maybe you missed it or I wasn't clear: I'm asking about using the alternative long rest rules. A short rest is overnight, a long rest is several days, perhaps a week or more.

Nah... wouldn't do it for me from a narrative perspective. Forcing players to take HD to rest without modifying the short and long rest time works better. It makes the game feel heroic without making it feel cartoonesque.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So does it matter how the healing happens if you use the alternate long rest rules? If there is no cost to the magical healing and it takes at least a few days to recover, what practical difference does it make?

If I ever run 5e again I would probably use those.

 

[oriaxx77]

The only difference it makes, in my experience, is in the pace of narration, not the pace of play--because my players aren't going to be doing anything while they're injured. It's just as easy to say "You spend a night healing up and go back to the dungeon next morning" as it is to say "You spent a week/month/year healing up and go back to the dungeon when you feel better."

In a living world a lot of things can happen. Time constraint is a big thing. The world is not just one dungeon and a safe village. NPCs and antagonists have their own objectives.

 

[Oofta]

Nah... wouldn't do it for me from a narrative perspective. Forcing players to take HD to rest without modifying the short and long rest time works better. It makes the game feel heroic without making it feel cartoonesque.

Out of all the rules simplifications they do, this seems to be one that people oddly obsess about. To each their own I guess.

I guess I just assume that people have access to magic band-aids.

 

[oriaxx77]

Nah... wouldn't do it for me from a narrative perspective. Forcing players to take HD to rest without modifying the short and long rest time works better. It makes the game feel heroic without making it feel cartoonesque.

You need to find a safe pace for resting. It may involve a heroic journey and planning to get there, tricking the following enemies etc... Lots of rp possibilities etc. Using HD to heal is like being in an MMO or a superhero cartoon. It’s not very tempting. It’s not the fantasy l like.

 

[jayoungr]

Time constraint is a big thing.

Sure, but on the flipside, you can't give every single adventure a time constraint either; that gets repetitive.

But my main point is that my players don't like doing things while they're not at full strength, so they're going to take the time to rest, whatever that time is. Whether it's overnight or a week, it won't change their playstyle.

 

[Helldritch]

You don't have to give a time constrain every time and every single adventure. Players will do their own constrain if you manoeuver them well enough. Be it for fear of reinforcment, imagined seek & destroy squad on their tail or whatever. With full HP every single time, the fear of being caught with their pants down disappear quickly.

 

[Oofta]

Sure, but on the flipside, you can't give every single adventure a time constraint either; that gets repetitive.

But my main point is that my players don't like doing things while they're not at full strength, so they're going to take the time to rest, whatever that time is. Whether it's overnight or a week, it won't change their playstyle.

So then they rest and cast healing spells until they're okay. I don't really see how it changes the dynamic that much.

Personally I can't imagine not having some kind of time constraint.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but on the flipside, you can't give every single adventure a time constraint either; that gets repetitive.

But my main point is that my players don't like doing things while they're not at full strength, so they're going to take the time to rest, whatever that time is. Whether it's overnight or a week, it won't change their playstyle.

Yeah. There's this weird contradiction - GMs who want players to make intelligent, skilled decisions in play, and also want them to continue play when it would be really risky for the characters to do so.

While not representative, my experience has generally been that, all else being equal, players will stop when the characters have one more good encounter's worth of resources left. And this makes good sense. I don't see why folks would expect players to act otherwise.

 

[Helldritch]

It's not really a contradiction. It is what separate heroes from the norm. Players must know their limits. They must know when and when not to push these limits. Not all encounters need to be a life or death. And if players goes a bit over their head because GM wasn't clear enough, an encounter adjustment can be made on the fly to downgrade it a bit.