Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Those who come from earlier editions, why are you okay with 5E healing (or are you)?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Big J Money" data-source="post: 7882650" data-attributes="member: 70533"><p>Ugh, 11 pages before I was able to get back and reply to this. I may have to revisit this thread at a later time when I've had time to really digest it. But I want to respond to a recurring theme I see:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This has me scratching my head. In what movie about heroes do the heroes heal all of their wounds overnight without the aid of technology or magic? My experience reading and watching about heroes is that they <em>must </em>at some point suffer through adversity or pain (that which cannot be resolved automatically overnight) in order to prove that they are heroes within the story. What you are describing to me sounds more like superheroes when they are fighting normal criminals. And even superheroes, when faced with a real threat, suffer issues such as losing their powers, acquiring vulnerabilities that can be exploited, etc.</p><p></p><p>So, the explanation that automatic nightly regeneration of HP is because they're heroes doesn't adequately explain this for me.</p><p></p><p>That being said, I do agree that part of the issue here is the abstraction of HP. I'm not going to go into that subject in any detail because it could be its own 100 page thread (and it has been, time and time again). However, I'll agree that because HP is such an abstraction, it's a challenge to have a healing system that pleases everyone. You have problems on both sides:</p><p></p><p>1) You can allow HP regen overnight, and you can argue that this works because the HP were never wounds in the first place. But what you sacrifice here is the capability for PCs <em>to be able to suffer wounds</em>. You also create the problem that healing magic isn't actually healing anything, it's simply restoring stamina, or mental fortitude, or whatever it is that you imagine is being expended when HP are used up. Essentially, the PCs never suffer any harm. I find this to be a very unsatisfying way to tell stories about heroes. It's more like a Saturday morning cartoon.</p><p></p><p>2) You can allow only a very small amount of HP per night, and you can argue this works because it allows for PCs to suffer wounds that require natural healing. But what you sacrifice here is that HP are supposed to represent more than just physical damage, and also you sacrifice the more heroic mode of play where, <em>most of the time</em>, PCs don't have to be sitting in a hospital for weeks on end, and can continue having adventures (without a dedicated cleric-healing-bot).</p><p></p><p>I see neither solution to be sufficient. I like someone's idea about splitting out Vitality and Hit Points like the way the d20 Star Wars RPG did it. I think this is the house rule I would try:</p><p></p><p><strong>Hit Points</strong>: All characters begin play with 8 Vitality points (plus Con bonus) at level 1, regardles of class. Starting at level 2, characters gain Hit points according to their class rules.</p><p></p><p><strong>Damage</strong>: When a character takes damage, remove their hit points, first. Once hit points have been depleted, begin removing Vitality Points.</p><p></p><p><strong>Death</strong>: When a PC suffers damage below 0 VP that is equal to their amount of VP+HP, they are instantly dead. Otherwise the rules work the same as 5E.</p><p></p><p><strong>Healing</strong>: Short and Long resting works as per the 5E rules with regards to hit points and hit dice. Vitality points are healed at 1 point per full night of rest, or with magic. When using magical healing, vitality points are always recovered before hit points.</p><p></p><p><strong>Direct Damage</strong> (optional): You could rule that certain damage applies directly to vitality, such as falling, if you want to*. You could also rule that instant death from said damage occurs when the damage goes below 0 by an amount equal to their Vitality (rather than VP + HP).</p><p></p><p><strong>Wounds </strong>(optional): I am not stopping to think about this in detail yet, but you could have a system whereby whenever vitality damage is suffered, there is a chance the character suffers a wound that must be healed. I would say the healing occurs once they have recovered back the VP level they were at before they suffered the wound. Ex. If a character with 8 VP takes 6 damage and suffers a broken rib, the rib will heal once they are back at 8 VP again.</p><p></p><p>Those of you who already worry about level 1 being so dangerous for PCs, just start play at level 2, or give the PCs a level of HP on top of their VP. I don't worry about this because level 1 being dangerous is a part of my style of running games. Actually, I might run the game at level 0 before hitting level 1, where they not only get HP but they get their class features. So at Level 1 they would be stronger than usual 5E Level 1 characters but they had to get through a very deadly Level 0 before they made it to that point. It's a game that starts out gritty but transitions into being more heroic.</p><p></p><p>Edit:</p><p>*Thinking about the math here a bit more. A character that falls 20 feet would take 7 damage on average, meaning most likely they will still be concious but gravely wounded, and in the worst case they would suffer 12 damage, meaning they could never be killed from this height. It's not until they fall 30 feet that a level 1 character could actually die, but that would be a 1 in 216 chance, so it's not likely. Once you get to 40 feet, the average damage is 14, and the chance of outright death is pretty high. Breaking this down:</p><p></p><p>Falls (For characters with 10 or 11 Con)</p><p>20 feet = Likely gravely wounded but still concious</p><p>30 feet = Likely gravely wounded and unconcious</p><p>40 feet = Just as likely to be gravely wounded or killed</p><p>50-70 feet = Most likely will be killed but could survive</p><p>80 feet = Very unlikely to survive a fall from this height</p><p>160 feet = Completely impossible to survive a fall from this height</p><p></p><p>This seems plausible but gritty. If you wanted to have falling damage apply directly to VP for some realisim but still want your game to be heroic, I would recommend 1d4 per 10 feet for falling damage.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Big J Money, post: 7882650, member: 70533"] Ugh, 11 pages before I was able to get back and reply to this. I may have to revisit this thread at a later time when I've had time to really digest it. But I want to respond to a recurring theme I see: This has me scratching my head. In what movie about heroes do the heroes heal all of their wounds overnight without the aid of technology or magic? My experience reading and watching about heroes is that they [I]must [/I]at some point suffer through adversity or pain (that which cannot be resolved automatically overnight) in order to prove that they are heroes within the story. What you are describing to me sounds more like superheroes when they are fighting normal criminals. And even superheroes, when faced with a real threat, suffer issues such as losing their powers, acquiring vulnerabilities that can be exploited, etc. So, the explanation that automatic nightly regeneration of HP is because they're heroes doesn't adequately explain this for me. That being said, I do agree that part of the issue here is the abstraction of HP. I'm not going to go into that subject in any detail because it could be its own 100 page thread (and it has been, time and time again). However, I'll agree that because HP is such an abstraction, it's a challenge to have a healing system that pleases everyone. You have problems on both sides: 1) You can allow HP regen overnight, and you can argue that this works because the HP were never wounds in the first place. But what you sacrifice here is the capability for PCs [I]to be able to suffer wounds[/I]. You also create the problem that healing magic isn't actually healing anything, it's simply restoring stamina, or mental fortitude, or whatever it is that you imagine is being expended when HP are used up. Essentially, the PCs never suffer any harm. I find this to be a very unsatisfying way to tell stories about heroes. It's more like a Saturday morning cartoon. 2) You can allow only a very small amount of HP per night, and you can argue this works because it allows for PCs to suffer wounds that require natural healing. But what you sacrifice here is that HP are supposed to represent more than just physical damage, and also you sacrifice the more heroic mode of play where, [I]most of the time[/I], PCs don't have to be sitting in a hospital for weeks on end, and can continue having adventures (without a dedicated cleric-healing-bot). I see neither solution to be sufficient. I like someone's idea about splitting out Vitality and Hit Points like the way the d20 Star Wars RPG did it. I think this is the house rule I would try: [B]Hit Points[/B]: All characters begin play with 8 Vitality points (plus Con bonus) at level 1, regardles of class. Starting at level 2, characters gain Hit points according to their class rules. [B]Damage[/B]: When a character takes damage, remove their hit points, first. Once hit points have been depleted, begin removing Vitality Points. [B]Death[/B]: When a PC suffers damage below 0 VP that is equal to their amount of VP+HP, they are instantly dead. Otherwise the rules work the same as 5E. [B]Healing[/B]: Short and Long resting works as per the 5E rules with regards to hit points and hit dice. Vitality points are healed at 1 point per full night of rest, or with magic. When using magical healing, vitality points are always recovered before hit points. [B]Direct Damage[/B] (optional): You could rule that certain damage applies directly to vitality, such as falling, if you want to*. You could also rule that instant death from said damage occurs when the damage goes below 0 by an amount equal to their Vitality (rather than VP + HP). [B]Wounds [/B](optional): I am not stopping to think about this in detail yet, but you could have a system whereby whenever vitality damage is suffered, there is a chance the character suffers a wound that must be healed. I would say the healing occurs once they have recovered back the VP level they were at before they suffered the wound. Ex. If a character with 8 VP takes 6 damage and suffers a broken rib, the rib will heal once they are back at 8 VP again. Those of you who already worry about level 1 being so dangerous for PCs, just start play at level 2, or give the PCs a level of HP on top of their VP. I don't worry about this because level 1 being dangerous is a part of my style of running games. Actually, I might run the game at level 0 before hitting level 1, where they not only get HP but they get their class features. So at Level 1 they would be stronger than usual 5E Level 1 characters but they had to get through a very deadly Level 0 before they made it to that point. It's a game that starts out gritty but transitions into being more heroic. Edit: *Thinking about the math here a bit more. A character that falls 20 feet would take 7 damage on average, meaning most likely they will still be concious but gravely wounded, and in the worst case they would suffer 12 damage, meaning they could never be killed from this height. It's not until they fall 30 feet that a level 1 character could actually die, but that would be a 1 in 216 chance, so it's not likely. Once you get to 40 feet, the average damage is 14, and the chance of outright death is pretty high. Breaking this down: Falls (For characters with 10 or 11 Con) 20 feet = Likely gravely wounded but still concious 30 feet = Likely gravely wounded and unconcious 40 feet = Just as likely to be gravely wounded or killed 50-70 feet = Most likely will be killed but could survive 80 feet = Very unlikely to survive a fall from this height 160 feet = Completely impossible to survive a fall from this height This seems plausible but gritty. If you wanted to have falling damage apply directly to VP for some realisim but still want your game to be heroic, I would recommend 1d4 per 10 feet for falling damage. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Those who come from earlier editions, why are you okay with 5E healing (or are you)?
Top