D&D 5E Too Much Healing Going On?

[Oofta]

When it comes to HP, I appreciate simplicity. I know it's not realistic but it avoids the death spiral.

But I also just got done playing DOTA II a little while back after it had been sitting in my queue for a few months and it had two types of defenses that you had to burn through before you did "real" damage, magic and armor. Even though it was all handled by the game it was still just annoying after a while. Of course the fact that I kind of get a little bit OCD checking every single container probably didn't help. Stupid Luck points.

In any case I think there's a reason most video games just do HP with only cosmetic damage before you hit zero even thought they could do so much more. It's easy to grasp, easy to track and works well enough. YMMV.

 

[jmartkdr2]

When it comes to HP, I appreciate simplicity. I know it's not realistic but it avoids the death spiral.

But I also just got done playing DOTA II a little while back after it had been sitting in my queue for a few months and it had two types of defenses that you had to burn through before you did "real" damage, magic and armor. Even though it was all handled by the game it was still just annoying after a while. Of course the fact that I kind of get a little bit OCD checking every single container probably didn't help. Stupid Luck points.

In any case I think there's a reason most video games just do HP with only cosmetic damage before you hit zero even thought they could do so much more. It's easy to grasp, easy to track and works well enough. YMMV.

Building on this, lots of ttrpgs have done much more complicated systems for tracking health. The designers of DnD are well aware of these, and often personally worked on these games. But they keep coming back to hp because everything else just doesn't play as well.

 

[prabe]

Building on this, lots of ttrpgs have done much more complicated systems for tracking health. The designers of DnD are well aware of these, and often personally worked on these games. But they keep coming back to hp because everything else just doesn't play as well.

I might guess they keep coming back to HP because that's what people want/expect in D&D. It's a subtle difference, but I think it's a real one.

 

[Li Shenron]

Do you find this to be about the same in your game? Or is healing hard to come by? I know level plays a big factor, but what about in general terms overall?

I've skipped 4e but at least compared to even older editions 5e increased the general amount of healing available mainly because of self-healing in short and long rests. Otherwise there were already many classes capable of healing in 3e.

It has to be noted however that higher level slots are more scarce in 5e, so perhaps the maximum potential amount of healing from divine spellcasters is somewhat mitigated at the higher levels.