D&D 5E We have a Legends and Lore this week

[DEFCON 1]

Seems to me that WotC is literally take the middle here for the basic game. Which makes sense.

The basic game is not going to default to either end of the spectrum-- neither fast and full recovery of total HP regardless of location, situation, and availability of healing resources... nor the uber-slow, 1 HP per day excluding magical healing. There are enough proponents of each side that you can't default to one and ask the other side to "use a module!" because that'll give the impression that WotC doesn't care about one side and will result in people actually getting p.o.d.

If you default to a middle ground so that both sides are unhappy and have to "use a module"... WotC is making sure that "using a module" is an expected course for everybody... and thus it takes the sting out of it.

The biggest hurdle WotC has always had since the very first announcement of D&DN was to convince all manner of D&D player that "using modules" is an expected part of the game. You aren't "houseruling" things (with all the negative connotations that word has for a lot of players)... you are playing the game as it has been designed. So the more places where telling players they should be selecting and using modules to make the kind of game they want... the easier it is for players to accept it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Crossposted:

Whilst I do want rules that recognise there is a difference between resting in a ditch and resting in the Three Old Kegs, I don't think that a fixed limit on how healthy you feel the next day is the right way about this. No matter how awful the conditions you sleep in, excepting the most extreme, you'll always feel better after resting than if you hadn't.

Rather than setting a barrier beyond which you cannot heal, the conditions should change the rate of recovery, and maybe even your condition should change your rate of recovery. So, as a suggestion for the most basic (and gritty) of rules, the party can rest in a poor, average or good environment; in a poor environment you don't recover any hp but you do get spells and such, in an average environment you recover 1hp/level and in a good environment you recover 2hp/level. A nice tweak to this would be to recover an additional 1hp/level if you are at less than half your maximum hp (bloodied) - this is a far better rule than the fixed limit beyond which you can't heal. Under these rules I would make casual dungeon resting a poor environment, cosy dungeon and wilderness resting average, and top notch campsite and town resting good.

This makes more sense. The idea that better shelter, food, etc affects healing is a good idea. Let that be demonstrated with variable healing rates. If the injured character has good shelter, a comfortable bed, and decent food then the healing rate should reflect that no matter where it happens to be. OTOH trying to recover while sleeping on the ground, and eating scraps should have a poor effect on recovery even if its in the middle of a major city.

Finding adequate shelter, comfort, and food in less than desirable places is a great adventuring challenge. Wouldn't it be a good thing to reward clever solutions to solving such problems instead of putting a hard cap on healing and forcing retreats back to town?

 

[SkidAce]

We are talking about what should be a far more hostile environment than a real world cave. You are trying to sleep in a place which could be crowded by goblins, kobolds, trolls, beholders... it doesn't make much sense to sleep in a dungeon IMHO... unless you're exausted and doesn't have where to run.

Yeah, the ogres snore...

 

[Klaus]

The Real World Wilderness isn't the D&D Wilderness, though.

So, in the Real World, you hunker down, start a fire, grab some warm blankets, and, if the weather isn't too bad, you're probably fine.

In D&D, you do that and you're trollbait.

UNLESS...you're a ranger...or a druid...or a soldier used to roughing it...then, maybe you CAN rest out in the wilderness! And maybe help your soft city folk friends be OK, too.

I love that the town remains the center of a PC's life, that it is required to be whole again. I love that HP are physical by default (with a dial you can turn that makes them less so). I love the idea of fate points as "you don't die, but Fate bones you instead!" These are all wonderful things.

Truth. And I think Mearls spoke to these truths as the *baseline* gamestyle, but not the *only* gamestyle. By simply changing HOW you regain hit points, you fundamentally alter the entire genre, while still playing D&D.

As a sidenote, if you start a fire, you're not trollbait. Trollbait camps in the rain, without a fire.

 

[Zaukrie]

So if you are going into the underworld for months of exploration....you can never get above half your hitpoints? If you are traveling for weeks to get over a mountain pass in the wilderness, you can never get over half your hitpoints?......and by your logic, an inn in DDN is not like an inn in the real world....what with all the assassins, and bounty hunters and invading orcs......

 

[Blackwarder]

So if you are going into the underworld for months of exploration....you can never get above half your hitpoints? If you are traveling for weeks to get over a mountain pass in the wilderness, you can never get over half your hitpoints?......and by your logic, an inn in DDN is not like an inn in the real world....what with all the assassins, and bounty hunters and invading orcs......

Sure you can, all you need to do is find a refuge, think things like Rivendell, the unicorn glad in Dragonlance, Tom Bombadil and Beorn houses in the hobbit and the Svirfenblin gnomes in the dark elf trilogy.

Warder

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think the idea of "you can't heal more than half your HP back" makes more sense - to use 4e terms, you can heal back to full strength if you're not bloodied, but not if you're seriously wounded. I'm not sure how well that works in terms of game mechanics, though, unless you assume that two nights' rest will get you back to full. You'd need some sort of tracking pool - "You got wounded to 5 HP out of 32 total, so your new HP max is 21 (5+16) until you get back to town" or the like.

At what point do we pass up on realism or game balance simply because it's overly-complex?

 

[nightwyrm]

5e PC party's tagline: City Adventures Only.

 

[Warbringer]

I think a few posters have either missed, or are deliberately ignoring, that they have explicitly build in a throttle for hit points. I guess part of the thinking is still "if this is they default, its the right way to play.

Personally, I love it, and I do like that thought into nonlinear healing has been given, albeit in a simplistic fashion (50%). I also really like [MENTION=882]Chris_Nightwing[/MENTION] idea of healing be a base plus bonus for condition (+1 for safe ndoors, +2 for healer attention etc, maybe even -1 for hostile camp).

While its not explicitly mentioned, I want to see the base healing rate tied into your total number of hit points. I don't want the 10th level fighter having a slower recovery rate than the 3rd level wizard.

I look forward to picking the pieces I want to mimic my play style, which is basically heroic with lingering wounds...

 

[Li Shenron]

Seems to me that WotC is literally take the middle here for the basic game. Which makes sense.

The basic game is not going to default to either end of the spectrum-- neither fast and full recovery of total HP regardless of location, situation, and availability of healing resources... nor the uber-slow, 1 HP per day excluding magical healing. There are enough proponents of each side that you can't default to one and ask the other side to "use a module!" because that'll give the impression that WotC doesn't care about one side and will result in people actually getting p.o.d.

If you default to a middle ground so that both sides are unhappy and have to "use a module"... WotC is making sure that "using a module" is an expected course for everybody... and thus it takes the sting out of it.

The biggest hurdle WotC has always had since the very first announcement of D&DN was to convince all manner of D&D player that "using modules" is an expected part of the game. You aren't "houseruling" things (with all the negative connotations that word has for a lot of players)... you are playing the game as it has been designed. So the more places where telling players they should be selecting and using modules to make the kind of game they want... the easier it is for players to accept it.

Voice of truth!!

Do you know what would really make the gamers understand that they are supposed to use modules?

Making no healing be the starting point.

Just that, zero healing, nothing... which clearly means that you have to pick at least one of the additional options presented otherwise the game won't work.

This would also mean, that in any public convention or FLGS event, they always have to pick at least one of the healing mini-modules, but there is no "default" or "home base" to fall back to.