Has anyone ever thought of trying not allowing standard ASI's but instead requiring players to take feats? Magic items and Feats that increase a stat would still do so as written. Im looking for ways to make things sightly more gritty without going full-on 7 day long rest, though I am considering that too, at least for hit points. But as for my idea, anyone ever done anything like it? Would it break things away from the characters favor or make the game less fun?
The "healing too quick feature not a bug" is part of D&D now, and likely forever I fear. One of the problems with earlier editions was if you played a hardier PC, it could take weeks and weeks and weeks of recuperation to rebuild your "body" before heading back out into the wilderness or dungeon. In a recent 5e game I did alter how short and long rests worked. Short and Long rest intervals remained the same, meaning that I could use the guidelines in the DMG for how many Short Rests to plan on or "allow" my Players to take per game day, with one Long Rest each day. This let the Warlock and Fighter classes get their abilities refreshed as per design. I limited resting recovery healing to the following however. During a short rest PCs rolled ONE of their Hit Dice (obviously adding CON bonus), and during a Long Rest they could roll their entire pool. It could take three or four "days" to fully recover from wounds and exhaustion fighting all those "things" whilst carrying 200 lbs of gear.
As to your other topic, I have run games where the optional rule: FEATS was never introduced. I had played in 3.x games since it hit the shelves and understood the feat system quite well. I also saw how FEATS rapidly distorted character growth process from what I wanted to see: an organic growth informed by campaign events. I instead heard things that made me grit my teeth and want to scream at my players "BUT WHY?????????????????" as they scoured the internet of things for the best shiniest 1-20 build progression or insisted on buying this or that supplement just to gain access to a single feat. Pathfinder 1e still has this issue...
In my games where I did not allow feats, I allowed the PCs to Roll for Stats using my Big Damn Heroes rolling system (which incidentally Web DM's Pruitt loves and Jim Davis endorses) of 4d6 (drop the lowest) rolled 7 times and dropping the lowest score arranged to taste. This creates PC arrays that are more Heroic. Then, I only allow ASIs to add a +1 to any one ability score (you can't use it to add a +2 to STR for instance). Since my games have a sweet spot at levels 6-9 your PC might only get a single ASI if you wanted to do some strange Multiclassed Horror. While, initially I did get some grumbles from players that wanted Spell Sniper Warlock silliness or something my players recognized that when I said feats were an optional rule and I was exercising my right as a DM to option them out they were mature enough to let the matter drop.
Our campaign uses homebrew rules for rests/healing too. I heard a lot of negativity about it but it works great for us:
Rests recharge abilities/feats as described in the rules, no change here.
Short rests DON'T heal.
You can't have more than 2 short-rests per day.
Long rests heal 1 Hit Dice + 1 Additional Hit Dice if the rest can be considered 'comfortable'.
It works great if you have at least 1 healer in the group. Without a healer you're going to need to carry potions and the DM may have to pay extra attention to the players' health to make sure he doesn't wipe them...
I personally love feats over ASI, so I don't really think "requiring feats" would have the same effect on everyone. I should also point out that theorycrafters on these forums and others, are always recommending certain feats, which indicates that these theory crafters would know exactly what to pick to maximize their character.
As for healing, I do have some thoughts, here's my proposed changes:
Long rest does not heal to full, rolling hit dice is the only way to recover health by resting
Long rest recovers 1/2 your spent hit dice if, and only if, you are in a controlled and comfortable space; an inn, hospital, aunt Petunia's house etc. Not a prison, a camp, or ship or some such difficult.
Additionally exhaustion is not reduced by a long rest unless it is in a controlled and comfortable space.
Spending a hit die at or below 1/2 the character's hit dice causes 1 point of exhaustion per die.
This gives decent healing but relatively low adventuring sustainability. i.e. the character's will be looking for a controlled comfortable space, which the DM controls. I think this gets you the gritty experience you were looking for.
Thoughts?
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Has anyone ever thought of trying not allowing standard ASI's but instead requiring players to take feats? Magic items and Feats that increase a stat would still do so as written. Im looking for ways to make things sightly more gritty without going full-on 7 day long rest, though I am considering that too, at least for hit points. But as for my idea, anyone ever done anything like it? Would it break things away from the characters favor or make the game less fun?
The "healing too quick feature not a bug" is part of D&D now, and likely forever I fear. One of the problems with earlier editions was if you played a hardier PC, it could take weeks and weeks and weeks of recuperation to rebuild your "body" before heading back out into the wilderness or dungeon. In a recent 5e game I did alter how short and long rests worked. Short and Long rest intervals remained the same, meaning that I could use the guidelines in the DMG for how many Short Rests to plan on or "allow" my Players to take per game day, with one Long Rest each day. This let the Warlock and Fighter classes get their abilities refreshed as per design. I limited resting recovery healing to the following however. During a short rest PCs rolled ONE of their Hit Dice (obviously adding CON bonus), and during a Long Rest they could roll their entire pool. It could take three or four "days" to fully recover from wounds and exhaustion fighting all those "things" whilst carrying 200 lbs of gear.
As to your other topic, I have run games where the optional rule: FEATS was never introduced. I had played in 3.x games since it hit the shelves and understood the feat system quite well. I also saw how FEATS rapidly distorted character growth process from what I wanted to see: an organic growth informed by campaign events. I instead heard things that made me grit my teeth and want to scream at my players "BUT WHY?????????????????" as they scoured the internet of things for the best shiniest 1-20 build progression or insisted on buying this or that supplement just to gain access to a single feat. Pathfinder 1e still has this issue...
In my games where I did not allow feats, I allowed the PCs to Roll for Stats using my Big Damn Heroes rolling system (which incidentally Web DM's Pruitt loves and Jim Davis endorses) of 4d6 (drop the lowest) rolled 7 times and dropping the lowest score arranged to taste. This creates PC arrays that are more Heroic. Then, I only allow ASIs to add a +1 to any one ability score (you can't use it to add a +2 to STR for instance). Since my games have a sweet spot at levels 6-9 your PC might only get a single ASI if you wanted to do some strange Multiclassed Horror. While, initially I did get some grumbles from players that wanted Spell Sniper Warlock silliness or something my players recognized that when I said feats were an optional rule and I was exercising my right as a DM to option them out they were mature enough to let the matter drop.
Our campaign uses homebrew rules for rests/healing too. I heard a lot of negativity about it but it works great for us:
It works great if you have at least 1 healer in the group. Without a healer you're going to need to carry potions and the DM may have to pay extra attention to the players' health to make sure he doesn't wipe them...
I personally love feats over ASI, so I don't really think "requiring feats" would have the same effect on everyone. I should also point out that theorycrafters on these forums and others, are always recommending certain feats, which indicates that these theory crafters would know exactly what to pick to maximize their character.
As for healing, I do have some thoughts, here's my proposed changes:
This gives decent healing but relatively low adventuring sustainability. i.e. the character's will be looking for a controlled comfortable space, which the DM controls. I think this gets you the gritty experience you were looking for.
Thoughts?
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.