I've run 3.5e for a long time, but I'm about to run my first 5e game and I realised just how different natural healing is in this edition compared to what I'm used to. Having looked into it and the expected encounters per day, I'm worried that the healing won't work with my way of running games to give good gravitas to the situation, as I have more emphasis on story punctuated by a single combat here or there, rarely more than one or two in a single day.
Mainly, I don't usually run 6 encounters a day, and if I do, normally in an infrequent dungeon crawl or a frontal assault (or defence from one), there isn't the time for a hour long rest. I also have overland travel as a fair part of my games, enduring the elements and finding shelter to recuperate over a longer time period; being back in perfect health after a night's sleep takes away the dangers of the wilderness chipping away at the characters over time.
I don't however want to impact how quickly abilities and spells are regained so the 1 hour/8 hour rest for that side of things still feels alright, especially for overland travel stuff.
My thoughts are to limit the amount of healing you get from short and long rests, maybe 1HD from short if anything, and no more than half HD for long. Perhaps add an 'extended rest' which is 24 full hours of doing nothing more strenuous than shopping somewhere comfortable which is how you regain HD instead of through long rests?
I have always been a fan of gritty adventures and not a fan of high level dnd. I usually keep level progression slow, and restrict rests. Two short rests a day balances character power. Try to have 2-3 encounters between rests to push party.
However, I have back tracked on healing some what. If hit points reflect an amount of skill and ability to avoid injuries etc rather than just being actually mutated to be tougher, then a level 1 character and a level 10 character should heal in the same time.
I am in the mind to you DMG slow healing where you roll your hit dice, even on a long rest, so nearly always healed after Long Rest. I am thinking that controlling healing in Dungeons etc my adding healing factor due enviroment.
Maybe resting in a dungeon is uncomfortable and players only heal at half rate.[ HD +CON mod/ 2]. If you rest in a comfortable inn with water and food, maybe you max your healing dice.
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I've run 3.5e for a long time, but I'm about to run my first 5e game and I realised just how different natural healing is in this edition compared to what I'm used to. Having looked into it and the expected encounters per day, I'm worried that the healing won't work with my way of running games to give good gravitas to the situation, as I have more emphasis on story punctuated by a single combat here or there, rarely more than one or two in a single day.
Mainly, I don't usually run 6 encounters a day, and if I do, normally in an infrequent dungeon crawl or a frontal assault (or defence from one), there isn't the time for a hour long rest. I also have overland travel as a fair part of my games, enduring the elements and finding shelter to recuperate over a longer time period; being back in perfect health after a night's sleep takes away the dangers of the wilderness chipping away at the characters over time.
I don't however want to impact how quickly abilities and spells are regained so the 1 hour/8 hour rest for that side of things still feels alright, especially for overland travel stuff.
My thoughts are to limit the amount of healing you get from short and long rests, maybe 1HD from short if anything, and no more than half HD for long. Perhaps add an 'extended rest' which is 24 full hours of doing nothing more strenuous than shopping somewhere comfortable which is how you regain HD instead of through long rests?
What do you guys think?
There are variant rules in the DMG that implements easier or harder healing rules:
Healing Options
Sounds to me like you would want to implement:
I have always been a fan of gritty adventures and not a fan of high level dnd. I usually keep level progression slow, and restrict rests. Two short rests a day balances character power. Try to have 2-3 encounters between rests to push party.
However, I have back tracked on healing some what. If hit points reflect an amount of skill and ability to avoid injuries etc rather than just being actually mutated to be tougher, then a level 1 character and a level 10 character should heal in the same time.
I am in the mind to you DMG slow healing where you roll your hit dice, even on a long rest, so nearly always healed after Long Rest. I am thinking that controlling healing in Dungeons etc my adding healing factor due enviroment.
Maybe resting in a dungeon is uncomfortable and players only heal at half rate.[ HD +CON mod/ 2]. If you rest in a comfortable inn with water and food, maybe you max your healing dice.