d20 - Healing Rates (5th edition DnD)
So I have done a little playing with 5th Edition of DnD and like some of the mechanics and simplification.
One thing that, although within the game itself seems balanced, disturbs me, is that it seams people would heal up from near the brink of death... potentially without the aid of magic in what looks like it would be mechanically a day or two. Although, from a purely game standpoint, that keeps your downtime low, which can even be a good thing play-wise. I have to admit that it bothers me, from a view of the universe.
I know, and even like the idea that HP doesn't have to always equate to visible physical damage, and can sometime reflect anything from being sore/tired or even deeper, potentially representing a strain or such injury. However, when you have gotten down low enough that you were nearly unconscious, it seemed like it should take you a while to get back to full strength.
A core part of the issue seems to be the HD healing allowed at short rests. This seems a wonderful mechanic to allow the party to 'refresh' between scenes, but it also basically adds up to the ability to generally heal somewhere from 1/2 to your full HP in a single day.
Back in 3.5 the Dragon Shaman could choose an ability to heal people up to 1/2 HP. A wonderful ability, but also wasn't bringing people up to full... so did have a limitation to it. I began wondering about doing something similar, thinking to myself, that if such healing reflected more recovery from (stealing another optional rule from 3.5) vitality damage, rather than wound damage, that could help control healing. However, only healing up to 1/2 damage wouldn't seem to actually reflect that... given vitality damage would normally be the damage which would happen first.
So the idea occurs to me... split your HP value in half... define half as vitality... and other half as wound/mortal. Damage would normally get applied to vitality first, and wound only after vitality is expended. Critical hist would do normal damage, but apply to wound. Extra dice of damage from a critical or sneak attack, applies to vitality, but it can spill over to add wound damage.
When healing HD, I imagine limiting it primarily to Vitality. Effectively limiting such healing to 1/2 of your total (but namely the top half). I have contemplated allowing 1 HP of such healing to apply to wound damage per die under some circumstances. [something like: as long as you don't roll a 1, or any roll over 1/2 die type, as long as you roll a 5 or higher] Doing the 1 as long as you don't roll a 1 would make a person heal wounds at just shy of 1hp per day per level. Which would be something similar to the old damage healing rates in AD&D which would mean a fighter might take a work week to heal up to full. [probably faster than should be in a non-fantasy setting, but certainly much better than a single day]
If I wanted to make thing more gritty feeling for combat, I could also implement a Massive Damage threshold [I'm thinking highest HD + level + CON bonus]. Any time you take damage over that threshold. The amount of damage under the threshold is applied to vitality, the amount of damage over it, gets applied to their wounds.
Magic healing... if you want to add to its appearance of being magic... you could have it apply to Wounds first, then vitality if all wounds are healed.
Or you could make it work heal 1 wound out of each die rolled (kind of like suggested for healing above). If no die are rolled, just a number of HP, 1hp per 5 would be considered wound. Potentially, if the individual being healed is full on vitality... you could double the number of points applied to wounds... giving the effect that fully rested, and otherwise healthy individuals would heal their wounds faster, which could be reasonable.
Any constructive criticism on any of these concepts? I think the HD healing came out of 4th edition, has anyone experienced other solutions to affect the 'healing' acceleration it seemed to generate?
