Criticisms of 5e

Omega · August 31, 2014, 11:31:30 PM

Quote from: Mostlyjoe;784117The "healer" feat seems too useful. To the point of needing one of the non casters to be a healer. 1 hp for stabilization? That fixes the healer not being able to help themselves if they are KOed. And the 1d6+4+level between short rests? It's almost healing economy breaking.

Am I crazy an it's not that overly useful at lower levels?

At lower levels its pretty potent as it can bring most PCs close to full HP in one go. 6-11 at level 1. 7-12 at 2, 8-13 at 3 and 9-14 at 4 which is where you are likely to get it.

If anything it gets weaker at the higher levels since it doesnt scale. It is allways 1d6+4+level.

IE: at level 10 thats 15-20 HP recovered. A level 10 Warlock for example could have 53 + upwards of + 30 HP on a good CON set up and using the average instead of rolling. (64 + 30 for a Fighter). Still pretty usefull. But it starts to fall behind gradually.

Will · September 01, 2014, 12:11:24 AM

Keep in mind that the cost of a feat is not negligible. You are giving up a +2 to a stat, when ability points matter a -lot-.
And only variant human write up gets a first level feat.

So... yeah, it -should- be pretty useful.

Skywalker · September 01, 2014, 12:20:59 AM

Quote from: Will;784128Keep in mind that the cost of a feat is not negligible. You are giving up a +2 to a stat, when ability points matter a -lot-.
And only variant human write up gets a first level feat.

So... yeah, it -should- be pretty useful.

Yeah. It doesn't appear to be out of line with other feats. Then again, it seems that everyone has a feat they think is more awesome than the rest

Monster Manuel · September 01, 2014, 01:22:17 AM

I've posted my proposed healing rules here:

Variant: Immersive Healing

Bill · September 01, 2014, 09:24:30 AM

This is too fast for my taste.

I need a very simple alternative; such as:

No healing at all from short rests, and replace daily healing with level plus con bonus per week.

Any suggestions?
Completely healed after 8 hours does not feel right to me.

Magic healing would be able to heal you normally.

Will · September 01, 2014, 09:31:27 AM

You know, you could just assume that healing from Rests is magical...

And that, unless you are stripped naked or lost on a desert island with no supplies, you will be able to have the wands of lesser vigor/regenerative stones/whatever to ensure it.

Bill · September 01, 2014, 09:37:41 AM

Quote from: Will;784194You know, you could just assume that healing from Rests is magical...

And that, unless you are stripped naked or lost on a desert island with no supplies, you will be able to have the wands of lesser vigor/regenerative stones/whatever to ensure it.

In a magic heavy setting that sounds fine.

Not gonna happen in Dark Sun.

Emperor Norton · September 01, 2014, 03:43:47 PM

I just find slowing down naturally healing too much causes it to be "you either have a cleric/healer in your party, or don't expect to do anything more than once a month".

When a healer can heal the party to full from near death in a couple of days at most, taking months to heal naturally just means no one will ever heal naturally.

Granted, I think that the rules as is might be a bit too fast, but going to far the other way can be really troublesome.

Skywalker · September 01, 2014, 04:15:56 PM

Quote from: Bill;784191This is too fast for my taste.

I need a very simple alternative; such as:

No healing at all from short rests, and replace daily healing with level plus con bonus per week.

Any suggestions?
Completely healed after 8 hours does not feel right to me.

Magic healing would be able to heal you normally.

Sounds fine. It will make other healing like Second Wind and Cure Light Wounds more powerful, but I expect that won't be an issue for you.

Be careful when using any prewritten modules as it will assume a higher healing rate.

Finally, I do not that you don't quite fully heal after 8 hours. You only get half your Hit Dice back, so your ability to recover the next day is impaired if you have been pushed to the limit.

Critias · September 01, 2014, 06:53:22 PM

Quote from: Mostlyjoe;784117The "healer" feat seems too useful. To the point of needing one of the non casters to be a healer. 1 hp for stabilization? That fixes the healer not being able to help themselves if they are KOed. And the 1d6+4+level between short rests? It's almost healing economy breaking.

Am I crazy an it's not that overly useful at lower levels?

My answer is basically, "Yeah, but so what?" Healing more quickly between fights, less downtime, someone gets to get back into the action, the healer gets to feel useful...what's the downside, really? Plus you're (probably) not getting it until 4th level anyways, and you're giving up attribute points/other feats to get it. It's a pretty major investment, so shouldn't it be useful?

Larsdangly · September 02, 2014, 12:54:35 PM

I too was skeptical about the rapid healing rate in 5E, but on further reflection think it needs only two tweaks to be quite good. It is true that some form of HP recovery facilitates play — I love old forms of D&D, but was always a fan of the basic concept of 'healing surges'. The 5E RAW are a bit over the top, but I think work well with the following two changes:

1) the long-rest recovery simply gives you back your pool of HD, it doesn't recover any HP.

2) Any critical hit or any wound that drives you to 0 HP or strikes you when already at 0 HP is a 'major wound' that heals slowly and doesn't benefit from the healing-surge style recover.

S'mon · September 02, 2014, 01:25:07 PM

Quote from: Monster Manuel;784048Critcism: natural healing is too fast. I'd have rather seen a default system more like AD&D, with what we have as a variant healing system. This issue might be mitigated in the DMG.

I'm thinking change to
(a) Must spend hit dice to regain hp and
(b) HP can go negative, die at negative hp = max hp. And healing of hp doesn't 'start from zero'.
(c) Regain a certain number of hit dice per overnight rest - I think I'd go with full hit dice recovery; but half would work well too. Edit: May 1/2 with a 6 hour rest, all with a 12 hour rest.

Even with full dice recovery it could take 3-4 days to heal up a badly wounded PC. I think (b) especially is a good way to make the game much grittier without greatly increasing lethality.

Monster Manuel · September 02, 2014, 01:34:37 PM

Quote from: Emperor Norton;784253I just find slowing down naturally healing too much causes it to be "you either have a cleric/healer in your party, or don't expect to do anything more than once a month".

When a healer can heal the party to full from near death in a couple of days at most, taking months to heal naturally just means no one will ever heal naturally.

Granted, I think that the rules as is might be a bit too fast, but going to far the other way can be really troublesome.

I don't consider these things troublesome. I think that healing from near death should be an ordeal in a certain style of campaign, and magical healing should be miraculous. Sure, the party has access to it every day, but the rest of the world doesn't need to.

I liked S'mon's suggestion for a heroic but not over-the top campaign, but I'll be using my Immersive rules for any low fantasy or gritty games I run, once they're finished. That is, unless Wizards has a better system in the DMG.

S'mon · September 02, 2014, 01:51:01 PM

Quote from: Monster Manuel;784451I liked S'mon's suggestion for a heroic but not over-the top campaign.

Thanks - yes, that's the feel I was going for. It's not realistic to heal from near death to healthy in 3-4 days, but neither does that have quite the immersion-breaking effect of 4e D&D's heal-to-full-in-6-hours.