So, lot's been said about how 5E is bringing back a lot of old school ideas, but I think it's worth noting that there seem to be some ideas in it which stem from 4E - but, depending on exactly how 5E implements these, it might make them much more palatable (for me at least) than 4E did. Let's talk about those.

For my part, I actually like the idea of all PCs being able to get back some hit points in a rest between fights, for a bunch of reasons:

- It resolves the paradox where hit points are held to represent a combination of luck and grit and capability to avoid serious wounds rather than being a simple wound tracker except when you talk about regaining hit points, where suddenly the only way to get them back is to resort to natural or magical healing. If hit points don't necessarily represent actual wounds, surely they should be able to be replenished by means which don't involve the healing of wounds, after all.

- Pitching these as "rests" rather than "healing surges" means that you still need to actually survive to the end of a fight to use them, rather than being able to shrug off a bunch of damage mid-fight, which makes sense.

- Requiring longer rests the more you take in a day feels like it makes IC sense - the more strenuous encounters you've had in the day, the more fatigued you're likely to be, and the more of a breather you're likely to need to feel rested. In that sense it's kind of like a fatigue system that doesn't require extensive tracking of fatigue points, which is neat.

- If they get the magnitude right, it extends the adventuring day in a more interesting way than just bumping the party up to full hit points and replenishing all their spells. Hit points come back, but all other resources are still expended, so the party has to take note of that. Ideally, the recovery should be enough that if people took a few minor scrapes in the fight they should be able to shrug them off, but if the PCs took a serious pasting they'll still be hurting and will still need to consider whether to press on or retreat and regroup.

Obviously, I'll need to see how this works in action before I decide whether the mechanic's been rehabilitated (I'm assuming anything in the playtesting documents could have changed before the system was finalised), but I think it's a nice example of a mechanic which isn't a flat-out stupid idea, just one which was badly handled in 4E.

It's definitely like multiclassing for me, something I need to see in action before I messed with it. Luckily the DMG will be invaluable for these situations. All you'd have to do is use the "gritty" world or "fragile heroes" dial or some combination thereof and done.

Quote from: Warthur;755327For my part, I actually like the idea of all PCs being able to get back some hit points in a rest between fights, for a bunch of reasons:

To me this just encourages the "fights per day" /combat as sport style of play. Hit points are more like superhero stun points and are treated as a daily resource if you make them so.

I don't miss the hit points restore that much.  Though I did like the fact you start off with a lot of hp at level 1.  A lot of room for newbies.

Really the one thing I miss about 4e is the minions, normal, elite, and solo rules.  I loved that method of monster creation as it allows plenty of room to customize your game.  Want a dark and gritty game?  Make that murderer into a solo monster.  Want a epic fantasy?  Treat those immortal beings as mere minions.

Quote from: Snowman0147;755343I don't miss the hit points restore that much.  Though I did like the fact you start off with a lot of hp at level 1.  A lot of room for newbies.

Really the one thing I miss about 4e is the minions, normal, elite, and solo rules.  I loved that method of monster creation as it allows plenty of room to customize your game.  Want a dark and gritty game?  Make that murderer into a solo monster.  Want a epic fantasy?  Treat those immortal beings as mere minions.

Technically it has always been possible to make one hit minions in any version of dnd.

A 1E 2HD Gnoll with 2 hp is pretty darn close to a one hit minion if the pc's minimum damage is a 2+ (very likely)

Personally I think 4E minions work wonderfully mechanically, but I don't think 'high level' monsters minions make as much sense as low level ones.

A level 12 fighter cutting down 'average' ogres works for me. But a level 12 fighter cutting down fire giants with one hit is iffy.

Quote from: Bill;755354Technically it has always been possible to make one hit minions in any version of dnd.

A 1E 2HD Gnoll with 2 hp is pretty darn close to a one hit minion if the pc's minimum damage is a 2+ (very likely)

True. But I hope minions are still covered in the DMG combat modules.

Quote from: Bill;755354Personally I think 4E minions work wonderfully mechanically, but I don't think 'high level' monsters minions make as much sense as low level ones.

A level 12 fighter cutting down 'average' ogres works for me. But a level 12 fighter cutting down fire giants with one hit is iffy.

Agreed. Again, that's under the control of the DM. But I only use minions for monsters that are no more than half as powerful as the PCs.

I didn't keep up with the later playtests - is 5E incorporating the 4E save mechanic? Where saves are always a simple 10 or higher, and the duration of an effect lasts until a save is made? Because that just made so much sense and is so much easier than tracking durations that it's a no-brainer for me to use with any D&D going forward.

Thing about 4E is setting aside all the mechanics around tactical manouevers and the AEDU power schedule, there are a lot of tweaks and innovations that make the game easy and fast to run, irrespective of how you play. I hope WotC doesn't throw the baby out the with bathwater and discard mechanics that had broad utility outside the 4E tactical skirmish playmode.

Quote from: Haffrung;755359I didn't keep up with the later playtests - is 5E incorporating the 4E save mechanic? Where saves are always a simple 10 or higher, and the duration of an effect lasts until a save is made? Because that just made so much sense and is so much easier than tracking durations that it's a no-brainer for me to use with any D&D going forward.

Thing about 4E is setting aside all the mechanics around tactical manouevers and the AEDU power schedule, there are a lot of tweaks and innovations that make the game easy and fast to run, irrespective of how you play. I hope WotC doesn't throw the baby out the with bathwater and discard mechanics that had broad utility outside the 4E tactical skirmish playmode.

Good question about saves.

I think 4E leans a bit too far toward 'saves are trivial' and 1E leans a bit too far towards 'zap you dead!'

Personally I hope 5E is in the middle of that.



No tracking is ideal if you ask me.

Maybe 4E should have had nastier effects, but kept the core save system.

Saves are your ability scores only like Castles and Crusades.

Quote from: Haffrung;755359I didn't keep up with the later playtests - is 5E incorporating the 4E save mechanic? Where saves are always a simple 10 or higher, and the duration of an effect lasts until a save is made? Because that just made so much sense and is so much easier than tracking durations that it's a no-brainer for me to use with any D&D going forward. .

Nope.  Saves are against a DC that can vary, depending on the monster who attacked/cast a spell at you.  But most debilitating saves (like paralysis) are "make a new save each round.  You are freed after X amount of time, or when you make your save."

Quote from: Sacrosanct;755370Nope.  Saves are against a DC that can vary, depending on the monster who attacked/cast a spell at you.  But most debilitating saves (like paralysis) are "make a new save each round.  You are freed after X amount of time, or when you make your save."

What about the infamous, message board imploding, Level Drain?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;755370Nope.  Saves are against a DC that can vary, depending on the monster who attacked/cast a spell at you.  But most debilitating saves (like paralysis) are "make a new save each round.  You are freed after X amount of time, or when you make your save."

OK. So they went halfway there. I just think making saves a duration timer for  effects is brilliant - tracking durations being one of the things that's a pain in the ass in every edition of the game.

Quote from: Bill;755372What about the infamous, message board imploding, Level Drain?

There is no level drain in 5e. Not that I remember anyway.  The other big one is stuff like finger of death.  In 5e, it auto kills anything with less than 40 hp.  For creatures with more than 40hp, they get a Con save and take 12d8 damage (half on save)

Quote from: Sacrosanct;755375There is no level drain in 5e. Not that I remember anyway.  The other big one is stuff like finger of death.  In 5e, it auto kills anything with less than 40 hp.  For creatures with more than 40hp, they get a Con save and take 12d8 damage (half on save)

Current hp of 40, or max hp of 40?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;755375There is no level drain in 5e. Not that I remember anyway.  The other big one is stuff like finger of death.  In 5e, it auto kills anything with less than 40 hp.  For creatures with more than 40hp, they get a Con save and take 12d8 damage (half on save)

So what a 5e mage does is prepare her save or die spell and wait to drop the hammer after the front line guys soften them up.