Hit Dice healing at level 1

[hymer]

So the rule goes that you can spend your hit dice during short rests to regain hit points. During a long rest, you recover half your level in expended hit dice. PHB p. 186 for those who want to look it up.
Am I missing something, or does this mean that you can recover hit points with hit dice once in your life as a first level character? Because you always round down unless otherwise noted, and so cannot regain your spent hit die until you reach level 2?

[Chaosvii7]

So the rule goes that you can spend your hit dice during short rests to regain hit points. During a long rest, you recover half your level in expended hit dice. PHB p. 186 for those who want to look it up.
Am I missing something, or does this mean that you can recover hit points with hit dice once in your life as a first level character? Because you always round down unless otherwise noted, and so cannot regain your spent hit die until you reach level 2?

RAI would definitely make it minimum of 1 regained hit die per long rest. Seems pointless because it doesn't really highlight the fragility of a level 1 character at all, and it's probably not an intended design feature for a 1st level character to be that flimsy. Besides, there's almost no reason to not give them back their hit die on a long rest, as everything else recharges on a long rest anyways.

[Soras Teva Gee]

You absolutely sure on the wording there because pulling up the PDF of the Basic Rules:


At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character’s total number of them (minimum of one die). For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest.

So we'd be looking at a misprint or something there if these are in dissonance.

[hymer]

Perfectly confident. Nice to see they didn't overlook it completely, though a little disheartening to see they were more careful with the editing of the free pdf than with the expensive book.

[Yuki Akuma]

How many long rests are you really going to be taking as a first level character, anyway? You'll level up in a day most likely.

[Giant2005]

How many long rests are you really going to be taking as a first level character, anyway? You'll level up in a day most likely.

I have seen many people commenting on how fast people level and such and now I am convinced I am doing something wrong as I just don't seem to experience the same thing. So I am going to go ahead and post my calculations and can you tell me what I am doing wrong? I'm thinking that there are either sources for XP other than killing things that I am missing or that I am dividing the XP for a kill between everybody when they should be each getting the full amount.
There are 6 people in my group, so if an average-sized encounter has about 3 enemies in it, a deadly encounter would have a total of 300xp worth of monsters to slay (300 xp x2 for the group size = 600xp which is a Deadly encounter for 6 people). That would result in each member earning 50 xp each and as it requires 300 xp to level, 6 of the hardest challenges would have to be survived before reaching level 2 (or a whole bunch more lesser encounters).

Is all of the above right? Am I missing some vital sources of XP in my calculations or do other people's groups just fight a hell of a lot more than mine?

[Yuki Akuma]

Let's take a look at the starter set (which is probably tuned for 4 to 5 characters):

The first chapter doesn't reward XP for the monsters - instead, you gain XP at two 'XP milestones'.

Encounter one: 4 goblins! (200 xp)

Encounter two: Two traps! (??? No idea how much XP traps are meant to be worth)

XP Milestone one: 75 xp each (meaning the traps were worth 50 xp each I guess)

Encounter three: 2 goblins hiding in the bushes! (100 xp)

Encounter four: Three wolves! (150 xp)

Encounter five: Trap! (??? xp)

Encounter six: 1 goblin (50 xp) controlling two traps! (??? xp)

Encounter seven: 5 normal goblins and a boss goblin! (300 xp)

Encounter eight: 3 goblins! (150 xp)

Encounter nine: A bugbear, a wolf, and 2 goblins! (350 xp)

XP milestone two: 275 xp... meaning the traps aren't worth anything if it's tuned for a 4-man party.

...So yeah you're doing it right, I guess? But all of this is designed to be doable in one day, so you may not actually be pushing your party as much as you could be.

[ambartanen]

Is all of the above right? Am I missing some vital sources of XP in my calculations or do other people's groups just fight a hell of a lot more than mine?
I have the same issue as you except our party only has four members and we still haven't made it to second level.


The first chapter doesn't reward XP for the monsters - instead, you gain XP at two 'XP milestones'.

Encounter one: 4 goblins! (200 xp)

Encounter two: Two traps! (??? No idea how much XP traps are meant to be worth)

XP Milestone one: 75 xp each (meaning the traps were worth 50 xp each I guess)

Encounter three: 2 goblins hiding in the bushes! (100 xp)

Encounter four: Three wolves! (150 xp)

Encounter five: Trap! (??? xp)

Encounter six: 1 goblin (50 xp) controlling two traps! (??? xp)

Encounter seven: 5 normal goblins and a boss goblin! (300 xp)

Encounter eight: 3 goblins! (150 xp)

Encounter nine: A bugbear, a wolf, and 2 goblins! (350 xp)

XP milestone two: 275 xp... meaning the traps aren't worth anything if it's tuned for a 4-man party.

Oooh, we are actually doing this adventure right now. We've played two sessions so far and still haven't completed the initial objective. So let's see how we did compared to what was intended.

Encounter one: We fought three goblins and a wolf. I guess this got beefed up a bit. Used up all our magic to heal part of the group back up to full.
Encounter intermediate: We fought eight goblins looting the dwarf's cart. We had to use up our rest to heal up since everyone was almost dead. At this point my warlock regained a spell but the bard and druid have run dry.
Encounter two: Only found one trap, had the trap drop our bard to 2 hit points. We have no more healing left to help him.
Encounter intermediate: Two goblins in a cactus field. Defeated them without getting hit.
Encounter three: All of us have perception and at least decent wisdom but we stumbled into the ambush. Both goblins hit fighter in the surprise round for a total of 11 damage. Fighter was three hp short of max (12) so he dropped and began rolling death saves. In regular initiative both goblins beat everyone in the group (lowest dexterity is 14) so the druid also got hit dropping him to 5 hp and he decided to play dead.
Encounter four: I ended up killing those by myself since they were tied up and I had darkvision.
Encounter five: Accidentally set off trap while exploring the cave, wave hit druid and fighter, forcing them both to roll death saves (again).
Encounter six: Killed the goblin before he knew what happened. Haven't approached the traps yet.
Encounter seven: Tricked the head goblin into coming out with just two of his minions near the entrance of the cave. Bard bluffed him into believing his dancing lights were actually fairies come to trade. I tried to kill the goblin from the shadows but rolled 1 and 1 on my attack with advantage. Rolled 1 on a dexterity save to avoid fumbling. Fell flat on my ass and revealed my position. Lost initiative to the goblins, first one hit me for 8 damage while I was at 7/9 hp. Bard managed to scare the others off, stabilize me and drag me out- we had three party members at 0 hp and one at 2 hp so we retreated.

Random encounter: A bear came out of the woods. The bard immediately wanted to kill it because he was afraid but we actually befriended the beastie. Bard decided he didn't really know us well enough and we weren't doing this for any clear reward (dwarf wouldn't commit at the start of the adventure so we were kinda following him just in case he decided to pay us) so he'd try his chances elsewhere. Headed for the mine.
Random encounter: A couple of ruffians met the bard, beat him up, robbed him and then killed him.

We have yet to gain a level.

Edit: Going through our encounters, I am thinking the only things left alive in that cave are the bug bear, boss goblin and two regular goblins.


Those encounters were interspersed with other non-combat scenes so it took up two sessions. As you can see, despite a drastically increased amount of enemies, we have yet to gain a level but that makes sense since we haven't achieved the first basic objective either. Also, being first level in 5e is really hard, guys! I hope someone finds our fumbles entertaining.

[Laserlight]

Let's take a look at the starter set (which is probably tuned for 4 to 5 characters):

The first chapter doesn't reward XP for the monsters - instead, you gain XP at two 'XP milestones'.

Encounter one: 4 goblins! (200 xp)

Encounter two: Two traps! (??? No idea how much XP traps are meant to be worth)

XP Milestone one: 75 xp each (meaning the traps were worth 50 xp each I guess)

Encounter three: 2 goblins hiding in the bushes! (100 xp)


...So yeah you're doing it right, I guess? But all of this is designed to be doable in one day

I believe you mean "Doable in one day if the goblins don't roll well to hit"

In the Roadside Ambush, both initial goblin arrows hit the AC15 rogue, taking him down to 1HP. Our bard healed him and killed the goblin with Dissonant Whispers, but then she's out of spells for the day.

In the Cave Mouth encounter, both goblins aimed at the AC17 barbarian and put him down. The bard used Cure Wounds and rolled a 1, so the barbarian has 3hp, and the bard has one heal left for the day. Not going into a dungeon like that.

I noticed that "you never regain Hit Dice at level one" problem as well. I expect the print version was already in production when someone said "Oops" and fixed the PDF.

[KillianHawkeye]

I expect the print version was already in production when someone said "Oops" and fixed the PDF.

This is most likely the case. The print version had to be done and finalized way earlier so it could be sent to the printers and gotten enough copies made for the initial release. The entirety of the Basic Rules pdf was probably made sometime while the books were being printed.

[Orvir]

This is most likely the case. The print version had to be done and finalized way earlier so it could be sent to the printers and gotten enough copies made for the initial release. The entirety of the Basic Rules pdf was probably made sometime while the books were being printed.

The 0.1 version of the basic player rules did not have the part in parenthesis either.

[pwykersotz]

I have seen many people commenting on how fast people level and such and now I am convinced I am doing something wrong as I just don't seem to experience the same thing. So I am going to go ahead and post my calculations and can you tell me what I am doing wrong? I'm thinking that there are either sources for XP other than killing things that I am missing or that I am dividing the XP for a kill between everybody when they should be each getting the full amount.
There are 6 people in my group, so if an average-sized encounter has about 3 enemies in it, a deadly encounter would have a total of 300xp worth of monsters to slay (300 xp x2 for the group size = 600xp which is a Deadly encounter for 6 people). That would result in each member earning 50 xp each and as it requires 300 xp to level, 6 of the hardest challenges would have to be survived before reaching level 2 (or a whole bunch more lesser encounters).

Is all of the above right? Am I missing some vital sources of XP in my calculations or do other people's groups just fight a hell of a lot more than mine?

You're right about 600xp because the table is per character. With a deadly encounter being 100xp and 6 players, that matches up.
With a group of 6, the challenge goes down a notch. Take all multipliers for large groups of enemies and drop them by one step.
Thus, if you have a group of 6 kobolds attacking, they would be treated as a pair instead. 6 Kobolds is 150xp, times 1.5 is 225xp. This is just a medium encounter, and the party earns 25xp a piece for it.
Take a group of orcs. Say there are 4 of them. Ordinarily x2, but with your large party it's x1.5. 100xp a piece x 1.5. That's 600xp. Deadly encounter. Actual worth is 400xp, which divides to 66xp a piece. So technically that's 4 such encounters and a single medium encounter before the group levels.

So yeah, 18 orcs for 6 party members = level 2. That's 3 orc kills a piece. That seems pretty fast to me. Keep in mind that you can also fight the orcs in groups of three, making it only Hard encounters and still keeping it to only 6 total fights. Or 9 fights of two orcs if you want all of them to be Medium encounters.

[Slipperychicken]

This is most likely the case. The print version had to be done and finalized way earlier so it could be sent to the printers and gotten enough copies made for the initial release. The entirety of the Basic Rules pdf was probably made sometime while the books were being printed.

Maybe that'll make its way into an errata?