Durable + Healing Word = awesome or invalid?

[odigity]

Durable feat: "When you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, the minimum number of hit points you regain from the roll equals twice your Constitution modifier (minimum of 2)."

If you have a Con of 20, that means every die you roll when healing will give you 10hp, minimum. I assume that applies to spending HD during a short rest, the Bard's Song of Rest, healing potions, and healing spells. (Everything but Paladin's Lay on Hands.)

So, does that mean when you drink a healing potion (2d4+2), you're going to get 22hp? 10hp for each 1d4, plus 2? Is that legit? Because that's awesome.

More importantly, it means the Bard can use Healing Word (a bonus action spell!) to heal you 10hp/spell slot level (+spellcasting ability modifier) in the middle of combat from 60' away. That seems extremely worthwhile.

[Giant2005]

No to all of the above.
A Hit Die and a Die are two very different things. I don't think anything but using short rests use Hit Dice.

[eastmabl]

What the above said. Using Hit Dice and regaining hit points are different.

With a constitution of 20, you are guaranteed at least 11 hit points with the Durable feat. (5*2=10+1dX HD [min 1])= 11.

[odigity]

No to all of the above.
A Hit Die and a Die are two very different things. I don't think anything but using short rests use Hit Dice.

Oops. Yeah, that's poor reading comprehension on my part.

After my mistaken interpretation, I had come up with this for a Fighter starting with Str/Con 16:

4) Heavy Armor Master (Str 16 -> 17)
6) +1 Str, +1 Con (Str 17 -> 18, Con 16 -> 17)
8) Durable (Con 17 -> 18)

Thought I was being clever, but if I drop Durable, now I've got an odd score in Con, and Resilient is redundant since she's already proficient in Con saves. Time to rethink.

[odigity]

Not related to the original topic, but since that's been answered and I have to rethink my feat plan...

Does it make sense to use an ASI/Feat to get a +2 to Con instead of just taking the Tough feat? Sure, you're not improving your Con save, but it's already pretty darn high, and the char in question isn't going to be a spellcaster, so I'd rather have double the HP increase (Tough gives you +2 HP/lvl vs a +2 to Con which yields only +1 HP/lvl).

[eastmabl]

Durable still isn't a bad idea.

At eighth level, bring able to regain 11-20 HP (8 times) after a short rest isn't anything to sniffle at.

My only complaint is that it is reactive awesomeness, not proactive awesomeness. You must get hurt before you can be awesome.

[Giant2005]

Does it make sense to use an ASI/Feat to get a +2 to Con instead of just taking the Tough feat? Sure, you're not improving your Con save, but it's already pretty darn high, and the char in question isn't going to be a spellcaster, so I'd rather have double the HP increase (Tough gives you +2 HP/lvl vs a +2 to Con which yields only +1 HP/lvl).
Personally I'd rather have the +1 con save than an extra HP per level. Con also does a lot of other things which are worth considering, for instance you will heal more with the Survivor ability if you happen to be of the Champion variety of Fighters. Also it will help your AC if you ever consider multiclassing into a Barb (And of course it helps more with those short rests the topic was originally about).


With a constitution of 20, you are guaranteed at least 11 hit points with the Durable feat. (5*2=10+1dX HD [min 1])= 11.
I don't think it works like that. I think it is HD+Con or 2*Con whichever is higher.

[eastmabl]

You are correct. This is what happens when I don't review the new rules.

So with con 20 and fighter, it's 1d10+5 per HD, min 10. Basically, it sets a floor where you don't go below the average roll.

[Giant2005]

You are correct. This is what happens when I don't review the new rules.

So with con 20 and fighter, it's 1d10+5 per HD, min 10. Basically, it sets a floor where you don't go below the average roll.

It is better for those with only 1D6 HD - a guaranteed 5 on a 1D6 is pretty decent (Although not worth a feat).
Now that I think about it though, my initial interpretation might have been wrong. It might be 1D10+Con or 2*Con+Con which is quite a bit better.

[Person_Man]

The importance of Hit Dice is highly variable in 5E.

If your party has one or more players with healing spells, and they are willing to spend their spell uses on casting them, then Hit Dice are a lot less important.

If your DM allows the party to determine its own fate, and does not add "beat the clock" and/or "stuck at the bottom of the world's largest dungeon" elements into the game, then Hit Dice are a lot less important.

If your DM hands out one or more healing wands or just hands out a lot of healing potions, then Hit Dice are mostly useless.

On the flip side, if your party consists entirely of non-healers, or the healers refuse to use their limited spells to heal, and/or your DM is not allowing you a lot of control over when you take Long Rests, and/or your DM does not hand out many healing magic items (which is the default), then Hit Dice can be very important.


As an aside, I've decided that I hate the current healing rules, and look forward to the optional Healing Surge rules which are supposedly going to be in the DMG. Hit Points are one of the most important resources in the game, and players should have a clear idea on how they can manage them when they're creating their characters.

[Demonic Spoon]

If your party has one or more players with healing spells, and they are willing to spend their spell uses on casting them, then Hit Dice are a lot less important.

If your DM allows the party to determine its own fate, and does not add "beat the clock" and/or "stuck at the bottom of the world's largest dungeon" elements into the game, then Hit Dice are a lot less important.

If your DM hands out one or more healing wands or just hands out a lot of healing potions, then Hit Dice are mostly useless.

On the flip side, if your party consists entirely of non-healers, or the healers refuse to use their limited spells to heal, and/or your DM is not allowing you a lot of control over when you take Long Rests, and/or your DM does not hand out many healing magic items (which is the default), then Hit Dice can be very important.


Unless the party member with healing spells is an absolutely dedicated healer, there's still some serious utility in reducing the number of healing spells they need to cast - they get to use those spell slots for something else. Keeping everyone topped up with healing magic is going to eat very deeply into one's spells per day.

I'm pretty sure many things in the game break if you get to take a long rest after every encounter - and I don't think that's unexpected. The game is kind of fundamentally designed with the party fighting multiple encounters in a day, and part of DMing is providing them some incentive to actually do that.

Healing wands don't exist yet as far as I'm aware. I would take it as a given that if your DM hands out a magic item that gives you all the healing you'll ever need, then options that help you heal are less effective. Given that 5e has mechanics to allow players to heal between combats (short rest hit dice), I would expect wands of healing to either be very rare or very limited. Similarly, if your DM hands out healing potions in huge quantities, of course it negates hit dice.

I think the average case is definitely that hit dice are very important. The DM would have to be doing something fairly strange for them to become unimportant.

[pwykersotz]

As an aside, I've decided that I hate the current healing rules, and look forward to the optional Healing Surge rules which are supposedly going to be in the DMG. Hit Points are one of the most important resources in the game, and players should have a clear idea on how they can manage them when they're creating their characters.

Out of curiosity, what is not clear about the HD rules? I mean, they're obviously not the most intuitive thing in the world, each of my players needed it explained twice before it stuck, and the recharge mechanic of only half on a long rest takes some remembering, but it's less complicated than other subsystems in the game. What in particular causes your frustration?

[odigity]

If your party has one or more players with healing spells, and they are willing to spend their spell uses on casting them, then Hit Dice are a lot less important.

I really don't think that's ever the case. Even if there are multiple Bards/Clerics/Druids/Rangers/Paladins in the party with some degree of magical healing, aside from the Paladin's Lay on Hands, all the rest comes from spell slots which are *always* useful for other purposes, and always sad to spend on HP. (Though we all do it regularly, of course -- necessary evil for safety sake.)

I think the HD pool is a huge deal. It lets you consume 150% of your HP every day, day after day, which is a significant improvement, and helps reduce healing spell dependancy. As for healing potions... they don't scale, and I have an allergy to consuming one-time resources. :)


As an aside, I've decided that I hate the current healing rules, and look forward to the optional Healing Surge rules which are supposedly going to be in the DMG. Hit Points are one of the most important resources in the game, and players should have a clear idea on how they can manage them when they're creating their characters.

I'm sure you're aware that the new DMG has an optional rule allowing short rest = 5 min and long rest = 1 hr. You could adopt that, which would basically make everything absurdly easy. (Wizard 20 gets all slots back after an hour!?)

[JoeJ]

I'm sure you're aware that the new DMG has an optional rule allowing short rest = 5 min and long rest = 1 hr. You could adopt that, which would basically make everything absurdly easy. (Wizard 20 gets all slots back after an hour!?)

Not quite as easy as it appears as long as you still have the rule that only allows 1 long rest every 24 hours. Still broken, though IMO.

[odigity]

Not quite as easy as it appears as long as you still have the rule that only allows 1 long rest every 24 hours. Still broken, though IMO.

Good point, forgot about that.

[Person_Man]

Out of curiosity, what is not clear about the HD rules? I mean, they're obviously not the most intuitive thing in the world, each of my players needed it explained twice before it stuck, and the recharge mechanic of only half on a long rest takes some remembering, but it's less complicated than other subsystems in the game. What in particular causes your frustration?

Exactly what you just described.

Also, to restate my previous post a slightly different way, players just don't know how valuable/important/powerful healing will be until they know what the other classes in their party will be and the DMs game style.

A party with many healers and/or playing in a game with many Rests and/or few combats per game day and/or many healing magic items makes healing weak/unnecessary. For example, I had a DM give out an old school 3.5 Wand of Cure Wounds specifically because he didn't want to "tax" the party's spellcasters by forcing them to provide healing.

A party with few healers and/or playing in a game with few Rests and/or many combats per game day and/or no magic items makes healing extremely potent and valuable.

[Slipperychicken]

Do you have any more info on the fighter? Like his ability scores, level, fighting style, and what party/campaign he's going to join?



I'm sure you're aware that the new DMG has an optional rule allowing short rest = 5 min and long rest = 1 hr. You could adopt that, which would basically make everything absurdly easy. (Wizard 20 gets all slots back after an hour!?)

I'd prefer Short Rest = 5 minutes, but leave long rest at 8 hours. That means a lot more things refresh between fights, but not nothing crazy like refilling all your slots in an hour. You can get in more encounters per day without napping. Also, the healer feat and fighters' action surge become a lot more useful for patching people up between fights.

[odigity]

Do you have any more info on the fighter? Like his ability scores, level, fighting style, and what party/campaign he's going to join?

She's level 2 right now, about to be level 3. Going either Champion or Battle Master.

Variant Human, 16 / 13 / 16 / 8 / 10 /10, Dual Wielder, Two Weapon Fighting style, Warhammer + Rapier, Longbow, Chainmail

Soldier background; she was kidnapped as a child and trained to fight in wars (17yo now)

BTW-Her name's Ooli.

Currently thinking:

4) Heavy Armor Master (+1 Str, DR3) (get it early while it matters most)
6) +1 Str, +1 Con
8) Tavern Brawler (+1 Con, minor misc unarmed/improvised/grapple abilities)

That will get her to 18/18 with two nice benefits. For the remaining four slots, some subset of:

*Str +2
Con +2
*Defensive Duelist
Lucky
*Mage Slayer
*Sentinel
Tough

Asterisks next to the four I think are most valuable. DD/Sentinel gives her offensive and defensive options for her reactions, and Mage Slayer makes her extra-deadly against some of the most powerful foes.

Rest of Party:
- Enzo, Half-Elf Monk w/Warlock dip (me!)
- Wart, Half-Elf Bard (still undecided between Lore/Valor, he has until next game session to decide)
- Shava, Wood Elf Druid (Moon)
- ?, Half-Elf Warlock (Fiend/Blade) (joining us next session for the first time)

The party just got to lvl 3, with the exception of the Fighter who's 100xp behind.

Trivia Tangent: She was created by a player who bailed after her first session, but we need her offense and she's intimately tied in to my Monk's backstory, so I continue to control her as an NPC.

[pwykersotz]

Exactly what you just described.

Also, to restate my previous post a slightly different way, players just don't know how valuable/important/powerful healing will be until they know what the other classes in their party will be and the DMs game style.

A party with many healers and/or playing in a game with many Rests and/or few combats per game day and/or many healing magic items makes healing weak/unnecessary. For example, I had a DM give out an old school 3.5 Wand of Cure Wounds specifically because he didn't want to "tax" the party's spellcasters by forcing them to provide healing.

A party with few healers and/or playing in a game with few Rests and/or many combats per game day and/or no magic items makes healing extremely potent and valuable.

Okay, that's fair. Although in your example I'm surprised the DM didn't just use less deadly encounters instead.

[MaxWilson]

Do you have any more info on the fighter? Like his ability scores, level, fighting style, and what party/campaign he's going to join?

I'd prefer Short Rest = 5 minutes, but leave long rest at 8 hours. That means a lot more things refresh between fights, but not nothing crazy like refilling all your slots in an hour. You can get in more encounters per day without napping. Also, the healer feat and fighters' action surge become a lot more useful for patching people up between fights.

That also means that multiclassed Warlocks and 20th level Necromancers (Signature Spell) can raise absurd amounts of undead: between 0.33 and and 2.25 skeletons per minute (including casting time). Then add on spells like Armor of Agathys on top, and rest for another five minutes.

It also makes the Warlock capstone (meditate one minute to regain all spell slots) basically worthless. And it makes Warlock 2/Sorcerer 3 essentially mandatory for the sorcerer, so he can regain 2 sorcery points every five minutes, which can then turn into spell slots.

Messing with short rest times dramatically alters more things than you think it does.

[Slipperychicken]

@OP: I'd personally consider Tough (if she's getting targeted), Sentinel (if the other melees are getting targeted), or Mage Slayer (if you fight a lot of mages). Most of the options you listed are viable, though I'd question the usefulness of Tavern Brawler.


That also means that multiclassed Warlocks and 20th level Necromancers (Signature Spell) can raise absurd amounts of undead: between 0.33 and and 2.25 skeletons per minute (including casting time). Then add on spells like Armor of Agathys on top, and rest for another five minutes.

It also makes the Warlock capstone (meditate one minute to regain all spell slots) basically worthless. And it makes Warlock 2/Sorcerer 3 essentially mandatory for the sorcerer, so he can regain 2 sorcery points every five minutes, which can then turn into spell slots.

Messing with short rest times dramatically alters more things than you think it does.

That's unfortunate. I just want a simple way to make things like action surge, channel divinity, superiority dice refresh on a per-encounter basis. Granted, the level 20 stuff isn't a as much of an issue since campaigns rarely reach that level anyway.

[MaxWilson]

That's unfortunate. I just want a simple way to make things like action surge, channel divinity, superiority dice refresh on a per-encounter basis. Granted, the level 20 stuff isn't a as much of an issue since campaigns rarely reach that level anyway.

You could try the other approach: ensure that encounters happen only once an hour. PCs can use Rope Trick to ensure that the party can crawl into a hole to rest for an hour whenever they feel like it.

There are some obvious implications for time-sensitive missions.

[odigity]

Most of the options you listed are viable, though I'd question the usefulness of Tavern Brawler.

I want Heavy Armor Master, which will give me an odd Str. I need another half-feat that can grant +1 Con, so I can even everything out with the third ASI. The only other one is Resilient, and Fighter already has proficiency in Con saves, so that'd be a waste. Hence, Tavern Brawler. Not great, but still potential useful minor abilities.

[MeeposFire]

You could try the other approach: ensure that encounters happen only once an hour. PCs can use Rope Trick to ensure that the party can crawl into a hole to rest for an hour whenever they feel like it.

There are some obvious implications for time-sensitive missions.

Or to go another route that adds slightly more complexity and add a third rest type (for example the "quick rest") which resets at 5 minutes and then designate certain abilities as being a quick rest and leaving others as just short rests.

Granted this does mean considering carefully what abilities should be one or the other hence the additional complexity.

[odigity]

Or to go another route that adds slightly more complexity and add a third rest type (for example the "quick rest") which resets at 5 minutes and then designate certain abilities as being a quick rest and leaving others as just short rests.

Granted this does mean considering carefully what abilities should be one or the other hence the additional complexity.

I don't think you could find a good balance of what consumed resources to replenish after a Quick Rest. The only thing I would allow a Quick Rest to do is give players an opportunity to spend HD to heal. You're not giving them back resources, merely allowing them to use their already granted resources without a 1hr wait tax. (and no Song of Rest beneits) That seems safest - at least as a first cut, right? Start conservative, and iterate if necessary.

[Myzz]

just to double check my understanding (I think it was said once, but no one commented on it)

Durable gives:
"+1 Con, to max of 20"
"When you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, the minimum number of hit points you regain from the roll equals twice your con mod, min of 2"

so if your have Con 20, you get 15 HP's regardless of class unless your a barbarian who rolls lucky. Although I'm not sure who else would take Con to 20, that seams like a deep ASI sink for a non Tank or Barbarian...

Even for a 18 Con (+4) on a D6 or d8 HD class is pretty sweet... Above Max roll and max roll respectively. This makes me rethink the Warlock I was rolling for a diff campaign... Then again, if you have time to rest... you have time to rest =)

[metaridley18]

I don't think you could find a good balance of what consumed resources to replenish after a Quick Rest. The only thing I would allow a Quick Rest to do is give players an opportunity to spend HD to heal. You're not giving them back resources, merely allowing them to use their already granted resources without a 1hr wait tax. (and no Song of Rest beneits) That seems safest - at least as a first cut, right? Start conservative, and iterate if necessary.

This is basically just extending the healing surge rules from the DMG. I don't like those much because they devalue the Second Wind ability fighters have ever so slightly, but your implementation of it isn't a bad idea.

The timing of short rests is tricky, but something that needs to be considered when discussing timing of short rests is timing of encounters. As long as you're following the DMG guidelines on encounters between rests, it literally doesn't matter what the actual timing of the rests are. You could have short rests equal a year and long rests equal ten years, but if there are only 6-8 encounters per ten years, with two short rests in between, the only thing that changes is PC perception.

So it's a management of perception. Again, (and unfortunately, in my opinion), we have an edition that requires a careful balancing of encounters by the DM to make sure that classes are on an equal footing. 2 short rests per day makes the battle master's dice limit make more sense, and increases the warlock's spellcasting ability to compete with a wizard. It also means that arcane recovery feels like a limitation rather than something that happens every time you short rest.

But packing in 6 to 8 encounters each day feels like a lot to some people, and it can be hard to entice a party to go on without random encounters.

Anyway that's all super offtopic, but I guess it's crucial to the discussion of the efficacy of the durable feat.

[Bluemanarc]

What if you pick up Durable at latter levels.
As long as you have kept the numbers of your hit points rolls can you retrospectively apply it.
Otherwise its not very useful taking at L19 is it.

Are many DM's using the Average HP method or make players roll them.
Many DM's giving the players the option of rolling them ?

[Bugado25]

That also means that multiclassed Warlocks and 20th level Necromancers (Signature Spell) can raise absurd amounts of undead: between 0.33 and and 2.25 skeletons per minute (including casting time). Then add on spells like Armor of Agathys on top, and rest for another five minutes.

It also makes the Warlock capstone (meditate one minute to regain all spell slots) basically worthless. And it makes Warlock 2/Sorcerer 3 essentially mandatory for the sorcerer, so he can regain 2 sorcery points every five minutes, which can then turn into spell slots.

Messing with short rest times dramatically alters more things than you think it does.

That's quite simple to solve.

Player X: I want to short rest.

DM: Ok, nothing happens during those 5 minutes, you can roll hit dice ans recharge your abilities.

Player X: Cool, now I want to turn my warlock slots into sorcery points and short rest again.

DM: No, you can't.

Player X: Why? There is no rule against short resting multiple times in a row.

DM: Yeah, but 5 min short rests is a house rule to make short rests easier between each fight, but allowing you to short rest multiple times in a row can break the game, so I won't allow it.

Player X: Ok...

Any reasonable person would understand that and if the player insists too much, besides the fact he is being a ****, you can always return to the 1 hour short rests so he can't complain as you are back to playing by the book.

Edit: Did not notice that this was a necroed thread

[bid]

As long as you have kept the numbers of your hit points rolls can you retrospectively apply it.
Irrelevant.

And it's more than 2 years old, open a fresh thread.