Regarding Second Wind

[Bjarkmundur]

I've been look at the Homebrew forum, and how almost any homebrew has a "this homebrew is overpowered" comment.

.... How is healing 1d10+level as a bonus action, every short rest, not just completely ridiculous?

Is it really at a similar defensive powerlevel as the Rogue's Cunning Action?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've been look at the Homebrew forum, and how almost any homebrew has a "this homebrew is overpowered" comment.

.... How is healing 1d10+level as a bonus action, every short rest, not just completely ridiculous?

Is it really at a similar defensive powerlevel as the Rogue's Cunning Action?

Not being hit is the best form of healing. Also compare to the barbarian's bigger hit dice and rage.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Cunning Action is not a purely defensive ability, unlike Second Wind, but it's awesome in its mobility-enhancing qualities. I'd say they're balanced, yeah. In fact I'm currently playing a Battlemaster 8 / Rogue 2, and if I had to choose, I'd much rather have Cunning Action than Second Wind.

[Contrast]

Is it really at a similar defensive powerlevel as the Rogue's Cunning Action?

I don't quite know if I'm missing your intent but for my money Cunning Action is one of the best, if not the best for its level, abilities in the game.

[Bjarkmundur]

Ah sorry, seem to have not been clear enough.

1) Is Second Wind ridiculously good or just "meh"
2) Is a rogue with Second Wind ridiculously good. If so, why?

[MaxWilson]

Ah sorry, seem to have not been clear enough.

1) Is Second Wind ridiculously good or just "meh"
2) Is a rogue with Second Wind ridiculously good. If so, why?

(1) Second Wind is pretty good for a full-class fighter--it's one of the things that makes an EK more durable overall than a Barbarian. But it doesn't work well with dips.

It's probably comparable overall to the Paladin's Lay On Hands or the Tough feat: a solid defensive ability but not something you'd want to hype.

(2) A Rogue with Second Wind is not ridiculously good. He won't have the Fighter levels to make Second Wind very relevant, and if he's making good use of Cunning Action in the first place, Second Wind won't be needed.

[DeTess]

Ah sorry, seem to have not been clear enough.

1) Is Second Wind ridiculously good or just "meh"
2) Is a rogue with Second Wind ridiculously good. If so, why?

You can't really compare single abilities of different classes like that, because single abilities aren't mean to be comparable between classes. Otherwise I'd like to point to the spellcasting feature sorcerers, druids, clerics and wizards get...

edit: oops, didn't read that correctly, thought you where comparing second wind to cunning action...

Some abilities are better than others, but unless you're comparing between abilities of subclasses of the same class, you'll have to compare the entire package.

Regarding those two abilities, second wind is a nice panic button, nothing more. If you're trying to put it on a rogue subclass I'd like to know at which level, so I can do an actual comparison between what other rogue subclasses get, because second wind is better than a ribbon ability, and worse than a capstone.

[Bjarkmundur]

I give all my players various "hero abilities", which can be looked at as substitutes for magic items. For example, instead of a +1 Armor I might give my tank a some kind og mystical reward based on the current story with a similar power level.

I'm just wondering if a second wind is too strong to give to a rogue as a hero ability, if it used rogue levels for scaling instead of fighter levels. If my rogue has been begging for a self healing ability, simply for the flavour of her character, can I scale the dice down to make it more manageable? I'm looking for the sweet spot of making it as low powered as possible, whilst still FEELING impactful.

[Crgaston]

Second Wind scales with Fighter level. Cunning Action is just as useful at Rogue 2 as it is at Rogue 18. So, for instance, Fighter11/Rogue 2 gets a lot more out of CA than Rogue11/Fighter2 does out of 2nd Wind. If that makes any sense.

Edit: In that case, 1d10+Proficiency Bonus might feel about right.

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm still thinking about giving her a reskinned "Lay on Hands" instead (target = selfl). It gives more burst healing, but makes it a decision point whether the action is worth it.

I just really needed to hear your thoughts in on it before I make the decision.

[DeTess]

I give all my players various "hero abilities", which can be looked at as substitutes for magic items. For example, instead of a +1 Armor I might give my tank a some kind og mystical reward based on the current story with a similar power level.

I'm just wondering if a second wind is too strong to give to a rogue as a hero ability, if it used rogue levels for scaling instead of fighter levels. If my rogue has been begging for a self healing ability, simply for the flavour of her character, can I scale the dice down to make it more manageable? I'm looking for the sweet spot of making it as low powered as possible, whilst still FEELING impactful.

I'd make it 1d8 (the rogue's HD, as opposed to the fighter's)+half rogue level. You still want it to scale past proficiency for later levels, but scaling by rogue level would push it a bit too far compared to the supposedly tanky classes, I think (and rogues already have some really good damage mitigation). Alternatively, if you run long in-game days, you could allow the rogue to spend any number of HD using a bonus action or an action, but if you've only get 1-2 fights per day, and multiple days between fighting days, that'll be too powerful.

[NecessaryWeevil]

As you increase in level, Second Wind is recharging a steadily smaller percentage of your hitpoints.

At first or even second level, I'd be like, "Yes, I'm a fighter, I absolutely belong the frontlines, because with Second Wind I can pick myself up after a tough fight and keep plodding on."

Whereas at tenth or eleventh level, it's more like, "I want to use Second Wind before the fight's completely over so it's not wasted, but I don't want to use it before it's clear we're going to win, because until that point I probably have better uses for my bonus action."

So, no, it doesn't seem like an overpowered thing to give your rogue PC. Durability and self-healing is not really a rogue's theme, but it's fine so long as others are also getting extra abilities.

[Man_Over_Game]

Consider this: A Fighter, with a +2-+3 Con mod, gains 8 HP per level.

Second Wind gains 1 HP per level.

Sneak Attack (rogue feature) gains about 2 damage per level.

Assuming the Rogue deals about 6 damage from the base attack (before Sneak Attack), you heal half the damage from the Rogue's attack, once per Short Rest. Then the Rogue hits you again the following turn. You've taken 1.5x damage of the Rogue's 2x attacks. Second Wind is pretty meh, unless your DM is good about Short Rests.

It's strong early on (when that 1d10 matters most), but it just doesn't scale well enough to really matter too much past level 5 (when you have about 50 HP and you're healing for 10)

[Foxhound438]

it's really not that strong, especially getting into higher levels. When you have an HP pool of something like 80 HP healing 1d10+7 for example isn't a massive deal. You get maybe an extra hit from it, but that's no guarantee that it'll even buy you another turn alive when you use it. Obviously it works nicely if you take multiple short rests in a day but few tables actually do.

[Bjarkmundur]

Thank you guys so much :)

[Pex]

Multiclassing into Fighter Second Wind saves you a HD for short rest healing. Nice to have but not Win D&D.

[KorvinStarmast]

.... How is healing 1d10+level as a bonus action, every short rest, not just completely ridiculous?
When my champion was at levels 12 and 13, dealing with a mix of enemies that included stone giants (who have two attacks per round that can land 30+ damage, and Frost Giants) I can promise you that he'd not understand how you can ask this question.
Second wind is a nice ability that helps the PC that tends to be in melee combat and get hit the most sustain a bit longer during the adventure day.

[Man_Over_Game]

As a side note, a DM that was lenient with Short Rests could effectively treat this as 5+level in free Hit Die healing (if unused).

Basically, every hour you're not in combat or doing something stressful, you're regenerating health. That'd be pretty cool.

[Chronos]

For comparison, warlocks can take an invocation that effectively gives them 8 temporary hit points before every fight. And it's not a very popular invocation.

[MaxWilson]

I give all my players various "hero abilities", which can be looked at as substitutes for magic items. For example, instead of a +1 Armor I might give my tank a some kind og mystical reward based on the current story with a similar power level.

I'm just wondering if a second wind is too strong to give to a rogue as a hero ability, if it used rogue levels for scaling instead of fighter levels. If my rogue has been begging for a self healing ability, simply for the flavour of her character, can I scale the dice down to make it more manageable? I'm looking for the sweet spot of making it as low powered as possible, whilst still FEELING impactful.

The best point of comparison here is to the Healer feat: by giving her Second Wind instead of the Healer feat, you let her heal as a bonus action, and she doesn't require a healing kit, but it also doesn't heal anyone but herself. Overall that makes it somewhat weaker than the Healer feat. Is "somewhat weaker than a feat" about the right level of power you're looking for in your hero abilities?

[MeeposFire]

I've been look at the Homebrew forum, and how almost any homebrew has a "this homebrew is overpowered" comment.

.... How is healing 1d10+level as a bonus action, every short rest, not just completely ridiculous?

Is it really at a similar defensive powerlevel as the Rogue's Cunning Action?

Honestly homebrew discussions (or even official content discussions here TBH) has a tendency for people to declare all sorts of things as being over powered that really are not especially if they seem superficially similar to something else (but have important distinctions or if the original is actually weaker than thought of originally and so the new content is actually balanced and the older stuff was weak) or if something is so new an idea that people do not know how to evaluate often gets hit with that comment.

On the other hand there are lots of homebrew that are frankly way out there in terms of too much power.

As an offical content example from a previous edition (where evidence over years has given a better picture of the truth) when the favored soul first came out in 3e D&D all sorts of people were crying about how overpowered it was especially compared to the sorcerer and the cleric. Years later it is typically seen as being roughly equivalent of the sorcerer and thus weaker than the cleric which was seen as still much better than the favored soul. People just got so hung up on the fact it was a spontaneous caster that got class features and had better base stats (saves, attacks, etc) than its contemporaries and got more spells known than the sorcerer. In the end it turned out that people were way overvaluing spontaneous casting and so the way they were comparing the favored soul made them think it was too powerful but in reference to all the classes it was in the thick of the full caster glut.


As for second wind it is not that big of a deal. It is just a short rest healing ability that is self only. It is great to have but not something that will make or break you.

[LibraryOgre]

In making NPCs for the Village of Hommlet, it also has good synergy with Half-Orcs... "I didn't quite die, so now I'm at 1, and my bonus action means I'm at Level+d10+1"... not gonna win the war, but it will keep you standing till the cleric can heal you.