How to fix rest based healing?

[Lupine]

Recently, I’ve seen a LOT of people are saying that they hate the 8-hour full heal. I agree, as a DM, I wish combat was a more serious investment, that couldn’t just be removed in 8 hours.
So, how was it done before? How would you attempt to fix it (or how have you fixed it, if you already have)?

[airless_wing]

Have it so that players only recover Half of their Hit Die per long rest, not full HP and full Hit Die.

We've been playing with that for awhile now and it's been another interesting resource to have to balance.

[Diego]

Spitballing: You don't heal HP automatically on long-rest. You just get back half your HD as normal and have an opportunity to spend them.

[stoutstien]

Recently, I’ve seen a LOT of people are saying that they hate the 8-hour full heal. I agree, as a DM, I wish combat was a more serious investment, that couldn’t just be removed in 8 hours.
So, how was it done before? How would you attempt to fix it (or how have you fixed it, if you already have)?

HP attrition beyond a single encounter is mostly pointless as a pacing tool. If you want to make any encounter more of an investment then the risks for failing, other than death, need to be greater.

[NorthernPhoenix]

The Injury, madness and rest variant rules in the DMG are all ways to make combat far more precarious across multiple fights without necessarily resorting to "killer DM" methods. Give those a check before you make stuff up!:smallwink:

[False God]

My experience is typically that in order to get rid of full healing overnight you need to:
Prepare a lot of boring downtime busywork. The uninjured characters and their players will want to do something while they wait for Bob to heal.
Have your players make extra characters. Seriously injured characters could be down for multiple sessions, leaving players with nothing to do, especially if they're the only injured party member.
-This one can get worse when they're the "meat shield". When they're always the party member the group is waiting on, it doesn't make for good party dynamics, even when they're performing a needed role in the group.
Get rid of random encounters, as players will make an effort to avoid them anyway.


If you hand-waiving the downtime, then you might as well hand-waive the healing. Either the time is meaningful and should be accounted for, or it isn't and doesn't need to be.

[LudicSavant]

Have it so that players only recover Half of their Hit Die per long rest

The rule in the PHB is already that you recover half of your hit dice per long rest.

[Lupine]

HP attrition beyond a single encounter is mostly pointless as a pacing tool. If you want to make any encounter more of an investment then the risks for failing, other than death, need to be greater.

So, you're saying that if I want the players to really avoid combat, I have to make even starting combat be a negative effect, other than the HP loss? Interesting take.

Ludic is right, and our table players that way.

Northern Pheonix, week-long healing isn't really an option for the group, though I might require healer's kits.

Diego, that is one I haven't heard about, and actually makes a bit of sense to me.

[stoutstien]

So, you're saying that if I want the players to really avoid combat, I have to make even starting combat be a negative effect, other than the HP loss? Interesting take.

It's hard to make players want to avoid combat for the most part but it's not that hard to make it so that combat isn't always the best option.
Some cooperative games really do a good job at this like Pandemic. To win you must progress but progression is risky. In DND if an encounter doesn't have any risk or cost then it's mostly a waste of time. If the overall goal is to raid the temple and get out with the idol before the cannibal halflings catch wind and move it to a more secure location. Then each time they choose to fight they are risking failure or at least making the goal more difficult to obtain.

[Zhorn]

Yeah, the whole "healing to full HP with an 8 hour rest is a problem" is kind of cutting out all the context of what the 'problem' is and how fixing it should be achieved, or even if that's the part that needs fixing.

As discussed in numerous threads, so many tables play so wildly different a game that one 'fix' might work for one table, be pointless in another, or game ruining elsewhere.

How many encounters do they have in a day
How often do they get a rest (short and long)
Are hit dice used or ignored
Is it a 'war of attrition', or a 'single big fight' style of adventuring day
Is access to other healing easy or difficult
Are resources even called on outside of combat

[Anymage]

Recently, IÂ’ve seen a LOT of people are saying that they hate the 8-hour full heal. I agree, as a DM, I wish combat was a more serious investment, that couldnÂ’t just be removed in 8 hours.


Northern Pheonix, week-long healing isn't really an option for the group, though I might require healer's kits.

So what sort of time frame feels right to you, if a good night's sleep is too short for a full recovery but a week is too long?

Note that 5e's encounter math assumes a few things. Most notably that the party faces attrition over ~6 fights per day, and that they get a couple of partial recoveries in the form of short rests over the course of a day. If "combat is a serious investment" means that the party faces at most one encounter per day, you do two things; make short rest classes/resources weaker by comparison, and encouraging everyone to play long rest classes and then nova the hell out of encounters.

If it's just the mental image of someone being in traction today but hunky-dory tomorrow, be careful that you don't allow a more satisfying mental image to create a party dynamic problem. Getting out of traction because of healing magic is a better mental picture, but D&D went through many editions with slow natural healing but spell slots recovering on a daily basis. The result was someone having to do this (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0006.html).

[KorvinStarmast]

Recently, I’ve seen a LOT of people are saying that they hate the 8-hour full heal. I agree, as a DM, I wish combat was a more serious investment, that couldn’t just be removed in 8 hours. I don't hate it at all. The problem isn't the rest; the problem is not understanding what is "an adventure day" and then using that.

How to fix rest based healing? I suggest not trying to fix what isn't broken.

When a game session ends, that does not end an adventure day. You pick up where you left off and you have some resources left, and some expended. Press on with the adventure, and every so often have an encounter happen during a long rest.

Every so often. Not "every long rest"

That can create some choices.

Another option is to go back and play AD&D 1e. That puts a premium on "picking your fights" and "it takes a few days to heal when you've taken a lot of damage"

[MaxWilson]

Recently, I’ve seen a LOT of people are saying that they hate the 8-hour full heal. I agree, as a DM, I wish combat was a more serious investment, that couldn’t just be removed in 8 hours.
So, how was it done before? How would you attempt to fix it (or how have you fixed it, if you already have)?

My fixes to natural healing:

HP don't stop at zero, they can go negative. If they reach -Max HP you die. When you're below zero and but stable, a failed death save (DC 10 Con save) costs you 20% of your Max HP and you have to save again next round, otherwise you're now stable.

Natural healing: you cannot spend HD healing on a short rest without a bard's Song of Rest. On a long rest, you can either spend HD on healing or regain up to half your max HD, not both. There is no automatic heal-to-full-HP on a long rest.

Therefore if wounded it can take up to five days to heal back to full health. Still quick by Earth standards, but enough time that you can have a wounded creature in your adventure, like a hostile wounded Efreet, and it's not weird. (Vs. having it heal to full HP in an hour by RAW.)

[MadBear]

One thing to consider is that this just makes a healer in the party way more essential, and non-healer parties much more difficult.

With a healer, you'll just end up having them blow all their spell slots at the end of every day to heal everyone.

I think you may be looking to solve a problem that doesn't actually need solving.

[Lupine]

Perhaps you're right about it not being an issue. I think what annoys me is that a lot of the lighter, fluffy-er encounters, they hardly notice the damage from, because the bard to inspiring leader, they they just short-rest back up, and the non-fluff leave them taxed, where they tend to go for long rests.

Now I'm realizing I actually just suck at encounter balancing, and that's the real reason things don't work right...

Maybe I should take the time to actually assemble a decent random encounter table.

[Keravath]

There are at least two ways to look at full healing on a long rest.

1) From a game balance perspective, most folks who have an issue with full healing on a long rest also typically run short encounter days with only one or two combat encounters so that characters are typically full hit points and most resources for every encounter. Being able to restore everything on a long rest means that characters end up coming into most encounters with full resources. Since some of these folks have trouble changing the play style they prefer to change the resource restoration mechanics so that it better fits their playstyle.

If the characters are on the edge of running out of resources after several encounters during an adventuring day where they have to make decisions about whether they are healthy enough to survive a fight or whether they should expend resources in this fight or save them for the possible next encounter then restoring resources on a long rest is fine ... otherwise they will be unable to adventure the next day since they won't have the resources to do so.


2) Narrative realism. I enjoy playing D&D but one of the differences between 5e and some of the earlier editions is that the "pace of play" in terms of world time is MUCH faster. With 4-8 encounters/adventuring day (not all combat) the characters could typically earn enough XP to level up.

I think this is one of the reasons for the shift to milestone leveling, the DM can reward levels at appropriate parts of the plot which may be after a couple of game days and perhaps several encounters. However, even in that case, a character can probably advance from level 1 to 10 within a month of in world game time. That feels fast :)

In earlier editions, a campaign could take in game years with character advancement perhaps taking weeks or months, not usually because you played all that time but because healing took time, researching took time, finding information took time, and all of these time sinks made for a more natural narrative progression so that everything took more in game time. In part, this was because the party just could not be "ready to go" most of the time, the next day. Spells could be prepared but healing required the casting of spells or use of potions which cost time or money or both.


Options to increase the character desire to utilize downtime more ..
1) The DMG has options for gritty realism which spaces out the options for long rests and short rests. A long rest could be two days off while a short rest would be overnight. All sorts of options, characters can still use hit dice on the short rests but full restoration of resources has to wait until they can take a few days off. (The DMG version goes farther with short rests being 8 hours and long rests a week).

2) You could go back to previous versions where the only healing is from spells and potions. I think you would see a lot more clerics getting played in a game like this. Spells still refresh on a long rest but there are no hit dice and hit point healing requires spells/potions/other healing abilities so the entire party has to spend days off while the healer prepares and casts healing spells and if they want the healer to have spells for the adventuring day they need to spend an extra long rest to get them back to full.

3) Characters are allowed to use hit dice in addition to spells/potions but long rests do not restore hit points, just 1/2 of your hit dice. This means that any character could fully heal themselves up but it will take on average 2 long rests to do so and they would have no hit dice left. This could be further limited by only allowing 1 hit dice to be spent on a short rest and up to half of your total hit dice on a long rest.

All these mechanisms will tend to slow down the healing rate and the adventuring rate to some extent. However, the DM and players will have to accept glossing over lots of down time days when they are just healing up and unable or unwilling to adventure. These are narrative interludes but it will typically be very boring if either the DM or the players insist on playing through these downtime days.

[Sorinth]

One thing to consider is that this just makes a healer in the party way more essential, and non-healer parties much more difficult.

With a healer, you'll just end up having them blow all their spell slots at the end of every day to heal everyone.

I think you may be looking to solve a problem that doesn't actually need solving.

Agreed, all getting rid of natural healing does is put a bigger premium on magical healing. In previous editions where you didn't have natural healing you absolutely needed a cleric/druid in the party, and that character rarely got to use non-healing spells which often made it somewhat of boring character to play.

[NorthernPhoenix]

Agreed, all getting rid of natural healing does is put a bigger premium on magical healing. In previous editions where you didn't have natural healing you absolutely needed a cleric/druid in the party, and that character rarely got to use non-healing spells which often made it somewhat of boring character to play.

In 3E and sometimes 4E, the abundance of magic items essentially ensured full health all the time in practical play. The natural healing in 5E just replaces the magic item reliance, not a real need for healing classes.

[Keravath]

Perhaps you're right about it not being an issue. I think what annoys me is that a lot of the lighter, fluffy-er encounters, they hardly notice the damage from, because the bard to inspiring leader, they they just short-rest back up, and the non-fluff leave them taxed, where they tend to go for long rests.

Now I'm realizing I actually just suck at encounter balancing, and that's the real reason things don't work right...

Maybe I should take the time to actually assemble a decent random encounter table.

The only random encounter table you really need is in your head. Keep in mind the players never know the results of any "random" roll like this. They don't know what you roll, they don't see what you see. If you want to pretend to roll randomly to give the impression that you aren't setting up whatever encounter you prefer, go ahead, be remember it is irrelevant since you are the DM and are setting up the world - nothing is random - no matter what the die roll might be, the DM is choosing to implement any results and how it will play out.

The bottom line is a random encounter table doesn't usually add anything.

If you want to work out some sample encounters in advance so you have some ideas that you think might be balanced ready to go then do it. However, if you know your world, what lives in the area where the PCs are currently, what the chances of running into something might be (eg 10%, 33%, 50%, 100%) .. roll a die if you want to see if something is going to happen (you don't need to do even that if you don't want to - roll a die for show and just decide) .. then put out some thematically appropriate monsters/npcs that live in that part of the world. Start social if that makes sense otherwise roll for initiative.

If you find that you have trouble balancing encounters then my advice is to use waves. Have an initial encounter that you think might be reasonably balanced. If it goes badly, perhaps have the monsters/NPCs do something a bit sub-optimal, alternatively, if it is notably too easy, bring in a wave of reinforcements if that makes sense for the encounter.

Also, if an encounter goes badly for the characters, try to have a backup plan for the monsters/npcs that might explain why they would keep the players alive so they can try to escape. "Food is better fresh", "These will make good slaves", "We can use these creatures as offerings to the gods this week"

[stoutstien]

One thing to consider is that this just makes a healer in the party way more essential, and non-healer parties much more difficult.

With a healer, you'll just end up having them blow all their spell slots at the end of every day to heal everyone.

I think you may be looking to solve a problem that doesn't actually need solving.

In My experience it has the exact opposite effect. It puts a larger emphasis on burst Nova damage output.
The value of healing spells actually go down if you make it harder to heal naturally.

[MaxWilson]

Agreed, all getting rid of natural healing does is put a bigger premium on magical healing. In previous editions where you didn't have natural healing you absolutely needed a cleric/druid in the party, and that character rarely got to use non-healing spells which often made it somewhat of boring character to play.

5E is full of ways to heal.

Healer feat.
Bard.
Druid.
Cleric.
Paladin.
Fighter Second Wind.
Purple Dragon Knight Rallying Cry.
Inspiring Leader, kind of.
Celestial warlock.
Necromancer Grim Harvest.
Open Hand Monk's Wholeness of Body.
Fiendlock and Long Death monk, sort of.

If you scale back natural healing, healing abilities become cooler and more important, but that's a feature, not a bug.

[MadBear]

What you're saying about encounter design is one reason I hate random encounters, if used as an "encounter while traveling" that is often the case. You make that fight either so hard, they have to pull out all the stops, or they go nova and trivialize it.

I can't say that my group has found a good solution though. We've tried a few things, some of which have worked better then others.

Now one way i have used random encounters effectively, is that I roll 2d6. If I roll a 9 or 10, they get an easy encounter, if I roll an 11 they get a hard encounter, or a 12 (they get a deadly encounter).

I only roll for these encounters when in a dungeon when:
1. They take a short rest (roll once).
2. Take a long rest (roll twice).

My players know this up front, and so they don't risk a rest unless it's needed.

[Sorinth]

In My experience it has the exact opposite effect. It puts a larger emphasis on burst Nova damage output.
The value of healing spells actually go down if you make it harder to heal naturally.

If you can nova damage and end an encounter then that is going to be optimal regardless of your healing ability.

Which actually brings up an interesting point, the ease of natural healing is probably one reason that you can make a party/PC that isn't optimal.

[firelistener]

I've been having a better time with this by using more "gang" encounters. Instead of 1 or 2 enemies, I'll use 4-8 lower CR enemies. It drastically raises the chance of players taking damage, statistically, but with low enough AC and HP that the enemies are still quickly dispatched. It encourages my players to use more hit dice throughout the adventuring day.

[stoutstien]

Planning and building a series of encounters that feel right for any given table is probably the most difficult part of being a DM.

I honestly recommend keeping a very standardized resource recovery cycle until until you get an feel for it.

[Sorinth]

5E is full of ways to heal.

Healer feat.
Bard.
Druid.
Cleric.
Paladin.
Fighter Second Wind.
Inspiring Leader, kind of.
Celestial warlock.
Necromancer Grim Harvest.
Open Hand Monk's Wholeness of Body.
Fiendlock and Long Death monk, sort of.

If you scale back natural healing, healing abilities become cooler and more important, but (imagine this is purple text) that's a feature, not a bug.

That's sort of my point, if healing spells are now more important, then classes with those spells will need to reserve a much larger portion of their daily spells on providing healing which means they will use less offensive/utility spells.

[Zhorn]

What you're saying about encounter design is one reason I hate random encounters, if used as an "encounter while traveling" that is often the case. You make that fight either so hard, they have to pull out all the stops, or they go nova and trivialize it.
Fun way I alter this: my random encounter tables include 'Dungeon' as a result, be it on the road, while resting, or even in another dungeon.

Have a small collection of 5 room dungeons, and you throw out one of these as a discovered secret entrance the party stumbles on. Which in turn you could get another 'Dungeon' result when rolling out encounters to occupy the rooms. Even if they are a bunch of small encounters, having a small network of caves and crypt rooms of unknown quantities can put a good drain on resources, and be fairly punishing if they go nova too soon.

[MaxWilson]

That's sort of my point, if healing spells are now more important, then classes with those spells will need to reserve a much larger portion of their daily spells on providing healing which means they will use less offensive/utility spells.

Possibly but not necessarily--some of those abilities are not spell-based (Bard Song of Rest, Purple Dragon Rallying Cry, Healer feat, etc.), and some of those healing spells are very efficient (Aura of Vitality).

You're not wrong, but it might have less impact than you think, especially if players change their playstyle to match the new rules (Purple Dragon Knight becomes more popular, etc.).


What you're saying about encounter design is one reason I hate random encounters, if used as an "encounter while traveling" that is often the case. You make that fight either so hard, they have to pull out all the stops, or they go nova and trivialize it.

I can't say that my group has found a good solution though. We've tried a few things, some of which have worked better then others.

Now one way i have used random encounters effectively, is that I roll 2d6. If I roll a 9 or 10, they get an easy encounter, if I roll an 11 they get a hard encounter, or a 12 (they get a deadly encounter).

I only roll for these encounters when in a dungeon when:
1. They take a short rest (roll once).
2. Take a long rest (roll twice).

My players know this up front, and so they don't risk a rest unless it's needed.

This is slightly off-topic, but... travelling encounters don't necessarily need to be deadly, they just need to be interesting, as in, give the players meaningful decisions to make and have an impact. A simple random encounter table might look like:

Roll a d6:

(1) This bridge is guarded by 3 aquatic trolls who demand a 10 gp toll to cross. The bridge is 40' long and 10' wide, and the trolls have total cover while underneath the bridge. Their treasure hoard of 500 gp and a Decanter of Endless Water is hidden under the bridge.

(2) A wicked innkeeper runs a gambling den. He offers cheap lodging, but will attempt to steal belongings. His sad-looking slave girl Dorsil attempts to warn the players, but is afraid to be seen speaking with them.

(3) Tax collectors! The king's representatives demand proof of taxes paid, and if proper documentation cannot be supplied, PCs must pay an arms tax of 10 gp per horse and 20 gp per weapon, receiving a tax receipt good for the rest of the year in exchange. The tax collector is not a threat and can be easily slain (6 HP, no attacks, AC 10), but his escort (four 3rd level fighters, AC 18 chain mail and shields, lances and longbows, mounted on warhorses) will do their best to protect him, and if he is slain will try to report his murder to the proper authorities.

(4) An Annis Hag haunts these woods. She has captured several children and holds them in a holding pen outside her cottage, which is made out of candy. The PCs can hear the children wailing.

(5) An orc horde sweeps down from the mountains, killing and looting everything in its path! PCs encounter refugees on the road, who beg them for protection and vengeance. The orc horde is half a day's travel away and consists of 50 orc raiders who prefer to operate at night. There are 300 human noncombatant refugees, and if the PCs do not intervene 100 will die and 100 will be taken as slaves.

(6) A travelling wizard offers to swap spells. He is 5th level and has 10 spells in his spellbook. Roll them randomly.

Once results have been used, cross them off and replace them with something else.

Probably none of these encounters is a deadly threat for a mid-level party but hopefully they would be fun to play through.

[HappyDaze]

Spitballing: You don't heal HP automatically on long-rest. You just get back half your HD as normal and have an opportunity to spend them.

This is what I've been using. It works fine. Our group does have a lot of healing magic though.

[Anymage]

If you scale back natural healing, healing abilities become cooler and more important, but that's a feature, not a bug.

More important? No argument there.

Cooler? I'll just note how in early 3e playtesting they had to keep upping the cleric's power level in order to make the class attractive to people in spite of its healbot expectations. And as the 3e/3.5 meta established itself, rocket tag and offloading healing expectations onto cheap magic items became the optimal playstyle. To the point where endstage 3.5 leaned into those item expectations. Even ignoring how 4 and then 5e baked the healing into characters themselves instead of patching them in with cheap magic items, how it played out in 3e should tell you just how cool everyone thought it was in practice.


In My experience it has the exact opposite effect. It puts a larger emphasis on burst Nova damage output.
The value of healing spells actually go down if you make it harder to heal naturally.

Relatedly: Some people like the swingy, rocket tag nature of 3.5 combat, where any threats you didn't neutralize on your first turn had a chance to one-turn neutralize you instead. 4e was built around the conceit of more gradual attrition instead of making any one die roll make-or-break. I'd be curious to see rulehacks for people who want to bring rocket tag back into 5e, but that should come with the understanding that attrition is the name of the default game.

[stoutstien]

More important? No argument there.

Cooler? I'll just note how in early 3e playtesting they had to keep upping the cleric's power level in order to make the class attractive to people in spite of its healbot expectations. And as the 3e/3.5 meta established itself, rocket tag and offloading healing expectations onto cheap magic items became the optimal playstyle. To the point where endstage 3.5 leaned into those item expectations. Even ignoring how 4 and then 5e baked the healing into characters themselves instead of patching them in with cheap magic items, how it played out in 3e should tell you just how cool everyone thought it was in practice.



Relatedly: Some people like the swingy, rocket tag nature of 3.5 combat, where any threats you didn't neutralize on your first turn had a chance to one-turn neutralize you instead. 4e was built around the conceit of more gradual attrition instead of making any one die roll make-or-break. I'd be curious to see rulehacks for people who want to bring rocket tag back into 5e, but that should come with the understanding that attrition is the name of the default game.

5e is definitely design around the idea of attrition but I think the OP is running into the same issue a lot of DMs do with difficulty enforcing it. Without using a constant doomsday clock it's hard to rationalize why a party wouldn't rest as much as possible. Heck, I've ran DND for years and I'm still fine-tuning my approach.

[Theodoxus]

I don't have a problem with the healing rate - if anything (having been an avid "Healer" in every MMO I played, ever) there's not enough - and I'm trying to come up with a way to allow MMO style healing... but that's a very different discussion.

But, back to D&D, when my table first converted to 5E and folks were shocked at the full recovery with a nights sleep, I offered up the idea that the land was infused with healing magic, such that if you just stopped and 'smelled the flowers' for an hour you could dig into your personal reserves and heal yourself using HD and that with a full nights rest, the magic just naturally infused you, restoring all your resources. That explanation has always satisfied my players (and one is constantly on the look out for dead magic zones to make sure he doesn't rest in one).

However, if you're still put off by the idea, I'd recommend maybe an alternative - singular resource regeneration. Players can choose one aspect of their character to recharge over a long rest: Hit points, spell slots (yes, even Pact slots), Ki, Hit Dice, other items (superior dice, Lay on Hands pool, etc). Doing this, though, I'd suggest allowing HD to be used to restore anything, probably on a 1:1 basis (a wizard could roll a d6, and restore spell slots (either 1 point per spell level, or use the "Spell Point Variant" costs, whichever you prefer.)

[Man_Over_Game]

Recently, I’ve seen a LOT of people are saying that they hate the 8-hour full heal. I agree, as a DM, I wish combat was a more serious investment, that couldn’t just be removed in 8 hours.
So, how was it done before? How would you attempt to fix it (or how have you fixed it, if you already have)?

My solution was to make your "Full Rest healing" be actually from your Hit Dice. That is, you spend up to all of your Hit Dice to recover HP until you run out of missing health or HP. Then you regain half of your maximum Hit Dice and do one more time.

It gives off the idea of lasting wounds and exhaustion, without players being crippled by little health regain. You effectively regain 50% of your max HP each day, with a "battery" equal to 100% of your HP. It's worked out rather well, since it means that my players might spend a day to lick their wounds, or spend healing magic before they rest (giving off the idea that healing magic works better on fresh wounds).

[Lupine]

My solution was to make your "Full Rest healing" be actually from your Hit Dice. That is, you spend up to all of your Hit Dice to recover HP until you run out of missing health or HP. Then you regain half of your maximum Hit Dice and do one more time.

So at your table, players effectively get to heal twice from one long rest, but get health from very limited hit-die?

[Man_Over_Game]

So at your table, players effectively get to heal twice from one long rest, but get health from very limited hit-die?

Kinda? You spend your current HD reserves to heal, regain 50% of your HD as normal, then pull from your new reserves if you need to.

Worst-case scenario, you heal for 50% of your max HP and don't have any reserves for later. Best-case scenario, you lost only half your health that day and had 100% of your Hit Dice, so you sleep and start the next day with 100% HP and HD.

[Lupine]

Kinda? You spend your current HD reserves to heal, regain 50% of your HD as normal, then pull from your new reserves if you need to.

Worst-case scenario, you heal for 50% of your max HP and don't have any reserves for later. Best-case scenario, you lost only half your health that day and had 100% of your Hit Dice, so you sleep and start the next day with 100% HP and HD.

Neat. I like it.

[Tanarii]

Kinda? You spend your current HD reserves to heal, regain 50% of your HD as normal, then pull from your new reserves if you need to.

Worst-case scenario, you heal for 50% of your max HP and don't have any reserves for later. Best-case scenario, you lost only half your health that day and had 100% of your Hit Dice, so you sleep and start the next day with 100% HP and HD.
So assuming average rolls on the HD, worst case it takes 4 days to go from 0 HD and 0 Hp to fully recharged?

If you combined that with Gritty Realism rest variant that'd be 4 weeks. At that point you're definitely approaching some realism in the 0 HP was a near death experience department.

[Lupine]

Once again, MOG is too good at D&D.

[mictrepanier]

Since there is different uses of hit point dice depending of the DM, do you think it is possible to create a feature affecting HP dice use (regeneration, healing, time-warping fast-forward 1 hour, etc.) or is it unbalancing ?

[Man_Over_Game]

Since there is different uses of hit point dice depending of the DM, do you think it is possible to create a feature affecting HP dice use (regeneration, healing, time-warping fast-forward 1 hour, etc.) or is it unbalancing ?

I think the devs were of the opinion that using Hit Dice as a resource lead to unaccountable bonuses for healing powers, effectively allowing you to sell your Cleric's healing for your Fighter's damage (or whatever you're getting from the HD). This may lead into Cleric players feeling obligated to be a heal-bot, which is just a terrible way of experiencing DnD and nobody should be shoehorned into it for "efficiency".

I do want to mention there's a feat that does kinda give HD a combat use for Dwarves only, in Xanathar's, which allows you to spend a HD to heal when you Dodge (good for Monks). If I had to wager a guess, they're fine with HD restoring HP, as long as it can't do anything else.

However, I think allowing you to spend HD encourages teamwork. Since you have a healer, you can afford to spend a HD for a Battlemaster Maneuver (or whatever), in turn helping the Cleric through your contribution. Being more reliant on your teammates generally isn't a bad thing in a multiplayer game.

The trick would be to implement it in a way that spending HD to heal still remains a competitive option (and it barely is now). If you don't, you're introducing power creep to the game, making the players stronger without properly dialing them back (kinda like giving everyone a magic item).

[mictrepanier]

Consider combat, so remove any natural healing.

How would you compare one point restored from HPD vs one point restored from thin air (magic) ?
In combat, both will be a limited resource, for sure (limited uses).
One will deplete target's HPD, the other will not

My opinion:
Using a point based method, I assigned a 1/2 feat value to a d10 HP dice. Considering a +3 CON bonus, with song of rest, feats, etc, let's say a Hit dice roll total is 10 on average for a fighter. 1 Hit point restored that way costs (1/20 feat) more than a magical restore.

There is already Dwarfen Fortitude, a 1/2 feat : spend a HD with a dodge action