Exertion - another way to use hit dice

[DeTess]

So, I've been kicking around an idea for a house rule to provide another way to use hit dice, and would appreciate some feedback.

exertion
Whenever you roll a d20, you can declare you are exerting yourself before making the roll. Roll one of your hitdice, half the number rolled (rounding up), and add the results as a modifier to your d20 roll. The hit dice is spend, just as if you had used it to recover health during a short rest.


goal: provide another way to use your hit dice that is simple and useful.

new feats:
pushing your limits
You can declare you exert yourself after rolling a d20, but before hearing the result.
If you exert yourself before rolling the d20, also add your constitution modifier to the d20 roll.

goal: make players who make a lot of use of the exertion mechanic a grater effect and an additional way to use it.

rapid recovery
increase your constitution modifier by 1.
During a short rest, you can recover hit dice equal to your proficiency modifier. You can only do this once per long rest.

goal: Give players in high intensity campaigns where you often only have one long rest between longer series of encounters a way to regain hit dice quicker to sue for exertion or recovering health.

[MrStabby]

I tried something similar. It was a problem.

So there tends to be some magical healing capacity in most parties. It sees some use, but not a huge amount and mostly to get up downed PCs. The less glamorous role of keeping the front-liners topped up with HP falls to each character's hit dice.

By encouraging a use of HD outside of damage recovery, you put more stress on the cleric/paladind/druid or whatever and divert more spell slots from their fun and exciting spells and into healing.

[Vogie]

I mean, why do you need another way to use hit dice? The hidden design element of 5e is that hit dice are the real measure of vitality - they're the only universal health resource that isn't fully restored. If you're properly challenging your party, they should be short resting a number of times to deplete those hit dice. Healing is so weak that (outside of broken shenanigans like RAW Healing Spirit), it's only reliably used to get someone off the floor and away from death's door.

If you don't like increasing the number of short rests for monk/warlock/druid reasons, begin replacing "Potions of Healing" with "Potions of Healing Surge". Instead of a generic amount, Potions of Healing Surge allow them to heal 2HD+Con as an action (or bonus action, if you use that houserule). I like using it because it adds the element of "should the wizard use this or should we give it to the barbarian? 2d12 is bigger than 2d6, after all".

If they don't need it, and they're swimming in hit dice... just hit them harder. Throw rocks at the ranged martials, have things like Guardian Portraits around to mess with the spellcasters, all of the normal left hooks you would throw at a party, just do it more.

[Yakk]

Yep, we want (if anything) more use of HD to heal to prevent "healbot" requirement from coming back.

A tweak I'm going to try is to make all magical healing require spending a HD as well, and that HD adding to the amount healed (with rare exceptions: mass heal, regeneration, heal, power word: heal).

This makes spending HD more of a thing, takes some of the load off magical healing (in terms of HP). Small magical heals are inefficient in terms of HD:HP healed, making an interesting tradeoff. And when you run out of HD, magical healing can't help you.

[MrStabby]

Yep, we want (if anything) more use of HD to heal to prevent "healbot" requirement from coming back.

A tweak I'm going to try is to make all magical healing require spending a HD as well, and that HD adding to the amount healed (with rare exceptions: mass heal, regeneration, heal, power word: heal).

This makes spending HD more of a thing, takes some of the load off magical healing (in terms of HP). Small magical heals are inefficient in terms of HD:HP healed, making an interesting tradeoff. And when you run out of HD, magical healing can't help you.

Interestingly I am currently trying something similar - though the HD is one per die of the spell and it isnt mandatory to spend a HD. So lay on hands is unchanged but others get a boost. Mixed results so far - the healing word/cure woulds disparity is bigger than ever but tankier classes feel tankier now.

[Yakk]

Interestingly I am currently trying something similar - though the HD is one per die of the spell and it isnt mandatory to spend a HD. So lay on hands is unchanged but others get a boost. Mixed results so far - the healing word/cure woulds disparity is bigger than ever but tankier classes feel tankier now.

I also have Cure Wounds use the target's expended HD instead of d8s.

The single HD thing being mandatory is aimed at making heal-spamming less useful - eventually you run out of vitality in the target to harness. Allowing more HD is somewhat tempting, but I'm afraid it will turn it into a trap.

So Healing Word(1) on a Fighter is 1d4+5+1d10 (13). Healing Word(3) is 3d4+5+1d10 (18)

Cure Wounds(1) on a Fighter is 2d10+5 (16). Cure Wounds(3) is 4d10+5 (27). Cure Wounds scales better on tanky PCs.

This also applies to healing potions, so a basic healing potion is 2d4+2+1d10 (12.5) on a Fighter. Using better healing potions is more HD-efficient.

[MrStabby]

I also have Cure Wounds use the target's expended HD instead of d8s.

The single HD thing being mandatory is aimed at making heal-spamming less useful - eventually you run out of vitality in the target to harness. Allowing more HD is somewhat tempting, but I'm afraid it will turn it into a trap.

So Healing Word(1) on a Fighter is 1d4+5+1d10 (13). Healing Word(3) is 3d4+5+1d10 (18)

Cure Wounds(1) on a Fighter is 2d10+5 (16). Cure Wounds(3) is 4d10+5 (27). Cure Wounds scales better on tanky PCs.

This also applies to healing potions, so a basic healing potion is 2d4+2+1d10 (12.5) on a Fighter. Using better healing potions is more HD-efficient.

Cure wounds using the target HD is a really nice touch. I might steal that. The bonus action vs action cost has been too big to ever really justify cure wounds. Getting more impact from the action and having a spell that is great for martial characters is a cool touch. I find barbarians underwhelming anyway so not averse to giving them a boost under the table.

I am also plotting a house rule for penalties for being below half HP so there is more opportunity for healing to have a perceptible effect, but that's possibly a different topic.

[Kane0]

I specifically let Cure Wounds allow the recipient to roll hit die in addition to the healing it does, so the target can decide if they need to squeeze extra healing out of it and the spell's raw healing output can better compare against the convenience of healing word.

Anyways, if you're going to allow alternative uses for Hie Die i would recommend they remain within the realm of keeping the character alive, like by letting them be burned on saving throws rather than attack rolls or by getting some temp HP. That way they still fulfil their original purpose, in a more roundabout way.

[Yakk]

Cure wounds using the target HD is a really nice touch. I might steal that. The bonus action vs action cost has been too big to ever really justify cure wounds. Getting more impact from the action and having a spell that is great for martial characters is a cool touch. I find barbarians underwhelming anyway so not averse to giving them a boost under the table.

*nod* - and by making it equal to the HD you expend, that makes it work smoothly with multiclassing.

OTOH, I also boost second wind to (half fighter level d10, min 1d10)+fighter level, which lets fighters keep up with barbarian rage based durability, and give all rangers a Tasha's beast companion, and tweak later-level Lay on Hands (it heals you and the target, and eventually also grants 1 turn of temporary HP). All as part of the idea that the "tank" classes should bring durability to the table as part of their package, and not as a channel heal-bot heals.

Also, by making healing cost a HD each time, it also means infinite healing potions isn't infinite endurance.

I am also plotting a house rule for penalties for being below half HP so there is more opportunity for healing to have a perceptible effect, but that's possibly a different topic.

I actively dislike death spiral mechanics: I prefer last stand mechanics to it, just for at-table fun differences.

Anyways, if you're going to allow alternative uses for Hie Die i would recommend they remain within the realm of keeping the character alive, like by letting them be burned on saving throws rather than attack rolls or by getting some temp HP. That way they still fulfil their original purpose, in a more roundabout way.

Yes, like expend a HD to add to a saving throw roll.

[MrStabby]

*nod* - and by making it equal to the HD you expend, that makes it work smoothly with multiclassing.

OTOH, I also boost second wind to (half fighter level d10, min 1d10)+fighter level, which lets fighters keep up with barbarian rage based durability, and give all rangers a Tasha's beast companion, and tweak later-level Lay on Hands (it heals you and the target, and eventually also grants 1 turn of temporary HP). All as part of the idea that the "tank" classes should bring durability to the table as part of their package, and not as a channel heal-bot heals.

Also, by making healing cost a HD each time, it also means infinite healing potions isn't infinite endurance.

I actively dislike death spiral mechanics: I prefer last stand mechanics to it, just for at-table fun differences.

Yes, like expend a HD to add to a saving throw roll.

I think death-spiral machanic can b good or bad depending on the game. I think you need the right one to make it work.

I have felt that a lot of combats have kind of got a bit-samey in 5th edition and feel a need to shake it up.

1) Guess if the fight is easy, medium or hard.
2) Casters cast the lowes level spell needed to reduce remaining encounter difficuty to easy
3) Martials mop up, remaining casters reserve resources.

My thinkng regarding the deathspiral is to add a bit of tension back in. You can be a slightly higher level and still be one critical hit away from a fight getting realy tough realy quickly. There is a tension about conservation of resouces as there is more reidual risk on the remaining rounds.

It makes target selection harder; usualy you just want to focus down an enemy and usually that is the right thing to do. If damaging, but not killing enemies also degrades their damage output a bit then you can have more complex decisons about which enemies to kill.

It makes healing more fun. Going from 0 hp to more than 0 hp is really the only point at which healing feels like it makes a difference. Otherwise a number changes but it doesn't feel like an effect. This means for a healer to fee they are having an impact they need a) the fight to be deadly enough that PCs are going down and b) the fight to be long enough that it isn't over by this time. With more potential characters to heal there are more opportunity to use these spells to make a difference.

Will it work? I don't know;I am also more than willing to role it back if it doesn't.