Hey folks, I know a lot of you longer haul Greyhawkers find 5e's healing and rests too much like bubble wrap for the PCs. So do I. Anyway, I thought I'd share my house rules in case anyone wanted to steal/adapt them.
Rests
A rest is when you have a complete sleep/trance once every 24 hours, which usually consists of an 8 hour sleep for most characters. If a character had a short or long rest in the previous 24 hours and in the intervening time did nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds, it's considered a long rest and rules apply normally, except for Hit Dice of healing. Otherwise, it's considered a short rest.
Classes all get something back after a short rest if they have an hour to spend in study, meditation, etc. after their short rest and they are either at full health or benefitted from any healing in the last 24 hours. Artificers can do 1 Infusion, Bards below 5th level get 1 Inspiration Die back, Barbarians get 1 Rage back, Paladins get character level Lay On Hands points and 1 Divine Sense use back, and Sorcerers get one fourth of their maximum Sorcery Points (rounded up) back.
All casters get some Spell Slot Recovery during this hour and casters with prepared spells can change one prepared spell. For other casters, determine your Casting Level by adding together all your levels in the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard classes, half your levels (rounded down) in the paladin and ranger classes, and one third your levels in classes like Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight. Divide your Casting Level by 2 and (round up). You can recover spell slots that have a combined level less than or equal to this number. None of the recovered spell slots can be 6th level or higher.
As you’ll notice, this is basically the same as the Wizard’s Arcane Recovery or the Circle of Land Druid’s Natural Recovery. Classes that already have this ability RAW may spend an hour to do this one extra time once per long rest. This represents their facility with spell slot recovery. Warlocks use existing short rest rules, but like Wizards and Land Druids, they can get one additional slot recovery per long rest by spending 1 hour doing their thing.
Healing (Natural)
Each morning, a character makes a Constitution check modified by healing care (see below for modifiers). If the last night was unrestful, they roll with disadvantage, whereas if last night was a long rest, they roll with advantage. Short rests are normal rolls. On a DC 10 they heal character level HP plus an additional character level HP for each 10 points above DC 10. On a result below 0 and if the character is below half of their maximum HP, they lose character level HP plus an additional character level HP for each 10 points below -10.
Anyone proficient in Medicine can add their Medicine (Wisdom + Prof) total to the check if they tend the character’s wounds, including the character, and if the character can hear a Bard’s Song of Rest, the bard’s Perform (Charisma + Prof) total can be added to the check (this replaces the RAW Hit Points from Song of Rest). These are not separate rolls, but simply add to the total for the roll. The above proficiency bonuses are reduced to half if the healer is suffering from exhaustion or another effect that gives ability checks disadvantage. A healer may use Inspiration to double the bonus they give for a day. The effects of up to 3 proficient bards/healers stack. A healer or a bard may give their bonus to a number of creatures equal to their skill total during a short rest, or three times as many during a long rest.
Each Lingering Injury obtained since you were last at maximum Hit Points, subtracts 5. Spells and abilities that affect ability checks, but do not specifically refer to Healing checks have no effect. Inspiration can be used for this roll. If a low check causes your Hit Points to reduce to zero or below, you die.
Exhaustion
Because of the changes to rests, exhaustion is recovered on a Short Rest rather than a Long Rest.
Last edited by bubbacully on Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:18 pm; edited 2 times in total
On a related note, I found Revivify objectionable and took the opportunity to replace it with a bit of an homage to the Princess Bride. Steal it if you like.
Recall the Departing Soul 3rd level necromancy (ritual) Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Components: V S M (a non-magical item of emotional significance to the target which is consumed)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger
Restores life to a creature who has died in the last hour, relative to the when the spell is completed, but only under certain conditions. Gentle Repose has no effect on this time limit. The creature must be largely whole of body (it's death must have been mostly caused by cold, necrotic or psychic damage, or been mostly due to exposure, asphyxiation, drowning, or exhaustion). This can also work on a creature that has succumb to poison, disease, or a curse, but only if those are cured or removed first.
If the creature had recently sustained any other kinds of damage or had any existing wounds of another damage type, the creature will need to make a check to be restored to life. The check will be based on the target’s Charisma plus the caster’s Proficiency Bonus. The DC shall be 5 if the target had any other wounds but they were minor, 10 if the other wounds total at least 1/4 of its HP, 15 if the other wounds total less than 1/2 of its HP, or 20 otherwise. Any healing spells applied to the creature’s body after its death have no effect. The spell and the save can only be attempted once per target creature, and the save may not receive any buffs other than those from attuned magic items on the creature itself or special abilities of the creature itself. Inspiration may not be used for this roll. If the creature has an extreme motivation to continue, i.e. true love, unfinished geas, all-consuming desire for revenge, etc., the roll may be made with advantage. A creature’s soul that does not wish to return may elect to fail this save voluntarily.
If the save is successful, the creature returns to life. Coming back from near death is an ordeal. The creature returns with 1 Hit Point and is paralyzed until it is able to take a long rest (spells short of Greater Restoration may not remove this paralysis). Hit Points may be restored normally. Once the paralysis is removed, the target takes a −4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Every time the target finishes a long rest, the target may make a Constitution check (not save) vs DC 10. On success, the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears.
We've slightly house ruled long rests in our campaign:
You can only recover any remaining HD on a long rest (those not already spent on short rests). After the long rest, HD reset for the next 'day'.
In order to automatically fully recover full HP, you need two consecutive long rests in a 'safe place', like an inn, a friendly keep, or other fortified encampment, etc- somewhere where someone 'else' is providing overwatch and players can truly let down their guard. (Safe from attack)
Yes, I remember also trying to climb in the new part of the Dungeons and Dragons in the settings to remember the good old school times. In principle, it turned out. Not as expected, of course. But also not bad. I was able to remember a little bit the good old parts of dungeons and dragons. And this is the main thing. I don't remember how I changed it, but at first I twisted the graphics to a minimum. At first, my eyes hurt, but then I got used to it. then I downloaded mods for changing magic. But the changes are not radical, so as not to kill the balance of the game. I read about these spells here: https://dndguide.net/[url][/url]
In 1e healing was 1 hp a day for 30 days. For a Long Rest/day I like 1hp per level of character adding their Con modifier. Faster but not magically 100 percent.
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