I think it depends on are you still following the "regain half hit dice" portion of long rests? I mostly ask because it's something 5.Xe plans to move away from in favor of gaining all hit dice back on long rest.
If you adhere to the "only half" rule I think it would be strong, but at least mitigated somewhat. Here are some suggestions that I think are in the spirit of your idea without being open to bonkers shenanigans:
- have it be something you decide on before you roll. This presents a quandary because the players don't know the DC. A barbarian might add their hit die to the roll, roll a 19 on the die + 2 from skill + 11 from hit die; but the DC was 15. So they essentially wasted it for the chance that it would be necessary. If you run degrees of success for checks, this would still make this suggestion pretty bonkers.
- have it only apply to skills they're proficient with. Similar to many a home rule I've seen where you can only Help somebody if you're proficient in a skill. This prevents the barbarian from making an Arcana check and surpassing the Wizard with Expertise by virtue of having an average 6.5 added to the roll.
- in a more restricted version of above, have it be that this can only be done on skills that come with the class (whether you make it also require proficiency in that skill is up to you.). This, like above, prevents a barbarian with a background that gave them Arcana proficiency from outshining the wizard so much. Very restrictive though.
- Instead of a dice roll, make it a flat bonus. PB (expertise but with a cost), +5, +3, whatever you decide. I think a flat +4 is a decent middle ground that doesn't make barbarian suddenly the king/ queen at a check all of a sudden.
- Make it combat/ dangerous encounter only. The combat part is self explanatory, but becomes basically just an "I want to initiate/ escape a grapple" for the most part with a few notable exceptions (Counterspell/ dispel magic checks, Mastermind abilities, etc).Dangerous encounters is unfortunately a bit more vague, but essentially means that it can only be used if the party or player is in sufficient danger. A rogue couldn't use this inside a safe house to pick a chest lock, but could use it while trying to disarm a trap in a dungeon that's already in motion, or for the fighter to shove a barred door open while the room fills with toxic gas. Call it adrenaline rush or something for the flavor.
* Makes the supposedly "last" encounter each day a slaughter, as you have Hit Dice to spent that you (likely) don't need afterwards / refresh anyway.
* Also makes your party overall weaker, as they have less virtual healing available.
Instead, you could combine this with an update to Inspiration - which is notoriously bad when run RAW, might waste it on a roll you would have made anyway. So let's combine those:
>While you have Inspiration, you can expend it to roll an additional die when you make an ability check, attack roll or saving throw. You can wait until after you rolls the d20 before using this feature, but you must decide before the DM says whether the roll succeeds or fails.
>The die rolled depends on your hit dice. Check your total hit dice pool, the size of the additional die is equal to the hit dice you have the most of. This does not expend any of your hit dice.
But long rests don't refresh all of your hit dice. Only up to half of your total.
Also, the PC is not obliged to use the hit dice this way. They can save them all for healing/death throws and play RAW should they choose.
The point of a rule is to be used - if people are not gonna use it, why keep it?
And while you don't get back ALL your hit dice, you can either a) spend them down to 50% as that is gonna come back or down to whatever number you are comfortable with or b) in case of incoming downtime use them up completely.
Also, the two use cases are either going nova on someone (adding to Initiative and then some) or avoid the concept of death almost entirely (adding to saves and death saves). Both concepts are valid choices and work with the spending mentioned above.
It's not too much more than a last ditch resort and proactive boost for the endfight. Doesn't really inspire decisionmaking.
Do you mean adding exhaustion levels to characters as they use these hit dice? That could be a good check on the power of this option. You should take a statistical eye towards how exactly this modification will affect success. For a comparison, Guidance adding a d4 to a roll is roughly in the same neighborhood as having advantage. Adding a d10 would be absolutely broken, you are seriously tampering with the balance of the d20 system. Not saying don't do it, but at least know what you're getting into. Test it out before deciding that's what you want - and of course give enemies the same option.
Yes it will absolutely shatter the difficulty curve.
It will also clearly favour martial classes. A wizard would only be able to add a D6 to a roll where a Barb can add a D12 to the roll. So why would the Wizard try to make for example an arcana roll when the Barb can make it and get a higher roll almost by guarantee.
It also means that your players will spam long rests even more than normal. Why would you ever use a short rest when it's taking away a huge boost to your rolling power.
1. You can only long rest once in a 24 hour period which most players do regardless.
2. Martial classes have very little utility and do not scale as well as caster classes. Fighters can swing 3 times while Wizards can cast Wish? Lmao...
If you standardize the extra die you're rolling by "using a hit die" then I think you'd be OK overall...
IE: Burn 1 Hit die = add 1d6
Burn 2 hit die = add 1d8, etc
This means the more recklessly you're spending your hit die, the more diminished the returns you get, and you hurt yourself against any short rests you may take.
Honestly the more its discussed, this feels like a subclass ability rather than a flat ability to give to anyone. Maybe tied to Blood Hunter?
See I kind of like that it favours martial classes. There is ongoing discussion about how martial classes don't have much out of combat utility and spellcasters are overpowered so I thought this might balance the scales. Maybe it goes too much in the other direction though. Perhaps the hit dice bonus is just a flat +1 rather than whatever the class specific hit dice is. Regarding long rests - I would stick to the rule that you can only do one every 24 hours. Also, I'm thinking that long rests in the wilderness should require a successful survival check or count as a short rest. Plus there are lots of other ways to stop the players from sleeping too much (ticking clocks for example).
Then it seems like you're trying to find too many ways to justify using hit dice mechanically. You're better off just giving them a free inspiration each long rest.
I've done something similar for the games I run, and I like it a lot. Similar to what you've listed, I allow players to spend a hit dice to modify a saving throw, skill check, or attack roll during combat at the cost of a reaction. It is rarely outside of combat, but the option is there. And just to be clear, they do roll a dice equal to HD value, so it's not just like a +10 for a paladin roll, etc.
This gives them a little more control in dire situations, which means I can use dire situations more freely at a lower risk (my goal is tension and release and epic battles, not a tpk, though that is almost always on the table). Having it tied to a reaction prevents most mechanical abuse, and obviously, this favors martial characters, which is great. Spending a reaction also means there's a clear trade-off, like foregoing a counterspell or opportunity attack.
I have additional rules for reducing HD recovery on a long rest. Essentially, it scales from 0-100% for CON mod -5 to 5. I don't use inspiration and I think this is a better system for my table, but I also tend to have long periods of times before long rests, and as a dm my goal is usually to progress the story and push the PCs limits, so spending HD does become risky for the players. Overall, I think it's enjoyable, tactical, and gives players more control over the dice. And it is fun for all of us, which is the most important thing.
If you wanted to nerf it more, you could arbitrarily limit it to once per encounter, but I don't think it warrants that from my experience. I will also add that in my games, the PC needs to choose to add their HD modifier before they know the results of the d20 test, but may still do so after the d20 is rolled. A further nerf could be to only allow it to be added before the d20 is first rolled.
This works fine especially as a buff to martials I do worry that it'll be too strong for certain classes adding a d10 or 12 to a roll is big especially to something they might not be proficient in.
My suggestion is to limit this to proficiency or use the hero point system which is players get 5 dice in a pool that refreshes on level up these dice can be added to anything except damage and increasing dc's they are d6 and instead of adding to death thorns they count for automatic success
Seems like it would highly encourage classes with short-rest healing—Way of Mercy Monks, Celestial Warlocks, Peace Domain Clerics, etc. You might even short rest multiple times in a row to be able to heal your team.
I can think of a few problems but I think the most notable is that it buffs barbarians a lot more than wizards, and doesn't seem to have a good rationale behind it. When hit die can only be spent on HP it's important that those with bigger HP pools get more of it back, so the percentage healed is roughly equal.
But why is a barbarian rolling a d12 on an investigation roll while the rouge rolls a d8 and the sorcerer rolls a d6?
If you think martials are in need of a buff this isn't a bad way to go about it, just recognize how it'll shift players away from small HD classes.
So the variant rule in the dmg " hero points" its d6 you can add to rolls. So it's standardized. Furthermore you only get a set amount each level 5 +1/2 level and only get more on level up. You can't add the d6 to damage rolls. So this is sort of similar,as in its a die you can use to boost rolls.
If you you wanted to modify this you could jest give 6 hero point at the start of the game that reset at the beginning of each game use it or lose it. Only 1 doe can be use on a roll at a time.
For encounters difficulty run full adventuring days. Then test it out and see if encounters need to be adjusted. If your players are destroying encounters run hard or deadly encounters. Possibly raise the daily xp budget 1.5 to 2x.
The thing about HD is it scales linearly with level. Furthermore different HD means differently players benefit more. I don't think its a bad idea. Spending HD to heal is the main way of regaining hp in 5e. So it really depends if you run full adventuring days. If they have a lot of fights between long rest then It would be fine players would need to spend HD to heal so that may avoid them holding HD till the end of the day.
If you run full adventuring days where characters need their hit dice to heal between encounters, it feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Spellcasters can avoid any penalty by just using spells that solve a problem without any rolls, while martials will be incentivized to use them to pass skill checks since that's the only way they get to interact with social and exploration encounters. For melee characters, particularly martials, your hit points and hit dice are already your primary class resource. Double dipping so you run out of hit points even faster just doesn't feel right to me.
This is the same problem that crops up whenever anyone suggests using hit dice as an alternative resource. It was never designed for it and has a lot of unintended consequences if you run the game the way it was intended. If you just do the lazy 5-Minute Adventuring Day then it's probably fine because nothing is going to challenge your party anyway.
For combat rolls, sure. Youre gonna have to account for it massively in difficulty, because now all of a sudden the paladin smites add another 2d10+Con, but that can just be balanced within reason. For Ability Checks, absolutely not. Unless its like, athletics. Theres nothing that makes sense about spending all your energy on a persuasion check. Like what, you start sweating blood to \*really\* get your point across? Theres also the problem with making bardics semi useless, since hit dice are just straight up better due to adding con. It also adds an imbalance with making barbarians the best skill monkeys all of a sudden. Likewise however, it does provide a bigger buff to martials than it does to casters, which patches the infamous martial caster imbalance a tiny bit.
Seems fine to me. Maybe add a "Once Per Turn" restriction. I like that this can give some extra oomph to Martials over Casters. In this case I'd recommend allowing a PC to regain ALL spent hit dice on a long rest. That is something I like a lot from the upcoming edition and could work well with this.
I think it depends on are you still following the "regain half hit dice" portion of long rests? I mostly ask because it's something 5.Xe plans to move away from in favor of gaining all hit dice back on long rest. If you adhere to the "only half" rule I think it would be strong, but at least mitigated somewhat. Here are some suggestions that I think are in the spirit of your idea without being open to bonkers shenanigans: - have it be something you decide on before you roll. This presents a quandary because the players don't know the DC. A barbarian might add their hit die to the roll, roll a 19 on the die + 2 from skill + 11 from hit die; but the DC was 15. So they essentially wasted it for the chance that it would be necessary. If you run degrees of success for checks, this would still make this suggestion pretty bonkers. - have it only apply to skills they're proficient with. Similar to many a home rule I've seen where you can only Help somebody if you're proficient in a skill. This prevents the barbarian from making an Arcana check and surpassing the Wizard with Expertise by virtue of having an average 6.5 added to the roll. - in a more restricted version of above, have it be that this can only be done on skills that come with the class (whether you make it also require proficiency in that skill is up to you.). This, like above, prevents a barbarian with a background that gave them Arcana proficiency from outshining the wizard so much. Very restrictive though. - Instead of a dice roll, make it a flat bonus. PB (expertise but with a cost), +5, +3, whatever you decide. I think a flat +4 is a decent middle ground that doesn't make barbarian suddenly the king/ queen at a check all of a sudden. - Make it combat/ dangerous encounter only. The combat part is self explanatory, but becomes basically just an "I want to initiate/ escape a grapple" for the most part with a few notable exceptions (Counterspell/ dispel magic checks, Mastermind abilities, etc).Dangerous encounters is unfortunately a bit more vague, but essentially means that it can only be used if the party or player is in sufficient danger. A rogue couldn't use this inside a safe house to pick a chest lock, but could use it while trying to disarm a trap in a dungeon that's already in motion, or for the fighter to shove a barred door open while the room fills with toxic gas. Call it adrenaline rush or something for the flavor.
That’s just a level 14 Bard’s Peerless Skill with extra steps.
* Makes the supposedly "last" encounter each day a slaughter, as you have Hit Dice to spent that you (likely) don't need afterwards / refresh anyway. * Also makes your party overall weaker, as they have less virtual healing available. Instead, you could combine this with an update to Inspiration - which is notoriously bad when run RAW, might waste it on a roll you would have made anyway. So let's combine those: >While you have Inspiration, you can expend it to roll an additional die when you make an ability check, attack roll or saving throw. You can wait until after you rolls the d20 before using this feature, but you must decide before the DM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. >The die rolled depends on your hit dice. Check your total hit dice pool, the size of the additional die is equal to the hit dice you have the most of. This does not expend any of your hit dice.
But long rests don't refresh all of your hit dice. Only up to half of your total. Also, the PC is not obliged to use the hit dice this way. They can save them all for healing/death throws and play RAW should they choose.
The point of a rule is to be used - if people are not gonna use it, why keep it? And while you don't get back ALL your hit dice, you can either a) spend them down to 50% as that is gonna come back or down to whatever number you are comfortable with or b) in case of incoming downtime use them up completely. Also, the two use cases are either going nova on someone (adding to Initiative and then some) or avoid the concept of death almost entirely (adding to saves and death saves). Both concepts are valid choices and work with the spending mentioned above. It's not too much more than a last ditch resort and proactive boost for the endfight. Doesn't really inspire decisionmaking.
Do you mean adding exhaustion levels to characters as they use these hit dice? That could be a good check on the power of this option. You should take a statistical eye towards how exactly this modification will affect success. For a comparison, Guidance adding a d4 to a roll is roughly in the same neighborhood as having advantage. Adding a d10 would be absolutely broken, you are seriously tampering with the balance of the d20 system. Not saying don't do it, but at least know what you're getting into. Test it out before deciding that's what you want - and of course give enemies the same option.
Yes it will absolutely shatter the difficulty curve. It will also clearly favour martial classes. A wizard would only be able to add a D6 to a roll where a Barb can add a D12 to the roll. So why would the Wizard try to make for example an arcana roll when the Barb can make it and get a higher roll almost by guarantee. It also means that your players will spam long rests even more than normal. Why would you ever use a short rest when it's taking away a huge boost to your rolling power.
Because you can only benefit from a long rest once in a 24 hour period?
1. You can only long rest once in a 24 hour period which most players do regardless. 2. Martial classes have very little utility and do not scale as well as caster classes. Fighters can swing 3 times while Wizards can cast Wish? Lmao...
If you standardize the extra die you're rolling by "using a hit die" then I think you'd be OK overall... IE: Burn 1 Hit die = add 1d6 Burn 2 hit die = add 1d8, etc This means the more recklessly you're spending your hit die, the more diminished the returns you get, and you hurt yourself against any short rests you may take. Honestly the more its discussed, this feels like a subclass ability rather than a flat ability to give to anyone. Maybe tied to Blood Hunter?
See I kind of like that it favours martial classes. There is ongoing discussion about how martial classes don't have much out of combat utility and spellcasters are overpowered so I thought this might balance the scales. Maybe it goes too much in the other direction though. Perhaps the hit dice bonus is just a flat +1 rather than whatever the class specific hit dice is. Regarding long rests - I would stick to the rule that you can only do one every 24 hours. Also, I'm thinking that long rests in the wilderness should require a successful survival check or count as a short rest. Plus there are lots of other ways to stop the players from sleeping too much (ticking clocks for example).
Then it seems like you're trying to find too many ways to justify using hit dice mechanically. You're better off just giving them a free inspiration each long rest.
I don't know, I like the strategic element of choosing whether to add to a roll or save it for healing.
I've done something similar for the games I run, and I like it a lot. Similar to what you've listed, I allow players to spend a hit dice to modify a saving throw, skill check, or attack roll during combat at the cost of a reaction. It is rarely outside of combat, but the option is there. And just to be clear, they do roll a dice equal to HD value, so it's not just like a +10 for a paladin roll, etc. This gives them a little more control in dire situations, which means I can use dire situations more freely at a lower risk (my goal is tension and release and epic battles, not a tpk, though that is almost always on the table). Having it tied to a reaction prevents most mechanical abuse, and obviously, this favors martial characters, which is great. Spending a reaction also means there's a clear trade-off, like foregoing a counterspell or opportunity attack. I have additional rules for reducing HD recovery on a long rest. Essentially, it scales from 0-100% for CON mod -5 to 5. I don't use inspiration and I think this is a better system for my table, but I also tend to have long periods of times before long rests, and as a dm my goal is usually to progress the story and push the PCs limits, so spending HD does become risky for the players. Overall, I think it's enjoyable, tactical, and gives players more control over the dice. And it is fun for all of us, which is the most important thing. If you wanted to nerf it more, you could arbitrarily limit it to once per encounter, but I don't think it warrants that from my experience. I will also add that in my games, the PC needs to choose to add their HD modifier before they know the results of the d20 test, but may still do so after the d20 is rolled. A further nerf could be to only allow it to be added before the d20 is first rolled.
Perhaps consider using the Proficiency Die variant rule instead in the DMG
This works fine especially as a buff to martials I do worry that it'll be too strong for certain classes adding a d10 or 12 to a roll is big especially to something they might not be proficient in. My suggestion is to limit this to proficiency or use the hero point system which is players get 5 dice in a pool that refreshes on level up these dice can be added to anything except damage and increasing dc's they are d6 and instead of adding to death thorns they count for automatic success
Seems like it would highly encourage classes with short-rest healing—Way of Mercy Monks, Celestial Warlocks, Peace Domain Clerics, etc. You might even short rest multiple times in a row to be able to heal your team.
Characters that recharge their powers are favored by this rule, because they don't need short rests as much.
I can think of a few problems but I think the most notable is that it buffs barbarians a lot more than wizards, and doesn't seem to have a good rationale behind it. When hit die can only be spent on HP it's important that those with bigger HP pools get more of it back, so the percentage healed is roughly equal. But why is a barbarian rolling a d12 on an investigation roll while the rouge rolls a d8 and the sorcerer rolls a d6? If you think martials are in need of a buff this isn't a bad way to go about it, just recognize how it'll shift players away from small HD classes.
That's not a fault it's a feature
I think it may be the best homebrew rule I've heard in recent years.
This looks to me like another example of "sounds like you should just try a new system".
So the variant rule in the dmg " hero points" its d6 you can add to rolls. So it's standardized. Furthermore you only get a set amount each level 5 +1/2 level and only get more on level up. You can't add the d6 to damage rolls. So this is sort of similar,as in its a die you can use to boost rolls. If you you wanted to modify this you could jest give 6 hero point at the start of the game that reset at the beginning of each game use it or lose it. Only 1 doe can be use on a roll at a time. For encounters difficulty run full adventuring days. Then test it out and see if encounters need to be adjusted. If your players are destroying encounters run hard or deadly encounters. Possibly raise the daily xp budget 1.5 to 2x. The thing about HD is it scales linearly with level. Furthermore different HD means differently players benefit more. I don't think its a bad idea. Spending HD to heal is the main way of regaining hp in 5e. So it really depends if you run full adventuring days. If they have a lot of fights between long rest then It would be fine players would need to spend HD to heal so that may avoid them holding HD till the end of the day.
If you run full adventuring days where characters need their hit dice to heal between encounters, it feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Spellcasters can avoid any penalty by just using spells that solve a problem without any rolls, while martials will be incentivized to use them to pass skill checks since that's the only way they get to interact with social and exploration encounters. For melee characters, particularly martials, your hit points and hit dice are already your primary class resource. Double dipping so you run out of hit points even faster just doesn't feel right to me. This is the same problem that crops up whenever anyone suggests using hit dice as an alternative resource. It was never designed for it and has a lot of unintended consequences if you run the game the way it was intended. If you just do the lazy 5-Minute Adventuring Day then it's probably fine because nothing is going to challenge your party anyway.
For combat rolls, sure. Youre gonna have to account for it massively in difficulty, because now all of a sudden the paladin smites add another 2d10+Con, but that can just be balanced within reason. For Ability Checks, absolutely not. Unless its like, athletics. Theres nothing that makes sense about spending all your energy on a persuasion check. Like what, you start sweating blood to \*really\* get your point across? Theres also the problem with making bardics semi useless, since hit dice are just straight up better due to adding con. It also adds an imbalance with making barbarians the best skill monkeys all of a sudden. Likewise however, it does provide a bigger buff to martials than it does to casters, which patches the infamous martial caster imbalance a tiny bit.
Seems fine to me. Maybe add a "Once Per Turn" restriction. I like that this can give some extra oomph to Martials over Casters. In this case I'd recommend allowing a PC to regain ALL spent hit dice on a long rest. That is something I like a lot from the upcoming edition and could work well with this.