Does paying more for a room at an Inn let you recover more HP on resting?
Oxford_Guy
Member Posts: 3,729
I was just wondering, does paying more for a better room at an Inn mean you gain more HP back when resting? Does anyone know what the actual amounts recovered are, for each class of room? Thanks
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I would have liked to see it as 1/2/3/4 per level, which would really emphasize how much better it is to sleep at an inn than outside (with druids, perhaps, not gaining that benefit)--and further emphasize how much better an expensive room is than a cheap one.
1, 1d2, 1d2 + 1, 1d2 + 2.
It's more about making the inn worthwhile. Right now, it's not even worth the 5 gold, because for the most part it's inconvenient.
If resting at an inn were really better than sleeping in the wilderness, then players would be inclined to travel back to town between adventurers--which is more realistic, ultimately, and more interesting. It's not unbalanced, because it's a mechanic that takes place outside of the perilous dungeon.
If you think it's too powerful, then it could also make perfectly good sense to raise the cost of the more expensive rooms. 5 gp a night for Noble accommodations is a little cheap anyway--but 100 gp a night would make you think twice before using it every time, especially if you've got a cleric in your group.
Healing and raise dead spells make no sense either.
Essentially, if you want fast healing in D&D you have to use healing magic or healing potions. "Realistic" healing like bandaging your wounds and allowing your body to naturally heal is also possible, but this can't be done overnight - so if you don't have magical healing available but still expect to heal all your wounds, then it seems proper that your party should spend a few weeks holed up at an inn. That would seem like bare minimum time to fully recover from various sword slashes, fireball burns, etc without magical aid.
I do agree that it would be more realistic for parties to travel back to a town/inn occasionally to sleep in a bed and restock, but your suggestion would seem like a small bit of added realism for a large bit of lost realism.
A better idea might be along the lines of giving spell memorization a cumulative risk of failure for every night spent in the wild or something, depending on the circumstances; so that after a few nights camped out in the rain, your casters wouldn't be getting all their spells back anymore, meaning less magical healing and reduced combat effectiveness, etc. And it would seem realistic that focusing on memorizing spells would be a lot easier inside a cozy and well-lit inn than in a damp tent with ogres prowling around.
So it's still more realistic--the healing spell takes a lot less time than resting at an inn and can be done repeatedly throughout the day as needed, whereas resting at an inn can only be done at an inn, and costs you gold each time.
Also, 3e D&D did account for resting that restores hit points--a good night's sleep restores 1 hit point per level, and a good night's sleep with someone performing long-term care increases that number accordingly. So it's entirely possible that a good night's sleep at an inn (where, presumably, there's an on-call physician for the wounded adventurers that sleep there every night) would have the same restorative potency as one or two healing spells. There's no lost realism there, and it's supported by the precedent set in the rules.
In addition, it adds realism to the player's experience by encouraging the player to experience what it would really be like as an adventurer, having to stop at a nearby town because it's safer and better accommodations than sleeping under a tree in the woods surrounded by wild animals. Realism of action is more important than realism of mechanics, in my opinion, which is why I'd be willing to live with it even if resting at an inn restored all of your hit points, replenished your arrow quivers, and gave you a bonus to attack rolls for the next four hours of gameplay. It enhances the immersion in a way that rewards players for being immersed.
EDIT: Something else that I forgot to mention, which is also supported by 3e's resting rules, is that 1 hit point means something different for a level 1 character than it does for a level 10 character. For a level 10 character, restoring one hit point is the equivalent of putting on a band-aid without neosporin. For a level 1 character, it's the equivalent of taking ibuprofen, icing a joint, and getting a massage. (For a level 1 wizard, it's the quivalent of out-patient surgery, and for Xan it's the equivalent of a heart transplant.)
That's why the "per level" mechanic makes sense; it keeps the restorative properties of resting relevant even at high levels of play, so that even in the late game the player is encouraged to visit a town rather than rest wherever he is.
BG2 started to go down the path of 'casualness' as it ripped out a lot of exploration and strategy from meta-gaming elements like resting, travel, etc.
I know drinks are meant to provide morale boost but at the cost of a -1 on all rolls. Also, do the more expensive drinks provide more bonuses?
Meh.. well it isn't that important though I guess.
And my point about hit points has more to do with the quality of rooms, which wouldn't be accounted for in penalties for resting in the wilderness.
Now, granted, I would also be in favor of wilderness resting being less beneficial. It would be great, for example, if instead of giving you energy for 24 hours, resting outside only gave you energy for 12 (unless you're a druid or ranger). That way, you'd get a bigger benefit from resting at an inn, and sleeping outside would be less helpful.
Also, I think there's a disconnect about what a hit point represents. A hit taken by a level 1 character is more damaging than the same hit taken by a level 10 character; in "real-world" terms, that means a long sword would slice open your belly as a level 1 character, whereas at level 10 it would merely be a painful scratch. Call it hardened skin, call it "damage avoidance", but that's pretty much how it works. A level 10 character at half health isn't walking around like a block of swiss cheese; he's in relatively the same state as a level 1 character at half health.
So resting at an inn to regain one hit point means that a level 1 character gains more benefit than a level 10--which is exactly the opposite of how it ought to work. If a level 1 character can recover from a stab wound by resting in the royal suite at the local inn, then a level 10 character should be able to recover from a stab wound too; not a mosquito bite.
To wit: I'm in favor of both ideas. Make resting outside more dangerous and less beneficial for everyone except druids and rangers, and as a trade-off make resting at an inn more favorable for everyone except druids and rangers.
I also would say that spells should only be replenishable once per day (which would further inhibit the outdoorsmen), but that's a different thing altogether.
When it comes to how damage is healed though, this doesn't hold up. A level 1 mage brought to the brink of death (1 hp) would be completely restored by a cure light wounds spell (or a night in a royal room, as you say), whereas a highlevel character brought to the brink of death would require multiple castings of cure light wounds, or multiple nights of rest.
To me, it just comes down to the health system being too simplified to account for those things. Similarly, there's no real "wounded" state in 2E, just "dead" and "fighting at full capacity".
Obviously the idea about inn resting scaling with levels would alleviate this in a sense, but I still don't feel it would be a realistic idea. If anything, low-level characters should have a cap of 1hp per night from inns, as it doesn't seem realistic that all their wounds can heal from one night's sleep either. This is often easier to overlook in BG though, as the time you spend at the first couple of levels is relatively short.
And they can do it without risk, and can get a good nights sleep themselves.
So it's not just about bandages and similarities with real life band aid.
It's a combination of resting in a good bed, with good warm nurturing food, healing spells, a hot bath and maybe even a nice massage to top it off.
Yes, it does make perfect sense that staying in an inn leads to more healing. To a point.
At an inn you have to be less concerned about being jumped by monsters, or robbed, or whatever. You don't really need to post guards or anything so everyone can get plenty of R&R.
I don't think adding more additional healing would push inns over the edge but the chance for encounters. Inter-party dialogue, encountering new characters, opening up plots and quests, etc. would.