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If they can't do striker damage, whats the point of having them in the party? The role of defender is redundant when strikers and controllers can have the same or even better survivability AND end the fight sooner. The defender's role is to mitigate damage and fighters don't do that significantly better than anyone else, even non-defenders, while other defenders can do additional things other than pretend to be a sub-par striker.
It depends what you consider striker damage. My fighter consistently gets near-striker damage while having a much better AC, more healing surges, and the ability to mark and get free attacks in.
I've actually gotten a couple of Rogue players annoyed at me for doing so much damage.
As an example, I use a Greatspear. I chose the +1 to hit. I, at 10th level have +17 to hit(+19 with CA, which I have regularly) for 1d10+11 damage. 1d10+20 damage when I use my Bloodclaw weapon. Which averages out to 16.5 damage or 25.5 damage.
A rogue who uses a Rapier who started with a 17 Dex(what I started with in Str) and also had a +3 Bloodclaw Rapier, Iron Armbands of Power, and the most of the same feats as me would have +16 to hit for 1d6+10 on non-sneak attacks. Which averages out to 13.5 damage. Below my attacks. On sneak attacks, he likely has +18 to hit for 1d6+10+2d8. Which averages out to 22.5 damage(or 28.5 with the Bloodclaw weapon).
It's more damage, that's for sure. But I use my 2[w] attacks more than the Rogues seem to. It could be a lack of good encounter powers or the fact that they don't get much more damage out of them. Either way, on a 2[w] attack, I do an average of 22 damage and they do an average of 26(or 31 vs 32 with Bloodclaw active). Pretty comparable, I'd say. And normally I have +1 more to hit, so it might give me a slight edge.
On the other hand, if he uses a dagger to get the same bonus to hit as me, then the damage is: 1[w]: 21.5, 2[w]: 24, which is even closer to my damage. Up by a couple of points only. And in one corner case(2[w] attacks while using Bloodclaw), I'm a point higher than him.
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If they can't do striker damage, whats the point of having them in the party? The role of defender is redundant when strikers and controllers can have the same or even better survivability AND end the fight sooner. The defender's role is to mitigate damage and fighters don't do that significantly better than anyone else, even non-defenders, while other defenders can do additional things other than pretend to be a sub-par striker.
If you can't rest all the time, then a character with more and bigger surges is more survivable even if their defenses are equal (or even lower in some situations).
Moreover, even when the party is taking the same total amount of damage, the ability to influence how that damage is distributed is useful because it helps to keep damaged people on their feet, steer attacks towards targets with more surges, etc.
__________________ "I'd like to shake the hand of the genius who invented that - just the hand, after it's been cut off from the now screaming man."
Moreover, even when the party is taking the same total amount of damage, the ability to influence how that damage is distributed is useful because it helps to keep damaged people on their feet, steer attacks towards targets with more surges, etc.
Not to mention making more use of those surges. Keep in mind, when the fighter uses a healing surge, he likely gets more hitpoints back than most other party members. If he gains 25 instead of 20 hitpoints on a healing surge, he heals more total hitpoints with the same number of surges.
Never underestimate the power to get a Cleric heal during a round of combat and be able to take 5 more points of damage than someone else next round.
__________________ Majoru Oakheart
Secret Attorney of the Guidelines for the <Sorry, you didn't make the DC 20 Perception check, and you don't have another minor action to try again. Next time try finding an Elf to stand nearby you.>
If you can't rest all the time, then a character with more and bigger surges is more survivable even if their defenses are equal (or even lower in some situations).
If you can't rest when you need it, then it is the DM pushing your characters off a ledge. If the DM wants to kill the characters, there's nothing the players can do to stop it. Anyway, running out of surges is rare.
Another benefit of having many surges, as funny and non-theoretical as it sounds, is comfort.
If you have 5 surges left, and you know you have a significant (4 or more battles) left in the day, then you can't rush into battle with as much comfort as someone with 7 surges left. For a defender this is very important. You can say it's not important or doesn't matter, but it will affect gameplay significantly.
Also any DM who looks at the pcs healing surges to determine the number of encounters left in a day is not challenging his party enough imo.
If you can't rest when you need it, then it is the DM pushing your characters off a ledge. If the DM wants to kill the characters, there's nothing the players can do to stop it. Anyway, running out of surges is rare.
It's very much not that uncommon for me to see scenarios that require a certain number of combats and skill challenges (that may eat up surges) in one extended rest.
If you want to extended rest, you fail the scenario and can't finish it, losing out on whatever xp and treasure would have been offered. That might be preferable to dying if you're that worried about it, but it does mean that surges are more of an issue.
I also keep meaning to try the 'two milestones before you can extended rest' house rule, since it means that surges become a very notable commodity in that case.
Also any DM who looks at the pcs healing surges to determine the number of encounters left in a day is not challenging his party enough imo.
How is that different than the DM taking the party's level into account when making encounters instead of picking monsters of random levels? The world revolves around the PCs.
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Originally Posted by keterys
It's very much not that uncommon for me to see scenarios that require a certain number of combats and skill challenges (that may eat up surges) in one extended rest.
That may be the case, but how often is it that it requires a defender's number of surges, particularly in LFR or some other 1-session thing? And as for skill challenges... defenders typically are the worst choice for those too.
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Originally Posted by keterys
I also keep meaning to try the 'two milestones before you can extended rest' house rule, since it means that surges become a very notable commodity in that case.
That is not a house rule I'd ever even consider. It is so ridiculously artificial my players would revolt. "Fine, we can't rest, we go back to town and start a bar fight, and then have a skill challenge to pick up a bar maid, done, we get our milestone, now we rest." Try and tell them they can't do that, they'll retire the characters and go play Conan or Champions or something. My players are hardcore gamers, but not hardcore DnDers.
Yes but you don't just say the monsters are dead because you guys can't kill them.
The world doesn't revolve around the pcs destroying everything in their path without difficutly. It revolves around the pcs being challenged. To completely take resource management out of the game makes portions of it too easy imo.
That may be the case, but how often is it that it requires a defender's number of surges, particularly in LFR or some other 1-session thing? And as for skill challenges... defenders typically are the worst choice for those too.
It's almost always the strikers who are in trouble for surges, and given your assertion that the surges aren't useful over the strikers... it's falling a little flat?
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That is not a house rule I'd ever even consider. It is so ridiculously artificial my players would revolt. "Fine, we can't rest, we go back to town and start a bar fight, and then have a skill challenge to pick up a bar maid, done, we get our milestone, now we rest." Try and tell them they can't do that, they'll retire the characters and go play Conan or Champions or something. My players are hardcore gamers, but not hardcore DnDers.
Not every house rule is for everyone - they _can_ rest, however, it just doesn't give them back surges or dailies. And random encounters don't really work for it, either. It's for reaching actual milestones in the story or challenge. Well, unless for some reason the bar fight is truly challenging and picking up the bar maid is an important part of the adventure.
Of course, the other one that was interesting was someone who suggested not giving the extended rest benefits _per adventure_. Pretty similar except you don't have a mid-quest intermission to recoup before the final battle. I imagine that's pretty different.
At any rate, the argument that it's artificial to disallow giving back surges falls flat when you consider that it's artificial to have the surges in the first place. Once you're already on board with surges (and hoo boy am I) then the rate at which you reacquire them is just another facet of gameplay. You could similarly reduce everyone's surge count by 4 and say you get 1 surge per encounter - that'd mix things up quite a bit too, but doesn't do anything I really care about
In some games, the number of surges matters. If they don't matter, it makes you wonder about whether resting for dailies is too easy, too - if you allow the 30 minute workday, why not the 5-minute? Well, clearly because that has a lot of problems. Some people would consider running out of surges a halt the game problem - but if it is, why have the rules for it at all? Just houserule the game to not have a surge limit and change it so the # of surges is a bonus on healing in some fashion (ex: 6 is your baseline, you get a bonus to surge value equal to # more surges you would have normally).
How is that different than the DM taking the party's level into account when making encounters instead of picking monsters of random levels? The world revolves around the PCs.
Among other things? Because some of us like to make them remember that what they're doing is dangerous. Adventurers are rare for two reasons. First, not many people are crazy enough to do it. Second, of those that are, the life expectancy is not long. Most adventurers, the vast majority, don't die in bed, and they don't die of old age. They die in some godforsaken hole somewhere, or out in the woods, or on some twisted, rather loose approximation of reality that's two steps outside of what the rest of us call the world. The source material makes that clear, and I don't have an issue with enforcing that to a reasonable degree. The players are exceptions in some ways, certainly, and they are the heart of the campaign, but if you think "sitting at the table" is enough to ascend to a supernal destiny walking among the gods or mastering every secret of magic, you clearly aren't playing enough cards. You want to win, you have to risk something, and in D&D, that's your continued existence on this mortal coil... at a minimum.
Will I kill characters? If they're doing something absolutely stupid and mortally dangerous (and they get verbally warned that it's not a good idea before I take the gloves off!), or it's dramatically appropriate, I'll kill them in a heartbeat. The latter can even have player approval when it's handled correctly. I'm not out to rack up a body count, despite my occasionally acting that way for my own amusement, but if you earn being put six feet under, I've got the shovel. Now, I may intervene when the dice have just decided they simply don't like you (although I'm also likely to make you earn that, too - never overlook the chance to allow roleplaying or letting someone shine when opportunity knocks!), and I almost certainly won't let a bunch of scrub goblins wipe the floor with people. But if you earn it, it's time to start filling out a new sheet.
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That is not a house rule I'd ever even consider. It is so ridiculously artificial my players would revolt. "Fine, we can't rest, we go back to town and start a bar fight, and then have a skill challenge to pick up a bar maid, done, we get our milestone, now we rest." Try and tell them they can't do that, they'll retire the characters and go play Conan or Champions or something. My players are hardcore gamers, but not hardcore DnDers.
That's not really a milestone, but I see your point there. I don't really like that house rule and wouldn't use it personally. That said, for some groups, it might work.
Not every house rule is for everyone - they _can_ rest, however, it just doesn't give them back surges or dailies. And random encounters don't really work for it, either. It's for reaching actual milestones in the story or challenge. Well, unless for some reason the bar fight is truly challenging and picking up the bar maid is an important part of the adventure.
That is an extremely horrible rule. Wizard casts stoneksin. Ask the wizard, when do you get stoneskin back. Answer is... I have no idea. I'll be able to memorize the spell again at some indeterminate point in the future after I've killed some specific but unknown monsters that I have yet to find, but until then no matter how much I study my spellbook I can't cast that spell ever again. Also until then, my broken arm won't mend. Ever. Nor will healing potions function. Ever. No, my players would definitely quit if I pulled that on them.
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Originally Posted by keterys
Of course, the other one that was interesting was someone who suggested not giving the extended rest benefits _per adventure_. Pretty similar except you don't have a mid-quest intermission to recoup before the final battle. I imagine that's pretty different.
At any rate, the argument that it's artificial to disallow giving back surges falls flat when you consider that it's artificial to have the surges in the first place. Once you're already on board with surges (and hoo boy am I) then the rate at which you reacquire them is just another facet of gameplay. You could similarly reduce everyone's surge count by 4 and say you get 1 surge per encounter - that'd mix things up quite a bit too, but doesn't do anything I really care about
I recommend giving players infinite healing surges. The fact that healing potions won't work because of some resource that has no parallel to reality has been used up powering magic items or crafting things or because you simply had a bad night's sleep is so blatantly stupid it makes me want to kick kittens. That and epic rares, but that's a different rant.
Surges also lead to the situation of the GM pushing players off a cliff. "Sorry guys, you have to fight the BBEG now, I know you're all hurt and out of surges, but it's a 99% chance of a TPK or the world is destroyed and you all die anyway. Guess you guys are a bunch of losers for not taking the Unicorn's Horn power." Just wonderful. Healing surges are the worst mechanic I've seen in a game EVER.
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Originally Posted by keterys
In some games, the number of surges matters. If they don't matter, it makes you wonder about whether resting for dailies is too easy, too - if you allow the 30 minute workday, why not the 5-minute? Well, clearly because that has a lot of problems. Some people would consider running out of surges a halt the game problem - but if it is, why have the rules for it at all? Just houserule the game to not have a surge limit and change it so the # of surges is a bonus on healing in some fashion (ex: 6 is your baseline, you get a bonus to surge value equal to # more surges you would have normally).
Alternately instead of having the first 5 encounters simply being easy grinds to burn up surges so the 6th encounter is actually challenging, you just give the players challenging and fun encounters.
As it is, for most encounters the DM isn't sure if the players will be going into the encounter with surges left or not. Balance, meet window, window, meet balance, jump balance jump, out the window! So either the DM has to re-balance every encounter when it happens based on what state the party is in going in to it or not, or hey, here's an idea, infinite healing surges and the DM has a MUCH better idea of how strong the party will be for each encounter. My god healing surges are a HORRIBLE mechanic. Worst, mechanic, EVER.
That is an extremely horrible rule. Wizard casts stoneksin. Ask the wizard, when do you get stoneskin back.
And it's okay for the fighter to say he can do Rain of Steel today, and he'll study up for a bit and do it tomorrow? Or for the wizard to study for a hundred years in his tower and never learn a single thing about magic, but as soon as he goes to the market and stops a robbery, bam, new level, new spells?
I have to admit, I wish I could tell how much you genuinely hate 4e rules and how much is just the negativity you reserve for this board.
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I recommend giving players infinite healing surges. The fact that healing potions won't work because of some resource that has no parallel to reality has been used up powering magic items or crafting things or because you simply had a bad night's sleep is so blatantly stupid it makes me want to kick kittens.
I do think it would be interesting if the game had unlimited surges, and you just healed to full with a short rest, but I think you'd have a heck of a lot of people up in arms about it.
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Alternately instead of having the first 5 encounters simply being easy grinds to burn up surges so the 6th encounter is actually challenging, you just give the players challenging and fun encounters.
I'd hope every encounter was challenging and fun... but you also have daily powers, so if you shift the onus away from surges, now the onus is daily powers. Do you balance the encounters to require every single daily or none of them under your theory? Apparently if the party is out of dailies, they're against a cliff going into a TPK and the world is over, or something...
That is an extremely horrible rule. Wizard casts stoneksin. Ask the wizard, when do you get stoneskin back. Answer is... I have no idea. I'll be able to memorize the spell again at some indeterminate point in the future after I've killed some specific but unknown monsters that I have yet to find, but until then no matter how much I study my spellbook I can't cast that spell ever again. Also until then, my broken arm won't mend. Ever. Nor will healing potions function. Ever. No, my players would definitely quit if I pulled that on them.
It depends on heavy use of milestones and very goal-oriented plots as well as a certain play style for the players. You've established your players wouldn't stand for it in two different posts. At this point, you're ranting about what someone else's group feels works in their game, and the person who brought the topic up said that it wouldn't work for all groups anyway.
What's your point here? That it's a bad rule? If it was a bad rule that didn't work for the group, it wouldn't be popular with them. We already know that you don't like it and feel your group would react badly to its introduction, and I've already said I don't really like it myself. You're not really saying anything new here.
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Originally Posted by Regicide
I recommend giving players infinite healing surges. The fact that healing potions won't work because of some resource that has no parallel to reality has been used up powering magic items or crafting things or because you simply had a bad night's sleep is so blatantly stupid it makes me want to kick kittens. That and epic rares, but that's a different rant.
Non-infinite healing surges keep them from running headlong into encounter after encounter with only their use of dailies as a check on their carnage. They also make a convenient way to meter out the amount of physical, tactical risk that certain classes would take, a nice mechanism to hang some magic tricks on, and are part of a rules system that by design bears about as much resemblance to reality as BattleTech's does. Probably less, actually, since BattleTech at least acknowledges that things break.
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Originally Posted by Regicide
Surges also lead to the situation of the GM pushing players off a cliff. "Sorry guys, you have to fight the BBEG now, I know you're all hurt and out of surges, but it's a 99% chance of a TPK or the world is destroyed and you all die anyway. Guess you guys are a bunch of losers for not taking the Unicorn's Horn power." Just wonderful. Healing surges are the worst mechanic I've seen in a game EVER.
If the GM actually throws them into a situation like that after running them through that much of a ringer, the GM has officially screwed up. I know I dismissed the idea that you softball them, but the goal is to be challenging and interesting, not engineer a TPK. Trust me, I can hand out TPKs right, left, and center if I want to, but if it's not a deliberately antagonistic dungeon crawl, that's not the point of the game. Have them find out they've been chasing a decoy, give them another option to wreck things, have the World Serpent restore their resources because the world is on the line, break the game for a moment and ask if they mind going out in a blaze of glory, etc. There's any number of ways to handle that without making it a no-win scenario.
(Taking an extended rest right there and then isn't a good one, though - if you do that right outside the dragon's cave, said dragon is going to do its dead level best to kill each and every one of you in the middle of the night while you're all asleep. A coup de grace with the breath weapon sounds nice, doesn't it? See the "fatal stupidity" clause in my last post.)
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Originally Posted by Regicide
Alternately instead of having the first 5 encounters simply being easy grinds to burn up surges so the 6th encounter is actually challenging, you just give the players challenging and fun encounters.
Or, you know, you could do that anyway without completely wrecking part of the balance between roles and classes, the way we measure how much the characters have taken in a day, and some of what part of the magic system is hung on. I certainly try to. This isn't a zero sum game, where we can either have healing surge limits or interesting encounters.
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Originally Posted by Regicide
As it is, for most encounters the DM isn't sure if the players will be going into the encounter with surges left or not. Balance, meet window, window, meet balance, jump balance jump, out the window! So either the DM has to re-balance every encounter when it happens based on what state the party is in going in to it or not, or hey, here's an idea, infinite healing surges and the DM has a MUCH better idea of how strong the party will be for each encounter. My god healing surges are a HORRIBLE mechanic. Worst, mechanic, EVER.
Yeah, at full strength other than their dailies and magic item uses. So how are we supposed to occasionally set up situations where they have to do something hard on limited resources? Wave our magic wands and make it so? That's an even worse idea and most players are going to balk. Some of them are going to balk a lot.
The levels of monsters and the idea of challenging encounters are built to factor in forcing the use of healing surges from time to time. If the party has to spend a surge or so per character in a given fight, that's fine and you should see slightly less than that in a normal encounter as opposed to a hard one. Finally, you're assuming that the GM isn't free to adjust things on the fly. Any GM who is hopelessly wedded to their plans and won't adapt if an encounter just went wrong and sapped way too much of the characters' resources needs to review just what they're doing, because they're doing it wrong.
And of course, sometimes, yes, the characters need to be slapped around, slapped around hard, backs against the wall, and given the choice of running, fighting, or holding their ground in what might be a futile last stand because their resources are gone and they are on the ropes. It's not about killing the party off (unless you're deliberately trying to have your own personal Thermopylae), it's about giving them a scare, letting them have the roleplaying opportunity of staring death in the eye and watching it stare back, and being forced to recognize that sometimes, ultimate victory is too expensive, or it's just time to back off. That's not just combat, it's roleplaying, it's storytelling, and it fits the motif of heroism a lot better than people who retreat for five minutes and come back at full strength.
If they can't do striker damage, whats the point of having them in the party?
Fighters still do plenty of damage. More single target damage than any other defender, leader, or controller. They shouldn't be doing striker damage, as they aren't a striker.
Alternately instead of having the first 5 encounters simply being easy grinds to burn up surges so the 6th encounter is actually challenging, you just give the players challenging and fun encounters.
Or make the first encounter the very hard and challenging one that costs most daily powers and lots of surges. And then have them run into 5 more encounters!
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Try and tell them they can't do that, they'll retire the characters and go play Conan or Champions or something. My players are hardcore gamers, but not hardcore DnDers.
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