Excerpt: The Warlord

[ThirdWizard]

Which is why you don't use them until the healing surges are nearly or completely gone. The same way no one blows all their dailies on the first pack of kobolds of the morning.

I think you don't quite understand how Healing Surge and Second Wind operate.

Here's an example. The fighter has 11 Healing Surges per day. He can use Second Wind to regain 1/4 his hp, but only once per encounter. So in the first combat, he can use a Second Wind to regain 1/4 his hp, then not again for the rest of the encounter. Then during the next combat he can do it again. And again in the next.

But, he can never use it twice per encounter (barring special abilities we aren't aware of.)

So, there is no reason not to use those Second Winds. And there is no way for the fighter to make use of a healing surge in combat without using Second Wind by himself. This means the fighter has a long term resource he can use throughout the day, but the mechanics keep him from expending them all at once.

This gives the game the ability to challenge the PCs multiple times a day without forcing a slow attrition of resources. You don't have the situation where you have to force them to use their healing up so that that 4th encounter is difficult. It's built into the system that every combat is as difficult as that "4th encounter" from prevous editions.

 

[ThirdWizard]

How does a -1 per neg. lvl on all actions grind the game to a halt?

Spellcasters.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

IMO removing the hard coupling between party viability and the Cleric class was not a good thing, but a great thing. Kudos to 3e.

But we did have some new issues as a result. Besides the problematic Heal spell, any damage less death that was not an obnoxious and tenacious condition modifier devolved into a few coin.

Lose 50 HP? Spend 90 gp of CLW wand. Lose 100 HP? Spend 180 gp of CLW wand. Lose 7 Str point? Spend 90 gp from a wand. Lose 2 level? Same story (once you get up in levels).

Healing Surges give us the best of both worlds. Each PC has his own fairly competent Cleric at his side -- Himself, without the PitA aspects of the full Cleric class.

 

[hong]

Except they aren't really, until they are out of healing surges. As long as they have available healing surges (or second wind, or the warlord, or the cleric, etc), then they really aren't in danger. You have a safety net.

A safety net while doing acrobatics is not the same as not doing acrobatics.

 

[pukunui]

I like the concept (although I don't think I'd ever play one myself) but I don't like the name. "Warlord", with all its connotations of power, authority, and army commander (not to mention thug ... aren't the tribal leaders who control a good chunk of Afghanistan also called "warlords"?) would have been more appropriate as the name of a martial paragon path that actually granted the implied power and authority and so on as class abilities.

That aside, the name "warlord" is simply a misnomer because this class, judging from its description and abilities, is much more about strategy and tactics than about power and authority and controlling others. I'm definitely going to allow this class in my game, but if I can think of a name that says "Tactician" rather than "Army Commander", I'll use that instead.

 

[Spatula]

Spellcasters.

Non-spontaneous spellcasters, and only if you pay attention to the "random" part about losing spells. Me, I'm fine with the player picking which spells they lose. "You get hit with 5 negative levels. Lose 25 hp and your 5 highest level spells." Spontaneous casters are, of course, trivial.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Umm...I think you misunderstand how it works. Second Wind represents your ability to use a healing surge mid-combat. It doesn't matter if it's the first combat of the day, the second, or the eighth. Similarly, healing word uses up one of your surges (although the cleric also adds some extra oomph to its effectiveness).

As well as the paladin and the warlord. I assume it won't be low level, but I do recall certain powers of the leaders will trigger a healing surge on a successful attack. With recent excerpts, that may end up being a healing surge with a bonus on a hit, and just a healing surge on a miss.

As an example, a fighter could be reduced to bloodied, use his second wind, and then later in the same combat, fall to 0 hp. He runs a risk of dying if this situation takes place. This can happen in the first combat of the day. Assuming he doesn't die, when the combat is over, he can use his other healing surges to return to full health. Three or four would probably do it.

Which only replaces the perceived 'need a cleric' problem. It only spreads out the 'needs constant healing' problem people keep describing.

You're taking the assumption that each encounter is a 3e style encounter that nickel and dimes the players down, requiring them to use surges to recover to full hit points, but doesn't actually put them in threat of death.

From the damage listings I have seen, it appears that damage has been lowered in many cases, replaced with an effect of some kind.

Again, you're assuming that in all the earlier battles, the character never gets near 0 hit points. If you want to play that way, that's fine, and you are correct that the problem has only been postponed. But that's not the only way to play with the 4e rules.

Nor is it the only way to play with the 3.x rules (or any previous version). Also, I am not assuming anything about any previous battle.

In a 3e-style attrition adventure, where only every fourth fight is actually dangerous, you are correct that all you've done is created a situation where the PC has 3-4 times as many hit points. However, that's not how Fourth Edition adventures are intended to work.

With Fourth Edition, the PCs can face 3-4 battles that are as exciting as that climactic encounter in 3e before they have to rest. Or, for a little variety, you can have two of those set-piece battles interspersed with 4 other attrition-style encounters to mix things up. The difference here is that if you simply triple the number of hit points, the only encounter that has an actual risk of death or loss is the last one. Which means you've made the others as meaningless as they were when you had 1/3 of the hit points.

Do you see the difference?

No, because you essentially described the same thing twice.

3.x: 3-4 battles (with healing) before it's dangerous (need major healing or rest)
4e: 3-4 battles (with healing during or between) before it's dangerous (need to rest)

In fact, the way most people describe it, the 4e line is exactly how they do things in 3.x now. Wands of Cure Light Wounds, scrolls, potions, various spells, and so on. So, the healing has been re-distributed from clerics and magic items to healing surges. I am assuming there will be healing items in 4e, so those should still be in play. No functional difference, just a re-distribution of where the healing comes from.

The problem they are 'solving' isn't some issue of player control or lack of healing. The only issue this addresses is 'need a cleric'. Since I see that as an issue with play and not the rules, I don't see a net gain here.

 

[bramadan]

I think what people are attempting to say is that the introduction of per-encounter mechanic makes for the more suspenseful encounters while still allowing the adventuring "day" to contain more then one encounter.

In 3.x encounter either uses up all the non-renewable resources (spells etc) in which case day ends or is not "dangerous" in a sense that PCs have a choice of expanding more resources.
In 4, encounter can use all the "encounter" resources thus becoming quite dangerous while still allowing any number of such encounters during the course of adventuring day.

Daily resources return some degree of resource-management into the picture while still allowing for the quicker regeneration of resources (and thus more suspenseful adventuring).

The problem that is solved by this is the dilemma faced by the DM between "5-minute adventuring day" if the encounters push the party to their limit, and the "only every 4th encounter really counts" if the encounters deplete only fraction of party resources each.

 

[JohnSnow]

No, because you essentially described the same thing twice.

3.x: 3-4 battles (with healing) before it's dangerous (need major healing or rest)
4e: 3-4 battles (with healing during or between) before it's dangerous (need to rest)

In fact, the way most people describe it, the 4e line is exactly how they do things in 3.x now.

I'll try this once more. Your understanding of the way 3e works is incorrect. In 3e, there is no limit to the amount of healing that can be applied to the character in a single fight. A party with a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, or an arsenal of healing potions sufficient to sustain them for an entire day is in no danger of having a character die in a fight unless that fight is either:

A) The last fight in a series of depletion encounters, or;
B) A single, climactic battle intended to be the party's only contest that day.

By contrast, a Fourth Edition party in any given fight has precisely their full hit point totals, their second winds, and whatever minor in-combat healing the leaders (and the paladin) bring to the party. That means that there is a chance (not high but it exists) of a character actually dying in one of the fights. However, if the party survives, that doesn't have to be their only encounter that day. Based on the number of healing surges most characters have, they can probably fight 3-4 of these types of fights before having to rest.

Wands of Cure Light Wounds, scrolls, potions, various spells, and so on. So, the healing has been re-distributed from clerics and magic items to healing surges. I am assuming there will be healing items in 4e, so those should still be in play. No functional difference, just a re-distribution of where the healing comes from.

The problem they are 'solving' isn't some issue of player control or lack of healing. The only issue this addresses is 'need a cleric'. Since I see that as an issue with play and not the rules, I don't see a net gain here.

If you don't see "need a cleric" as an issue with the rules, you obviously have a very different definition of "the rules" than I do.

Moreover, as I point out above, the shift in 4e seems to have addressed the earlier paradigm of either "only every fourth encounter is dangerous" or "the characters can handle only 1 dangerous encounter per day." I recognize that if magic items can be used multiple times in the space of an encounter, we're right back to the same problem as before. Furthermore, it is my belief that charged items (like 3e wands) are history and that there is probably a hard limit to the number of potions a character can benefit from in a short period of time.

If, after this explanation, you still don't see the difference, I think someone else may need to take a crack at explaining it. Because I can't think of how to explain it better. The distinction is pretty self-evident to me.

 

[ThirdWizard]

3.x: 3-4 battles (with healing) before it's dangerous (need major healing or rest)
4e: 3-4 battles (with healing during or between) before it's dangerous (need to rest)

Not at all. You have the same resources available in the 1st encounter as you do in the 4th in 4E. Why? Because in the first encounter, you have 11 healing surges, sure, but you can only use one for Second Wind and the cleric can heal you twice for three total chances to heal. In the 4th encounter, you probably have 4 or so healing surges left, but the way things work, it still means 3 heals.

In both 3rd and 4th edition, when you run out of cure spells / healing surges you rest! Nobody says "Gee, we're out of heal spells, but we can push on one more combat." No. You can't. You'll die. In 4e when you have no healing surges left, you rest as well.

BUT!!! There's a difference. That first encounter? Yeah, you could only get healed 3 times max (and that's 1 per person + 2, not 3 per person!). It doesn't matter that its the first combat. You're limited in how many times you can regain hit points. So, in that fourth, fifth, sixth, or whatever encounter of the day? You have the same healing capacity as you did for the first encounter.

What does this mean? It means a lot.

For one, it means that the first encounter can be just as challenging as the last.
Second, it means that the battles don't have to deplete resources to become difficult.
Third it means that you have more incentive to keep going since you can't blow your healing in the first (or subsequent) combat.
Fourth, it means that encounters can be built without having to worry about whether it is the PCs' 1st, 2nd, etc. combat.

I'm sure there are more that could be listed, but that's a quick summary of why 4e is so much better when it comes to healing than 3e. And, this is a huge boon to the game, making encounter design easier, making combat more interesting, and making the DM's life, generally, less stressful. At least it will for me, after having come from playing lots of high level 3e games.