fixing Healing Outside Combat

[CapnZapp]

As discussed over at 4E Rules in the http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/252428-healing-outside-combat.html thread, there's a fundamental disconnect between the simplicity promised and the eventual reality of maximized behavior.

What the rules tell you is that during* a short rest you regain encounter powers and may spend healing surges to restore hit points.
*) Really, it's after because you don't get a 60% refill if you only make a 60% rest. But conceptually it's easier to say you're recuperating during your rest and not after.

In practice, however, no-one wants to spend a "plain" surge when they a minute ago, during the fight, got a bonus d6 from their Cleric's power.

And so it starts. The simplicity of the short rest breaks down when the cleric starts to use his powers outside of encounters ("during the rest"), which means you need to start keep track of how many short rests actually required for the cleric to "top up" each and every healing surge that needs to be used.

And to add insult to injury, the designers actually encourage this kind of behavior, adding feats in PHB2 that further enhance healing during rests.

In the end, the short rest is no longer the respite from the accounting I hoped it would be... instead players are busy calculating exact hp totals, and exactly how many minutes they're resting (one short rest, two short rests, three short rests...)

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This saddens me, because there is a much more elegant solution that allows us to stick to the simple beauty of the uncountable short rest.

If you have any healer in your group, simply assume every healing surge used benefits fully from its bonus. No actual powers are expended.

Meaning if you have a level 1 Cleric, add a d6 + the Cleric's Wis mod. If you have a level 11 Warlord, add 3d6 to each healing surge. If your healer is a level 21 Bard, add 4d6 + the Bard's Cha mod. And so on. (Thus "healer" above is defined as "a character class with a healing class feature")

Essentially, I'm giving free use of the "... Word" powers between encounters. In return I expect my adventurers to accept that short rests are always the standard, what?, two to five minutes undefined. There isn't anything to be gained by lingering.

If they need to use another encounter power (not the class feature healing) during their short rest (perhaps because it brings additional healing or provides other benefits, I don't know) then they have to accept that this power will be unavailable during the next fight (as it's already been used up).

In essence, I propose taking a short rest after a short never gives any kind of benefit, so there are no reasons for ever doing so. It keeps short rests simple, and cut down on administration. But I propose to do so without hosing adventuring parties which include Leaders

 

[CapnZapp]

Of course, an even simpler solution is to say "you can't use healing powers outside of encounters full stop."

I'm kind of guessing this is what players feel isn't good enough, though...

Besides, there is point to be made about a rule that doesn't force the party to keep the encounter alive by not killing off that last minion simply because their healers wouldn't otherwise have time to unload their last encounter heals...

Far simpler then to make all healing equivalent, both in and out of combat.



Edit: And indeed this rule is pretty much the same I've proposed once before, although possibly not in such a clear way. To those who remember the old discussion: yes, this rule would only play a part if the party actually contains a healer PC.

But that's unavoidable! The rule is there to stream-line resting, and not to make players focus on giving up time for optimized healer assistance. If there are no healers to assist you, then you couldn't (by the RAW) get any advantages by drawing out your healing over several short rests.

I am thinking that perhaps the designers should have added a general mechanism for short rest healing already from the start, making the entire issue moot. Perhaps something like this.

When you use a healing surge during a short rest, you gain bonus hit points equal to your level. Powers with the healing keyword does not give any bonus hit points when used during a short rest.

Essentially we're averaging the d6 to 6d6 you get (and at higher levels, quite generously, I might add), and cut short any "healer maximizations" at the same time. This would make the administration even shorter and faster, and wouldn't make players feel they were penalized for not having a healer in their party.

 

[CapnZapp]

And yes, I do realize the original rules make you pay for using up your heals during combat, in that you need additional short rests if you do. (If you breezed through the fight, it's likely a single short rest will do, given you have both your ...Words to use)

But again, I'm seeing this from another angle.

A short rest is simply the time it takes you to turn the sheet when starting to read a new chapter.

I don't want to mess around with multiple short rests. Heck, if you promote the idea the short rest is taking an undefined period of time, it fundamentally doesn't make sense to have more than one.

So I'm willing to hand out unlimited ...Words if that keeps everybody focused on the game and the story, not worrying exactly how many periods of 2-5 minutes it'll take to get back their hit points in an optimized way!

 

[jorrit]

The way I do it is to simply give the players a fixed bonus on every healing surge they spent while in a short rest. And that fixed bonus is the average of an 1d6 (3) plus the healer's wisdom modifier. That's easy to handle and doesn't cause any overhead IMHO.

Greetings,

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, my solution has just been the "ignorance is bliss" solution. Every rest is A short rest, unless it is an extended rest. The players really don't question it. The other half of the solution is to be a little lenient on the question of when the encounter ends. The players are allowed to perform whatever power based healing they want "before we rest" and then gain back their encounter healing powers. If they are still short of hit points and want to either spend surges or burn their encounter healing powers for the next encounter, then after the rest they can do that.

Another option which I might consider if players got too pushy on the subject would be to invoke the "you have lost your edge" concept. In other words "OK, you can rest for 10-15 minutes, but now you're all getting cooled off and starting to feel all those smacks you just took" and nix their milestone. They can have the milestone and take 5, or they can take 10, their choice. Haven't had to invoke that one yet, but putting the choice in the hands of the players is always best. It is amazing how they can't really complain when they decided not to take that AP...

 

[jorrit]

Yeah, my solution has just been the "ignorance is bliss" solution. Every rest is A short rest, unless it is an extended rest. The players really don't question it. The other half of the solution is to be a little lenient on the question of when the encounter ends. The players are allowed to perform whatever power based healing they want "before we rest" and then gain back their encounter healing powers. If they are still short of hit points and want to either spend surges or burn their encounter healing powers for the next encounter, then after the rest they can do that.

'Ignorance is bliss' can be dangerous IMHO. If I was a cleric player then I might assume that I don't have too worry too much about my healing surges becoming low because I might assume that I'm going to be able to use my healing word during the short rest to solve this problem. But if the DM would then not allow it I would be pissed if he didn't warn me about that houserule before.

As a player who knows the rules well I would expect to be able to do what the rules allow me to do UNLESS the DM tells me BEFORE we start playing. i.e. if the DM doesn't allow this then I would consider this a houserule and houserule you should know in advance.

If the DM tells this in advance then I'm fine with that. But if he 'forgot' to tell me...

Greetings,

 

[daHeadRat]

If you have any healer in your group, simply assume every healing surge used benefits fully from its bonus. No actual powers are expended.

Meaning if you have a level 1 Cleric, add a d6 + the Cleric's Wis mod. If you have a level 11 Warlord, add 3d6 to each healing surge. If your healer is a level 21 Bard, add 4d6 + the Bard's Cha mod. And so on. (Thus "healer" above is defined as "a character class with a healing class feature")

I'm intrigued by this idea but I'm curious how you would suggest handling parties with multiple healer types (e.g., a Cleric and a Warlord). Let each and every healer add their bonus to the surges? Rule they don't stack? Perhaps some sort of "aid another" type bonus for each additional leader with a healing class feature?

 

[jorrit]

I'm intrigued by this idea but I'm curious how you would suggest handling parties with multiple healer types (e.g., a Cleric and a Warlord). Let each and every healer add their bonus to the surges? Rule they don't stack? Perhaps some sort of "aid another" type bonus for each additional leader with a healing class feature?

Why would they stack? In a sense you are still using the powers from those leaders. Healing Word says you let someone spend a healing surge + 1d6+wis mod. You don't add the bonus from another power to that. Of course the warlord can also use his healing power for a similar effect but then you would have to use another healing surge to get that other bonus. So it is just per healing surge that you use you apply a bonus (you could pick the highest bonus if there are multiple healers in the party).

Greetings,

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

'Ignorance is bliss' can be dangerous IMHO. If I was a cleric player then I might assume that I don't have too worry too much about my healing surges becoming low because I might assume that I'm going to be able to use my healing word during the short rest to solve this problem. But if the DM would then not allow it I would be pissed if he didn't warn me about that houserule before.

As a player who knows the rules well I would expect to be able to do what the rules allow me to do UNLESS the DM tells me BEFORE we start playing. i.e. if the DM doesn't allow this then I would consider this a houserule and houserule you should know in advance.

If the DM tells this in advance then I'm fine with that. But if he 'forgot' to tell me...

Greetings,

Well, you would certainly be entitled to know what the rules of the game are, and I am not implying that any of mine are hidden. I think the key to the way I'm doing it is letting PCs use up any left over healing powers at the end of the combat before they take their short rest. Granted if it is a really tough battle they may not HAVE anything left, but in most cases the party has some unused Second Wind and leader healing power still in reserve. That means usually if you let them take advantage of that before declaring the short rest, then they may often not even have a need to do a double rest in the first place. If someone is a few points short of 100% after the short rest then either they decided it would be better not to burn a surge on a small number of points (and a heal power would be overkill in that scenario) OR they haven't got any surges left, which is a whole other problem that isn't going to be solved by any number of short rests. Once in a while someone falls into the category of still being AROUND a surge or slightly more down after the rest, and in that case it might still be advantageous to double rest.

So far this has worked pretty well. None of the players have needed a double rest. I think at higher levels there may be situations where it could help the party to do that, but it means they are probably pretty beat up and likely to also be short on surges regardless of what they do, and most parties choose that time to take extended rest anyway. If it is a time pressure situation, then they are just going to have to suck it up, no matter which way they go.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

First off, it wasn't the PHB 2 that allowed healing outside of combat, it was the PHB 1. It's been there since the beginning.

PHB p263
Using Powers while You Rest: If you use an
encounter power (such as a healing power) during a
short rest, you need another short rest to renew it so
that you can use it again.

This is where a lot of players get the idea from to use Healing Word during a short rest. So it's not a "new" thing, just something that some people missed the first time around.

As such, I think it's a little ridiculous to essentially punish your players if they want to do that. If you're threatening to do things like remove milestones, why not just do the one encounter work day? You might lose your milestone if you take too long anway, so what's the point? Also, how do you then explain why you can go through a fight, spend 5 minutes resting, go into a room, search for and disable traps, find a secret passage, go through a skill challenge, then come into another combat encounter without somehow "losing your edge"? But if you wait 10 minutes, suddenly you lose a milestone???

If you really hate having to keep track of how many short rests were taken, then I would just say to follow the OP's rule and let them use their healing powers outside of combat as many times as needed. To speed it up you can either have all the players roll the dice themselves, rather than having the healing roll like 20 d6's at higher levels, or use an "average" value of 3.

The new feat that maximizes Healing Word also cuts down on administration since it does the same thing. A level 1 Cleric with 18 WIS (+4) would maximize the single d6 for a total of +10 to surge value. This makes it easy to just say "Spend your healing surges to heal up, and add +10 to each surge".