Flat Healing Without Using a Surge--Infinite Daily HP?

[Rystil Arden]

At 27th level, I'm not sure this is an issue. So you no longer have to spend healing surges outside of combat to heal up if you've got an Epic Cleric hanging around. Big deal. _Inside_ combat, you're certainly not going to be able to Sunburst yourself to health, and you're going to be burning surges.

If I did feel it was a problem, I'd just declare that because there were no enemies in the area of effect, there were no hit rolls. And because there were no hit rolls, the Effect did not trigger- because the Effect triggers on a hit or miss, and neither a hit nor a miss occurred. If you don't offer blood and souls for my lord Pelor, you don't get the healing.

The PH on effects says that many effects occur without an attack roll being required. Sunburst looks to be one of those as far as I can see. However, I may be totally off base, but I think that the designers were expecting surges to actually be a limiting factor for daily healing even in epic play. Why not just remove these infinite effects or put a limit on them, especially those like Sunburst that don't require an enemy to work (but even those that do)

 

[Obryn]

Didn't you have another thread where you were trying to rules lawyer the idea of a "credible threat"?

-O

 

[Sylrae]

I am so glad I do not game with anyone who thinks like this. Lets be serious for a moment shall we. These arguments sound like something a 7th grader wold come up with. A single minion is not a threat to any party so you could not use it. A prisoner is not a threat. A monster beat down to one hit point, allowed to re-coop a point or two and beat down again s not a threat.

Does ignoring all logic to try and create breaks in rules or complications in games really make people feel smart or clever. I am dumber (if that is possible) for reading this thread. I figure that you are just trolling, but...

Personally I'm inclined to agree with him. Really, if the thing your beating intends to harm you, and you give him a weapon, then he's a threat. My POV is that this particular power is just stupid altogether and should be disregarded and replaced with something new.

I feel the same way about the per encounter heal/injure everyone in a radius.

There are areas where 4.0 is an improvement on 3.5, and there are areas where its a serious step backwards. This is one of those step backwards moments.

I played the module for World Wide D&D Game Day today which was 4th Edition, and I looked at the books. I haven't bought them, but honestly, when I do get them I won't be running a game with them for a while afterwards, cause I'm going to find it necessary to go through the book correcting all the things like this in a word document, and the players will have the extensive house rules list before I run any campaign in 4e.

Then I'll playtest and adjust accordingly.

I won't be surprised if the end result is like 30% 3.5e 40% 4e, and 30% house rules by the time I'm done.

It's not a terrible system, but I can poke holes in the parts I don't like already and it just came out (of course when 3e came out I was 14, so I couldn't do the same for 3e).

One of the other things thats a step back in 4e, is that as someone else said here, the world isn't designed to be inhabited entirely by characters like PCs. For the Most part, it should be. I was disappointed with the lack of racial stats for monsters in the MM. They had some yes, but they should have had more of them with racial stats. Virtually everything with an int higher than 6 should have racial stats.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Didn't you have another thread where you were trying to rules lawyer the idea of a "credible threat"?

-O

I don't think so. You must be confusing me with someone completely different. Personally, in my games, I would make a strict interpretation of credible threat that disallowed the use of such powers against any encounter that the PCs are essentially assured to win (including planned encounters), so I'm really on the opposite side of that debate. However, I could see how someone could try to argue for any other stopping point all the way along the extremely thinly-defined spectrum of 'credible threat', and I do think it's foolish to hold up that clause as some sort of Aegis and make a clumsy design choice (now, designing while also having it as a backup is a good idea).

That said, this is not the primary topic of this thread. I'd prefer to talk about Sunburst and other powers that don't require an enemy at all to function. It just seems weird to me that they put those in there.

 

[Makaze]

I really don't see the issue here.

Not a meaningful threat, if strictly defined...

It's not though. It's a totally subjective call on the part of the DM. So if your players are pulling a "bag of rats" then simply rule them a non-credible threat and be done with it.

And as far as Sunburst goes, no it doesn't need to hit a credible threat to take affect. However, you could easilly argue that it must be done in response to a credible threat and thus only usable in combat. Perfectly reasonable and simple.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Personally I'm inclined to agree with him. Really, if the thing your beating intends to harm you, and you give him a weapon, then he's a threat.

The trouble is the wiggle-word 'credible', and that's going to be a big problem for many GMs in drawing a line. To some GMs, the threat of the armed single level-appropriate enemy is not sufficient. Which means that logically the last straggler of a large encounter on the final round of the fight is not a 'credible' threat either and shouldn't heal, though I imagine most of the people who wouldn't allow the PCs to release one enemy and hunt it down would still allow healing off the last minion from one of their planned encounters. I could be wrong, but I get a sense that some people are defining 'credible threat' as 'this creature is encountered as part of one of my pre-scripted encounters that I was expecting them to face in just this fashion and against just this number'.

 

[Makaze]

To some GMs, the threat of the armed single level-appropriate enemy is not sufficient. Which means that logically the last straggler of a large encounter on the final round of the fight is not a 'credible' threat either and shouldn't heal

The lone appropriate even level enemy isn't a credible threat. The straggler at the end of an encounter in and of itself isn't either. However, the encounter as a whole that it was a part of is a credible threat and so it's a perfectly valid target.

I get a sense that some people are defining 'credible threat' as 'this creature is encountered as part of one of my pre-scripted encounters that I was expecting them to face in just this fashion and against just this number'.

To some degree yeah and I don't really see the problem with that. It's how most encounters will go. The exceptions can be just that, exceptions. If the players figure out a way to whack each of the 20 guards one at a time then it's your prerogative to let them and judge whether that's 20 non-significant encounters or 1 credible one. And if you decide it's a problem then it's your job to design encounters where they can't do that anymore.

 

[Rystil Arden]

To some degree yeah and I don't really see the problem with that. It's how most encounters will go. The exceptions can be just that, exceptions. If the players figure out a way to whack each of the 20 guards one at a time then it's your prerogative to let them and judge whether that's 20 non-significant encounters or 1 credible one. And if you decide it's a problem then it's your job to design encounters where they can't do that anymore.

There's no reason to force the game so they can't do that any more if that's what they should reasonably be able to do with their powers in the situation in which they find themselves. Doing that more than a little is just being adversarial (like in previous editions when you would build all enemies to specifically negate a PC build or something like that).

There's also the question of the 'credible threat' of some whole encounters vis-a-vis the 'one enemy survivor that you save for later'. There are certainly some KotS encounters that barely dealt us any damage at all and didn't seem could possibly have killed us. Should they not have counted as 'credible threats'?

It's not an easy judgment call. You can make it, but you shouldn't have to in 4e. They've made the system so streamlined and simple in other areas, that messy fiaty cludge sticks out like a sore thumb (and one easily fixed).

 

[Eldorian]

You try this kind of crap and see if your DM tells you when the next game is.

 

[Obryn]

That said, this is not the primary topic of this thread. I'd prefer to talk about Sunburst and other powers that don't require an enemy at all to function. It just seems weird to me that they put those in there.

Taking a look at it, it's a Cleric 27, so only available to characters well on their way to deityhood. And there's no reason they couldn't use it every 5 minutes.

It would heal somewhere in the 20-ish neighborhood, per person, every 5 minutes. If the battle was long and tough, they could probably manage to heal up fully in a half-hour to an hour.

I guess I don't see why this should bother me. Yes, it sidesteps healing surges, and it's infinite between-encounter healing. However, if the party can spend an hour waiting for the cleric to burst every five minutes, they can probably spend 6 hours on an extended rest just as easily. What's more, they don't get any healing surges back, which would prove very useful in combat.

Other than hitting a milestone easier if your DM is a pushover, what's the flaw here?

-O