Getting healing right

[Endroren]

Because giving people more HP just makes combat longer, whereas the surge system gives you a way to interact with you HP during combat, regardless of class, and allows for simple scalable healing.

And they have thought everything through, the problem is that they have different goals than you for healing. The answer to every "why did they do x" systemic problem is simple. That's where they decided that playability met realsm. Where they draw that line is indeed closer to playability than it was in 3e, but there you have it.

Ever play a 3.5 game past 12th level?

Trust me...based on that they haven't given me a lot of hope that they've truly thought everything through.

 

[Counterspin]

HP doesn't work that way, and it never has. I'll wait for someone else to post the 1e HP description, it's inevitable.

I've wiped both of my 4e playgroups. The idea that you can determine how powerful a character is without seeing what they're fighting is preposterous. Power level is a comparison.

They didn't think it through? Well, then I guess they're lucky that their HP design falls perfectly into their 4e design goals of removing the cleric as a necessity, making combat less swingy, and eliminating the thirty minute adventuring day. What luck!

 

[Jack99]

I need to see this play out to know for sure but this really just sings of a system that has padded the game down to a 2 dimensional video game with lots of save points and a respawn if you die.

Indeed you do, because it plays out in no way shape or form as you fear. Give it a try mate, it really works well.

 

[Lacyon]

You've always focused on one fight at a time. That hasn't changed. But I guess what I'm wondering is if a 5 minute rest heals 25% of your HP, why WOULDN'T you retreat and heal up? Unless your GM doggedly pursues you with an endless swarm of wandering monsters until until you drop, a smart party can easily back out of a dungeon to restore their surges.

Whatever reason they didn't just retreat after every fight to heal up all their hp and restore all their spells/day in prior editions is going to be the same reason they don't retreat after every fight to restore all their surges.

You can use as many surges as you want during a 5-minute retreat, but you need a 6-hour rest (limited to one such rest per day) to get back the surges.

This just strikes me as a very odd game dynamic and seems to undermine the very danger of adventuring. Sure, a really big monster that can swat the life out of you with a couple hits is still dangerous but that's always been true. But in this case you start every combat fresh as a daisy.

Yes. The idea is that most fights will contain enough monster (either quantity or power level) to make the PCs sweat, without making the PCs only able to handle one such fight before resting.

So where did the gash in your chest go? What happened to the arm the owlbear crushed under its claws?

The crushed arm that gives you no penalty on attack rolls or shield use? It's still there, but in addition to not affecting your attack rolls or shield use, it also isn't counted against your current hp.

And what happens at high levels? How powerful will your foes have to be to threaten a 10th level fighter with 85 HP 12 20 HP surges per day? And the game goes up to 30th level! Either the foes have to be dishing out 50 points on average at 10th+ level or the danger of death as a consequence of failure is eliminated.

I'm not sure why the foes need to be able to drop the fighter in 2 hits for there to be challenge, especially given that encounter design in 4E recommends one foe per PC and Second Wind requires a standard action, and thus isn't a good idea in a lot of situations.

I need to see this play out to know for sure but this really just sings of a system that has padded the game down to a 2 dimensional video game with lots of save points and a respawn if you die.

I'm not sure how you get save points and respawn from these mechanics.

 

[MindWanderer]

How powerful will your foes have to be to threaten a 10th level fighter with 85 HP 12 20 HP surges per day?

Exactly as powerful as they'd have to be to threaten a 10th level fighter with 1 healing surge per day (and btw, they'd be 21-HP surges in your example). If you can only use one per fight, then having more than one doesn't improve your staying power at all.

Also remember that only the dwarf can use a healing surge as a minor action. Everyone else needs a standard action. If you take a standard action to regain 20 HP, then take 22 damage before your next turn, your surge did more harm than good.

Oh, and if you're talking about retreating in the middle of a fight, then you get to start over, because the monsters get healing surges, too.

I really don't see how this is worse than 3e. Pack a wand of CLW (or better yet, lesser vigor) and you'll never be injured going into a fight. And if you have the leisure to go out and rest after every fight, a 3e party is in massively better shape than a 4e party, because they get to recover all their spells and X/day abilities, of which they have many.

 

[WalterKovacs]

You've always focused on one fight at a time.

Perhaps. But with spellcasters, everyone one of their resources is daily. They have to include "will I need this later in the day" as part of their decision to cast anything.

That includes the Cleric's healing. [Not to mention the even more long term planning of, when it's justifiable to use a wand or potion since that's a constantly available resource].

By having per encounter powers [which do MORE than the basic attack damage] and even some at-will powers that do more than the basic damage ... you have options that you can use every fight, so the strategy is when to use them during the encounter. This includes Second Wind, the Cleric's healing word [he gets two ... but that only gives SOME members of the party extra healing ... there will probably be more than just 2 characters].

There are still some daily powers that need to be considered, such as the Cure Light and the Lay on Hands. However, burning through all your dailies still leaves you with quite a bit of power at your finger tips.

Ultimately, a party can probably continue having encounters until they run out of healing surges ... when you have 0 healing surges, you probably also burned through most of the dailies. That should be a time to have an extended rest.

That hasn't changed. But I guess what I'm wondering is if a 5 minute rest heals 25% of your HP, why WOULDN'T you retreat and heal up? Unless your GM doggedly pursues you with an endless swarm of wandering monsters until until you drop, a smart party can easily back out of a dungeon to restore their surges.

Yes, a smart party could get into one fight, leave and spend 24 hours getting everything back. Of course a smart party may not use up all of their daily resources in a single encounter. And a DM with a "smart" party may not allow them to adventure for 2 hours, rest for 6 hours and thus have 3 "days" a day ... because the rules are on the DMs side of saying 1 extended rest per day. And, in some situations, it isn't easy to just back out of the dungeon. As you get deeper into the dungeon it's harder to just back out. And of course, that's one specific type of adventure you are talking about. In many other situations, you can't simply go away and come back the next day.

It could be very easy for ANY version of D&D to turn into the 5-minute adventuring day. However, it requires for the players to play that way, and the DM to allow it. That has nothing to do with the system. In fact, this system means that, even with their dailies gone, the PCs still have a lot they can do in a fight, which at least means that a DM doesn't have to be as sympathetic to the wizard that burned through all his high level spells in the first encounter so they "have" to sleep.

This just strikes me as a very odd game dynamic and seems to undermine the very danger of adventuring. Sure, a really big monster that can swat the life out of you with a couple hits is still dangerous but that's always been true. But in this case you start every combat fresh as a daisy.

And so do the monsters. And the monsters also have lots of hitpoints [unless they are minions] and your attacks, as you pointed out, aren't always for a lot of damage [at-wills/basic attacks especially].

So where did the gash in your chest go? What happened to the arm the owlbear crushed under its claws?

As has been pointed out ... there was NEVER lasting effects for damage outside of special additional rules. You are at half hit points on your 3.5 PC. So your arm was crushed by an owlbear's claws. Are you taking a penalty to using your two-handed weapon? No? But your arm is crushed. Of course, that is just what you've chosen to describe your injury.

HP are a very vague concept that do not literally translate to INJURIES ... especially as there is no side effect to losing HP until you are made unconcious, dying or dead. [Now, bloodied, which triggers some combat modifiers for you or your opponent].

And what happens at high levels? How powerful will your foes have to be to threaten a 10th level fighter with 85 HP 12 20 HP surges per day? And the game goes up to 30th level! Either the foes have to be dishing out 50 points on average at 10th+ level or the danger of death as a consequence of failure is eliminated.

You are assuming the PCs win the fights very quickly. Given the example of the 85 HP, 12 sure, 22 HP per surge fighter against a monster that does, let's say, an average of 10 damage per round.

He can last 8 rounds before a healing surge, get 2 more rounds from that second wind, about 3 rounds from the cleric using his word. That's about 13 rounds. Now, other people also have to contend with other monsters. An important thing to remember is that, while few monsters will have healing surges, they will likely have the extra hit points built in. While attacks and defenses scale up ... damage output does not. The main scaling damage appears to be magical weapons which give a +1 to damage for every five levels.

So the fights will likely be longer ... which means that even a monster that only does a small ammount of damage will have a better chance of eventually wearing down a fighter.

Now, between fights, you can likely get yourself back up to full health before the next fight ... but that is because most encounters are assumed to be facing a party that is ready for them. It's no longer necessary for a DM to put the party against monsters in the most inopportune of circumstances to make the fight challenging.

I need to see this play out to know for sure but this really just sings of a system that has padded the game down to a 2 dimensional video game with lots of save points and a respawn if you die.

The respawn costs money. The save points are only there if the DM allows it, and the players agree on playing that way.

Saying, "the game doesn't expressly prevent bad players and bad DMs from making the game boring" doesn't say much.

They've prevented the NEED for the 5-minute game day. A DM doesn't have to take pity on a group that uses up it's daily's too quickly ... they can still do ok with per encounter powers. It is VERY hard to use up all your healing surges very quickly.

Just a question, have you actually tried playing an encounter yet? Or are you basing your assumption of how the game will be played entirely on hypotheticals and number crunching. Because the games that people have actually played differ greatly from your interpretation.

 

[Storminator]

You're right. I misread that section.

Still, while that changes the dynamic somewhat, I don't believe it changes it that much.

How can you be wrong by 200% and have that not change much?

PS

 

[Starbuck_II]

How can you be wrong by 200% and have that not change much?

PS

He are under-misestimating it and by doing so did a Bushism and thus is right! Bush thought so.

 

[cdrcjsn]

I had problems initially with Healing Surges. I tried them and they worked great during play, but I still felt strange about them.

Until I played a 3.5 game afterwards and realized that most of our party was responsible for their own healing and was usually done between fights with wands of lesser vigor/cure light wounds, pearls of power 1 or healing belts (activated by others if they couldn't use it themselves). The cleric only provided healing during the combat when someone was in trouble.

After that realization, it doesn't bother me as much now.

The only thing the healing surge mechanic really does is to remove those magical toys from the equation.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I had problems initially with Healing Surges. I tried them and they worked great during play, but I still felt strange about them.

Until I played a 3.5 game afterwards and realized that most of our party was responsible for their own healing and was usually done between fights with wands of lesser vigor/cure light wounds, pearls of power 1 or healing belts (activated by others if they couldn't use it themselves). The cleric only provided healing during the combat when someone was in trouble.

After that realization, it doesn't bother me as much now.

The only thing the healing surge mechanic really does is to remove those magical toys from the equation.

Our 3.5 party does the same thing and I see the same similarity. I however need that extra little bit that the magic wrapper gives things for me to have enough to suspend my disblief about how things work in a fantasy world.