Healing as an Afterthought

[Gryph]

I've been playing/DMing in a 4e group for almost 3 years now. The game is a lot of fun and as a whole it is both complex enough and well-balanced enough that houserules are basically non-existent. (Just a couple races and classes that I don't allow for campaign story reasons.)

Overall, I like the healing surge mechanic, with a couple of exceptions. First, it didn't quite answer the short work day problem. When healing surges are gone, it is rightfully hard to get the players to keep moving forward. Secondly, and increasingly the more serious issue for me, healing has become an afterthought with the players (including myself when I play).

I recognize this is a playstyle issue more than a design issue. I'm sure a lot of groups prefer that healing be kind of a low involvement activity during the encounter and the adventuring day. I kind of miss it as a tactical activity.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason it feels like an afterthought to me is the leader classes getting most of their healing from minor actions. So quite often, in our group, a healer will take his move and attack then just before ending his turn ask around the table, "Oh, does anyone need healing?"

As a houserule, I've been thinking of making the use of healing word and its brethren a standard action instead of a minor. I think the tactical range of options that leader classes have been given are broad enough to make those classes interesting to play, even if the player has to choose between attacking or healing with their standard action.

To handle the short work day problem, I've been thinking about adding a medium rest. The medium rest would take about an hour and require that the characters eat a meal. The medium rest would let players recover 2 healing surges and they couldn't use a medium rest more than twice between extended rests.

I could have put this in houserules, but I'd also like to hear peoples thoughts on pace of healing and other ideas for alternate answers to the "healing" question.

 

[Mengu]

Healing as a minor action or as part of another action meets one of the primary goals of healing in 4e. It doesn't take away from a character's normal standard actions. The old "Cure X Wounds wand wielder" role has gone away, and this is a positive change. In a 5 round encounter, if the leader needs to spend 2 standard actions healing, 40% of his time is basically taken up by boredom. And we go back to the days of, who wants to play the leader. I would not recommend changing healing to a standard action. It will simply encourage everyone to play a dwarf, or pick up other powers that let them spend surges as part of another action. Action economy is rather important in 4e because combat happens fast (maybe not in minutes, but definitely in rounds).

As for the short work day problem, whenever I felt I needed a longer work day, I as DM, provided methods of regaining surges or daily powers. Maybe in the middle of a siege, the PC's are all but spent. A military leader gives an inspirational speech, and the PC's all recover a few surges and maybe the lowest level daily attack power they have spent. You could also preplan the long day, and provide an oncoming storm type rest, where during their extended rest before the long day, they gain an extra healing surge, and wake up with temporary hit points equal to their surge value. Before they embark on their journey, the priests who are sending them on a quest may provide them with a hero's feast of some sort, that lets them use their lowest level daily attack power twice during this day (but once per encounter). Similarly, in time sensitive moments, where even a short rest isn't particularly possible, I've had partial rests, where they may spend a surge, and recover an encounter power.

Conversely on short adventuring days, I may say the night was stormy, the boat was rocking all night, and your rest was frequently disturbed, so you wake up with 2 fewer surges. Or I may insert skill challenges that tax resources forcing them to spend surges, dailies, and the like. An in combat skill challenge could involve feeding surges to close a gate, while fending off wights that drain surges.

I like the limited nature of the daily resources, so the PC's learn to manage them for any length of adventuring day they might be facing. I'm fortunate enough to have players who don't metagame their daily resources, and follow the adventure, performing what their characters would do despite running low on resources. There is nothing quite so satisfactory as going into your last battle with 2 surges and 1 daily in the whole party, and emerging victorious.

 

[D'karr]

I've been playing/DMing in a 4e group for almost 3 years now. The game is a lot of fun and as a whole it is both complex enough and well-balanced enough that houserules are basically non-existent. (Just a couple races and classes that I don't allow for campaign story reasons.)

Overall, I like the healing surge mechanic, with a couple of exceptions. First, it didn't quite answer the short work day problem. When healing surges are gone, it is rightfully hard to get the players to keep moving forward. Secondly, and increasingly the more serious issue for me, healing has become an afterthought with the players (including myself when I play).

I recognize this is a playstyle issue more than a design issue. I'm sure a lot of groups prefer that healing be kind of a low involvement activity during the encounter and the adventuring day. I kind of miss it as a tactical activity.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason it feels like an afterthought to me is the leader classes getting most of their healing from minor actions. So quite often, in our group, a healer will take his move and attack then just before ending his turn ask around the table, "Oh, does anyone need healing?"

As a houserule, I've been thinking of making the use of healing word and its brethren a standard action instead of a minor. I think the tactical range of options that leader classes have been given are broad enough to make those classes interesting to play, even if the player has to choose between attacking or healing with their standard action.

To handle the short work day problem, I've been thinking about adding a medium rest. The medium rest would take about an hour and require that the characters eat a meal. The medium rest would let players recover 2 healing surges and they couldn't use a medium rest more than twice between extended rests.

I could have put this in houserules, but I'd also like to hear peoples thoughts on pace of healing and other ideas for alternate answers to the "healing" question.

Changing "healing" powers to standard actions would be my least favorite thing in the world. With minor action healing, I think that 4e made the "healing" classes finally workable. Decoupling healing from Divine classes was also a great design decision.

I've done many changes with each group that I run as we do a lot of playtesting. I once made "magical" healing not spend healing surges. Potions did not spend a healing surge, for example. Cleric healing did not spend a healing surge. A warlord healing spends healing surges, etc.

That worked "meh", it felt forced. The healing potion "houserule" is the only one we've kept for our regular games.

Rituals for "shifting" healing surges are an incredibly good resource, and a fantastic way to start getting rituals used in game.

I've found that description is the best "medicine" for our group. They'll describe their actions in a short rest and during an extended rest. That makes the healing not feel like an afterthought.

 

[marelion]

Playing a strenght-based cleric (the campaign started 1 1/2 years ago, it was my first 4E campaign, so i did not notice what an inferior choice I had made due to a lack of system familiarity) I can tell you the action economy is tight enough already the way it is now. Changing Healing Word and the like to Standard Action means to reduce Leaders to Healers.

You would further reduce the viability of melee based leader classes other than the Warlord, since now they would still have to engage in melee(because their powers apart from Healing Words mostly are melee) AND waste their standard actions on Healing Words instead of using their other powers. So you would have a leader in your party who would be at the center of each attack but who would not get muchg benefit from it other than an occasional AoO, mehh.

As Mengu already said, playing Healbots is no fun, for 99% of all people at least. Even now with Healing Word being a minor action it is bothersome enough to be constantly spending your actions for other people`s benefit, because at paragon, someone with a decent Heal check, read: the leader, will likely have to spend two or three Standard Actions per encounter to allow allies to get rid of crippling conditions. Add your houserule suggestion and the player basicaly has his turns set for him.
Strikers cannnot do that because they need their standards to deliver attacks and defenders have to stay close to the monsters so they can benefit from their mark. Imagine what you could do to higher-level characters who are more often than not dazed, slowed or immobilzed if you force them to spend their standard action on healing their allies. Imho, it does not feel too satisfactory to watch the fight knowing your only two contributions were two Healing Words and a Word of Vigor, even when those three powers you used were thr deceisive point of the battle.

All players want to constantly use their ubercool powers all the time and leaders are not a different breed of players in that aspect. With the condition killer-problem already draining on the player`s ressources, vulgo actions, I strongly advise against implementing your houserule, sorry.

 

[TerraDave]

Hmm. Its always been at the forefront in the game I am DMing...but maybe this is just me. Seriously.

Their is a lot of hurt, so all the "cure" utility powers, and attacks that also bring healing, healing beacon (or whatever it is called), and so forth, feature prominently, and can be quite dramatic in play. We had our first mass cure light wounds in the lass session. In was a forthought kind of thing.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

As a houserule, I've been thinking of making the use of healing word and its brethren a standard action instead of a minor. I think the tactical range of options that leader classes have been given are broad enough to make those classes interesting to play, even if the player has to choose between attacking or healing with their standard action.

Like others, I think you would be stripping away one of the best changes 4e made to 3e play by changing these minor actions to standards.

If you feel like they are becoming an add on, what you could do is make them conditional upon certain events happening. What those events are is up to your table, but I think pairing these minor actions up with something restricts them just enough that they become a little more meaningful. A different approach would be to turn them into immediate actions. In this way, the player would be more actively looking to fit them into the play at the table, without muddling them into their turn as an afterthought.

To handle the short work day problem, I've been thinking about adding a medium rest. The medium rest would take about an hour and require that the characters eat a meal. The medium rest would let players recover 2 healing surges and they couldn't use a medium rest more than twice between extended rests.

Would raising the healing surge value help here (from a quarter hps to a third perhaps)? I also like the idea of making some healing not cost a surge (such as D'karr recommends with potions). A medium rest is an interesting idea to get back surges but I would restrict it to once an extended rest (but you perhaps get a quarter rounded down of your surges back?). In addition or alternatively, perhaps when calculating surges per day your PCs could get double their constitution modifier rather than just one lot of their con mod.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[wedgeski]

I actually like Healing focused characters and I'm quite happy being a healbot. I realise that I represent a small fraternity of gamers though.

Healing in 4E seems to be in a good place to me right now. Self-healing is a solid crutch for hurting characters, and the various Leader roles have a ton of flavour and are just balls-to-the-wall fun to play (for the most part). I don't see any reason to change things.

(Which is about the fourth time I've said that about 4E today.)

 

[Gryph]

-snip-
You would further reduce the viability of melee based leader classes other than the Warlord, since now they would still have to engage in melee(because their powers apart from Healing Words mostly are melee) AND waste their standard actions on Healing Words instead of using their other powers. So you would have a leader in your party who would be at the center of each attack but who would not get muchg benefit from it other than an occasional AoO, mehh.-snip-

I've never had a player use the heal skill to remove conditions? With all of the at wills available and other utilities/powers that allow an ally to make a save on the leader's turn (sometimes even for conditions that wouldn't usually get a save) that just hasn't come up. Granted it does sometimes force the leader to use an at-will when they might have preferred to pull something else out, so it can constrain their choice.

Do other tables see the same thing Marelion is describing, the leader losing 2 or 3 standards to trigger a heal check?

 

[Gryph]

Like others, I think you would be stripping away one of the best changes 4e made to 3e play by changing these minor actions to standards.

If you feel like they are becoming an add on, what you could do is make them conditional upon certain events happening. What those events are is up to your table, but I think pairing these minor actions up with something restricts them just enough that they become a little more meaningful. A different approach would be to turn them into immediate actions. In this way, the player would be more actively looking to fit them into the play at the table, without muddling them into their turn as an afterthought.

Would raising the healing surge value help here (from a quarter hps to a third perhaps)? I also like the idea of making some healing not cost a surge (such as D'karr recommends with potions). A medium rest is an interesting idea to get back surges but I would restrict it to once an extended rest (but you perhaps get a quarter rounded down of your surges back?). In addition or alternatively, perhaps when calculating surges per day your PCs could get double their constitution modifier rather than just one lot of their con mod.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

The number of surges recovered and frequency of use are totally subject to change after testing. In fact, I think a few more surges recovered but only used once a day may get me closer to the pacing I'm looking for. Thanks for idea.

What I was reaching for was a player initiated recovery mechanic that still required that they evaluate risk of staying in one place for an hour. I've used a couple different story based or location based recharges in sessions; but that frankly felt a little too arbitrary for my group's taste. They took them, but felt like they had been bailed out or had the decision to continue taken out of their hands.

 

[Gryph]

I'd like to partially respond to the majority opinion on healing action economy.

One of the playstyle considerations I'm struggling with is a perceived lack of interesting tactical impact on the decision to use a healing power. The leader classes as a whole have very few uses for their minors outside healing so there is typically no opportunity cost to be weighed in deciding whether or not to use the heal power.

As a small clarification, I hadn't planned on changing all the utility heals, just the Word class feature heals.

Now a follow up question. Would it have any bearing on your opinion if the various Word powers were at-will standard actions rather than Encounter powers?