Healing Potions seem odd

[Doug McCrae]

They seem almost completely useless.

You think so? I think they're much, much too good and I was considering houseruling them so no more than one can be used per encounter. As it currently stands the PCs can win any single fight (provided the level gap isn't crazy high) so long as they have enough healing potions.

Big, powerful monsters or hordes are no longer a problem. Attrition - either money or numerous encounters in a single day - becomes the only threat possible. But numerous encounters can simply be avoided by the 15min day solution. So as long as the money keeps flowing the PCs won't face any serious problems. I want the PCs to actually be concerned by powerful single encounters, and not just because they're worried about their bank balance taking a hit.

 

[Runestar]

Where is it different from 3.x?

Callit vands of vigor, call it healing surges,If you exaust your healing, you are in deep trouble.

Except that it is far easier to run out of healing surges than healing wands.

A fully charged wand of vigor costs just 750gp (chump change to a mid lv party) and can heal up to 550hp (which is already easily more than 2-3 times the combined hp of the party). I don't see any healing option in 4e which even remotely approaches the efficiency of said wand.

 

[Ginnel]

Except that it is far easier to run out of healing surges than healing wands.

A fully charged wand of vigor costs just 750gp (chump change to a mid lv party) and can heal up to 550hp (which is already easily more than 2-3 times the combined hp of the party). I don't see any healing option in 4e which even remotely approaches the efficiency of said wand.

My Only answer to that is good!

I really dislike the idea that money/magic can constantly overcome a problem better than a class feature something that is special/unique and a character is built for (I can just hear the screams of munchkins everywhere crying but my character is built for everything with his hordes or cash)

The only useful thing they did was to give interesting options to non spellcasters who chose use magic device other than full attack, which powers and rituals now do.

 

[Danzauker]

My Only answer to that is good!

And I quote.

In 4e I really think that the place for effects that can have such effects and whose limit is just the amount of cash the players have is a Ritual book.

 

[Regicide]

Sure, one can find corner cases that cause issues in any game design.

The implication from different characters having varying number of healing surges and the ability to "spend" character build points to increase your healing surge potential is that in 4E characters should USUALLY be under time constraints. Not a corner case.

Not being under a time constraint means you can simply rest and get all your surges back, so having more surges than someone else is pretty meaningless and so circumvents one of the core mechanics of 4E. In fact I'd say being under a time constraint is pretty much MANDATORY in 4E now BECAUSE of the healing surge mechanic. As this can seem more "dramatic" I can see how this could certainly have been intentional.

If healing surge limits are a "corner case" in your game and not coming up, then I think it implies you're not playing 4E the way the way it was "intended" to be played. I heartily endorse that playing style. Time constraints are a good tool when used appropriately, but inappropriate as the norm.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I've played in a 3.x campaign where hit points were always considered actual, physical wounds. (That's only happened to me once, and I can totally see how picturing it that way makes Second Wind seem 'unrealistic'. Any other game I've been in it's been assumed that at least some of the HPs lost represents something other than a bleeding wound or gaping hole in your body.)

So, first fight of the campaign (starting at 8th or so lvl). I take a fireball to the face. I probably look like Darkman at this point, or at least Harvey Dent post-accident.

After the fight, out comes the trusty wand of cure light wounds, and I'm good as new. (Well, except I'm completely bald for the rest of the campaign. In fact, I think we all were.) Repeat, often several times a day, for the rest of the campaign, occasionally substituting things like being impaled or half-smashed by a thrown boulder for being immolated. No matter how pulped we were, everything was fine a minute or two later, as long as that wand wasn't out of charges.

What I'm getting at is that if you don't treat HP as somewhat abstract, the imagined results are not particularly "immersive" or "realistic" regardless of what edition you're using. And if you do treat them as somewhat abstract, then it's a bit easier to interpret the results the mechanics give you within the fiction.

 

[KarinsDad]

If healing surge limits are a "corner case" in your game and not coming up, then I think it implies you're not playing 4E the way the way it was "intended" to be played. I heartily endorse that playing style.

Healing surge limits are not the "corner case", running out of them with a backpack of healing potions while simultaneously under a time constraint as per your example is the corner case.


Btw, 4E can be played with a few PCs out of healing surges. Those PCs have to play defensively, but it can be done. We have had it happen on 2 encounters out of ~20. In fact, we took on Kalarel (climatic battle in KotS) with our Dragonborn Paladin at 7 hit points and out of healing surges. Why? Because we had a time crunch to do it before his ritual opened the portal.

We won by having the other PCs go down into the room and attacking while the Paladin stayed up top throwing Javelins. We just had no defender up front soaking up attacks, so we had a paradigm shift on how to fight.

Time constraints are a good tool when used appropriately, but inappropriate as the norm.

Precisely. We have had a few minor time constraints and one major one in game, but they are not the norm. Most time constraints are imposed by the players, not the DM, at least in our game.

For example, "Well, most people still have resources left over, so let's continue instead of resting for the night.". We tend to have a group drive to push until we are worn out.


Btw, one funny thing I find in 4E is that we still "hole up for the night" at about 8:30 AM. We fight 5 to 7 battles in about an hour or so first thing in the morning (especially when entering a dungeon) and then rest.

This really is no different from 3E from what I can tell.

 

[BeauNiddle]

The implication from different characters having varying number of healing surges and the ability to "spend" character build points to increase your healing surge potential is that in 4E characters should USUALLY be under time constraints. Not a corner case.

Not being under a time constraint means you can simply rest and get all your surges back, so having more surges than someone else is pretty meaningless and so circumvents one of the core mechanics of 4E. In fact I'd say being under a time constraint is pretty much MANDATORY in 4E now BECAUSE of the healing surge mechanic. As this can seem more "dramatic" I can see how this could certainly have been intentional.

If healing surge limits are a "corner case" in your game and not coming up, then I think it implies you're not playing 4E the way the way it was "intended" to be played. I heartily endorse that playing style. Time constraints are a good tool when used appropriately, but inappropriate as the norm.

I disagree. I think the purpose of healing surges is to show who is bad at resource management and team play.

In previous editions the fighters could just charge in and then complain at the cleric for not healing them back to full. Or they complain that the casters need to rest again.

In this edition if the fighter keeps running out of healing surges whilst everybody else is doing fine then the party know what to focus on when adapting their tactics.

With the reduction in lethality of criticals then a DM, with practice, should be able to judge how many healing surges a party will use up to within 1 or 2 and thus when they do decide to run a rare time based adventure it should be even more thrilling.


I like the tactical choices offered by 'Fighter is low on healing surges - do we push on and adapt or do we rest up?' rather than 'My backpack is starting to feel light on healing magics, lets head back to the alchemists / magic shop.'

Magic items should be flavour or fall back positions NOT a crutch the party need to survive.

(why yes, I have played with some irritating beserkers in the past, how could you tell )

 

[Wish]

Put me in the camp that loathes the healing surge mechanic, for one very big reason - it completely eliminates the ability of the PCs to make contingency plans, or deal with emergencies. When things go horribly wrong I think it's a good thing for the PCs to be able to dip into their bag of tricks and come up with an answer. Cleric's out of spells and you're getting mauled, well, it's a good thing you thought to invest in that scroll of heal and staff of curing. Got yourself in way too deep for even that to help? Glad the wizard remembered his scroll of teleport, or the druid brought along a few scrolls to summon up some elementals for reinforcements.

Now? Well, the druid got lost on his way to the dungeon, haven't seen him in a while, or his elementals. The cleric can't heal the fighter at all because the fighter can't heal himself. And the wizard maybe could teleport you out of here, if you can convince the bad guys to give you a few hours to cast the ritual.

There's no saving up for a rainy day, there's no planning ahead for a tough spot. One bad series of die rolls and that's it - new campaign time.

 

[Tale]

Put me in the camp that loathes the healing surge mechanic, for one very big reason - it completely eliminates the ability of the PCs to make contingency plans, or deal with emergencies. When things go horribly wrong I think it's a good thing for the PCs to be able to dip into their bag of tricks and come up with an answer. Cleric's out of spells and you're getting mauled, well, it's a good thing you thought to invest in that scroll of heal and staff of curing. Got yourself in way too deep for even that to help? Glad the wizard remembered his scroll of teleport, or the druid brought along a few scrolls to summon up some elementals for reinforcements.

Now? Well, the druid got lost on his way to the dungeon, haven't seen him in a while, or his elementals. The cleric can't heal the fighter at all because the fighter can't heal himself. And the wizard maybe could teleport you out of here, if you can convince the bad guys to give you a few hours to cast the ritual.

There's no saving up for a rainy day, there's no planning ahead for a tough spot. One bad series of die rolls and that's it - new campaign time.

Except it absolutely does no such thing as you claim it does. It just eliminates the old contingencies. Want a contingency, want to plan ahead? Be sure you have extra healing surges available. Do not waste them all. If you're out, you're not "in a bad spot," you've already passed the bad spot and you ignored it until things got even worse.