Healing Surge: My theory

[Keenath]

I just put together what's in the new Rogue article with something that one of the guys -- Mearles, I think? -- said in the podcast last month.

He said something about how triggers were going to be more important to players as well as monsters, and as an example he mentioned Second Wind being an action that triggers a healing surge.

I think I understand that comment now.

Healing Surge is a game effect that happens any time you get healed. If you drink a "healing potion" (which we heard mentioned once -- not "cure light" or whatever, but just a generic Healing Potion); if you are targeted by a Cure spell; or if you take the Second Wind action... all of them are triggers that cause you to activate a Healing Surge. A Second Wind is an action you can take once per day (or once per encounter, whatever) as a full round action that triggers a healing surge, but does not in itself heal any damage.

This is useful in a couple of ways. First, it standardizes healing. You don't have 1d8+X HP from one source, 1 HP/turn for 2 minutes from another, and a flat 10 HP from a third; all healing abilities trigger this common Healing Surge mechanic. This is useful for balance purposes as much as for clarity.

Second, a standard mechanic means you can start linking class or racial abilities to the Healing Surge. For example, a monk might, instead of becoming immune to disease, gain the ability to flush all disease from his body when he's targetted by a healing surge. A druid could do likewise for ongoing poisons. A dragonborn might have a power that grants him draconic resilience for a few rounds when he gains a healing surge, giving him a +2 AC for a short time -- regardless of the SOURCE of that surge.

Third, that means you can put the Healing Surge mechanics description in one place rather than reprinting it all over the world whenever you come up with a new method of healing. The downside of that is, we don't yet know what the generalized Healing Surge mechanic IS, so that "6+con" may be (read: is probably) adjusted by your class level -- whether it's multiplied by class level or what, I haven't the foggiest. (I do notice that HP per level are not adjusted by CON, though -- you gain 5, not "5+con", according to the Rogue stats.)

This is just speculation, but I really suspect I'm right on this one.

 

[Larrin]

This is just speculation, but I really suspect I'm right on this one.

I suspect you're close. I agree that it seems more efficient to let healing effects simply trigger a healing surge, this will keep one from needing to worry about Cure moderate or cure simple wounds, and instead of thinking up 30 different amounts of damage a cleric can heal a person you can instead find 30 different ways to trigger a surge.

I'm less sold on "use a surge to cure status effects" for things like monks or druids. it seems unnecessary when "Imunity to poison" works so simply.

 

[Subumloc]

I suspect you're close. I agree that it seems more efficient to let healing effects simply trigger a healing surge, this will keep one from needing to worry about Cure moderate or cure simple wounds, and instead of thinking up 30 different amounts of damage a cleric can heal a person you can instead find 30 different ways to trigger a surge.

I'm less sold on "use a surge to cure status effects" for things like monks or druids. it seems unnecessary when "Imunity to poison" works so simply.

Seconded. But the next question is: will there be more powerful cure effects? And if so, how will they work? Like, "trigger two healing surges", maybe...

 

[Keenath]

I'm less sold on "use a surge to cure status effects" for things like monks or druids. it seems unnecessary when "Imunity to poison" works so simply.

Well, okay, I was just grabbing a quick example. Immunity probably is better.

However, I think surge-linked boosts or effect-removal is a good idea for when you want something less than immunity but still a compelling benefit.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I like this idea.

Seconded. But the next question is: will there be more powerful cure effects? And if so, how will they work? Like, "trigger two healing surges", maybe...

Possibly, trigger a healing surge for double its normal value?

 

[Keenath]

Seconded. But the next question is: will there be more powerful cure effects? And if so, how will they work? Like, "trigger two healing surges", maybe...

I'm sure there will be... though the need for that may depend on how surges are handled by default. It might be a significant enough healing that enhancing it isn't necessary (short of, perhaps, the Heal style "you're at full HP now"). A powerful regeneration spell might give you a surge every round whether you need it or not, for example...

 

[WhatGravitas]

Healing Surge is a game effect that happens any time you get healed. If you drink a "healing potion" (which we heard mentioned once -- not "cure light" or whatever, but just a generic Healing Potion); if you are targeted by a Cure spell; or if you take the Second Wind action... all of them are triggers that cause you to activate a Healing Surge.

If it makes you happy, Monte Cook uses a very similar system in his house rules (aka Book of Experimental Might). So at least one designer (albeit not on the 4E team) has had a similar idea... so your idea could be on the money.

...and I'd bet that this idea is pretty close to what we will see in the 4E rules.

Cheers, LT.

 

[DogBackward]

(I do notice that HP per level are not adjusted by CON, though -- you gain 5, not "5+con", according to the Rogue stats.)

It could be that they just wanna save space, and the "Gain your Con bonus per level" part is in Character Creation, not each Class. If every class gains their Con bonus in HP per level, why reprint it 8 or more times? That's also what I think they're doing with the Int bonus in trained skills, which is why the Rogue doesn't have it listed specifically. It makes sense in a way, and while it wouldn't save a HUGE amount of space, it would help a li'l bit, I guess.

Also, no Con to HP and no Int for skills just doesn't make sense at all. To me, anyway.

As for the Healing Surge thing, I really like that idea. It would work great, and they could do it exactly like they do the Rogue's (and others') Talent things. Like the talents say 1[W] or 2[W] for how many dice of damage you deal, healing spells may say 1 or whatever for how many multiples of your Healing Surge you heal. That seems like it would be really easy in a lot of ways.

And it also makes a little more sense with what we've heard about the Cleric healing when he hits stuff, in a mechanical sense. Rolling extra dice to heal allies when you hit stuff is one more level of complication, which they're supposed to be removing. But with your Healing Surge idea, it's already calculated on each player's character sheet, so there's no rolling involved, and so there's no time wasted.

All in all, I like it.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I actually suspect that they scale up, especially if this is how Surges work. So, 6+con mod probably means the kind of con mod that goes up a point every other level [(stat-10)/2+lvl/2]. So, a normal healing surge should continue to be non-worthless.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Some interesting speculation here.

From the article, the rogue gets: Healing Surges: 6 + Constitution modifier

This is right below where the Hit Points are listed (for starting and for each level). Thus I would assume that the character has only 6 + Con Modifier and they are regenerated per day or per encounter. Feats and talents probably increase the number of surges they have at their disposal. 6+Con Mod seems like a lot for a per encounter ability, thus it is probably per day.

I would further speculate that the player can elect to trigger the healing surge when healed (as oppose to having it trigger automatically).

Finally, I think the effect from the surge will be very role dependent. Since the class is a striker, they will probably get some offensive bonus:

Wily Surge
When healed, the rogue can use this ability to gain +2d6 to their sneak attack until the end of their next turn. This uses one of the rogue's healing surge's for the encounter.

6 probably comes from the typical rogue hit die of d6. Thus all classes probably have a number of surges equal to their former hit die. Thus:

• Fighter = 10 + Con Mod
• Cleric = 8 + Con Mod
• Wizard = 4 + Con Mod

etc