How Do you Feel About Healing Surges? (Read First!)

[Neonchameleon]

My only issue with healing surges are that they refresh too quickly. They should only refresh between adventures.

Healing surges are on a daily refresh because that's when spells refresh and it makes sense to put the limited resources to the same place. Me, I just have a different definition of an extended rest and make that a very simple house rule. You need a long lazy weekend at a minimum and access to a temple (cleric) or lab or library (wizards).

 

[keterys]

I'd love to move _all_ of the daily stuff onto an "Extended" refresh, and then allow people to decide whether that's per character level, per dungeon level, per adventure, per game day, per game session, or per ice cream you buy the DM, all for themselves.

 

[Wiseblood]

So only which ever version of D&D YOU play (like), is REAL D&D? I think NOT. Healing Surges & KITS are both D&D, and ALWAYS will be. So far in the poll, less than 50% "dislike" HSs, so plenty of gamers like them.

HSs give a reasonable limit to healing, rather than the unstopable 3e CLW party.

I believe you misunderstand me. I stated it is no more D&D than 2E Character kits.
Character kits evolved into Prestige classes and now into Paragon classes Healing Surges should get the same treatment.

Less than 50% dislike them. Less than 30% like them and about 25% think they are a decent idea but could use improvement.

The 3e CLW party is a strawman. With perfect rolls you could generate 450 hp worth of healing. In reality average only 275.

Picture 2 Iconic parties Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Cleric one of them 3e the other 4e.

A 10th level 3e party with 10's for constitution can bring the entire party back from 0hp 1.6 times (2.6 if they roll perfectly 50 times) with the wand only. Cost 750gp per 50 charges.

a 10th level 4e party with 10's for constitution each party member is different the average is 1.7 times. ( F =2.2, W=1.5, R=1.4, C=1.7)
Cost free EVERY DAY.

If the constitution scores go up 4e really starts to edge 3e out. If all have 14's in Constitution 4e averages 2.2 time to the 3e 1.08 times.

The wand was insurance at best annoying at worst but not game breaking.
3e Characters have more room to make themselves less vulnerable than 4e characters but their resources were more limited.

 

[fjw70]

Healing surges are on a daily refresh because that's when spells refresh and it makes sense to put the limited resources to the same place. Me, I just have a different definition of an extended rest and make that a very simple house rule. You need a long lazy weekend at a minimum and access to a temple (cleric) or lab or library (wizards).

As the above post says I too would prefer to move all daily resources to a per adventure refresh.

 

[Lanefan]

Although I also agree with Lanefan that restricting the sources of healing during combat is a good thing. The more healing that occurs during combat, the longer a fight takes. Remove all in-combat healing... go with just the hit points that brought you to the fight... and the game progresses faster.

I'm not advocating removing all of it, just most.

The Cleric risking her neck to throw a cure into a fallen comrade while the swords and spells fly around her, every one of which might possibly slip and interrupt her spell - now that's pure gold.

But it should be risky enough to be the exception, not the expectation.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Healing should be slow or magical only

Why? What if a group wants to play non-magic setting? What if nobody wants their job to consist of spamming healing?​

Then the party is going to spend lots of downtime licking their wounds, leading right into...

It isn't realistic

...this. In a non-magic setting that's as realistic as it gets.

As for the spamming healing argument, right now I'm playing a Cleric in a 1e game and having a blast with it. Sure, I have to spend time and spells patching 'em up, but the trade-off is I still get to do other stuff and I know they're going to bend over backwards to keep me alive - because they know they need the healing!

In other words, benefits all round.

I don't mind killing off my party, mind you, I just want it to be when I choose to murder them.

I rarely get that choice - they murder themselves long before I get around to it.

Lanefan

 

[Pyromantic]

I do not like them. They allow waayyy too much healing. In D&D the healing was regulated by time and magical resources. Resources usually limited to one character
HS gave the resources to everyone and magnified the amount exponentially. People complaining about the clw wand nonsense in 3e are using strawmen. The clw wands were made available because magic items were made more cheaply, more easily, earlier and transformed into a commodity. That is an availability issue related to other rules.

You're doing exactly the same thing you're complaining about. Surges by themselves represent a limit to healing, not allowing more of it. They simply mean that you have to spend another resource in order to get hit points back. If you want to complain about how easy it is to spend that resource, fine, but then you have to throw 3E wands into the argument as well, as they approximate the same thing: a resource that is spent to recover hit points.

I for one really like the scaling value of healing. I'm on the fence about having a number of surges you can spend. I think it's necessary to limit the availability of healing somehow, though I might prefer it done in a different way. (Such as limiting the number of times you can "rest" to effectively recover hit points, and restricting healing items to one use per day whether they are charged or not.)

 

[Wiseblood]

You're doing exactly the same thing you're complaining about. Surges by themselves represent a limit to healing, not allowing more of it. They simply mean that you have to spend another resource in order to get hit points back. If you want to complain about how easy it is to spend that resource, fine, but then you have to throw 3E wands into the argument as well, as they approximate the same thing: a resource that is spent to recover hit points.

I for one really like the scaling value of healing. I'm on the fence about having a number of surges you can spend. I think it's necessary to limit the availability of healing somehow, though I might prefer it done in a different way. (Such as limiting the number of times you can "rest" to effectively recover hit points, and restricting healing items to one use per day whether they are charged or not.)

Healing surges do limit the amount of healing that you can do. I'm not arguing that. I say they are too abundant. They are FREE. They are too easily renewed. A wand requires an actual investment of treasure or skill points to use. It is not free or limitless or cheap to renew.

I like the scaling too. The limitations you describe to contain the healing already existed in pre healing surge D&D it was called a spell load. Theoretically infinite healing was possible but infinite resources are just not there in either version. But the resource is vastly more available in 4e's healing surge mechanic.

I can't wait to playtest DDN. 4E has great stuff but to me it has always felt just a little bit off and I mean a little. I DM'ed it for a year before our group decided it wasn't for us.

 

[keterys]

Btw, the _efficient_ 3e healer used wands of lesser vigor. 11 per charge, or 550 per wand - and no rolling required, which is the depressingly boring part of large scale healing anyways.

And outside of maybe the first 2 levels, the cost in gold is far cheaper than the opportunity cost of surges in 4e.

Now, in 2e and previous editions - healing was quite a bit trickier. Combats also were far less likely to be dangerous. Fairly often it was a lot more about steady and slow attrition. Something that's fallen pretty far out of favor in adventure setup, as far as I can tell. But it's one reason it worked. You had your few heals a day (or none, at 1st level - clerics don't need heals at 1st, right? and you just didn't heal all the way up between combats, and just went back to town as necessary.

 

[Li Shenron]

There's a lot of Healing Surge bashing going on, and I just wanted to set the record straight.

This poll will use the following definition of healing surges:

Healing Surges have two components: Surges Per Day, which is a daily limit on how often a character can be healed by healing effects; and Surge Value, which ensures that each of said healing effects is worth at least 1/4 of the character's maximum hit points.

That's it. We're not talking about Second Winds, short rests, Warlord healing, or any of that. We're just talking about Surges Per Day and Surge Value as ways of regulating healing effects. Namely, that healing effects scale with the heal-ee's max HP, and healing effects cannot be used a million times a day.

So, how do you feel about healing surges?

I'd be fine with the scaling, although I'm also fine with non-scaling.

On the other hand, I would not like the daily limit.