I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[Summer-Knight925]

Look, I'm not in the mood to edition war (and by your tone I'm assuming that's what you're looking for, if not prove me wrong.) so I'm just going to walk away from this conversation. But you have fun.

I tried that once too, it still started an edition war.

But the healing potions...they were (usually) made by spellcasters, the usually being of course A. finding them in a dungeon (in which we can assume they were made by a spellcaster) or B. some odd fountain that is best not talked about.

Another loop hole in this entire thread, it was what you DISLIKE/LIKE about them, not what they were like in older editions, I read through 21 pages of "but X was like Y and now X is like P"
does it matter?
If you don't have fun with a game, don't play it. I use to fight in the edition war, and then I realized it isn't worth it because there are other games then D&D.

 

[FireLance]

Sorry for the delay, got caught up in Real Life.

Once more into the breach....

Second Wind and like 'healing in combat' are merely the most objectionable of the uses of Healing Surge - it as a whole trivializes damage taken. Much of 4e seems built around trivializing what had been serious damage (example - petrification) further than the magic in previous editions.

Fair enough, but I would break down the actual cause of the "problem" into the following:

1. Every character can heal himself (via the Second Wind action and using healing surges out of combat). While the 4E implementation of self-healing uses healing surges, they are not actually necessary: the Star Wars Saga Edition second wind rule and the Iron Heroes reserve pool of hit points are game mechanics that accomplish the same without using healing surges.

2. Characters have too many healing surges, and each one recovers too many hit points. These are quantitative issues, not qualitative ones.

It's an abstract system; it supports a wide range of descriptions.

Same answer. Ultimately, it's probably going to be narrated more dramatically because it's a time for drama.

Hmmm. It seems to me that you are avoiding the question.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I do:

Flee now! Save yourselves while there's still time! It's too late for us!

The Auld Grump

blah blah blah, can't add XP

but....

IT'S TO LATE! THEY CANNOT SAVE THEMSELVES! FLEE MY CHILDREN! FLEE!!!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Please, tell me how 4E combat is more grindy than, "I attack five times," or, "I move and attack once unless I have a combination of feats."

Speaking for my group only, we find it grinder because of the combination of:

1) Between actual HP, Surges and other effects, 4Ed foes have equivalent or more HP in a given combat than their 3.5Ed equivalents.

2) individual attacks do about the same damage/strike as they did in 3.5Ed

3) a virtually complete absence of iterative/multiple melee attacks and non-AoE multitargeting attack spells

Means it takes longer to get through a single combat...which to us = "grind."

 

[Hussar]

Speaking for my group only, we find it grinder because of the combination of:

1) Between actual HP, Surges and other effects, 4Ed foes have equivalent or more HP in a given combat than their 3.5Ed equivalents.

2) individual attacks do about the same damage/strike as they did in 3.5Ed

3) a virtually complete absence of iterative/multiple melee attacks and non-AoE multitargeting attack spells

Means it takes longer to get through a single combat...which to us = "grind."

Just to point out - while there are a couple of exceptions, virtually no foes in 4e gain healing surges that can be used in combat.

Actual hp? Oh, yeah, they got lots of those. But healing surges actually aren't really going to add time to defeating foes.

As far as (3) goes, well, that's not entirely true. For one, while a given PC might not have iterative attacks, it's pretty rare to go a round without making multiple attacks. Between all of the effects that can give you extra actions, it's unlikely that at least one PC isn't getting one or more extra attacks in a round.

And non-AoE multitargeting effects? You mean stuff that only targets enemies? Umm... I gotta disagree 100% on this one. Every class has burst/blast effects, and usually multiple ones. Even the strikers get a fair number of them and most AoE powers don't target allies, outside of the wizard.

Heck, my fighter specialized in AoE effects - Cleave as a basic attack (2 targets damaged per attack), and various burst and blast AoE's because he used a vicious warpick and I wanted to capitalize on the extra damage done by critical hits.

In our current 4e game, we have 3 strikers, a monk, a ranger/monk and my Faelock, and all three of us are hitting multiple foes just about every round.

 

[tomBitonti]

Speaking for my group only, we find it grinder because of the combination of:

1) Between actual HP, Surges and other effects, 4Ed foes have equivalent or more HP in a given combat than their 3.5Ed equivalents.

2) individual attacks do about the same damage/strike as they did in 3.5Ed

3) a virtually complete absence of iterative/multiple melee attacks and non-AoE multitargeting attack spells

Means it takes longer to get through a single combat...which to us = "grind."

A fun statistic that I found myself figuring while looking over 4E monsters is the "how many rounds does it take to kill itself" index. That is, with average damage and factoring in monsters attack bonuses against its own ACs, with suitable rough estimates for special abilities, how long does a monster take to kill itself?

The numbers were quite higher than I thought was reasonable.

The problem seems to be undertuned monsters. That does make fights a lot more predictable. But, it also makes for less excitement (because of the lessened risk), and for more boredom (when fights drag on).

But, I would say that that is a tuning problem, not a problem with healing surges in an of themselves.

For strenuous activity, breaks can help one maintain high levels of performance for short periods of time. And "muscle" recharge (not sure how to say it properly) has to have been studied and modeled, both for athletics, and the ability to concentrate has to have been studied, say, for pilots, or air traffic controllers, or for heavy machinery operators of any sort.

That is, I *like* the idea of a recharge mechanic. Thought, I'm not sold on 4E healing surges as the best implementation.

TomB

 

[prosfilaes]

It isn't that surges are any less realistic than the healing that came before,

If you assume certain definitions about what HP is, assumptions that you disagree with, then they are less realistic. And as I pointed out above, the RAW of 4e say that successful attack rolls do damage, so there is tension in the rules.

or that they're any less fantasy genre appropriate or more wahoo. They don't make the game less of an rpg and more of a video game.

You state these as facts. As others have pointed out, if they invoke video game feelings to you, they invoke video game feelings to you.

It isn't that they drag combat out any longer than previous editions' in-combat healing.

Facts not in evidence. It's entirely possible that it depends on playing style. Certainly the CO boards for 3.5 were disdainful of the idea of in-combat healing, so I suspect that certain 3.5 groups didn't have in-combat healing in practice.

Hmmm. It seems to me that you are avoiding the question.

It seems to me that you don't like the answer. For me, HP damage reflects real damage, and when enough of it is taken, game-defined effects like unconsciousness and death kick in. The first hitpoint of damage on a 100 HP character can be narrated as barely more than a papercut or as the weapon going all the way through. It doesn't matter to the game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just to point out - while there are a couple of exceptions, virtually no foes in 4e gain healing surges that can be used in combat.

That doesn't match my play experience. It doesnt happen every encounter, but it does happen every session. Since I'm not the DM, I can't tell you if they are exceptions, unusual creatures, if we're encountering leaders or what, but we are DEFINITELY encountering foes that surge.

 

[Hussar]

That doesn't match my play experience. It doesnt happen every encounter, but it does happen every session. Since I'm not the DM, I can't tell you if they are exceptions, unusual creatures, if we're encountering leaders or what, but we are DEFINITELY encountering foes that surge.

Ok, that's a DM issue, not a game one. For one, leaders as a monster type don't generally grant healing to critters. Secondly, critters (again, there are exceptions) only have, at most, 1 healing surge, so, you're looking at getting back, maybe, 10-20 hit points per encounter. Or, effectively, gaining one more hit.

I'm going to point out your DM on this one because that's an odd duck right there.

Now, if you were facing off with a bunch of incorporeal weakening undead like wraiths, then I TOTALLY understand the grind. Gack, I made that mistake. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have a monster that takes half damage from attacks, and then add the power to half the damage that a given PC can do was doing some serious binge drinking at the time.

So, yeah, you can certainly have grind in 4e. I get that. But, a lot of the issue is with encounter design and a few outliers on the critter lists not so much with the system itself.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not sure it's a DM issue- he's using published adventures (I don't know which ones).