D&D 4E Nonobvious coolness in 4e healing system

[ryryguy]

Yes. This is why several people (including myself) say that 4e is primarily balanced around the encounter while 3e and previous editions were primarily balanced around the day.

A much more succinct way of expressing what I was getting at.

In many (most) cases this was the same (for hp that is) in 3.x, just that it was enabled by the ubiquitous wand of cure light wounds. Either money became the limiting factor or, more often, casters running out of spells since they were all dailies.

That's an interesting point. The difference would seem to be that sucking down cure light wounds from a wand in order to keep going was (I'm guessing) an unintended consequence in 3e; at the least, the game was not structured around the assumption that this would happen, as far as I can tell. No doubt DMs who had groups that did this learned to adjust over time in their encounter and adventure design.

And of course, you can't do the same trick with 4e healing consumables (potions) since they run off surges too. Healing without surges is pretty limited.

It is indeed nice that every encounter feels challenging, rather than just the last couple fights of the day. On the other hand, the system strongly penalizes the players if they enter a new encounter (by choice or by circumstance) without a 5-minute rest.

True, and the "we must rest 5 minutes before opening the next door" behavior this encourages risks exaggerating the gameyness of the system. A bit of a drawback, but not a major one IMHO. In most cases the party is going to spend 5 minutes messing around searching and so forth anyhow, plus it just makes sense that they would want to take a short breather after an intense combat.

The other case is that it interferes with some kinds of out-of-the-ordinary, dramatic situations you might like to run. An obvious example is an extended chase where you don't have a chance to rest between scenes where the pursuers catch up. The party can fall back on daily powers plus healing consumables in this kind of situation. Additionally, as DM I might relax the "5 minute rest" rule a little bit in this sort of situation. Perhaps allow the use of one healing surge plus recharging one encounter power of choice in between chase scenes, something like that.

 

[Xorn]

For a test session, I took a LVL+4 encounter and threw it at the party as two LVL encounters, back to back with no time to rest. Interestingly it felt about like running a LVL+4 encounter, only a little less chance to accidentally wipe them.

As a side effect, some of the players stopped saying, "This is the end of the fight, better use your encounter power or it will go to waste!"

 

[Deverash]

PCs being at full health at the start of every day bugs me a little. I know why the designers did it, but there is no way to simulate long-term injury. I've added a house rule that when someone goes to 0 hp or below, they gain 1 Wound Point per negative hit point and they have to spend 1 day of recovery for every Wound Point they went below 0 HP, and during that time, they can still move around, adventure, etc- but take a -2 to all rolls, skill checks and defenses, and cannot regain HP above their bloodied condition. Magical healing could restore the wound points on a 1 WP per 5 HP healing basis to get them back in the action sooner. The warlord CANNOT heal wound points- only magical healing or clerical spells. You could explain the WP as whatever you like- sprains, broken bones, severe lacerations, burns, etc.

I would probably use the Remove Afflictions Ritual if you want a method of magical healing of long-term wounds, myself.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Not really.

Yes, really. The OP said you can spend unlimited surges between encounters, but later in that same post it was made clear that he meant you can spend what you have without limit, and that you of course could run out for the day. Consequences are a different matter...

Because as a consequence it means it's little different than 3E where a cleric can spend as many of their healing spells between combat as well, which, like surges, is limited by a daily amount.

The main consequence is that gold piece bought magical healing no longer works, so healing potions and cure light wounds wands can no longer be used between combats meaning PCs are more likely to camp out for the night than to just press on after blowing a wand.

I agree and that's what I said in my first post, that it's little different from 3e except that gold (or casters' spells) were the limiting factor then.

 

[Lurker37]

True, and the "we must rest 5 minutes before opening the next door" behavior this encourages risks exaggerating the gameyness of the system.

How is needing to sit down and rest after several minutes of intense strenuous adreneline-pumping activity (possibly while clad in heavy armour) gamey?

How is taking a few minutes to bind wounds, catch your breath, clean your weapons and catch your breath unrealistic?

If anything, it's odd that a party only needs five minutes to get back into top condition - and I'm not talking about recovering hit points.

 

[ryryguy]

How is needing to sit down and rest after several minutes of intense strenuous adreneline-pumping activity (possibly while clad in heavy armour) gamey?

How is taking a few minutes to bind wounds, catch your breath, clean your weapons and catch your breath unrealistic?

If anything, it's odd that a party only needs five minutes to get back into top condition - and I'm not talking about recovering hit points.

Well, I said it risks increasing the gameyness, and I went on to say it does make sense story/common-sense-wise that they would take a rest after an intense combat, basically agreeing with what you are saying here.

The reason I think it risks increasing gameyness is not that the mere notion of needing to rest after the fight is gamey, but rather the repetitive nature of the behavior, after each and every fight. The party breezed through an encounter in 2 rounds? Rest 5 minutes. The party barely survived an encounter that lasted 20 rounds? Rest 5 minutes. The party had to use some encounter power for some out-of-an-encounter utility purpose (bypassing a simple hazard)? Rest 5 minutes.

That does strike me as a bit gamey. But not too badly, in my opinion. Overall I really like the elegance of the system.

 

[boolean]

How is needing to sit down and rest after several minutes of intense strenuous adreneline-pumping activity (possibly while clad in heavy armour) gamey?

Gamey? The dwarf absolutely reeks!

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

In OD&D/BECMI each fight took a "turn" which was 10 minutes, regardless of how many rounds it took. This was to account for binding wounds, catching breath, etc.

One of the nice things about the focus on the encounter as a time unit in 4e is that it resolves the question as to when PCs should stop rushing since otherwise, particularly in 3e, there is incentive to rush along to keep minutes-long buffs going, which can create a headache for the DM as to exactly how long things take. With per encounter powers (and power durations generally lasting until the next round, until a save, or until end of encounter), the party doesn't need to feel forced to squeeze out the last bit of a buff spell and the DM doesn't have to worry about adjudicating exactly how much time is left for buffs. Encounters themselves are supposed to be over a broader area and when they're done your buffs are generally gone. Of course in some cases you can rush on, but then you lose out on the ability to use surges out of combat.

I remember obnoxious 3e situations where the party felt that survival and success depended so much on certain spells lasting that they would calculate how many rounds' worth of curing they could afford before hurrying on the next place while still benefiting from spell X. Blargh. Happy to be done with that.

 

[Jhaelen]

In OD&D/BECMI each fight took a "turn" which was 10 minutes, regardless of how many rounds it took. This was to account for binding wounds, catching breath, etc.

Umm, wasn't a round the equivalent of 1 minute? At least it was in AD&D 1E.

 

[Staffan]

Umm, wasn't a round the equivalent of 1 minute? At least it was in AD&D 1E.

A round was a minute in AD&D, but I'm pretty sure it was 6 seconds or something like that in Basic.