Typical Healing Surge Usage

[Akaiku]

After reading some bits and pieces of posts about peoples epic dungeon delve and their stringing encounters together for tougher ones. I looked and my game and noticed that pretty much every encounter was costing at least half the party 3+ surges.

As a great many party members do not have more than 6, this limits our sane adventuring time to 3 encounters or, alternatively, only one milestone.

Is this typical? What kind of surge usage do other games run across in mid heroic (4-6) levels?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

On a good day at 1-4 level we handle 5-6 encounters. On a bad day 2... But this is after years of practice wen we started out in keep on the shadowfel it was half that.

Last week in my 11th level game we ended a "month in hell" where we went almost 3 sessions with out an extended rest and that was twenty ssomething encounters. The last 3 encounters no short rests either ( we were in a hellscape) and we had 2 deaths out of 5 players.
My warden had no surges no dailies and no encounters going into the last fight... And I came out of the fight with 3hp. Our monk sat out the past encounter because he had 0 hp and surges but he still had his lv 9 daily... It was rough

 

[ThirdWizard]

We generally run out of surges before dailies. I would say that, on average, after 3 encounters, the defender has no surges left and other melees are down to 1 or 2, and that is with Rings of Brotherhood to share surges.

As DM, if I want more encounters than that, I might give them some way to gain some recovery halfway through the dungeon without using an extended rest. A magical pool restores surges or a monster that uses radiant energy explodes healing everyone around it, that kind of thing. My favorite was a magic machine that they used a skill challenge to interact with to restore surges and dailies. I don't do this all the time so that they don't come to expect it, but when I want a series of encounters longer than 4e seems designed for, I throw something like that into the mix.

 

[Penthau]

If some of the characters are losing a lot more surges than others and running low, you can cast the comrades succor ritual. It allows the characters to exchange surges at the cost of 1 surge to 1 character.

 

[Mengu]

In my campaign, most melee characters end up spending 3-4 surges per encounter, backliners typically spend 1-2, unless something goes wrong and they might spend 4. This is for a standard encounter. In a difficult encounter, I've seen the paladin spend as many as 7 surges, which is over half his surges. The paladin and melee ranger typically seem to run out of surges faster than everyone else, but the party has a few ways to give them surges back.

In other games I play, melee rogues seem to run out of surges very fast, durable almost seems like a must have. With my warlord, I seem to go through surges about 3 per encounter, leaving me with none by the end of the third encounter. With my sorcerer, I can either stay back, or walk into the thick of things, so I have decent control over how much I want to spend.

Also there are a lot of character and DM dependent factors. As DM, if I focus fire on a character with low healing surges in encounter 1, they will have a miserable rest of the day. And some characters have more surgeless healing resources than others, so number of surges spent at the end of an encounter may be lower for those groups.

 

[Herschel]

It reallty depends. Ranged characters I tend to focus fire on hard one encounter, the next a different one. This mitigates their lower surges by usually meaning they're only going to use a big chunk once. IE: It's especially feasible with Wizards. If he has that Flaming Sphere out, he's getting hit somehow. when he doesn't have a nasty daily hanging around, I'm not going after him as hard. If the Sorcerer is dropping his nukes, it's his turn. There are also times when defenders should not mark or characters have to step up and take some hits. It's all about ebb and flow and team play. If teh defender is out of surges and half the party is nigh untouched, there's an issue. If a controller got amcked around pretty good one fight then he just needs to stay back this time.

 

[Magil]

We generally run out of surges before dailies. I would say that, on average, after 3 encounters, the defender has no surges left and other melees are down to 1 or 2, and that is with Rings of Brotherhood to share surges.

This says to me the party probably isn't using their dailies aggressively enough. You might want to encourage yourself and your teammates to use dailies, even when the moment isn't perfect--this could end up saving you healing surges in the long run!

As DM, if I want more encounters than that, I might give them some way to gain some recovery halfway through the dungeon without using an extended rest. A magical pool restores surges or a monster that uses radiant energy explodes healing everyone around it, that kind of thing. My favorite was a magic machine that they used a skill challenge to interact with to restore surges and dailies. I don't do this all the time so that they don't come to expect it, but when I want a series of encounters longer than 4e seems designed for, I throw something like that into the mix.

This is a good suggestion. In a recent dungeon of mine, I had an "explore the dungeon" style skill challenge that the success of which explained that the party found a section of the cavern infused with healing energies, that restored 2 healing surges to them when they took a short rest there (of course, with the caveat that they could only receive this benefit once per extended rest), and this kept the party going for a little while longer.

 

[S'mon]

Our level 2 party had 5 encounters in a row last time, but that was madness, our Fighter went into the last battle with 0 healing surges, and half or more of the party would have died if the DM hadn't fudged heavily.

Normally we can do 3 encounters then extended rest, so 1 milestone.

 

[S'mon]

Personally, my dagger-throwing Thief, Larsenio "Say hello to Mr Pointy" Roguespierre goes through 0-1 surges per encounter, and alway has plenty left. Our 2WF minotaur Ranger & the Fighter get beaten up a lot.

 

[ThirdWizard]

This says to me the party probably isn't using their dailies aggressively enough.

Tell me about it! But, I DM so there isn't much I can do about it. Actually one player is known for blowing all dailies in the first combat. And when I say all dailies I mean attacks, utilities, action point, and magic item powers. Whereas one person can go the entire session without using one. *twitch*