Why are healing surges limited?

[nittanytbone]

Yes, but if they had 0 action points (which, in all likelihood, they do), then starting at 1 action point is effectively gaining an action point.

There's never a reason to discuss whether an extended rest is a good idea or not. If it's possible, given your circumstances, it's always your best option. If it's not possible, it's not possible.

You could house rule that AP reset to zero after each rest instead of one. However, resetting AP to 1 might be enough of a hurt. Once the core books come out we might find additional uses for spending APs, so players might want to hoard three or four of them for pounding through tougher encounters in a hurry.

 

[Asmor]

You're only allowed to spend 1 action point per encounter. Meaning that, if you're not spending an action point on average once every 2 encounters, you're probably wasting them.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Yes, but if they had 0 action points (which, in all likelihood, they do), then starting at 1 action point is effectively gaining an action point.

Its a choice. You get a new action point ever 2 encounters due to gaining a milestone. If you used your action point first encounter, you now have to choose between fighting one more encounter without an extended rest(and getting the action point you wanted) or taking an extended rest to get it back.

I guess my ultimate gripe is this. There's really no choice about whether to take an extended rest or not.

Sure there is. You can only take 1 extended rest in a 24 hour period. Being down a quarter of your healing surges means you can EASILY take another 2 encounters before you come close to running out. The number you get is designed to run out after about 3 encounters. It doesn't matter how close to 0 healing surges you are, just that you have enough left for the next battle.

If you are a fighter and have 12 healing surges and you managed to survive the first battle only using 2 of them to restore you to full. And you didn't have to use your daily power or action point on the first combat....then you have the choice of heading back to town in order to take an extended rest or continuing on the adventure(which you are at 100% strength for, since you have more healing surges than you can trigger in a combat anyways). And that guy in town said that someone was kidnapped by Trolls and they were going to eat him at any moment. Maybe they won't eat him until tomorrow, but can you take that risk?

I accept that there may be rules later on that make the limit on healing surges more relevant in a single combat; however, if they're not relevant in a single combat, they seem entirely irrelevant to me.

It's the same thing that happened in previous editions. If you cast your one and only Heal spell at 11th level, do you risk continuing on with JUST lower level heals? It seems like it's a no brainer. If you can recover your best spell, you should.

However, in practice, most parties still said "We're only down 1 spell, we can survive at least one more battle easily, let's keep going. Those Trolls will probably eat their prisoner if we stop to rest."

The story provides the reason to press on. It always has.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You're right about everything. Although from what you've said I suspect you may have missed that you're allowed to spend healing surges as much as you want during a short rest. You're still better off not doing that and letting the cleric or warlord use healing/inspiring word twice every 5 minutes, since they give you extra healing.

They don't give you MUCH extra healing. Plus, when you end a battle down 6 hitpoints and your healing surge value is 6...guess what, it is useless to wait around for the cleric to regain his powers. And that tends to be what happens as the cleric keeps people healed close to full during a combat in most groups.

I'm totally okay with that. In fact, that's one of my goals. I want the PCs to fight a lot. However, it's not as cut and dry as you make it sound. Don't discount daily powers, those things are freaking powerful. It's not necessarily an obvious choice that you should keep going and get action points rather than renewing your daily powers and using them more often.

Some of them ARE powerful, I admit. But they aren't THAT much more powerful. In most cases, you are talking a difference in damage of about 3-6 points between a daily and an encounter(the encounter being 2[w] and the daily being 3[w]). The daily likely has a cool ability, but if you miss with it then you normally get just half damage an no ability. They are good, but then again, you don't go wasting them on your first encounter of the day all the time. That gets you killed.

 

[Ginnel]

how cold and calculated or wussy are your players characters? Is there not a single bold corageous impatient one among them? who can rile the party into going forwards or even go it alone?

see a plucky halfing rogue or a valiant paladin who get bored waiting around doing nothing all day especially when there is loot to take or evil butts to be kicked, surely you can rely on your player's characters to help you out?

 

[Blackeagle]

For the time being at least, I'm okay with that too. I like for each combat to be difficult. I like the idea of the PCs being more or less fully equipped, because I intend to push the boundaries and, ideally, at least one person should drop in each encounter.

Now, I think, we have reached the heart of the problem. The amount of healing surges, daily abilities, etc., seems calibrated to support 4 or 5 level appropriate encounters per day. One really tough fight, on the other hand, could easily take all of a character's daily powers and more than half their healing surges. You seem to be going for encounters of greater difficulty, forcing players to use more of their resources on each fight. If you want to do that, players just aren't going to be able to take on as many challenges each day.

 

[ArchAnjel]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that there's never a reason to consider whether taking an extended rest is a good idea. There is ALWAYS a reason. The question the PC's would ask themselves is, "Do we want to take an extended rest or do we want to actually get something done today? Should we take an extended rest or should we save the villagers?"

Taking an extended rest is another way of saying "sleeping the rest of the day away". You can only take one extended rest per day... it's what previous editions have called "sleeping."

Additionally, the reason there is a limit to the number of healing surges is the same reason that hit points exist in the first place and the same reason characters don't start out with +20 Vorpal Falchions. Managing limited resources is part of the fun of playing. If you have unlimited healing then you always know you're going to be starting every single fight at absolute maximum hit points eternally. Where is the challenge in that?

Why not remove that silly "daily" limit on daily powers, too? Hell yeah!

 

[FadedC]

Yes, but if they had 0 action points (which, in all likelihood, they do), then starting at 1 action point is effectively gaining an action point.

I guess my ultimate gripe is this. There's really no choice about whether to take an extended rest or not. It goes something like this:

1. Can we safely take an extended rest? Yes: Take one. No? See 2.

2. Is there some way we can safely take an extended rest? Yes: Do what you need to do, then see 1. No? Tough nuggets.

There's never a reason to discuss whether an extended rest is a good idea or not. If it's possible, given your circumstances, it's always your best option. If it's not possible, it's not possible.

I don't want that to be so clear cut. I want it to be a decision. We COULD press on, and there would be reasons for and against, or we COULD take an extended rest, and there would be reasons for and against.

I accept that there may be rules later on that make the limit on healing surges more relevant in a single combat; however, if they're not relevant in a single combat, they seem entirely irrelevant to me.

If your playing in a game in which you players are never under any time pressure or fear of reprisal attacks and losing the element of surprise, then your right. Players can rest after every fight and healing surge limits don't matter. They don't hurt you, they just have no effect.

Most of us however do not play in this type of game and so healing surge limits are very important. If you want to encourage players to rest less perhaps you should think more about the scenarios you present.

 

[Spatula]

I have to say, it is somewhat amusing to see those (in the general sense) that derided the methods for dealing with the "15 minute adventuring day" now touting those same methods as integral to the game.

It gets clearer all the time that 4e is not some radical departure from 3e, despite some of the wilder claims by the designers, and the fervant hopes of some of its boosters.

 

[FadedC]

I have to say, it is somewhat amusing to see those (in the general sense) that derided the methods for dealing with the "15 minute adventuring day" now touting those same methods as integral to the game.

It gets clearer all the time that 4e is not some radical departure from 3e, despite some of the wilder claims by the designers, and the fervant hopes of some of its boosters.

If you mean the method of using story and time pressure to discourage the 15 minute workday there's a big difference between 3e and 4e.

In 3e a party can have a tough fight, use up all their resources and simply not have a hope of surviving a second fight that day. They have no healing left, no spells left and are low on hit points. No amount of plot can prevent this. This happens especially frequently at low level.

In 4e this is just not possible. At worst your whole party is doiwn some healing surges and all their dailies and is quite capable of handling more fights. The DM is free to use plot reasons to prevent a rest without causing a TPK.