Trouble with Short Rest and Healing Word

[Fkewl]

In battle, the cleric is dishing a can a whoopass against foes of his god, so no problem there

Asking healing powers, out of combat, without extraordinary circumstances (like a house full of sick followers), would irk a god in my opinion..

But, please, this would be my game and not yours. So opinions are all good.

 

[Thanee]

I feel pity for the Gods with more than just a handful of followers... prayer spam!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Fkewl]

In my opinion, in addition with random encounters, the other encounters can be beefed up since the last patrol or guards never reported back in the last 20min.. They would know somethings up.
That would work with militaristic organisation. Other types would react differently if guards suddenly stopped reporting.

 

[James McMurray]

Clerical power isn't an on demand direct channel to the deity anymore. I doubt the gods even know when their clerics are healing people unless they have a reason to be paying attention.

 

[fba827]

Nothing inherently wrong with letting them use the power out of combat, let them do it more often than not -- powers are there to be used.

Just realize that time does pass and the world (or dungeon or environment) is not in statis while the PCs are resting. So once or twice toss in an encounter to add in spice. Or realized that any timed deadlines for something are ticking away, that sort of thing.

 

[Skyscraper]

I guess it all depends on everyone's approach to prayers. The rules allow for Healing Word to be used every 5 minutes; if you want to use it otherwise, that's fine too. And of course, staying put for more than 5 minutes may be dangerous in some places.

This being said, i cannot imagine PCs not stopping for at least 10 minute breaks every now and then, battle is very tiresome (have you ever tried battles with rigid foam swords? Do it for a few minutes and tell me about it ). My view of Healing Word is that the cleric prays to obtain his god's blessing for battles to come during that inevitable down-time where everyone needs to rest, which blessings increase the value of the rest for everyone else.

Sky

 

[theredrobedwizard]

This being said, i cannot imagine PCs not stopping for at least 10 minute breaks every now and then, battle is very tiresome (have you ever tried battles with rigid foam swords? Do it for a few minutes and tell me about it ).

Having fenced with the SCA for 4 years, I can tell you that this is very much the truth. Even a few minutes of weapon drills/single combat is tiresome, let alone a decent multi-person melee. Even the hardiest of our fighters has to take 10 or 15 minute breaks every other fight just to get their energy back.

Also, as another poster pointed out, the Cleric isn't directly petitioning their deity for their powers until at least mid to late Paragon tier. Heck, I figure they aren't really talking to their deity directly until early Epic levels. Until that point, I'd imagine their deity isn't directly watching their progress.

-TRRW

 

[Regicide]

Just go back to town and do a full rest after every encounter. That way you always have action points.

 

[IceFractal]

Why is this suddenly an issue? Clerics have been able to heal outside of combat in every version of D&D, as well as many other RPGs. In fact, healing outside of combat is often the preferable option (it certainly was in 3E). And it's not like you get unlimited healing out of this, because you're still limited by your healing surges.

And about "the gods are angry" ...
1) At least in the PoL and FR settings, the gods are specifically more distant than they were previously, and less likely to micromanage mortal affairs.
2) What kind of god gets angry at a Cleric for using their healing ability to heal people? People who are in a dangerous situation, often because they are doing heroic things? Unless your Cleric worships the god of "impatience and short-sighted stingyness", or the god of "walking around bleeding builds character", I don't think you're acting against their wishes by doing this.

 

[pukunui]

My question is: how do your players manage to get through a whole level's worth of encounters on only one day's worth of healing surges? The way you've described it makes it sound like they've got unlimited surges or something ... so either they've got too many or the encounters are too easy and they're not using enough of them. It's not like Healing Word heals you for free ...

My players use up their healing surges pretty quickly. I actually have the opposite problem to you in that my group still has a "5 minute workday" attitude.

Well, I should give them some credit. They've just bedded down for an extended extended rest (it's only been a few hours since their last one, so they'll be resting most of a day -- I guess that's what really bothers me) after getting through 5 encounters. That's pretty impressive ... for my group at least.