D&D 4E 4e Constitution - what a waste of time !

[Smeelbo]

Constitution in 4E is a very good stat, as many have already pointed out, just not the stat, the way it was in 3.x. Everyone has to have decent CON, at least 12, in my experience, but with the point buys for stats (a great improvement over rolling dice), it's impossible to have 18/18 main combat stats and even 16 con. More like 18/18/12, or 18/16/14 at best. The fact that CON is essentially at least a tertiary stat for everyone means there is a price to be paid for muchkining.

I've been playing in a very mixed group, basicly whoever shows up at the comic book store Wednesday night. The group balance (and even group size) shifts dramaticly between sessions, but pretty consistantly it seems to be 2-3 encounters, then an extended rest. With a better structured group, that would probably be 3-4 encounters before an extended rest.

Given our play structure, this seems to work out well so far: the evening often ends with an extended rest. However, the clock is ticking, the goblins are closing in on the town, so we'll see if that continues to work.

Healing surges determine HP per day. Constitution is the only stat that constantly tempts me for a non-tier stat bump, rather than my two main combat stats.

Smeelbo

 

[chitzk0i]

That sorta depends on the party, though.
I was in an LFR game recently with 1 defender, 1 wizard, and 3 leaders.
Fighter was down 10 surges after first encounter ..

But that's LFR. You can end up with a crazy team.

I should hope home games don't run that kind of party.

Either that was a crazy over-level encounter or those leaders were jumping the gun on the healing. I've seen times where my fighter was the only one low on surges after an entire adventuring day, but one encounter?

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

You get nothing for making this a high stat, does anyone bother.

You dont even get the modifier added to HP's each new level like ye old D&D

Does anyone bother? I'm certain constitution is the highest average attribute in the 4e D&D world.

 

[small pumpkin man]

When you're out of surges, the day ends, full stop. Healing potions don't even work, and some magic items won't even activate. How crazy is that? Healing surges put a VERY definite limit on how long a party can go for. There aren't dragon shamans with fast healing for the party, infinite healing feats or disposable wands of cure light wounds.

Add on top of that everyone having a very limited number of dailys and utilities so now every class is equivalent to a low-level vancian spell caster, and things just suck for adventuring without resting.

Toss on to the heap the fact that extended rest gives you an AP and it's foolish for adventurers NOT to do a 1-fight-per-day if they can get away with it.

4E HEAVILY promotes 1-fight-per-day, and surges are an impenetrable barrier that cap a day.

I didn't know it was even possible to run out of healing surges in one fight. It's certainly not possible to use all your item powers, and it's seriously not worth it to just throw around all your dailies willy nilly, that's extremely inefficient, and it's something only newer players will do, 4e is about setting up your dailies so that they aren't wasted, as opposed to 3.x which was mostly about throwing out as much high level spellage as fast as possible and overwhelming the enemy.

Yes, surges are hard limit, but I personally had trouble getting even close to that limit with new players after five encounters in a single day, something that in 3.x required the Spellcasting characters to both not be "low" level and actually know what they were doing.

 

[FireLance]

I feel the surge system promotes many encounters per day.

To be fair, the surge system does not promote many encounters per day and in fact does set an effective limit on the number of encounters you can safely handle in a day (but see point 3, below). What does promote more encounters per day are the following:

1. Resources that are renewed after a short rest (encounter abilities, hit points), so that the party is still able to take on a reasonable level of challenge after a short rest, and the marginal gain from an extended rest is reduced (at least in comparison to previous editions).

2. Abilities that are gained or enhanced after reaching a milestone (action points, use of magic item daily abilities, the effects of certain magic items).

3. Setting a cap on short-term hit points and an effective cap on how many healing surges can be used in the short term, which means that the party is unlikely to be completely out of healing surges after one or two encounters.

Toss on to the heap the fact that extended rest gives you an AP and it's foolish for adventurers NOT to do a 1-fight-per-day if they can get away with it.

4E HEAVILY promotes 1-fight-per-day, and surges are an impenetrable barrier that cap a day.

Now, that said, any system that features abilities that are regained after a rest will encourage the players to take rests whenever they are able unless there are real costs or opportunity costs to taking a rest, e.g. time limits, the opposition gets stronger the more you rest, the party's reward depends on how long you take to achieve the objective, etc.

So, while I believe that PCs in 4e will still want to take an extended rest whenever they can get away with it, I also think that the incentive to do so is lower compared to previous editions, for the reasons mentioned above. There are still incentives for PC in 4e to have one fight per day, but not as much as in previous editions.

 

[Smeelbo]

My understanding is that as level rises, combats become longer, and so my strategy has been to make the best use of At-Wills. The more rounds combat lasts, the more rounds you won't use an Encounter or Daily. So you want a flexible mix of At-Wills, and to maximize their effectiveness.

For example, the rogue I built for the kid who's playing has Sly Flourish and Disheartening Strike. When damage dealing is best, Flourish rules, but against a tougher or more dangerous opponent, Disheartening may be a better option.

For my ranger, Twin Strike is very reliably good. Choosing abilities and aiming at items that maximizes Twin Strike, such as Dwarven Weapon Training and Iron Armguards of Power, means that running out of Encounters and Dailies is less crippling. Indeed, last night, all I needed was Twin Strike.

So again, like others have observed, the limiting resource appears to be Healing Surges. My experience with 4E is only a few sessions as of yet, but it seems obvious to me that a well honed group will get a lot farther with those surges. So last night, we had three strikers, warlock, rogue, and ranger, and the rogue and ranger used 4 surges each during and after the fight. So we are half-way to an extended rest. With a decent defender and leader, we'd have used half that many surges, I think. I am sure a well played, well balanced group could generally go four combats before an extended rest. But like I said, our group at the comic store is a small core of regulars, and whoever else shows up.

The referee has set the clock ticking. The Goblins have some Master Plan, and Operation DOOMSDAY begins soon. We probably have at most one extended rest before they invade.

So in conclusion, a good group and a good referee can minimize the tendency for frequent extended rests.

Smeelbo

 

[Mengu]

I don't understand how the system has anything to do with the number of encounters in a day. As a DM, the number of encounters my players face is mostly in my hands. In some cases they could run for their lives after one fight, but that would probably spell partial or complete failure in their mission. Players usually don't like failing, so they will push on to the limit of their abilities.

I know what their resources are. I know how fast or slowly I can deplete them with encounters. So it's all a matter of adventure design really. With a mix of encounters from level-2 to level+2, 5-6 encounters in a day is quite doable. I leave the level+3 encounters for the few climactic battles since they can be time consuming and resource draining.

 

[HeirToPendragon]

If you're a ranger and you don't have twin strike... you're doing it wrong!

 

[Black Knight Irios]

I don't understand how the system has anything to do with the number of encounters in a day. As a DM, the number of encounters my players face is mostly in my hands.

And:

I know what their resources are. I know how fast or slowly I can deplete them with encounters.

So you agree that the system provides the characters with resources and helps you to plan encounters.
-- And yet you say that the system has nothing to do with the number of encounters a day?

As an example:
A: The 4E system as written
B: The 4E system but without Healing Surges and Healing Powers.

If the system has nothing to do with encounter setup and encounters/day a group playing with A: and a group playing with B: could do exactly the same encounters with equal results...if the system had nothing to do with encounters/day...
- So do you believe this is true? - If no, then the system must be involved.

 

[Mengu]

So you agree that the system provides the characters with resources and helps you to plan encounters.
-- And yet you say that the system has nothing to do with the number of encounters a day?

Yes. A line can be divided into infinite segments. The system draws the line. Those are the resources. The DM divides that line into segments. That's the number of encounters planned.

Obviously you don't want to have infinite encounters. Facing one kobold minion an encounter would be a bit too boring. But anywhere from 1 encounter a day to maybe 10 encounters a day would be possible and meaningful within the system.