Can you get too much healing?

[KarinsDad]

Yes and no. CapnZapp seems to be seems to be running really hard encounters that force the PC's to blow through a lot of surges. That means that if they take on another encounter after that, there's a good chance they might not survive because they had to blow all of their daily healing triggers just to stay alive, and therefore will only have access to a handful of heals.

You get what you pay for.

If the OP runs really hard encounters, his players will react by grabbing whatever healing they can and will also react by not moving on once the daily heals are gone.

This is not an issue with the game system, it's an issue with how the OP uniquely runs the game.

 

[CapnZapp]

Now, if the encounters were NOT that hard, and you were designing them to have to have 4 encounters per day, things change.

By going against the design paradigm of 4e you've created this situation that allows for the healing nova.

Thanks for trying to help.

But my problem isn't that I haven't understood the design paradigm of 4E. It is that it doesn't seem to work for us, and thus I am exploring alternatives.

You say I should make encounters easier, and have more of them.

But I don't want to have many easy encounters.

It means you have three boring fights where you're effectively invulnerable followed by - with luck - a fourth exciting one. And odds are, that if I don't make the plot force them to have that fourth encounter on the same day, they'll simply rest up first. Which of course turns that fourth encounter into yet another unexciting fight where it's almost impossible for the party to lose a member. On top of that: four encounters take much more time than one or two, even if they're individually easy. And me and my players are slow, so two or perhaps three encounters are all we can manage to squeeze into a night's gaming.

Having many easy encounters is impractical, undramatic, unexciting.

I want "the beef" in almost every encounter. That is after all why I'm having them.

(Sure some fights are supposed to be easy. But now I'm thinking of in-game reasons. I don't have patience for fights that need to be easy because the design paradigm requires it).

I look forward to any suggestions you might have, Doctor Proctor, but hopefully I have shown you that merely doing it by the book isn't going to work for me.

 

[CapnZapp]

There is a big push in our gaming community to have fewer encounters of harder difficulty and assuming that this equates to a challenge for the players. If a DM buys into that model, that's ok. But, do not be surprised if the players react to that model by doing things like purchasing healing powers with feats and nova-ing in an early encounter.

The best solution is to mix things up. Every single day should be different. Some days, multiple encounters, some days single encounter, some days, easy encounters, some days, harder encounters.

The only way to prevent players from taking extended rests when they should not is to incentivize them to not do so. Something as simple as taking the player leader(s) aside (most groups have one or more players that take slightly more control of the situation than some other players) and explaining the situation might work.

But, it takes effort on the DM's part as well. The DM has to put in the effort for multiple different encounter type on different days. He cannot fall into the easy trap of one or two hard encounters = a challenge that has been bandied about on the boards.

I'm not sure what you're proposing, so let be cut straight to the chase: Can you see problems with the 4E design paradigm?

Because if your post really is nothing more than a defense of how it's supposed to be done by the book, then I've already had plenty of those responses.

I keep telling you; I'm not simply misunderstanding how you're supposed to run the game.

I am saying I need an alternative, because my group doesn't have the time or the patience to have all those small encounters where the only excitement is whether you have to use up one surge more or less than expected.

With limited playing time, (almost) every encounter need to count. (Dramatically, that is)

And it is in this context I started the thread. I found out that you can't simply have fewer harder encounters, because the game can't cope with that.

Or, put otherwise, the game copes with that too well, giving the players the means (=plentiful ways to trigger healing surges) to turn even this strategy into a failure, where I as the GM simply aren't allowed to make things exciting.

It is as if the game insists on being two games in one.

One where PCs still have surges, and thus are all but invincible. Even if the monsters manage to down a character, his friends can all heal him from a distance.

The other where the PCs are out (or nearly out) of surges. This game is such a shocking departure from the cushioned existence of relative safety that noone wants to play it if they can avoid it.

And avoid it they can, because WotC has put the so-called "choice" (not that it is much of a choice) to rest in the hands of the players and not in the hands of the story where it belongs.

I don't want either of these two games.

I like D&D, but I want the first game to become the second - in every (relevant) fight.

In other words, I need the game to allow the possibility of character death in just about any encounter.

I definitely do not need a game where you first play merely to save your resources and then give you an easy way out of having to play the end-game, where you might actually run out.

This is what I need your help on. Exploring options.

I could have missed something, but judging by responses that merely try to tell me what the book says, I haven't...

 

[CapnZapp]

Healing is great. But even if you have unlimited healing, it's not the be all and end all; if you don't take the monsters down, you run out.

First of all, thanks for such an involved answer.

One comment (the one quoted above) made me realize I should lay something out that might help shed light on this issue:

Assuming you have practically endless triggers for healing surges, a starting character has anything between 50 hp (lo-Con Wizard) and 140 hp (hi-Con Fighter) in total.

I guess this is the crux of the issue. In 4E, characters doesn't just start at 25 hp (four times more than in 3E). No, they start at many times that.

The only reason I did not see this earlier is because it's hidden away in surges. And if you only read (not play) the PHB, you get the impression you can only use one or two surges each encounter.

Which creates a paradigm I'm fine with. As long as you survive a fight, you can rest up for a minute or two, returning to full hp, ready to move on without having to end the adventuring day. Nice.

But this is nice only if the assumption holds where you can actually be beat down by the monsters around the next bend in the road.

I'm not talking about one-shot kills. I realize D&D isn't about that.

But what I hadn't realized from just reading the book is that D&D is trying to get away from the one-shot encounter too...



I really need to find me a 4E alternative where monsters can still kill adventurers...

...where excitement can be found in every encounter, not just the encounter the adventurers wisely postponed until tomorrow!





PS. About the Brute critting the Wizard. Yes, it isn't theoretically impossible for a healthy character to be downed in one go. But it is very unlikely. Besides, the real problem is that his friends can easily repair him, even from a distance. (Assuming they have made the wise choice to all have minor action Healing Words that is).

 

[Lauberfen]

Well that's pretty clear at last.

If this was simply a problem of characters having too much healing, or resting too often, this could be fixed, for example with the rule about milestones before extended rests. This would allow a game with few encounters, which are all significant, but aren't all at the nova level.


However I suspect this is not the real problem. As I understand it, your idea of a challengin encounter is one in which there is a genuine threat of character death, presumably even with fair dice rolls and respectable strategy. I'm not going to argue about the validity of such a view.

The problem is that 4th doesn't work like that, and indeed D&D hasn't since at least 3rd edition. It works by using up resources, so there is little chance of character death until these are badly depleted. This is more clearly the case in 4th than it was in 3rd, but they both fundamentally work this way.

You simply need another system. I see no reason to work from D&D, as it runs very much against what your trying to achieve.

One final point- what's the party's attitude to all of this? Do they even see this as a problem? Do they want the threat of character death?

 

[CapnZapp]

FWIW, I think your primary "problem" is here. You have a certain image in your mind of what a "non-challenging encounter" is. I think (and others here have posted this too) that your perception is off.

It's entirely possible to have an encounter that is both fun and challenging to your players, without even causing 1 hp of damage. Not even 1.

It might be instructive if you (the OP) posted what you think a "non-challenging encounter" would be. I think you've called them "filler encounters" as well? Post what you think one of these would look like, as it would look like in your own campaign, with your players.

I see plenty of adventures where you first have fight A, then fight B, and only then fight C against the boss baddies (or whatever).

So the evolution of my game is this:

The first time the players have fight A, it was exciting. Soon, however, they realize fight A can't really hurt them, only shave off a surge or two.

Also, by the time we come to fight C, it's time to say good night. While we did fight C at a later date, it would really be better if the adventure could come to its climax during the same night where we started.

So gradually, I'm upping the difficulty of fight A, perhaps by including some of the monsters from fight B. Thinking that not only do I make things more exciting, I also save some time to enable fight C.

Very soon, however, the players stock up on extra healing surge triggers.

This turns fight A back into a game where the PCs are invincible. After all, they don't need enough triggers to use up the surges of every character in the party - only the one wailed on by those monsters smart enough to focus their fire.

Unless the monsters can kill a character outright in a single turn (which I don't find fun, and am not aiming for), the party can always bring him back up again.

But in this case, while there is enough time to have fight C, now the characters are low on surges. So they choose to rest. Partially because they can, partially because the difficulty of fight A scared them (into thinking if A was hard, C must be even harder).

Yes, I can do the "princess needs saving tonight" spiel. And sometimes it works, especially if I can give them an overview of the opposition already at the start.

Managing your resources, after all, isn't fun unless you have some idea of what your up against. Otherwise this "management" simply becomes "trying to not use anything".




What I need is for fight A to have a possibility of being outright dangerous. Not always, of course.

What this thread have made me realize is I need the characters to have access to less hit points. This allows excitement and drama without making fights go on and on.

Certainly not a return to the 4 hp Wizard. But more along the lines of the hp totals you're actually given by the book.

But you were asking me for an example, because...?

 

[CapnZapp]

The fact is, at half surges, a party should be good for another 2-3 encounters, unless they are seriously challenging.

Perhaps the problem is that if you throw a second encounter at them as hard as the first, then it's too tough? However, the gap between their surges to spend per encounter, and + their dailies shouldn't be that big- at most about 5-6 surges. What I'm saying is they should still be able to take another encounter, just this time they'll need to spread damage across the whole party, use second wind and maybe potions. This might teach them not to go nova in the first encounter of the day.

So in summary- 1: are they literally running out of surges after 1 encounter? If so how?
2: If not, they can surely take several encounters per day, even if the first is relatively easy because they go crazy on powers.
3: If they still have surges and are resting, then you'll have to add incentives not to rest.

One further point- I absolutely disagree about surges being all or nothing- Clearly there is little difference until you have 5 or less surges. However 3 surges is already noticebaly different than 4, and 2 is different again- it's like in third when you're cleric's down to one healing spell- I'd want to make sure I didn't have any big fights before I could rest. The only difference between 1 and 0 is that it's harder to be healed with 0- you're still limited to around your hit point total.

Thanks for replying - I appreciate you're trying to help.

But maths goes only so far.

An encounter like the one you're talking about, where two defenders lose six surges each, is probably a memorable exciting encounter. The problem is that the game doesn't seem designed around memorable exciting encounters.

You're absolutely right in calculating that after this encounter the party will have used up most if not all their daily healing surge triggers.

However, what I don't see you realizing is that this means they have used up most of their Daily powers (if you include healing surge triggers), and indeed, the most valuable ones.

And unlike running out of daily powers, there are no lesser Encounter versions to fall back on. (Well, there is one. Second Wind. And there are healing potions. But compared to the minor action and added healing capacity of Healing Word, these powers seem second-rate at best. And they're much less flexible - they can't be used to trigger a surge on anyone).


As for the rest of your post, it all boils down to one thing: "add incentives not to rest". Yeah. I just wished I didn't have to because the choice to rest wasn't in the adventurers hands.


---


But one thought that have come out of this isn't if the healing is designed a bit wrong?

What if Second Wind (a trigger you can't share with others) was the most effective healing, and Healing Word (a trigger with a small time cost and incredible flexibility) healed the least?

In this way, a party that is stocking up on daily heals won't feel burned out as much for using them up.

In essence, making daily heals a "nice perk" rather than something you can't live without.

Much like Daily powers. Sure, they're the biggest guns, but how much bigger than encounter powers are they really?

In other words, the reason Wizards have succeeded in making Dailies a "nice perk" that you can live without is that the marginal value isn't too great.

So perhaps my solution is to shift the weight around, turning Healing Word into a "nice perk" and Second Wind into the main artillery?

Interesting... let's have a think, and possibly we can discuss this in a forked-off thread later!

 

[CapnZapp]

Yes and no. CapnZapp seems to be seems to be running really hard encounters that force the PC's to blow through a lot of surges. That means that if they take on another encounter after that, there's a good chance they might not survive because they had to blow all of their daily healing triggers just to stay alive, and therefore will only have access to a handful of heals. Sure, they can supplement with Healing Potions, but those heal a fixed amount of damage and many times can actually be worse than your surge value. This means that they'll burn through their remaining surges even faster, and won't get very effective healing out of them.

So, say they have PC's, one Cleric and 4 MCing into Cleric. If, in the first encounter, they blow through both Healing Words and 3 of the daily heals, then in the next encounter they'll only have access to the two Healing Words and 1 daily heal. So they're at a little over half the healing capacity (5 heals burned in the first, max of 3 left in the second).

If we also assume that the Cleric has more than just Healing Word, and that Second Wind was used on multiple characters along with possibly some Healing Potions, it's entirely likely that a character might be below 50% of his surges. If so, he cannot take the same amount of damage in the second encounter because of the reduced healing effectiveness due to relying on Healing Potions. As such, it's very risky and someone will probably die. So why go on? It just makes more sense to rest at that point.

Spot on!

Exactly right. The risk isn't so much running out of surges altogether, it's running out of triggers.

Or put otherwise, the game allows the party to stock-pile triggers which they then can save for one big encounter.

That sounds nice in theory, but in practice this means that not only won't an easy encounter challenge my players (threatening them; adding excitement), but now even the hardest* one won't!
*) Obviously I can always throw a pair of L+10 monsters at them, but that's not the point...

Perhaps I'll ban MC feats, perhaps I'll shift the weight around (making your own inherent surge triggers more valuable at the expense of the almost-free Healing Word)...

Which neatly brings us back full circle - can you have too much healing in the game?

 

[CapnZapp]

You get what you pay for.

If the OP runs really hard encounters, his players will react by grabbing whatever healing they can and will also react by not moving on once the daily heals are gone.

This is not an issue with the game system, it's an issue with how the OP uniquely runs the game.

Not sure how you're helping here...?

If you're meaning to say I'm not running the game as intended, I've had that response several times over, and I keep saying that running several middling encounters is not for us.

I'm not saying my problem is your problem. But I would have hoped you would see the issue as presented by the 4E core mechanisms and how those might present more a hindrance than a help...

 

[Jhaelen]

But my problem isn't that I haven't understood the design paradigm of 4E. It is that it doesn't seem to work for us, and thus I am exploring alternatives.[...]
But I don't want to have many easy encounters.
[...]
I want "the beef" in almost every encounter. That is after all why I'm having them.
[...]
I look forward to any suggestions you might have, Doctor Proctor, but hopefully I have shown you that merely doing it by the book isn't going to work for me.

If you're meaning to say I'm not running the game as intended, I've had that response several times over, and I keep saying that running several middling encounters is not for us.

I'm not saying my problem is your problem.

I've noticed you always start talking about 'us', then slipping back into 'I'.

To be honest, I'd love to hear from one of your players. I have a strong suspicion, it's actually only you who has a problem with the 4E default assumptions about encounters.

Otherwise the most helpful comment so far was this: Look for a different system. There's plenty and probably a lot of them would be a better fit for your preferred gaming style.