Can you get too much healing?

[keterys]

In my experience, there's increased excitement and paranoia as the number of surges decreases. When it hits 0, there's an inherent scrambling effect if the party is unable to immediately get shelter.

Once you get the shelter and can take the extended rest, there's an effective sigh of relief and exhultation of beating it out.

That said, far too often the risk of running out of surges is absurdly low - it seems to only happen under rare circumstances or when using certain creatures.

 

[Cadfan]

CappnZapp- Resource management still includes daily powers.

I guess I don't know how else to answer you other than to point out that obviously we both know that using up daily spells like fireballs is still part of the game, that in fact every single class has a bit of that now, and that daily resource management is much bigger than the way to describe it. Maybe you have a problem with the way its implemented, but you glossed over that issue by ignoring it.

 

[KidSnide]

I agree with the idea that, when working properly, the healing limitation that matters in a given encounter is supposed to be running out of triggers, not running out of surges. The idea is that you burn through your encounter healing words and then have to choose between less effective potions and second winds or using a small supply of daily surge triggers. As your healing becomes less effective and/or more precious, the fight becomes more exciting. In an easy fight, the leader(s) just track who is bloodied and prop them back up. In a hard fight, they have to make hard choices like concentrating healing on the fighter by letting the archer ranger stay bloodied because he can keep himself out of melee.

That’s fun and good. But it involves a balance between encounter healing and daily healing. In the party design, you want enough encounter healing to make it through an easy fight. But, you also want a little daily healing so they can “reach back” when things get hairy.

But, because of your (IMO - perfectly reasonable) choice in adventure style, the inherent balance between daily and encounter healing is disrupted. If you’re only planning a couple fights per day, they daily healing is much better than in a “normal” distribution of encounters. One solution (noted several times on this thread) is to adopt the suggested distribution of encounters, but, for reasons you’ve said quite a few times, you don’t want to do that.

An alternative solution is simply to nerf daily healing a little bit. If splashing Cleric (or Warlord, or any other Leader) is so good in your game, it’s reasonable for you to scale it back a little. Either you can negotiate with your players so that they agree that only one or two players can have it, or you can reduce its effectiveness (with the goal of inducing one or two of them to drop the ability). You’ll have to manage the inter-personal aspects of that with your players, but you’re coming from a fair analysis. “This ability is better in our style of play than in most.”

As to healing surges, I’d probably do nothing. But, if you want, you could limit the effectiveness of using many healing surges in a given battle by having them heal one fewer hp every time they are used in a given fight. (I'm not sure how well that would work. I wouldn't suggest it as a general matter since it hurts the defenders more than most, but it might help solve your particular problem.)

-KS

 

[KarinsDad]

In my experience, there's increased excitement and paranoia as the number of surges decreases. When it hits 0, there's an inherent scrambling effect if the party is unable to immediately get shelter.

That is my experience as well. We had an encounter last year where we were on a bit of a timer to go finish off the BBEG and the Paladin had previously not only ran out of healing surges, but was also bloodied.

It was one of the most memorable BBEG (and friends) encounters for us with the Paladin hanging back and throwing javelins while the rest of the group tried to cover up for the fact that the Paladin could not be a defender (and was not much of an attacker), so any of the bad guys had free rein attacking any of the PCs. It was a bit of a nail biter.

That said, far too often the risk of running out of surges is absurdly low - it seems to only happen under rare circumstances or when using certain creatures.

Agreed.

 

[Mengu]

That said, far too often the risk of running out of surges is absurdly low - it seems to only happen under rare circumstances or when using certain creatures.

Why?

My players must suck. They run out of healing surges all the time. Not only that, but couple sessions ago they ran out of healing surges, were forced to surrender, were imprisoned, harassed sufficiently that they never got an extended rest, and had to formulate a plan to break out, without equipment, while 5 out of 6 players were at 0 surges, and only the warlock had some surges left. Even in that condition, they managed to break out, fight off some guardians and flee (unconscious cleric being carried by 3 HP fighter).

I've also had players run out of healing surges very early in the day sometimes. A rogue or ranger might be reduced to 0 surges in about 2 encounters if they are not careful. The rest of the party is usually still good to go, and their objective is probably incomplete, so they can't rest, and have to play through very carefully, or die.

 

[Dan'L]

I am honestly intrigued why it seems so few of my fellow players have the same feelings as I do. I would like to know how so many people accept that the "choice" when you run out of resources is equally non-existant as in 3E, especially considering the neat solution for the spells.

Speaking for no one but myself, I'd say that it's because we accept a wider paradigm for what makes an encounter exciting, challenging, and/or memorable than simply running the risk of HP draining away. So that the hard "choice" when you run out of resources is by no means the only way we end our in-game days, nor is it even necessarily a common reason for doing so. If I, as player, had to choose between playing a campaign where we were constantly running out of resources after one encounter, or one where we were constantly facing ticking-clock plots, I'd take the latter. Constant big epic fights is as much "grind" as 3-5 encounter crawls.

And 4th edition has some really good design mechanisms geared towards expanding play options to include ways of challenging players beyond simply running out of HP/HS. People have enumerated many of them here for you; if you dismiss them because you don't have time for them, can't be bothered, etc., then is it really a problem of the system mechanics? It's beginning to feel like you've walked into a Sizzler Steak House and decided that their menu is crap because you're a vegetarian, and then are marveling at the number of other satisfied diners.

-Dan'L

 

[Skallgrim]

In my experience, there's increased excitement and paranoia as the number of surges decreases. When it hits 0, there's an inherent scrambling effect if the party is unable to immediately get shelter.

Once you get the shelter and can take the extended rest, there's an effective sigh of relief and exhultation of beating it out.

QFT.

This is one of my "delighted discoveries" as a DM in 4e. We have players with a variety of play styles, and it has been a real treat to see how each of them fares with healing surges.

We have a very (very) tactical player, who, thankfully, is running our Cleric. He is very careful to maneuver, plan, and plot to make sure that every Healing Power he uses has maximum healing potential.

We have an Instigator who is running a Two-Weapon Ranger. Initially, he was ALWAYS the guy running out of surges, or running on 1. He's learned over the course of the game to move in AND OUT of combat, rather than running into the combat like a Tempest Fighter. He's also the person most likely to skimp on surges (and enter subsequent combats a bit battered).

We have a relatively new Roleplayer who came to the game from a long video-game background. She's running an Artful Dodger rogue. Initially, people really thought that she was being really, really tentative with her character and was averse to exposing her to risk. Then people realized that the Halfling had an unimpressive CON, and really not that many healing surges, so she was being cautious, not overcautious. Then, finally, we finally realized (even me) that she was actually saving surges the way other people save daily powers. By using so few of them during easy and average fights, the Rogue could stand to take a lot more damage to get through major battles, instead of going into "boss fights" with 1-2 surges left.

Seeing strategies shift as healing surges dwindle is really cool. I like it when the Ranger sheathes his swords and switches to bow, or when the plucky halfing tumbles across the room to engage the evil wizard at close range in the final confrontation. I don't think those things would ever happen without a healing resource management strategy.

 

[fba827]

I got thinking... It seems the game is worse off when the characters have access to "too much" healing.

Disclaimer: I did not read all the posts in this thread, merely the original post and skimmed some of the subsequent ones.


I agree with the basic premise as a generalization - there is such a thing as too much healing to the point where it becomes ridiculous. The DM just has to throw tougher/trickier/etc things at the PCs and as the PCs go up in level, it just escalates.

It seems your PCs have taken an extreme, rather than one or two being specialized, everyone is dabbling in it. *I* would find that boring as a player, but for whatever reason they all chose to do that, which is fine. Just have to figure a way to make it work.

I'd stop giving out healing potions (if you were already) - frankly, they don't need them. And then I'd worry about enemy tactics that were focused on a) conditions b) high damage output c) recurring damage.

Get them caught in areas without line of sight or line of effect (darkness, lots of winding walls in narrow corridors) - some powers can't work like that.
And change monster tactics, inflict moderate damage on lots of PCs at once (burst effects and such), not just one time but multiple times. And same for recurring damage - they can heal up but potentially will still have more damage to take the next round.

I recently killed a PC that (to keep this story simple) was nearly untouchable leading to a bit of overconfidence. But the last session was stuck with a lot of damage and without line of effect for healing from allies and he went down fast.

Beyond stuff like that, I would find it boring (but again, that's just me if I were playing in such a group).

But having said that ...

(Sorry, we don't have time to string out three or four initial boring-but-resource-depleting small fights before arriving at the real meat of the scenario).

I think therein lies the crux of the issue.

The system was designed for multiple encounters, generally leading up to a climax. If you're taking out the multiple encounters, it turns in to a one fight a day thing, with no difference between encounter, milestone, and daily resources (thus action points, magic item usage, daily powers, encounter powers, healing surges, magic item daily powers, and a couple other things all get lumped in to one 'group')

If your group doesn't have time for multiple encounters, perhaps either have the smaller encounters one session and then the climactic fight the next session - just be sure to keep good notes in between as to who has what left (surges, powers, action points, etc).

Alternatively, reduce the PCs number of surges per day by 1/2 or 2/3 or 3/4 to mimic in the system the equivalent of having gone through several combats already.


So, yeah, I'm basically agreeing that you can get too much healing. But based on what you said, it seems like your group has a different way of playing (which is perfectly fine!!!!) than the way the system was set up.

 

[Cadfan]

Play Report: Just finished the fourth delve, final fight.

Every single character went negative. Every single character used their second wind. All healing possessed by our leader was used. All daily powers were used except one, because that character was unconscious when it was actually useful. We drank all but one of our potions.

We still have more than 50% of our healing surges.

Didn't do us any good, of course, because healing surges are useless without any actual healing abilities, and those were expended.

Spoiler:

Spoiler

The delver is really into fights where monsters push, drop, throw, toss, or fling you off of very high ledges. This one ground it in a bit further, by rendering you stunned or dying before throwing you into a pit, negating your acrobatics check to reduce the damage. One character only lived because of an improvised effort at catching her when she was dropped, unconscious and dying, on top of our dwarf. Who of course was at the bottom because she'd been dropped there while dying, and had been healed by the dragonborn fighter, who was there because she was dropped into the pit while stunned (she was dying after she hit, though). In fact, the whole chain of the previous droppee saving the most recent would have been a total failure if the first person dropped into the pit hadn't had healing magic cast on her from up top in a daring rescue effort that resulted in the rescuer.... being knocked unconscious and thrown into the pit.

Oh, and one last comment relevant to the thread.

We healed up, and we're not stopping for the day. Why would we?

 

[darkwing]

The problem obviously isn't too much healing because healing surges take care of that. The problem, as others have pointed out, is the party taking extended rests too often. This problem isn't unique to too much healing. Too little healing can produce the same result. Basically any party not balanced for multiple encounters in a row will produce the too many extended rests needed effect. The number of encounters per extended rest, not healing, is where the OP should focus his efforts.