Cloak of the Walking Wounded

[Mengu]

Maybe he admits it b/c neither you nor the fighter know how that cloak works. It is neither an II nor an IR to use it - it's a static property that applies if you use your SW while bloodied. So it takes the action you have to spend to use your SW. If the fighter has to spend a Standard Action all his marks will go away that are applied by his normal attacks.

I'm guessing the Dwarf has Resilience of Stone which lets him use second wind as an immediate interrupt, and that's what he's talking about.

Regardless, yeah, I don't see it as overpowered. It'll let you last longer in those most difficult fights. But aside from that, it's either overkill, or when it's not, you're seriously hurting.

 

[Victim]

Non dwarves use Second Wind?

The Cloak doesn't improve a group's surge efficiency at all, so they lose out on daily endurance compared to heals with bonuses to the surge value.

Most of the time, I'd much rather have a Cloak with a different property or power. If your group needs to spend a standard action using second wind all the time, then either you're having a few very hard fights each day, or they're screwing something up. And if they only need the cloak's bonus infrequently, then something like an Amulet of False Life can do pretty much the job without necessarily costing a standard action. And something like an energy resistance cloak can prevent tons of damage in the first place, as well as enable some party tactics.

The Cloak of the Walking Wounded might be a great item for the dwarf fighter with tons of surges (especially with another feat improving his second wind). However, I don't see that it's especially useful for other characters who probably have less plentiful surges. I'd guess that they just see the dwarf rocking with the item and then copy his plan.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Non dwarves use Second Wind?

There are quite a few niche cases where Second Wind is clearly the best option even when it requires a Standard Action.

1. The PC is weakened or suffering from large penalties to attack or damage
2. The PC is dazed and cannot make an effective attack with a single action
3. The PC is immobilized or slowed and cannot attack a meaningful target
4. The PC specializes in burst or blast attacks and there is no good concentration of targets
5. The encounter is almost over but there is significant reason to believe that another wave of opponents is coming or that it will be necessary to continue on to the next encounter without a short rest
6. The encounter is almost over and the PC is taking ongoing damage that constitutes a real threat
7. Second Wind provides an additional benefit to the PC
7. The PC is strategically important, i.e. it is essential that the PC still be alive after the battle

That's just the ones I can think of -- I'm sure there are more.

Note also that if the group has no Leader to tack bonus healing onto a surge, there is no point in waiting for something else to trigger it.

 

[eamon]

One perfectly harmless but common reason all your PC's may have the cloak is simplicity. It's really common with us for several PC's to have the same item, just out of laziness. Not every item is crucial to the PC and sometimes you just want something more exciting than a plain amulet (which, frankly, is probably better).

So the cloak gives you options, and many people take it rather than poring over the books looking for an alternative - nothing to be worried about.

If you're having issues, I'm 99% sure it's not the cloak - it's some other general gameplay aspect.

By the way, it's not necessary or fun to have every combat challenging. Having a (quick) battle that's decisively won by the PC's is fine, and that can even be the norm (just avoid the grind). However, some battles should really be challenging to keep people on their toes.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If your PCs are finding that spending 2 surges at a time with no additional bonus added to them on a regular basis at the expense of a standard action is a good thing, then there are a few things out of whack.

1. Your PCs are being overly cautious with their adventuring day or spending their dailies too recklessly (leading to them resting because they're out of dailies, not surges).

2. Your PCs are not being pressured during encounters, and have all the time in the world to kill their foes.

One solution is to simply use more dangerous encounters. Don't use higher level monsters, that just leads to grind boredom. Use more monsters, and stick to high damaging monsters (ie - avoid soldiers). Start at level+1 as the basic encounter and go from there.

The other solution is to introduce reasons that a 3 fight workday is a bad thing, or that spending a standard action during a fight isn't feasable.

The 3 fight workday is easy: simply introduce a time pressure. Realistically, almost no adventure is going to be totally free of time constraints. It doesn't have to be a particularly tight deadline either: just having a deadline will make your players actually consider fighting on and risking a bit. It doesn't need to be explicit (finish the dungeon in 7 days, or the prisoners die!) either: it can be as simple as giving the PCs some indication that the creatures are responding to a dungeon (or whatever) incursion in a sensible manner (like moving the good loot somewhere else, or simply doing something while the PCs rest, like finding them and ambushing them at night).

Making spending a standard action a serious cost isn't too hard: basically it comes down to encounter structure. Terrain that requires the PCs to keep moving (conveyor belts, thin ice, water currents, even conventional difficult terrain) will swallow up actions, as will dazing, slowing, stunning (use very sparingly), monsters who use hit-and-run tactics, monsters who inflict really nasty conditions that MUST be saved against soon (petrification), monsters who grab (and follow it up with something nasty) etc etc.

In short, if you need to use your standard action, you can't afford to lose it second winding.

 

[eamon]

One solution is to simply use more dangerous encounters. Don't use higher level monsters, that just leads to grind boredom. Use more monsters, and stick to high damaging monsters (ie - avoid soldiers). Start at level+1 as the basic encounter and go from there.

The problem with this approach may be that it encourages or even requires spending more daily resources rather than less in an encounter.

So, I'd be careful with this. The time-pressure idea is a much safer bet. That time-pressure idea works well in-combat as well as out, too: Have them fight a bunch of minotaur guards while the stone temple door is slowly being pushed closed by their slaves - if they don't finish the fight in 6 rounds, they're in trouble.

Have them be chased and harassed for a day, knowing that they'll be attack a lot of times but not very strongly (minions are fine). Second wind really wastes surges since not only are you not getting all the leader bonuses to surges, but the combat is also taking longer so more damage is being dealt.

More damaging monsters with fewer hitpoints makes in-combat healing in general less attractive (which 3.5 amply demonstrated, after all).

 

[dvvega]

A couple of things to answer some queries/statements.

1) my party tends to go 1 milestone, maybe 2 at most per day. It is the party's choice and I am not going to force them to do something they do not like on a regular basis. For a specific section of the campaign perhaps (race against time etc) but is not the norm.

2) Yes the Dwarf Fighter has Resilience of Stone.

3) I only placed one cloak in the game because it was a requested item - this is the only part of 4th edition I dislike (the treasure systems) but the players are happy with. Once it was in the party they then went off and began buying them with the party horde. None of the characters actually keeps money for themselves but rather pools it in a party fund.

4) My combats are generally fast and furious. On average combats last 5 rounds, a couple have gone to 7 and there was 1 that went to 9 but that was due to a lot of dazed conditions. I have dropped characters previously (until the "Time of Cloak") including the Dwarf Fighter. Their last 2 level ups have started this problem occurring. If I change the difficulty of encounters to level+1 I change the experience return and thus I chance the campaign pacing. This is something I do not wish to do - it is my first complete campaign for 4th edition to take them from 1st to 30th.

5) I will see how things go after the next couple of encounters that have some very nasty little surprises in them and see how they deal with them.

Thank you for all the replies.

D

 

[Black Knight Irios]

4) My combats are generally fast and furious. On average combats last 5 rounds, a couple have gone to 7 and there was 1 that went to 9 but that was due to a lot of dazed conditions. I have dropped characters previously (until the "Time of Cloak") including the Dwarf Fighter. Their last 2 level ups have started this problem occurring. If I change the difficulty of encounters to level+1 I change the experience return and thus I chance the campaign pacing. This is something I do not wish to do - it is my first complete campaign for 4th edition to take them from 1st to 30th.

Are you saying you only use encounters of of partylvl+0? There you've got your reason why taking a standard action to heal is not a bad choice.

Maybe you should drop some encounters and make some encounters harder (lvl+1/+2/+3). It wouldn't change the XP your party acquires if you balance it.

Or throw XP out of the window and just place level-up-slots in your campaign and all your worries about XP are gone.

 

[Fridayknight]

I havent read all the pages but on my banite warlord with CWW and armour of Dwarven Vigor the second wind is powerful. Think of any time you took 'defensive' actions, with this you gain the same 2+ to defence but also 2hs+10 hitpoints. As well as this it show that you are uber-cool and tough as you bounce yourself from nearly dieing to full hp.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Are you saying you only use encounters of of partylvl+0? There you've got your reason why taking a standard action to heal is not a bad choice.

Unless of course the OP is also miscalculating the encounter level and is really consistently throwing out level+2 or higher challenges.