Neonchameleon
Legend
(x-posted from rpg.net)
Hit points and Surges - the Basics
4e has two measures of how damaged you are. Hit points and healing surges. The first is a measure of immediate resilience and the second a measure of long term stamina. So when someone is at full hit points this does not mean that they are unscratched, unless they have all their surges. And you can spend surges to regain hit points (25% of maximum hit point total/surge).
This might sound counter-intuitive at first. But to make a simple analogy, take a boxing match. A fighter gets knocked down and the referee starts counting. The fighter just reached 0hp. He's down, unconcious, and technically dying (although highly unlikely to die). What he needs to do is spend a healing surge somehow to recover 25% of his hit points. This damage isn't gone. He's still been beaten up and he's still battered even if his nose has stopped bleeding and he's able to stand up again. But he's back in the fight even if punch drunk. What he needs to do is last until the bell when he can take a short rest and have a drink, ice put on him, a towel, and spend surges to top his hit points back up. This won't mean his wounds magically disappear. They don't. He's still healing surges down. He still looks like a slab of raw meat. But he's ready to go into the ring again.
So if you can just spend surges to get your hit points back, what's the point in having both tracks? It's hard to spend surges in combat. By default, a character can only spend one surge in a fight (Second Wind) and that comes at the cost of not attacking that round. This is normally a bad plan, so your hit points are what you have. (And a power that allows you to spend a surge when unconscious is almost certainly a daily - meaning our boxer only gets to do that once for the entire match. He's in trouble). What Leaders (clerics, warlords, bards, shamans, artificers, runepriests, and ardents) allow you to do is spend them in combat easily - and with a bonus. All leaders come with the ability to allow two people per encounter to spend a surge. Which means two people can get back more than 25% of their starting hit points in a fight (or one person more than 50%). This doesn't do much to help how much damage they can take in the day. But to get to the end of the day you need to live that long. (Healing potions do a similar job here). The coach yells at the boxer and the boxer pulls out some of his reserve energy to keep fighting. But when his surges run out, that's it. Finished. The coach can yell all he likes. There's nothing left. He's swaying on his feet and when he goes down, it will be a ten count - and he won't be on much more than one hit point for the rest of the day.
Recovering Healing Surges
There are only two major ways to recover healing surges. The first is magic - and almost all the magical effects I can think of to gain healing surges this way involve the donor spending healing surges to give the recipient some back. A magical transfer of energy which takes time, skill, and resources - and normally isn't 100% efficient. But by far the most common is the Extended Rest - which amounts to a long narrative break that allows everyone to retool. By default, this is an 8 hour rest - because that's how wizards have historically recovered all their resources. But what the extended rest represents is more like a narrative break to rearm.. It's enough time to recover. And yes, our real world boxer reduced to 0hp and 0 healing surges would probably require a week for his extended rest. But what an extended rest represents in 4e is a narrative break. It's the difference between the same character in a TV series in one episode and the next (two parters count as one episode here) - even if they show signs of being hurt, it's almost always effectively cosmetic in the action/adventure genre. And like most action heroes our PCs are larger than life and can recover in far less time than a real human (which is no more of a simulationist problem than my monk being able to perform some Wire Fu or taking swordsmen on effectively with his bare hands). There's very little damage that remains on PCs after having that break and any that there is is unusual rather than the normal wear and tear a PC is subjected to (we have the Disease Rules for these cases).
Hit Points and Surges - Play Effects
What splitting hit points and surges does in play is completely change both the immediacy of healing and the nature of the attrition game in 4e.
In 3e, the main healing spell was Cure Light Wounds. It was cast outside combat and meant that the fighters could last forever as long as they had wands of cure light wounds around. It was normally not worth using higher level spell slots on healing magic - knocking the bad guys out prevented more damage (that said, a touch of emergency healing helped.)
4e has moved the place of healing. Gone are the sticks of Cure Light Wounds used between combats. If you can spend healing surges freely in a rest, you don't need the magic at that point. Instead, healers get to heal a couple of times as a minor action - meaning they can heal and attack without penalty. Where to spend the healing (i.e. who needs the help staying up) therefore becomes a tactical decision that the Leaders need to make. And they can provide just over 50% of one PC's starting hit points as a default.
4e also has a fairly simply judged attrition game on the number of healing surges. If someone has full hit points and three or more surges, they are fine for that fight. Worse than that and they are in trouble. There's a limit coming up to how much more punishment their body can take that day. Too battered to even be able to accept any except the best magical healing. Although the hit points might be there, the damage has been taken. And its effects haven't gone away. But it in practice really is almost a three step condition - Enough Healing Surges (the fight may kill them anyway as they can't easily spend them in combat), borderline healing surges, and Run Away!
Hit points and Surges - the Basics
4e has two measures of how damaged you are. Hit points and healing surges. The first is a measure of immediate resilience and the second a measure of long term stamina. So when someone is at full hit points this does not mean that they are unscratched, unless they have all their surges. And you can spend surges to regain hit points (25% of maximum hit point total/surge).
This might sound counter-intuitive at first. But to make a simple analogy, take a boxing match. A fighter gets knocked down and the referee starts counting. The fighter just reached 0hp. He's down, unconcious, and technically dying (although highly unlikely to die). What he needs to do is spend a healing surge somehow to recover 25% of his hit points. This damage isn't gone. He's still been beaten up and he's still battered even if his nose has stopped bleeding and he's able to stand up again. But he's back in the fight even if punch drunk. What he needs to do is last until the bell when he can take a short rest and have a drink, ice put on him, a towel, and spend surges to top his hit points back up. This won't mean his wounds magically disappear. They don't. He's still healing surges down. He still looks like a slab of raw meat. But he's ready to go into the ring again.
So if you can just spend surges to get your hit points back, what's the point in having both tracks? It's hard to spend surges in combat. By default, a character can only spend one surge in a fight (Second Wind) and that comes at the cost of not attacking that round. This is normally a bad plan, so your hit points are what you have. (And a power that allows you to spend a surge when unconscious is almost certainly a daily - meaning our boxer only gets to do that once for the entire match. He's in trouble). What Leaders (clerics, warlords, bards, shamans, artificers, runepriests, and ardents) allow you to do is spend them in combat easily - and with a bonus. All leaders come with the ability to allow two people per encounter to spend a surge. Which means two people can get back more than 25% of their starting hit points in a fight (or one person more than 50%). This doesn't do much to help how much damage they can take in the day. But to get to the end of the day you need to live that long. (Healing potions do a similar job here). The coach yells at the boxer and the boxer pulls out some of his reserve energy to keep fighting. But when his surges run out, that's it. Finished. The coach can yell all he likes. There's nothing left. He's swaying on his feet and when he goes down, it will be a ten count - and he won't be on much more than one hit point for the rest of the day.
Recovering Healing Surges
There are only two major ways to recover healing surges. The first is magic - and almost all the magical effects I can think of to gain healing surges this way involve the donor spending healing surges to give the recipient some back. A magical transfer of energy which takes time, skill, and resources - and normally isn't 100% efficient. But by far the most common is the Extended Rest - which amounts to a long narrative break that allows everyone to retool. By default, this is an 8 hour rest - because that's how wizards have historically recovered all their resources. But what the extended rest represents is more like a narrative break to rearm.. It's enough time to recover. And yes, our real world boxer reduced to 0hp and 0 healing surges would probably require a week for his extended rest. But what an extended rest represents in 4e is a narrative break. It's the difference between the same character in a TV series in one episode and the next (two parters count as one episode here) - even if they show signs of being hurt, it's almost always effectively cosmetic in the action/adventure genre. And like most action heroes our PCs are larger than life and can recover in far less time than a real human (which is no more of a simulationist problem than my monk being able to perform some Wire Fu or taking swordsmen on effectively with his bare hands). There's very little damage that remains on PCs after having that break and any that there is is unusual rather than the normal wear and tear a PC is subjected to (we have the Disease Rules for these cases).
Hit Points and Surges - Play Effects
What splitting hit points and surges does in play is completely change both the immediacy of healing and the nature of the attrition game in 4e.
In 3e, the main healing spell was Cure Light Wounds. It was cast outside combat and meant that the fighters could last forever as long as they had wands of cure light wounds around. It was normally not worth using higher level spell slots on healing magic - knocking the bad guys out prevented more damage (that said, a touch of emergency healing helped.)
4e has moved the place of healing. Gone are the sticks of Cure Light Wounds used between combats. If you can spend healing surges freely in a rest, you don't need the magic at that point. Instead, healers get to heal a couple of times as a minor action - meaning they can heal and attack without penalty. Where to spend the healing (i.e. who needs the help staying up) therefore becomes a tactical decision that the Leaders need to make. And they can provide just over 50% of one PC's starting hit points as a default.
4e also has a fairly simply judged attrition game on the number of healing surges. If someone has full hit points and three or more surges, they are fine for that fight. Worse than that and they are in trouble. There's a limit coming up to how much more punishment their body can take that day. Too battered to even be able to accept any except the best magical healing. Although the hit points might be there, the damage has been taken. And its effects haven't gone away. But it in practice really is almost a three step condition - Enough Healing Surges (the fight may kill them anyway as they can't easily spend them in combat), borderline healing surges, and Run Away!
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