Raising encounter limits on healing.

[Kannon]

I've run into a slight problem in a Dark Sun 4e game I'm running. My players are running out of healing entirely too fast. I don't mean surges, I mean the leader's ability to heal, and second winds.

The problem is, I run lethal, opportunistic monsters. So they go for CA, hit bloodied PCs to reduce threats, and know better than to focus the defender unless he's on his game and doesn't give them another choice. Basically, I'm a (slightly) less sociopathic angry DM.

But, my players are playing well (Well, well-ish. But they're new players, so they're doing better than I'd expect.), they just only have one leader class and a low WIS elemental paladin. Last session they spent the second half of the encounter trying to keep the rogue alive after he taunted a very pissy soldier when he was at low health... Which made it run long, and wasn't as fun as the encounters previous when they were all up, but hurt.

Not as much of a problem in my Ebberon game, what with the massive amount of healing abilities and damage mitigation that party brings to the table. (High WIS pally, ranged warlord, tough-as-nails melee cleric.), but I've still noticed it bringing more meta-gaming than I'd like.

With that in mind, I was looking at lowering the 2x encounter of inspiring word to an at-will minor, still once per round, and lowering the 1x daily from the paladin to a 1x encounter.

That, along with looking at some way to recharge dailies besides an extended rest, should go a long way towards them looking at healing surges as their most important resources.... which will play in nicely to vicious treks across the desert, sun sickness, and so on. (They're not prone to trying the 15 minute adventuring day, either. Which helps).

Any balance concerns or issues I may not have thought of from bumping that so?

 

[corwyn77]

Well, it's your game, but...

Stating the obvious, the main ramification is that no one will go down for the count until they are out of surges and everyone has about triple hit points starting with the first encounter.

You didn't mention it but, how many PCs do you have? I ran six with one leader and a paladin and didn't have too many issues but they're pretty experienced. We had a group of three once where the leader almost exclusively healed himself. I have heard Darksun is quite a bit harder setting however.

The recovering dailies can extend the workday but the improved healing may shorten it as players keep going in a given encounter instead of playing cautious when their healing runs out and burn all their surges in two encounters.

 

[Kannon]

There are 5 PCs, a warlord, an elemental paladin, a warlord, a ranger, a rogue, and a (defiling) wizard. Not a lot of healing, there. Especially with the defiling wizard breaking out Arcane Defiling for major powers. And like I said, new players, not inclined to powergame or overly optimize.

The players being a bit more durable is a concern though. I'm not sure it's a bad thing overall. I dunno if I gut have hot dice or high-powered monsters, but I can drop a PC in about half a round if the monsters can get into position. Some of the dark sun skirmishers are NASTY.

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong mechanic for what I'd really like to fix, though. Playing the monsters well, and aggressively, without curbstomping a PC (Which always feels cheap unless they have a good reason to), means on average, they're unable to do much besides death saving throws for half the combat, or just hanging out. (And someone burning standards for heal checks, likely). Basically, they're playing it smart and taking care of each other. It'd be nice if they could just get up, or just go ahead and die. Bumping up the leader's heal frequency seems an easier way to do that without just giving out potions (well, fruit) like candy.

 

[bbjore]

I'd be leery of making the leader heals at-will. While it may work fine with your group's current composition, they are one additional leader away from being able to pretty much laugh off anything you can throw at them. Personally I'd focus more on encouraging every character to make sure they have a defensive or self-healing power to cover the moments when they find themselves in a bind and the leader can't help. I'd also consider increasing the number of healing fruit available. It's a nice compromise. The leader's heals are more effective, so the leader won't feel left behind, and it combat won't become a cakewalk for your PCs, but your players will still have options to keep themselves in the fight if necessary.

 

[andy3k]

I find it ALWAYS preferable to change things on the DM side before changing them on the character side. Most things can be fixed by the DM without changing rules that affect the characters.

• Lower all encounter levels by 1. The monsters can be just as ruthless but not as powerful. PCs should never be unconscious by round 2 unless the player does something stupid.
• Use monsters that eat healing surges, or modify monsters you want to use and change out certain powers with healing surge eating powers, so that they don't have so many left over healing surges.
• They are walking through harsh environments. There should be points where they have to skill check for, or automatically lose, healing surges.
• Throw in the occasional healing fruit, as mentioned before.

 

[the Jester]

It's your game, do what works for you. That said... HELL NO would I do this in my campaign.

Let me ask you this- have pcs actually died in droves? Have any died at all?

If not, is it because you're pulling punches?

If there haven't been massive pc deaths and you haven't had to pull lots of punches, I'd say that you're having an exciting game.

 

[Arlough]

It's your game, do what works for you. That said... HELL NO would I do this in my campaign.

Let me ask you this- have pcs actually died in droves? Have any died at all?

If not, is it because you're pulling punches?

If there haven't been massive pc deaths and you haven't had to pull lots of punches, I'd say that you're having an exciting game.

I have to agree that this would fall under the "No chance" category for my game. But I am going to have to take issue with the "exciting game" stance.
Being out of the game, for any reason, is not a fun thing for players. Defeat is not fun, and rolling death saving throws for any period of time is not fun.

From your description, I would say that there is indeed a problem of some sort going on in your game, and I would behoove you to seek out it's source.
It could be that your players are not very good at coordination, it could be that you are really good at tactics. Maybe you are creating situations where they cannot leverage their advantages as well as you NPC's can. Whatever it is, you need to find it and fix it.
Whether it is the players who are at fault here (they don't communicate or coordinate with each other) or you who are at fault (most monsters and NPCs are not smart enough to coordinate attacks the way you describe, so possibly you are being too clever) it is up to the DM to fix the problem because the DM is the host and entertainer.

Here's one thing I can suggest. If it has been a while since the last combat, have a quick warm up "practice fight" at the beginning of the session. This gets everybody adjusted for battle without them having to lose Daily Powers, Action points, etc. To the characters, the events in the game world are happening constantly, whereas to the players, the events are only happening for a few hours once a week (or whatever schedule you play on) with many other consuming things in the interim. If I just spent four days cramming for a test, and am now worrying about my grade, I am not going to be able to jump right back into the same focused state I was in last week when we had to quit just as we bloodied the Elder Black Dragon.

Additionally, when the players have a string of luck, it is cheers and jeers all around, but if the DM is having a string of luck, it can kill the mood at the table. So feel free to fudge some rolls if you are doing too well. Adjust the hp of a monster if he is wiping the floor with the players. Drop hints about the creature's weaknesses. Maybe even remind players to do a knowledge check to see what they know or can evaluate about the foe they face. Maybe even give out free action points if it seems they are in too much of a challenge.

However you go about it, though, you hold all the cards and therefore it is your job to make things fun. You have control over the entire game world and system. Anything you say as the DM goes, because you have all the power.
I won't quote Spider Man, but you get the gist.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I just wrote up a second party leader to solve this very problem in our DS game.

So I understand why you're doing this, but I'd suggest fixing it from a different angle. Giving leaders more healing power might solve your problem, but it creates another: leaders becoming even more important. They're already the most important of the roles, IMO, so I'd want to give everyone a slight healing boost instead. Like making Second Wind optionaly a move action (without the defense boost) and/or giving everyone a Third Wind.

I myself will be trying that first house rule in my upcoming game, 'cause I've found that SW hardly gets used anyway.

 

[RLBURNSIDE]

Make sure the ranger takes

Invigorating Stride utility 2. There's a new one for level 6 which can heal themselves or someone else too.

Or, make some type of bracelet or charm that all the PCs can get which basically confers that power to them as an encounter power. There you go, Second Winds will get used by everyone the second they need it. I'd say the party needs to get their act together and stop choosing other types of utility powers and everyone needs some extra healing. Aren't there healing potions? House rule some that give free healing, or more than 1d10 healing a shot, (like Sure serious wounds or critical wounds in earlier editions).

If some players are playing too recklessly or fail to learn better tactics as time goes on, kill them. After a few PC deaths they should learn their lesson. Sometimes if a TPK is about to happen and there's one or two PCs left standing, throw in a random enemy who happens upon the encounter and ends up fighting the first creature, whereby they both flee and the PCs can recover to fight another day. A lot of times DMs fail to challenge the PCs enough, if they are about to die a lot I'd say you are doing your job as DM better than most. (IMO). Nobody really wants to play in a munchkin carebear world, and Dark Sun should definitely be tough.

If they fail to improve their tactics, learn from their mistakes, analyze what's going wrong, read the omens foretelling their doom every day, or retrain into more healing powers, kill 'em off! Too bad, so sad. You lose. That's life.

 

[Kannon]

They were a little... tactically unsound at first, though they have been improving. The biggest problem so far has been someone dropping while everyone was out of healing due to a baddie getting a nasty roll or lucky crit. (Oddly enough, this group prefers to use second wind before leader healing if at all possible, just for the defensive bonuses.).

Last encounter we tried out an experimental arena rule that if stabilized with a heal check, you could spend a surge and get up, and that fixed my main problem. A PC being on the ground and bleeding is no fun for anyone involved. It gives me one less target to mess with, and has a player basically sitting out.

And I've pulled a few punches, downgrading a crit that would have instakilled a player, comes to mind. 28 damage on a bloodied 21hp max character? Ouch. It still very nearly killed them outright. Dark sun monsters are nasty.

Just to be clear, I'm usually more along the lines of an Angry DM... I'm just pragmatic enough to know that instakills when players are playing well is not conductive to having players to mess with. I'm quite happy with players going into negative HP, and not shy about player kills. (Traditionally, it's a good first session if I get the defender or leader into negative HP. I managed both.)

I just don't like having to pull punches, is all.

And I do appreciate the concerns about balance, and reasons for it. So I won't be putting that into practice any time soon. But it is a new campaign, with new characters, so they haven't had time to get hard to kill yet. And I can always hand out defensive boons, if need be.

And I may be playing the monsters too clever. They've been fighting smart monsters, or dumb monsters with smart handlers so far, though.