D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 DM Considering 4E

[Balesir]

The healing surge thing is bad when you have a Solo fight and you are new to the system and you aren't really maxed out or anything, and then the guy goes... OH! I GET ALL MY HIT POINTS BACK! You spent 1 hour fighting for no consequence because the players knew to make their healing surges really count, so everybody is at full health and the only thing that happened was everybody blew a bunch of healing surges.

Very early in our play of 4E, one of the players in the game I'm running made a very perceptive comment. They said (words to the effect of - it was a while back): "Oh, my real hit points aren't what is listed as "hit points" here on the sheet - they are all my surges thrown in, as well!".

Actually, the rate at which you can "cycle" HSs in combat can be critical, too, but at the same time this is true in a "strategic" sense. By spending surges, you are not making it so that "nothing happened" - you have lost some of your ultimate store of hit points...

If you really need a gritty, slow recovery feel to your 4E game, try a simple houserule: characters recover only (1+CON Mod) healing surges with an Extended Rest. This will have the downside of encouraging "15 minute workdays" - which is why I don't use it - but it will also make surges a more obviously valuable resource.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Very early in our play of 4E, one of the players in the game I'm running made a very perceptive comment. They said (words to the effect of - it was a while back): "Oh, my real hit points aren't what is listed as "hit points" here on the sheet - they are all my surges thrown in, as well!".

Actually, the rate at which you can "cycle" HSs in combat can be critical, too, but at the same time this is true in a "strategic" sense. By spending surges, you are not making it so that "nothing happened" - you have lost some of your ultimate store of hit points...

If you really need a gritty, slow recovery feel to your 4E game, try a simple houserule: characters recover only (1+CON Mod) healing surges with an Extended Rest. This will have the downside of encouraging "15 minute workdays" - which is why I don't use it - but it will also make surges a more obviously valuable resource.

Perhaps I'm not understanding you here, but do you allow your players to use as many healing surges in combat as they want? From the context of your post from what your player said about his hit points being ALL of his healing surges thrown in as well, that seems to be the case.

To me, healing surges are a great way to deal with a lack of a cleric in the group, it makes solo campaigns pretty easy to do (especially if you homebrew a few small things), and you don't have to give out as many healing potions in treasure finds.

As far as recovery of healing surges goes, I don't feel they are overpowered at all. It all comes down to how you DM the game. If you don't give the characters a break to do many extended rests or you challenge them with harder to kill/harder hitting enemies. Then you are not falling into it being too easy for them to regain them and they have to actually use them intelligently because they don't know what's coming up next.

 

[Balesir]

Perhaps I'm not understanding you here, but do you allow your players to use as many healing surges in combat as they want? From the context of your post from what your player said about his hit points being ALL of his healing surges thrown in as well, that seems to be the case.

No, no - hence why I said "the rate at which you can "cycle" HSs in combat can be critical, too". In an individual combat you can only "access" so much of your "total hit point store" - but over a full adventuring day you can (if you go long enough) use all of them.

It means there are two things to attend to, as a character and as a party:

1) The total number of hit points plus surges you have; the classes you are and the powers you take (CLW, CSW, etc.) can be used to modify this.

2) The rate at which you can access surges in a combat; leaders and various powers can be selected (or not) to modulate this.

These combine to determine what tactical and strategic "tempo" you can manage. Avoiding taking damage obviously factors in here, too!

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Okay, got it. Smart players can be tactical about it, but smarter DMs can nullify this and challenge them.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

There really is no 3.*-centric criticism of healing surges that can't be easily addressed by simple house rules.

For example, change healing potions, healing wands, and daily spells that require surges to not require surges, but work relatively poorly when used as such. Maybe you get half the listed effect if you don't burn a surge. In compensation, you can't use a surge without such an option, or at least the at will surge spending powers that leaders have (which work as normal). Critically, you need potions or other such items to be of your tier to give any benefit, without a surge. (So a heroic healing potion is simply to weak to even give half benefit to a paragon or higher character.)

There, now you can effectively run out of most surge-granting resources, if you aren't careful. OTOH, if you have a lot of them, you can keep going way past your surge limit, but this will be expensive. This will often play remarkably like 3.*. You'll want to have a wand and a bunch of potions on hand, and after every combat, you'll use it a lot.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I know when I first read through 4e healing surges seemed rather foreign and seemed like they would feel hokey but I really haven't found it to be so in play. Obviously the other advise is not to have one encounter in a day. HS loss during a series of encounters is NOT no consequence. You can easily have your party sucked down to TPK with that thought in mind, because when you do run out of surges, things get ugly FAST. Even with THP and some surgeless healing, you just aren't going to shrug that off.

I TPK'd a party once by "chaining" two encounters together. The first one turned out to be unexpectedly hard (even though the PCs had the advantages; I think my dice were hot or their dice weren't) and they spend all their Healing Spirits. The second encounter came before they could get a short rest, and only a regeneration 2 daily power gave them any healing at all.

I "forget" that regeneration doesn't work on PCs at less than 0 hp, which was the only reason they survived.

I don't think CLW lets you avoid the healing surge limits. It's a daily, and it's worse than Healing Word (a standard action, no bonus d6s of healing). You only use it if you're out of healing surges completely, or if you've used up your other HS-using resources. It's a last-ditch emergency effort.

IMO combat should be deadly, but you should be able to heal up afterward. Healing surges help with that; you can die, as you might have healing surges you can't expend, but once you get your short rest, you get your hit points back. (Not being able to heal between combats is a pet peeve of mine; it leads to excessively cautious gaming.)

 

[mudlock]

Check out the disease mechanic. It does exactly this. It can be cured for free over time, helped by someone performing a heal check, or even gotten rid of in 10 minutes with a ritual...players choice.

Doesn't the ritual cause the target to take a bunch of damage; i.e., spend some healing surges and it's over and done?

Look, if you want a game that has debilitating wounds, D&D has NEVER been that game (even though people have been trying to make up house rules to make it be that game forever.) And I'm willing to bet that it will never BE that game.

 

[nikadeemus327]

EDIT: Bah, misquote.

 

[nikadeemus327]

If you really need a gritty, slow recovery feel to your 4E game, try a simple houserule: characters recover only (1+CON Mod) healing surges with an Extended Rest. This will have the downside of encouraging "15 minute workdays" - which is why I don't use it - but it will also make surges a more obviously valuable resource.

I like that idea.

 

[Hussar]

In my last campaign (3.5E), the players were like level 17 and having a climactic showdown with a drow war party that was supported by some powerful ogre barbarians that served as the muscle for the drow. One drow was a powerful duskblade that had been a party nemesis since they were level 3. The drow had two high level priestesses and two high level wizards in their group as well.

So, it was 8 PCs and 2 key NPC allies against maybe a dozen drow and maybe 15-20 ogre barbarians. I think there was a hill giant barbarian in there as well as the leader of the muscle group.

The battle was really a knock down drag out fight with everybody pulling out all the stops, PCs and drow flying all over the battlefield. Finally, after a session and a half of non-stop combat that included a divine and a psionic Revivify on the PC's side and a divine one on the drow side, both sides were down to nearly zero in terms of hit points.

The party cleric got into position and cast Mass Heal. Everybody in the party went from near zero hit points to full, or near full, hit points after she got her spell off on time. Other than having burned off spells and power points and been mostly debuffed, the party was basically unscathed.

The drow priestess was, luckily, in position to do the same for her side (which would have brought the combat into a third session). However, right before her turn in the round, one of the PCs charged the priestess and landed a critical hit on her, dropping her and stopping her from casting Mass Heal on her own side. The fully healed party then made short work of the remaining drow.

I honestly said a silent "thank goodness" over that - it would have been frustrating to have played two entire sessions of a great combat, only to have everybody almost starting over from square 1 due to twin Mass Heals.

That was 3.5E, though.

Funnily enough, I had almost the same experience with a Tarrasque at the end of my World's Largest Dungeon campaign. The party went in pretty well prepped, the cleric hung back and Heal'ed anyone that needed it. End of the fight? Three, maybe four Heal spells cast, a number of buffs cast and the entire party at full hit points with a dead Tarrasque on the floor.

Talk about a disappointment.