I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

No. If the game mechanics don't support what you want to do, the game mechanics have a problem for you.

Okay, fine.

Given that no edition of D&D (excepting perhaps 1E; never really played it) has ever actually mechanically supported this thing you want, then arguing that 4E doesn't support this thing you want as if it is somehow unique is barmy.

 

[prosfilaes]

Okay, fine.

Given that no edition of D&D (excepting perhaps 1E; never really played it) has ever actually mechanically supported this thing you want, then arguing that 4E doesn't support this thing you want as if it is somehow unique is barmy.

It's amazing; it's entirely appropriate to love the changes to 4E and consider them important, but if you dislike the changes, they were insignificant and unimportant.

 

[Kobold Boots]

So I'm answering why I dislike healing surges in the context of 4th edition and I'm not going to read any of the previous 31 pages. If I repeat anything, forgive me.

1. Hit points by any other name are still just hit points.

Once you have hit points you don't need another mechanic, called something else, that grants you more hit points. It's by definition redundant no matter what you call it or no matter what the cool game mechanic supposedly is.

2. The game isn't hurting for ways to heal people.

A party can have healing skills, potions, cure spells, disease removal, reincarnation and resurrection. In the cases where a character doesn't have a healing specific ability or abiiity to create such, give that class more hit points as a balance to design.

3. There are other D20 properties from the same company that simulate the same effect using other mechanisms with cinematic and elegant results.

Subtitled: if you're going to have different categories of hit points, call them that and explain fully what they are used for. Star Wars revised had Vitality and Wounds. I think D20 modern had the same.

4. I hate combat grind. Something feels broken.

In my experience core game mechanics are very rarely broken in concept. I think the idea of surges as a mechanic is redundant but ok. The problems arise in application of the game mechanic and the general usefulness of any effects triggered by it.

I believe that it's not the surge mechanic but some combination of the following: how many points given back, how often they can be triggered, how many are available and the general damage math.

a. If I need to roll for damage then it stands to reason that any surge mechanic might benefit from a random outcome.

b. Has the math been done such that surge value is balanced as you obtain higher levels? Should a surge heal you for more than one or two rounds of an enemy's average damage output at equivalent challenge level? (hypothetical question)

c. Lastly - and this is just a personal thing. Sometimes I want to be an adversary to my players and I just don't like it when I roll three crits in a single round and my players respond with "I blow a surge". This more than anything I feel is the crunchy core of the "I dislike surges' camp.

 

[pemerton]

3.X supports both narratives, it just lets the dice decide how much damage you take.

I don't really regard a system as supporting a cinematic narrative if it is capable of delivering a very different narrative (gritty "modern fantasy") at the whim of the dice.

What 4e offers, that 3E and AD&D don't, is reliable support for the cinematic alternative.

 

[pemerton]

Kobold Boots, nice post.

So Once you have hit points you don't need another mechanic, called something else, that grants you more hit points.

<snip>

if you're going to have different categories of hit points, call them that and explain fully what they are used for.

<snip>

I hate combat grind. Something feels broken.

Unlike the discussion over the past few pages about healing times, I think these points get to the mechanical heart of healing surges. Central to 4e's combat mechanics is the idea that hit point recovery by the PCs is a central element of combat - or, to put it another way, that PCs have resources which are deeper than those of the monsters, but which they can't access without affirmatively doing things (including spending actions).

For those who find that this is just grind-causing redundancy, healing surges will be an undesirable mechanic. For those who like the effect it has upon the dynamics and tactics of combat, healing surges will be a desirable mechanic.

And, whereas the healing rules around extended rests can be tweaked very easily, changing this aspect of the 4e rules would require rewriting from the ground up - PC hit points, PC damage output, monster damage output, the action economy, the range of various effects, etc, are all balanced around it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It would depend. Is that healing salve only usable on themselves or can it transfer around? The internal resource nature of healing surges is one of my main criticisms

This would actually "fix" one of the issues with healing surges currently: the fact that the Defender could be down to 2, but the ranged controller is still at full, making a split in how "risky" combat is perceived to be. So mechanically, there wouldn't be any issue with that.

The encounter-based nature of it is a more delicate consideration. The fundamental question is one of pacing, and that's going to vary pretty dramatically with different styles of play (a gamist style doesn't give a fig as long as it doesn't interrupt the flow; a more sim style wants at least SOME consideration for the fact that yer face got chewed off; a narrative style doesn't mind long periods of down time since it gives a more long-term story effect).

I think for me personally, its OK to have "full hit points" after a short rest, but I don't mind a more intensive tracking system per se. Our Dark Sun DM at the moment uses a wound system modeled on 4e's disease track (infection occurs at 0 hp!), which ain't too shabby to require a little "extra effort" to heal a wound, while remaining pretty heroic.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

It's amazing; it's entirely appropriate to love the changes to 4E and consider them important, but if you dislike the changes, they were insignificant and unimportant.

Or, you know, some changes haven't really changed all that much, when the rubber hits the road.

(Except, you know, in improving things such that someone in the party isn't forced to play the cleric / druid who memorizes a lot of healing / DM must make scads of potions available all the time or have adventurers that have to quit after a single meaningful fight.)

 

[prosfilaes]

Or, you know, some changes haven't really changed all that much, when the rubber hits the road.

(Except, you know, in improving things such that someone in the party isn't forced to play the cleric / druid who memorizes a lot of healing / DM must make scads of potions available all the time or have adventurers that have to quit after a single meaningful fight.)

Isn't that exactly what I said? That people who feel it's negatively impacting their gaming are barmy, but those who feel it improves their game are quite reasonable.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As far as their abstract nature...

I had a discussion with a player about hit points years ago, I forget the edition. I explained that I felt that hit points represented more than just damage taken, it was also exhaustion and luck. The DMG at the time backed me up on that. His reply was that "Well, then if that poisoned blade didn't actually hit me, why do I need to Save vs Poison?"

I didn't have a good response to that, and I still don't.

I remember a very similar conversation. I was defending AD&D in general and hps in particular. I explained that hps represented more than actual wounds, but endurance/luck/skill/divine-intervention/etc - prettymuch quoting EGG from the DMG - thus, a 'hit' that runs through a 0-level man at arms might only nick a fighter, and might not even touch a high-level one. 'Well, he asked, if that's the case, then how do you know if a 'hit' is real or 'psuedo hit' like that? I replied: If you really want to know, make a poison save.

Because that's something saving vs a poisoned blade could represent: Did the 'hit' actually deliver the poison, or did it just bruise you a bit through your mail or even not touch you at all, just use up a little of your luck.

But what if you're a dwarf and you have a bonus to poison saves because of your 'hearty constitution?' Doesn't that indicate that making a save means you've been exposed to the poison? Again, look at the roll. Did you make the save only because of your dwarfy bonus? Well, then, yes, the poison was delivered, but your 'hearty constitution' was able to throw it off.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Isn't that exactly what I said? That people who feel it's negatively impacting their gaming are barmy,

No, the people who are arguing that this is a an absolutely huge change and that it removes solid mechanical support for "terrible wounds" (something that was never mechanically supported to begin with) are barmy.