How Do you Feel About Healing Surges? (Read First!)

[underfoot007ct]

I do not like them. They allow waayyy too much healing. In D&D the healing was regulated by time and magical resources. Resources usually limited to one character
HS gave the resources to everyone and magnified the amount exponentially. People complaining about the clw wand nonsense in 3e are using strawmen. The clw wands were made available because magic items were made more cheaply, more easily, earlier and transformed into a commodity. That is an availability issue related to other rules.


I want three kinds of hp recovery. Rest (second wind, short rest, or convalescence) magic, or medicine. Healing Surges are not D&D any more than 2e character kits. Novel eperiment take the good ditch the bad.

So only which ever version of D&D YOU play (like), is REAL D&D? I think NOT. Healing Surges & KITS are both D&D, and ALWAYS will be. So far in the poll, less than 50% "dislike" HSs, so plenty of gamers like them.

HSs give a reasonable limit to healing, rather than the unstopable 3e CLW party.

 

[Gargoyle]

Second Wind was a minor action in Gamma World, double checked it. I house rule my 4e campaign to make it heal for your bloodied value just like Gamma World, but keep it as a move action, since dwarves can use it as a minor. Gives the player characters a little more room for error, makes the math easy, and makes them less dependent on the healer.

Most importantly it just sort of clicks with them when they get bloodied to spend that move action to use their Second Wind. Before I made it heal for half they would consistently forget, and now they never forget. (My current players are not hard core gamers).

 

[CleverNickName]

I agree. Gamma World does a good job with second wind IMO. You gain back half your hit points as a minor action. No healing surges.

I could really get on board with this. Especially if they make "second wind" into a feat instead of a universal ability. That way, if you want to use them, you can take the feat or give it out to everyone for free at first level...and if you don't want to use them, you can choose a different feat, or just strike the feat from the game.

I think that is about as close to a compromise as we can get on this issue.

 

[Kynn]

Healing surges, second wind, etc., are great for a cinematic style of gameplay, where characters are like action movie heroes. Take Die Hard, for example: Mclane takes a beating, gets shot, and is both barefoot and riddled with broken glass...yet he still somehow manages to muster the will to get back up and keep on fighting. "Yippy-kie-yay, m_______r!" he growls, as explosions light the sky.

And that is why I don't like them.

That has everything to do with second wind and nothing to do with healing surges.

In the Die Hard example, there's no sign of 1/4 of his hit points being used as a value, nor do we see him running out of healing surges halfway through the movie until he takes an extended rest.

Your problem is with the second wind concept, not the healing surge concept.

 

[CleverNickName]

That has everything to do with second wind and nothing to do with healing surges.

In the Die Hard example, there's no sign of 1/4 of his hit points being used as a value, nor do we see him running out of healing surges halfway through the movie until he takes an extended rest.

Your problem is with the second wind concept, not the healing surge concept.

(shrug) I stand corrected. I guess.

See, I lumped both the healing surges and second wind together in my example, because they both contribute to the cinematic "Hollywood action hero" style of game. I don't care for that style of game.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Healing surges, second wind, etc., are great for a cinematic style of gameplay, where characters are like action movie heroes. Take Die Hard, for example: Mclane takes a beating, gets shot, and is both barefoot and riddled with broken glass...yet he still somehow manages to muster the will to get back up and keep on fighting. "Yippy-kie-yay, m_______r!" he growls, as explosions light the sky.

And that is why I don't like them.

For me, that IS what I want D&D to be, lots of action & very heroic. The heros get beaten down a few times, but keep coming back.

I dread the have one a single combat then go back to town to recover, the 15 min work day. I also dread the, we have a bucket of CLW wands, 40 hours work day as well.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Most importantly it just sort of clicks with them when they get bloodied to spend that move action to use their Second Wind.

The Bloodied condition is another aspect I would like to see go (another thing to keep track of, and easily forgotten).

 

[Arlough]

I love healing surges, just dislike the nomenclature.
I think if they had been called something else, like "Stamina" or "Reserves" or "Life Force" then there would not have been so much hatred of them.
To me they are the real HP, and HP is just what you can pull together now.

As for the arguments against.

The 15 minute day.

The problem of the 15 minute day will, if you remove surges and daily powers, then that will just make it the X minute day where X is however long it takes to maximize power again. The groups that play 15 minute days are the same kind that found ways of doing so using wands of CLW and the such in earlier editions.​

Healing should be slow or magical only

Why? What if a group wants to play non-magic setting? What if nobody wants their job to consist of spamming healing?​

It isn't realistic

Given that this is usually paired with "Magical healing only", I find it quite peculiar. But, even if you have no magical healing, it is still realistic to have reserves. There are times when you do something that completely pushes your limits (like rock climbing or weight lifting or a physics final) and with a few minutes rest you can call up more reserves and push on. Unless of course you thing that HP is real wounds, to which I would point out that a sword is a very effective killing machine, and you are not going to survive multiple blows from one, so if HP is life, a sword remove 90% - 100% of your HP per hit.​

Now I agree with limiting in combat healing generally, because in combat healing allows for a game design that lends itself to either grind, or swingy TPK combat. I don't mind killing off my party, mind you, I just want it to be when I choose to murder them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The key improvement that healing surges represented over traditional clerical healing was to take the daily healing resource and separate it from the cleric (or leader) offense and utility resources.

The Cleric was long an absolutely necessary, but very unrewarding class. The player stuck as cleric got to be a second-rate melee guy, and had a long list of spells he rarely ever got to cast, because healing was so vital, and he was the primary source of this.

3e recognized this problem and tried to solve it by giving the cleric better base abilities, more spells, spontaneous healing, and making magic items a more plentiful and efficient source of healing. The result was CoDzilla.

4e recognizing the same problem, and 3e's failure to find a balanced solution, moved daily healing resources, but not primary healing ability, from the cleric to each character. Relieved of the healing burden, the cleric was balanceable, at last. It took a little work to finally get all the cleric builds balanced, but at least it was possible. The cleric was no longer the boring band-aid, and no longer risked going over the top into CoDzilla territory.


Healing Surges are still daily resources, though, and daily resources are problematic - whether they're a source of imbalance between classes that have vs lack them, or whether they're enjoyed by all, and just act as an encintive for the very un-heroic '5 min work day.'


Healing Surges, like hit points or Clerical healing, also carry a specific tone with them. Healing surges are very heroic and cinematic. Hit points are less so, but still help model the 'plot armor' of protagonists. Clerical healing is of course part of that 'classic D&D feel,' but has little support outside of D&D and it's imitators.


But, however healing is handled, it needs to be it's own resource. Whether it's exclusively items, or a class feature, or a basic resource of all characters, it needs to be separate from pools of offensive or utility spells. Otherwise you risk the return of the band-aid or the CoDzilla. Let's not go there again.

The best thing would probably be to have optional systems for wounds and healing, to get different tones from the game. A 'gritty' system could use wound penalties, and have little if any healing beyond rest & time. A 'classic D&D' module would drop penalties and add magical healing, with rest/time being a profoundly inferior last resort. A 'cinematic' module would drop wound penalties, and have second winds and surges and martial healing. A 'gritty heroic' take could add impairing wound rather than simple wound penalties, and have a recovery track so wounds could be healed or 're-open' (a classic bit in heroic fantasy and legend).

 

[fjw70]

My only issue with healing surges are that they refresh too quickly. They should only refresh between adventures.