D&D 4E 4e Constitution - what a waste of time !

[Legildur]

...They are a master stroke on behalf of the designers and make Con into a vital statistic (Whom I believe was the cheif in the Asterix comics)

Have you been reading the same thread as I have? I think it was pretty clear from the discussion that Con was the must have stat for 3.5E and that characters in 4E are making do with less Con than they did in the previous edition.

Additionally, it seems that many characters are not fully utilising their surges before they have expended all other (non-at will) powers for the day and feel obliged to take an extended rest (where possible).

Con is great, but where is used to to be the second most important stat (behind their primary stat) for many characters, it is now more on par with all stats.

 

[Drakhar]

For all these people talking about how healing surges promote 1 encounter a day... what the hell do your pc's do for the other 11 hours and 55 minutes after that one encounter seeing as they are only allowed to take an extended rest every 12 hours?

 

[Tuft]

For all these people talking about how healing surges promote 1 encounter a day... what the hell do your pc's do for the other 11 hours and 55 minutes after that one encounter seeing as they are only allowed to take an extended rest every 12 hours?

Well, that's kind of the problem with the healing surge mechanism... and the Vancian spellcasting it replaced as intentional resource limit.

 

[DracoSuave]

Well, that's kind of the problem with the healing surge mechanism... and the Vancian spellcasting it replaced as intentional resource limit.

Stop burning through your healing surges then.

There's a limited resource, treat it like a limited resource. Conserve it as needed. You get enough of them. If it isn't enough on a regular basis, someone is doin' it wrong.

 

[granfalloon]

I think Regicide might be under the impression that you can spend multiple healing surges in a single fight. Barring the use of healing powers, you can only spend one, so it's going to be very hard to blow all of them in one encounter.

If Regi knew that already, I have contributed nothing, and hang my head in shame.

 

[Tuft]

I think Regicide might be under the impression that you can spend multiple healing surges in a single fight. Barring the use of healing powers, you can only spend one, so it's going to be very hard to blow all of them in one encounter.

If Regi knew that already, I have contributed nothing, and hang my head in shame.

Healing potions. Potions of Clarity. Other magic items that allows you to spend surges.

Plus, you can spend an unlimited amount of surges during a short rest.
That means that you might not end your first encounter with all surges spent, but you might go into the second encounter with them spent.

 

[Tuft]

Stop burning through your healing surges then.

There's a limited resource, treat it like a limited resource. Conserve it as needed. You get enough of them. If it isn't enough on a regular basis, someone is doin' it wrong.

You spend those surges you need to spend and drink those potions you need to drink to avoid making death saves. Not much management needed there. Or should you start making death saves just to conserve surges?

 

[Lord Ernie]

Seriously, if you're going into your second encounter with all your surges spent, either your DM is giving you such hard encounters that you're not supposed to take on more than one from per day (thus screwing up the HS math), or your team tactics are such that you spend all your surges in one combat, meaning you're using some very bizarre tactics, again screwing up the Healing Surge math.

Healing Surges and their amounts are such that, with decent tactics and appropriate level combat, you can have several (3-4, maybe more) of such fights in a day without problems. If you find you're running out before that on a regular basis, one of these things simply isn't happening.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Just for the record, I finished Day 1 of a 24h themed PbP game.

In jack Bauer style, The PCs went through 4 combat encounter (+2 skill challenge) in the day, the easiest of these fight was Level +1 with a terrain that favored the enemy, the other two were level +2 and the last was Level +4 (this time with terrain favoring the heroes a bit).

Final fight had 3 PCs out of 6 ending up in negative hp, everyone had between 0 and 2 surge left exept for the wizard.

Two observation;

1 - I doubt the PCs who ended at 0 surge would consider dumping CON... Only the wizard could have afforded it. The two defenders were 16+, the others 12+. I am continuing with Day 2 of this campaign and Durable has suddenly become a very popular feat while CON scored are still high.

2 - 5 minutes day? No way! When the going get tough, the tough get going and the going gets fun! Victory was really in doubt in the last fight. That's exciting.

In the case of that adventure, the villains were attempting, as they always are, to unleash hell on earth. If the heroes take a break, the villains win. That simple. And so the heroes soldiered on as they should.

 

[Drakhar]

Healing potions. Potions of Clarity. Other magic items that allows you to spend surges.

Plus, you can spend an unlimited amount of surges during a short rest.
That means that you might not end your first encounter with all surges spent, but you might go into the second encounter with them spent.

If you're going into your second encounter with absolutely no healing surges that means that you've either dumped con and thus only have 4 (the max you should ever have to spend in a short rest to gain your hp back) or your DM is throwing such a difficult encounter at you that the entire party had to use their second wind, get healed repeatedly by multiple leaders and had more potions then a wizards alchemy lab to use. This is not a flaw in the healing surge system rather an issue in character/encounter design.