6 Eagle Down (Judge : Garyh)

[Phoenix8008]

Kama'zer spends her time seeing to everyone's wounds. Applying battlefield dressings and giving a little praise about everyone's job well done during the battle. She listens to Castor's explanations with a curt nod before speaking to him. "Thank you for your information, and you are welcome for your life. We will look into this Asylum source while you find a place to hole up and stay alive. Perhaps our paths will cross again someday."

[sblock=OOC]Standard procedure for after battle as long as we have at least a short rest will be to keep using inspiring word to let people use their surges and get an additional 1d6 each time for healing up. Since we metagame know that we're getting an extended rest after this it isn't as important, but I thought it would be good to set the precedent.

As for the cloak, Kama'zer already has a Cloak of Resistance that she bought so I don't really need it.[/sblock]

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

[sblock=OOC]Standard procedure for after battle as long as we have at least a short rest will be to keep using inspiring word to let people use their surges and get an additional 1d6 each time for healing up.[/sblock]

[sblock=OOC]Ah, well, standard procedure for me is to prevent that by any means necessary. I hate it.

I am very loose with short rest and typically I assume that between two fights there is one single short rest, whether it lasts 10 seconds or 2 hours.

I have had a PCs rush through a keep in less than two minutes, like commandos, with short rests amounting to two deep breaths (which btw answered the old question 'why didn't the entire keep gang on the heroes after the first fight' rather handily; they didn't have time to organize).

On the other hands, if there is more time between two fights, I want it treated as just one short rest in so far as possible. If a power is expanded during the rest, you start without it the next encounter.

The thought of six grown men sitting on their ass, waiting an arbitrary five minutes before the healing begins again... and then waiting five more minutes. *shudders*

Beside, the Bard specifically has a power meant to improve the use of healing surge during rest (Song of Rest). If that rest&heal&rest tactic is allowed to run amok, what good is that power? The bard himself would forego it to use majestic words starting at level 6!

Nah, just don't get used to it. If players insist on using that tactic (which technically is legal), I just make it a point to disrupt it at every turn by imposing time limits on the adventure (which there usually is anyway, I like 24!) or by sending random encounters if it makes sense at all (which it usually do).
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[Mal Malenkirk]

[sblock=OOC]Those with the funds can purchase mundane equipment as well as Potions, Alchemical items, Whetsone and other consumables.

Otherwise, it is easy enough to book passage on a small fishing ship toward Sacred Heart Island (that's what the sailors call it, it's basically just a rock with Sacred Heart Asylum, a small dock an a community of the asylum workers (about 50 persons). It's pretty much like Alcatraz and is almost impossible to escape from.

You book passage within the hour and leave within two (you are already near the dock, after all). You take your extended rest during the trip since it takes about ten hours.

I won't bother you with the fee, just assume it has been deducted from the monetary treasure figures I will state at the end of the adventure! (I don't like pointless book keeping).[/sblock]

 

[Voda Vosa]

[sblock=OOC]
Ozy: I'm but a humble servant.
Regarding pre-set rest: I agree with Mal, it does indeed goes in detriment of role-playing
As for the cape: T'sir can have it. Or Soldier could keep it to sell it.
As for Castor's gratitude: Noted on Character sheet.[/sblock]

 

[elecgraystone]

[sblock=OOC]

Beside, the Bard specifically has a power meant to improve the use of healing surge during rest (Song of Rest). If that rest&heal&rest tactic is allowed to run amok, what good is that power? The bard himself would forego it to use majestic words starting at level 6!

That doesn't make sense. If a bard uses Majestic word during a rest, the target heals majestic word + cha. In effect he gets to use double cha modifier, making it a VERY good power always. The same for the feat restful healing that maximizes healing. Both allow the party to use the least amount of surges possible and allows the party to go farther between extended rests. If fact the way your thinking would make the Restful Healing feat useless to someone that took it. It seems that the rules expect you to use healing powers during a rest.

The thought that you'd penalize a healer for using there healing power during a rest by not letting them use it during the next encounter doesn't sit well with me. If you intend to 'rush' us and use time limits, expect me to retreat and heal up if I'm wounded. If that means resetting the 'timer' it's better than dying because I rush in without healing. Rushing me in effect makes me move through the adventure slower than not rushing. I have to use surges more often, meaning I go though less encounters before I need an extended rest to get them back.

As far as the cloak, I'll wear it if no one else wants it.
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[Ozymandias79]

OOC: No extended rest?

 

[Phoenix8008]

[sblock=OOC]Ah, well, standard procedure for me is to prevent that by any means necessary. I hate it.

I am very loose with short rest and typically I assume that between two fights there is one single short rest, whether it lasts 10 seconds or 2 hours.

I have had a PCs rush through a keep in less than two minutes, like commandos, with short rests amounting to two deep breaths (which btw answered the old question 'why didn't the entire keep gang on the heroes after the first fight' rather handily; they didn't have time to organize).

On the other hands, if there is more time between two fights, I want it treated as just one short rest in so far as possible. If a power is expanded during the rest, you start without it the next encounter.

The thought of six grown men sitting on their ass, waiting an arbitrary five minutes before the healing begins again... and then waiting five more minutes. *shudders*

Beside, the Bard specifically has a power meant to improve the use of healing surge during rest (Song of Rest). If that rest&heal&rest tactic is allowed to run amok, what good is that power? The bard himself would forego it to use majestic words starting at level 6!

Nah, just don't get used to it. If players insist on using that tactic (which technically is legal), I just make it a point to disrupt it at every turn by imposing time limits on the adventure (which there usually is anyway, I like 24!) or by sending random encounters if it makes sense at all (which it usually do).
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[sblock=OOC]To prevent what exactly is your standard procedure? Healing between battles, or just using powers to boost the healing between battles? Can people still use healing surges to heal between battles or is it just using powers like Inspiring Word to boost those healing surges that you are against? I understand not liking the arbitrary 5 minute wait as the definition of a short rest. I can see letting short rests be either breaths or hours as the adventure dictates, but not being able to boost healing between battles without losing access to the power in the next battle is rough if there should be adequate time to do so. Though I see after looking in the rules on PHB 263 that using powers during a rest expends the power unless you have another short rest afterword. So I can see where you are coming from unless there was a break of 30 minutes or whatever between fights. Again, dictated by the adventure design. But you said that even with 2 hours between fights you would only count that as a 1 short rest which cuts out the possibility of using powers and getting them back for the next fight. That seems off to me, but I guess as long as people can still use healing surges freely between fights to heal themselves up then we'll survive, but we'll be burning through surges faster.

I'm guessing that after finding this out, people won't be refusing my healing during battles anymore. Just like I wouldn't have been comfortable ending that last battle with 14 hps if I hadn't known we'd be getting an extended rest afterward. In the end, it comes down to this: You're the DM and that's the way it is. So that's the way we'll play if we want to play that badly.

As for retreating Ts'iri, not gonna work with this adventure design it sounds like. I'm guessing we'll be dropped off at the docks and the ship that brought us will leave. No retreat possible. Anywhere on the island is an unsafe zone where our rest can be inturrupted by attacks. So we push through till we win or die trying it seems. Which means everybody better save their daily powers till the final boss fight unless it's really important to use them before then.

At Ozy: we do get an extended rest right now still (during the boat ride to the island), but that's gonna be about it from the sounds of it.[/sblock]

 

[Phoenix8008]

[sblock=OOC]That doesn't make sense. If a bard uses Majestic word during a rest, the target heals majestic word + cha. In effect he gets to use double cha modifier, making it a VERY good power always. The same for the feat restful healing that maximizes healing. Both allow the party to use the least amount of surges possible and allows the party to go farther between extended rests. If fact the way your thinking would make the Restful Healing feat useless to someone that took it. It seems that the rules expect you to use healing powers during a rest.[/sblock]

[sblock=OOC response]I don't see how Majestic Word uses Cha twice? It's just like Inspiring Word pretty much. Ah, I see what you mean now. Using Majestic Word WITH Song of Rest gives the Cha bonus twice. In that case, yes, using them together makes Majestic Word very nice as long as you have time to use it and rest again to gain it back before your next encounter. But I don't see how allowing time for other healing powers to be used between fights SOMETIMES invalidates the Song of Rest power. Limiting things to 1 short rest between fights regardless of time available does invalidate the Restful Healing feat though, yes. Song of Rest is just another tool in the arsenal assumed by the rules to be used when possible. Again, its not always possible. Do you what your Bard singing an uplifting song when you are trying to sneak into an enemy fortress? No. This assumes that the party even has a Bard, which ours does not, so whatever a Bard can do is a moot point.[/sblock]

[sblock=OOC]The thought that you'd penalize a healer for using there healing power during a rest by not letting them use it during the next encounter doesn't sit well with me. If you intend to 'rush' us and use time limits, expect me to retreat and heal up if I'm wounded. If that means resetting the 'timer' it's better than dying because I rush in without healing. Rushing me in effect makes me move through the adventure slower than not rushing. I have to use surges more often, meaning I go though less encounters before I need an extended rest to get them back.[/sblock]

[sblock=OOC response]Except that retreating isn't always a possibility, like our current adventure I suspect. As I said in some of my other post, either way we deal with an arbitrary limit. Either the arbitrary 5 minutes between healing which doesn't make much sense always, or the arbitrary one short rest between fights even if there is two hours of time. By the rules you can use healing powers during a rest and get them back as long as you can take another short rest. So it's not penalizing the healer if there really isn't time to use their skills between fights. But even a real world commando team is gonna use any chance they've got between firefights to do a little quick first aid if someone has been injured. To paraphrase: The thought of 6 injured men sitting around for two hours and not using the time and resources they have at their disposal to heal up as efficiently as possible? *shudders*

As a DM, I can kinda see Mal's worry about the rest-heal-rest-heal running amok. For me, it goes back to 3E's doing a battle and then resting so the wizard can regain his spells. As a DM myself, that kind of metagaming forced on us by the rules drove me nuts (which is why I've liked 4E so much more!). My only question is how can it run amok if the DM chooses to control it. Just tell the party after a fight if there is only time for one short rest. Then they know not to use those powers unless they don't want to have them during the next fight. If there is going to be a couple hours of time possible, then they should have the time to use their powers and get them back. But this takes away from player freedom to do what they want to do and choose their next course of action. Because how much time is available depends on what the party does and where it goes or stays. Although making only 1 short rest the mandate between all fights takes away a little of that freedom too. If we know that we have to go all the way through the adventure in one rush, then we may skip apparent side quests in the rush to get to the end before we run out of healing surges.

In a sense I guess Mal is just doing the above and letting us know in advance that there is only 1 short rest between ALL the fights. The rules make allowance to use the surge boosting powers between fights if there is time to recover them again. If that time isn't available anywhere as dictated by the adventure setup, so be it. We'll see what happens. Worst comes to worst, I can sell my bashing shield to pay for my raise dead. [/sblock]

 

[elecgraystone]

[sblock=OOC]I only brought up the Bard because it was Mal Malenkirk's example of why healing powers during rest is bad. Just countering his assumption.

As far as the rest; I was giving my general view since Mal Malenkirk gave us his. "Ah, well, standard procedure for me is to prevent that by any means necessary. I hate it." It seems that it's his general rule and not exactly a feature of just this adventure. It's fine if a feature of an adventure, it just increases the difficulty of the adventure and makes every fight harder. As long as that's factored in, I don't mind. If we're getting the exact same EXP as we would if we could use healing powers during rests, then something's wrong.

As far as retreating, it's always possible to some extent, even if it's just barricading yourself in a room or camoflaging/hiding yourself somewhere or in the extreme, in this case, stealing a boat or something floatable from the place and leaving if there is truly no where inside to rest. Remember a short rest is only 5 minutes, so you just have to find ten minutes to heal and get a healing power back.

I'm not facing the end guy with no surges left and you can only get raised 'you must have a part of the corpse of a creature that died no more than 30 days ago'. If we're all beaten up and die at the end, what makes you think a body part will show up at town and your shield will be attached to it? Not the thing I'd count on a private island adventure. I'm figuring we'd be shark bait and our equipment gets sold off.
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[Mal Malenkirk]

[sblock=OOC]
1-Phoenix: After a single short rest, you can spend as many healing surges as you want. So that's not an issue.

It does point out further the odditty 'Rest&Heal&rest&heal'; if I interrupt a team that doesn't do the R&H&R dance after five minutes, they are fresh. They have spent their healing surge to get back up to 100%.

But if I interrupt a team that does R&H&R after five minutes, most of the team still has missing HP because they were waiting for healing power to recharche before spending their surge. Basically, a RHR team heals more efficiently but a lot slower than a team who doesn't. Huh.

2-Ozy: Yes, you have an extended rest. On the boat.

3-Most of this discussion is academic because you just won't get a chance to get more than 5 minutes to rest. I hate it so I design my adventures to avoid it. You'll be happy I count two deep breaths as a rest, in fact.

Beside, I tend to be just as loose with extended rest. 'A few hours' almost always translate to an extended rest in my games, even if it's not exactly 6, 8 or whatever magic number of hours that is supposed to be required to regain yoru energy.

4-At the end of the fight, it is fine to use any healing power left to gain extra HP before the short rest. I certainly won't penalize you for whooping the enemy so bad there were still ressources left at the end of the fight.

5-Tsi'Ri; you have noticed you have inherited the Cape of the walking wounded? Fine with that?

I will of course add it to your 'barometer' and deduct it from Soldier's.

6 - Wish list: I do glance at it and fulfill some of it at times. Tsi'Ri got her pact dagger, didn't she? I take no pleasure in sticking players with completely random items they have no use for. I especially keep an eye to providing 'concept items' so to speak (Such as the dagger). But I don't follow it to the letter, not even close. I pick items that seem useful for the PCs and you have to expect some deviation.

Some randomness is part of D&D. In fact, PbP is the only form of D&D where I see PCs with a full laundry list of items they want for christmas. I don't particularly care for it. Where is the surprise, the sense of wonder?
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