I like Rel's Action Point + Surge = Stunt house rule and it made me think about alternative ways one might implement healing surges. If one thinks of healing surges as a general boost of energy (in fact, let's just call them surges) and healing as just one possible effect, what could one boost? Jump a little farther? Deal a little more damage? Expand or extend a power, somehow?
What are your ideas and how would you implement it?
Also, if one implemented something like this, what would be possible drawbacks? A five minute adventuring day? Does it throw all balance out of whack?
A house rule some poster on RPG.net told me was this:
Healing Surges are provided as poker chips. Every time one is spent/lost, you put a chip in the middle of the table. Regaining Healing Surges after a rest comes from that central pile (so the # of poker chips at the table at any given time equals the # of healing surges the party has).
At any point, any player can draw as many chips as he wants from that central pile and gain a +1 on their next roll for each chip. They are then handed to the DM. (when players regain healing surges, the DM just redistributes them)
However, the DM gets an Action Point for every 2 poker chips thus "spent." He can use these for any of the monsters/NPCs he's running.
It's a great idea, and the balance shouldn't be a big deal; it essentially will provide a couple minor bonuses to the players (so they hit more when they really need it), and also gives the DM a few more actions (but not too many). Fights should thus go a little quicker, overall, without either PCs or monsters gaining a clear advantage.
Other options:
- Surges recharge Encounters or Dailies (or both); if this seems to powerful, you can limit it by milestones. This may seem unbalancing in the players favor, but remember that monsters have 1 surge per tier, so you could have them spend them for regenerating encounter and recharge powers. You may have to play with the balance a little, because using a ton of monsters and having them all do this could get the party in trouble fast. You may want to limit that to maybe "Minions can't do it" or "Only when the monsters are bloodied, and then only once per encounter" (i.e. only one monster can benefit from it per encounter). Alternately, you could have this only work for Leaders, Solos, and Elites. Any way you cut it, recharging powers could hopefully extend the adventuring day, rather than limit it (though you might consider using Action Points rather than surges to ensure that).
- Surges can be spent for an automatic success on any d20 roll, or at least a sizable bonus (+5 would be my call). This shouldn't be a big game-breaker, unless the PCs are using this all the time. You can limit it to once per session, once per milestone, or something like that.
