Title says it all!
Basically, I like gritty combat. So do my players. If a fights doesn't have an element of threat to it, it just doesn't feel as fun. I also dislike house rules and for the most part, 4e rocks with the exception of healing surges and the time it takes for combat.
Our group has tried fiddling with the rules a bit. We have knocked 20% off HPs of monsters and given them a 1/2 level bonus to damange. The players over time found that having more triggers for their healing surges seem to be the answer to the extra monster damage. Thus, the cleric is a healing god with items that supe up his powers, some characters have MC'd into another class that gives healing and we also have a Warlord and a Cleric in the party. Long story short, there is no end to triggering the healing surges. The DM's have tried increasing the encounter level to hard in most fights and this generally only makes fights last longer without increasing the threat level.
Then we started to see a pattern develop (we are 13th level at the moment). The final encounter of the day almost always seemed to be the most enjoyable and the most tense. Healing surges were low, death was a possibility. Our group learned long ago that when someone becomes bloodied that that was the signal to heal them. If you wait till they drop, then an action is wasted to stand up from prone and death becomes a higher possibility but since we recognize this we have neutralized that type of threat by understanding when healing is most valuable.
This led me to the idea that if there were ways to limit healing surges throughout the day, then maybe more fights would feel more gritty since death would be a bit more of a concern. So far, the best idea along these lines that I can think of is to give out half the healing surges and when the party reaches half the encounters for the day (as dictated by the DM/story) then the PCs have access to the last half of their surges. Any surges left over from the first half are gone. If you have an odd number of surges, the player can choose to spend the 1 odd number at a time of his choosing either in the first half or second half as needed. This essentially creates two encounters a day where "death" seems to be a reality.
What I would like to ask of you guys is: What do you think of this idea and can you think of a system similar to this (or improvements upon my suggestion) to create more encounters in a day where healing surge limits might be realized? I'm somewhat loathe to tinker with the number of healing surges each class gets and I don't want to limit them every encounter as some encounters can go bad but the player should be able to make up the "loss" by not taking as many hits the next fight. This is the resource management at its finest and I think that should be maintained.
In case its relevant, our group tends to have 4 fights a day but occaisionally 5 or 6 happen. As it currently stands, once we hit that point, some PCs (usually different each day) are out of healing surges and it becomes too lethal to continue and so the group rests.
Basically, I like gritty combat. So do my players. If a fights doesn't have an element of threat to it, it just doesn't feel as fun. I also dislike house rules and for the most part, 4e rocks with the exception of healing surges and the time it takes for combat.
Our group has tried fiddling with the rules a bit. We have knocked 20% off HPs of monsters and given them a 1/2 level bonus to damange. The players over time found that having more triggers for their healing surges seem to be the answer to the extra monster damage. Thus, the cleric is a healing god with items that supe up his powers, some characters have MC'd into another class that gives healing and we also have a Warlord and a Cleric in the party. Long story short, there is no end to triggering the healing surges. The DM's have tried increasing the encounter level to hard in most fights and this generally only makes fights last longer without increasing the threat level.
Then we started to see a pattern develop (we are 13th level at the moment). The final encounter of the day almost always seemed to be the most enjoyable and the most tense. Healing surges were low, death was a possibility. Our group learned long ago that when someone becomes bloodied that that was the signal to heal them. If you wait till they drop, then an action is wasted to stand up from prone and death becomes a higher possibility but since we recognize this we have neutralized that type of threat by understanding when healing is most valuable.
This led me to the idea that if there were ways to limit healing surges throughout the day, then maybe more fights would feel more gritty since death would be a bit more of a concern. So far, the best idea along these lines that I can think of is to give out half the healing surges and when the party reaches half the encounters for the day (as dictated by the DM/story) then the PCs have access to the last half of their surges. Any surges left over from the first half are gone. If you have an odd number of surges, the player can choose to spend the 1 odd number at a time of his choosing either in the first half or second half as needed. This essentially creates two encounters a day where "death" seems to be a reality.
What I would like to ask of you guys is: What do you think of this idea and can you think of a system similar to this (or improvements upon my suggestion) to create more encounters in a day where healing surge limits might be realized? I'm somewhat loathe to tinker with the number of healing surges each class gets and I don't want to limit them every encounter as some encounters can go bad but the player should be able to make up the "loss" by not taking as many hits the next fight. This is the resource management at its finest and I think that should be maintained.
In case its relevant, our group tends to have 4 fights a day but occaisionally 5 or 6 happen. As it currently stands, once we hit that point, some PCs (usually different each day) are out of healing surges and it becomes too lethal to continue and so the group rests.
