Another Healing Surge House Rule Thread...

[Fluxx]

What is with this easy method:
First:
Let s be the number of surges you have.
Then m:= s/3 (round down), d := s-2*m
You start each adventuring day with 'd' surges and each milestone you get additional 'm' surges.
So if you have a 'standard adventuring day' with 5 to 6 encounters and 2 milestones you have exact the same amount of surges as in the standardrules but you have to be more careful with them during the day.
Second:
Increase 'd' and 'm' by 1 each but make the use of daily attack powers cost one surge. Again after 6 encounters and usage of an daily attack power every other encounter you have the same ressources as RAW.
But if you have a shorter day you have less resources - you still can use as many daily attack powers as you want but at the cost of surges. If you have a very long day you will have no daily power any more but at least you have more surges to tough it out.
Important: if as a GM you like to use very hard encounters early in the day remember that you can declare a milestone after the first encounter if you want you are not bounded to the every second encounter idea.
Be careful with 'durable' or items which give surges - the bonus should increase 'm' only. so if you have 10 surges +2 from durable you hav d=6 and m=3 (not d=m=4) so you still have the same amount of surges after 2 milestones and you are less in danger of killing someone with a hard first encounter.

 

[CapnZapp]

Well, I must say I would prefer a system that adapts by itself to various adventure day lengths.

The core problem is that Wizards did nothing to address the fact some groups regularly have eight encounter days while others have one encounter days.

I mean: imagine if the PHB contained rules that allowed people to regenerate both surges and Dailies when they reached milestones (and gave out fewer surges to start with)!

Voila! Instant support for far more playing styles than the current ill-defined "this adventure expects five encounters a day, I guess" approach.

Zapp

PS. Fluxx, I realize you address some of the above issues, but:
a) that stuff really should have been in the core rules - in the PHB1!
b) I can see you've studied maths - however, that strict language is sure to make people's eyes glaze over

 

[Fluxx]

PS. Fluxx, I realize you address some of the above issues, but:
a) that stuff really should have been in the core rules - in the PHB1!

welcome to the houseruleforum where people learn to help themself - of course it would be better to buy a perfect system but as long as this doesn't exist we have to take what we get and make the best out of it...

b) I can see you've studied maths - however, that strict language is sure to make people's eyes glaze over

Guilty!
you should have seen my first try to write it down it was even more math-heavy and not understandable for most people...
But I have no idea how to write it down in plain words without making it confusing and irritating. (even more so as english is only second language for me)

If you want me to explain it in a different way I can try it...

===========

Some more about my idea above. It is not playtested now and I'm sure it still has many problems in it...
- How big is the danger that the Lvl 20 warden easily uses his 4 dailies in 2 encounters knowing that would be the only one that day while the wizard has to stop after 2 dailies because he has to save surges?
- What about Daily Utilities? If I make them cost surges I'm sure most people take encounter-utilities instead as dailies are powerful but not as much more powerful to be worth a surge. If I don't make them cost s.th. and the players know they will have very short adventure days they will take mostly daily-utilities. Perhaps handle them like itempowers?
- what about surges not divideable by 3? My Idea above isn't very good. If you have many short adventure days durable is much to strong (It is a difference between 4+2 or 11+2 surges). the best is propably to give them out one at the start of the day and (if there is another o ne) one the first milestone. But that requires to remember to give less surges from milestone 2 on...

 

[HorusZA]

I went the ultra-simple route in Houseruling Healing Surges in my campaign:
After an extended rest, roll a D6 for every Healing Surge you have spent. On 4-6 it's recovered. On a 1-3 it isn't and you have to wait until the next Extended Rest to try again.
Been working great so far (10 games into our campaign)

 

[Stalker0]

I like NotAYakk's idea, though I would tone down or remove the "recover 1/2 your surges with each milestone".

At the pace my party goes for example, I couldn't see them ever running out of surges if they gained 1/2 the max back with each milestone.