This cuts to the core of my troubles. You're repeating what the game wants to be, and what it tells you it is.
My problem is that this isn't what I see. The game seems to make certain assumptions regarding how the players act, without actually making those actions logical and encouraging them.
The monsters are still threatening, they just don't cause any kills or even TPKs because the players play smart. That's not the same as not threatening at all. It means that if you know what you do, you will prevail. And if you don't, you'll waste powers at best, lose party members at worst.
When you say "the monsters don't get to kill the party because they play smart" what I am seeing in the game is "the monsters don't get to kill the party because they have healing abilities that do not let them".
That is, to me it seems you need to fool yourself into forgetting all the healing surge triggers the game makes available to you before there can be any actual excitement.
You don't need to be "smart" to use healing in D&D.
Perhaps me and my players are too analytical, too rational, for this game?
What I am seeing is that as long as you have surges left, there simply isn't any risk of the party losing (unless, of course, the party gets separated; either physically or by everybody being stunlocked, dominated etc). That is effects can still play a part, but with the anemic damage output of most monsters, PCs simply won't drop until they run out of surges (or their triggers).
I want a different game. I want a game where the excitement and risks come right away. Not only for the fourth fight of the day. And I especially don't want a game that allows and encourages you to never have that fourth fight in a given day, relying on player recklessness or heavy-handed DM intervention to force it anyway.
Put simply, I want a game that produces the excitement and risk all by itself. Not a game whose mechanics are geared towards avoiding excitement and risk, asking the players and DM to ignore what's in their best interest to generate it anyway.
That said, if my party pisses away all their healing in the first fight, then too bad. They -know- there's more coming and that they should prepare for it.
You say "pissing away their healing" as if there somehow is another option. I think it's important that we stick to this point until it's been made absolutely clear.
As for me, I only see two alternatives: either the party uses sufficient heals to stay alive or they don't.
Sure, they can use more or less sound tactics. But as written D&D does not punish bad tactics and stupid moves by having the heroes lose the fight (having to run away, becoming captured, or simply being killed and eaten).
Instead, it has become apparent D&D punishes bad tactics in this way:
1) theoretically, it means the
next fight becomes more challenging (I'm not going to say the game will make you actually lose the next fight)
2) practically, it means the story flow is disrupted because the heroes will have to rest up for the day.
What you're saying
could be that you throw the next encounter at the heroes regardless of how they managed the last one, and regardless of how much they want to rest up.
In this case, I actually think the game works as intended. You screw up a fight; you get to die. Not right away, but at least in the next encounter. Unless the short rest (and how it renews your encounter powers) save you.
But the problems of this approach are numerous:
1) do the players have free will in stopping for the day or do they not? Because if they do, they sure will trade excitement for security.
2) it's a rare encounter indeed where the difference between life and death hinge only on you having your encounter powers or not. Its more likely your daily powers are the decider, and it's much much more likely your healing surges are the decider.
By this I mean that a party without any surges are dead already if they face any relevant opposition.
3) Notice what I'm saying above? "D&D punishes bad tactics in this way:" followed by "the next fight becomes more challenging". That doesn't sound like a punishment to me, that sounds like a reward! This is clueing me in to the fact that something isn't right.
As for the thread topic, yes, you can get too much healing. Essentially, any party with more than one Leader, or any party focusing on MC feats and/or magic items that yield "triggers" will be a party where at least one party member can start the game with a hundred hit points. And that you don't need to specify which party member until you see which PC gets attacked. And that this makes it next to impossible for an average encounter to down any hero.
of encounters is this:
