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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 4738800" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think there is a huge difference betwee the 4e and earlier editions resource management. I never played 3e, but in 1e/2e you had 2 things to manage, hit points, and spells.Hit point management worked OK, but once people were low on them, that was the end of the day, just as surely as it is with surges now. Except that most PCs had a pretty limited number of hit points. Damage at high levels was a lot higher relatively, so really there was always that constant threat of near instant death, or at least quick reduction to near death.It is hardly necessary to go into the flaws in the all-daily spell resource management. It just made spell casters either indomitable or pathetic and there was nothing in between. Non casting classes OTOH weren't even involved in that whole aspect of resources, which was rather disappointing. All they could ever have were relatively mundane at-will abilities as a consequence and that also was a disappointing aspect of older editions.Seems to me that the current situation is about as good as it can get. All characters have SOME unmanaged at-will attack powers they can fall back on that at least gives them a couple different things they can do, plus the encounter ones for normal situations when they need a bit of oomph, and the dailies are still there to give you some costly extra firepower for when you get in a real jam or meet the boss.All healing surges are intended to do is give PCs a way to endure several encounters without having 100's of hit points at a low level. On top of that they provide a hook for healing powers to operate, which is really a tactical concept that just adds more variety and regulates the rate of "healing".The simplest way to change things IMHO would be to give 2-3 healing surges per short rest and that is all you have, just those few. It is really all 99% of characters need in a given fight anyhow. I've seen characters burn through 5-6 surges in a battle, but that's really about the limit of what you can trigger per-encounter anyway usually.Basically surges stop being managed, though there would be some penalty for a character ending a battle at really low hit points. They might be forced to enter the next one with only 1 or 2 surges.At least you have SOME resource management, and it is a small enough resource that managing it WITHIN an encounter can be fairly important. Outside encounters you're just going to have to rely on dailies as the resource challenge.Or you can just ditch the whole resource management concept, make HS unlimited and dailies into encounter powers. It is a different game, but if it is more fun for your players then it is the right game for them.Personally I tend to agree with people about encounter design. I still think weaker encounters should be in the mix. You say they have no 'beef', but to me they add tension, provide variety, drain resources, and serve story functions.</blockquote>

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