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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 4739728" data-attributes="member: 12731">I agree completely.But first, I have realized we need to keep two thing separated:* using up all your healing surge triggers for a specific encounterThis is good because it adds a real threat, generating excitement. It is also good because fights don't have to go on forever. Better to have both PCs and monsters with fewer hp allowing you to have more fights in any play session.* using up all your healing surges for the dayAs written, this is intended to happen mid-fight, adding tension and excitement. However, my experience is that this is far too easy to avoid. The power to rest up is placed squarely in the hands of the players, and with the draconic repercussions of running out of surges, you can hardly blame the players for not wanting to play that game. Even to the extent of ignoring plot - if the princess wasn't saved before surges are exhausted, bad luck. We failed. No point in going into that final fight where we risk actual death.By moving the limitations from the per-day basis to the per-encounter basis, you essentially remove surges as the primary basis for when players decide to rest. Instead, their decision can be based on things like  whether they have run out of daily powers. Which is a much more interesting decision, because there is a real choice. Pressing on even without dailies might not be preferable, but it certainly is possible. Back to your post, keterys. In my experience, this is how the 4E designers envision the healing surge mechanic to play out.But in my experience, players quickly see through the mechanics, resolving to not put themselves into that position in the first place. There is no excitement or paranoia if players simply decide that game isn't something they want to play, instead opting to rest for the day, when running low on surges.It is precisely this, the power to decide to cut away the "end game", which is destroying excitement in 4E. To me, it is a fundamental flaw of the game to assume the players would willingly expose their characters to real threat when the game allows them not to.In its stead, I want this end game to be possible in just about every encounter, and not just the last one (which never happens, if the players get to choose). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />If the number of surges you can use per encounter is limited, we attain this goal.If the number of surges you can use per day is unlimited, or at least the penalties for running out are mitigated, we solve the other problem, the 15-minute adventuring day too (by making pressing on a real choice, a hard choice).</blockquote>

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