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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 4739743" data-attributes="member: 12731">And for "standard" parties with perhaps one Cleric and no MC feats, this works pretty okay I guess. The healing trigger game for this party is significantly different from a party with more Leaders, more MC feats, and perhaps everyone wearing Dwarven Armor and taking every power possible that allows surges to be used.The first party have essentially only encounter-based healing triggers, and most of them are either costly to use (Second Wind) or have reduced power (Healing Potions).Whether they have 10 healing surges or 100 couldn't matter less, because during the encounter, any single character could only benefit from three, and then be relegated to drinking potions.In this case (the "expected" party) I can run a pretty standard encounter, and there is some tension if the party can't prevent the monsters from focusing their fire on a single party member, especially if this party member is vulnerable to the attacks (physically attacking a low-AC wizard; stunning and dazing the low-Will Fighter; etc).The problem arises because 4E does not even seem to anticipate the "too much healing" scenario. The players does not even need to roll up new Leader characters for this to happen. Add one item and one MC feat to each party member, and suddenly you're looking at 10 daily surge triggers.This is extremely disruptive to gameplay:1) no longer can monsters seriously threaten the party, because any given party member can now be injected with all his remaining surges during a single encounter2) this can cause one PC to run out of surges quickly, and as we all agree, you simply don't press on for the day as soon as one character becomes unhealable. This can drastically shorten the adventure day.But most significantly3) you have suddenly broken the nice feature of 4E where running out of dailies is an inconvenience but not a disaster (i.e the solution to 3E nova spellcasting). Because now your most important daily powers aren't your class powers any longer. Now your most important dailies are the healing surge triggers that may spell the difference between life and death for yourself our one of your allies.Suddenly asking the party to press on when low on dailies becomes a very unreasonable thing to do. Yes, they won't have something the regular party will have. But by resting they as a group regain the wondrous ability to always bounce back they had before they run out.And I can envy you for it.You and your players are clearly capable of something I am not; working up tension for ticking down a number from its '9' position to its '8' position.The reason I can't do it is because 4E math is fairly transparent. After playing a while you recognize when things won't be dangerous (at all) and you simply lose interest.My goal is to reintroduce enough unpredictability into the game so this happens less often.Not by adding wilder damage swings or any direct "unpredictability" like that. But by reducing a party from getting too much healing (triggers)... In my view, 4E tension hinges too much on the assumption players won't select too much healing by their own volition. And I'm saying that because I have had the misfortune to be given players who relatively quickly saw how more healing triggers would give their PCs a cushioned existence, where the only drawback is a need to rest more often.</blockquote>

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