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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr_Ruminahui" data-source="post: 4755936" data-attributes="member: 81104">I must admit that I have many of the same observations as CpnZapp, though perhaps I don't think it is as big of a problem as he does. I run a campaign with a group of 5 players - a cleric, a warlord, a palladin, a TWF ranger and a wizard. We've played from level 1 and they will be hitting level 4 next session. At level 1 we had a couple of characters go down (TWF against some wolves, wizard versus some goblin archers), but they were easily put back up via the leaders' healing triggers. Since then, due to higher hit points and better team work, not a single player has gone down. Indeed, I'm finding I need to run n+4 encounters to even go through the leaders' healing triggers - which is fine, but does mean certain characters (namely the ranger and the wizard) blow through all their surges in just a few encounters. About half way through this thread, someone said that it isn't running out of surges that causes excitement, rather it is the tension points within an encounter that cause the game to be enjoyable. While I agree completely, I don't think that such refutes CpnZapp's complaints. Simply put, readily available healing reduces such tension points as one doesn't really need to worry about not having that healing trigger to keep the defender on his feet, or (in most cases) worrying about getting to an injured team mate in time to heal him.  Leaders reduce risk, and thus can potentially reduce excitement. For me it does seem a bit strange to criticize leaders for fulfilling one of their main purposes - reducing risk to the party by giving it healing triggers when and where the PCs need them - but one must be cognisant of the effect that has on the game. I suppose as a player one wants enough risk to be exciting and challenging, but not too much. That said, to the extent that leaders do reduce the extent of the excitement, a GM either  has to accept that decrease, consistently generate encounters that are exciting for some reason other than having characters suffer damage, or up the challenge of encounters to make them more difficult and thus more exciting - note, these 3 responses are not mutually exclusive. If one goes the latter route (upping the challenge), that in turn results in shorter adventuring days, as the party will need to (and be able to, due to having moe healing triggers) go through their surges more quickly. And as a note to some of the comments in this thread - they aren't wasting their surges - given that many leader healing triggers give more HP than using healing surges, a leader heavy party is actually more efficient in surge use than one with no or few leaders. Instead, they are simply using them because they need to. Now, where I do part ways with CpnZapp is thinking this is somehow a major flaw in the system - I don't think it is. Rather, one has to realise that an increased number of healing triggers in a party will lead to shorter adventuring days if one wishes to maintain the same level of challenge for the players. However, this is only a shorter adventuring day in terms of # of encounters - most likely, a leader heavy party will actually be able to face a greater XP worth of encounters in a day (due to more efficient healing and higher XP per encounter) and gaming time will likely be longer (due to bigger, more complicated fights).   So, I suppose it boils down to whether having fewer encounters in a day is an issue. For me it isn't really a problem - in my campaign, each "day" tends to include 3 or 4 encounters, which is likely a bit short but works for both my narrative and the character's resources. Each of those encounters is almost always a n+3 or a n+4 - anything less isn't really a challenge and given that we just play for a few hours every 2 weeks, fewer, more challenging encounters makes the best use of our limited play time. For CpnZapp this does seem to be an issue - which is fair enough, different GMs have different expectations and values about how they want their campaign to run. I would suggest a major portion of the complaint is that, while 4th ed. has greatly minimized the "resources per day" mechanism that existed previously, it has still maintained it. The problem with any such system where resources are limited in such manner is that a party can expend their resources quickly (aka "nova") and then want to skip to the next adventuring day so as to regain those resources. 4th ed. has reduced this problem in regards to dailies (they are cool abilities rather than essential ones) but has intensified it in regards to healing - though, IMHO, it would be extremely likely for a player to "nova" through his/her character's healing surges in only one encounter.  So, I think CpnZapp is struggling with the fact that 4th has maintained the "resources per day" design choice. And I do believe it is a choice, not a flaw. Part of that design choice is that one cannot fully avoid the "nova-ing problem". Personally, having run games both with (D&D) and without (Shadowrun, Mechwarrior, Albedo, various Palladium games) I like this design choice - it allows powers to be much more varied and interesting than they would otherwise, IMHO. However, if the design choice is a particular sticking point for CapnZapp, he either needs to a) choose a new game without a "resources per day" mechanism; or b) make what would be (IMHO) fairly drastic modifications to 4th ed. to remove or minimize that mechanism.</blockquote>

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