Changed Crit Hits and Ditched Healing Surges

[Rhenny]

Hello all,

I just wanted to share something I changed in my 4e campaign that seemed to work really well to speed up play and keep PCs moving forward in the story.

Basically, I made some options for when creatures or PCs score a crit in addition to max damage.

I also changed the healing system and got rid of healing surges. I decided to do that to make recovery of hit points seem more natural and less limited so that the PCs decide to take the extended rest when it makes sense in the story not when they run out of healing surges.

I only have one cleric in the party, and the party is only 4th level, so the changes really only take that in mind. I'm not sure if it would work as well at different tiers or with different healing classes.

Last night, we tried it in our VTT game, and it worked really well. In combat healing and out of combat healing was seemless and fluid. All the players liked it and it cleared up the annoying after combat rest where some characters always need to use one or two healing surges to gain back lost hp.

Overall, only 1 critical hit was scored, but it happened in the last fight of the night to begin the battle against a solo monster. The cleric rolled a crit to turn the creature (a zombie beholder - no eye powers) and he decided to apply the massive damage bonus.

Treating short rests as 2nd winds really helps to make in between combat healing easy to manage, and giving PCs the chance to bandage wounded comrades and grant them limited hps gave PCs one more important option in battle. The Wizard was the only one who bandaged another during combat mostly because the dwarven fighter took a wompload of damage from one hit, and the Wizard was standing right next to him when his turn came up.

If you want to read the summary of the adventure you can find it in Story Hour --- Sand's End Campaign.

I hope some of you can use this. Let me know what you think.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I like the crit rules. Pathfinder does something similar; specifically there's a chain of (fighter?) feats that make crits nastier. Blinding Critical, Weakening Critical, etc. I sometimes design fighter-flavored NPCs with similar traits (eg Bleeding Critical; 5 ongoing damage per tier with a crit, save ends.) I would be leery of the Disarm crit option; there's a reason Exorcism of Steel is a high level power. (Opponents, and PCs for that matter, rarely carry multiple weapons. It's pretty crippling to have that done to you if you're not a caster.)

Short Rest or 2nd Wind – regain ¼ total hp.

See, I don't agree with this one, at least I don't agree with the effects of a short rest. The proposed rules were supposed to move the game forward, but there's this issue with PCs running low on hp after an encounter. They're already not at max hp, and if they were down more than 1/4 of their hp they won't be at full. This results in slow-moving or resistant PCs. Expect to see short rest after short rest, maybe as many as four in a row. You traded the timing of extended rests for odd timing of short rests.

Any spell or power that heals will heal 5 plus caster’s Charisma and Wisdom bonus + ½ level...x2 at paragon tier, and x3 at epic tier.

I know you don't like healing surges, but why change magical healing to a formula rather than 1/4 hp? (I don't get why you're changing the healing surge value,) Defenders generally have more hit points (so they benefit less), which is a big deal because they're deliberately drawing hits (and thus take more damage). This change shafts defenders.

 

[wedgeski]

I like the idea of adding additional effects from a menu when you crit, I might consider that myself. I would agree with PsiSH on your changes to healing, though.

 

[Rhenny]

Thanks for the comments guys. They were very sincere and well-taken.

I guess I just like basing hit point gain from spells on the caster's power not the receiver's power. I know that this will be a disadvantage to the fighter when compared with existing healing rules, but with second wind becoming a minor action (free action for dwarves), they can make up the loss quicker in combat.

Also, I'd rather have PCs decide to take 10 min of rest if they can to prolong when they rest for the extended rest. There will be some situations when they can only take 5 min, some where they can't rest at all, and other times when they will be able to rest for 20 min (recovering all of their HP). I like that flexibility rather than 5 min or 8 hours. The only reason to take the extended rest in my campaign will be to gain back daily powers and to actually sleep so that the PCs don't function under fatigue (I'll apply -1, -2 to actions if and when the PCs are truly fatigued).

I'll see how it plays out over the next few sessions. If my fighter feels cheated, I may futz with it.

 

[mkill]

Healing Surges and Wounds

I agree with the other posters that removing Healing Surges is one thing, but Healing Surge Value is another. Just leave healing surge value in the game, and keep Second Wind as it is. That way, class features, feats etc. that key off Healing Surge Value still work.

Your "wounds" system is a good idea, but needs more work. It's weird that one wound doesn't have any effect, but the second one drops you immediately. What?

I'm not sure how I'd do it, but I would introduce a -2 penalty to attacks for being bloodied. Taking a "wound" gives the same -2 penalty. If you take a wound when you are bloodied or already have a wound, make a saving throw or fall unconscious.

You should limit the kind of events that can cause a wound. Otherwise, PCs will try to deal wounds directly to take down monsters quickly, rather than slowly bringing down their hit points.

Caster-based healing effectiveness

Meh. The math is skewed. Healing gets (relatively) weaker and weaker as you approach level 10, then suddenly doubles in effectiveness, gets weaker and weaker, and then gets another 50% boost at level 21. Weird.
Even worse, while Clerics add their Charisma and twice their Wisdom, Int-based Warlords get screwed over royally because they now need Charisma and Wisdom (or better both) to heal properly. If I was a player in your campaign, I'd politely ask you to stop messing with the rules and concentrate on DMing.

Short Rest

Meh. If I was in that campaign, I would
a) stock up on healing potions
b) take several short rests after another
c) use the heal skill or whatever else is available to get back to full
d) avoid getting into consecutive fights

Pre-4E, at higher levels the party cleric would just drop enough healing spells / pling everyone with a Wand of Cure Light Wounds to get the party back to full between fights. 4E simply made that automatic.

Dying

As for your dying rules: Really, how is this different from Death Saves? All you do is add the Constitution modifier to Death Saves, and remove the "Death Save" name. While I do think that adding the Con modifier to Death Saves is good, I'd still call them Death Saves so that feats etc. still work.

Critical Hits

* Your crit effects only really make sense for melee weapon attacks. However, any attack can crit in 4E, and that includes things like arrows, thrown daggers, fireballs, eyebite... Do your crit effects really match these?

* Avengers really love these crit rules.

* Expect a lot of Wizards to drop a massive area attack and then go into Defensive Stance with the first 20 they roll.

* You should also try to tie your changes together. The "Wounding Strike" effect of crits in your rules should cause a "wound".

* Push should be 2 squares, not 10'

* Stun: Whatever the "Strength save" is, it sounds like a house rule. 4E lingo would be something like "Stunned (save ends), secondary effect: dazed (save ends)"

* Massive damage: 4E chars already roll bonus dice for their magic weapons. Also, not sure how "massive" +2d6 still is at Paragon and Epic level. Probably not much.

 

[Rhenny]

Thanks Mkill. As you can tell, I haven't developed the wound thing yet, but I did envision the crit option causing the wound that does -2 to die rolls. I was just keeping it open ended so that if I ever wanted to have a trap that wounded, I could develop it...but I guess if the trap attacks the PC and gets a crit, it could wound the PC.

One reason why I still may get rid of the healing surge value is that it requires me (the DM) to know what each PCs value is to let them know how much to heal. In my games (played over VTT) it takes the players much longer to heal when they have to look for their surge value and add x or y to it from a healing spell that also has caster variables. If I can say your healing spell heals 12 points. It makes it much faster.

I'm not advocating this for all games. It just makes my game move faster and keep moving.

 

[mkill]

[MENTION=18333]Neechen[/MENTION]: The idea of healing effects determined by the caster is fine, but the mechanics you use are shaky.

Your version:
heroic: 5 + caster’s Charisma bonus + caster's Wisdom bonus + ½ level
paragon: 10 + 2x caster’s Charisma bonus + 2x caster's Wisdom bonus + level
epic: 15 + 3x caster’s Charisma bonus + 3x caster's Wisdom bonus + 1.5 x level

See the problem?

Better: 5 + 2x caster's level
This scales in a much more linear fashion, and it should be roughly equal to what PCs have as healing surge value at these levels.

You don't need Wisdom and Charisma in there, as different leaders already have the ability to add one of their stats.
If you want stats to matter more, make it
Con OR Int OR Wis OR Cha bonus + 2x caster's level

 

[Rhenny]

Good point mkill. You can tell I'm not really a math person. lol.

Cheers.

 

[mkill]

Good point mkill. You can tell I'm not really a math person.

No prob. Sorry if I sounded to unfriendly, I didn't mean to be aggressive. (It's not so easy online)