Cloak of the Walking Wounded

[dvvega]

Greetings,

does anyone have comments on this item. It is beginning to become "the item" for everyone in the party I am currently DM-ing for and I can see it becoming bothersome since monsters will not be able to handle the (essentially) 150% hit points that come from the cloak.

True for most people Second Wind is a Standard Action so if the monsters surround a character it is quite possible to subdue them (assuming the healers are not around), however by the basic premise of the game the Defenders are supposed to draw the fire. If I ignore marks and head for the casters - which some monsters do - the 150% makes it easier for the Defenders to clean up. If the monsters head for the Defenders to take them down they're nigh immortal with the 150% hit point thing.

Add to this the Dwarf Fighter who has the Resilience of Stone feat and you can see that the party rarely goes below bloodied if at all.

So what is the solution? I am not asking "how do I kill them". I am asking "how do I challenge them in combat without using larger creatures". I have tried combinations of terrain, traps, tactics, non-standard monsters with class-templates, and so forth.

They are continuously able to push past milestones every day which tells me something is wrong.

Any ideas?

D

 

[OnlineDM]

I'm still fairly new as a DM and player, but I have to admit that I don't follow exactly why this item seems unbalanced in your players hands' (or around their necks, I suppose). It lets them spend two surges instead of one if they Second Wind while bloodied. Well, okay. That's very nice for them. But is it amazing? I don't see why.

Using Second Wind is not something that fighting characters look forward to doing. They usually hope that the healers in the party will help them spend a surge with a bonus so that they can use their standard actions to attack. If it's a dwarf who can use Second Wind as a minor action, then sure, you'll expect that character to use Second Wind pretty much every encounter. But if your non-dwarf fighter is surrounded by bad guys and is bloodied, taking a turn to use Second Wind means a turn that no bad guys are dying - that fighter might STILL be in trouble, even if he regains two surges worth of hit points.

And when you talk about the characters having 150% of their hit points, I think you're talking about the fact that a surge is 25% of their HP, so spending two surges means they'll be able to recover 50% during the battle. Keep in mind, though, that they could always recover 25% with their Second Wind, so this is only a 25% bonus, not a 50% bonus.

Finally, keep in mind that the character has a finite quantity of surges available. If the bad guys focus on your fighter, he's probably going to need more than two surges worth of hit points over the course of the battle and the subsequent recovery. If he spends a total of seven surges in the battle, well, he's not going to fight through too many battles.

Cloak of the Walking Wounded seems to be a nice little item, and something I'd certainly want a lot if I were playing a dwarf and Second Winding every encounter already. But is it crazy good, especially for races that have to spend a standard action not attacking in order to get any benefit from it? No, I don't think so. Then again, I'm new so I might be missing something ridiculously powerful here!

 

[dvvega]

@OnlineDM: true they're gaining only 25% hit points.

However the other things you have stated do not negate the fact that everyone carries the cloak. Healers do their thing, but a healer cannot go and heal everyone at once all of the time. That makes an exciting encounter - who does the healer help next? What will it mean if they heal themselves instead?

However with the cloak on everyone's shoulders the healer becomes an even stronger force because everyone can double surge. Since it is an encounter power and the party will meet 3 encounters per day on average - everyone has enough healing surges to use the cloak every encounter. Even if it was 4 per day they all could handle the double surge.

I do not really understand your concept of finite surges since there is no way that the Fighter is going to run out of them over the day and since the healer doesn't have to worry about everyone else in general the Fighter will be at or close to 100% hit points for most of the day.

D

 

[chitzk0i]

How many encounters do they usually take down? 2 surges an encounter times five encounter is more surges than a lot of characters have. What encounter level are you usually throwing at them? It sounds like your players have got some solid teamwork going on and that usually means higher-level monsters.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, I'm not sure hte OP is reading the cloak properly.

First, if the characters do not get bloodeid, it does nothing.

Second, if they do not use a second wind, it does nothing.

Third, characters should be avble (or forced) to do a couple of milestones a day. If they are not doing more than 2-3 encounters, yes, it is more powerful and dailies and such powers become much more powerful as the character can "nova" much more frequently.

Paying a standard action is a high price for healing IME, enough so that most of my players will not do it unless in extreme circumstances.

I think it all boils down to haveing mroe encoutners to wear away at their numbers of surges.

 

[Shin Okada]

Dwarves, Wardens, and someone in Armor of Dwarven Vigor do love this item as they can use second wind with a minor action.

Other characters tend to use their second wind only in truly desperate time (i.e. the party have no minor action healing left), as it needs a standard action.

Twice/Encounter powers of leaders are not the only "quick" healing powers. Warforged can use their racial power, some paladin can use Lay on Hands, and everyone can retrieve and drink a Potion with 2 minor actions (1, if you have Quickdraw feat).

 

[Iron Sky]

Tell them to get Cloaks of Life instead, they have an encounter power that lets them spend an additional surge once any time in the encounter they spend a surge, no need to second wind to get it.

It's a level higher than a CWW, but sure worth it.

 

[OnlineDM]

@dvvega: It sounds like your party is enjoying fairly short days before taking an extended rest. Personally, I like to get through 4 encounters at a minimum. If you're not going through more than 2 or 3 encounters before an extended rest, then I agree it's unlikely anyone will run out of surges. But I've personally found my D&D games (both as a player and as a DM) to be more exciting if they're going for at least 4 encounters before resting. In that situation, the fighter who's getting beaten up and healing a lot is going to run out of surges.

And if the battles are such that spending a turn to use Second Wind (again, for the non-dwarf characters) is no big deal, then getting the extra hit points from the Second Wind might not be such a big deal either. It doesn't sound like the characters are especially threatened if using a standard action to regain half their hit points during battle is the right play for every character in every battle. Sometimes it's just what the doctor ordered, sure, and doubling the HP regained makes it way more attractive, but in a heated battle passing up the chance to attack so that you can heal is usually a very big drawback.

The cloak really doesn't seem like that big of a deal to my untrained eye, but that's just my opinion.

 

[Mengu]

Cloak of the Walking Wound is all right for a melee dwarf. It's okay for a warden, or for someone who tries to use their second wind for other benefits such as Inspiring Fortitude. But there are many better options.

It's upgrade Amulet of Life is a bit more useful since you can trigger it when your leader heals you, rather than having to waste an action.

I can't imagine this item making it a problem for me as a DM. For one, as others have said, if they are blowing through surges, then they will likely be taxed elsewhere (more on this later). But more importantly, there is the opportunity cost. Some neck items are pretty nice to have for certain characters. A Cleric probably doesn't want to give up a Healer's Brooch, and a Barbarian isn't going to give up his Badge of the Berserker. If I was a melee rogue, you would need to decapitate me to remove my Amulet of Physical Resolve. Also if you are the back line wizard or Warlock who rarely gets bloodied, there is really not much point for this sort of item.

It lets a defender not go down for an extra round. That really doesn't seem quite so bad.

I don't understand how your defenders can have enough surges to spend 6-7 per encounter in 3 encounters. If they spend 2 it means, they needed it because they were going to continue to get beat on. If the leader heals them once, that's another surge. If they end the encounter at half their bloodied value, they will need 3 more surges to heal up at the end of the encounter. That's 6 surges. Either they won't last 3 encounters, or if they are not getting beat on after they use their 2 surges, they didn't really need the item to begin with.

PC's are supposed to defeat encounters. Whether they end the encounter at a quarter of their hit points or unconscious, or they end the encounter at full hit points is pretty irrelevant.

And for what it's worth, consistently running 3 encounters a day seems a little too predictable, and makes resource management a little too easy. I've done up to 7 combat encounters and 2-3 skill challenges in one adventuring day, and those are usually the more memorable days. I've also been in adventures where throughout the day we went through an endurance skill challenge which would cost us surges, while also dealing with 3 or so encounters, and by the time you reach the last encounter, things can become pretty dicey.

Also if your PC's are pretty efficient at killing things so they don't take much damage from monsters, you can always consider increasing the damage monsters deal, and throw in some more or bigger ongoing damage, or use monsters that drain healing surges such as Wights, or poison traps and the like that can sap a healing surge.

And you don't always have to challenge everyone. Sometimes you do crazy stuff to the front line defender. One time I had the defender run up and mark three wights, guess how many surges that defender had left at the end of the fight. Sometimes, you sneak from behind with a lurker, to teach the wizard a lesson with a Darkmantle. Sometimes you take an opportune moment to beat up on the rogue running him down to 1-2 surges in one encounter.

This cloak (or its kin) should not be a detriment to challenging PC's. It's a decent item, but everyone in a group with the item seems very inefficient to me.

 

[dvvega]

Actually they are achieving at least 1 milestone per day sometimes 2. They are facing encounters appropriate to their level using a distribution similar to the DMG page 104. They are currently 9th level, so to gain that 9th level they faced 7th, 8th * 3, 9th * 3, and 11th * 1 encounters for the level.

@Mengu - I didn't want to throw in Surge "eating" monsters because the campaign/storyline is very light on the undead. One thing I do not have is the MM3 and the "corrections" to damage and attack values. Perhaps I need to get hold of that.

As for party make up - because it seems people need this for the answer (I have stated what I think their surges are from memory). You can see that if I throw 3 to 4 encounters at them per day they have plenty of surges - except for the Shaman:

Dwarf Fighter (Battlerager - using WOTC errata)
surges 13 at least.

Elf Druid (Charge focused - very focused ... gets +1d10 damage on charges into flank)
surges 9 or 10.

Human Barbarian (rage rage rage)
surges 10

Elf Shaman (Protecting Spirit)
surges 8

Shifter Warden
surges 11

And those that think a standard action is a waste, I have seen Second Wind, Action Point combinations. Just that simple expenditure of the Action Point means that all the damage output is negated and the Shaman doesn't waste a healing ability.

The Dwarf using a Feat can Second Wind as an Immediate Interrupt so the Shaman can focus on healing everyone else.

I am happy that my players are working well together. The defenders do their thing, the Fighter can single out an opponent and stop them from moving anywhere, the only character that has died is the Barbarian and that was due to approximately 10 bad rolls in a row and against the big encounter of the level.

I've used terrain that was obviously to my advantage, I've set up traps that mess around with their standard combat manoeuvres.

As I have said, this Cloak seems to be the thing that is making them impossible to challenge except with a big encounter. However if I keep throwing Level + 3 or Level +4 encounters at them then they will level up faster (due to experience gains) and thus my power curve accelerates faster than I wish it to.

Skill tests and trap-only encounters have caused them problems before however once again I want to use a mixture of things not "just this" or "just that".

D