Dealing with Healing Surges

[KarinsDad]

Yeah, I got all that. I said as much in my post. Read the name of the thread, and the OP. He's claiming Surges are the issue; I'm pointing out that surges have little or nothing to do with it. That's all.

I was responding to your comment:

If you're throwing easy fights, it's no wonder the PCs win handily.

He's not doing that.

 

[Keenath]

He's not doing that.

That's why I said 'if'. I'm not sure how you can know that, anyway, unless you're one of his players, since he's never actually replied to anything in the thread.

I'm totally aware of the daily power issue; I just mentioned encounter building because some people don't pick up that it all changed in 4e and continue to use "1 Lv X monster = 1 Lv X encounter", and that's another potential source for error.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

I happen to have a group of players with a really solid grasp of rules balance, so DISCLAIMER: Your Mileage May Vary with this idea.

I also tend to run a lot of low combat density roleplaying, where we might have one or two encounters per session, and almost never two fights on the same game day. This leads very quickly to 'nova' fights - my houserule was to change "per day" powers and recharges to "per session." That is, you can use your daily power once per game session, magic item powers once per game session, and your healing surges/HP have to last the whole session, regardless of in-game time. Next week, you have all your HP and powers back. This works out in continuity alright since the sessions feel more like episodes of a TV action series or whatever anyway, the way I run and end them. It also completely stops any semblance of the "15-minute workday" and confusion over 'what did I use earlier "today" that we played out last week again?' This doesn't work well with in-depth dungeon crawls, but is a fairly simple 'fix' to keeping the meta-game resource allocation correct for urban or high-travel campaigns.

 

[DracoSuave]

So if the players use their powers, the DM should punish them for doing so. I'd find a different DM personally.

Your logic, to its extreme: Every player plays the game absolutely perfectly, and every DM should accomodate them entirely no matter how boneheaded and stupid their plans are, regardless of clues.

Same logic: Every DM plays the game absolutely perfectly, and every player should accomodate them entirely no matter how boneheaded and stupid their plans are, regardless of clues.

Conclusion: Logic cannot be valid because it does not work regardless of premise. The thinking therefore involved is inherently flawed and irrational.

Counterclaim: The DM and the players need to comprimize. The DM needs to realize that the players enjoy blowing their wad of powers, and the players need to realize that it isn't realistic nor fun for the DM for them to go into endless alpha strikes.



A more realistic way to solve this is to give the players a different resource to ponder, time. Give them missions that are time-sensitive, and give a reasonable window of opportunity to complete them with success.

Say they're going to hunt down the location of a magic jewel the wizard needs. Let them know -very early- that there's a rival group intending to find it first. Then let them know the next day of the game that the rival group will probably find it in a matter of a couple days. The players suddenly have to be proactive, and can't afford all the extended rests they've been taking. A sense of urgency and knowledge of failure will teach them not to tarry.

But the flip side is... they aren't being forced to 'press on' without being at full strength if something goes sower. There's no artificial encounter limit that says 'you must press on cause you didn't do this much work.' So they still have the feeling of control over their rests. If something goes really bad for them, they have the option of taking a couple rests here and there. During the extended rests, let them do some research-style non-strenuous activity, so that even the rests continue the plot. Then they feel -rewarded- for doing this stuff, instead of punished for taking their time when there's no reason to rush.

And if they do? Well, they chose not to operate within the challenge of the adventure. The rival group rubs it in their faces, the party vows revenge, and you have a group of characters that you can use as plot hooks for later, more successful adventures.

Give the players an idea of the timeframe of what they're trying to accomplish, and suddenly those day rests are now limited if they want to succeed. If you're giving them an unlimited number of days to accomplish a goal, they -will- take it.

 

[Ginnel]

Give the players an idea of the timeframe of what they're trying to accomplish, and suddenly those day rests are now limited if they want to succeed. If you're giving them an unlimited number of days to accomplish a goal, they -will- take it.

That last sentance is patently false, through my experience alone it has been disproved, the groups which I play in have always had at least one character who will push the group on if not 3 or 4, our curent fourth edition game of our 6 man group the paladin was on 0 healing surges and the fighter was on 4 and we'd gone through quite a few of our daily powers, the next fight we got into a fight the paladin went down with 0 healing surges, we won the fight and got the paladin back up stuck him in the newly found dwarf armor to use its magic to heal him up a bit and trudged on to explore another room (paladin on just about half hit points and the fighter on 3 healing surges)

Now this might astound and terrify some tactically minded gamers out there but the paladin was quite insistant (and he wasn't tired of his character either ) he could carry on and the gruff fighter encouraged this as they were both playing their characters, The reasonably stoic dwarf cleric agreed to fill in the gap and the paladin was lent some more Javelins.

And we cleared the next fight as well which was had a "boss" goblin in it.

(I'm not even going into detail how we then went back to the villiage to be told of a undead incurrsion which we then defeated at the cemetery, paladin on just more than half hits and fighter on 1 healing surge beat that one too)

Now as players, we know we're playing a game which has us assume a character, and we play to that, we also know we're playing a game to see what happens along the way and to have fun, not to get to some perceived end, so we allow ourselves to go in unrested and not at our max and this adds to the fun and the excitement in our minds, now this won't work for everyone but its how we play, so saying players will always take the time when given isn't true from my view and I really hope my experience isn't unique.

Side note: if this group experienced a death or two which could have been prevented from being more prepared it might have an impact on tactics, it might not depending on how the characters took it and who had died.

To the original post I believe, healing surges are a limiting factor, it is definetly the one our group pays most attention to apart from the characters opinions and motivations that is, also I think the making the daily powers into weekly and the same with surges is quite an elegant solution as well as having several weaker encounters after another to challenge the players and make them consider their resources.