do monsters get surges and second wind?

fba827

Adventurer
Simple question, I couldn't find the answer in my quick thumb through ...

Do monsters get surges?
And, can monsters use second wind?
Or are either/both of those a PC only thing?


I saw that action points depend on the monster type but didn't see reference to surges.

Thanks in advance.
 

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All NPCs get surges based on their tier: heroic/1, paragon/2, epic/3. They do not get Second Wind, however, and can only spend them outside of combat or in response to some kind of healing ability. For the most part, this functionally means they won't get a chance to spend them before dying on a PCs sword. :cool:
 


Actually, NPC's do get Second Wind per the DMG. Monsters do not, however, unless the monster's statblock specifies the monster has that ability. But both monsters and NPCs have surges based on their tier (heroic =1, paragon =2, epic = 3) unless their statblock specifies otherwise.
 

Yeah, there's a note in there somewhere that monsters get one surge per 'tier', (i.e., 1 for L10 and under, 1 for L11-L20, 3 for 21+) and can use that to take a second wind.
 


Yeah, there's a note in there somewhere that monsters get one surge per 'tier', (i.e., 1 for L10 and under, 1 for L11-L20, 3 for 21+) and can use that to take a second wind.

Actually the note says specifically they get the surges but not the Second Wind ability to actually activate them (unless otherwise noted)

Sphinxes, for example, specificly -have- the Second Wind ability to use their own healing surges.

There might be a few leaders that also trigger a monster's surges, but don't know of any off the top of my head.
 

Do you have a page reference handy for that?

DMG 187, top of second column.

Pyrex said:
Yeah, there's a note in there somewhere that monsters get one surge per 'tier', (i.e., 1 for L10 and under, 1 for L11-L20, 3 for 21+) and can use that to take a second wind.
Incorrect. Monsters possess healing surges but do not have Second Wind by default.
 


MarkB, see page 187 of the DMG, last paragaph on left column and first paragraph on right column.

Interesting. That would seem to contradict the text from page 291 of the PHB. I wonder if there's an order of authority for the 4e core rulebooks as there was for the 3.5e books?
 

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