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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5817839" data-attributes="member: 87792">Well worth asking, although the simple answer is that it's hard to go wrong. From the top it's worth pointing out that what a hit point actually represents has changed between older editions and 4e.  In any form of D&D pre-4e a hit point was supernatural luck and protection that didn't ultimately make a lot of sense, but was a useful abstract.  In 4e, your hit points are your Shock value - how much damage you can take right now before you drop.  Think an action movie hero who is hit to breaking point in one scene and is staggering back to his feet, but is walking although bandaged the next scene.  Your endurance is measured by your number of healing surges (and how many you have left) - this is closer to the old notion of hit points.  And this is why all PCs have a Second Wind - instead of attacking they can take a breather once/fight to spend a healing surge for its value in hit points (i.e. catching their breath so they are ready for the next shock). A lot of 4e leader (read: healer) builds actually provide no magical healing at all.  They never allow a PC to recover hit points (i.e. shock) without using their own healing surges (i.e. endurance) to do so.  They merely allow the PC to unlock his own endurance both efficiently and when the target PC needs to.  (The classic PC leader operating this way is the Warlord - who often behaves like a drill sergeant to get the best out of people).  Of course the ability to take a hit now is vitally important and doesn't actually lower the ability to take a hit in the future.  Also hit points start counting up from 0, rather than from negative, so it's viable to let someone fall unconscious before spending a heal. All leaders get two free "healing words" per encounter, allowing them to enable someone to turn a healing surge into hit points.  And these free heals are minor actions, which is a huge innovation.  As a minor action you can use it - and use your standard action to hit someone on the same turn.  (There are no full round attacks).  This isn't necessarily magical so fluff it how you like (no one will object if you want it to be magic). Where clerics stand out is the amount of surgeless (i.e. magical) healing they get.  But there are other healers depending what books you have available - Warlords (which work really well with many weapon-using classes), Bards, Druids (sometimes), Shamans, Artificers, and Ardents (psionic- don't ask) are also healers. 4e combat is very tactical - but one of the beauties of 4e character design is that almost any sort of tactics you want are viable.  (One of my favourite leaders is the "lazy warlord" who never makes an attack roll himself, instead using his actions to grant attacks to everyone else).  So the question becomes "what sources do you have available, and what concepts do you want to play?"</blockquote>

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