Flat Healing Without Using a Surge--Infinite Daily HP?

[Rystil Arden]

Civil Law is hundred of times more voluminous than a D&D rule book and it still leads to occasionnal absurd interpretation.

It takes a judge to say to the people bringing up the absurd suit : Your cause has no merit.

Which then goes into jurisprudence.

This is a very young game. It still has no jurisprudence. Thankfully the judges... I mean DMs, are not monkeys and so there is no problem.

The trouble is that you could use this same argument to claim that any broken rule was OK.

You can bring it to a higher level--let's say there was a Paragon Path that had a level 11 power that read "No matter what you roll, all of your attacks are critical hits, and they never miss".

Now, as you often say, GMs are not monkeys. I think almost immediately most GMs will houserule this somehow--replace it with something new, put limitations on it, etc. And you can easily fix it. 4e makes it easy to go in there and replace something, at least most of the time. But that doesn't mean it should be in there in the first place. The fact that the GM can fix bad rules does not mean that they should exist. That's what Oberoni's Fallacy is about. Don't think we don't agree with you that the GM can fix it--I think everyone agrees that the GM can fix it.

 

[Traken]

And that's a fine way to play Sunburst in your game, but it's Oberoni's Fallacy to state that there is no problem with it just because you could Rule 0 it. It's an excuse to defend a bad rule that should have said something else in the first place.

But what constitutes a bad rule? Who are we to say the system is or is not valid? (Said light-heartedly)

For me, anything after level 21 is not considered broken or wrong, no matter how powerful. When a creature can zap you to 0hp in one attack, you can heal all you want between battles. All Sunburst allows, in my mind, is a group of adventurers tearing through an army, taking quick rests between battles.

As for needing absolute rules for everything, I say no way. Last game system I saw that in was a certain 5-letter game system that starts with an F. (I feel sorry for you if you know what I'm talking about)

 

[Rystil Arden]

For those saying Sunburst is not that effective as an infinite healing mechanism:
-- I would say healing the party to full in 1 hour is a big deal.

For those saying the DM can tell the player not to do it:
-- That's true, but wouldn't it be better if the DM didn't have to? And what if the DM doesn't think of that and then throws out the idea of ever using encounters to wear down the PCs? Is there an advantage to having powers that heal without healing surges? If these healing powers are not intended for use outside of combat, why not have those powers grant temporary hit points instead? (btw, do temporary hit points go away at the end of encounters now, or how are they handled?)

For those saying epic characters should be allowed infinite healing
-- I agree that making hit points an entirely per encounter resource isn't that big a deal. 3E wands of cure light wounds basically already did it and it didn't really break anything. (aside: I suppose that could be because most parties rested after blowing their big spells so hit points were never the limiting factor.) Also, having healing surges per day for heroic and paragon tiers and then per encounter for epic tiers would help make the epic tier 'feel' much different from the previous tiers. However, assuming the healing surges are supposed to be a per day resource at all tiers, it seems silly to include any powers that break that.

Temporary HP is another great idea, SlagMortar.

Let me collect the list of easy fixes we've seen so far:

1) Daily limit on Sunburst Et Al Healing (Cha mod number of times, etc)

2) Replace with "can spend a healing surge and add your Cha mod"

3) Grant temporary HP

4) Fiat its use to restricted times

 

[Mithyx]

Guess I missed that... just in case I'm not the only one:
Using Powers while You Rest - (263 PHB)

If I were to base it solely off the way the rules are written, I'd agree and say it's allowed. Something that should be errataed eventually probably. I don't think I'll allow it in my game because it looks like it'd make healing surges less important than they were intended to be.

EDIT - I think requiring an enemy target would fix the issue best. In fact something that heals higher the more opponents it hits seems like it could be interesting.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Guess I missed that... just in case I'm not the only one:
Using Powers while You Rest - (263 PHB)

If I were to base it solely off the way the rules are written, I'd agree and say it's allowed. Something that should be errataed eventually probably. I don't think I'll allow it in my game because it looks like it'd make healing surges less important than they were intended to be.

I agree with you. The post right above yours has 4 ideas collected from a bunch of different people in this thread on how to treat it in the meantime (if anyone actually gets to the point where they can use Sunburst in that meantime ).

 

[Morrus]

First - I don't see complete healing between encounters to be a big deal n a high level game. In fact, I expect it.

But, if you're feeling a disturbance in the Force - isn't this sort of thing exactly what the DM is for? Adjudication, game balancing, and providing an entertaining and challenging game? If that's how you're spending your game time, and that's what your DM considers an entertaining and challenging game, and all your fellow players agree that they are entertained and having fun an are challenged, then good luck to you - but it doesn't sound like fun to me. But tastes vary.

As for me, were I running it, and it was - to me - a brokenly munchkin application of the rules, which I'm not saying it is, not having reviewed it - I'd laugh at the player who suggested it and move on and try and make sure everyone was having fun.

 

[SoulStorm]

I don't understand why people think infinite healing between combats at 27th level is broken. Why do so many people assume that this power isn't working as intended? What's the big deal? We're talking about 27th level. I expect the extraordinary at 27th level. Heck, the extraordinary is why I play fantasy games. My policy is to avoid any DM who would rather spend their time telling players what they can't do rather than what they can do. It's just a fantasy game. Why can't people just loosen up a bit and let people enjoy the fantasy instead of trying to justify why someone can't do something in a game?

 

[Rystil Arden]

First - I don't see complete healing between encounters to be a big deal n a high level game. In fact, I expect it.

But, if you're feeling a disturbance in the Force - isn't this sort of thing exactly what the DM is for? Adjudication, game balancing, and providing an entertaining and challenging game? If that's how you're spending your game time, and that's what your DM considers an entertaining and challenging game, and all your fellow players agree that they are entertained and having fun an are challenged, then good luck to you - but it doesn't sound like fun to me. But tastes vary.

As for me, were I running it, and it was - to me - a brokenly munchkin application of the rules, which I'm not saying it is, not having reviewed it - I'd laugh at the player who suggested it and move on and try and make sure everyone was having fun.

This is for the Sunburst or some of the earlier stuff? As a GM, I'd quickly curtail the other stuff for certain, but the Sunburst seems like that's how the power should work unless you houserule it. That said, I would definitely be the first to houserule it, so it wouldn't come up in my game, and my group and I would play it like yours does. The question is whether it should have been in the rules to start if everyone is just going to have to houserule it.

EDIT: Aha, you clarified in your edit

 

[Rystil Arden]

I don't understand why people think infinite healing between combats at 27th level is broken. Why do so many people assume that this power isn't working as intended? What's the big deal? We're talking about 27th level. I expect the extraordinary at 27th level. Heck, the extraordinary is why I play fantasy games. My policy is to avoid any DM who would rather spend their time telling players what they can't do rather than what they can do. It's just a fantasy game. Why can't people just loosen up a bit and let people enjoy the fantasy instead of trying to justify why someone can't do something in a game?

Because it seems to be an oversight with the designers' stated position to keep the power curve as linear as possible and thus keep gameplay in the sweet spot to higher levels (partially by retaining the relevance of healing surges as a gauge of how long the group can keep fighting in a day). I would guess that the overarching designers were not looking for Sunburst to cause this effect (and indeed, it seems to be the only power that does so--Warlords and Paladins do not get such a power). As such, I think it's an oversight.

I could be wrong. Heck, I definitely can't be sure of it--if I knew for sure I wouldn't be so interested in reading what people have to say and considering the perspectives of others, so I wouldn't start a topic about it on ENWorld. It won't get us anywhere towards discovering the truth if we hide behind Oberoni's Fallacy, though.

 

[Obryn]

Because it seems to be an oversight with the designers' stated position to keep the power curve as linear as possible and thus keep gameplay in the sweet spot to higher levels (partially by retaining the relevance of healing surges as a gauge of how long the group can keep fighting in a day). I would guess that the overarching designers were not looking for Sunburst to cause this effect (and indeed, it seems to be the only power that does so--Warlords and Paladins do not get such a power). As such, I think it's an oversight.

I could be wrong. Heck, I definitely can't be sure of it--if I knew for sure I wouldn't be so interested in reading what people have to say and considering the perspectives of others, so I wouldn't start a topic about it on ENWorld. It won't get us anywhere towards discovering the truth if we hide behind Oberoni's Fallacy, though.

...or it's to reward those characters who stuck with their Cleric until 27th level.

Seriously, it's 27th level. When you Sunburst to full, you don't get your Dailies or Healing Surges back. If you have enough time to Sunburst to max, you probably have all the time in the world.

If you really, really need errata, the DM can say that attack powers can only be used in encounters. That may save on other wackiness, too, but I really can't say one way or another.

-O