Healing as an Afterthought

[Mengu]

One of the playstyle considerations I'm struggling with is a perceived lack of interesting tactical impact on the decision to use a healing power. The leader classes as a whole have very few uses for their minors outside healing so there is typically no opportunity cost to be weighed in deciding whether or not to use the heal power.

Couldn't disagree more. The shaman in my game is so minor action challenged, he will occasionally give up a standard action because he needs to do 3 minor actions, or a move action two minors. The tactical impact is most certainly there. My warlord would assess the situation and sometimes used his minor to buff someone to take out an enemy rather than heal someone in need. Clerics who need to sustain dailies, and move and heal often have to give up a standard action. I could go on...

Now a follow up question. Would it have any bearing on your opinion if the various Word powers were at-will standard actions rather than Encounter powers?

It would be a different mechanic for low levels, and I still wouldn't want to "play the cleric". That's basically what wands were in 3.x. And by high paragon, the healing *seems* to be at-will already (looking at you Mr Warlord with 4 heals per encounter). So I don't think my opinion would change.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall I think making words standard actions is not a good change to make. I eally like my leaders to be able to heal AND do something else, even if the second action is also something to heal someone else. There have been times my healers have done three powers in a round that heal people.

That is pretty cool.

As for an at-will standard action cure, I do not think that is needed. I just hate the idea of making clerics into 100% healbots like they often turned into in 3.5

The worst part about the healbots in 3.5 was that, IME, even with them spending every action healing people., they still could not keep up. That made them boring and look ineffective. Not a good combo.

 

[Gryph]

Couldn't disagree more. The shaman in my game is so minor action challenged, he will occasionally give up a standard action because he needs to do 3 minor actions, or a move action two minors. The tactical impact is most certainly there. My warlord would assess the situation and sometimes used his minor to buff someone to take out an enemy rather than heal someone in need. Clerics who need to sustain dailies, and move and heal often have to give up a standard action. I could go on...

Is your Shaman using minors to do a lot of positioning with the spirit or are their other minor actions I'm not considering? I don't have a lot of familiarity with Shaman.

Well, I play one of those 4 minor heals an encounter Warlords in the sessions I don't DM using both utilities (at level 6) for heals. So I concede that I could have built to have a choice between buffing or healing. I made minor action healing a strategic choice rather than a tactical.

I have found it fairly easy to give up a move action though if I had to get two heals off in the same round (inspiring word/utility power).

It would be a different mechanic for low levels, and I still wouldn't want to "play the cleric". That's basically what wands were in 3.x. And by high paragon, the healing *seems* to be at-will already (looking at you Mr Warlord with 4 heals per encounter). So I don't think my opinion would change.

I played very little 3e, it just never worked for me and my friends. So I tend to compare the 4e playstyle intangibles to 1e/2e. Healing wands weren't much of a thing when it wasn't a viable option to make your own magic items. We'd have one sometimes, but then use up the charges pretty quick.

I'll have to give that some thought, since I never really experienced that style of play. Our problem was always conserving heals for as long as possible cause they were super scarce.

Thanks for the polite and thoughtful feedback.

 

[KarinsDad]

I have come to the conclusion that the reason it feels like an afterthought to me is the leader classes getting most of their healing from minor actions. So quite often, in our group, a healer will take his move and attack then just before ending his turn ask around the table, "Oh, does anyone need healing?"

As a houserule, I've been thinking of making the use of healing word and its brethren a standard action instead of a minor. I think the tactical range of options that leader classes have been given are broad enough to make those classes interesting to play, even if the player has to choose between attacking or healing with their standard action.

My Paragon Hybrid Ardent|Bard doesn't ever ask if anyone needs healing. He waits until a PC falls unconscious and then heals him. In fact, there have been encounters where if he had not done that, then someone else would have had to use a Standard action potion to heal up an unconscious PC. We've had situations where one or more PCs are in single hit point digits and they never got hit again in the encounter, but other PCs went unconscious. If he hadn't done it his way, those other PCs would have been in even more trouble with him out of heals.

We've also had situations where two PCs went unconscious in the same round, so it helped that he was a Hybrid and could use two heals in a single turn.

If that same PC was in a game where healing was a Standard action, other PCs would come a lot closer to dying cause there's no way that he'd sacrifice his other standard action to waste time on an unconscious ally.

 

[Rhenny]

I don't think that it is bad that a cleric or other leader with healing abilities does his or her own action first before asking if anyone needs healing. It would really stink if he or she didn't ask at all.

In the campaign I DM, our Dragonborn (strength) Cleric will move into combat and be near others who may need healing, but he'll use Righteous Strike if nobody needs healing. If someone needs healing, he will try to use Healing Strike before Healing Word, or both if necessary. If many PCs are hurting, he'll use Healer's Mercy as a standard action. He's having fun, so I think it is fine.

As long as the players are enjoying it, I'm happy.

 

[Epametheus]

Having healing in 4E require a standard action instead of a minor would be... unpleasant. Combats are higher levels are already painfully slow; requiring the leaders to give up their offensive action whenever someone required healing would make it even worse.

I don't think making the word powers at-wills would make up for the action loss. A leader can have plenty of healing if they want to; making the core healing a standard action is simply a blow to the effectiveness of the character.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Overall, I like the healing surge mechanic, with a couple of exceptions. First, it didn't quite answer the short work day problem. When healing surges are gone, it is rightfully hard to get the players to keep moving forward.

Sure, but it can be pretty hard to get the party to that point. Especially as there's an obscure way or two to even out healing surges when one PC is lower than the others...

Secondly, and increasingly the more serious issue for me, healing has become an afterthought with the players (including myself when I play).

I have come to the conclusion that the reason it feels like an afterthought to me is the leader classes getting most of their healing from minor actions. So quite often, in our group, a healer will take his move and attack then just before ending his turn ask around the table, "Oh, does anyone need healing?"

Nod. I kick myself a little when I find myself doing that - I feel part of the point of playing a leader is to be aware of the party as a whole, including who's been taking it on the chin. It can be quite hard and thankless to do so, though.

As a houserule, I've been thinking of making the use of healing word and its brethren a standard action instead of a minor. I think the tactical range of options that leader classes have been given are broad enough to make those classes interesting to play, even if the player has to choose between attacking or healing with their standard action.

I'm afraid that'd push a wedge between the 'healing' and 'enabling' leader builds. It would greatly increase the value of hit & heal powers like Stand the Fallen, but aside from that, I think you'd see negative results. You'd find more leaders who lead 'pro-actively' (attacking, buffing and/or enabling) and heal only at the end of the encounter, and a few that cave and return to the 'band-aid cleric' model (not that it doesn't have it's supporters, otherwise we wouldn't have the pacifist build).

To handle the short work day problem, I've been thinking about adding a medium rest. The medium rest would take about an hour and require that the characters eat a meal. The medium rest would let players recover 2 healing surges and they couldn't use a medium rest more than twice between extended rests.

I suspect this wouldn't hurt. Note, though, that getting back dailies is also a meaningful impetus to 'rest.'

 

[wedgeski]

It can be quite hard and thankless to do so, though.

I'm interested in this. If you drop an important heal on an ally, saving him from unconsciousness or even reviving him to get back in the fight... is it your experience that the player/PC doesn't thank you for it?

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm interested in this. If you drop an important heal on an ally, saving him from unconsciousness or even reviving him to get back in the fight... is it your experience that the player/PC doesn't thank you for it?

I haven't found it to be thankless, but I have found it to be expected. I have had other players ask to be healed when their PC first gets bloodied. So with my Ardent | Bard, I decided to hand out as many temporary hit points as possible, but to not heal until another PC goes unconscious. This does three things:

1) It forces players to re-evaluate their own healing. They start carrying around potions of healing, they start sometimes using their second winds, they start taking feats like Toughness, Durability, and Dwarven Durability, they start crafting items like Eager Hero's Tattoo, and they sometimes multiclass to get a heal of their own.

2) It turns this leader's heals into stronger heals as it heals up the negative damage taken below zero in addition to the normal amount.

3) It doesn't waste heals on one PC and then another PC goes unconscious with no heals left over.

It does come at the risk of a fellow PC having a slightly higher chance to die, and at the risk of having a slightly higher chance of the Leader going unconscious before using all of his heals.


I think that the expectation that the Leader will just heal me if I get in trouble (regardless of whether that is bad luck or bad tactics) is a commonly held belief at gaming tables.

Like all other players, the player of the Leader should be allowed to decide his own PCs' actions and those actions shouldn't automatically be at the whims and desires of the other players.

 

[Hussar]

Not really sure on the change from minor to standard or move action. Not a big fan, but, I haven't really given it much thought to be honest.

However, the idea of a medium rest has some legs I think. You take a medium rest and get 2 surges back. Nice. The meal bit is a decent way to limit it. Or, you could say that you can only take 3 medium rests between extended rests would do it as well. Not a huge amount of tracking going on there.

Alternatively, you could count surges taken during short rests as double hit points. That would probably give you the same effect and require less tracking.