Healing between encounters

[ExploderWizard]

Mobsters don't stand around like zombies waiting to be killed.

They do if the Gawdfather puts a hit out on them.

 

[balard]

In my table, you get two bonus Word uses outside combat. They don't need to recharge these, they get after every combat. But if they use more they lose then for the next combat too. This way the leader can help the after party healing, but it makes the games moves much faster.

 

[gizmo33]

+1d6 on a healing surge. So what? I thought one of the major points of the 4E encounter system was that PCs were assumed to be at roughly full strength at the beginning of each encounter. I don't think +1d6 is really having an impact on the daily attrition of the party. And a 4E DM who is expecting his PCs to walk into an encounter with less than max hitpoints IMO is missing the point of the "every encounter is significant" design of 4E. My advice is to make sure that all of your encounters are an interesting challenge for the PCs at max hitpoints and not worry about these relatively minor issues. 4E doesn't conform to the 3E version of PC attrition.

I think 4E needs to pay attention to not designing powers that fail the "bag of rats" test, rather than expecting DMs to browbeat their players into accepting arbitrary rulings that don't make any sense. ("Your cleric can only use his power when someone is trying to kill someone else in his vicinity." - that's just stupid) But in this case I don't think this applies anyway.

 

[Ottergame]

I really, really think Healing Word can only be used during an encounter, like it says in the power description. You can't use it while "resting".

That's fine, but this isn't a house rules forum. You're completely and utterly wrong according to the rule book.

It explictly allows you to use encounter powers outside of combat.

 

[Nebulous]

yeah, i've gathered that from this thread. oddly enough, it's never come up, despite having a cleric in the party. i'll bear that in mind.

 

[Legildur]

+1d6 on a healing surge. So what?

So what? My Rogue will take that all day.... he only has 7 surges and gets through them very quickly!! Last night when we were playing, we entered a major evil temple with my Rogue 2 character on 5 hps and no surges.

Any use of the cleric healing word ability (doesn't that also add Cha modifier to the result?) makes a huge difference.

 

[Griogre]

Healers Lore is plus Wis Mod so for a Laser cleric it's his prime stat. Even a strength cleric probably has some wisdom. For wizards and rogues a healing word can almost double the value of a surge they get at low levels.

 

[Runestar]

I think that at higher lvs (epic?), cleric do get access to encounter powers that heal without the need to expend surges. So in theory, he could heal the entire party back to full hp without the need for anyone to spend surges, though it might take a while (~1-2 hours?).

Otherwise, as noted earlier, healing surges require that the beneficiary actually spend a surge. It would make healing more efficient, but not do away with the need to spend healing surges.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Your cleric is wrong. Encounters count as "fights" or "skill challenges" or something else applicable as decided by the DM, but generally just those two things. You can't sit there idly and keep adding the extra healing from Healing Surges. Although if you end up waiting 6 hours you get all surges back anyway. I'm not quite sure what angle your player is taking, sounds like he's trying to argue for a loophole that doesn't exist.

So what, you don't let your players use their dailies at night time? That's gotta suck.

 

[Skallgrim]

I'm not sure why so many people have trouble with this issue. I actually prefer handling this by the rules to any house solution:

After the encounter, the party takes a short rest (about 5 minutes or so).

At the end of that rest, they can spend Healing Surges. Their encounter powers also recharge. The cleric's Healing word is an encounter power, and recharges after a short rest. Thus, the cleric can use Healing Word to boost the healing of two (or later, three) healing surges.

After that, the cleric's Healing Word encounter power is spent, and another short rest must be taken to recover it.

If the party wants to use this tactic, they need to plan on using at least 2 short rests after the encounter (more if they want to boost more than two surges). I can't see the problem. Does the party KNOW that they will be able to safely take two short rests? Otherwise, they are gambling the availabiliy of Healing Word in combat on the laziness/inattention of the monsters.

If there's no time pressure (or very little) they can do this. Otherwise, it doubles the time between encounters (which means more time to be discovered, more time for reinforcements).

Just as you should probably occasionally interrupt their short rests (to make a perhaps sub-level fight more interesting), you should even more often interrupt their SECOND short rests. At this point, they have more HP, and their powers back, but the Cleric has no Healing Word usages for the combat. This isn't deadly or anything, but it does play up the choices involved in using Healing Word outside of combat.

If the party is "spamming" Healing Word, like using it, resting again, over and over, then they basically get 10 usages like this before it's mathematically the equivalent of taking an Extended Rest (first rest, then Healing Word, then rest again...). If you are OK letting the party rest for 30 or 40 minutes without anything happening, I can't see why you should be worried about their hit points.