Healing during a short rest with leader healing

[keterys]

It's not a question of how long it takes to roll and call out a number.

It's more like this - take that party from before:

A - 22 / 40
B - 14 / 30
C - 5 / 30

D (Healer): Okay, what do folks need?

(Good Party)
A: I'm down 18, so one should do it.
B: Down 16... so 1.
C: Down 25, so 2 I guess.

D: Assuming we're okay to rest 3 in a row, A gets 7, B gets 4, C gets 5 and 8.

(Slow Party)
A: At 22 of 40.
B: 16.
D: Damage or HP left?
B: Damage.
C: Only have 5 hp left, heal me!

D: Okay, first rest... C, I got 5. Where's that put you?
C: Umm... 17.
D: Okay, have another plus 8.

Etc. It varies a lot from group to group, but even the 'good party' exchange is still slower than people just spending their surges in the 'You search and bandage for 5 minutes, hands are waved, and you're all better' short rest.

 

[erik_the_guy]

To be honest, most of the fixes and house rules suggested in this thread are so close to the actual rules that I wouldn't bother changing anything. The players are simply forced to decide between time (just rest 5 minutes and use surges) or resources (take 20 minutes and use less surges with healing word). Both options have advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation. Sounds fair to me.

 

[Jarjaxle]

The Answer!

Ok - on page 263 in the PH it says:

"Using Powers while You Rest: If you use an encounter power (such as a healing power) during a short rest, you need another short rest to renew it so that you can use it again."

A bit above that, it says "No Limit per Day: You can take as many short rests
per day as you want."

This means that the Cleric and use their Encounter Healing Powers during combat. Then take a short reset (5 min.) Use them to help heal allies during the second short rest (another 5 min.) Take a third short rest (5 min. x3) to regain them again and then either adventure on, or take another short rest and using the powers a second time outside of combat.

Thats it.... plain and simple.
Players and do this as long as they want
(or until the DM says enough and unleashes hordes of monsters upon them)

 

[keterys]

Yes, it's 100% totally clear how the rules are supposed to work.

 

[bardolph]

(Slow Party)
A: At 22 of 40.
B: 16.
D: Damage or HP left?
B: Damage.
C: Only have 5 hp left, heal me!

D: Okay, first rest... C, I got 5. Where's that put you?
C: Umm... 17.
D: Okay, have another plus 8.

Yay! This is what I want to hear when I've died and gone to Heaven.

 

[Giryan]

If it doesn't take more time to find out who needs healing and make the rolls for those people (which are random, so can fluctuate the number of rolls needed), that's _amazing_. I mean, it's only an extra minute or so per encounter... but hey, that's 3.5 hours a year

Huh? Did you just not read the rest of my sentence?
It only takes the player who is healing a very small amount of extra time, he has no need to involve me, as I can trust him to roll a d6 without watching, it expends no resource of the cleric, so he doesn't need to take any time.
While the character who is healing is rolling their d6 and adding it(I'd guess about 5seconds?) I'm probably still totting up the XP of monsters, and working out gold, let alone finding the page for the next area that they might decide to go to.

In case my paragraph just above is still not clear enough I'll give you a little example.

(My Party using surges)
DM: Right that's it, the monster slumps to the ground, the encounter's over.
A: Cool, I'm a little hurt so, I'm using a healing surge
B: I go and pick up my knives, and search that corpse.
C: I'm using 2 surges.
DM: (having been adding up/dividing etc), Right you each get 125XP
A: Actually I'm using another surge I didn't get much on my roll.
DM: Sure, btw there's 122GP, 10 silver, and a slightly odd looking dagger


(My Party if they didn't need to use surges)
DM: Right that's it, the monster slumps to the ground, the encounter's over.
A: Cool
B: I go and pick up my knives, and search that corpse.
*pause*
DM: (having been adding up/dividing etc), Right you each get 125XP
*pause*
DM: (having been adding up etc...)Right, there's 122GP, 10 silver, and a slightly odd looking dagger

That's how it actually doesn't take up any more RL time to use surges

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's more the annoyance of figuring the time spent resting. Say your party ends a fight badly wounded with encounter healing powers expended. If they rest 5 minutes, they blow a bunch of healing surges, each player taking care of it himself, and are healed, more or less (some might be down a few if they don't want to 'waste' a surge), they'll each have spent up to four surges (if /very/ badlly damaged), and they're done.

Now, if they want to be more efficient, and save surges, they can rest 5 minutes, and have the cleric do two healing words, probably healing up someone who would otherwise have to have spent three surges, thus saving a surge, but they do have to make the rolls and compare to the targets damage taken to get it 'right.' Then rest 5 more minutes, etc. Healing up 4 badly wounded characters this way could take five successive short rests (the last so the cleric has his healing words available for the next encounter). And, figuring out if it takes 15, 20, or 25 minutes will involve the healer quizing all the wounded characters on thier injuries, triaging them, rolling dice, and adjusting his priorities to avoid 'wasting healing.'

In the mean time, the DM has to wonder, "since it's an option to /just/ rest 5 minutes and use regular surges, shouldn't I consider providing some sort of consequences for the delay?"

And that's all starting to feel like 3e with Wands of Cure Light Wounds.

 

[Xorn]

The thing is for me, when do I see the warlord trying to milk that Inspiring Word for some extra health?

That's right, when they're almost out of surges. So they either pack up shop and extended rest (which will likely be the end of the session for us, usually) or they squeak out a little more healing and proceed through one more encounter. I'm going with the latter, myself.

And frankly, if you really want them to think about the risk, then when they have two people almost dead and the healing is spent, and they decide to short rest without surging so they can milk the cleric's holy word... attack them! Wandering monster comes into the room, and suddenly there's the very real consequence that they should have spent some surges!

Usually my players only do this with heals that were remaining before they rest, sometimes they take a second rest if one of them was REALLY tore up. One time they took three rests in a row when a bad call during the fight left them all really tore up, and it saved them 3-4 surges. I'm okay with that, and if they wanted to do it every time, I still wouldn't complain.

The world doesn't stop existing just because they want to rest for 20 minutes. The guys you just killed are going to be missed by other occupants, who might just come looking for them.

 

[malacapricornis]

The time spent resting is simply sum of surges/ # of healing encounter powers allowed per short rest rounded up. A party that has 3 bonuses to healing surges and needing 11 surges is simply 3-4 short rests. Does that extra 5 mins of game time ever really matter that much? If it does, the enforce timing a bit stricter.

It's a lot like encumberence do you really track each arrow and rock fired?

 

[Stalker0]

As Jarjaxle stated, the big thing to remember is that generally you need a 15 minute rest to make the cleric power work for you.

I've found the cleric usually uses his healing words during the fight at some point, so he needs 5 minutes to get them back, then the party needs 5 minutes to use them, and then the cleric needs 5 minutes to get them back (because you WANT the cleric to have healing word during the next fight).

It then takes 10 minutes to do it again after that, which is almost half an hour. Also, if the party is ambushed near that 15 minute mark, you get a combat where the cleric doesn't have healing word.

I agree that this is a bookkeeping issue that 4e should have avoided, but its not that broken.