Healing Surge: My theory

[scrubkai]

Although I like your idea, I'm not sure it's that simple.

If you look back at the article on Smites you see that they include:

Renewing Smite
Paladin 13
Encounter • Healing, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2x[W] + Cha damage and ally within 5 heals 10 + your Wisdom modifier damage.

That doesn't seem to fit with your healing surge theory as the amount healed is set by the character doing the healing and not the reciving character.

 

[Silvergriffon]

It could be that they just wanna save space, and the "Gain your Con bonus per level" part is in Character Creation, not each Class. If every class gains their Con bonus in HP per level, why reprint it 8 or more times?

Then why would they have listed 1st level hit points as 12 + Constitution Score? Surely, that isn't a Rogue only modifier. And it would be extremely inconsistent to list that in both places, but not a per-level Con bonus.

That's also what I think they're doing with the Int bonus in trained skills, which is why the Rogue doesn't have it listed specifically. It makes sense in a way, and while it wouldn't save a HUGE amount of space, it would help a li'l bit, I guess.

Now, this I am more inclined to accept since there doesn't appear to be anything contradicting it. I fully expect INT to have some bearing on skills. Although, it may be more along the lines of spend a feat to get your INT modifier in additional trained skills.

 

[Keenath]

From the article, the rogue gets: Healing Surges: 6 + Constitution modifier

This is right below where the Hit Points are listed (for starting and for each level). Thus I would assume that the character has only 6 + Con Modifier and they are regenerated per day or per encounter. Feats and talents probably increase the number of surges they have at their disposal. 6+Con Mod seems like a lot for a per encounter ability, thus it is probably per day.

Oh, you read that as a number of Healing Surges per day (or whatnot)? I read it as the quantity of HP regenerated when you get a healing surge, as in, "your healing surges heal 6+con HP".

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Oh, you read that as a number of Healing Surges per day (or whatnot)? I read it as the quantity of HP regenerated when you get a healing surge, as in, "your healing surges heal 6+con HP".

Correct, though I do think that a common healing surge will be to heal more. For example, a defender Healing Surge ability might be

Resilient Surge
Expend one of your healing surges. Heal double the amount of hit points that you were going to heal.

Obviously, this will be worded better

 

[Stalker0]

I read it as the quantity of HP regenerated when you get a healing surge, as in, "your healing surges heal 6+con HP".

I think this is unlikely because of the way such a system would scale.

We already know that con score won't go up a huge amount over levels due to a lack of con boosting magic items.

So if a surge heals 6 + con score or con modifier, then its going to heal a huge percentage of a character's health at early levels and nearly nothing at high levels.

 

[Keenath]

I think this is unlikely because of the way such a system would scale.

Thus my comment in the original post: The downside of that is, we don't yet know what the generalized Healing Surge mechanic IS, so that "6+con" may be (read: is probably) adjusted by your class level -- whether it's multiplied by class level or what, I haven't the foggiest.

 

[Stalker0]

Thus my comment in the original post: The downside of that is, we don't yet know what the generalized Healing Surge mechanic IS, so that "6+con" may be (read: is probably) adjusted by your class level -- whether it's multiplied by class level or what, I haven't the foggiest.

The reason I don't believe this either is that 4e is trying to pander to new players and new blood.

If all of the mechanics are strewn about the book in sections that makes it much harder for a new player to know what's going on.

For example: Let's assume for the moment that your int mod adds more trained skills, its just not placed in the class description.

If a new player is looking at his class, he may completely forget that fact, thinking that he gets the number of skills that his class description says.

While its a small spacesaver, it is NOT a good way to help get new players involved with the game. So I don't believe 4e is doing that. So there's something else going on with these healing surges imo.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Although I like your idea, I'm not sure it's that simple.

If you look back at the article on Smites you see that they include:

Renewing Smite
Paladin 13
Encounter • Healing, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2x[W] + Cha damage and ally within 5 heals 10 + your Wisdom modifier damage.

That doesn't seem to fit with your healing surge theory as the amount healed is set by the character doing the healing and not the reciving character.

I think the basic theory is still fine, but it's not considering the entire picture. Basically, Healing Surges are limited per day and are one of the most important healing sources. It's the only one that can bring back a significant portion of your hit points. You need this power to recover after a strong blow or after combat has ended.
Triggering it is is probably always combined with a high opportunity cost during an encounter. Making a heal check (usually taking a round worth of actions) or spending a fullround action doing nothing to regain it.

There is also room for weaker healing effects. Their opportunity cost is lesser - they force you decide between two different encounter powers, but each has still a notable second effect. This kind of healing basically counters "normal" damage - like from an on-going effect or just damage from typical attacks. It doesn't really allow you to recover from strong damage, but it's at least reducing the effective damage taken per round.

 

[Keenath]

I think the basic theory is still fine, but it's not considering the entire picture. Basically, Healing Surges are limited per day and are one of the most important healing sources. It's the only one that can bring back a significant portion of your hit points. You need this power to recover after a strong blow or after combat has ended.

That's a good point. If you're limited to eight or ten Surges and there's a number of effects that can provide non-surge healing, that makes those secondary healing effects more valuable.

If the Surge effects follow the SWSE second-wind rules, then it'll heal you by 1/4 of your max HP. On one hand, a limit of 10 or so surges per day seems to be putting a limit on your ability to continue adventuring, which is supposed to be something they wanted to avoid.

But on the other hand, running low on healing is a more natural limiter on daily activity than "I ran out of 9th level spells". If healing surges represent your ability to bounce back, your toughness and reserves, then it rather makes sense to run low on those reserves and find yourself unable to rebound the way you did earlier in the day.... so I guess I can see that too.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think the basic theory is still fine, but it's not considering the entire picture. Basically, Healing Surges are limited per day and are one of the most important healing sources. It's the only one that can bring back a significant portion of your hit points. You need this power to recover after a strong blow or after combat has ended.
Triggering it is is probably always combined with a high opportunity cost during an encounter. Making a heal check (usually taking a round worth of actions) or spending a fullround action doing nothing to regain it.

There is also room for weaker healing effects. Their opportunity cost is lesser - they force you decide between two different encounter powers, but each has still a notable second effect. This kind of healing basically counters "normal" damage - like from an on-going effect or just damage from typical attacks. It doesn't really allow you to recover from strong damage, but it's at least reducing the effective damage taken per round.

In addition, healing surges are a limited resource that adds to the opportunity cost of powers that might otherwise be overpowered. For example, those powers that toss out free heals every time the leader crits or whatever probably require a surge, so they're not completely "free."

And if most leader powers trigger healing surges, that's a clever way of limiting the amount of combat a party can do each day while allowing most leader powers to recharge per-encounter (just like everyone else's).