D&D 5E Healing Surges, Hit Dice, Martial Healing, and Overnight recovery: Which ones do you like?

[Jester David]

4e works fine for me both mechanically and narratively. if you're having an issue with it narratively, it's always possible the reason is on your end.

I ran 4e for a year and it worked okay once I adapted my style of play and changed the style of stories I told.
I don't views sessions like action movies and thus don't see encounters as scenes. I tend to think like a TV show and write and plan for several episodes, with season finales. I mostly enjoy investigative adventures with a small incidental encounter at the start or middle (not both) and a fight at the end. Which just doesn't work as well in 4e as the PCs can devastate anything I throw at them unless it' same L + 3 solo plus minions, which ends up being a grind fest. When an entire party is hitting a monster with two dailies, it does not last long.

But this is way off topic.

 

[pemerton]

The whole game may be artificial, but it's a representation of fiction, film, and reality. The rules exist to let people tell stories, to facilitate the narrative.

Healing surges were a purely mechanical invention serving a gamist purpose: being at full health at the start of any given encounter. Because the game was balanced and designed around individual encounters, each encounter had to be roughly the same challenge independant of the prior encounter, and each encounter should significantly damage PCs so they had a chance of failure or death. Healing surges were a way of propping up people's health, with the PCs using 1-3 after every fight.
So, they served no narrative purpose, but instead a mechanical one for the design and tone of the Game.

<snip>

Healing surges had no effect on the narrative

These comments assume a contrast between "mechanics" and "narrative" that, in my view, has no warrant in a discussion of RPGs. There are many RPGs for which the whole point of their mechanics is to facilitate the creation of a certain sort of fiction. In the case of healing surges, they serve multiple purposes, but one of those is to support a dramatic pacing in combat encounters, by enabling the PCs to come back, but only if the players are able (via their PCs) to deploy resources that "unlock" their surges.

Consider an adventure in which the party of PCs encounters two modestly-powered groups of goblins in a row (this could be Keep on the Borderlands, Night's Dark Terror, the Chamber of Eyes in Thunderspire Labyrinth, or any of the other myriad low-level D&D adventures out there). In AD&D or B/X the first encounter will have little drama, as the players have ample resources (via their PC hit points and MU spells) to deal with the goblins. The only "drama" that arises is that of maximising efficiency, so as to be able to take on the anticipated next lot of goblins. The second goblin encounter is the one that will be dramatic, as the resource-depleted players face a real risk of losing.

The effect of healing surges in 4e is to make both encounters dramatic, as both create the risk of losing as the players are expected to be depleted of a good chunk of their resources (encounter powers, hit points) in both encounters, and only skilled play at the right time (eg unlocking healing surges, using encounter powers to good effect, etc) will turn the tide. There is no loss in drama (even the "drama" of attrition is maintained, via healing surges and daily powers as non-short-rest recoverable, and action points as a less-than-once-per encounter resource). There is an increase in drama, as the drama of the second goblin encounter in classic D&D is experienced in both encounters.

That is one of the narrative function of healing surges.

They could have been replaced entirely by a rule that just let players heal to full after every rest (instead of just long rests) and the game would have played almost identically.

Your suggested rule (i) eliminates completely the long-term resource management that is a traditional aspect of D&D, and (ii) does away with the need to unlock surges in combat, which is the principal narrative contribution that healing surges make to the game. This would be a radical change to the play of 4e as I experience it.

they didn't change the types of stories people told as the number of combats in each encounter day were similar. Hence, artificial.

Why is the number of combats in each encounter day similar? A day containing (say) 6 level +1 encounters will be pretty different to one containing (say) 2 level +6 encounters. The first will support a tone of gradual attrition. The second will support a tone of dramatic and immediate threat.

The presence of healing surges in the game creates no pressure to run one or the other scenario, any more than traditional hit points encourage running two moderately-powered goblin encounters or one strongly-powered goblin encounter. And that is before we get into other non-combat ways that healing surges can be depleted, such as in skill challenges.

So your argument that warlord and clerical healing is different is that they were actually the same and clerics, very likely with a Cha dump stat, relied on inspirational healing?
What about all their other spells and abilities that let people spend a surge? Did the cleric have any magical healing at all?

This has been covered upthread by [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]. The cleric's inspiration is not via the cleric's own charisma, but via the bestowing of divine grace. (Hence the divine keyword rather than the martial keyword, at least prior to the clunky Essentials errata.)

As for magical healing, there is surgeless healing from the cleric. The paladin also has a different form of healing, bestowing his/her own grace upon the person being healed (ie LoH, which requires the paladin to spend a surge). These differing healing mechanics also establish differences within the fiction.

This just reminds me of all the other problems I have with inspirational healings. Like the warlord (and now the cleric) and inspire only twice a fight and then, suddenly, run out of cheery things to say.

This is just a particular case of the general phenomenon of encounter powers. If you don't like metagame rationing, than of course you won't like 4e, or any of the many, many other RPGs that use it.

 

[Balesir]

Hyperbole like what?

Let's really look at what I claimed, in order:

OK, let's compare this with what I responded to. I don't think they are really "in order", but I'll try to match up as best I can.

* D&D occasionally represents elements of reality

* Roleplaying games are meant to facilitate the telling of a story

These two don't seem to figure at all, except as background assertions - the first of which is unexceptional but doesn't really say much and the second of which is not universally true - for the following claims.

* Healing surges (in this case a resource providing static and proportional healing) were added so PCs would be full health at the start of each fight, as "the Encounters" was the principal means of balancing classes (edit: and the game)

Healing surges were a purely mechanical invention serving a gamist purpose: being at full health at the start of any given encounter. Because the game was balanced and designed around individual encounters, each encounter had to be roughly the same challenge independant of the prior encounter, and each encounter should significantly damage PCs so they had a chance of failure or death. Healing surges were a way of propping up people's health, with the PCs using 1-3 after every fight.

This claim does actually match, but is not really supportable in any of its principal parts.

You ascribe a reson for healing surges that seems to me to be partial and self-justifying at best, and definitely unsupportable. But this has been debated numerous times and the arguments against are well rehearsed, yet you still come back to make assertions of truth (with no clear supporting evidence) again. It's tiresome and irritating.

Healing surges cannot be described as "a way of propping up people's health" - they are an representation of a character's health. An representation cannot "prop up" anything. But, again, this has been said over and over, but still I hear the same, tired old strains.

So, they served no narrative purpose, but instead a mechanical one for the design and tone of the Game. They could have been replaced entirely by a rule that just let players heal to full after every rest (instead of just long rests) and the game would have played almost identically.

As others have pointed out here, and as has been pointed out repeatedly on these forums, yes, they serve a narrative (and simulatative, in fact) purpose, and, no, they cannot be removed without significantly changing the game. They are the longer-term resource to be managed representing "health" or "physical fitness to persevere".

By the way, this claim seems to be entirely missing from your "I only said" post - what happened to it?

Healing surges had no effect on the narrative, they didn't change the types of stories people told as the number of combats in each encounter day were similar. Hence, artificial.

Another claim that appears in the post I reacted to, but seems to be absent from the "I only said" post. So, why are you claiming that you made one set of assertions when you actually made another?

* It's a little odd that Clerics, who likely dump stat Cha, would use the same inspirational healing as warlords

* (an honest question about clerical healing since I haven't played 4e in two years)

* A comment that I dislike hitpoints only being vitality and not including health at all

None of these, though included (in paraphrase) in your original post, were included in the quoted section that I responded to with exasperation. That was at least in part because I saw them as much more reasonable or at least new claims that deserved a more complete answer. Which I gave, in each case.

It's possible to have different health systems. Wounds and Vitality/Vigour. Damage mitigation/ soak. Avoidance.

I'm not talking about these options - they are just hit points with mechanical twiddles on.

- Wounds/vitality: splits hps up into two pools, but it's still basically "hit points"

- Damage saves/soak: means everyone has the same number of hit points, but each time you lose one you make a save (which is easier for some than others) against really losing it.

- Avoidance: just increases AC/Defence instead of hit points.

What I am talking about is a system where creatures don't lose "hit points" or any analogue thereof. Here's a simple outline as an example:

Wounds come in four types: Light, Serious, Grievous and Mortal. Each creature has a set of "blow strength thresholds", one for each wound type. If the rolled damage equals or exceeds a threshold, the creature takes a wound of the worst type for which the threshold was equalled or exceeded. Suggested thresholds are (1 + level) times 1 for Light wounds, x2 for Serious, x4 for Grievous and x8 for Mortal. Optionally, add 1 to the multipliers for Clerics, etc. and add 2 for Fighters, etc.

Wounds have the following "wound values": Light: 1; Serious: 3; Grievous: 6; Mortal: 10

Any creature can have an unlimited number of wounds; there is no level at which they die from simply "too many wounds", BUT wounds cause saving throws to be required as follows:

- When a wound is first taken, a creature must make a CON roll (or Fort save, if you want more heroism) with a DC equal to the value of the wound just taken, plus the total value of all wounds taken so far including the one just taken. Failing this roll means the creature passes out for 2d6 minutes.

- When a Mortal wound is taken, a creature must succeed at a CON roll (or Fort save) vs a DC 10 or die instantly.

- A creature that passes out as a result of wounds must roll a CON (or Fort) save upon awakening or enter shock. A creature in shock cannot take any actions and must deal with the shock as a disease that progresses very quickly indeed (e.g. roll a stage or whatever every 4 hours). The DC for the CON roll/Fort save is 10 + the total value of all wounds.

Healing:

To heal naturally, a creature makes an Endurance roll/CON roll/Fort save every long rest/night/week/whatever for each wound they have. DC is 13 for a Light wound, 16 for Serious, 19 for Grievous and 21 for Mortal. Success means that the wound moves down to the next lower type (Light wounds heal entirely). A roll of 1, or any failed roll that is odd on the first healing roll for any wound, means that the wound is infected. Infection is treated as a disease. Wounds don't heal at all while infected; if the infection heals the healing restarts without penalty - if the infection kills the patient then the wound does not heal unless they are returned to life, at which point infection may be an issue if the corpse was left to fester before resurrection.

Healing spells cure wounds as the names imply. Cure Light Wounds simply removes a single Light wound. Cure Serious Wounds removes a single Serious or Light wound, and so on. Cure spells have no effect on wounds more serious than their level (exception, optional: a Cure spell one 'level' lower might stop bleeding and/or remove the danger of infection on the next healing roll).

Healing skill can be used to give a bonus to the wound healing rolls. Failure to rest while healing will increase all healing DCs by 2 or more.

As "optional extras" you could add bleeding and specific penalties for Serious and worse wounds (reduced move, attack penalties, etc., representing impairments to specific limbs and so on), but it's not strictly necessary.

Attribution: the basic idea for "graphic wounds" as a system comes from the HârnMaster system. I have outlined a somewhat adjusted version, here, that is designed to fit a d20 sort of styled system, but the basics are common.

But you say it yourself: hitpoints fit as a game pacing mechanic better than separate wounds. Hitpoints are annoying and kludge and cause arguments about the ration of meat to luck but, darnit, they work. So long as you don't look too close or multi-page flame wars start.
Hence, necessary evil.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that if hit points serve a positive function in the particular game being played then they are "a positive boon" rather than "a necessary evil"...

 

[pemerton]

IIRC, falling damage is identical between 3e and 4e.

No. In 4e it is 1d10 per 10' fallen.

Games should use game logic, but D&D is a role-playing game, which means the game logic should be tempered by both narrative logic and simulationist logic.

The "narrative logic" of healing surges is dramatic pacing. Rather than having a series of combat whose sole function is attrition, then the real fight at the end, every fight is its own dramatic story, with an opening (in which the monsters/NPCs are in the lead, due to their greater default damage output), a middle (in which the PCs come back as they unlock their surges, unleash their action points and other limited-use abilities, etc) and then an end (as, in the typical case at least, the PCs triumph due to their overall greater depth of capabilities relative to the monsters/NPCs).

This may not be a narrative that you enjoy. It may not even be a narrative that you achieved, for instance if you use the pre-MM3 damage values above mid-heroic tier, or if you use only on-level encounters, or if you allow the players unfettered control over extended rests. But it is a narrative that I have experienced, repeatedly and consistently since I first started GMing 4e. When I read the rulebooks, it was what the game seemed to promise. And in my play of the game it has amply delivered. (For me, the marked contrast is with Moldvay Basic which in its foreward promises a dramatic game of liberating the kingdom from the dragon tyrant, but in its scenario design and action resolution rules supports only dungeon exploration and combat as focuses of play.)

[MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has made the case for "simulationionist" logic in his discussion of boxing. I don't know much about boxing and defer to his experience. For me, the justification of healing surges as a mechanic (in the sense of a source of resilience that is only available when "unlocked" via tactical choices in play) is that it produces dramatic pacing redolent of (for instance) the battle scenes in Tolkien or REH, rather than attrition based play where there is no reliable drama other than the lucky swings of high or low attack and damage rolls.

The only randomness in combat was the attack rolls and damage, with most other things being consistent and predictable.

To me, at least, this is quite telling as to difference in preferences. Randomness is important in classic D&D because there is no other reliable source of drama. But it is not the only way to inject drama, nor unexpectedness. I'm hesitant to use a sporting analogy, but you can introduce randomness into a football game by playing in the rain (the players slip, the ball becomes hard to handle etc). But games played in the rain are not the only dramatic ones, nor the only ones in which unexpected things happen.

4e has a lot of tools to help the GM in designing encounters that will be surprising without randomness. And the players have a lot of resources to enable them to do surprising things non-randomly (eg the very many synergies between the different members of a typical party).

I would argue that the healing surge and short rest mechanic are both elements of the same design goal: the focus on the encounter as the baseline for balance.

The encounter, in 4e, is not just a baseline for balance. It is a baseline for play. In this respect 4e resembles HeroWars/Quest, Burning Wheel, Marvel Heroic RP, and most other modern/"indie" RPGs. Hence the reduced (not eliminated) emphasis on resource-management (including long-term healing), because too much emphasis on these things shifts the focus of play away from the encounter (situation, scene, challenge) and on to accounting, list-keeping and a focus on the "continuous" passage of ingame time. Which, in turn - at least in my experience - is the enemy of dramatic pacing and dramatic framing, because it requires GM fudging or railroading (by overriding the scene-spanning elements of action resolution) to declare this situation "over" and the next situation "begun". 4e radically reduces scene-spanning elements of action resolution; this is a deliberate design decision, and the short rest mechanic is one element of it.

There is room for a second wind mechanic, either generic or class based. Let me repeat: there is totaly room for second wind. That’s doable But it should be limited and/or tied to longer rests.

The second wind mechanic in 4e is limited in two ways: for most characters it is an encounter power requiring a standard action, and it also requires expending a healing surge. This second limit also means that it is tied to longer rests.

Roleplaying games are meant to facilitate the telling of a story

This is contentious, of course. I don't think this is how Gygax viewed D&D, for instance. Playing White Plume Mountain or Tomb of Horrors, or the G-series for that matter, isn't about "telling a story". It's about beating the dungeon via clever (and lucky) play.

I have lots of game. If I want to play a board game with my friends, I’ll break out a board game.

<snip>

If you remove the narrativism and simulationism from D&D all you have is a miniature combat game.

And now we get that standard stuff about 4e really being a tactical skirmish game and/or a board game. Which is just nonsense.

The main distinction between an RPG and a boardgame is that, in an RPG, the flavour text matters to resolution. Hence the number of player "moves" is effectively unlimited, because there is no quantifiable limit to the variety of ways the players might decide to have their PCs interact with the stipulated elements of the gameworld. For instance, in a boardgame set in a dungeon you can't burrow through the dungeon walls unless your piece has a "burrowing" special ability. In an RPG you can have your PC buy a spade and try.

This feature of an RPG also has nothing to do with storytelling. It is crucial to WPM, ToH or the G-series, for instance: in WPM you have to think of non-standard "moves" that engage the fiction to win (eg breaking the walls to flood the inverted ziggurat chamber; surfing doors down the frictionless corridor over the pits of super-tetanus); in ToH you have to come up with ways to cross through the various deathtrap areas, based on manipulating the imagined dungeon environment; in G1 you can try and set fire to things (the steading is wood, not stone), and in G2 you can try and defeat creatures by having them slip and fall over the edge of the rift. But none of those is a story-oriented adventure.

Conversely, you can do all the collective story-telling you want without playing an RPG if you have no action resolution mechanics ie no agreed-upon procedures for regulating the introduction of new material into the shared fiction.

Nothing in 4e mandates the telling of stories, although personally I think that is probably the sort of play to which it is best suited. But nothing in 4e is an obstacle to the telling of stories: the game comes with a rich default background into which PCs become embedded via build choices like race, class, theme, paragon path and epic destiny, as well as the actual events of play; and the game comes with good advice on using its mechanical resources in encounter design (and Worlds & Monsters also provides advice on using its story resources to the same end). Healing surges aren't an obstacle to any of that. And they facilitate some of it. Nor are they an obstacle to drawing upon the fiction for action resolution. (Eg because hit point loss is primarily about morale/momentum, Intimidate checks in the right circumstances can inflict hit point loss. That is not an impediment to story; it's a facilitator of it.)

Hitpoints… those are a necessary evil.

I’ve regularly and often paraphrased Winston Churchill: hitpoints are the worst possible health tracking system, except for all the others that have been tried.

I don't think hit points are remotely necessary. Nor is "health tracking" necessary: for instance, a combat resolution system can treat wounds as discrete debuffs with no need to track an overall health status. (Rolemaster and Burning Wheel are both quite close to this.)

For systems that do track health, the MHRP system is an interesting one I've used fairly recently: effects are measure in sizes from "4" to "12" (this size is determined by the size of the die used to deliver the effect). When an effect is suffered, the result for the victim is Stress at a rating equal to the size of the effect (if the victim's current Stress is less than that) or is equal to the victim's current Stress + 1 step (if the victim's current Stress is equal to or greater than the size of the effect suffered). When an opponent takes an action against a Stressed target, s/he gets to add a bonus die into his/her pool equal to the extent of the victim's Stress.

A wide range of superpowers involve reducing stress by spending metagame tokens or transferring a bonus die of the same size to the GM; or, alternatively, stepping up Stress in exchange for a buff (eg The Hulk can step up Emotional Stress in order to buff himself in a contest of strength).

This is an elegant health tracking system that - because of its correlation to the dice sizes used in action resolution - lends itself well to buffing, debuffing and other forms of dice pool manipulation. And it neither looks like nor plays like hit points.

And that's just one example from a non-D&D game that I happen to have played fairly recently.

 

[Minigiant]

The question is one of priorities. RolePlaying Game. You have to emphasize role-playing or gaming and then you pick a style of role-playing or gaming.

Hit points and other health, healing, and condition systems are mechanics to aid role-playing, gaming, or both. HP as used in D&D was a pretty poor system for promoting role-playing or gaming and hence the extreme reliance of DM mastery, player buy ins, system mastery, and social contracts to get any form of role-playing or gaming to match the HP system.

D&D's HP and recovery systems gain their usage from the personalities at the table. It is attrition if you do this, encounter based if you do this, resource based if you allow that, gritty if you do this, mythic if you do that, etc.

It's a blessing and curse. If you don't nudge HP in a direction, it lock out nothing but does nothing well. If you try to make the HP/Health system good at something, you are lock out playstyles if you don't provide tons of variants.

It's like ordering food.

 

[Jester David]

The "narrative logic" of healing surges is dramatic pacing. Rather than having a series of combat whose sole function is attrition, then the real fight at the end, every fight is its own dramatic story, with an opening (in which the monsters/NPCs are in the lead, due to their greater default damage output), a middle (in which the PCs come back as they unlock their surges, unleash their action points and other limited-use abilities, etc) and then an end (as, in the typical case at least, the PCs triumph due to their overall greater depth of capabilities relative to the monsters/NPCs).

This may not be a narrative that you enjoy. It may not even be a narrative that you achieved, for instance if you use the pre-MM3 damage values above mid-heroic tier, or if you use only on-level encounters, or if you allow the players unfettered control over extended rests. But it is a narrative that I have experienced, repeatedly and consistently since I first started GMing 4e. When I read the rulebooks, it was what the game seemed to promise. And in my play of the game it has amply delivered. (For me, the marked contrast is with Moldvay Basic which in its foreward promises a dramatic game of liberating the kingdom from the dragon tyrant, but in its scenario design and action resolution rules supports only dungeon exploration and combat as focuses of play.)

The narrative you describe is unrelated to "healing surges" and could be replicated with any healing in combat, be it proportional or not, static or random.

@Neonchameleon has made the case for "simulationionist" logic in his discussion of boxing. I don't know much about boxing and defer to his experience. For me, the justification of healing surges as a mechanic (in the sense of a source of resilience that is only available when "unlocked" via tactical choices in play) is that it produces dramatic pacing redolent of (for instance) the battle scenes in Tolkien or REH, rather than attrition based play where there is no reliable drama other than the lucky swings of high or low attack and damage rolls.

And I replied that I agreed that in-combat healing was valid, but was independent from healing surges.
But healing surges, as currently presented, prevent attrition so there is only the one form of dramatic pacing rather than two. There can only be drama in individual encounters and what happened in prior encounters is largely irrelevant so long as the PCs survived.

This is contentious, of course. I don't think this is how Gygax viewed D&D, for instance. Playing White Plume Mountain or Tomb of Horrors, or the G-series for that matter, isn't about "telling a story". It's about beating the dungeon via clever (and lucky) play.

If an encounter can be a narrative (which you claim above) then the series of connected events that is exploring a dungeon and looting its treasure is also a narrative. It'd be easy to treat D&D like a combat simulator, a dungeon delve, where you move from one combat to the next. But that's not the case. If you do just want to move from one combat to the next, then the game ceases to be D&D and you're playing a miniature combat game.

And now we get that standard stuff about 4e really being a tactical skirmish game and/or a board game. Which is just nonsense.

The main distinction between an RPG and a boardgame is that, in an RPG, the flavour text matters to resolution. Hence the number of player "moves" is effectively unlimited, because there is no quantifiable limit to the variety of ways the players might decide to have their PCs interact with the stipulated elements of the gameworld. For instance, in a boardgame set in a dungeon you can't burrow through the dungeon walls unless your piece has a "burrowing" special ability. In an RPG you can have your PC buy a spade and try.

This feature of an RPG also has nothing to do with storytelling. It is crucial to WPM, ToH or the G-series, for instance: in WPM you have to think of non-standard "moves" that engage the fiction to win (eg breaking the walls to flood the inverted ziggurat chamber; surfing doors down the frictionless corridor over the pits of super-tetanus); in ToH you have to come up with ways to cross through the various deathtrap areas, based on manipulating the imagined dungeon environment; in G1 you can try and set fire to things (the steading is wood, not stone), and in G2 you can try and defeat creatures by having them slip and fall over the edge of the rift. But none of those is a story-oriented adventure.

But I didn't say 4e is a tactical skirmish game and/or board game. It certainly leans more in that direction than other games, but it still has a couple mechanics that keep it in RPG territory. Like skill challenges and social skills.
I was saying that, in its design, it leans more to Gamist logic and requires much, much more willing suspension of disbelief.
And I highlighted an interesting bit of text there. Interesting as the flavour text in 4th Edition has no impact at all, which is a pro and a con to the edition.

These two don't seem to figure at all, except as background assertions - the first of which is unexceptional but doesn't really say much and the second of which is not universally true - for the following claims.

If you're not telling a story in D&D you're just playing a miniature combat game. Even games like "Clue" have an implied narrative. It doesn't have to be a story, but it has to be present.

You ascribe a reson for healing surges that seems to me to be partial and self-justifying at best, and definitely unsupportable. But this has been debated numerous times and the arguments against are well rehearsed, yet you still come back to make assertions of truth (with no clear supporting evidence) again. It's tiresome and irritating.

I've never argued about healing surges before. Hitpoints, yes, but not healing surges themselves. So I'm sorry if it's tiresome and irritating to you. But no one is making you participate.

Healing surges cannot be described as "a way of propping up people's health" - they are an representation of a character's health. An representation cannot "prop up" anything. But, again, this has been said over and over, but still I hear the same, tired old strains.

If you have all your surges, but 0hp, you are DYINGING. It doesn't matter how much reserve health you have. It's potential health. Theoretical. The only health that actually matters is the hp.
Surges *may* be used to represent overall fitness and general health but in practice they're there to heal people to full before each encounter independent of CLW wands.

As others have pointed out here, and as has been pointed out repeatedly on these forums, yes, they serve a narrative (and simulatative, in fact) purpose, and, no, they cannot be removed without significantly changing the game. They are the longer-term resource to be managed representing "health" or "physical fitness to persevere".

I disagree. If surges were removed and replaced with, say dice, or a set number of hp (5/level) individual encounters would play almost identically. You'd still need to use those powers in combat, keeping use in check through action economy. And you'd still have to rest when low in Daily powers, consumables, magic item powers, and the like.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that if hit points serve a positive function in the particular game being played then they are "a positive boon" rather than "a necessary evil"...

The positive aspect is the "necessary" part. But they undeniably have a problematic influence on the game given the continual thread wars and arguments over the nature of hp, which have been going on since, well, 1st edition. Hence the "evil" part. Hp work really well, but cause fights and require suspension of disbelief. Necessary evil.

 

[Jester David]

These comments assume a contrast between "mechanics" and "narrative" that, in my view, has no warrant in a discussion of RPGs. There are many RPGs for which the whole point of their mechanics is to facilitate the creation of a certain sort of fiction. In the case of healing surges, they serve multiple purposes, but one of those is to support a dramatic pacing in combat encounters, by enabling the PCs to come back, but only if the players are able (via their PCs) to deploy resources that "unlock" their surges.

Which would play out identically with any other form of healing.

Consider an adventure in which the party of PCs encounters two modestly-powered groups of goblins in a row (this could be Keep on the Borderlands, Night's Dark Terror, the Chamber of Eyes in Thunderspire Labyrinth, or any of the other myriad low-level D&D adventures out there). In AD&D or B/X the first encounter will have little drama, as the players have ample resources (via their PC hit points and MU spells) to deal with the goblins. The only "drama" that arises is that of maximising efficiency, so as to be able to take on the anticipated next lot of goblins. The second goblin encounter is the one that will be dramatic, as the resource-depleted players face a real risk of losing.

The effect of healing surges in 4e is to make both encounters dramatic, as both create the risk of losing as the players are expected to be depleted of a good chunk of their resources (encounter powers, hit points) in both encounters, and only skilled play at the right time (eg unlocking healing surges, using encounter powers to good effect, etc) will turn the tide. There is no loss in drama (even the "drama" of attrition is maintained, via healing surges and daily powers as non-short-rest recoverable, and action points as a less-than-once-per encounter resource). There is an increase in drama, as the drama of the second goblin encounter in classic D&D is experienced in both encounters.

Yes... and no. I would argue this is unrelated to healing surges and more to the design of encounters and monsters in 4e.
In this edition, all fights are meant to have the risk of death. You could do that in other editions with fewer larger fights. But it works better in 4e. But it's a very different design than earlier editions where there were a number of fights that individually would pose no threat but would wear down a party. That style of attrition doesn't work as well in 4e as PCs just use encounter powers and thus expend almost no resources, and actually gain Action Points so you're more powerful after the numerous mook fights.

4e takes the two different types of narrative drama and reduces it to one more effective type of drama. Which is excellent if you like that type of drama where every fight is meant to be a dramatic set piece battle. Less so if you just want a long series of mook fights.

In this, healing surges are irrelevant save as a means of reliably healing PCs to full independent of magic between each set piece battle. It makes the set pieces easier to reliably balance but, because healing is so accessible, hitpoint attrition cannot take place/.

Your suggested rule (i) eliminates completely the long-term resource management that is a traditional aspect of D&D, and (ii) does away with the need to unlock surges in combat, which is the principal narrative contribution that healing surges make to the game. This would be a radical change to the play of 4e as I experience it.

(i) long-term resource management is only somewhat a "traditional aspect of D&D". It's there, but not for all classes/characters. And PCs would still have to manage daily powers, magic item powers, consumables, and action points. Plus any feats or features usable on a per/day basis. Plus manage encounter powers during fights. Removing healing surges barely touches the resource management of 4e.
(ii) True, but if surges were replaced with healing in the power, the effect in-play is identical. It doesn't matter at all if second wind requires a surge or is an encounter power that heals 5hp/level.

Why is the number of combats in each encounter day similar? A day containing (say) 6 level +1 encounters will be pretty different to one containing (say) 2 level +6 encounters. The first will support a tone of gradual attrition. The second will support a tone of dramatic and immediate threat.

People don't say "Imma gonna write and adventure and it's going to have 6 level+1 encounters." They write and adventure and then work in the encounters that make sense. The adventure, if written for 3e or 4e, likely wouldn't change that much in design. (Or shouldn't anyway. 4e really forced me to change how I wrote adventures.)

You're right. It doesn't matter if the adventure included 2 fights that each really taxed the party and ended with them being spent or six fights that gradually wore down the party. The end result is the same, which makes healing surges artificial as they have no influence on how the party is at the start of the day or the end of the day. They only impact how healthy the party is at the start of each individual fight.

The presence of healing surges in the game creates no pressure to run one or the other scenario, any more than traditional hit points encourage running two moderately-powered goblin encounters or one strongly-powered goblin encounter. And that is before we get into other non-combat ways that healing surges can be depleted, such as in skill challenges.

No. The game itself is designed around encouraging one strong fight over two mook fights. Healing surges are just a part of that overall design. They exist for that reason and that reason alone. Anything else is just tangential or a side effect.

This has been covered upthread by @Balesir. The cleric's inspiration is not via the cleric's own charisma, but via the bestowing of divine grace. (Hence the divine keyword rather than the martial keyword, at least prior to the clunky Essentials errata.)

Cool. Where does it say that? Where does it say the power is inspirational and uses the god's charisma?

 

[D'karr]

Cool. Where does it say that? Where does it say the power is inspirational and uses the god's charisma?

I would argue then, where does it say that it doesn't?

4e gives the DM and players tools, lots of them, and a very solid framework on which they can build. They can do with these tools and framework as they please. It doesn't require the DM to limit himself to "color within the lines." He can decide that within the fictional world space the "healing" from a cleric comes from the god. The "divine" keyword let's the DM make that implication for his game. The designer doesn't have to spell out everything for the DM and player. Keywords are great for this because they present an "implied" background without having to spell everything out and create possible knock-on effects. A spell with the "fire" keyword doesn't have to explicitly say that it sets things on fire. The DM and players can make that decision based on the narrative they want.

For example I've made a rather significant long term and short term injury system using just the basic tools of "Healing Surges", "Rest Periods", "disease track", and "Saves". It works exactly as I want and expect, not as some designer that does not know anything about me or my group decides "reality" should work in my game. In other words I needed no explicit "ruling" from WotC to decided on story implications for my game such as where divine "inspiration" comes from.

 

[Jester David]

I would argue then, where does it say that it doesn't?

4e gives the DM and players tools, lots of them, and a very solid framework on which they can build. They can do with these tools and framework as they please. It doesn't require the DM to limit himself to "color within the lines." He can decide that within the fictional world space the "healing" from a cleric comes from the god. The "divine" keyword let's the DM make that implication for his game. The designer doesn't have to spell out everything for the DM and player. Keywords are great for this because they present an "implied" background without having to spell everything out and create possible knock-on effects. A spell with the "fire" keyword doesn't have to explicitly say that it sets things on fire. The DM and players can make that decision based on the narrative they want.

For example I've made a rather significant long term and short term injury system using just the basic tools of "Healing Surges", "Rest Periods", "disease track", and "Saves". It works exactly as I want and expect, not as some designer that does not know anything about me or my group decides "reality" should work in my game. In other words I needed no explicit "ruling" from WotC to decided on story implications for my game such as where divine "inspiration" comes from.

I know very well that PCs can make their powers their own.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20101208
That's both a huge pro and moderate con of the edition. But it's beside the points.

If the game doesn't say something, any explanation is just a fan justification. Fan wanking really.
Arguing that there's no narrative disparity between warlord's inspiring word or clerical healing word because you can describe the latter as being the god's divine inspiration is not a valid excuse.
It's not that different than, oh, a Superman fan arguing "of course he steered Zod into unoccupied buildings during the Metropolis fight. He wouldn't endanger people." Cool fan theory, but since the movie didn't show it, it's just speculation/ fan wanking.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The narrative you describe is unrelated to "healing surges" and could be replicated with any healing in combat, be it proportional or not, static or random.

In short you're trying to separate what healing surges actually do from their method. Healing surges are one way of doing this - but this is something they do. So it is something you can attribute to healing surges.

But healing surges, as currently presented, prevent attrition so there is only the one form of dramatic pacing rather than two.

This is no more true this time than the last time you said it. Healing surges in fact allow two forms of attrition.

First the in encounter attrition because there are hard limits on the number of healing surges you can spend in any given combat. Limits provided by the powers the party has - but this is a definite form of attrition.

Second the long term attrition. Your healing surges are strictly limited. And if you've never had the fighter hide behind the malediction invoker because they ran out of surges, I have. If you've never seen a wizard savagely beaten down but survive so that after the short rest at the end of the first encounter in the day they only have a single spare healing surge, I have.

There can only be drama in individual encounters and what happened in prior encounters is largely irrelevant so long as the PCs survived.

Strictly false, as I've shown. Just because the way you run 4e doesn't pressure the PCs enough to make such things happen doesn't mean that they don't. It means that you don't pressure your PCs.

But I didn't say 4e is a tactical skirmish game and/or board game. It certainly leans more in that direction than other games, but it still has a couple mechanics that keep it in RPG territory. Like skill challenges and social skills.

Me, I find it less like a pure board game than any of oD&D, AD&D, or 3.X.

I was saying that, in its design, it leans more to Gamist logic and requires much, much more willing suspension of disbelief.

And I disagree. I believe that the main reason you find this to be the case is that you personally (along with a lot of other people, granted) have spent years mainlining the pure gamist logic that underlies oD&D. 4e mitigates this gamist logic just about everywhere - but like hit points it forces you to relook at the rest of it without eliminating it all. Which means you're made aware of all those places where gamist logic is in play - simply because of the familiarity difference.

I've never argued about healing surges before. Hitpoints, yes, but not healing surges themselves. So I'm sorry if it's tiresome and irritating to you. But no one is making you participate.

Yet you've ducked the issues the way people do in this discussion. You've yet to say why you think that hit points without healing surges are, contrary to the real world and fictional examples I've provided, more gamist than hit points without healing surges.

If you have all your surges, but 0hp, you are DYINGING. It doesn't matter how much reserve health you have. It's potential health. Theoretical. The only health that actually matters is the hp.

If you have all your surges but 0hp you are down and potentially bleeding out or haemoherraging, granted. But it is flat out wrong to claim that if you are on full hit points and no surges that you are unaffected. You can not spend a second wind. You can not take (much) advantage of Healing Words or even Healing Potions. You are brittle and at the end of your strength. Claiming that having your surges exhausted doesn't matter is quite simply wrong.

Surges *may* be used to represent overall fitness and general health but in practice they're there to heal people to full before each encounter independent of CLW wands.

This might be your experience as a DM - but it is not mine. If you give the PCs all the time in the world then yes it is an issue. I don't.

I disagree. If surges were removed and replaced with, say dice, or a set number of hp (5/level) individual encounters would play almost identically. You'd still need to use those powers in combat, keeping use in check through action economy. And you'd still have to rest when low in Daily powers, consumables, magic item powers, and the like.

I don't recall ever having asked the party for a stop because we were low on either consumables or because I was out of daily powers. For that matter the times it happened we told the nova-ing player to suck it up and that they had encounter powers. (The one exception here is if you have a space to rest right before a BBEG fight). Stopping because we were running out of surges? Oh, hell yes.

Your experience is not my experience. And I don't believe it's the intended experience. Or the expected one with any pressure.

4e takes the two different types of narrative drama and reduces it to one more effective type of drama. Which is excellent if you like that type of drama where every fight is meant to be a dramatic set piece battle. Less so if you just want a long series of mook fights.

I don't. Fair enough.

In this, healing surges are irrelevant save as a means of reliably healing PCs to full independent of magic between each set piece battle. It makes the set pieces easier to reliably balance but, because healing is so accessible, hitpoint attrition cannot take place/.

Your claim that hit point attrition can not take place is disproved by a counterexample. I've already said things that have happened in my games. Hit point and healing surge attrition can and does take place in my games both when I play and when I DM.

Now admittedly I find 4e runs better when I redefine an extended rest as a long lazy weekend in a safe and inhabited place because it's more likely to trigger the attrition. But 4e does not need this. What you say can not happen is an experience I have lived from both sides of the screen. It can and does happen.

(ii) True, but if surges were replaced with healing in the power, the effect in-play is identical. It doesn't matter at all if second wind requires a surge or is an encounter power that heals 5hp/level.

This is flat out untrue. The effect would be equivalent if and only if healing surge attrition did not happen. It does - and all your claims otherwise don't make them true.

For that matter you say you like to run an episodic game like a TV series? 4e runs brilliantly that way. Just make a simple house rule. You can only take an extended rest either by taking a severe time consequence or at the end of the episode.

which makes healing surges artificial as they have no influence on how the party is at the start of the day or the end of the day.

Once more this is counter-factual. Run low on healing surges and you start not spending to top up to full HP - you need to preserve those surges. Run out of surges and you are screwed. Run out of surges and hit points and you're almost doomed and the rest of the party is running an escort mission.

No. The game itself is designed around encouraging one strong fight over two mook fights. Healing surges are just a part of that overall design. They exist for that reason and that reason alone. Anything else is just tangential or a side effect.

Once more this is strictly false. If what you were saying were true then powers would directly heal hit points and you wouldn't get a limited number of healing surges per extended rest. Limiting the endurance is a deliberate design goal - and that your parties take extended rests when they have only expended a couple of powers is the unintended factor. They are playing 4e as if they were 3e wizards. This is an aberrant playstyle (for that matter nova-and-rest and the 15 minute day was aberrant in 3e).

Cool. Where does it say that? Where does it say the power is inspirational and uses the god's charisma?

First it uses healing surges - it must unlock something within the target character. Second it's divine so it must use the God. There are multiple ways of combining the two - but that's a particularly obvious one.