Healing Surges innate Blessed band aids

[JRRNeiklot]

On the other hand, I've had no problem coming up with in game justifications for what the effect represents.

When the ranger was on the ground unconscious and the paladin stepped up to him and used his Lay of Hands power, the ranger felt the divine power of faith that the paladin projected and was able to see that the situation was not lost and he was inspired (he recovered hit points). He got back up and kept fighting. The next time when he was unconscious on the ground and rolled a 20 on his recovery roll, he opened his eyes from unconsciousness and saw that his friends were in dire need of him, as they were getting their asses handed to them. The anger at the situation triggered his Second Wind, which he had not used yet, and he got back up and continued to fight on, saving the day.

So I still like it...

So, the ranger is letting his friends die because he's depressed? Yeah, I wanna play that character.

 

[DandD]

Er... what?

In Tactics Ogre, I can smash someone into the ground and heal them and I pay out of my MP pool. I can do this... forever really since TO starts you with 0 MP and has you recover it during combat.
In FFT, I can smash someone into the ground and heal them and I pay out of my MP pool. I can do this until I run out of MP.

What are you talking about?

You clearly forgot non-mp-consuming powers that still heal hitpoints and even status effects. In Final Fantasy Tactics, even in Final Fantasy V, perhaps starting even back further, characters with the monk/soldier/knight and other mundane classes had self-healing abilities that didn't cost any Magic Points at all. Thanks be Chakra for healing big gobles of hitpoints and getting rid of that nasty poison and blindness effect, or First Aid. In Tactics Ogre, you healed inbetween battles, without the aid of a priest or a bishop.

Really, D&D is just applying what works for millions of players world-wide since years. Heck, even computer games have applied that technique, like Guild Wars, where Fighters just need to apply a sigil, and get healed a ton. Of course, dedicated healer classes heal far more efficiently... Mmmm... D&D 4th edition is becoming Guild Wars, ohz noez.

 

[AZRogue]

Healing surges bothered me much more than my group. They just didn't care. They like not having to go back to town nearly as often. So, I think it will depend heavily on the group as well as how the DM feels like describing things.

 

[Hairfoot]

I haven't gone through the thread, so this has probably been said, but I don't see the difference between healing surges and simply giving PCs quadruple hit points (or whatever the accumulated surges add up to). I suspect, however, that having a stack of HP would upset the sense of verisimilitude more than the surge mechanic.

 

[Hairfoot]

I haven't read all the posts, so this has probably been said, but I don't see the difference between healing surges and simply giving PCs quadruple hit points (or whatever the accumulated surges add up to).

 

[Imban]

(fsck)

 

[Imban]

Really, D&D is just applying what works for millions of players world-wide since years. Heck, even computer games have applied that technique, like Guild Wars, where Fighters just need to apply a sigil, and get healed a ton. Of course, dedicated healer classes heal far more efficiently... Mmmm... D&D 4th edition is becoming Guild Wars, ohz noez.

Oh, okay, you just totally misread my first post. While my group isn't entirely a fan of non-magical instant healing (and Healing Signet in Guild Wars is magic, even if Warriors can use it - you'd have been better off just stating the amount they regen while standing back from combat for a few seconds), my post was about how D&D 4e's Healing Surge system was extremely jarring to my group because it makes it so the limit to how much someone can be healed is based on the person in question, rather than on the healer.

For example, in all of those games I cited, and in fact all of the ones you responded with, I can get my face punched in and then use Chakra or First Aid or Healing Signet over and over again until the cows come home.

(And as far as between-battle healing in Tactics Ogre, that's because a long time passed between any two given battles. In fact, the game didn't heal you between battles if you didn't go to the map screen in between them.)

 

[DandD]

Whazu? Healing works absolutely abstract in D&D too. Dedicated healers like the cleric can make people heal more with those second winds than the people can regain without special healer thingies. Also, game balance applies.

Just stop thinking in prehistoric cavemen D&D-terms.

 

[Imban]

(edited out, this probably wasn't a response to me :<)

 

[D'karr]

So, the ranger is letting his friends die because he's depressed? Yeah, I wanna play that character.

I'm sure you would.