Healing Surges

[Syrsuro]

Originally Posted by Syrsuro
6) Death. If your character is at 0 healing surges and gets drained again they die. This is the ultimate, hard-core option and the one that is the most like the AD&D level drain.

Sorry, that's my 5). I'll edit it to specifically say "results in death."

In that case I'll have to add a different number 6.

There are two different ideas.

5) The draining of a healing surge from a character with 0 healing surges remaining results in 'negative healing surges' which have consequences to recovery after the encounter is over: I.e. when you next rest you have temporarily lost a certain number of potential healing surges. As in this post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4548152-post10.html

6) The draining of a healing surge from a character with 0 healing surges results in death.

Carl

 

[Milambus]

7). The GM stands up, walks over to the player and punches him in the gut.

If you cant hurt the character hurt the player?

 

[On Puget Sound]

If you're going to have it deal damage, hp equal to the surge value is way too much, especially in the middle of a fight. You could have it work like drowning. If you're drowning and should lose a surge but don't have one, you lose hit points equal to your level. DMG p. 159. Starvation and thirst work the same way.

Yes, I like this solution. (Level) HPs is enough to impress on even the thickest-skulled dwarf that the party REALLY shouldn't be continuing, but not enough to turn the fight into an assumed TPK. I also like that it has a precedent elsewhere in the rules. In fact, it should just be a general rule:

Whenever you involuntarily lose a healing surge but don't have one, lose HP equal to your level. You may not voluntarily do anything that causes loss of a healing surge (e.g. a paladin's lay on hands or recharging a healing surge-powered item) if you have no surges left.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Yes, I like this solution. (Level) HPs is enough to impress on even the thickest-skulled dwarf that the party REALLY shouldn't be continuing, but not enough to turn the fight into an assumed TPK. I also like that it has a precedent elsewhere in the rules. In fact, it should just be a general rule:

As a general rule, it would be utterly terrifying when combined with the Death Titan's attack.

 

[Syrsuro]

As a general rule, it would be utterly terrifying when combined with the Death Titan's attack.

Actually - regardless of what you decided on this question as a general rule, the Death Titan's Soul Devourer power would be a specific rule to override that rule. It's effect would occur instead of this general rule, not in addition to this general rule.


And that is one nasty attack once you run out of healing surges. Not as nasty as death, but worse than any thing else proposed here I believe.

Carl

 

[ValhallaGH]

Actually - regardless of what you decided on this question as a general rule, the Death Titan's Soul Devourer power would be a specific rule to override that rule. It's effect would occur instead of this general rule, not in addition to this general rule.

And yet, many DMs would try to combine it. Much to their player's shock and horror.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

And yet, many DMs would try to combine it. Much to their player's shock and horror.

No kidding...with the justification of "Well, why should every other monster get this extra thing when the PC is out of surges, but not the Death Titan? I need my players to fear the Death Titan, so we'll just combine them."

 

[Lilitu]

I know this thread is old but still I have an idea of my own that I've been thinking of implementing here. I've actually thus far found the idea of simply losing a healing surge to things like life drain abilities of monsters to be rather weak and non-threatening considering the fact that my players tend to run out of healing spells before they ever run out of surges. Healing surges in general seem very metagame to me and I also hate the fact that most healing spells and potions and other magical means of healing rely on the target player having these surges. I mean it's magic for crying out loud, it should be dependant on the condition of the caster not the castee.

Anyway so my idea was to have magical means of healing not be dependant on healing surges(there's still the 1/4 health value and non-magical means would require healing surges) And for monsters that take away healing surges I thought that perhaps if the PC is out of surges it could instead drain the players constitution score. This would of course be only temporary but to me it makes sense. If healing surges are a measure of a characters vitality and the number you get is influenced by your constitution as is your health then it seems to me only natural that a character would start to lose constitution points once they run out of healing surges.

What do you guys think?

 

[Blue]

I think that, by the time your healing surges are depleted, you've probably been punished enough. If you don't have a surge to lose, don't lose it. If they're truly getting into the game, they should be worried enough by the time they reach that point.

If they carry on with no healing surges left, they deserve to be punished. They need to find a spot to take an extended rest or ought to have done so before hitting that point. I have yet to play in a 4e game/session where the lowest person didn't have at least 4 healing surges left, even after a few encounters in a row.

So I say again: if the party has gotten to the point where they have no healing surges left and they're still going, keep hitting them.

Different people enjoy different things from the game. I'm in one game where my CON Warden occasionally runs out of hsi vast number of surges - usually because things are just that hectic with no opportunity to rest. Lots of fun. (And I can easily spend 3 per combat before our leader breaks out healing.)

Players don't always get an option when to take an extended rest, and when they do that doesn't mean it can't be interrupted, they can't be attacked when they sleep. So if the DM is already forcing players past their comfort zone (a good thing for tension at times), the last thing I'd want to do is then get uber-lethal.

A quarter of your HP per hit without any chance at healing because you are out of surges is adversarial DMing no matter what way you slice it.

As for losing the surge value in hp, though, be careful about punishing Dragonborn for having high Constitution. You might keep it a static value (5 per tier?) so that ANY characters with higher Con aren't punished for being more durable, either.

How is it punishing any one character? A healing surge value is 1/4 of hp, regardless of class or number of hp. A Wizard with 24 hp is losing 6 and a Fighter with 32 is losing 8. 1/4 is 1/4.

Dragonborn get +CON to surge value, so a surge isn't 1/4 your HP - it's more. It'll also affect any Dwarf with their paragon feat for +CON to surge value, or the other feats to boost surge value. Heck, it'll hurt more any PC with items that boost surge value. Doing surge value worth of damages isn't equal across the board.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

there is also the term: half your bloodied value. This is what you usually should use.