Healing Word out of encounter?

[Nifft]

#3 isn't cheesy because it also carries the risk of sitting in a dungeon for a half hour. Plus, if you're waiting for your healing/inspiring word to recharge, and a patrol finds you, you're in real trouble. I imagine a DM would make sure that eventually a patrol will run into a group that regularly tried to take half hour dungeon breaks.

Except: there are no guidelines for such patrols. The books seem to assume you get a risk-free 5 minute break between encounters, extended rests are risky, and there's nothing in between.

Now, if the books included rules for random encounters over time-spans of multiple short rests, I'd be fine with the tactic: it's a risk/reward game.

However, the rules seem to give one free short rest, and #3 is cheesy for extrapolating this into unlimited free short rests. It's exploiting a grey area, to obtain some advantage over the clear black-and-white usual rules (i.e.: spend any number of healing surges with no special bonuses).

If I'm wrong, and there's something about risks over multiple short rests in the books, please let me know.

Cheers, -- N

 

[James McMurray]

#3 (Cheesy): "I spend two healing surges." -- "No, don't do that, we just have to rest for 5 minutes and then I can give you those healing surges with +1d6+Wis extra healing!" -- "Uh, okay, we all do that. We rest for ... uh ... six five-minute breaks. Half an hour later, we're ready to go."

Not cheesy. There's risk involved, and it keeps the action moving.

However, the rules seem to give one free short rest, and #3 is cheesy for extrapolating this into unlimited free short rests.

There is nothing in the rules that says you get a free short rest. If there were, there'd be no need for rules regarding what happens when your short rest is interrupted.

 

[Skyscraper]

I really don't see the cheese here. You have a cleric in your party = you don't spend as many healing surges to gain a determined number of hit points. Hit points are an abstraction of wounds but also morale, stamina, etc... A man of faith can very clearly increas the morale and stamina of others.

Why wait five minutes before each (pair of) healing word powers are available? Pray for it.

Faith. Cleric. Prayers. This is not a number-crunching game, it is a ROLE-playing game, remember? You don't need a mechanic to counter the cleric increasing the effectiveness of your healing surges. It's just the goddam cleric's role in the party to do just that!

Sky

 

[Nail]

Would you allow this after the encounter / battle is over?

Yep.

....especially since the PH has specific rules allowing this.

 

[Nail]

However, the rules seem to give one free short rest, and #3 is cheesy for extrapolating this into unlimited free short rests. It's exploiting a grey area, to obtain some advantage over the clear black-and-white usual rules (i.e.: spend any number of healing surges with no special bonuses).

I'm not sure how this is a "grey" area.

If you have plenty of time after an encounter, then your cleric (or warlord!) can heal you up with fewer healing surges spent.

So consider 2 parties: One has a Cleric (or Warlord) and one party does not. Which party should be able to go longer without an Extended Rest?

The party with the Cleric (or Warlord), obviously.

 

[Joshua Randall]

It's also possible that in certain adventures, waiting around for 30 minutes between every combat encounter is going to be undesireable because of time pressures.

"OK, we only have two hours to save the princess, and I know we're all beat up, but we can only afford to take five, not thirty. And, you there, wizard, Bahamut blesses you with extra healing. Yeah yeah, fighter, quit your bellyachin'.

"Alright, everyone get up off your butts and let's go!"