"Looks like we're going to win this battle . . . in about 90 minutes from now."

[Cadfan]

Why would you not wait to use it when you are in a battle where you have a real chance of dying?

Because hit points are hit points are hit points are hit points.

Lets say that in battle 1, due to cunning strategy, you are in no chance of dying. However, you lose half of your hit points. You would then spend two healing surges to get back to full hit points. If you did not, you would then enter battle 2, where you DO have a chance of dying, with half of your hit points. This would make you die even faster, because you are limited in how many healing surges you can spend per combat.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

FWIW the DMG suggests that monsters use their encounter powers early in order to make sure they get to use them

Same goes for the players. Best get those out of the silo and in the air before you go down to a lucky series of hits.

Brad

 

[LostSoul]

In previous editions, the healing attrition came from the healer's spell pool, which could be shared among party members as needed. In 4e, the healing pools are character specific, and so the weakest-link rule applies: as soon as anyone runs out of healing-surges, the party has to stop.

The same is true of earlier, pre-3.x editions: when one character ran out of spells, the party had to rest. In 3.x you had wands of cure light wounds, so hit points actually were not part of the attrition model.

My gut feeling however is that the 1-3e design is superior: the downside of the 1-3e mindset (15 minute workday, novaing on every encounter) can be easily bypassed through metagame agreements between players and the DM and the 4e downsides (extremely narrow significant encounter power range, long boring fights) are not so easily avoided.

I think you can easily bypass the 4e downfalls through metagame agreements: the DM ends the encounter when the encounter becomes boring. (This is what I've been doing.) I think that's easier to get around than earlier edition's "awesome 1/day, useless the rest of the time" problem.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The same is true of earlier, pre-3.x editions: when one character ran out of spells, the party had to rest.

I noticed that around here, people say that a lot, but I've never seen that in 30 years of D&D playing. If the spellcasters ran out of spells, they'd better get their best weapon out, look lively and stay out of the fighters' way.

And vice versa.

Pretty much unless the party was running near empty, it wasn't time for rest...not that the DM would let you, for that matter.

 

[Cadfan]

I noticed that around here, people say that a lot, but I've never seen that in 30 years of D&D playing. If the spellcasters ran out of spells, they'd better get their best weapon out, look lively and stay out of the fighters' way.

And vice versa.

Pretty much unless the party was running near empty, it wasn't time for rest...not that the DM would let you, for that matter.

I can personally testify that in my area, players would do absolutely anything for the chance to rest once the cleric was empty. Whether they'd call the day early for the wizard was an open question, but they'd do it for the cleric every time.

 

[Hussar]

I noticed that around here, people say that a lot, but I've never seen that in 30 years of D&D playing. If the spellcasters ran out of spells, they'd better get their best weapon out, look lively and stay out of the fighters' way.

And vice versa.

Pretty much unless the party was running near empty, it wasn't time for rest...not that the DM would let you, for that matter.

Really? How did you survive without cleric spells?

I've never seen the 15 minute adventuring day because of the wizard. Mostly because the wizzie, after about 3rd level or so, didn't run out of spells all that quickly. But, the cleric is blowing through several spells every fight. After the second encounter, every group I've ever played with in 3e wanted to rest. As soon as the cleric tapped out his highest level healing, we were done.

3e combat is just WAY too lethal to do anything else. Go into combat in 3e without your best healing spells on tap and someone's going to die. Then again, last time I DM'd, I whacked a PC every three sessions in any case. Maybe it's just me.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I noticed that around here, people say that a lot, but I've never seen that in 30 years of D&D playing. If the spellcasters ran out of spells, they'd better get their best weapon out, look lively and stay out of the fighters' way.

And vice versa.

Pretty much unless the party was running near empty, it wasn't time for rest...not that the DM would let you, for that matter.

I think it started with computer games, where you just sit down in a hallway and rest until your spells are back...

But, part of it is also the entitlement thing, where players want to have all their options each time.

In a lot of the games I've been in, it was common practice to blow high level spells at the earliest oppurtunity, then complain that they needed to rest.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Obviously it's not everyone's cup of tea, and if your players prefer battles to end with one side or the other all dead where they fought, more power to them (so long as you also like running that kind of game).

I think some of them had just been burnt by previous games where the retreat just meant "we'll ambush you later". Unless the guy is a serious NPC, my retreats usually don't tangle again. It varies by the encounter of course.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Really? How did you survive without cleric spells?

Potions and wands, for one.

For two, you avoid getting hurt, even if that means making a strategic retreat or even avoid a conflict you think would be a close one.

For three, its almost unheard of for the guys running the divine casters to use all of their spells until it actually is time to rest. Last night's session in RttToEE was a perfect example- our party of tenth level PCs had several members down to 2 or 3 HP. We've quaffed enough potions to get those PCs (including at least one fighter) up to about 25HP each. Our casters had only a few, mostly 1st & 2nd level spells left (except the mage, who still has 3 Lightning Bolts).

The last encounter of that latest session was the 6th in the party's day (24 hour period).

Our casters do use their spells...but only when they have to. The mage softens up the foes with a spell or 2 then holds and holds and holds while the warriors do the dirty work...unless a foe needs additional zapping, that is.

Our spellcasters- clerics included- do not determine when the party rests by blowing all of their spells. Instead, "camp time" is determined by when everyone else is blown, and THEN the final spells of the day get cast.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Maybe I am not making this very clear.

Why would you not wait to use it when you are in a battle where you have a real chance of dying?

Per encounter healing is strongly limited, since it requires encounter or daily powers. You can't risk getting into a dangerous battle with half hit points, because the group (not necessarily just you) might need every healing power available in that group already if at full hit points.

3e combat is just WAY too lethal to do anything else. Go into combat in 3e without your best healing spells on tap and someone's going to die. Then again, last time I DM'd, I whacked a PC every three sessions in any case. Maybe it's just me.

Nah, you're way to friendly. In our Age of Worms campaign, at least one PC died per session. Sometimes more. It was one of the reasons why we ended the campaign - way to lethal, even though we were certainly power-gaming to get the best out of our characters...