Some did exist, but they expended someone else's healing surges, so in the end you were spending surges either way. You couldn't just chug a potion, or use a wand, to get you back to a decent fighting capacity.
D&D 5E Should 5E have Healing Surges?
- Thread starter Oni
- Start date
Some did exist, but they expended someone else's healing surges, so in the end you were spending surges either way. You couldn't just chug a potion, or use a wand, to get you back to a decent fighting capacity.
FireLance
Legend
No, the cleric daily utility powers didin't require anyone to expend healing surges. However, as daily powers, they could only be used once per extended rest, and taking them meant that the cleric wasn't taking other utility powers.
This is generally true, although some of the potions in the more recently released Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium allow you to recover hit points if you have no healing surges, but only if you are also bloodied.
Nebulous
Legend
I recognize the usefulness of surges, but they need to be reworked somehow. Majorly. I wouldn't care if they were gone and replaced by something else.
Naszir
First Post
I'm reposting this from a thread that happened earlier in the week:
How about going about this a different way?
Instead of a way to "heal" what about a way to "avoid" damage?
Instead of healing surge you could have a heoric surge. A character can use a heoric surge to turn what might have been a severly damaging hit into a glancing blow or the heoric surge can be used to describe the character using some extra effort to avoid the damage.
This gives the players some narrative heoric control. Imagine a DM describing a potential deadly hit by a dragon but the player instead claims control by using his characters heoric surge to only take minimum damage from the hit instead of damage that would have killed the character.
I would advocate that the player be allowed to use the heoric surge after the damage roll is made. Wasting one on a low damage roll would feel a bit "un-heroic".
I would also advocate lower hit points overall for characters because using heroic surges would mitigate the need for greater hps.
I would give Fighters more "heroic surges" than other classes. Sort of the way healing surges work in 4e.
How about going about this a different way?
Instead of a way to "heal" what about a way to "avoid" damage?
Instead of healing surge you could have a heoric surge. A character can use a heoric surge to turn what might have been a severly damaging hit into a glancing blow or the heoric surge can be used to describe the character using some extra effort to avoid the damage.
This gives the players some narrative heoric control. Imagine a DM describing a potential deadly hit by a dragon but the player instead claims control by using his characters heoric surge to only take minimum damage from the hit instead of damage that would have killed the character.
I would advocate that the player be allowed to use the heoric surge after the damage roll is made. Wasting one on a low damage roll would feel a bit "un-heroic".
I would also advocate lower hit points overall for characters because using heroic surges would mitigate the need for greater hps.
I would give Fighters more "heroic surges" than other classes. Sort of the way healing surges work in 4e.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
While I like this idea myself whenever I've proposed basically the same thing in various places it has been subjected to an instant withering barrage of grognard hate. Of course there are also plenty of people who think it is cool, but the general response seems to be that players shouldn't be entitled to ways to "get out of jail free" and that "giving people a last chance is gamist", etc.
I think the truth of the matter is there's a VERY vocal minority(?) that are just not interested in there being anything but HP and external cleric-style magical healing ala AD&D and anything else is going to be held in contempt regardless of how clearly it may improve the actual play of the game, and often regardless of how 'believable' anyone may find it to be.
Fundamentally to a certain fraction of players/DMs the only kind of tension that seems to exist in their minds is "you're one hit from death" from what I can see. Whatever tends to shift that tension to a more extended resource game sort of tension is simply seen as creating "easy mode" or somesuch. While it is of course a valid preference it certainly greatly frustrates me when I know how many other interesting ways to manage tension and create interesting stakes there can be. I suspect if D&D is going to continue to cater to people who's style and preferences are forever rooted in that mode of play nothing else will define D&D. There's no way to finesse that, so maybe there's no point in trying.
Maybe 5e should just come right the heck out and say "OK, people, here's your classic 1dN/lvl hit points and CLW spell, have fun" and just put out a 'module' that rips as much of the game apart as needed to make something different. Given the highly integral value of the definition of a hit point IMHO it will be virtually an entirely different game, but so it goes.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
Yes. I like it fine, too, but the people that hate healing surges will hate this as well, for the same reason. They hate it because it pulls the curtain back and reminds them of what was true all along.
I don't envy WotC (or any gaming company for that matter) the task of catering to their needs. They all want a different flavor of ice cream, they want the selection limited to three or four choices to keep from confusing them, and they want it cold, hard, soft serve, and unmeltable on the hottest day of the year. It's the difficult task of the company to determine which ones are really more reasonable about that and merely venting or posturing, versus the ones that really mean it (and thus must be written off).
Izumi
First Post
No true justification for in-character healing surges ever been given. Yes, some people like and want them, but that doesn't justify them. Many have always thought the abstraction of hp already takes reserves of energy and adrenaline into account.
I really don't mind if D&DN has them or not, but from an in-game point of view there is no way to justify them. You just want them.
I really don't mind if D&DN has them or not, but from an in-game point of view there is no way to justify them. You just want them.
Last edited:
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing (He/They)
Certainly not. Their inclusion in 4E was the first thing that really soured me on the new mechanics. Fighters who can heal themselves just by being awesome? No thanks.
I plan to handle character healing the same way I always have...with healing potions.
I plan to handle character healing the same way I always have...with healing potions.
Siberys
Adventurer
I have a feeling the issue isn't actually with healing surges as much as it is with Second Wind. I still don't get it, but whatever.
The fact about HSs is that they aren't freely available; they need to be triggered, whether by an ability or an item or whtever. If they aren't able to be triggered, you might as well not have them. The only way they can be used without a special power is by using a second wind, which is once a fight anyway, and IME only used if there's no other healing option available because of the hefty action cost.
In other words, HSs are less of a god-playing thing than without, because they put that hard limit on access to healing.
EDIT: And in game justification is easy; reserve of energy, binding wounds, minor healing spell, whatever. And it only becomes an issue between fights, where this sort of thing is usually (IME) hand-waved anyways. Is "we spend five minutes binding our wounds (spent some HSs)" really all that different from "we spend five minutes binding our wounds (spent some CXW spells and healing potions)"?
The fact about HSs is that they aren't freely available; they need to be triggered, whether by an ability or an item or whtever. If they aren't able to be triggered, you might as well not have them. The only way they can be used without a special power is by using a second wind, which is once a fight anyway, and IME only used if there's no other healing option available because of the hefty action cost.
In other words, HSs are less of a god-playing thing than without, because they put that hard limit on access to healing.
EDIT: And in game justification is easy; reserve of energy, binding wounds, minor healing spell, whatever. And it only becomes an issue between fights, where this sort of thing is usually (IME) hand-waved anyways. Is "we spend five minutes binding our wounds (spent some HSs)" really all that different from "we spend five minutes binding our wounds (spent some CXW spells and healing potions)"?
Last edited:
Naszir
First Post
Maybe this is a way to pull hps into a more narrativist style while meshing it with the mechanics better.
When you roll an attack and you are successful, you score a "hit". However, the way hit points are described you may not necessarily have been actually hit.
Healing surges were an attempt to say that the character is getting those hit points back that represent other things than physical damage (except when the cleric actually heals his wounds with divine magic).
While I grew up playing all the earlier versions and as I came to understand the game more, my mind couldn't wrap itself around that if hps represent luck, skill, damage avoidance and physical damage why was healing only represented by actual wound recovery?
Why was a cleric able to heal a commoner on the brink of death at 1 hp to full health with CLW? But he was only able to heal a scratch on the heroic fighter with CLW?
Healing surges gave us an entry point to healing the non-physical damage aspect of hps. Could a character catch his breath in-between combats? Why not?
Do I think healing surges are perfect as presented in 4e? Nope. But it is an interesting mechanic that I think has the ability add to the game.
When you roll an attack and you are successful, you score a "hit". However, the way hit points are described you may not necessarily have been actually hit.
Healing surges were an attempt to say that the character is getting those hit points back that represent other things than physical damage (except when the cleric actually heals his wounds with divine magic).
While I grew up playing all the earlier versions and as I came to understand the game more, my mind couldn't wrap itself around that if hps represent luck, skill, damage avoidance and physical damage why was healing only represented by actual wound recovery?
Why was a cleric able to heal a commoner on the brink of death at 1 hp to full health with CLW? But he was only able to heal a scratch on the heroic fighter with CLW?
Healing surges gave us an entry point to healing the non-physical damage aspect of hps. Could a character catch his breath in-between combats? Why not?
Do I think healing surges are perfect as presented in 4e? Nope. But it is an interesting mechanic that I think has the ability add to the game.
Similar Threads
