Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8491994" data-attributes="member: 6779196">[USER=6790260]@EzekielRaiden[/USER] pretty much covered it in their post. A healing surge, similar to a 5e hit die, was a resource you could spend to regain hit points. Each character had a number of healing surges based on their class: 6 + Con mod for rangers, rogues, warlocks and wizards, 7+ con mod for clerics and warlords, 9 for fighters, and 10 for paladins. There were also a couple feats that gave you extra healing surges. You regained all spent healing surges after an extended rest.After a short rest (which were 5 minutes in 4e, and were pretty much expected after every combat encounter), you could spend any number of healing surges to regain HP equal to your healing surge value (which by default was 1/4 of your maximum hit points, rounded down, though there were a few feats and other features that could increase your healing surge value) for each healing surge spent this way. Additionally, once during an encounter, you could use your second wind to spend a single healing surge (regaining the normal amount) as a standard action.Most sources of healing - spells, powers, potions, etc. allowed the target to spend a healing surge, and usually they would regain some amount of additional hit points beyond their healing surge value. If you were out of healing surges, you were generally pretty much done for the day - there were some abilities that could heal a  target without them having to spend a healing surge, but they were few in number and limited in availability.In effect, this made hit points an encounter resource and healing surges an adventuring day resource. Without any healing magic, you could access 1.25x your maximum hit points in any given encounter, and you’d have about 1.5x to 3x your maximum hit points in reserve to fill back up between encounters. Healing magic could allow you to extend a little bit beyond that cap, but only as long as you had healing surges to spend. The primary purpose of healing magic was not to extend the adventuring day, but to let you access more of your reserve hit points in a single encounter.Unlike in 5e where healing magic is best used out of combat to top you off before the next fight without needing to take a 1-hour short rest, healing magic was best used mid-combat to allow you to survive to get to the next short rest when you could top yourself off. Instead of a healer letting you take on more encounters in an adventuring day by exchanging spell slots for hit points, all adventuring parties could handle about the same number of encounters per day, but a party with a healer could survive tougher encounters because they could access more hit points per encounter.This, by the way, is why people say hit dice only superficially resemble healing surges. They’re both abstract resources representing your inner reserves of stamina/energy/fighting spirit/whatever, that you spend to heal during a short rest. But their actual mechanical impact on gameplay is totally different.</blockquote>

Verification