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Sleep vs. Extented Rest

Griogre said:
I'm aware that if you don't take an extented rest you don't get back healing surges - but if you were a fighter with 12+ surges a day who still had a daily and was down one or two surges and had 3 action points, wouldn't you rather be sure of getting to use an action point a fight for the next 3+ fights at the cost of a being down a healing surge or two?
If a fighter has gone through four fights(for two milestones to get your second and third action points), hasn't spent any action points, hasn't spent any of their dailies, and has only used one or two healing surges, than either the fighter or the DM is not doing their job.

If the fights are so easy that the fighter doesn't need any of those resources, it's the DM. If the party's characters with fewer healing surges are taking two or three times as much damage as the fighter is, it's him. He needs to try spending those action points to mark a second foe once in a while.
 

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Griogre said:
Can you give me a referance on that? Because, I don't see anyplace that says you have to take an extented rest when you sleep. I only see where you have to sleep to have an extented rest work. I think I may be being too rules lawyery (is that a word?) about it though.

I'm aware that if you don't take an extented rest you don't get back healing surges - but if you were a fighter with 12+ surges a day who still had a daily and was down one or two surges and had 3 action points, wouldn't you rather be sure of getting to use an action point a fight for the next 3+ fights at the cost of a being down a healing surge or two?

I haven't played a lot yet, but it seems to me the characters with tons of healing surges rarely use them all anyway because the guy with only a few of them runs out long before the fighters (at least at low levels).

It's not possible to, reasonably, sleep for six hours, without spending that six hours resting. There's no rule for that but it's one of those things I really don't think it needs to be. You can't really say "Yes, I was asleep, but was I RESTING? NO!"
 


theNater said:
If a fighter has gone through four fights(for two milestones to get your second and third action points), hasn't spent any action points, hasn't spent any of their dailies, and has only used one or two healing surges, than either the fighter or the DM is not doing their job.

If the fights are so easy that the fighter doesn't need any of those resources, it's the DM. If the party's characters with fewer healing surges are taking two or three times as much damage as the fighter is, it's him. He needs to try spending those action points to mark a second foe once in a while.

Maybe not. Not all fights need to be super challenging, and minion heavy fights might end absurdly quickly due to the large number of AoE every class seems to have. I can see good tactics getting the fighter through quite a few fights without the need for a daily and without using many healing surges.
 

Also, in the rare occasion when he did get hurt, a Paladin used lay on hands ... or a Cleric used cure serious wounds.
So the Fighter himself hasn't used many surges.
 

I'm planning to allow rest a lot more freeform in my 4E games.

As long as you're not in combat or some other life-threatening situation, basically you're resting. Very high-stress events may also count...

But I don't see any reason not to give the party back their encounter powers as they walk across town...
 

It's not possible to, reasonably, sleep for six hours, without spending that six hours resting. There's no rule for that but it's one of those things I really don't think it needs to be. You can't really say "Yes, I was asleep, but was I RESTING? NO!"

On the other hand, 'resting' does not automatically equal 'extended rest'. There are situations in which the rules prohibit extended rests but allow sleep. The more time you have slept between extended rests, the less time you have to sleep during the extended rest.
 

Maybe not. Not all fights need to be super challenging, and minion heavy fights might end absurdly quickly due to the large number of AoE every class seems to have. I can see good tactics getting the fighter through quite a few fights without the need for a daily and without using many healing surges.
Not all fights need to be challenging. But some of them should. If the party goes through four fights in a row without using resources, and they can't find more fights, the challenge level is too low. If the rest of the party needs to rest, then the fighter really needs to participate more aggressively.
Also, in the rare occasion when he did get hurt, a Paladin used lay on hands ... or a Cleric used cure serious wounds.
So the Fighter himself hasn't used many surges.
Those are the daily resources of the paladin and the cleric. If the fighter is the only one not using daily resources, something suspicious is going on.

Note that Cure Serious Wounds and Lay On Hands are better used on targets with fewer healing surges. If the cleric is using Healing Word on the wizard and Cures Serious Wounds on the fighter, that's poor strategy on the part of the cleric.
 


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