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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5517592" data-attributes="member: 2011">That's true for 4E. It wasn't necessarily as true for 3.5 and earlier. Items could take the place of Leaders in those versions of the game.Yes, I agree. There is always a maximum limit. But, that limit increased as one went up in levels in earlier versions, it didn't stay the same (which I consider one of 4E's warts). In earlier versions, when my PC was traveling the planes, I wasn't forced to hole up in them as often (or necessarily at all).Especially in 3E and 3.5 with Prestige Classes, it was pretty easy to save resources. The healer types could have Wand of Cure X Wounds and the spell slingers, especially Wizards, could have charged items as well.Heck, I just played a Pathfinder game last fall where I ran a Mystic Theurge who had zero charged items, but never once ran out of spells. And we had some lengthier days (8 or 9 encounters on multiple days).The 4E concept of "ohh, it's bad wrong fun" to play a game with Wands of Cure Light Wounds, so we will get rid of the concept is erroneous.It was a ton of fun to play in 3.5 and earlier versions of the game with those. They freed up the Clerics and Druids to branch out more. Now, the number one thing I see in 4E is pacifist clerics and/or clerics taking powers like Healer's Mercy because nobody wants to use up a Standard for Second Wind or use up a Healing Surge for a Potion of Healing. I see it over and over again, it doesn't matter which Leader class.There is almost an expectation that the Leader will handle almost all of the healing, so the other players don't have to worry about it (as per crappy potions and as per your comments that the non-Leader healing sucks). It's endemic in our 4E gaming community culture.I do see some slight effort by players to throw around some temporary hit points and/or debuff foes a bit, but that doesn't really make up for true healing. If the foe is at -2 to hit, a 16 on the die is typically still going to hit.Sure there will be a point where PCs have to rest. You and I do not disagree on that.But the difference is that the players have little input in the process now.The players can no longer really decide to save resources and spend their gold on healing items in order have 15 encounters in a day. Buying an item in 4E for +1 item bonus to a healing surge is pretty darn weak.Now, only the DM can set up the game for 15 encounters and in order to do it, he has to bend over backwards to dial down the encounters and/or have ways to renew resources.As a player, I like the option to decide the destiny of my own PC. Part of that is the option to decide to craft/purchase 10 items and stuff them in my bag of holding so that I am always prepared for any scenario, including a large dungeon with many encounters in it.Except that this was not as true for earlier versions of the game. One of the elements of the game that I greatly enjoyed as a player was that I could prepare ahead of time with "go to the well" options. I could craft scrolls, and wands, and potions that allowed me as a player to shore up our resources as needed.4E does not have this (it has potions, but they are pretty lame) and I consider it to be a game design weakness.Instead of making the consumable items so weak for the vast majority of levels that they are hardly ever used in the game, they needed to design them to have good utility at the levels for which they are crafted and weaker utility as the PCs advance in level in order to balance out their cost vs. utility.</blockquote>

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