Song of Rest - powerful?

[chitzk0i]

Ok, what I am hearing is that you should spend most of your healing surges IN combat, not AFTER combat? In other words, that healing after combat should be close to free? It really reminds me of the wands of cure light wounds from 3.x.

50% extra healing surge value isn't what I call "close to free". It makes out of combat surges go farther, but that's not always important. Most fights, in-combat healing is necessary to keep people from going down. Bards have less in-combat healing available compared to clerics. However, bards can make those short rest surges go way farther.

In really tough fights, you can expect many bards to stretch their healing thin; it's entirely probable that any given heroic-tier bard has maybe one healing power outside of Majestic Word. On the other hand, clerics have healing options at virtually every power choice, so in really hairy encounters, they can draw on daily healing options and carry the party.

Basically, the bard is letting the party stretch some healing surges so they can take on more encounters per day, but at the risk of not having enough in-combat healing for really hard fights.