Song of Rest - powerful?

[keterys]

That's actually practically nothing. If there's enough down-time between encounters, a 2nd level cleric with Life-Transference can heal the whole party up to full without using any surges at all. (Speaking from experience, since the cleric in my game has been doing it since he rolled up his character).

... how? I mean, I definitely see how it would save you some surges potentially, but no surges at all? Where is the damage going? Some other encounter power that gives at least Surge value temp hp?

It's cool for our game since it's mostly wilderness/exploratory. I think there's only been 2-3 out of 13 sessions so far where they had more than one combat in a day anyway...

Sounds like a good game to use JoT's extended rest houserule in - ie, the you only get the benefits of an extended rest every 4 combats, others just count as short rests.

 

[cdrcjsn]

Life Transference allows the cleric to target himself with the effect. He takes his healing surge in damage. He heals twice that back. He can heal everyone in the party this way, with time being the only resource spent.

Really, this spell should either exclude the cleric from possible targets or allow it to only be used during combat. I think the first option makes more sense.

 

[keterys]

Ah, I missed that he could hit himself with it.

Yeah, that's pretty dumb. Much like the swordmage encounter heal without surges.

 

[Iron Sky]

Ah, I missed that he could hit himself with it.

Yeah, that's pretty dumb. Much like the swordmage encounter heal without surges.

Except much more healed per short rest.

On the plus side, it does speed up short rests. No discussions of who needs how many heals from the leader to top themselves off, no one sitting their weighing whether to go into the next encounter with 1/2 a surge worth of damage or get topped off.

On the minus side, healing surges are almost a non-factor, though that may have more to do with the general lack of multi-encounter days in my game...

 

[keterys]

Yeah, I'm conceptually a fan - even though I haven't played with either - of the house rule I mentioned earlier that ensures multiple combats per "day's" or a variant that gives you a "day"'s worth of resource per adventure... as well as one of my own that when you take a short rest you heal to full (while also reducing your # of surges per day by about 4)

But, straying a bit off topic.

 

[renau1g]

Kind of like the LFR adventures, even if there's no time restraint, you can't take an extended rest during the adventure.

 

[Nifft]

Life Transference allows the cleric to target himself with the effect. He takes his healing surge in damage. He heals twice that back. He can heal everyone in the party this way, with time being the only resource spent.

Really, this spell should either exclude the cleric from possible targets or allow it to only be used during combat. I think the first option makes more sense.

Then it becomes the ultimate multiclass power.

Really, it should just cost the Cleric a healing surge. It's what they're there for.

Cheers, -- N

 

[keterys]

Yep. Even if you exclude self, two people with it still win. Just poor.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Kind of like the LFR adventures, even if there's no time restraint, you can't take an extended rest during the adventure.

That's just not true. You can take extended rests in LFR. No rule prevents this. The only thing that stops it would be in game considerations.

 

[KarinsDad]

Life Transference allows the cleric to target himself with the effect. He takes his healing surge in damage. He heals twice that back. He can heal everyone in the party this way, with time being the only resource spent.

One way to make this slightly less abusive without even explicitly changing anything is to have the heal occur first and the damage occur second. The power does not explicitly state the order (it's implied, but not stated).

That way, the Cleric (and any multiclassers) will still always have at least one healing surge's worth of damage after using this and would still need to use up healing surges to ever get full up.

I expect it to be errated anyway.