Toughness vs Durable

[Solodan]

Toughness is almost always better early on, from then it depends on your playstyle.

Toughness is an up front bonus. Durable is a bonus that is only useful when you are on your last healing surge and wish you had 2 more. Durable may mathematically give more HP, but only if you use every single surge. This will only happen if either everyone in the group has durable, you're the defender with plenty of leaders, or your DM likes to push you to the very limit. Also, maybe you have other ways to spend your surges, but then we're no longer talking HP to HP. Take durable to spend on those powers, since you can't spend toughness in this way (ok, maybe, there are some powers/feats that do damage to you)

Durable may be better on paper, but I always feel better with the upfront hp, higher bloodied value, higher surge value, and that extra margin between life and death.

 

[Orcus Porkus]

I've been playing a dwarf dreadnought with durable and dwarven durability.
I was rightfully confident to be the last man standing, but what good is it? If the whole party has average healing surges, and approaches zero, but you have still 4-6 left, you'll have to agree to an extended rest anyway.
If you have a lot of self healing though, and perhaps a healer's sash, which allows to transfer surges, then those extra surges can help one party member to survive another fight or so. There are some other items that allow spending your surges on behalf of allies.

 

[Ryujin]

You're also potentially a big battery of magical power, for those rituals that require the spending of healing surges. As a Warlock with only 6 surges, I don't have a whole lot to blow on Arcane Lock.

 

[Wik]

Yeah, if you're a paladin, Durable is a pretty good choice, whether or not you have toughness.

 

[Milambus]

This is not always true, though it tends to be true at higher levels within each tier.

A level 1 fighter with 13 Con, for example, has 28 HP and 10 surges (for 7) without Toughness. With Toughness he's at 33 HP, 10 surges for 8, for a total of 113 HP a day. With Durable he's at 28 HP, 12 surges for 7, for a total of 112 HP per day. Very small edge to Toughness.

If I up his Con to 16, for example, then he ends up with 31 HP (Surge for 7) without Toughness and 36 HP (Surge for 9) with Toughness, at 12 surges. This means his daily HP total is 144 with Toughness, 115 without Toughness, and 129 with Durable. In this case (that Toughness increases your surge value by 2 despite being +5 HP is the key feature, plus being at a low level within a tier) the benefits of Toughness on HP/day are basically twice as great as the benefit of Durable on HP/day.

This is just HP/day, of course. Having more actual HP at any given time (Toughness) is a significant benefit in and of itself.

You are correct. I had made a mistake in my spreadsheet.

(For full disclosure I was mistakenly adding the HP gained per level to level 1. So at level 1 a Fighter had thier base 15 + 6 + Con score.)

Having corrected the above mistake, a Fighter with 16 con has more daily with Toughness at levels 1, 3, 5, and 11. That being said the difference even at level 30 is 919 hp (Durable) to 897 (Toughness).

Vice Versa, if you have alot of healing in your party (especially clerics), more surges actually mean even more HPs per day.

What I meant by this comment was that anytime you spend a healing surge and gain a bonus to that healing (say 1d6 + WIS from a cleric casting Healing Word), you make durable more effective. Or at least, the potential for such bonuses to the surge value adds to the value of the Durable feat.

So if your groups has a Cleric during combat, and/or a bard post combat then Durable adds even more to your daily HPs.

All that being said, total current HP can have a benefit over the potential daily HPs. Group makeup, your role within that group, your level and other factors can help to determine which feat is best for you. But of course, taking both feats is even better since the effects from the feats are multiplicative. (

 

[Rechan]

It depends on the frequency of battles, too.

If you regularly only have 1 fight per session (or at least, 1 fight and then an extended rest), healing surges mean little.

If you have 4 battles before an extended rest, healing surges mean a lot.

If you only have one healer in the party, then you're not going to be spending many surges in battle. The number of surges don't really matter if you can't use them.

Also, since Summoned creatures depend upon your Healing Surges.

 

[Minigiant]

I find ir is often how high your healing priority is. Defenders and melee strikers/leader get bloodied faster and more often. If you purposely don't spread the damage around, they'll need more surges.

Ranged PCs tend to have a lot more surges at the end of the adventuring day. Even when my starlock gives the defender a break and "tanks", he still ends the day with 4 surges. Toughness is better for them. Plus the low amount of HP and surges implement and projectile/thrown users have, Durable does little.

 

[Istar]

Thanks guys I think you may have convined me to get both

I have found a higher level power that gives me a free action healing surge whenever I get a critical.

And since I am going Daggermaster 18 to 20 crits, I think it will be nice to use that to easily chuck in the extra 2 Healing surges from Durable, just while going about my normal business of fighting.

 

[Ryujin]

Hopefully you roll better than I do then. My poor rolling is so consistent that it defies random chance and borders on a paranormal ability.

You need healing when you need healing. The dice don't care when that may be, so make sure that you can use those surges when you need to.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Thanks guys I think you may have convined me to get both

Using both is never a bad idea, but I would take Toughness first, and then pick up Durable at a later time. At low levels, Toughness is a lifesaver because a single crit can floor non-Martial characters. Therefore, the extra HP to keep you from dipping into bloodied or unconsciousness is more important. Later though, Durable is good for any character that doesn't have a high CON (and with items like the aforementioned Healing Sashes, it's even good for high CON characters since they'll have plenty of surges to spare at that point).