What are your problems with Healing/Dying mechanics in 4E

[billd91]

How often in Star Wars do you see one member of the gang sewing up another? The Star Wars universe as seen in the movies looks like it should be even less of a "must have a cleric" game than D&D, and requiring such in a game is problematic to say the least.

The feeling in my group is that healing surges would make the Saga HP system work really well. As it stands, it promotes a style of play counter to the Star Wars films.

The only main character who ever really gets worked over is Luke and both times it happens in Empire he's sent to the medical droids at first opportunity. I don't really see him using healing surges in his first duel with Vader. By the end, he's beat up and running on fumes. You may interpret that as being out of healing surges, but I see that as being low on hit points and not likely to find any more without a good rest in the infirmary. Which is what he gets.

 

[Blackbrrd]

The biggest problem I have had is that a character going down usually is on the path to a TPK. I don't want to handle TPK's or dead characters since I think it really cheapens the game, I have gone for the wounds system.

It lets the character take a wound that in many ways have more repercussions than dying and getting resurrected, but the tool is firmly placed in the hands of the player. He can choose not to take a wound and go down and die. It gives the players more control in a TPK situation.

For the "unlucky crit" situations, it really works out that instead of going down and messing up the rest of the session due to dragging a dead friend around waiting to ressurect him, he can just choose to take a wound that even though it's annoying and bad for your character, lets you as a player have a character to play!

Link: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/240891-wound-system.html (read the whole thread there are several ideas, one of them fit my needs at least).

Another thought is that you might find the healing a bit overpowered due to stuff from divine power? A houserule for that is to only allow the "bonuses" to stack on powers where you spend a healing surge. This surge-less healing doesn't make too much sense to me.

 

[MerricB]

The only main character who ever really gets worked over is Luke and both times it happens in Empire he's sent to the medical droids at first opportunity. I don't really see him using healing surges in his first duel with Vader. By the end, he's beat up and running on fumes. You may interpret that as being out of healing surges, but I see that as being low on hit points and not likely to find any more without a good rest in the infirmary. Which is what he gets.

That's the point: very few (player) characters in Star Wars actually get hurt. Now compare to the RPG. How many get down very low on HP there? In our experience - a lot of them. (Especially my noble).

Now, if you add healing surges to the RPG, the characters can recover between fights. Eventually, they'll run out of luck and have to go to the medical droids or whatever (and you might want a system for permanent wounds that require such a kind of attention), but it makes a game where you (a) don't need a medic travelling with you, and (b) you can have more than one fight a session - something that is very common with RPG adventures.

 

[jasonbostwick]

Some nights, I think 4e works better without a healer, than with one. Of course, I usually wake up, and can't make up my mind if it was a vision or not.

With that said, I think the (few) games which had no cleric during my last campaign, went fairly well - much better than anticipated.

I don't think this is some fever dream - I've had the same experience. Having a leader seems to increase the grind.

My 4E experience has been with small (2-3 player) groups, so we're always missing a role, and I have to tailor encounters somewhat for the group.

When the group had a leader fights of the appropriate level tend to not be a challenge at all, and are just a very slow attrition of the party's surges.

To provide a single, challenging encounter that has any potential for PC death the fight needs to last long enough to wear down all of the party's healing reserves, which can take long enough that everyone is down to using at-wills.

So far we've seen all of the leader classes in play at the table but the Shaman, with the cleric being the worst offender.

Parties made mostly of strikers and defenders haven't had the same problem with grind. Beyond the improved damage dealing capabilities of strikers, fights with smaller groups of monsters (compared to those needed to challenge a group with plenty of healing) can present the level of danger needed to give some excitement and challenge to the encounter.


Note that this might not be a problem if you only run pre-published modules and don't tailor any encounters. At one point one of my groups caught on that improving their healing capabilities resulted in a Red Queen Effect - "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

The most fun (IMHO) you can have while playing DnD is when you come inches away from a TPK but the PCs hang on by the skin of their teeth. Any changes I made to 4E healing would increase the danger level.

All my players remember that time they were one die roll away from being killed by Rhodintor on the roof of Pythoness House while I ran Night of Dissolution- noone remembers the cultists they slogged through with their at-wills in The Last Breaths of Ashenport.

 

[avin]

Straight to OP: sitting down and just spending a Healing Surge after a combat is something that rings weird and metagamey. This is something I'd change for 5th edition.

D&D must step back a bit to disbelief suspension.

 

[Garmorn]

Straight to OP: sitting down and just spending a Healing Surge after a combat is something that rings weird and metagamey. This is something I'd change for 5th edition.

D&D must step back a bit to disbelief suspension.

Now this I don't understand. I know that people have problems with the healing system but just from this thread it is easy to tell that it is a minority. How small I don't know. But here you are telling the majority that they are wrong and it should be changed.

I see healing surges as simple prayers. PC's are chosen of the Power even if they don't know it. Why else would they be so much the exception and not the rule. Add to this that hit points represent many things besides just injuries and it works. It might need adjustments to fit your game but that is easy.

If I was going to run a gritting type game for experienced players I would simply reduce the number of healing surges. If they don't have them they can't use them. If you don't like the heal over night business then simply allow a extended rest to give them back all of their surges but only the equivalent of one healing surge in healing. This would be no different then earlier versions of having a cleric use all of their spells on healing for a day or two.

 

[hailstop]

We had a big discussion about 4e at our last session on Friday and one of the discussions was about the healing/dying mechanic. We all agreed that there wasn't enough 'threat' of dying (although I as the DM have gotten a lot better at dropping the PCs below zero hp).

We brought up some of the options:

1. Three failed death saves before an Extended rest instead of Short rest kills you.

Problem: at two death saves, that just triggers the Extended rest.

2. -ve "healing surge" kills you instead of -ve "bloodied".

3. A failed Death Save causes damage.

4. A monster does extra d6 damage on a critical hit.

5. Healing below zero hp only adds to that total, doesn't reset to zero first (which I'm pretty sure I'm going to use).

and one that I hadn't heard of before:

6. If you go below zero hp during a battle, you can only get up to your bloodied value before a short rest, not max hp.