4E - per-encounter healing surges

[malak]

First off, yeah this is 4E, so if you want to rant against it, please use one of the following threats for that:

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52171
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52191


Now to the problem at hand:

I'm not very happy with healing surges as they are - only recharging them at extended rests gives a hard limit, no character wants to no anything once he's down to 0 surges. Sometimes, a looming greater threat in the gameworld might convince them otherwise, but repetition makes this stale, too.

Another problem is that sometimes, the session might only include 1-2 fights, so they never reach 0 surges unless the fight is truly one-sided.

And tracking stats over sessions is problematic for various reasons.

So I thought that the best way would be to just divide the number of healing surges by the expected number of encounters, and make them replenish every short rest. This would mean that for the party I'm currently DMing for, the Wizard has 2 surges (7/4 ~ 1.75 = 2) and the warden has 4 (14/4 ~ 3.5 = 4).

Did anyone here try a similar system? Comments?

Oh, and story- or non-fight-encounter-based loss of surges would just be a penalty/curse/... to the healing surges available each encounter, and would have to be solved/restored in story.

This would also have the advantage that the subjective threat, the fear of dying is there already in the first encounter, not only after they are drained.

[Username17]

Point of order: since short rests can be repeated for credit, any "per encounter" healing is essentially infinite healing between combats. If you're OK with that, go ahead.

The other thing to note is that it's not normally possible to use more than 2 Healing Surges in a combat anyway. You have a Second Wind and the Leader type has some sort of power that lets you use another one. So the Warden having 4 healing surges for the encounter is about the same as hm having infinity healing surges.

All in all, it sounds suspiciously similar to simply erasing the Healing Surge limit from the game full stop. Except obviously with more accounting.

-Username17

[sabs]

why not just have them all full heal at the end of every encounter? Seems to have about the same effect. And why is it wrong to make PC's track across sessions? Is it really that hard to have a spot on your character sheet for current, and max surges?

[malak]

Point of order: since short rests can be repeated for credit, any "per encounter" healing is essentially infinite healing between combats. If you're OK with that, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm actually ok with that.

The other thing to note is that it's not normally possible to use more than 2 Healing Surges in a combat anyway. You have a Second Wind and the Leader type has some sort of power that lets you use another one. So the Warden having 4 healing surges for the encounter is about the same as hm having infinity healing surges.

That has not been my experience - we have a cleric in the party, so .. yeah.

All in all, it sounds suspiciously similar to simply erasing the Healing Surge limit from the game full stop. Except obviously with more accounting.

What would you suggest, then, as alternative?

[malak]

why not just have them all full heal at the end of every encounter? Seems to have about the same effect. And why is it wrong to make PC's track across sessions? Is it really that hard to have a spot on your character sheet for current, and max surges?

As said before, full heal after every encounter is kind of included. The point is that I don't want them to be able to heal so much during the battle, but with a leader and magic items...

[violence in the media]

why not just have them all full heal at the end of every encounter? Seems to have about the same effect. And why is it wrong to make PC's track across sessions? Is it really that hard to have a spot on your character sheet for current, and max surges?

As said before, full heal after every encounter is kind of included. The point is that I don't want them to be able to heal so much during the battle, but with a leader and magic items...

Then why not just add the 2 healing surge values to their HP totals and say no combat healing period? At that point, why do you need to have a PC with 50 hp +10 surge +10 surge vs. one with just 70 hp?

[Username17]

What would you suggest, then, as alternative?

I don't understand what your goal is. Are you just trying to get rid of extended rests? If so, I suggest making all Daily powers into Encounter powers as well.

Then why not just add the 2 healing surge values to their HP totals and say no combat healing period? At that point, why do you need to have a PC with 50 hp +10 surge +10 surge vs. one with just 70 hp?

Combat healing is a huge part of the game. Malak says straight out that he has Clerics in the party, and combat healing is like 70% of their reason to exist.

-Username17

[violence in the media]

Combat healing is a huge part of the game. Malak says straight out that he has Clerics in the party, and combat healing is like 70% of their reason to exist.

-Username17

Hmm, it looks like he didn't say it, but for some reason I was under the impression that he was going to ditch any healing that didn't involve use of a surge, and reign in healing in general. But I guess you'd still have the situation of the cleric boosting your surge by 42 points or whatever. My mistake.

[malak]

I don't understand what your goal is. Are you just trying to get rid of extended rests? If so, I suggest making all Daily powers into Encounter powers as well.

The problem is that as long as they have plenty of healing surges left, no one gets scared. Of course there are ways to drain surges, but I would like to make them care about every surge from the first fight on.

Combat healing is a huge part of the game. Malak says straight out that he has Clerics in the party, and combat healing is like 70% of their reason to exist.

Exactly.

[malak]

Hmm, it looks like he didn't say it, but for some reason I was under the impression that he was going to ditch any healing that didn't involve use of a surge, and reign in healing in general. But I guess you'd still have the situation of the cleric boosting your surge by 42 points or whatever. My mistake.

There is surgeless healing, but it's not a very big problem, as the cleric is not the optimizer guy so he only has the CLW daily. But they just have too many surges in the first few fights.

I don't like removing extended rests in general as they have even less options then, at least some of the dailies are more interesting...



I should probably mention that only me (DM) and one other player even know other systems or play 3.5, the other players have no TTRPG experience at all...4e was not my first choice, but its easy to DM and the power format and char builder is a nice thing when you have lots of new players.

[Username17]

I don't understand what your goal is. Are you just trying to get rid of extended rests? If so, I suggest making all Daily powers into Encounter powers as well.

The problem is that as long as they have plenty of healing surges left, no one gets scared. Of course there are ways to drain surges, but I would like to make them care about every surge from the first fight on.

OK, here's the problem: 4e combat isn't scary. It just isn't. That's not because people still have lots of healing surges left, it's because the combat isn't very dangerous. Let's consider that fourthcore adventure you linked to earlier. It has a high fatality rate, really it does. But no one in that module is brought down by monster attacks, it achieves character death by periodically and totally randomly forcing people to make "saving throws versus poison" to avoid dying outright. That's not a 4th edition mechanic, it's not even 3rd edition, that's straight up AD&D nomenclature and it's basically the only thing that makes players actually die.

The grim reality is that 4th edition is easy mode. And the reason people aren't scared of losing during a combat has noting to do with the fact that they have a large number of healing surges to draw upon after the combat is over, and has everything to do with the fact that combats just aren't very threatening. In the absence of a Cleric, and often even with a Cleric (subject to the powers that character selected), no player is even legally allowed to use more than 2 healing surges during a combat. And they usually don't even bother using one. And that is your entire problem.

Now there is a second problem, where honestly players are pretty much incapable of having anything meaningful happen to them as a result of combat. Daily haling surges are large enough that players heal completely between battles like they were cartoon characters and there are no lasting effects unless you go through a fuck tonne of encounters and are left with no healing surges at all. But you're never going to address that by removing the daily limit on healing. Indeed, all you're doing is going from a scenario where the players are contemptuous of their risk in a single combat and hardly ever feel the sting of previous combats to a situation where the players are contemptuous of their risk in a single combat and never feel the sting of previous combats.

-Username17

[Niles]

The other thing to note is that it's not normally possible to use more than 2 Healing Surges in a combat anyway. You have a Second Wind and the Leader type has some sort of power that lets you use another one. So the Warden having 4 healing surges for the encounter is about the same as hm having infinity healing surges.

That has not been my experience - we have a cleric in the party, so .. yeah.

Then I suggest you reread the fucking rules.

I don't understand what your goal is. Are you just trying to get rid of extended rests? If so, I suggest making all Daily powers into Encounter powers as well.

The problem is that as long as they have plenty of healing surges left, no one gets scared.

Every time I've seen a 4e PC die they had healing surges left. Your objection is nonsense.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It's been my experience that it is quite possible for PCs to die for good at really low levels with focus-fire even pre-errata, especially with unbalanced party configurations (like ranged bard, paladin, melee ranger, warlock, wizard) especially with fuck-off mobiles like the needlefang drakes and ghouls and chuuls. I mean a fourth level swordmage only has like 45 hit points; three soldiers and a brute gangbanging him can easily take him down and KILL him within the span of one or two round before you even know it. So yes, it is possible to die with healing surges remaining, especially if you have a loser healer in your party like a shaman.

Of course at paragon tier hit point sinks get big enough so that even if you do get a few rounds of unhealed gangbanging a single inspiring word or whatever will heal way in excess of a healing surge. Seriously, that rule is fucking ridiculous and completely eliminates all challenge by level 11 or so, among other things. So much for 4E being playable at more levels than 3rd Edition.

But of course few people play outside Heroic Tier anyway so who cares, right?

[malak]

The other thing to note is that it's not normally possible to use more than 2 Healing Surges in a combat anyway. You have a Second Wind and the Leader type has some sort of power that lets you use another one. So the Warden having 4 healing surges for the encounter is about the same as hm having infinity healing surges.

That has not been my experience - we have a cleric in the party, so .. yeah.

Then I suggest you reread the fucking rules.

Please point me to the exact rule you are referring to. There are lots of more cleric powers than just healing word which allow to spend surges, and there are magic items.

[Seerow]

Seriously, I get wanting to make more things per encounter... but the healing surges model was one thing that the D&D 4e designers really got right. While the daily cap won't always come up, it can. It gives two different ways to threaten the party: Attrition, or straight out damage that the group can't keep up with.

The problem arises that the system doesn't really allow for the kind of damage necessary to take a group out through sheer high numbers, and the status effects are relatively easy to shrug off (there's a -lot- of powers that give an extra saving throw plus bonus. And most of the really devastating effects require several failed saves before relaly fucking you). I hear that Essentials monsters have fewer HP and higher damage, so they may be more deadly, but I haven't seen them so I can't really say.

This leaves the only real way of threatening a 4e party is a really long work day. Yes, they could adventure until 0 surges, which they get down to after 2-3 encounters because they burned through all of their items and are using multiple powers to burn 3-4 surges each every encounter, then stop. So you don't let them. Unlike 3e, they don't have the ability to crawl up into a personal dimension when they want to sleep. Take advantage of that. Players should be so scared to death of sleeping in the middle of a dungeon that they will ration their healing carefully and do anything they can to avoid running out of surges. And if they run out anyway? Still better to press on where they can hold the advantage of surprise, rather than get ambushed in the middle of the night sleeping in the dungeon. Nevermind if there's time constraints on the party.

You remove that daily limit, and make it an encounter limit instead, you literally lose the only way to the characters. No appropriate encounter is going to be able to deal more than double the warden's hp before it is beaten. Maybe in essentials they can, or can take him out via focus fire before healing can land. But I know with core 4e, having recharging healing surges means unless you're running an encounter that's effectively +6 levels, the party isn't going to be worried, and this is bad.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Seerow, how the hell can you say that the healing surge model was the one thing the 4E designers got right and then go through a large rambling screed where the only thing that can really threaten PCs is by throwing a non-standard workday model at them?

Even if this was possible to enforce in a way without wrecking the story (suddenly, right after sneaking into the Dark Lord's castle and only killing him and his hand-picked guard, you get attacked by ninjas and triple-pirates on two separate points in the night!), the fact remains that healing surge grow is really asymmetric in the game. Not all builds operate at full-effectiveness with a CON primary or secondary but a lot do. Regularly enforcing this workday would make CON builds way more badass than other stats; by level 8 or so a CON-whoring party can literally survive two more encounters than a non-CON focused party because they has 4 extra healing surges per player on their bodies.

[Seerow]

Seerow, how the hell can you say that the healing surge model was the one thing the 4E designers got right and then go through a large rambling screed where the only thing that can really threaten PCs is by throwing a non-standard workday model at them?

Even if this was possible to enforce in a way without wrecking the story (suddenly, right after sneaking into the Dark Lord's castle and only killing him and his hand-picked guard, you get attacked by ninjas and triple-pirates on two separate points in the night!)

Well yes, if your stories involve missions that are a quick 1 encounter deal with nothing else planned, of course healing surges aren't limiting. Why was there nothing else involved in sneaking into this dark lord's castle? All of his guards have shit for perception, and completely obvious patrol patterns that are easily evaded?

In a situation where you expect the party to only face one encounter for the day, you should be making that encounter a higher level than usual. Instead of your typical level-2 to level+2, you should be looking at level +4 to level +6 to compensate for the fact that the players are going to be blowing dailies, and aren't going to have to worry about the fact that they used 3-6 healing surges each from that encounter (and yes, it is entirely possible. Even with just one leader, your typical leader can be causing the group to spend 3-4 healing surges, every person individually can spend one on their own second wind, and many non-leaders get use a healing surge powers. Add in things like the belt that lets you use a healing surge, and healing potions, and you're looking at at least 1-2 used in combat, plus as many as 3 more after the combat ends to top themselves off. I've had a Warden burn through 9 healing surges in a single encounter before).

From a dungeon crawling perspective is where healing surges shine. You no longer have rope trick to crawl up into to rest in the middle of the dungeon, so resting before you finish is very risky,not something most players want to risk. They will likely try to sneak around many of the encounters, and they may even succeed, but it increases the risk of a future encounter resulting in that skipped encounter coming back to haunt them. Even a bunch of low level encounters can really wear a party down over time, either high level minions or low level regular creatures who do a little hp at a time.


The system isn't perfect, but the aspect of it that I like is that the players slowly get worn down. Maybe most groups don't do that, and avoid combat at every turn, which makes -any- limited resource system little more than an annoyance. When I say it's something 4e got right, I say that as a comparison to 3rd edition, it is a limiting resource that all classes share, so ideally everyone should be wearing out around the same time, as opposed to the 3e system where you have some people wearing out quickly, and others ready to keep going forever and a day. It could use tweaks to be made better, or fit better, but the concept of healing surges itself, where a person can only be magically healed so much in one day before their body can't handle it anymore, I like.





edit: As to the con issue, that is one problem of the system. On the one hand, characters with low healing surge values are supposed to be hiding in the back, letting the defenders protect them. I know in the game I ran, the mage with like 7 healing surges would frequently still have 2-3 left when the Defender with 13-14 was running out. You could probably make a all con based party to last longer, and if your whole group wants to do that, great! Yes, it could be tweaked so that isn't a big advantage in a longer work day, but if you as a DM enjoy long dungeon crawls between resting, you should be cheering if your party does it, cause you can make them even longer. If you as a DM prefer shorter work days with stronger encounters, then this shouldn't be bothering you at all except the party will have on average 5-10 extra points of health each and a 1-3 higher healing surge value.

[Lago PARANOIA]

In a situation where you expect the party to only face one encounter for the day, you should be making that encounter a higher level than usual.

This sounds good, but it's still full of failure. The HDA in 4E is immense, especially once you get out of heroic tier. The battles would quickly become unwinnable or at the very least a boring grindslog once you have to go further than 4-5 levels. And you need to go further than that to actually put a 4E party at the point where they actually worry about running out of healing surges.

I mean, seriously, the average number of healing surges a non-CON specialty character has in paragon tier is 8, meaning that their total hp for the day while accounting for heal-boosting effects but NOT non-HS healing is about 2.5x their 'normal' hit points. In order to neem the health reserves of such a character as much of a 'full' (read, draining) workday the characters need to hit less than half of what they already do and the monsters need to do more than twice the damage.

From a dungeon crawling perspective is where healing surges shine.

The dungeon crawl method of healing surge balance (which is the only place where it makes any goddamn sense) IS STUPID.

The 4-5 encounters a day paradigm only conforms to a minority of stories in team-based adventure fiction that aren't a fucking video game. The reason for this is that actually having that many fights such over a short period of time is boring and shallow. Seriously, how often in Lord of the Rings did the protagonists do consecutive fights? How about in Avatar: The Last Airbender? What about in the X-men comics, cartoons, or movies? Even during classic 'storm the fortress' occasions like JJBA or JLU the protagonists are rarely exposed to more than three challenging fights in a row.

Asking DMs to regularly construct their stories like this is stupid. It's stupid because you're forcing the DM to railroad the players into not resting and/or including filler encounters, which breaks suspension of disbelief really easily if your players don't view encounters as a videogame.

Now I am sympathetic to your complaint of wanting heroes to suffer some attrition damage and show it. In this case the number of expected encounters per day should be low. Like one or two. This encourages the PCs to avoid fights they don't need to have and makes fights past that punishing nailbiters where someone has a real risk of dying; 4E's expecting players to have 4-5 fights in a workday is stupid.

You could probably make a all con based party to last longer, and if your whole group wants to do that, great!

If DMs actually enforced the extended workday that 4E apparently balanced the game around then CON primary/secondary builds would be the norm, like they were in mid-high level 3E. Fortunately, they don't because what 4E calls a normal workday is boring and contrived. Hence we actually have parties that can make CON a tertiary or even a dump stat without getting their asses kicked.

[Seerow]

Lago, I'm not sure you're aware of this, but the game we're discussing is called Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, you are expected to be going dungeon crawling. Going the way you suggest, and balancing around 1-2 encounters a day, makes dungeon crawling quite literally impossible. You go into the dungeon, and 10 minutes later you're running out tail between your legs cause you need to rest. Better find a new name for the game, cause we're not gonna be doing any dungeons like that.

The concept behind the whole thing is a dungeon that something you want is inside, and you need to go through it dealing with traps and monsters along the way. If you think having a dungeon conforming to that is a stretch of disbelief, I'm going to suggest you might be playing the wrong game.


As for higher level encounters being too hard, it depends on the details of the encounter. I found that throwing more enemies in rather than much higher level enemies kept it manageable by the players. It would make combat take longer, but if that's all your players are doing combatwise for the day, there's nothing wrong with that.

[Username17]

Lago, I'm not sure you're aware of this, but the game we're discussing is called Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, you are expected to be going dungeon crawling.

Except... you're really not. At least, not all the time. The 4e primary settings are Darksun and Nentir Vale. Both of those have dungeons in them, but are much more focused on wilderness exploration. The days of setting D&D in Yentor or Dungeon World are mostly over.

If you're going to do Dungeon-style attrition and do anything else, you have to have the expected encounter in a Dungeon be really small. Because you're going to have a lot more of them. So you kick open the door and there are... two skeletons. And wear down PC resources that way. As opposed to the city adventure where you only have one or two encounters but they are expansive things with teams of ninjas and flaming barrels and shit.

The problem with the healing surge mechanic is that it doesn't scale to those two ways of doing things. And that means you can't really make things work while exploring Nentir Vale and Thunder and the Thunderspire. Which is pathetic, because that's a pretty limited range of demands.

-Username17

[malak]

If you're going to do Dungeon-style attrition and do anything else, you have to have the expected encounter in a Dungeon be really small. Because you're going to have a lot more of them. So you kick open the door and there are... two skeletons.

Old-style dungeon adventure don't work so well in 4E anyway because the fights last longer. You don't really want to have smaller fights or random encounters when any fight that's not a clear win from the start takes more than an hour. And because of the balancing, it's not like a well-placed sleep spell or color spray can just auto-win an encounter in a single round.

[tzor]

Lago, I'm not sure you're aware of this, but the game we're discussing is called Dungeons and Dragons.

Gee, I almost hate to tell you "Bend it like Beckham" never had Beckham in it and "Debbie Does Dallas" never really had a single Cowboy in it either.

The original AD&D game was also based a lot on non dungeon adventures. There were dungeons and there were dragons, but not every adventure involved one of the two. Half of the adventure was just getting to the dungeon. Wilderness tables for encounters, getting lost, and so on crammed the DMG.

[Seerow]

Lago, I'm not sure you're aware of this, but the game we're discussing is called Dungeons and Dragons.

Gee, I almost hate to tell you "Bend it like Beckham" never had Beckham in it and "Debbie Does Dallas" never really had a single Cowboy in it either.

The original AD&D game was also based a lot on non dungeon adventures. There were dungeons and there were dragons, but not every adventure involved one of the two. Half of the adventure was just getting to the dungeon. Wilderness tables for encounters, getting lost, and so on crammed the DMG.

And I'm not saying EVERY adventure was a dungeon crawl, any more than I am saying that EVERY adventure should have a dragon in it. That would be ridiculous. I was responding to someone telling me it stretches their suspension of disbelief that you would have more than one or two encounters per day. This means that their suspension of disbelief is stretched simply by the concept of dungeons with more than 2 encounters existing, which is ridiculous.

Except... you're really not. At least, not all the time. The 4e primary settings are Darksun and Nentir Vale. Both of those have dungeons in them, but are much more focused on wilderness exploration. The days of setting D&D in Yentor or Dungeon World are mostly over.

Not familiar with Netir Vale, but Darksun has added mechanics to drain healing surges based on the harshness of the environment, which helps compensate for that.

If you're going to do Dungeon-style attrition and do anything else, you have to have the expected encounter in a Dungeon be really small. Because you're going to have a lot more of them. So you kick open the door and there are... two skeletons. And wear down PC resources that way. As opposed to the city adventure where you only have one or two encounters but they are expansive things with teams of ninjas and flaming barrels and shit.

They don't need to be really small, they just don't need to be grossly strong. For a one shot encounter that encounter should have a lot more going on, it should also be a much higher effective level. We're talking about an on level encounter, then throw in a trap or two, and maybe a second wave of enemies stumbling in, altogether not overwhelming the party, but making the single encounter much more challenging. Here you're expecting them to blow through all of their dailies and daily use items.

In a dungeon, your encounters might be smaller than that, but your encounters should still be standard on level encounters, at most 1-2 levels below.

Old-style dungeon adventure don't work so well in 4E anyway because the fights last longer. You don't really want to have smaller fights or random encounters when any fight that's not a clear win from the start takes more than an hour. And because of the balancing, it's not like a well-placed sleep spell or color spray can just auto-win an encounter in a single round.

And what exactly is wrong with having a lot of longer encounters? I wouldn't personally expect to clear out a dungeon in one night. Maybe that's just another example of me playing the game drastically differently from how most people here do. But if we go through a dungeon and take 3-4 sessions, that's fine with us. I'd imagine from the attitude displayed that something along those lines would be even more egregious to the average person here.

[Username17]

Gee, I almost hate to tell you "Bend it like Beckham" never had Beckham in it and "Debbie Does Dallas" never really had a single Cowboy in it either.

Your point stands, but the Beckhams are actually in Bend it like Beckham in a cameo near the end. Although David and Victoria Beckham are played by actors.

Actually your point is kind of stronger at that point. You can have a whole movie with "Beckham" in the name, and Beckham is only there for a little bit at the end and it's fake. You don't need a real dungeon for it to be D&D, and even a fake dungeon doesn't need to take up much of the story time.

-Username17

[malak]

And what exactly is wrong with having a lot of longer encounters? I wouldn't personally expect to clear out a dungeon in one night. Maybe that's just another example of me playing the game drastically differently from how most people here do. But if we go through a dungeon and take 3-4 sessions, that's fine with us. I'd imagine from the attitude displayed that something along those lines would be even more egregious to the average person here.

http://greywulf.net/2009/03/dungeon-evolution/