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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 that 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.
Sounds like a reasonable option. You could simplify it to 1 + con bonus or some such. Or make it a chart based on class. Lots of options that could work.
Interesting.
I certianly think its, roughly, possible to do this via house rules. That said I see two broad, though separate, issues.
The first issue I'd have here is that combats don't use equal surges. In my experience this is actually really extreme. The stereotypical adventure often has two encounters that are really light, a few surges lost at most, one that is a little tougher and then this all out brawl with the BBEG where things go completely crazy...
...The first use came from your second wind, you used your second with the help of a daily off a magic item, the third was souped up courtesy of the cleric, the fourth came when the paladin used a power after he took an enemy down, the fifth was accessed when the mage used a potent consumable that allowed everyone in burst 3 to use one, the sixth was a death save with some help from the cleric who gave you a big bonus to the roll. Your out of surges and everyone else is running on fumes, hell its round 8 and your out of encounter powers and down to your last daily as well. On the other hand the BBEG was bloodied two rounds ago and most of his buddies are dead. Situation still in doubt - its touch and go...
In other words without the ability to access an unusually large number of surges for some fights its hard to set up and play out those really big epic battles where everything is in play, all the daily's, all the encounters - hell even the consumables are on the table for this fight.
My other issue is your essentially solving problem A while introducing problems B and C. Without a resource to track that can be used either efficiently or inefficiently you've made it more difficult to provide contrast between combats. Not just in that you can't make them too hard (see BBEG example above) but also that you can't really make them easier either (there is an exception with a 'we are hero's fight (one meant to show off just how powerful and ass kicking the PCs are)). With a limited daily resource (which is what healing surges are) a battle that was not actually dangerous to the very lives of the PCs was still a challenge because they need to use their resources effectively - if they lost 3 surges in the fight instead of just 1 where they really should have only used 1 they, in some sense, 'lost'. They need to improve before they get to the BBEG fight or they'll not have enough surges left to win.
On the other hand if surges replenish at the end of the fight then they can't 'loose' such combats - now the only way to keep the excitement up is to make the fight hard enough that there is a very real chance that they can die in this fight. In essence, in order to keep your players entertained, the battle they have with the big baddies minions at the beginning of the adventure needs to be the same level of lethality as the fight with his lieutenant in the middle and, in turn that fights lethality needs to be about the same as the big baddie reveal at the adventures climax. Every fight needs to be close to the same level of difficulty because easy fights are utterly pointless and hard ones to hard for the PCs to win.
Finally there is about as much of an issue with PCs that never need to rest as there is with ones that do eventually need to stop. Now the players can keep adventuring but players that can adventure indefinitely are as much of a plot issue as ones that choose to stop and rest. For example it could be presumed that the PCs will enter and explore the Lost City over several days, maybe even weeks, during the course of the adventure (and that there will be plot developments during the interim) but with the self healing PCs there is never a reason for them to stop. Most combats take less then a minute game time to resolve so they can easily fit in 20 or 40 of them in a day. Not to mention that this highlights the already rather prevalent issue of PCs going up in level and gaining a lot of power in a short amount of time. But now instead of them going up levels every few weeks (already rather ludicrous) they might gain three levels in a single day.
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My suspicion is your finding your players are prone to buggering off before the adventure is done (the 5 minute work day problem). If so then the issue may be on your side (to many encounters that are too hard) or it may be on their side (inefficient use of resources, particularly healing surges predicated on the fact that they can always leave and take a long rest).
If the issue is one your side then it may be that toning down the lethality is an easy solution. One the other hand maybe the problem is that you want the adventure to feature 8 combats and your players can't handle that. If the second case is the issue then you may want to ask yourself why your having quite that many combats before the adventure is being concluded. After all combat after combat is a pretty low plot way to play the game - usually most people would have more fun if there was some more plot development in their campaign. Even a combat heavy campaign where combat is most of what takes place during a session will usually benefit from some story and development between combats. I'd at least consider how your game might improve if there was more chance for the plot to move forward between 4 and 5 encounter adventures as opposed to the 10 and 12 encounter kind.
That is not to say that there is no place in the game for the adventure with 30 plus rooms (or the expedition to the Underdark or what have you) but even in an adventure like this having the players trying to balance how far they push themselves before stopping to rest, and learning to 'read' the dungeon for when its OK to rest as well as deal with how their forays are effecting the ecology of the dungeon (how its inhabitants are reacting to their continued incursions) tend to become a big part of the plot - if its just static that is less exciting then if there is development (and, fundamentally, if they never stop because they have infinite surges then its always pretty much just a static adventure).
The reverse of this coin is players that are not facing challenges that are too hard but instead choose to leave off the adventure constantly to get back to max healing surges (and regain the dailies they use in every fight). This is a player problem and here its incumbent on the DM to make such a style of play bad for them.
Four ways I know of handling this. The most common and most obvious is the adventure that gets harder. Now the baddies are on alert. The difficulty here is in conveying to the players that they have screwed up by leaving and making that meaningful to them. As often as not it simply causes the problem to become more exaggerated - now they really need to use dailies and are loosing even more healing surges in every combat so they are even more inclined to bugger off for a rest.
Another option is 'You Lose'. This is a time limit but the whole world does not end if they fail...they just fail. The mayor of the hamlet they are trying to protect gets eaten by the monster - the Inn gets burned down or what have you. This is particularly effective if its followed by the baddie leaving having accomplished what he came to accomplish - make sure the players are in no position to take revenge...all they can do from here is move on to the next adventure.
Players don't like loosing - just keep in mind that it needs to be clear to them that it was their buggering off early that caused this and it needs to have been a choice - if they buggered off when most of them where down to 1 healing surge then they had no option, unless they use their healing surges badly (players need to stop using the healing potions after a point because they eventually become a very sub optimal way of burning through surges for example).
Other good options, in my experience, are 'A Very Partial Victory' and 'NPCs We Love You'.
In 'A Very Partial Victory' after the second time (or third or whatever the DM deems appropriate) the PCs bugger off the BBEG gets the idea that he's in trouble and vacates the premise with all his minions and loot. Sure the PCs have saved the hamlet but they have been denied the chance to best the big evil and they got measly treasure to boot. The towns mayor is vaguely happy that they drove off the threat but is unhappy that its still lurking out there. I can pretty much guarantee that your players will hate this - they did not go on the adventure to kill the big baddies doormen and they sure are not happy about the crappy treasure they got. Just make sure that your players manage to work out that it was their tardiness that denied them real victory.
Even more potent, in my experience, is 'NPCs We Love You.' For this your players are on a time limit...but not one that results in all out doom befalling the land if they fail - but one in which their glory will be lost. As they are heading off to rest for the third time the Imperial Army shows up and says pretty much 'thank you for your efforts citizen - we'll take it from here'. Or the abyssal monstrosity they ran away from (in order to rest up and come back at full power) has left its confines and is put to the sword by 'more worthy adventures'. The Imperial Army/Other Adventurers are the hero's of the moment - not only do they get the cool loot but all the little people are are running around going "my hero's - can we have a feast in your honour? please we want to worship your feet" to these interloper NPCs. I can pretty much guarantee that there is just about nothing that will drive your players more batty then being upstaged by NPCs. For this to work there should be some indication that the Imperial Army/Other Adventurers are in the vicinity and therefore could show up. Once again it needs to be clear to the Players that they could have had the glory but their tardiness means that in the end they are nothing but wannabe's.
My experience is that usually this lesson only needs to be taught once in a fairly long while. While eventually your naturally overcautious players may fall back into old habits subsequent lessons reinforce things for even longer. The big upside is once they get out of this habit you really can run all those adventures that require them to push themselves to the limit, they will in fact start to retire for a long rest only when absolutely necessary so, in the end you'll get what you want - you just had to add in a few 'teaching' moments to get your players in the right frame of mind.
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Interesting idea. Would Short Resting include returning to full hitpoints? Given that Surges would now be a fully renewable resources, you would probably want to build that in.
Yeah, that's kind of implied.
The one other thing worth keeping in mind that surges per combat might already be limited by what healing the party has available. If you have a regular leader (who can use Healing Word twice an encounter), then the Warden's 4 surges are somewhat useless - he can at most use three of them, via Second Wind and the two Healing Words.
And magic items.
Or vice versa. Say you have a group that normally has a decent amount of healing available. But your Wizard only gets 2 surges each fight - he could burn through those quickly, and suddenly simply cannot be healed outside of surgeless healing.
This isn't to say the idea can't work, of course - just make sure to keep these scenarios in mind!
Yeah, but is exactly the goal - every fight is dangerous for everyone. But yes, maybe squishies 2 surges, defenders 3 surges would be better.
There are no daily powers, and there are no healing surges. Instead, every character heals to full after each combat.
Now, part of what makes this work is that there really isn't much in-combat healing for them. There is no 'leader' origin, persay. There might be one or two who get very minor amounts of healing, and you will occasionally get a mutation that provides some form of healing. And each character gets Second Wind, which in Gamma World is a minor action once per encounter to heal half your hitpoints.
But overall, it treats each combat as a self-contained thing. Either you survive it, or you don't.
I'm not sure how portable that would be, since D&D characters can get much more reliable access to healing. But it does stand as proof that this sort of system can work.
Yeah, I kind of like that. But it's not like the cleric will just go away, so... yeah.
You could always try not letting your players take an extended rest.
Whenever they try to take an extended rest hit them with a wandering monster fight.
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You could always try not letting your players take an extended rest.
Whenever they try to take an extended rest hit them with a wandering monster fight.
That doesn't really solve the problem. It just removes the dailies from most fights (which leaves them even less options than 4E has already), and at one point they must rest, and then, it will take another 3-4 encounters until the surges are low enough for anyone to be really afraid for their lives...
That doesn't really solve the problem. It just removes the dailies from most fights (which leaves them even less options than 4E has already), and at one point they must rest, and then, it will take another 3-4 encounters until the surges are low enough for anyone to be really afraid for their lives...
I don't think the amount of surges between Extended Rests are the problem as any one play might be able to spend 2-4 surges during a specific battle. This is including his Second Wind, 2 leader healing power, a potion, and possible a power that allows them to spend a healing surge. That's a lot for one battle and it's probably against a BBEG. But all of those usually take a round to do (meaning you can also move and take a minor) but the monster is just going to keep hammering away, dropping your re-gained HP back down.
A question though, what source book are you gaining your monsters in? As I understand it, the Monster Manual 1 is out-dated with monster's AC/Damage ratio and was fixed with the later Monster Manuals? I could be wrong, but this might be connected to how much healing your players need between battles.
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A question though, what source book are you gaining your monsters in? As I understand it, the Monster Manual 1 is out-dated with monster's AC/Damage ratio and was fixed with the later Monster Manuals? I could be wrong, but this might be connected to how much healing your players need between battles.
My monsters are already deadlier than their vanilla versions. I usually edit them so they are at least 50% above the average dmg suggested in MM3, and sometimes lower recharge power's recharge die by 1. Sometimes I also make them more swingy - like 2d12 instead of 1d10 + 6, but it doesn't really change anything.