It's time to bring Healing Surges into the game

[dejafu]

Say what you will about 4th edition D&D (which is now itself on the way out for 5th), it did have a very handy concept that should be adopted in this game: healing surges.

The idea is pretty straightforward: every character has a number of "healing surges" equal to their constitution modifier per rest. These surges can be spent by a character to heal themselves 1/4 of their total hit points.

Now, actual implementation in 4E is a bit more complicated than that (most characters can only spend one surge on themselves per encounter unless they have special class abilities that let them do it more than that, for example), but in DDO I think it should simply be an ability with a relatively long cooldown (1 minute or so) and a number of charges equal to Con modifier + a bonus based on class (basically give extra starting surges to the beefier classes that will most likely need it more). Let healing amp work on it as normal, and include various feats/enhancements/ED abilities/etc. that beef up the ability in some fashion or another.

This wouldn't replace the importance of other sources of healing, but does give a little bit of extra breathing room to fighters and barbarians in particular and eases up a bit of the burden on divine classes.

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but it seems time to bring it up again. Thoughts?

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Sounds like yet another way to water down one of the signature abilities of paladins (lay on hands) by giving everybody access to it without having to be a paladin. It would help fighters and barbs which are already strong classes, but further deteriorate the flavor of a class that is already marginal at best and in need of some serious boosting. I'm not a fan.

[Enoach]

Many of the things in 4 were meant to "speed up" the game. In PnP having 100 Healing potions in your pack would be unheard of, let alone 100 Healing Scrolls.

This was actually one of the things I felt was not needed to be changed when the 4 version came out.

Sorry I just can't sign this.

/Not Signed

[dejafu]

Sounds like yet another way to water down one of the signature abilities of paladins (lay on hands) by giving everybody access to it without having to be a paladin. It would help fighters and barbs which are already strong classes, but further deteriorate the flavor of a class that is already marginal at best and in need of some serious boosting. I'm not a fan.

Lay on Hands has the potential to heal a lot more damage than 1/4 hit points and works on others. It's also a separate ability, so should be on a separate timer. Paladins would benefit from having this ability (extra healing options that don't eat into LoH uses, yay!) while still having a distinctive advantage over other classes in the healing department.

Not to get too heavy into 4E mechanics, but paladins in that game get a bunch of extra perks from healing surges that other classes don't get. I think it'd be more than reasonable to use this as an opportunity to give paladins some much-needed extra goodies.

Paladins need a lot of love right now, no question. But there's no need to nix ideas that might help make the game more enjoyable overall for everybody.

[Stanley_Nicholas]

Lay on Hands has the potential to heal a lot more damage than 1/4 hit points and works on others. It's also a separate ability, so should be on a separate timer. Paladins would benefit from having this ability (extra healing options that don't eat into LoH uses, yay!) while still having a distinctive advantage over other classes in the healing department.

Not to get too heavy into 4E mechanics, but paladins in that game get a bunch of extra perks from healing surges that other classes don't get. I think it'd be more than reasonable to use this as an opportunity to give paladins some much-needed extra goodies.

Paladins need a lot of love right now, no question. But there's no need to nix ideas that might help make the game more enjoyable overall for everybody.

OK. My reasoning was kind of stupid. But I still don't like the suggestion. It feels out of place to me. It feels like the kind of ability that should be limited to classes of divine faith, particularly paladins. I dislike the concept, and moreover I don't think barb and fighter healing is actually a problem at all (except for warforged).

[Ape_Man]

I like it, but I'd make it a flat-rate per level of like character level x10 so a 20th level toon gets 200, 25th get 250, and lower at lowere levels of course.

Number of surges per rest equal to CON modifier works.

Subject to healing amp as well.

Say you have 40 CON . . . would 15 250-point cures be too much? I'm not sure it would to be honest considering the amount of damage with take in EEs.

How long of a cooldown? I think that's the balancing point.

[Jaid314]

i rather suspect that 4th edition D&D is the least successful of all editions of D&D. it is, to my knowledge, the first edition of D&D that basically made a large portion of their fans leave the game for something else.

not sure why we would want to spend much time copying ideas from it.

[gphysalis]

i rather suspect that 4th edition D&D is the least successful of all editions of D&D. it is, to my knowledge, the first edition of D&D that basically made a large portion of their fans leave the game for something else.

not sure why we would want to spend much time copying ideas from it.

This

There is a reason that I still play 3.5e

[Archangel666]

This

There is a reason that I still play 3.5e

There's also a reason why WotC themselves are abandoning 4e.

[Bacab]

This

There is a reason that I still play 3.5e

The reason you play 3.5...

Is because you haven't found "Pathfinder" yet.

It is like 3.75. It is great...you should check it out.

I PROMISE you will like it.

And yes...4 was essentially PnP WoW. It sucked.

Want to know how bad 4e was? Order of the Stick did not even mention it in the Web Comic.

[Gkar]

i rather suspect that 4th edition D&D is the least successful of all editions of D&D. it is, to my knowledge, the first edition of D&D that basically made a large portion of their fans leave the game for something else.

To be fair, there are people that quit when AD&D2.0 was introduced, displacing "REAL" AD&D. And probably even more people left when 3.0 replaced 2.0.

I think 4e made a lot of misteps (including healing surges EXCEPT for a single second wind) but they did do some things very right. For example, a 30th level mage doesn't end up using their sling because they are out of offensive spells for the day, instead they have unlimited use of a number of basic spells that still do reliable (if someone smallish) damage.

There's also a reason why WotC themselves are abandoning 4e.

Yes, to make more money they regularily throw out the rule book to get you to buy a new rule book.

AD&D lasted about 10 years
2e lasted 10 years before TSR, facing financial difficulty, was eaten by Wizards, which immediately started developing 3e
3e lasted less than 3 years.
3.5 lasted 4 years
4e lasted 5 years so far, and will probably make it to the 6-7 year mark, a span about as long as the previous two versions combined.

So with 4e basically lasting as long as 3.x, it only makes sense that they would be replacing 4e for the same reason they replaced the perfectly functional 3.x.

Assuming a successful 2014 launch of Next I expect that Next will be replaced with 6e around 2020.

[Vellrad]

Want to know how bad 4e was? Order of the Stick did not even mention it in the Web Comic.

I can't find it now, but there was a picture of Haley and Elan running sreaming HEALING SURGE and 'we were never upgraded'

[Thrudh]

No.

No free healing for melee. Learn to play better, gear up, or use one of the MANY existing ways to self-heal.

Your idea DOES take away from the self-healing rangers and paladins and light monks can achieve, and halfling dragonmarks, and half-elf cleric dilly, and silver flame favor, and investing in UMD, and the self-healing twists from epic destinies.

All those other choices require some work and some sacrifice for self-healing.

No free healing for barbs and fighters.

[Thlargir]

... 4th edition D&D

'nuff said...

[Uska]

NO it was and is a horrible mechanic

[Uska]

Lay on Hands has the potential to heal a lot more damage than 1/4 hit points and works on others. It's also a separate ability, so should be on a separate timer. Paladins would benefit from having this ability (extra healing options that don't eat into LoH uses, yay!) while still having a distinctive advantage over other classes in the healing department.

Not to get too heavy into 4E mechanics, but paladins in that game get a bunch of extra perks from healing surges that other classes don't get. I think it'd be more than reasonable to use this as an opportunity to give paladins some much-needed extra goodies.

Paladins need a lot of love right now, no question. But there's no need to nix ideas that might help make the game more enjoyable overall for everybody.

Its not an idea that would make it more enjoyable for everybody that mechanic was one of the main things I hated about 4E

[Uska]

The reason you play 3.5...

Is because you haven't found "Pathfinder" yet.

It is like 3.75. It is great...you should check it out.

I PROMISE you will like it.

And yes...4 was essentially PnP WoW. It sucked.

Want to know how bad 4e was? Order of the Stick did not even mention it in the Web Comic.

Sorry hated pathfinder not a huge fan of 3.x but pathfinder didnt fix anything for me.

I say try the new version of Hackmaster if your not a powergamer you will like it.

[BossOfEarth]

"Oy! Can you healing surge yet?"

/consigned to eternal perdition

[Ape_Man]

No.

No free healing for melee. Learn to play better, gear up, or use one of the MANY existing ways to self-heal.

Your idea DOES take away from the self-healing rangers and paladins and light monks can achieve, and halfling dragonmarks, and half-elf cleric dilly, and silver flame favor, and investing in UMD, and the self-healing twists from epic destinies.

All those other choices require some work and some sacrifice for self-healing.

No free healing for barbs and fighters.

WRONG.

They can use this too, for even more survivability.

[Anthios888]

Too bad this discussion got tied up with 4th edition, because healing surges, if implemented well, could help get players used to the idea of self-sufficiency without replacing other healing.

Minor self-healing isn't going to break the game as long as it does not compete with UMD or real healing. I start every life with thousands of cure serious potions, but why shouldn't newer players be able to regenerate part of their health a few times per shrine?

Monks have an ability that works along these lines: Wholeness of Body. It's popular with new and cheap players who want to top off their hit points, but someone with plenty of cure pots rarely bothers.

I disagree with one part of the suggestion that healing surges be based on constitution modifier. Because CON is so inflated, this would change endgame calculus too much. Even many sorcerers have, say, 40 CON, so they would all have 15 healing surges. We're looking at the equivalent of a hundred cure serious potions every shrine.

I would support a more universal way to ease the self-healing burden for newer players, especially between fights. If it makes every class have 15 self-only lay on hands, that's probably overkill.