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.

[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).

[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

[Truga]

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.

This.

@OP Get silver flame pots or heal scrolls.

Edit: And my most self-sufficient character is my rogue, she can literally do anything.

[Antiguo]

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.

The help that paladins need is NOT to keep gimp the pure melee classes in the self healing departament, but a buff to their dps and/or control.

[Full_Bleed]

The help that paladins need is NOT to keep gimp the pure melee classes in the self healing departament, but a buff to their dps and/or control.

The reason they are called "pure melee" is because they aren't supposed to be self-sufficient. They are supposed to play a "pure" role (Melee) and be so good at it that others that aren't pure need and want them. Reliance on one another is core the the whole concept of most RPG's (D&D in particular.)

DDO might be a better computer game for being so solo friendly, but it's not a better RPG for it. When all the roles become homogenized and self-sufficiency is a requirement/entitlement, the roles these classes once played becomes diminished and we move further and further from the game it purports to be.

[Anthios888]

The reason they are called "pure melee" is because they aren't supposed to be self-sufficient. They are supposed to play a "pure" role (Melee) and be so good at it that others that aren't pure need and want them. Reliance on one another is core the the whole concept of most RPG's (D&D in particular.)

DDO might be a better computer game for being so solo friendly, but it's not a better RPG for it. When all the roles become homogenized and self-sufficiency is a requirement/entitlement, the roles these classes once played becomes diminished and we move further and further from the game it purports to be.

Yeah, it would suck so much if a new level 7 pure fighter could tool around in a Hard Redwillow's Ruins without a healer or plat.

[Antiguo]

The reason they are called "pure melee" is because they aren't supposed to be self-sufficient. They are supposed to play a "pure" role (Melee) and be so good at it that others that aren't pure need and want them. Reliance on one another is core the the whole concept of most RPG's (D&D in particular.)

DDO might be a better computer game for being so solo friendly, but it's not a better RPG for it. When all the roles become homogenized and self-sufficiency is a requirement/entitlement, the roles these classes once played becomes diminished and we move further and further from the game it purports to be.

But the fact is you can still be self sufficient whit a pure melee, paladins (and rangers) need way more things than to keep an artificial self-healing tax to pure meleers, hireling+barbarian is 1000 times better than hireling+paladin, i say lets help A BIT the pure melee classes whit no-plat self healing and lets help A LOT hybrid meleers improving their DPS, buffing and/or control as i said. Give me a reason whit my paladin to use my spell points other than self heal, please.

What i like from this idea is you can control it whit ease: making only base constitution count, adding enhacements lines to improve it, giving different classes different enhacements to toy whit it, change the %of health you get, making it depend on heal and repair skills....

[ristretto93]

The reason they are called "pure melee" is because they aren't supposed to be self-sufficient.

No. Nope.

There is no need to think of self healing as the only thing that makes one self sufficient. A rogue is still a pure melee class imo because that is how they do their damage and their most important role - but played well they (imo) are one of the most self-sufficient classes in the game. Just saying, maybe you should keep your definition of self sufficient more broad...


As far as healing surges though - honestly one of the first things to turn me off from 4th ed. was this mechanic. I am 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

[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.

[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'

[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.

[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.