Healing surges not eating a use makes things a bit better, but still a little weird, mostly because the net effects are still the same. It's identical to if you gave someone a free healing surge that you just used instantly, with the same in-game and meta effects as a real healing surge.
It's just hard to buy that if the only differences are cosmetic that there's a difference at all. (the thing about the falchions is different since not only does "magic missile" does not reference falchions, but there are separate calculations made when you activate them).
Say that we accept that divine magic is "true" healing while healing surges are simply adrenaline boosts mixed with renewed focus. Some of the complications associated with not getting "true" healing can be modeled with enough mental contortions; your "hit an old war wound with crit" example. But others cannot. Stuff like infection or bloodloss, for example, or anything that would logically differentiate surges from true healing. True healing may fix a sprained ankle, but trying to fix that with a surge would result in a temporary fix at best (lasts as long as your focus does) *at least relative to true healing*, whereas the model treats it as equally permanent, regardless of any other factors that may or may not be in play.
This does not necessarily imply that healing surges are instantaneous wound closing; perhaps a healing surge simply keeps you functioning "well enough" with a sprained ankle, until it is healed in a week or so. But then why does CLW have the same effect, even though it's supposedly perfect healing? It's a lot easier just to consider CLW as much of an abstract non-wound-closing form of healing as healing surges are.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-07-21 11:49 pm (UTC)It's just hard to buy that if the only differences are cosmetic that there's a difference at all. (the thing about the falchions is different since not only does "magic missile" does not reference falchions, but there are separate calculations made when you activate them).
Say that we accept that divine magic is "true" healing while healing surges are simply adrenaline boosts mixed with renewed focus. Some of the complications associated with not getting "true" healing can be modeled with enough mental contortions; your "hit an old war wound with crit" example. But others cannot. Stuff like infection or bloodloss, for example, or anything that would logically differentiate surges from true healing. True healing may fix a sprained ankle, but trying to fix that with a surge would result in a temporary fix at best (lasts as long as your focus does) *at least relative to true healing*, whereas the model treats it as equally permanent, regardless of any other factors that may or may not be in play.
This does not necessarily imply that healing surges are instantaneous wound closing; perhaps a healing surge simply keeps you functioning "well enough" with a sprained ankle, until it is healed in a week or so. But then why does CLW have the same effect, even though it's supposedly perfect healing? It's a lot easier just to consider CLW as much of an abstract non-wound-closing form of healing as healing surges are.