Basically, your pool of healing surges represents your ability to physically rally yourself to keep on fighting. When you are out of healing surges, you are thoroughly exhausted and have to stop and get a full night's rest. Functionally, it is a limit on what you can do in a 'day'.

On your own, as a non-leader, you typically can only spend a healing surge once per encounter through Second Wind, which is usually a poor use of your standard action (for dwarves, it's a minor action). Out of combat, you can spend them freely. Each time, you do, you heal a quarter of your max HP (your healing surge value)

Each leader, though, has a way to allow characters to spend healing surges outside of Second Wind. For example, as a shaman, I have the power Healing Spirit which lets me target myself or an ally and allow them to spend a healing surge. (I can only use this power twice in an encounter.) This is usually the most efficient use of healing surges because leaders' powers let them add healing on top of the healing surge value, but in different ways depending on the class (e.g., Clerics get to add their Wisdom modifier to the healing, which makes them very efficient healers, while Shamans can heal another ally adjacent to their spirit companions for 1d6, which makes them good at group or 'chain' healing*). Healing potions also allow you to spend healing surges.

I think paladins can spend healing surges with their Lay On Hand to heal others as well. In later sourcebooks, healing surge are used in more varied ways.

I don't know if I am overexplaining it. Basically, I as the leader allow you to spend healing surges with my powers, healing you each time. When you run out of healing surges, it means it is time for you to go to bed.

Huh, so everyone gets to be a healer? Strange.

~SE++

Not everyone is a healer. Everyone has healing surges but you can't just use them of your own voliton ordinarily. You get one second win per encounter, and for most people that is their only means of accessing their healing surges.

Healers like Clerics let you use your healing surges. Without one you may as well only have one healing surge to spend because you aren't touching the others.

But if you run out of surges, all the Healing words in the world won't save you.

Basically, your healing surges represents your capacity for being healed, not a useable resource for healing.

Yeah, again, using Second Wind is a pretty poor use of your actions. And, yes, you could heal yourself up to full between encounters, but that makes you a healer in the way being able to stop at an inn makes you a healer.

Also, even using surges up between encounters is not always recommended because Leader classes have powers that can allow you to use your surges more effectively than you can by yourself (they yield more HP).

I may be interested.

I have played this module several times but I am good at keeping player knowledge and character knowledge separate. Can you direct me to Navu'ai's sheet?

Nauvai's character was submitted as a D&D Char Builder printout and can be found [HERE]

Should you decide to play that character you could convert it to a Mythweavers sheet, or anything else you're more comfortable with.

Also, considering there has only been one battle so far, you may also raise the question of swappin out some of his powers to suit your playstyle. Take a look at the character and let me know what ya think.

do you have any background for the character?

I will likely adjust the character but keep it as a Chaladin.

Out of curiosity, why did LM drop?

Check [THIS] post for his story. You may modify it to fit something you're comfortable with.

LM dropped due to real life issues, he come on yesterday bowed out of my game and closed the mafia game he was running and stated he prolly wouldnt be back on the boards for a bit.

I am not going to be able to take the Paladin. I was hopeful that I could but I just have too much school. I hope you get a replacement soon.

Thanks for the interest.

I'd been following along with this game the whole time so far (I'm caught up to page 17).

I don't really like 4th Ed, but that can be overshadowed by my love of D&D. I would need links to the 4th Ed books; I only have the DMG's and MM's (I ran an IRL 4e game for just over a year, so I don't need to be caught up on the rules). However, I have no real understanding of who the Raven Queen is other than she unfortunately took the place of Nerull. That might make it difficult to play a Paladin in her service, though I can usually play Paladins well.

I assume she is Neutral Evil, as well? I see the Paladin's character sheet doesn't have an alignment. Even though the system doesn't (my least favorite part about it), I use The Nine as a philosophical frame of reference for a character's general dispositions towards appeals to morality and ethics. So, it helps me to know.


I guess this is a long-winded way of me saying I'm interested and willing to pick up Navu'ai Marsalon for this game, but I need the PHB 1. I've never played KotS, since I rarely DM with modules.

I'll set you up with the books, I'll also allow you to tweak the character to better fit your liking, or simply submit a new one that we all look the other way and suddenly "Navu'ai" is "_______". Its a nice and casually game, and its simply a module so the characters will most likely not be going much further than level 4 or 5.

I'm sorta new on the 4E scene myself (and completely agree with alignments like you mentioned and still tend to stick to them despite what the system says) so I wont be able to spout off too much about followers of the raven queen.

I'll PM you in a moment.

Also, I appreciate you stepping up and volunteering, and I'm sure the party will as well.

Let me know what you want to do as far as either a new character, or a paladin overhaul, etc. I'll keep an eye out here.

PM Sent.

The Raven Queen is unaligned or True Neutral. She embodies the idea of Death, really: inevitable and maybe sad, but not sadistic. Think of the Ancien Greek Hades. She's ambitious but pragmatic and not at all power-hungry. She has made strategic choices and alliances with good deities to have acquired the domains of Winter and Fate in addition to Death.

I don't have her 'teachings' on hand, but basically: We all die. And in the time we have in life, do something with it. And when we die, we go to the Raven Queen without regret or fear.

Actually, I dug up the blurb for paladins under the Raven Queen: "You do not fear your own death, but your friends are another matter. You see in their deeds the hand of fate, and it is your duty to protect them until their deaths serve providence. You don't know how it all ends, but when your soul goes to meet the Raven Queen, you will not regret how you served her."

In all, I think she's a pretty cool introduction from 4E.

ETA: Also, she's very anti-undead and you can see that as she is against the perversion of natural death or she feels personally insulted by the usurpation of her domain. Orcus is one of her enemies; he has sights on her throne.

Thanks for the background, DS.

I'll keep the character, as is, BH. I normally DM, so I like playing a wide array. I'll move the character over to a mythweaver sheet.

BH -- Navu'ai is set up with a feat called "Great Fortitude." I assume this is where the extra +2 to his Fortitude defense comes from, but I can't find the feat in either of the two PHBs. Is my assumption correct about its benefit, and/or is there any other benefit to this feat that I should be aware of?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it. It is listed in PHB1 under the Paragon Tier for feats. Since Navu'ai is only Heroic Tier, would you like me to change this now?

Yes please, thank you for noticing that.

Updated feat selection to Channel Divinity: Raven Queen's Blessing.

Also, LM was missing his shield bonus to Reflex, which is fixed. I believe I have finished transposing everything onto the mythweavers sheet, which is in my sig.