Quote:
Originally Posted by Badwe  4th edition is not designed for inter-combat attrition. |
Excellent point. One of the defining moments of megadungeon play
IMO is the fear of not being able to make it out (often because you fell down a one-way shaft / teleporter trap / elevator room / whatever). The importance of this factor is what underlies the necessity of mapping and drives some of the scariness of finding that your map doesn't match the territory any more. Having a single night of rest bring you back to full resources means that "camping out" in the dungeon can be a valid option, undercutting this fear of getting trapped.
Unlike the other things I mentioned, I think that houseruling healing surges and extended rests is more trouble than it's worth. (Magic items are explicitly designed to allow stripping out the way I describe; Mearls has described the ease of doing so as one of the advantages of
4E over 3.)
I think that adventure design can address this instead. I've thought about a "solar labyrinth" dungeon that becomes exponentially more deadly when the sun sets, to recreate those moments of racing back to the surface. You don't even need anything special; if the frequency of wandering monster checks is OD&D standard (1 in 6 every 10 minutes), it becomes very unlikely you'll get eight hours' worth uninterrupted rest.
You can also emphasize attrition of other resources. Running out of arrows or torches can make the prospect of getting stuck a scary one, and wandering monsters could threaten these resources (e.g. giant moths attracted to flame putting out your torches) as well as HP.
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