Suppose I mess with the default time frame of the game...

[FireLance]

Everything that happens after a short rest now happens after an extended rest. Effectively, encounter abilities now become daily abilities. Clerics can use healing word twice per day, or three times per day at higher levels. Characters can use second wind only once per day, and can only spend healing surges to regain hit points after six hours of rest.

Everything that happens after an extended rest now happens after a week's rest. Previously daily abilities are now only refreshed on a weekly basis. Characters now only regain healing surges after a week.

What effects do you think this would have, e.g. on encounter design, gameplay, and the feel of the game?
Would you view such changes as positive or negative?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Interesting idea...

Things you might change in encounter design:
You might use more Minions.

You might build "larger encounters" that span themselves over an entire day of exploration or travelling. Essentially, where you might have put 4 regular encounters with 5 monsters each, you might now have 4 "segments" of one encounter with 1 or 2 regular monsters and a few minions.

You might find more opportunities to define "Milestones". You will have the equivalent of a fully fledged encounter only happening every two days, which might coincide more with important "story progressions".

You might have a better "encounter to story" ratio. A short dungeon for example would usually consist of 3-6 encounters in a day, and yet still would probably resolve only one major plot point (get the McGuffin, stop the ritual, whatever). You probably wouldn't want the same dungeon to turn into a weeklong activity, so you'd cut down the actual encounters.

If you actually use the idea of splitting an encounter in multiple steps or groups, individual combats might feel faster flowing. In a way it's a "lie" - the actual encounter would take longer, but since the players would perceive them as several short skirmishes with lots of exploration in between, the illusion would be that the combat is shorter.

You might have more opportunities to mix skill challenges with combat encounters. Again, the idea is splitting the encounters.
For example, in an urban chase scenario, you could add some _short_ combat scenes instead of fully fledged encounters, and you'd still have a strong resource management component to it. A failed Stealth Check could lead to a skirmish with a single guard without feeling "meaningless" if it's the only fight during the challenge - the encounter isn't over yet, and the hit points and healing words lost in that morning will still mean something in the afternoon.


One could experiment with this idea in an adventure - create some kind of fantastic terrain the party has to get through that makes it impossible to take shorts rest.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

*bump* anyone else?

 

[Jack99]

I would rather ask - What are you trying to achieve. If you share that with us, maybe it's possible someone can point you in a better direction.

But offhand, I would say that you risk slowing the game down significantly.

With only 2-3 heals + 1 second wind per character per day (at lower levels anyway), you will impose a limit on what they can do. They will often be forced to take a nap in order to recharge their encounter powers, because without those, they have no healing, bar potions.

 

[CapnZapp]

Suppose I mess with the default time frame of the game...

I think you should do yourself a favor and divorce completely the story-driven notions of "encounters" from the in-game realities of days and hours.

Once you have done that, you can run any adventure you want!

First the adventurers cross the desert. It will take them weeks, with individual encounters spaced several days apart. But it all takes place within a single "day", that is, with no opportunity for an extended rest in between. (And not because of any "the desert is unforgiving and harsh" crap, but simply because "I the DM say so - I told you already at the beginning the entire desert trek would be a series of encounters with no extended rest, so all combats will count for something. Reserve your energies!")

Then they go down the Mummy's Tomb. This is a dungeon they will clear out in hours. However, there are a dozen rooms, so completing it all with no extended rest is deemed unreasonable. So you say "the Mummy has cursed you all, and unless you slay it by midnight tonight you will all be doomed. However, you will have time for one last supper, which I will count as an extended rest". Now it is up to the adventurers to try to avoid as many rooms as possible, and delay their only extended rest as long as they dare, to have enough resources to defeat the evil Mummy before he turns them all to dust.

You see why I feel WotC did us all a tremendous disservice locking extended rests to days? Why I feel it is a big wrong to keep talking about minutes and hours? Why they're wasting an enormous story potential by not leaving the time frames of short and extended rests completely up to the DM (and adventure designer).

As it is, D&D only really supports dungeons. (And not even all dungeons, as evidenced by my example above).

Luckily the solution is simple. Trust your DM to apply reasonable timeframes for your encounters and "days"! If you need to go weeks between extended rests, it is probably to make a more exciting story!

 

[Jack99]

I think you should do yourself a favor and divorce completely the story-driven notions of "encounters" from the in-game realities of days and hours.

Once you have done that, you can run any adventure you want!

First the adventurers cross the desert. It will take them weeks, with individual encounters spaced several days apart. But it all takes place within a single "day", that is, with no opportunity for an extended rest in between. (And not because of any "the desert is unforgiving and harsh" crap, but simply because "I the DM say so - I told you already at the beginning the entire desert trek would be a series of encounters with no extended rest, so all combats will count for something. Reserve your energies!")

Then they go down the Mummy's Tomb. This is a dungeon they will clear out in hours. However, there are a dozen rooms, so completing it all with no extended rest is deemed unreasonable. So you say "the Mummy has cursed you all, and unless you slay it by midnight tonight you will all be doomed. However, you will have time for one last supper, which I will count as an extended rest". Now it is up to the adventurers to try to avoid as many rooms as possible, and delay their only extended rest as long as they dare, to have enough resources to defeat the evil Mummy before he turns them all to dust.

You see why I feel WotC did us all a tremendous disservice locking extended rests to days? Why I feel it is a big wrong to keep talking about minutes and hours? Why they're wasting an enormous story potential by not leaving the time frames of short and extended rests completely up to the DM (and adventure designer).

As it is, D&D only really supports dungeons. (And not even all dungeons, as evidenced by my example above).

Luckily the solution is simple. Trust your DM to apply reasonable timeframes for your encounters and "days"! If you need to go weeks between extended rests, it is probably to make a more exciting story!

Been thinking about doing just that, but haven't gotten around to trying it - glad to hear it works well.

 

[Victim]

Healing becomes much more difficult.

Synergy between powers becomes pretty pointless, since dropping several 'encounter' powers in a single fight is huge investment of resources. It becomes better to build around spamming an at will (Twin Strike, the pumped up Magic Missile wizard, the charging barbarian).

Class features and abilities that provide constant bonuses become a lot more valuable than a power.

 

[vagabundo]

What are you trying to accomplish? What's your goal?

A gritter game? Then keep the same amount of encounters, but possibly use lots more minions. Certain creatures would be a lot tougher - like the healing surge sucking undead. I think it would a more brutal world. Diseases would be deadlier too. Maybe it would be better for a warhammer world.

 

[FireLance]

I would rather ask - What are you trying to achieve. If you share that with us, maybe it's possible someone can point you in a better direction.

It's more in the nature of a thought experiment than me wanting to achieve anything.

But offhand, I would say that you risk slowing the game down significantly.

With only 2-3 heals + 1 second wind per character per day (at lower levels anyway), you will impose a limit on what they can do. They will often be forced to take a nap in order to recharge their encounter powers, because without those, they have no healing, bar potions.

Assuming you don't change the default encounter difficulty so that the PCs can take on more fights between rests, would the only difference be with respect to the narrative, in the amount of game time that elapses? In other words, the party simply fights one encounter per day instead of one encounter every five minutes, and rests for one week instead of one day between significant fights that require the use of daily abilities?

 

[FireLance]

I think you should do yourself a favor and divorce completely the story-driven notions of "encounters" from the in-game realities of days and hours.

Once you have done that, you can run any adventure you want!

True, but this might not sit well with players and DMs who have a more simulationist approach and would prefer to tie the recovery of certain abilities to a specific period of rest.