"loseing is not cost effective"

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

So does anyone here remember the GI Joe cartoons from the late 80’s early 90’s. There was an episode about the ‘over sight’ of GI Joe. Every little while they would be told to not fire missiles or recharge weapons, or ‘waist’ fuel for the vehicles. The end result was the senator having a great quote “Losing is not cost effective”

Now what does this have to do with D&D and 4e you ask, well I will tell you.

I am new to this edition. Infact I just had game one of my first campaign, and I am already be told we are ‘doing it wrong’. Ok, so maybe not that rude, but here is what happened. We are in beginning of Keep of the shadowfall. We had a bad encounter with some kobolds, then the next day we got Ambushed on our way out of town by more of those shifty bastards.

Ok so in the encounter round 1 2 of us (the two new to 4e) both used our Daily’s. In round two our Invoker (and most experienced 4e player) summoned an angle of fire. Around round 5 or 6 our thief (Not only also new to 4e but new to D&D) used her cartwheel charge daily. So now after the encounter we have 1 PC with a daily left (We are level 1).

So the DM told the Invoker player we are way to egger to fire the big guns. He also said there are more encounters before we can rest (we are going to a dragon tomb were Orcus may or may not have an undead dragon holding my mentor…or has eaten said mentor) (Check out my blog http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/hardcoredanddgirl/ )

So NOW I have to ask what do we do? We are mostly new players (3 never before played 4e) and only 2 experienced players. Is this a real problem? If I was a wizard in 3e I would think nothing of firing off one of my only spells, or maybe all of them if the fight was hard, but never have I been told “What about the rest of the encounters”
So are we ‘screwed’ and not in the good way? Is having less daily’s a bad thing. I know a lot of you have read this mod before, so with minimal spoilers, maybe should we head to the waterfall the kobolds instead? Is that an easier way to run?
this is a little upseting since Dave has been my fav 2e/3e DM ever, and I already had reservations about switching to 4e...

So suggestions?

 

[Mort_Q]

It's all about balance.

Saving your daily for the "Big Bad" may seem ideal, but running out of healing surges before you get there isn't exactly ideal either.

I certainly would think twice before pulling out my daily during the first encounter of the day, but it's not a hard and fast rule.

If the DM always uses the same pattern... several smaller encounters building up to the big battle... then you'd be foolish to ignore that.

Sometimes the dice aren't rolling in your favour and you need to bull out the big guns early to survive.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

Well we got our butts kicked in the first fight the day before, and there were more of the damn kobald knights, and this time no minions, so we were all worried. Also, that first fight we all (Yes even the 4e vets) forgot we had action points. SO round one my swordmage Green flame blade, action point Booming blade, then reaction Ice backlash, when the knight hit me back.
I know we have more to go, but we have 2 PCs in no armor, one of them took skill focus as there 1st feat, we are not setup for multi combat encounters out of the gate. I know I am far from optimized, but as our defender I feel I need to be all over the place.

It just seams odd with these kick but at will powers that the daily thing matters, am I missing something?

 

[Zerakon]

It just seams odd with these kick but at will powers that the daily thing matters, am I missing something?

If you feel like you needed all those dailies in the first encounter, then who can argue? How many healing surges did you need to expend afterward? Is anyone really low? Remember you have encounter powers too; I think most players tend to open with encounter powers if they don't yet have a gauge of how hard the combat is going to be.

I know a lot[ of you have read this mod before, so with minimal spoilers, maybe should we head to the waterfall the kobolds instead? Is that an easier way to run?

On behalf of your DM, wtf? Basing your decision of where to go by asking on a message board seems really uncool, and any answer would go above "minimal spoilers" in my book.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

On behalf of your DM, wtf? Basing your decision of where to go by asking on a message board seems really uncool, and any answer would go above "minimal spoilers" in my book.

You are of course 100% right, I don’t know what I was thinking. It just seams like this edition is much more hardwired for metagaming. Everyone has to be careful what you use, and rests and healing surges and daily powers.

It just seams to me that if we can ‘screw’ ourselves by spending our powers maybe this part of the quest is too high level. I thought we would stay in town to investigate a little, so did the rogue, that is why she


See here is the problem in a nut shell. We don’t have ‘fighters’ or ‘rouges/Thief’ that are 100% all day. Everyone can be ‘down to the limit’.

As for our Encounters, we used them too, and I got both healing inspirations from the warlord in both fights, and I still had to spend HS afterward (The first time I spent 3 after the fight and still was down 5 or 6 hp) I know our Warlock and Rouge both second winded, but I don’t know how many surges people spent after the battle.

On a side note can we make a potion of cure light that works like the Cleric utility power? That might help.

 

[CapnZapp]

So suggestions?

Only one: Can I ask you to keep to the standard text color, which is much easier on the eyes? Thank you.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

Only one: Can I ask you to keep to the standard text color, which is much easier on the eyes? Thank you.

SORRY I didn't mean to upset anyone I just thought it would be
Distinctive, for the rest of this post I will use white

 

[Roger]

the next day we got Ambushed on our way out of town by more of those shifty bastards.

You're playing it right.

I think this is one of those things that'll work itself out as your group learns the system. Want to spend all your dailies on the way to the dungeon? That's fine. The impact that has on your next encounter, or on your travel plans, is something you'll need to learn to deal with.

Really, if this is the biggest problem your group is having, you're doing pretty well.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Artoomis]

Stop thinking, "what do I do now that this is 4e."

Instead think, "what do I need to do to win this battle while not using up all my powers in case there is another battle today."

That's the same thing you might have done in earlier editions. If you used up all your spells too early, then you had none left and the party either retreated and rested for the night (even if it was still morning), or, if there was some sort of pressing need, went on anyway and took their chances.

It's no different, really, except that now your limited resources are daily powers and healing surges. Well, encounter powers, too, but that's only about that one encounter, not the whole day.

So you should know if you have reason to keep going or not even while you are in the first battle of the day. If there is no pressing reason to continue on, then why not use your daily powers and then find a pace to rest and continue tomorrow?

One of the differences in 4e is that PCs are better able to handle multiple encounters in a day, so DMs may be less forgiving of the "one fight and rest" type of approach that was often done in the past and force/encourage you to go on by using things like timing issues (the hostages will be killed if you don't get there soon), etc., etc.

 

[Nail]

I just thought it would be
Distinctive, for the rest of this post I will use white

No problem for me, at any rate.

As for your original question: Dailies are meant to be the "Big Guns", so you use them judiciously. ...But if you need to use 'em, go ahead!

In 4e, hps come and go pretty regularly, so maybe you're just "freaking out" too much when you and your party gets damaged. Really, getting knocked to bloodies is No Big Deal(tm). In fact, it's often a good idea to wait until you are one hit away from dropped to use a Healing Surge. Since cleric and warlord heals are only a minor action, it's easy to wait.

It might help us help you if we knew the race/class of every PC in your party. Care to elaborate?