The 15 min. adventuring day... does 4e solve it?

[jadrax]

Would not throwing additional encounters are Rest-Happy parties just result in them being even less likley to get around to proceeding with the actual plot?

 

[Runestar]

Yes and no.

The longer you rest, the more encounters you face, and the longer it takes for you to get on with the main plot. Conversely, if you just "rush" to the end point (like the sorc providing the entire party with extended phantom steeds - flight speed of 240 for the whole day..., with a casting time of 1 standard action courtesy of shadow conjuration), you skip most, if not all of the random encounters (which are typically based off time expended), and can quickly zip right to the main plot.

It is all a matter of providing the right incentive. Combat is one of the major time-suckers in dnd, and any party would want their precious time to be spent on fights which actually matter/contribute to the main plot, not another random encounter. Sooner or later, they have to get the message that less rests = fewer fights.

 

[drothgery]

What is the "15 minute adventuring day"? Is this another one of those things I've never played with where the party rests after every fight because the foolish wizard and priest have blown off all their spells for the day?

If one defines the '15-minute adventuring day problem' as always resting for the day after one encounter, then I think I can be pretty safe in saying no one did that.

On the other hand, it's pretty common in 3.x to
- call it a day when the major spellcasters are out of their high-level spells or when buff spells expire
- refuse to go into an 'expected' 'boss fight' without resting unless there's an external time constraint imposed by the DM adventure.
- use scry-buff-teleport and nova tactics (i.e. hitting the bad guy with every powerful spell you've got as quickly as you can) to take on enemies above your level as the only encounter for the day

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Count me in another one that never saw the supposed "fifteen minute adventure day." I only heard about it once people started clammoring that 4e would fix it.

 

[firesnakearies]

Here's my problem with the whole issue:


Assuming no random, long periods of walking around between encounters or other excessive delays, any party would be doing WELL to put in a 60-minute workday in 4E before running out of steam.

Consider that the dungeons in basically every published adventure ever are laid out with a ton of rooms right next to each other and monsters in most or all of them. There's typically about a thirty-second to one-minute walk in between, if that.

Consider that a round is six seconds long, and virtually NO encounters will go longer than twenty rounds. Most will be much shorter than that. But let's say twenty rounds per fight. That's TWO minutes each. Add in a five-minute rest in between each one, and a one-minute travel time to the next encounter. Heck, we'll go crazy and call it TWO minutes. So, seven minutes total between each fight.

How many encounters are we expecting the team to beat before totally depleting their healing surges and other resources such that one more fight will probably kill them all? Let's say that these PCs are really good and can tear through seven encounters before HAVING to stop. Heck, we'll go eight, even. That's pretty impressive and will likely not happen often, but let's go with it for now.

Eight encounters at two minutes each, plus seven rest/travel periods of seven minutes each. So . . . 65 minutes total from Start of Day until "oh crap, we need to go hole up and rest NOW or we're hosed" time. And that group did incredibly well, and my time estimates were generous.

"But wait, what about if they have to do more exploration, deal with traps, do skill challenges, solve riddles, stop and roleplay, etc?"

Right, I understand that a good deal of this sort of thing will happen, but it might not, it certainly won't ALWAYS, and even when it does, it's unlikely to really take up any seriously great length of time, in most cases. Dealing with that big hairy trap room took an hour of gameplay time, and it felt pretty arduous and intense . . . but in-game it still only took fifteen rounds, or about a minute and a half.

So let's tack another full HOUR on to the day's work, to account for some of this non-combat extra stuff that might happen as the group moves from one room to another one that's thirty feet away over and over. Sometimes it'll be a lot longer than that, but MOST days, it'll probably be less. So we'll go with an extra hour, for argument's sake.


So, here's what we have then:


The intrepid heroes get up from a nice rest, feeling good, ready to delve into the shadowy maw of evil and kick some infernal tail today! The wicked Overlord awaits in the depths, plotting even now to enact his next horrific stratagem against the innocent people of the Light. The PCs are inspired, they're prepared, they're the heralds of destiny this day, here to put a stop to this dire threat!

In they go, fighting with exceptional valor and tactical prowess. They kill more than most adventurers could, and wear themselves down to the bone. In two hours. TWO HOURS after they got done scarfing down their English muffins and rubbing sleep out of their eyes, a mere EIGHT ROOMS into the vast and labyrinthine halls beckoning them onward . . . they're done. They can't go on, they're drained, today's adventuring is over. They're a bee sting away from death's door. They couldn't best a puppy in their condition. Sadly, they are forced to withdraw to find a safe place to hide and wait until they can rest and recharge...

TWO FREAKING HOURS after they rolled out of bed! That's the adventure for the day? That's the epic crusade of heroes? "Eh, I guess we'll go after the Overlord tomorrow. Kinda tired today. I'm sure that stopping this evil can wait."

Some people might ask, "So? What's wrong with that? They beat eight encounters, why shouldn't they rest now?"

Because it's not heroic or fantastic or cinematic or consistent with practically ALL literature of this genre whatsoever! When the hell did you see the protagonist(s) of any heroic movie or fantasy novel go boldly into the Bad Guy Lair on a mission of great importance, get into a few scrapes, and after an hour or two say, "Well, I think I'm all dried up for the day. Time to lay it down for awhile."

And by "awhile" of course I mean like sixteen to eighteen HOURS! Yeah, they're not just going off to take a napsie right now, and be up and at 'em again in six hours. Oh no, they basically just woke up. They're going to go SIT AROUND all day and evening until bedtime, hiding out like scared kids and hoping that no patrolling beasties find them (because if they do, the PCs are pretty much Monster Chow), and THEN turn in for the night, before finally getting back up, almost a day after they started their most vital assault on the domain of pure malevolence. And then...

...they're going to valiantly venture forth for ANOTHER heroic two hours of stirge-slaughtering and dart-ducking before scurrying back to their tents to play cribbage and soak their feet for the rest of the day.

Repeat as necessary, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. (Wow, what an epic tale, eh?)

Seventeen days later, they finally emerge triumphant with the Overlord's head, and return to town, where they spend the next week making up excuses as to why the quest took them so damn long. "Honestly, we were trapped in an interplanar RIFT for two weeks and only managed to escape through the greatest feats of cunning and courage! Yes, yes, we ARE pretty great heroes, aren't we?"


Seriously, this doesn't fit MY idea of a heroic fantasy adventure story, the kind we've all read or watched with awe since we were children.


Consider:


- The Fellowship of the Ring didn't poop out after two hours in Moria.

- The Companions of the Lance didn't head for the locker room after two hours in Xax Tsaroth.

- The Knights of Myth Drannor didn't mix it up with the forces of Zhentil Keep for a couple hours and then say, "Whoa, hey guys, we're gonna call it for today, all right? See ya tomorrow, suckas!"

- Perrin Aybara didn't just wake up in the morning, have a cup of kaf, spend a leisurely two hours fighting to drive the trollocs out of the Two Rivers, then yawn and stumble back to bed. "Gimme back my pillow, Faile."

- Kahlan Amnell didn't pencil herself in for a quick two-hour session each morning of leading the Galean army in a desperate struggle against the monolithic Imperial Order, and then wile away the rest of the day braiding her hair.

- Conan the Cimmerian didn't hew and slay wildly through the teeming Nemedian hordes for two hours and then politely excuse himself until the morrow.

- Elric of Melnibone didn't start fighting the Dukes of Hell with a lot of fire and fury, but then after a couple of hours decide that he was plumb tuckered out and maybe he should go grab some shut-eye before continuing the epic battle.

- The Scottish Highlanders didn't put in 120 solid minutes of woad-fueled bloodshed at the Battle of Bannockburn and then call a recess until the next day.

- The Spartans at Thermopylae never once stopped and said, "Well hell, boys. We've been killin' these Persians for at least an hour or two now, aint we? We deserve a break! Somebody fetch the lawn chairs and the margarita mix, and them invading bastards can just wait 'til tomorrow to wet our blades again!"


So what I'm saying is, I'd like to see a model of rest and resource replenishment which allows for a more organic, classic fantasy story-like narrative of the heroes' adventure, where they're able to keep delving, keep fighting, keep moving forward, pretty much all day long . . . but which doesn't functionally alter the actual balance of the game as written. A system which manages to avoid forcing the party to stop and rest (or wait to rest) after only a very small portion of the day has passed, yet doesn't take away the resource management responsibilities, sense of danger and drama, consequences, and general level of power and survivability that PCs have currently.

I know that's a tall order, and I've been thinking about it a lot. I hope to start a dialog with other interested people here and maybe we can come up with a really workable idea to take away the absurdities inherent in the present model without changing the game in any concrete mechanical way.

For a lot of people, maybe it's no big deal, maybe they don't care, maybe this is a trivial non-issue. But for me, the "two-hour workday syndrome" is patently absurd and unacceptable. It's NOT how I want my games to play out. But how to fix it without breaking anything in the process? That's the tricky part.

Any ideas?

 

[Runestar]

Well, to start with, are fights supposed to last that short in real life? In movies, battles can easily last for hours on end, and that is considered just 1 encounter. Wuxia novels have scenarios where people duel with each other for days at a stretch, eventually ending in a draw.

The milestone system looks like it may work. Maybe you regain a daily power every 3 milestones or something? Get a surge back every milestone? So the longer you adventure, the more resources you get back (but it would work out to be a net loss, just that the rate of loss is slowed), but they are not frontloaded, so you can't go nova even if you wanted to.

 

[knightofround]

I dunno, I think 60 minutes of combat is just right before the PCs are stuck in the position "uhh....we gotta stop or we're gonna die". Its not too fantastic, its not too realistic.

You try surviving one hour of intense combat sometime ^_^ To use one of your examples, a trolloc wave on Perrin's Emond Field probably only lasted a few minutes. 6 waves of arrows at incoming Trollocs = 36 seconds, plus maybe 2 minutes at the stakes, 2 minutes pushing inwards, and 2 minutes with the enemy either inside in the line or in retreat. And there might be 2-3 waves per day. So a total of maybe 20 minutes of combat per day. Heck, even the Lord of the Ring massive fight scenes were all less than a half-hour long.

Adventuring has always been a wait-hurryup-wait lifestyle. There's no way we could have adventurers hewing flesh for 12 hours a day, not suffer any significant wounds, and provide them with a challenge all at the same time. Thats why dungeons shouldn't be room-room-room, etc, unless the dungeon has a good reason why each room is isolated. (Like its an ancient ruins and the inhabitants don't travel or anything)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

To be fair, though, as 3e went on many pre-published adventures (and notably the Paizo adventure paths) tended to abandon the 'correct' pacing of encounters in favour of fewer, tougher encounters (indeed, I believe one of the Design & Development articles mention that this was the case - that the expectation of 13 encounters per level had shifted to be more like 10 or even 8).

My observation, too. The 4 encounters per day and 13 encounters per level assumption in the core roles tended to be abandoned if using these adventures.

Of course, if each encounter is tougher, each will use up more resource, and so the party will have to rest more often. Take this too far and you get the 15-minute adventuring day.

However, even with that I'm really not sure the 15-minute day is really that much of a problem. So the PCs only complete one encounter in the day, so what? It's not like the players around the table actually have to wait a day before they carry on, all it takes is for the players to say "the Wizard casts rope trick and we wait out the day", and for the DM to say, "okay, the next day, you proceed onwards..." and you're done. And, if that really bothers you, you could always just replace the 'replace expended spells with 8 hours rest' with 'replace expended spells after an hour's rest' and go from there. Since it's bound to be little more than a handwave most of the time, does it really matter which handwave you use?

The reason why this could become a "problem" as I see them:
o It are only Spellcasters that really can go "nova". Their powerful spells are what decides a high EL battle. If you have the habit of 15-minute adventuring days, spellcasters will seem overpowered, because the theoretical balance mechanism in careful strategic planning (operation play) became negated.
o Once you've had a few "nail-biter" high EL encounters, regular EL encounters become a little boring.

I think a major contributor here are the out-of-combat healing options, too. Normally, the primary daily resource a Fighter has to manage are his hit points, helped by Clerics or other healers. Cheap Wands of Cure Light Wounds change this - hit points are not really a daily resource, but an encounter resource, and so is the Clerics healing.
But an EL = PL encounter is supposed to cost around only 20-25 % resources - which essentially means that the Fighter, Rogue and Cleric can handle the fight (without the Cleric using much spells) and the Wizard can safely (from a resource management point of view) watch from the sidelines (Some Wizards might use Wands of Magic Missile, Crossbows to make an "alibi contribution", well knowing that this is not the fight they should waste something vital on).
But a combat where people don't throw a lot of spells around is a little... boring. After combat, the spells used will be from the Wand - Cure Light Wounds for all. (Heck, our group did stop rolling 1d8+1 and just assumed an average of 5 or 6 points healed per charge, and the Wand-users would ask how many charges they had to give up.)
At the end, the whole notion that the fight could cost 20 % resources was just wrong. A Wand of Cure Light Wounds is not 20 % of the parties resources beyond level 4+.
In addition, an EL=PL encounter also suffers from the fact that you fight either several weaker foes or one equally strong foe, and as such is often not that interesting. You hit easy, they miss often, or people can just "focus-fire" on one opponent.

I think the real "math" error in the system is the assumption that EL=PL would always cost parties 20-25 % of their resources. That's just not true thanks to the Wands. Wands remove the entire balance and pacing idea behind the 4 encounters per day on average concept.

The other error is not accounting for play dynamic and the "mindset of gamers" - which is a bit shizophrenic. Gamers will always look for the "safest" or most effecient way to play the game, and if 15 minutes of adventure per day is safe or efficient, they do it. But they also want a challenge, so the DM (or adventure writer) provides them with harder encounters, which makes the safest route not just optimal, but the only viable route.

From a adventure design or pacing point of view, this all leads to some limitations.
- Time Critical adventures are hard to make. Assuming optimum play (use of Wands of Cure Light Wounds, Spellcasting minimized), the entire line of encounters risks not being particularly interesting (especially for spellcasters). In "suboptimal" play, it's very easy to make the time critical mission fail. That might actually be desirable, in a way (we want to reward "good" play), but the problem is that both routes don't lead to a lot of fun. Either the individual encounters are perceived as boring, or the party fails in the end.
- Non time-critical adventures introduce the 15 minute adventure day if the party plays "optimal".

Now, some people might not find watching from the side-lines that uninteresting, and see this just as a sign of good play (and after all, the non-spellcasters kick ass!).
And others might say who cares about 15 minute adventure days? It only matters whether the encounters we have are fun and exciting!
In these cases - just don't worry about it. It's not your problem that others prefer to play differently.

---

4E tries to remedy this by making a stronger distinction between encounter resources and daily resources.
Daily Powers and Total Healing Surges are resources you have to manage over the day.
Encounter Powers and "Healing Triggers" are encounter resources.
An encounter is already a nail-biter if you have to expend all your encounter resources and your healing triggers. If you're out of Healing Triggers, you face the threat of death, and people will probably have to bring daily resources into the combat to turn the tide of the batle.

The clever use of all powers reward people with the fact that they still have their dailies, which can be reserved for the tougher encounters.

Milestones are an incentive - or a compensation (?) - to continue going. You gain an extra action point, that you can use in a difficult encounter to compensate for a missing daily. (And the various action boosting feats and paragon features make them really effective.). You get extra uses for magical item dailies, letting you again compensate for missing normal dailies.

The system doesn't force anyone to not take an extended rest. (The one rest per 24 hours is irrelevant for this - as others have pointed out, Clerics and Druids could only regain spells at set times of the day, that didn't prevent the 15 minute adventuring day at all. At worst, it facilitated it, because you couldn't rest twice a day to have 3 minutes per day)
If the DM (or adventure designers) throws EL = PL +(3-5) consistently against the PCs, they might still want to rest. Though even then, as long as they have healing surges left (which is likely, considering the total limitations on healing surge triggers), they could go on into "regular" encounters and probably fare well. Of course, most parties wouldn't risk if they have a choice.

The nice thing is, a DM doesn't have to worry if the players do not have a choice - He just makes the remaining encounters easier (EL = PL), and the encounters will still be challenging and interesting.

So, is the problem of the 15 minute adventuring day "solved"?
My answer would be:
For certain values of "solved", it is.
The 15 minute adventuring day is still possible. (Little can change that).
But the implications if you do not follow a 15 minute adventure day are far less dire - the "gamist fun" of challenging combat does not have to be sacrificed for the parties survival chance, or vice versa.

If one wanted to remove the 15 minute adventuring day entirely, one just has to create a mechanic to recharge daily powers and healing surges without resting. Maybe I'll post some house rule ideas on that in some time. The easiest way is of course just removing all daily powers and replacing them with encounter powers, and give unlimited healing surges. Depending on how much you care about the chances of "gain <insert arbritary number> levels in one day" scenarios, this might actually not be a problem.

 

[jgbrowning]

No. Any system with recharging powers mechanically favors resting to maximize effectiveness, IMO.

joe b.

 

[Fenes]

I never used the "4 encounters per day" method. My adventures usually have one (the BBEG) or two (break the defense line & fight the BBEG) combat encounters. The rest are not combat encounters, and are often dealt with with a few sword thrusts or cuts when they end in battle (You cut down the soldier after he tried to lead you in a trap and continue onward to the main temple hall).

I am not fond of the "one fight per room", it often does not make sense to me not to have the enemy concentrate troops.