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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5504850" data-attributes="member: 18280">I wanted to elaborate on this, because that was not intended as snark, and might be taken as such.  There are two factors involved.1:  IMHO, and IME, players go nova when they believe that it is tactically sound to do so.  Providing healing surges (i.e., the potential means to go on) is not enough to prevent this from occurring, once the players have mastered the system to a degree where the optimal tactics are obvious.  There must be some tangible cost to going nova and/or some tangible benefit to not doing so, to eliminate the 15-minute adventuring day.2:  There is a problem with the creation of battles that are balanced on a knife's edge.  For a battle to be exciting, there has to be a reasonable chance for measurable loss.  In older editions, this meant loss of resources, which could trickle away through combat, but, equally important, could potentially be replaced through successes.This creates a sort of dynamic tension in which every encounter is potentially significant, without it necessarily being life-or-death.  At the end of the encounter, the party might be in better condition (due to resource aquisition), worse condition, or roughly the same.Encounters that leave you in better condition might be the least common, but they are common enough that, like slot machines, one wishes to take just that extra chance for a payout.By largely removing this sort of resource, the ruleset reinforces "rest to reset" play.  By largely removing the sort of minor resource attrition that occurred in older editions, the ruleset removed the ability of the DM to present combats that were both significant in game terms, but not so significant that the players feel a need to stop and rest.Compounding both (1) and (2) is the observation that, in a system where battles take a long time, it is generally considered bad practice to use a string of non-important battles.  Thus, the DM is not encouraged to use wandering monsters to prevent extend rests (or make them an actual tactical choice due to the chance of interuption), and the DM is likewise encouraged to make each encounter "significant" in a system wherein the only "significance" is measured by use of resources that are recoverable only by an extended rest.This is a topic that saw a lot of discussion based on the design blogs, prior to 4e's release, and there were a number of possible ways suggested that the system could both impliment the 4e design goals are avoid the 15-minute adventuring day (and I was the author of none of those excellent, unused, suggestions).What I am suggesting is something that puts those specific "missing" things into the game:1.  A reason to continue, 2.  The means to continue, i.e., a way to allow combats to be significant while potentially restoring lost resources necessary to continue,3.  Tactical decision-making required for extended rests, based on assessment of the risks of continuing versus the risk to said resources by not taking an extended rest, and4.  The addition of DM-controlled access to an important resource, which essentially allows the DM to reward (and therefore reinforce) bolder play.All this without unduly increasing complexity of scenario design, or actual play.RC</blockquote>

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