4e DMs: Allow players a 5 minute rest after EVERY encounter?

[Nebulous]

I find that my power-gaming players always want to take a 5 minute rest after an encounter so they are fully healed and encounter powers restored before they move on.

Like others said, Healing Surges are probably more important in 4e than actual hit points. If your players go into an encounter with full hit points and all encounter powers but with 1 HS a piece, someone is going to die. The trickier part for a DM is whittling down those surges in a logical manner while preventing the PCs from taking daily rests and jumping back up at max strength.

 

[Merkuri]

Funnily enough, in the game I play in on Tuesdays, we had consecutive encounters. First one was tough, but, not too tough. Second one was very, very hard. Two PC's down (although no one died) and two PC's a round from dropping before the baddies all fell down.

So, yeah, it's doable, but, wow, is it nasty.

I was the DM for that game, and I think if I'd do it again I'd say that the moment you took to get your bearings, look around, and notice the screaming child that drew you into the next encounter would be enough to count as a short rest. I think because you rushed from one encounter to the next it really made it much harder than it was designed to be.

I'd have to crunch the numbers to be sure, but I think that was two exactly-level-appropriate encounters in a row and should not have been a near TPK. It certainly was an adrenaline rush, but I think if I had remembered that the big baddie had a healing potion it would have pushed it into a TPK. (That was not an intentional forgetting either... I honestly didn't remember he had it until you looted the bodies.)

 

[catsclaw227]

... when the fight goes pear-shaped ...

OK. I have seen this term used before and I must be dense because have no clue what it means.

How does a fight go "pear-shaped"?

 

[S'mon]

OK. I have seen this term used before and I must be dense because have no clue what it means.

How does a fight go "pear-shaped"?

By not going the way it's supposed to go.

The third meaning is mostly limited to the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australasia. It describes a situation that went awry, perhaps horribly wrong. A failed bank robbery, for example, could be said to have "gone pear-shaped". Less well known in the US it generated some media interest when British politician Margaret Thatcher used the phrase[citation needed] in front of the world's press at one of her first meetings with President Ronald Reagan, with many reporters being unsure of the meaning of the term.

The origin for this use of the term is in dispute. The OED cites its origin as within the Royal Air Force; as of 2003 the earliest citation there is a quote in the 1983 book Air War South Atlantic (ISBN 0-283-99035-X). Others date it to the RAF in the 1940s, from pilots attempting to perform aerial manoeuvres such as loops. These are difficult to form perfectly, and are usually noticeably distorted—i.e., pear-shaped.

 

[Drakhar]

Not allowing a short rest seems strange to me, as a short rest isn't the characters sitting around for 5 minutes doing nothing, but rather the characters spending 5 minutes looting the creatures they just finished killing, bandaging their wounds, taking a moment to catch their breath etc. The rules state that the only requirement for a rest is that the characters take no strenuous activity, so unless they're actively chasing after someone or running from something, not allowing a short rest just strikes me as odd.

 

[Haltherrion]

Not allowing a short rest seems strange to me, as a short rest isn't the characters sitting around for 5 minutes doing nothing, but rather the characters spending 5 minutes looting the creatures they just finished killing, bandaging their wounds, taking a moment to catch their breath etc. The rules state that the only requirement for a rest is that the characters take no strenuous activity, so unless they're actively chasing after someone or running from something, not allowing a short rest just strikes me as odd.

When discussing this with a friend, I put it to him this way:

Your characters hear a noise behind a door. In wall clock time (for the players) how many minutes transpire before the door opens? For our group, it would be a miracle for it to open in 5 minutes. They would discuss their options, try to listen more, arrange themselves behind the door, re-arrange themselves behind the door, etc.

Most in-game critters would also likely take their time unless they were on heightened alert for some reason or a very aggressive creature.