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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bullgrit" data-source="post: 5275215" data-attributes="member: 31216">You know, I just realized something about my experience with the 15-minute adventuring day. I think a DM's mishandling of the EL system has a lot to do with it.As a DM, I hadn't really seen this concept come up very much after about 3rd or 4th level. At low levels, the PCs have few resources (like only two or three 1st-level spells), and they can use them up quickly. But once they get more resources, they can hold out longer on an adventure.When I've designed adventures for my group, I usually had several encounters with an EL below the party level. I didn't really mindfully follow the D&D3 DMG guidelines for ELs, but looking over my adventures, my "design it by gut feel" method often ended up in alignment with the DMG guidelines.This design methodology is something I've followed since my earliest D&D days -- BD&D, AD&D, into D&D3. I just saw the guidelines in the D&D3 DMG as confirmation that my tried and true methods, learned from and based on classic D&D adventures, were good.Once the PCs were 5th, 7th, 9th levels and higher, we could play through many encounters, deep into dungeons, without the PCs having to rest and regain resources.But then, about a year ago, our group agreed to run a round-robin-DM campaign. We'd each run an adventure, in turns. This is when I started noticing the 15-minute day.To illustrate what seemed to be happening (D&D3 game):I'd make an adventure, with, say, 10 encounters:1- EL = PL -32- EL = PL -23- EL = PL -54- EL = PL -15- EL = PL -26- EL = PL7- EL = PL -48- EL = PL -39- EL = PL10- EL = PL +2The PCs could, if they were strategic and "good", make it all the way through the adventure in one game day. Probably, though, they'd have to rest at least once, taking two game days to complete it.But then when another guy in our group ran his adventure (10 encounters):1- EL = PL2- EL = PL3- EL = PL4- EL = PL5- EL = PL6- EL = PL7- EL = PL8- EL = PL9- EL = PL10- EL = PLThen another guy in our group, seeing how long it took us to go through the previous adventure (because we had to rest after every few encounters), would make a shorter but tougher adventure (5 encounters)1- EL = PL +12- EL = PL +13- EL = PL +14- EL = PL +15- EL = PL +1Then the next guy to run an adventure, saw how relatively easily we started handling the encounters would up the ante even more:1- EL = PL +22- EL = PL +23- EL = PL +24- EL = PL +25- EL = PL +2Eventually it got to the point where we'd rest after every encounter. We'd meet every next encounter with a full resource dump. It took everything we had to survive the encounters, and we'd be completely spent at the end. Our game sessions would be just one or two major encounters.It even got to the point where when we got good at overcoming the major ELs that the DM handwaved a duplicate encounter because he knew we'd win it.Then one of the guys used a Dragon magazine adventure -- one apparently designed based on the DMG guidelines. I saw PCs throwing their biggest resources into a fight that really didn't need it. We'd wipe out a couple EL = PL -2 encounters easily, and then everyone wanted to rest to recover resources. This adventure was pretty easy, but it took us several game days to get through.I tried talking to the other guys about this, but the general opinion seemed to be that fights below PL weren't interesting (to the DM running the adventure). Only "challenging" encounters were worth the effort. And the general consensus was that the DMG idea of "challenging" (that is, EL = PL) was not strong enough. Only ELs of PL +2 and more were actually challenging to the PCs -- "challenging" in this case, meaning balls-to-the-wall, use all our resources to survive and overcome.So the 15-minute day became annoying, but the DMs always made high challenges that required "recharging" before each one.It was a vicious cycle.Bullgrit</blockquote>

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