Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7005432" data-attributes="member: 42582">But that is exactly what I mean by GM decisions about pacing!If the GM wants the PCs to have a 1 hour rest, all s/he has to do is decide that the orc king is giving an hour-long address to his swordthanes. Or they are all participating in a ritual to honour Gruumsh. Or . . . That's not even that unrealistic - I give lectures where no one leaves or enters the room for an hour at a time, and that's in a much less hierarchical environment where people have far more busy schedules than an orc fortress!And to flip it around - if the PCs want have ganked the sentries and you (as GM) want to run it as "waves" style encounter, all you have to do is tell the players that they can hear some voice approaching on the other side of the door. Now they have a minute or so to take their positions and get the benefit of surprise, but they don't have five minutes to rest. It's not as if there's anything unusual about a pair of orcs leaving the throne room, and at worst it's a bit of bad luck that it happens to occur right at the moment the PCs would like to be hanging around outside, unnoticed.This is why I would suggest that you first work out what sort of pacing structure you want (eg what sorts of encounter levels, how you want the creatures that make up the encounter to be parcelled into "waves", etc), and then decide what sort of ingame treatment of short rests will work best to achieve this.Again, as far as I can tell you are talking about splitting an "encounter" (in the technical sense of a certain bundle of challenges which are collectively bookended by short rests) into multiple "waves" that do not permit short rests between them.So the two ogres are significant because they will inflict some hp loss, or suck an encounter power, or whatever, and the PCs won't recover that before coming to the next "wave" of the "encounter".The answer to how to do this? Just do it! <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank"> of how a situation a bit like this unfolded in my 4e campaign (although each constituent "wave" was a bigger deal than two ogres).</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank">As far as how you rationalise it in the fiction - I think that's a secondary concern. That is, I wouldn't encourage you to simply tell your players that you're houseruling short rests into 1 hour, and then hope that your new "combat universe" will emerge organically. After all, there's no necessary guarantee that it will.</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank">Rather, I'd be upfront and tell your players that you're wanting to change the pacing a bit, and that short rests will be on a stricter ration. And then, if you want to block the players getting a short rest you just come right out and block it!, adding some appropriate narration - whether that be "You hear some voices approaching the door", or "Dragging the ogre bodies off the road takes a bit longer than you hoped - you're going to have to get going without stopping to rest if you want to avoide getting caught outside in the storm," or whatever else seems to work.</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank">13th Age is very upfront about this in relation to long rests - if the players take one before 4 level appropriate encounters have been handled, the GM is allowed to inflict a "campaign loss" on them. You could do the same thing for short rests.</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?319168-The-PCs-defeat-Calastryx-(and-get-up-to-some-other-hijinks)Here's an account[/url" target="_blank">TL;DR - your concern is ultimately about how to pace the unfolding of "encounters" (in the technical sense). Focus on taking control of the pacing; be upfront with your players; and then let the fiction fall into place around that.</a></blockquote>

Verification