Anthtriel said:
Well, it depends on what you mean by *all* resources. Every player I've ever gamed with is willing to let their character keep adventuring when they're a LITTLE below maximum, a little beaten up. I've played scads of 3E spellcasters, and it's not like if I have used my last 5th level spell (but still have lots of lower-level spells), I would convince the rest of the group to stop adventuring and not go to the next room. ("Welp, used my Empowered Fireball, let's get some sleep.") Generally in my experience with existing D&D the party keeps adventuring until the party has a "close call" or until every player can more or less agree that their character has had enough. It's a group decision, it's not like one person gets to call the shots, unless that character is so beaten-up (or such a whiner) that they can convince everyone else to stop along with them. A little recklessness is fun. Otherwise every group would stop for sleep after every single encounter... which I'm sure SOME players try to do, but that's just "being a bad gamer," not a flaw in the rules per se.
The 15-minute adventuring day thing really only becomes noticeable in dungeon adventures, in my experience. In a typical wilderness or city adventure, the group will meander along for hours and hours -- encounter -- more meandering -- maybe another encounter -- and *then* rest for the night. It's true that in wilderness games (which my own campaigns mostly consist of), I would usually do one big encounter per day, rather than four little encounters.
The truth is, of course, that sometimes the players have one big encounter for the day, and sometimes they have lots of little encounters. It's really up for grabs depending on the DMs' style, the players' style, and the story.
Basically I hope that there is still a sizeable element of "strategically conserving your strength between battles" in D&D4E.
