D&D 4E Does 4E fix the 5-minute workday?

[FitzTheRuke]

The flip of the question "does 4e prevent the 5-minute adventuring day?" is "does 4e make keep going a viable strategy?" And while the former question is kinda iffy, as there's always going to be some incentive to stop, the answer to the later is definitely yes. Certainly it does better than 3e, where stopping once a caster was about to run out of spells was pretty much mandatory.

This.

 

[Surgoshan]

Since the rules state you can only get the benefits of an extended rest once per day, that would mean you'd have to explicitly houserule the five minute day. Does anyone actually want to do that?

 

[Spinachcat]

Let's put the blame where it belongs. The supposed 5-minute workday exists because some players are just plain stupid. Dullards shouldn't be given the character who is all about resource management. If all you know is to throw damage spells every time you see a monster, then stop playing the spellcaster.

I run convention tournaments where you have your X spells for the game session. There is no resting. There is no recharge. That ain't happening. Smart players do great and creative things with their spells and EVERY version of D&D has had plenty of spells that can be creatively utilized. Give me an Unseen Servant over Magic Missile any day of the week.

It is way past time to drop this nonsensical fallacy.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Let's put the blame where it belongs.

Ah, the good old "There is no problem with the game; everyone else is just playing it wrong!" argument.

 

[Victim]

Let's put the blame where it belongs. The supposed 5-minute workday exists because some players are just plain stupid. Dullards shouldn't be given the character who is all about resource management. If all you know is to throw damage spells every time you see a monster, then stop playing the spellcaster.

I run convention tournaments where you have your X spells for the game session. There is no resting. There is no recharge. That ain't happening. Smart players do great and creative things with their spells and EVERY version of D&D has had plenty of spells that can be creatively utilized. Give me an Unseen Servant over Magic Missile any day of the week.

It is way past time to drop this nonsensical fallacy.

Yeah, and I imagine the encounter design supports that.

On the other hand, if you increase the difficulty level of encounters, characters will generally expend more resources any given encounter even if they're using their powers effectively. Ergo they rest more often.

This generates a sort of loop: the party that rests more can handle tougher encounters. Tougher encounters use more resources, so the party must rest more. If either of the situations above occurs in game, then the obvious solution only reinforces the initial tendency.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Since I run a tactical group of players, they are more or less already 'primed' to handle the resource management 'well'. There is a certain amount of trust that I _will_ hand them their heads if they try to follow the 5-minute day.

This is all good. However, this trust can be quite abused by unscrupulous gamemasters. A gamemaster could make a certain monster appear to be the BBEG of a dungeon, stat him as such, and watch a bit climactic fight ensue... only to have the real BBEG show up with absolutely no forewarning that such a being existed and kick the crap out of the party who trusted you not to TPK the party on a whim.

Now, I'm not saying I don't segue between BBEGs; just that I don't have BBEG#2 TPK the party simply because I can. Generally, they give a cliche-ish speech, grab the important item, and run away laughing. That generally goes over quite well, because then the party thinks the guy was watching the entire time and took advantage of their depleted state for plot ends, not bloodthirsty gamemaster ends.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yeah, and I imagine the encounter design supports that.

On the other hand, if you increase the difficulty level of encounters, characters will generally expend more resources any given encounter even if they're using their powers effectively. Ergo they rest more often.

This generates a sort of loop: the party that rests more can handle tougher encounters. Tougher encounters use more resources, so the party must rest more. If either of the situations above occurs in game, then the obvious solution only reinforces the initial tendency.

I think that's a pretty good description of what happened in 3E in the end. I think I can remember a few modules and a few homebrew adventures where difficult encounters were the norm. If you can afford to rest, there is no reason not to do so and go "nova". If you can't better hope your DM didn't forget the 4 EL=PL encounters per day baseline. (I am guilty of that)

It doesn't help either that "good play" in the purely attrition-based gameplay means that most of the time, you don't play. Okay, sometimes you might pretend to do so, by shooting with your crossbow or casting a magic missile from wand. But usually, your work in an encounter is done if you cast one of your 2nd highest to highest spell - if at all.

 

[SSquirrel]

I believe that in Races & Classes it was said that a character that has used all their encounter and daily powers is still at about 80% effectiveness, so I don't see any 5 minute workday problem

 

[hamishspence]

BBEG followed by BBEG2

How often is this done? are there any iconic games of movies which have the real baddie swoop in on the heroes after they have been worn down beating the baddie's "Front man" Golden Axe at least had a decent sized gap between Death adder and his boss, generally same principle would apply. However I have seen two-tier versions of the same boss, where heroes think they've beaten it, then it become bigger and nastier for final fight.

 

[delericho]

To a large extent, the "5-minute workday" is about how the group choose to play the game, rather than something hard-wired into the rules.

It is likely that some groups will see no change: in every encounter the characters will blow their most powerful (probably daily) abilities in order, will then use whatever healing surges are required to return to full health, and will retreat and rest as soon as one resource or the other is depleted. The DM will compensate with tougher encounters, and the 5 minute workday will be back in full force.

Other groups will consciously decide to avoid the 5 minute workday by intentionally conserving their powers longer, and will hail this as a triumph for the system. Of course, they could do exactly the same in 3e through the same determination and by working with the DM to achieve this end.

Probably the largest group, though, will see some measure of a shift towards a longer adventuring day, without really doing much to change their playstyle. How much of a change will depend on how well the designers have achieved this goal, and remains to be seen.

Personally, had I been designing 4e I would have been tempted to go with a pure per-encounter balancing mechanism, thus eliminating the issue entirely. Alternately, I might have gone for a mix of per-encounter and per-adventure resources (say, split the hit point pool in half - half returns automatically at the end of the encounter, and half can only be regained through extended bed rest for several days to weeks). But that's just me - it will be interesting to see how the rules we're actually getting will play out (and how they will play out a year or two from now, once all the quirks and exploits have come to light).