How many Milestones did you reach...

[Thanee]

Not really a contest or such, just curious.

With the new healing powers in Divine Power (heavily discussed on the front page of this subforum ), it is definitely possible to get farther in an adventuring day.

My cleric has the following surge-less healing available:

- Melora's Tide
- Astral Seal
- Life Transference
- Spirit of Healing
- Healing Sun

We currently play the "silver Ennie adventure" () King of the Trollhaunt Warren (we are now 12th level; Dragonborn Warlord, Dwarf Fighter, Dwarf Paladin of Moradin, Elf Ranger, Elf Cleric of Melora), and if we counted right, we just reached our 5th Milestone in the last session.

[SBLOCK=Some BIG Spoiler inside... do not look here, if you plan to play this adventure!][SBLOCK=I mean it!]We were already pretty close to taking our Extended Rest with many daily attacks and healing surges spent. But we thought, ok one more, then we take a rest. This "one more" was the (initial, I suppose) encounter with the Troll King, after which we learned about the imminent attack on Moonstair. At this point most of us had just one or two healing surges left and pretty much no daily attack powers. That was our 3rd Milestone. We then looked behind the door in the cavern to just find another encounter (the Troll Smith), where we expected the King's lair and treasury. Doh!

After that we decided to no longer take chances here to weaken us further and move for Moonstair directly... and see how far we can still get.

Right now, we have done four more encounters already, after the clash with the king; the smith and three more in Moonstair (defending the gate right now).[/SBLOCK][/SBLOCK]

From the 3rd Milestone onward I was using Life Transference quite a bit (just leveled up there and swapped a few of the new powers in; Divine Power wasn't around for the last level and we allow multiple changes for the next level-up after such a big new sourebook becomes available). Thanks to the Melora's Tide Channel Divinity power, this really allows for a lot of healing after a combat. And since we also have a Paladin with Lay on Hands, we can get by with just a single healing surge spent after the combat (from him or me). Right now, we do have some time constraints, however (those are also the reason why we do not simply take an extended rest), so it's probably just 1 or maybe 2 short rests after combat, therefore its use is limited currently.

So even though we were already low on surges after the 3rd Milestone, we are only slightly weaker than that, now (every now and then a surge has to be spent in combat, too; so it's not quite just one surge per combat).

Before the last combat, I used my Healing Sun (Radiant Servant) power to heal the whole party back to full health, and then kept sustaining it for the next encounter, which was already on the way (took the short rest before using the power, of course). I actually never thought I would use that power in combat (unless it involves undead or demons; sustain standard and not doing any damage with that doesn't exactly make this a great in-combat power, but being able to use this basically for two encounters made sense... also the situation allowed it, since we had a good, defensible position, where I could not really be attacked easily (the power goes out when I become bloodied)).

The Spirit of Healing is still availble, by the way; will use that in the next tough encounter.

I wonder, if we manage (and have to) play through the rest of the adventure without being able to take an extended rest...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Dr_Sage]

Our record is around 4 I think.

We once ran 7 encounters, 2 particulary tough.

I was never fond of all the "rest party" need, becuse in previous editions that meant "cleric recharges".

Now the flavor is more in line with actual rest, and I agree with that concept. Specially depending the way you describe most of the damage (I like the idea of the first wound appearing only when someone is bloodied).

 

[Hejdun]

This is one of those things that depends a lot on the circumstances of the battles. For instance, it's not hard or rare to go through a battle of party level or party lvl+1 without the party spending more than a surge or two total. So you could pretty easily chew through 6-8 of those encounters a day without breaking a sweat.

Secondly, if you have time to go through 3-4 short rests after every single combat, you can very easily get 2-3 times as much healing as if everyone just spent their surges as "expected" at the end of an encounter.

In general, I think the DM has to create a sense of tension and danger at least some of the time. Parties sitting around and using multiple short rests is a risky proposition--if a fight came around, you'd be half-dead and out of Healing Words instead of at full hit points like if you had spent your healing surges "normally" (without waiting for the aid of a Healing Word).

As a DM, I'd send a tough encounter or two while you're resting to remind you of the danger of doing multiple short rests to heal. Obviously not all the time; you only need to threaten it enough that they aren't waiting every single time.

Most of it is just the natural consequence of power creep. More options (in splat books and whatnot) means more synergy and more efficiency, which in turn makes the game easier. You balance things out again by making the encounters harder than when 4e was first released. Maybe instead of fighting lvl+4 as a hard encounter, you fight a lvl+5 or 6 as your hard battles.

 

[Hjorimir]

I've had my players face up to eight encounters in a day. They were, naturally, completely spent (I think the players were spent mentally as well). This was prior to Divine Power.

 

[Jaysue]

We did pretty well in our last session and were keen with a bit of divine power love to test out our cleric today...
unfortunately he was petrified in our first encounter and stayed that way until the end of the day (he was an NPC anyway as our Cleric is overseas at the moment).

We are thinking about keeping him as an ornament for our mansion (That way we dont have to give him a share of the gold/treasure....)

 

[Jack99]

Number of encounters mean little if you do not know the difficulty?

 

[Antronach]

my party is 5 strikers and a defender, it's rare they get a second milestone.

 

[Garthanos]

I wonder, if we manage (and have to) play through the rest of the adventure without being able to take an extended rest...

Hey real moving action pacing...

 

[aurance]

Thast kool i liked it

[ Reported. ]

 

[Thanee]

Number of encounters mean little if you do not know the difficulty?

Well, they are the typical mix you find in official adventures; at least ours have been (a few easier, a few tougher).

Bye
Thanee