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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kaomera" data-source="post: 3648293" data-attributes="member: 38357">So, an encounter with an EL equal to the average level of a 4-character party is supposed to require the expenditure of approximately 25% of the party's available resources to overcome. As a result an average party is supposed to be able to handle roughly four encounters before needing to rest to recover spells, hit points, etc. What I'm wondering is: how often do the party(s) you play in and/or DM for actually stop to take a break?Now, the group I've been DMing for is larger than recommended, I've had up to 10 players at times. (I'm taking a break from DMing over the Summer, and when we get back together I'm expecting to have 4 or 5 players, possibly 6.) As a result they can take on more and/or tougher (well, usually just larger) challenges. However, I've noticed that they have a tendency to push on for “just one more encounter”, even when it seems like it should be abundantly clear that they really should stop. A lot of this seems to be the result of a lack of communication: specifically on several occasions I've had players state that they felt that it wasn't worth bothering the other players with the information that their character was out of spells or low on hit points. Also I think I had a few players who where so convinced that their character sheets needed to be kept secret from the other players that they extended this to things like hit points or spells remaining... The result has been a lot of adventures where the party burns through every backup item or emergencies-only resource, often to the extent that they where spending every spare gp (and xp in the case of casters with item creation feats) on healing items and still not keeping up with the demand.However I think a lot of this just boils down to the fact that my group simply don't want to pause the action. They are already often dragging several encounters into one-another, and they seem to revel in such chaos. They show a definite preference to rest at the end and/or beginning of sessions, and obviously if there's a significant break between encounters they will hunker down. But if there's another fight to be had within easy reach their usual MO is to kick down the door first and check their hit point totals later...</blockquote>

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