Is the 15 minute adventuring day now the 90 minute adventuring day?

[keterys]

If people are using 2-3 healing surges _each_ every combat, they're probably doing something wrong or the DM is using fights that are probably too difficult if he wants to avoid the '30 minute day'.

My experience at DDXP was more like 'the entire group uses 3 healing surges each combat' and we got through an entire day's worth of adventure without an extended rest. When I played the wizard in Scalegloom, for instance, I didn't need to use any healing surges at all (only took 10 HP of damage the entire adventure)

Course, the fighter and paladin both went through about 8 surges for the day, but they were doing their jobs.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

If people are using 2-3 healing surges _each_ every combat, they're probably doing something wrong or the DM is using fights that are probably too difficult if he wants to avoid the '30 minute day'.

My experience at DDXP was more like 'the entire group uses 3 healing surges each combat' and we got through an entire day's worth of adventure without an extended rest. When I played the wizard in Scalegloom, for instance, I didn't need to use any healing surges at all (only took 10 HP of damage the entire adventure)

Course, the fighter and paladin both went through about 8 surges for the day, but they were doing their jobs.

Help me here then. Healing Surges recover 1/4 of ones full hit points. If a party of 6 (thats what DDXP was based on) only loses 1/8th of its hit points in an encounter that doesn't seem all that challenging to me. If a 3.x party only lost 1/8th of its total hit points per encounter I figure it could go on for quite awhile as well. How challenging did those encounters seem?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

If everybody is close to dying, they should stop and rest. What you won't see is when, even though everyone is healthy, the spellcasters want to stop because they've used up their best spells. That's the fix more than anything.

Healing surges are not designed to fix the 15 minute workday as much as to remove the perceived necessity for someone to play a cleric to provide healing. At-will and encounter powers are the fix for the 15-minute workday.

I suspect with higher starting hp, harder to dir permanently PCs, if the DM sends encounters by the book, rather than a tough grind, there will be significantly more encounters prior to resting, unless you play with a really risk-averse group of players.

 

[Dragonblade]

There is no rule one way or another about how any DM allows his players to act. Players can be twinks and rules lawyers only by the DM's consent. If the players act in a way that you, as the DM, think is abusing the spirit of the rules or just plain lame, it's up to you to correct the situation.

If you're OK with a 15, 60, or 90 minute adventuring day followed by 20+ hours of laying around being unproductive, then go with it. I am not, so my players won't get away with something like that without some sort of reprecussion.

One of the DM's in my group gave us a bunch of attitude about the 15 minute adventuring day. So we tried it the DM's way. And immediately had a TPK. :\

His face looked like this -> and then like this->

After that we said we are dropping Vancian casting, or this campaign is dead. He quickly agreed lest he get lynched.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Wow, I'm sorry. I have to go with Sammael and Bayonet Chris, I've never seen it, and if anyone tried it, neither me nor any DMs I've ever had would have tolerated it.

In my opinion, if players are really annoying in twinking the rules, there's only so much the mechanics can do to prevent that. Annoying players are annoying players, regardless of the rules. *shrug*

What exactly is it that you think the 5 minute day IS?

It doens't take bad or abusive players to occur, it's simply the result of any situation in which a sizable fight occurs early after the adventurers finish resting.

Say, you camp just down the hill from an ogres' lair, and you go up the hill in the morning to fight 3 ogres. One gets a good hit on the cleric and knocks him to -1. Good thing the ranger has heal and stabilizes him.

Now you march back down the hill back to camp again. So you can get healed up and the mage can get his spells back.

Fitz

 

[keterys]

The priest's two healing words also boost healing significantly - when you take someone needing to heal 10 hp who heals 5 with a healing surge, adding 1d6+4 to that is a big deal.

It felt like the two healing words were used every combat, and the fighter's second wind was used frequently.

I wasn't paying complete attention to other characters, but it felt like we used the following:

Scalegloom Hall:
Combat 1: 1 healing surge
Combat 2: 3 healing surges
Combat 3: 2 healing surges
Combat 4: 4 healing surges
Combat 5 (Dragon): Didn't heal up after, but both healing words, two lay on hands, two second winds, and one person went unconscious. So... 6 plus however many we'd have used on rest.

Escape from Sembia was actually much more difficult but had an extended rest...
Bandits: 4 Healing surges... we actually were still down a few hp at that point I believe, but had to make the run without the 5 min rest, and when we finally got a chance to rest I think it might have been extended so whatever.
Hobgoblins: ~8 Healing surges
Skeletons: Boneshard got triggered point blank on everyone, twice. So... like 15 healing surges.
End Fight: Didn't track, but... maybe 4. We had succeeded on the skill challenge so got the drop on them, so mostly it was just that the shadar-kai hit 3 people so they'd each need 1.

No one ever ran out of healing surges, in either game.

 

[Propheous_D]

Help me here then. Healing Surges recover 1/4 of ones full hit points. If a party of 6 (thats what DDXP was based on) only loses 1/8th of its hit points in an encounter that doesn't seem all that challenging to me. If a 3.x party only lost 1/8th of its total hit points per encounter I figure it could go on for quite awhile as well. How challenging did those encounters seem?

Not really in the changed dynamic you can see that the Parties healing surges as a total are not a good judge. This is why the defender role was created. The defenders are meant to take the majority of the beats. If they drop then things get ugly fast. This is true of anything. IF your front line is destroyed then your artillery and supplies go the way of the dodo in rapid succession.

As noted the defenders went through 8 healing surges. This indicates that they were in fact doing their jobs. The encounters could have prolly used some ramping up, but you don't expect death dealing maniacs or massively hard encounters when your previewing a system for the first time. The Dragon at the end was the hey ok we can beat you up now, and we know that it resulted in alot of TPK's.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I've never, EVER seen the so-called 15-minute adventuring day in actual play, and I've gamed with some fairly diverse groups.

I have.

In one campaign, the party was investigating a lizardman shrine deep in a disgusting bog-swamp, and had only minor healing resources (i.e., No Cleric, but lots of potions).

Accordingly, in each combat it was required to put the maximum amount of hurt on as many badguys as quickly as possible because it was just too darn hard to heal the damage back. Even when we got a cleric, the healing resources were not sufficient to last more than a couple fights.

So, an "adventuring day" consisted of a couple hours' walk to the temple, about three fights, max before everyone ran out of juice, and a couple hours' walk back to the campsite (which we'd taken great pains to hide well). All in all, the actual adventuring part (the encounters at the temple) consumed about 15 to 20 minutes.

Then, we'd rest for a day or two, and try again.

Note that this isn't the only time the "15 Minute Adventuring Day" happened to my group; it's just the one that sticks out most in my memory.

 

[Iron Sky]

I still think people will camp once their daily powers are gone. The only difference is now the whole group will be demanding it, not just the wizard. Yeah you could go on but why when you can rest and be at full power. (Mind you I too never saw the 15 min adventuring day)

My other question is why healing surges? Basically all they do is expand the HP pool which can be accomplished in a number of ways.....wand of CLW, cleric spells, raising overall permanant HPs. I would much rather have more HP per person and have some sort of critical mechanic that brings you immediately to bloodied and if you're bloodied take you down to 10HP (or something). Still keeps the threat of death. Now with healing surges I dont think it will happen unless you're a 1st level character fighting a 4th level dragon.

I would highly suggest trying one of the test adventures that have been put together on these boards. When I played through Raiders of Oakhurst, I had 1/2 of my players bloodied for most of the first fight, 1 dropped to unconcious, 1 bloodied in the second, and a TPK in the third(against an encounter of their level, 3 hobgoblins). If they had decided to sit in the cave and rest for 6 hours, I would have had the third encounter find them instead of them coming to it...

When I did the second playtest, had two players bloodied in the first fight(vs 12 minions and a level 1 bandit), two more bloodied in the next, with one the Paladin at <5 hp twice(vs 2 deathjump spiders), and a TPK vs a Boneshard and Blazing Skeleton(though they didn't rest after the 2nd fight on that one, probably would have had at least 1 PK).

You get 1 healing surge per combat, costing a standard action(minor for dwarves) for 1/4 of your hp. If you have a cleric, he can give two more to the party that are worth about 1/2 your hp(depending on class). I never heard my players say "it's way too easy to heal." Instead it was more like "so... that takes me to bloodied again."

If you don't want your players using up their dallies on every fight, just hit them with a fight while they rest once in a while. I know in my games, characters always try to use *just enough* firepower to get through the fight, in case there is something worse ahead or they get attacked during the night. If your 3.5 wizard isn't going to bed with some firepower in reserve(like mine usually does), that's a reflection of DMing style and choices, IMO, not mechanics.

 

[vazanar]

What exactly is it that you think the 5 minute day IS?

It doens't take bad or abusive players to occur, it's simply the result of any situation in which a sizable fight occurs early after the adventurers finish resting.

Say, you camp just down the hill from an ogres' lair, and you go up the hill in the morning to fight 3 ogres. One gets a good hit on the cleric and knocks him to -1. Good thing the ranger has heal and stabilizes him.

Now you march back down the hill back to camp again. So you can get healed up and the mage can get his spells back.

Fitz

Yes, it can happen, but in general the 5-15min days is a complaint of a spell caster blowing all his spells in the opening encounter.

Personally if the party flees to rest, then the ogres should follow them out or be set for a return attack. If a hard encounter is at the begining of an adventure, it wants the players weak. If your party is always allowed to rest, dont put a hard encounter in the front (and yes flukes hapen, but that will occur no matter what). The new rules Im worried if we put a strong monster at the begining of an adventure will it be a joke? I thought one of the designer mentioned that as a problem with a red dragon.