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

[hong]

Not necessarily. I think most people who played at DDXP will tell you that hitpoints matter a bunch less in 4e. You can get hit for 12 during one round, 12 the next and be at 3 hitpoints. However one healing word from the cleric and you are suddenly at 15 and can take another hit without going down. And you know that the cleric can do it again next round as a minor action extending your time alive yet another round.

1. This is 1st level we're talking about.

2. I did specify "multiple characters at 0 or less".

 

[Li Shenron]

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

Ditto.

Adventuring 15 minutes a day and resting 23 hours 45 minutes is a bit like trying to complete a job working only 15 minutes every day... you'll never end.

Personally I think that the idea that characters go adventuring 15 minutes and then go back home resting is theoretical only, and no one really plays like that. Because that requires anyway that the rest of the world would allow you to do so: you clear 1 room in a dungeon and go back to camp, and the rest of dungeon stays where it is and waits for your team to come back the next day? In my own opinion, the 15 minutes-per-day adventures require a very terrible DM.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Personally I think that the idea that characters go adventuring 15 minutes and then go back home resting is theoretical only, and no one really plays like that. Because that requires anyway that the rest of the world would allow you to do so: you clear 1 room in a dungeon and go back to camp, and the rest of dungeon stays where it is and waits for your team to come back the next day? In my own opinion, the 15 minutes-per-day adventures require a very terrible DM.

Here's a scenario where it happened almost every day:
Ancient underground complex created 2000 years ago by a long dead group of people. It has been sealed with 700 years with no one getting in or out. The PCs are given the only key.

The only creatures inside are one or all of the following:
-unable to leave the place due to the curse put on them
-unable to leave the place because they don't know a way to the surface
-not smart enough to leave the place
-unwilling to follow the PCs to the surface since they are just happy that they left
-unable to follow teleporting PCs

Then let the PCs teleport in, kill a room full of enemies then teleport out. The PCs spend a night in town selling off loot, getting back spells and healing. Some times they'll wait for someone in town to make them a new magic item or spend an extra day looking for a piece of info before going back.

So, from the point of view of the enemies...they spent 700 years living down here with no disturbances and suddenly some people appear, kill some of their friends then leave. No particular reason to think they'll be back the next day. And often they weren't. So you go back to your routine you've been doing for the past 700 years. Then they suddenly appear again and kill off another one of your friends. Not having the ability to follow them, you figure they'll be back and you might even make some plans to be on the look out and carry a weapon with you so you can defend yourself next time. Then you die.

Then the PCs move on to the next level of the dungeon where the enemies have been prevented from leaving their level for the full 700 years, so they don't even know or speak to the enemies on the level above. So they have no idea that the PCs are coming, and the cycle repeats itself.

Then you have other dungeons filled with competing creatures who are HAPPY the PCs killed off their opponents, so of course they aren't going to lift a finger to help them. And that's assuming they even talk to each other so they know the PCs came to the dungeon a day ago.

This is in addition to the days where the PCs teleported in, walked down a hallway where they were attacked by a gelatanous cube that the residents of the dungeon didn't know was there, they killed it and teleported out without any of the intelligent residents of the dungeon even knowing they were there that day.

Or the times that the PCs teleported in and killed a room worth of people when the head of the evil temple knew they were just WEEKS away from summoning their god and getting the revenge they deserved. But leaving to chase after the PCs would just take valuable time away from their plan.

I've found that more often than not, with the games I've run it's actually more difficult to justify why the enemies WOULD chase after the PCs than why they wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like EVERY day was a 15 minute adventuring day. It mainly depended on the difficulty of their first encounter. If it was hard enough, they wouldn't risk a second.

 

[delericho]

I've seen it mainly in RPGA games and other convention games. We have one player who wants to use all of his big spells in the first encounter every day and then rest up. It annoys the heck out of me.

Yeah, I've seen it as well, especially at higher levels.

However, I fully expect exactly the same thing to happen with the same players in 4e - they'll enter their first encounter, burn off their most powerful abilities in order (which almost certainly means burn their dailies first) and then, after combat, burn as many healing surges as necessary to reach full health. As soon as anyone runs out of either daily powers or healing surges, they'll retreat and camp for the day.

And, frankly, it's hard to argue with their logic - if you're entering a life-or-death struggle, and absent some pressing need to proceed, you will absolutely want to be at your best for each encounter.

However, things might not be as bad as all that. If the game changes so that instead of handling one encounter a day, characters handle three of four, I think that's probably as much as can be hoped for.

 

[IceFractal]

The 15-minute day isn't even "trying to cheat the system", it's just common sense. If you aren't under immediate time pressure, and you're exploring a dangerous area where the next corner could conceal deadly hazards - why the hell would you keep pressing on when you're injured and low on resources? It'd be like a SWAT team going in without bothering to load their guns or put on their gear.

And usually, the consequence of pressing on when you're out of spells and low on HP is a TPK. Or at best, you barely defeat the encounter and are even more wounded - better hope you don't get ambushed. Really, "keep pressing on" just isn't compatible with "limited daily resources".


In fact, with the removal of the cheap post-combat healing provided by the trusty Wand of CLW or Lesser Vigor, 4E may actually have a sharper cut-off. Sure, you can keep going strong until you run out of healing surges - but once you do, that's it, you rest or you die.

For that reason, it's somewhat surprising that they seem to have taken a step back from the exclusively per-encounter paradigm seen in late 3E books like Bo9S and classes like the Dragon Shaman. A 3E party focused on sustainability really could go all day - I'm not sure a 4E party could say the same.

 

[Danzauker]

From what I know, the biggest incentive to continuous adventuring in 4e are Acrion Points.

Since you accrue them by passing encounters, and lose them all when you take an extended rest, a party must judge whether losing all those extra actions or get back their dailies.

Sure, AP are a pure metagaming concept, still, I think it's a brilliant way for characters to "charge up" for the big boss fight, like they do in movies or books.

 

[Derren]

From what I know, the biggest incentive to continuous adventuring in 4e are Acrion Points.

Since you accrue them by passing encounters, and lose them all when you take an extended rest, a party must judge whether losing all those extra actions or get back their dailies.

Sure, AP are a pure metagaming concept, still, I think it's a brilliant way for characters to "charge up" for the big boss fight, like they do in movies or books.

Not really. You can only use one AP per encounter so saving them for the big boss fight is useless. Also you start with an AP after resting.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Not really. You can only use one AP per encounter so saving them for the big boss fight is useless. Also you start with an AP after resting.

True. But you can use them faster than you get them. If you have 2 AP, you can use 1 per encounter for the next 2 encounters AND still get a 3rd one after that to use in the encounter after that.

Plus, it's partially a psychological thing. Here, have an AP. But it goes away when you rest. And then you get a new one...but I don't think people will think about getting the new one.

Still, the AP given out every 2 encounters is more an incentive to keep going due to the fact that there would be MORE incentive to rest if you didn't give it out. I mean, if you use your AP first encounter of every day and knew that the only way to get it back was to rest, then of course you are going to rest. If you know you are going to get it back ALSO by fighting another battle then maybe that is just as good an option.

 

[Derren]

Still, the AP given out every 2 encounters is more an incentive to keep going due to the fact that there would be MORE incentive to rest if you didn't give it out..

Imo not because you are not gaining anything, you just don't loose it. The limiting factor is still the number of healing surges left and the dailies. And even if you don't use the AP, there is no advantage in having 2 AP instead of just 1.

Groups which really rested after every fight (I have never seen such a group but people say they exist) will now use their dailies in the first fight and then rest.
Adventure design is the solution to the 15 minute workday, not rules.

 

[Danzauker]

Not really. You can only use one AP per encounter so saving them for the big boss fight is useless. Also you start with an AP after resting.

True, but still, the more you adventure, the more you get. If you stored 3 AP, you are quite willing to keep adventuring and use them in the next encounters, because you will waste them otherwise.

Plus, I don't actually know whether there are some higher level feats or powers that grant you the ability of using more than an AP in a given encounter.

Remember that 4e is "exception based", so everything you read in the basic rules can be superceded by a power or class ability.