Is the adventuring day longer in 4th Ed?

[Allister]

What I noticed was that not only was the adventring day "longer" but it is usually the rogue or the melee ranger that determine whether or not we stop....

 

[Gort]

My impression is that the adventuring day is longer if the players want it to be. It tends to depend on the difficulty of the encounters. If the first encounter of the day is really hard, and players run out of healing powers (not surges, necessarily) and blow a bunch of dailies, chances are they'll think, "Man, that was close. Better rest up before the next one."

On the other hand, if they have an easy fight that they blow through without feeling in too much danger of dying, they probably won't blow a bunch of dailies and will want to carry on.

So it's really up to the DM - do you like one really tough fight a day, or do you prefer a string of weaker ones that wear the party down?

 

[functionciccio]

So far my players have done five to six encounters per adventuring day. This is in contrast with two or three (or sometimes just one) with the same group in 3E

This.

The daily limit are always the healing surges, rarely the daily powers.

And This.

Anyway... yes. It's working!

 

[Celtavian]

For any 3E group I played in, healing was NEVER the limiting factor that determined when rest time was. The remaining highest-level spells of the caster(s) was what determined rest times. If your encounters don't require the caster(s) to unleash the highest-level spells, then they are too easy - of course you can do many in a day. However, if your encounters are appropriately challenging, it is almost impossible to do more than 2-3 of them in a day - the caster(s) end(s) up dry...

For 4E, it should scale similarly all the way up - you should probably be able to do 6+ encounters in a day at any level.

I disagree. At high level there were many encounters in dungeons that did not take up much of the players resources. There were a few hard fights now and again, but most of the wandering monsters and such the fighters and melees could handle with complete ease without the caster having to cast a single spell. The only groups I've seen unable to continue on were those with groups that had wizard players that felt compelled to release as many spells as they could on every single encounter.

And you get many more spells at high level than 4E characters even taking into account encounters. So I seriously doubt the adventuring day was shorter in 3E than 4E for high level characters. My group and I could finish entire dungeon levels and then some at high level without expending our resource pool. Then again 3E fighters were damage machines unlike 4E fighters.

You must have a group without very good melees if you couldn't handle encounters without your wizards blowing off all their spells. I certainly didn't travel in groups like that. The only time we had knock down, drag out fights was with end game rooms against main villains or their number one henchmen.

It's astounding how much play experience can differ. I know with certainty that 3E characters can go longer than 4E characters if they are smart players with rare exception. 3E had many rooms that characters could steam roll with the rare end game rooms that were a very tough fight. But most rooms or encounters were far from a tough fight and many were designed as lesser encounters to slowly wittle away resources.

So I guess the best answer to the OP is it depends on your group. I know my group could handle very long adventuring days in 3E at about lvl 7 and above. We were highly organized, kept a fund for the purchase of healing wands and magic items, focused on organized tactical fighting, had casters that used magic when it was needed rather than every chance they had, and used scouting to efficiently evaluate tactical threats and remove traps and the like in our path.

When you do all that I stated above, it comes down to resources. Due to the inherent limitations of magic items and healing surges, a 3E character can go longer than a 4E character.

 

[amysrevenge]

It's astounding how much play experience can differ.

It sure is.

It was a rare encounter in 3.x that I ran into where the EL wasn't at least party level+2, regularly it ranged up to party level+4 (and occasionally beyond). The casters can't handle much more than one level+4 encounter in a day, or maybe two to three level+2 encounters.

If all we were up against was EL <= party level+1, then sure we could do them all day. Could even leave the wizard at home, in fact, and the cleric too, as long as the ranger can use CLW wands...

It really amounts to EL difficulty.

 

[Shroomy]

I think that the adventuring day is now longer in 4e, at least in my play experiences. Healing surges do determine when we rest, but I've encouraged my group to conserve their daily powers and push on in order to get to a milestone and another sweet, sweet action point. Also, most of our extended rests actually happen at narratively appropriate times (like bedtime) instead of being motivated by meta-game concerns.

 

[amysrevenge]

Also, most of our extended rests actually happen at narratively appropriate times (like bedtime) instead of being motivated by meta-game concerns.

What a ridiculous notion! lol

 

[Shroomy]

What a ridiculous notion! lol

I know, I just realized that we were doing that tonight. Just think, we took extended rests because we had nothing else to do but sleep. Crazy,

 

[AllisterH]

I
When you do all that I stated above, it comes down to resources. Due to the inherent limitations of magic items and healing surges, a 3E character can go longer than a 4E character.

It really comes down to the EL then.

If you're facing lots of fights where your fighters can handle it without the casters using their top level slots then the EL was at a maximum equal to your level +1 if not lower.

Similarly, I can imagine that a 4E party that faces EASY encounters can match the number of encounters that the 3E party faces....

 

[Nail]

It was a rare encounter in 3.x that I ran into where the EL wasn't at least party level+2, regularly it ranged up to party level+4 (and occasionally beyond). The casters can't handle much more than one level+4 encounter in a day, or maybe two to three level+2 encounters.

If all we were up against was EL <= party level+1, then sure we could do them all day. Could even leave the wizard at home, in fact, and the cleric too, as long as the ranger can use CLW wands....

Us too.

In published modules (WotC and Dungeon), we'd usually steam-roll most of the encounters without breaking into the high-level spells. We could clear out huge sections without resting. (Our party worked well together, which helps lots.)

In home-brewed adventures, most encounters were at least EL = APL +2, if not EL = APL +4. Then we could get through 2 - 3 encounters before resting.

4e, OTOH, is different. Since your in-combat healing is limited, the DM can't just rachet up the difficulty with impunity. Sure, the PCs can blow their dailies, but the real limiting factor is in-combat healing surges. So the DM should keep the EL *much* closer to APL in 4e....and thus more encounters per day in 4e.