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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 6753794" data-attributes="member: 2629">I see where you're coming from here. If you go for 6 encounters per long rest and equally space them with 2 short rests in the middle, you get 2 encounters per short rest exactly.  However, the recommendation is not 6, but 6 to 8.  When you have 7 or 8, there are extra battes in there... which may or may not require limited use abilities depending upon difficulty, but I would challenge that any battle, even an easy one, where no limited use ability is worth being used is a wasted opportunity and probably is going to be a bit boring.Further, resting patterns tend to be more random than evenly spaced, with rests occuring only after "big" combats where hps and/or limited use abilities are depleted.  As a result, it is not uncommon (and in the games I've played it seems to be more common)  to see patterns like 4 combats, SR, 3 combats, SR, 1 (big) combat, LR.  I also see between 1 and 12 encounters taking place per long rest, and the rules do allow for situations in which there is no time for a short rest between any encounters in a dungeon setting.All in all, in games I've played where DMs try to follow the design guidelines, if you exclude those "once combat in a day while traveling" type encounters which would drag down the average, it is more common to have an average of 3 or 4 encounters between short rests than 2 encounters.  Additionally, if you find that you can handle most "medium" difficulty challenges with no use of limited use abilities and no real risk of failures, I'd suggest that either 1.) Your PCs are on the higher end of the power spectrum, or 2.) Your encounters are only being measured on success and failure based upon whether the enemies die before a PC dies.  Neither is within the full design suggestions laid out for DMs.  A point buy based party that is not fully optimizing will find a need to use encounter powers to stop a medium level threat from killing that merchants the party is trying to protect, from escaping with the stolen goods, from raising the alarm, from blibberding the flabbjacock, etc...All games are different, but if you try to follow the recommended guidelines, I think you'll find a lot of 3 and 4 encounters per short rest situations.</blockquote>

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