So what happens in 4e when the party's dailies are used and the person with the lowest number of healing surges has none left?
They call it a day? Is this a trick question?
Is this really a fault of the system or the style of the group? I've never seen a system, where damage is tracked and non-replenishable after a certain point, that can totally account for this.
The problem is not that the day is over eventually. The problem is a little more complex, but probably not hard to grasp.
Some people like individual combats that feel challenging, in an interesting way. Challenging means there is a threat of failure, and only clever play can avoid that. Failure is not limited to death, but the important thing is: We are talking about individual combat. Not the fact that if you screw up in your first encounter you might die in the 3rd. We are talking only about the encounter at hand.
Interesting in this context typically means that "interesting stuff" happens, which in D&D often means special resources are spent - combined with the challenging part, this means they are not just spend, they are "cleverly" spent - you don't fireball individual foes, and so on.
There are other definitions for "interesting", but this is the one that we use in this context.
A CR = EL encounter usually fails to achieve this goal in 3E. Such combats are easy. The Fighter and Rogue can probably deal with the situation at hand, supported by a Cleric that doesn't buff himself (aside from the "all-day" buffs) and a Wizard firing crossbow bolts or using an old Wand of Magic Missile. It is not really exciting. In essence, the clever play is to not spend resources. Which means according to the above statement, the fight was not challenging or interesting. It was just a walk-over. The resources spent will be charges from the Wand of Cure Light Wounds after combat. Again, not interesting. There is nothing clever about healing after combat.
A CR = EL +2 to CR = EL +4 typically achieves this goal in 3E. Such combats are tough. You have to fight multiple enemies or a very strong enemy, and you need to spend your resources cleverly. If you meet groups of foes, fireballs will be flung, if you meet tough individual foes, Hold Monsters or Finger of Death might get used. If you meet dangerous spellcasters, dispels are the order of the day. In addition, high level healing spells, break enchantments and similar spells are used to keep the front-line (sometimes also the back lines) up.
A typical caster prepares for all these possibilities in combat, and also for several out-of-combat scenarios. In such encounters, he will quickly expend his combat-related resources. Especially if he has prepared for more then one possibility, he might feel out of the necessary options soon, but even if he focuses more on general stuff (save or death or damage effects instead of situational spells).
The 15 minute adventure day is exactly what happens if you go this route. you run few, but challenging and interesting encounters per day. But this is at odds with the "versimilitude" of the scenario, or the desired adventure flow. you don#t want to go home after 1 to 2 encounters. Storywise, it just doesn't make sense to have to go home that often. But gameplay-wise, you don't want many "simple" encounters. They go stale soon.
So, the solution to this problem is: Find a game system that allows more challenging encounters per day.
And 4E is such a game system. Yes, we still have daily powers. But for the players of the above kind, this can still avoid their 15 minute adventure day, since they can have interesting encounters _without_ spending their daily resources, since they have encounter resources.
The system still gives a more or less "hard" limit on how long to go on.
But there is challenge even if you don't touch your daily powers:
The threat of failure is not a TPK, but the loss of an individual character.
The interesting stuff is still there, because you have to take into account positioning, movement, encounter powers and at-will powers with "side effects".
The only reasons why the healing surges per day seem to exist in the first place is to define a limit on how long an adventuring day can be.
And daily powers exist to provide a resource you can spend to deal even with very tough enemies (facing a TPK or total party retreat, at least), or to help you if you made some great error.
..
There is another type of player that runs into the 15 minute adventure day - the one that doesn't understand or care for resource management, and just wants to crush his opposition. Maybe the 4E encounter powers can help him in that regard, because he can combine his desire to "kick ass" with resource management. But maybe it doesn't, like when he just counts the damage dice he gets to roll when using a daily power. *shrugs*. That is not the type of player 4E particularly addresses. But I say this player is rare, anyway. And he should not be used as the only or primary example of a player that has a "problem" with the 15 minute adventure day.
There is also another subgroup of players - the guy that expected a wizard to cast spells a lot, and while he might still appreciate resource management, he wants to do something magic each round. He might be fine with the new at-will powers for Pathfinder spellcasters. He will certainly fine with the At-Wills in 4E, too. (In that regard.)
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Why are we still talking about the 15 minute adventure day? Didn't we had these discussions often enough? *grumble*
Of course, since we are now converting their adventure paths to 4E, I can't assess this any more... I just now they work also in 4E...
