Ramping Up 1/day Encounter Difficulty

[Iron Sky]

In the game I'm running 3/4 of the fights have been the only fight of the day. What that means is, if I'm pretty sure it's going to be the PCs only fight, I pull out all the stops: Level+3 (or more encounter), coming up!

This does mean that there might only be 2-3 fights at a given level (since I give out xp for roleplaying and skill challenges too), but once I got over my initial resistance to the fact that they'd be leveling up every second or third session, it stopped being a problem.

Our games are a bit different from the norm I think though; I've been DMing for 15 years and I've never had a "dungeon crawl" that took more than one session to complete and, until we hit Paragon in the 4e campaign that my buddy ran, I'd never played through a dungeon crawl either. It was actually really exciting for us since it was the first one we'd ever done!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just try it how it works out and Adapt by adding an appropriate amount of monsters to account for extra daily uses.

It is really not dramatic how many healing surges they save at the end of the day. It makes no real difference in combat.

You could however disturb their nights Rest, when the big baddy sends some assasins. And if your players fear such things they are a bit more cautious about blowing their dailies.

Multiclass leader feats which are 1/day work in favour for one encounter per day, because you can threaten them a bit more than usual, because they have more possibilities to recover HP in combat.

Last thing you could to is having skill chalenges and such which drains healing surges. Actually you can drain healing surges for spying a whole day on the big baddy´s house in rain for each hour. Take away healing surges for spending nights in common rooms. Drain healing surges for drinking and staying up too long.

Some could work for you, some not. The interesting thing here is finding a balance so that each combat feals at least like a little challenge. And managing your surges in a city where you are expected to drink and party and take part in social activities is a reasonable challenge.

 

[keterys]

I totally recommend Jonathan Tweet's houserule previously mentioned: rests don't count as extended until you've passed two milestones / four combats -OR- the other one mentioned, only an extended rest every narrative unit (adventure, what have you)

As is, an extended rest every 3 fights already feels like too often (except on my barbarian, for letting me rage every fight so I'd totally encourage getting into that 4-8 range.

 

[babinro]

Wow, the regain daily's after two milestones is a great solution. Simple in that the players wont be holding back forever in hopes of something....but also long enough to punish them for going nova in one fight. I'm implementing this ASAP.

The only question being, come level 20 when they have four dailys, would it be more appropriate to push this to 3 milestones.

 

[keterys]

One daily per combat is pretty decent, for keeping things rolling along.

Actually, I was once considering a house rule of only one daily attack per encounter (and daily item per encounter)... that sharply counteracts nova.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

One daily per combat is pretty decent, for keeping things rolling along.

Actually, I was once considering a house rule of only one daily attack per encounter (and daily item per encounter)... that sharply counteracts nova.

Such houserules depend a lot on the party dynamic and the players involved too. For example, I'm a Fighter and I'm typically the LAST person to blow a Daily in an adventuring day, if at all. That's because at 4th level I only have one, and it's Villain's Menace. It's a power that's basically designed for working over BBEG's, since you get more use out of it the longer the baddie is under it's effect. I would never "waste it" going nova against some normal enemies.

Heck, even once I hit level 5 I'm gonna be the same way. I've been threatening my DM with the Villain's Menace/Bedeviling Assault combo for awhile now! (Villain's Menace grants a +2 to attack and +4 damage if you hit with it, in addition to 2[W] damage. Bedeviling Assault lets me make a melee basic attack as a free action every time the enemy is hit by an ally's melee attack. Since I have a Warden and a Rogue in the party, that means probably at least 2 attacks per round, both with a +2 to hit and +4 to damage. Very nasty. XD )

So yeah, while some parties like to nova early and often, others like to save their Dailies for the toughest of enemies so that they can unload on them. For a party like ours, I think that your houserule would actually hurt things a bit, because any time we have to burn a Daily during a "normal" encounter it always ratchets up the tension. Knowing that saving them won't help will eliminate that tension. But for an early nova party, it sounds like an excellent idea.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Instead of having the houserule, one daily per encounter you should rather consider one daily power usage per encounter, which you can save up for later.

 

[Destil]

Since I have a Warden and a Rogue in the party, that means probably at least 2 attacks per round, both with a +2 to hit and +4 to damage. Very nasty. XD

It's actually once per round. Just so you know and don't get disappointed if you do take it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One way to ramp it up is simply forcing people to run multiple encounters as one. Combine two encounters, having the second monster group enter a few rounds later. This way, you maintain the usual action economy for the PCs, but the encounter/daily resource economy changes.

House rules are of course always an option. Limiting how often you can take extended rests probably will work fine, too.

 

[RHGreen]

What probably needs to be done to the 4E system of encounter design to avoid this sort of problem, and generally improve it a little, is to separate the enviroment from the monsters.

Currently, and with the exception of wandering monsters in all older editions, encounters are statically clamped enviroment-monster based.

If you separate the 2 you could have a map with encounter areas and a collection of monster groups.

What has this to do with the 5min working day? Well, if the PCs retreat from the dungeon the monster groups can follow them back to town and harass them without being physically clamped into a particular area. The encounter just becomes wherever the PCs happen to be attacked. If they are attacked in a wooded area use a premade woodland encounter map.

If the DM wanted all the monster groups in a given adventure could attack them in waves.

Why would the PCs care wether they are being attacked on the way back to town instead of in a dungeon? Well, give them disadvantages for being routed and being attacked on the fly while on the run.

It would be to the PCs advantage to take the offensive in the dungeon rather than be on the back foot.

This design would make the whole adventure thing more dynamic. This way you could have the encounters come to the PCs. It's a new way to railroad through an adventure without actually railroading the players and ruining the game. If you can't make the PCs go to the mountain make the mountain come to the PCs. If the PCs are sitting around in their inn room all the time - have the evil leader send one of his monster groups through the window.

You could also make it so that overland travel drains Healing Surges so that when they are ambushed they are at another disadvantage. It would be better for them to secure a local area by killing the local threat and rest there rather than tracking back and forth.


Just some ideas.