Reasoning behind Extended Rests?

[Rafe]

So why not take Extended Rests once you've used up your Daily powers and most of your item dailies as well?

What is the incentive to keep going, right down to your very last healing surges? When "everybody" seems to agree taking an Extended Rest is not only rightly deserved, but mandatory as well...

As it's been said, if you taken an extended rest, you must wait another 12 hours before taking another.

And taking it a step further - why is 4th edition still designed around this concept?

I don't see how 4e is "designed" around this concept. Certainly, it's a new addition - the idea of having short rests, anyway. Extended rests have always been a part of the game. It was 8 hours before. Now it's 6 hours, usable after 12.

Why is "not fighting for six hours" considered to be such a penalty that players are expected to avoid it, even if it means they regain their best powers?

I don't get this part. I don't think anyone considers it a penalty. Why would it be? Why would you say people avoid it? It's true that milestones are nice, but they aren't needed. You have to remember that action points can only be used at a rate of 1/encounter. Achieving a milestone and thus an action point is to make people feel as though they don't have to stop and rest constantly; it gives them a little boost if they've used their action point already.

 

[Vaeron]

I don't think I could sleep more than 10 hours a day if I tried, and I'm a lot lazier than a point-of-light hero. If a party is stupid enough (or the DM bad enough at encounter design) to blow their dailys in every single encounter, that's tough cookies. Maybe after a couple close calls they'll reconsider wasting their powers that way.

 

[Larry Hunsaker]

I agree that the mechanic of sleeping/resting for 6 hours is no longer needed. I think that the concept of daily powers is still useful however. It just represents resource management and allows you to have neat "Aces" up your sleeve for cool effects that can only be used in a few encounters, not every encounter. So I think this is why the third tier of daily powers was added to at-will and encounter powers.

I have thought about this and may try a system that gets rid of the rest for 6 hours mechanic to restore daily powers. Rather than forcing a 6 hour lag in the action, I may say that every milestone achieved grants you, in addition to the 1 action point and one more magic item daily use, the bonus of recovering 1 healing surge and 1 daily power. The daily power recovered would be your lowest level one on the 1st milestone, then your lowest or next lowest on the 2nd, etc. Then after you complete the mission (a set number of milestones, usually 3-5) you fully recover as if you rested 6 hours. This way you never actually need to take a rest (except when it makes sense, between missions, when the heroes get a breather), but can still make use of the daily limits.

Larry

 

[Oni]

Because is you decide to pack in for the day after making it one room into the dungeon and a minor scuffle then your a pansy.

I don't want my character to be a pansy.


Besides the more time you spent sleeping the greater the chance you will be assassinated in your sleep (especially if you annoy the DM).



...can't sleep, ninjas will get me...

 

[Runestar]

"Not fighting for six hours" isn't a penalty, but "keep fighting through milestones" is a bonus.

I don't see how milestones can be construed as a bonus. You can use more dailies and get more action points, but are likely to expend even more resources during those encounters. An extended rest gives you 1 AP back and resets your daily limit. So you won't really come out ahead compared to taking an extended rest, you merely lose a little less.

 

[Oni]

I don't see how milestones can be construed as a bonus. You can use more dailies and get more action points, but are likely to expend even more resources during those encounters. An extended rest gives you 1 AP back and resets your daily limit. So you won't really come out ahead compared to taking an extended rest, you merely lose a little less.

This is true. I do wish they had made milestones attractive enough that it would be tempting to push on even when maybe you shouldn't. More risk, more reward.

 

[James McMurray]

This is true. I do wish they had made milestones attractive enough that it would be tempting to push on even when maybe you shouldn't. More risk, more reward.

Kill a PC every now and then. The desire to get rid of that death penalty can be a major motivator.

 

[Oni]

Kill a PC every now and then. The desire to get rid of that death penalty can be a major motivator.

Of course you'd have to kill one every session or two for that to be consistant motivation. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it could be fun.

 

[DracoSuave]

Avoiding the 15 minute work day was always easy. 'Save the princess. She'll be eaten by the dragon in two weeks. It takes a week to get there. Use your days wisely.'

For the record, Rings reward you for hitting milestones by becoming more powerful.

 

[CapnZapp]

Okay, so I guess I didn't phrase my question clearly...

I fully understand the evils of the 15-minute adventure day.

And I also realize a good DM can avoid it simply by applying some well-measured time pressure that is tailored specifically to his or her own play group.

But. Let's just for the moment discuss the rulebooks only, without the "a good DM can always compensate for bad rules" mentality. By this I only mean that with a good DM there is no 15-minute day problem to solve. Thus, the only place where there is a problem is when the "good DM" solution doesn't apply - the case I would like to discuss here.

My question is: WotC claims to have abolished the 15-adventure day. I don't see where and how.

As far as I understand it, it is always more beneficial to take an extended rest than to plow on. There are no built-in penalties to taking extended rests other than time consumption - which is exactly the same as in 3rd Edition! How is that a solution?

AFAIK, the only thing 4th does better than 3rd is granting some modicum of "plow-on" capability when you're forced to continue past the first 15 minutes of each adventuring day.

And then my real, underlying (philosophical even) question: why have Wizards kept the adventuring day at all? Why force adventurers to rest just to regain their powers? Couldn't there have been a better solution (to avoid everyone blowing their dailies in each encounter)?


Confusedly yours,
Zapp