Reasoning behind Extended Rests?

[WalterKovacs]

My understanding of the term "15 minute workday" is that it refers to a party opting to stop and rest for the day after just 1 or 2 encounters, despite having the resources to take on more encounters. The most common reason given is the casters running out of spells (after spamming them like no tomorrow in said fight), and being reluctant to partake in another fight at anything less than full strength, but I feel that is not the sole reason. Casters just received the most flak because they were the ones with limited resources. But in reality, even fighters could be an offender, if he ran low on hp, and the party lacked resources to patch him up. It just seemed improbable because it is assumed that the party cleric is there to patch him up, but it can happen.

But now in 4e, even with at-will and encounter powers, there is still another limited resource that existed both in 3e and 4e - hp.

In 3e, the party stopped because the casters were out of spells. Now, in 4e, the party stops because one PC is out of surges, low on hp, and unable to access healing, and they are unwilling to risk a PC death due to some lucky hit/crit.

So no, I am simply saying that the 15-minute issue is still as much of an issue in 4e compared to 3e. But at least in 3e, steps could be taken to counteract this (in the form of consumable magic items such as wands, for instance). Yet in 4e, similar provisions cannot be made. If anything, 4e seems even more unforgiving in this aspect.

We just seemed to have exchanged one flaw for another. Nothing has really changed, IMO.

There is still a limiting factor. The goal was not to have the party be able to adventure without end indefinitely. The goal was to have the reason you decide to rest not be "I just used up all my spells" ... which a player can cause to occur by using all their spells. A player could make bad choices in regards to spending healing surges ... but unlike with "going nova", there is no immediate reward to wasting healing surges.

Therefore, the length of the day has to do with how hard the PCs get nailed by the monsters, not about how much the players hold back. The PCs have some control over it, but it involves making sure the Defender isn't taking all the damage (if the other PCs still have a lot of surges at the end of the day, something is wrong). Making good use of healing powers give more bang for your buck, etc.

In 3.5, if you "wasted" your resources, you made the fight you were in easier to win, but made yourself less effective in later fights. In 4e if you "waste" your resources, you don't really get much benefit ... you just end up losing more healing surges.

Also, while there are no wands to get back to full health at the cost of some money ... there are a number of magic items that give you "extra" surges, not to mention cleric abilities like cure light and cure moderate, not to mention other items that boost the healing per surge ammount. If nothing else, the durable feat gives a few more healing surges.

If the same PC is always the one that forces the group to rest because they are out of surges, that PC should definitely look into taking the durable feat, but also, the party should reconsider their tactics if some of the other PCs have lots of surges to spare. Sometimes, a striker has to be willing to "defend" the defender ... or at least draw some of the fire, perhaps to allow the defender to use his particular mark based power (aegis of assault, divine challenge, etc).

Basically, in 3.5, the resource management assumed you'd spend a certain number of resources on each fight ... and thus the challenge was supposed to be whether you could effectively manage the resources so that by the time you reached the last fight, you had enough resources left to win. However, you can overspend, and make the fight easier ... and once you "run out" of resources, you are going to be at an obvious disadvantage going into the next fight. So, by stopping short because you are out of resources, you are thus able to change the model ... eventually this shrinks down to 1 fight per day at it's most extreme. However, this has to do with party makeup (if you have no vancian spellcasters, it's going to be different), the players (they have to move towards this type of play), the DM (they let the players rest because they don't want a TPK for "forcing" them into a fight with few resources, or they respond by upping the difficulty and thus locking them in to 1 encounter/day by making the encounter very difficult).

The way that 4e works, you can't just spend healing surges to make the fight end quicker and in your favor. Also a DM upping the difficulty might use up more healing surges, especially after the fight, but it's more likely to just kill the PCs. And that's one of the big changes in 4e. In 3e the idea was over the course of several encounters the PCs are wittled down in resources ... the last encounter is thus "dangerous" because they might run out of resources and not be able to stay alive. However, this meant the first X encounters weren't really dangerous ... that was another reason people went to 15-minute adventuring day ... why have X encounters per day to lead to the x+1 where they risked death when instead they can have a big blow out each day. In 4e, because the ammount of surges you can spend DURING the enounter is limited, it's possible to be at the brink of death in an encounter, and be able to get up after the encounter, spend some surges, and be ready to fight another encounter afterwards.

Basically, an encounter does not have to burn through all the PCs daily resources to be deadly, it has to go through the encounter resources. At the end of the day it becomes doubly dangerous, since they may run out of daily or encounter resources before they can be saved.

 

[Jhaelen]

But now in 4e, even with at-will and encounter powers, there is still another limited resource that existed both in 3e and 4e - hp.

Okay, I think I understand your point now. You were hoping that in 4E there would no longer be any resources that you can run out of. Is that correct?

In 3e, the party stopped because the casters were out of spells. Now, in 4e, the party stops because one PC is out of surges, low on hp, and unable to access healing, and they are unwilling to risk a PC death due to some lucky hit/crit.

IME, the 15 minute workday in 3E occured as soon as the casters ran out of their highest-level spells. They could still have 90% of their spells and noone would have to be wounded but they'd still refuse to continue because they felt they were now lacking their 'big guns'.

If I was to compare this to 4E, I'd say it's similar to having used all of your dailys. This, I think, might lead to a similar phenomenon if the dailys were so much more powerful than encounter powers that the party didn't dare continue. I don't believe they are that much more powerful but I could understand it if there were people who think otherwise.

Healing surges, however, are a different matter, imho. Unless the party has a very unusual setup or is not properly cooperating, I think, they'll use up their healing surges across the board. So if the party decides to stop for the day, it's not because a single person has run out of a critical resource but because they're all low on resources.

To compare it to a similar situation in 3E would be a party where the 'tanks' are not fully healed and the healers have run out of healing spells. In 3E this was typically prevented from ever happening by using bucketloads of wands of CLW.

So no, I am simply saying that the 15-minute issue is still as much of an issue in 4e compared to 3e.

And this is where I disagree. Yes, there are still limited resources, but they don't (or shouldn't!) result in the 15-minute workday.

Healing surges in particular cannot be used up in a single encounter, it will always take several encounters for them to run out. Thus the 15-minute workday problem doesn't exist in 4E.

 

[SabreCat]

Runestar, are you talking hypotheticals here, or has it actually been your experience that this happens in play?

I ask by way of clarification, since I see a lot of discussion of the theoretical stuff about limited resources and incentives, but seldom much response to people who mention the way things actually shake out.

 

[Lakoda]

It seems to me that a big part of this discussion has been around the fact that a dungeon crawl will still only take an hour or two. A small portion of the day with the majority is still left. This is problematic, but only if stuck thinking about D&D as was done in previous editions (all not just 3rd).

Taking a cue from James Wyatt's Dungeoncraft column, we must start formulating encounters that use more then just 1 room. The dungeon crawls of old were walk down the hall, open a door, kill creature behind door, loot said creature, rest in room, repeat. Try something like, walk down hall, open door, alarm sounds, barricade in room, defeat minions in room while leader is trying to break door down. A quick (and poor) example just "cleared" two of the dugeons rooms. Not every living quarter has to have an enoughter, in fact they shouldn't. They should probably be grouped together in an encounter. We have all this utility now to control the field of battle, 3e DM'ing doesn't let you use it. lets run around between rooms and close and open doors - a fight in one room WILL be heard in the next one, even with thick stone walls.

Building on this, you do not need to stay within the dungeon once you have descended. I think Wyatt did this in Dungeoncraft as well. Why not go in clear a level or area and get something or do something and then leave to return later. Either a special path was opened or the defenses weakened (some in game reason) to allow you to return to where you were before or bring the monsters that were deeper in the dungeon up to the first area (making the second area clear).

The reason I go into this is because you can not fight for a solid 18 hours and then rest of 6. Hell you can't even fight for 8 hours spread out over an entire day and expect 6 hours of rest and relaxation to make you funcitonal the next day. If you are in a dungeon crawl and want to fight like that (with or without penalties for being "able" to go beyond the "norm") maybe you shouldn't be playing D&D (at least not RAR). Maybe something with some supernatural super players ... a variant set of classes/races would allow the munchin style of play to keep going.

We all have those urges. About once a month or so we'll have a super dungeon crawl weekend with no real plot to speak of and face monsters after monsters. After 4 or so encounters we get a free rest and keep going.

To sum up, a true adventuring day does not (1) include just combat and (2) must be broken up or have some sort of activity to do after combat. If you are not planning like this as a DM you need to start. As was said before, if you want a non-munchkin style game you cannot have infinite resources therefore the 15-minuite day will always be a possibility - but only for the DM impared.

 

[77IM]

To me, 3-4 encounters is NOT 15 minutes. 3-4 encounters is usually several hours of tense exploration through hazardous hostile territory punctuated by 3-4 bouts of life-threatening combat with creepy supernatural foes.

It seems perfectly natural that the adventurers would be really pooped out at this point and would want to return to camp to recuperate. Unfortunately, they may have alerted the dungeon's inhabitants, and will need to sleep in their armor tonight...

(I've actually built my current campaign world around these assumptions. Rather than massive super-dungeons, most dungeons have only 2-3 encounters in them. The party shows up, kicks but, then sleeps for the night on the pile of loot and bodies, without fear of retribution. It works because my group can only get through 2-3 encounters per session anyway, and it allows me to focus on making interesting encounters rather than just having another room full of hobgoblins...)

-- 77IM

 

[Jhaelen]

(I've actually built my current campaign world around these assumptions. Rather than massive super-dungeons, most dungeons have only 2-3 encounters in them. The party shows up, kicks but, then sleeps for the night on the pile of loot and bodies, without fear of retribution. It works because my group can only get through 2-3 encounters per session anyway, and it allows me to focus on making interesting encounters rather than just having another room full of hobgoblins...)

When I'm not using published adventures that's exactly what I do. I dislike extensive dungeon-crawls anyway so my dungeons are always small affairs of 5-10 rooms.

Most encounters are wilderness encounters, so typically they'll take extended rests long before running out of healing surges simply because it's already time for taking another nap!

 

[Derren]

True, but my question remains:

Why not continue the 15-minute adventuring day of 3rd Edition?

Because the 15 minute adventuring day did not exist in most groups and was only encountered very rarely in those few groups where it existed in 3E.

The term only comes up so often now because 4E supporters desperately want to claim another advantage 4E has over 3E, completely ignoring that 4E did nothing to solve this (not existing) problem.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Because the 15 minute adventuring day did not exist in most groups and was only encountered very rarely in those few groups where it existed in 3E.

The term only comes up so often now because 4E supporters desperately want to claim another advantage 4E has over 3E, completely ignoring that 4E did nothing to solve this (not existing) problem.

I've seen it happen, so you can't say that it doesn't exist. Here's a rough example of WHY it happened.

The PCs in my game were around 13th level. They had a Cleric who opened the day casting Heroes Feast, Extended Protection from Energy against a couple of energy types, a couple of Greater Magic Weapons, a couple of Magic Vestments, and a couple of more spells I'm forgetting now. I just know that the bulk of his "buffing suite" was 10 mins/level and he extended as many of them as he could, so he was powerful for about 2 hours each day.

Before he even reached one encounter, he had used up close to 50% of his resources(especially if we consider spells to be "worth" their spell level, meaning that 2 6th level spells are worth 12 1st level).

They'd then have the Wizard cast some Greater Magic Weapons on the people the Cleric didn't have enough spells for. He'd put up a Stoneskin, a Greater Mage Armor, and some Protection from Energy spells up. He'd then cast Teleport in order to get the party back to the point in the dungeon they'd left the day before.

Then, they'd wander around the hallways, taking 20 searching rooms, casting Detect Magic a lot, some Comprehend Languages reading some stuff and so on. It took an hour or 2 of game time often before they ran into their first non-trap encounter.

Then, they'd run into an enemy(or 2 or 3) who was CR 16 or 17. They'd all panic as they weren't sure they could beat it. The enemy would open up with an area of effect spell or a single target spell that was really nasty, causing someone(or multiple people) to take 40-80 points of damage. The Wizard would then retaliate with a Quickened spell followed by a Maximized or Empowered spell. The enemy would then die.

The cleric would need to use a Heal Spell or 2 during or after the combat. As well as casting Divine Power first round before realizing he didn't need it.

Then they'd take 20 searching the room they found the enemies in and it would take another 30 minutes or so to find and collect all the treasure.

Then they'd take stock of their spells, realized that they couldn't possibly cast the same power of spells in another combat and that the Cleric's "buffing suite" would run out in another 30 minutes or so, and teleport back to town to sleep.

Although it isn't TECHNICALLY 15 minutes, the point is the one encounter day, not that it only takes 15 minutes to do. Sometimes it DID only take 15-minutes if they encountered something nasty shortly after teleporting into the dungeon. The party didn't see the need to EVERY fight more than one encounter per day at first until I guilted them out of character about it. I complained that it was really stupid for them to continually leave the dungeon after every battle and what would their CHARACTERS think of such things. They eventually relented and pressed on to fight 2 or 3 encounters in a day, but rarely without someone suggesting that they just leave after 1.

I figure the reason this didn't happen in some groups is because they rarely used very challenging encounters. 3e was designed around the idea that you fight encounters that were powerful enough that the Wizard could delay the entire combat while the Fighter killed the monsters without taking almost any damage. If you have that level of challenge, your players learn NOT to open up with a Quickened spell followed by a Maximized spell, since they don't need it. Instead they learn to delay.

I used to run games with that level of challenge. But it got really boring for me as a DM. It felt like I was constantly rolling for Initiative only to watch the enemies die like chumps. I might as well just have described the battle rather than wasting the time rolling the dice. There was never any chance that a PC would actually die to that level of challenge. It was just a constant cycle of "Fight the monster, cast a couple of Cure Light Wounds to heal the damage, Fight the monster, repeat". There wasn't enough tension. So, I steadily increased the power of the monsters I used until I had PCs dropping unconscious and Heal spells being used almost every round of combat in order to stop any of them from dying. And it was exciting and fun. Only it caused a 15 minute workday as a side effect.

4e lets me keep the tension but allows me to do it multiple times a day.

 

[DracoSuave]

The gaming group I used to have had a problem with the 15 minute work day.

The problem's name was Rope Trick.

SO glad that's not in 4e.

EDIT: And then I read the Manual of the Planes excerpt.

Crap.

 

[SabreCat]

And then I read the Manual of the Planes excerpt.

Are your players likely to burn 1000 gp per encounter for that purpose, when they could reasonably carry on? Seems like an expensive habit to keep up.