Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Reasoning behind Extended Rests?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4570446" data-attributes="member: 5143"><p>I hope you aren't talking about me, because I don't believe I'm doing any such thing, I'm explaining my point of view. I just think you are looking at it from the wrong angle.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree. And I was trying to explain that the root of the problem isn't that there is no penalty for resting. It's that there is too much advantage to resting.</p><p></p><p>Most players naturally want to keep going. Given the choice of a minor disadvantage for continuing and no disadvantage for resting, they will take the minor disadvantage purely for role playing reasons(they don't want to look like cowards, they think it sounds stupid for their characters to fight 5 goblins then go home and rest the night, etc). It's a matter of degrees. If you are likely to die if you continue then it's better to look like cowards.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what point you are making here. Yes, the cost of taking extended rests does very tremendously and can be overridden by the DM. Are you saying that the 18 hour time period is not a disadvantage for taking a rest because DMs can change it? If that's the case then it doesn't matter what rules they put into place to fix the problem, since they all could be changed.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not entirely sure you do as you keep wanting to apply some sort of disadvantage for resting. It doesn't need one, since that isn't the problem. As I mention above, the problem is the amount of penalty to get for continuing. Which is dramatically less than previous editions.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, it does. I had the privilege of attending a seminar with Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, and Chris Tulach on adventure design which was very beneficial in this regard. One of the things they hammered into me over and over was that 4e adventures should ALWAYS have a time limit of some sort. For a number of reasons. The primary one being that the daily power/action point/healing surge mechanic was designed around the idea that the PCs WANT to keep going. And that without some outside motivation it was too easy to simply do an extended rest after every encounter.</p><p></p><p>But that's not the only reason to put time limits on. There's the fact that in a heroic fantasy game there should always be some pressure on the characters to keep them motivated. The most exciting part of the game is when the pressure is on.</p><p></p><p>They explained that the time limit doesn't have to be given explicitly. Even implicit time limits work. For instance, a group of Orcs capture some people from a village. The PCs have to rescue them. The Orcs might want to hold them for ransom or are putting them to work in mines. It could be that if the PCs did nothing for 6 months and then attempted the rescue then it would be no problem. But maybe the Orcs are planning on killing them tomorrow. There's no way of knowing. Are the PCs going to risk it over something as small as an action point? Better to leave now and fight your way past all the Orcs until you free the prisoners.</p><p></p><p>Even if you create a campaign with no time limit, it should consist of adventures that each have an individual time limit. For instance, an evil tyrant is looking for pieces of a scroll that contains a ritual that will allow him to take over the world but neither he nor the PCs know where the pieces are. When the PCs learn the location of a piece, the tyrant should as well. And the PCs should know that the tyrant knows, making it a race against time. Then, afterwords, it goes back to waiting and having no time limit again.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There is a definite limit on how long you can keep fighting for before you rest, true. This is intentional. The designers have said that they didn't want PCs to be able to fight forever.</p><p></p><p>My experience is that the average fighter has 10 healing surges and that they lose 2-3 per combat. Which means they can fight about 4 combats before the group decides to take an extended rest. Most of the official adventures are designed around this pacing. So are most of the Living Forgotten Realms adventures. With luck and good teamwork, the number of combats could probably go up to as high as 6, but much beyond that is impossible.</p><p></p><p>The best thing to do is to create adventures where the logical stopping point is after the 4 encounters. For instance, with the Orc kidnapping adventure above, you design it so that the Orc lair is split into 4 logical places to have an encounter and at the end they find the prisoners. Or they find a clue that will lead them to the real prisoners but it is over a day travel away.</p><p></p><p>This creates adventures that "feel" natural.</p><p></p><p>However, it seems you want a solution other than the one the designers put into the game. There isn't one. As written, it is still a better idea to rest after every encounter. This is explicitly because the designers didn't want a penalty for resting as they feel that the natural desire of players to continue and plot concerns in an adventure balance out the advantage you get for resting. If you have players who don't want to go onward and you aren't willing to encourage them with plot, then I agree, you will have the 15-minute work day back.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Majoru Oakheart, post: 4570446, member: 5143"] I hope you aren't talking about me, because I don't believe I'm doing any such thing, I'm explaining my point of view. I just think you are looking at it from the wrong angle. I agree. And I was trying to explain that the root of the problem isn't that there is no penalty for resting. It's that there is too much advantage to resting. Most players naturally want to keep going. Given the choice of a minor disadvantage for continuing and no disadvantage for resting, they will take the minor disadvantage purely for role playing reasons(they don't want to look like cowards, they think it sounds stupid for their characters to fight 5 goblins then go home and rest the night, etc). It's a matter of degrees. If you are likely to die if you continue then it's better to look like cowards. I'm not sure what point you are making here. Yes, the cost of taking extended rests does very tremendously and can be overridden by the DM. Are you saying that the 18 hour time period is not a disadvantage for taking a rest because DMs can change it? If that's the case then it doesn't matter what rules they put into place to fix the problem, since they all could be changed. I'm not entirely sure you do as you keep wanting to apply some sort of disadvantage for resting. It doesn't need one, since that isn't the problem. As I mention above, the problem is the amount of penalty to get for continuing. Which is dramatically less than previous editions. Yes, it does. I had the privilege of attending a seminar with Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, and Chris Tulach on adventure design which was very beneficial in this regard. One of the things they hammered into me over and over was that 4e adventures should ALWAYS have a time limit of some sort. For a number of reasons. The primary one being that the daily power/action point/healing surge mechanic was designed around the idea that the PCs WANT to keep going. And that without some outside motivation it was too easy to simply do an extended rest after every encounter. But that's not the only reason to put time limits on. There's the fact that in a heroic fantasy game there should always be some pressure on the characters to keep them motivated. The most exciting part of the game is when the pressure is on. They explained that the time limit doesn't have to be given explicitly. Even implicit time limits work. For instance, a group of Orcs capture some people from a village. The PCs have to rescue them. The Orcs might want to hold them for ransom or are putting them to work in mines. It could be that if the PCs did nothing for 6 months and then attempted the rescue then it would be no problem. But maybe the Orcs are planning on killing them tomorrow. There's no way of knowing. Are the PCs going to risk it over something as small as an action point? Better to leave now and fight your way past all the Orcs until you free the prisoners. Even if you create a campaign with no time limit, it should consist of adventures that each have an individual time limit. For instance, an evil tyrant is looking for pieces of a scroll that contains a ritual that will allow him to take over the world but neither he nor the PCs know where the pieces are. When the PCs learn the location of a piece, the tyrant should as well. And the PCs should know that the tyrant knows, making it a race against time. Then, afterwords, it goes back to waiting and having no time limit again. There is a definite limit on how long you can keep fighting for before you rest, true. This is intentional. The designers have said that they didn't want PCs to be able to fight forever. My experience is that the average fighter has 10 healing surges and that they lose 2-3 per combat. Which means they can fight about 4 combats before the group decides to take an extended rest. Most of the official adventures are designed around this pacing. So are most of the Living Forgotten Realms adventures. With luck and good teamwork, the number of combats could probably go up to as high as 6, but much beyond that is impossible. The best thing to do is to create adventures where the logical stopping point is after the 4 encounters. For instance, with the Orc kidnapping adventure above, you design it so that the Orc lair is split into 4 logical places to have an encounter and at the end they find the prisoners. Or they find a clue that will lead them to the real prisoners but it is over a day travel away. This creates adventures that "feel" natural. However, it seems you want a solution other than the one the designers put into the game. There isn't one. As written, it is still a better idea to rest after every encounter. This is explicitly because the designers didn't want a penalty for resting as they feel that the natural desire of players to continue and plot concerns in an adventure balance out the advantage you get for resting. If you have players who don't want to go onward and you aren't willing to encourage them with plot, then I agree, you will have the 15-minute work day back. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Reasoning behind Extended Rests?
Top