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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WalterKovacs" data-source="post: 4573863" data-attributes="member: 63763">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.</blockquote>

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