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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4577812" data-attributes="member: 5143">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.</blockquote>

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