Reframing the 15 min day

[Celebrim]

Pondering the "15-min" day problem, and I was thinking that this could use better framing.

You can partly avoid the problem by making it hard for players to stop for the day. Add random encounters, and force them to travel to a safe point.

Agreed. Also, you can confront them with proactive enemies, who will take the fight to the PC's (or to something that they protect or care for) if the PC's don't take it to them.

That would work, except that, when players have used up their resources, what can they do? How can a spell-caster, with no spells left, keep contributing?

Are you suggesting that a spell-caster has used up all of his spells in 15-minutes, presumably in a single fight? Well, if the DM is presenting the party with climatic 100% resource draining fights first thing every morning, I would say that that is the cause in itself of the 15 minute adventuring day. But, for the most part I haven't experienced alot of fights that drain my spell-casters completely of spells. I've rarely been completely empty in my 28 year career, and I can think of just a few times that its happened to players while I was DMing.

Nothing stops a spellcaster from casting all of his spells in the first 15 minutes of the day, but if it does so, he shouldn't expect me to pause the game for him.

If the spellcaster does run out of spells, that's the time to pull out the hard to renew consumable resources like wands and scrolls. At lower levels, he can also do quite a bit of good with a crossbow or something similar, or in extremis by using aid other actions to assist his teammates/flanking foes, etc.

That seems to be the heart of the problem.

No, the heart of the problem is hit points. So long as you have hit points, you run the risk of '15 minute adventuring days'.

The 15 minute adventuring day occurs whenever:

a) The players achieve a certain level of system mastery.
b) The players are under no time pressure.
c) The players are willing to accept the 'gamist/metagamey' feeling that the '15 minute adventuring day' generates.

I've seen 15 minute adventuring days in 1e with low level parties not particularly heavy in spellcasters, simply to get the rest period after each fight. Vancian magic and other 'per day' resources do alot to contribute, but the fact that hit points are a 'per day' resource is the real heart of the problem in my experience.

As long as you have hit points, players with sufficient system mastery and no time pressure will pretty much always tend toward a pattern of 'fight/rest/fight/rest/fight/rest'. If you shorten the rest period, you end up with a different label, but you don't end up with a different pattern of play.

In terms of 4E, if the system has a "partial recharge" that occurs between encounters, where there is a more gradual erosion of usable abilities, I'm thinking that is a good thing.

I think that if you present 4E characters with the same huge fight at the beginning of the day, they'll end up with more resources 10 minutes latter than they would in 3E, but they'll still rest if they are under no time pressure.

And actually, once you factor things like abusing Wands of CLW, I'm not sure we have made any improvements to reduce the 15 minute adventuring day except perhaps better adventure design.

 

[Remathilis]

This "15 minute day" problem is a joke. If the casters burn through everything in one fight, so be it. Its time to use that staff.

Would you be referring to the 50-charge, minimum-16,500-for-a-staff-of-charming (28,500 for a staff of fire) staff, or the 0 gp 'wade into melee with a 1:2 Bab, d4 hd, and 1d6 damage' quarterstaff?

15 minute workday is a misnomer, most of the time it was the 5 room shuffle. You could probably survive 5 "encounters" (traps, general weirdness, combat) and an infinite number of empty rooms before resting. However, five rooms were MAX. After 5, you were out of divinations (I cast detect magic on the altar), abjurations (daily mage armor? Check) evocations (I fireball the orcs) conjurations (remove disease on the fighter who got bit by the rats) and illusions (I cast invisibility on Lidda. Get to scoutin!) All of those actions are fighting for your 5th level casters 15 or so spell slots (or roughly 3 spells per encounter).

Remember, the non-casters require those spells too (the aforementioned cure disease on the fighter, invisibility on the rogue) so when the caster runs out of ju-ju (even those who don't have a single good attack spell) the day is done.

 

[tomBitonti]

One of the issues being raised is that it matters a lot what encounters the DM throws at the players. That leads to the question: How hard is it to tailer encounters so to not force players to burn through all of their abilities and spells all at once? Is it truly hard in 3.5E? Generally, how careful do you have to be, and what range of changes will help avoid the problem?

...

As a DM, I've found that if I am careful in setting up the encounters, then players generally don't burn all of their resources in the first encounter. Occasionally, it doesn't work, say, if players do badly with a trap that injures all of them. But, usually, I am able to setup the encounters well enough so that that doesn't happen. (And, the game can turn into one big encounter that burns through all of the resources, but in that case, the encounter is really a set of linked encounters in close succession.)

As a plus, the players start to fret when they are not quite out of trouble, and they are running low on resources. In my games, the approach to the point of near zero resources is a part of the game suspense, so it can be a good thing.

 

[tomBitonti]

I think that if you present 4E characters with the same huge fight at the beginning of the day, they'll end up with more resources 10 minutes latter than they would in 3E, but they'll still rest if they are under no time pressure.

I agree with you there.

(Of course, there is a difference if per encounter abilities make it impossible to burn through all resource!)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One of the issues being raised is that it matters a lot what encounters the DM throws at the players. That leads to the question: How hard is it to tailer encounters so to not force players to burn through all of their abilities and spells all at once? Is it truly hard in 3.5E? Generally, how careful do you have to be, and what range of changes will help avoid the problem?

The problem with being "careful" is that I don't want to be that. Encounters that are "careful" are not satisfying in the long run, neither for me, nor for the players. Any encounter in which you challenge the PCs to an "enjoyable" level, the PCs lose hit points. If they see they lose enough hit points to make things dangerous, spellcasters automatically have an incentive to cast their daily-limited spells to make the encounter last shorter, or to heal the damage. If you don't, not only do the spellcaster get bored because they're not actualy doing anything, the fighter won't feel challenged either, because he doesn't take a lot of damage and still beats his enemies.

This is putting "careful" to an extreme. Maybe it's the wrong kind of "careful". But it's a trap too easily fallen into, and to hard to escape in 3E.

Per Encounter resources are the best solution here. You run out of hit points and spells during the encounter, and you really don't know if you have spend your resources well enough and have enough left to survive till the end. But if you survive, all is good and you recover.
Per Day mechanics can now "intervene" to limit the recovery possibilities.
Example Hit Points:
Let's say you can heal 1/2 your hit points as a "Second Wind". That's the general name for this kind of healing. You can do this, say 8 times per day.
But: You can only trigger it via special abilities that can only be used once per encounter. Let's say, in any given party, you probably don't have more than two "trigger powers".
This means even in a very hard combat, you simply can't access more than 2 of your 8 Second Winds per day. If you survive it, you can patch up to full hit points. You still have reserves left (4 uses, 2 from the combat, and assuming 2 for full healing), and there is no reason for you to not risk a second encounter, because you still have all the resources per day you can use in a given encounter anyway. But after 2 such encounters, you'll probably give it a rest. If an encounter doesn't require you to blow through all these healing uses, you'll last longer...

Tranposing this to spells is the hard part (for the moment). I am eager to see what 4E will brings us here.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It already sounds like 4e will be doing plenty to help the dumb

And that's a good thing right? After all if about 50% of people are dumb and previous editions didn't cater for them then WotC just doubled its market.

I assume you're not saying 4e *only* appeals to dumb people, but that it will appeal to both the dumb and the smart. Am I correct?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

To answer the original post, I think a "solution" is dependent on the playstyle of the group.

A group that prefers dungeon-crawling in the "exploratory adventure" paradigm will usually try to find a safe spot and rest as soon as the resources are low enough to demand recharging. How long before that usually depends on their exploration speed, the encounters they have, and what resources they bring along besides their own class abilities. Also on if it is simply combat encounters that will cost rechargeable resources, or if there are traps and puzzles that draw those resources out as well. Here you can toggle the frequency of rests by modifying those encounters. I'm not saying add empty rooms, but vary the kind of encouters more (for example monster encounters that are actually social challenges, traps and puzzles that only require skill and ingenuity to be solved, etc.) On the other hand, for such a basically careful playstyle, resting when the conditions demand it is a viable choice, and should be used by the DM to test the limit of the precautions the group takes to ensure a safe resting place.

A group that prefers social challenges, or social investigative adventures, or political adventures, will have more "encounters" (more like scenes, really) that they can play through without burning their resources, which means those groups need less toggling because the "15 minute" problem doesn't really exist.

A playstyle-independent solution is to integrate elements that motivate the heroes to press on heedless of missing resources. Time limits to some important event, or keeping a quick pace (for a chase across a city/country) can make adventurers more interested in going on instead of resting for recharging. Especially the famous "ticking clock" story element seems widespread as far as I have seen.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Especially the famous "ticking clock" story element seems widespread as far as I have seen.

I wonder if it's just used as a possible example, but actually rarely used. Because I used it a few times as an example, but I think I never had an adventure actually use it. (Oh, there was one I wanted to use it at first, but it totally fell flat due to my desire to also add a few challenging encounters. I don't think I'd fall in the same trap again. Either there is a time limit, and the encounters are easy, or there is none.)

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I wonder if it's just used as a possible example, but actually rarely used. Because I used it a few times as an example, but I think I never had an adventure actually use it. (Oh, there was one I wanted to use it at first, but it totally fell flat due to my desire to also add a few challenging encounters. I don't think I'd fall in the same trap again. Either there is a time limit, and the encounters are easy, or there is none.)

I'm afraid I'm guilty of using it in my adventures on a very regular base, once quite literally in a Shadowrun adventure where the group had stumbled over an injured courier whose injury had disabled the security switch-off for his cortex bomb that was activated when the courier was bashed up by some gangers. He paid them plenty of cash to help him get the info in his brain chips to the customer...his corp had placed more importance on the delivery than on helping him with faulty hardware...and the group's decker found a way to hack into the electronics and install a "reset" switch that set the countdown back to 60 minutes again with a Computer check and a standing connection to the cyber brain. Then they raced to get him to his customer through all the people who wanted him dead/the info out of his head, and then to get him to his corp and to technical services.
I don't know how widespread it really is in published adventures...those that I got seem to incorporate a ticking clock element though. The Iron Kingdoms trilogy is an example I still like, for example. Crucible of Freya is another that comes to mind (get the crucible back from the orcs before their cleric of Orcus uses it to befoul the land in his ceremony). Paizo's GameMastery line also includes it in some of their adventures, like Crown of the Kobold King or Hollow's Last Hope.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Especially the famous "ticking clock" story element seems widespread as far as I have seen.

I am actually planning at one point in my 4e Campaign to have the players seek refuge in a old ruins because of a outside threat that has chased them to here. They have hid inside the ruins waiting for the threat to leave; instead the threat has taken up camp there to simply wait them out.

They head deeper into the ruins, as they progress the ceiling collapses behind them sealing up that way back. They continue on, dealing with the natural threats of the ruins; it seems a pretty routine dungeon.

But then, they hear lightning through the ceiling above them, and water begins to trickle between the rocks... The dungeon is flooding they must now hurry to escape this slowly flooding dungeon least they drown to death.