Rule of Three 2/28

[keterys]

Basically, you're talking about Trailblazer, in which everything recovers "per rest" If you can sit down and rest quietly for 15 minutes, you get all your spells back, your rages, and you heal. It's a 15-minute night instead of a 15-minute day. It's better, but it's still not as good as just getting rid of the whole thing.

Hmm, no... that's not at all what I'm talking about.

I'd rather that you got powers back per... let's call them milestone.

And then the DM would define for his campaign what a milestone was - possibly even per adventure ("This one is a city mystery chase adventure, and I really want them to have a rest before the masquerade" "This adventure involves a grueling trek for a month across a desert while dealing with scattered encounters. They'll get a full rest when they reach their destination.")

Jonathan Tweet, for example, did a game that involved a lot of (interplanetary) travel, and he didn't want people taking extended rests after every combat, so he decided in advance they'd get a rest every 4 combats. Nothing wrong with that.

Now, I'm okay if you also say that folks can heal some hp damage by resting for days on end - sure. That gives you a small safety net, separate from the use of limited spell and powers so that each group and DM can decide how much to flood encounters with such things.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like this whole article, but I'm most encouraged that they heard loud and clear the problem with calling the third pillar "roleplaying".

 

[Jack Daniel]

I've never understood the idea that the 15MAD is a bug rather than a feature. I just don't see it.

If the party of adventurers goes down into the dungeon, and on the first encounter they get into so much trouble that the magic-user has to "go nova" to bail their bacon out of the fire, and then the cleric uses up all his healing spells at the end of it... sure, I'd expect that those adventurers would go running back to town with their tails between their legs, hands still empty of any noteworthy treasure, and every last one of them probably feeling like utter failures in the "professional adventuring treasure-hunter" department.

Now, let's say on the other hand that the players get "cute" and start using the "one room, retreat and rest" thing as a tactic for clearing the dungeon. If the players are creeping through the dungeon that slowly, any DM worthy of the name is going to start repopulating the already-explored rooms with *other* monsters that move in on the newly emptied turf. This isn't just "roll more wandering monsters"; it's "the kobolds on level 2a start to organize, building more traps and barriers, and guarding their lair in rotating shifts; the troll that used to live on level three, meanwhile, starts haunting the upper rooms; and that evil death-cult from two towns over finds this a particularly perspicacious time to move into the ruins and start animating semi-intelligent undead."

Players who dwaddle do pay for it, even in a megadungeoncrawl where they're explicitly the ones controlling the pace of exploration.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've never understood the idea that the 15MAD is a bug rather than a feature. I just don't see it.

Me neither, but enough people complained about it that they wrote a game specifically for those people.

 

[keterys]

As noted already, that isn't much of a solution. If anything, it can actually play into the tactic by making it more XP efficient.

Fwiw, it's more of a theoretical balancing problem than _really_ being a one encounter day I suspect. That said, it's the reason why casters tend to be more and more effective than non-casters in many games.

If a daily power is three times as effective than an at-will power (which at base value can make sense, right?)... but you're using a daily every round. You're really using it at-will and making the guy who is 1/3 as effective not so great.

Anecdotally:
I did one campaign once about a demon invasion where they got reinforcements that weren't worth XP based on how much time passed. Definitely encouraged them to go as fast as possible.

OTOH, they just switched to using lots and lots of bonuses and clearing things out as fast as possible. Like a cleric who had 23 sticky notes arranged around his character sheet of buffs, and an entire dungeon adventure that was completed in under 12 minutes of game time (tracking movement by rounds, etc). Silly side effect

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think there's the expectation that one should go through a dungeon defeat many tough minions and fight the final boss without once ever having to do an extended rest, it's something that at least makes sense in character.

But it never seems to work that way, as far as the game mechanics go. Maybe it's result of adventure design, but it doesn't seem to be that heroic with clearing out the dungeon, and then camping outside the set of ominous looking doors that contains the evil overlord.

Of course smarter groups should find ways to bypass all the minions first, sneak pass them or talk to them and convince them that they shouldn't work for the evil overlord. But a lot of the 15-minute work day mentality, seems to be from the expectation that they fight every bit of the way through the minions.

I'm all for there being some resources spent along the way, but I think that perhaps some of those resources should be partially recovered, before the final confrontation. Whether it be through a more recuperative short-term rest system, or some sort of milestone system.

 

[Daern]

The D&D Encounters scenarios are actually pretty good examples of using story and table expectations in the service of the game's resource management assumptions. On one hand, it is a understood at the table that an extended rest will only be allowed every 3-4 encounters, but the storylines also enforce the logic of it, making encounters come to the party, chases, etc.
I'm specifically thinking of the "Evard's Legacy" mod, but they all do it.

 

[KidSnide]

I think the best part about the article's comments concerning the 15-minute adventure day was that it says the problem is principally one of adventure design, not mechanics.

(1) That is correct.

(2) Maybe they will design adventures that don't have this problem.

-KS

 

[Tallifer]

I think Rodney Thompson is correct in that the adventuring day of fifteen minutes is the result of a lack of consequences in any given story.

Presumably the kobolds with the artifact cited previously in this thread are a threat to the nearby ordinary populace. If the party retreats each day (which is not just for eight hours rest but also for the mandatory time between extended rests, so for a total of eighteen hours), then the kobolds will continue to rape and pillage the countryside until the party has effectively lost the quest and reward beyond just killing and looting.

On the other hand the party can gamble that the kobolds are sufficiently cowed or weakened by each small raid. Or each raid might just enrage them and trigger more depredations.

However the short raid is also a consequence of inflexible stories like the expedition in the haunted castle mentioned previously. If the party is too weak for a given adventure, the dungeon master should adjust the monsters if he really intends for them to do the thing. Of course in a sand box, the party can just go elsewhere.

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe they will design adventures that don't have this problem.

I have to ask: what elements can reasonably go into adventure design that would serve to force a party to keep going when they would otherwise rest?

I can only think of two:

1. A time limit on the mission. While fine now and then, this gets tiresome if applied to every adventure the party goes out on.
2. Wandering monsters, in quantity*. (note that "wandering monsters" can also include other permanent occupants of the place - patrols being the most obvious)

I thought of a third, I'll mention it only so I can shoot it down as I do NOT want to see this become a common feature of adventure design:

3. Make the adventures small enough that a party of the expected level can most likely finish in one go, without having to rest. BLEAH!

But what other design elements can you think of that can defeat the 15-minute day?

* - brings to mind a classic quote from an adventure I ran where wandering monsters kept disturbing the party's rest: "If we rest up and recuperate here long enough we'll all be dead."

Lanefan