Spellcasting Sacred Cows

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, that second point was originally about full spell recovery after each rest. Now, instead of going on a limb as a DM to create situations where the PCs simply can't rest because of the danger of assault (a situation which they will still defeat most of the time using the aforementioned rope trick or Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion etc.) or because the opposition has kept busy in the meantime (which may or may not make sense, considering your ancient, undead-filled crypt), I was suggesting to introduce a slower recovery of magical resources, so that retreat/rest/return would not award them such a huge benefit to start with.

Doesn't really help. So, the PCs spend 3 days, or a week, or a month recovering. It is just narrative at the table, there's no disadvantage to the players for doing that, and any disadvantage to the characters is equally easily invoked with resting for a day in general. It might inhibit the pattern a bit, but there's equally the downside when a party doesn't WANT to rest but has no choice because of a few bad die rolls and the plot falls apart.

This is fundamentally why 4e just finally dropped all pretense of there being more than 'daily' time to refresh resources. Overall it is the most flexible balance point.

As Danny is saying, the answer to 15 minute work days will ALWAYS be plot based, not rules based. There isn't an RPG in existence that has persistent resources that doesn't have a workday. No player rationally presses on with limited resources when they don't have to. No CHARACTER would either. At best you can try to get the players to do so "for the sake of plot", but it is vastly better to simply set up the situation so time matters. In the case of an active intelligent enemy it seems like that is easy and should be the default assumption. In the case of crypt full of undead, well, you better get to the main tomb before midnight of the 3rd day or else...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The 5min workday is especially problematic in 3rd edition.
In ADnD, if you actually casted all your spells, you need a whole day just to learn them again!
Which means, your workday is something like:
learn spells for 8 hours. Travel to the next encounter. Blast everything. Rest. Repeat.

A higher level mage really can´t go all nova. He needs half a week to recover all spells. (10 min per spell level)
Only in 3rd edition, going nova became a real choice.