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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8503843" data-attributes="member: 93670">HereSome of it is the monster math changes but also because  not just casters with spell slots/spell points who expend stuff in a battle. martials expend exertion for maneuvers & some class abilities while everyone might have x per y abilities.  I can use my last session as an example where the party got in two fights before looking for a rest.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The first fight was two zombies & mostly intended as a tool giving me a chance to decide if my 5x level 2 PC party was ready for the heavier series of combats I had planned or if I needed to back off a bit for them to fill in more of how their abilities work on their sheet.  The zombies rolled pretty bad and predictably got stomped but they also forced one player to parry a couple times with his weapon so UI felt comfortable going forward.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The second & third fights were more zombies & some death dogs that combined added up squarely to be just under mediumish encounters.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The marshal used his 1/long rest rallying surge to heal someone.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The healer archetype cleric used both better than cure to negate an attack as well as a spell slot for bane to counteract zombies doing press the attack</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The fighter used his weapon's parry ability quite a few times to add a d4 to his AC & avoid an attack each time but also used a couple maneuvers to help end the fights.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The low ac warlock hoped to cast a spell that required being in melee range but wasn't willing to get there, the death dog she wanted to use it on died before getting to her.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The adept expended exertion more often than not.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Just before the session ended they ducked into what they are still hoping would be a safe spot to start <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f608.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":devilish:" title="Devil    :devilish:"  data-smilie="29"data-shortname=":devilish:" />and<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f608.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":devilish:" title="Devil    :devilish:"  data-smilie="29"data-shortname=":devilish:" /> finish a short rest to get their exertion & a few abilities back. While the fights took more out of them than an equivalent o5e fight they were still pretty softball with only the death dogs playing for keeps so I could assess them a bit, the takeaway is that I could have done far more than plonk scalemail on zombies & have them still kinda playing nice rather than all out combat as war that would have forced them to draw more heavily on their resources.  Having those excess resources also means that I as the GM have a safety net between me & a tpk in the form of players going into overdrive & doing their equivalent of a mana dump if I tune things a bit too high while giving me a number other than hp+cure spell casting PC spell slots to judge their reserves against</li> </ul></blockquote>

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