The Return of the Half-Hour Workday

[Kzach]

I believe it mostly comes down to the group dynamic and the DM.

Some groups will use their dailies every encounter and use extended rests before moving on no matter what you do.

Some DM's will force players to use their dailies every encounter, and it's only logical to then use an extended rest to get them back before moving on.

Other groups will think that's entirely lame and will save their dailies for when they need them. And their DM will realise that encounters shouldn't always prompt players to use their dailies. And these groups will generally play until their surges are low.

Rules can't enforce smart playing nor restrict stupidity.

 

[hong]

Ultimately, the best defense against stopping every encounter is this: in 4E, you don't _have_ to use your best powers to have a fun and involving fight. Even with just at-will and encounter powers, you can still have combats that are more varied than just people lining up to take a swing.

 

[Yair]

In the end, this was probably a design goal. Without daily powers and healing surges, people might never need to rest, and you'd advance 2 levels without ever leaving the dungeon, most likely in less than a single day. This is a bit much...

I guess it is designed this way on purpose, but I find it... strange. What I'm really missing are the guidelines.

How many encounters will wear out a party? I didn't see any guidance on this in the DMG - did I miss it? I am disappointed that the system doesn't seem to take this into account, yet it is vital to designing how much opponents to put in the dungeon (you intend to to be a day's challenge) or so on.

In time I'm sure I could develop an intuition. But being new to the system, guidelines would have been useful.

Let me put it like this:
Why should healing surges be limited per day?

Advancement rate isn't the problem. Now, with limited surges per day, you can still advance at a phenomenal rate. The DM needs to parcel out the amount of encounters required to level over several days, perhaps three days or so. If that's how you want to play it, you can easily delve into the dungeon and come out a few days later a level higher, or take a longer excursion and come back several levels higher. Due to the nature of the game you often get resting points in the dungeon, so this is effectively what happens. The end result is that the advancement is limited by the dungeon's content and design, and you end up leveling by finishing it rather quickly. The only difference unlimited healing surges per day would make is that they would allow slightly faster clean-up and exploration - a single day instead of several.

I don't like the artificial stops limited surges force on the party/plot. Yes, this can be anticipated by a good DM - but that just means designing everything so that the patry would not be depleted before a natural stoping point. You might as well have the natural stopping point without the daily limit; restricting it via daily limitations isn't productive.

I don't like that a party depleted of its surges will find an encounter overwhelming, whereas one with it will sail through it with only a few surges expanded - it makes it harder to design encounters.

I do like that daily limitations make for strategic decisions ("Do I use it now, or hold up?") and that the party is worn-out slowly so it can't take on an infinite amount of opponents. But I don't think setting a strict limit is a good way to do it.

Suggested House Rules:
Automatic Healing: A short rest automatically heals you to Bloodied level (leaving you Bloodied, but barely so); this can be improved further through the use of regular healing.

Warrior Spirit: You may use an action point to gain another Second Wind. This use does not count towards the limit of one action point use per encounter. If you have no healing surges left the Seconc Wind still works, but may not raise you beyond Bloodied.

Automatic healing means that a character is always at least Bloodied (1/2 hp and weary from all the day's combat) if he had had even a few minutes to rest between encounters. In combination with Warrior Spirit, it means the character can heal itself in battle to some degree, especially due to milestones - remaining wounded and weary, but difficult to bring down.

These do not bring the characters to their full potential at every single encounter, so characters would be wise to consider long-term strategy. They simulate weariness due to the day's ordeal. They do, however, allow the characters to function at a significant portion of their ability for an unlimited number of encounters - limited only by the locale and circumstances, not by artificial per-day mechanics.

 

[PeelSeel2]

Ultimately, the best defense against stopping every encounter is this: in 4E, you don't _have_ to use your best powers to have a fun and involving fight. Even with just at-will and encounter powers, you can still have combats that are more varied than just people lining up to take a swing.

I have had that in every edition.....

 

[StarFyre]

i am very happy...

my players are odd...they push on as one would in real life..without trying to rest every 30 min hehe

it's quite fun to watch actually
I must be lucky that my players are strange...

Sanjay

 

[Kzach]

How many encounters will wear out a party? I didn't see any guidance on this in the DMG - did I miss it? I am disappointed that the system doesn't seem to take this into account, yet it is vital to designing how much opponents to put in the dungeon (you intend to to be a day's challenge) or so on.

The rule you're looking for is called 'common sense'.

In fact, I think there are a lot of rules in 4e that are not spelled out implicitly because the system assumes that the audience is intelligent enough to fill in the gaps with common sense.

I think this is perhaps it's biggest downfall.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

IME, the "X minute workday" problem only exists if the DM lets it. Trying to camp before the end of the day merely because we were running on empty garnered no sympathy and could earn a TPK.

Of course, in this situation, pressing on would probably also give you a TPK. If you need to rest, it is because you are depleted. <snip> A DM has to learn to throw challenges light enough to be manageable at the party, and the party has to learn to conserve resources ti keep the pace up.

Which is really my point- not every encounter is an excuse for the party to go nova. Sometimes the party mage has to simply hold fire and let the fighter types mop up instead of continuing to toss spells.

Its a partnership synergy that takes time to learn- the DM has to know how to structure encounters so that they can be achieved without goading the party to "hit the tab button," and the players need to learn when to hold back and conserve depleteable resources like spells or limited use abilities and when to go ape**** on the badguys, holding nothing back.

 

[Sphyre]

I'm very happy with the new healing system. The players can go on for several encounters (and tend to keep pushing on until someone is out of healing surges) Having the healing surge system where you can only be healed a certain amount in the day makes much more sense that you're exhausted than "Oh, I blew my load of spells" that stopped people before.

In my experience thus far, my players are going 4 or more encounters before someone is low on or out of healing surges. Sometimes the story line doesn't involve that many encounters before a rest, but they don't necessarily trounce those encounters unlike 3.5.

 

[Starfox]

Also, I've seen: It's the 3.XE mentality. I've played 4E nd a natural instinct was - even if no daily powers were expended - to take an extended rest, just in case, to get the healing surges back, because "you never know what awaits you tomorrow".

It's hard to break out of several years of this careful strategy.

Cheers, LT.

You mean, taking an extended rest after every fight is a holdover from 3.5 days? Because that's how many 3.5 games play here. 4.0 might actually be an improvement.

In the end, it is the DMs fault"for making encounters too tough. Tough opposition slows play to a snails pace and kills role-play. No-one role plays when their character's life is in real danger, especially not if it would cause said character to take life-threatening actions. This is the tactician's game, not the narrativist's game.