The Return of the Half-Hour Workday

[Yair]

Are you pleased with the new healing rules?

It seems to me that they strongly enforce per-day hit-points, limting healing to healing surges per day (with the exception of regeneration and so on, but I'm assuming that's rarely and not generally available to all the characters in the party).

In 3e, past the first few levels at least, you could just use the CLW wand and move on to the next room. The party was, in terms of hp, just as strong as before - what you were missing were the spells-per-day. With 4e, your hp are constantly dwindling, but your spells are almost undepleted (missing only a few daily powers).

Either way, we're back to a few encounters per day. The party proceeds a few rooms, then rests for the day - in either system.

Or did I get something wrong?

 

[generalhenry]

it's limited, but the limit is fairly large.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Either way, we're back to a few encounters per day. The party proceeds a few rooms, then rests for the day - in either system.

Or did I get something wrong?

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.

In the crucible in which I and most of my current group of fellow gamers had our gaming skills refined, part of the game was realizing when an encounter was "too expensive" in resources (HP, spells, ammo, etc.) expended- meaning it was time to retreat and/or find some other way to reach our goal.

So if the short workday bothers you, do something about the style of play in your group, but don't blame the system.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Are you pleased with the new healing rules?

It seems to me that they strongly enforce per-day hit-points, limting healing to healing surges per day (with the exception of regeneration and so on, but I'm assuming that's rarely and not generally available to all the characters in the party).

In 3e, past the first few levels at least, you could just use the CLW wand and move on to the next room. The party was, in terms of hp, just as strong as before - what you were missing were the spells-per-day. With 4e, your hp are constantly dwindling, but your spells are almost undepleted (missing only a few daily powers).

Either way, we're back to a few encounters per day. The party proceeds a few rooms, then rests for the day - in either system.

Or did I get something wrong?

It is a half hour work day if you blow out your healing surges that fast. But usually, you can't. A 15th level Warlord I created had approximately 6 encounter powers that triggered healing surges. This means at most, any individual can trigger 7 surges (including Second Wind) in a single encounter. But this is decidedly a worst case scenario. If I had to spread this on two characters, that would be 3-4 surges.

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...

 

[Starfox]

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. If you are so depleted that a wandering monster could cause a TPK, an assault on monster HQ most certainly would.

Ultimately, this is a matter of play style. 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. A hopefully balance is reached when everyone is having fun. The long rest is kind of an escape clause for the player, a resupply for when challenges proved harder than expected.

 

[Contents May Vary]

"Half hour days" would be a result of one of two things:

* Bad play by the players, or
* Bad design by the DM, or
* Both of the above.

If they players are playing badly (by using up all their dailies and too many healing surges at the beginning of first couple of encounters), then they need to be told.

What I used to do in 3.x was to "respawn" monsters in already-cleared rooms if the players took too long. That quickly taught them to ration their resources.

 

[WhatGravitas]

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.

 

[hong]

If you really want people to keep going and going like the Energizer bunny, just remove the limit on healing surges/day.

 

[generalhenry]

It's not 3E

in 3E I'd typically play until the cleric was 100% out of spells. And to make things last I'd always cast from the bottom up, so I'd always have my best spells just in case.

If you open up with your action points and dailies all the time, sure you'll run out. But if you're careful and save your trump cards you can last a very long time.

 

[Holy Bovine]

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.

This is very true. Our group had its first 4E game yesterday and after each fight (three in total) I immediately thought - 'Uh oh - I used a lot of powers there, so did everyone else, should we camp?' Then I would remember that everything used was an encounter power, burned a surge or two (I hate the name 'healing surge' - it sucks and they are used for so many more things than healing they could easily have been called just 'surges')and was back. Unfortunately we got bogged down in a really tough fight (4 PCs vs 2 Lvl 3 Soldiers, 3 Lvl 2 Skirimshers and 4 minions) and started rolling really badly across the board. Except the DM who could hit my 20 AC with impunity (even with the minions!). All of our dailies were used and we still had to use every encounter power (including the lay on hands & inspiring words) to scratch out a victory. In the end I had 1 surge left (out of 11) the warlord had 1, ranger 3 and wizard 3 (but no dailies for either). We kept going.

Of course once we got to interrogate some prisoners we found out that there was a dragon further on so we might be taking a bit of rest now