Thunderspire and the 5-minute adventuring day

[Morrus]

My group are having a problem with Thunderspire. Almost every encounter is using up all of their resources, and forcing an extended rest. After nearly every fight, they'r eout of dailies and healing surges.

Yeah, I know - the immediate reaction is "Why are they using all these resources? They need to learn to conserve them." However, if they didn't, they would be experiencing TPKs left, right and centre. They're *trying* to conserve resources, but being forced to use them or die.

 

[blargney the second]

We had a game like that on Wednesday - our dice were rolling horribly, so we had to blow everything we had to avoid dying.

Out of curiosity, are the players missing a lot?
-blarg

 

[Scribble]

What's the party makeup?

 

[Orcus]

My group are having a problem with Thunderspire. Almost every encounter is using up all of their resources, and forcing an extended rest. After nearly every fight, they'r eout of dailies and healing surges.

Yeah, I know - the immediate reaction is "Why are they using all these resources? They need to learn to conserve them." However, if they didn't, they would be experiencing TPKs left, right and centre. They're *trying* to conserve resources, but being forced to use them or die.

So what you are saying is 4E is just like 1E where the PCs use up their powers (previously called spells ) and then have to sleep in the dungeon? Sounds like D&D to me...

 

[davethegame]

I'm interested to hear if anyone's had the same experiences as Morrus. I'm getting ready to run Thunderspire for my group, and while they're pretty good at what they do, they're not so super-optimized that I don't worry.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to use the "half hit points" for Thunderspire. When we ran "Treasure of Talon Pass" the players weren't happy with how quickly they could get through combats, so this will allow them to cover more of the dungeon quickly per session. It might alleviate that issue too.

 

[greyscale1]

It sounds like they are simply not powerful enough to contend with the module. Or their synergy isn't up to snuff. Or baaad luck.

Either way, as DM, you have four choices: Do nothing, continue to allow them to rest after every encounter. Attach a time limit or something so that the PCs cant nap constantly (and, if they are THAT weak, TPK them). Weaken the monsters. Allow the PCs to do something else and level up, then come back.


Not many more choices than that! Levelwise how close is the party level to the encounter level?

In my experience, my players have managed to smash through 6 = level encounters without an extended rest, and 3 encounters that were like 2-3 above their level.

 

[Thanee]

Would be interesting to see what races/classes and how many PCs your party consists of.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Cadfan]

My group are having a problem with Thunderspire. Almost every encounter is using up all of their resources, and forcing an extended rest. After nearly every fight, they'r eout of dailies and healing surges.

Yeah, I know - the immediate reaction is "Why are they using all these resources? They need to learn to conserve them." However, if they didn't, they would be experiencing TPKs left, right and centre. They're *trying* to conserve resources, but being forced to use them or die.

I don't want to know why they're using all those resources, I want to know how they're using them. My party, also in Thunderspire Mountain, can only use a certain amount of healing surges per fight. Everyone has a second wind, the cleric has two healing words, and the Fighter has a daily that lets him use a healing surge. Beyond that, all that's left are potions.

What's the party makeup? Are your numbers or party constitution such that you'd both have more healing surge triggers than normal, and also need to spend them more frequently?

 

[zaxzilla]

Do you have four or five players because its geared towards five. I would also look at the DND insider tools encounter calculator to compare the party's level to that of the encounter. Even when running an adventure like Thunderspire I use it so I can gauge an encounters difficulty. I like to have one easy, one moderate and one hard encounter per adventuring day. Or maybe two hard encounters per day. I'll adjust the pre-made encounters by adding or subtracting monsters. You should not have much difficulty knowing how hard an encounter is going to be before it's played by using the calculator. Its true dice are a determining factor, but more likely on the length of the encounter than its difficulty.

 

[Nymrohd]

It's all in the synergies and teamplay. I for one have forgotten how it feels not having to pull back and let them recoup every encounter with 4E.
If you want to prolong the adventuring day, you may want to consider giving people some benefits for multiple encounters so that they strive to reach a milestone. I have this house rule for instance, that every time we reach a milestone, each player can grant one daily attack power the reliable keyword until they take an extended rest. My players seem to love that rule (and it has helped extend the adventuring day to about 5 encounters, which I find great).