We don't have the 15 Minute Adventure Day Problem

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The 15 minute adventure day is a result of both the game system and the play styles involved.

The play styles basically consists of two aspects:
1) You want a challenging fight. This means you need to use your best tactical options (spells, powers, feat abilities) and coordination to win the fight.
2) You have varied options and you have to figure out how to use them effectively.
Note that probably everyone can enjoy both aspects, but for the 15 minute adventuring day to become true, these probably also have to be some of your highest priorities in defining how you run (combat) encounters.

In 3E, some of the best options are spells - both in terms of variety and in terms of tactical options. Part of the effective use is casting all the buff times at the right time, which costs you your spell slot already before the first started in many cases. Another part is using higher level spells, because they are just very effective. You will dedicate a lot of lower spells to repeatable buffing spells. Overall, this leaves the party expending their lower level spells early, and their higher level spells every fight.
Of course you only do this because you fight higher level encounters (but if you didn't there was no challenge)

And this is probably one of the primary reason 4E introduced encounter powers - even if you're all out of the daily spells, you still have some interesting, varied and powerful tactical options to use with care. The only thing really stopping you at some point is the lack of healing surges. (In 3E, hit points basically renewed every encounter thanks to the famous Wands of Cure Light Wounds, and the only thing you cared was how many high level healing spells the Cleric had still available so you could survive against full attacks and critical hits.

 

[malraux]

In 3E, some of the best options are spells - both in terms of variety and in terms of tactical options. Part of the effective use is casting all the buff times at the right time, which costs you your spell slot already before the first started in many cases. Another part is using higher level spells, because they are just very effective. You will dedicate a lot of lower spells to repeatable buffing spells. Overall, this leaves the party expending their lower level spells early, and their higher level spells every fight.

I think this is the key. The 15 minute day is really the end result of an "arms race" between players and DMs. The DM wants to challenge the players and not have boring or unimportant combats, so uses stuff that is a legitimate risk. The players counter by bringing out the big guns sooner, or using more buffing, in short, using more of their expendable resources for a fight, then resting slightly sooner. After a while, the DM realizes that the fights aren't as much of a challenge anymore, as the baseline has been moved slightly higher because the party is burning more stuff per encounter. So he ups the difficulty some more, resulting in the players deciding to use more stuff per fight. Wash Rinse Repeat. Eventually, the party will reach the point at which they have to dump everything into the fight, then rest to recover.

Certainly this is avoidable. If you don't care as much about unimportant combats, there's less incentive to start making fights tougher. I'm sure the cycle can be stopped at other points as well. But realistically, I think the game as a whole will be better if the system acts against this sort of thing (which I think the separation of encounter HP vs total HP does, encounter powers, milestones, etc.)

 

[S'mon]

Running Basic D&D modules (B7, B5) for 3e PCs, and using the stats uncoverted except for flipped AC, the monsters are weaker and the PCs can take on more fights than 3e's core assumption of 4 fights/day each taking 20-25% resources, which usually becomes 2-3 fights since the players don't want a 4th fight when they're already 75% drained!

I've come to the conclusion that the game works better that way, with average fights typically more like EL = Party Level -2, ie 50% as tough, and the party taking on more like 6-8 fights before resting. For the typical battle then the usual risk is not PC death, the risk is damage that will drain resources (hp, cure spells, cure wands etc).

Edit: I think this is the key - get away from the idea that every fight must pose a risk of PC death to be interesting. Risk of damage that makes ultimate success less likely; risk that foes will escape and warn their friends, risk that prisoners will be killed; attempt to capture an enemy alive for interrogation; risk that enemy will escape with their treasure. These all work just as well as risk of dead PC. In a typical sword & sorcery movie or book there are often fights where the protagonist overmatches the opposition, the 'easy kill' demonstrates the hero's coolness and sets things up for the edge-of-seat battle later.

 

[roguerouge]

i think the difference though, as to why we deal with the "trash mobs", is that fighting isn't everything for us. the last session we got together for 4 hours, and the entire session was our characters talking around a camp fire to a couple npc's, on a ride between verbobonc and hommlet.

maybe we don't mind that because XP isnt that important to us. we dont base XP on killing stuff and taking their loot. the dm gives us whatever xp we need to make us sufficient level to meet the challenges he has in store for us.

different styles i guess.

No. I don't have the style that you assume I do.

One campaign that I'm referring to is a one PC campaign that I DM where the player and I will spend two to three sessions in a row doing nothing but immersive role play. We just had a 15 minute work day after an encounter with shadows followed by an encounter with a spectre in a haunted house. Another campaign (that I play in) is more combat-centered and it's an Age of Worms campaign. When it comes time to dungeon crawl, we get the 15 minute work day. We spend one meeting, tops, doing immersive role play. And in my epic level campaign I play in a single combat takes weeks. And, yes, we do weeks of immersive role play.

Low level, mid-level, and high level campaigns that I play in or DM have all had the 15 minute work day problem. Immersive or combat intensive campaigns, we've had the 15 minute work day problem. 1 player or 7 players, we've had the 15 minute work day problem.

Edit: And by "problem," I mean that it happens sometimes and it kind of jolts you out of the immersion, not "This happens in every single adventure that I design and run."

 

[roguerouge]

Thinking it over I imagine there is one main reason why this doesn't come up in my games. The players always seem to feel that they have to finish things quickly. Or at least not slowly. Taking one encounter per day in a dungeon with 30 encounters is a month worth of campaign time and that would be very slow. They want to get things done in a timely manner. Most of our adventures are not just about going into a dungeon, either. I usually have more story in our games so they might be chasing someone or after something. There are almost always enemies or at least competing factions that they are against. If they did this approach they would waste too much time and the other guys would either escape, or get the Item.

So, your PCs are not resting every 5 encounters?

I get that the ticking clock adventure hook is a way to stop people from resting and create different kinds of challenges. But even with a ticking clock, don't you just have more encounters crammed into your 15 minutes? After all, what you're really shortening is time spent between encounters.

 

[roguerouge]

I'm not going to listen to you no matter what you post. But i will read the post, my message board configuration doesn't have a sound option.

OT: Well, if we're going to pick nits... Webster's Universal Unabridged Dictionary lists the second usage of the word "listen" as being "to pay attention, heed" without any kind of auditory context. In short, Deaf people can listen even if they cannot hear or are very hard-of-hearing. [/OT]

 

[Khairn]

When we first started playing 3E we saw something approaching the infamous "15 minute workday" happen, so we talked about it as a group.

Collectively we decided that if the GM (me) ensured the appropriate challenge level, the right motivation behind the adventure, and kept the game "real" by having appropriate changes take place depending on the characters actions (bad guy escapes or gathers more defenders etc) ... that it would solve most of the problems. And it worked beautifully. The players kept their focus on the goal of the adventure, not just the next encounter. They planned thing out strategically, played tactically and managed their resources (spells, healing, potions etc) with real skill.

The 15 minute workday disappeared.

 

[Crothian]

So, your PCs are not resting every 5 encounters?

I get that the ticking clock adventure hook is a way to stop people from resting and create different kinds of challenges. But even with a ticking clock, don't you just have more encounters crammed into your 15 minutes? After all, what you're really shortening is time spent between encounters.

Huh? I have no idea where this comes from the 5 encounters and crammed 15 minutes. The time they spend adventuring is way longer then 15 minutes. It's not about shortening time between encounters it's about adventuring and exploring and not stopping till the job is done. They don't fight every encounter if they don't need to.

 

[Fifth Element]

Fair enough, but I'd be surprised if your PCs "bigfoot" their way through the world.

No, no. For one thing, it would get repetitive if we approached everything with a "let's just bash it" approach. We solve problems in a variety of ways, since it's more fun that way. But we expect to "win", on the whole. We reserve disappointment for real life.

 

[Fifth Element]

Fair enough, but for a lot of us, the stomping is sweeter when we've earned it by paying our dues or if we've really had to push ourselves to accomplish it. If I can stomp everything right out of the gate, I don't really feel like I've accomplished anything other than spending time.

Clearly you can't stomp everything out of the gate in D&D, due to the level progression.