We don't have the 15 Minute Adventure Day Problem

[billd91]

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

Right out of the gate doesn't mean just starting with 1st level, but at the beginning of every adventure, story arc, campaign, etc. If we have to back off and do better prep work because something is a bit too tough, that's part of the fun.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.)

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.

In a way, the play style differences can be distinguished between "strategic" play and "tactical" play. The tactical mindset demands a high risk in every encounter, not just over the course of several encounters. Long-running combats probably augment that desire. And the easiest default way for "high risk" is death. (There are other options, but they often require a certain "story" component - like rescuing virgins from the sacrifice altar or keeping an enemy from escaping...)
In a way one might say it's an "instant gratification" thing - you want the risk now, not just at the end of the day. But it's not a lazy play-style, either - because the risk is real, and you have to work hard to avoid the death

I wonder if 3E did introduce the tactical play style with its "per encounter" balance of monsters and (possibly entirely unintentional) with the easy healing after encounters and massive damage that could be inflicted during an encounter. I think that created a certain dichotomy in the system, because part of it are still trimmed for strategic play, while others are more trimmed for tactical play.

I think 4E is in a way trying to keep both in the game, but this time conciously - daily powers and healing surges are strategic resources, encounter powers are tactical resources. You risk death every encounter, but still get a lot of resources back - but if you made errors, you will cut into your strategic resources and will have to rest earlier (or flee/die if you go on and enter an encounter that's too hard to tackle without the daily resources)

 

[S'mon]

I wonder if 3E did introduce the tactical play style with its "per encounter" balance of monsters and (possibly entirely unintentional) with the easy healing after encounters and massive damage that could be inflicted during an encounter. I think that created a certain dichotomy in the system, because part of it are still trimmed for strategic play, while others are more trimmed for tactical play.

I think this is right, and extremely insightful. 3e I think is a mish-mash of traditional strategic/session (or adventure) oriented play, and new minis based tactical encounter oriented play.

I think though that 4e goes much further in discarding the strategic element in favour of a very highly tactical, encounter-based paradigm. The dailies are a trivial legacy IMO, and the milestones an attempt to balance dailies and discourage 1 encounter then rest. At heart though, 4e is about The Encounter, about making it as much fun as possible within the constraint that 1 side, the PCs, needs to win the great majority of the time.

 

[Dragonblade]

Well, I've played D&D for about 22 years and I have had the 15 minute workday problem in pretty much every edition, but mostly in 3e.

Its both a game system problem and a play style problem. In our 3e games, we were lucky to get through one encounter in a 4 hour session. Therefore, every encounter we had was something that we felt should be meaningful.

We hated trash mobs. If the PCs fight something, it should be edge of your seat combat. And when that fight is done, we don't want to have to stop and rest, we want to keep going. But in 3e, with wizards going nova, we had to stop and rest. Without their big gun spells, the next encounter would be too much.

When the DM used trash mobs, then combat became boring. The melee combatants chewed through everything, while the spellcasters had to pull out their crossbows (this was another frustrating element of 3e that we despised) either to conserve spells, or because they had run out. EFF that!

We DON'T want to play a game where we manage resources by attrition, but that's what the 3e rules expect. When I was in high school and could play 12 hour marathon sessions, it wasn't as big a deal. But when I'm lucky to get 4 hours of D&D in every couple of weeks due to family and work, I (and my group) don't want to play that way.

We WANT a game where EVERY combat is a cinematic set piece edge-of-your-seat battle.

The 4e ruleset provides us with this play experience (and eliminates the stupid need for spellcasters to carry crossbows). After playing D&D for 22 years and all editions, my group and I find the 4e play experience VASTLY SUPERIOR to that offered by all prior editions. Especially 3e.

 

[Greg K]

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!

Where is the core assumption that there will be four fights/day each taking 20-25% of the resources? I see people claiming it, but I don't see it anywhere in my 3e DMG .

I do see the following under What is Challenging (3e DMG p.101)
A challenge is "An encounter with an Encounter Level (EL) equal to the PC's level is one that should expend aboaut 20% of their resources-hit points, spells, magic item uses, etc. )This means, on average, that, after four encounters of the party's level the PCs need to rest, heal and regain spells. A fifth encounter would probably wipe them out)" (3e DMG p. 101). The section then goes on to explain how PC should be handle more lower level encounters than the party level and less encounters that are higher than the party level.
Hoever, nowhere does it tell the DM that his adventure should be 4 fights/day. It simply explains to the DM what to expect if he or she includes 4 challenging encounters (i.e., Encounter level=party level).

Furthermore, the DMG actually tells the DM that "a well constructed adventure has a variety of encounters at different levels" (3e DMG p. 102). The table encouraging encouraging a mix of encounter levels (ranging from easy to overpowering) per adventure with only 50% of them being challenging (using 20-25% of the parties resources).

 

[S'mon]

Where is the core assumption that there will be four fights/day each taking 20-25% of the resources? I see people claiming it, but I don't see it anywhere in my 3e DMG .

I do see the following under What is Challenging (3e DMG p.101)
A challenge is "An encounter with an Encounter Level (EL) equal to the PC's level is one that should expend aboaut 20% of their resources-hit points, spells, magic item uses, etc. )This means, on average, that, after four encounters of the party's level the PCs need to rest, heal and regain spells. A fifth encounter would probably wipe them out)" (3e DMG p. 101). The section then goes on to explain how PC should be handle more lower level encounters than the party level and less encounters that are higher than the party level.
Hoever, nowhere does it tell the DM that his adventure should be 4 fights/day. It simply explains to the DM what to expect if he or she includes 4 challenging encounters (i.e., Encounter level=party level).

Furthermore, the DMG actually tells the DM that "a well constructed adventure has a variety of encounters at different levels" (3e DMG p. 102). The table encouraging encouraging a mix of encounter levels (ranging from easy to overpowering) per adventure with only 50% of them being challenging (using 20-25% of the parties resources).

I guess you have a different interpretation of the same text, because that text is exactly what I meant by 3e's core assumption - that fights are typically EL = Party Level, that these drain on average 20-25% party resources, and that the party will rest after 4 of these. The 'mix of encounter levels' table supports this because it recommends that fully 50% of encounters be exactly EL = PL, that the majority of the remainder be somewhat over EL = PL but beatable, with some 'trash mobs' (yuck) and 5% overwhelming run-away +5 EL over PL. I guess you can argue that applying the table in practice, a typical adventure day will only be 2-3 encounters as at least one will likely be +1 to +3 over PL and be an edge-of-seat battle leaving the party drained and in need of rest.

 

[Derren]

The 15 minute workday is more a theoretical problem than a practical one.
Theoretically it would be the best course of action when you adventure in a vacuum, but in practice the PCs are not in a vacuum and resting after every encounter might not be possible or the players themselves don't employ this tactic as it is unfun. Thats why it is encountered only very rarely.

With the advent of 4E this hypotetical problem was brought up more often than before as the 4E supporters claim that 4E fixed the 15 minute workday (even though it wasn't a real problem). But 4E didn't fix it as with the many daily powers resting after every encounter is still the best course of action.

In the rare case you do encounter this problem in your game group the only thing which can solve it is good adventure design where the PCs can't rest that easily or don't have time for that. Changing the edition won't solve it no matter what some people say.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

The 15 minute workday is more a theoretical problem than a practical one.

I have encountered the 15 minute workday in 3.5 and can say with certainty that it is not just "theoretical" but with the following setup, needed to be actively planned against.

Firstly, this was from an Age of Worms campaign with 7 characters of 15th level most of which are optimized. Now no matter how much you try to optimize a fighter-type, at this level, the wizard is the king of optimizing - archmage, quicken, maximize, empower, craft rod feats, strong spell collection (including some material from the Complete Series and PHB II). What happens then is a big disparity between the melee types and the Wizard and Cleric of the group.

This causes a couple of problems:
[Easy Encounters] - The wizard has enough resources to easily deal with small encounters whilst still having the big stuff ready for something more serious. The melee types can only move slowly (unless they use some of their big items), and so between a couple of ranged attacks and a blast or two from the wizard, these encounters are literally a waste of time.

[Medium Encounters] - At least with these the melee types get a go, but not for long. A maximized "something" from the wizard (be it from rod or spell list) and another big spell generally turns a medium difficulty encounter into melee types doing mop up (not very satisfying).

[Hard Encounters] - Now things become a tight rope in terms of planning encounters. The difficulty level has been ratcheted up to the point where the wizard can unleash some of his big stuff but there is an interesting balance here. Either the wizard goes slightly conservative (meaning the melee types have to burn all their good stuff to contribute, generally using up a heap of their resources so they're not too keen to carry on after the encounter), or the wizard unleashes absolute hell and devestation to the point where he uses up his best stuff and is going to want to "rest" afterwards (with the rest of the party usually agreeing because they've been strained to the max with a hard encounter too). And as I say, it's a careful balance here as well because if you push too hard with the encounter, the weaker characters will be killed too easily.

And so, you are left with a mix of encounters that are either unsatisfying, or on the other hand, big enough to truly test the group but leave them depleted enough that they want to rest.

However, I've combated this with trying to push things in terms of time limits ["you have to do A, B and C before tomorrow otherwise D happens... and we don't want D to happen do we?], but after a while, this can feel forced so you are forced back to "boring" encounters or 15 minute workdays with a single encounter being enjoyably played but with the group being happy enough to pull up stumps unless they are forced to keep going.

The factors involved here are a hyper-optimized wizard, a large party with power disparity, a campaign where there are generally few time-critical missions and high level spellcasters who generally don't run out of medium strength spells. I've found the need to plan additional modules so that the 15 minute workday doesn't happen.

I know that the final module or two are going to test the group in terms of resources but by then, I don't see the big encounters as being as challenging as they could be (kind of strange when you consider what they are going to be up against.).

Anyway, just popping in to say that the 15 minute workday, despite a whole lot of "internet chat" saying otherwise is real and possible.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have encountered the 15 minute workday in 3.5 and can say with certainty that it is not just "theoretical" but with the following setup, needed to be actively planned against.

<snip>

Anyway, just popping in to say that the 15 minute workday, despite a whole lot of "internet chat" saying otherwise is real and possible.

I don't think anyone is saying its fictional, just that there are many of us that never see it, partly because of playstyle

For example, you talk about the spellcasters wanting to rest after a Hard encounter. This is understandable.

However, spellcasters in our groups have to find a way to contribute to the group without spellcasting, because merely exhausting your supernatural resources isn't sufficient cause to rest. Only when everyone is feeling depleted is the call to rest heeded.

Non-casting contribution may be in the form of using alchemical devices or in the form of using a weapon (magical or otherwise)- regardless, you find a way.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I don't think anyone is saying its fictional, just that there are many of us that never see it, partly because of playstyle.

Understood, I was just putting the shoe on the other foot for a little mirth and ironical effect.

However, spellcasters in our groups have to find a way to contribute to the group without spellcasting, because merely exhausting your supernatural resources isn't sufficient cause to rest. Only when everyone is feeling depleted is the call to rest heeded.

Non-casting contribution may be in the form of using alchemical devices or in the form of using a weapon (magical or otherwise)- regardless, you find a way.

I can certainly understand that. However, why bother to get out the crossbow or alchemical fun bags when you have a raft of mid-level spells about to get empowered or maximized by a rod and a series of high powered wands if you get desperate? I was trying to show the dynamic that under the circumstances I gave, you either get easy/medium difficulty encounters that do next to nothing or high difficulty ones that deplete everyone's resources. You have to manufacture the middle ground, rather than simply having it there.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise