Why Changes were made in 4e

[Imban]

But how do you create a scenario without "nap time" consistently in the presence of Rope Trick, Teleport, Leomunds Secure Shelter, Mordekainens Magnificent Mansion and many more? Just ban the spells?

In my opinion, 3/4 of the reason for the 15-minute adventuring day is that it's not annoying enough to rest in D&D. Even in Neverwinter Nights, where it just takes 20-40 seconds and being reasonably far away from hostile monsters, you don't get people napping after every small group because that slooooows thiiiiiiiings doooooown.

Part of my group's unwritten rules are that I generally allow the characters to rest for free between sessions - it's the assumed default unless I specifically instruct everyone to record their current HP and ability uses - but don't typically allow the party to rest during a session, especially not with a one-liner like "I Greater Teleport the party back home, rest for 8 hours, Greater Teleport the party back to exactly where they were, and go through the south door."

But no, I haven't banned any of those spells or changed any except for Rope Trick, which I altered from "Target: One touched piece of rope from 5 ft. to 30 ft. long" to "it works like Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, so don't be a rules lawyer."

If there is no time limit, just the threat of random encounters or assaults at night, there is also another "easy" trick. Just don't exhaust all your reserves. Just enough to take on one or two encounters, and leave the rest for the night and wandering monsters.

Uh, so if you take on two encounters and then assassins in the night, that's three encounters before resting, which is hardly a 15-minute day...

But yeah, usually the heroes are trying to do things which are a matter of urgency in my games, because that's what makes them heroes. Part of this is that I'm a terrible dungeon designer, so I don't have very many holes in the ground for the heroes to meticulously explore.

 

[Stoat]

With almost every 4e mechanics change, I can probably point to an RPGA experience I had where the 3e mechanics were problematic. But, of course, don't blame the RPGA for 4e's percieved flaws. Pathfinder took the same route, and Buhlman and Mona were both RPGA campaign administrators for years.

I think that if you're trying to analyze why 4e changed what it did, it's important to consider where the designers got their data.

I'm not an RPGA player, but I can say that for almost every 4E mechanics change I can probably point to a pre-4E ENWorld thread in which the changed mechanic was discussed as problematic.

Mechanically, 4E mostly changed things that folks around here agreed were problems.

 

[SSquirrel]

A PC gets one Immediate Action per round. I assume in real time that means every few seconds or so. NPC1 triggers an Immediate Reaction/Interrupt. I don't care about using it at that point; I want to save it for later. (Maybe it's an Encounter Power, like Shield; I don't want to use it to block the 4 points of damage from the minion, I want to use it in case the Elite Brute hits with a massive attack dealing 16 damage and dazing me.)

How do I decide to hold on to my Immediate Action in real time?

This is solved in games like WoW like so. Warriors have an ability called Ovepower. It is only usable when someone has dodged one of their attacks. When that occurs, the button lights up and stays active for the next few seconds. If you have the required rage and hit teh button while it is active, you Overpower your enemy and deal that damage. If you ignore it, it goes away after a few seconds.

4E won't port over directly to computer games any better than 3E did tho. The time spans of power refreshes in a tabletop game vs a game like an MMO don't sync up. If you just auto-attacked and once every 5 minutes got to use 2 different abilities and once every day you were online you could use another ability, well...you would feel like a Paladin in WoW at launch B O R I N G !! The underlying mechanics of the system, the steady increase of all combat abilities, etc, THAT will translate perfectly. Powers will be tweaked extensively.

 

[LostSoul]

Lots of replies!

My basic thought goes like this: It's always better to face encounters when you are fully rested (though not as fun, but that's my opinion). If you can rest, and the negatives for resting don't outweigh the positives, you should rest.

Dannyalcatraz: Would I be correct if I said that you rested only when needed, and avoiding having to rest by making smart choices during (and before!) combat?

Were there (generally) external pressures keeping you from resting? Time pressures, NPC actions, etc.?


an_idol_mind: The PCs don't "spam" resting in your games because the NPCs react to their actions, making resting a poor choice in some situations.

An example would be something like a poorly-defended guard post (a bunch of bored goblins) that gets reinforced and everyone's on the alert if the PCs give them to much time. Does that sound like something that would happen in your games?


Imban: What are some of the reasons the plot would instruct the PCs in your games to avoid resting?

You say that "meeting everything with maximum force and then napping is the best course of action when you know you can take a nap afterwards." I agree. What about this statement: You should use the minimum amount of resources needed to guarantee success in the encounter and then nap afterwards, even if you didn't spend that many resources. That limits the danger of an unexpected encounter and prepares you to deal with any future ones - since you don't know what you'll be facing up ahead, you'll want to make sure you have as many resources as possible!


RC: Good post, as always.


It seems to me that the only way to deal with the 15-minute adventuring day (in any edition) is for the DM to create tension between resting and regaining your resources and pushing forward.

In my game (4E) I've done a few things to extend the encounter day. I altered how extended rests work so that it takes longer to get back all your resources; I added in wandering monsters; I've used areas where it is impossible to rest (Thunderspire Labyrinth); and I have the NPCs react to the PC's actions.

All these choices that I've made as a DM have been to put pressure on Healing Surges and Daily powers so that each choice the players make becomes more important.

 

[Imban]

Imban: What are some of the reasons the plot would instruct the PCs in your games to avoid resting?

Well, I've been DMing War of the Burning Sky lately, and, with a minimum of spoilers:

Chapter 1 - You're trying to escape a city that's under siege. Taking a week to do this would be distinctly suboptimal.
Chapter 2 - You're travelling through a forest which is on permanent fire, with limited resources for stopping yourself from dying of heatstroke. You can possibly get immunity halfway through the module, though, at which point you are no longer strictly bound to finish as quickly as possible, but you might just want to leave the little bit o' hell on earth you're in.
Chapter 3 - This is a city-based adventure, so nothing until the big plot event at the end, where you have only a few hours - enough time for one nap - between its start and the villains winning.

You say that "meeting everything with maximum force and then napping is the best course of action when you know you can take a nap afterwards." I agree. What about this statement: You should use the minimum amount of resources needed to guarantee success in the encounter and then nap afterwards, even if you didn't spend that many resources. That limits the danger of an unexpected encounter and prepares you to deal with any future ones - since you don't know what you'll be facing up ahead, you'll want to make sure you have as many resources as possible!

Sure, if you're a pansy.

Most of the RPG video games I play are either built around this paradigm or make it somewhat annoying to do. While "okay, wandering monsters kill you all" is undesirable in a pen-and-paper game because there aren't reloads, making it slightly more annoying to rest until fully healed than just a literal five-second statement while asking what the exits to this room are is something a lot of games do.

Like, in NWN, it takes an actual 20-40 seconds, which is a lot of time when I've hacked up an entire small dungeon map in five minutes in a party. Therefore, you don't rest except when you have to or a boss is upcoming, because it doesn't give you a very good return in terms of additional success compared to time wasted.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It seems to me that the only way to deal with the 15-minute adventuring day (in any edition) is for the DM to create tension between resting and regaining your resources and pushing forward.

Hits the nail on the head......but be aware that the pace of encounter resolution/model of attrition will offer a sharp limitation on how a GM can both create that tension and keep the game interesting. A 40-minute battle with wandering monster ants is generally not so much fun. This is especially true if, after that battle, there is no change in the characters because no actual resources are consumed.


RC

 

[Jeff Wilder]

In our group, we had a fairly new player playing a warmage. When we started the Age of Worms adventure path, she habitually went nova, and then would begin pushing for a rest, even though the rest of us were okay.

Gradually, because the rest of us -- and me, in particular -- wouldn't stop and rest, and because the rest of us -- and me, in particular -- offered advice on resource management (e.g., "That monster was going down very fast, so did you really need to use your two highest-level spell slots on it?), she's mostly learned how to make her spells stretch over multiple encounters.

The 15-minute adventuring day is a player issue, not a game-design issue.

That said, our next major fight is going to be with Dragotha, and we're sure as hell gonna go into that one fully rested.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It is certainly true that good players avoid allowing rules problems to damage the game (most often by not taking advantage of rules loopholes). That doesn't mean that there isn't a rules problem, or a rules element to a problem.


RC

 

[Jeff Wilder]

It is certainly true that good players avoid allowing rules problems to damage the game (most often by not taking advantage of rules loopholes). That doesn't mean that there isn't a rules problem, or a rules element to a problem.

True, in general, but the 15-minute adventuring day is not a rules problem.

Someone in the Boston Marathon can choose to sprint at the beginning of the race, and will then have issues finishing the race. That doesn't mean that the "rules" for running a marathon are broken. It means that the "player" managed resources poorly, by choice or in ignorance.

You can argue, if you like, that a rules system that allows someone to mismanage resources out of ignorance is a problematic rules system, but at that point the discussion will have to end. I personally appreciate that players (and their PCs) have to learn how to run a "marathon."

 

[an_idol_mind]

an_idol_mind: The PCs don't "spam" resting in your games because the NPCs react to their actions, making resting a poor choice in some situations.

An example would be something like a poorly-defended guard post (a bunch of bored goblins) that gets reinforced and everyone's on the alert if the PCs give them to much time. Does that sound like something that would happen in your games?

That would be an accurate assumption. I don't know of too many situations where a group of monsters are just going to sit in their caves and wait for the PCs to kill them off.