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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 3767236" data-attributes="member: 710">Not for long-term considerations. But is it really that important whether resource attrition is long-term or short-term? Okay, that might in fact be the point that we are discussing all the time and are having different ideas about. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This might be a good point. But I might add something: I don't know who of the designers said it, but I think it was one of the blogs.The basic idea at the beginning of D&D was that a) It takes 13 encounters with an EL equal to Party Level to gain a new level. b) PL = EL is the standard encounter.c) PL = EL means 25 % of the groups resource have been depleted, on average (and probably not accounting for full "rule mastery" and tactical genius, but also not bad luck and incompetency <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )A lot of the design assumptions about balance seemed to be based on this fact.But the actual usage of the system seems to be different: 1) Because encouners with PL = EL aren't challenging in and on themselves (once you reach rules mastery and tactical expeience), DMs and module writers introduced more encounters with a higher level. I know that several adventures I played in had ELs that were EL+4 _and_ higher. (And yes, we prevailed. We are that good <s>at powergaming</s> in tactics)2) Not all adventures are a string of combat encounters over the course of a day. A investigation story, or a adventure based on city politics will have less combat encounters per day. 1 might come from the fact that such encounters are either quickly overcome with the use of the generous use of spell casting (therefore ruining any "thrill" the encounters might had), or because the spellcasters hold back a lot and their players seemed less interested in such encounters.Anyway, this can very easily lead to the "15 minute" (I prefer to stay with the exaggerated time value <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ) syndrome, because you really can only beat this one encounter. It also leads to spellcasters easily overshadowing non-spellcasters in such an encounter, because they burn through all their daily resources - neither having a choice nor being interesting in doing something different.2 has a different reason then 1, but it leads to the same problem. Spellcasters overshadow non-spellcasters since they can go "nova" in that encounter.So, the quoted dialog might result because some people think they know the reason how the 15 minute adventure day came into being, and this being that playing a spell caster that holds back most of the time isn't fun, which leads to a different encounter dynamic.</blockquote>

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