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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3833275" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is true, but I think tautologous - the "distinct difference" in cost would be the lower cost of 1 minute compared to 8 hours.A little more constructively: you appear (in this an many other posts) to be looking only at the in-game cost, to the PCs. The important cost to focus on is the at-table cost, to the players. Because 8 hours of rest requires retracing steps, making camp, setting a watch etc it has a signficantly greater cost to the players in game-time spent.For many playing groups, the cost of resting is the tedium it introduces into play. If the players think that if their PCs go on without resting they will not incur unacceptable risk, then their PCs will go on.There are two reasons to think that that is not so, and that the pressures that lead to the 15-minute day will be absent:1) With per-encounter abilities, the player of the wizard has less incentive to "go nova", because s/he can act meaninguflly every round without having to use up the vast bulk of his/her PC's resources; 2) With well-designed suites of per-encounter abilities, it will be possible to engage in mechanically interesting play which does not require use of per-day resources, and does not lead to win/lose encounters that would generate pressure for the use of those resources.The result of this will be that groups of players - incuding those who currently experience the 15-minute day - will be able to enjoy meaningful encounters without using their per-day resources (and thus without feeling any need to rest) and will be able to proceed even once their per-day resources have been consumed and still be confident that they are capable of engaging in mechanically interesting encounters, without incurring unacceptable risks to their PCs. Contributing to this willingness to go on will be a desire, by many groups, to avoid the tedium that resting induces for the players, at the table.That is true. See (2) above for a brief explanation of why there is no reason to think that the average (typical) encounter should do so. (I should add that (2) depends entirely on drawing the distinction I made earlier between "challenging for the players" and "challenging for the PCs".)Undoubtedly. The key question is whether per-encounter abilities are designed so as to ensure that (2) above is true, and that players can avoid the tedium of resting without (a)exposing their PCs to unacceptable risk, and (b) being stuck with only mechanically uninteresting encounters. I think that this is what James Wyatt has in mind when talking about well-designed suites of powers.</blockquote>

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