You Can't Take Short Rests

[AbdulAlhazred]

I like the concept of the 'extended encounter' and I've used that in a few different ways in my game. It always creates a memorable event. I usually find that once they start most of the enemy gets into the act fairly quickly. My way of thinking about it has been that I decide overall what will be a good challenge for the party, say a total of +5 levels of monsters in 3 encounters, but then redistributed in smaller groups. The party will probably never face more than L+3 at any one time, but there are only certain rest and/or recharge points.

I've found though that if you design the encounters right you can pretty much stick to the existing design of rests. I can have plenty of ways to chip away at daily resources anyway, and if you set up the adventure such that the party could get jumped at any moment, they're always unsure of using even an encounter power, without the guarantee they won't get it back soon. Hit 'em with a nice scary lurker attack now and then, they'll be hording everything one moment and blowing half of it the next

 

[TarionzCousin]

Time sensitive approach would be one way to enforce no short rests. Another option would be to give them the opportunity to take a short rest at some cost. For instance maybe they can retreat 5 rooms back (to a checkpoint) and bar the door to a room for a quick breather. Meanwhile more monsters fill the area. They have to clear the area and reach their next check point without a short rest to continue. (The old magic fountain, save game approach).

I like this.

Otherwise I think one likely possibility is the group retreating all the way out of the dungeon for an extended rest early on, or even more than once. Can you be certain your players will conserve their resources? Or will they nova if they think they might lose a combat.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think that making the dungeon psuedo-realistically dynamic is probably the best way to avoid short rests.

Just build the entire dungeon as a single encounter, and make a large chunk of leeway in the encounter budget for the "the players can avoid fighting the entire thing at once" while keeping levels in the usual range. To encourage blowing encounter and dailies, just make sure you make plenty of opportunities for the mini-encounters to double up, and preferably make some nasty monster combinations where the sum is much more powerful than it's parts.

If you build a dungeon where one or more monsters changes rooms periodically (over a less than 5 minute period - either sketch up a timeline beforehand or roll randomly round-to-round), you should end up with some nice chaos in how hard each fight is, while avoiding anyone getting their short rest.

 

[Jhaelen]

It's killing me that I cannot remember where I read this, but it was a blog by a former D&D dev who discussed breaking up the "encounter" into multiple rooms on a dungeon floor - similar to what the OP is proposing.

Are you maybe talking about this?

 

[jbear]

Some interesting ideas in this thread which have my creative juices flowing all of a sudden. Which is grand 'cos they seem too few and far between of late.

The link to Gabe's thread has some fantastic ideas. I especially liked the loot cards to add a fun randomness to treasure distribution, especially because you could throw in some fun, wacky (non-standard) stuff in there.

I also think the key to making something like this 'extended' encounter work is building in the mechanic where

a) Taking a short rest is constantly impossible/highly risky
b) It is possible through certain actions or reaching certain areas to recharge powers or receive healing

If you establish an 'encounter area', let's say, each level of the dungeon in this case, there needs to be a reason that the PCs can't take a 5 minutes rest by closing the door of the room they are in. This reason needs to make sense, be fun, challenging and add the right amount of tension. I'd even propose building in ways to counteract this constant threat, either disabling it totally or disabling it temporarily. So Short Rests aren't a given but they can be achieved through clever play. But what I don't think you can do is simply say: 'This level of the dungeon counts as an encounter area, you can't rest til you've cleared it or find the stairs to the next level. Because my immeadiate question as a player would be: Why? I think there needs to be a decent answer to that question.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Me and Rob Schwalb are on the same page about so much stuff.

Interesting how he suggests: "They can always fall back and take an Extended Rest, but when they do, the monsters come back!" And I like the "Level +2 XP Budget; no monsters above the PC's level, tho."

TIME TO GO MAKE THAT ADVENTURE!

 

[MrMyth]

Interesting enough, the adventure posted yesterday in Dungeon (Baelard's Legacy) includes elements along these lines. For one thing, the encounters aren't set - they give stats for appropriate monsters and suggested uses for them, but otherwise leave it up to the DM.

Spoiler

More importantly, though, it has guidance on how the monsters patrol, at what point they become aware of PCs and start harassing them during short rests, etc. And in order to even rest after that point, the PCs need to pull back and reseal the dungeon while fighting off more of the monsters.

Not quite a blanket ban on resting or a complete dungeon-level encounter, but certainly a step in that direction.

 

[LostSoul]

Interesting how he suggests: "They can always fall back and take an Extended Rest, but when they do, the monsters come back!"

The key point is that you only gain XP when you hit a predetermined spot in the dungeon. You need to include that or else you'll break the game (by creating an optimal solution).

 

[The Monster]

An interesting concept; I'll have to follow this thread. I may even be able to use some form of it early on in a campaign I'm pondering. (Fleeing a massive enemy invasion)

One question, though: if the entire dungeon floor, or even an entire zone, is designated as a single encounter, what happens to those powers which are 'until end of encounter?' Do daily stances, for example, last until you clear the entire floor? Does Flaming Sphere follow you around the whole time?

 

[Aulirophile]

An interesting concept; I'll have to follow this thread. I may even be able to use some form of it early on in a campaign I'm pondering. (Fleeing a massive enemy invasion)

One question, though: if the entire dungeon floor, or even an entire zone, is designated as a single encounter, what happens to those powers which are 'until end of encounter?' Do daily stances, for example, last until you clear the entire floor? Does Flaming Sphere follow you around the whole time?

"or five minutes." So unless they stop to search a room (also five minutes by default) then... yeah.

Not that that is a bad thing. Having to spend a move action on FS to keep it with you could give the next room a "surprise" round because they had more time to prepare. You could add a couple creatures here and there because of dailies like that.

Worth noting that for non-moving zones/conjurations/walls the Sustain rules don't require LoS. Putting up a wall and running away is a great way of getting away from a horde of something. Buys you five minutes or some distance or weakens the pursuing force considerably.