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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrMyth" data-source="post: 5514296" data-attributes="member: 61155">Hmm. For myself, I'm inclined to support this via environment rather than mechanics. Design an entire level to be a Level+3 encounter, or some such. Have some rooms with enemies who call for help, plus enemies who patrol, etc. Rather than force the PCs to confront everyone because they have a blanket ban on short resting, you instead have them fight everyone because that is how the combat naturally develops.  And find ways to present options - say the PCs manage to take down one room in silence, and eliminate the handful of enemies before they call for help. They then have a choice - do they rest and get back the few resources expended, or take advantage of the situation to surprise the enemy who hasn't yet noted their presence?  If they rest, they risk having a patrol find them. If they pull back to rest, instead, they might return to find the area fortified once they enemy found the bodies or noticed the missing monsters.  And if the PCs somehow screw up and draw all the monsters on themselves at once... well, it is still a winnable fight, albeit a tough one.  I find that sort of dynamic approach is a good way of encouraging continual exploration/battle without forcing a mechanical constraint upon it.  Or, of course, the PCs might have a time limit they know about - the boss finishes his ritual in 'x' time. If they rest too often on the top floor, they might not have time to rest later on. Etc. And, finally, you do have the approach along the lines of what Gabe did - presenting it more as a mini-game challenge than anything else. It isn't so much that the characters are forced to not rest - instead, you present them with a challenge to see how far they can get without resting.  And at that point, it turns it from feeling like a limitation into a chance to show how cool they are, and players like that. You do need to be careful to make sure it won't get dull when all they have left are at-wills - one solution is to make sure there are lots of interesting options available.  For example, one battle takes place over a bridge. Normally players might not waste time bull-rushing enemies when they have all their encounter powers. But when all they have are At-wills, that is the perfect time to try just knocking enemies over the side!  Or other rooms might have bowls of fire they can knock over, have alchemical mixtures lying around for them to throw, etc. Including lots of interactive scenery (terrain powers, as they are presented in the rules) is always a good thing, but often gets overlooked when PCs have their full resources. But when resources are tight, those extra options are at their strongest, and help keep things interesting.</blockquote>

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