# Five-Minute Workday Article



## Obryn (Jul 16, 2012)

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The Five-Minute Workday)

I ... um ... I'm kind of speechless here.

It seems to say, "No, we're not doing anything inside the system to address any possible five-minute workdays.  We're going to tell the DM not to make adventures which allow it."

Which is fine, but it just strikes me as kind of lazy, from a design standpoint.  Or at least, it's no improvement over anything that's been offered before.

-O


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 16, 2012)

I think they've said this, more or less, in a Rule of Three article as well. That seems to be the plan going forward.

EDIT: Here's the link on what I was remembering. It seems to talk about HP being the cap, and giving DMs the ability to plan around it; that is, if you want just one big battle for the day, it needs to take X rounds, where X is the number of rounds in a "typical" adventuring day. At least, that's about what I took from it.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Jul 16, 2012)

Yeah, that's... pretty impressively bad, IMHO. He basically blames the DM for a problem with the system.

Hey, let's try that approach elsewhere! 

"We've heard that archers are weak and boring, so we're suggesting that each encounter include at least 25% flying creatures to make them more necessary."

"The knowledge skills in the game seem unnecessarily fractured, so we suggest that every dungeon contain at least one magical riddle that requires a Knowledge check."

"The halfling race is underpowered, so we're suggesting that at least one floor of each dungeon have 4-foot ceilings."


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## LostSoul (Jul 16, 2012)

If one of their ways to "fix" it is something like "Here is how you can introduce costs to resting" then I'm fine with their approach.


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## GX.Sigma (Jul 16, 2012)

It's weird that, in the edition that's supposed to let you choose what kind of game you want to play, their solution to the 5-minute workday is to balance the game around an assumed amount of combat per day.

The sixth paragraph brings it back in, though: "If the group spends less time in fights, casters grow stronger. If the  characters spend more *rounds* fighting, the fighter and rogue grow  stronger." (emphasis mine)

This ties in with what the Rule-of-Three said earlier: if you have only one fight per day, it will take more rounds, so the daily resources balance will still even out. Which I think is what he wanted to say in this article, but he instead decided on a very unfortunate choice of words.

Either way, it doesn't seem like it actually addresses the problem--you can make PCs _capable _of doing a longer adventuring day, but there's still no mechanical reason for them not to rest after each fight.

Not that there should be--I believe that the 5mwd is an issue of playstyle and scenario design, and there's no real need for the game system to address it. I support the system Mike details; it's probably the only way to balance traditional daily resources (i.e., give a bunch of guidelines, then tell people it's okay to ignore them). He just didn't explain it very well.


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## Raith5 (Jul 16, 2012)

I wish I could XP you ZombieRoboNinja

I just cant see why in the world I would part with hard earnt cash for a "crystal clear guideline". Surely something as fundamental to the game as pacing and use of resources requires something more than this. At least some mechanics please!


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## Stalker0 (Jul 16, 2012)

I'm of two minds here:

On the one hand, I respect that 5e as a whole is moving back towards DM empowerment. The designers have made it clear that they are giving more direct control back to the DM, and that the system will not be as rules based as it has been in the past. In other words, there is a lot of "fuzzy" areas that will need DM action instead of direct rules.

That said, I don't know if Dnd has ever experimented with mechanics to curb the desire to rest. Not simply mechanics that reduce the problem like encounter powers....but mechanics that actually change the players incentive so that mechanically they WANT to continue adventuring instead of resting.

Now at the beginning of playtest seems an excellent time to try. Why not throw us a few ideas, let us give them a shot, see what comes of it.


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## Cadfan (Jul 16, 2012)

So the official stated opinion of the designers of 5e is that the game does not support adventuring days in which the players engage in a single, simple fight that isn't an epic, lengthy, knock down brawl.

Good to know, I guess.

I'm six sessions into a 4e game.  Every game session I've run so far would probably not work with 5e, if this description is accurate.  My 4e game has too little combat to be translated into 5e.


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## Markn (Jul 16, 2012)

I'd give you XP but "must spread around" Stalker0. 

I agree completely with what you said. 

I am certain that this is not an easy endeavor since power levels change as levels are gained and because of this I think whatever ideas that get tried need to be tested at low, mid, and high levels for balance. 

But you are spot on. This playtest is the time to try a few new things. 

One thing does worry me though. Despite designers stating they want to get the game right, there must be some corporate pressure to get a new game out. A polarizing issue like this, along with its play testing could delay the game by another 6 months (on top of the already planned timetable they may have internally). Maybe that's why the issue isn't being fully explored. I mean- the L&L article and Rule of 3 article have both been slammed pretty hard. Harder than anything else I've seen to date and WotC seem to be sweeping it under the rug.


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## Raith5 (Jul 16, 2012)

Stalker0 said:


> On the one hand, I respect that 5e as a whole is moving back towards DM empowerment. The designers have made it clear that they are giving more direct control back to the DM, and that the system will not be as rules based as it has been in the past. In other words, there is a lot of "fuzzy" areas that will need DM action instead of direct rules.




I agree with this but DM empowerment relies upon players empowering and trusting the DM and the style of game for the game to work at any given table. This 'social contract' between players and DM requires some mechanics or rules than are a bit stronger than guidelines.

I dont think pacing mechanics (encounter powers, milestones, recharging powers) undermine or obviate the power of the DM, it just gives a common framework for the players and the DM.


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## Mengu (Jul 16, 2012)

I kind of want to see what he's talking about before throwing sticks and stones at him, but I'm not even sure if what he's talking about can be implemented for pacing, and yet create a sense of danger throughout earlier encounters of the adventuring day. And once those earlier encounters are done, with the greatest danger looming ahead, there is nothing to discourage PC's from taking a good long rest before they continue. Even if there was time pressure or some such to continue, with the PC resources depleted, they would feel like they can't do much in the most important climactic fight, and it would generally be a poor experience.

Also, who wants to fight 2 kobolds at a time, just because that's the necessary pacing for an 8 encounter adventuring day? It all seems ill contrived.


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## delericho (Jul 16, 2012)

So, we're down to five minutes? It was a fifteen-minute day in 3e. 

I always felt that the 15-min AD was a playstyle issue anyway. After all, in 4e there is not a single thing stopping the party from throwing their every Daily power, magic item, and Action Point at the very first encounter, and then declaring that they were taking a rest. Indeed, that's the sensible approach to dugneon-crawling, just like having the caster's go nova in 3e.

It was also largely a feature of published adventures, which due to space constraints felt the need to make every encounter 'meaningful' - which came to mean extremely challenging. And so, an arms-race developed between increasingly more-powerful monsters and encounters, vs ever more optimised PCs going nova. The later chapters of "Shackled City" were fun _despite_ this, not because of it.

So I agree with Mearls. I especially like that they're looking at suggesting a budget for an adventuring _day_, and allowing the DM to decide whether that should be one combat or five.


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## Kraydak (Jul 16, 2012)

I can't see how this article is objectionable.  The only two ways around short workdays are either:
a) everything is a per-encounter ability (including hp), so the "workday" becomes meaningless,
b) the DM pacing the adventure so the party isn't forced to blow too many (limited) resources early.

Since they don't seem to be going for option a (yay!), that leaves option b.  Of course, one could argue (I certainly would) that the real design challenge lies in  designing mechanics which push DMs and Players away from encounter-difficulty/resource-usage escalation, but that would be a different article.


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## Badapple (Jul 16, 2012)

I’m disappointed to say the least. I can understand though that any mechanical way they put in core rules to limit vancian characters from going nova in the first room of the dungeon would present a new source of outrage for a segment of their potential customer base.

At the very least it would be nice if they presented some optional modules where the rate of recharge of cleric and wizard spells could be controlled. For example:


1.) Wizards at home in their lab can regain all their spells in one day. Priests praying at a sanctified temple in town can regain all their spells in one day. Otherwise in the field wizards and priests regain 1 spell per day.


2.) Wizards and priests need to have X amount of uninterrupted rest in order to regain their spells. Even one round of combat or use of a physical skill or distractions such as noises, insects, an conjured imp sent to harass the party by its master, or nightmares induced from a haunted forest would interrupt the rest.  (So a DM could do this to a party that rests too often for example).


3.) A “day” can be replaced with a “chapter”, so vancian casters over the course of an adventuring “story” replenish their spells at certain points determined by the DM, which might be hours, days, or even months (in the case of a long travel adventure where maybe 3-4 combats take place over the course of a three month long journey)


All of these things can be done without official rules supporting them, but it would be nice to see them addressed in a DMG excerpt or something so that less experienced DMs would have optional tools to deal with parties that excessively engage in a 5 minute workday.  Like the rest of the modular approach a DM might want to choose one of these limitations for one adventure, but not for another.  (these options are just examples btw... I'd like to see good examples from game designers to limit rest with nice mechanics as an option).


Also, D&D official adventures are notoriously bad at dividing up the points where there should be an extended rest period. I hope the D&D Next official adventures (especially ones that are more “linear”) make use of the pacing guidelines and designate default guidelines when it is appropriate to rest and if the party rests more often than they should what the consequences are in the adventure. This would help new DMs have a point of reference so they can design their own adventures.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 16, 2012)

> I always felt that the 15-min AD was a playstyle issue anyway.




I share that view.

Besides, a "fix" might very well introduce problems of its own- the Law of Unintended Consequences and all that.


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## delericho (Jul 16, 2012)

Hi Badapple! I have a request - would you mind not explicitly setting the size, font, and (especially) colour of your posts? I read the board in the "Child of Black" format, so text set to WHITE doesn't show up for me. 



Badapple said:


> At the very least it would be nice if they presented some optional modules where the rate of recharge of cleric and wizard spells could be controlled.




I agree. I rather hope they will.



> ... snip examples...




I like many of these.



> Wizards and priests need to have X amount of uninterrupted rest in order to regain their spells. Even one round of combat or use of a physical skill or distractions such as noises, insects, an conjured imp sent to harass the party by its master, or nightmares induced from a haunted forest would interrupt the rest.  (So a DM could do this to a party that rests too often for example).




This is actually counter-productive. A party that feels it needs to rest won't be encouraged to move on by having that rest interrupted - they'll feel they have to fortify their position and remain there for _another_ day until they can get the rest they 'need'.



> Also, D&D official adventures are notoriously bad at dividing up the points where there should be an extended rest period.




What is this 'should' of which you speak? The whole attraction of RPGs is that players are in control of their characters. Amongst other things, that means that if they want to take a rest after every encounter, that's (largely) their prerogative. If they come up with a cunning strategy to take down encounter after encounter, they won't need to rest at the prescribed points. And if they make a mess of things, and score only a Phyrric victory, they'll need to rest more often.

In other words, I don't want the adventures to be mandating where an Extended Rest should occur. That said...



> I hope the D&D Next official adventures...




To be honest, I'll be surprised if we see very many of these. The modular nature of D&D Next makes it more difficult to write adventures for a broad base, and adventures are borderline-viable products even in 4e (and 3e before it) when everyone is playing with the same rules. So we might see one or two adventures to introduce the system, and maybe an adventure a year if they have a 'gimmick' they want to present, but I wouldn't expect much beyond that.

(I would suggest eDungeon be the main source of adventures, but given the dimunition of the e-mags, I'm not holding out too much hope there either.)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

It seems to me "DM Empowerment" mostly means "the DM has to think about more details than ever before". Maybe that is making the game more flexible and appealing to a larger audience, since the game isn't pre-defining things in ways they don't like.

But it's still more work, and I am a very, very very lazy person. I don't want this type of "empowerement". I'd rather have a system that makes all the pre-defined things I can agree with and takes that workload off. It really doesn't look like this will become  a game for me.


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## Minigiant (Jul 16, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It seems to me "DM Empowerment" mostly means "the DM has to think about more details than ever before". Maybe that is making the game more flexible and appealing to a larger audience, since the game isn't pre-defining things in ways they don't like.
> 
> But it's still more work, and I am a very, very very lazy person. I don't want this type of "empowerement". I'd rather have a system that makes all the pre-defined things I can agree with and takes that workload off. It really doesn't look like this will become  a game for me.





Yes the "DM Empowerment" talk is really feeling like "Toss the DM all the work." As I am no longer a 16 year old with tons of controllable free time and I have become lazier, this is a fear of me. I'll give D&D Next a chance but I'd love to see more "here are some modules and rules for lazy DMs" talk. 

----

Seriously. Just add milestones.


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## Chris_Nightwing (Jul 16, 2012)

I don't really understand. The DM's role isn't to combat the players, it's just to facilitate the ongoing game, the stories, adventures and challenges.

If there's an orc stronghold that needs raiding, then if you dive in, burn all your resources immediately and decide to retreat then they will respond. They'll call up reinforcements, attack the players' camp, build barricades and so on.

If instead the party is raiding an undead dungeon, what do they care that things are killing them? You can go in, blast away, retreat and rest without penalty. Unless of course there's some reason not to - like skeletons are resurrected by the evil magic within.

As the DM, it's not your job to stop a 15 minute adventuring day just because you want the players to have a hard time of it. It's your job to effectively consider what the consequences of that sort of approach would be. If you *do* dislike that style of play, there are a hundred things you can do about it that don't take much thought. Really though, you should only care if it doesn't make sense.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jul 16, 2012)

Kraydak said:


> I can't see how this article is objectionable.  The only two ways around short workdays are either:
> a) everything is a per-encounter ability (including hp), so the "workday" becomes meaningless,
> b) the DM pacing the adventure so the party isn't forced to blow too many (limited) resources early.



There is a middle ground between all abilities being encounter based and none of them being encounter based. The closer you get to all per-encounter the less the reason to rest all the time. If every character has only one daily ability and 10 encounter abilities then not having the daily isn't as big of a deal...Unless the daily is so much better that you can't win combats without it.

The issue is that each daily resource you give the PCs is an excuse to rest when it's gone. I think you could do a game where hitpoints were the only daily resource and the PCs would still rest when they felt they wouldn't survive the next battle.

I prefer answer a) above in general. Anything else pretty much ruins cinematic games where you'd like to be able to control the pacing of the game as the DM. Anything less puts the PCs and the dice in charge of pacing....or forces the PCs into unwinnable situations.

However, rather than a daily resource, I'd like to see an accumulating penalty of some sort. Your hp may replenish after each battle but you'll still take battle wounds that will slow you down in the next fight.

Though, this seems like a pipedream as 5th seems to be firmly in the camp of "hp decide whether you continue. Have bad luck and you'll have to turn back after a simple battle with 2 orcs. Guess the princess will have to die."


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

If you have rules that have a low or no likelihood of a 5 minute or 15 minute adventure day occuring, I don't need to think about it at all as a DM - I don't even have to need to think about what the opposition is doing.

But I am actually not _that_ lazy that I couldn't do that.

The bigger issue is - if there is a 15 minute adventure day, how does this affect balance? Suddenly, the casters shine and the non-casters look at their pathetic influence on the outcome of the encounters. And if I go "easy" on the party with light encounters that don't really need spells, the casters sit around hoping for an enemy worthy of their spellcasting prowess. 

That's where the real headache begins - because now I don't just need to think about how my NPCs would react naturally to the party retreating after every room. I have to think how to rebuild my adventures so that I find the exact right tnumber of encounters most of the time so that every party member feels equally important.

That's where I say - no, I am too lazy for that. Give me something else.

In 4E, people can do the 15 minute adventure day if they really want to. I just throw harder encounters if I feel they get off to easy. But no class turns into an overachiever that dominates gameplay, because every class has dailies to blow (even the Essential Fighter and Rogues, since they at least have healing surges, though they may still have less fun)
Or the party can carefully optimize their resource use so they can run through dozens of encounters in a row. I can throw many but easier encounters at them (and heck, I can even throw a hard one at them and still give them a wandering monster if they retreat afterwards without a fear of TPK, since they still got some resources left!)


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## Balesir (Jul 16, 2012)

Chris_Nightwing said:


> I don't really understand. The DM's role isn't to combat the players, it's just to facilitate the ongoing game, the stories, adventures and challenges.



That's one play style, yes. There are others. DDN was supposed to facilitate them all.


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## Shadeydm (Jul 16, 2012)

All the DM needs to do is maintain the consistancy of his game world while keeping an eye in the daily battle budget. There will be a learning curve for the players but this isn't the end of the world. If they blow all thier resources in the first battle and get thier clocks cleaned in the next they will likely learn to evaluate the challenges they face better.


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## Shadeydm (Jul 16, 2012)

Cadfan said:


> So the official stated opinion of the designers of 5e is that the game does not support adventuring days in which the players engage in a single, simple fight that isn't an epic, lengthy, knock down brawl.




Actually I believe they said such a fight would probably not be a challenge which is probably exactly what that fight was in your game. If however you were doing that in 4E you will have the added bonus in 5E of the fight not dragging on forever


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 16, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> "The halfling race is underpowered, so we're suggesting that at least one floor of each dungeon have 4-foot ceilings."




Hey!  That's not to power up halflings.  It's because the Kobolds occupy the top floor.  And if Kobolds get more than four foot ceilings they start running beams across the top or raising the ground on rubble (in some places they actually run a mezzanine level with ladders and gaps in the floorboards to drop things down/prod up through).  And three foot ceilings, thank you.

Also the 15 minute adventuring day is in part a problem with _how easy it is to take an extended rest_.  If (as [MENTION=71811]Badapple[/MENTION] was suggesting) just sleeping for the night won't do the job, a lot of the problems go away.  I have a current Kingmaker house rule that you can only take an extended rest at a friendly town (or in the trading post) and it takes a few days.  Which means that taking an extended rest feels to my PCs like slinking back to the town, their tails between their legs in defeat and in a trek sometimes of 60 miles each way.

Would I have problems with the 15 minute adventuring day under the official rules?  Yes.  It's simply smart play.  Under my rules?  With the PCs trudging 60 miles to return to the town feeling defeated and it being a week before they return to their previous location.  Doesn't happen unless someone is out of surges.  Parties IME are much more likely to be happy to stop for a day than they are to take a massive hike just because some twit burned through most of his power.

And DM _empowerment?_  What they are proposing isn't DM Empowerment.  It's almost the opposite.  DM Fetters.  "To have a good game you must work round the crud in the system."  The more work the game is forcing me to do to get to a baseline decent experience, the less empowered I actually am.  The more they are tying me down and not letting me get on with what I want to do.  And in this case the more they are crippling my ability to run a different type of game to the one they want to lay out for me.  One reason I run 4e is that I _don't_ want All Combat All The Time to keep the casters' resources down.  Or "I Win" buttons out of combat.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 16, 2012)

Shadeydm said:


> All the DM needs to do is maintain the consistancy of his game world while keeping an eye in the daily battle budget.




Or to put this another way "All the DM needs to do is maintain the consistency of a game world where the local ecosystem can easily lose a thousand bad guys into the teeth of the local adventuring parties per day" (assuming an average of four fights/day and 1:1 odds per fight).

I don't _want_ to have to warp my game world so that I have to throw four packs of ninjas, thugs, or other goons at the PCs almost every day.  As a DM I want a game that doesn't break if the PCs are in a court environment and no one actually fights that day.  Or if they are exploring the wilderness and only find one big beast in the day.  To me these allow far more consistent game worlds than forcing me to keep coming up with bad guys for the PCs to fight.


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## FireLance (Jul 16, 2012)

You know what they say: with great empowerment comes great emresponsibilityment. Or something like that.


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## Ahnehnois (Jul 16, 2012)

I don't find their way of dealing with the 15-minute adventuring day concerning.

I find it concerning that they even care about it at all.


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## Shadeydm (Jul 16, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Or to put this another way "All the DM needs to do is maintain the consistency of a game world where the local ecosystem can easily lose a thousand bad guys into the teeth of the local adventuring parties per day" (assuming an average of four fights/day and 1:1 odds per fight).
> 
> I don't _want_ to have to warp my game world so that I have to throw four packs of ninjas, thugs, or other goons at the PCs almost every day.  As a DM I want a game that doesn't break if the PCs are in a court environment and no one actually fights that day.  Or if they are exploring the wilderness and only find one big beast in the day.  To me these allow far more consistent game worlds than forcing me to keep coming up with bad guys for the PCs to fight.




Nice strawman 

*Mod Note:*  Nice threadcrap.    How about we keep it clean, polite, and less accusatory?  Please and thank you.  ~Umbran


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 16, 2012)

Shadeydm said:


> Nice strawman



Where's the strawman?  That I have to throw a certain amount of encounters/total size of encounter budget per day?  Or that I'm actually pointing out what this means in practice?


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 16, 2012)

I think we are not seeing the whole here:

The day now is our encounter!Just as in 4e, you were doing encounters in waves and such to allow a bit of a breather and to make it more dynamic, that design principle is now used for the whole day.

So there are no meaningless encounters, that last for hours of out of game time.

So, the assumption is again: attrition over the course of day instead of attrition over a short amount of time. This makes the game much more flexible:

You can have a single creature killed at the morning. (only 2 rounds of fight, very easily killed, but to prevent him from running, you used a fighter´s surge)

later you encounter another group of guards. 5 rounds later they are dead (about a usual encounter of 4e) And at the end of the day, you have the big battle. Twice as hard as a usual encounter. (8 rounds)

So you have 15 rounds to survive. So a mage may spend a daily resource every 5th round, and needs to  have good things to do in between.

And in 4e, I have seen quite a few 15 min workdays:

encounter 1: may not be meaningless! 5 goblins
encounter 2: another meaningless fight
encounter 3: just another meaningless fight

encounter 4 should have been the "boss" fight

6 hours out of game time, 15 minutes in the game. Nothing accomplished.

Even if the group does not rest now, it was still a 15 min workday, because the time we had to play is over.

And now the soultion: Then don´t do meaningless fights. And a skill challenge to prevent the first single creature before he runs of. Scrap the really meaningless fight.
Ok, so we are now down to 1 meaningful fight at the day.
And now it does not matter if your resources are daily or encounter. And I prefer some fights before that, that are resolved very very quickly, not a full encounter.

And if you really need just encounter powers: just allow extended rests after each encounter.


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## Chris_Nightwing (Jul 16, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Where's the strawman?  That I have to throw a certain amount of encounters/total size of encounter budget per day?  Or that I'm actually pointing out what this means in practice?




You don't have to do that. If you want a single, simple combat in a day, go ahead. Is it obvious to the players that this will be their only encounter? Then they will nova. In any edition. The careful use of resources requires that they be limited and that the future remain unpredictable.

Or, as you have already pointed out yourself, change the requirements for an extended rest. They don't know when they will next have the chance to get their resources back, so they won't burn them all.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 16, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> And DM _empowerment?_  What they are proposing isn't DM Empowerment.  It's almost the opposite.  DM Fetters.  "To have a good game you must work round the crud in the system."  The more work the game is forcing me to do to get to a baseline decent experience, the less empowered I actually am.  The more they are tying me down and not letting me get on with what I want to do.  And in this case the more they are crippling my ability to run a different type of game to the one they want to lay out for me.  One reason I run 4e is that I _don't_ want All Combat All The Time to keep the casters' resources down.  Or "I Win" buttons out of combat.




I don´t think it will be hard at all. You should just think about a single battle: the bos battle, and think about if the boss can be defeated, if the PC´s have at least half of their resources left, and arrive there in time (i.e. on their chosen place to fight with a little bit of preperation) and if the PC´s will lose, if the boss catches them sleeping.

So over the course of the adventure, you put enough possibilities out there, that the PC´s spend too many resources in senseless fights.
And if they go in with the mentality: go in, kill everything, they will die no matter what. Rest in an unsafe place, fight with too many resources spent.

Daily powers just make the PC´s think about different things than fighting. Because fighting is always costing you resources.

The deadlier a fighting system is, and the more resource draining, the more people think about different solutions. And that is my preference for an RPG. Just enounter resources does exact the opposite.

And your solution: A rest can only be done in a safe heaven makes a "day" even longer. And this solution is a lot more preferable to me than the opposite.


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## erleni (Jul 16, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I think we are not seeing the whole here:
> 
> The day now is our encounter!Just as in 4e, you were doing encounters in waves and such to allow a bit of a breather and to make it more dynamic, that design principle is now used for the whole day.
> 
> ...




I guess you don't see the heart of the problem for us (I'm not saying that you are "wrong", only that we perceive a problem that probably isn't there at all for you).
The point is that as casters can nova and mundane cannot, all the important encounters will be dominated by casters and all the more or less irrelevant mop-up will be done by mundane. This even if the 5 (or 15) minute workday will be avoided. That is exactly my experience in all D&D editions I played (except 4th) above a certain PC level.
Last week I was talking to a friend of mine that used to play 3rd edition with us. He is still playing 3rd edition with another group in a different city and told me that, to avoid "caster domination" spoiling their fun ,they banned wizards, clerics and druids from the game and implemented Tome of Battle classes (so taking out daily-based classes for more or less encounter-based ones).
If you run a game where you have max 1-2 encounters per day, like many "exploration" games do, casters with daily powers will absolutely always dominate under DDN assumptions.


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## erleni (Jul 16, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> So over the course of the adventure, you put enough possibilities out there, that the PC´s spend too many resources in senseless fights.
> And if they go in with the mentality: go in, kill everything, they will die no matter what. Rest in an unsafe place, fight with too many resources spent.




Why should I put in a lot of meaningless fights only to make up for the shortcomings of the system?
I prefer to run less encounters, but meaningful ones (like 4e encounters are, even if longer, as there you can have tactics and so far in DD&N you only have meaningless slaughter).


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## Klaus (Jul 16, 2012)

Stalker0 said:


> I'm of two minds here:
> 
> On the one hand, I respect that 5e as a whole is moving back towards DM empowerment. The designers have made it clear that they are giving more direct control back to the DM, and that the system will not be as rules based as it has been in the past. In other words, there is a lot of "fuzzy" areas that will need DM action instead of direct rules.
> 
> ...



There are some abilities scattered here and there in 4e that encourage soldiering on. For instance, there are feats that increase your at-will powers when you're out of dailies and encounters. Not much, and they're dependant on the players taking them, but maybe it's something deserving a look?


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## McTreble (Jul 16, 2012)

Only since reading ENWorld and other forums have I even thought about the phrase the "5 minute work day". As a player or DM, we just wouldn't allow for that kind of break and rest unless you were tired enough. You don't wake up at 6 am, kill camp, walk into the nearby cave, fight a roomful of orcs, and leave to sleep. It's too bright, you're too antsy, just not tired. 

How hard is that to establish (as DM) and adhere to (PC)? 

If WotC wants to give us a sidebar of tips on how to eliminate the 5 min day, great. I don't want a class/ race/ feat/ equipment/ spell/ weapon overhaul that bakes in those ideas.

DM and PC trust.... solves everything. 

... that, and bacon.


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## Chris_Nightwing (Jul 16, 2012)

It's worth considering that from what we've seen so far in DDN, Fighters and Rogues both have daily abilities that they can 'nova' with.


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## Shadeydm (Jul 16, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Where's the strawman?  That I have to throw a certain amount of encounters/total size of encounter budget per day?  Or that I'm actually pointing out what this means in practice?



 Ok start as new thread and detail the "problem" and I'll be happy to "fix" it for you


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## erleni (Jul 16, 2012)

Chris_Nightwing said:


> It's worth considering that from what we've seen so far in DDN, Fighters and Rogues both have daily abilities that they can 'nova' with.




Isn't the fighter "nova" ability actually coming from its theme?


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 16, 2012)

Get rid of the whole 'expected fights per day' nonsense, base XP on something other than 'defeating encounters', do away with 'at-will' magic and bring back sensible limitations on casters and the problem will fix itself.

As for a magical mechanical solution? There isn't one. Make the game about the adventures instead of all about the rules is a good start.


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## Badapple (Jul 16, 2012)

delericho said:


> Hi Badapple! I have a request - would you mind not explicitly setting the size, font, and (especially) colour of your posts? I read the board in the "Child of Black" format, so text set to WHITE doesn't show up for me.




Hello!  When I typed up my post, I actually composed it in Word and then pasted it on to this message board.  (Makes it easier to spellcheck, and leave and come back without losing my post due to getting timed out).  For whatever reason on this EN site, when I do that though my font comes out black though and this message board's default background is black so the post comes out unreadable.  So then I edit the post and highlight the text and change it to white manually and it looks ok on my screen.  Sorry it doesn't show up well on yours.

For a quick reply like this though, I'm not pasting text in from another place, I'm just hitting the reply button and typing away.


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## Zaukrie (Jul 16, 2012)

The 5minute workday has always been a dm and playstyle issue. I have never had that problem in over 30years of gaming. It just is not a style that anyone I played with did on a routine basis. For all this board's talk of immersion, this problem seems to be player driven, in that they play a game, rather than immerse themselves in the world. Given that, my question would be, are both camps having fun? If so, how is this a problem? If not, why keep playing a way that isn't fun?

Sent using Tapatalk 2


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## Chris_Nightwing (Jul 16, 2012)

erleni said:


> Isn't the fighter "nova" ability actually coming from its theme?




"Fighter's Surge" is a class feature, not derived from the slayer theme. 2nd level abilities all appear to be class features in the playtest characters.


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## Chris_Nightwing (Jul 16, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Get rid of the whole 'expected fights per day' nonsense, base XP on something other than 'defeating encounters', do away with 'at-will' magic and bring back sensible limitations on casters and the problem will fix itself.
> 
> As for a magical mechanical solution? There isn't one. Make the game about the adventures instead of all about the rules is a good start.




This has provoked an interesting idea in my head. There are many ways to award XP in different games (I believe there was a frontpage discussion about this some time ago). Many people talk about increasing encounter difficulty or throwing wandering monsters at parties who rest too frequently, when this is exactly what they want: more XP.

Instead, give far less XP for defeating a monster (if any) and make the majority of XP come from quest completion. Every day that goes by before completing a quest, that XP total drops, at a rate appropriate to the quest. It may sound a little gamist, but throws an interesting dynamic into decisions about resting. I could imagine two different factions offering essentially the same quest, one with a high starting XP and rapid decline, the other with low starting XP and gentle decline. How confident does the party feel?


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## TerraDave (Jul 16, 2012)

I think its interesting that he decided to step into this debate. Its half an answer, but its right, given its half.

Its more interesting to watch how troubled some people are about, say, daily resources. (Though to be fair, there are those, like myself, that think getting rid of such resources would also be a disaster...and that this is really a non-issue). 

The thing is that 5E is really meant to tap into years of D&D success, and that probably means not messing with how most people play with it too much, unless there is a clear, broad-based benefit. It would just be self defeating, no matter how much screaming there is on the internet


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## erleni (Jul 16, 2012)

Chris_Nightwing said:


> "Fighter's Surge" is a class feature, not derived from the slayer theme. 2nd level abilities all appear to be class features in the playtest characters.




Ok. I didn't have the playtest docs at hand so I was not sure. Anyway it's a very limited nova ability compared to what a caster can do.


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## Iosue (Jul 16, 2012)

Man, I really don't get the backlash against this.  Nor can I follow it, as it seems people are jumping to different conclusions based on different readings of the article that I'm just not seeing.

Here's how I see the article.
1. One of 4e's strong points are the tight math and the DM tools that allow you to create encounters at the difficulty you want to make them.

2. To alleviate the 5, 15-minute workday problem, 4e made the encounter the focal point of design, and introduced encounter powers.

3. Because 5e, at its core, is not going to use AED type powers, they need a new model for the XP math.  For this reason, the Encounter is being stretched out to a whole day.

4. This is purely a guide for DMs to create adventures.  They can choose an XP budget, just like they did with Encounters in 4e, and then create either a big huge battle, or many shorter battles, or combinations thereof.  A DM can likewise ignore it completely.  No battles that day?  No problem.  The PCs can still get XP from exploration and interaction.


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## Iosue (Jul 16, 2012)

Badapple said:


> Hello!  When I typed up my post, I actually composed it in Word and then pasted it on to this message board.  (Makes it easier to spellcheck, and leave and come back without losing my post due to getting timed out).  For whatever reason on this EN site, when I do that though my font comes out black though and this message board's default background is black so the post comes out unreadable.  So then I edit the post and highlight the text and change it to white manually and it looks ok on my screen.  Sorry it doesn't show up well on yours.



Are you just Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V'ing it?  If you right-click when you paste, there should be on option for pasting just as plain text.  If you do that, the forum will post it using format defaults, and it'll appear on any skin.


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## Herschel (Jul 16, 2012)

delericho said:


> So, we're down to five minutes? It was a fifteen-minute day in 3e.
> 
> I always felt that the 15-min AD was a playstyle issue anyway. After all, in 4e there is not a single thing stopping the party from throwing their every Daily power, magic item, and Action Point at the very first encounter, and then declaring that they were taking a rest. Indeed, that's the sensible approach to dugneon-crawling, just like having the caster's go nova in 3e.




Except you need actions to sustain those zones/effects, you can only have one stance active at a time and the pesky rule about only being able yto benefit from one extended rest in a 24-hour period anyway.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

Chris_Nightwing said:


> "Fighter's Surge" is a class feature, not derived from the slayer theme. 2nd level abilities all appear to be class features in the playtest characters.



It is indeed a class feature and it may help, but it seems rather underwhelming to me, but maybe I am expecting a high level caster to cast more spells then he actually will be able to. 3E had you casting at least 20 at level 7 (0-4 spell levels, 4 slots each) or so, if a D&D Next caster at that level can cast 7 spells and the Fighter can Surge 7/day, it may be close. Of course, depend also what the caster can actually cast (A Disintegrate is a lot powerful than a single extra action).


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## Chris_Nightwing (Jul 16, 2012)

erleni said:


> Ok. I didn't have the playtest docs at hand so I was not sure. Anyway it's a very limited nova ability compared to what a caster can do.




Well if we take the most damaging Wizard spell at 2nd level, Burning hands, that's potentially 4 x (2d4+3) to multiple targets. Hard to judge how many things that would hit, but let's say 3 each time. Average is 8 damage to 3 creatures 4 times or 96 damage total.

The Fighter can attack twice a round, twice a day. So that will be a total of 6 attacks on single creatures at 2d6+7 damage each. Average is 14 damage to 6 creatures or 84 damage total.

The Fighter has to hit but deals 3 on a miss, BH grants a save but deals 4 on a save. I'd say these novas were comparable - the Fighter can get a single target better and the Wizard multiple targets better, potentially with flexibility by not always casting BH.


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## delericho (Jul 16, 2012)

Herschel said:


> Except you need actions to sustain those zones/effects, you can only have one stance active at a time




Not every character has those sorts of powers - in our last 4e game, none of the characters did. Besides, if the group has consensus on novaing, then the characters who do have them just get to drop and swap the effects more quickly.

4e helps the situation somewhat, and that is to its credit. But what helped considerably more was the determination by most 4e groups not to adopt the nova/rest playstyle.



> and the pesky rule about only being able yto benefit from one extended rest in a 24-hour period anyway.




You know, I pointed out a similar thing to my 3e group. Their response? "Fine, we'll sit around for 16 hours, and _then_ take a night's sleep."

Bottom line: if they decide they're not going to progress until they're at full potential, there's not a hell of a lot the DM can do about it.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 16, 2012)

Chris_Nightwing said:


> This has provoked an interesting idea in my head. There are many ways to award XP in different games (I believe there was a frontpage discussion about this some time ago). Many people talk about increasing encounter difficulty or throwing wandering monsters at parties who rest too frequently, when this is exactly what they want: more XP.
> 
> Instead, give far less XP for defeating a monster (if any) and make the majority of XP come from quest completion. Every day that goes by before completing a quest, that XP total drops, at a rate appropriate to the quest. It may sound a little gamist, but throws an interesting dynamic into decisions about resting. I could imagine two different factions offering essentially the same quest, one with a high starting XP and rapid decline, the other with low starting XP and gentle decline. How confident does the party feel?




Depending on group desires the XP over game time could apply to other things than just quests. If the group is exploration focused, for example, the XP earned in a day increases with the amount of area explored. 

If encountering opposition and beating things up are obstacles to earning the greatest XP instead of being the primary source then the party will have more incentive not to nova and to try and cover as much ground as possible before resting.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Jul 16, 2012)

Chris_Nightwing said:


> This has provoked an interesting idea in my head. There are many ways to award XP in different games (I believe there was a frontpage discussion about this some time ago). Many people talk about increasing encounter difficulty or throwing wandering monsters at parties who rest too frequently, when this is exactly what they want: more XP.
> 
> Instead, give far less XP for defeating a monster (if any) and make the majority of XP come from quest completion. Every day that goes by before completing a quest, that XP total drops, at a rate appropriate to the quest. It may sound a little gamist, but throws an interesting dynamic into decisions about resting.




I've found in actual play that removing all but "quest XP" from equation steers clear of gamist and actually aids immersion. The players no longer risk their character's lives fighting everything just to gain XP. They try to conserve resources so they can press on when a mission is on the line. And frequent resting in dangerous territory where random encounters yield little to no benefit are a thing they want to avoid.

That could be one simple mechanical change that supports the "adventure balance instead of encounter balance" and help avoid the 5-minute workday. Make core XP awards based upon completing an important goal.


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## Lord Mhoram (Jul 16, 2012)

delericho said:


> So, we're down to five minutes? It was a fifteen-minute day in 3e.
> 
> I always felt that the 15-min AD was a playstyle issue anyway
> 
> ...




Agreed. When I was GMing at a game store and that technique was tried, the party would get hit with wandering monsters or something to interrupt the rest. Not every time but often enough that the players decided not to Nova anymore.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 16, 2012)

The fact that we've had complaints from players and DMs of the 5 (or 15) minute workday in AD&D, 2E, 3E *and* while playing *4E* pretty much tells us there is NOTHING that can be done.  You know why?  Because every DM is different, every DM designs his combats and adventures different, and every reason why "going nova" occurs to a particular game is completely different.  It's NOT POSSIBLE to fix the issue, because there is no ONE ISSUE to fix.

All we need to see to prove this point is the incessant arguments here on ENWorld about things like how punishing the PCs for resting is lauded by half the players as a good way to condition them not to try and rest often and in any location... while the other half gets mad that they feel as though they are playing a "metagame" by artificially throwing extra combats out there, not because the story asks for it but purely as a punishment.  And this is two opposite sides on just a _single_ idea to solve the problem.  Every other idea possibly offered up has the same amount of proponents and opponents.  *WOTC CAN'T WIN.*

Even if WotC was to design and offer up in the DMG  _three_ different game mechanics in an effort to combat the "5 minute workday", we'd still get hundreds of players complaining that they didn't solve the issue.  Even if they offered up *FIVE* different modules to try and rectify it, that _still_ wouldn't be enough.  Many players would still find ways to go nova within the confines of whatever style of game the DM was playing, and the DMs would have to figure out ways to deal with it.

The ONLY thing that can be done is to admit that there is no way to solve this issue, because like I said, there is NO ONE ISSUE.  The "5 Minute Workday" is not an issue.  It is a symptom of *DMing Style*, which is truly the issue.  And you can't "solve" DMing Style-- because no DM cops to the idea that _how they DM_ might really be the issue for why things they don't like keep happening.


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## LostSoul (Jul 16, 2012)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> That could be one simple mechanical change that supports the "adventure balance instead of encounter balance" and help avoid the 5-minute workday. Make core XP awards based upon completing an important goal.




I don't think that will work.  If you use resources to achieve your goal, and there is no cost to rest, then the smart choice is to rest to get your resources back - so you can use them to achieve your goal.

I wonder which playstyles promote the 5-minute workday and which don't.  I have some guesses: if you don't care about achieving goals, you're less likely to want your resources.  If you don't need your resources (to achieve goals or not) then you're less likely to want them back.  If you want encounters to drain all your resources then you'll want them back before the next one.


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## WarlockLord (Jul 16, 2012)

So, the designers have no idea what they're doing and plan to dump it on the DM.


How is this different from anything else they've been doing?  There's that stunt system Tom LaPille rolled out which inflicts -10 penalties to hit...in a bounded accuracy system, meaning you will never hit when you use them.  There's the fact that skills literally are "argue with your DM until he lets you do what you want."  There are the magic items which are not built into the math, but give numerical bonuses (so that paladin with shield of faith, +3 armor, and a +3 shield is invincible).  There's the fact that they're catering to 1e and 2e grognards, nevermind that those guys think WotC is the devil.  Not to mention that despite their "we'll include everybody" mantra, their game is based around "I ignore the numbers because I'm a real roleplayer!"  Mearls comes straight out in one of the L&L articles and states that he's focused more on the story then the math, despite the fact that D&D stories pretty much write themselves.

I don't understand why everyone is so surprised by developer incompetence at this point.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 16, 2012)

LostSoul said:


> I don't think that will work. If you use resources to achieve your goal, and there is no cost to rest, then the smart choice is to rest to get your resources back - so you can use them to achieve your goal.
> 
> I wonder which playstyles promote the 5-minute workday and which don't. I have some guesses: if you don't care about achieving goals, you're less likely to want your resources. If you don't need your resources (to achieve goals or not) then you're less likely to want them back. If you want encounters to drain all your resources then you'll want them back before the next one.




If XP rewards diminish the longer it takes to reach your goal and resting costs time, and allows the opposition to fortify positions then frequent rests will result in puny rewards and slow down gaining levels. 

Anything that impedes XP gain will be avoided by most players if possible.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

WarlockLord said:


> I don't understand why everyone is so surprised by developer incompetence at this point.



I remain surprised because they gave me 4E, which is a wonderful and well designed game for me and that did not happen by accident. The people knew what they were doing.

I guess I am just seeing them using their powers for [-]evil[/-] for someone or something else but my issues with D&D and myself.


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## FireLance (Jul 16, 2012)

LostSoul said:


> I don't think that will work.  If you use resources to achieve your goal, and there is no cost to rest, then the smart choice is to rest to get your resources back - so you can use them to achieve your goal.



Frankly, I think the best fix to the five-minute workday is to make it expensive or risky to use spells, so that spellcasters are actively encouraged not to use them unnecessarily. For example: 

1. Each daily spell reduces the XP reward from the encounter by 100 per level of the spell. Using a spell makes the encounter easier, so the characters learn less from the encounter.

2. Each daily spell requires material components worth 100 gp per level of the spell to cast.

3. Each time a spellcaster casts a daily spell, he runs the risk of attracting attention from malevolent extra-planar entities who will destroy him. Each time he casts a spell, if he rolls the spell level or less on d%, he dies.

I'm sure such a system would bring back even more of the players who felt alienated by 4e since it brings back XP costs, gp costs, risky spellcasting and the chance of random, instant death.


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## Markn (Jul 16, 2012)

Someone should do a poll. I'd be curious as to the percentage of people would like the 5mwd day addressed vs those who don't see an issue.


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## MatthewJHanson (Jul 16, 2012)

Markn said:


> Someone should do a poll..




Done


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## drothgery (Jul 16, 2012)

McTreble said:


> Only since reading ENWorld and other forums have I even thought about the phrase the "5 minute work day". As a player or DM, we just wouldn't allow for that kind of break and rest unless you were tired enough. You don't wake up at 6 am, kill camp, walk into the nearby cave, fight a roomful of orcs, and leave to sleep. It's too bright, you're too antsy, just not tired.



In the first combat encounter of the 3.5 game I was playing last week, my cleric took 7 points of CON damage from a trap (having rolled a 1 on my Fort save). He's the only front-line melee character in the group, so I didn't think it was safe to continue exploring the dungeon when his max HP had been almost cut in half. Bam. Five-minute adventuring day (and short on spells the next day, as half of my 2nd-level slots went to Lesser Restorations).


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## LostSoul (Jul 16, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> If XP rewards diminish the longer it takes to reach your goal and resting costs time, and allows the opposition to fortify positions then frequent rests will result in puny rewards and slow down gaining levels.
> 
> Anything that impedes XP gain will be avoided by most players if possible.




Yep, costs are good.  They offer the players a chance to make a meaningful decisions.



FireLance said:


> Frankly, I think the best fix to the five-minute workday is to make it expensive or risky to use spells, so that spellcasters are actively encouraged not to use them unnecessarily.




That's one contributing factor, but there are others.  Consider HP.  If you get into a fight, lose some HP, and there's no cost to getting them back - might as well get them back.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 16, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> The fact that we've had complaints from players and DMs of the 5 (or 15) minute workday in AD&D, 2E, 3E *and* while playing *4E* pretty much tells us there is NOTHING that can be done.  You know why?  Because every DM is different, every DM designs his combats and adventures different, and every reason why "going nova" occurs to a particular game is completely different.  It's NOT POSSIBLE to fix the issue, because there is no ONE ISSUE to fix.
> 
> All we need to see to prove this point is the incessant arguments here on ENWorld about things like how punishing the PCs for resting is lauded by half the players as a good way to condition them not to try and rest often and in any location... while the other half gets mad that they feel as though they are playing a "metagame" by artificially throwing extra combats out there, not because the story asks for it but purely as a punishment.  And this is two opposite sides on just a _single_ idea to solve the problem.  Every other idea possibly offered up has the same amount of proponents and opponents.  *WOTC CAN'T WIN.*
> 
> ...




As I said most recently here, the 15MWD shows up in any game that has ablative resources and a GM willing to put the campaign world on hold while thë party restocks & recuperates.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> _Any_ RPG with ablative resources- ammo, spells, whatever- can run afoul of the 15 minute workday if the game master puts the game world on hold so the PCs can rest & recuperate without penalty.
> 
> The first non-D&D example that I heard of was in a mundane Special-Ops type game some guys were in.  Whenever the demolitions guy ran out of stuff, they retreated and camped until he could replenish his stock.  They would absolutely not advance unless the guy with the most potential punch had something significant to contribute beyond using his Colt .45 or combat knife.
> 
> ...




I haven't personally run into GMs that let this happen, so I have neve seen the 15MWD in person.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 16, 2012)

So, Mearls seems to be saying: "If you like a game where casters dominate, you can have that. If you want a game where casters suck, you can have that. It's in your hands as a DM. We give you a rough parity, tell you why it's there, and it's up to you to figure out if you want to deviate from that or not."

It's an interesting non-solution. Presumably, stuff like the Caves of Chaos reactive-adventure advice is in play to help DMs judge how they want to bone their players (or not).
[sblock=Caves of Chaos Advice]


			
				Caves of Chaos said:
			
		

> The Caves of Chaos is a living, breathing environment. Large groups of intelligent creatures are not likely to sit in their rooms, waiting for adventurers to kill them. Half or more probably range through the countryside, hunting and foraging, or ambushing travelers on nearby roads. Others might be sent to spy on a rival tribe, trade with others, raid them, negotiate with the cultists of the Shrine of Evil Chaos, and so on. If the PC's wipe out the remaining denizens of one cave, the returning members might stay to replace the lost, form a war party to hunt down the PC's, or wage open war against another tribe in an attempt to seize new territory.
> ...
> Nothing stops you from reducing -- or increasing -- the number of creatures in an area, making it easier or harder to suit the needs of your story.






			
				Caves of Chaos said:
			
		

> One way to make the adventure more engrossing and fun is to have things change, or stay the same, depending on the PC's actions. If they kill some of the hobgoblins and then leave, perhaps they encounter a funeral feast when they return. If their assault weakens the orcs enough, the PCs might return to find goblins in the orc caves, celebrating their victory. Character actions might have important and long-lasting effects. Clearing the kobold caves might provide a fine redoubt for other assaults (once the PC's figure out what to do with the corpses) -- or turn the complex into a base for another, tougher group of monsters.






			
				Caves of Chaos said:
			
		

> Intelligent monsters adapt their strategy and tactics to observed behavior. For example, if the party uses flaming oil in battle, surviving tribal members might use flaming oil later in a similar way. If adventurers consistently sneak up on the monsters, their targets could respond by setting alarms and traps. If they observe that characters flee from overwhelming numbers, the monsters might shout and make noise to seem numerous. Monsters that have been attacked before are likely to be on high alert, posting extra guards in entrances or sending out scouts to watch for enemy approach.






			
				Caves of Chaos said:
			
		

> Such success might bring fame to the tribe, increasing its numbers by 2d6 in addition to growing its wealth. The tribe might be extra alert for 1d4 weeks afterward, in case the adventurers return to take revenge (or some other party comes to seize the loot).
> ...
> When PC's clear all monsters out of a cave complex, it remains deserted for a time; 1d4 weeks is a typical interval. If the party does not enter the lair again before the end of that period, it might be repopulated. Perhaps the surviving former inhabitants return or another monster moves in...



[/sblock]

I'm fond of the flexibility, but I'm not sure they don't need a slightly heavier hand here at least as an option. So many people are so utterly terrified of the hint of a specter of a possibility of a vancian spellcaster being slightly more situationally effective than another class that there probably needs to be a bigger and more impressive shiny red button you can press that will easily give you the "You Don't Need To Worry About Wizards" effect in a very obvious way. 

I think it might also be worth explaining to people why and how this track is being taken. Being Freaked Out About Wizards is practically a part-time job for a good segment of the D&D audience. It's not something 5e has earned trust on yet (despite the main complaint against the playtest wizard being along the lines of "It casts spells TOO OFTEN!"). Coming out and saying "Wizards might dominate if you don't keep DETAILED CAREFUL CONTROL OF YOUR ENCOUNTERS IN A DAY!!!!" isn't reassuring. 

I might have to try and take a stab at this...


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 16, 2012)

The difference of opinion lies in whether or not you hold traditional daily based magic to be sacred or not. If you hold it to be sacred, then the consequences are a given and the failure is upon you to for not dealing with them. If you don't hold traditional D&D magic to be sacred, particularly if you hold your own gaming preferences in a higher regard than traditional D&D spellcasting, when that magic comes into conflict with your own D&D philosophy it's the rules for magic that need to be changed. 

People who are complaining are generally people who don't hold the traditional D&D magic system to be a sacred truth, above all other considerations.


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## 77IM (Jul 16, 2012)

*Incentives Matter!*

Incentives matter. Players will do what the system rewards them for doing. "It's a DM problem" or "you should focus more on story and less on combat" are answers that ignore some basic human nature.

Right now, the ONLY way to get back your resources (spells, HP) is all-at-once, with a long rest. And you get them all back, no matter what. So the *very clear strategy* is to blow through as many resources as you need to defeat the monsters in front of you -- and then take a long rest. There's no incentive to continue, no incentive to stretch out your resources, and no incentive to think about when you are spending spells or make interesting decisions about resource management.

 -- 77IM

PS. Many other game systems don't have problems with "the 5-minute work day" so saying this is an unsolvable problem is another cop-out.


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## Balesir (Jul 16, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> The fact that we've had complaints from players and DMs of the 5 (or 15) minute workday in AD&D, 2E, 3E *and* while playing *4E* pretty much tells us there is NOTHING that can be done.  You know why?  Because every DM is different, every DM designs his combats and adventures different, and every reason why "going nova" occurs to a particular game is completely different.  It's NOT POSSIBLE to fix the issue, because there is no ONE ISSUE to fix.



No systemic solution has been tried, in any of those editions. I think that is the point; we are in the middle of a playtest, an ideal opportunity to, you know, play test a systemic solution, but what is contemplated is a continuation of what has been done before; id est, nothing.

I hear a lot of:

- it's the players' fault for not playing correctly,

- it's the DM's fault for not DMing correctly, and

- it's not really a problem at all if you stick your fingers in your ears and shout "la, la, la!"

The problem is simple: if there is no cost for recovering all your character resources, it's a sensible thing to do to recover them immediately after spending any of them.

Can you work around this by adding in game-word related "costs" as a DM? Sure. Can you work around it by adding in "social" costs for asking for it, as a player? Sure.

But wouldn't it be nice not to have to use these crutches simply by introducing an optional, systemic cost or incentive that makes operating in another way a possibility worth considering, just on "game physics" grounds?


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## Mattachine (Jul 16, 2012)

I don't think it's something that needs to be fixed. It is a play style that some groups adopt and others don't.

Why didn't this seem to be as much of a problem in older editions? Module/adventure design typically had wandering monsters, no safe rest zones, or a time limit.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 16, 2012)

> Other game systems don't have problems with "the 5-minute work day" so saying this is an unsolvable problem is another cop-out




See my most recent post- it DOES show up in other systems.


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## an_idol_mind (Jul 16, 2012)

I think WotC's best bet at solving this supposed problem lies not in rules but rather in the adventures they release. Sure, rules can be modified to tweak things a little, but it will be the first adventures released that set the culture of this edition of D&D.

Lots of people will look to these opening modules as a guideline on how to create their own adventures for D&D. If there are numerous safe resting zones and easy ways for the party to retreat and return with little repercussion, then that will be the default that a lot of people use in their own games.

In addition to the core rules, I hope that WotC puts a lot of thought into what adventures they plan to release, because a strong set of adventure modules will be a bigger boon to problems like this than a few options planted into the core rules.


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## 77IM (Jul 16, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> See my most recent post- it DOES show up in other systems.



But not in all systems, and when it does show up, it's often not to the same extreme degree as in D&D.

Systems where your resources return _gradually,_ at roughly the same rate that they get expended, are the least likely to have the problem.

 -- 77IM, the perfect is the enemy of the good


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 16, 2012)

> Systems where your resources return gradually, at roughly the same rate that they get expended, are the least likely to have the problem.




Possibly true.

Like I have said, my experience with the 15MWD is purely second hand, despite playing in 100+ systems in 30+ years in the hobby across 3 states, 5 cities, and dozens of GMs.


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## billd91 (Jul 16, 2012)

77IM said:


> But not in all systems, and when it does show up, it's often not to the same extreme degree as in D&D.




I get the impression that not much is to the same extreme degree as in D&D. My guess is that's true, if it is, because D&D has been played by so many more people and by a more diverse group than pretty much any other RPG over its lifetime.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As I said most recently here, the 15MWD shows up in any game that has ablative resources and a GM willing to put the campaign world on hold while thë party restocks & recuperates.



Which may not even be a problem for the group or the GM. They want a 15 minute adventure day, they got it, so be it. But the problem is that now the casters dominate. And that's the _real_ problem in my opinion.

If you give every class daily resources (be it tons of extra hit dice and extra action for fighters or daily powers aka 4E), you could avoid this, for example.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Jul 16, 2012)

LostSoul said:


> I don't think that will work.  If you use resources to achieve your goal, and there is no cost to rest, then the smart choice is to rest to get your resources back - so you can use them to achieve your goal.
> 
> Yep, costs are good.  They offer the players a chance to make a meaningful decisions.




I did mention costs. The chance of random encounters while resting that are not related to your goal, offer little to no reward (i.e. no XP because they do not contribute towards achieving your goal; no treasure because they are just wandering monsters, etc.). I also intended to imply that resting may make achieving your goal impossible if time-sensitive or more difficult to achieve because you give your opposition the gift of time. These are meaningful decisions, they just aren't strictly mechanical rules devices.

I personally do not like the idea presented up thread of the XP reward being reduced by the passage of time *if* the reduction is artificial. I *do* like the idea of partial success equalling partial rewards. If the goal is "free the captive dwarven clan" which numbers a hundred dwarves at the start of the adventure and the captors kill 25 dwarves while the party takes an extended rest in retaliation for the party's first attack, then a 25% reduction in the XP award seems appropriate, for example.


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## KidSnide (Jul 16, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As I said most recently here, the 15MWD shows up in any game that has ablative resources and a GM willing to put the campaign world on hold while thë party restocks & recuperates.




I never really saw the 15MWD show up in DM-written campaigns.  IME, DM-written games don't tend to have large dungeons where PCs would retreat and then go back.  Instead, locations were designed to be handled in a single day, and retreating after beginning the assault was effectively the same thing as forfeiting the goal for doing the assault in the first place.  Sometimes that's the right thing to do, but it's hardly cost-free.

Where I've seen a ton of 15MWD is in WotC written scenarios.  From Nightfang Spire to Keep on the Shadowfell, there are these large, sprawling, populated areas with no DM guidance about how the NPCs respond to repeated incremental incursions.  

The 15MWD comes from a scenario where exploration, destruction and loot are the only objectives and there is no larger goal to entering a dangerous location.  No single design element will end the issue for everyone, but there are many ways to handle it.  Story pressure and dynamic locations are good answers for some campaigns, but other groups just want a dungeon to explore.  For those groups, I would suggest tying xp rewards to some measure of "exploration efficiency", but -- in any case -- the key is providing a toolbox for DMs to handle the problems they do see.

-KS


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 16, 2012)

The problem with the 5MW can be defined as nova, then rest. This can be a problem because:

1. It's not aesthetically pleasing
2. It causes an imbalance between the classes with the resources to nova and those without.
3. Given the same resources, there is a difference in gameplay between slow attrition and going nova. A system designed for slow attrition won't be as fun going nova, and vice versa.

In addition, we have two groups arguing past each other: one group who takes daily based Vancian magic as a given, not to be changed and the other who doesn't take it for granted and thinks the rules should be adjusted to improve gameplay.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

I think the real issue is not actually avoiding the 5 minute adventure day, but avoiding that the 5 minute adventure day makes one group of characters overshadow another. The party member that has daily spells like Fireball or Disintegrate may be balanced if he has to pick in which of the 6 fights the day he uses them, but when there is only one fight,  he can use them all in one and that's 2 full rounds he gets to contribute much more than a Fighter that can only attack one guy for 1d12+15 damage, and it will take many more rounds to compensate for this than the group will fight that day.

There are perfectly valid story reasons for there to be only one fight a day. There are only mechanical reasons why such a fight must be dominated by the guy with the spells.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 16, 2012)

> If you give every class daily resources (be it tons of extra hit dice and extra action for fighters or daily powers aka 4E), you could avoid this, for example.




According to some posters on this site, that does not avoid this, and they have noted the existence of the 15MWD in 4Ed.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/303267-15-minute-adventuring-day.html

Now, that is but one example I found (feom 2011) on a quick search of the site- there were others.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 16, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:
			
		

> In addition, we have two groups arguing past each other: one group who takes daily based Vancian magic as a given, not to be changed and the other who doesn't take it for granted and thinks the rules should be adjusted to improve gameplay.




Getting rid of Vancian magic doesn't necessarily lead to improved gameplay.

In the first, plenty of people have always enjoyed gameplay with Vancian magic, so that there is nothing that needs "improving."

In the second, some other people dislike the *gameplay* results of removing Vancian magic, so adjusting these rules would WORSEN gameplay.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 16, 2012)

Balesir said:


> But wouldn't it be nice not to have to use these crutches simply by introducing an optional, systemic cost or incentive that makes operating in another way a possibility worth considering, just on "game physics" grounds?




My point is that it won't matter.  Whatever systemic solution they tried to insert would only solve the issue for a handful of the players who had _that specific problem_ with the 5-minute workday/going nova situation that the solution was meant to solve.  The other 90% of the gamer population would be wondering what the heck those rules were created for.

The 5 minute workday / going nova doesn't happen automatically.  It's not a given for every game.  There are myriads of reasons why it comes about, all based upon who the DM is, and how they run their game.  No one, or two, or three solutions will fix it for the majority of players.

The probable reason why they aren't bothering to throw out a couple of "solutions" for us to playtest is that there have already been upwards of 40 YEARS of playing the game with this problem (and the subsequent houseruling each table has done to try and "fix" it) to realize that any solution they throw out will not be satisfactory to most of the players.  People act as though the idea of "solving" the 5-minute workday issue is some new thing and the problem is we just haven't work hard enough to fix it yet.  Far from it.  The game of Dungeons & Dragons AT ITS CORE potentially has this problem baked into it based upon how the DM runs his game and the concept of finite resources... and individual DMs have been "fixing" their specific issues with it  themselves from the beginning.

And that's what WotC is telling all these DMs:  "The reason you might have this problem is specific to you and you alone and based entirely upon how you and your players interact with the game.  If the 5-minute workday comes about based on that (and you have a problem with it)... you will need to find the solution that works best FOR YOU.  We cannot give you a solution, because there are _thousands_ of ways to interact with the game."


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 16, 2012)

> There are only mechanical reasons why such a fight must be dominated by the guy with the spells.




That is patently untrue.

If the story/novel/legend/game world has powerful magic, a single spell might be all that is needed for a caster to win the battle.  Circe defeated the Argonauts with just a few enchantments, and those guys were literally the stuff of legends.

In Harry Turtledove's Darkness novels, most magic is, by D&D standards, pretty weak.  Then someone figured out a necromantic ritual that was essentially a nuclear bomb...


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 16, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Getting rid of Vancian magic doesn't necessarily lead to improved gameplay.
> 
> In the first, plenty of people have always enjoyed gameplay with Vancian magic, so that there is nothing that needs "improving."
> 
> In the second, some other people dislike the *gameplay* results of removing Vancian magic, so adjusting these rules would WORSEN gameplay.




They aren't giving us a choice however, and they aren't catering to both sides. They are going the "one true way" route on this. Isn't this what modularity was supposed to deliver?


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## Salamandyr (Jul 16, 2012)

This strikes me as one of those things that, whatever mechanical rules construct they erected to solve the "problem", will wind up being worse, as in more harmful to the game experience, than the "problem" itself.


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## MarkB (Jul 16, 2012)

Chris_Nightwing said:


> This has provoked an interesting idea in my head. There are many ways to award XP in different games (I believe there was a frontpage discussion about this some time ago). Many people talk about increasing encounter difficulty or throwing wandering monsters at parties who rest too frequently, when this is exactly what they want: more XP.
> 
> Instead, give far less XP for defeating a monster (if any) and make the majority of XP come from quest completion. Every day that goes by before completing a quest, that XP total drops, at a rate appropriate to the quest. It may sound a little gamist, but throws an interesting dynamic into decisions about resting. I could imagine two different factions offering essentially the same quest, one with a high starting XP and rapid decline, the other with low starting XP and gentle decline. How confident does the party feel?




I like the concept a lot. I don't think every quest should be structured that way - you want the players to feel that they have some leisure to explore the game-world, after all - but it's something that could be incorporated more often than not.

Maybe characterise it as a base XP award for getting the job done, supplemented by bonus XP for fast completion, rather than as a penalty for delay.


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## Shadeydm (Jul 16, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> They aren't giving us a choice however, and they aren't catering to both sides. They are going the "one true way" route on this. Isn't this what modularity was supposed to deliver?



 Oh so you have seen all the modules already and know that a 4E style game won't be possible. Well thanks for clearing that up for the rest of us without your insider knowledge.


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## NewJeffCT (Jul 16, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That is patently untrue.
> 
> If the story/novel/legend/game world has powerful magic, a single spell might be all that is needed for a caster to win the battle.  Circe defeated the Argonauts with just a few enchantments, and those guys were literally the stuff of legends.
> 
> In Harry Turtledove's Darkness novels, most magic is, by D&D standards, pretty weak.  Then someone figured out a necromantic ritual that was essentially a nuclear bomb...




However, you can also have the converse.  Even in magical worlds, one blow from a sword, arrow or axe can fell even the mightiest.  Bard taking out Smaug with a single arrow... the Death Star taken out by Luke's "one in a million" shot, and so on.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 16, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:
			
		

> They aren't giving us a choice however, and they aren't catering to both sides. They are going the "one true way" route on this. Isn't this what modularity was supposed to deliver?




Great, so we agree that you don't have to get rid of Vancian casting in order to have good gameplay, just that maybe YOU, specifically, want to (and you're probably not alone!), and take the playtest as evidence you'll never be able to do that.

In the playtest, they're not giving you much choice about anything. I don't think you can extrapolate that to 5e's release with much reliability. I could cry about how my fighter must wear heavy armor and use a two-handed weapon and I have no choice, but I'm pretty sure 5e is going to give me the option to change equipment.

I have every confidence that those who don't like vancian magic will be able to swap it out. In fact, if you just time shift your daily rest to happen after every encounter, and put all your requisite monsters into each encounter (or have some sort of solo or super-solo encounter), _you've just gotten rid of Daily magic with one easy rule._ 

That's without going into things like sorcerers or warlocks or psions or whatever who might not have vancian magic, and how no one is forcing you to play a wizard or a cleric (or allow them in your campaign), or new magic subsystems for all casters, or all the other potential awesomeness a modular system enables.


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## Prickly (Jul 16, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That is patently untrue.
> 
> If the story/novel/legend/game world has powerful magic, a single spell might be all that is needed for a caster to win the battle.  Circe defeated the Argonauts with just a few enchantments, and those guys were literally the stuff of legends.
> 
> In Harry Turtledove's Darkness novels, most magic is, by D&D standards, pretty weak.  Then someone figured out a necromantic ritual that was essentially a nuclear bomb...




But surely we don't want nuclear armed casters in a mixed adventuring party where each character is run by an individual player. A person who is making a time commitment to playing the game.


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## Pour (Jul 16, 2012)

The 5MW rewards novas and resting, and thus replenishing powers to maintain an optimum level of resources. Make continuing adventuring as enticing as regaining starting resources. On a meta level, that’s really what leveling up is- you’re choosing to go out and are rewarded by becoming more powerful. Maybe we can shrink that down to encounter design, too, and have parties actually increase in morale/synergy/fate/potential/insight/favor/momentum the further they go instead of diminishing. 

13th Age has a feature which allows you to pluck something from the next level (hp increase, new power, boosted defense, feat, etc) to incorporate into your current character after every game session, providing a much more gradual progression between levels. What if we took this into adventure design, that for each consecutive encounter faced, a PC was able to incorporate something from their next level? There isn’t a cap for this, and parties willing to push on for say 10 encounters straight would manage to effectively level twice (I suppose it varies just when they exhaust all potential level-based upgrades). If they chose a new resource, like a new spell or power, they’d immediately have access to it. When you extended rest, the whole thing resets, save the very first pick you made (for a maximum of maybe 1 permanent pick a game session). 

Call it whatever you like in game terms, heroics, destiny, coupled with at-wills and class/theme framework, I think we retain the feel of any given character, believably increase their potential, increase excitement and desire to press on ahead, and provide another tactical option in lieu of resting. 

Parties would actually have to weigh the pro’s and con’s of either pushing on ahead for +1, +2, hell edging +3 levels, or resting for the full resources of the current level. It kind of makes the 5MW a tactic, but not always the best one. Maybe the end bosses or late-adventure challenges are made easier through pushing ahead [from a standpoint of better hp, defenses, attack and select power options vs. fully regained resources at the current level]. That end boss or the last series of traps might be 5 levels higher than you (but after 8-10 encounters and 2 effective levels becomes more manageable). And because most of these choices aren’t permanent, pushing ahead allows everyone to tinker around with builds and options before having to decide on them.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> According to some posters on this site, that does not avoid this, and they have noted the existence of the 15MWD in 4Ed.
> 
> http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/303267-15-minute-adventuring-day.html
> 
> Now, that is but one example I found (feom 2011) on a quick search of the site- there were others.



It does exactly avoid wha I want it to avoid. No, it cannot fix the 15 minute adventuring day, but you cannot fix that entirely, since there can always be perfectly valid story reasons why there is only one single combat in the entire day - there may simply nothing more to kill around.

But it deals exactly with the problem that the adventure day really creates - imbalance in favor of those that have powerful daily resources. 

As I said in the post you quoted.



> That is patently untrue.
> 
> If the story/novel/legend/game world has powerful magic, a single spell  might be all that is needed for a caster to win the battle.  Circe  defeated the Argonauts with just a few enchantments, and those guys were  literally the stuff of legends.



Ah, but that would imply you made spellcasting particularly strong so that the targets could be dealt with a few enchantment spells. That also indicates a mechanical reason.

Of course, there can be "story magic" that deals with certain things, like "you must cast this ritual to beat the uberdemon of gore and utter destruction" - that's hardly a regular fight and probably not even covered by the regular spellcasting rules.

But let's say you have story reasons. Do you need the mechanics to force spellcaster dominace by default in case of a 15 minute adventuring day?Do you think that is how things have to be in every story or in a majority of stories that only involve a single fight in 24 hours?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 16, 2012)

Shadeydm said:


> Oh so you have seen all the modules already and know that a 4E style game won't be possible. Well thanks for clearing that up for the rest of us without your insider knowledge.



Well, have you seen the module that does? Have you seen the devs say that they will provide such a module? The post sounds otherwise. I mean, why bother telling us they won't have a fix for this and expect the DM to handle it if there will be a module for that. They did, after all, tell us about the tactical and narrative combat modules when people were concerned about the lack of maneuvers and tactical depth.

Of course currently we could all guess, so consider this as a remark to the Devs: "Hey, please make sure you don't overlook this for us lazy DMs that don't want to fix your balance problems."



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Getting rid of Vancian magic doesn't necessarily lead to improved gameplay.
> 
> In the first, plenty of people have always enjoyed gameplay with Vancian magic, so that there is nothing that needs "improving."
> 
> In the second, some other people dislike the *gameplay* results of removing Vancian magic, so adjusting these rules would WORSEN gameplay.



Keep Vancian Magic.

Make sure every non-spellcaster also has his daily resources. If that requires giving the Fighter twice the Hit Dice and 1 extra action per level, that's okay. I am just not interested in going back to the days of 15 minute adventure days dominated by spellcasters. I can deal with the 15 minute adventure days and mobile operation bases and wandering monsters and princesses being eaten by dragons because the party advanced too slow. But not the imbalance in favor of the only ones that have dailies.


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## Shadeydm (Jul 16, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Well, have you seen the module that does? Have you seen the devs say that they will provide such a module? The post sounds otherwise. I mean, why bother telling us they won't have a fix for this and expect the DM to handle it if there will be a module for that. They did, after all, tell us about the tactical and narrative combat modules when people were concerned about the lack of maneuvers and tactical depth.
> 
> Of course currently we could all guess, so consider this as a remark to the Devs: "Hey, please make sure you don't overlook this for us lazy DMs that don't want to fix your balance problems."



I believe the devs have stated that they want to support the playstyle of all editions via module. I have not seen all the modules therefore I cannot rule out support for the 4E playstyle. Apparently at least one poster has seen all the modules since he has said in no uncertain terms that there will not be support.


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## MarkB (Jul 16, 2012)

Shadeydm said:


> I believe the devs have stated that they want to support the playstyle of all editions via module. I have not seen all the modules therefore I cannot rule out support for the 4E playstyle. Apparently at least one poster has seen all the modules since he has said in no uncertain terms that there will not be support.




The L&L article makes it pretty clear that they're building the core around a concept of allocating resources and encounters on a daily basis. Any modules that are added on must necessarily build upon that core and be compatible with it.

That makes it a pretty tall order to build a module which takes a different approach to resource management, and an even taller one to then make that module compatible with other modules that the same group might want to use.

Modular design only goes so far.


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## Minigiant (Jul 16, 2012)

Maybe I missed it.
Did they ever mention a module to mitigate 5MWD yet?

For a game based on placing modules on the core, there is little talk of actual modules until after the forums all erupt in lava infused rage.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 16, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> However, you can also have the converse.  Even in magical worlds, one blow from a sword, arrow or axe can fell even the mightiest.  Bard taking out Smaug with a single arrow... the Death Star taken out by Luke's "one in a million" shot, and so on.



I didn't say otherwise.

Pre-3Ed, D&D had at least one mechanism to do that- the assassination tables- but those went away.


Prickly said:


> But surely we don't want nuclear armed casters in a mixed adventuring party where each character is run by an individual player. A person who is making a time commitment to playing the game.



1) in fairness, in the Darkness novels, magic of that scale was what we would term Ritual magic.

2) It's hard to use a nuke in a small space- see Pre-3Ed fireball or lightning slingers.

3) I never had an issue with it, on either side of the issue, so clearly, "we don't want" is non-universal.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It does exactly avoid wha I want it to avoid. No, it cannot fix the 15 minute adventuring day, but you cannot fix that entirely, since there can always be perfectly valid story reasons why there is only one single combat in the entire day - there may simply nothing more to kill around.



My main problem was your closing statement, the part I quoted.

The rest of that post?  That doesn't bug me one bit, and I've been on both sides of that equation.




> Ah, but that would imply you made spellcasting particularly strong so that the targets could be dealt with a few enchantment spells. That also indicates a mechanical reason.




No such mechanical reason is implied.  When a legend or myth is told a certain way, the storyteller is not thinking in terms of "mechanics", just the story.

When elements from that story- and those like it- are used in game, the mechanics to support them are being created for the purpose of emulating the story.  See Chaosium's original Stormbringer game, in which Melniboneans and Pan Tangians were the baddest spellcasters around, bar none- just like in the books- so the odds of you getting to play one were 1-3%.  (If you think D&D PCs overshadow their warrior compatriots, give that game a shot.)



> But let's say you have story reasons. Do you need the mechanics to force spellcaster dominace by default in case of a 15 minute adventuring day?Do you think that is how things have to be in every story or in a majority of stories that only involve a single fight in 24 hours?




The trick of playing a Vancian caster has always been- Pre-3Ed- having the _right_ spells for the job.  A wizard who preps a bunch of cold spells may find himself using his crossbow more often than he'd like if he's facing foes resistant or immune to the effects of cold.  In that case, where is his system-forced dominance?

If the caster is an Illusionist in a warren of Wights, where is his system-forced dominance?

_Every_ PC's effectiveness is measured within the context of how the environment provided by the DM interacts with all the little decisions made by players (both meta- PC creation & advancement- and campaign).


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## NewJeffCT (Jul 16, 2012)

what about a mix - some days, I may want that one big epic/climactic encounter.  Other days, I may want 3 or 4 or 5 smaller encounters, or 2/3 smaller encounters followed by a bigger one.   

One thing I liked about 4E was that it allowed you to have five encounters in a day that were spaced out.  However, I always found it tough over the course of a 2 1/2 year long 4E campaign to actually challenge the PCs with that one big climactic encounter.


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## WarlockLord (Jul 16, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I remain surprised because they gave me 4E, which is a wonderful and well designed game for me and that did not happen by accident. The people knew what they were doing.
> 
> I guess I am just seeing them using their powers for [-]evil[/-] for someone or something else but my issues with D&D and myself.




You know they've fired a lot of the original 4e people like Rob Heinsoo, right?


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## Stalker0 (Jul 16, 2012)

I wrote an article on this subject a while ago that I think is very relevant to this discussion.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/286349-discussion-game-design-15-minute-work-day.html


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## Cadfan (Jul 17, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It seems to me "DM Empowerment" mostly means "the DM has to think about more details than ever before". Maybe that is making the game more flexible and appealing to a larger audience, since the game isn't pre-defining things in ways they don't like.
> 
> But it's still more work, and I am a very, very very lazy person. I don't want this type of "empowerement". I'd rather have a system that makes all the pre-defined things I can agree with and takes that workload off. It really doesn't look like this will become  a game for me.



There are some philosophers who have argued that the reason the world has to suck is to give us something to do.  We'd all go soft if it weren't for things like hunger and leukemia.  These things empower us to reach our potential as actualized human beings, by giving us something to use our skill and wit to struggle against.  If you see someone starving to death, know that they'd be so much less empowered if they had food, because they wouldn't actualize themselves by scrounging for enough nutrients to live.

I think game design is a poor career choice for people who think that way.


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## Shadeydm (Jul 17, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Maybe I missed it.
> Did they ever mention a module to mitigate 5MWD yet?
> 
> For a game based on placing modules on the core, there is little talk of actual modules until after the forums all erupt in lava infused rage.



Well to hear some of its defenders talk 4E already cured the 5MWD (along with cancer if some are to be believed) so a module which supports 4E style play should be all you need


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## Harlock (Jul 17, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> what about a mix - some days, I may want that one big epic/climactic encounter.  Other days, I may want 3 or 4 or 5 smaller encounters, or 2/3 smaller encounters followed by a bigger one.
> 
> One thing I liked about 4E was that it allowed you to have five encounters in a day that were spaced out.  However, I always found it tough over the course of a 2 1/2 year long 4E campaign to actually challenge the PCs with that one big climactic encounter.




My experience was just the opposite. Our DM constantly went after the casters with hard, physical classes and sniping first. Every combat encounter was long, drawn out and deadly. We lost two parties in Keep on the Shadowfell alone.


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## john112364 (Jul 17, 2012)

Ok first off a few statements:
I'm a die hard 4e player, but I've played every previous edition
I am just stating my opinion. It's not meant to be taken as the only way.
In my humble opinion, the 5MWD _is_ indeed a DM/player issue. I've played in 4e games where we press on with no healing surges, no dailies, and low on hit points, _because we as roleplayers decided we had to! _There was no magical 4e mechanic or rule that said we had to press on. It was simply the situation demanded it (as set up by the DM). Could we have retreated? Certainly. But, there would have been consequences.
And this is how you fix the 5MWD. Make sure there are consequences. Not all the time, but as the situation requires it. This is the DM's responsibility. The DM always does more work than the player. That's the burden of the DM and it always has been. 


The solutions have already been stated numerous times by numerous posters: 

Time limits (If you don't get the magical McGuffin in a fortnight the town will be overrun by the Zombie apocalypse)
If you are not in a safe place, such as a town or other such haven, ther should be a chance for random encounters. You don't even need tables for it. If you are in the orc infested mountains have the players roll a die. On a certain number an orc patrol comes upon the party. Check for surprise. (I sure hope you set a watch!) This will most likely disrupt your rest. And I don't see it as a punishment so much as a consequence.
Who says everything stays the same because the characters retreated. You can bet the entrance is going to be reinforced even more than before. You should have pushed on!
And so on and so forth.
No amount of rules will eliminate the 5MWD except making everything reset after every encounter. And if that's your idea of fun (it's not mine) nothing is stopping you from doing so _right now!_ Then your players can nova every encounter and never even get winded. Dnd has always been a game of resource management and i really don't believe that should change now.

End of rant.


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## drothgery (Jul 17, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Possibly true.
> 
> Like I have said, my experience with the 15MWD is purely second hand, despite playing in 100+ systems in 30+ years in the hobby across 3 states, 5 cities, and dozens of GMs.



Unless you define a 15MWD to exclude 'crippling first encounter of the day' scenarios and 'sucessful planned nova-ing of the BBEG', I'm not sure how that's possible in non-4e D&D.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

Whatever solutions to the 5 minute workday exist or don't exist, one thing that doesn't fix the problem is telling me that my issues with it don't exist. In terms of solving my problem, that does less than nothing. And that is the light in which I find myself reading this article.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 17, 2012)

erleni said:


> I guess you don't see the heart of the problem for us (I'm not saying that you are "wrong", only that we perceive a problem that probably isn't there at all for you).
> The point is that as casters can nova and mundane cannot, all the important encounters will be dominated by casters and all the more or less irrelevant mop-up will be done by mundane. This even if the 5 (or 15) minute workday will be avoided. That is exactly my experience in all D&D editions I played (except 4th) above a certain PC level.
> Last week I was talking to a friend of mine that used to play 3rd edition with us. He is still playing 3rd edition with another group in a different city and told me that, to avoid "caster domination" spoiling their fun ,they banned wizards, clerics and druids from the game and implemented Tome of Battle classes (so taking out daily-based classes for more or less encounter-based ones).
> If you run a game where you have max 1-2 encounters per day, like many "exploration" games do, casters with daily powers will absolutely always dominate under DDN assumptions.



I think you have written down the real solution and didn´t see it:

"... above a certain level."

I can´t say you are wrong. You are exactly spot on. There is a level range, where you can´t see fighter or wizard dominance, however. Usually between 2nd and 7th level, I have never seen any problems caused by the issue in this level range. Up to 10th level it is still more or less balanced. Only from level 11 and above, the real problems arise.

If you look at ADnD tables, you notice, that casters won´t ever get to level 12, where 6th level spells are available. Interesting, that you don´t get them at level 11, like in 3rd edition. HP progression stops at level 9 too.
So ADnD designers were aware of the issues, while 3rd edition designers were not.

So the trick for 5th edition designers is stopping the progression where fighters and wizards are balanced. Daily resources like fighter´s surge may help the fighter over the course of a day too.

And to take 4th editiona s an example: essential, dailyless classes work very well with essential daily less classes. So I honestly believe, it is possible to make this system work very well.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 17, 2012)

erleni said:


> Why should I put in a lot of meaningless fights only to make up for the shortcomings of the system?
> I prefer to run less encounters, but meaningful ones (like 4e encounters are, even if longer, as there you can have tactics and so far in DD&N you only have meaningless slaughter).



No, I don´t want meaningless fights. This is why I don´t want the 4 encounters assumed per day as in 4e. Neither do I wan´t every fight to be 5 rounds of combat.

I do wan´t some fights to be ended before they really begun. A fight against two guards is meaningless in a encounter balanced system. You use your encounter power, you recover them. In a daily system, you need to decide if it is worth blowing yur big guns. And the fight becomes meaningful for the later fights.

For the story it always has a meaning: will those guards be alive to tell someone about the PCs. It is just, that in an encounter based system, it does not matter if you need to fight them or not. It won´t cost you any resources.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Jul 17, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> No, I don´t want meaningless fights. This is why I don´t want the 4 encounters assumed per day as in 4e.




I think you meant 3E, there.

Also, technically, it's 4 encounters of EL = APL, for what that's worth.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Whatever solutions to the 5 minute workday exist or don't exist, one thing that doesn't fix the problem is telling me that my issues with it don't exist. In terms of solving my problem, that does less than nothing. And that is the light in which I find myself reading this article.



Can I ask why you're reading it in that light? You've made a few comments in the thread on Vancian magic, but that doesn't enlighten me. I have a theory, but I don't want to be presumptuous.

I ask because both articles mention giving guidelines on how to avoid the issue. The Rule of Three article mentions an "XP budgeting system" to help DMs plan adventures, while the Legends and Lore article mentions giving the DM a "crystal clear guideline on how many rounds of combat a group should tackle before resting." Both articles mention math being worked into the game to make this possible.

While I, personally, don't think it'll work out as well as they hope, why would you feel like they're denying the problem? That's the part I'm curious about. As always, play what you like


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> Can I ask why you're reading it in that light? You've made a few comments in the thread on Vancian magic, but that doesn't enlighten me. I have a theory, but I don't want to be presumptuous.
> 
> I ask because both articles mention giving guidelines on how to avoid the issue. The Rule of Three article mentions an "XP budgeting system" to help DMs plan adventures, while the Legends and Lore article mentions giving the DM a "crystal clear guideline on how many rounds of combat a group should tackle before resting." Both articles mention math being worked into the game to make this possible.
> 
> While I, personally, don't think it'll work out as well as they hope, why would you feel like they're denying the problem? That's the part I'm curious about. As always, play what you like




The problem I have needs rules, not advice to fix it as far as im concerned. If they are saying they are only giving advice and guidelines and calling that "fixing" it, they are essentially not dealing with it. Specifically on the math being worked into the game comment, one of the issues that I deem requires mechanically fixing is game balance being set around a specific number of encounters or in this case combat rounds. Deviating from the assumed norm should not break the game balance wise. Instead of dealing with that, they are enshrining it.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 17, 2012)

The problem with the 15-minute workday is not that it happens all that much, but that it causes the DM (unnecessary) work to prevent it from happening, and in some cases causes the players to have incentives that are perverse compared to what they want to do. I see this most often in my group when you see this kind of statement, "There's really no mechanical reason why we should press on, but I guess we are big heroes that would do so." In other words, if I don't work to make sure that they always have a reason, then the disconnect takes them out of the game world.

There are no mechanics that can totally stop this, it's true. That's a damn poor reason for not experimenting with some mechanics to work on it around the edges. "Hey, the dishes are going to get dirty anyway. What do you need a dishwasher for?" There *is* a middle ground between going out for every meal versus eating on paper plates all the time--or being a purist and washing every dish by hand. 

Moreover, a certain slice of the problem is not caused by Vancian magic alone, but by the intersection of Vancian magic with hit points. No one is really all that upset if the party wants to rest when the spells are gone and the hit points are approaching single digits. That kind of *pacing* is exactly what Mearls is talking about contriving in the article.

One of the tools I'd like to see is an option that recognized that the hit points are the prime pacing tools, and worked accordingly. Namely, disallow recharging of Vancian spells and other such powerful resources for free (except maybe between adventures in restful, secure locations over several weeks*), but *do* allow them to be recharged with hit points. 

That effectively means that the party runs out of resources when they run out of hit points. Now, you don't need to contrive anything, because it always works out that whether you are getting smacked or casting spells or whatever, when you hit that point where the hit points are low, the party is going to want to rest.

Naturally, you'd need to watch the healing magic, especially items. But that's a nice feature, too, in that if the party is in over their heads or doing really well, finding or not finding a few extra healing potions affects the pacing the way you'd expect. It should cost enough in hit points to make recharging a cure light wounds a bad idea. You might charge a premium for such spells to make recharging other spells more atractive.

Finally, this might have a pleasant side effect on the "clerics as healbot" issue, albeit only on long adventures. It becomes highly attractive for the cleric to start an adventure with mainly cures, as these are hard to replace. But then when used, the cleric does replace them with other spells--which now the cleric is highly encouraged to use as needed.

* If you make the recharge of Vancian spells always take hit points, then you can get some interesting opertional and strategic decisions when the party is in a secure location, but unsure of how much time they have before something big happens again. If you like this kind of thing, it would be good to not allow free recharge, and let the hit points the party is willing to risk be the guide. It becomes a more interesting mechanic than flat time for recharge, and also really makes natural healing interesting. However, if this part doesn't appeal to you, then such recharging at rest becomes a bunch of accounting, and you'd be better off to allow straight regain at rest on the grounds of fast play. In either case, how you handle that isn't crucial to the rest of the idea.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 17, 2012)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I think you meant 3E, there.
> 
> Also, technically, it's 4 encounters of EL = APL, for what that's worth.



No, also 4e.


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## Cadfan (Jul 17, 2012)

john112364 said:


> Ok first off a few statements:
> 
> I'm a die hard 4e player, but I've played every previous edition
> I am just stating my opinion. It's not meant to be taken as the only way.
> ...



The five minute workday is a DM/player issue the same way that eating three meals a day is a personal choice.  You can choose how you deal with hunger, but you can't choose whether you deal with hunger.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Specifically on the math being worked into the game comment, one of the issues that I deem requires mechanically fixing is game balance being set around a specific number of encounters or in this case combat rounds. Deviating from the assumed norm should not break the game balance wise. Instead of dealing with that, they are enshrining it.



Okay, this makes sense to me.

I'm not familiar with a wide assortment of RPGs, but I've played my share. Do you have a way to fix this mechanically that preserve resource management? That'd make for an interesting discussion. (If you're not interested in discussing it, that's okay, too. Thanks for answering my question.) As always, play what you like


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## hamstertamer (Jul 17, 2012)

I still can't wrap my head around on the 15 minute adventuring day phenomenon.  It's never been the situation in a D&D game where players _want to or not_(of course they want to), but whether they _should or should not_(that is the question).  There are consequences for doing so, and it might be better for the PCs to press on.  In an organic world; time keeps going, monsters keep hunting, and villains make plans.  A PC can lay down and take a nap in the middle of an active battlefield,  but is it a good idea?  In fact, a PC can attempt a full rest anytime they say they want to.  I might warn, "Are you sure you want to sleep in the black dragon's lair?  You don't know where the Black dragon is."  If they say "Yup absolutely." Then I will say "Very well.  Let's take a short break, I need to do some figuring and make some rolls.  You guys might want to grab a drink for this."  And that's my point: abuse of 15 minute adventuring days make no sense in an organic world.  Very rarely should the PCs have a clear and safe opportunity to rest in the middle of an adventure unless there is some exceptional reason.  There is always an implied cost (besides using world time) to doing so unless you are safely in a town at the inn (but is the inn really that safe? Probably.)

Costs of full rests
Using world time (not always a big deal but it can be)
Using game time (making a list for guard duty, securing the area, picking spells, etc.)
becoming more vulnerable to the surrounding area and it's inhabitants.
giving enemies time to prepare.
giving enemies time to escape or hunt the PCs down.


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## Campbell (Jul 17, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> Okay, this makes sense to me.
> 
> I'm not familiar with a wide assortment of RPGs, but I've played my share. Do you have a way to fix this mechanically that preserve resource management? That'd make for an interesting discussion. (If you're not interested in discussing it, that's okay, too. Thanks for answering my question.) As always, play what you like




One way to do this is to have multiple costs for the use of resources - one in the moment, one over the longer term. Spell casting for sorcerers in Mongoose Runequest is one good example. More powerful effects have an increasing action cost, but combining effects have a discounted operational cost. HP and healing surges in 4e are another example.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Jul 17, 2012)

To clarify at least my position, and I think the position of a lot of other people upset with the 5-minute workday thing, these are the lines from the article that drive me nuts:



> DMs will have a crystal clear guideline on how many rounds of combat a group should tackle before resting. If the group spends less time in fights, casters grow stronger. If the characters spend more rounds fighting, the fighter and rogue grow stronger.




Like he's describing the laws of physics or something - gasses expand when hot, oppositely charged objects attract, more time in combat makes fighters and rogues "grow stronger."

So here's the issue: maybe I want to change up the pacing of the game, allow for fewer combats per day, WITHOUT making casters (relatively) weaker or stronger.

There are many reasons the DM would want to change up pacing. I played a 3e campaign once that was very combat-light, so we'd usually only have one or two encounters per session. If the fighter and rogue feel underpowered in that campaign, is it the DM's fault for not making us fight 5d6 dire rats before bed every night, so they can have their "moment of glory"?

It would be a major mechanical failing in 5e if the core game couldn't easily be adjusted so that the classes were balanced at various frequencies of combat. And no, I don't mean "balanced" in some weird PVP sense. I mean that each character should be able to contribute meaningfully and not feel like either a lackey meatshield or a magic missile dispenser just because the DM wants to set a pace different from what the DMG assumes as standard.

I've suggested some (potentially kludgy) mechanics to help, and Herreman has made some cool suggestions as well. I'm not saying that these specific solutions work for everyone or are even ideal, but I find it frustrating that WOTC apparently either has given up prodding this hornet's nest, or else genuinely considers it a problem of bad(wrongfun) DMing.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 17, 2012)

hamstertamer said:


> I still can't wrap my head around on the 15 minute adventuring day phenomenon. It's never been the situation in a D&D game where players _want to or not_(of course they want to), but whether they _should or should not_(that is the question). There are consequences for doing so, and it might be better for the PCs to press on...




It's the difference between what the characters want and what the players want.

Let's say that normally you don't have this issue. You use wandering monsters and other consequences of resting friviously to discourage it. If the party decides that they *need* that rest, they work hard to find a way to make it happen, and the game is temporarily about that. It's still a challenge. So presumably this is fun for the group. It is as you say, the characters want to rest but the players will avoid it until necessary.

However, there are a zillion ways that this can get out of sync, with part or most of the group running on past habit, while the rest are starting to feel the disconnect. For example, your long-running group has gotten older, with playtime more scarce, and sessions further apart. One of the natural side effects might be that you really prefer to end sessions in a clear-cut spot. So it's half an hour before time to quit, and the group is pushing to get to that last treasure or event or whatever. The first few times it happens, no problem. Then without anything overt, it starts to nag on a couple of players that, "the DM isn't going to hit us with a wandering mosnter right now, because it will take too long." They might not even say anything. But the thought is in their heads. So they go along, and to everyone else it looks fine--same as it was before. But now those two players are not resting--because the characters want to and the players are *pretending* that they need to avoid it, when they think this isn't true.

I've played with people for whom this kind of issue *never* arises. You could flat out state all kinds of parameters such that it was obvious to the worst dimwit roleplayer on the planet that the players have no reason to avoid resting, and they'd press on anyway. For them, resting is boring, and they don't like that. These tend to be the same people that will start a fight in a bad situation when the game drags, too, but you can't have everything. 

It's not about the 15 minute work day. It's about the hoops you jump through to pretend that the 15 minute work day wouldn't become an issue if you looked harder at what is going on. (Or the work you do to make sure the ideas aren't pretense, but real.)


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## GX.Sigma (Jul 17, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> Like he's describing the laws of physics or something - gasses expand when hot, oppositely charged objects attract, more time in combat makes fighters and rogues "grow stronger."
> 
> So here's the issue: maybe I want to change up the pacing of the game, allow for fewer combats per day, WITHOUT making casters (relatively) weaker or stronger.



The thing is, he says "rounds of combat" and "levels of monsters per day." So you can have an adventuring day with one battle, but if you want it to be balanced, it'll either have a lot of monsters, or very high level monsters. Thus it will take more rounds of combat, so the daily resources will balance out.

Not that that fixes your problem, but it does gives you clear XP-budget guidelines for encounters you're expecting players to nova, which is a level of encounter-building balance even 4e didn't have.

Out of curiosity, can you give me a link to these suggestions of yours and Herremann's?


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2012)

Something that irks me about this issue is the side that claims that it doesn't exist for them.  That's great for you.  Fantastic.  But, when you start drilling down about HOW it can be worked around, all I ever get are some hand wavey comments about "skilled play" and "Smart play" and that sort of thing.

Hey, even if it works for you, since you cannot actually explain how you do it in a manner that I can replicate, it doesn't matter.  "Oh, just use wandering monsters to disrupt sleeping".  Ok, fine.  But, that doesn't always work.  After all, there are a number of ways to mitigate wandering monsters, from the mundane solution of finding a secret place, to magical solutions like Rope Trick and Mord's Mansion.

Or, "Make time matter".  But, again, this doesn't wash.  Even the slowest group, only facing a single encounter per day, only adds a handful of days to an adventure by and large.  Again, it doesn't matter most of the time.  Taking three weeks to clear the Caves of Chaos vs one week will not make the slightest difference.  Spending five weeks exploring The Isle of Dread vs two weeks again won't make the slightest difference most of the time.

I really get the sense that some DM's pace their game as the fantasy version of 24.  Which is fine for them, but, it's certainly not a panacea fix.

Look, you don't have this issue.  That's groovy.  But, until you can articulate exactly how to avoid the issue without lots and lots of hand waving over other issues that matter to me, it doesn't help me at all.

Now, Mearls is saying they are going to have lots of advice about pacing.  Great.  But, if it amounts to the same sort of "advice" that the "15 MAD doesn't exist" crowd gives, then it's useless to anyone who actually considers this a problem.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

> "Oh, just use wandering monsters to disrupt sleeping"



Wandering monsters and that kind of thing are used only in moderation, and only when it makes sense.



> Or, "Make time matter". But, again, this doesn't wash. Even the slowest group, only facing a single encounter per day, only adds a handful of days to an adventure by and large. Again, it doesn't matter most of the time. Taking three weeks to clear the Caves of Chaos vs one week will not make the slightest difference. Spending five weeks exploring The Isle of Dread vs two weeks again won't make the slightest difference most of the time.




Time should _ALWAYS_ matter.

The consequences of taking too much of it may vary from almost insignificant to incredibly major- and it's up to the DM to make clear where on that bell curve the party is basically on at any point- but in no way should the world simply be on hold while the party adventures.

The best campaign I ever ran, the superheroes were part of an agency that had an internal memo sheet that I updated after every few sessions- roughly once per minor story arc.  The memo contained a synopsis of what the PCs had done, other agency news, and little blurbs from around the worlds (kind of like an Internet news page).

Events not acted on by the PCs would be acted upon by NPCs, either resolving or not.  After a couple of passes, the situation would resolve, for good or ill.

I never forced the players to speed up or slow down, but I didn't stop the world.

In a campaign in which I was a player, we took our sweet time clearing out a nest of brigands in the hills.  No 15MWD, just taking our sweet time.  We finally made our way to the main camp, we found a letter detailing how they were under orders to distract and harry the forces in the area until the main force could arrive by ship in a month...a letter we found a week too late.

Our pacing caused us to get involved in a war we could have fended off had we been a bit more...brisk...in our efforts.


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## billd91 (Jul 17, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> There are many reasons the DM would want to change up pacing. I played a 3e campaign once that was very combat-light, so we'd usually only have one or two encounters per session. If the fighter and rogue feel underpowered in that campaign, is it the DM's fault for not making us fight 5d6 dire rats before bed every night, so they can have their "moment of glory"?




In a sense, yes. Not because they need to fight 5d6 dire rats each night to get their moment of glory, but because every player at the table needs some attention. It doesn't need to be about combat, though if one player has geared his PC up to be a combat monster with no consideration outside of combat, that kind of tells you what sort of game he would like to play. And the DM should make sure that player has something to do in rough balance with what the other PCs have to do.


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## Hussar (Jul 17, 2012)

But, DannyA, you're comparing apples to oranges by switching genres.  For one, in a Supers game (presumably modern time), travel rates and communication times are vastly shorter than in a D&D game.  

Look, I've run through the math with you once before, but, let me restate.  We'll peg the average adventure to 15 xp awarding events.  The fast group goes through 6 events between rest sessions, so, finishes the adventure in 3 days.  Ok, fine.  The slowest group does 1 event per day and finishes the adventure in 15 days.  So, a 12 day difference.

Over 20 levels, the total time difference is 240 days.  Max.  Less than one year over 20 levels.  Travel and down time will absorb any differences.  And, let's not forget, our fast group dies more often since it cannot bring full fire power to every encounter, thus cutting the difference down.  And, if our slow group is any faster, say 2 encounters, then suddenly the difference is only 4 months.

Time will NEVER matter that much.  It simply won't.  Not if you are being even remotely believable in campaign pacing.  Heck, our 4e Athas game has spent more time than this simply traveling from place to place.  Our Savage Tides AP game spent far more time than this between adventuring.  I'd suspect that most campaigns won't even notice the difference in time.

Like I said, what difference does it make if you take 3 days or 12 to clear the Caves of Chaos?  The Caves don't restock that fast.  Things don't change that much in that short of time.  

But, DannyA, something I just noticed:



			
				DannyA said:
			
		

> In a campaign in which I was a player, we took our sweet time clearing out a nest of brigands in the hills. No 15MWD, just taking our sweet time. We finally made our way to the main camp, we found a letter detailing how they were under orders to distract and harry the forces in the area until the main force could arrive by ship in a month...a letter we found a week too late.




Weren't you rather adamant that you'd NEVER, ever, in any time you've ever played, ever seen the 15 MAD?  That this has never occured in any game you played?


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 17, 2012)

Hussar said:


> But, DannyA, you're comparing apples to oranges by switching genres.  For one, in a Supers game (presumably modern time), travel rates and communication times are vastly shorter than in a D&D game.



His point was "the world keeps moving", which would be even _more_ emphasized in a fantasy game, where travel times are longer and communication slower.


Hussar said:


> The fast group goes through 6 events between rest sessions, so, finishes the adventure in 3 days.  Ok, fine.  The slowest group does 1 event per day and finishes the adventure in 15 days.  So, a 12 day difference.
> 
> Over 20 levels, the total time difference is 240 days.  Max.  Less than one year over 20 levels.



This has not been the experience in any game I've ever played in or ran. There's just too much traveling, time skipping, and the like for this to be the case. This is another area where there's a disconnect in comparing our experiences.


Hussar said:


> Time will NEVER matter that much.  It simply won't.



Again, vast difference in experience here. The longest campaign I ran went from levels 2 to 27, and it lasted over 70 years in-game. Time mattered quite a bit during that game.


Hussar said:


> Like I said, what difference does it make if you take 3 days or 12 to clear the Caves of Chaos?  The Caves don't restock that fast.  Things don't change that much in that short of time.



This is going to depend on how they react, then. Do they wait in their rooms? Team up? Flee? Barricade? Set traps? Fight one another? Surrender? Depending on how long it takes you (3 days or 12 days), they have a lot of time to act. And they certainly would in a game I ran.


Hussar said:


> But, DannyA, something I just noticed:
> 
> Weren't you rather adamant that you'd NEVER, ever, in any time you've ever played, ever seen the 15 MAD?  That this has never occured in any game you played?



He said as much in the post your quoted: "No 15MWD, just taking our sweet time." I guess they just weren't in a hurry, or were engaging in other things (gathering food? exploring? a laid back group RP-wise? I don't know). As always, play what you like


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## billd91 (Jul 17, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Like I said, what difference does it make if you take 3 days or 12 to clear the Caves of Chaos?  The Caves don't restock that fast.  Things don't change that much in that short of time.




To the world outside, away from the caves, it will (probably) matter little whether it's 3 days or 12. For the denizens of the caves themselves, it will matter a lot. The more time the PCs give them, the more time they have to prepare their defenses, the more opportunities they have to counter-raid, the more time they may have to pack up and flee.

It's not just about restocking as much as it is about redistribution of what's there to make their own lives easier while making things harder for an intruder.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Jul 17, 2012)

GX.Sigma said:


> Out of curiosity, can you give me a link to these suggestions of yours and Herremann's?




Of course!

Here's mine: http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-ho...335-idea-keeping-vancian-casters-novaing.html

And I tried to find Herreman's but don't have search privileges. :-/ Sorry!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

JamesonCourage, you basically said what I would have, but to amplify & clarify:



JamesonCourage said:


> His point was "the world keeps moving", which would be even _more_ emphasized in a fantasy game, where travel times are longer and communication slower.




The campaign in question was a Supers 1900 game in a Wellsian/Verneian world- cribbed largely from Space:1889- where communication was really no faster than what mages can muster in a typical D&D setting...which is where I developed the technique.

The only difference between what I did in that game and my D&D campaigns is that I formatted the memo like a 1900s broadsheet and posted a physical copy on the host's corkboard.

So, more like comparing Fujis and Golden Delicious...



> This is going to depend on how they react, then. Do they wait in their rooms? Team up? Flee? Barricade? Set traps? Fight one another? Surrender? Depending on how long it takes you (3 days or 12 days), they have a lot of time to act. And they certainly would in a game I ran.




It would also depend on what is in the caves, why it was taking so long and the actual topography of the caves.

If they took a long time and there were multiple ways of ingress/egress- as you find in many cave systems- they may just launch counter strikes at their tormentor's base of operations.

A less sentient foe may abandon their cave and go rampaging across the countryside looking for a more suitable nest...



> He said as much in the post your quoted: "No 15MWD, just taking our sweet time." I guess they just weren't in a hurry, or were engaging in other things (gathering food? exploring? a laid back group RP-wise? I don't know). As always, play what you like



Instead of just staying in the mountains and clearing brigands until they were gone, other PC goals were worked towards in addition in little side quests- one Cleric worked on gaining converts, the rogue went looking for ingredients for a poison he wanted, etc.

At no time did we retreat out of a need to replenish anything, or even for healing- we had 2 clerics in the party- our PCs just had better things to do besides hunt brigands all the time...so they thought.


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## Stalker0 (Jul 17, 2012)

billd91 said:


> To the world outside, away from the caves, it will (probably) matter little whether it's 3 days or 12. For the denizens of the caves themselves, it will matter a lot. The more time the PCs give them, the more time they have to prepare their defenses, the more opportunities they have to counter-raid, the more time they may have to pack up and flee.




What if the cave is full of oozes or skeletal undead? They wouldn't reset.

I think the bottom line here, is that your point about pacing is a great tool in the box...but it shouldn't be the only tool.

Sometimes controlled pacing makes a lot of sense and its a perfect way to keep your party moving. Other times it makes no sense, and so other methods would be useful in order to maintain pacing. Providing more tools in the box helps to cover the gap.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 17, 2012)

The real issue is that 15 minute adventuring days are unbalanced in favor of the classes that have daily resources. That's it. 

You may be able to avoid a 15 minute adventuring day, you may be not. 

A 15 minute adventuring day may not be: "Okay, let's attack the outer guards of the enemy base, and then retreat", but "let's contact all our allies in the city, organize a meeting and then head out to beat up some guys". The characters don't stand up, rough up some orcs and go to sleep immediately - but they only use any meaningful resources in that one single encounter that actually involves combat and the need for spells, hit points and all that. 

Also, there are also sometimes harder reasons why there is a 15 minute adventuring day. If the adventure contains a very hard combat encounter (and Pathfinder modules used to be full of them), you'll find the casters being out of their big guns rather fast - and you will want to rest after that. Especially if the GM will use wandering monsters, since the spells you have left may be needed to deal with those - and whether you need to rest 8 or 16 hours doesn't matter as much.

Heck, I've had games where a random encounter actually cost so much resources that the party rested another day trying to patch itself up with natural healing and spells. Talk about counter-effective. Of course these weren't games where the Princess was to be eaten by the Dragon within the next 24 hours. (But if it had been, and the party would have pressed on to beat the Dragon, there would probably have been a TPK. Good Job breaking it, GM).

But anyway, whenever there is only one meaningful situation in a day that could benefit from daily resources, those that have daily resources will easily dominate the game.

Now, if the D&D Next caster only has, say, 12 spells at level 10 and the Fighter has 15 Extra Actions Per Day and twice the hit points, it may work out, depending on what these spells do. If there is a "kill 5 non-weak enemies in one spell", probably not.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

> What if the cave is full of oozes or skeletal undead? They wouldn't reset.




They also might not rest- actually staying in the caves might prevent the party from resting at all...


> I think the bottom line here, is that your point about pacing is a great tool in the box...but it shouldn't be the only tool.



No, even though it should always _matter_, it should not be the only tool.  If it is, it will be as someone said, like one never ending season of 24.  Great if you want that, but I bet it would be tiresome in the long run.

That is why, besides pacing, you use wandering monsters, interlocking/closely placed encounters, and so forth...but only as needed.

And the thing is, if you use all these tools- but only in ways that make sense within the context of the campaign world (IOW, don't go meta/reactionary/punishing on the PCs)- the players will react as if their PCs were in that world- using resources as if they were RW strategists.


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## erleni (Jul 17, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The real issue is that 15 minute adventuring days are unbalanced in favor of the classes that have daily resources. That's it.




I think you nailed it down.

One of my favourite campaign styles is that of the City Guard. PCs are working either in ,or for, the city guard in a big town and have to deal with crimes in the city, going from murders or smuggling to demon summoning or transforming the whole population of the city into zombies.
Most of the the time they have one or two combats per day and can then rest into a safe place like the Guard Hall or something similar.
As there's a lot of investigation a typical day is mainly spent gathering information, exploring some areas of the city, discussing issues with other city guard members and so on, so even if they spend 16 hours of the day "adventuring" they may fight only once or twice and the have to rest due to their characters being really tired.
In such a campaign having a wide variance of daily resources creates a big unbalance as those who have them can typically "nova" and do 90% of the job. This was one of my main concerns in 3e when after the 7th level casters really started to dominate combat and also have enough "utility" spells to be able to dominate the esploration part too.
In 4e all classes with AEDU powers are more or less balanced. It's clear that they will use a lot of dailies but I can easily balance encounters against that and get big and difficult encounters who are also nice to fight from the tactical point of view (like bursting in the smuggler's headquarter and clear it out).


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

Ever read the Hawk & Fisher stories of Simon Green?  Two cops who patrol a city where gods manifest themselves daily...

And neither is a spellcaster.

Occasionally, the SWAT (Special Wizardry and Tactics) team gets called in to deal with the nastier situations...and Hawk & Fisher go in after the SWAT team fails.

You might like 'em.


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## erleni (Jul 17, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I think you have written down the real solution and didn´t see it:
> 
> "... above a certain level."
> 
> ...




Actually I see the point and that's why I said "above a certain level". There's a sweet spot (different for each edition) where the game is balanced, wider for 4e and smaller for others. 
I don't understand you when you say that AD&D casters will not get to 6th level spells. I played AD&D (2nd edition) for many years and one of our spellcasters (a wizard) reached level 36 (using High Level Campaign rules). Even at 20th level he had a slew of 7th-8th and 9th level spells.

I don't understand why why should limit progression and keep a lot of daily resources when we already have an edition that showed us that we can have balance almost across the whole board, keep the progression, at the cost of sacrificing a part of the daily resources. 
This seems to be the way Mike Mearls is heading with his "balancing over the adventure day" idea that I don't like at all. The first problem it creates is that while an encounter is pretty easy to define, an adventuring day changes widely so that now he has to tell us what the average adventuring day length has to be in order to balance the game.
Once again the best way to balance the game is to throw away vancian casting. It seems that WotC is not willing to do that and then the disease will spread all over the game.


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## Kraydak (Jul 17, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The real issue is that 15 minute adventuring days are unbalanced in favor of the classes that have daily resources. That's it.




While this statement may seem obvious,* it isn't really true*.  Lets look at a 9th level 1e wizard load out (generic adventuring) from a game I played in (disclaimer: I don't have my books on me, so this might be a bit off, not much though):
5) Wall of Force
4) Charm Monster, Major Globe of Invulnerability (I always wanted Wall of Fire, sigh)
3) Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt (sometimes Fireball), Invisibility 10'
2) Home-brew Magic Missile upgrade (1d4+2 per, longer range)X2, Web, Levitate maybe?  Knock?  Invisibility?
1) Magic MissileX2, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, One other.

Did he "win fights" when he unloaded?  No!  He could let us escape an unwinnable fight (Wall of Force).  If the fight has several quite powerful opponents, Charm Monster (after Prayers went up for the saving throw penalties) could be *really* helpful.  It did save us a few times.  A well placed Lightning Bolt (yay bouncing!) or Fireball could clear a swarm of ranged opponents, or do some nice softening up.  But that is *3* spells.  Only *1* of which might be viewed as something close to a fight winner, but if so, odds were the target would save.  The Fighters did lots more damage than the Magic Missiles, round after round.  Even when we knew we had a specific, dangerous fight coming up, it was the Fighters who did the heavy lifting.  Oh, the Clerics helped, a lot.  We could get doubled Prayer bonuses, which really, really added up.  Magic Circle against Evil 10' was yummy almost beyond words (longish duration).  Strength could get the Thief into str-bonuses to damage which mattered when he could get off a dual-wielding X5 backstab.  But at the end of the day, it was the Fighters who held the line and did the damage, be it a big fight or small.


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## Bluenose (Jul 17, 2012)

Kraydak said:


> Did he "win fights" when he unloaded?  No!  He could let us escape an unwinnable fight (Wall of Force).  If the fight has several quite powerful opponents, Charm Monster (after Prayers went up for the saving throw penalties) could be *really* helpful.  It did save us a few times.  A well placed Lightning Bolt (yay bouncing!) or Fireball could clear a swarm of ranged opponents, or do some nice softening up.  But that is *3* spells.  Only *1* of which might be viewed as something close to a fight winner, but if so, odds were the target would save.




On the other hand, that's 1e. 3e style saving throws make it much easier to find a spell that'll trivialise an encounter. Odds are that if you pick the right one, the target(s) won't save.


Out of curiosity, for the people who've experienced the 15 minute work day, have you found it in games other than D&D? Outside of situations where combat ended with someone crippled, I haven't. Even in Runequest, where there are lots more resources to track than D&D bothers with.


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## erleni (Jul 17, 2012)

Bluenose said:


> Out of curiosity, for the people who've experienced the 15 minute work day, have you found it in games other than D&D? Outside of situations where combat ended with someone crippled, I haven't. Even in Runequest, where there are lots more resources to track than D&D bothers with.




Not really. Somebody being crippled was more or less the only reason to rest.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 17, 2012)

Kraydak said:


> While this statement may seem obvious,* it isn't really true*.  Lets look at a 9th level 1e wizard load out (generic adventuring) from a game I played in (disclaimer: I don't have my books on me, so this might be a bit off, not much though):
> 5) Wall of Force
> 4) Charm Monster, Major Globe of Invulnerability (I always wanted Wall of Fire, sigh)
> 3) Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt (sometimes Fireball), Invisibility 10'
> ...




Compare that to a 3E caster. He'd have about 1 to two spell slots more per level.

On the other hand, compare it to a 4E spellcaster. He'd have only 3 daily spells (maybe 6 if we count utilities, and we probably should, since some of your spells are utlities.). And of course, the 4E Fighter also has these 3 Dailies...


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## Minigiant (Jul 17, 2012)

The 5 minute workday problem is a result of...


The system's learning curve and workload on DM.

The DM has to be experienced, creative, and have lots of time to plan out pacing.

D&D is just too unfriendly. The system is made with so many gaps for the DM to fill. This is why some don't experience the problem, they have experienced DMs and experienced players who notice the problems and fix it.

The 5 minute workday is a group problem *caused* by a game system flaw.


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## pemerton (Jul 17, 2012)

Bluenose said:


> Out of curiosity, for the people who've experienced the 15 minute work day, have you found it in games other than D&D?



In Rolemaster I've found it to be a huge issue.

In one campaign, it ended up that everyone played casters - so the whole party was on a daily nova/recharge cycle.

In another campaign, we nerfed casters (by limiting spell selection and eliminating the default spell-buffing items) so that, when they nova-ed, they were about as good as non-casters.



delericho said:


> I always felt that the 15-min AD was a playstyle issue anyway. After all, in 4e there is not a single thing stopping the party from throwing their every Daily power, magic item, and Action Point at the very first encounter, and then declaring that they were taking a rest.





Kraydak said:


> I can't see how this article is objectionable.  The only two ways around short workdays are either:
> a) everything is a per-encounter ability (including hp), so the "workday" becomes meaningless,
> b) the DM pacing the adventure so the party isn't forced to blow too many (limited) resources early.





Chris_Nightwing said:


> I don't really understand. The DM's role isn't to combat the players, it's just to facilitate the ongoing game, the stories, adventures and challenges.
> 
> If there's an orc stronghold that needs raiding, then if you dive in, burn all your resources immediately and decide to retreat then they will respond. They'll call up reinforcements, attack the players' camp, build barricades and so on.



The issue isn't about stopping to rest - it's about the imbalance between nova-ing classes (eg spellcasters) and other classes (eg fighters and rogues).

Mearls even notes the problem in the column, but doesn't say anything about how to handle it.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> According to some posters on this site, that does not avoid this, and they have noted the existence of the 15MWD in 4Ed.



The main point is, that in 4e (pre-Essentials) it won't cause a balance problem between PCs with different classes.



Mattachine said:


> Why didn't this seem to be as much of a problem in older editions? Module/adventure design typically had wandering monsters, no safe rest zones, or a time limit.



It was an issue when I GMed Against the Giant in the mid-80s.



UngeheuerLich said:


> The day now is our encounter!Just as in 4e, you were doing encounters in waves and such to allow a bit of a breather and to make it more dynamic, that design principle is now used for the whole day.





Iosue said:


> the Encounter is being stretched out to a whole day.



The problem with this is that the encounter is a natural unit of play for many playstyles. (Ie all those based on strong scene framing.) Whereas "the day" is an arbitrary unit of ingame time - unless you change it in the sort of way that [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] and [MENTION=71811]Badapple[/MENTION] have talked about.

For me, at least, there seems to be an element of railroading in mandating a precise number of rounds of combat between rests. Under this approach, how do the players get to shape what happens in the gameworld?



Kamikaze Midget said:


> I have every confidence that those who don't like vancian magic will be able to swap it out. In fact, if you just time shift your daily rest to happen after every encounter, and put all your requisite monsters into each encounter (or have some sort of solo or super-solo encounter), _you've just gotten rid of Daily magic with one easy rule._



But I still have to have encounters of a minimum level of dangerousness to balance fighters and rogues against casters - otherwise the casters will dominate, as Mearls himself notes. This is not a requirement in 4e, and I'm not sure I want to go backwards in this respect.



UngeheuerLich said:


> I don´t want the 4 encounters assumed per day as in 4e



There is no "assumed encounters per day" in 4e. You can run easy encounters, or challenging ones, at a very wide variation in encounters per day, because what makes an encounter challenging is somewhat independent of a party's overall resources, because the mechanics (the need to unlock healing surges, action points, pre-Essentials magic item usage) put limits on the amount of a party's total resources that it can deploy in any given encounter.



LostSoul said:


> I wonder which playstyles promote the 5-minute workday and which don't.



For me, it's been a big issue in classic D&D and Rolemaster, where casters are ineffective without their daily resources, and a non-issue in 4e, where healing surges provide the only hard cap, and the players have shown they can win level-equivalent combats on encounter powers and three healing surges across a party of 5 PCs.

So for my group, at least, they will push on with their PCs as long as (i) they have viable resources to draw on, and (ii) they are confident they won't be hosed.

These two things are related, but (i) is more a question of active resources available, whereas (ii) is more about the passive buffer against bad luck. Hence why healing surges tend to be a hard cap in 4e play.

The mechanics I need, then, are mechanics that make it transparent to the players what their resources are (4e is particularly good at this, I think) and that makes it easy for me, as GM, to build encounters that are of a reliable level of difficulty. Unpredictability or excessive swinginess reduces the players' confidence that they won't be hosed, which in turn reduces their confidence that they have viable resources to draw on, which in turn encourages them to rest to maximise their available resources.



LostSoul said:


> If you get into a fight, lose some HP, and there's no cost to getting them back - might as well get them back.



Within reason. If I'm hungry, a sandwhich might do. It's not necessarily rational or reasonable to hold out for a whole truck of sandwhiches, even if I've got reason to think one might come by any moment.

4e sends the signals here especially clearly, via its hp/healing surge mechanic. But even without that mechanic, if it's clear that a typical combat is not going to do more than X damage per PC, then a buffer of 2X hp is probably enough for rational and reasonable players. Which is why I think reliable encounter building tools are so important. (Of course, this is also risking the production of encounters that are boring until the last one for the day, because before then no one is at risk of dropping - but this is a different pacing consequence of the 4e hp/surge system. Though the elegance of that system is demonstrated by the way it simultaneously helps resolve too quite different pacing issues, of boring attrition combats and the 15-minute day.)


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 17, 2012)

Bluenose said:


> On the other hand, that's 1e. 3e style saving throws make it much easier to find a spell that'll trivialise an encounter. Odds are that if you pick the right one, the target(s) won't save.






Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Compare that to a 3E caster. He'd have about 1 to two spell slots more per level.




This is why the 15 min workday problem started cropping up in 3E and wasn't a big deal in earlier editions that featured actual checks & balances on casters. More spell slots, more difficult saves, easy spell prep time, little fear of disruption, utility spells easily carried in massive quantities via wands. Is it any wonder that casters were super powered ?

 The 9th level wizard Kraydak used in the example would need 8.75 hours of prep time to ready a full complement of spells _after _a full nights rest (15 min per spell level per spell). A magic user didn't nova at the drop of a hat because replentishing those resources was more time consuming. 

Well, taking that time to prepare spells was declared unfun by powers at WOTC and the PEW PEW era was born. The whining about the superiority of casters including the 15 min workday hasn't stopped since. 

If you want the problem to go away, then return the checks and balances that kept it from being a problem in the first place. Fewer spell slots, no at-will magic nonsense, risky casting in combat, longer prep times, and no bazillion extra spell slots through wands.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 17, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> If you want the problem to go away, then return the checks and balances that kept it from being a problem in the first place. Fewer spell slots, no at-will magic nonsense, risky casting in combat, longer prep times, and no bazillion extra spell slots through wands.



I think the main problem is the number of spells 3E casters had.

At-Will Magic is not a problem. 4E has at-will spells, and the spellcasters aren't overpowered. The at-will spells need to be balanced against other at-will things, like firing a bow. 
Reflex Save to negate 1d6+INT fire damage compares reasonably to a bow or sword.

I also don't think you absolutely need stuff like casting on the defense / damage having you lose a spell and the action you used to cast it. That's way too costly and too swingy. Spellcasting shouldn't be a constant source of frustration for the spellcaster player either.
Longer preperation times actually sound reasonable, since a fighter also doesn't get back all his hit points every night. If hit points are to set the pace, then spell replenishment must conform.

But something like no more than 2 spell slots per level and only up to 7 spell levels (not counting cantrips) could significantly limit the power of spellcasters.

That said, this still doesn't remove all of the entire nova problem. If the spellcaster can cast the equivalent of 5 5d6 fireballs a day at high levels, and the fighter only gets his 1d12+15 damage per action, that's 5 rounds and quite possibly one entire combat that the wizard will vastly outshine the fighter (in fact, fighter, rogue and ranger together). That's still a ton of nova potential, and I would still assume the Wizard has the ability cast utility spells like Fly, Alter Self, Knock and Rary's Telepathic Bond...

Now, if the same level Fighter also has 10 extra actions per day, he may be have similar nova potential as the wizard...



> Well, taking that time to prepare spells was declared unfun by powers at  WOTC and the PEW PEW era was born. The whining about the superiority of  casters including the 15 min workday hasn't stopped since.



Going by people complaining about the 15 minute workday, the phenomen did exist before 3E inception. What didn't exist was EN World.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 17, 2012)

I am glad they are taking this approach. Definitely more what I was hoping to see. My only complaint is I hope they don't simply rely on resource management to balance out wizards. Casting time, spell failure, low hp, low attacks bonuses, spell interuptions, etc all need to be in the mix. I like my wizards powerful but balanced out with negatives such as these. Good for flavor and my style of play.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 17, 2012)

pemerton said:
			
		

> But I still have to have encounters of a minimum level of dangerousness to balance fighters and rogues against casters - otherwise the casters will dominate, as Mearls himself notes. This is not a requirement in 4e, and I'm not sure I want to go backwards in this respect




I imagine it will only be as important as the "one monster per character" or "encounter XP" threshold in 4e.

That is, you can have a 4e "encounter" with 3 minions as your only encounter for the day if you want. It isn't well balanced -- it's super-easy, something I personally wouldn't want to even roll dice for -- but you can certainly have it. If you have a lot of encounters like this, or it most of your encounters are like this, your controllers dominate.

You can also have a 4e encounter with 12 Level 25 Solos if you want. It also isn't well balanced. It also isn't something I'd personally bother rolling dice for usually. But you can have it. 

I imagine you can do the same thing in 5e. 5e might give you an "XP per day" budget in the same way 4e gives you an XP per encounter target. It might also or instead just give you advice like the Caves of Chaos gives you advice.

What are we meant to be going "backwards" on here?


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## Kraydak (Jul 17, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> That said, this still doesn't remove all of the entire nova problem. If the spellcaster can cast the equivalent of 5 5d6 fireballs a day at high levels, and the fighter only gets his 1d12+15 damage per action, that's 5 rounds and quite possibly one entire combat that the wizard will vastly outshine the fighter (in fact, fighter, rogue and ranger together). That's still a ton of nova potential, and I would still assume the Wizard has the ability cast utility spells like Fly, Alter Self, Knock and Rary's Telepathic Bond...




Well, 5d6 Save for 1/2 (17.5 or 8.75) isn't that great compared to 1d12+15 (21.5).  If targets save noticeably more often than the Fighter misses, it becomes really questionable who is doing better.  The Fighter is winning against the Solo or Elites while the Wizard is winning on the small-fry.  Of course, small-fry is often very dangerous if neglected.

Really though, there are two problems.  The Nova problem fundamentally is a case of escalation:
DM: whee, weak random encounter
Caster: I've got spare spells, I'll burn one.
DM: hmm, too easy, the next "weak" random encounter will be nastier
Caster: Uh oh, that looks a bit nasty, I'd better burn a few spells
DM: hmm, needs to be stronger yet
Caster: YIKES, BURN IT WITH FIRE!! Oh wait, I spent most of my spells, and I need to cast a LOT every fight. Look guys, we need to rest or we are doomed.
DM: Stupid 5 minute work-day, my plots don't work any more.

Added more spell slots just makes it take longer to get to the final stage.  Removing daily spell slots jumps you to the final stage, without the sleeping.  All fights are big and choreographed, but no 5 minute work day.  However, giving the casters *few* enough powerful spell slots means that the positive feed back never triggers.

In parallel, you have the issue of Novaeing casters potentially outshining non-casters.  That can be dealt with by keeping the spell power-levels in line.  Say a high level wizard has 1 2-fighter-round-equivalent (FRE) slot, 2 1.5FRE slots, 3 1FRE slots and 4 .5 FRE slots and infinite 0.1FRE slots.  Then after 6 rounds he has generated 8 FRE, is at parity after round 10, and falls rapidly behind from there.  If Full-Burn encounter last 10 rounds+, the Wizard doesn't dominate.  He is, however, really useful by providing an emergency power boost in the crucial early rounds of combat.  Of course, measuring a Wall of Force in terms of FRE is, shall we say, tricky, but the point is clear, and the conclusion is all the safer the more the Wizard is pushed away from Nukes and towards temporary battlefield shaping.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 17, 2012)

TO EVERY PLAYER WHO HAS THUS FAR SAID THAT UNLESS THIS '5 MINUTE WORKDAY' ISSUE GETS SOLVED MECHANICALLY BY WOTC, THEY WILL NOT MAKE THE SWITCH TO 5E...

Whatever rules and pacing ideas you instituted in your current D&D edition of choice to combat this same exact problem (which has existed in every edition of D&D up to this point whether you want to admit it or not)...

..._use that for 5E_.

There ya go.  You don't have to "do more work", because you've already done it.  Just port it over.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 17, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> At-Will Magic is not a problem. 4E has at-will spells, and the spellcasters aren't overpowered. The at-will spells need to be balanced against other at-will things, like firing a bow.
> Reflex Save to negate 1d6+INT fire damage compares reasonably to a bow or sword.




A bow requires arrows. The one benefit of the mundane fighter is the energizer bunny effect. Giving casters at-will magic AND the ability to nova negates that. 




Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I also don't think you absolutely need stuff like casting on the defense / damage having you lose a spell and the action you used to cast it. That's way too costly and too swingy. Spellcasting shouldn't be a constant source of frustration for the spellcaster player either.




Its only frustrating if you see spellcasting as something that _has to be done every round in order for the wizard to "feel magical". _Knowing when to use magic is part of playing a magic user. 





Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> That said, this still doesn't remove all of the entire nova problem. If the spellcaster can cast the equivalent of 5 5d6 fireballs a day at high levels, and the fighter only gets his 1d12+15 damage per action, that's 5 rounds and quite possibly one entire combat that the wizard will vastly outshine the fighter (in fact, fighter, rogue and ranger together). That's still a ton of nova potential, and I would still assume the Wizard has the ability cast utility spells like Fly, Alter Self, Knock and Rary's Telepathic Bond...




At those levels, "going nova" will be a terrible power drain that takes a while to recover. After such a depletion the wizard will be very vulnerable for a nights sleep AND a day or more to prepare new spells. Not something that you would want to do just to easy-mode a typical fight.





Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Now, if the same level Fighter also has 10 extra actions per day, he may be have similar nova potential as the wizard...




Turning a fighter into a caster has been tried already. 




Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Going by people complaining about the 15 minute workday, the phenomen did exist before 3E inception. What didn't exist was EN World.




You may be correct. Surely if the issue is as old as D&D then it would be addressed in Dragon Magazine at some point prior to 3E?  Perhaps someone wrote an article to fix the issue or complained about it in the _forum _column.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 17, 2012)

My only concern with the article is mearls seems to be falling into the trap of building adventures around encounters, which plagued 3e in my opinion (whether this was an issue in 4e I dont know). I do like that they are letting wizards breath once again, but reviewing the article it seems to me he is talking about structuring the game around x number encounters per day. This is why all those other balancing factors are so important and cant be overlooked. Resource management is one factor among many that have the built in trade off of being a wizard work. Focus too much on just resource management and the gm is forced to have x number encounters per day as his balancing tool. So while I am glad to see that they seem to get where many of us who complained about 4e are coming from, the article does raise some concerns I think.


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## keterys (Jul 17, 2012)

It was actually a really obvious problem in the computer games, if you've played those. Though UI problems in, say, Pool of Radiance, made it more _painful_ to rememorize spells so it was slightly less obvious.

So, I mean, it's certainly existed for a long time.

I think it's slightly more problematic when it's disproportionately effective for some characters and not others. Ie, if the fighter and rogue gets almost nothing from resting, and the wizard and cleric get almost everything...

This also is a problem from the perspective of a DM having NPCs to fight against PCs. An NPC fighter expected to last only a couple rounds of combat is _far_ less powerful than an NPC wizard expected to last those same couple rounds. This was particularly obvious in 3e's CR system.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> TO EVERY PLAYER WHO HAS THUS FAR SAID THAT UNLESS THIS '5 MINUTE WORKDAY' ISSUE GETS SOLVED MECHANICALLY BY WOTC, THEY WILL NOT MAKE THE SWITCH TO 5E...
> 
> Whatever rules and pacing ideas you instituted in your current D&D edition of choice to combat this same exact problem (which has existed in every edition of D&D up to this point whether you want to admit it or not)...
> 
> ...




4E minimizes the problem at a system level, by reducing the impact of the Daily nova and equalizing daily resources across all (non-essentials)classes. 5E appears to offer neither.

I don't have to institute anything. Your solution falls flat. 

My solution to non-4E editions was to play 4E instead. That looks like my solution for 5E as well.


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## Iosue (Jul 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> The problem with this is that the encounter is a natural unit of play for many playstyles. (Ie all those based on strong scene framing.) Whereas "the day" is an arbitrary unit of ingame time - unless you change it in the sort of way that [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] and [MENTION=71811]Badapple[/MENTION] have talked about.



The converse of what you say is equally true.  The day is a natural unit of play for many playstyles, whereas designing the game around encounters can make them feel artificial and contrived.  The goal, then, is to provide malleable rules that can fit both sides.

It is not unusual, even in 4e, for a DM to plan out certain points where the PCs can take a rest (whether they are used or not being generally up to the players).  The same could then be done in 5e.  The DM takes their daily budget of XP, and plans out their scenes.  A skirmish here, some puzzle or trap there, topped off with a mini-Boss.  It's really no different from 4e now, except now you have a further meta-framing device to help design your stories.



> For me, at least, there seems to be an element of railroading in mandating a precise number of rounds of combat between rests. Under this approach, how do the players get to shape what happens in the gameworld?



I don't see where there's any railroading, or any mandating a precise number of rounds.  I think that's akin to someone saying that all encounters must be balanced in 4e.  All Mearls is talking about is a tool to gauge how much a party might have to face before taking a rest.  And DMs are entirely free to ignore it.  Or they can always keep their adventure days under budget, so the PCs never _have_ to rest.  Or they can overbudget, so that the players are constantly having to rest, if that's the kind of game they dig.


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## Dark Mistress (Jul 17, 2012)

Let me first say I am not saying the 15min adventuring day is not a problem for some people. It has never really been a problem for me and my group though. Fairly recently I got involved with a second group and i was running. The group was 6 players, 2 that was vets to my old group as well and was use to how we played and 4 new people. The new players where all experienced players but I found out later the games they had played in there was never any downside to resting. If they stopped mid dungeon and went and rested when they came back the monster in the 2nd room was still there waiting for them just like it would have been had the opened the door before they rested. After a few adventures they told me that is what they was use to.

This is the story of how things went, we was using PFRPG.

First adventure the part is after McGruffin in a old temple. A goblin tribe had moved in and found undead. they closed the undead off in rooms or sections of the old temple and lived in the rest of it. The party manages to clear the first level, the cleric uses many of his channelings to hurt undead instead of heal the party(using it when no one was hurt but there was undead around), the wizard burns through his spells very quickly as well. By the time the first level is clear they was out of spells and the melee's where getting low on HP. So they leave the temple and go to a old hunting lodge they found a few hours away as a safe place to securely camp and rest.

The goblins who had a alarmed sounded had a ambushed set up at the entrance to the 2nd level. They waited and waited and when no one came they sent up scouts. The found all their dead kin and then found all the dead undead. They had been unable to defeat the undead and had been forced to trap them. Now the goblins are scared of the things that killed everything and afraid they will come back. So the goblins gather what they can carry and run away to find a new home.

The party comes back the next day finds most of the second level empty and easily after only a couple of encounters find and get the McGruffin. After the adventure we talked and some of the players asked where the goblins went(they was wanting the xp and treasure from them) I explained what happened and that the goblins left. They seem dumbfounded, they agreed it made sense and in the goblins place they would have done it too, but had said no GM had ever done that with them before.

Second adventure, while staying in town orcs and a wizard raid it in the middle of the night stealing something from the church. The party tries to track them and fails at night so has to wait till first light. They track them back to a old fort, they try to sneak in and make it a ways before the alarm is sounded. They still manage to clear out the fort and the renforcement group that came up. So then they head down into the dungeon under it where the other orcs came from. But can only go a short way due to burning off of spells and healing rapidly.(like the cleric burning a channeling to heal when only one person is hurt instead of saving it till when more people was hurt etc)

So they retreat back to town only a few hours away and camp. The next day they go back find the orcs had set up some traps, barricades etc. The wizard had cast alarm at the entrance to the dungeon and when the party came back the wizard knew and informed the orcs. So they had to fight the orcs in prepared defenses and in larger numbers per fight, since the orcs knew they was coming. The clear out a lot but not all and are forced to retreat back to town again.

The next day they go back wipe out the last of the orcs but the wizard is no where to be found or the item from the local church. When a orc prisoner is questioned he informs them the wizard completed the ritual with the item the second night and then left, leaving the orcs to twist in the wind.

The party enjoyed both adventures and that the NPC's reacted to what they did, since that time the casters have been a lot more careful with using magic and only use the least amount they think they need to to win the fight. The cleric melee's more and the wizard uses low level scrolls he scribes and cantrips more. Now they with smart resource management press on a lot further in adventures often completing them with out resting.

I have found running like that and players avoid novaing like the plague unless they think they are about to die. To me the key is just running a living breathing world. In the first case getting their goal turned out to be easier, sure they missed out on some xp and treasure. The second case they ended up failing. The first had no time restriction on it, just Goblins that reacted and the second had a time restriction.

Now I am not saying this always works and it is a magic fix cause it's not. I still see the occasionally 15 min adventuring day, but they are pretty rare cause the players and their characters try to avoid them when possible.

Anyways just taking part in the conversation and sharing my own personal experiences and nothing more.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

What is it about "for me, DM intervention and playstyle changes do not solve this problem to a satisfactory degree" that is so damn hard to understand? 

Also, most of the solutions that go down the playstyle/DM line of thought include preserving the Vancian/per-day magic system as one of their premises. For people who have no love for that system and don't take that premise for granted, those solutions are very hollow. The root of the problem is per-day resources, and for people who don't hold per-day magic to be a sacred cow the obvious solution is that per-day needs to change some how.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

> You may be correct. Surely if the issue is as old as D&D then it would be addressed in Dragon Magazine at some point prior to 3E?




I'm not claiming to have perfect recall, but my Dragon collection goes back to issue #44  or so...and I don't recall hearing of the problem until after the year 2000 or so.



> Perhaps someone wrote an article to fix the issue or complained about it in the forum column.




"Dear Dragon, I never thought it would happen to me, but last Saturday night..."


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

> For people who have no love for that system and don't take that premise for granted, those solutions are very hollow.




Then perhaps, for those people, the system IS the problem, and they should try another FRPG with mechanics more to their liking, instead of trying to change D&D into something else.

Many people like Vancian magic- myself included- why take away their fun when you don't have to?


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## Aenghus (Jul 17, 2012)

I suspect a major factor in whether or not the short adventuring day issue appears in a particular group is the personalities of the player or players who make the decisions in the group. Impatient decision makers tend to press ahead regardless of resource issues, and possibly accept high casualty rates as a standard part of play, not attaching much feeling to any one PC. Whereas cautious mastermind types like to plot and plan everything, and will exploit features of the system used for their own and hopefully the group's benefit.

I personally think there's a darwinian selection process towards mastermind type players for casters, as they are so vulnerable to sudden death when played in a more gung ho style. It's easy to run casters badly - just choose less effective spells, use them inappropriately or worse don't use them at all. Badly played casters of the "accidentally fireball their own group" type tend to have a very high casualty rate in my experience as the group themselves force the offending PC to retire or just gank them.

Groups with ineffective casters are less likely to see the short adventuring day problem. There's a vast gulf between naively used casters and those who ruthlessly exploit the potential of the most broken spells in most editions, especially at higher levels.

And for many editions of D&D the issue is the system rewards  effective use of "nova and rest" tactics as written, as it generally reduces group risk and importantly, makes the casters players feel really powerful and dominant, and the non-casters  less relevant. Caster players are incetivised to look for "nova and rest" opportunities as a consequence, and if they are the ones making the group decisions, since it really does reduce group risk and increase goal success probability, it's hard to argue against on a purely in-game basis.


Steps can be taken to make the tactic less effective, and they have been discussed in this thread. There are options that can't be used effectively in some game styles or editions. Mechanics matter, and options in one edition may not work in another.

The most notable examples of short adventuring day in my experience have been in sandbox style games  at mid to high level where the players largely determine their own goals and schedules, especially when they avoid personal entanglements. 

What won't work is asking players to act contrary to their own interest for no reward "for the good of the game". Some players don't find taking higher risks more fun than being more cautious.

And asking players to press ahead will backfire when there are casualties or a TPK from pressing ahead due to DM pressure when the group tried to rest. Players will do what's successful, what they are taught to do. If short adventuring days work they may stick to that. If taking risks results in lots of failure - casualties and/or failure in achieving goals, they will become risk adverse and work hard to avoid taking them.


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## Dark Mistress (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> What is it about "for me, DM intervention and playstyle changes do not solve this problem to a satisfactory degree" that is so damn hard to understand?
> 
> Also, most of the solutions that go down the playstyle/DM line of thought include preserving the Vancian/per-day magic system as one of their premises. For people who have no love for that system and don't take that premise for granted, those solutions are very hollow. The root of the problem is per-day resources, and for people who don't hold per-day magic to be a sacred cow the obvious solution is that per-day needs to change some how.




I am guessing your post right after mine is a response to my post. If so I never said it wasn't a problem for some people or that what I said was a magic fix. I was merely sharing my personal experience with it and how things worked out for my group and I. If anything it highlights how play styles see things drastically differently. I have played in games where resting was never a problem and the group rested a lot.

But it is a reason I don't want to see a game mechanic to fix the problem. Unless the mechanic is a option. For me resource management and pushing on to your limits is one of the biggest appeals of DnD. Anyways not saying your wrong, only offering my different personal experience in a way to join the conversation and nothing more.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

> Groups with ineffective casters are less likely to see the short adventuring day problem.




With respect, I think you have that backwards.

I've been playing in groups with one guy since 1985:  80% of his PCs are wizards, most with as optimized a spell list as any you'd see here.  He rarely casts more than a few spells per encounter, and often has spells left at the end of the day.

And as I've stated before- no 15MWD.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Then perhaps, for those people, the system IS the problem, and they should try another FRPG with mechanics more to their liking, instead of trying to change D&D into something else.
> 
> Many people like Vancian magic- myself included- why take away their fun when you don't have to?




We've had 5 years of D&D without it, more if we include the time between the announcement of 5E and it's eventual release. Like it or not, non-vancian magic a part of D&D now, same as Vancian magic. Why take away our fun?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

1) D&D has always had non-Vancian elements, so their inclusion in the game doesn't bug me- their predominance does.

2) Vancian magic is the rarer mechanic- strip it from D&D, and the Vanceophiles will have few, if any- alternative games from which to choose to scratch that itch.  In contrast, if D&D returns to a more Vancian playstyle, those who hate the mechanic will still have dozens of games in RPG stores from which to choose.  I think it presents a unique game experience worth preserving AND playing.


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## pemerton (Jul 17, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I imagine it will only be as important as the "one monster per character" or "encounter XP" threshold in 4e.
> 
> That is, you can have a 4e "encounter" with 3 minions as your only encounter for the day if you want. It isn't well balanced -- it's super-easy, something I personally wouldn't want to even roll dice for -- but you can certainly have it. If you have a lot of encounters like this, or it most of your encounters are like this, your controllers dominate.



It's fairly straightforward to run a below-EL encounter in 4e in which controllers don't dominate - many minions attacking from different positions, or multiple below-par standards, or some combination of the above. I certainly don't need to run the equivalent of 4 EPL encounters to make intraparty balance work - I know this from experience.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> What are we meant to be going "backwards" on here?



Exactly what I've just described - namely, the ability to run encounters of varied strengths and at varied numbers and intervals without destabilising intraparty balance. Which is a consequence of some prominent mechanical features of 4e - the relatively reduced significance of daily compared to encounter and at-will powers; the fact that you start each encounter at max hp regardless of whether you have 1 or 10 healing surges remaining; the fact that all pre-Essentials classes have the same nova potential.



Iosue said:


> The DM takes their daily budget of XP, and plans out their scenes.  A skirmish here, some puzzle or trap there, topped off with a mini-Boss.  It's really no different from 4e now, except now you have a further meta-framing device to help design your stories.
> 
> I don't see where there's any railroading



This need to plan out is exactly the railroading that I am concerned about. I want each new scene to be the upshot of the previous one _as actually resolved, in play_. Not to be planned in advance in order to make my XP budget work.



Iosue said:


> All Mearls is talking about is a tool to gauge how much a party might have to face before taking a rest.  And DMs are entirely free to ignore it.



But the consequence of this, as Mearls himself points out, is that the balance of effectiveness between casters and noncasters will be upset. Which, as Mustrum Ridcully has been pointing out, is the main problem with the 15 minute day in combination with variable nova potential across classes.



DEFCON 1 said:


> Whatever rules and pacing ideas you instituted in your current D&D edition of choice to combat this same exact problem (which has existed in every edition of D&D up to this point whether you want to admit it or not)...
> 
> ..._use that for 5E_.



I've identified these upthread. I've played all-caster games. I've played games in which casters are nerfed so that, when nova-ing, they reach parity with non-casters. And I've played 4e, which has roughly uniform nova potential across classes. The second and third of these are mechanical solutions. The fact that 4e delivered it without me having to rewrite the system myself was a significant reason for me to choose it over Rolemaster to run gonzo/mythic fantasy.



thecasualoblivion said:


> 4E minimizes the problem at a system level, by reducing the impact of the Daily nova and equalizing daily resources across all (non-essentials)classes. 5E appears to offer neither.



Exactly this.


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## Aenghus (Jul 17, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> With respect, I think you have that backwards.
> 
> I've been playing in groups with one guy since 1985:  80% of his PCs are wizards, most with as optimized a spell list as any you'd see here.  He rarely casts more than a few spells per encounter, and often has spells left at the end of the day.
> 
> And as I've stated before- no 15MWD.




I did say "less likely" not "won't". I'll spell out my reasoning, though. I find there's a much higher level of system mastery needed to play a caster competently over a non-caster. And a badly played caster doesn't pull his or her weight in the party and so their recharge cycle is less relevant to party plans, and they are less likely to cater to them in party scheduling.

The play style of your wizard player sounds similar to the way I tend to play wizards in relevant editions of the game, carefully rationing out spellpower over the day. I don't see why this needs to be the only viable way of playing a wizard though.

It would be nice for the future of D&D if there were wizard-type class options for less patient players as well. I find a bunch of players are attracted to the class for flavour reasons and don't want to ration their power use in this way.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> What is it about "for me, DM intervention and playstyle changes do not solve this problem to a satisfactory degree" that is so damn hard to understand?
> 
> Also, most of the solutions that go down the playstyle/DM line of thought include preserving the Vancian/per-day magic system as one of their premises. For people who have no love for that system and don't take that premise for granted, those solutions are very hollow. The root of the problem is per-day resources, and for people who don't hold per-day magic to be a sacred cow the obvious solution is that per-day needs to change some how.




I dont think it is hard for people to understand. I do grasp that lots of people want an imbedded mechanical solution to this. But for many of us, such a solution is ruinous to our enjoyment of D&D. We like vancian spells per day. If they remove or change vancian spells, people like me wont play. 

That said I love plenty of games that don't use levels, stats, vancian magic, classes, etc. My taste in rpgs is quite broad. But for me, vancian casting is a critical part of what makes D&D the game it is, and one of the reasons I keep coming back to it. If they turn d&d into a different game, then they face the problem of having to sell me on that game from square one. Whereas I have already bought into D&D and am willing to play and buy it.


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## pemerton (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> What is it about "for me, DM intervention and playstyle changes do not solve this problem to a satisfactory degree" that is so damn hard to understand?



The other thing that seems hard to convey that the main issue is not the inanity of the 15 minute day - though that can be inane sometimes - but rather the destabilisation of balance across classes having different nova potential.



Dark Mistress said:


> For me resource management and pushing on to your limits is one of the biggest appeals of DnD.



If you read through this thread, most of those who are concerned about the 15 minute day are not objecting to resource management. They are objecting to PCs being on different resource schedules, such that departures from a mechanically-assumed number of encounters (or rounds of combat, or XP of foes) per day destabilises the balance between those PCs, generally in favour of those (like casters) with high nova potential (because the mechanics permit them to spend all their resources in one rapid burst).

There is already a published version of D&D that maintains a sophisticated resource management economy, but doesn't give rise to the concern that I have just articulated, namely, 4e.

I think it is obvious to everyone that D&Dnext is going to be very different from 4e. But it is equally natural for those who are playing a version of D&D that offers a mechanical solution to the problem Mearls is talking about to be somewhat dissapointed by his failure to acknowledge that he is already publishing a version of the game that solves the problem. And his failure to canvass the range of other solutions that might be available, such as some of the milestone variants that have been mentioned in this and other threads.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Then perhaps, for those people, the system IS the problem, and they should try another FRPG with mechanics more to their liking, instead of trying to change D&D into something else.



And now we seem to be back in that strange world where 4e is not an edition of D&D, and so ought to have no bearing on D&Dnext design.

I can't speak for thecasualoblivion, but for several posters on this (and related threads) _there is a version of D&D that solves the problem_ of nova-induced imbalance, namely, pre-Essentials 4e, which gives every class more-or-less equal nova potential, and does not require any minimum number of combats or XP or rounds in order to preserve intraparty balance.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> We've had 5 years of D&D without it, more if we include the time between the announcement of 5E and it's eventual release. Like it or not, non-vancian magic a part of D&D now, same as Vancian magic. Why take away our fun?




D&D has long had nonvancian magic at the edges. I am not opposed to including other magical mechanics in the game. But if you take vancian out, make wizards and clerics non vancian, I truly believe 5E will fail.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 17, 2012)

I don't want to get rid of Vancian magic, because I like it a lot. However, the main reason that 3E made the 15 minute work day that much more prominent was that it used a naive solution for the problem of "low-level wizard are often under-powered." Pile on more Vancian spells, they aren't under-powered anymore, but you do magnify whatever negative effects are in Vancian spells. This should be obvious, in the same way that a few neighbors in your apartment building running their radio a tad too lad is annoying but tolerable, while half the complex hooking up their systems to guitar amps and turning them up to 11 is not. 

Adding low-powered at-will spells instead of scalable Vancian slots are one way to solve that. Giving the wizards a wider range of useful mundane skills and maybe d6 hit points is another. Heck, just being able to use a crossbow instead of throwing daggers can be part of a solution. Or you can go with the Arcana Unearthed/Evolved intent (if not always execution) of making the spells generally less powerful but more plentiful/flexible.

Even the 3E kick of adding a lot more slots can work, if you are willing to impose sharp limits elsewhere. Let rest recharge one spell level per hour of rest, plus caster ability mod,(thus a 3rd level spell taking 3 hours by itself), double or triple when in a secure, calm location, half when interrupted in a dangerous location. That's 8-12+Mod spell levels in the dungeon, 4-6 (+ Half mod) if a wandering monsters drop by--enough to get back a few key spells or several smaller ones, but by 4th or 5th level, a typical 5E caster is unable to restock completely depleted spells in a single rest. 

All or nothing resources *really* push the players towards "all". The more disproportionate a character's resources skew towards all or nothing, the more the push will be felt. (That's also a criticism of overnight healing of all hit points, though in 4E it would have been significantly muted had hit points been largely restored, but surges not--as then the hit points become almost pure combat pacing while surges become the real resource.) How you change the proportion doesn't matter so much as changing it somehow. Add resources that aren't all or nothing. Drop resources that are. Change resources that are all or nothing so that they are no longer all or nothing. And so forth. There's a point at which the music becomes tolerable again.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 17, 2012)

pemerton said:
			
		

> It's fairly straightforward to run a below-EL encounter in 4e in which controllers don't dominate - many minions attacking from different positions, or multiple below-par standards, or some combination of the above. I certainly don't need to run the equivalent of 4 EPL encounters to make intraparty balance work - I know this from experience.




You're being a bit overly-specific. My example was meant to show that 5e won't necessarily be any more strict about what you MUST include in a day than 4e was. 

If you skew the inputs, your outputs will be skewed. If you use a preponderance of minions, your controllers will feel mightier and your strikers and defenders will feel weaker. If you use a lot of brutes and artillery, your leaders and defenders might shine. With solos, strikers and defenders work their magic. If you have only one encounter in any given day, that day, the Daily abilities might dominate. If you always have 3+ encounters on each day, At-Wills and Encounters get better.If you use a variety, over time, it's not a significant deal: everyone does their thing and no one feels left out. If you run a game wherein your only encounters are ever solos, that's going to skew things. 

There's no game system in existence wherein variety is a possibility that does not have this skew. If you take a game capable of modeling a lancing competition between knights and also picking pockets, and then arrange your game so that most of the time is spent picking pockets, those who invested in mounted combat are not going to contribute as much. And vice-versa. In order to run this hypothetical game of Soldiers & Skullduggery in a "balanced" way, you'll need to include a variety: picking pockets AND mounted combat! 

That's not a strict rule. It's a guideline for balance. It could be a strict rule (YOU MUST ALTERNATE YOUR SOLDIERS WITH YOUR SKULLDUGGERY EVERY HALF HOUR OF GAME PLAY), but I think most folks would rather rightly balk at such a thing. 



			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> Exactly what I've just described - namely, the ability to run encounters of varied strengths and at varied numbers and intervals without destabilising intraparty balance. Which is a consequence of some prominent mechanical features of 4e - the relatively reduced significance of daily compared to encounter and at-will powers; the fact that you start each encounter at max hp regardless of whether you have 1 or 10 healing surges remaining; the fact that all pre-Essentials classes have the same nova potential.




Let us not mistake a guideline for an absolute and then get all Chicken Little, here. You've got the 5e rules in front of you right now, with all their apparently game-breaking Vancian magic, right? Does anything on that page limit your ability to run encounters of varied strengths at varied numbers and intervals? Or has my experience with different monsters, different response rates, different caves, etc. anomalous? Is my reading of the part where they leave the encounter rates up to DM judgement misaligned? 

Or, quite possibly, is it actually not as disastrous as it is being made out to be, here?


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I can't speak for thecasualoblivion, but for several posters on this (and related threads) _there is a version of D&D that solves the problem_ of nova-induced imbalance, namely, pre-Essentials 4e, which gives every class more-or-less equal nova potential, and does not require any minimum number of combats or XP or rounds in order to preserve intraparty balance.




But the problem is that isn't the game many of us want to play. If they want to keep making that game, more power to them. I have said many times they should cut their losses and cater to 4e fans. But if their goal is to bring back people like myself, they cant go back to 4e. It isnt a game I have any interest in playing. I do think it would be nice if they created options which allowed you to layer that kind of game ontop of the core without forcing me to have it in my own campaign. Whether they can do that I dont know. As it is the core already has too many 4E components for my taste. Yet its clear those are not enough to satisfy most 4E fans (in fact it looks like they miss the point entirely based on what 4E fans say about them). 

It does strike me they are genuinely struggling to understand the different groups that play D&D while also working to unite them somehow. That is an enormous goal. If they can make a game that both me and guys like TCO can sit down and enjoy, i will sing their praises. If they can't, at least they tried. Personally I hope the final product is tailored to my preference, but I wouldn't hold it against them if they went a direction that doesn't appeal to me.


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## Harlekin (Jul 17, 2012)

Kraydak said:


> While this statement may seem obvious,* it isn't really true*.  Lets look at a 9th level 1e wizard load out (generic adventuring) from a game I played in (disclaimer: I don't have my books on me, so this might be a bit off, not much though):
> 5) Wall of Force
> 4) Charm Monster, Major Globe of Invulnerability (I always wanted Wall of Fire, sigh)
> 3) Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt (sometimes Fireball), Invisibility 10'
> ...




Of course he could. Wall of force by itself wins fights by splitting the opposition into two manageable batches.  Charm Monster takes out the big bad by itself, if he misses the save (~30% chance). Fireball and Web kill of swarms of small guys. So you still have an "I win" button for basically all encounter types. If you loaded up on multiple Charm Monsters and Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, you could be an even more effective single-fight winner. "Winning a fight" does not mean that you kill all opponents, just that you weaken them enough so that mop-up is trivial.


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## Zaukrie (Jul 17, 2012)

My post doesn't doubt it happens, my post asks if you and your group don't think it is fun, why play that way? And if you are having fun, is it a bog issue or small issue? I have experienced this more in 2e, and personally, I think that it was playstyle driven, but we still had fun.

Sent using Tapatalk 2


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Jul 17, 2012)

Kraydak said:


> 5) Wall of Force
> 4) Charm Monster, Major Globe of Invulnerability (I always wanted Wall of Fire, sigh)
> 3) Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt (sometimes Fireball), Invisibility 10'
> 2) Home-brew Magic Missile upgrade (1d4+2 per, longer range)X2, Web, Levitate maybe?  Knock?  Invisibility?
> ...




That's where you're not thinking tactically enough.  That Wall of Force isn't just an escape button - it's a "Turn a single hard fight into two easy fights" button, by carefully dividing the battlefield.

This absolutely makes you "win fights."



> If the fight has several quite powerful opponents, Charm Monster (after Prayers went up for the saving throw penalties) could be *really* helpful.  It did save us a few times.




Yep.



> A well placed Lightning Bolt (yay bouncing!) or Fireball could clear a swarm of ranged opponents, or do some nice softening up.




That also sounds like "winning a fight" to me, given the huge swing in incoming damage between having 6 enemy archers or wizards shooting / spelling you constantly and them all being dead (assuming, of course, that they aren't on the wrong side of the Wall of Force and therefore not a part of this combat).



> But that is *3* spells.  Only *1* of which might be viewed as something close to a fight winner, but if so, odds were the target would save.




But, from here, it looks like your wizard just spent 3/5ths of his most powerful spells.  He can't do this again - and, like I said, it's likely that those spells did, indeed, win the fight for you.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

> And now we seem to be back in that strange world where 4e is not an edition of D&D, and so ought to have no bearing on D&Dnext design.



Not at all.

I respect certain things about 4Ed.  I think there are certain things they did that ware better than in any other iteration of the game, such as the handling of the Warlock, the introduction of an action point mechanism, actual ritual magic (which should have been better implemented, but hey!) and making all stats matter to the battle optimizers.

Stronger than that, I actually like the game as a game; it IS fun to play.  So I do think it's fair to include it as a source of design inspiration.  (But I would say that anyway: prior revisions have had elements that had been inspired by competitor's games.)

I never said 4Ed wasn't an edition of D&D...but I have often said that it doesn't feel like one, and the magic system is a BIG reason why.  The radical reworking of the magic system so that Vancian magic was, essentially, merely an appendix, is extremely off-putting to many.

Given the number of high-quality FRPGs that don't use Vancian magic at all, it is a puzzler for that subset who enjoy Vancian magic that D&D has to change one of its unique characteristics in order to appeal to players who already have other options.

Hence, the suggestion.


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## Iosue (Jul 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> This need to plan out is exactly the railroading that I am concerned about. I want each new scene to be the upshot of the previous one _as actually resolved, in play_. Not to be planned in advance in order to make my XP budget work.



Then don't do it.

Seriously, as near as I can tell, there will be absolutely nothing preventing you from DM your games just as you do in 4e.  The only difference is that rather than design encounters in a vacuum, you have an added reference -- for a party this size, at this XP level, they'll probably need a rest after X rounds of combat.  You don't have to plan anything in advance.  It's just an extra tool.



> But the consequence of this, as Mearls himself points out, is that the balance of effectiveness between casters and noncasters will be upset. Which, as Mustrum Ridcully has been pointing out, is the main problem with the 15 minute day in combination with variable nova potential across classes.



I disagree that that is what Mearls is saying.  He says, "The important thing from an R&D perspective is that both extremes, and all the points in between, are options for DMs."  The point is that, just as monster roles and Encounter XP budgets gave the DM finer control over adventure design, so will the adventure day rules give DMs finer control over pacing.

You see, the odd thing is this L&L is not meant to persuade 4e players.  4e players should already be aboard.  It's the pre-4e folks he's trying to convince.  Kamikaze Midget speaks wisdom:


> If you skew the inputs, your outputs will be skewed. If you use a preponderance of minions, your controllers will feel mightier and your strikers and defenders will feel weaker. If you use a lot of brutes and artillery, your leaders and defenders might shine. With solos, strikers and defenders work their magic. If you have only one encounter in any given day, that day, the Daily abilities might dominate. If you always have 3+ encounters on each day, At-Wills and Encounters get better.If you use a variety, over time, it's not a significant deal: everyone does their thing and no one feels left out. If you run a game wherein your only encounters are ever solos, that's going to skew things.



In reality, a 4e DM wouldn't (generally) skew the game in such a way because 4e gives these tools for game design.  And yet, it's not railroading to use those tools to avoid the above skewed situations.  The adventure day budget is just in that line.  It's taking something awesome in 4e and improving on it so that folks who don't care for a game where everyone has the same options to nova can play with it, too.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not at all.
> 
> I respect certain things about 4Ed.  I think there are certain things they did that ware better than in any other iteration of the game, such as the handling of the Warlock, the introduction of an action point mechanism, actual ritual magic (which should have been better implemented, but hey!) and making all stats matter to the battle optimizers.
> 
> ...



At the same time, many people thought when 4E dumped Vancian magic "Finally, we get a magic system that doesn't suck!" and these people have less an zero desire to go back. The numbers of the different attitudes can be quibbled over, but you can't dismiss the not wanting to go back attitude out of hand.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

Iosue said:


> I disagree that that is what Mearls is saying.  He says, "The important thing from an R&D perspective is that both extremes, and all the points in between, are options for DMs."  The point is that, just as monster roles and Encounter XP budgets gave the DM finer control over adventure design, so will the adventure day rules give DMs finer control over pacing.




Except that he defines deviating from his X rounds of combat per day scenario as throwing balance out the window and letting casters dominate. What I want is game balance that isnt dependent on the DM being railroaded into having X combats or combat rounds per day. 

That isn't DM control. That is DM can do it, but it'll suck.


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## Kraydak (Jul 17, 2012)

Harlekin said:


> Of course he could. Wall of force by itself wins fights by splitting the opposition into two manageable batches.  Charm Monster takes out the big bad by itself, if he misses the save (~30% chance). Fireball and Web kill of swarms of small guys. So you still have an "I win" button for basically all encounter types. If you loaded up on multiple Charm Monsters and Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, you could be an even more effective single-fight winner. "Winning a fight" does not mean that you kill all opponents, just that you weaken them enough so that mop-up is trivial.




But the wizard *could not* win fights by himself.  The party had *3* core fighters, and a varying set of lower level/henchmen fighters.  Were there times we might have wanted to exchange one of the fighters for a high level wizard?  Yes.  The high level wizard for a fighter?  Also, yes.  In practice, the balance (fighter heavy) was pretty good.  In fights, the fighters dominated, with the wizard acting as support.  If the fight was scary, or the tactical situation *sucked*, the wizard would get involved.  But fundamentally, we brought the wizard around for the strategic utility.  Teleport for long distance travel.  Invis 10' radius.  Dispel Magic.  Fly.  We didn't bring him along for combat.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Jul 17, 2012)

keterys said:


> It was actually a really obvious problem in the computer games, if you've played those. Though UI problems in, say, Pool of Radiance, made it more _painful_ to rememorize spells so it was slightly less obvious.




I thought about posting something along these lines several days ago, but then I deleted my post because I didn't want to get into a videogames argument.

But, since you brought it up, Pool of Radiance (a 1E-based game) was absolutely affected by the 15-minute adventuring day, especially at low levels.  Okay, technically, it was the hour-long adventuring day, but 30 minutes of that was leaving town and walking into the Slums.

At low levels, you just didn't have the resources to continue on past 1 or, maybe, two fights.  Your Magic-User had a single sleep spell - which could win one figh for you.  But your cleric, similarly, only had a single (or just a couple; my memory fails me!) Cure Light Wounds.  So, if one of your fighter-types got tagged by a monster, that was it - you were out of healing resources for the day.  At which point, it's silly to continue on with the adventure, because of the risk of running into wandering monsters on the way back to town.

So you walk into the Slums, fight once or twice, and return to town - the 15-minute adventuring day.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 17, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not at all.
> 
> I respect certain things about 4Ed.  I think there are certain things they did that ware better than in any other iteration of the game, such as the handling of the Warlock, the introduction of an action point mechanism, actual ritual magic (which should have been better implemented, but hey!) and making all stats matter to the battle optimizers.
> 
> ...



Personally, I believe you could retain a lot of the Vancian magic style.
Say, keep the wizard as it is now in the playtest.

But now look at the non-spellcasters. Give them daily resources. They don't need to work like spells or powers. The Fighter already can a few times per day take an extra action. We don't know yet how this scales, but I think fundamentally, even if the fighter has exactly as many extra actions per day as the Wizard, it won't be enough, since the Wizard abilities tend to be stronger than a single melee or ranged attack is.

So come up with additional stuff. At the level Wizard gets his first save or die spell, give the Fighter a hit and kill attack maneuver. When the Cleric gets his first Cure Serious Wounds, give the Fighter a unique fighting stance that generates temporary hit points until he ends it. When the Wizard can cast Knock, the Rogue gets an ability something that knocks it open.

At higher level, offer new types of feats or themes that let the non-casters pick up magical tricks, like dimension door. Or cast rituals like Teleport. 

You don't need to give the Wizard AEDU to fix the balance problem. You just need to give the non-spellcasters the D. 

The only problem is that there are people out there that think daily powers cannot be non-magical, and will refuse an edition with such a solution. That may already be a problem right now, though.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Personally, I believe you could retain a lot of the Vancian magic style.
> Say, keep the wizard as it is now in the playtest.
> 
> But now look at the non-spellcasters. Give them daily resources. They don't need to work like spells or powers. The Fighter already can a few times per day take an extra action. We don't know yet how this scales, but I think fundamentally, even if the fighter has exactly as many extra actions per day as the Wizard, it won't be enough, since the Wizard abilities tend to be stronger than a single melee or ranged attack is.
> ...




It doesn't solve the entire issue. The other half of the imbalance problem is that daily powered classes are unbalanced against the encounters themselves if you deviate from the guidelines. If there is only one encounter, they just nuke it with daily powers. You could just have an epic encounter that requires going nova, but maybe you don't want to for story reasons or that it would take longer to resolve than you want.

Daily powers balanced around attrition force that attrition, if you care about balance. You can't run a low combat game without dumping balance or DM heavy-handedness, and you can't vary the level of combat between adventures without the same.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> At the same time, many people thought when 4E dumped Vancian magic "Finally, we get a magic system that doesn't suck!" and these people have less an zero desire to go back. The numbers of the different attitudes can be quibbled over, but you can't dismiss the not wanting to go back attitude out of hand.



I'm not dismissing the "not wanting to go back" crew- in a certain sense, the rubicon was crossed with the release of 4Ed.

I'm making the observation that the key difference is in number of alternatives available if Vancian magic disappears from D&D:

Fans of Vance: few choices- mostly 3.5 clones.

Vance dislikers: the majority of the FRPG market

I don't think anyone has argued that all casters in 5Ed need to be Vancian- I know _I haven't_- but the pro-Vancians would like the iconic Wizard at least to return to its roots.

And even THAT doesn't neccessarily mean the Wizard is just photocopied from 3.5.  For example, when I first heard of 4Ed being developed, I thought the mechanics & role of Reserve feats might be tweaked & expanded, perhaps even baked into the Wizard class, giving the class a way to do something "magical" all the time...though still variable from PC to PC.


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## mlund (Jul 17, 2012)

In the end, it is all about *Momentum*. Drama, action, comedy - they all live and die based on timing. "Alpha Strike. Rest. Alpha Strike. Rest," is terrible timing. There's no momentum - it tends to rob the game of gravitas, urgency, and immersion. Yet the game's mechanics themselves encourage this. Depleted resources increase risk without any corresponding increase in rewards. It is a sucker's bet as *the momentum of sequential encounters is complete against the interests of player characters*.

If momentum boosted character performance (bonuses to hit, damage, HP, spells, etc.) directly it might be harder to keep balance within a given adventure. Momentum boosting loot is a kettle of fish that might break verisimilitude for some people.

So how else do you motivate players focused on risk-reward for charging headlong into escalating danger?

*Escalating Experience Points*

Back in AD&D who ever skipped out on the 10% XP boost from having a high score in a key attribute? Crazy people, that's who.

Give players some sort of progressive multiplier for XP that resets with an Extended Rest. Something like this: XP * (.9 + (.1 * E)) where E is the number of Encounters between rests and XP is Experience Points accumulated in those encounters. 

A 1 Encounter work-day gives you regular XP for the encounter.
A 2 Encounter work-day gives you 110% XP for both encounters.
A 3 Encounter work-day gives you 120% XP for all 3 encounters.

If you somehow manage to clear 11 Encounters between extended rests you get Double XP for the day - and your poor character *earned* it.

As to a nice fluffy rule-book text:

"Once the party takes an Extended Rest tally the total experience points budgeted to challenges defeated by the party since the last Extended Rest. For each encounter beyond the first increase the awarded XP by 10%. So if the party defeated 4 encounters worth a total of 2000 XP the total reward would be 2,600 XP (130% of 1000XP) divided among the party members."

It's a little bit of math, but nothing outside the scope of what you'd see in the AD&D re-release books they are selling now. Plus it's DM-specific math so it doesn't slow down the game.

- Marty Lund


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## keterys (Jul 17, 2012)

You'd probably have to do it based on total XP for the day, rather than # of encounters.

That is to say, if someone faces 10 encounters each 1 kobold, that's not necessarily worth more xp than 1 encounter with 10 kobolds or 5 encounters with 2 kobolds.

But it's probably good to reward the person who faces 10 encounters with 5 kobolds.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 17, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> It doesn't solve the entire issue. The other half of the imbalance problem is that daily powered classes are unbalanced against the encounters themselves if you deviate from the guidelines. If there is only one encounter, they just nuke it with daily powers. You could just have an epic encounter that requires going nova, but maybe you don't want to for story reasons or that it would take longer to resolve than you want.
> 
> Daily powers balanced around attrition force that attrition, if you care about balance. You can't run a low combat game without dumping balance or DM heavy-handedness, and you can't vary the level of combat between adventures without the same.



I think that is a minor issue. If you want the combat to be challenging, you can always do it (without imbalancing the characters against each other), and if you have reasons not to do so, well, don't and accept that the encounter will be easy. It is not that difficult, mechanically speaking, to add NPCs or adjust NPC levels usually. But it's very difficult to impossible to create encounters that challenge a weak character and a strong character equally.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 17, 2012)

keterys said:


> You'd probably have to do it based on total XP for the day, rather than # of encounters.
> 
> That is to say, if someone faces 10 encounters each 1 kobold, that's not necessarily worth more xp than 1 encounter with 10 kobolds or 5 encounters with 2 kobolds.
> 
> But it's probably good to reward the person who faces 10 encounters with 5 kobolds.




Yes.  Just put the XP award on a logarithmic scale, with a chart that shows how to adjust the total.  There's an expected value that is considered baseline for a given level, and then a multiplier to reduce or increase the stated amount by creatures and straight challenge based on the log of the given XP.  

It's true that you'll get XP more safely by fighting four or five fights in one "day" and adding them all up rather than fighting those same opponents in fewer fights.  OTOH, the fewer fights will allow the players to maximize their big guns.  

Though I think the same principle that Marty expounded applied to something besides XP might be a better fit in the long run, leaving XP as a character growth pacing mechanism for the default.  (Using XP as a reward works well in a subset of playstyles.)  A more fully developed action point currency would be my first candidate.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 17, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I think that is a minor issue. If you want the combat to be challenging, you can always do it (without imbalancing the characters against each other), and if you have reasons not to do so, well, don't and accept that the encounter will be easy. It is not that difficult, mechanically speaking, to add NPCs or adjust NPC levels usually. But it's very difficult to impossible to create encounters that challenge a weak character and a strong character equally.




Making the encounter more challenging inevitably involved making the encounter take longer to resolve. If the point having less encounters was to spend less time on them, it's not a minor issue. If the plot doesn't call for multiple combats but also doesn't call for a big epic grindfest, it's not a minor issue.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 18, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> The only problem is that there are people out there that think daily powers cannot be non-magical, and will refuse an edition with such a solution. That may already be a problem right now, though.




The thing is, while you could add martial dailies or whatever back into the core of the game, they aren't really necessary to achieve a balanced result. There's no sense in raising the specter of how you justify that in fiction, and alienating everyone who looked at those black bars in 4e and snubbed their noses at it, since it's not really necessary. Not everyone needs daily resources in order to have balance. They CAN, but they needn't. Putting them in doesn't gain you anything that simply _paying attention to the XP totals of your adventuring day_ doesn't give you, and it looses you a chunk of the public who shall brook no Fighter Daily.

That said, you certainly don't hear quite as much of an outcry over the Fighter's Surge (possibly in part due to it not being a rigidly defined power, but more a general resource), so that might be a track they can take, to a limited degree. But even that doesn't come 'till 3rd level, and I haven't heard a peep out of any tests that I've undergone about the 15 minute work day, so it STILL seems superfluous to me. If part of the goal in the core is to deliver a raw bare-bones D&D experience that is fun to play, martial dailies are NOT a requirement. They're fine, they're just inessential, which makes them a great option, but perhaps not an assumed part of the core, if the core is trying to do "bare-bones D&D."

I, personally, am kind of fond of the Fighter's Surge, mostly for how it splits that hair on martial dailies. I recognize, though, that it isn't something required for a balanced game, merely a fun option.


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## Balesir (Jul 18, 2012)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Pool of Radiance (a 1E-based game) was absolutely affected by the 15-minute adventuring day, especially at low levels.  Okay, technically, it was the hour-long adventuring day, but 30 minutes of that was leaving town and walking into the Slums.



Yep - I've been playing this again recently as "research" for a 4e conversion I'm hoping to run, and a 15MAD (OK, or 60MAD, or whatever) is absolutely the optimum strategy for it. The main reason to do a second fight at L1 is so that the MU can throw all the darts she carries in order to get carrying capacity to carry out more kibble to sell...


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## Balesir (Jul 18, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> My point is that it won't matter.  Whatever systemic solution they tried to insert would only solve the issue for a handful of the players who had _that specific problem_ with the 5-minute workday/going nova situation that the solution was meant to solve.  The other 90% of the gamer population would be wondering what the heck those rules were created for.



Well, the fact that I find the issue in a computer game of AD&D that has no DM reminds me that the problem is inherent in the system. The fact that the latest version of the system fixed _*most*_ of the problem suggests to me that a solution is quite practicable. The fact that the DDN design team don't even plan to do more than tell us that it's an issue strikes me as simple disavowing of responsibility.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Circe defeated the Argonauts with just a few enchantments, and those guys were literally the stuff of legends.



OK, but Circe was a minor goddess. I can see why minor deity PCs are popular when the baseline is "hero", but I'd hardly call them "balanced".


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## mlund (Jul 18, 2012)

keterys said:


> You'd probably have to do it based on total XP for the day, rather than # of encounters.




Good point! I was thinking of it in traditional Dungeon-crawl module design where everything in nicely grouped but something like that has a more natural flow and is linear. So long as you still have a baseline XP-budget recommendation based on character levels it is easy for the DM. Each full budget increment over the first you meet is a 10% bonus for the day's XP.

If each 3rd level character adds a recommended 100 XP to the budget as a balance guide for the DM then the multiplier is simple. 4 characters of that level get 400 XP as their increment. 1-799 XP is no bonus. 800-1199 XP is a 10% bonus. 1200-1599XP is a 20% bonus. Etc.

This is simple. It hands reinforcements and extended running battles cleanly. It also allows multiple higher-threat challenges to have a proportional impact. Hitting 3 hard challenges that used 5 baseline budgets worth of XP is just as valuable as hitting 5 "normal"  ones or maybe 8 "easy" ones.

- Marty Lund


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 18, 2012)

Balesir said:


> The fact that the latest version of the system fixed _*most*_ of the problem suggests to me that a solution is quite practicable.




Actually, let me correct you right here... the latest version of the system fixed most of YOUR problems.  It did not fix it for most people.  It didn't fix it for those people who have still been complaining about the 5-minute workday in 4E all this time, plus didn't fix it for all the people who didn't move on to play 4E because the "solution" involved the creation of mostly at-will and encounter based design that they didn't like.  So while 4E might've done right by you... that doesn't mean that it did right by most of the D&D player base, and thus can't be used as the defacto "solution" for this issue.

And that's the point.  No one solution (or two solutions or five solutions) will solve the issue for most players.  The only way it will be solved is if they put the power into each DM's hands to develop solutions themselves because each person's issue is different from every other's.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 18, 2012)

> OK, but Circe was a minor goddess. I can see why minor deity PCs are popular when the baseline is "hero", but I'd hardly call them "balanced".




To be fair, most of the Argonauts had a little divine blood running through their veins themselves...


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## Corinth (Jul 18, 2012)

Part of the problem is that the PCs that partake in the 15-minute workday still make good XP from doing so.  Take that away.  No XP for monster kills.  No XP for traps beaten.  No XP for quest objectives.  Award XP if, and only if, the PCs recover treasure _and return to town with it_; determine the GP value of the recovered treasure, and award that in XP to the surviving PCs as a group reward that must be evenly split.

Those goblins? 0 XP.  The pit trap?  0 XP.  Getting the princess back? 0 XP.  Hauling the goblin king's treasure chest back to town?  XP awarded.

The result?  The PCs now has an incentive to (a) avoid useless encounters and (b) keep moving on instead of wasting resources on things that don't matter.


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## Fifth Element (Jul 18, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> To be fair, most of the Argonauts had a little divine blood running through their veins themselves...



Indeed. The line between mortal and divine in Greek myth is a blurry one to say the least.


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## thecasualoblivion (Jul 18, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Well, the fact that I find the issue in a computer game of AD&D that has no DM reminds me that the problem is inherent in the system. The fact that the latest version of the system fixed _*most*_ of the problem suggests to me that a solution is quite practicable. The fact that the DDN design team don't even plan to do more than tell us that it's an issue strikes me as simple disavowing of responsibility.




They aren't dealing with it for the same reason people are saying it isn't a problem. Dealing with it interferes with vancian/per-day magic being put on a pedestal, as the 5MW is an inherent consequence of per-day abilities. Since per-day magic is a sacred cow, they won't be dealing with the issues and problems it causes.



DEFCON 1 said:


> Actually, let me correct you right here... the latest version of the system fixed most of YOUR problems.  It did not fix it for most people.  It didn't fix it for those people who have still been complaining about the 5-minute workday in 4E all this time, plus didn't fix it for all the people who didn't move on to play 4E because the "solution" involved the creation of mostly at-will and encounter based design that they didn't like.  So while 4E might've done right by you... that doesn't mean that it did right by most of the D&D player base, and thus can't be used as the defacto "solution" for this issue.
> 
> And that's the point.  No one solution (or two solutions or five solutions) will solve the issue for most players.  The only way it will be solved is if they put the power into each DM's hands to develop solutions themselves because each person's issue is different from every other's.




It didn't solve it for people who disliked 4E or didn't bother to learn how it played. 4E mitigated the 5MW in to major ways. First, it limited the impact of the daily Nova. You could Nova, but it didn't do as much as it did in previous editions and thanks to encounter powers you had 80% of your offense available even if you used up all daily stuff. Second, it gave the same daily resources to all characters, so one group of characters(spellcasters) didn't have the ability to nova while others didn't.


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## Hussar (Jul 18, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> /snip
> 
> Again, vast difference in experience here. The longest campaign I ran went from levels 2 to 27, and it lasted over 70 years in-game. Time mattered quite a bit during that game./snip




Not talking about play experience mind you, just the math.

But, if your game lasted SEVENTY YEARS in game time, then I'd say that time doesn't really matter a whole lot.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 18, 2012)

Hussar said:


> But, if your game lasted SEVENTY YEARS in game time, then I'd say that time doesn't really matter a whole lot.



Whereas time mattered quite a bit (like I said). As always, play what you like


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## Hussar (Jul 18, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> Whereas time mattered quite a bit (like I said). As always, play what you like




How?  The only difference between your group and the slowest possible group is about 8 months.  That's the MAXIMUM difference.  Oh, wait, 27th level, so, the difference is an extra few months.  So, we're talking the max difference between the slowest possible group and your group is one year.  If your campaign is seventy years long, are you really going to tell me that slowing down by about 1.5% is going to make that much of a difference?

See, I look at Dark Mistress' example of the goblins above and think that that would likely be the last session I'd sit at that table.  Think about it.  The goblins get trashes and the PC's fall back.  Ok, fine.  Couple of hours later, the goblins scout out the area and discover their losses.  Ok, again, fine.  They are then so well organized that they can evacuate their home in a matter of hours, taking everything of real value with them.  Note, they have to be even faster because they're already gone by the time the PC's return

My first question to the DM, upon realizing that the goblins have fled would be, "Where are the tracks?"  They've got, at the absolute outside, a day's head start.  They're laden down with food and water (since they cannot forage if they're fleeing - and if they are foraging, they're that much easier to catch.  And if they're not foraging and don't have supplies, they'll be pretty easy pickings) and their loot.  A blind man should be able to follow this trail.

But, I highly suspect that if I asked this question, the tracks would magically not be findable.  Because, in my experience, "a living world" is only living if it manages to make things more difficult for the PC's.  The goblins fled their home?  FREAKING FANTASTIC.  They're now easy pickings.  Certainly a heck of a lot easier than when they were in their nice, trapped, hidey hole.

However, as I said, I highly suspect that in most "living world" games, tracks would mystically vanish, wandering monsters would only attack the PC's and every opponent is more organized than the best trained modern armies.

Call it a hunch.


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## Stormonu (Jul 18, 2012)

Corinth said:


> Part of the problem is that the PCs that partake in the 15-minute workday still make good XP from doing so.  Take that away.  No XP for monster kills.  No XP for traps beaten.  No XP for quest objectives.  Award XP if, and only if, the PCs recover treasure _and return to town with it_; determine the GP value of the recovered treasure, and award that in XP to the surviving PCs as a group reward that must be evenly split.
> 
> Those goblins? 0 XP.  The pit trap?  0 XP.  Getting the princess back? 0 XP.  Hauling the goblin king's treasure chest back to town?  XP awarded.
> 
> The result?  The PCs now has an incentive to (a) avoid useless encounters and (b) keep moving on instead of wasting resources on things that don't matter.




I've been working on a system where you get XP based on the number of "successes" it takes to overcome an obstacle.

Kill an enemy in with one spell, you get a handful of XP.  Teleport from city to city and evade all those encounters and get little to no XP.  Engage in an epic struggle that takes lot of attack rolls, healing and whatnot and you'll get tons of XP.  Devise and execute a plan where you bribe, bluff, extort or sneak past the king's legion and you'll get a whole lot more.

The hard road becomes more rewarding, the easy road less so.


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## Dark Mistress (Jul 18, 2012)

Hussar said:


> See, I look at Dark Mistress' example of the goblins above and think that that would likely be the last session I'd sit at that table.  Think about it.  The goblins get trashes and the PC's fall back.  Ok, fine.  Couple of hours later, the goblins scout out the area and discover their losses.  Ok, again, fine.  They are then so well organized that they can evacuate their home in a matter of hours, taking everything of real value with them.  Note, they have to be even faster because they're already gone by the time the PC's return




To be clear the PC's traveled several hours back to the lodge I don't recall off the top of my head but I think it was 3-4 hours to a place they knew was safe. Set up camp there, made meals, using healing skill to tends wounds, slept 8 hours, then traveled back. So they was gone 15+ hours. Since a alarm was raised the goblins waited a bit but not hours and hours before sending a scout up after not hearing anything. So they had 13+ hours to pack up and leave before the party returned. Also I stated they took what they could carry not that they took everything. But the goblins where gone along with their most valuable stuff. Which for the dozen or 18 goblins left seemed pretty reasonable. Just FYI since you used my example.

I am fair certain if aliens landed and started busting into peoples houses and killing everyone inside and then left just as they started on my block. I am fair certain that I could gather up all of my most valuable stuff I wanted to keep and could carry/pack in a car and leave in 13+ hours.

But you said you would not enjoy such a game and would not play in such again. Which is fair enough, but for me and my group things like that is what makes the game fun. A living breathing world that changes and mutates based on what the characters do or don't do. Not saying one play style is better or worse, but if 5e has a forced fix to do away with resource management and remove some of the elements my group and I like then 5e wouldn't interest us. Which wouldn't be a issue if 5e's goal wasn't to bring lapsed "DnD" players back, so those of us wanting to see that style of play are expressing ourselves on the matter.

As I said I have no problem with a mechanical fix to the 5 min adventuring day that some people have a problem with as long as it is a option and it is easy for the rest of us to opt not to use it.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 18, 2012)

You could always give XP as a percentage of the total hit point damage done to the party over the course of the adventure, with perhaps some special bumps for "save and end up with some condition incurable except by magic".  

This will have some perverse effects on munchkins, but I'm not sure that everyone else will get sloppy and take more damage merely to boost their awards a bit.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 18, 2012)

Hussar said:


> How?



I said time mattered. That means things progressed in the world, and time played an important factor in that.

At low levels, travel time was a big one. Players could go a month south to deal with Problem A, or they could go two months West and deal with Problem B, but they couldn't do both, because either problem would be dealt with (one way or another) by the time they completed (or failed) in their mission. Do you wait for your ally (but let the bad guy build up), or go in without his specialized help (especially if he has useful knowledge)? Do you wait out the Domination effect (which takes days), or go on and hope that it doesn't interfere too much? Do you go back into the Pit with less spells, or do you wait and let ghosts rampage the surrounding area?

At higher levels, temples needed time to be built, as did convincing large portions of the population in each and every nation to worship the gods again. A nation has to be run, including large troop movements, roads being built, and cities being reworked or built. The council of mages built its own tower, had its own army, and had to build political ties in all the nations.


Hussar said:


> My first question to the DM, upon realizing that the goblins have fled would be, "Where are the tracks?"
> 
> But, I highly suspect that if I asked this question, the tracks would magically not be findable.  Because, in my experience, "a living world" is only living if it manages to make things more difficult for the PC's.  The goblins fled their home?  FREAKING FANTASTIC.  They're now easy pickings.  Certainly a heck of a lot easier than when they were in their nice, trapped, hidey hole.



They certainly could be easier to take out. And, no offense, _but your experience isn't universal, and just because it sucked for you when your GM screwed you, it doesn't mean that it works that way for everyone_. I wouldn't do that to my players purposefully, and I'm sorry you've had terrible experiences like this.

Regardless of your terrible experiences, though, they don't apply to me. I don't run things that way; my players don't run things that way when they do run games. A "living world" isn't just out to make things more difficult for the PCs. You don't have to accept that, but you're simply mistaken if you think that it's somehow universal.


Hussar said:


> However, as I said, I highly suspect that in most "living world" games, tracks would mystically vanish, wandering monsters would only attack the PC's and every opponent is more organized than the best trained modern armies.
> 
> Call it a hunch.



I'd call you wrong. But, I can't speak to "most games" any better than you can, really. So, maybe we should "call it a wash" instead? Because sitting here saying "my experience is that players get screwed every time when the world reacts to things" simply won't jive well with me (or other people like me), since it's not representative of my game in the least.

My players use the "living world" to their advantage more often than it screws them. Last session, they took some farms around a city hostage with about 100 people to trick 450 of the town's army out, then surprised the town's army by cutting their route to the city off, and attacking with a hidden force over twice their size. I didn't screw the players; they earned their victory. It was the opening salvo in what's going to be an ongoing conflict, and the other armies probably won't get tricked like that (the enemy army routed, so the players suspect word will get to the remaining areas).

On the other hand, they know that they can't just sit in the city forever and build up a higher resistance for the next few years. They know that the other armies will start to act, and they'll need to respond to it (and prepare for it). This might mean that they get hurt, but it might mean that they can prepare well enough to ready for the counterattack they know is coming (the question now is "when").

I don't know how it'll play out yet. We'll see. That's part of the fun. But, I'll tell you this much: my "living world" isn't meant to screw the players. Time matters. They only have so much time to raise more resistance fighters, move their army (or armies, possibly), craft weapons or armor, travel around themselves, etc. Time matters. It just does. And it's not to screw the players, it's because that's how time works in my game.

It's not just to screw the players. As always, play what you like


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## pemerton (Jul 18, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> But the problem is that isn't the game many of us want to play.



Which is why, in the post you quoted, I said this:



pemerton said:


> I think it is obvious to everyone that D&Dnext is going to be very different from 4e. But it is equally natural for those who are playing a version of D&D that offers a mechanical solution to the problem Mearls is talking about to be somewhat dissapointed by his failure to acknowledge that he is already publishing a version of the game that solves the problem. And his failure to canvass the range of other solutions that might be available, such as some of the milestone variants that have been mentioned in this and other threads.




There are non-4e ways to deal with the issue. What about a milestone mechanic for unlocking wizard spells, for example?



Bedrockgames said:


> It does strike me they are genuinely struggling to understand the different groups that play D&D while also working to unite them somehow.





Iosue said:


> this L&L is not meant to persuade 4e players.  4e players should already be aboard.



I personally haven't seen anything in L&L for a long time that demonstrates understanding of what is attractrive and powerful in 4e's design. And I'm not sure why I should be on board an approach that lacks the tools I currently have.



Iosue said:


> there will be absolutely nothing preventing you from DM your games just as you do in 4e.  The only difference is that rather than design encounters in a vacuum, you have an added reference -- for a party this size, at this XP level, they'll probably need a rest after X rounds of combat.  You don't have to plan anything in advance.  It's just an extra tool.





thecasualoblivion said:


> Except that he defines deviating from his X rounds of combat per day scenario as throwing balance out the window and letting casters dominate.



As thecasualoblivion says, the difference is that if I depart from the expected XP budget, I will upset the balance between classes in the party. 



Iosue said:


> I disagree that that is what Mearls is saying.  He says, "The important thing from an R&D perspective is that both extremes, and all the points in between, are options for DMs."  The point is that, just as monster roles and Encounter XP budgets gave the DM finer control over adventure design, so will the adventure day rules give DMs finer control over pacing.



Mearls says expressly that departing from the XP budget will upset intraparty balance. Here are the relevant words (I've bolded some for emphasis):

DMs will have a crystal clear guideline on how many rounds of combat a group should tackle before resting. If the group spends less time in fights, *casters grow stronger*. If the characters spend more rounds fighting, *the fighter and rogue grow stronger*.​
I think that's pretty unambigous.



Iosue said:


> In reality, a 4e DM wouldn't (generally) skew the game in such a way because 4e gives these tools for game design.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The adventure day budget is just in that line.  It's taking something awesome in 4e and improving on it so that folks who don't care for a game where everyone has the same options to nova can play with it, too.



The comparison that you and KM are making to 4e is inapt, in my view.

In 4e, I can design an encounter at a given XP budget with 1 monster or 20 or more, or anything in between (by mixing solos, elites, standards, and minions of various levels). I can vary their roles so as to change the dynamics of the combat. And I can boost or lower the XP budget while holding the balance of monsters (near-enough to) constant.

So it's no doubt true that I can design encounters, at a given budget, that will favour controllers over melee strikers over ranged strikers, etc. But nothing in the game dictates that I use a certain XP budget to maintain intraparty balance.

So, suppose I'm running a game in which there is one EL+5 encounter per day (maybe the PCs are doing a series of hits on prison cells in Carceri). I can design different encounters, that will have different dynamics and let different PCs shine. The XP budget that I'm using is irrelevant to that.

Suppose that I'm running a game in which there are 7 EL or EL+1 enconters per day (maybe the PCs are fighting their way through a series of outposts on Carceri). I can design encounter that will have different dynamics and let different PCs shine. The XP budget I'm using is irrelevant to that.

*Nothing in the (pre-Essentials) 4e PC rules makes the use of any particular XP budget relevant to intraparty balance.*

Mearls himself, in the bit I quote above, states that D&Dnext is going to be different in that respect. Increase your daily XP budget, fighters and rogues will shine. Decrease it, and casters will shine. For me, _that is a problem_. It's a backwards step from what I've got, because it requires me to use a particular XP budget (presumably a level-dependent one) in order to preserve intraparty balance.

I have other concerns also - given the current trajectory, I don't really trust the designers to refrain from giving wizards and clerics spells that let _them_ set the daily XP budget (via teleport, rope trick etc). Whereas (i) 4e doesnt have so many of those spells, and (ii) if the players rather than the GM start setting the XP budget, it doesn't affect intraparty balance (though it can perhaps give rise to other play issues more tangential to this thread).

But even before I get to this further concern, there is the basic fact - stated by Mearls - that intrparty balance of effectiveness is tethered to a particular XP budget.



thecasualoblivion said:


> It doesn't solve the entire issue. The other half of the imbalance problem is that daily powered classes are unbalanced against the encounters themselves if you deviate from the guidelines. If there is only one encounter, they just nuke it with daily powers. You could just have an epic encounter that requires going nova, but maybe you don't want to for story reasons or that it would take longer to resolve than you want.
> 
> Daily powers balanced around attrition force that attrition



I agree that this is an issue, but with proper power design I think it is more easily worked around. In Rolemaster, for example, even if the nova-PCs are going to nuke the single weak encounter with their spells, their can still be interesting play in making choices about which spells, and how, etc. I've seen similar play in 4e, where an encounter is foregone but the way it unfolds is still interesting and worth resolving.

But I'll happily concede there is a fine line between what I'm describing, and needless grind. And it does depend on details of the design of action resolution. If the nova just takes the form of "We fireball them", it's quick and non-grindy, but hardly very interesting or satifying to play out.



Hussar said:


> Call it a hunch.



I'm hesitant to completely buy into your generalisation - there are a lot of different approaches out there! But I do share your frustration at this repeated insistence that what is needed to fix the 15 minute adventuring day, for those who don't like it or its effect on intraparty balance, is better education of the player base.


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## pemerton (Jul 18, 2012)

Corinth said:


> Part of the problem is that the PCs that partake in the 15-minute workday still make good XP from doing so.  Take that away.  No XP for monster kills.  No XP for traps beaten.  No XP for quest objectives.  Award XP if, and only if, the PCs recover treasure _and return to town with it_; determine the GP value of the recovered treasure, and award that in XP to the surviving PCs as a group reward that must be evenly split.





mlund said:


> So how else do you motivate players focused on risk-reward for charging headlong into escalating danger?
> 
> *Escalating Experience Points*





Crazy Jerome said:


> I think the same principle that Marty expounded applied to something besides XP might be a better fit in the long run, leaving XP as a character growth pacing mechanism for the default.  (Using XP as a reward works well in a subset of playstyles.)



I agree with CJ on this. I think trying to use XP awards to change behaviour is not very likely to work, given the vast range of different approaches that groups have to XP calculation and award. (And the game itself has approached XP very differently in different editions.)



Crazy Jerome said:


> A more fully developed action point currency would be my first candidate.



I agree that _something_ that feeds back into the core of action resolution - action points, unlocking wizard spells, enhacing fighter attacks to make wizards less essential, etc - is the right place to look.


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## HeinorNY (Jul 18, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> Yeah, that's... pretty impressively bad, IMHO. He basically blames the DM for a problem with the system.
> 
> Hey, let's try that approach elsewhere!
> 
> ...




Hmmm... The problem in your examples is that they are absolutes. The Archer IS weak and boring, The knowledge skill IS useless and the hafling IS underpowered.

The 5wd problem is not absolute. Magic users are not always stronger than fighters in encounters, they don't have to always go nova, and the 5WD is not a problem in every group.

You examples are about game designers telling DMs to change their campaigns in order to fix system problems, which is the opposite to what Mearls was talking about. He doesn't want to include rules to fix problems you might not have, but he wants to give the tools to run the campaign the way you want to AND to avoid problems if they come to exist.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 18, 2012)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Making the encounter more challenging inevitably involved making the encounter take longer to resolve. If the point having less encounters was to spend less time on them, it's not a minor issue. If the plot doesn't call for multiple combats but also doesn't call for a big epic grindfest, it's not a minor issue.



I am not sure what kind of fight do you have in mind here. It could very well be that even a very challenging encounter can be resolved very quick. It doesn't have to be like in 4E. If you want a rich combat with high tactical depth, it will be, but if you can do with less details, you can even have a hard combat very hard. 
If not every player has to think whether he still has a minor action somewhere hidden on his sheet, and not everyone constantly evaluates wether any of his free action or immediate interruprts/reactions may be relevant to whatever is going on each turn, and not everyone needs to fine-tune his movement to avoid AoOs and get in the optimal flanking position, combat can be much faster!


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## Tony Vargas (Jul 18, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> If not every player has to think whether he still has a minor action somewhere hidden on his sheet, and not everyone constantly evaluates wether any of his free action or immediate interruprts/reactions may be relevant to whatever is going on each turn, and not everyone needs to fine-tune his movement to avoid AoOs and get in the optimal flanking position, combat can be much faster!



Nod.  The only virtue of such a combat would be that you don't have to be bored with it for very long.


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## erleni (Jul 18, 2012)

The more I look at the debates here and on WotC's forum the more I think they should publish 2 different games, like a D&D Classic and a D&D 4.5.
I don't really see a way to bridge the gap that works properly for both factions, except maybe that of making a core with classes that only have at will powers and a very simple healing method (like you regain all your HP at the end of each encounter) and then add everything else as a module.


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## Bluenose (Jul 18, 2012)

pemerton said:


> There are non-4e ways to deal with the issue. What about a milestone mechanic for unlocking wizard spells, for example?




There are scores of ways to handle nova-ing, if people are willing to look past D&D for the solution. Or consider the fiction of Jack Vance, who made it pretty clear that spells weren't something you expended trivially because you would recover use of them easily and quickly after a rest. 



erleni said:


> The more I look at the debates here and on WotC's forum the more I think they should publish 2 different games, like a D&D Classic and a D&D 4.5.




Three different versions, at least. The differences between 3e and AD&D/BD&D are at least as significant as the differences between 4e and (all other versions); there are examples even in this thread of that.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 18, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:


> Nod.  The only virtue of such a combat would be that you don't have to be bored with it for very long.



It is a true virtue for a boring combat system to be fast, but not guaranteed. Imagine you'd have only "I attack" as option and deal an everage of 8 hit damage but have to burn through 200 hit points worth of enemies... 

I'd envision a "boring/simple" but fast system one where damage is either highr the hit points are rather low, or there are some semi-interesting abilities that make combat faster. Say, a Fighter feature that allows you to kill basically anyone (maybe with a speical counter only available to cool villains) on the 3rd succesful hit in a combat - with some extra actions per day, that can be within the first 2 rounds even.


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## Badapple (Jul 18, 2012)

Thinking of myself as a gamer and my preferences I prefer vancian characters over non vancian characters.  There are four elements that my playstyle would love to see in a fantasy RPG:

1.)  I like managing resources and having to make the choice whether I want to do some sort of baseline attack or if I want to use a more powerful attack at the cost of my resource pool.

2.) I don’t want this resource pool to completely refresh every encounter.  I want my resource pool to be managed over the course of multiple encounters to give me some strategic options as well as tactical.  Vancian = good.

3.) I like playing martial characters, so in my ideal system I want to play a martial character with vancian abilities.  (D&D 4E opened my eyes to this and once I experienced this I don't want to go back).

4.) I would like to see some mechanics to limit 5 minute workdays beyond a pacing budget.  I'm of the opinion that 4E both addresses some of this, and in other ways exacerbates it.

I realize that my desires are contradictory to much of the player base and I realize that in some ways my own desires are even contradictory to each other!  But that's what makes a great game to me... something that somehow hits a sweet spot between a bunch of contradictory desires.  Whether 5E pulls it off, and to how much of the very fractured gaming base it appeals to, will be interesting to see.

As a side note, interestingly, it looks like the upcoming 13th Age will have game elements attempting to address all 4 of my needs.  I'm very interested in how it turns out.

Are there any other fantasy RPGs on the market that address all 4 points?


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## Badapple (Jul 18, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> I said time mattered. That means things progressed in the world, and time played an important factor in that.
> 
> At low levels, travel time was a big one. Players could go a month south to deal with Problem A, or they could go two months West and deal with Problem B, but they couldn't do both, because either problem would be dealt with (one way or another) by the time they completed (or failed) in their mission. Do you wait for your ally (but let the bad guy build up), or go in without his specialized help (especially if he has useful knowledge)? Do you wait out the Domination effect (which takes days), or go on and hope that it doesn't interfere too much? Do you go back into the Pit with less spells, or do you wait and let ghosts rampage the surrounding area?
> 
> ...




Ok first of all, your campaign sounds like an absolute BLAST to play in.  Even though 4E is my far and away prefferred system, these are the kind of games that shine in any system... and well really a good DM and a fine group of players is far and away more important than the actual rules.

But I'm also curious, it seems like your world is especially prone to 5 minute workdays.

First of all, let's say the low level characters choose option A and travel for one month.  Do you give them encounters on the road?  If so, how many per day?  I've always found wilderness travel really exacerbates 5MWDs because it's likely that any encounter they meet will just be met with at least a partial nova, because the players know they will refresh their abilities.

Second, the party travels for 30 days to reach an adventure spot.  Will it matter if they rest 2 additional days, making the total quest take 32 days instead of 30?

What if the party invests in magical items, or has a druid that makes wilderness travel easier, or uses utility magic to vastly increase their travel time?  Say the party arrives at the adventure spot in only 24 days.  Do you allow them 6 extra days to get their quest done?  That would give them many more rests.

In my experience games where there is a long travel time to a site, I hand wave the encounters and the travel time (making a broad note of it) but once they reach the site the real "clock" begins... and then I pace the adventure accordingly.  It's not perfect, but there is a hit in verisimilitude.

Also it's really cool that your high level game involves armies and castle sieges and politics and what not.  But you also said it takes place over game YEARS.  How do you deal with the wizard player that can simply take 3 days off per month from his political wranglings to make himself improved invisible, teleporting to the enemy base camp, leaving 4 delayed blast fireballs behind, and then teleporting back home?  Or to stop the enemy from doing the same to the players?

High level games that take place over long stretches of time, in my experience, only exacerbate the power vancian characters with a large array of utilitarian options have over martial characters that have fixed abilities that happen each round.  Especiallly in social and exploring pillars.  How do you get around this?


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## Balesir (Jul 18, 2012)

DEFCON 1 said:


> Actually, let me correct you right here... the latest version of the system fixed most of YOUR problems.



Thank you for your generous condescension - but what I actually meant was it _mostly solves_ this particular problem. It's a subtle difference, I agree, but I think it's important.



DEFCON 1 said:


> It did not fix it for most people.



I don't claim that it "fixed" it for anyone; it just went _most_ of the way toward fixing it. More was needed for a complete fix. And it fixed some of the problems contingent on the 5MAD (i.e. potential daily power user dominance).



DEFCON 1 said:


> It didn't fix it for those people who have still been complaining about the 5-minute workday in 4E all this time,



Quite so - because it only mostly solved it, it didn't completely solve it. As an aside, there are other systems that do completely solve it - which just strengthens the point that it is not an "inevitable" or "inescapable" problem.



DEFCON 1 said:


> plus didn't fix it for all the people who didn't move on to play 4E because the "solution" involved the creation of mostly at-will and encounter based design that they didn't like.



Ah, now this is the nub of the matter, I agree. There are those who like the things that cause the issue so much that they are quite prepared to ignore it so that they can retain those elements in the game.

This is why the last edition of D&D is more relevant than the other games that solve or avoid the issue; it shows that something that is "D&D" can mitigate or remove the issues, even with some element of the things that cause 5MAD still present. 4e still has "vancian" spellcasting, for instance - just not as wide open, nor as exclusive to the "elite" classes, as some prefer. And yet it goes a good way towards removing the problems with the 5MAD.



DEFCON 1 said:


> So while 4E might've done right by you... that doesn't mean that it did right by most of the D&D player base, and thus can't be used as the defacto "solution" for this issue.



Well, apparently, those who were not "served" by 4e don't want a solution, anyway, if it involves doing anything differently from the legacy editions. The obvious route would seem to be either (a) make the solution optional/modular in some way or (b) have two separate games. For some while now I have thought option (b) really looks like the better bet. What I fear is that we'll get one game only, because that's the dictum, and one "side" in the debate will be SOL.



DEFCON 1 said:


> And that's the point.  No one solution (or two solutions or five solutions) will solve the issue for most players.



Nonsense - there are several systems out there that solve the issue already. The problem is not solving the 5MAD issue - the problem is solving the issue _*while simultaneously keeping*_ every iota of the huge and detailed game aspects that seem to be considered "essential" by some D&D fans. Given the extent of these in some cases, that probably _*is*_ impossible. The "solution" in this case cannot be systemic, since the system is not allowed to be changed in any useful way in this respect. The obvious alternative, in this situation, is a social contract that says that all present must ignore the fact that the issue is present - and any who fail to abide by that contract will get punished via in-game "coincidences". If that works for you, good for you - but there are clearly several for whom it does not work at all.



DEFCON 1 said:


> The only way it will be solved is if they put the power into each DM's hands to develop solutions themselves because each person's issue is different from every other's.



I will do it the way I have addressed system issues for around 30 years - by selecting the system I choose to run. I commend this method to everybody, for whatever issues they find bothersome.

My only real issue, in general, is that a game I have found very low in issues - D&D 4E - may end up not only superceded by a game I find unattractive, but blocked from support by a jealous and coercive IP owner.


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## Balesir (Jul 18, 2012)

Bluenose said:


> There are scores of ways to handle nova-ing, if people are willing to look past D&D for the solution. Or consider the fiction of Jack Vance, who made it pretty clear that spells weren't something you expended trivially because you would recover use of them easily and quickly after a rest.



Actually, that's a really interesting alternative to make "full blown" vancian casting work without novaing. Just make each "spell" a discrete "thing" - once cast it is gone for good (until re-made). Wizards would be able to write out a spell into their spellbook (thus 'forgetting' it), so they could swap spells into and out of memory. But, once cast, they must re-acquire the spell in order to cast it again. In effect, spells become a sort of "magic item" that MUs need, just as fighters need magic swords and armour. A "wand of fireballs" is a device with several instances of a spell stored within it. Hmm - nice idea!


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## FireLance (Jul 18, 2012)

I think it would be useful to decompose the 5-minute workday into two (that I can think of, anyway - there may be more) separate problems.

The first, I call the imbalance problem. The issue here is that different characters have different resource recharge rates. The typical contrast here is between a totally at-will class (such as pre-4e fighters and rogues) and a totally daily class (such as pure Vancian spellcasters). Longer "days" favor the at-will classes, while shorter "days" favor the daily classes. 

The solutions to the imbalance problem include:

1. Giving all characters similar resource recharge rates. It need not be AEDU - all characters could be completely at-will, completely daily, or have a combination of at-will and daily abilities.

2. Ensuring adventuring days of varying lengths. This could be done by occasionally imposing time limits that constrain the PCs' ability to rest, while allowing them to take their time on other occasions. 

The second, I call the nova problem. This is the tendency for players to want recharge their resources between encounters so that they go into each encounter at full resources, or close to it. The PCs thus fight one encounter and rest to regain resources.

The solutions to the nova problem are:

1. Ensuring all resources can be regained in a short time. This could be done by only giving characters abilities and resources that are at-will or which can be regained after a short rest.

2. Giving the players incentives to increase the length of the adventuring day (or disincentives to reduce it). This could include bonus experience points for each encounter beyond the first, making the adventure harder (e.g. by giving the PCs' opponents extra resources) or reducing the rewards (e.g. more opponents flee with their treasure) each time the PCs stop to rest. 

What is interesting to note is that solutions to one problem do not necessarily solve the other. Increasing the length of the adventuring day to solve the nova problem might actually create an imbalance problem if it reduces the number of short adventuring days.


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## erleni (Jul 18, 2012)

Bluenose said:


> There are scores of ways to handle nova-ing, if people are willing to look past D&D for the solution. Or consider the fiction of Jack Vance, who made it pretty clear that spells weren't something you expended trivially because you would recover use of them easily and quickly after a rest.
> 
> 
> 
> Three different versions, at least. The differences between 3e and AD&D/BD&D are at least as significant as the differences between 4e and (all other versions); there are examples even in this thread of that.




I played 2e for many years using also a lot of rules expansion (Spells & Magic, Skill & Powers, High Level Campaign) and honestly transition to 3e was almost seamless. I can't really see big differences in playstyle, so if someone could point them out it will be very helpful for me.


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## Tuft (Jul 18, 2012)

This thread seems to forget an OD&D staple that was a powerful disincentive to taking too many rests:

Wandering Monsters and rest-time ambushes. Against a party where just one or two guards were prepared, and the rest were sleeping, unarmored and unarmed, or not daring to break their spell recovery rest, they could be pretty brutal...


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## Minigiant (Jul 18, 2012)

Tuft said:


> This thread seems to forget an OD&D staple that was a powerful disincentive to taking too many rests:
> 
> Wandering Monsters and rest-time ambushes. Against a party where just one or two guards were prepared, and the rest were sleeping, unarmored and unarmed, or not daring to break their spell recovery rest, they could be pretty brutal...




Again. Not so simple.


The healthy party members can kill the wandering monsters on the trip to town if in range.
The party has a head start on the escape.
More guards means more monsters in the area of spells and purposely triggered traps.
DM banning/adjustments of nova and rest friendly spells are required.

Mechanics does affect the effectiveness of a strategy. And every edition had slightly different mechanics and rules.


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## Klaus (Jul 18, 2012)

At the moment, the options are very binary: "rest" or "not rest".

But what if there was a middle ground there? A way to recover *some* of your resources, without being the 8-hour rest.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 18, 2012)

Tuft said:


> This thread seems to forget an OD&D staple that was a powerful disincentive to taking too many rests:
> 
> Wandering Monsters and rest-time ambushes. Against a party where just one or two guards were prepared, and the rest were sleeping, unarmored and unarmed, or not daring to break their spell recovery rest, they could be pretty brutal...



No, this wasn't forgotten. It was brought several times in the past 22 pages. 

It was just noted that this doesn't necessarily solve all the problems. You don'T always have a situation where the party is to expect ambushes or wandering monsters. There are also perfectly legitimate reason that have nothing to do with power-gaming or something like that for 15 minute adventuring days. For example, an adventure that mostly focuses on research and investigation that doesn't require the expenditure of spells (or hit points), until the singular point where it does - and suddenly the casters shine because they can nova.

There are campaigns where the players determine the pace and goals of the campaign. The campaign world may still be living and breathing, but there is not constantly someone around that wants to ambush the PCs every night. They may have a safe haven and reach other locations via teleport, and not every location is feasible to exist in anti-magic and anti-teleportation zones. Heck, even if they are, it may still be possible to teleport near them, get in, nova someone or something inside the zone, leave the zone, and teleport to safety. Maybe some day the enemy will return the favor and try the same trick on the PCs - but that will most likely also be another nova scenario, since the enemy will not fight a series of combats in a row with the PCs so that the non-casters have their chance to shine. He will try to surprise the PCs with a single powerful attack when they least expect it - maybe during the night, after his spies, scryings or occulst mystics tell him that the party came back from a difficult raid involving their famous nova strike ability. (Sounds like a TPK in the making)


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## erleni (Jul 18, 2012)

Klaus said:


> At the moment, the options are very binary: "rest" or "not rest".
> 
> But what if there was a middle ground there? A way to recover *some* of your resources, without being the 8-hour rest.




Like a short rest?


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## Kraydak (Jul 18, 2012)

Klaus said:


> At the moment, the options are very binary: "rest" or "not rest".
> 
> But what if there was a middle ground there? A way to recover *some* of your resources, without being the 8-hour rest.




15 minutes/spell level recovered, requiring 2 hours of meditation (not-sleep) to start to the process of recovering spells.  The 2 hours upfront penalty increasing to 8 hours if a max-level slot is being refilled, or 4 hours if only a max-1 slot is being refilled.  That means that at highish level, 1st and even 2nd level slots are relatively cheap to recharge, but it rapidly gets expensive from there.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 18, 2012)

Klaus said:


> At the moment, the options are very binary: "rest" or "not rest".
> 
> But what if there was a middle ground there? A way to recover *some* of your resources, without being the 8-hour rest.



This may remove the 15 minute adventure day, but it doesn't solve the balance problem _unless_ you already fixed that problem by giving everyone equally strong resources they can recover. In which case the 15 minute adventuring day is only a minor issue to me in the first place. 

I could see having a system of "short rest" (minutes), "extended rest" (hours) and "downtime" (days or weeks).


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## Stalker0 (Jul 18, 2012)

Klaus said:


> But what if there was a middle ground there? A way to recover *some* of your resources, without being the 8-hour rest.




Like some kind of "short rest"


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Jul 18, 2012)

FireLance said:


> 1. Giving all characters similar resource recharge rates. It need not be AEDU - all characters could be completely at-will, completely daily, or have a combination of at-will and daily abilities.




This brings a previous idea to mind. What if all of a spellcaster's spells were at-will with a minor effect? To achieve the full potential of that effect, the caster would spend multiple rounds casting. Spell levels would be used to determine the minimum level at which a certain magical effect would be achievable. Combine this with a functioning Spell Seed system and I think it could work.

Example: The Fire seed could be available as a first level spell seed. A single round of casting could launch a small fire dart. Casting for two rounds could build to a _burning hands_-like effect. While three rounds would get you a _fireball_-type effect.


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## tlantl (Jul 18, 2012)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> This brings a previous idea to mind. What if all of a spellcaster's spells were at-will with a minor effect? To achieve the full potential of that effect, the caster would spend multiple rounds casting. Spell levels would be used to determine the minimum level at which a certain magical effect would be achievable. Combine this with a functioning Spell Seed system and I think it could work.
> 
> Example: The Fire seed could be available as a first level spell seed. A single round of casting could launch a small fire dart. Casting for two rounds could build to a _burning hands_-like effect. While three rounds would get you a _fireball_-type effect.




First, you got players sitting around for multiple rounds doing nothing.

Secondly, most fights in 5e will be over before a three or more round spell is completed.

Third, the poor caster is likely to get his clock cleaned way before he gets those highly charged spells off and (hopefully) they will be ruined by the attack. 

The fighter or cleric or who ever get's stuck with 'protect the wizard' duty will become resentful of having to babysit the mage, causing added and unnecessary problems at the table. 

This doesn't really address the out of healing issue of the short work day, or the early level limited spell issue, or the... hell I can't really think of another legitimate reason for shortened adventure days, although I can imagine dozens of not so legit reasons for this game play (non)issue.


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## Klaus (Jul 18, 2012)

erleni said:


> Like a short rest?






Kraydak said:


> 15 minutes/spell level recovered, requiring 2 hours of meditation (not-sleep) to start to the process of recovering spells.  The 2 hours upfront penalty increasing to 8 hours if a max-level slot is being refilled, or 4 hours if only a max-1 slot is being refilled.  That means that at highish level, 1st and even 2nd level slots are relatively cheap to recharge, but it rapidly gets expensive from there.






Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I could see having a system of "short rest" (minutes), "extended rest" (hours) and "downtime" (days or weeks).






Stalker0 said:


> Like some kind of "short rest"




You're onto something. 

The 4e short rest was designed around the encounter powers. But now that the classes don't all foloow the same structure, you could have a reduced number of "rests" (maybe even one), and allow different recoveries for different class structures. Something like "during a rest, the Thief can scout the surrounding area, giving the party advantage on checks to notice approaching creatures" or somesuch.


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## Balesir (Jul 18, 2012)

FireLance said:


> The solutions to the nova problem are:
> 
> 1. Ensuring all resources can be regained in a short time. This could be done by only giving characters abilities and resources that are at-will or which can be regained after a short rest.
> 
> 2. Giving the players incentives to increase the length of the adventuring day (or disincentives to reduce it). This could include bonus experience points for each encounter beyond the first, making the adventure harder (e.g. by giving the PCs' opponents extra resources) or reducing the rewards (e.g. more opponents flee with their treasure) each time the PCs stop to rest.



I think you missed (at least) a couple:

3. Making more powerful/occasional resources take something more than a rest to recover - e.g. making 'spells'* things that must be bought, made or found _for each casting_, or giving 'spells' a cost beyond simple resource recovery (I have seen systems that cost 0.001 of a characteristic point per level of spell cast, for example; maybe a slightly "fussy" system, but it has its heart in the right area...)

4. Giving incentives to adventure on, and to save more powerful powers for later in the "day". For example, in 4e you might take out the +1/2/3 feats and give +1 cumulative to hit after each milestone; this would encourage keeping dailies for later, when the chance of a hit might be higher.

*: I use the word "spell", here, but it could actually apply to any higher-than-normal effectiveness power that does not recharge after a short rest.


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## KidSnide (Jul 18, 2012)

Balesir said:


> 3. Making more powerful/occasional resources take something more than a rest to recover
> 
> 4. Giving incentives to adventure on, and to save more powerful powers for later in the "day".




These are, of course, two sides of the same coin.  They are the carrot and stick for conserving resources.

As I see it, the key to controlling nova classes is to ensure that the top tier nova abilities are only really usable on a per adventure basis.  Higher level spells that can only be recharged in arcane labs or holy temples (Runequest-style) can give casters the ability to bring out "big guns" but only once during an adventure.

The imbalance between character classes strikes me as a "toolbox" issue, in that WotC should give DMs the ability to adjust the number of expected combat rounds per day.  There should be an ability to give at-will focused characters limited nova abilities to handle campaigns where the expected number of combat rounds is shorted.  Likewise, there should be an ability for casters to replenish at least some of their spells (through a milestone mechanic?) for campaigns where the PCs are supposed to be able to handle additional combat rounds per day.

The L&L "non solution" sounds like a perfectly reasonable default.  Some days are short, other days are long and -- for most people -- it works out most of the time.  It's just that there are also some campaigns that will want a systematic solution to the problem.

The other thing that's missing from the L&L column is the frequent deficiency in WotC's adventure design.  Seriously, if WotC (or Paizo!) is going to publish an adventure with large adventure sites expected to be visited over multiple days, the adventure needs to tell the DM about the writer's refresh assumptions and how the adventure site changes if the PCs leave to rest.  There are some outliers that handle this issue fairly well (e.g. Gates of Firestorm Peak or the first 85% of Red Hand of Doom), but so many adventures don't seriously address this issue (e.g. H1-3).  

-KS


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 18, 2012)

FireLance said:


> The solutions to the nova problem are:
> 
> 1. Ensuring all resources can be regained in a short time. This could be done by only giving characters abilities and resources that are at-will or which can be regained after a short rest.
> 
> 2. Giving the players incentives to increase the length of the adventuring day (or disincentives to reduce it). This could include bonus experience points for each encounter beyond the first, making the adventure harder (e.g. by giving the PCs' opponents extra resources) or reducing the rewards (e.g. more opponents flee with their treasure) each time the PCs stop to rest.




It's curious, but in my experience, the first one is actually that you need resources that are trivially regained or very difficult to regain--preferably a mix.  So they don't all need to be short.  There is a window in the middle that seems to encourage such play--and the window is different sizes for different players.  

That is, say a character has three resources.  One is essentially at-will, like swinging a sword in D&D.  Another is a daily.  A third is only recoverable after a couple of weeks of rest and the expenditure of some non-trivial amount of gold.  Almost every player I have ever been around will at least consider the issue of resting to get that daily back (if it is at all worth having), but will quite happily press on into all but the worst circumstances, hoarding that last resource carefully, using it strategically, and then forgetting about it.

I've made that example extreme for clarity, but I think the lines between the steps are rather fuzzy in most instances.  I've even played with a few people that treated "daily" spells as more in the third category than the middle one.

You can even see this in tactical, round-to-round decision making if you play a game with more realistic load times for crossbows (or firearms).  At some point, the crossbow moves from "weapon that I really use a lot" to "thing that I load if I'm expecting trouble, use once, then close for melee."  And it's precisely when load times are sitting in the fuzzy area that people chafe.  Without spending feats to improve it, the load time for the heavy crossbow in 3E is in this fuzzy area for a lot of people, I think.  It would actually be more palatable in some cases with a slightly longer load time, as that would make it clearly something to be used once.  And if you did that, you could then up the damage from it slightly.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 18, 2012)

tlantl said:


> First, you got players sitting around for multiple rounds doing nothing.
> 
> Secondly, most fights in 5e will be over before a three or more round spell is completed.
> 
> Third, the poor caster is likely to get his clock cleaned way before he gets those highly charged spells off and (hopefully) they will be ruined by the attack...




Break spells down into three groups, roughly by power for their level:

Minor spells - can pretty much be cast on a whim or as a reaction, _feather fall_ being the prime example, but other defensive/reactive spells could fall in this group.
Standard spells - use the standard D&D casting mechanics.
Major spells - must be "prepared" in one round as an action, then "cast" in a second round as an action.  You can still move while doing this.  (And yes, I stole this blatantly from Dragon Quest casting.)
This makes using one of the "big gun" major spells something to consider a bit more carefully.  It's a spell that is much easier to interrupt, even if taking damage only makes you start over instead of losing it.  Plus, in this system, any opponent familiar with spell casting at all knows that if you start casting and haven't finished before they get to react, it's something big worth trying to interrupt. 

I agree that when things start taking three, four, five rounds, it isn't going ot work in a D&D system--at least not one that moves at a speed that most of us would find tolerable.  Two rounds to really let someone have it, though, is manageable.  Players already have instances where particular rounds aren't all that useful.  If they can start something that will pay off next round, then so much the better.  Major spells will be a lousy choice when a wizard gets surrounded, but I see this as feature, not bug. 

Because each spell level will have minor, standard, and major choices, the player can choose the mix they want.  If someone wants to play uber-strategic wizard with carefully hoarded power, and depend on the rest of the group to keep him protected, he can.  Or if he wants to stick to traditional D&D, he can go all standard.  The most effective route is probably a mix--but playing to the choices you make will be more important than anything else.  

That will help around the edges on the nova, because players prone to nova are going to be really tempted by the extra bang from those major spells.  Or if they get too char op, realizing that two standards are more effective in the moment than one major (but at the cost of burning twice as much resources), the DM and the rest of the group can more readily say, "Tough.  We aren't just playing for effectiveness in the moment.  You want to blow stuff up freely, take some majors and suck up the preparation time."


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## tlantl (Jul 18, 2012)

I kind of like the 2 round to cast the big spell idea. It fits with the way casting times in AD&D worked. Most of the really powerful spells had long casting times that when combined with initiative rolls would put the spell into the next round, that is if the spell didn't already have a multiple round casting time.

I play with people who don't usually care who is in the spotlight so unless the guy going 'nova' is causing the party to retreat to reload his spells in situations that are inappropriate it isn't a problem. The guys I play with will abandon the mage, leaving him to his own devices, if it means they have to find a safe place to rest rather than get on with the adventure. 

Player's without spells or other's to protect them in a world that doesn't revolve around them usually learn to play nice. 

But most of the time my games are relaxed enough for these issues to be moot. I don't write major time critical rescues or epic world changing events that turn player's into spell misers and I like for there to be enough magic in the party that they can whip out a scroll or wand with out worrying that it will be gone forever if it gets used.


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## Kraydak (Jul 18, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It's curious, but in my experience, the first one is actually that you need resources that are trivially regained or very difficult to regain--preferably a mix.  So they don't all need to be short.  There is a window in the middle that seems to encourage such play--and the window is different sizes for different players.
> 
> That is, say a character has three resources.  One is essentially at-will, like swinging a sword in D&D.  Another is a daily.  A third is only recoverable after a couple of weeks of rest and the expenditure of some non-trivial amount of gold.  Almost every player I have ever been around will at least consider the issue of resting to get that daily back (if it is at all worth having), but will quite happily press on into all but the worst circumstances, hoarding that last resource carefully, using it strategically, and then forgetting about it.
> 
> ...




All true.  And, in at least my experience, but I think in the experience of many others, PRE 3rd, spell casters acted as hoarders.  Why the change?  The simplest option is a combination of "I'm wrong about 1e play in practice" and "1e players weren't sophisticated".  I'd prefer to discard that option....

If we discard it, there are a LOT of potential culprits, all of whom probably play a significant role.
a) Consumables became cheap and common, and spell casters gained spell slots: casters had the option to be less careful how they spent their power.
b) The introduction of EL significantly reduced to number of "weak" encounters.  This made it less feasible for casters to conserve power.
c) Spells were dramatically increased in power (via the saving throw rules changes mainly).  This, again increased the Spellcaster available resources, but see also point (d).
d) Fighters were nerfed, hard.  This made it vital that non-fighters contribute, even to easy fights.  In 1e, Fighters made the utterly dominant combat contributions in easy fights, and still the majority contribution in boss fights.

Altogether, it is clear that there are reasons that would explain why the 15 (or 5) minute work day showed up, and show how to avoid it.  Keep consumables at the per-adventure level.  Throttle spell slots.  Nerf spell output, hard.  Power up fighters and rogues, hard.


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## Stormonu (Jul 18, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> You could always give XP as a percentage of the total hit point damage done to the party over the course of the adventure, with perhaps some special bumps for "save and end up with some condition incurable except by magic".
> 
> This will have some perverse effects on munchkins, but I'm not sure that everyone else will get sloppy and take more damage merely to boost their awards a bit.




That'd work for handling combat, but you'd also need to have a system for encountering and surviving things that don't deal HP damage - for example, disarming a trap instead of wading through it, convincing the town guard you're on the up-and-up, talking to the king, sneaking past the dragon to steal its treasure without waking it, etc.

If you only reward taking/dealing damage - or make it a more enticing award (example, granting full XP for killing a monster, but only half for driving it off...), that's what players will gravitate towards to advance.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 18, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Which is why, in the post you quoted, I said this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think as an optional module that would be great. But I think the divide is so fundamental that many of us dont think it is even a problem to begin with (or if we do think it is a potential issue we would rather see an adventure design solution than a mechanical one). So for me, milestone as part of the core of the game would be something I wouldn't want to see. I appreciate some people prefer these things. For me it gets into many of the same issue so many other 4e mechanics created for my style of play.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 18, 2012)

Badapple said:


> Ok first of all, your campaign sounds like an absolute BLAST to play in.  Even though 4E is my far and away prefferred system, these are the kind of games that shine in any system... and well really a good DM and a fine group of players is far and away more important than the actual rules.



Thank you, and I agree about the group to system dynamic (though of course system is important too).


Badapple said:


> But I'm also curious, it seems like your world is especially prone to 5 minute workdays.



Probably in some ways.


Badapple said:


> First of all, let's say the low level characters choose option A and travel for one month.  Do you give them encounters on the road?  If so, how many per day?  I've always found wilderness travel really exacerbates 5MWDs because it's likely that any encounter they meet will just be met with at least a partial nova, because the players know they will refresh their abilities.



Generally speaking, no. They might encounter something, though. I have a chart I'll roll on to see if anything happens. Then, if it does, what it means (good for PCs, bad for PCs, good for NPC, bad for NPC, news of event, etc.). Then, I'll roll on one of two charts: the first chart gives me a very rough idea by giving me a couple words to work with, while the second chart gives me a more specific event that's going on. Then, depending on the current situation, location, area, etc., I interpret the rolls and insert them into the game.

This rarely ends up in any sort of combat for the PCs, but it did just a couple sessions ago (though they did initiate it). But, I don't go out of my way to start encounters on the road or anything, no.


Badapple said:


> Second, the party travels for 30 days to reach an adventure spot.  Will it matter if they rest 2 additional days, making the total quest take 32 days instead of 30?



It depends. Oftentimes, no. Other times, those two days might (or will) matter. Are they acting as messengers ahead of an invading force? Those two days will probably matter a great deal. Are they showing up to the Pit to stop the rampaging ghosts? Those two days will matter some, but not as much as the first scenario. Are they showing up to break a curse, but it's not harming anything in the area and won't be anytime soon? Then those two days don't matter too much.


Badapple said:


> What if the party invests in magical items, or has a druid that makes wilderness travel easier, or uses utility magic to vastly increase their travel time?  Say the party arrives at the adventure spot in only 24 days.  Do you allow them 6 extra days to get their quest done?  That would give them many more rests.



First, yes, if they increase their speed and save some time, then this may help them (it's why my players almost always invest in horses, even after having lost them on multiple occasions). Like before, it depends on the situation. If they arrive six days early to warn of an incoming invasion, that's six extra days to help set up defenses, get to the next town, etc. This is a positive thing for the PCs, and they're rewarded for investing in speeding up. If they're showing up six days early to the Pit, they're going to save lives in the surrounding area (as they can try to stop the ghosts from rampaging). If they're arriving six days early to break that curse, it may mean very little.


Badapple said:


> In my experience games where there is a long travel time to a site, I hand wave the encounters and the travel time (making a broad note of it) but once they reach the site the real "clock" begins... and then I pace the adventure accordingly.  It's not perfect, but there is a hit in verisimilitude.



Well, I described how I deal with encounters, and I also described how I deal with time as it relates to their travel. I also mostly hand wave the travel time, unless they encounter something (good or bad), unless the weather gets much worse, etc.


Badapple said:


> Also it's really cool that your high level game involves armies and castle sieges and politics and what not.  But you also said it takes place over game YEARS.  How do you deal with the wizard player that can simply take 3 days off per month from his political wranglings to make himself improved invisible, teleporting to the enemy base camp, leaving 4 delayed blast fireballs behind, and then teleporting back home?  Or to stop the enemy from doing the same to the players?



Well, this is a problem in 3.X. It was something I tried to fix for my RPG. But, I'll answer your question, as the level 2-27 game was played using 3.5.

Generally speaking, the enemies were acutely aware of this sort of tactic, and tried taking steps to stop it. The Mage Council -an international organization devoted to protecting magic users- had made a pact with each nation not to engage in this type of warfare. The nations had just received magic again after a few thousand years, and people across the nations were wary of magic users. To keep the general populace of each nation from stringing them up, big displays like this were punishable by death by the Mage Council (with the blessing of each nation).

Secondly, when the bad guys were building up smaller things, they'd use things like Forbiddance 
 to keep people from teleporting in, creatures with blindsight for invisible creatures (something the Fighter PC did quite often, too, thanks to his prestige class), etc. The Sorcerer in the party was, at one point, caught in a Bigby's Crushing Hand in the no-teleport zone, and when I asked him what he was doing, it was "I... guess I'm yelling for Blake (the Fighter) to save me." Which he did, by the way.

So, there was an in-game reason that those types of attacks didn't happen often (hunted by the Mage Council). However, the party engaged in scry and fry a couple times, but the Sorcerer also got paralyzed in his sleep by a lich and tortured to death, so that type of thing can run both ways in my game.


Badapple said:


> High level games that take place over long stretches of time, in my experience, only exacerbate the power vancian characters with a large array of utilitarian options have over martial characters that have fixed abilities that happen each round.  Especiallly in social and exploring pillars.  How do you get around this?



I'll answer this one from my RPG, because I think that's a better way to answer the question. I do use spell slots in my RPG, though you can cast continuously using a skill check (for less powerful spells). Also, there's no memorizing spells. So, it's kinda Vancian, in that a hit die 15 character might "nova" with his level 7 and 8 spell slots, rather than use his level 3 spells.

The way to keep this in check is through a few methods. First, I don't give bonus spell slots based on high attribute score. Secondly, combat spells, even at high level, are generally less effective than warriors. And, most utility spells (charms, divinations, etc.) are less effective than skills are. At first, this didn't sit well with the players, but they've grown very fond of it over time. Lastly, spell slots take longer to recharge over time (a level 8 takes 1-2 weeks to come back, for example).

Essentially, a high level caster can "nova" to attempt to be nearly equal to someone in their field, or occasionally do things that nobody can do (fly, etc.). But, most things benefit those who are good at it. For example, you can turn someone translucent (the equivalent of invisibility), but it merely allows them to make Hide checks without any cover or concealment. This means that the ideal person to conceal is the Rogue, not the Wizard. Or, you can use Revelation magic (divination) to find out who somebody is, but this merely gives you the most common perception of that person. So, people that cover their tracks, are unknown, give out fake names, etc. can bypass this magic. However, with a good Leadership check to gather information, you can find out things that the magic does not have a chance of revealing to you.

Magic becomes a "jack of all trades, master of none" for the most part. It does allow some unique things, obviously (creating magic items, talking to rocks, flying, etc.), but each of those usually comes with a balance of some sort (magic items drain Charisma, your primary casting attribute; rocks have a terrible memory; it takes a standard action to fly; etc.).

So, to balance Vancian, I'd suggest:

Checks on spells that allow unique effects.
No bonus spell slots for high attribute score (stopping around 2 spells of each level).
Lower spells can be performed at will.
Magic is worse than skills or warriors when it comes to utility or combat.
Magic benefits those adept at things already (translucence on the Rogue, not the Wizard).
Spell slots take longer to recharge.

I should note, though, that when it makes sense for the party to be able to rest and nova, I don't try to stop it. It seems to happen infrequently enough (especially in my RPG) that it is its own little reward. When it makes sense, sure, unload your whole spell load, and take the couple weeks to recover (again, this is with my RPG). If there's no logical reason to stop it, then I don't. It just usually doesn't work out that way (or the players don't know if it will, and hold back out of a learned cautiousness). As always, play what you like


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## Tony Vargas (Jul 18, 2012)

Good post!  But, some quibbles:







FireLance said:


> I think it would be useful to decompose the 5-minute workday into two (that I can think of, anyway - there may be more) separate problems.
> 
> The first, I call the imbalance problem. The issue here is that different characters have different resource recharge rates. The typical contrast here is between a totally at-will class (such as pre-4e fighters and rogues) and a totally daily class (such as pure Vancian spellcasters). Longer "days" favor the at-will classes, while shorter "days" favor the daily classes.
> 
> ...



That's a solution, yes, and a fairly decent one.



> 2. Ensuring adventuring days of varying lengths. This could be done by occasionally imposing time limits that constrain the PCs' ability to rest, while allowing them to take their time on other occasions.



Not a solution, more of a work-around - and a problem, in itself, as it constrains the DM's options.



> The second, I call the nova problem. This is the tendency for players to want recharge their resources between encounters so that they go into each encounter at full resources, or close to it. The PCs thus fight one encounter and rest to regain resources.
> 
> The solutions to the nova problem are:
> 
> 1. Ensuring all resources can be regained in a short time. This could be done by only giving characters abilities and resources that are at-will or which can be regained after a short rest.



Not sure if that's a solution, or building it in automatically.



> 2. Giving the players incentives to increase the length of the adventuring day (or disincentives to reduce it). This could include bonus experience points for each encounter beyond the first, making the adventure harder (e.g. by giving the PCs' opponents extra resources) or reducing the rewards (e.g. more opponents flee with their treasure) each time the PCs stop to rest.



Similar options would be mechanical rewards like action points or other abilities that 'unlock' after one or more encounters. A delicate balancing act, but could result in a more interesting resource-management aspect to the game.

Also, a workaround, like 2, above:  3) Force a minimum number of encounters each day, for instance, by arbitrarily attacking the party while they rest if the do so too soon. 



> Increasing the length of the adventuring day to solve the nova problem might actually create an imbalance problem if it reduces the number of short adventuring days.



Very true, and one reason those are work-arounds with their own problems, rather than solutions.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Jul 18, 2012)

More brainstorming. 

How about a maximum threshold, equal to caster level, that inhibits overcasting? Your threshold starts at zero and each spell cast increases your threshold an amount equal to the spell's level (with cantrips not adding to threshold). Any round you spend not adding to your threshold (including casting cantrips) decreases your threshold by 1. Any spell that would put you over your threshold cannot be cast until you have room within the threshold. Alteratively, have an optional rule allowing overcasting that causes either damage or temporary ability loss. Explain the threshold as a surge of magical energies that are dangerous if not kept in check.


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## MarkB (Jul 18, 2012)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> More brainstorming.
> 
> How about a maximum threshold, equal to caster level, that inhibits overcasting? Your threshold starts at zero and each spell cast increases your threshold an amount equal to the spell's level (with cantrips not adding to threshold). Any round you spend not adding to your threshold (including casting cantrips) decreases your threshold by 1. Any spell that would put you over your threshold cannot be cast until you have room within the threshold. Alteratively, have an optional rule allowing overcasting that causes either damage or temporary ability loss. Explain the threshold as a surge of magical energies that are dangerous if not kept in check.




I like the concept. I made a similar suggestion over on another thread, characterising it as a level of focus upon controlling magical energies which degrades as the character casts high-level spells and can be restored gradually. In my version, casting at-will spells actually increases the rate of focus regeneration.

It's a mechanic which works well in certain MMOs such as Champions Online, where you use basic attacks to build up a power level which can then be expended upon stronger attacks. I think some of the old Bo9S classes from 3.5e use a similar mechanic.


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## HoolMarshes Dweller (Jul 18, 2012)

The 5-minute workday is nothing more than a talking point that people like to throw around. It's the DM's responsibility to create/run/oversee/ad hoc the adventure. How many people actually have this happen on a regular basis? Especially if they're a 3.x player or 4e player? They have nothing but forum post anecdotes to draw upon. 

If the DM is prepared, they'll have more to an adventure than just "go in the dark hole in the ground to fight stuff" (although that's a fine adventure indeed). What about the journey there? If the party decides to rest, is their destination near any kind of settlement? If not, the wilderness can offer plenty of opportunity. Maybe the town they're in is full of spies? Maybe they're offered a reward to watch over a farmer's cows but then find out goblins are poaching them.

 I could go on and on but in 30 years of DMing, I have never, not once, had a 5- or 15-minute workday occur except in the case of a group of high-level adventurers in Tomb of Horrors. As for 1st or even 0-level characters, it's squarely on the DM's shoulders to provide a broad canvas to act upon. This charge doesn't change as characters level up either. Characters will die, especially low level ones and that's okay. Then find a way to get resurrected, reincarnated, etc. 

I think what this highlights is the need for a very beefy DMG. Let newer DMs see various examples, provide all the tools they need and then some. Give playersThe 1e DMG was a bit of overkill but it certainly had just about everything and the kitchen sink in terms of charts, tables, etc. Sure some of the rules needed editing, the layout was a bit jarring, but the sheer number of resources was helpful. Or the 2e Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide. All would be welcome in terms of their approach to presenting info for new(er) DMs.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 19, 2012)

HoolMarshes Dweller said:


> The 5-minute workday is nothing more than a talking point that people like to throw around. It's the DM's responsibility to create/run/oversee/ad hoc the adventure. How many people actually have this happen on a regular basis? Especially if they're a 3.x player or 4e player? They have nothing but forum post anecdotes to draw upon.




This has already been refuted multiple times in this topic.  Nothing to see here!  Move along!


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2012)

Dark Mistress said:


> To be clear the PC's traveled several hours back to the lodge I don't recall off the top of my head but I think it was 3-4 hours to a place they knew was safe. Set up camp there, made meals, using healing skill to tends wounds, slept 8 hours, then traveled back. So they was gone 15+ hours. Since a alarm was raised the goblins waited a bit but not hours and hours before sending a scout up after not hearing anything. So they had 13+ hours to pack up and leave before the party returned. Also I stated they took what they could carry not that they took everything. But the goblins where gone along with their most valuable stuff. Which for the dozen or 18 goblins left seemed pretty reasonable. Just FYI since you used my example.
> 
> I am fair certain if aliens landed and started busting into peoples houses and killing everyone inside and then left just as they started on my block. I am fair certain that I could gather up all of my most valuable stuff I wanted to keep and could carry/pack in a car and leave in 13+ hours.
> 
> ...




So, the goblins have a 12 hour head start and the PC's can't track a couple of dozen goblins fleeing?  What, no ranger, no druid, no one with any tracking skills, not even a dog?

That the goblins left wasn't the problem.  That the PC's were apparently unable to track them down is.  IIRC, you said this was PF, so, I'm going to presume that that's the same as 3e for tracking purposes.  That's a DC 9 track check.  I mean, you barely even have to roll for it.  Actually, with Take 10, you DON'T have to roll for it.

So, no, please don't misunderstand me.  It's not that the goblins chose to leave.  That's groovy.  It's that the PC's couldn't find the goblins ridiculously easily.

 [MENTION=37609]Jameson[/MENTION] Courage - you're missing the point.  The ONLY difference between your group and the absolutely slowest possible group, is about one year.  Note, since most of your time is spent in travel and whatnot, there would be no difference between any group at that point.  Additionally, any time your group had less than 5 XP awarding events in an adventuring day (the presumed speed of the fast group), the time difference between your group and the slow group lessens.

In actual fact, the difference between your group and a 15 MAD group is about 6 months of game time.

Again, you're going to tell me that 6 months to 1 year is going to make a huge difference, spread over the SEVENTY years of your campaign?  Really?


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## billd91 (Jul 19, 2012)

Hussar said:


> So, the goblins have a 12 hour head start and the PC's can't track a couple of dozen goblins fleeing?  What, no ranger, no druid, no one with any tracking skills, not even a dog?
> 
> That the goblins left wasn't the problem.  That the PC's were apparently unable to track them down is.  IIRC, you said this was PF, so, I'm going to presume that that's the same as 3e for tracking purposes.  That's a DC 9 track check.  I mean, you barely even have to roll for it.  Actually, with Take 10, you DON'T have to roll for it.
> 
> So, no, please don't misunderstand me.  It's not that the goblins chose to leave.  That's groovy.  It's that the PC's couldn't find the goblins ridiculously easily.




One thing you may notice if you stop trying to jump on her about the trackability of the goblins is that she never said the PCs *tried* to track the goblins. Not every group of PCs is going to be so genocidally tenacious that they'll follow a rag-tag group of goblins trying to flee trouble. The goblins were gone. The PCs appear to have left it at that.


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## Dark Mistress (Jul 19, 2012)

billd91 said:


> Hussar said:
> 
> 
> > So, the goblins have a 12 hour head start and the PC's can't track a couple of dozen goblins fleeing?  What, no ranger, no druid, no one with any tracking skills, not even a dog?
> ...




It is as Billd91 said, they didn't try to track the goblins. The wanted the McGruffin in the dungeon. The players where a bit sad to miss out on the xp and loot, but the characters didn't care. They got what they came from.


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## Fifth Element (Jul 19, 2012)

HoolMarshes Dweller said:


> The 5-minute workday is nothing more than a talking point that people like to throw around.



This is pretty dismissive considering threads full of people discussing their experiences with the problem. Don't make the mistake of assuming your experiences are universal. Where do you think all these "anecdotes" come from - are they fabricated?



HoolMarshes Dweller said:


> If the DM is prepared, they'll have more to an adventure than just "go in the dark hole in the ground to fight stuff" (although that's a fine adventure indeed).



I don't follow - if that's a fine adventure, then what's the problem with not having more to it? This basic point is that if someone's paying X dollars for a game, it should not contain too much "just deal with it yourself" in the rules.


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## Hussar (Jul 19, 2012)

billd91 said:


> One thing you may notice if you stop trying to jump on her about the trackability of the goblins is that she never said the PCs *tried* to track the goblins. Not every group of PCs is going to be so genocidally tenacious that they'll follow a rag-tag group of goblins trying to flee trouble. The goblins were gone. The PCs appear to have left it at that.






Dark Mistress said:


> It is as Billd91 said, they didn't try to track the goblins. The wanted the McGruffin in the dungeon. The players where a bit sad to miss out on the xp and loot, but the characters didn't care. They got what they came from.




Then how is this not a massive PLUS for the 5 minute work day?  The players succeeded in their goals and got what they wanted, and didn't have to risk losing their characters in the process.

So, basically, a 5 MAD group actually was more successful than a group that pushes on.  After all, the group that pushed on could also have lost PC's, while making minimal gains.  After all, all they lost was some "rag tag" goblins.  Probably not even worth the trouble right?

Which gets back to my point.  The whole argument that a "living world" somehow negates the 15 MAD is flawed.  For one, the 15 MAD simply does not add enough time to make any significant difference.  For another, since the PC's actually succeeded in their goals, the 15 MAD was a successful tactic.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 19, 2012)

> Then how is this not a massive PLUS for the 5 minute work day?




They could have expended more resources to annihilate the goblins and maybe gain a few more cp.  But annihilation of every foe is not the goal- winning (by methods including avoidance) is enough.

Instead, they opted to save those resources for use in possible future encounters.  Whether or not those encounters actually occur is immaterial- they made a risk/reward analysis that let them preserve combat & campaign resources for when they might be crucial on a "living world" campaign.



> The whole argument that a "living world" somehow negates the 15 MAD is flawed.




If it were flawed, then there wouldn't be so many people who have experienced and recommended it as a tried and true remedy.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jul 19, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> They could have expended more resources to annihilate the goblins and maybe gain a few more cp.  But annihilation of every foe is not the goal- winning (by methods including avoidance) is enough.



But if you use all your resources on one fight and the rest of the goblins take off while you rest and you still accomplish your mission, you've succeeded.  You completed your goal and you "avoided" the rest of the encounters by making them run away.

If they take the plot item with you, and you need to track them down, it just means you get to fight them all at once the next day when you catch up with them, this time with full spells(and them all close together for AOE spells).  It's likely you'll even have the resources to "waste" spells scrying on them and teleporting right beside them to catch them by surprise while they sleep.

That makes the 15MAD a good tactic.

The problem is, whether those extra encounters materialize really IS the point.  If the PCs never see a second encounter(either because they've run away after one encounter to rest, or because the rest of the encounters leave while they are resting, or just because the DM doesn't feel like running any extra encounters that day) then it's tactically wise to use all your resources in the first fight.

The only time it becomes a bad idea is if you know you are going to fight at least 4 encounters a day.  Most combats are balanced around the PCs using about 1/5th of their resources.  Which means, even if you use "all" of your resources in the first combat, you'll survive another encounter with not much problem.  Most of the time, it's impossible to use ALL of your resources in one combat.  Instead, you just use your highest level spells(since you are still limited to one(or two) spells a round, you can't possibly use ALL your spells).  This leaves your medium level spells for another encounter, and your low level spells(plus reliance on the fighting classes in your group) for the 3rd encounter.  After that, you'll have to rely entirely on your fighting classes, often causing you to lose.

This means that even if you "go nova" during an encounter, the DM needs to throw at least 3 random encounters at you after that before you begin to regret that decision.  Plus, that number increases the more spells you have per day.  I've seen level 20 groups in 3.5e be able to "go nova" with enough damage to wipe "appropriate" encounters in 1 round for 3 combats in a row before they even think about resting.  Then they can survive easily 3-4 more before they regret going nova.

This got so boring to run as a DM(having a game day last 2 sessions and be nothing but combats gets kind of annoying), I just started commonly using APL+4 or +5 encounters against the PCs as average encounters.  That way, even if they went nova, they still didn't defeat the encounters in one round and felt like they were being appropriately challenged.  Though, if they didn't go nova before I increased the challenge, I forced them to after...since they'd lose to those encounters if they didn't go nova.
Instead, they opted to save those resources for use in possible future encounters.  Whether or not those encounters actually occur is immaterial- they made a risk/reward analysis that let them preserve combat & campaign resources for when they might be crucial on a "living world" campaign.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> If it were flawed, then there wouldn't be so many people who have experienced and recommended it as a tried and true remedy.



It will stop people who aren't all that dedicated to "going nova".  But some players love big numbers and winning quickly more than anything.  Plus, I've seen them do a "cost-benefit analysis" on the tactic.

It comes down to this:  If we cast 6 of our highest level spells amongst the party of full offensive spells, and win before the enemy can even fight back then that means we:

-Don't need to use any magic items or spells to heal which are resources we have for later.
-Didn't lose any hitpoints, which are part of our resources

If the day goes long and they are forced into multiple combats, they will rely on different resources than high level spells.  If it doesn't go long, then nothing is wasted.

The problem is, I've seen lots of people say that "random encounters and time limits fix this problem 100% of the time.  I had a group that tried the 15MAD once, I just threw a random encounter at them and they learned their lesson and never tried it again."

When I throw a random encounter at them after they try the 15MAD, they beat the random encounter and then say "Whew, I'm glad we left after one encounter...imagine if had tried to go further into the dungeon and fought 2 or 3 more encounters and THEN had this random encounter...we would have died.  Remember, we always need to pull out of the dungeon as soon as possible in the future."

The thought that they could use less spells in each combat and rely on at-will resources like the fighters weapon attacks never occurs to them at all...after all, why WOULDN'T you try to beat the enemies in the best and fastest way possible?  Plus, what's the fun in playing a Wizard if you can't have the satisfaction of saying "I kills the entire encounter in ONE ROUND!  If you total up the damage I did with that AOE spell, it was 800 points of damage!  Bet you can't do 800 damage in a round, Fighter!"

And time limits are something I hate adding artificially.  I find over 50% of adventures don't want or need a time limit.  Which limits me to either ONLY running the other 50% of adventures...or finding a kind of contrived reason to add a time limit to the ones that never needed one.

I like the idea of an adventure that says "You found an ancient map to a tomb of a great wizard that's been missing for centuries.  It is said to hold a fortune in gold and magic items.  Only problem is, can you survive the traps and summoned/created creatures left guarding it?"  To then have to add a plot element that says "Oh...after you find the map then you hear there is a magical plague that is going to kill everyone if it isn't stopped in the next 2 days.  Rumor has it that the cure is inside the dungeon" just seems kind of silly to me.

I like the idea of adventurers as "making their own destiny" searching for treasure in lost places.  But those adventures don't have time limits on them.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 19, 2012)

erleni said:


> Actually I see the point and that's why I said "above a certain level". There's a sweet spot (different for each edition) where the game is balanced, wider for 4e and smaller for others.
> I don't understand you when you say that AD&D casters will not get to 6th level spells. I played AD&D (2nd edition) for many years and one of our spellcasters (a wizard) reached level 36 (using High Level Campaign rules). Even at 20th level he had a slew of 7th-8th and 9th level spells.
> 
> I don't understand why why should limit progression and keep a lot of daily resources when we already have an edition that showed us that we can have balance almost across the whole board, keep the progression, at the cost of sacrificing a part of the daily resources.
> ...



You understood me wrong:

of course progression should not be limited. The sweet spot should be extended.


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## KidSnide (Jul 19, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> And time limits are something I hate adding artificially.  I find over 50% of adventures don't want or need a time limit.  Which limits me to either ONLY running the other 50% of adventures...or finding a kind of contrived reason to add a time limit to the ones that never needed one.
> 
> I like the idea of an adventure that says "You found an ancient map to a tomb of a great wizard that's been missing for centuries.  It is said to hold a fortune in gold and magic items.  Only problem is, can you survive the traps and summoned/created creatures left guarding it?"  To then have to add a plot element that says "Oh...after you find the map then you hear there is a magical plague that is going to kill everyone if it isn't stopped in the next 2 days.  Rumor has it that the cure is inside the dungeon" just seems kind of silly to me.
> 
> I like the idea of adventurers as "making their own destiny" searching for treasure in lost places.  But those adventures don't have time limits on them.




This is one of the major points to the 15MAD problem.  Some of us (myself included) don't see a lot of 15MAD, because we don't run many adventures with this "lost treasure" style set up.  I go years between games with an adventuring location where "rest and return" is a plausible tactic.  

But at the same time, a dungeon of lost treasure is a big part of D&D. It's not a universal part of D&D (and I wonder how often it shows up in 1 hour lunch games at WotC), but it plays a large role in the games of a significant number of players.  It may be accurate to say that "don't use many adventures without a time limit" is the best way to avoid 15MAD, but it's not helpful advice if looting lost dungeons and tombs is the point of the game.  

FWIW, I care about this topic because my games will generally have only opportunity for 4-5 combat rounds in a day, and I want to know how to adjust the rules so the fighters aren't screwed.  

-KS


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Jul 19, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> If they take the plot item with you, and you need to track them down, it just means you get to fight them all at once the next day when you catch up with them, this time with full spells(and them all close together for AOE spells).  It's likely you'll even have the resources to "waste" spells scrying on them and teleporting right beside them to catch them by surprise while they sleep.




Not in my game. If the goblins fled, they would think like goblins. What are the main advantages a goblin has? They are small and stealthy. They would completely void this advantage by travelling as one large group. They're also evil and selfish. My players would have a chance to find the tracks of the dozen and a half goblins, but they'd head off in at least seven different directions.

_If_ the players had good access to scrying (doubtful since the level they would face goblins at would preclude it) they might gain the advantage in scrying for the goblin leader fleeing with the McGuffin depending upon the information they have related to the McGuffin and/or the goblin leader. Otherwise they've got a 1 in 7 chance of tracking down the right goblins. If they're wrong those other trails would grow mighty cold.

I agree with others that a "living world" =/= "screw the players." A living world is about getting into the head of your NPCs to determine how they would react. I would base my decisions on what the goblins do according to their goals and motivations, then make the reaction fit their strengths while considering how their weaknesses might affect their decisions.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 19, 2012)

Hussar said:
			
		

> The whole argument that a "living world" somehow negates the 15 MAD is flawed. For one, the 15 MAD simply does not add enough time to make any significant difference. For another, since the PC's actually succeeded in their goals, the 15 MAD was a successful tactic.




In order to talk about this in a coherent fashion, we all need to be on the same page about what we're actually talking about.

The "15MAD" problem is a problem wherein the party becomes more effective by resting to recover all their resources before each encounter so that they never have a situation where they run low on resources. 

It seems that in [MENTION=11816]Dark Mistress[/MENTION] 's situation, this wasn't actually a problem. She did have a 15MAD, it just wasn't an issue. 

This can happen and it is fine.

The idea of the "living world" is that it helps to fix a problem you might have. No problem, no fix necessary.

If, on the other hand, you WANTED the MacGuffin to be harder to get, you could have the goblins take the MacGuffin with them, having a reactive environment preserve the challenge you wanted to achieve.

If you don't mind, you don't have a problem to begin with. You're OK with the occasional non-challenge, or even maybe with a continuous non-challenge. Whatever, it's cool. 

So the flaws you've found aren't in the idea of a living world. They're in the idea that 15MAD is always and everywhere a problem. Clearly, not.


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## Dark Mistress (Jul 19, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Then how is this not a massive PLUS for the 5 minute work day?  *The players succeeded in their goals and got what they wanted,* and didn't have to risk losing their characters in the process.
> 
> So, basically, a 5 MAD group actually was more successful than a group that pushes on.  After all, the group that pushed on could also have lost PC's, while making minimal gains.  After all, all they lost was some "rag tag" goblins.  Probably not even worth the trouble right?
> 
> Which gets back to my point.  The whole argument that a "living world" somehow negates the 15 MAD is flawed.  For one, the 15 MAD simply does not add enough time to make any significant difference.  For another, since the PC's actually succeeded in their goals, the 15 MAD was a successful tactic.




By what I bolded, means you misunderstood what I wrote. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough or you just missed it. I said the *characters* had no reason to track the goblins, because they got what they wanted. The *players* while not upset because they had fun, would have preferred to have killed the goblins and get their loot, so they was a bit sad to miss out.

The reason i gave both examples in my first post was to show, if you make things a living breathing world. One was bad cause they didn't get what they was after, the other was easier cause they did get what they was after. That things can and will happen beyond the players control. 

The point of a living breathing world is things happen and the world reacts positively and negatively to what the characters do in it. It shows their is repercussions to the 15 min adventuring day. So if the players want to ensure their best chance to make sure things go down the way they want, they need to give the world as little chance and time to react to what they are doing. 

So what I have found it does is, it encourages players to not do the 15 min day thing. It doesn't punish them with rules or force them not to do it, it just encourages them and shows them often it is in their best interest not to do that. Then they get in the habit of it. Once someone is in the habit of it, it becomes second nature and then they rarely do it.

I am not and have never said that works for everyone. I was only showing how and why it worked for myself and the groups I have played in. If you don't understand how that style of play can by fun, fair enough. But I think this thread shows it is a fairly popular style of play. 

The reason I and I would imagine others, though I can't speak for them. Are speaking up and posting on the topic, is because if 5E has a forced mechanical fix for this "problem" it removes one style of play the one we enjoy. So if 5E is meant to bring everyone back together that has to be a optional rule then. 

That was one of the things I most disliked about 4E, removal of most of the resource management. It was a fine game, it just removed to many elements that I enjoyed for me to really get into it and invest(will to spend money to own the books) in it. So if WotC wants me to invest in 5E then they need to bring back resource management, because for me and I am guessing by some of the other posts on this thread. It is not a problem but a feature that makes DnD stand apart from the other fantasy games and is part of what makes DnD ... well DnD to us.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 19, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> That makes the 15MAD a good tactic.
> 
> The problem is, whether those extra encounters materialize really IS the point. If the PCs never see a second encounter(either because they've run away after one encounter to rest, or because the rest of the encounters leave while they are resting, or just because the DM doesn't feel like running any extra encounters that day) then it's tactically wise to use all your resources in the first fight.
> 
> ...




I agree with the general thrust of your whole post, but think there parts of the above that go too far in the other direction. Namely, the key means of creating an illusion of a "living world" and thus reducing 15 MAD is not to always have 4 encounters (or any number) but to vary them. Specifically in a living world, vary them by the opponents acting as the opponents might, but *making sure* that the opponents have goals, motivations, means, etc. such that they will vary their actions.

Uncertainty in the players is what gives them pause with the nova and rest. If you always have 1 major encounter, they will nova and let the rest happen when they can. If you always have 2 major encounters, they will nova and rest if they think they need it, or it is easy. But if you always have 4 or 6 or whtaever encounters, they will pace themselves--still doing whatever little "mini-nova" they can in each fight. A certain amount of this is even ok in a lot of games. If the players really don't know, for sure, how many encounters they will have, at least some of them will tend to hold some resources in reserve. 

Now, what will happen in that situation, if the players are inclined that way, is that they will try to predict whether they will get jumped again or not. If they DM start putting in things that are more external to the game than in it, the players will likely react to that. (For example, no encounters in the last 30 minutes of play so that the session can be wrapped up cleanly.) OTOH, if the players determine that their main opponent has retreated with all of his forces to some isolated location in a wasteland that supports very few other creatures, then maybe a drop in nova is called for! (If it turns out that the wasteland supports very few creatures because the horde of silent ghouls eats them and their prey, well--that's what happens when you work on incomplete information. )

Putting in a wandering monster because the players decided that their characters should rest is merely dicking around with the players. Leaving one out when they are mangled, because they are mangled, is defeating the purpose--such that you might as well take wandering monsters off your list of tools. Putting in some chance of wandering monsters in a given area because that fits what the monsters are doing, then letting the players deal with this however they choose, is likely to discourage 15 MAD. Especially if the players bother to scout a bit and discover that the area is not quiet.


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## Dark Mistress (Jul 19, 2012)

KidSnide said:


> This is one of the major points to the 15MAD problem.  Some of us (myself included) don't see a lot of 15MAD, because we don't run many adventures with this "lost treasure" style set up.  I go years between games with an adventuring location where "rest and return" is a plausible tactic.




That's true, I don't run a lot of lost treasure adventures either, but I do sometimes obviously . They was just both fairly recent adventures that made my point that I had run and I was going back and doing a journals of the parties earlier travels and was thinking about them. Both where part of a longer deeper plots, the first one involved the Wizard PC's mentor. Who is the person sent them after the first item. The second one involved something about the rogues past from when he as a child(my players tend to give me indepth histories for their PC's and something in his intrigued me). They was both intro adventures to kind get those long term plots off the ground.


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## TwoSix (Jul 19, 2012)

I also don't think a goblin cave is the best illustration of 15WMD.  It's a lot more common at higher levels, when teleport becomes an option.  In the game I just finished, pretty much every battle we fought from 11th on was buff, then teleport, thanks to 2 wizards in the same party.


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## KidSnide (Jul 19, 2012)

Dark Mistress said:


> The point of a living breathing world is things happen and the world reacts positively and negatively to what the characters do in it. It shows their is repercussions to the 15 min adventuring day. So if the players want to ensure their best chance to make sure things go down the way they want, they need to give the world as little chance and time to react to what they are doing.
> 
> So what I have found it does is, it encourages players to not do the 15 min day thing. It doesn't punish them with rules or force them not to do it, it just encourages them and shows them often it is in their best interest not to do that. Then they get in the habit of it. Once someone is in the habit of it, it becomes second nature and then they rarely do it.




There's one point I think is worth adding about the effect of the "living world" approach, which is that it's not really a punishment or an incentive to employ the 15 min tactic.  All it does is ensure that the 15MAD tactic has side effects other than simply leaving the monsters where they were before.  

This is key because it doesn't get rid of the 15MAD tactic.  It merely changes the costs and benefits so the 15MAD tactic _is no longer almost always optimal_.  The PCs in a living world campaign may sometimes nova and retreat.  That's a tactical decision, and it's fine.  In a world with resource allocation, it's important that allocating your resources to maximize a single combat is a valid tactic.  It just shouldn't be a tactic that is so dominant that the PCs always want to use it.

-------

I also wanted to add one other antidote to the 15MAD that I don't recall seeing in this thread: enemies with daily-focused resources.  In most of D&D, the monsters tend to have better at-will resources than the PCs, but the PCs have limited daily resources so they can "reach back" to win, at the cost of eventually exhausting themselves.  (That's the dynamic that makes the 15MAD an appealing tactic.)  

You can change that by having an enemy with a powerful, regarding, daily power.  It's not common, but it can create a certain "reverse Tucker's kobolds" effect.  The PCs will get seriously blasted once as they go in, but the NPCs spend the rest of the time trying to avoid getting slaughtered.  If the PCs retreat to rest, they have to face the powerful daily effect again.  That could be a lethal trap at the entrance, a summon/resurrect once per day guardian, a enemy wizard at the back of the dungeon casting spells through a magic mirror or whatever.  Anything that gives the PCs the reason to press on before the bad guy regenerates that power will change the 15MAD dynamic.

-KS


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 19, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> In order to talk about this in a coherent fashion, we all need to be on the same page about what we're actually talking about.
> 
> The "15MAD" problem is a problem wherein the party becomes more effective by resting to recover all their resources before each encounter so that they never have a situation where they run low on resources.



That is _one_ of the problems. The other problem is that only _some_ of the members of that group actually benefit from this type of rest, in the sense that these members will have more imrpessive and more decisive abilties than the other members, making the others feel less required.

What is also bad is that the members with these significant resources also get the best ability to dictate or enable an extended rest. If it wasn't the Wizard but the Fighter that could cast Teleport, Leomund's Secure Shelter and Mind Blank, and the Wizard only got Fireball, Disintegrate and Charm Monster, than things may be different - than at least one side would know they are the true "enablers". But that's not the case - the Wizard has these spells, the Fighter got his "I Attack" routine that's only really needed when the Wizard has to be very conservative with his spells. And even if the player may be dissatisfied that he doesn't get to shine with his lowly melee or ranged attacks, it's not really in the character's interest to not rest - why risk your life if a wizard's spell could save it? Dead adventurers don't get to shine either.


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## MarkB (Jul 19, 2012)

I think the problem people are having with the suggestion of "A living world is a useful tool to prevent the 15MWD" is that it has a (probably unintended) negative connotation to it - that it's something you employ specifically to discourage a playing style.

It conjures images of the DM saying to himself "Darnit, they've gone off for a rest again! Okay, what can I come up with for the monsters to do in eight hours that'll teach them a lesson?"

Whereas I think the intended usage is more along the lines of "Okay, they're out of the picture for the next eight hours. What's everyone else in the area likely to be doing in the meantime?"

Basically, it shouldn't be viewed as a tool to encourage or discourage certain types of behaviour - it should simply be an aspect of the underlying game world that needs to be taken into account.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 19, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> That is _one_ of the problems. The other problem is that only _some_ of the members of that group actually benefit from this type of rest, in the sense that these members will have more imrpessive and more decisive abilties than the other members, making the others feel less required.




Well, that's kind of a bang-on problem with regards to some characters having daily resources and others not, but it's true 'nuff.  

The point stands, though, that if it isn't a problem for a particular group, then it doesn't need to be "solved."

And if it IS a problem, then there are lots of solutions that one can use, depending on how one wants to solve the problem. From adjusting XP awards to reactive environments to fighter dailies to milestones.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 19, 2012)

> I like the idea of adventurers as "making their own destiny" searching for treasure in lost places. But those adventures don't have time limits on them.




A lot of adventures do if you really look at them.  Stop the cultists...before they open the portal of ultimate evil.  Explore this ruin...before it floods completely.

Sometimes, you can win narratively, evn if you fail in your objective.  Indiana Jones did not keep the Nazis from getting possession of the Ark of the Covenant, but he "won" because the Ark didn't behave the way the Nazis thought it would.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 19, 2012)

> Whereas I think the intended usage is more along the lines of "Okay, they're out of the picture for the next eight hours. What's everyone else in the area likely to be doing in the meantime?"




Yep.


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## billd91 (Jul 19, 2012)

MarkB said:


> Basically, it shouldn't be viewed as a tool to encourage or discourage certain types of behaviour - it should simply be an aspect of the underlying game world that needs to be taken into account.




I'd say it does encourage a certain behavior, or at least a way of thinking. It gets the players taking into account the underlying game world as if it changes on its own and will react to them. I find that has a tendency to get players to not think in 15 minute adventuring days because they specifically can't expect the situation to remain static once they've interacted with it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 19, 2012)

> This is one of the major points to the 15MAD problem. Some of us (myself included) don't see a lot of 15MAD, because we don't run many adventures with this "lost treasure" style set up. I go years between games with an adventuring location where "rest and return" is a plausible tactic.




Even with the "lost treasure" setup, the "living world" tehnique has applications:

1) Any location has some kind of ecology: there are predators & prey who have to move around to survive.  Even undead will factor into this if they are always looking for things to kill.  Thus, just because you cleared an area yesterday, doesnt mean it is still empty today...or will be 3 days from now.

2) Just because a treasure is lost doesn't mean that the PCs are the only ones looking for it.  In fact, the better the treasure, the more searchers you'd expect.  Nothing wrong with the PCs encountering their opposite numbers.  Added twist: perhaps, as in the first Indiana Jones movie, someone is using the party to do the hard work...


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 19, 2012)

The problem with tools and techniques that discourage 15 MAD is that all of them are limited and imperfect, and most of them are somewhat specialized and inapplicable in certain situations or playstyles.  

My reaction to this state of affairs is that rather than give up, settle on a handful of tools or techniques that work for some people, or go full out on "education" on a few tools, or stick to playstyles where it doesn't matter, or pretend that 15 MAD is not an issue ... is more that we need as many tools and techniques as we can get along with clear instructions on when, how, and why to use them.  That also includes when not to use them. 

So, for example, the answer is not, "Ban Vancian magic" or "Set up an environment where the casters are afraid to Nova" or any other single answer.   The answer is the more nuanced:  We are keeping Vancian magic, at least for some classes as an option.  In some games, with certain expectations, such magic can have certain consequences.  If you don't like those consequences, here are some ways to deal with them.  If you don't like those ways, then maybe don't use such magic.

Not least of all, individual changes their minds over time or even game to game how they want to play.  Sometimes I've got the energy to juggle a living world consistently and believably, and sometimes I don't.  When I do, I don't want the game burdening me with a bunch of hard-wired assumptions that assumes I need to deal with a more formulaic method, and when I don't have the energy, I want the game to have tools to help me.  

Of all the difficult, even impossible, tasks in reconciling various D&D factions, this is not one of them.  It's not something that can be dismissed or solved in a single concept, but it is solvable.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 19, 2012)

In addition, if your opponent is just "the environment," it is automagically always dangerous. Can't rest in the middle of a raging river, and if you retreat, it is still there in the morning! 



			
				Crazy Jerome said:
			
		

> The problem with tools and techniques that discourage 15 MAD is that all of them are limited and imperfect, and most of them are somewhat specialized and inapplicable in certain situations or playstyles.




I'm not so sure about that. I'm eager to dialogue with someone who has actually had this problem in 5e and for whom the Caves of Chaos adventure advice isn't relevant to their playstyle, but I haven't been able to find such an individual. 

I'd even settle for someone who has had this problem in previous "e's," and talking about what solutions may or may not work for them and why, but even these folks are kind of tough to find. Not impossible -- it does happen -- but certainly rarer than I'd expect.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 19, 2012)

> The problem with tools and techniques that discourage 15 MAD is that all of them are limited and imperfect, and most of them are somewhat specialized and inapplicable in certain situations or playstyles.




Which is why you use a variety of tools, and use them only when appropriate.

For instance, even though I'm (clearly) a proponent of the "living world", I don't use it all of the time- some adventures are simply so time neutral by design that there really isn't much point.  (I find this to be a rare exception, but I've seen a couple.)


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 19, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I'm not so sure about that. I'm eager to dialogue with someone who has actually had this problem in 5e and for whom the Caves of Chaos adventure advice isn't relevant to their playstyle, but I haven't been able to find such an individual.
> 
> I'd even settle for someone who has had this problem in previous "e's," and talking about what solutions may or may not work for them and why, but even these folks are kind of tough to find. Not impossible -- it does happen -- but certainly rarer than I'd expect.




And I'll say again that the real problem of 15 MAD is not that it happens very often, but the unnecessary work that DMs and players go through to see that it doesn't.

I haven't had a 15 MAD problem personally since my first year of DMing at age 14--and even then it was kind of hard to complain because as a novice, killer DM the party that didn't run out and rest was often TPK'd.  

I have had multiple instances since, some of which I've even mentioned in these topics, where I had to jump through hoops to see that it didn't happen and/or make the players feel like they had to jump through hoops that were not in their characters' best interests merely to keep things going.

I didn't have a 15 MAD problem in the 5E playtest because I've been doing this for 30 years now.  As soon as I saw where it could rear its head, I promptly told the players not to worry about it, because *it being a playtest*, we were going to run with with where it took us, even if that was completely illogical in the kind of stories we would usually tell.  So after they got beat up and camped in a (now) secluded location in the caves, I dutifully assigned a percentage to wandering monsters and patrols based on the stated behavior of the inhabitants, and then rolled, fully prepared to let it work out however it was going to.  The party got really lucky, but it could just as easily have been a TPK.

That was something I brought to the playtest, not something the playtest explained how to handle.  

This "it doesn't happen" thing is a bit of a strawman.


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## Campbell (Jul 19, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> In addition, if your opponent is just "the environment," it is automagically always dangerous. Can't rest in the middle of a raging river, and if you retreat, it is still there in the morning!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




It's not really that strong of an issue in lower level play largely because characters do not yet have means to circumvent their limitations. Additionally there is  not much of a gap between using first and second level spells and at will options in all editions of the game. My experience has always been that the incentive to rest starts outweighing the incentive to push on around 5th level. Since I'm not interested in using D&D for lower powered games (better games for that ie. Modern Runequest) its a problem for me. Maybe 5e will do better here, but I think spells like rope trick and instant teleportation to variable far off locations are too deeply ingrained into in the D&D culture.


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## MarkB (Jul 19, 2012)

Campbell said:


> Maybe 5e will do better here, but I think spells like rope trick and instant teleportation to variable far off locations are too deeply ingrained into in the D&D culture.




Indeed - and you can't entirely remove such options, because the party still needs to rest and/or retreat at some point, unless you build all your dungeons in compact chunks that don't exceed the recommended daily dose of combat rounds.

If the game is designed around the party having enough resources to face five moderately-challenging encounters between rests, then the moment you build a dungeon which includes more than half a dozen encounters between the entrance and the McGuffin, you've provided an environment in which the party are going to have to work out some way to rest before they're finished, even if they're the most resource-conscious group ever. And at that point, they'll be facing the pitfalls of wandering monsters and living dungeon ecologies the same as any 15MWD group.


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## Tony Vargas (Jul 19, 2012)

Stalker0 said:


> On the one hand, I respect that 5e as a whole is moving back towards DM empowerment. The designers have made it clear that they are giving more direct control back to the DM, and that the system will not be as rules based as it has been in the past. In other words, there is a lot of "fuzzy" areas that will need DM action instead of direct rules.



I'm not sure I share your respect for sloppy design that make unnecessary work for the DM.  



> That said, I don't know if Dnd has ever experimented with mechanics to curb the desire to rest.



Milestones, action points, item daily limits, and items with greater powers that kick in after milestones were all tried in 4e. 

Old-school, random 'wandering monster' tables were pretty common.  Though I'm not sure if that counts as a 'mechanic,' exactly.





> Now at the beginning of playtest seems an excellent time to try. Why not throw us a few ideas, let us give them a shot, see what comes of it.



You'd think so.  If 'make the game better' is one of the goals of the playtest.


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## HoolMarshes Dweller (Jul 19, 2012)

Fifth Element said:


> This is pretty dismissive considering threads full of people discussing their experiences with the problem. Don't make the mistake of assuming your experiences are universal. Where do you think all these "anecdotes" come from - are they fabricated?




To be honest, yes, I do think a fair number of them are nothing more than someone glomming onto another's experience. As I mentioned, who actually just sits there and goes "well Ragnar, guess you're out of spells, let's go watch a movie"? 



Fifth Element said:


> I don't follow - if that's a fine adventure, then what's the problem with not having more to it? This basic point is that if someone's paying X dollars for a game, it should not contain too much "just deal with it yourself" in the rules.




There's no problem with not having more to it, but then again to suggest that it's the designer's responsibility to address this in the mechanics rather than the supplement/module design, is in my opinion exactly what creates fractures in the gamer base. In this example, the 5- or 15-minute "workday"  as I have always seen it is a result of a lack of planned (or even ad hoc) content, options, storyline and so on. Simply put, the solution doesn't require a mechanic or rule to address it as the solution already exists.

It's not "just deal with it yourself" rather it's "you're encouraged to build this world around it, expect the unexpected from your players". If I am a new DM with little time on my hands to develop beyond "a dark hole in the ground", then it would stand to reason that I would be the perfect customer for D&D modules. And it is there that I say the writer of said module/supplement puts in side adventures, background, additional info/things for the players to do. To be clear, I'm not advocating adding rules or mechanics in modules, just adding material for the DM to work with in the module which is the very reason the DM purchased the module in the first place. A fine way to spend one's dollar. 

If I am a DM with time enough to create the "hole in the ground", fill it with monsters, treasures, etc. it's not unreasonable to suggest that the same DM design potential side adventures, events, NPCs, etc. to support this. That's exactly what I was referring to.


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## Campbell (Jul 20, 2012)

MarkB said:


> Indeed - and you can't entirely remove such options, because the party still needs to rest and/or retreat at some point, unless you build all your dungeons in compact chunks that don't exceed the recommended daily dose of combat rounds.
> 
> If the game is designed around the party having enough resources to face five moderately-challenging encounters between rests, then the moment you build a dungeon which includes more than half a dozen encounters between the entrance and the McGuffin, you've provided an environment in which the party are going to have to work out some way to rest before they're finished, even if they're the most resource-conscious group ever. And at that point, they'll be facing the pitfalls of wandering monsters and living dungeon ecologies the same as any 15MWD group.




I don't think they're necessary for high level dungeon crawling. I used to run and play in 3e games where they weren't a feature do to player class choices. Of course my games were never particularly focused on the crawl aspect of the game. Nevertheless, you do exactly what low level D&D characters do - set up rest shifts, have the non-spellcasters  keep watch, retreat the old fashioned way, etc. As a POG I never experienced it, but some soldiers stay past the wire for weeks at a time.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jul 20, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A lot of adventures do if you really look at them.  Stop the cultists...before they open the portal of ultimate evil.  Explore this ruin...before it floods completely.



True.  I said about half of them have time limits.  The other half don't.  I don't want to be restricted to the ones that do.

Even when I run the ones that HAVE time limits...I often hate when the PCs go past them.  It just isn't fun to have to change the plans for my next adventure because the PCs decided that resting was more important than the objective.

I once played in a game where the DM ran one adventure where we had to save the princess from some people attacking the castle.  It was obvious that we were delaying much longer than he expected.  The princess should have died, given how long we took to get there....but, the DM had planned for the next adventure to be us escaping the castle with the princess, and as the last surviving member of the royal family, using her as a plot device ot raise an army and take back the kingdom.

So, it didn't matter how long we took, because the time limit was artificial.  Actually having the time limit matter would have ruined all the DMs hard work(and trust me, this DM wrote 30 or 40 pages of notes on stuff that was going to happen).

When I run a game where the time limit is "Stop cultists from summoning the most powerful god in existence who will wipe out all life on the planet", I don't ever plan on actually implementing the time limit...it's just there to try to give some urgency to the adventure.  When will they successfully summon their god?  About 5 minutes after the PCs stop them from doing so.

Is is possible to keep running this game after the god wipes out the planet?  Sure, you can come up with an excuse as to why he can't do it right away and can be reimprisoned before he regains his strength or shield one city from destruction and run a campaign about stopping him.  But, I didn't really want to run either of those campaigns.  I wanted to run the dungeon crawl where the PCs attempt to stop the cultists.  So, I'll make sure I DON'T have to run those other campaigns by never implementing that time limit.

Players figure this out pretty quickly.  When I ran that campaign against the cultists, they'd rest after nearly every encounter and I'd have to say, out of character, "You guys do remember that these cultists ARE trying to summon a god who will destroy the world, right?  So, you guys are going to risk it by resting while you still have hitpoints left?"

And they'd say "Well, we don't know how long this ritual could take, right?  It could be tomorrow, it could be next year depending on how far along they are in the ritual and whether they have all of the resources required.  So, we're out of spells, we may have hitpoints left, but it's possible someone might die next encounter if we have to use only our 1st and 2nd level spells...so, we're just going to have to risk it." (because "only having 1st and 2nd level spells is the same as being "out of spells" in their mind)


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Sometimes, you can win narratively, evn if you fail in your objective.  Indiana Jones did not keep the Nazis from getting possession of the Ark of the Covenant, but he "won" because the Ark didn't behave the way the Nazis thought it would.



Also true, but it feels lackluster to have the PCs win despite failing.  Plus, it just trains them that time limits don't exist.  After all, if they can fail to get the Ark, but have the Ark kill all the Nazis...well, guess they didn't need to stop the Nazis from getting it in the first place.

But, see above why actually implementing time limits is often just as bad.  It always comes down to the fact that time limits solve nothing.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 20, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> When I run a game where the time limit is "Stop cultists from summoning the most powerful god in existence who will wipe out all life on the planet", I don't ever plan on actually implementing the time limit...it's just there to try to give some urgency to the adventure. When will they successfully summon their god? About 5 minutes after the PCs stop them from doing so.
> 
> Is is possible to keep running this game after the god wipes out the planet? Sure, you can come up with an excuse as to why he can't do it right away and can be reimprisoned before he regains his strength or shield one city from destruction and run a campaign about stopping him. But, I didn't really want to run either of those campaigns. I wanted to run the dungeon crawl where the PCs attempt to stop the cultists. So, I'll make sure I DON'T have to run those other campaigns by never implementing that time limit.




I ran a variant campaign along those lines that got around that problem.  The cultists in question had been in the process of completing their ritual for a couple of hundred years, after they had recovered from whipping they took 6 or 7 centuries before that.  They were on schedule to "succeed" something in the next few decades, if no one interfered, but other people (i.e. NPCs) were working to help or hinder, and had been from the very beginning.  And the key bit was that however far they got was going to be "partial success" or "partial failure," depending upon how you looked at it.

At the start of the game the players or characters knew none of this, other than that the world had experienced massive cataclysms for some reason, once or twice every thousand years.  So when they first got an inkling of what was going on, they felt some urgency but not a lot.  The deeper in they got, the more urgency they felt--but knew that they could still fail.  If there was a TPK, the next party would be even more urgent (since the players would know), but now things are that much worse.  The longer it goes, the worse it is going to be, and the bigger hole for the next generations of heroes to dig out of (AKA - their next characters ).  

The party mostly succeeded by the way, with only about a quarter of the planet devastated.  The next campaign was picking up the pieces in that area. It started off that next campaign with a feeling of poignant success--glad they had kept the rest of the world from dealing with what the current spot was experiencing.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 20, 2012)

> I once played in a game where the DM ran one adventure where we had to save the princess from some people attacking the castle. It was obvious that we were delaying much longer than he expected. The princess should have died, given how long we took to get there....but, the DM had planned for the next adventure to be us escaping the castle with the princess, and as the last surviving member of the royal family, using her as a plot device ot raise an army and take back the kingdom.
> 
> So, it didn't matter how long we took, because the time limit was artificial. Actually having the time limit matter would have ruined all the DMs hard work(and trust me, this DM wrote 30 or 40 pages of notes on stuff that was going to happen).




See, I have a problem with this example.  It wasn't that the passage of time was immaterial, what happened was your DM had the tool in place and nullified it by not "pulling the trigger."  He put the world on hold for you so you would not feel the repercussions of your dawdling.

I absolutely guarantee you that had a similar scenario popped up in an adventure in our group, the princess would have died under at least 7 of the guys who DM, myself included.

(This is a group that got Mordenkainen's kid killed...)

And just to be clear, the flipside situation is also true: if, by your cleverness, you had figured out how to break the siege with a counterstrike (totally negating the need for the next planned adventure) those same DMs would let that stand.  That happened to me- the party successfully ambushed my BBEG, my dice went absolutely ice cold, theirs went hotter than lava, and he died _in 3 rounds._  I had to stop the session, since I had nothing else to run.  I came back the next session with a revision: decapitated, his organization was regrouped by his second in command (and lover), and started trying to complete their fallen leader's ritual...

Another DM in our group had his precious Harpies slaughtered by some Entangles and a bunch of inept PCs using missile weapons.

And just like in your group, players figure this out pretty quickly.  Waste time and you lose control, and possibly fail at your objective.  Be clever and you might reap unexpected rewards.


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## billd91 (Jul 20, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> See, I have a problem with this example.  It wasn't that the passage of time was immaterial, what happened was your DM had the tool in place and nullified it by not "pulling the trigger."  He put the world on hold for you so you would not feel the repercussions of your dawdling.
> 
> I absolutely guarantee you that had a similar scenario popped up in an adventure in our group, the princess would have died under at least 7 of the guys who DM, myself included.
> 
> (This is a group that got Mordenkainen's kid killed...)




As DM, I might not have killed the princess. They make good hostages and are often worth a lot in ransom. Of course, that assumes the enemy group wasn't definitely trying to kill off the entire dynasty. If they thought it would be easier to keep the populace in line with a live, hostage princess, they'd have kept her hostage. If the system was fairly patriarchal, they might have forced her into marriage so a male pretender could claim legitimate authority and secure a legal heir. If they wanted to make sure there were no legit claimants to the throne, she's dead meat.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 20, 2012)

billd91 said:


> As DM, I might not have killed the princess. They make good hostages and are often worth a lot in ransom. Of course, that assumes the enemy group wasn't definitely trying to kill off the entire dynasty. If they thought it would be easier to keep the populace in line with a live, hostage princess, they'd have kept her hostage. If the system was fairly patriarchal, they might have forced her into marriage so a male pretender could claim legitimate authority and secure a legal heir. If they wanted to make sure there were no legit claimants to the throne, she's dead meat.




All valid options, IMHO.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 20, 2012)

billd91 said:


> As DM, I might not have killed the princess. They make good hostages and are often worth a lot in ransom. Of course, that assumes the enemy group wasn't definitely trying to kill off the entire dynasty. If they thought it would be easier to keep the populace in line with a live, hostage princess, they'd have kept her hostage. If the system was fairly patriarchal, they might have forced her into marriage so a male pretender could claim legitimate authority and secure a legal heir. If they wanted to make sure there were no legit claimants to the throne, she's dead meat.




Yes.  My rule of thumb when DMing is that the NPCs motivations don't really change, their goals rarely do, but their means and plans change as the situation warrants.  So then as soon as the players do something unexpected, I only have to ask, "Well, what would NPC X do about that?"  

You do need the confidence in the overall playstyle to pull the trigger on that--even when you know that what X is going to try is probably not going to work, and may even create a bit of a lull in the excitement.  But I've found that after players have had dose after dose of "hang onto events by their fingertips," a detour into "we've got this guy's number and won't let up until we win," is welcome enough that it doesn't really seem boring to the players.


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## Zustiur (Jul 21, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Even when I run the ones that HAVE time limits...I often hate when the PCs go past them.  It just isn't fun to have to change the plans for my next adventure because the PCs decided that resting was more important than the objective.




This, and indeed the rest of your post makes you sound like a 'prepare in advance' DM rather than a 'play it by ear' DM. What you're implying is that it isn't fun if the players have any actual control over the story. That's because having to rewrite the story is hard work, and therefore not fun. I'm not having a go at you. I'm definitely not saying that you're having badwrongfun. However, I am suggesting that you're focusing on one type of fun over another. Potentially this means DM fun over player fun, but I'd have to talk to your players to find out if that were the case.

I've been down that 'prepare in advance' road myself, and am now trying to push myself in the direction of 'play it by ear'. It's a long hard change because I need a lot more experience before I can play this way confidently, but I'm finding the experience liberating. No more do I have to spend hours prepping for the next adventure and trying to anticipate what the players might do. In fact, my preparation for the next session is little more than two paragraphs of notes.

To take your example at its word; I would have killed the princess. Why? Because winning all the time without a challenge isn't fun either. Winning all the time can only be fun if there's something to actually beat. If the win is guaranteed, I see no fun in that. The [4E WOTC modules] game that I currently play in holds no 'story' fun for me for exactly these reasons. I have no impact on the story. It's fun in other ways - there's always a danger to the life of my character. The intra-party role play is highly entertaining. But the story is terrible. During more than one module I've asked myself why would my character be here, and there has been no good answer.

I think this behaviour is where the majority of the 15 minute adventuring day groups struggle. The DM is too scared to have the world react to the PCs actions in a sensible way, and thus the 'bad behaviour' is rewarded. DMs who are more comfortable with ad-libbing and having the world react to the PCs are less likely to encounter the 15 minute problem in the first place.

I only started reading this thread today. I've had to skim sections to catch up (and I don't think I missed anything terribly important because it has been quite repetitive). There are a number of issues being discussed, and one of the reasons we aren't finding satisfactory solutions is that we are not identifying the root causes of the problem correctly.

The 15MAD is bad because it highlights and enforces the difference between daily powered characters and at will powered characters. I think most people have agreed with that point. It is also bad because it interferes with the party vs monster/encounter balance. That hasn't been discussed as much, but I think/hope we can all agree with it as a concept.

The 15MAD is not caused by any single thing, be it mechanics or play style/DM ability/whathaveyou. No, it is caused by a combination of things occurring together.

So what are the things that contribute to the 15MAD in the first place?
* Daily powers, in any form
* The ability to 'go nova' with those daily powers
* Resting after every combat being an option
* No consequences for resting after every combat
* Resting after every combat being tactically/strategically beneficial
* Fixed story lines that can't or won't be altered by the behaviour
* Players (and characters) focusing on safety rather than on achieving a goal
* Players (and DMs?) ignoring the practicalities of day time and night time and sleeping patterns. 
* Characters not having a problem with boredom. i.e. Characters don't get bored resting for 16 hours then having a single battle then resting for 16 hours.
* No mechanical incentive to make the party continue on (milestones/action points/bonus XP)

I'm sure there are others.

My point here is that no single one of these issues _causes_ the 15MAD. Many of the causes can be attributed to play style rather than mechanics. The AEDU mechanic only addresses the first point and does not address any others. This is why groups like mine we able to produce the 15MAD in 4E, even though we hadn't done so in 3E.

Likewise, removing Vancian entirely only addresses the first point. In fact:
*So long as there is any resource management of significant impact, the 15MAD concept will still be possible.*

Addressing any single cause listed above will not, and can not, prevent the 15MAD. It may be enough of a trigger to get some groups out of the problem, but it won't be the solution for many others.

On the other hand; I'm inclined to argue that fixing all of them isn't just unnecessary, it's detrimental. We've already seen people say 'that's not DND' to the idea of removing daily powers/spells. I happen to agree with those people. Vancian magic is [to me] intrinsically linked with DND. Removing it causes the game to feel more like Generic Fantasy Role Playing and less like Dungeons and Dragons (again TO ME).

Many of those points can't really be addressed mechanically because they're not caused by mechanics in the first place. Players ignoring the day time/night time cycle isn't a mechanic. It's just players being players. Sure, you could institute some sort of mechanic to fight it, like you CAN'T rest within 12 hours of a previous rest, but that doesn't stop them saying 'ok, we walk around in circles for the next 11 hours and 45 minutes'. No, I say mechanically trying to address those issues is a bad idea. That's where advice in the DMG is the obvious solution. A slightly less obvious solution is to _put similar advice in the PHB_.

If the players are warned by the book that the world will react to their characters, and the DMs are advised on ways to achieve this, we have a strong solution to a lot of the non-mechanical issues.

The mechanical ones can still be addressed, but the way to do so is not to take a 'knee-jerk' reaction of removing daily powers altogether. It seems to me, that one of the simplest ways to reduce the mechanical problems is to flatten the spell-power curve. Bring high level spellcasters down a notch, while making sure the low level spellcasters don't suck. One of the simplest ways to do that is to stretch out the existing spells across a greater number of class levels. I'm not sure that's the best way, but it is one of the simplest. Compare a 3E level 30 fighter with a 3E level 20 Wizard. Is the imbalance still there? Is it as bad?

Another way is to look at what resting achieves. If resting gives you everything back, then resting is always beneficial. If resting does not necessarily give you everything, then it may not be beneficial. I'm talking about two key things here:
1) No instant overnight heal
2) No instant overnight return of _all_ spells.

To take an extreme example:
1) AD&D natural healing (1hp per night)
2) Spell preparation time of 1 hour, per spell, per spell level. So to get a 9th level spell back takes 8 hours rest + 9 hours preparation/memorization. 
(Remember, I said 'extreme example')

Under that system, resting to regain some power is an option, but resting to regain _all_ power would not... or at least, it would take several days/weeks rather than just one night.
Incidentally the reason I picked 'per spell, per spell level' is so that you can opt to memorize a low level spell in a high level slot and thus recover some power more quickly. 

To take a less extreme example:
1) Natural healing = 1 HP per level per night's rest
2) Spell preparation time of 10 minutes, per spell, per spell level.
Now it only takes 90 minutes to regain a 9th level spell, but regaining 3 or 4 of them looks prohibitive.

In theory this means that spellcasters will hoard their highest power spells to be used when most beneficial (i.e. fighting the big bad) rather than just thrown out willy-nilly. Also, if they do throw out some high level spells, they can regain some mid level and low level spells to help compensate. I haven't had a chance (or a need) to test this out in practice, so I have no idea what anyone else thinks of it. It's possible that a less linear option would be required, one where it only takes a few minutes for a 3rd level spell, but takes hours for a 9th. I suspect I may also need to look at a system where you compare your spell level to your character level to work out how long it takes to prepare. Thus a 3rd level spell takes a long time to prepare at 5th level, but doesn't at 19th level.

A final twist:
If spell memorization time is significant, do we need to retain the 8 hour rest requirement? Is there a problem with a wizard asking for an hour or so break to regain some low level spells before the party presses on? This would help with allowing wizard players to use spells all the time (no crossbow syndrome). It would help with ensuring that low level wizards 'suck less'. It would mean that spells being reduced in overall power wouldn't necessarily makes wizards useless.



In conclusion:
What other causes of 15MAD can you identify?
What other solutions to the non-mechanical causes can you suggest?
What other solutions to the mechanical causes can you suggest?
And please, remember that fixing one cause won't make the entire problem go away.


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## tlantl (Jul 21, 2012)

[MENTION=1544]Zustiur[/MENTION]

Just as a reminder; in AD&D it took 12 hours of sleep to regain 9th level spells. The memorization times were an hour per spell level per spell. There weren't too many people blowing all the spells they had since it could take a week to re-memorize those spells.

Just another reason those games seldom had casters going nova then stopping to rest.

I don't see this as extreme I see it as one of the limiting factors that was removed which lead to the overpowered casters of 3e.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 21, 2012)

tlantl said:


> @Zustiur
> 
> Just as a reminder; in AD&D it took 12 hours of sleep to regain 9th level spells. The memorization times were an hour per spell level per spell. There weren't too many people blowing all the spells they had since it could take a week to re-memorize those spells.
> 
> ...



This may be quite true. Taking an entire week of rest would definitely seem excessive, even for 15 minute adventuring day players like me or the groups I played in. 

3E did remove a lot of checks and balances it seems, often because they were complicated or just felt "unfun". As a spellcaster, I would like to cast spells often (they don't all need to be Fireball, Teleport or Disintegrate), but before the "invention" of at-will magic like 3.x Warlocks or Reserve Feats, that wasn't possible. Now it could be. 

THere is still some Nova problem left, I think, but in an entire different area - NPCs. That was a problem in 3E as well - playing against spellcasting NPCs often required Novaing to counter their Nova - if it's life or death, and for NPCs it pretty much is when they come in conflict with PCs, there is no reason to hold back. (On the other hand, these NPC casters would have a giant spellbook containing 60 spells and having 30 or so prepared, but realistically would never get more than 3-4 spells off.) It will depend on the NPC creation rules and DM advice whether that will also be a problem in Next. It isn't in 4E since NPCs generally use different rules from PCs.


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## keterys (Jul 21, 2012)

3e npc spellcasters were particularly offensive in that regard because they could blow their entire pyramid for one combat. So, hey, as many buffs as possible that you can get on beforehand. And throw in some quickened spells too, you're not going to live more than a couple rounds, so # of rounds * best spells (+ hasted spells if appropriate) and then Quickened spell per round. To be _extra_ threatening.


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## Zustiur (Jul 22, 2012)

Ah, a new point. NPC spellcasters. While it did take me a while to accept, I think this is one of the things that 4E got right. Don't make NPCs follow the same creation rules as PCs. By all means give them some spells, but don't give them 40. Part of the rational behind this comes down to preparation. Unless the NPC has had a day or two of warning that the PCs are coming, he shouldn't be set up for pure combat, most of his spells are probably the kind of spells that aren't even mentioned in DND. Things like Nullify Latrine Odour, Silence Iritating Neighbour's Loud Music. Not to mention 'Big Bad Evil Ritual' which is probably why the PCs are out to kill him in the first place.

With that said, NPC spell casters should still have to use real spells for their combat spells, and have real spellbooks for the party wizard to gain his spell knowledge from. However, I see no problem with those spells being set up ala 4E monster powers, and no problem with those NPC 'wizards' being the equivalent of elite or solo to have the necessary HP to be a threat.

The only time I'd insist on NPCs using PC generation rules is when the PCs encounter a _party_ of NPCs. Basically; if encountering other adventurers, they should look the same as adventurer PCs. If encountering the Big Bad Wizard in his Evil Wizard Tower, he should be built according to monster creation rules.


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## Dark Mistress (Jul 22, 2012)

For NPC casters what I do. Is I consider them my character for a moment. Living where ever they live and with the NPC's goals. Then I ask myself what would be the spells I would on a average day have. Then those are the ones I give the NPC's. Which is another reason my examples above work on my PC's. They know if they do the 15 adventuring day and let a caster in the adventure know they are coming and prepare for them than the fight will be a lot harder than it otherwise would have been. But that to me goes back to the whole making a living breathing world I mentioned.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 22, 2012)

> While it did take me a while to accept, I think this is one of the things that 4E got right. Don't make NPCs follow the same creation rules as PCs.




You've just hit upon one of the reasons 4Ed will never be my D&D.


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## Hussar (Jul 22, 2012)

MarkB said:


> /snip
> 
> Whereas I think the intended usage is more along the lines of "Okay, they're out of the picture for the next eight hours. What's everyone else in the area likely to be doing in the meantime?"
> 
> Basically, it shouldn't be viewed as a tool to encourage or discourage certain types of behaviour - it should simply be an aspect of the underlying game world that needs to be taken into account.




See, my problem with this is "what's everyone else doing" is likely the same thing they've been doing for the past 8 hours.  I mean, how much did your day change from one day to the next.  Most things have a fairly static routine.  Now, it could be that the denizens go on alert, but, they probably did that 5 minutes after the first or second encounter.  What's going to change?  They're likely going to stay on heightened alert for the next day or so.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 22, 2012)

> Rather than focus on the encounter, we are now focusing on the adventuring day. That means that during the typical adventure, we expect the average party to defeat X levels worth of monsters over Y rounds of combat. In other words, we're assuming that an adventure includes a certain amount of combat, and this amount is defined in terms of rounds and enemies.





Well. there's your problem, right there.


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## JRRNeiklot (Jul 22, 2012)

Hussar said:


> See, my problem with this is "what's everyone else doing" is likely the same thing they've been doing for the past 8 hours.  I mean, how much did your day change from one day to the next.  Most things have a fairly static routine.  Now, it could be that the denizens go on alert, but, they probably did that 5 minutes after the first or second encounter.  What's going to change?  They're likely going to stay on heightened alert for the next day or so.




You and I have had this argument before.  They can reset traps, build new ones, build a ballista, slaughter the prisoners, take new ones.  Send assassins after your loved ones, retaliate by attacking nearby farmsteads.  8 hours is a long time.


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## Zustiur (Jul 22, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You've just hit upon one of the reasons 4Ed will never be my D&D.




That's what I mean though - it took me a long time to see why that is actually the better way. Eventually I asked myself this question: Why do I feel that the bad guys have to use exactly the same classes as the good guys?
You may benefit from considering that question, or you may not. I'm not here to convince you one way or the other, but my point is that you may find the same conclusion that I did. Namely, I have no plausible reason why that should be so, and it's just making my life as a DM harder. 

Once I realized that, I had no problem building NPCs like they were monsters.

3E has long been criticized for the time consuming and difficult process of making NPCs. 4E present a solution to that. If you find, as I did, that making NPCs in 3E is something you avoid, then you may benefit from taking that particular lesson on board. Is it the only solution? No. Is it the best solution? I have no idea. But it is 'a' solution.


And here's the secret: There's nothing stopping you building a particular NPC the old way if you feel it appropriate to the situation/story. Even in 4E.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 22, 2012)

> You may benefit from considering that question...




Question considered and factored into my decision.  I hate exception based design with a passion.

And that's just one factor among many that make 4Ed a "player only" game for me.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 22, 2012)

Dark Mistress said:


> For NPC casters what I do. Is I consider them my character for a moment. Living where ever they live and with the NPC's goals. Then I ask myself what would be the spells I would on a average day have. Then those are the ones I give the NPC's. Which is another reason my examples above work on my PC's. They know if they do the 15 adventuring day and let a caster in the adventure know they are coming and prepare for them than the fight will be a lot harder than it otherwise would have been. But that to me goes back to the whole making a living breathing world I mentioned.



I did so do in 3E.

Which made the problem mostly worse. Because the caster would then not need to cast many buffs during the battle, he would get into the battle with everything he needed. Sure, a few slots will be devoted to "useless" spells (for that combat), but he really only needs 4 offensive spells for the typical fight. One side will be dead afterwards.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 22, 2012)

JRRNeiklot said:


> You and I have had this argument before.  They can reset traps, build new ones, build a ballista, slaughter the prisoners, take new ones.  Send assassins after your loved ones, retaliate by attacking nearby farmsteads.  8 hours is a long time.



Some Goblins in a cave can send Assassins to my loved ones*? 
They can build Ballistas in 8 hours? 

Some examples seem a little far-fetched. 

*) As if a decent min/maxer has loved ones. "My family is dead, everyone one of them. And so are all my mentors and pets." "If they want my loved ones, they have to take them out of my cold, dead hands!"


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 22, 2012)

They could mix up some concrete to entomb you if you're holed up in a "defensible position" in the caves.

Or build a nice bonfire in the vicinity, giving them options involving oil, choking smoke, or even pure heat.

IOW, they will react.  The question of HOW is dependent on their resources and your party's particular location, etc.


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## barbiomalefico (Jul 22, 2012)

> Rather than focus on the encounter, we are now focusing on the adventuring day. That means that during the typical adventure, we expect the average party to defeat X levels worth of monsters over Y rounds of combat. In other words, we're assuming that an adventure includes a certain amount of combat, and this amount is defined in terms of rounds and enemies.




The discussion talked a lot about how to change rules in order to avoid the (1)5 minutes work day problem and how to manage adventures to achieve the same result.

The thing I was worried about is another: the adventuring day. 
Is not simple to write an adventure based on days and not on encounter. For example, if I would like to write a dungeon, i will populate it filling the rooms with mosters, traps and so on. After that I have no idea of the room order coming from investigation. So if I think that room 1 -2 -3 are the first day and the PG start from 3 and then go to 4 they can approach an unbalanced encounter.

The DM cannot guess the decision of the PG so he cannot manage an adventuring day.

I'm scared about a designer unable to think about that!


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## Tuft (Jul 22, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> They could mix up some concrete to entomb you if you're holed up in a "defensible position" in the caves.
> 
> Or build a nice bonfire in the vicinity, giving them options involving oil, choking smoke, or even pure heat.
> 
> IOW, they will react.  The question of HOW is dependent on their resources and your party's particular location, etc.





Warning, anecdote time:

When I joined my first 1ed game years and years ago, the campaign was a couple of years old already, so the PCs had quite a few levels. Of course I got told endless stories of what had already transpired in the campaign, and among those was this:

The PCs were attacking a huge, huge evil city on their own. Resting - raiding - resting - raiding. They had a tiny magical gem that contained a pocket universe, and used that as a base, popping in and out of it as necessary. The city was underground, a maze of corridors and caves carved from the rock, so it was trivial to find a crack in the wall in an unused cave as a secure hiding place for the gem, so the PCs thought it to be the perfect setup.

Well, the GM was extremely simulationistic, so he had already used his trusty population formulas to determine how many evil clerics of the appropriate level the city had. From that he got how many yes/no divination spells could be cast during the PCs' rest time.

So the evil clerics determined what half, quarter, eigth, sixteenth, etc of the city the PC were in. They got as far as singling out a city block before the time was up. So, being evil, they cast Rock to Mud on the entire block, population be damned. When the PCs popped out of their cosy pocket universe a little later, they emerged in a torrent of mud already being swept down a dark underground river into depths unknown...

From that anecdote I learned not to be complacent about rests and the 5 min adventuring day. 


PS. I said the city was huge. I got shown the maps afterward, and they were a 7cm (3inch) stack of A4 graph paper using 5mm squares.... Those were the days of a grandioser scale...


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## Bluenose (Jul 22, 2012)

JRRNeiklot said:


> You and I have had this argument before. They can reset traps, build new ones, build a ballista, slaughter the prisoners, take new ones. Send assassins after your loved ones, retaliate by attacking nearby farmsteads. 8 hours is a long time.




No, eight hours really isn't a long time to be starting a military expedition. And it's certainly not long enough to build a ballista, or even assemble one from existing parts. And if they send a group out to do some mischief, they might run right into our ambush; or they might find that we come in again while that group is away, making it easier for us; or they might find that we don't really care about a bunch of people stupid enough to live near a known lair without being able to protect themselves, and we're off in town buying selling the loot and planning a raid on some totally different place.


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## tlantl (Jul 22, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Well. there's your problem, right there.




I kind of agree. 

I write adventures that pertain to the exploration of the game world. I don't pour over CR charts or XP charts or in any way pick monsters to be appropriate challenges or to give a certain number of rounds of damage or any thing other than that they are close enough to the party's level to be dangerous for them.

I think that if the encounter or adventure is metered so closely then it forces me to follow that method or have a hard time creating good dungeons. If I want to use a specific monster in the adventure but it doesn't fit the formula then what happens? 

If building adventures is like 3e or 4e then I'm really not going to be happy. I like to adjust encounter difficulty by tweaking the creatures encountered by weapon or armor or the number of hit points they have, and the way they react in game to the party;s presence. Sometimes I want the party to lose, sometimes I want a cake walk, sometimes I want a nail biter where no one can predict the outcome.

I don't want the group to always win unless they really mess things up. 

you want to be a hero? Die for a cause, There's nothing heroic about winning all the time.


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## ForeverSlayer (Jul 22, 2012)

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this before so I apologize if it's been said already. Hell, maybe it needs to be said more than once but I believe the whole "5-15 minute work day" is an internet forum problem and not one that happens at most tables. 

I'm not at every table so I can't confirm this but it's what I believe.


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## JRRNeiklot (Jul 22, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Some Goblins in a cave can send Assassins to my loved ones*?
> They can build Ballistas in 8 hours?
> 
> Some examples seem a little far-fetched.
> ...




By assassin, I mean a bad guy with a knife, not a trained assassin.  But it doesn't have to be a goblin.  It can be whatever adversary the pcs are facing from, goblins to high level elven assassins to dragons.  

And dozens of ballistas can be built in 8 hours if enough man power is present.  Are you telling me that if the pcs wanted to build a ballista, and had the knowhow and materials, and 8 hours to build it in, you wouldn't allow it?  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 22, 2012)

JRRNeiklot said:


> By assassin, I mean a bad guy with a knife, not a trained assassin.  But it doesn't have to be a goblin.  It can be whatever adversary the pcs are facing from, goblins to high level elven assassins to dragons.



How do they know who my loved ones are? How can they get there in 8 hours? 

I've never played a campaign where it was that trivial to get anyone's family or loved ones, usually the player characters were days or weeks off their home towns. If it could be reached within 8 hours, then my PCs would probably rest around there and keep their loved ones protected. 



> And dozens of ballistas can be built in 8 hours if enough man power is present.  Are you telling me that if the pcs wanted to build a ballista, and had the knowhow and materials, and 8 hours to build it in, you wouldn't allow it?  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.



I don't know, when you tell me the crafting rules for Ballista's, i may know. Know-How and materials already seems to disqualify most enemies, otherwise they'd already have some of them and comtemplate using them. (And Ballistas aren't exactly a in-door/dungeon weapon anyway).


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## JRRNeiklot (Jul 22, 2012)

Bluenose said:


> No, eight hours really isn't a long time to be starting a military expedition. And it's certainly not long enough to build a ballista, or even assemble one from existing parts. And if they send a group out to do some mischief, they might run right into our ambush; or they might find that we come in again while that group is away, making it easier for us; or they might find that we don't really care about a bunch of people stupid enough to live near a known lair without being able to protect themselves, and we're off in town buying selling the loot and planning a raid on some totally different place.




Sure.  They might run into trouble, just like the pcs.  But they might not.  

As for the ballista, really?  By 1e rules, a 10x10x10 stone wall takes 3.5 days to build, 2.75 if enough resources are present.  Wooden structures take 1/2 that.  A ballista requires a bit more finesse, but 8 hours?  Come on.  It's a glorified crossbow.  At any rate, the ballista is just one example of what can be done given 8 hours to prepare.  Kick in the door right now, and you might catch the owner barefooted and shirtless.  Come back tomorrow, and it won't be anywhere near as easy.

When I ran G1 years ago, *SPOILER ALERT*




The pcs opted for a frontal assault against the hill giants.  They handled it well, slaughtered most of the giants, the remainder fled to the protection of the frost giant Jarl.  The pcs rested.  The giants didn't.  As punishment for their failure, the hill giants got the pleasure of portal guard duty.  When the pcs popped through the portal, they got their asses handed to them.  The floor was greased, a furniture blockade was set up, and every rock in the place was gathered for ammo.  It didn't go well for the pcs.


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## B.T. (Jul 22, 2012)

I don't see the fifteen-minute workday as a problem.


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## JRRNeiklot (Jul 22, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> How do they know who my loved ones are? How can they get there in 8 hours?




How do the pcs know who/where the bad guys are?  How do they get there in 8 hours?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 22, 2012)

JRRNeiklot said:


> How do the pcs know who/where the bad guys are?  How do they get there in 8 hours?



Hmm. So the goblins go into a tavern and talk with a mysterious stranger: 
"Some adventurers broke into our lair a few hours back. Can you tell us anything about them?" "Yeah, the Fighter is called Bob, he has a niece here in town. She lives Baker's Street 42. Wanna know more?" "The Wizard burned 10 of my men with a Fireball." "Oh, so it's personal. His name is Averix. He's not a local, unfortunately, but there's a whore he visits regularly. Lives in Madame's Bigbosoms house."
"That should be enough for now. Oh, one more thing. Can you write me a letter in Common?" "Depends, what is supposed to be in it. "Just the following: This is for murdering the folks of my tribes, bastards. Chieftain Torsen of the Skullcleaver Clan".


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## JRRNeiklot (Jul 22, 2012)

Why are you so hung up on goblins?  That's one monster out of the mm.  But, if it has to be goblins, the shaman can cast divinations, or they can abduct a townsperson, etc.  Any tactic available to pcs is generally available to npcs as well.

I'm not saying such things will always happen, I'm saying in a living breathing world they can.  If your game is static and nothing changes til the pcs kick in a door, then yeah, the 15 minute day might occur.  But then, that's not the problem, is it?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 22, 2012)

The point is that, in a "living world", sentient beings like goblins will not simply sit there and wait for the PCs to hit & run attack them until they are all dead.  At some point, they will act proactively, either by fight or by flight.

You ask how goblins might find out about the PCs?  Well, depending on the goblins, they may have trackers (rogues, scouts, rangers, etc.) among their number- do your PCs take anti-tracking countermeasures?

Even if they don't find the PCs camp, they may track back to the township where they resupply, boiling out of their warrens like agitated Africanized bees, killing everything in sight...


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## ForeverSlayer (Jul 22, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The point is that, in a "living world", sentient beings like goblins will not simply sit there and wait for the PCs to hit & run attack them until they are all dead.  At some point, they will act proactively, either by fight or by flight.




Not to mention the fact that goblins are usually accompanied by Hobgoblins and Bugbears.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 22, 2012)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Not to mention the fact that goblins are usually accompanied by Hobgoblins and Bugbears.




Or act as the "cannon fodder" for such beinga.


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## ForeverSlayer (Jul 22, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Or act as the "cannon fodder" for such beinga.




Exactly!


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## MarkB (Jul 22, 2012)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Not sure if anyone has mentioned this before so I apologize if it's been said already. Hell, maybe it needs to be said more than once but I believe the whole "5-15 minute work day" is an internet forum problem and not one that happens at most tables.
> 
> I'm not at every table so I can't confirm this but it's what I believe.




I can't speak for every table, but I've seen it crop up a few times, both as GM and player. Not often, but it happens. I have no reason to believe that the groups I've played in were unique in that regard.


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## ForeverSlayer (Jul 22, 2012)

MarkB said:


> I can't speak for every table, but I've seen it crop up a few times, both as GM and player. Not often, but it happens. I have no reason to believe that the groups I've played in were unique in that regard.




I'm sure it does crop up but not enough to base an entire system around.


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## Hussar (Jul 23, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The point is that, in a "living world", sentient beings like goblins will not simply sit there and wait for the PCs to hit & run attack them until they are all dead.  At some point, they will act proactively, either by fight or by flight.
> 
> You ask how goblins might find out about the PCs?  Well, depending on the goblins, they may have trackers (rogues, scouts, rangers, etc.) among their number- do your PCs take anti-tracking countermeasures?
> 
> Even if they don't find the PCs camp, they may track back to the township where they resupply, boiling out of their warrens like agitated Africanized bees, killing everything in sight...




If the humanoids were already powerful enough to wipe out an entire town, presumably fortified since they have humanoids for neighbours, how exactly were the PC's supposed to deal with them in the first place?


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## Hussar (Jul 23, 2012)

ForeverSlayer said:


> I'm sure it does crop up but not enough to base an entire system around.




I would imagine, at a guess, that much of the 15 MAD issue has its roots in RPGA play.  That's where a lot of the feedback for D&D has come from over the years.  And, given RPGA adventures, it's not hard to see how 15 MAD could easily become an issue since the whole "living world" thing is very difficult to do when you only have such a very short time to run the entire adventure, and the DM likely doesn't have the knowledge of the area to be able to do it.  He'd have to go way off script to start.

Honestly, I've always presumed that 15 MAD was just part and parcel for D&D play.  It's a viable tactic and it makes sense in many cases.  Games that don't have wildly varying power levels depending on pacing don't see this issue at all.  But, since this has been part of my D&D experience since about day 1, I always just sort of shrugged and went with it.  I can buy all sorts of D&Disms, so, why not this one?


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## Tony Vargas (Jul 23, 2012)

ForeverSlayer said:


> I'm sure it does crop up but not enough to base an entire system around.



Remember the 'Gnome problem?'  A problem that doesn't crop up for everyone is still a problem.

As far as basing a whole system around it, why base the system around encouraging the 15MWD?  That's what the Vancian system /does/: it gives casters a huge incentive to re-memorize their spells as often as possible.   

A system that is pacing-neutral (and even a different enough implementation of Vancian fire-and-forget memorization could be) wouldn't be 'base around' avoiding (or catering to) the 15MWD, it'd just let the DM and the group proceed at whatever pace made sense for the setting, situations, and characters.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 23, 2012)

Hussar said:


> If the humanoids were already powerful enough to wipe out an entire town, presumably fortified since they have humanoids for neighbours, how exactly were the PC's supposed to deal with them in the first place?




Apologies, didn't necessarily mean to imply they'd wipe the town out, just a reactionary rampage and cause significant damage.  There could have been a "hot truce" that had some occasional raids & border skirmishes, with the PCs' actions upsetting the balance.  (Possibly _on purpose,_ depending on the campaign.*)

And the PCs mission might have been a surgical strike to take out key resources and/or leaders to soften up the goblins for a bigger strike, in which case timing REALLY mattered.









* 







> "...All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
> and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the
> country to danger. It works the same in any country."
> 
> ~ Hermann Goering, on getting a nation to go to war.




(not Godwinning)


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## pemerton (Jul 23, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> The "15MAD" problem is a problem wherein the party becomes more effective by resting to recover all their resources before each encounter so that they never have a situation where they run low on resources.





KidSnide said:


> There's one point I think is worth adding about the effect of the "living world" approach, which is that it's not really a punishment or an incentive to employ the 15 min tactic.
> 
> <sni[p>
> 
> It merely changes the costs and benefits so the 15MAD tactic _is no longer almost always optimal_.  The PCs in a living world campaign may sometimes nova and retreat.  That's a tactical decision, and it's fine.



In response to both these posts, I really want to reiterate what Mustrum_Ridcully has been saying:



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> That is _one_ of the problems. The other problem is that only _some_ of the members of that group actually benefit from this type of rest, in the sense that these members will have more imrpessive and more decisive abilties than the other members, making the others feel less required.
> 
> What is also bad is that the members with these significant resources also get the best ability to dictate or enable an extended rest.




The main issue with the 15-minute day isn't that it's inane (although sometimes it is) or that it makes encounters too easy (good GMs often have ways of varying encounter strength and running dynamic and responsive encounters). The main issue is that it overpowers PCs who can nova and underpowers PCs who can't.

And as Mustrum points out, this imbalance is compounded when those who can nova (ie casters) also have the best utility abilities (including those that determine the pacing of rests) while those who can't nova also often have only limited utility abilities (eg fighters, and some versions of the thief).



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Well, that's kind of a bang-on problem with regards to some characters having daily resources and others not
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if it IS a problem, then there are lots of solutions that one can use, depending on how one wants to solve the problem. From adjusting XP awards to reactive environments to fighter dailies to milestones.



That is, it's a mechanical problem needing a mechanical solution. Telling people that the issue would just go away if they used wandering monsters and a "living, breathing world" (as if the rest of us only GM sterile, boring worlds) is not very helpful.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> I'm eager to dialogue with someone who has actually had this problem
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'd even settle for someone who has had this problem in previous "e's," and talking about what solutions may or may not work for them and why, but even these folks are kind of tough to find.



I think Mustrum_Ridcully have spoken pretty clearly about how we've solved the issue in 4e.

Besides the obvious thing, of putting all PCs on the same recharge recyle, 4e has other features too: because many dailies are somewhat situational in the benefits they confer, nova-ing is not as highly rewarded as in a system of pure Vancian (the comparitor would be making 3rd level spells more situational than the weaker 1st level spells); because a PC _can't_ benefit from spending all his/her healing surges at once (there is a cap set by max hp), the single most important daily resource can't be nova-ed.

For my group, milestones also make a difference, but I think a lot of groups don't find them so significant.



Zustiur said:


> So long as there is any resource management of significant impact, the 15MAD concept will still be _possible._



I don't think this is true. If resource management is of non-rechargable abilities (some spells in Runequest, potions and scrolls in D&D, etc) then there is no incentive to rest because you won't recharge them.

Also, if resource management is of per-encounter resources (eg encounter powers in 4e) then there is no need to anything but short rests to recharge them; and PCs can't try and recharge them by resting _during_ the encounter because while you're in an encounter things aren't very restful.



MarkB said:


> I think the problem people are having with the suggestion of "A living world is a useful tool to prevent the 15MWD" is that it has a (probably unintended) negative connotation to it - that it's something you employ specifically to discourage a playing style.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Whereas I think the intended usage is more along the lines of "Okay, they're out of the picture for the next eight hours. What's everyone else in the area likely to be doing in the meantime?"



There's nothing wrong with that as such, but if the answer is "The gameworld has got much more boring", then why would I (as a GM trying to run a fun game) want to do that? Conversely, if the the answer is "The gameworld has got more interesting in _this_ way", then how have I discouraged the players?

I'm not saying that running a living world is a bad idea - it's a bit like apple pie in that respect - but to use it to regulate pacing we need to talk in much more detail about the relationship between PC goals, player goals and the way they relate to various stakes and possibilities in the fiction.

In Burning Wheel, for example, a player has a reason to push hard before the goblins escape because the Belief "I must revenge myself against the goblins who slew my father" is a mechanical part of his/her PC's build. That means that fulfilling that Belief factors indirectly into action resolution; thus, the player isn't indifferent across the range of possible interesting states of the fiction.

Furthermore, the player also is playing a system which has explicit elements in its action resolution mechanics designed to make it unlikely that the PC will die even if s/he fails in confronting the goblins. And in fact improving your PC's skills becomes _easier_ when you are wounded, because improvement is based on attempting (not necessarily succeeding at) a check with a given prospect of success. Being wounded makes checks harder, and so makes them worth more for advancement; and the fact that you probably won't succeed at them doesn't stop them counting for advancement purposes. (And because of the way the action resolution works, failing a check doesn't mean that you lose your PC, or the game.)



Crazy Jerome said:


> we need as many tools and techniques as we can get along with clear instructions on when, how, and why to use them.  That also includes when not to use them.



Agreed. I think some sort of milestone/Action Point mechanic can be one important part of this - depleting resources (be they spells or hit points or other slow-recharge resources) causes a new resource to grow.

In order to stop it being boring, ideally that new resource would not just operate in the same dimension of play as the depleted resources, but allow something different. 4e Action Points are one example of this - you don't recharge Dailies, but you can get bonus actions on your turn - but more adventurous versions must be possible. You might start by looking at the range of special abilities associated with action points by variuos paragon paths.

As well as mechanics, advice can also help. D&D has never had good advice on how to adjudicate failure (beyond "roll up a new PC"). I think it's time for that to change.


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## pemerton (Jul 23, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I once played in a game where the DM ran one adventure where we had to save the princess from some people attacking the castle.  It was obvious that we were delaying much longer than he expected.  The princess should have died, given how long we took to get there....but, the DM had planned for the next adventure to be us escaping the castle with the princess, and as the last surviving member of the royal family, using her as a plot device ot raise an army and take back the kingdom.
> 
> So, it didn't matter how long we took, because the time limit was artificial.
> 
> ...



I'm personally not a big fan of this style of play - I don't like to set up stakes on which I'm not prepared, as GM, to follow through - but I assume it must come up in a lot of adventure path play.

I mean, if the adventure path presupposes that so-and-so is alive to make the next episode work, than the GM can't kill off so-and-so no matter how dilatory the PCs.


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## Zustiur (Jul 23, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I don't think this is true. If resource management is of non-rechargable abilities (some spells in Runequest, potions and scrolls in D&D, etc) then there is no incentive to rest because you won't recharge them.



First remember that I used the word 'possible' rather than 'likely'. Now consider: If you use up your wands of cure light wounds or scrolls of whatever, is it _possible_ to want to break from the adventure to re-stock them? Yes. 



> Also, if resource management is of per-encounter resources (eg encounter powers in 4e) then there is no need to anything but short rests to recharge them; and PCs can't try and recharge them by resting _during_ the encounter because while you're in an encounter things aren't very restful.



I'd argue that 'per-encounter' doesn't meet the criteria of 'significant impact'. Obviously I wasn't referring to encounter powers. However the same principal still applies. Let's call it the '24 second work period'. Fight for 4 rounds (24 seconds) rest for 5 minutes. How often does a party NOT take that short rest? It's exactly the same concept, just over a much shorter time scale.




> Agreed. I think some sort of milestone/Action Point mechanic can be one important part of this - depleting resources (be they spells or hit points or other slow-recharge resources) causes a new resource to grow.



I agree that this could be a solution, but I'm not terribly pleased with the idea. Perhaps we should ask, "At what point SHOULD the party stop pressing forward?".
Milestones beg two questions from players like myself:
1) How can a character get better throughout the day and then get worse after having a rest?
2) Why couldn't my character do that [extra action/whatever] at the beginning of the day?
It's a mechanic for mechanic's sake. There's no in-story reason for the mechanic to exist. This brings me back to the argument much earlier in this(?) thread: Should the mechanics exist to codify the story, or should the story try to explain the mechanics?
In other words, why does the character benefit from having 2 or more combats? What is the explanation for this? 4E doesn't offer an explanation. I can't think of a valid one. I don't want to turn this point into an argument, but I do want to make you aware that some players see this as 'gamey'. It's the rules-makers saying that the 15MAD is BadWrongFun. There's no emulation of the story, it's just a mechanic designed to force people to play in a certain manner.



> As well as mechanics, advice can also help. D&D has never had good advice on how to adjudicate failure (beyond "roll up a new PC"). I think it's time for that to change.



This I agree with.
Advice and mechanics on fleeing and on chase scenes would be very helpful.


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## MarkB (Jul 23, 2012)

pemerton said:


> There's nothing wrong with that as such, but if the answer is "The gameworld has got much more boring", then why would I (as a GM trying to run a fun game) want to do that? Conversely, if the the answer is "The gameworld has got more interesting in _this_ way", then how have I discouraged the players?




Which is why I think it isn't a reliable, one-size-fits-all tool for the specific purpose we're talking about in this thread. Instead, it's a general-purpose tool which, occasionally, has appropriate applications to this particular problem.

I would point out, however, that there are other options than simply "boring" or "interesting". If taking a rest resulted in people dying because the characters weren't quick enough in stopping the villains, for instance, that's not any more boring or interesting - but it would, for many players, provide an incentive not to dawdle in such situations.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 23, 2012)

Here's another mechanical option that I'm going to throw out there more because of the thinking behind it than necessarily the option itself:

Assuming spells starts with a model something like a hybrid of AD&D and 3E (i.e. spells by levels increasing, but toned down compared to top-end 3E casters), then use a recharge mechanic on slots. Specifically, every time a slot gets used, the slot itself becomes "exhausted." Once a slot is exhauted, it regains one level per day. So if you cast _fireball_ in a 3rd level spell slot, it turns into a zero level slot. After you rest, it's a 1st level spell slot, and thus takes 3 rests to get back to full power.

If spell slots get completely out of control, that might get unwieldy. But it does a pretty good job of providing a reason for why you can't cast spells again without "preparation." You've got the knowledge of the spell all the time, but the slot has no energy left until it recharges. In fact, I'd even be tempted to extend that model so that you don't need a spell book to regain the spell, if you want to leave it the same. You wait three days and don't touch that 3rd level slot, it's still got a _fireball_ in it. Save the (big, thick, troublesome) spell books for changing the spell in a slot. (You could still allow a "traveling spell book" with a handful of spells for some utility swapping.) But I digress.

The more interesting aspect of this mechanic, IMHO, is that it addresses the "wizard's run out of things to do" AD&D problem with "more slots" the way 3E tried, but the more powerful slots become less and less accessible, thus curbing the runaway power. A 9th level slot is something so powerful that you can't use it at full strength but once in 9 days, maximum. 

That's especially interesting if the power of the spell is scaling with the slot instead of the caster level. That is, with that idea, a caster might already want to put a _fireball_ in a higher level slot, to get more dice. So say a wizard puts _fireball_ in a 5th level slots. Say it does 9d6 damage. When he casts it, it's a major effect around 9th level or so. After 3 days or rest, he's got 3rd level spell power recharged into that 5th level slot, meaning a 5d6 _fireball_. But using this today means setting the clock back to getting the bigger effect. So it removes some of the "all or nothing" effect of spells organically, with a built in reason for the wizard to restrain himself as well. 

You could extend this to magic items as well. A simple wand of _cure light wounds_ has a bunch of charges--and can be used 1/day by definition. But then you have a more expensive version of the wand that casts the spell in a higher slot, and thus packs more healing into a short time, at the expense of taking longer to recharge.  (More complex magic items could also have multiple effective "slots" per day, but I'd probably leave those to staves and other such flavorful items.)

Finally, when a party is really beat down but trying to press on, you get a defacto "encounter power" effect (in the math if not the fiction). That is, a caster that has finally used up all of their high level slots, grudgingly, that can take an extended rest, has got an awful lot of lower level spells available, meaning that it will be difficult to exhaust them in extremis.


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## pemerton (Jul 23, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> I'd argue that 'per-encounter' doesn't meet the criteria of 'significant impact'.



I guess that depends what sort of impact you have in mind. If you mean "pacing impact", then obviously I agree. If you mean "you-have-to-manage-these-to-play-your-PC-well impact" then I disagree.



Zustiur said:


> However the same principal still applies. Let's call it the '24 second work period'. Fight for 4 rounds (24 seconds) rest for 5 minutes. How often does a party NOT take that short rest? It's exactly the same concept, just over a much shorter time scale.



Personally, I'm not sure that this makes sense. Taking a break between encounters doesn't distort balance (one aspect of the contrast between nova and non-nova PCs that makes the 15 minute day a prolbem). Nor does it upset pacing. Almost by definition, encounters are separated by a break during which recharging can then take place.


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## pemerton (Jul 23, 2012)

MarkB said:


> there are other options than simply "boring" or "interesting". If taking a rest resulted in people dying because the characters weren't quick enough in stopping the villains, for instance, that's not any more boring or interesting - but it would, for many players, provide an incentive not to dawdle in such situations.



Yes, this is exactly the sort of detail I think that needs to be talked about.  (As opposed to general invocations of "living, breathing" worlds.) Because we can then talk about "which NPCs"? What happens if the PCs fail? (Majoru Oakheart's "princess problem".) Are we worried about creating an incentive for players to have their PCs be neutral or chaotic neutral with no friends or family, rather than heroic types who are deeply embedded in their communities? Etc.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 23, 2012)

> As opposed to general invocations of "living, breathing" worlds.




Please.   "Living, breathing world" is just the verbal shorthand for ALL the little scenarios that may crop up if the PCs take a break- the princess dying, the McGuffin gets moved, someone else completes your mission and gets the reward.

If the conversation is in the general mode, LBW will be used.  If someone wants to talk specifics, we'll talk specifics...which are just a subset of the LBW.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 24, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Please. "Living, breathing world" is just the verbal shorthand for ALL the little scenarios that may crop up if the PCs take a break- the princess dying, the McGuffin gets moved, someone else completes your mission and gets the reward.
> 
> If the conversation is in the general mode, LBW will be used. If someone wants to talk specifics, we'll talk specifics...which are just a subset of the LBW.





Even in the abstract, there are at least two different meanings of "living, breathing world," that I know of. There might be more:

The illusion that the world is living by having things occur outside the agency or reaction to the players.
Having the world react in plausible ways to changes or events that the players are aware of or even involved in.
Naturally, in the hands of a skillful DM, there is a lot of overlap in those two. So they might appear to be the same thing. The party raids an orc lair but don't clear it out. The orcs respond by getting reinforcements, but this takes time. On the way back, the party meets a rival adventuring group going to deal with the orcs, not realizing that the orcs have already been hit or have been reinforced.

I've seen the illusion run separate as downstream "story hook" effects that were never bit by the players. Some bard show comes through town, maybe mainly as a bit of color. The players don't really interact with it at all, but they keep seeing it traveling, perhaps sometimes just ahead of the watch, after getting thrown out of another tavern.

The more pure reaction is when you have things like orc tribes that have been quite stable for several months, in the face of supposed heavy adventuring by rival NPCs, but suddenly when the party goes in, the orcs are forming alliances. (It's tricky, because this one is even a plausible mix if you assume the rival NPCs weren't very successful. )

That is, IMHO, the skillful living world is neither pure illusion nor pure reaction, but a mix where the two parts reinforce each other. Though you also have to be careful with that, if the players start treating every event as if they had some part in it, if only as the observer. There's a fine line between saying the "minstrel show only appeared because the players were passing through town," versus the "minstrel show only appeared because the characters were passing through town." The former is true enough, as there ain't no other players sitting around the table, but if there is suspicion that the latter is true, then there's a kink in the story thread somewhere. In the worst form, the players get paranoid, AKA "There's a living world, and we know this because it's breathing down our neck!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 24, 2012)

> Even in the abstract, there are at least two different meanings of "living, breathing world," that I know of. There might be more:
> The illusion that the world is living by having things occur outside the agency or reaction to the players.
> Having the world react in plausible ways to changes or events that the players are aware of or even involved in.




I don't see those as separate meanings, but rather as subsets of the same thing.  Or more accurately, they are two tools that help the GM create & run the LBW, like running plays and passes are both tools of a football team's offense.



> That is, IMHO, the skillful living world is neither pure illusion nor pure reaction, but a mix where the two parts reinforce each other.




Like the running game sets up the passing attack, and your passing game frees up space for your running backs.


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## Zustiur (Jul 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I guess that depends what sort of impact you have in mind. If you mean "pacing impact", then obviously I agree. If you mean "you-have-to-manage-these-to-play-your-PC-well impact" then I disagree.



I mean 'impact' as in, after you use it, you can't use it again until X. If not having it hinders you in any way, it's an impact. Using up a charge from a CLW wand isn't really an impact. Using up the last charge might be. Using up fireball when it's your most powerful spell is definitely a significant impact.
So long as there are things that run out, there will be the possibility of deciding not to proceed until they have been recharged/repurchased/re-enchanted/re-whatever.
This goes for hit points as much as it does spells. So long as not being at full power is a factor of the game, some gamers will want to return to full power before continuing. The only way to completely prevent this is to have everything reset immediately at the end of an encounter. All spells/powers, all HP, all surges, everything. If you don't prevent it, the 15MAD concept is still possible, and someone somewhere will try to use it.



> Personally, I'm not sure that this makes sense. Taking a break between encounters doesn't distort balance (one aspect of the contrast between nova and non-nova PCs that makes the 15 minute day a prolbem). Nor does it upset pacing. Almost by definition, encounters are separated by a break during which recharging can then take place.



The fact that taking a break between encounters doesn't distort balance is a factor of 4E, not a factor of encounter based recharge cycles. Furthermore, it does distort the balance in a way. If the party continues on without taking that 5 minute rest, they're underpowered for the next combat, which unbalances them with the expected difficulty of the following encounter. I think we're arguing at cross purposes here. I don't see the ability to repeatedly nova as being the _only_ problem with the 15MAD. This quote makes me think that you do.


Let me try to explain my point with a fictitious example:
We have a fighter with no rechargeable powers. A Wizard with daily spells. And a rogue with encounter powers.
They have an encounter but suffer no damage. An important bad guy fled and was not killed. The fighter wants to pursue him immediately. The rogue (who used his best encounter powers) wants to wait 5 minutes until he's at full power. The wizard (who cast his best spells) wants to rest all night until he's at full power. From a story perspective, pursuing immediately is the sensible option. From a survivalist perspective, waiting 5 minutes or 8 hours is the sensible option.
I don't see how there's any real difference here between the rogue and the wizard. Both are putting the desire to be 'at full power' ahead of the story goal 'catch the bad guy'. Can you see that there is a similarity here?

So long as there are things which become unavailable, some players will want to wait until those things become available before continuing. So long as that occurs, it will be possible to end up with 15MAD-like situation where the players are ultra careful about being at full power all the time instead of pushing on with the story.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 24, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> So long as there are things which become unavailable, some players will want to wait until those things become available before continuing. So long as that occurs, it will be possible to end up with 15MAD-like situation where the players are ultra careful about being at full power all the time instead of pushing on with the story.



I do not think we can avoid 15 minute adventure days all the time. I think we can avoid that 15 minute adventure days imbalance the game towards those that have the most resources to regain from a rest. 

Or, expressed in a more general way, I suppose: Favor those that can set the pace of the game the most. 
If for some reason the all-at-will Fighter can dicate the pace of the game, then he will run his non-stop 12 hour adventuring days while the Rogue and Wizards run out of abilities to use rapidly.

Traditionally, it were always the spellcasters that could dicate rest the most. Their presence alone made it a good idea for the group to rest, because they had expendable resources with brought a lot of power to the party, and they had spells that would make resting safer (even if you used wanding monster/breathing world and whatever approaches). 

One thing to consider with wandeirng monsters and adventure days - how long do we expect a party that does not rest for the night to need to get through a dungeon? Do you expect it take 16 hours? In my experience that is unlikely, as individual combats do not take much longer than 5-10 minutes of game-world time. Even with some exploration, it seems likely you could be done - if you could survive it without resting  - in 4 game-world hours or so with most dungeons. 

So the difference between a 15 minute adventuring day vs a 4 hour adventuring day is 3:45 more wandering monster rolls (assuming those rolls do not apply inside the dungeon), so basically either 20h wandering monster hours or 23 hours and 45 minutes. 

The only real difference is that you may keep the denizens of the dungeon occupied so they don't have 23 hours to come up with and implement a defensive strategy. Wandering monsters overall seem a non-fix, counter-measures by the enemy may be one. But you have to weigh that against the risk of being out of spells to deal with the enemy groups you encounter inside the dungeon. Realisitically, the moment of surprise you may have had is gone when you had your first battle.


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## TwoSix (Jul 24, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> So long as there are things which become unavailable, some players will want to wait until those things become available before continuing. So long as that occurs, it will be possible to end up with 15MAD-like situation where the players are ultra careful about being at full power all the time instead of pushing on with the story.



Yes, but that presupposes a binary condition between "full" and "not-full".  Relative power exists on a continuum.  Even in 3e, the edition most amenable to 15MWD, PCs don't rest for the day when the wizard is down 2 HP.  They regroup because any attack you really want to win is one where it makes sense to spend as much of your resources upfront as possible. 

The way I've seen 15WMD play out is this:

"OK, who are we fighting today?"
"Those hobgoblins who summoned the gelugons are still holding the village down the river hostage."
"Let's fix that.  Check if they're still there."
*Scry*
"Yep, still there."
"Ok, let's get ready."
*Mass Energy Resistance (cold)*
*Superior Resistance*
*Invisibility* on everyone
*Mirror Image*
*Fly* on everyone
*Haste*
*Righteous Wrath of the Faithful*
*Teleport*
Scout while flying and invisible, locate enemies.
*Dispel Magic* on the area around the enemy cluster.
Drop in for the attack.
Crush everyone, focusing on enemy spellcasters.  If something bad happens, regroup, *teleport* to base.

Let me mention that this isn't a hypothetical.  This is how my last 3.5 game played out from January (when we hit 11th, and the other wizard and I got teleport (we were multiclassed)) until the game ended a week ago.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 24, 2012)

Let's look at it a moment from 20,000 feet, at the larger issue for which the 15 minute work day is merely one famous example.  I'm going the long way around for things that I think most people already know to show the linkage:

Namely, it is anywhere the game model breaks down, such that the effort required by the players is totally out of sync with the effort required by the characters.  For example, Joe the Fighter goes on an adventure, kills some goblins, gains a level, and decides to put some skill points, feats, or the like into being a jeweler.  This is almost trivial for the player, but is supposed to represent, in game, hundreds of hours of practice at working with gems and jewelry. 

Now, you actually get the same effect no matter what Joe uses that XP for, but it's a lot more palatable that he gets a feat to hit a little harder with his longsword, as the training and practice are unspoken but assumed.  That's why a lot of groups will tell Joe he can't buy that new or increased jeweler ability until Joe has spent some time in game on it.  But even here, we aren't going to play it out in mindless tedium.  Thus, in-game character time is a resource here, not, say, Joe's dedication and will to bend over small pieces of jewelry for hours at a time, day after day.  Or more clearly, Joe spends "age" to gain "PS: Jeweler."  Thus, if Joe is an elf that lives for a 1,000 years, and the campaign makes no particular effort to make time matter, then Joe spending "age" doesn't really cost anything.

And because these things are all "break in the model" types, they share with 15 MAD that they can't all be fully addressed by mechanics, but can be muted by mechanics and then the rest covered by advice.  The game model will always have holes in it somewhere, as a game about killing monsters and taking their treasure will never be a great model for, say, medieval fantasy professions.  In the case of 15 MAD, the game assumes a certain amount of desire and push to "go adventure" that you don't want to completely circumscribe with a bunch of mechanics driving the PCs to do that very thing.  Encouragement and prods are good, fences and no real decisions, not so much.

So in general, I'd say that when the model starts to break down in ways like the 15 MAD, we want to examine the efforts and resources put forth by the PC in the game model, which are done in lieu of the more realistic efforts and resources that the characters might expend if their story was real.  Thus the varied insights by many that part of the problem with Vancian magic is not that it is daily, but that it is daily that is easy to use, easy to get back.  And that's also why the "solutions" are so varied yet not necessarily well received when shared across campaigns.  The only solutions that work are the ones that impose real costs on the PCs in the model, whether that be by house rules, contriving events in the game world, etc.  These necessarily change from campaign to campaign, and player to player, just as age is a real factor for Joe the human fighter in a tight, gritty campaign, not for Joe the elf fighter in a loose, epic campaign.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 24, 2012)

9 spells on one encounter?  Wow!  Sourced from how many casters?


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## keterys (Jul 24, 2012)

Does it really matter? They rested right afterwards. It's the modern warfare approach to D&D, I guess. Locate target, call in air support, have a cigar.

Only reason not to if the system either gives a reason not to do it, or the DM or PCs give themselves reasons not to do it. Thankfully, I mostly can count on players to want to push onwards so I don't run into it that often. Yay for social contracts.

Course, I also have problems the other way - I almost have to beat them upside the head with a rest opportunity or they'll keep on going.


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## TwoSix (Jul 24, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 9 spells on one encounter?  Wow!  Sourced from how many casters?




3 casters.  A warlock/wizard/Eldritch Theurge, a beguiler/focused evoker/Ultimate Magus(me), and a cleric.  

I provided the invisibilities and some of the flys, the haste, and the mirror image.  Cleric handled superior resistance, RWotF, and Mass Energy Resistance.  I also usually cast the teleport, since I had a Runestaff of Transportation.  The other wizard handled the scry, if needed, or just judicious use of Dragoneye Rune, as well as a personal Mirror Image.  

Big guys I usually handled with a combination of Empowered / Quickened Scorching Rays, with a combination of Arcane Thesis (not cheesed, the DM and I agreed on the strictest interpretation possible, -1 total adjustment to spell level after all MM feats are applied), Residual Magic, and the Ultimate Magus metamagic ability.  That was how we killed the CR 20 mountain giant at level 11.  Good times.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 24, 2012)

> 3 casters. A warlock/wizard/Eldritch Theurge, a beguiler/focused evoker/Ultimate Magus(me), and a cleric.




Interesting...how many others in the party?  I ask, because while I'm in a big group, we typically only have 2 full casters in a given D&D party.  And as such the typical spell outlay in a givn encounter is 2-3 spells from the arcanist (typically a Wizard) and 1-2 divine spells from the main cleric.

We did have one group in which many PCs had a couple of divine caster levels, so in that group there would be one encounter after which there would be a flurry of low-level healing going on...

Until the guy playing the Favored Soul moved away, then the new guy playing the Druid moved away, leaving us with only one full (Arcane) caster.  That's when i retired my Ftr/Rgr/SpecWiz Div/SpSwd to take up the mantle of "medic."

(Not that I played a straight cleric or anything, but my Sorc/Clc/MT/Geomancer does the job _quite well._)


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## Hussar (Jul 25, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 9 spells on one encounter?  Wow!  Sourced from how many casters?




Well, it is a 9th level party.  One caster could have done that by himself.  But, I see that three casters did it.  

DannyA, I wonder if your experiences aren't coloring your perceptions.  You don't play in caster heavy groups.  I think, OTOH, that there are a number of groups that are much more caster heavy, and they would see 15 MAD much more.

I know that when I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, we weren't a caster heavy group, so, 15 MAD largely wasn't an issue.  And, when I ran Savage Tide Adventure Path, we still weren't terribly caster heavy, and between healing wands and Reserve Feats, 15 MAD again totally wasn't an issue.  The party was going through 4-6 encounters before resting.

I imagine that the primary cause here, more than adventure design or anything else, is party make up.  Makes sense.  If you have a group of 5 PC's, 3 of which are Vancian casters, 15 MAD is going to crop up a lot more than in a group where you only have 1 or 2 casters.


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## keterys (Jul 25, 2012)

The best part is, it actually feeds itself. 

If the party knows they can get away with 15MWD, they're going to be a lot more inclined to be a caster. And soon enough you have a party of all casters. Cause why not.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 25, 2012)

> DannyA, I wonder if your experiences aren't coloring your perceptions. You don't play in caster heavy groups. I think, OTOH, that there are a number of groups that are much more caster heavy, and they would see 15 MAD much more.




Wouldn't that cut the other way?  Many have asserted that the 15MWD occurs when the casters go nova and/or otherwise run out of spells to sling.

With fewer high level spells at our disposal, we'd run out of them more quickly than a caster-heavy group- but for our oft-described spell-stingy playstyle, of course- meaning we would have *more* incentive to rest.



> And, when I ran Savage Tide Adventure Path, we still weren't terribly caster heavy, and between healing wands and Reserve Feats, 15 MAD again totally wasn't an issue.




We don't use lots of CLW wands- no crafter casters in our groups.  We have whatever healing our casters have in spell or feat form, plus whatever we find, plus a couple of potions per PC, purchased when in town,  if available.  (They aren't always on the shelves.)

As for feats, typical campaign rules are Core 3 no Psi or Core 3 + Completes, no Psi, each PC can only use PHB + 2 other books.  So far, only one PC has used Reserve feats.


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## pemerton (Jul 25, 2012)

keterys said:


> The best part is, it actually feeds itself.
> 
> If the party knows they can get away with 15MWD, they're going to be a lot more inclined to be a caster. And soon enough you have a party of all casters. Cause why not.



In my first long-running Rolemaster game, the positive feedback worked this way: the caster PCs has control over the teleports and other, similar "pacing control" magics, leaving the non-caster PCs with little choice but to go along with the casters. At which point the players of non-casters start introducing caster PCs instead, (i) to take advantage of the nova-rest cycle, and (ii) to get access to their own teleports!

At which point the balance in the game stabilised around a 15minute day paradigm. Which was fine - the game was not unbalanced - but relied upon a somewhat narrow party composition.


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## Zustiur (Jul 25, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I do not think we can avoid 15 minute adventure days all the time. I think we can avoid that 15 minute adventure days imbalance the game towards those that have the most resources to regain from a rest.



This ties in with what I said in the other thread. If the issue is the balance between classes, why aren't we looking at the balance between classes? Throwing in gamist rules to prevent 15MAD isn't actually going to fix the balance...




			
				TwoSix said:
			
		

> "OK, who are we fighting today?"
> "Those hobgoblins who summoned the gelugons are still holding the village down the river hostage."
> "Let's fix that. Check if they're still there."
> *Scry*
> ...



You know what that example makes me think?
It makes me think that spell durations are too long.

A big part of the ability to nova comes from being able to cast spells well in advance of the actual combat. Perhaps that is one of the appropriate steps to look at in preventing/reducing the nova?

A question for all: If it was literally impossible to nova, would we still see the 15MAD?


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## TwoSix (Jul 25, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> A question for all: If it was literally impossible to nova, would we still see the 15MAD?




Absolutely not.

It isn't daily resources that cause 15MWD, it's the fact those resources make you so much more effective in combat.  If the wizard at-wills were magic missile, fireball, and Evard's black tentacles, and the dailies were hold portal, sepia snake sigil and amaneunsis, who would bother to rest?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 25, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> This ties in with what I said in the other thread. If the issue is the balance between classes, why aren't we looking at the balance between classes? Throwing in gamist rules to prevent 15MAD isn't actually going to fix the balance...




It takes a lot of time to get this into people's head, I think. Most are still thinking about how they can force players to not have a 15 minute adventuring day. The real issue for me is definitely the class balance, but it's difficult to reach everyone in the discussion to recognize that. Which is understandeable, since the thread title is all about the abonimation of 15 minute adventuring day, not the abonimation that only spellcasters have strong but expendable resources and benefit the most from a short adventuring day.

---

A long way could be done if spells in general were weaker. No more Fireball for 5d6 damage in a 20ft radius, but a Scorching Burst for 1d6+INT in a 10 ft radius. 

Or by giving Fighter's and Rogue's equally powerful daily abilities (but the problem is: Daily is unpopular since only magic can work as daily, mudane people daily resources other than hit points). Stuff like "If you hit, you can declare the attack to be a death strike - the target dies if it fails a save, otherwise it takes triple damage". Or "Dark Wanderer: You travel for 24 hours through hidden passages, little known paths, weaknesses in the dimensional fabric, and end up at any location you know on any plane".


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 25, 2012)

TwoSix said:


> Zustiur said:
> 
> 
> > A question for all: If it was literally impossible to nova, would we still see the 15MAD?
> ...



Your own reasoning is why I disagree with your conclusion. As long as HP is a resource you have to manage, it can/will cause the 15 MWD. Send a 5e party into the caves of chaos, have them hit a string of kobolds or whatever who keep running for help, and see if they want to keep going at the end of it even if the Wizard has been using magic missile each round, and has his Sleep spell. If they're low on HP, they'll still stop.


TwoSix said:


> If the wizard at-wills were magic missile, fireball, and Evard's black tentacles, and the dailies were hold portal, sepia snake sigil and amaneunsis, who would bother to rest?



This will help mitigate the 15 MWD, but it may produce a style of play that many won't like (and HP as a resource can/will cause the 15 MWD). At high enough level, I'm okay with at-will Fireballs and whatnot, so I'm split on it. But, while my preferred magic system uses spell slots, it is definitely not Vancian, nor do I favor the AED power structure. So, I'm also not aligned with any real majority crowd, I don't think.

At any rate, I do think the 15 MWD can be mitigated, but this requires less long-term resource management (more at-wills, HP lasting longer [healing surges], etc.), but this approach obviously has its share of detractors, because of how important long-term resource management has been a vital part of D&D strategy.

In essence, mitigating the 15 MWD with these methods may be best used in a module (or vice versa). I'm not sure how they'd do that (since they'd need to do it across a wide range of areas that could involve resource management  including HP, class abilities, spells, equipment, etc.), but that's also because I'm not heavily involved in creating the game. We'll see what they do, but the 15 MWD doesn't solely rely on the "nova" aspect of gameplay. As always, play what you like


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## TwoSix (Jul 25, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> Your own reasoning is why I disagree with your conclusion. As long as HP is a resource you have to manage, it can/will cause the 15 MWD. Send a 5e party into the caves of chaos, have them hit a string of kobolds or whatever who keep running for help, and see if they want to keep going at the end of it even if the Wizard has been using magic missile each round, and has his Sleep spell. If they're low on HP, they'll still stop




Fair enough.  It's been a long time since I played in a game where hit points were an actual out-of-combat resource to worry about.  (Thank you, wands of _lesser vigor_!)


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## keterys (Jul 25, 2012)

The 5e party has wand of lesser vigor equivalents, they're just called healing potions.

With enough gold, they can go forever.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 25, 2012)

keterys said:


> The 5e party has wand of lesser vigor equivalents, they're just called healing potions.
> 
> With enough gold, they can go forever.



I think the issue itself is having the gold, but the healing potions from the Herbalist stuff is definitely going to do what you're saying it will once they get that gold. As always, play what you like


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## pemerton (Jul 26, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> Your own reasoning is why I disagree with your conclusion. As long as HP is a resource you have to manage, it can/will cause the 15 MWD.



But once the classes are balanced, then the 15 minute day is purely an aesthetic issue (ie it can come across as somewhat inane). But it is no longer an issue about balance of effectiveness between classes, and hence some players dominating play at the expense of other players.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It takes a lot of time to get this into people's head, I think. Most are still thinking about how they can force players to not have a 15 minute adventuring day. The real issue for me is definitely the class balance, but it's difficult to reach everyone in the discussion to recognize that.



Yes, it is difficult and seems to take an inordinately long time.



TwoSix said:


> It isn't daily resources that cause 15MWD, it's the fact those resources make you so much more effective in combat.  If the wizard at-wills were magic missile, fireball, and Evard's black tentacles, and the dailies were hold portal, sepia snake sigil and amaneunsis, who would bother to rest?



Agreed.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> A long way could be done if spells in general were weaker.



In the Rolemaster game I was running before 4e, this is in effect what we did - took out the bulk of the overpowerd spells, so that nova-ing casters were comparable in effectiveness to non-magical warriors.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> "Dark Wanderer: You travel for 24 hours through hidden passages, little known paths, weaknesses in the dimensional fabric, and end up at any location you know on any plane".



Hey, that's my example!


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 26, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But once the classes are balanced, then the 15 minute day is purely an aesthetic issue (ie it can come across as somewhat inane). But it is no longer an issue about balance of effectiveness between classes, and hence some players dominating play at the expense of other players.



To me, the 15 MWD has always been more of a pacing issue than a balance issue. And, since HP plays a big part in that pacing issue, the 15 MWD can/will still occur once HP runs out (unless HP isn't a long term resource). But, as I also like class balance, I don't see anything here to argue with. As always, play what you like


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## Hussar (Jul 26, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> To me, the 15 MWD has always been more of a pacing issue than a balance issue. And, since HP plays a big part in that pacing issue, the 15 MWD can/will still occur once HP runs out (unless HP isn't a long term resource). But, as I also like class balance, I don't see anything here to argue with. As always, play what you like




True, but the HP issue is a fairly simple fix.  Just make the PC's more durable/harder to hit.  AD&D didn't have the HP issue as often simply because it was quite possible to have an entire encounter where PC's didn't lose any HP.  The monsters did such low amounts of damage generally, that it was fairly reasonable to push on.  Virtually no monsters could whack a PC in a single round - presuming fairly standard encounters of course.  Sure, an Ancient Huge dragon can smoke a 3rd level PC.  But, I'm talking about the average encounters.

3e boosted the baddies to  a huge degree.  4e kinda kept the 3e boosted monters, but gave oodles of HP to the PC's.  And, with the HP recovery mechanics in 4e, lots of people didn't like the result.  So, perhaps 5e, with its much flatter math, could look back at how AD&D does it.  Monsters can miss regularly again.

An EL par 3e encounter was supposed to burn 20 (ish) per cent of the party resources.  If you drop that to, say, 10 per cent, then you don't have the cleric having such a huge impact on pacing.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 26, 2012)

Hussar said:


> True, but the HP issue is a fairly simple fix.  Just make the PC's more durable/harder to hit.



Side effect: more survivable PCs. I think this will appeal to the majority, but definitely not to all. I think adjusting HP levels is a better "dial" than adjusting AC, since it makes things less swingy. Having people be more survivable than 1e, and less survivable than 4e, may not be a bad starting point, though. Maybe where 4e was at, minus the plethora of healing surges?


Hussar said:


> AD&D didn't have the HP issue as often simply because it was quite possible to have an entire encounter where PC's didn't lose any HP.



I quite like this approach. I've talked about my RPG's HP split (HP = wounds, THP = dodging, skill, stamina, luck, etc.), and it's made it so that you can lose some hit points (THP), but not contribute to the 15 MWD (THP recovers in a matter of rounds to a few minutes, depending on Con score and THP total).

But, even not counting that, it's very possible to go through a combat and never get hit, even at higher hit die. It's a little more swingy, since it's more reliant upon the dice, but, as I said, I like that dynamic.


Hussar said:


> And, with the HP recovery mechanics in 4e, lots of people didn't like the result.  So, perhaps 5e, with its much flatter math, could look back at how AD&D does it.  Monsters can miss regularly again.



Maybe HP = Con score + Racial bonus + Class bonus, but you don't start out with all the healing surges? I mean, that amount of HP sounds too high for my tastes, but it should be easy to adjust (you just get Racial + Class), and I know that a lot of people like pretty survivable characters.

Again, though, I'm down with a high miss chance on monsters, as long as people accept a swingy combat engine when the dice turn against you.


Hussar said:


> An EL par 3e encounter was supposed to burn 20 (ish) per cent of the party resources.  If you drop that to, say, 10 per cent, then you don't have the cleric having such a huge impact on pacing.



Another good point, and one I hadn't thought of. Just set the "number of rounds in a 15 MWD" math to a longer schedule. If this is based on HP, this should be easy enough to account for, even with a dial.

For example, if the base assumption is 20 rounds per day, or 5 combats of 4 rounds, just advise that if you want longer days, maybe you should double HP (Fighters roll 2d10 or take 11). For those that want less, just cut HP. That's a easy dial to move, as long as Con bonus doesn't add at each level. As always, play what you like


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 26, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Hey, that's my example!



I steal only from the best. 
Wait until i tell you about the skill challenge where the Dwarf put his hand in the fire pit to help forging his new sword!

Here are two ideas to deal with Novaing

1) Casting Times. 3E made most combat-relevant spells have a casting time of one standard action, a few a full round action. Change that. Require 3 rounds of casting to cast a fireball (and limit what people can do in the time they cast the spell, so people don't get in "pre-loaded"

2) Sustaining spells does not come free. You can maintain only a limited number of spells. Some sustaining costs actions.


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## Pickles JG (Jul 26, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I steal only from the best.
> Wait until i tell you about the skill challenge where the Dwarf put his hand in the fire pit to help forging his new sword!




Do go on, I don't think I have heard that one.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 26, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Here are two ideas to deal with Novaing
> 
> 1) Casting Times. 3E made most combat-relevant spells have a casting time of one standard action, a few a full round action. Change that. Require 3 rounds of casting to cast a fireball (and limit what people can do in the time they cast the spell, so people don't get in "pre-loaded"




I have no problem with that...and if you're _still_ concerned with balance, make it easier for spellcaster's efforts to be disrupted, based on the amounts of damage they take in a round.



> 2) Sustaining spells does not come free. You can maintain only a limited number of spells. Some sustaining costs actions.




Using a mix of 3.5ed language (since I've seen nought of 5Ed) "Make it a Spellcraft check, DC based on spell level (NOTE: I'm not saying what the DC actually is), with a +5 to the DC for each spell after the first, in order of casting."

This makes sustaining spells into a juggling act.  Good rolling lets you sustain several spells.  Bad rolls, and you might not be able to sustain jack.*






*  If this persists more than 4 hours, you WILL need to see a health-care professional.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 26, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I have no problem with that...and if you're _still_ concerned with balance, make it easier for spellcaster's efforts to be disrupted, based on the amounts of damage they take in a round.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I prefer to make it not _too_ involved in dealing.

*Casting Times in Combat*
Some spells have a casting time expressed in actions. If the casting time is described as "3 actions", the spell is succesfully cast on the 3rd action and the effect happens. A spellcaster can do only a limited amount of things while working to cast a spell. If his concentration is interrupted, he must make a Caster Check (1d20 + casting ability modifier) against 5 + spell level if it's a small disruption and 10 + spell level if it's a major disruption. If he fails that check, the spell is not expended, but he must start again.
A caster's concentration is disrupted by the following events. 


Voluntary Movement counts a small disruption
Involuntary Movement counts as major disruption
Taking damage
If the caster is not bloodied after the attack, it is a minor disruption
If the caster is bloodied after the attack, it is a major disruption.
 
Strong Winds or Currents count as minor disruption
The caster must cast the spell when he has taken the last action for doing so.



*Sustaining Spells*
Some spells have a duration. Spells require some effort to sustain.
A caster can only sustain a maximum of one spell per sustain  category. He can choose to sustain a spell that normally requires a  lower sustain category to use a higher category instead.



The following categories exist: 


*Sustain (Passive)*: 
It doesn't cost any direct effort by the caster to maintain the spell. The spell is maintained even if he drops unconcious or dies.



*Sustain (Minor Activity)*: 
It does require only minor effort by the caster to maintain a spell, but if he drops unconcious or dead, the spell ends. If the caster takes damage while bloodied, he must make a Caster Check DC 5 + sustained spell level to maintain the spell. 



*Sustain (Moderate Activity)*: 
It does require some effort on part of the caster to maintain a spell. It ends if he drops unconcious or dead. If the caster wants to start casting a new spell, he must make a Caster Check DC 10 + sustained spell level. (Note that if a spell takes multiple actions to cast, further actions do not require a check.)

If the check fails, he must choose to either not cast a spell (he doesn't lose his action, but he cannot cast any spells this turn), or end the spell he sustains. If the caster takes damage, he must make a Caster Check DC 5 + sustained spell level to maintain the spell. If he's bloodied while taking damage, the DC increases to 10 + spell level.


*Sustain (Strong Activity)*: 
It requires a lot of effort to maintain the spell - the caster must spend his action each round to maintain the effect. If the caster takes damage from an attack while maintaining the spell, he must make a caster check 5 + spell level to keep maintaining the spell. If he is bloodied while taking the damage, the DC increases to 10 + spell level.



*Examples Spells*

*Mage Armor *(Level 1 Spell)
Duration: 24 hours (Sustain - No Action)
Effect: The target gains a +4 armor bonus to AC. 

*Shield *(Level 1 Spell)
Duration: 10 rounds (Sustain - Minor Activity)
Effect: The caster gains a +4 shield bonus to AC.

*Fireball *(Level 3 Spell)
Casting Time: 3 actions.
As you start casting the spell, you form a small bead of fire that you throw at the end of the casting time to inflict 5d6 fire damage in a 20 ft radius burst. Targets can make a Dexterity Save for half damage. 
Special(optional rule): 
Should you fail a caster check to maintain the spell, you can choose to expend the spell anyway to immediately to inflict 5d6 fire damage to yourself and all creatures adjacent to you. You gain no saving throw against this damage, but other targets can make a dexterity save for half damage.

*Fly *(Level 3 Spell)
Casting Time: 1 action
Duration: 10 minutes (Sustain - Moderate Activity)
You or the target gain 60 ft flight. 

...

Optional or Additional Rules could allow sutff like "holding a spell" and "quickening" spells.


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## Zustiur (Jul 26, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> Maybe HP = Con score + Racial bonus + Class bonus, but you don't start out with all the healing surges? I mean, that amount of HP sounds too high for my tastes, but it should be easy to adjust (you just get Racial + Class), and I know that a lot of people like pretty survivable characters.



Too high for my tastes as well, yet I can see benefit to having more than just Hit Die + Con mod. Hence, my current design:
5 (for being and adventurer) + Level * (Hit dice + con mod). Where a 14 con fighter would have 3d10+6+5 total.
Basically it's like having a free toughness feat for everyone.
I don't intend to include healing _surges_. But I do intend to include a form of 'second wind' which gives you temporary hit points.

Re-spellcasting time and sustain; I'm thinking along the lines of each spell level having an initiative delay factor. (I think this is vaguely like 1E)
Wizard has initiative 16. On his turn he moves, then begins casting fireball (a 3rd level spell). On initiative 13 (16-3) the spell completes and he picks the target location. His actual initiative score remains unaltered. If he takes damage during those initiative steps he may lose the spell.
What I'm not sure of is how to handle casting first and then moving. Possibly you just get to chose where you move to after the spell fires.

I'm also thinking in terms of any spell duration requiring maintenance ala 4E's "sustain minor". Some effects might only last for a round, but any significant save-or-suck effect like Hold Person would require maintenance from the cleric or wizard that cast the spell. This way the wizard is partly removing himself from the battle at the same time as he removes the NPC/monster.


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## pemerton (Jul 26, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> To me, the 15 MWD has always been more of a pacing issue than a balance issue.



Fair enough.

My own view is that once the balance issue is ironed out, the we can probably start to look at a whole range of techniques for dealing with the pacing - from wandering monsters, to timed scenarios, to a more general attempt to embed the PCs in the "reality" of the gameworld, to such metagame techniques as appeals to the players' courage and honour! My thought is that this variety and range, from which different groups might pick and choose as whim and fancy take them, becomes a lot easier when it _only_ has to handle the pacing issue, without balance considerations also lurking in the background.

Does that make sense?


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## pemerton (Jul 26, 2012)

Hussar said:


> So, perhaps 5e, with its much flatter math, could look back at how AD&D does it.  Monsters can miss regularly again.



My issue with that is it can be a bit boring. Encounters become all about attrition now for some dramatic payoff later (when the attrition actually catches up with you).

That's not meant as a fatal objection. But equally I think we need to remember where the pressure came from to go the 3E/4e route.



JamesonCourage said:


> I quite like this approach. I've talked about my RPG's HP split (HP = wounds, THP = dodging, skill, stamina, luck, etc.), and it's made it so that you can lose some hit points (THP), but not contribute to the 15 MWD (THP recovers in a matter of rounds to a few minutes, depending on Con score and THP total).



I can't remember the details of your RPG, but I assume it has some sort of wound or longer-term recovery mechanic when the THP have all been hacked away. Nevertheless, considered in rough-and-ready functional terms, this seems pretty similar to 4e: you start each encounter with a pool of hp which the encounter can fully (or near-fully) deplete, and then you get them all back before the next encounter. So each encounter raises a genuine prospect of suffering badly, and hence is exciting in a way that pure attrition systems of the AD&D variety can tend not to be.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Here are two ideas to deal with Novaing
> 
> 1) Casting Times. 3E made most combat-relevant spells have a casting time of one standard action, a few a full round action. Change that. Require 3 rounds of casting to cast a fireball (and limit what people can do in the time they cast the spell, so people don't get in "pre-loaded"
> 
> 2) Sustaining spells does not come free. You can maintain only a limited number of spells. Some sustaining costs actions.



I like 2. I'm a bit dubious about 1 - it can make life boring for the player of the caster, which in turn creates pressure to liberalise the timing rules, which in turn undoes the balance that was meant to be in place. Is there a way of doing preparation that makes it active in some fashion for the player - perhaps even some sort of active defence, rather than simply relying on Concentration checks if they get hit?



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I steal only from the best.
> Wait until i tell you about the skill challenge where the Dwarf put his hand in the fire pit to help forging his new sword!



I have run more than 3 sessions in my 4e campaign! Even more than 3 memorable ones! It's just that only some of them lend themselves nicely to explaining things on the internet.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 26, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> Too high for my tastes as well, yet I can see benefit to having more than just Hit Die + Con mod. Hence, my current design:
> 5 (for being and adventurer) + Level * (Hit dice + con mod). Where a 14 con fighter would have 3d10+6+5 total.



I can see the benefit to this, but after divorcing free Con bonus each level from my RPG, I'm glad I did. It makes different characters a lot closer in HP spread, which is something I've come to prefer. Though, my system is point-buy, so you can still end up with a hit die 20 with 5 hit points, or a hit die 1 with 16 hit points. So, I'm obviously okay with some variance.


Zustiur said:


> I don't intend to include healing _surges_. But I do intend to include a form of 'second wind' which gives you temporary hit points.



I also like this idea.



pemerton said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> My own view is that once the balance issue is ironed out, the we can probably start to look at a whole range of techniques for dealing with the pacing - from wandering monsters, to timed scenarios, to a more general attempt to embed the PCs in the "reality" of the gameworld, to such metagame techniques as appeals to the players' courage and honour! My thought is that this variety and range, from which different groups might pick and choose as whim and fancy take them, becomes a lot easier when it _only_ has to handle the pacing issue, without balance considerations also lurking in the background.
> 
> Does that make sense?



That does make sense, yes. And, I do agree that balancing classes regardless of pacing makes dealing with pacing issues easier.



pemerton said:


> I can't remember the details of your RPG, but I assume it has some sort of wound or longer-term recovery mechanic when the THP have all been hacked away.



Yep. You lose THP (returns over rounds), and then you start to lose HP (returns over days).


pemerton said:


> Nevertheless, considered in rough-and-ready functional terms, this seems pretty similar to 4e: you start each encounter with a pool of hp which the encounter can fully (or near-fully) deplete, and then you get them all back before the next encounter. So each encounter raises a genuine prospect of suffering badly, and hence is exciting in a way that pure attrition systems of the AD&D variety can tend not to be.



Well, yes, in a way it is similar. The HP mechanic (not THP) means that any damage returns over one or more days, not overnight, so there's some difference right there. But, the "quick recovery HP" (THP) definitely adds to the game, especially since it effectively negates most "rider" effects. So, if an attack deals 18 damage and has a chance of dazing the victim, and it only deals THP damage, the victim has no chance of being dazed. This means that having your THP consumed feels good, because you've not only avoided long term injury (which might have rider effects of its own in my RPG), but any special effect that may have happened (knockback, prone, etc.).

For me, combat is a chance for interesting things to happen, both short term and long term. If a creature is knocked back, it can be interesting (I had a player knock a powerful earth elemental off of a cliff with a knockback maneuver, which finished it off after a very tough fight); if a creature gets wounded and now is limping around for the next few weeks, that can be interesting (I've had this happen to a PC [multiple times], and it's led to various results, including them becoming very attached to their horse, waiting to rest up, or limping around the battlefield).

Wrapping this around to the start of our conversation, I'm not sure how much short term and long term effects are going to come into play from 5e's combat system (or out of combat systems), but I'm hoping that it's there, and the 15 MWD is just one aspect of this. They definitely need to attempt to lessen the effects of the 15 MWD, and class balance definitely makes dealing with pacing issues easier, from my personal amateur game design experience. As always, play what you like


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## Pickles JG (Jul 26, 2012)

I think everyone is seeing this far too black & white from their entrenched positions.  I think that Mr Mearls has recognised that there will have to be classes with largely daily resources & others with almost none. This is what defines D&D to a lot of people & has never been absent even in the lovely 4th edition.

Given that constraint it follows that some classes will be stronger in a shorter adventuring day & some will be better in a longer one. That is the same sort of thing as saying some classes will be better when  you are attacked by a load of fliers or in very difficult terrain (underwater :O) or by eg fire resistant monsters if you are a Flame mage or Skeletons is you are a 3e archer.  Someone else made this point sarcastically earlier but it is valid in its own right. 
The thing is to recognise that it may be a problem & to mix things up, which is what Mr M has done.  He _has_ made mechanical changes to make it less of an issue – the relative power of Wizards _at will_ abilities have increased compared to their daily resources which makes them less nova dependent.  There is still the opportunity to power down the hugely effective strategic spells as well. 

I do take issue with balancing the game around a number of XP per day. There is obviously no comparison between fighting 20 ogres one at a time & all at once & yet on the face of it Mearls is saying they would provide exactly the same challenge. Given the patent absurdity of this I assume he is holding something back.
4es encounter balance rules work because the power level of PCs in a given encounter is pretty well constrained, with just a few daily powers in reserve to vary it. Attrition in 4e was mostly in terms of Surges & Dailies. As surges do not effect your combat power, until you run very low, encounter balance was very good. 
3e more or less worked in the same way though their default encounters were often a bit trivial & the logarithmic EL system was needlessly confusing. 

FWIW I hate the suggestion of Hussar’s that encounters should take up 10% of the party’s resources. These type of encounter offer nothing of interest to me, as did most of 3es 20% type encounters.            This whole trend to lots of small non threatening encounters that gradually attrite your HP? Dailies? leaves me cold. (Though I am told it is a trend back to AD&D style – I can’t really remember as I played it around 30 years ago but stopped as it did not fit my tastes ie I thought it was dumb.)

As a player I hate the 5mwd aesthetically & try not to abuse it, as a DM it is always the in the background & I try to make it so that it is not the default play style. Most of the people I play with share my sentiments but at least one of them would rest every fight if he could get away with it – peer & plot pressure prevent it.  I am not one for huge dungeons that demand repeated incursions they really strain my credulity so this may be less of an issue for me – I tend to try to design dungeons you can clear on the bounce with very significant consequences for retreating.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 26, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I like 2. I'm a bit dubious about 1 - it can make life boring for the player of the caster, which in turn creates pressure to liberalise the timing rules, which in turn undoes the balance that was meant to be in place. Is there a way of doing preparation that makes it active in some fashion for the player - perhaps even some sort of active defence, rather than simply relying on Concentration checks if they get hit?



My examples goes in the direction that basically "something" happens while you cast the spell, so there is a visible effect and there may be side effects. Maybe it could even be stronger effects (say, while casting Fireball, everyone attacking you takes some fire damage, or when casting Cone of Cold, people too close to you get slowed down). 

I am not sure what there is to make it directly active and work. Maybe one could require "caster checks" each round to determine progress, with the chance of failure, so you slow down, and great success, so you speed up.

Say: 
"Many of the more powerful or strong spells require multiple actions to cast. Their casting consists of multiple steps. For each action you take to cast the spell, you make a caster check (1d20 + Spellcasting Ability Modifier) to determine the number of steps you advanced to completing the spell.


 less than 0 + Spell Level: You must start again
 0 + Spell level: No progress
 5 + Spell Level: Advance one step
 10 + Spell Level: Advance two steps
 20 + Spell Level: Advance three steps
If you took no damage during your last turn, you gain advantage on your caster check.
If you were bloodied and took damage, or if you moved or were forcibly moved, if you were exposed to strong winds or currents or similar distractions, you suffer disadvantage. 

*Spellcaster Interference (Counterspelling)*
Spellcasters can attempt to interfere other spell casters. They must have line of sight to the casting character and the interfering character must spend an action to do so. 
In such a situation, also use the casting's character check for an opposed check against the intefering character. If the caster loses the opposed roll, reduce the number of step you advance by one (this can set you back).

Counterspelling: Some spells act as counter-spells to other spells. A spellcaster that knows a counterspell to a spell being cast can spend his action to start casting the counterspell. In addition the opposed caster checks, the enemy spellcaster can subtract the progress he makes in casting his spells from the progress you make. If you lose all progress steps you made so far, both spells are harmlessly expended.

*Optional Rules* (in feats, modules, whatever)
Some advanced spellcasters also can use this ability to gain control over your spell. If the interfering caster wins the opposed check on the turn you complete casting the spell, he can set all variables of the spell as if he had cast it himself. 

Even some characters that can not traditionally cast spells can learn to interfere and even take control over other casters spell, provided they dedicated themselves enough to the task. (opens the path for spell thieves and feats for mage-hunting warriors.).

The interesting side effect here is that save-or-die spells could become much more exciting when it becomes a tug of war between two spellcasters. And with rules to allow interference with spells for non-casters, it would not even make a spellcaster mandatory to deal with enemy spellcasters (but most likely very helpful).



> I have run more than 3 sessions in my 4e campaign! Even more than 3 memorable ones! It's just that only some of them lend themselves nicely to explaining things on the internet.



Wait, there was a 3rd session?


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## Hussar (Jul 27, 2012)

Note the "Encounters should take up X% of party resources" is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule.  I've too often seen people claim that 3e and 4e force DM's to use EL=Par encounters.  That's flat out untrue and even a cursory reading of the encounter design guidelines in either edition would bear that out.

The point of that baseline is just that.  To provide a baseline.  If you want more encounters per day, use weaker encounters.  Good for doing a sort of running battle scenario, or possibly a zombiepocalypse scenario.  It lets the DM more easily gauge how a given encounter most likely will play out.

However, there is always the random element in there.  Easy encounters can turn hard and hard encounters can turn easy with dice and/or player actions.  An EL Par encounter should use 20% of PC resources, but, if all 20% come from one character and that character dies, then it obviously used considerably more than 20%.

Setting the baseline at 10% means that you have more fudge factor.  If an encounter turns sour, then you don't wind up ganking PC's (usually).  If it's easier, well, no worries, you get them next time.  If you want a harder encounter, just use bigger/more critters and up the EL.

It's all about transparency.  We know that in AD&D, throwing 5 orcs at a 2nd level party of 6 PC's is going to be a pretty easy encounter.  No one should die.  You can simply look at the math and determine that.  Not to say that no one will ever die.  That's not true.  One PC gets mobbed for some reason and stabbed to death.  It happens.  But, all things being equal, it shouldn't.

I don't mind going back to monsters being less accurate and having somewhat swingier combats.  Swinginess is fun.  One of the criticisms of 4e is grind and I think a lot of that is because 4e is so transparent it becomes pretty obvious how a combat is going to resolve itself long before it does.  The PC's have so many resources and the monsters have no real way of swinging the combat that you can pretty solidly predict the combat.  To be fair, the 4e MM3 revisions have added a lot of swing to combat - monsters go down faster but hit a LOT harder.


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## pemerton (Jul 27, 2012)

Hussar said:


> One of the criticisms of 4e is grind and I think a lot of that is because 4e is so transparent it becomes pretty obvious how a combat is going to resolve itself long before it does.  The PC's have so many resources and the monsters have no real way of swinging the combat that you can pretty solidly predict the combat.  To be fair, the 4e MM3 revisions have added a lot of swing to combat - monsters go down faster but hit a LOT harder.



I find that 4e combats can take a long time, but I don't find them especially grindy. Maybe because I've been using the MM3 numbers since upper Heroic.

Swinging combat is interesting - a recent encounter I ran involved the Moria-like map from p 35 of Siege of Boradin's Watch. I used 4 bodaks, 2 swordwraiths and a nightwalker. The bodaks and wraiths can weaken, and bodaks have a Death Gaze which drops a weakened target to zero hp. The Nightwalker has a Finger of Death that reduces a bloodied target to zero hp, and also has an at-will close blast push as a minor action.

Anyway, 3 of my 4 bodaks got their Death Gaze off, and at least one (maybe 2?) hit - at one stage the paladin was dropped from 107 to 0 hp. And the nightwalker hit with its Finger of Death. It also pushed multiple PCs over the edge of the upper platform onto the rocks below (and the paladin tumbled further down the rocks to fall over two further cliffs).

I tend to rely on multiple creatures with different and sometimes synergistic abilities, plus terrain, to maintain the swinginess and avoid the grind.


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## MarkB (Jul 27, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> 1) Casting Times. 3E made most combat-relevant spells have a casting time of one standard action, a few a full round action. Change that. Require 3 rounds of casting to cast a fireball (and limit what people can do in the time they cast the spell, so people don't get in "pre-loaded"




I'm not keen on this option, especially with directed attack spells, simply because so much can change in a few rounds. With your fireball example, you could start drawing a bead on that tightly-grouped enemy formation in round 1, only to find that by the time you're ready to unleash it in round 3, half of them have been killed and the other half are dispersed across the battlefield and intermingled with your allies.

Plus, it makes spellcasters too tempting a target when they're in the midst of summoning up a major spell.

If you want to go for a system like this, a better option would be to allow spells to be cast immediately, but require a recovery time afterwards.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 27, 2012)

> Plus, it makes spellcasters too tempting a target when they're in the midst of summoning up a major spell.
> 
> If you want to go for a system like this, a better option would be to allow spells to be cast immediately, but require a recovery time afterwards.




While I agree with your point about what timing does to targeting of spells, the targeting of casters is a big step in leveling the playing field btween casters and non-casters.

Perhaps a compromise...

I proposed elsewhere in this forum that spells have cantrip, spell, and ritual forms, with each step representing a change in power and casting time.

Returning to Fireball, its cantrip form would be, essentially, at will, quick to cast, and virtually impossible to disrupt due to its simplicity and speed.  However, it would also be quite weak as far as damage (possibly even expressed in d4s), and it would have a reduced range & AoE (say...a 5x5 square).  It would be like a small grenade.

(The alternative version of the cantrip could let the caster launch several 1d4 balls at individual targets, no AoE)

The spell form would be much as we know it today, but with a longer casting time.  It would be like a stick of dynamite.

(One alternate spell form could let the caster cast multiple standard cantrip versions of the spell.)

One ritual form would have a much longer casting time, but it's range would be long, its AoE large, and it's damage high (more & bigger dice).  This would be like an artillery round or a heavy bomb.

(Another form might let the caster launch multiple standard spell versions of Fireball.)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 27, 2012)

MarkB said:


> I'm not keen on this option, especially with directed attack spells, simply because so much can change in a few rounds. With your fireball example, you could start drawing a bead on that tightly-grouped enemy formation in round 1, only to find that by the time you're ready to unleash it in round 3, half of them have been killed and the other half are dispersed across the battlefield and intermingled with your allies.
> 
> Plus, it makes spellcasters too tempting a target when they're in the midst of summoning up a major spell.
> 
> If you want to go for a system like this, a better option would be to allow spells to be cast immediately, but require a recovery time afterwards.



Well, it could also have the opposite effect - the caster tells the party "I am gonna cast fireball, get the enemies in position". That is to some extent what 4E can allow.

One of my goals was to have it not too punishing - if you cannot complete the spell, the spell is not lost, merely your action. If we'd be willing to give this up, we could allow such spells to have a minor effect while being cast.

*Fire Ball*
1st Round: Gain Resist 5 to Fire. Adjacent enemies attacking you take INT fire damage. 
2nd Round: Gain Resist 10 to Fire. Adjacent enemies attacking you take 1d6+INT fire damage.
3rd Round: 5d6+INT fire damage in a 20 ft radius burst within 400 ft. Dexterity Save for half damage.

But this would require making spells more complicated.

It may be enough to default to two rounds of casting time - situations do change less in that time, and it gives still plenty of time to try to cancel casting the spell. (Above I also describe a variant where the casting time is seperated by steps and depending on a check result, you may advance multiple steps - that could probably on average allow you to advance 3 steps in 2 rounds.)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 27, 2012)

Here is an alternate approach to casting times -basically reversing the situation.

Instead of taking time to cast spells, you must take time to recover between casting spells. So yes, you can lob your fireball with a single action, but afterwards you are mentally too exhausted to immediately cast a new spell (safely/reliably).

Of course, this sounds like... something from an MMO, and is thus probably a vile thing and the bane to all that is good and right for D&D. 

But, ignoring that, but also ignoring MMO terminology: 

Casting spells causes drain. Drain is temporary and weakens the casters focus and clarity of mind. Drain is usually expressed in rounds (but some very powerful effect may last much longer). After the spell is cast, the caster is drained for that many rounds.

While drained, the following effects apply:


The caster must make a Caster Check (1d20+spellcasting ability modifier) vs 10 + Spell Level to cast any spell or ritual. If he fails, the spell cannot be cast succesfully, and the caster must try again. Casting a cantrip grants advantage on this check.
_Optional Swingy Hardcore Rule: _If he fails by 5 or more points (i.e. fails to beat a DC of 5 + Spell Levle), the spell is also expended in the process and a rituals material components are wasted.
 The caster suffers Disadvantage on all checks related to his spellcasting ability modifier, except Caster Level Checks.
if you suffer Drain while being drained, you have also disadvantage on Caster Level checks. This penalty lasts until you are no longer drained, regardless of how long the new or old effect of drain lasted.
Drain is only applied when a spell is succesfuly cast.


Some example spells: 


Fireball: 2 Round Drain
Scry: 1 hour drain
Teleport: 1 minute drain
Dimension Door: 1 Round Drain
Fly: Drain for the entire Duration
Invisiblity: Drain for the entire Duration
Raise Dead: Drain for a Day
Finger of Death: Drain for a Day
Charm Monster: Drain for a minute
Dominate Monster: Drain for the duration
Summon Monster: Drain for the duration
Shield: 1 Round Drain

Casters would still be able to try novaing, but they will often fail and lose their action for it. This allows non-casters to catch up. But they don't normally lose their spell nor do they take direct damage, so they have no reason to ask for going home to rest yet*. 

Scry-Buff-Teleport basically takes the caster out of the fight - the sum of those drains will make it unlikely he can give any meaningful spell assistance afterwards. 

*This is one of the biggest risks with dealing with fighting 15 minute adventuring days - that your counters just lead to more of it. If the wandering monster that attacks the party costs the party so much resources that it must rest again - and I had this happen! - then it was all for naught. Or if the party retreats early because they know that they'll face wandering monsters and need to have some reserves left to deal with them.


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## MarkB (Jul 27, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Here is an alternate approach to casting times -basically reversing the situation.
> 
> Instead of taking time to cast spells, you must take time to recover between casting spells. So yes, you can lob your fireball with a single action, but afterwards you are mentally too exhausted to immediately cast a new spell (safely/reliably).
> 
> ...




Speaking of MMOs, there's another mechanic that I think can be adopted quite well from them (I've already suggested it a couple of times in discussions on this subject) - the one where you use basic, low-yield combat manouevers or powers to build up energy or focus which can then be expended upon more powerful attacks.

You could incorporate that into this system. Give spells longer Drain durations initially, but allow at-will cantrips to be cast reliably even when drained, and have each use of a cantrip reduce the drain duration by one round.

That way, when a character is obliged to fall back upon lower-level spells due to Drain, he doesn't feel like he's just using them to mark time - instead, each casting is actively working to restore his full spellcasting potential.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 27, 2012)

Well, we're getting more and more into dangerous WoW Territory! Are you sure that's a wise idea?  

I find the energy-builder mechanic somewhat interesting. Iron Heroes used such a mechanic as well, to some extent, via the various way to address tokens. Sadly, the Arcanist was the only class that didn't use that approach - it used a more traditional (IMO boring) spell/mana point system. That said, the game wasn't genuinely finished when it came out, at least not in regards to spell.

Anyway, I think the problem with energy builder approaches generally is that it takes too long. YOu really don't want your combat to last 20 rounds or so so you have enough power to cast a fireball spell. 

But you are correct - the mix of Drain/Energy Recovery could be interesting. But it wouild require different flavor and it may cause some weird "gaming the system "effects where people cast cantrip after cantrip for their Scry-Buff-Teleport... 

I believe it kinda works better for martial classes - there the tokens/points/energy you gain can represent you reading your opponent and getting into a better position (also perfect for a gridless and miniless combat) to finally perform a powerful strike. Expending the energy would represent giving up your better position to perform a nasty strike and your opponent realizing that you spotted his weaknesses. 
For magic it's more difficult to explain why casting spells at all would help cast more powerful spells.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Jul 28, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Note the "Encounters should take up X% of party resources" is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule.  I've too often seen people claim that 3e and 4e force DM's to use EL=Par encounters.  That's flat out untrue and even a cursory reading of the encounter design guidelines in either edition would bear that out.



Normally we agree.  However, I at least partially disagree with this.  The book states that the vast majority of encounters should be roughly par and that encounters outside of this range should be fairly rare.  You are right that it doesn't say NOT to use other encounters(in fact it tells you to use them) but it does say they should be a rarity.

And my problem with encounters that weren't on par was that they always felt like a waste of time to both the DM and the players.  Sure, you could run them if you wanted to, and maybe you'd even trick the players into using up their resources on an encounters that was "on par" for level 3 characters when they are level 10...but it would still cost you at least 30 minutes of time to do so.

We found that the average encounter in 2e was so easy that most people wouldn't pull out dice for an encounter.  It was: "We go first?  Alright, I'll let the fighter, thief and ranger handle this one....it's not worth me using a spell against 4 goblins in a room.  Let me know if 30 of them attack and it's worth while for me to cast a fireball."

I know we were very happy to see that in 3e when we fought a battle it was because the battle meant something and actually risked real resources.  So, we didn't want to run any encounters that were weaker than that.  In fact, even encounters that only drained 20% of our resources still felt a little weak to us.  It became fairly normal to fight APL+3 or APL+4 encounters as our "average" encounter simply because it felt like there was some actual risk involved.  Which required us to actually USE our spells or we wouldn't win.

Which added to the effect of the 15MAD.


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## Hussar (Jul 29, 2012)

Well, sort of Majoru Oakheart.  In 3e, there's a chart that says about 50% of encounter should be par, and the other half should be higher or lower.  Not exactly an overwhelming majority.  In 4e, if you look at the encounter packages that they suggest, whether a "wolf pack" or whatever term they give them, it's pretty quickly apparent that 5 Level=Party Level opponents was not what was envisioned.  Almost every encounter package consists of one (or two) higher level monsters and a parcel full of lower level monsters.

I find that this makes for pretty interesting encounters - you have one sort of encounter boss, and loads of smaller stuff that makes up for its relatively weaker attacks by simply having more attacks.

But, no, I'm going to disagree with you.  Both 3e and 4e did not advocate most of encounters being par.


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## pemerton (Jul 30, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> For magic it's more difficult to explain why casting spells at all would help cast more powerful spells.



Necromancy/life drain?


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## MarkB (Jul 30, 2012)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> For magic it's more difficult to explain why casting spells at all would help cast more powerful spells.




I think of it in terms of focus. Casting big, complicated spells takes a lot of work mentally, and tends to break your concentration. Casting simple, well-known spells that you've fully mastered, on the other hand, is routine mental exercise and actually helps to focus your concentration.


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## keterys (Jul 30, 2012)

It's probably fine for casters to be a burst and recover type... for example, let's say a wizard has max mana equal to their highest spell level, and they recover 1 point per round they cast no more than a cantrip.

So a 1st level wizard could
Round 1: Cast a 1st level spell
Round 2: Cast a cantrip
Round 3: Cast a 1st level spell

And a 5th level wizard could
Round 1: Cast a 3rd level spell
Round 2: Cast a cantrip
Round 3: Cast a 1st level spell

or
Round 1: Cast a 1st level spell
Round 2: Cast a 2nd level spell
Round 3: Cast a cantrip

Etc.


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## Zustiur (Jul 31, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I know we were very happy to see that in 3e when we fought a battle it was because the battle meant something and actually risked real resources.  So, we didn't want to run any encounters that were weaker than that.  In fact, even encounters that only drained 20% of our resources still felt a little weak to us.  It became fairly normal to fight APL+3 or APL+4 encounters as our "average" encounter simply because it felt like there was some actual risk involved.  Which required us to actually USE our spells or we wouldn't win.
> 
> Which added to the effect of the 15MAD.




So, in other words; you (as a group) focused on encounter based attrition, rather than attrition spread across the whole day?

I think that may be where a lot of the problem stems from. If you want to feel like every individual combat is that much of a challenge, then yes, 15 MAD is likely. On the other hand, if you see surviving the whole day, rather than just the encounter, as the goal, then you're less likely to see 15 MAD.

This is where we say "it's a play style thing". I typically favour the 'many small encounters across the day' thing, rather than 'fewer more challenging encounters'.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Aug 2, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> So, in other words; you (as a group) focused on encounter based attrition, rather than attrition spread across the whole day?



It's not that.  It's that the mechanics prevented us from concentrating on anything else.

Combats with less powerful creatures tended to go like this:

"A CR 8 Destrachan?  We're level 11.  Alright, Rogue, you go first.  You sneak attack for 7d6+11.  You do 36 damage.  Fighter, you're next.  You charge, power attack and do 2d6+23 or 30 damage.  That kills it."

No hitpoints lost at all, no resources used up at all.  We were capable of fighting infinite of those fights each day.  After the first 6 or 7 of those fights(especially after it took 20-25 minutes to draw out the room on the battle map, put all the minis on the board, roll initiative and record it all down, describe the room and the monsters, as well as have a brief conversation about tactics before going into the battle) we got really tired of spending 20 minutes on battles that had literally NO effect on the characters.

Even if the group got hit once and had to use 2 or 3 charges of their Wand of Cure Light Wounds...it amounted to so little resources that they could fight 20 or 30 of them in a day and they wouldn't have lost any resources(the loot they got from the fights would pay for a new wand).

My players started asking at the beginning of every combat "Do we have to play this out?  They aren't going to hurt us.  I'd rather just roll a d10 for each of us to determine the damage we take and assume we beat them.  I want to have time left in this session to have a real fight or two."

I kept telling them no...until I got tired of running those combats realizing that they had no effect at all.  Then I just stopped including them in the game.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Aug 2, 2012)

Hussar said:


> But, no, I'm going to disagree with you.  Both 3e and 4e did not advocate most of encounters being par.



Not most being par....but most being CLOSE to par.  I don't remember the exact numbers again.  But 50% were supposed to be par...that's already almost most right there(51% being "most").  The next largest was "easy if handled properly"(whatever that means...presumably encounters close enough to be a challenge but not too much higher or lower so they'd still be considered "easy").  But the next largest percent was supposed to be APL+1 through 4. 

If you add up those percentages, it came to 85-95% of encounters that were supposed to be either on par or slightly harder or easier than par(technically, it said 10% should be less than your parties level and 5% should be APL+5 or higher...though it never says how much of the 10% should be dramatically lower than the APL of the party).

Basically, if you followed the percentages in the book you only encountered "much easier" or "much harder" encounters about 5-10% of the time.  That means that "approximately equal" encounters(which I define as encounters that are EL equal to the level your party plus or minus 4...even if the individual creatures might be outside of this range) ARE most of the encounters.  Even if you ignore all the percentages other than EL=APL and EL=APL+1 through APL+4...you still have 65% of encounters should be at or slightly above their level...which I think qualifies as "most".

Also, Assuming 5 encounters a day, you should assume to get one of these extremely high or extremely low encounters only once every 2 days.  And half of them should be dramatically lower...which means they shouldn't really use up resources at all.  So, that means you are only really worried about the encounters that happen every 4th day of adventuring at a rate of 5 encounters a day.

And given that's the rate you should expect overwhelmingly powerful encounters...it only makes sense to retreat after one or two encounters, because you'll need all your resources to defeat an encounter that difficult.  And each day COULD be the day you run into that encounter.

As for 4e.  It suggested that anything outside about 5 levels of your party became too hard or too easy.  Mike Mearls himself told me at DDXP right before 4e came out that they had tested the level range and they had people in house who pushed it to about 8 levels in carefully controlled situations(mostly monsters that were somehow restricted from using the full force of their abilities or were the only monster in the encounter), but he didn't recommend encounters beyond 5 in regular play....the system wasn't designed to handle that without TPKs or encounters so easy they might as well not be run.


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## Zustiur (Aug 3, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> It's not that.  It's that the mechanics prevented us from concentrating on anything else.
> 
> Combats with less powerful creatures tended to go like this:
> 
> "A CR 8 Destrachan?  We're level 11.  Alright, Rogue, you go first.  You sneak attack for 7d6+11.  You do 36 damage.  Fighter, you're next.  You charge, power attack and do 2d6+23 or 30 damage.  That kills it."



Right, that explains that, and I see your problem.



> No hitpoints lost at all, no resources used up at all.  We were capable of fighting infinite of those fights each day.  After the first 6 or 7 of those fights(especially after it took 20-25 minutes to draw out the room on the battle map, put all the minis on the board, roll initiative and record it all down, describe the room and the monsters, as well as have a brief conversation about tactics before going into the battle) we got really tired of spending 20 minutes on battles that had literally NO effect on the characters.
> 
> Even if the group got hit once and had to use 2 or 3 charges of their Wand of Cure Light Wounds...it amounted to so little resources that they could fight 20 or 30 of them in a day and they wouldn't have lost any resources(the loot they got from the fights would pay for a new wand).



As for the rest; there are some key issues we can look at here:

 20-25 minutes to draw out the room
 Describe the room and monsters
 Have a brief conversation about tactics
 Wand of Cure Light Wounds

If you know a battle is below par, it strikes me as an appropriate point for Theatre of the Mind, even in groups that love to use miniatures.

Describing the room and monsters, I'll concede. That's going to be required for any battle, so you can't really skip it. 

Having a brief conversation about tactics? My inclination is to prevent this happening. While I accept it's a common way of playing, it is still meta-gaming. If your _characters_ are standing around discussing tactics,
then the monster gets to go first and there is no surprise, and no sneak attack.
If the _characters_ discuss tactics for more than _6 seconds_, the monster gets a free round.
I don't mean to tell you how to play, but this is one of my pet peeves. If a round is equivalent to 6 seconds, there should be no character monologues. No discussion. Just quick (shouted) orders if anything. Things like:
"There's a Destrachan", "Cast lightning bolt", "Retreat!", "Hold the line"
These are all acceptable.
On the other hand:
"Ok rogue, you sneak in, then the fighter charges, then the wizard hits it with a magic missile, then next round we all get out of the way so the wizard can cast fireball..." Sorry, you've had your entire 6 seconds, you took no actions other than talking. NEXT. {second players says} "After the fireba..." Sorry, Person A used up 6 seconds talking, you won't have a chance to talk this round unless you're talking over the top of him. You can't listen and talk at the same time.

If your players don't have time to discuss tactics any more than the characters do, there will be a slight shift in favour of the monsters having some sort of chance to fight back. It won't be much, but it will help.

Finally and most importantly, the wands issue. I suggest we just remove them from the game. No cure light wounds wand. In fact, no healing wants at all. Possibly even as far as, no wands for divine magic. Then ensure that potions aren't a dime a dozen at any level. 
This might be seen as a step backwards by some players, but I really think AD&D was better in this regard. All magic should be expensive in some manner. Item crafting is the worst culprit, so it's the first thing I'd fix. Even for things you can craft, I'd make it more expensive. Let's pick 10 as the multiplier. Now instead of a wand of magic missile being 375 GP and 30 XP to create, it becomes 3750 GP and 300 XP. Yes these numbers would still become trivial at high level, but it would take a lot longer to get there. Perhaps more importantly, the wand would now take 7-10 days to craft instead of 1 day. Even if you left cure wands in the game, having to spend 10 days to replace one is a significant impact on any adventure. This better represents the amount of cost such an expenditure should have.

How much would your game have been affected by these suggestions? I cannot tell, but I know they would have made _some_ difference. If healing 10-20 HP takes up some of your resources for the day (cleric's 1st level spells) then it has a much more significant and appropriate impact on the party's total resources than using up charges of a wand. This coupled with the inability to discuss serious tactics out-of-character should mean that those low level healing resources are used much more often. This in turn means that the EL/CR 8 encounter would start to have some relevance again.

I'm sure further factors can be identified and remedied, before we even begin looking at major mechanical changes such as replacing daily recovery cycles with something else.


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## Pickles JG (Aug 3, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> "If you know a battle is below par, it strikes me as an appropriate point for Theatre of the Mind, even in groups that love to use miniatures."




They would certainly be faster but still not very interesting & pretty much pointless.  I would just narrate it rather than pretending there was any threat or challenge. Not that all fights have to be thretening - they can be there to let off steam or break the tension of a long RP session say but that does not apply to series of simple fights. A good tension breaker steam letter offer would be a par level encvounter consisting of a lot of lower level monsters.

A 3e favourite moment of mine was fireballing a room just because it had cobwebs in it, but I would not want to circumvent every encounter like that. 




Zustiur said:


> If the _characters_ discuss tactics for more than _6 seconds_, the monster gets a free round.
> I don't mean to tell you how to play, but this is one of my pet peeves. If a round is equivalent to 6 seconds, there should be no character monologues. No discussion. Just quick (shouted) orders if anything. Things like:
> "There's a Destrachan", "Cast lightning bolt", "Retreat!", "Hold the line"
> These are all acceptable.
> ...




While this would speed up the game there is the argument my players put to me that their characters are experts at this & can communicate this much faster than the players & also make tactical decisions faster too. (They spend all that downtime between weekly play sessions training.  )
This type of restriction also takes away the fun lots of people have in the game of socialising/discussing things with their co players & of making tactical decisions.

D&D is such poor simulation is always seems odd when someone gets hung up on one aspect of that poverty.



Zustiur said:


> Finally and most importantly, the wands issue. I suggest we just remove them from the game. No cure light wounds wand. In fact, no healing wants at all. Possibly even as far as, no wands for divine magic. Then ensure that potions aren't a dime a dozen at any level.
> This might be seen as a step backwards by some players, but I really think AD&D was better in this regard. All magic should be expensive in some manner. Item crafting is the worst culprit, so it's the first thing I'd fix. Even for things you can craft, I'd make it more expensive. Let's pick 10 as the multiplier. Now instead of a wand of magic missile being 375 GP and 30 XP to create, it becomes 3750 GP and 300 XP. Yes these numbers would still become trivial at high level, but it would take a lot longer to get there. Perhaps more importantly, the wand would now take 7-10 days to craft instead of 1 day. Even if you left cure wands in the game, having to spend 10 days to replace one is a significant impact on any adventure. This better represents the amount of cost such an expenditure should have.
> 
> I'm sure further factors can be identified and remedied, before we even begin looking at major mechanical changes such as replacing daily recovery cycles with something else.




You are suggesting massive house rulings. What I found worked OK was fewer tougher & consequently more interesting encounters, which carried into 4e.  The CLW wand spam is an oddity & the Action Movie style surges in 4e feels much better but they both have the same sort of effect - PCs start most encounters at full health.

I share Majoru Oakhearts experience. Even EL encounters were often dull. the worst sort would be something like a handful of Bodaks when you massively outlevelled them. You can chop them down in a round or 2 but you might fail a death save on the way. Some people find gambling on slot machines fun but I am not one of them.

I complained so much in one dungeon that the DM just put all of the monsters into one large set of rooms & made us meet them all at once (foreshadowing purported 4e approach of encounter areas rather than rooms).


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## Kraydak (Aug 3, 2012)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> ...
> Even if the group got hit once and had to use 2 or 3 charges of their Wand of Cure Light Wounds...it amounted to so little resources that they could fight 20 or 30 of them in a day and they wouldn't have lost any resources(the loot they got from the fights would pay for a new wand).
> ...




Yup.  Now remove the wand.  Then slash the Cleric's healing spells and/or remove spontaneous casting.  All of a sudden, the encounter DOES matter.

One of 3e's errors was going from a situation where the character's HP totals significantly/vastly outweighed the HP total contained within affordably-expendable items and the Cleric's spell pool.  All of a sudden, to stress the PCs/players, the DM needed to make fights big.  Which meant that once the Cleric was dry, that was *it* because any fight required the Cleric to cast heals.  Yo-yoing HP pools was a very bad change.

In 1e, with NO spontaneous casting, NO +level to heals and Cure Serious a 4th level spell healing 2d8+1, ANY fight that drew a single cure spell was an important fight.  On the other hand, a healthy party *could* keep adventuring even if the Cleric was dry, because they hadn't lost too much of their total (base+heals) HP pool, and they had some (expensive!) healing and extra-healing potions for emergencies.


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## GMforPowergamers (Aug 3, 2012)

Kraydak said:


> In 1e, with NO spontaneous casting, NO +level to heals and Cure Serious a 4th level spell healing 2d8+1, ANY fight that drew a single cure spell was an important fight.  On the other hand, a healthy party *could* keep adventuring even if the Cleric was dry, because they hadn't lost too much of their total (base+heals) HP pool, and they had some (expensive!) healing and extra-healing potions for emergencies.




I remember 2e whole games where the cleric only Preped 1 or 2 healing spells, we had 4 or 5 potions and maybe a scroll on hand, and we went through dungeons like that.

I even remember early I. 3e having a party with a cleric who didn't want to "waste" all his spells on healing and how the game felt harder for it


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## Zustiur (Aug 4, 2012)

Pickles JG said:


> This type of restriction also takes away the fun lots of people have in the game of socialising/discussing things with their co players & of making tactical decisions.



I'm aware of that, I'd be among those people - I'm a tactician at heart. However, if the 15 MAD is a problem in a given group, that is one of the potential causes. Therefore, preventing that behaviour is a potential fix. It becomes one of those balancing acts - do you prefer the fun of being tactical, or the fun of not having 15 MAD? They're not mutually exclusive by any means, but it is a factor worthy of consideration.



Pickles JG said:


> You are suggesting massive house rulings.



Not quite. I'm suggesting the direction that 5E should move (if taking 3E as the starting point).
House rules or not, I'd be very interested to know how Majoru Oakheart's games would run if some AD&D assumptions were put back in.
Specifically:

 No divine wands
 No spontaneous casting
 Expensive potions
 Less clerical healing in general (see Kraydak's post)

My point is that a battle should not have to be overly dangerous to be interesting. Getting through a battle without suffering any wounds should be a high-five moment, not a point of boredom.



			
				Kraydak said:
			
		

> NO +level to heals



Oo, I'd forgotten that part.

The more these discussions go on, the more I'm thinking we should pair up 3E martial classes with 1E spellcasters and take that as a starting point.


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## pemerton (Aug 4, 2012)

Zustiur said:


> Having a brief conversation about tactics? My inclination is to prevent this happening.





Zustiur said:


> I'm aware of that, I'd be among those people - I'm a tactician at heart. However, if the 15 MAD is a problem in a given group, that is one of the potential causes. Therefore, preventing that behaviour is a potential fix. It becomes one of those balancing acts - do you prefer the fun of being tactical, or the fun of not having 15 MAD?



How many of those who experience and dislike the 15 minute adventuring day would enjoy a DragonQuest or AD&D (1st ed) style rule that equates tactical conversation among the players to conversation between the PCs?

I'm guessing not that many.

There are mechanical solutions to the 15 minute day that don't require this sort of prohibition on what, for many, is part of the fun of playing.


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## Hussar (Aug 6, 2012)

Zur said:
			
		

> The more these discussions go on, the more I'm thinking we should pair up 3E martial classes with 1E spellcasters and take that as a starting point.




I see where you're going with this and it's not a bad place at all.  The problem is, I think a lot of players would not be happy going back to being the wizard with his two spells per day and the cleric who memorized nothing but cure light wounds until 3rd level.  

Although, that being said, if you gave those classes something to play with that spoke to those classes that they could do every round, (yup, I mean at-will abilities), then I think you'd be getting somewhere.


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## billd91 (Aug 6, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I see where you're going with this and it's not a bad place at all.  The problem is, I think a lot of players would not be happy going back to being the wizard with his two spells per day and the cleric who memorized nothing but cure light wounds until 3rd level.
> 
> Although, that being said, if you gave those classes something to play with that spoke to those classes that they could do every round, (yup, I mean at-will abilities), then I think you'd be getting somewhere.




I don't think you would have to go quite as far as duplicating the 1e spellcasters. The 3e versions of the spellcaster classes are all fine as is. Changes between 1e and 3e are fairly minor. Spontaneous healing for clerics in 1e would be great, I think.

The real modification would have to be in spellcasting itself, not the layout of the classes. The easy of getting spells off would have to be dialed back. The ease with which casters can pump up their save DCs would have to be pruned back relative to the rise of saving throws. Accomplish both of those (and dump some of the buffs from the cleric, maybe put skill-mimicking spells on a caster level check instead of auto success) and you've got a great start.


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## Hussar (Aug 6, 2012)

Honestly, Bill91, I think the biggest change would be pruning the spell list back to about 10 spells per level and KEEPING it there.

Never going to happen, but, would be nice.


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## billd91 (Aug 6, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Honestly, Bill91, I think the biggest change would be pruning the spell list back to about 10 spells per level and KEEPING it there.
> 
> Never going to happen, but, would be nice.




For casters that get the whole list available to them every day to choose what to prep? I agree, a smaller list is easier to control and manage the spell vs spell balance. I might not agree on 10 because I might see a good use for 15.

Putting a numeric upper limit on wizards would probably be a good idea too. In 1e, there were a LOT of 1st level spells but few wizards could master more than the mid-teens.

Of course one reason I'm sure we don't still have these limits is because they were "unfun" and largely ignored by gaming groups. I'd argue that's a poor excuse to turn around and then complain about balance when the game doesn't play to initial assumptions with those brakes removed.


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## Crazy Jerome (Aug 6, 2012)

The funny thing about D&D's version of Vancian magic is that so many of the terms have gotten tied up into what a particular version did, that it is easy to lose sight of the underlying game and story reasons for having things the way they are in the first place. So let me try theory-crafting an 1E/3E/4E hybrid spell framework from scratch, and see where this leads us. I'm going to assume that this is mainly for wizards, just to keep it simple, though if it were to work it would have broader applications.



This hypothetical version is going to have wizards casting three types of spells:

"Utility" - relatively minor spells that the wizard can do a lot of in a given 24 hours, with a lot of variety, but not terribly powerful.
"I Win" - classic Vancian spells with big, quick effects, but in short supply, and definitely fire and forget.
"Long Magic" - anything that doesn't fit either of the above, but is better represented by long casting, research, major components, enchanting, etc.
Note that nothing is said about combat versus non-combat above. You can have "utility" combat spells in this scheme. They just won't be very impressive. Now, the obvious way to get that is to have "utility" spells be at-will, "I Win" spells follow more the AD&D pattern, and "Long Magic" be rituals. But again, let's not get too caught up in mechanical terms.

For example, the purpose of "at will" in 4E is to avoid a lot of book-keeping with minor effects. Otherwise, you could get much the same balance effects by providing a whole bunch of Vancian spell slots expressly for such weaker magic, or using some form of power points for them, etc. Basically, these are things where a wizard isn't *likely* to run dry, but might depending upon the exact scheme.

The critical piece is that they be separated from the other categories somehow. AD&D tries to do this with levels, but then so sharply curtails the amount of slots that the wizard does run out, sometimes quite rapidly. 3E corrects that problem, at the expense of letting the power get out of whack with too many slots avaialble for more powerful spells. Then 4E realizes they need separating, but largely removes the variety. Moreover, in this scheme the problem 4E has is that of its five divisions (at-will, encounter, daily, utility, and ritual), only ritual really maps to a category very well (for other reasons, granted). 



There are probably 60 ways to handle this division. I'll sketch one as an example, but I'm not wedded to it:

We'll call the categories "utility", "spell", and "ritual". I avoid "cantrip" for "utility" because magic in all categories will scale by level, and a high level cantrip might create the wrong impression. Power is relative to category and level.
Wizards start with a fair number of slots, perhaps 3-4 1st level slots. Each time a new spell level is gained, the wizard gets 3-4 slots of that new level. The numbers for a given spell level increase fairly rapidly by level to whatever the cap is, probably around 6-8. Int does not modify this number in any way. (That is, a 5th level wizard might already be maxed out on 1st level slots, be about halfway on 2nd level slots, and just have picked up several 3rds.)
However, there is a cap on the number of "spells" ("I win" effects) that a wizard can prepare at one time. This could be the original Vancian limit of 4-6, but for game purposes we might want it to be a bit higher. I'll guess that it should be about 1 per spell level. So let's be generous and say Int mod plus 1 per spell level obtained. So the 5th level caster can use 3+Int mod slots for "spells". Furthermore, we'll say no more than 2 per any given spell level higher than 1st. So a 5th level caster with Int 18 (+4) will have 7, which means that he can prepare 3/2/2 "spells". Look familiar? 
Rituals and Utility magic can now round out the remaining slots. The Next take on rituals is already promising. So mainly this is similiar, with the caveat that a "ritual" prepared in a slot already has a lot of the time, components, etc. invested in it ahead of time, and only needs to be released with a minor form of the ritual. It may take 1 hour to cast "alarm". But before you go into an adventure, you can prepare the ritual into a slot such that you now can do it the Next way on demand (some time, remaining focus or components). It doesn't get used up, though as an optional rule it might require some kind of check, and "burn out" if the checked is failed horribly. So this is the strategic level of magic, meaning really powerful stuff still doesn't cast immediately and takes considerable time and expense to get into a slot in the first place, and probably takes some static (i.e. large, not easily moved) resources to so prepare. Wizards tend to get really cranky when you ask them to swap these. 
Utility magic's different characteristic, in contrast, is that it limits what utility magic you have available, but you have a lot of it. It's easy to swap overnight, giving a spell book, even a traveling one. Once prepared, you can use it a lot. In fact, the magic is so easy to use, that when you prepare a utility spells, it comes with several uses, as "charges". Put _magic missile_ in a 1st level slot, it operates at 1st level power, but you can cast it, say, 10 times before it runs out. (Obviously, there is a hook for a module here, with some groups making these functionally at-will, others using power point pools or even exotic limits.)
It's implied but not required that there aren't that many "I win" spells. Historically, there aren't that many good ones, and these are the spells most in need of some thought put into balance. So Hussar's 10-12 per spell level is a good upper limit, at the very least for what a given wizard might know. Once utility and ritual magic is taken out, I doubt we could get to 12 on any but the first two or three spells levels, anyway. Meanwhile, utility magic can proliferate madly, for all we care. Rituals simply need to be well done or left out, and let the number take care of itself.
Again, this is merely a long example of the kind of division I'm encouraging, and the thinking behind it. There is no particular reason why "utility" magic has to be in slots, necessarily. I picked that to show that it need not be "at-will" to be effectively wide open in usage. It does need a framework that allows some variety in switching effects and/or limiting it's final usage, if only in a module. Here is obviously a place where a parallel (instead of replacement) power-point system might actually work.


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