Spells / Extracts per "Day," or, "Camping with the Enemy"

[Tophyr]

My group went into an evil temple one morning, fought their way through 3 encounters before lunch, then decided right before the boss encounter at the end that they had blown their wad on the first few battles and should pick a corner to rest and get back all of their limited-use abilities.

In 3.5, this was easy. You rest 8 hours, 12 or so if practically everyone's a caster and you need to set watches, and hey look it's tomorrow already. But in Pathfinder, a lot of classes can refresh their slots with just an hour of meditation or whatever in the morning. The alchemist is even more muddy, as his extracts last a day, but can prepare them in the field as necessary. The only limit on when and how often is that it says "per day." So what exactly constitutes a "day"?

Does a sun have to make a full revolution about the current plane of existence? What about planes that don't have a discernible day/night cycle? Or planes that do, but which are far greater/lesser than the standard 24 turns of the hourglass? Is it a new day any time you sleep for 8 hours? Am I being too literal and picky about my "days"? Is someone going to say that it depends on what Bill Clinton's definition of "is" is?

My group was getting way too used to being fully rested and prepared before every encounter, so I decided to hit them with the good ol' 4-per-day. They've succeeded with flying colors... at cowering in the corner until their powers return. As the DM, I find it somewhat ridiculous to storm 3/4ths of the way through a temple then take a nap on the floor and expect the rest of the world to freeze around them. But I don't want to have the big bad come out and just steamroll them in their sleep either. I'm looking for a definition of "day" here that lets them regain some measure of their usefulness while not requiring a great suspension of disbelief for the daily routines of the remaining forces inside and around the temple.

[Kazaan]

Strictly speaking, I'd say a "Day" means at least 24 hours from the last time they prepared their spells, refreshed their abilities, etc with the caveat that a full 8 hours must happen sometime within that day. So if they blew their load on the first 3/4 of the temple, it'd be more strategic of them to withdraw for the time, take stock of their plunder, re-think their plans, and come back the next day fully rested. They have the advantage that they already cut down the enemy numbers the previous day so those numbers should remain mostly crippled as I'm not sure they have quite enough diamonds on hand to raise every mundane evil acolyte or that they'd want to waste them even if they had them. There may be some reinforcement, but not 100%. The downside is that the big bad will be ready for them next time and they lose most of the element of surprise. Or, they charge in today, maybe drop a hint or two of beneficial options when facing the boss like being able to drop a chandelier on his head or something. The rest is up to them.

[Matthew Downie]

I prefer to keep 'day' simple. You sleep eight hours (plus extra if interrupted), and then you get your powers back. Giving PCs any significant refreshment for a short nap is a major house-rule for most classes.
What should happen to someone who sleeps in enemy territory depends on how careful they are. Is anyone on watch? Maybe they should hear the boss coming and realise they have to either kill him with their remaining resources or flee and hide in the wilderness.
If they're being really stupid, punishing them for it is not a bad thing.

[Xaratherus]

I generally go with Kazaan's rule - a 'day' is 24 hours from the last time the caster prepared spells. Generally, in order to prepare spells the caster has to have rested for 8 hours before that 'rollover' occurs (or 2 hours if they have ring of sustenance.

One house rule that I've seen (although never used myself as a GM) was to allow the caster to take a significant amount of ability drain to their caster stat in order to re-prepare all expended spells with an hour of meditation. The drain would occur after the end of the 24 hour period and would generally be equal to half the highest level spell they prepared quickly.

[LazarX]

Xaratherus wrote:

I generally go with Kazaan's rule - a 'day' is 24 hours from the last time the caster prepared spells. Generally, in order to prepare spells the caster has to have rested for 8 hours before that 'rollover' occurs (or 2 hours if they have ring of sustenance.

One house rule that I've seen (although never used myself as a GM) was to allow the caster to take a significant amount of ability drain to their caster stat in order to re-prepare all expended spells with an hour of meditation. The drain would occur after the end of the 24 hour period and would generally be equal to half the highest level spell they prepared quickly.

I'd actually be able to go with that if we're actually talking about Ability DRAIN as you seem to be specifying.

[Xaratherus]

LazarX wrote:

Xaratherus wrote:

I generally go with Kazaan's rule - a 'day' is 24 hours from the last time the caster prepared spells. Generally, in order to prepare spells the caster has to have rested for 8 hours before that 'rollover' occurs (or 2 hours if they have ring of sustenance.

One house rule that I've seen (although never used myself as a GM) was to allow the caster to take a significant amount of ability drain to their caster stat in order to re-prepare all expended spells with an hour of meditation. The drain would occur after the end of the 24 hour period and would generally be equal to half the highest level spell they prepared quickly.

I'd actually be able to go with that if we're actually talking about Ability DRAIN as you seem to be specifying.

Yup. Permanent until you get a Restoration cast. I've seen it used effectively to save the party in one or two situations, but it's too pricey to do constantly.

[Cevah]

Tophyr wrote:

My group went into an evil temple one morning, fought their way through 3 encounters before lunch, then decided right before the boss encounter at the end that they had blown their wad on the first few battles and should pick a corner to rest and get back all of their limited-use abilities.

Stupid party. :-)

Letting the BBEG have 8+ hours to set up an ambush? Risking wandering monsters? Even a measly minion sent once an hour can spoil the rest.

Tophyr wrote:

In 3.5, this was easy. You rest 8 hours, 12 or so if practically everyone's a caster and you need to set watches, and hey look it's tomorrow already. But in Pathfinder, a lot of classes can refresh their slots with just an hour of meditation or whatever in the morning. The alchemist is even more muddy, as his extracts last a day, but can prepare them in the field as necessary. The only limit on when and how often is that it says "per day." So what exactly constitutes a "day"?

While an hour may be all it takes to refresh abilities, that hour cannot occur until after eight hours rest.

Tophyr wrote:

Does a sun have to make a full revolution about the current plane of existence? What about planes that don't have a discernible day/night cycle? Or planes that do, but which are far greater/lesser than the standard 24 turns of the hourglass? Is it a new day any time you sleep for 8 hours? Am I being too literal and picky about my "days"? Is someone going to say that it depends on what Bill Clinton's definition of "is" is?

The day/night cycle or lack of cycle has no relation to the 24-hour "day". I have generally seen this as you cannot have a "day" of less than 18 hours, including rest, before reloading. Also, you cannot reload anything expended in the last eight hours. This is important if you use the Ring of Sustenance. Unfortunately, I don't recall if this was 3.0e, 3.5e, 4e, or PF where this was said.

Tophyr wrote:

My group was getting way too used to being fully rested and prepared before every encounter, so I decided to hit them with the good ol' 4-per-day. They've succeeded with flying colors... at cowering in the corner until their powers return. As the DM, I find it somewhat ridiculous to storm 3/4ths of the way through a temple then take a nap on the floor and expect the rest of the world to freeze around them. But I don't want to have the big bad come out and just steamroll them in their sleep either. I'm looking for a definition of "day" here that lets them regain some measure of their usefulness while not requiring a great suspension of disbelief for the daily routines of the remaining forces inside and around the temple.

Another option to steamrolling them is to let the BBEG escape, since he has plenty of time to pack up all the good loot and leave, since his operation is compromised. When the party starts up, they find an empty lair with no loot since they took a break. Now they need to track down the bad guy and you have another adventure in a dungeon/forest/city/... that has a new set of minions and lesser encounters. It makes the BBEG a recurring bad guy that could gain power each time it escapes due to 15-minute adventuring parties.

<opinion>
A party that cannot sustain for long periods can nova well, but becomes TPK fodder quickly. Also, if they spend too much before "camping", they cannot handle the "overnight" surprise encounter. They should stop when they can still handle a standard encounter, not after, because they have no guarantee they can rest before that encounter. Spells like Rope Trick can help, but you are still spreading yourself too much.
</opinion>

/cevah

[James Risner]

Tophyr wrote:

In 3.5, this was easy. You rest 8 hours, 12 or so if practically everyone's a caster and you need to set watches, and hey look it's tomorrow already.

Both 3.5 and PF work exactly the same. There isn't any change in the way Clerics and Wizards regain their spells. Both systems had /day mechanics (every 24 hours) and neither system allows you to rest 8 hours and get back spells.

Both had Clerics and other divine casters meditate to get back their spells.

So nothing has changed and you can only get one set of /day abilities in any given 24 hour period.

[Atarlost]

Getting rid of this question is one of the big advantages to converting to a spell point system. You can have an hourly recharge rate so there's no ambiguity. The value of rest ceases to be all or nothing so in some cases an hour or two is enough to get back enough points to re-prepare the important stuff.

As things stand PCs will always go into situations that make them nervous at full power because there's no other way to get back into their comfort zone.

Essentially everyone has a safety threshold they don't want to go below. Unless they're playing Pathfinder like it's Paranoia they're only going to accept challenges they think they can handle*, which means the last encounter before they hit their threshold is the only one with risk and it has the risk they're willing to accept.

There's really not much you can do about PCs comfort thresholds. If you attack them in the "night" it just reduces their stopping threshold for next time so they can deal with the night attacks. If you increase the danger of each fight they'll adjust their threshold to the new threat level.

At least an hourly recovery rate means the PCs are always running nearer their comfort level instead of doing a full rest and being back at maximum power all the time.

I suppose you might try using lots of architecture or possibly elixirs with limited ability to regenerate spell slots and per diem abilities. Enough to tempt them to keep going without being a full refresh at any time.

* or that they think their characters think they can handle or are worth dieing for if they're good roleplayers

[Drakkiel]

One thing I find most people overlook when being anal themselves about these things is...

Magic wrote:

Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions

If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.

This also applies for divine casters

[Diego Rossi]

You should remember this too:

PRD wrote:

Preparing Divine Spells
Time of Day: A divine spellcaster chooses and prepares spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, does not require a period of rest to prepare spells. Instead, the character chooses a particular time of day to pray and receive spells. The time is usually associated with some daily event. If some event prevents a character from praying at the proper time, she must do so as soon as possible. If the character does not stop to pray for spells at the first opportunity, she must wait until the next day to prepare spells.

A divine spellcaster recover his spell slots (as a arcane spellcaster he can leave some of them empty) at a specific time of the day, and that is a fixed, daily, occurrence.

If he keep his mind fresh a arcane spellcaster can delay memorizing his spells, a divine spellcaster can't.
At the same time a arcane spellcaster need to sleep for 8 hours to recover his spells, a divine spellcaster "does not require a period of rest to prepare spells".

Both kind of spellcasters suffer from the recent casting limit:

PRD wrote:

Recent Casting Limit: As with arcane spells, at the time of preparation any spells cast within the previous 8 hours count against the number of spells that can be prepared.

@Tophyr: leaving out the computer versions of D&D and AD&D, it was never possible to recover your spells more than once/day (barring the use of some very specific magic that broke that rule).

[VRMH]

It's Magic. The moment you start dividing a day up in hours, you've left the "magical concept" of a day behind. If a period of time feels like a day, if you intuitively grok it's a day, then it's a day for the purpose of magic.

A magical day is a day which you think of as a day. A magical day is not a 24h period.

[Diego Rossi]

VRMH wrote:

It's Magic. The moment you start dividing a day up in hours, you've left the "magical concept" of a day behind. If a period of time feels like a day, if you intuitively grok it's a day, then it's a day for the purpose of magic.

A magical day is a day which you think of as a day. A magical day is not a 24h period.

Actually there are a lot of abilities with a 24 hours cool down. In particular most of the witch hexes. For that it is not a magical day, it is 24 hours.

Refreshing spell slots instead is once a day (biological rhythm I would say): when you are fresh (for arcane spellcasters) or when some specific daily event happen (for divine spellcasters).
For a lot of divine spellcaster it dawn or dusk, midnight or high noon, but it can be just before breaking fast in the morning or just before going to bed (or after the first beer in the morning if you follow Cayden).
The specific event part can create problem when going to locations that have shorter or longer days, but, as a divine spellcaster can recover spells even during long underground forays, where he can't witness the dawn or other daily events, I think we can agree that it is reasonable to say, when in doubt, "at dawn in my home area" and suppose that the divine spellcaster will know when it is the right time.
They can't refresh their spells several times in a day teleporting a few meridians away and saying "I am witnessing the dawn again, I can recover my spell again".

[Matthew Downie]

'Once a creature has benefited from the fortune hex, it cannot benefit from it again for 24 hours.'
That's a pretty awkward rule if taken literally. "OK, you've used the fortune hex on the cleric. The time of day is 3:37pm. You can't use that ability on the cleric again until at least 3:37pm tomorrow. Note that down with all the other hexes you've used today."

[James Risner]

VRMH wrote:

if you intuitively grok it's a day, then it's a day for the purpose of magic.

If you are saying "so every rough 24 hour period it is another day", then I agree.

If you are saying "so when I sleep for 8 hours it is another day", then you couldn't be more wrong.

[VRMH]

James Risner wrote:

VRMH wrote:

if you intuitively grok it's a day, then it's a day for the purpose of magic.

If you are saying "so every rough 24 hour period it is another day", then I agree.

If you are saying "so when I sleep for 8 hours it is another day", then you couldn't be more wrong.

Precisely!

[Rhatahema]

Note that alchemists are never stated as requiring 8 hours of rest to prepare their extracts. They can prepare a certain number of extracts per day, and each extract remains potent for 1 day. So you're right in seeing the necessity of defining a "day". You don't want the alchemist preparing all his extracts per day an hour before midnight, then preparing another batch an hour later, since yesterday's will remain potent for another 24 hours but tomorrow is a new day. :)

A more balanced alternative is to say that a given slot can only be used to prepare an extract 24 hours after it was last used to do so.

The only issue is that tracking different slots used at different times of day is a potential nightmare. A day as a day is a lot easier. So I might house-rule an ability for the alchemist to "reset" with 8 hours of rest. This would cause all extracts prepared the previous day to go inert, just as though 24 hours had already past.

[Rhatahema]

Oh, and as far as your party is concerned, I support ambushing them. Not steamrolling them, but giving them an incentive not to camp out for a day right outside the gate to the big-bad's throne room. Including more time sensitive scenarios will also discourage impromptu camp-outs. If the big-bad is setting up a ritual to sacrifice the prince to some dark power, the party risks finding a dead prince in an empty room should they rest. The NPCs can be every bit as mobile as the PCs. If they're literally just sitting around twiddling their thumbs until the party gets to them, the players have every reason to take their time and play it safe.

[Kimera757]

Are you the DM? Increase the power of the encounter for every 8 hours the PCs rest. If no reinforcements can be recruited, the bad guys can scatter Alarm spells, traps, and so forth, around them.

[thejeff]

Kimera757 wrote:

Are you the DM? Increase the power of the encounter for every 8 hours the PCs rest. If no reinforcements can be recruited, the bad guys can scatter Alarm spells, traps, and so forth, around them.

Ah yes, that works well. What's the reaction to that likely to be?

"Whew, that was tough! Good thing we were fully rested when we started that fight."

Unless you can make it really obvious he wouldn't have been that tough if they'd gone straight in.

[thejeff]

Rhatahema wrote:

Oh, and as far as your party is concerned, I support ambushing them. Not steamrolling them, but giving them an incentive not to camp out for a day right outside the gate to the big-bad's throne room. Including more time sensitive scenarios will also discourage impromptu camp-outs. If the big-bad is setting up a ritual to sacrifice the prince to some dark power, the party risks finding a dead prince in an empty room should they rest. The NPCs can be every bit as mobile as the PCs. If they're literally just sitting around twiddling their thumbs until the party gets to them, the players have every reason to take their time and play it safe.

I'd be careful with the ambushes. They have the potential to backfire: leading players to think they have to back off and rest even sooner so they have the resources left to deal with a potential attack.

Time limits work much better, but can't be used everytime without being obvious and repetitive. The bad guy just up and leaving with the treasure and/or the McGuffin can work too.

More fundamentally what's the real issue? Are the players novaing on weak encounters where they don't need to? Do they know that? What's their perception of the situation? Maybe you're running a harder game than they really want. Their comfort level for perceived risk is lower than you think. Back off a little bit and they'll keep pushing through. Maybe not.

Also, what do they know about the dungeon? Do they know that they're coming up on the last boss fight or could they think they've still got a slog ahead of them? Could make a difference in deciding to rest. It all looks obvious when you're GMing and know everything, but it isn't always from the player's POV.

I've never liked the "resting in a random room in the dungeon" thing, but I also don't like the "pushing ahead and dying" thing either. And the retreating to a safe place to rest isn't always feasible.
I've seen GMs ambush and slaughter resting PCs. "What were you thinking? Trying to rest just down the hall from the BBEG."
I've seen GMs slaughter parties who push on too long. "What were you thinking? Why didn't you stop and rest?"

Different GMs, of course, but still...

[James Risner]

Rhatahema wrote:

A more balanced alternative is to say that a given slot can only be used to prepare an extract 24 hours after it was last used to do so.

A more reasonable simple approach is to ignore the issue until your players try to get more "X per day" in a single day than allowed. Then just instruct them that if required we can start tracking usage and enforcing daily limits rigidly or not.

[Kimera757]

thejeff wrote:

Ah yes, that works well. What's the reaction to that likely to be?

"Whew, that was tough! Good thing we were fully rested when we started that fight."

Unless you can make it really obvious he wouldn't have been that tough if they'd gone straight in.

Be really obvious. I don't know why DMs restrict the flow of information so much. It's not like you can't have more bad guys join the fight if the PCs look like they're not being challenged.

When PCs get to the scene, they should see lesser mages actually casting those spells (reinforcements, but weeny little wizards that immediately run away rather than bog down the battlefield) and the boss should taunt them about how they were able to prepare.

This was hilariously lampshaded in the webcomic "Will Save World For Gold". The party, 1st-level, were about to attack the goblin boss, but their sorcerer had used his daily power and so they went back to town.

The next day they came back and the goblin boss's room looked exactly the same. The PCs attacked... and hidden doors in the ceiling opened and goblins started climbing down ropes. Lots of goblins. They outright stated they'd had time to prepare for that after noticing all the missing patrols.