have monsters progress while they wait. or a rival that progresses in the speed they should. have treasure with an expiry date. anything that will let them race.
Well, time limits to achieve their goals should help. You can't do it all the time, but you can do it sometimes.
Or have random encounter rolls while they're camped outside the dungeon to disrupt their rest. That sort of thing...
oh yeah. have a balor lord ambush their sleep. well... not a balor lord.
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I would ask whether the players feel that they need to nova to beat the encounter - if their perception is that they need to, then maybe the encounters need to be toned back abit.
You may feel the encounters aren't overpowered and the players just want to easy, so give them encounters they can overcome easily without going nova so they get used to the idea and then maybe ramp things up again.
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It is all in the group make up. Some types of groups have to have a 15 min work day. All of them revolve around a caster centric party. Groups that work around the 15 min work day are combat centric. When a group relies on X/Day ability's they are forced in to the 15 min work day. Combat centric party's do not have this same restriction.
A few tips for a combat centric party.
1: Casters of all types should use no more then 2 spells for each encounter. Even if there doing nothing some rounds thats OK.
2: Crowd control is king. Spells that control the flow of battle. Win battles with one spell. Two spells on a very tough encounter.
3: You need to remove the idea of a standard cleric, wizard, fighter, rogue. And replace it with something a bit odd.
A: Combat Divine Caster(Druid, Battle Cleric, Oracle of battle), or Witch (One of the best options because they can cover both arcane and divine. Healing patron and they can do every thing you need a cleric for.)
B: Paladin or Ranger (Looking for a full bab that can heal them selfs. With a cure wand.)
C: Bard (Must have Inspire courage!!!! Buffing king and knows it. Plus covers knowledge skills and party face.)
D: Ranger/Rogue(Str build with two weapon fighting.), or Rogue (Bard buffs removes the to hit problem from rogues. And puts there sneak attack damage on a different footing then normal because of the amount of times it will hit now.)
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well... there are three powerful suggestions not yet mentioned:
>>TIME<< Hand-waive the passage of time during the slow, boring or meaningless parts; conversely, when the party wishes to achieve a bunch of things like gathering knowledge or meeting with the council to make battle plans - say that it takes the rest of the day. Quickly moving to the next morning can help make it seem very reasonable.
>>DISTANCE<< Have the party travel to their next destination, and surcharge the appropriate time to get there. Battles are fun, but only one part of a roleplaying game. Have the battle site be unknown until the party spends time researching where the enemy is, then travel there.
<<24>> I use what I call the "24" technique in my games. I tend to design my adventures to spec, with a good assortment of easy, challenging, hard, epic battles thoughout the day. All this takes is good story planning to ensure the believability of all those different encounters happening on the same day. But let me assure you, its not a 15 minute day - if the story is good, the players must press on with less than adequate resources, and will surprise you with their ingenuity when they cannot blast their biggest best stuff at the boss at the end.
Hope that helps.
Have smaller, more frequent encounters before the PCs can achieve goals, so they are forced to expend resources over a greater period of time. Intelligent (emphasis on intelligent) opponents should be able to adapt to their situation, varying tactics to adapt to what the party is doing rather than just mobbing the PCs again when that isn't working.
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You can't contrive a plotline to have a race ALL the time, but it's easy enough you can do it over and over.
"Rescue the damsel in distress before the monster eats her at dawn..."
"Stop the evil ritual set to climax tomorrow at midnight.."
"Go explore the pan-dimensional dungeon.. just be sure you're back out in X day's hence before its portal with this world closes forever..."
My suggestion is keep contriving deadlines for adventures until the players abandon the crutch of one-encounter adventuring days. Once they expect to have to husband their abilities over the course of several/many challenges, you wont have to contrive deadlines anymore.
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Talk to them is always a good option. If they have a divine caster they will need to rest a whole day as divine casters only get spells once a day. (see magic section)
If you give experience points then give them fewer when they nova and rest because now it was less of a challenge. Make it up to them if they go on to fight some more.
Have attacked areas react by beefing up defenses.
Finally, as a last resort, do really big encounters that will require all their resources to win. If they want to nova then you can nova too. Consolidate encounters that would be across a day into one encounter.
The response to the killer DM line is wimpy players.
Freelances stuff is good too. Have them fail because they took too long. Make it clear it is because they took too long. I am not talking time limits but if they do in a month of game time what could take a couple days then they should fail.
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3) Random encounters. Previous editions of D&D had Random Encounters or Wandering Monsters that would attack during travel or rest. Do we rest and risk something stumbling upon us as we do or push on and hope we have enough resources left.
I'll echo the 'previous editions' advice. Computer gaming is to blame, but 3e was basically the end of random encounters. It also spawned the era of dipping, which bred a lot of min-maxing. Paizo put a bit of a cap on it with Pathfinder, but there are still a lot of players who will 'nova' just to see how high their numbers can get.
Anyway, bring back the night watch and randoms en route. Don't let them know just which encounters matter and which don't, and when they think they have it figured out, make the night time encounter the important one. Stay on your feet and make sure the party never knows whether they will get time to rest.
Failing that, there are always those encounters they can't nuke their way out of for one reason or another.
most groups I have seen get into the 15 minute work day routine have done so because of an unintentional series of events that can be boiled down to the following:
Campaign got challenging > Players spent character resources to defeat challenge > Campaign continued to be challenging > Players continued to spend resources > Campaign started to seem less challenging, and challenge was increased > Players increased resource spending > repeat until GM realizes accidental arms race ended in 15 min. work day.
All it takes to stop the cycle is to make the campaign less challenging for a while.
I think he's onto something with this, if you want to kill the idea of the 15 minute day entirely. Most of the time once the game turns into an arms race 15 minute work days become the eventual response. We had an issue with this in my current game. At lower levels the game was a little less challenging, and we didn't nova, but the last 3-4 levels have been absolutely brutal, which required resting frequently to regain resources. One dungeon with 31 rooms (most of which didn't have creatures) took us 10 days IC to finish.
If you want more specific fixes, the easiest way to eliminate the 15 minute day is to put a time requirement on PC action. If they have to clear out the dungeon to recover the key to return before the next full moon to stop the evil priest... that's a whole different beast. When the PCs determine the initiative then the 15 minute work day is possible. When they lack the initiative and are forced to react it isn't. Our last adventure was on a sharp time limit and resulted in our casters almost burning themselves out every day. It wasn't uncommon for the party to go through five or six encounters, use all of their spells up, and only rest when we were truly depleted.
Never been a problem in my games. Of course, I have had new players come in and give a shocked look when they throw all of their highest levels spells at the first encounter and the party keeps trudging on through the adventure. I have actually had a kid ask me to make the them stop because he was out of 4th level spell! I then asked him, what your 3rd and lower? Oh, I haven't used any of them.
And the party laughed and kept right on rolling.
Now, my experienced folks know that resting means they might well get an encounter or two because I was weaned on 1st edition. And, they also know I rule you can only regain spell slots or prepared spells once every twenty-four hours.
Rest because the wizard or sorcerer is out of spells? Not likely.
Master Arminas
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Very simple solution. Next time they walk out of a dungeon after a single fight and have expended all of their resources going Nova, let them have their 8 hours rest and return to the dungeon, only to find that whatever they were sent to do was actually accomplished by another adventuring group while they were snoozing. Have them continue to explore a completely ransacked dungeon, with a few traps untriggerd that they could find, but with a ton of dead and looted bodies. After they walk back out and head to town, have them walk in on a parade celebrating the actual heroes that did finish the dungeon, who then procede to do benificial acts all around the city, donating THEIR gold and treasure to churches and orphaniges.
Note, only do this if it's only after a fight or 2. 3 hard fights and half a dungeon in, including traps and other random type encounters, and it is far less fair for the party to not be able to try to recover a little before continuing.
I mostly boils down to the party MUs wanting to do things every round, and not being content with their mace or crossbows.
Even if they run out of 1st level spells, they still have not only unlimited cantrips, but also domain/bloodline/school abilities that should take a good while to deplete. (My starsoul sorcerer gets good use out of her minute meteors ability.)
One thing may be to discuss strategy and point out that these abilities are available and can be effective and even important, even if not as "cool" as their first level spells.
Strikes me that the MUs feel like they can't contribute if they can't cast all their spells, so it's important to find ways to show they are still useful even if they aren't at max spell capacity.
It may be the 2nd edition player in me, but I never demanded the party sleep after I cast my ONE magic missile.
Which makes me wonder, how do the non-casters feel about this situation? Would they prefer to move on or are they okay with resting?
Time limits are a good way to go, I agree; we had a single day to complete the High Clerist's Tower. That was much more intense and fun than if we'd cleared it in a month. The problem, as has been noted, is that doing it too often makes it frustrating and stale.
I would suggest is making sure the time limits are connected to the characters' personal goals---or set the time limits according to the characters' personal goals. If the party doesn't really care that the damsel is going to devour that poor, helpless dragon, then something needs to be added into the plot that makes them WANT to push forward even if they could stop and rest. Maybe the evil damsel killed the fighter's sister. Maybe the dragon they need to rescue promised them a powerful artifact, which will go lost if they do not rescue him in time.
I was in an odd situation as a GM where I set up some BROAD time limits--stuff like, "you have 2 weeks to get to this place before all hell breaks loose." But the party was invested for a variety of reasons--helping family, finding the truth about the identity of one of the PC's attempted murderer, avenging the destruction of one's race--in getting to Bad Guy City as soon as possible. I actually struggled to get them to slow down because they were pushing through the storyline about twice as fast as I was hoping and I could barely keep up with them! (They were also complaining they didn't have enough treasure, but weren't taking any downtime to craft or explore the places where the treasure was, which I pointed out. The response was, "But it's better to get there now!" So I shrugged and moved along with it, and let them accept the consequences). It was hard to handle, but I was flattered they wanted to push on and see what happened next ASAP. This was a caster heavy party, too.
So it is possible to get people to not stop and rest (even when you might want them to!)--but they need to feel truly invested in what is happening. (And in my case, I failed to make the journey as interesting as the destination, which is something to bear in mind next time.)
The wild card is of course play styles--some folks just aren't interested in player goals and whatnot--but it wouldn't hurt to chat with players and see what gets their characters motivated or what their longterm goals are that you can seed into the adventure to compel them forward.
Another thing is to make them feel rewarded in a variety of ways when they push through and don't just run off and rest after every fight. If they rescue the kidnapped baron extra fast, something like, "You came so quickly, here's an extra 1,000 gp for your efforts." And likewise, resting too much should lead to things that feel disatisfying or disheartening (WITHIN REASON and NOT TOO OFTEN). The party finally rescued the baron after 5 days in a time period that should have been 2. He is now so tortured and terrified he can barely speak, and cannot provide as much of a reward, or he loses his authority and the party loses their local political backing.
I guess the PCs will have to deal with solo goblins and whatnot shooting them while they sleep if they leave the dungeon to rest-up.
I would suggest some roving encounters both in and out of the dungeon. Some of them should be quite weak but feel very satisfying when you beat them.
Another option would be to give them really disturbing dreams.
Also, on another note--maybe occasionally have a session where no combat happens (if that appeals to you). Include a bunch of trapfinding and/or diplomacy opportunities and/or mazes and/or solving puzzles and riddles. Give them a bunch of challenges that aren't combat, so they're not thinking, "Oh, fight's done, gotta go rest." Some spells should be useful in these circumstances as well, as well as Knowledge skills, which should help spellcasters shine in a different way. They might get through a lot of the dungeon and realize that it's fun to go through the dungeon when you're not demanding to rest all the time.
I'm prepping for a new game, and I'm thinking back to the olden days. We never used to have the problem of the 15 minute work day (Taking an eight our rest after each fight) back before, say... 2005. I'm not sure what changed in my group since then (It happened after we finished the Dragonlance chronicles, in which we CERTAINLY didn't do it.) The few campaigns we tried to start since then always died quick deaths because the PCs blew their wads in every fight, so it wasn't a challenge unless the monsters were far too overpowering. How do you guys prevent this sort of tomfoolery. I tried the "You aren't tired yet", and they just left the dungeon and waited 24 hours. They didn't mind a casual respawn, and I got slapped with the proverbial "Killer GM" label when the entire dungeon emptied out to come for them.
Thanks in advance.
What level are the characters and what types of encounters are you throwing at them? The 15 minute day happens more at lower levels with my group than any other time.
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The endless 'wandering monster' suggestion works.
I prefer the story to be presented in such a way that regular breaks simply means the party will fail. If the party is made aware that they have 24 hours to save the princess, recover the sacred chalice, or slay the dread demonlord, they will start pacing themselves a lot better.
Another solution, and probably the best solution is to talk to your players. Explain to them that if they rest after each and every combat encounter, not only will they be entering combat fully prepped and ready, but the difficulty of those encounters will be scaled up accordingly. Whereas, if they actually adventure as the system is designed for them to do, they will probably have encounters which they can deal with even without their full complement of higher-level spells and powers.
Suggest to them that they try it, and don't go overboard as DM trying to win the game. Give them solid level appropriate encounters that challenge them, but don't require them to cut loose with everything in order to win. There are too many DMs out there who feel that it is a contest between their NPCs and monsters stacked up against the PCs. And don't be afraid to tell them when they might be in over their heads.
Master Arminas
Well, one of the problems is “quadratic wizards, linear fighters”, so much so that in the upper levels, the party does get a lot weaker . Sure, since the standard is 4 encounters (and of course one of these could certainly be a trap etc instead of fighting), you do need to force the party into a occ 5-6 encounter day.
BUT- if you do so, do make the later encounters easy enough so that the party isn’t going “well, see we HAVE to be fully buffed and spellslots full in order to win!”. Let the tanks & skillmonkeys shine, and make sure that a acid splash is some help.
DO explain to the players straight out that the game is designed for 4 encounters a day, on average. That sometimes they will not be able to nova then rest. Master Arminas is correct- talk to them.
When it is the Boss battle, hint a tiny bit so that they aren’t then always saving for that BBEG.
Key points to remember.
Early encounters should not REQUIRE party to nova (if they do anyway, that is their fault).
If they just walk out of 'X' (dungeon, castle, whatever) and immediately set up camp, they are idiots for not thinking they will get hit back.
If they have invaded 'X' but leave without finishing the job, they should expect things to be different and much more ready for them when they come back. More guards on each patrol, more alert, more suspicious, faster response, officers directly involved, setup some barricades, block some doors, improvise some traps, etc...
That is just common sense. Their home or business got hit they will not just set in exactly the same places doing exactly the same things the next day. Well, ok, ... maybe and ooze or golem would still be sitting in the same place, but not anything intelligent.
Do people actually find that 4 encounters wipe them out? (use their resources, not kill them) I never got that. A group of smart players could surely do far, far better. I've seen someone solo Crypt of the Everflame as a barbarian. Without sleeping. The only healing they got was the HPs from levelling.
When did PCs get hit with the wussbat?
It really depends on how evil(tactical) the GM is. I handed level 4 party their collective a#$@@ with 7 or 8 level 1 warrior orcs. The orcs had an int of 10 so I did not have to downplay them. When I get to play I might need a rest after 4 encounters at low level because the other GM is brutal, but at higher levels I(included the party) do fine.
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Here are a few fun tricks to kill the 15 minute workday
1) Random Encounters - great in the dungeon (while resting) and great in the wilderness (while resting)
2) If it's a living dungeon it will react.
- a) Creatures may move around/relocate; some may up and leave (and take their loot with them).
- b) Creatures will reset defenses, make new defenses. Or they may even send out a strike force to attack the invaders (who are resting from their Nova's =TPK/Deaths) and kill them as they rest or head back to town - or even hit the town.
- c) Creatures may call in reinforcements -patrols, war parties, other clans/humanoid tribes ("look, they hit us, it's only a matter of time till they hit you"....). They may even bring in bigger defenses in anticipation of a second attack.
3) It it's a "dead" dungeon (Crypts with undead, scattered ruins with a few unorganized monsters, etc)
- a) Creatures may not react - but other opportunist may. Local brigands, thieves and all around scummy con men may have heard that the
"Black Tomb of Suchandsuch" was recently raided! Maybe there's still some loot they left behind? The riff-raff moves in, kills off a few of the remaining encounters (since the PCs already did alot of heavy lifting) and then party returns refreshed, rested to explore the now empty Tomb. - b) As a, but this can also just be another adventuring group. They may even be leaving the dungeon with all their loot as the party is coming in (or the reverse), which can make for an interesting encounter.
3) Living world. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and as such that means PCs are doing what they are doing for a reason. If they are doing it for a reason beyond personal enrichment (dungeon crawl) then that means they have other driving factors which may be beyond their control – one may be time. If you are on a time limited mission the option to rest 24 hours (or even 6 hours) may not be viable.
Intelligently designed adventures and smart set-up by the DM will have the party exploring areas for multiple reasons - and as such beyond a personally motivated dungeon crawl there will be outside factors, play those up.
PUSH
Set everything on fire. You can't rest for 8 hours here, the fire will obliterate your campsite and you'll be burned to ashes.
Army ants are on the march. You have to keep moving or you'll be eaten alive.
ETC.
or
PULL
You have 24 hours to [accomplish something important].
The ship carrying [something or someone important to them] is leaving soon.
The ritual to [do something they don't want to happen] will start on the next full moon. Get moving.
Best way I've found to kill the 15 minutes work day is to play out the downtime. When the down time starts impacting what players are getting done in gaming session they stop doing it. As well I've had some great roleplaying come out of it too when NPCs are present. Basically don't make resting 30 second task with couple rolls for random encounters. It's not like you can sleep if you camp every 15 minutes.
I still don't think having the players get ambushed after leaving X and camping will end well. Mostly I think it's because if they're camped anyone in medium+ armor is naked which means the characters you'd expect to carry the team when they don't have spells are at their weakest, it just doesn't make sense to me.
By "naked", you mean "wearing their chain shirt pajamas", right?
... I got slapped with the proverbial "Killer GM" label when the entire dungeon emptied out to come for them.
Did you let them know that would happen before hitting them with it.. while they still opperated under a meta-game presumption that the dungeon just turns off when they 'log out' like how you've been playing up until then?
The right approach is to have the enemy's decisions be believeable and the player's choices have reasonable consequences. The thing is, just make sure everyone's on the same page when the decision is being made.
A simmilar case cropped up in my game, and I just walked them through the reality check: If they leave, odds are the enemy will discover what's happening and respond ....*without* the orcs checking the DMG to see that their response fits the encoutner CR guidelines appropriate to ALP first - i.e. they're not going to act like idiots, they're going to try to kill them and win. On the other hand, if they press on, and not give the enemy hours to figure out what's happening to them and organize a reasponse, the party can avoid bleeding encounters.
Let them know it's press on & no encounter bleed vs. max power but against encoutners bled together. Then let them decide.
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Poit, that is one of the rules I for one consider optional. In my game, you can't sleep in armor: not full plate, not chain mail, not a chain shirt. Maybe leather (not studded leather) or padded. Maybe. If you try, you don't regain hit points and you are fatigued the next day.
Sleeping in armor. HAH!
Master Arminas
My party barricaded a room and lay down to rest. The big bad in charge of the place had armor with the etherealness enchantment. After losing 2 characters the party has been much more cautious about lying down on the job.
Poit, that is one of the rules I for one consider optional. In my game, you can't sleep in armor: not full plate, not chain mail, not a chain shirt. Maybe leather (not studded leather) or padded. Maybe. If you try, you don't regain hit points and you are fatigued the next day.
Sleeping in armor. HAH!
Master Arminas
I would still sleep in the armor. It is better than trying to fight without armor on, and the hp you will lose from not wearing armor is most likely greater than what you won't gain from sleeping in armor.
How do you stop the 15 minute work day?
"Hey guys, seriously, stop being tools."
/thread ;)
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I have an answer. Reinforcements for the enemy. Have a third of the enemy force waiting in reserve when the party enters, so they are out of tactical combat, and thus not part of any nova strategies. To be fair, have them delay a specific amount of rounds as opposed to waiting for a daily to be used.
Is that referring to players who insist on being at 100% or GM's who use OP encounters and then complain about the party wanting to rest?
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The issue at root here is poor resource management. The solution is to train your players on resource management.
Throw a typical encounter at the group. When they are slapping each others' backs and looting the bodies, hit them with the second wave. Do this a couple times and they will develop the habit of holding something back.
I once had a bunch of kobolds simply make it impossible for the party to sleep and regain spells for two in-game days. I don't recall another 15 minute game day problem after that. Those casters learned to treat their spells like rare jewels.
The issue at root here is poor resource management. The solution is to train your players on resource management.
Throw a typical encounter at the group. When they are slapping each others' backs and looting the bodies, hit them with the second wave. Do this a couple times and they will develop the habit of holding something back.
I once had a bunch of kobolds simply make it impossible for the party to sleep and regain spells for two in-game days. I don't recall another 15 minute game day problem after that. Those casters learned to treat their spells like rare jewels.
That can happen back at their camp too.
Lots of people saying the same thing, random encoutners, counter attacks, etc.Bottom line: You get to decide how many encounters they get each day, not them. The only thing Players should get by withdrawing and going on the defensive is no control over what those encounters are.
Poit, that is one of the rules I for one consider optional. In my game, you can't sleep in armor: not full plate, not chain mail, not a chain shirt. Maybe leather (not studded leather) or padded. Maybe. If you try, you don't regain hit points and you are fatigued the next day.
Sleeping in armor. HAH!
Master Arminas
I have slept in a chainshirt, myself. Woke up somewhat sweaty and stiff, but I’ve had worse.
No dungeon should be static. Every adventure site should have a life all its own.
Even a crypt or tomb... all the inhabitants are resting in their urns and coffins, right? Wrong. If you were to make a movie about people trying to spend the night in a crypt, in a world where magic and ghosts are real... guess what happens: They get harassed by the restless dead and you as DM get to cash in on some horror movie tropes. Yay! That sound like FUN! With any luck, your party will be like kids, yelling and screaming with their arms flailing in the air as they run out of the tomb as fast as they can.
Caves and dungeons with monsters... well don't the goblins go collect firewood? Go to another room to relieve themselves, or hunt rats & pick some lichen for their stew? Then, if they quietly stumble across the party, they stifle a gasp, then quietly stumble away and tell their friends. Next thing you know, the whole neighborhood is on high alert before any PC even wakes up.