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View Full Version : Making the most of a 15 minute adventuring day



jseah
2011-01-29, 07:08 AM
A common complaint I've seen, is that spellcasters can nova to crush an encounter and then go back for 8 hours.
The suggestion to avoid this is often to run the world realistically, where events do not wait for the players.

Well, that's all well and good. But can you justify the 15 minute adventuring day IF you accomplish more in that 15 minutes than going slowly would?

So here's a thought experiment:
Assuming,
- That spellcasters can refresh spells by resting for 8 hours, any time.
- The world keeps going and villianous plans will progress by in-game time.
- Specifically, someone is trying to destroy the world and without interference will do so at some unknown (but GM predetermined time)
- The party is a "standard" 5 man party of a melee bruiser, skill monkey, divine caster, arcane caster, alternate caster (ToM, psionics or something similar)
- The GM does not alter the plot's progress or fudge anything whatsover based on what the players do. (does not exclude improvisation but no suddenly deciding that there's five dragons instead of 1 when the players one-round it)

Would it be more advantageous to use all the casters' resources as fast as possible (15 minute day) to get as much done as possible?
Or would a traditional 16 hour day be more worthwhile?
To phrase it another way, does the longer active time of the 16 hour day outweigh the speed of the 15 minute day? Which playstyle accomplishes more, plotwise?

How does this change when you vary the assumptions?
Level 1? 10? 20?
What if it's an all caster party? (no caster party is obvious I would think)

I have my own thoughts on this, but I would like to hear other people's first.

Asheram
2011-01-29, 08:14 AM
A common complaint I've seen, is that spellcasters can nova to crush an encounter and then go back for 8 hours.
The suggestion to avoid this is often to run the world realistically, where events do not wait for the players.

Well, that's all well and good. But can you justify the 15 minute adventuring day IF you accomplish more in that 15 minutes than going slowly would?

So here's a thought experiment:
Assuming,
- That spellcasters can refresh spells by resting for 8 hours, any time.
- The world keeps going and villianous plans will progress by in-game time.
- Specifically, someone is trying to destroy the world and without interference will do so at some unknown (but GM predetermined time)
- The party is a "standard" 5 man party of a melee bruiser, skill monkey, divine caster, arcane caster, alternate caster (ToM, psionics or something similar)
- The GM does not alter the plot's progress or fudge anything whatsover based on what the players do. (does not exclude improvisation but no suddenly deciding that there's five dragons instead of 1 when the players one-round it)

Would it be more advantageous to use all the casters' resources as fast as possible (15 minute day) to get as much done as possible?
Or would a traditional 16 hour day be more worthwhile?
To phrase it another way, does the longer active time of the 16 hour day outweigh the speed of the 15 minute day? Which playstyle accomplishes more, plotwise?

How does this change when you vary the assumptions?
Level 1? 10? 20?
What if it's an all caster party? (no caster party is obvious I would think)

I have my own thoughts on this, but I would like to hear other people's first.

Well.. to start off if you can justify the 15 minute day. Ofcourse you can.
Almost anything can be justified when placed into certain context. But again, it all depends on the context.
Say that you're doing a dungeon run with little or no social interaction. No exploring, no searching for hidden passage ways, no stopping in the ancient library to look through tomes of lost knowledge. Then the 15 minute day is very justifiable.

But on the other hand we have just about everything else that requires actual social interaction inter-party or to NPC's.
The gamers could curse and throw books at the DM if he attempted to push a 15 minute day on them.

Now, to you hypothetical campaign. A 15 minute day would, in my eyes, seriously hamper the party. There's lot of out-of-combat (or even in combat) things you can do even if you're a spellcaster with no spells left. Unless the GM makes a real **** move and puts the schedule after real world time.

jseah
2011-01-29, 08:44 AM
Out of combat things that a party can do without spells could be solved by spells.
Might not be efficient, and for alot of things, magic probably isn't the best tool for the job (cost benefit wise).

But it's hard to find a faster tool than magic.


So, since you get more spells per unit time using a 15 min day, compared to a 24 hour day, does ~3 times more spells per day make up for the loss of non-magic solutions that take a long time? (things that can be done in a short time without magic are not relevant)

Asheram
2011-01-29, 08:59 AM
It's true. but it's not healthy for the group to rely so heavily on magic. Beside, they're on the clock. It might take longer for them to do things by hand, but even if they don't use the whole day, the villains Will.

If you're on a bike and going somewhere in a hurry when you suddenly get a flat tire, you don't stand still and wait for the mecanic, you put the bike up on your shoulder and start to walk, if not run.

Ormur
2011-01-29, 09:41 PM
I don't have completely formed opinion on this but I have a few observations based on a campaign where we're two casters on a time sensitive save-the-world mission and I play the wizard.

The DM does not allow a 15 minute day so I don't know how that works compared to the 16 hour day but I can extrapolate how it would affect us.

Just to be clear you're talking about 15 minutes of casting spells followed by 8 hours of rest followed immediately by another 15 minutes of casting, right?

While the wizard or the arcane caster would get to cast nearly three times as many spells the divine caster would still be limited to refreshing once every 24 hours. It might still come out ahead, especially if that's not half the group as in my case, but it would make the rest of the party less useful (in the case of non-casters even less useful) and thus overshadowed.

Another thing is that the end goal isn't always the only time critical aspect. Sometimes the DM throws problems at us while we're planning our next move, the BBEG takes the initiative to wreck havoc on the capital city, completes a ritual that's has the side effect of causing a zombie outbreak, powerful NPC's or otherwise plot relevant ones are sometimes not available at our whim and those events would be three times as likely to interrupt someone that needs three times as much rest. What probably takes up most time that couldn't easily be replaced by more magic is conversations, meetings, in-character planning and interrogations (although the last one can theoretically be done with a question per round spell).

Another potential problem is that doing everything with magic to save time requires the wizard to know more spells. In my wizard's campaign the biggest (and quite deliberate on the DM's behalf) problem with the time criticality is not being able to learn spells from as many scrolls as I'd like and my wizard isn't even trying to replace the more mundane stuff. There are tricks to learn more spells but you can't start with every spell. Being a schrödinger wizard requires a lot of time (and WBL) and when you're levelling up as fast as a 15 minute adventuring day suggests you'll be wanting more of those higher level spells than you get automatically.

Vangor
2011-01-29, 10:10 PM
Without accurate information on what is against you, burning through spells could waste a significant amount of time on useless distractions and/or leave you defenseless to real or further dangers. Of course, in game this can be taken care of in a number of ways, a few of which are able to reduce the time in the game world you spend resting to recover magic. Out of game, this does not offer much of an experience for the party, focusing on "winning" the campaign as opposed to exploring.

Would say the 15 minute burn would tend to outweigh the general 16 hour day as levels increase, the world becomes less active, and the threats become more focused. Whether or not this accomplishes more plotwise remains to the type of plot, with more dungeon-centric ones being easily nova-driven while those of politics and intrigues may come to a halt.

Yahzi
2011-01-30, 12:11 AM
The solution to the 15-minute day is to go back to 1E, where you memorized your spells at the start of the adventure. And that was all you got.

Honestly, that's a great idea; I might even use it in my next campaign. Wizards can only memorize spells by spending a month in their workshop.

Of course, to be fair, you'd have to remove all the saves from the spells. But then you've got a huge balance problem... bleh.

dextercorvia
2011-01-30, 12:15 AM
Don't forget that bedroll that lets wizards recharge after only an hour or two.

jseah
2011-01-30, 04:33 AM
Part of the premise is that all casters get to refresh spells by resting 8 hours.
Of course, if you prevent clerics from doing that, the strategy gets less powerful.

Still, assuming that your party splits up to rest, the mundane characters don't need to rest to refresh spells and can continue talking, interrogating and so on. While the casters remain on-call, like a chekov's gun that fires once every 8 hours to blow away whatever obstacle you're facing at the time.

Yahzi, not looking for a solution. I'm just exploring it as a potential playstyle.

Vangor,
That's similar to my own thinking. Low level wizards don't benefit from this since their spells are so limited in what they can do anyway.
It's only around level 10 up that this becomes even a semi-viable strategy, essentially, you need teleport for this to become worthwhile to replace travel time.
Level 17 should be firmly towards the 15 minute day since casters get so many spells and have a solution to basically any situation that could happen without fiat.

As for learning spells, Book of Boccob relic item could solve that. I'd say one item is easier to get than a ton of scrolls. Could always craft it yourself if you need to.

Worira
2011-01-30, 05:08 AM
Of course you prevent clerics from doing that. They explicitly can't.