Pathfinder: from x/day to x/combat

[Madeiner]

Hi there.
I am noticing in my Pathfinder game, most of the times we do one or two combat encounters per day, because i don't really like dragging things on and combat takes so long.

However, there are a few characters that have abilities that are 1/day, and they can spam them all in a single combat knowing that there probably won't be another.

Im thinking i should change the system to an encounter based ability allotment.
This way, we worry less about not using our most powerful things for fear of a later encounter, but we also dont get so many of our most powerful things that i have to change the CR of everything.
Has anyone done that before? Any tips or consequences i should think about?
How many spells per combat should spellcasters have? How should i deal with abilities that are 3/day, 1/day, or things like channel energy that are more than 10/day?

[ArendK]

I've had this issue before as a GM.

My answer varies with the idea and intended power level of my game. If I want the party to always be able to attack and be awesome, then might as well let them spam their powers and appear awesome. Keep encounters to 1/day and let them go crazy with their abilities.

On the other hand, if I'm trying to get a more gritty campaign, I'll switch to almost a sporadic amount of encounters in a day (usually the last day of travel, but whatever is plot convienent). Is it unrealistic in reality (awesome play on words), yes, but so is a game where bat poo and sulfur create giant balls of fire to eliminate a large area of the living (or dead).

[Sayt]

As a Gm, I'd rather run harder encounters than fundamentally alter the nature of classes after they've started being played.

Generally speaking, the nature of the Paladin's Smite evil, for instance, or the Cavaliers challenge ability means that if it's changed from N/day to N/encounter means that instead of choosing one enemy to smite on most combats, they can smite or challenge all of their enemies in succession, rather than being selective with their focuses.

Bards and Barbarians no longer care about the durations of their abilities, because they've gone from N rounds per day to N rounds per combat, and their abilities are going to last most of the combat, in all likelihood.

Generally speaking, an encounter with a CR equal to the party's APL should consume approximately 25% of your parties daily resources, so if you're going to have fewer encounters per day, they should be more difficult, and I'd settle for that, rather than changing resource metrics.