Preventing the 15min adventuring day

[WarKitty]

So I'm a DM for a currently level 11 (mythic 1) pathfinder group. I want to make sure, consistently, that the 15min adventuring day isn't a realistic possibility. Basically I want to force my party to have more than one encounter before resting, so they can't just blow all their high-level stuff and then hole up and rest and regain their spells. So I need tricks to keep them from rope tricking or whatever their way out. Advice?

[Vizzerdrix]

So I'm a DM for a currently level 11 (mythic 1) pathfinder group. I want to make sure, consistently, that the 15min adventuring day isn't a realistic possibility. Basically I want to force my party to have more than one encounter before resting, so they can't just blow all their high-level stuff and then hole up and rest and regain their spells. So I need tricks to keep them from rope tricking or whatever their way out. Advice?

Quests with a time limit (i.e. other adventurers, preventing something, temporary dungeon, etc).

Enemies that will follow them out or get harder with time to prep.

[Graysire]

Introduce enemies that can follow them into their rope trick, perhaps they have some special ability granted to them by an artifact or other maguffin, then serving as a plot point(some kind of hunter-killer creature?)

If they do a ton of 15 minute adventuring day stuff, have the enemy start using that kind of thing as harass tactics, wave 1 attacks with high level stuff, exhausts it, runs away as wave 2 comes in to do what wave 1 did, etc. PCs don't typically outnumber the villains(henchmen galore!)

[Mehangel]

Alot of good ideas were mentioned such as waves of enemies, quests with time limits, etc.

Something else you can do is using Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) instead of standard vancian spellcasting. By using spheres of power, players will be less likely to blow through their spells per day, and even if they do will still have at-will abilities allowing them to continue through the adventuring day.

[BWR]

Ask your players nicely to not do this please.

I'm serious. Just tell your players that you don't want this nonsense and it will make things easier for you (and them) if they don't.
Apart from that, remember that if the PCs rest and recover, so do the enemies. In my games, both the ones I run and play in, giving the enemy time to prepare for you is a Bad Idea.

[Kol Korran]

It really comes down to outside pressure. The 15 minutes adventuring day only makes sense if the world stands still, and every encounter/ antagonist/ situation waits for the party to arrive, and twiddle their thumbs till they do so...

Yes, you can put a hard time limit, but it isn't usually needed. Give the world a feeling that it progresses without the party, and that delaying may have consequences, and most parties get that "they need to hurry!". Some examples:
1- Clearing out the giant infested keep: Sure, the party can kill 1-2 "rooms/ encoutners" and retreat. This may work once, twice, but on when the party comes out of their safe hole again, well... the fort just got a helll of a lot more fortified! And damn, the dragons had time to contact their yuan-ti sorcering allies/ paid off the dragon down the mountain for added protection against these "mystery assassins".

2- The party needs to stop the evil cult! But once they get out of their rope trick, well... everyone is gone, but the place feels hot, a lot hotter! Congratulations heroes- the cult finished it's sacrifice, and the portal to the hells is open wide!

3- The party explores a long forgotten tomb, which is filled with but undead, construcs and traps... It took them a month to get the Queen's scepter, but that took too long... A week after, without proof of her lineage, the lords rebelled, and now the country is in chaos!

Do something of this nature but once (When the party does overly delay), and keep the world moving, and I assure you- the party will rush to finish their quests!

[WarKitty]

Ask your players nicely to not do this please.

I'm serious. Just tell your players that you don't want this nonsense and it will make things easier for you (and them) if they don't.
Apart from that, remember that if the PCs rest and recover, so do the enemies. In my games, both the ones I run and play in, giving the enemy time to prepare for you is a Bad Idea.

I'm honestly trying to do a bit of a combination approach. I'm being up-front with the players that I don't want the 15-min adventuring day, but I'm also looking to provide at least some in-game reason why they wouldn't necessarily want to rest whenever they possibly could.

[Slipperychicken]

In dungeons, do encounter rolls at set intervals. Every 10 minutes of in-universe time, no matter what they're doing, you roll a d6. If it comes up 6, an extra encounter worth of monsters wanders near them. This could be anything from actual patrols, to the inhabitants going out for a snack or a smoke, or monsters otherwise going about their lives. In particularly infested areas, you can make the monsters appear on a 5+ or even a 4+. That discourages resting in unsecured areas or otherwise wasting time.

In wilderness, do the same roll for every 6 miles traveled. You can also roll for nighttime ambush. If they're resting in a wilderness area, make one roll for a nighttime encounter, and a d8 to determine how far into their rest a monster wanders into them. You can make the monster attacks less frequent by making it a d12 roll instead of a d6.

If a dungeon isn't cleared in a week, roll a d6 for every room the adventurers cleared or killed some monsters in. If it's a 4+, some new monsters have moved in (up to the max number the DM wants in there), or their numbers have otherwise been replenished.

[WarKitty]

In dungeons, do encounter rolls at set intervals. Every 10 minutes of in-universe time, no matter what they're doing, you roll a d6. If it comes up 6, an extra encounter worth of monsters wanders near them. This could be anything from actual patrols, to the inhabitants going out for a snack or a smoke, or monsters otherwise going about their lives. In particularly infested areas, you can make the monsters appear on a 5+ or even a 4+. That discourages resting in unsecured areas or otherwise wasting time.

In wilderness, do the same roll for every 6 miles traveled. You can also roll for nighttime ambush. If they're resting in a wilderness area, make one roll for a nighttime encounter, and a d8 to determine how far into their rest a monster wanders into them. You can make the monster attacks less frequent by making it a d12 roll instead of a d6.

If a dungeon isn't cleared in a week, roll a d6 for every room the adventurers cleared or killed some monsters in. If it's a 4+, some new monsters have moved in (up to the max number the DM wants in there), or their numbers have otherwise been replenished.

The trouble with this is by level 11, the PC's can pretty well make a secure area whenever they want to. Rope trick at level 11 gives them 11h of being in a secure extradimensional space - and if that doesn't work there are all kinds of other spells the PC's can cast to create a secure area in which to rest.

[Slipperychicken]

The trouble with this is by level 11, the PC's can pretty well make a secure area whenever they want to. Rope trick at level 11 gives them 11h of being in a secure extradimensional space - and if that doesn't work there are all kinds of other spells the PC's can cast to create a secure area in which to rest.

You could try giving the monsters the power to invade those spaces. Or you as the GM can just take those toys away because they are destructive to the kind of game that you want. My own GM banned those kinds of spells when we played 5e, and I think the game was better off for it.

You could also play a different game that doesn't have these problems.

[WarKitty]

You could try giving the monsters the power to invade those spaces. Or you as the GM can just take those toys away because they are destructive to the kind of game that you want. My own GM banned those kinds of spells when we played 5e, and I think the game was better off for it.

You could also play a different game that doesn't have these problems.

There's so many different spells that you'd have to ban though, and I don't want to completely ban every ability to have a safe resting place - I just don't want it to be used after every encounter. (And changing to a different game isn't really an option at this point.)

[sleepyphoenixx]

The trouble with this is by level 11, the PC's can pretty well make a secure area whenever they want to. Rope trick at level 11 gives them 11h of being in a secure extradimensional space - and if that doesn't work there are all kinds of other spells the PC's can cast to create a secure area in which to rest.

Extradimensional resting is hardly secure. Just have a few spellcasters among your monster patrols with Dispel Magic and See Invisibility. It's not like those spells are wasted preparations even in a normal fight.
Sleeping in a dungeon in Rope Trick or similar is just an invitation to be dumped into an encounters worth of readied actions at level 11. Most parties only make that mistake once (even if they survive it).

[VonMuller]

When the players exploit the rules to overcome roleplaying, you should introduce rules that enforce roleplaying and balance.

For example, a favorite of mine: Gamify

Turn the time limit of a quest into a minigame.

"The ritual will be complete in 12 hours"

Mark the passing of time in a prop and make sure they know this is a minigame inside the rules of the game. Put the prop in the center of the table during the session. If they fail, give them real consequences, not just a "Oh no, adventurers, you will now have to fix this too!". No. Make the consequences clear. If they fail, a Demon Lord will be summoned and it WILL be a CR20 and it WILL attack them and the city.

The minigame should be very hard. For example, if the quest is "The Ritual will be complete in 12 hours", have the travel time to that place be 2 hours. Have them waste an hour if they go shopping after they find out the timeline (no retroactive shopping just because "Of course I bought blessed water before I knew of this evil cult we are trying to stop"). Make sure the default result for the minigame is failure.

Why?

Because PC's always exceed expectations. The players are either creative roleplayers or brilliant tacticians and optimizers or both and if not a single one of your players falls in either of these definitions, then something bad is already happening to the campaign that is beyond in-game repairs.

On the other hand, once they start playing by the intended rules, be extremely generous towards creative tactics and roleplaying. When they realize they have high chances of failing, make sure their efforts are rewarded.

One player had a deep conversation with an NPC that knows about this? Have them discover a shortcut to the place where the ritual will be celebrated.
Did they plan ahead for an attack and utterly destroyed the opposition in the first rounds of combat? Have the enemies flee in terror and leave clues to their whereabouts that end up speeding the chase by an hour.

I'm a believer that as DM's our duty to the game and players is to push them to the edge, but always leave them a chance of success. You should plan your sessions as Asmodeus, but you should adjudicate their actions and the rules as Sarenrae. You should prepare your encounters thinking "Oh how I'm going to screw you" and run the session thinking "Come on guys, you can do it."

Turning the time limit into a minigame with clear rules makes it fairer from the point of view of the player's.

Compare:
a. The party was informed that the ritual was about to be performed, and they took three eight hours rests assuming they are like the Mechane and always arrive in the nick of time, they arrive and the DM announces: "A Pit Fiend is waiting for you".
b. The party was informed that the ritual was about to be performed, they watched the Doomsday Clock tick with every decision, they willingly took rests knowing that it would tick off, and they arrived knowing full well that the ritual was already finished and it would conjure a Pit Fiend.

[Bucky]

You can take a bite out of the 15 minute adventuring day with a divination-using enemy supervisor, or just mundane trackers. If every single time they set up a Rope Trick results in an ambush when they leave it, they're either taking two encounters per day or not progressing at all.

[Slipperychicken]

There's so many different spells that you'd have to ban though, and I don't want to completely ban every ability to have a safe resting place - I just don't want it to be used after every encounter. (And changing to a different game isn't really an option at this point.)

You don't have to name them all. Just make a blanket ban on spells and abilities that allow resting in circumstances you don't like. Or make it so they can only use them once a week or something.

[Albertus Magus]

A few ideas...

1) Turn the "Boss" enemy / Main obstacle into a Library (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/intrigue/#Research)!

Suddenly, they need an uninterrupted 8-hour period to progress at all; and you can add lots of little things to sabotage/interrupt them.
This puts a few players on standby(the researcher(s)), and offers you the option to challenge the players who stand watch with minor challenges that would "interrupt" the researchers...

2) Turn the "Boss" enemy / main obstacle into a ghost/poltergeist/haunt/lich/cursed lord/some other monster with a respawn ability and nonstandard destroy condition.

3) Have the PCs be chased/harassed by enemies. Use hit-and-run-tactics to force your PCs to hide, move, progress faster than their pursuers.

4) Have the PCs chase something/someone. Best used if they are not the only ones who are chasing something/someone, but have a rival party/organization who seeks to be thwart them and who wants to get the macguffin/princess first.

5) Have the BBEG use Nightmare or similar spells/effects to pressure the PCs...

[Crake]

5) Have the BBEG use Nightmare or similar spells/effects to pressure the PCs...

I did this once. It was actually hilarious for about 30 minutes... Until it became clear that it completely crippled the party, because they actually had no way to deal with it at all, so it didn't put an end to the 15 minute adventuring day, it put an end to adventuring in its entirety until they could get some NPC aid.

[Albertus Magus]

Nightmare is easily stopped by "not sleeping"; this is harsh for arcane spellcasters who cannot recover spells, but divine casters and other characters are merely fatigued.

Furthermore, Pathfinder has rules for adopting alternate identities (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/masked-personas/) which confer excellent defense against divination and would be a viable way for players to react upon being plagued with Nightmares.

[Firechanter]

This has cropped up in hexploration games where you only have 1-2 encounters per day by default (one scripted per Hex, one random). Even the players have said it gets unbalanced and boring when the Wizard can just keep spamming her highest spells with impunity.

The solution is extremely simple.
New rule: you can rest all you want, but you recover spells (and similar resources) only after completing at least four encounters. Done.

You can refine this by defining which resources you want to refresh when, or by taking varying encounter difficulties into account. For instance: "you recover spells only after gaining at least 1/3 of the XP required for levelup."
You can even derive an ingame justification from this. "Magic is fueled by experience" or some such BS.

[Starbuck_II]

Extradimensional resting is hardly secure. Just have a few spellcasters among your monster patrols with Dispel Magic and See Invisibility. It's not like those spells are wasted preparations even in a normal fight.
Sleeping in a dungeon in Rope Trick or similar is just an invitation to be dumped into an encounters worth of readied actions at level 11. Most parties only make that mistake once (even if they survive it).
In pathfinder, that might work as you can't hide the rope.
In 3.5, unless you have ability to shoot spells across dimensions that is useless (because remember you can pull up rope in 3.5).

[Slipperychicken]

In pathfinder, that might work as you can't hide the rope.
In 3.5, unless you have ability to shoot spells across dimensions that is useless (because remember you can pull up rope in 3.5).

You could also rule it to work that way in 3.5.

[sleepyphoenixx]

In pathfinder, that might work as you can't hide the rope.
In 3.5, unless you have ability to shoot spells across dimensions that is useless (because remember you can pull up rope in 3.5).

Read the spell description again:

Spells cannot be cast across the extradimensional interface, nor can area effects cross it. Those in the extradimensional space can see out of it as if a 3-foot by 5-foot window were centered on the rope. The window is present on the Material Plane, but it’s invisible, and even creatures that can see the window can’t see through it. Anything inside the extradimensional space drops out when the spell end
That's what See Invisibility is for. Even Detect Magic would work in a pinch.
You can't cast through the window, but you can target the window with Dispel Magic if you can see it - dropping everyone inside in the middle of an ambush.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

For Rope Trick, you could easily just rule that any extraplanar containers (bag of holding, handy haversack, portable hole, etc.) brought into that extraplanar space could cause a tear that dumps everyone in the Rope Trick into the astral plane and destroys the magical container. This check would be made as the character carrying it enters the Rope Trick, which could easily split the party. Let them know about this ahead of time, make it a % roll but don't tell them what the chance is, make it something like 5% cumulative every time that container enters a Rope Trick, or 20% for the first container brought in, 40% for the second one, 60% for the third in the same Rope Trick space. They'll be left either risking it, or not bringing their bags into it which risks getting them stolen, or just not using the spell.

I'll typically use an 'eyes everywhere' method to deter this type of activity. Spellcasters in the area could use divination spells to monitor them. There could be invisible minions like an imp or quasit just watching the whole time. Shadows or other incorporeal creatures could be lurking in the walls and peeking out waiting for an opportunity to strike. Someone could use Speak with Animals to ask the rats where they went. There could be a network of very small tunnels in the walls which kobolds use their slight build ability to squeeze through, and there's always at least one watching them. The owner of the facility they're in could have a minion with a Third Eye: Sense (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#sense) who constantly uses Clairaudience/Clairvoyance to observe the goings-on in the locales the boss is invested in. Once they've disappeared for a few hours someone could walk through with Arcane Sight active and spot the opening.

Regardless of how you accomplish it, the enemies knowing where the PCs went and where the opening is will be detrimental to their health. Set up an ambush of every opponent that's still alive in the location so they're doing a dozen encounters at once. Have the enemies build a bonfire under the opening so it fills the Rope Trick with smoke, they'll suffocate if they stay inside it, assuming they even wake up. You don't have to make them get found out every time, but having it backfire a few times will make them seriously reconsider this practice.

[Crake]

if they're rope tricking inside the enemy's fortress or whatever, just say that the place is forbiddanced, and thus no extraplanar travel is possible within the area. This also solves wizards with abrupt jaunt, and people using dimension door and teleport as an easy way out of fights that are too tough.

[Rerednaw]

I have usually used story or roleplaying consequences.

You have x time to save the princess, find the macguffin, stop the ritual, etc...If they fail any number of bad things may happen.
PCs get a bad rep and no one will deal with them give them quests or allow them to shop. Or if they do it is at a hefty penalty. (Sell at 1/4 price, Buy at double, etc...)
Said ritual succeeds and BBEG now has an army which they use to destroy every place the PCs can shop or rest.
Said ritual permanently causes a Bane or Despair or effect that makes all PCs function at lower level, etc because their planet is now being brought into the Plane of X.
Poor little girl princess didn't get her dolly and died of a broken heart. Enraged king hire endless waves of golems to harass the party to the utter ruination of his kingdom's economy leaving it open for invasion which also happens. And if the PCs even care this time the people already know it was the PCs fault for dragging their feat so they are in a position of helping people who now hate them.
Crafters making items for PCs are in cities that are now destroyed. And you did pay up front right? Sorry no COD's and no refunds. We had to divert resources to disaster relief.

You don't have to make it extreme of course. It could be a matter of -1 to all diplomacy checks to start and gradually scale it up.

And as noted, Rope Trick is not immunity to being found there are plenty of ways to get around that.

[Segev]

Having the world move on around them is generally the best solution to this problem. Time is a resource. Make spending it constitute opportunity costs.

[Endarire]

What is the rest of the world doing while the party takes a 9ish hour nap and spell prep break? This sort of thing can work in a computer game like Baldur's Gate due to mechanics, but tabletop has a living GM.

[rel]

Easy rule:

'Rest' the refresh of daily abilities is now a narrative event. It occurs automatically at story appropriate times after four or five encounters.

No amount of hiding in rope tricks retreating to town to rest or otherwise not adventuring will restore your resources.
Conversely, a 5 minute break between fights is enough to fully restore you if it happens at the right time.

more complex rule:
divide all daily resources by 4 or 5. They refresh after each encounter.

[gooddragon1]

Quests with a time limit (i.e. other adventurers, preventing something, temporary dungeon, etc).

Enemies that will follow them out or get harder with time to prep.

Agreed on this one.

Rescue scenarios, escort missions if teleport not available, intercept a message before it's delivered, stuff like that.

Or just make the monsters replenish via backup if they leave.

[Mordaedil]

If your players keep resting every 15 minutes, either your dungeon design isn't the greatest or they haven't learned to space themselves out well enough.

My suggestion is to throw literally the entire dungeon at them if they are thinking of resting after the first encounter and have them deal with their daily allotment immediately. You don't have to waste your time and they learn that maybe spacing out their resources is more clever.

If they do this regardless in sequences of play, I suggest just putting the whole natural process on them. "As much as you try to sleep, you do not feel sleepy" and if they keep insisting on resting, they end up fatigued as they emerge from rest and the mage has to roll concentration to memorize his spells that day. The priest is fine assuming she prayed to her deity that day, but it doesn't return her spells until the right time anyway.

[MilleniaAntares]

Disallow classes that rely upon per-day abilities.

[Incorrect]

I have done a few things in the past.

It is unnerving to sleep inside extraplanar, the feeling of impending doom keeps you from getting any rest.
Any handy haversacks, bags of holding etc. will cause a magical mishap, possibly shunting everyone to the astral plane.

One time when the above was not enough, I simply declared that spells per day, was in fact PER DAY, 24 hours.

[Segev]

I have done a few things in the past.

It is unnerving to sleep inside extraplanar, the feeling of impending doom keeps you from getting any rest.
Any handy haversacks, bags of holding etc. will cause a magical mishap, possibly shunting everyone to the astral plane. The issue with this is that it makes certain spells expressly designed for this pointless. It also doesn't solve the problem of the party just bunkering down with non-extradimensional fortifications.


One time when the above was not enough, I simply declared that spells per day, was in fact PER DAY, 24 hours.This is already true for clerics, who refresh at a given time in the day (generally dawn or dusk). It doesn't prevent the 15 min. adventuring day, because they just work for 15 min., and then rest for 23 hours and 45 min.

[Gnaeus]

No strategy mentioned would stop the 15 minute day for my group.

Time limit? We just cleared the dungeon in 15 minutes.
Follow us into our rope trick? Well, we stepped up to an instant fortress, but if you plan to attack us in it, the length of our day won't stop it.

Our 15 minute day is based on the time of buffs, but usually comes out to less than 10. We might, might, have 2 15 round sessions, in which we clear 3-4 rooms swat style before round/level buffs and summons drop, couple minutes to heal/explore/search, then another 15 round rush. But it's not because we are skimping on per day encounters.

[Nupo]

If you look at it from a different perspective the solution will probably be a little more obvious. Imagine if a group invaded the PC's stronghold, killed some guards, then activated a rope trick or something, what would the PC's do. They sure as heck wouldn't go about life as normal. They would prepare for the invaders to come out. They would probably be thrilled at having all the time to prepare. Also, they would have a good idea at how much time they have. Most PC's would consider this a big advantage for them, so make it as big of an advantage for the monsters when the PC's do it.

[Segev]

No strategy mentioned would stop the 15 minute day for my group.

Time limit? We just cleared the dungeon in 15 minutes.
Follow us into our rope trick? Well, we stepped up to an instant fortress, but if you plan to attack us in it, the length of our day won't stop it.

Our 15 minute day is based on the time of buffs, but usually comes out to less than 10. We might, might, have 2 15 round sessions, in which we clear 3-4 rooms swat style before round/level buffs and summons drop, couple minutes to heal/explore/search, then another 15 round rush. But it's not because we are skimping on per day encounters.

The bolded part is the one I am questioning. How did they clear the dungeon in 15 minutes? The whole point of a 15 min. adventuring day as a problem is that parties go nova with all their best x/day abilities in one combat/encounter, totally destroy it, and then rest for 8-24 hours to recover all their spells.

If they're powering through a dungeon in just 15 minutes, either it's got far too few encounters, or they're not nova-ing on encounters but are just really fast at going through a number of them. Remember that D&D 3.5 is designed around the notion that ~4 encounters should leave the party fairly drained, to the point that more encounters put them at serious risk of at least one PC dying.


If you look at it from a different perspective the solution will probably be a little more obvious. Imagine if a group invaded the PC's stronghold, killed some guards, then activated a rope trick or something, what would the PC's do. They sure as heck wouldn't go about life as normal. They would prepare for the invaders to come out. They would probably be thrilled at having all the time to prepare. Also, they would have a good idea at how much time they have. Most PC's would consider this a big advantage for them, so make it as big of an advantage for the monsters when the PC's do it.

This is also a good exercise. It's even one you can execute in game if the party has a home base. Test them. See how they respond to NPCs/creatures using their tactics. Learn from them how to combat it.

[Firechanter]

Disallow classes that rely upon per-day abilities.

Leaving what? Fighter and Rogue. That sounds neither practicable nor interesting.

[Gnaeus]

The bolded part is the one I am questioning. How did they clear the dungeon in 15 minutes? The whole point of a 15 min. adventuring day as a problem is that parties go nova with all their best x/day abilities in one combat/encounter, totally destroy it, and then rest for 8-24 hours to recover all their spells.

If they're powering through a dungeon in just 15 minutes, either it's got far too few encounters, or they're not nova-ing on encounters but are just really fast at going through a number of them. Remember that D&D 3.5 is designed around the notion that ~4 encounters should leave the party fairly drained, to the point that more encounters put them at serious risk of at least one PC dying.



This is also a good exercise. It's even one you can execute in game if the party has a home base. Test them. See how they respond to NPCs/creatures using their tactics. Learn from them how to combat it.

T-3+rogue checks door detects traps etc, daily buffs, oracle puts up lifelinks
T-2 summon movanic deva
T-1 haste, deva buffs, pumped up bardsong begins
T1-3 hasted pcs storm room. Greater invisible on rogue, Summon 2 bralani eladrin. On T3. One of the summons opens the next door. Summons do solid healing during battle
T4 hasted party storms next room, if there is a hall, hasted summons rush it, setting off traps, summon another deva
T5-8 summon ki-rin, legion archon, bralani eladrin. On t8, summons open or blast door, rush the next room as Turn 4.
T9-11 Barbarian, rogue, 7 buffed summons rush the next room. Bard, oracle, sorcerer shift to maintenance mode using low level spells to heal/buff/blast.
T12 rush next room
T13 first summons and buffs begin to drop. Cleanup mode.
T14 haste drops.

Spend next 5 minutes searching last 4 encounters. Repeat if necessary.

[Bucky]

If they're powering through a dungeon in just 15 minutes, either it's got far too few encounters, or they're not nova-ing on encounters but are just really fast at going through a number of them.

Like he said, it's about getting extra value from medium duration buff spells. The party's only voluntarily taking fights when they have the buffs up, and they only have 15 minutes per day of buff, hence a 15 minute adventuring day.

I put a piece of a dungeon crawl for comment elsewhere (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?440034-10-Minute-Dungeon-Crawl) on the forums that's designed for this style of play - from the first encounter, the dungeon will self-destruct in 10 minutes unless the party stops it.

[Elysiume]

Leaving what? Fighter and Rogue. That sounds neither practicable nor interesting.Rogue has some talents that are once per day (resiliency, defensive roll). Fighter, it's up to you!

[Segev]

So they're so overpowering and outclassing these encounters that they can plow through them in an average of 1.5 rounds each, with less than 3 rounds between rooms?

While I'll agree your high-op party probably should be hitting at higher CR than their levels indicate, it seems like you're not putting enough challenge in those "rooms," and that your encounters are too reliant on "kill all the monsters; you win."

That said, your party also isn't engaged in what's meant by "15 minute adventuring day." Yes, they might be cleaning out that dungeon in all of 15 minutes, but they actually did all the work already. The 15 minute adventuring day is a descriptive term for doing one room, blowing everything on it, then resting and doing the next room.

That's not what your party is doing. They're getting a LOT out of their nova, but they're not stopping between encounters for 8+ hours to recharge it for the next room. They're just moving like a machine.

The solutions proposed for the "15 minute adventuring day" won't work for your group because they're solutions for a different problem than yours. Assuming you even view this as a problem.

[Firechanter]

Oh, indeed!

If you play the entire dungeon in "Initiative Mode", i.e. round by round, measuring movement tactically, it's absolutely possible to gain an entire level - so, about 14 encounters equivalent - before your buff suite expires and you run out of spells. I have done that myself. That's actually kinda the opposite of what's normally understood as "15 minute adventuring day", but Segev explained all of that.

[Barstro]

Since you are going Mythic, it will sort itself out soon.

Tier 3 allows all your spellcasters to regain all their spells after resting for an hour and spending a Mythic Point. You will no longer need to worry about the party being overpowered for a mere 15 minutes each day. They can be overpowered much more frequently.

[Coretron03]

Rogue has some talents that are once per day (resiliency, defensive roll). Fighter, it's up to you!
No, fighters have stunning fist as a possible bonus feat. Npc classes, excluding the adept, only.

Since you are going Mythic, it will sort itself out soon.

Tier 3 allows all your spellcasters to regain all their spells after resting for an hour and spending a Mythic Point. You will no longer need to worry about the party being overpowered for a mere 15 minutes each day. They can be overpowered much more frequently.
I still want to know who thought casting off the entire wizard list with free spells per day and caster level boosts was a good idea. They get that at tier 1 for some reason.

[icefractal]

It's easy to make scenarios where resting at all isn't possible / desirable, but it's hard to make ones where "resting every four encounters" is fine but "resting every 1-2 encounters" isn't. The former might be fine as long as your whole dungeon can be completed in one push, but if that's not the case then you're either going to get:
A) The PCs just fail and die, because they got unlucky in the first couple fights and weren't able to recover from that.
B) You have to go metagame and change the scenario ("The enemy patrols have stopped for ... some reason. You cant take a rest now, because you already did five fights."), in which case why even say it's an IC thing?

Time limits aren't a great method, IME - there are a lot of other factors besides number of rests that contribute to time taken, such as travel methods, shortcuts, sidetracks, etc. So often you either auto-succeed (because you happened to Teleport there instead of taking the boat as expected), auto-fail (you spent too long waiting to see the sage, the ritual happened before you even left town), or the IC front has to be discarded.

Why not motivate gamist behaviour in a gamist way? Give more XP the more encounters you go through in one day. It's even fairly justifiable - you learn faster when you're pushing yourself to the limit.

[Segev]

Time limits aren't a great method, IME - there are a lot of other factors besides number of rests that contribute to time taken, such as travel methods, shortcuts, sidetracks, etc. So often you either auto-succeed (because you happened to Teleport there instead of taking the boat as expected), auto-fail (you spent too long waiting to see the sage, the ritual happened before you even left town), or the IC front has to be discarded.

The time limits in question are often not about success or failure based on racing the clock. They're about how taking one day per chamber in a dungeon and stopping to rest for the day after your 11 am encounter on the road while travelling adds months to your time for a given quest. And those added months turn "plenty of time" into "didn't get it done in time."

[Slipperychicken]

What kind of easy-mode games are you guys running where players can breeze through 14 encounters before a rest?

[rel]

Leaving what? Fighter and Rogue. That sounds neither practicable nor interesting.

I dunno Tome of battle to represent fighter and thief and warlock representing magic user seems pretty cool.

Just buff the heal skill to the point that it can replace the essential healing magic and you should have something pretty playable.

[Quertus]

Ask your players nicely to not do this please.

I'm serious. Just tell your players that you don't want this nonsense and it will make things easier for you (and them) if they don't.
Apart from that, remember that if the PCs rest and recover, so do the enemies. In my games, both the ones I run and play in, giving the enemy time to prepare for you is a Bad Idea.


I'm honestly trying to do a bit of a combination approach. I'm being up-front with the players that I don't want the 15-min adventuring day, but I'm also looking to provide at least some in-game reason why they wouldn't necessarily want to rest whenever they possibly could.

This combination is best. It's clear what you want, but it's bad when what the character wants to do is so obviously different.


When the players exploit the rules to overcome roleplaying, you should introduce rules that enforce roleplaying and balance.

On the other hand, once they start playing by the intended rules,

Since I assume most characters have, "wants to live" as part of their personality, correct role-playing would be to work a 15-minute, nova-heavy workday whenever possible.

The problem is, what you actually want is for characters to be roleplayed poorly, for game play / game balance reasons.

And, if you play the game the way it was intended, well, in 3.x, at least, each (equal CR) encounter was supposed to consume 25% of the party's resources. So 4 such encounters was supposed to be a TPK. Therefore, 15-minute workday was the only way to play the game exactly as intended.


if they're rope tricking inside the enemy's fortress or whatever, just say that the place is forbiddanced, and thus no extraplanar travel is possible within the area. This also solves wizards with abrupt jaunt, and people using dimension door and teleport as an easy way out of fights that are too tough.

Teleporting out of fights that are way too tough is what Quertus does best. Why would you want to prevent that? :smallconfused:


Having the world move on around them is generally the best solution to this problem. Time is a resource. Make spending it constitute opportunity costs.

This mindset penalizes crafters (without fast time plane shenanigans), but is often one I use. Not that I care much about the 15-minute workday issue, I just prefer a living, well-roleplayed world.


No strategy mentioned would stop the 15 minute day for my group.

Time limit? We just cleared the dungeon in 15 minutes.
Follow us into our rope trick? Well, we stepped up to an instant fortress, but if you plan to attack us in it, the length of our day won't stop it.

Our 15 minute day is based on the time of buffs, but usually comes out to less than 10. We might, might, have 2 15 round sessions, in which we clear 3-4 rooms swat style before round/level buffs and summons drop, couple minutes to heal/explore/search, then another 15 round rush. But it's not because we are skimping on per day encounters.

I wanna game with such a group! :biggrin:


If you look at it from a different perspective the solution will probably be a little more obvious. Imagine if a group invaded the PC's stronghold, killed some guards, then activated a rope trick or something, what would the PC's do. They sure as heck wouldn't go about life as normal. They would prepare for the invaders to come out. They would probably be thrilled at having all the time to prepare. Also, they would have a good idea at how much time they have. Most PC's would consider this a big advantage for them, so make it as big of an advantage for the monsters when the PC's do it.

I suspect the best in-character way to prevent this behavior, barring killing off a bunch of characters (which just build player skills, not character skills) is to tell the story of the 4-5 little idiots who are famous for their misadventures, like this. Have it be common adventurer lore, that everyone in the trade knows. Pull a reverse Lockhart, and have them known for all the misadventures people post here, and more!

EDIT:
I dunno Tome of battle to represent fighter and thief and warlock representing magic user seems pretty cool.

Just buff the heal skill to the point that it can replace the essential healing magic and you should have something pretty playable.

Crusader says hi.

Although you need to UMD scrolls for things that don't deal HP damage.

[rel]

that was what I wanted to buff the heal skill to deal with. The non-hp issues.

[Crake]

T-3+rogue checks door detects traps etc, daily buffs, oracle puts up lifelinks
T-2 summon movanic deva
T-1 haste, deva buffs, pumped up bardsong begins
T1-3 hasted pcs storm room. Greater invisible on rogue, Summon 2 bralani eladrin. On T3. One of the summons opens the next door. Summons do solid healing during battle
T4 hasted party storms next room, if there is a hall, hasted summons rush it, setting off traps, summon another deva
T5-8 summon ki-rin, legion archon, bralani eladrin. On t8, summons open or blast door, rush the next room as Turn 4.
T9-11 Barbarian, rogue, 7 buffed summons rush the next room. Bard, oracle, sorcerer shift to maintenance mode using low level spells to heal/buff/blast.
T12 rush next room
T13 first summons and buffs begin to drop. Cleanup mode.
T14 haste drops.

Spend next 5 minutes searching last 4 encounters. Repeat if necessary.

It sounds like you've never been hit with an area dispel in your life, or fought in an unhallowed or forbiddanced fortress ever before. Heaven forbid you get caught in an area that's been laced with corrupt summons, and all your summons turn against you.

[Rerednaw]

It sounds like you've never been hit with an area dispel in your life, or fought in an unhallowed or forbiddanced fortress ever before. Heaven forbid you get caught in an area that's been laced with corrupt summons, and all your summons turn against you.

^This. I saw a lot of summons = action economy abuse...but a single dispel or any number of anti- or counter conjuration effects stop it. Or steal summons, heck even Glyphs with dispel effects or such, etc...

If this is fool proof technique then why aren't all the baddies doing this to the PC's allies? Hurrah the victors come home to a devastated town.

Enemies learn and adapt. Or they die. This doesn't mean a viable tactic isn't solid....it is just eventually someone will figure a counter or improve on it.

Also there must be a bit of prep left out where the party discovered the location of the dungeon and probable threats.

Now that said if everyone is having fun with this then by all means...

[Mordaedil]

Rocks fall, your summons are dead.

[MilleniaAntares]

Leaving what? Fighter and Rogue. That sounds neither practicable nor interesting.

I dunno Tome of battle to represent fighter and thief and warlock representing magic user seems pretty cool.

Just buff the heal skill to the point that it can replace the essential healing magic and you should have something pretty playable.
I mean in terms of, "disallow a class that is useless after fully expending all of its daily resources".

For instance, rangers benefit from buffs (especially Instant Enemy or whatever), they can still do pretty well once they run out of spells.

Also, since this is Pathfinder, barbarian and bard should have enough rounds to use their buffs through the whole day.... which does kinda break the first rule in this post, but it isn't as limited as in 3.5 proper.

In addition, third party stuff that uses systems like Path of War, Akashic Mysteries, and Spheres of Magic, as well as classes who don't completely rely upon daily-based abilities (aegis, soulknife, avowed), should pretty much cover almost any sort of generic role you want to take.

The main thing missing would be the fiddly little abilities that spells cover that the above do not, but such is the sacrifice you have to make to avoid a situation where a wizard has to waste time shooting a crossbow or polishing a staff so they can conserve resources... or where they just flop where they are and demand to nap because they ran out of juice.

[Segev]

And, if you play the game the way it was intended, well, in 3.x, at least, each (equal CR) encounter was supposed to consume 25% of the party's resources. So 4 such encounters was supposed to be a TPK. Therefore, 15-minute workday was the only way to play the game exactly as intended."Approximately" 25% of resources. In theory, you can occasionally do 4-5 without rest, and sometimes you'll need to stop after 3.


This mindset penalizes crafters (without fast time plane shenanigans), but is often one I use. Not that I care much about the 15-minute workday issue, I just prefer a living, well-roleplayed world.It can. If the world is always crashing forwards at a breakneck pace, such that downtime is time wasted, yes, that penalizes crafters.

Honestly, even when "time is of the essence" isn't a major push in the game, most games I've been in have parties which resent downtime and plots which move at the pace the party pushes them, which still penalizes crafters. :(

Ideally, I think, you want a living world such that yes, taking exorbitant time to do anything costs you, but you don't have adventures popping up every week. Downtime is time when there's little exciting going on. Missions, quests, what-have-you are not races, but if you take 10 months to do a dungeon, then yes, things change while you're in there. If you're crafting for a month, though, between missions, that's probably not as big of a deal. Especially since you can keep your ears open in town. You're only crafting 8 hours a day, so you can go to the pub and hang out and hear rumors and news as part of the rest of your schedule.[/QUOTE]

[Quertus]

"Approximately" 25% of resources. In theory, you can occasionally do 4-5 without rest, and sometimes you'll need to stop after 3.

True enough. But you can't just expect to be able to handle many "fair" encounters. On average, you're dead after 4; on a bad day, you're dead after 3. So the most you can really plan to deal with is to nova through 2, then rest. Otherwise, you're dead. Playing through with the written expectations of approximately 25% resource consumption per "fair" encounter, that is.

[Bucky]

If you're retaining short-duration buffs and summons between encounters, you're effectively using the same quarter of your resources in both encounters.

[Segev]

It's also worth noting that it isn't a 25% consumption of each resource. It's a 25% consumption of all resources, together. If you keep from expending all your hp, you're still alive.

And, in practice, it really isn't 25%. It's 25% of your expendable daily resources. Your hp are not quite considered such in this case; the hp loss is covered in expending the healing magics to restore them.

In theory, you shouldn't be going to bed with less hp than you regain in a night's rest. If you are, you actually overextended yourself.

[WarKitty]

Part of the reason I want to prevent the 15min adventuring day is it tips the balance of an already unbalanced game even more in favor of the magic users over melee. If the mages can blow all their top level spells on every fight, there's really no need for anyone who isn't a magic user to be involved.

[Firechanter]

Averted a 15min-Adv-Day just yesterday in our game. The Wizard, after spamming out his spells in just two encounters (one of them piss-easy), started whinging when we proceeded into the dungeon without resting up first. The rest of us still had most of their resources and felt fresh and good to go. He was basically limited to Cantrips, but the rest of us did fine.
Hopefully, he will take a hint and portions his resources more judiciously in the future.

[Segev]

Averted a 15min-Adv-Day just yesterday in our game. The Wizard, after spamming out his spells in just two encounters (one of them piss-easy), started whinging when we proceeded into the dungeon without resting up first. The rest of us still had most of their resources and felt fresh and good to go. He was basically limited to Cantrips, but the rest of us did fine.
Hopefully, he will take a hint and portions his resources more judiciously in the future.

Indeed. Though it's worth noting that the wizard in this case had the party against him for wasting his spells, and the party didn't feel they NEEDED his spells in the dungeon (or they'd have agreed to the rest). It was actually somewhat reckless of them to go ahead like that; if the wizard were actually important to the party's survival, they'd have been throwing their lives away.

[Firechanter]

Well. It's not like our Wizard isn't effective. He does use the good BFC / Debuff stuff, and has the highest Save DCs. But it's also kinda boring when the Wizard's spells dominate the encounters so hard that the resources of the others aren't even touched. Also, in this particular situation, we were bound to rescue a kidnapped NPC, so we didn't want to waste more time or put the hostage at risk. It wasn't a direct time limit implied by the DM, we just felt it was logical for our characters to act quickly.
Anyway, as I said the rest of us still had most of their resources, so it was a very calculated risk. ;)

[Segev]

Ah! The presence of a potential soft time limit does, indeed, make the party's behavior less overconfident.