Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 veggiesama Mar 11, 2009 14:20:31	I was not the first to come up some of these ideas, but I combined a few to arrive at this simple system. Problem: Without time constraints or DM fiat, dungeon crawls (and other adventures) allow players to stop and rest after only two or three encounters--the five-minute workday. They should push on, because that's more heroic. Problem: Milestones are supposed to keep players pushing on, but they are ineffective incentives. By taking an extended rest, you gain all the benefits of a milestone and much more. Problem: Random encounters are boring and eat up game-time and are not a useful solution to the above problems. Problem: (arguable) Sometimes players horde their dailies and choose to use at-wills, which can prolong a boring fight. House Rule Solution After each encounter, choose one option: Gain an action point. You can't choose this option twice in a row. Gain a magic item daily power use (note: this does not recharge an item you have already used.) Refresh 2 spent healing surges. If that encounter was an even-numbered encounter, you gain a milestone. Milestones are changed in the following ways: You do not gain an action point and a daily magic item use through milestones (see above for how to get them now). Roll 1d6 for EACH expended daily power and magic item daily power: On a 4, 5 or 6, that power is recharged. You still need a daily magic item use to use an item's daily power that you recharged. Item powers (and such) that trigger off gaining milestones still function normally. An extended rest is changed in the following way: You wake up with 0 action points, not 1. You need to earn it, and generally you'll choose to get one after the first encounter. Normal rules for extended/short rests still apply (spending healing surges, getting powers back, etc.). P.E.A.C.H.!
#2 erk_ Mar 11, 2009 14:48:16	It's not dissimilar to my house rule, at least in principle. I don't really care for your 'recharge on 4-5-6' mechanism, as I prefer players to have a choice, rather than Lucky Luke getting all his dailies back while Jenny Jinx gets stuck with encounters and at-wills for hours. Mine: -after non-Milestone encounters, regain either 2 healing surges or the use of 1 daily. Spellbook users can recharge a different daily than the one they spent. -after Milestone encounters, regain the use of your item daily and get 1 AP, pretty much as usual. You could put the nonmilestone stuff onto Milestone for equal balance, but I like getting something after every encounter. It keeps the victory feeling flowing. -Extended rests require several days of downtime (if resting in the wilderness/dungeon) or at least 2 days if resting in an established location with amenities, not a night's sleep. Normal sleeping doesn't reset AP, nor does it recover dailies etc. It probably recovers HP to full, but so far I've not had the PCs sleep when they were injured anyway. I suppose if they were out of surges.
#3 lunais Mar 11, 2009 17:25:48	I figured I could post this if anyone else found it interesting and wanted to try it. With my campaigns, it's usually one battle per day, but that one battle is super huge. I split up the encounter with "Checkpoints", once the PCs have gotten to a certain stage in the battle (i.e. take down the barrier protecting the evil city, or get the bandits out of a certain residential area of a large town), they are allowed to spend two healing surges, they regain their second wind, and one encounter power, and they are allowed to trade in the two healing surges and one encounter power to instead recover one daily power. In addition, every even-numbered checkpoint counts as a milestone. So far it's worked fine, but my encounters tend to fall on extremes: armies of cannon fodder or one really strong enemy. I haven't sufficiently tested how well it works in balanced 5-ish PCs vs 5-ish Enemy fights, as until very recently, our group consisted of only 2 PCs.
#4 anthonyj Mar 11, 2009 18:46:27	In my games, it's generally one extended rest per session, not based on the game calendar at all. That's fairly generous, since I generally average 2-3 combats per session, but tracking between sessions is annoying.
#5 veggiesama Mar 11, 2009 19:44:21	I don't really care for your 'recharge on 4-5-6' mechanism, as I prefer players to have a choice, rather than Lucky Luke getting all his dailies back while Jenny Jinx gets stuck with encounters and at-wills for hours. Mine: -after non-Milestone encounters, regain either 2 healing surges or the use of 1 daily. Here's the problem I saw with that: if you get to choose which dailies you recharge, then wouldn't everyone blow their highest-level powers, knowing they could get them back soon?
#6 erk_ Mar 11, 2009 21:02:07	Here's the problem I saw with that: if you get to choose which dailies you recharge, then wouldn't everyone blow their highest-level powers, knowing they could get them back soon? Hm, that's an interesting point. My players haven't got any 'duplicate function' abilities, so they tend to use whatever is most appropriate to the situation. I can see how that wouldn't always work.
#7 _radagast__dup Mar 11, 2009 23:11:30	We just use this rule: 1. You can take an extended rest every 4 encounters. I find that this seems to be balanced, as the game seems to be geared toward 3-4 encounters before the players can recharge. Our game doesn't have 4 battles every day, because sometimes players are investigating. So those 4 encounters may take place in one day or over the course of several weeks. We track HP, Surges, and Conditions (like Death Saving Throws) between sessions. I just make a little note for next session. It's easy.
#8 evilkobra Mar 12, 2009 8:17:52	We're now using a pacing system which works relatively well for a wide range of workday lengths. It introduces these changes to the basic rules: Using a daily attack power requires expending a healing surge Using an Action Point requires expending a healing surge (but you can do this once every encounter) During a short rest, regain one healing surge During an extended rest, regain half of your spent surges (+1 if slept well) It's as simple as that! What defines "well slept" is up to the DM, but it should at least meet the following criteria: Uninterrupted sleep (no guard turns) A comfortable bed (not a bedroll or stone floor) A safe indoor location (not a tent or prison) A plentiful hot meal (not just rations) The point is that sustained adventure (1-3 encounters per day over a number of days) will result in accumulated fatigue, as they will slowly lose surges, especially if they blow their dailies needlessly. Even if they don't fight, they'll never quite get back to 100% if they're out in the field. The only way to be in tip-top condition -and thus ready for a dungeon crawl- is to rest in town a couple of days.
#9 katahn Mar 12, 2009 15:25:13	We're now using a pacing system which works relatively well for a wide range of workday lengths. It introduces these changes to the basic rules: Using a daily attack power requires expending a healing surge Using an Action Point requires expending a healing surge (but you can do this once every encounter) During a short rest, regain one healing surge During an extended rest, regain half of your spent surges (+1 if slept well) It's as simple as that! What defines "well slept" is up to the DM, but it should at least meet the following criteria: Uninterrupted sleep (no guard turns) A comfortable bed (not a bedroll or stone floor) A safe indoor location (not a tent or prison) A plentiful hot meal (not just rations) The point is that sustained adventure (1-3 encounters per day over a number of days) will result in accumulated fatigue, as they will slowly lose surges, especially if they blow their dailies needlessly. Even if they don't fight, they'll never quite get back to 100% if they're out in the field. The only way to be in tip-top condition -and thus ready for a dungeon crawl- is to rest in town a couple of days. This would seem to make healing surges incredibly useful, and something that a player will go through even more quickly than normal. Do you give them more healing surges to work with as a result? If you don't, it seems to me that this would have a deleterious effect on the abilities of leader classes to heal their groupmates.
#10 epochgames Mar 12, 2009 15:30:59	I honestly haven't had the occasion to need a mathematical fix for this issue. I keep the story fast paced enough that extended rests are something my players rarely look forward to. The battles are typically longer than most, but no harder, necessarily, so the few extended rests they do get are typically worked into the story. Just my two cents.