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#1 billthemaniac Aug 12, 2007 7:53:40

The D&D 4 encounters-per-day system as the heart of all balance has serious problems, because it strains the realism of the system. The heroes ride out to the dungeon, do five minutes of work, return to town to rest, and repeat until it is destroyed. However this number is far too many for a wilderness adventure. If PCs have about 4 encounters a day, it stands to reason that monster will also have about 4 encounters a day. With many of them being hostile, it is impossible that the monster population is maintained. Therefore I propose that healing and repreparing spells is untied from the 24 hour period. This can be rationalized in that a lot of the damage in combat is from exhaustion. Between encounters, the characters can recuperate, resting for a five-minute period. In this time they each gain 1/4 of their HP, PP and other per-day abilities back. Vancian magic is banned in favor of psionics and warlock-style magic. Classes with per-day abilities have them removed for more general abilities. For example, paladins could lose spells but turn smite into a per-encounter ability. Barbarians could use the berserker variant. With this system, very long dungeon crawls are possible, as are very long wilderness journeys with few encounters.