Recently, I've been participating in a game where we only have one combat per 6 hour session. Which is awesome, it fits out playing style. It isn't because we feel combats are too long, but that we just enjoy roleplaying more than combat. Anyway, the problem is that because we only have one combat per day, daily powers of overused. For the most part it's fine, we rarely use out dailies because we understand that they can sometimes be disruptive and make combats unbalanced (and just too easy).
The problem lies with a single player, out elven orb wizard with the spell spell. Spell is a great, fun spell when used in moderation, but every encounter it makes things dull. The item power attached to the Staff of the War Mage makes Sleep an area burst 2. Then he uses some feat from Arcane power to reroll of his missed attacks (or attacks that hit fellow party members). Finally he uses his orb of imposition and makes one creature take a -3 penalty to saving throws. Between this, half the battle is over with in 2 rounds. After the encounter the player boasts about how he defeated the entire encounter and the rest of us merely cleaned up his messes.
Anyway, a couple of us talked to the DM and asked him to talk to the player about his character an the way it's been ruining encounters. His response was that it wouldn't be fair to single out the wizard's player even though it is becoming a problem (the player has a hard time already in social situations and the DM doesn't want to risk him quitting the campaign). He also said that he won't increase the difficulty level of the encounters because if sleep doesn't hit or all all the enemies make their saving throws the encounter will result in a TPK. Finally, the DM said that if I thought up a couple ways of limited daily powers, he would bring them up with a group.
What I'm really asking is: Does anyone have any ideas for limited daily powers? Milestones aren't an option because we only have one enounter per day and out sessions are usually about a week long.
You may simply be better off re-defining Encounter and Day to suit the group. That should affect Healing Surges too.
In the game these are just "recharge points" that suit the pace of the combat encounters in the story.
So you could re-fluff each in-game day as an encounter, a sleep is a Short Rest, and a day of complete R&R back at base becomes an Extended Rest for instance . . .
You could ask the DM to look into sneakier tactics. Do all the enemies always hang around in a burst 2 for this sleep spell?
- What about encounters where enemies come from 3 or 4 directions at once.
- How about some enemies that drop from the ceiling,
- Burst from under the floor.
- What about waves of enemies every 2 rounds?
- How about rows of enemies on an open battlefield. Group of soldiers, 4-5 squares back stand some archers.
- Can warforged or other constructs be put to sleep in 4e? I don't remember.
If your group is opposed to altering how the daily/encounter power system works I would consider asking the DM to vary encounters.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions. Anyone have any other suggestions I can bring up with him, I'm trying to compail a heafty list.
Cheers
You may simply be better off re-defining Encounter and Day to suit the group. That should affect Healing Surges too.
In the game these are just "recharge points" that suit the pace of the combat encounters in the story.
So you could re-fluff each in-game day as an encounter, a sleep is a Short Rest, and a day of complete R&R back at base becomes an Extended Rest for instance . . .
The above advice is actually the most elegant way to go about it. Pretty much the game has some core assumptions about how many encounters you'll have per day. Which if I remember correctly is intended to be four per day. My group plays much like yours though our specific issue is healing surges. Here's a suggestion to play test with your group.
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Rest is no longer as a rejuvenating with out prior successes. In order to recover daily powers the group must achieve two mile stones prior to rest. Like wise when you rest to recover healing surges you can only recover them after achieving two mile stones. Milestones should be carefully tracked between days and no longer reset when you merely sleep.
Additionally if the party has no encounters for an in game week they may recover all their healing surges and daily powers.
My group plays in a similar manner. Most of our games occur inside of a city or settlement, and occasionally we venture out into the dangerous areas outside our city. To make these encounters unlike a little grind session in an MMO, I try to make each such foray something different and interesting and long. Sometimes it will involve extended engagements inside of a swamp, a challenge inside an old abandoned fortress that spans a couple of sessions, or dive into a cave network. The advice I would give your DM is to try and make the game alternate between a few sessions of roleplaying, and then a few sessions in a row spent outside in a dungeon or dangerous environment.
For instance recently my party had to take out a specific troll chieftain in the Feywild. At the start of the encounter they ran into some magical constructs/guards who after being killed were able to reform in a few minutes. They guards continued to harry and harass them keeping them from ever being able to take a short rest. This kept the party moving as they were continually being worn down and having their resources depleted. In the end the whole course of combats took under 30 minutes of in-game times, but took several sessions to complete.
My group plays in a similar manner. Most of our games occur inside of a city or settlement, and occasionally we venture out into the dangerous areas outside our city. To make these encounters unlike a little grind session in an MMO, I try to make each such foray something different and interesting and long. Sometimes it will involve extended engagements inside of a swamp, a challenge inside an old abandoned fortress that spans a couple of sessions, or dive into a cave network. The advice I would give your DM is to try and make the game alternate between a few sessions of roleplaying, and then a few sessions in a row spent outside in a dungeon or dangerous environment.
For instance recently my party had to take out a specific troll chieftain in the Feywild. At the start of the encounter they ran into some magical constructs/guards who after being killed were able to reform in a few minutes. They guards continued to harry and harass them keeping them from ever being able to take a short rest. This kept the party moving as they were continually being worn down and having their resources depleted. In the end the whole course of combats took under 30 minutes of in-game times, but took several sessions to complete.
Edit: On, one encounter with many shorter combats. Thats a great idea, I'll have to bring that up with the DM, thanks!
Original Post: The thing is, we only have a couple combat fanatics in our group. If a session is mostly combat, half the table will sit there bored. Roleplaying we all enjoy. We tend have about 10 to 20 skill chellenges per session, but only one combat. Additionally, a lot more happens in out session compared to when we had 4-5 combats per session; the story progresses at a much faster rate, which is most enjoyable.
One of the ideas I brought up the DM after our last session was to scrap daily powers and just add in another encounter power; which are much less disrruptive compared to many dailies. He didn't go for it, saying that the Wizard's character would be disapoited since his whole build is about maximizing the effects of the sleep spell.
I second the suggestion of varying the tactics of the creatuers your fighting. If they know your going to come after them, or they are ambushing you they should have an idea of what your about; they might have foreknowledge that your wizard loves his sleep spell and take proper percautions; using two or three creatures as bait, and then attacking after he uses the spell. Yes, it knocks two or three targets out of the battl,e but they strained the wizards main method of attack.
I'd personally be annoyed with that wizard, and his bragging, because that makes the spotlight shine on him in every encounter; THis is bad and generally a difficult thing for DMs to manage. It causes the wizard to be supreme in combat, so even then sense you roleplay more then combat, have the DM focus less on him during those times to help evenly distribute the spotlight.
Wizard loves using Sleep spells? Have an encounter with Elves =D
Before doing anything more drastic, I would have to agree that simply redifining the method of recharging powers is the simplest, easiest method to solve your problem:
Milestone
If the party has had two (significant) combat encounters since their last milestone (or since recovering their powers), they achieve a new milestone.
Extended Rest
If the party has had at least two milestones, they may recover their healing surges and daily powers as per the standard rules. Otherwise, nothing happens.
As an alternative, an extended rest could recover one healing surge, regardless of the milestones achieved, if you want to allow a party to recover from a single nasty battle. On the odd occasions where my players go several in-game days between combats in my campaign, I have done something similar to this.
-The Bastard DM (Reformed)
Wizard loves using Sleep spells? Have an encounter with Elves =D
Take note that in 4e, the Sleep spell doesn't say "sleep" anywhere in its rules. It simply imposes the unconscious condition after a bit. That means that Elves, warforged, and whatever else that doesn't sleep will still be affected by this spell.
Anyways, following some simple changes in tactics (as already stated) is enough to limit the power of a wizard daily.
Wizard loves using Sleep spells? Have an encounter with Elves =D
Take note that in 4e, the Sleep spell doesn't say "sleep" anywhere in its rules. It simply imposes the unconscious condition after a bit. That means that Elves, warforged, and whatever else that doesn't sleep will still be affected by this spell.
Anyways, following some simple changes in tactics (as already stated) is enough to limit the power of a wizard daily.
Elves aren't immune to sleep, and Warforged immunity specifically does not extend to the effects of powers (they don't go to sleep, but they can be forced asleep by a power).
Constructs are immune to sleep.
There is always the scenario when the Wizards sleeps a group of minions then Lurkers pop out of nowhere and gank the Wizard.
Thanks for all the ideas everyone 
Something I forgot to mention is that the DM doesn't like "tricking" the players. He says it's too easy and more unfair certain players than others.
Thanks for all the ideas everyone
Something I forgot to mention is that the DM doesn't like "tricking" the players. He says it's too easy and more unfair certain players than others.
It's also incredibly subjective, and often wastes time in weird meta-game attempts to "challenge" the players, so I'd have to say his attitude on this is a positive one.
The discussion about extended rests regularly resurfaces on these boards (most often on the What's a DM to do). Personally I prefer the sollution to limit an extended rest to a larger time span then 6 hours and leaving short rests alone. Depending on your DM's wishes, making it 24 hours or 1 week probably works best. The biggest downside is that it does make big dungeon crawls difficult without some adaptation, so if your group does like the occassional dungeon crawl it is not a particular good suggestion.
Others seem to prefer the milestone rule: at X milestone you can take an extended rest. I dislike it, because it limits the DM's flexibility in designing encounters and makes it difficult to take the luck of the dice into account. Sometimes it is hard to predict the ease of a fight, and if a DM does use milestones, there is always a need for a certain amount of fights.
You may want to make the dailies limited in some other way. So add on extra requirements for dailies such as must be bloodied (when the going gets tough the tough get going) Or have your DM award style points throughout the session and then have a cost of X style points to cast your daily (You need to be on top of your game to bring game breaking plays to the table)
What about saying "If we are in a dungeon an extended rest can happen as normal, if not an extended rest can happen after 1 week game time (Sub out 1 week for whatever duration you want)."
To me the ability to recharge dailies through an extended rest is a totally meta-game thought, so why not take it totally into the meta-game. (Meta-game is not always a negative term)
-"Growing a backbone ain't easy. But painting your belly a color other then yellow can be done."-
Take care, friends.
DMG 2 makes official the optional rule about limiting extended rests by the number of milestones players reach. I've been using the same idea. 2 milestones before an extended rest helps.
As to sleep targets, see other descriptions of sleep spell issues. In 4e sleep does not "put things to sleep", it deprives them of consciousness and will put down any target not explicity immune to it. The fact the target doesn't usually sleep is not sufficient to make them immune to the spell. The spell name is fluff not its mechanical effect.
Rob
I'll echo the rest and say that the time between extended rests should be changed to fit you're needs. I suggest they all need a full day's rest.
Also, you can roleplay it.
The wizard doesn't get his spell back by sleeping, he needs to lock himself in his tower for a day to prepare his big spells. The fighter needs to repair his weapon, which got damaged last time he did his big move. The rogue needs to gather more sand (it has to be the right size) for his blinding barrage. Clerics need to re-connect with thier gods, ect...
Thanks for all the advice guys! I'm going to bring these ideas up with my DM tomorrow. Thanks for all the help.
Cheers.