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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 7:52AM
#11
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I build my encounters based upon what the story logically calls for and nothing more. If the story calls for one fight in a day, I better make it good to challenge the players. If they stomp it into dust, good for them. Part of this comes from not using XP but rather leveling the PCs when it feels right to do so. There's no need for X number of encounters worth a certain amount of XP each.
You don't have to say that an extended rest is actually racking out for 6 hours. You could say extended resting (or the benefits of the same) are tied to specific quests or locations. "Find the fountain of Pelor" and you get the benefits of an extended rest.
Are your players taking extended rests becaue they're out of surges or because they want their daily powers back? It sounds like the latter. I would recommend giving back surges or powers as rewards for completing mini-quests (though I hate that term). Skill challenges are another good way to give back resources without extended rest. Talk your way into the good graces of the Goblin King and you get your one daily back (player's choice).
I find resting and when to rest a pretty arbitrary rule, one that is easily broken in pursuit of a good narrative. Break down what an extended rest does - restores powers and surges. Look at your story and ask yourself where you can put little challenges and rewards that provide these benefits in stages. The chance to earn a couple surges back here, a couple of dailies there, and the PCs won't need or desire to have a "official" extended rests outside of where it makes sense in the story that the characters would be tired.
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 10:36AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2011
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This has never been a problem for my group, so the first time someone tried to explain it to me, I had an extremely difficult time wrapping my head around it.
I found The Angry DM's article on the subject (link) explains the cause and history of the real problem to me quite well. I don't remember if he ever actually suggested a real solution for it, but his train of thought might give you some ideas.
Thanks for that link, it is very insightful, and I think I can use as a spring board for working around the issues of my "15-minute workdays" that my PCs love.
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 11:40AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Feb 20, 2011
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I build my encounters based upon what the story logically calls for and nothing more.
This.
Also, when designing encounters, you should have an idea of how rested they are likely to be. If it's going to be a 1-2 encounter day, make them tougher. If the story requires 4-5 encounters before a rest, adjust the dificlulty accordingly. An on-level encounter can be quite challenging when dailies are spent and everyone is low on healing surges.
Exteneded rests should always be logical. They simply aren't going to safely setup camp in a haunted village swarming with undead. Or in a dungeon with monsters in the next room. If they try to rest in a dungeon, they should be found by the monsters in the next room. And as previously mentioned, rules state only 1 extended rest every 12 hours.
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 11:44AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Apr 10, 2010
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I'm not sure that the number of encounters is as important as the quality of those encounters.
First of all, not all encounters are combat encounters, so its not assumed that every encounter requires any daily use at all. So when someone says "4 encounters is normal", only one or two of those would be combat. Combat encounters should only take a few minutes of in-game time, so 4 combat enounters would not even burn an hour, forget about 12.
Second, just because it is a combat encounter, it doesnt mean its an epic battle. One DM I had would throw a dungeon full of enemies at us encounter after encounter, then refuse to give us time to rest, claiming not enough time had passed. While this was true, he threw a day's worth of enemies at us within the first hour after our rest. Very rarely did we get into a fight that we didnt almost die. The party is left with few options at that point.
A well planned adventure should be one that spreads out a day's worth of action over the course of a whole day.
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 11:46AM
#15
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They simply aren't going to safely setup camp in a haunted village swarming with undead. Or in a dungeon with monsters in the next room. If they try to rest in a dungeon, they should be found by the monsters in the next room.
Damn good way to start an adventure though... nasty wakeup call.
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 12:31PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Mar 10, 2011
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I think that the last time this conversation came up around me, the two work-arounds that I liked best were:
- Just because the PCs are sleeping, doesn't mean the monsters are.
- The next morning, after a good night's sleep, the PCs find that the Goblin band has packed up and left the dungeon, taking the kidnapped children with them to parts unknown. The town reluctantly rewards the party for eliminating the Goblin threat, but the party forfeits their rewards for returning the children safely.
- You awaken from your sleep to find a Wandering Monster Encounter full of hungry monsters, who batter down the door to the dungeon storage room you decided to camp out in! Roll for Initiative, with a -10 penalty!
- Put time limits on adventures, such as countdowns and competition, to create a sense of urgency that discourages lollygagging.
- The PCs must stop a necromantic ritual from occurring at midnight on the Winter Solstice, and time is running out!
- It looks like the Thieves' Guild is also looking for the Magic McGuffin the PCs are on a quest to retrieve, and the thieves have already got a head start!
However, these are work-arounds rather than real solutions to an ancient problem in D&D that is not mentioned in the DMG, leaving new DMs totally on their own to identify the problem and invent an effective solution on their own 
New DM Tips
Show
- Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
- Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
- Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
- "Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
- Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
- Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 3:31PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2008
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However, these are work-arounds rather than real solutions.
You have it backwards.
What you're mentioning are very real and good solutions to the problem and not work-arounds. If the solution stems from the story or flow of the game (such as all the examples you mentioned above), then it's a good solution.
The work-around you're trying to identify is telling the players: "Hey, guys. This extended rest abuse has gone far enough, so I'm going to throw three encounters a day at you. You're not supposed to take an extended rest before that finishes even if it would be feasible."
It's a very clear work-around which leaves no doubt about what's going to happen.
And if you're looking for a solution that's written down, you're looking for the rule "You have to have three combat encounters before taking an extended rest." in the PHB. Which we all don't want.
Heroic Dungeon Master
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 4:34PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2004
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How can I curb abuse of extended rests without being a total jerk about in game?
fwiw: LFR adventures have such limitations build into the scenarios, often by providing a reason why the mission needs to be accomplished within 24 hours. There are literally hundreds of these (well made) adventures available for free. I run the adventures as written for my home groups... with both saves me prep time and eliminates the players blaming me for any curbing.
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2 years ago ::
Sep 30, 2011 - 7:32PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Mar 10, 2011
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However, these are work-arounds rather than real solutions.
You have it backwards.
What you're mentioning are very real and good solutions to the problem and not work-arounds. If the solution stems from the story or flow of the game (such as all the examples you mentioned above), then it's a good solution.
The work-around you're trying to identify is telling the players: "Hey, guys. This extended rest abuse has gone far enough, so I'm going to throw three encounters a day at you. You're not supposed to take an extended rest before that finishes even if it would be feasible."
It's a very clear work-around which leaves no doubt about what's going to happen.
And if you're looking for a solution that's written down, you're looking for the rule "You have to have three combat encounters before taking an extended rest." in the PHB. Which we all don't want.
In a way, you're preaching to the choir: when I first joined this site, I joined a discussion on this topic, and couldn't understand the problem at all, since I could think of several work-arounds, and some of the suggested work-arounds I saw seemed like they would work great..
Alas, even an elegant work-around is still a work-around 
In this case, some creative story-telling can help a DM work around the problem, but doesn't make the problem go away. The problem being that in the official rules, there is no reason not to take a "15-minute work-day" as frequently as possible. The DM is instead left to either invent ways to make that a meaningful choice, or invent ways to remove the ability to take an easy Extended Rest out of the equation altogether.
Doing things like interrupting frequent rests with random encounters, and adding time limits to storylines should be options for DMs to tell some cool stories, not requirements to fix a problem that shouldn't be there, as DMs are left to figure out on their own how to write adventures around an awkward spot in the rules.
A work-around is like taking an elaborate detour around a bad direct route: you get to your destination better than if you took the bad road, but it doesn't make the bad road that should have been faster and easier go away, and convincing people by word-of-mouth to take the scenic route instead doesn't fix the bad direct route.
But, hey: I happen to like the work-arounds, and they do work - I'm certainly not discouraging their use at all, especially when they get the job done, lead to memorable stories, and happen to be the most positive alternative to just letting the frequent rests slide
New DM Tips
Show
- Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
- Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
- Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
- "Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
- Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
- Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
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2 years ago ::
Oct 01, 2011 - 1:52AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2008
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I see your point. I still disagree to calling them work-arounds though, since D&D is a roleplaying game. This makes any story-based or environment-based prevention of extended rest abuse a solution, instead of a work-around. If it would be a work-around, what are we playing D&D for? Apparantly we're either looking for a full-blown roleplaying game without combat or a full-blown skirmishing game, where every rule is ironclad. But those are just semantics garbling, since I agree with you on general In my case, the problem itself isn't really there, since the solution is already baked into the game's essence itself. If you're playing the role of a hero, would your hero take extended rests every time he bumps his toe? I think not :D
Heroic Dungeon Master
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