Tag: 5-minute work day

Categories
DM Resources

Greatest Hits 2012: Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2012. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

In the original article we talked about ways to bend the rules or tweak the numbers to give PCs a fighting chance when they’re low on hit points and healing surges. One thing that we didn’t really address that I think deserves mentioning are the PCs starting number of healing surges.

There will always be times when the party cannot continue because they’re out of surges. More often than not it’s the PCs that began with few surges in the first place that make the most noise about taking an extended rest. At my tables it always seems to be the strikers, and more specifically the Rogues and the Vampires.

I think it’s important for the DM, and even the other players in your gaming group, to talk to players who choose to run characters with minimal starting healing surges. It is a striker’s job to get into the thick of things which usually results in them talking some hits; however, good tactics and planning ahead can reduce the chances of these PCs running out of surges before everyone else. Yet trying to convince these players to have a good starting Con score, take the Durability feat, or just play smarter is often a challenge.

If the entire group addresses the low healing surge issue early, the party as a whole can develop tactics to overcome this obstacle and ensure the softest PCs stay on their feet and don’t blow through all their surges in the first fight. It’s a behavioural change that a lot of D&D players are not comfortable making but by addressing this early (possibly even during character creation) it can make for better games down the road and eliminate the frequency of the 5-minute work day without the need for any of the tricks we suggest in the article below.

From June 5, 2012, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game.

Continue reading “Greatest Hits 2012: Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game”
Categories
DM Resources

Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game

One of my biggest issues with D&D is the five-minute work day. This is when PCs expend all their best powers and burn through their healing surges so quickly that they’re useless unless they take an extended rest. The game is designed for PCs to have four or more encounters before they should need to take an extended rest but I suspect that many DMs rarely push through more than four encounters before calling it a day. However, there will be times when this just isn’t possible – either because it doesn’t make sense given how the story is progressing or the printed adventure doesn’t allow it. In these cases the DM may need to get creative to keep the PCs alive until the end of the day.

Assuming the PCs can still take short rests then output isn’t usually a big deal if the party continues on past four encounters. Sure they may not have those awesome daily powers at their disposal into the fifth encounter but they will have all their cool encounter powers. It’s healing surges that usually become the biggest problem.

Strikers generally have the fewest surges to begin with, and unless the player has a reasonable Constitution score or the Durability feat they’ll run out of surges quickly. What makes the problem worse is that as soon as monsters (intelligent monsters anyway) see a striker mowing through their ranks they’ll target the biggest threat (the striker). Unless you’ve got advantageous tactics or a decent defender at your side, strikers end up taking damage every fight.

So what’s a DM to do when this kind of thing happens? How do you keep a wounded party in the game and convince the players to push those PCs forward? It may just be a game, but players get emotionally attached to their PCs quickly and no one wants to enter a combat encounter knowing that their PC is likely to die. It’s a delicate situation that requires some careful manipulation. The key is not to do so in such a way that it insults the players or belittles the game mechanic. Players want to do well but they don’t want the DM to just give them an easy, unearned victory. It’s a real balancing act and here are 8 suggested ways to pull it off.

Continue reading “Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game”
Categories
DM Resources

Foregoing a Short Rest

How important is resting in D&D? The rules allow for characters to rest between encounter in order to heal and regain the use of encounter powers, but just because the rules state that characters can rest does that mean that character should rest?

At low levels DMs always try to find ways to keep the party moving forward. Without a compelling motive, many games end up suffering from a bad case of the 5-minute work day. The players don’t want their characters to die so they’re always looking for an excuse to rest and regain the use of their best powers.

However, I’ve realized from my own recent gaming experiences that as characters get tougher the players are a lot more willing to keep their PC’s adventuring without resting between every single encounter.

Continue reading “Foregoing a Short Rest”
Categories
DM Resources

The 5-Minute Work Day: Solutions

What can you do when the 5-minute work day is killing your campaign? The PCs are a bunch of narcoleptics who need to take a nap as soon as they finish a fight. They can’t believe that you really expect them to keep adventuring after they’ve completed one whole encounter? They’ve already used some (or all) of their daily powers and expended a few healing surges. In their eyes you’re a terrible DM to place these unrealistic expectations on them.

Don’t worry; we’re going to help you. Yesterday we addressed the fact that you should Blame the Players for the 5-Minute Work Day. But if they’re not having any of that and still insist that it’s your problem then we have some ideas to help smooth things out.

Continue reading “The 5-Minute Work Day: Solutions”
Categories
DM Resources Player Resources

The 5-Minute Work Day: Blame the Players

Do you want to know why the 5-minute work day is such a big problem in 4e D&D? The players. That’s right, I said it. The players are to blame. DMs are constantly looking for ways to fix this problem and I’m saying that it’s not their responsibility to fix it. Players are to blame and players need to shoulder the burden of fixing this problem.

There’s been a lot of recent discussion on the blogs about how to eliminate the 5-minute work day, referred to by some as the bed problem. In short, the problem is that players want to take extended rests as often as possible and DMs are finding it difficult to come up with good reasons to say no.

Continue reading “The 5-Minute Work Day: Blame the Players”