Quote from: Cranewings;339690I'm thinking of giving the party a choice on their way to their destination: dangerous shortcut or safe round about way. If they take the dangerous short cut, I'm going to have them fight like 6-7 encounters in one day. If they go around, only one or two. If they try to camp in the ravine on the short cut, there will be three monsters that get to make perception checks to notice the group. If they fight one and then don't move one, the others will get a bonus.

And playing softly in the background is Glenn Miller . . .

Sorry, Cranewings, you're a good guy and I'm sure your players really enjoy your game, but the contrast between our refereeing styles is striking.

Quote from: Age of Fable;339636I've noticed a problem in my current 3.5 D&D campaign.

We're struggling with it in our 4e game as well. I'm not sure there's a good solution. It seems to be a risk vs. reward thing that unless you somehow mitigate the risk down to the point where, really, you have to shrug and say, "Why are we bothering?," I don't think it'll go away.

Seanchai

This has always been a problem with my group. And yes, I use all of the traditional methods to harry players - random encounters, active response by alerted monsters, etc. - but it's still a problem.

My players know that if they dawdle, I'll throw something at them. But a lot of times they'd rather face that unknown peril, than press ahead to a known peril that they feel they're too weak (in spells, HP) to deal with. So we get the 15 minute adventuring day.

There isn't an easy solution, beside trying to make sure your group is composed only of devil-may-care risk takers.

Quote from: Seanchai;339744We're struggling with it in our 4e game as well. I'm not sure there's a good solution.

In 4E it's a bit easier, since the "extended rest" (where encounter powers get renewed) provides an additional avenue for the DM to exert pressure on resource management.

I'm currently reading Revenge of the Giants, and it's super nasty from that point of view. As written, it (at times) doesn't grant the PCs an extended rest for 3 encounters, something I consider really brutal.

I'm not sure you would appreciate this approach, though. It strikes me as very railroady, since the encounters end with a bang and the PCs are transported to the next battle scene quickly by a NPC.

I just thought of another possibility for dungeons: spending a night there could have the danger of disease (perhaps especially if you're wounded).

This fits with the idea that normal food will rot overnight in a dungeon.

Quote from: Windjammer;339754In 4E it's a bit easier, since the "extended rest" (where encounter powers get renewed) provides an additional avenue for the DM to exert pressure on resource management.

It seems to me that rather than simplify things, it's just added a new dimension. Do we take a short rest or an extended rest?

Quote from: Windjammer;339754I'm currently reading Revenge of the Giants, and it's super nasty from that point of view. As written, it (at times) doesn't grant the PCs an extended rest for 3 encounters, something I consider really brutal.

Hmmm. That's our standard operating procedure.

Seanchai

Quote from: Fiasco;339649The key is to have a reacitve, not a static environment.  If exploring the dungeon, the inhabitants should prepare traps and better organise their defences if the party leaves to rest up or just take too long.

Exactly. We discovered this with AD&D1e back in 1984. Sure, we could leave the dungeon, rest up and restock, sell off our loot and get better gear. But those kobolds would have locked doors, set up tripwires, made sure everyone was armed, appear in a shieldwall instead of just as a bunch of individuals, and so on.

Quote from: SettembriniTime is a ressource.

And this, too.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;339793Exactly. We discovered this with AD&D1e back in 1984. Sure, we could leave the dungeon, rest up and restock, sell off our loot and get better gear. But those kobolds would have locked doors, set up tripwires, made sure everyone was armed, appear in a shieldwall instead of just as a bunch of individuals, and so on.

Very true.  The desire to rest up and regain spells was always there, from the start.  I do think, however, the nature of combat in 3.5/4E makes more of an all or nothing affair.  You have a lot more invested in any individual combat in the latter editions because of the time it takes to resolve.

Quote from: Fiasco;339794I do think, however, the nature of combat in 3.5/4E makes more of an all or nothing affair.  You have a lot more invested in any individual combat in the latter editions because of the time it takes to resolve.

Whereas in AD&D1e and B/X, combat was an all or nothing affair because it was so easy for everyone to get killed, and most PCs couldn't afford resurrection spells until 9th level or so - plus there had to be someone around to drag away the bodies.

So the resolution of the combat might have been quicker, but the results - "victory or death!" made it just as much "all or nothing."

Either way, there's always a choice between withdrawing and regrouping, and pressing on though somewhat frazzled. This shouldn't surprise us - it's a choice real world militaries face in war campaigns - "campaign" was the word for a series a battles and manouevres towards a military goal long before it was the word for a bunch of rpg adventures, and indeed that's where the word "campaign" comes from in our hobby.

Quote from: The Shaman;339710And playing softly in the background is Glenn Miller . . .

Sorry, Cranewings, you're a good guy and I'm sure your players really enjoy your game, but the contrast between our refereeing styles is striking.

You know what's weird? I'm mainly just a prick when I run D&D. I mean, I am always to some extent, but, D&D brings it out of me. I feel like it is suppose to be really hard.

When I run beyond the supernatural or my science fiction setting, or anything modern for that matter, it becomes way more free and intricate. I think Dungeons and Dragons / Pathfinder is just way more fun when you keep it strait.

Quote from: jibbajibba;339696But with no time counter there is no benefit to the dangerous shortcut. If the only effect is that the DM doesn't say... you travel for another 6 hours.. then there is no point.
I think the timing isuse is one of the real problmes with Sandbox style environments. In a plot driven game  you have numerous ways to drive the game onwards but in a sandbox players can always leave and come back later. Wandering monsters are not the answer as PC in a sand box are likely to  be driven by experience and treasure and you get that from WM as well as the in place guys. An opposing team after the same things is interesting but you start to move out of the pure sand box and toward a narative again.

I'm hoping they piss off a local village that they can outrun but not outfight. Then they can just be chased.

It would give even better reason for them to go into the dangerous area.

Sadly, the most irrational player I have won't be there for a few weeks, so I can't count on him to make the party any more enemies... and I've already had a couple of irrational NPCs so I need to give that angle a brake for a week or two.

Quote from: jibbajibba;339696I think the timing isuse is one of the real problmes with Sandbox style environments. In a plot driven game  you have numerous ways to drive the game onwards but in a sandbox players can always leave and come back later.

I've ran sandbox campaigns for years and never had the 15-minute day problem. Of course, said campaign have been run in older TSR versions of D&D. From what I've been able to tell, the 15-minute day only became a really common problem in with 3.x.

One thing you can do should work in most campaigns, have the adventure site more than a day's travel from the town/a really safe resting place. If characters have to leave the adventure location and travel 2-3 days through somewhat dangerous wilderness (with a say, 1 in 6 chance of a daytime encounter and a similar chance during each of the three or four nighttime watches) and returning to town to rest and recover seems less appealing.  Of course, this does mean that there will be long plot-pointless combats in game systems with time-consuming combat rules.

PCs leave a dungeon in my game? The "Monsters" that live there make modifications and prepare for their return to the best ability of the monsters. New Traps, post lookouts, change schedules, etc...

Rather than regurgitate the same advice that's been repeated (orcs set up bear traps and ambush), has your GM considered giving you enough resources that you actually have the choice of going on or resting?

Obviously, if your party is choosing to rest all the time, it's likely "going on" is a dumb choice and therefore an invalid option.

Punishing parties that decide to rest is going to lead to your party leaving the adventure site earlier (so they're fit enough to face the "ambush") or only trying an single attempt at each adventure site (so they don't have to deal with the heightened difficulty).

EDIT: Assuming that your GM is actually using the treasure guidelines (which I think is not the case), your GM should also consider varying the ELs of the adventure site. The percentages found on page 49 can serve as a useful guide on how many encounters should be easy, easy (if handled properly), challenging, hard, etc.

Also, assuming that you're low level and you have somebody in your party who can use them, I recommend your party purchase wands of cure light wounds, color spray, and sleep. Those who can create scrolls should also do so (by the rules, the XP loss doesn't hurt at all).

Quote from: greylond;339880PCs leave a dungeon in my game? The "Monsters" that live there make modifications and prepare for their return to the best ability of the monsters. New Traps, post lookouts, change schedules, etc...

I'm not sure that really works. If the players are rational (cynical? jaded?) enough to go back to town to rest between fights, then all restocking the dungeon between rest does is provide the players with more XP opportunities.  Same for putting random encounters between the town and dungeons - it's just more XP for the players, why should they care if it gained inside or outside the dungeon?

I don't know, but perhaps the solution is tinkering with how XP is awarded. So maybe the first combat encounter of the day is worth 1/4 of the notional XP value, the second fight 1/2, the third the correct XP value and any further fight is worth 1.5 the normal XP. That would give cynical players a reason to press on rather resting after ever little scrap.

Of course this only works if the players understand how much X they are earning.  A lot f GM like to just give out XP in largely subjective chunks between adventures - often just to level players up so that they can do the next adventure.