The illusions begin to crack

Four encounters. Maybe five.

That seems to be the limit for a second level party. A party of six mind you. At that point we were utterly drained. No more daily or encounter powers and precious few healing surges.

It was the latter, or more precisely the inability of anyone in our party to allow anyone to use a healing surge (outside of a Second Wind), that had us arguing over whether to retreat or press on.

I was the one who most wanted to press on. In part for roleplay reasons. My dragonborn isn't one to back down from a challenge. Plus I didn't want to leave the keep and abandon all the progress we'd made (assuming the bad guys re-group and are ready to meet us at the gates, or worse, set up a bunch of traps).

Mainly however, I wanted to test the theory that 4E is supposed to encourage parties to adventure onwards without "resting" after every other encounter.

Sure, we were down to our At Will powers and one Second Wind per encounter, but in 4E that's supposed to be enough. I mean, isn't that the point behind all the At Will powers and HP we get?

Maybe not, as the death of our Cleric seems to prove.

Not that he wouldn't have fallen regardless. We might have been at full power and it still wouldn't have saved him. He took a lot of damage in just a couple of rounds. Then again, with the ability to use a healing surge or two, he might have stayed on his feet.

The point is, we all felt an urge to retreat and "rest" to regain our powers before moving deeper into the cultist's keep. Yet we'd only been through four or five encounters (with the sixth being decidedly deadly) and being only mid-morning in the game world.

Is this evidence of poor module design? Flawed game design? A bit of both?

More importantly, how was this different from 3rd edition? Instead of falling back on a crossbow or whatever, my wizard had his scorching blasts and thunderclaps. The others all had an array of "cool" things they could still do. But in the end, none of those "cool" things made a difference. We still ended up retreating to town to kill several hours before getting our six hours of sleep and our full array of powers back.

I suppose that's the difference right there. Instead of just the wizard crying over his lost spells, it was the entire party. Welcome to the club warriors and rogues. Welcome.

Phew! Can we rest now?

"With that the last kobold falls and you have gained access to the mysterious Temple of Ickiness."

"Huzzah! Good battle boys."

"Especially for our first fight ever. This new party has good balance."

"Okay. Let's go back to town and rest."

Are there really players that do this? And DMs that let them get away with it?

I get that impression from the discussion on allowing groups to have more encounters between rests and keeping spell casters useful. It's the latter part regarding spell casters that has my dander up.

Personally, I love playing the sorcerer class. I like to pick a few money spells and cast them repetively as I need to. Minimal book keeping, tons of fun, and a challenge in picking that perfect combo of spells. Joy!

Another part of that challenge is resisting the urge to blast away with everything my character has in the first encounter. Pick the right spot and that Phantasmal Killer I've been saving can save the entire party. Knowing where a Magic Missile will do the trick instead of casting the more aggressive Scorching Ray. And when my character does run out of spells there is the added tension of finding a way to safety. That's where the joy of playing a spell caster comes in.

Even if I thought for a moment that our DM (that insidious malicious fiend) would let us get away with running back to town after every encounter, I still wouldn't do it. I'd feel like I was robbing myself of something that makes this game great. The risk. The danger. The feeling of pushing the envelope and walking that fine line between saving the day and total party wipe.

So I don't like the idea of "making casters useful throughout" because that sounds to me like one thing. Spell points.

I hate spell points. I hate the concept. I hate it on ethics, on moral high ground, and on grounds of laziness. I don't want to waste time keeping track of spell points. Most of all, I think they diminish diversity.

With spell points all casting classes are the same. Some might get more spell points than others, and some get to pray or prepare different spells every day, but strip that away and it's pure cookie cutter. That's fine in a video game or MMO but not around the table.

Bah! Now I need to go rest.