Hydralysk

For me that's the big sticking point. The time you spend walking back to the inn once you run out of supplies is boring, and I don't have as much time as I used to for playing games to being with. The cost for recharging my spells in that scenario isn't really paid by in-game currency, it's paid in my free time. I CAN spend time going back to the inn, but that's an unattractive option to me so I'd rather just plow through until I absolutely need to stop, which means I get the added fun of resource management to the game (weird way to have fun I know, but there you go). I like having the option to replenish my spells at any point as a fallback at the cost of my free time, but with low-level spells being so effective having them regenerate after every encounter almost feels like I have cheat codes on. It almost completely destroys the need to worry about conserving your spells since you can rely solely on per-encounter spells in 80% of fights. That isn't to say people that enjoy powering through things with their per-encounter spells are wrong for liking them. If I didn't enjoy the dilemma of whether using a spell was a cost-effective trade I'd probably agree with them, but that's my feelings on the subject.

Yeah 4x slicken or chill fog per encounter is a bit much, but at the same time I think having something per encounter is good, which is why I think making it something 1 per encounter, plus 4 more per rest, would be a better balance. Perhaps up it to 2 per encounter at even higher levels or with a talent. Even better I think would be regenerating 1 per encounter, that way if you go a few fights without using them you can end up with a full load again or you can just use one per battle and immediately get it back. Not sure how I feel about regenerating spells, but I definitely like the idea of 1 or 2 encounter spells better than the current system. Once I get my wizard or druid to a per encounter basis all but the toughest fights seem to follow the exact same pattern: I lay down a chill fog and then spam fan of flames with my wizard, and queue up 4-5 charges of dancing bolts (or sunbeam if there's a fire weakness) with my druid. Everyone else just needs to stand still while everything around them dies. I really like the idea of having 1 or 2 per encounter spells so at higher levels I can still lay down a chill fog and maybe a slicken or fan of flames at the beginning of every fight for free, but any additional spell require I pull from my per-rest pool. Perhaps add in a talent that allows you to specify a single spell be completely per encounter use, so if you do actually want your caster to spam your favourite spell you can build him around it.