D&D 5E Making 5E a short rest game

Why not just use the shorter rests option in the DMG? That's why it's there. Instead of changing every class to get resources back from a one-hour short rest, just say that one hour gives the benefit of a long rest.

It would mean that the warlock goes from the best class to the worst class, but its representation was skewed either way.

It might be more straightforward if instead you did something like

Everything works as currently, but

When a caster gains 2nd level slots, his 1st level slots refresh on a short rest.
When he gains 3rd level slots, his 2nd level slots refresh on a short rest.

There ought to be an "etc" here, right? but I'm actually going to say. And that's it - that's all you are implementing, but you leave open a window to expand it up to 3rd level slots if it's working fine for 2nd level slots. etc.

I want to let you all know I did actually read and consider your suggestions, but was also working on stuff on my own.

For those I have not responded to, in regards to flipping the slots to short rest at next stage, That system feels a bit fiddly to keep track of, and much more complicated to write out on a class table, as I am doing now for my homebrew material. I have arrived at a system I am mostly happy with, compared to the default. 2 slots for 1st and 2nd level, 1 slot for 3-5, and long rest for 6-9.

This gives more low level spells per long rest, a total of 6 for 1st and 2nd levels, but matches 3-5 progression. 6 and 7 will be less, at 1/long rest instead of 2. Altogether I like this for the Full casters, although I am considering leaving the Wizard out off this change for thematic reasons. We will see. Anyway, this amounts to a Cleric, Bard, or Druid, casting a total of 25 spells in a long rest, compared to their current 22. Less Nova, more total spell casting.

For Half-casters, I am thinking 1 slot for 1-4, and a single 5th level slot per long rest will work out well. Slightly more spells in the long run, but still feels balanced well enough.

Finally, third-casters. In this case, 1 slot for 1-3 would actually lower their total casting, which I am not sure how I feel about. I might leave third casters alone, at least until I can think of a good progression for them.

On to other topics, I am considering a few homebrew changes to the Barbarian, the only relevant one for this thread being to do exactly what Ashkelon said, and cut down the number while making it Short rest recharge.

Indomitable seems like a bit of an issue, but a lot of people seem to think it is weak anyway. Should I just make it a Short rest recharge and see how that works? 3/6/9 per long rest doesn't seem too broken, considering it is restricted to saving throws, and you don't get to choose the higher one.

Ashkelon said:

Here is a fairly simple way to make 5e a short rest based game given the assumption that there should be 2 short rests per adventuring day.

First, convert spell slots into spell points. Then, have classes only get 1/3 the total amount of spell points they otherwise would. Now, most spellcasters will have roughly the same number of spells per day, but will function on short rest recovery. The spellcasters gain flexibility by the conversion to spell points but lose out on nova capability.

For daily class abilities like the Barbarian rage, just make the ability a per short rest ability with half as many uses (rounded down). Such abilities will receive a boost in overall uptime (assuming you do make it to 2+ short rests per day), but lose out on nova capability.

Next up is a change to HP. In a game based around short rest recovery, mac HP should be lower, but total HP per day should be roughly the same. To implement this, we remove Con mod from HP per level and get rid of HD healing. To compensate for this, all PCs get an amount of Stamina points equal to 3 + their Constitution modifier. During a short rest, a player can choose to spend stamina to regain HP equal to 25% of their maximum HP per stamina point spent. At the end of a short rest, a player regains 1 spent stamina point and at the end of a long rest a player regains all spent stamina points. If you want, stamina can also be spent for heroic effort to retool a failed attack roll, saving throw, or ability check.

The reduction of classes nova potential has an unexpected benefit for the game as it reduces the effectiveness of the 5 minute work day.

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This is a lot like what I'm working on now.

For long rest abilities, why did you suggest dividing by 2 instead of 3?

I do like switching back to 4E style HP and healing surges. No con mod to HP makes people be more willing to have a lower Con score too.

Healing spells are difficult, though. If healing spells come back on short rest, then HP is borked. I wouldn't want to switch back to healing surges for healing without a lot of work, but one way to fix things would be to have Cure Wounds and Healing Word (and all other level 5 and lower healing spells) grant Temp HP instead.

But I do miss healing surges. Higher level groups are able to chug healing potions since 50 gp quickly become meaningless.


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Xeviat said:

This is a lot like what I'm working on now.

For long rest abilities, why did you suggest dividing by 2 instead of 3?

I do like switching back to 4E style HP and healing surges. No con mod to HP makes people be more willing to have a lower Con score too.

Healing spells are difficult, though. If healing spells come back on short rest, then HP is borked. I wouldn't want to switch back to healing surges for healing without a lot of work, but one way to fix things would be to have Cure Wounds and Healing Word (and all other level 5 and lower healing spells) grant Temp HP instead.

But I do miss healing surges. Higher level groups are able to chug healing potions since 50 gp quickly become meaningless.


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The main thing I liked in my short experience with 4E is that short rests recharged enough that you could go into every fight as a serious fight, but not so much that you never needed a long rest. I don't think I will see much use of Hit dice, if I have a Healing focused caster in the group. Otherwise, the game should still run fine.

In turn, the DM was almost always facing a party with full HP, so he didn't have to pull any punches. I would much prefer this style of game when I am running.

Lanliss said:

The main thing I liked in my short experience with 4E is that short rests recharged enough that you could go into every fight as a serious fight, but not so much that you never needed a long rest. I don't think I will see much use of Hit dice, if I have a Healing focused caster in the group. Otherwise, the game should still run fine.

In turn, the DM was almost always facing a party with full HP, so he didn't have to pull any punches. I would much prefer this style of game when I am running.

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I still see HD used, even when there is a bard or cleric in the party. But, since it only recovers half per day, I only see a few used.

And yes, one of the big strengths of a short rest game is the lessening of Novas and the normalizing of player abilities. You could throw a deadly fight at the characters as long as you allow a rest after.


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Xeviat said:

This is a lot like what I'm working on now.

For long rest abilities, why did you suggest dividing by 2 instead of 3?

I do like switching back to 4E style HP and healing surges. No con mod to HP makes people be more willing to have a lower Con score too.

Healing spells are difficult, though. If healing spells come back on short rest, then HP is borked. I wouldn't want to switch back to healing surges for healing without a lot of work, but one way to fix things would be to have Cure Wounds and Healing Word (and all other level 5 and lower healing spells) grant Temp HP instead.

But I do miss healing surges. Higher level groups are able to chug healing potions since 50 gp quickly become meaningless.


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The reason I suggest dividing non spell slot long rest abilities by 2 instead of by 3 is twofold.

First off, the 6-8 encounters per adventuring day with 2 short rests is a myth. Most groups simply don't attain those numbers. It is much more common to have 3-5 encounters per day with 0-1 short rests. For a class based around daily abilities (such as the barbarian with their rages), dividing by three becomes extremely hindering. For example, if you divide rages by 3, the barbarian will have only one rage per short until level 17+, when the daily based barbarian gets 6 rages per day. That translates to only one or two rages per day for the first sixteen levels of gameplay, whereas the daily barbarian is able to rage every significant encounter from level 6+ (4 rages per day).

Secondly, burst potential is better than spread. If you have daily rages and encounter two or three significant encounters in a row without time for rest, you can use a rage in each and every one of those encounters. If you have encounter based rages and you are faced with multiple significant encounters in a row, you most likely will not be able to use a rage for each of those encounters.

Ashkelon said:

The reason I suggest dividing non spell slot long rest abilities by 2 instead of by 3 is twofold.

First off, the 6-8 encounters per adventuring day with 2 short rests is a myth. Most groups simply don't attain those numbers. It is much more common to have 3-5 encounters per day with 0-1 short rests. For a class based around daily abilities (such as the barbarian with their rages), dividing by three becomes extremely hindering. For example, if you divide rages by 3, the barbarian will have only one rage per short until level 17+, when the daily based barbarian gets 6 rages per day. That translates to only one or two rages per day for the first sixteen levels of gameplay, whereas the daily barbarian is able to rage every significant encounter from level 6+ (4 rages per day).

Secondly, burst potential is better than spread. If you have daily rages and encounter two or three significant encounters in a row without time for rest, you can use a rage in each and every one of those encounters. If you have encounter based rages and you are faced with multiple significant encounters in a row, you most likely will not be able to use a rage for each of those encounters.

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I suggest divide by 3, and round up at 0.5s. Then Barbarians have 1 Rage at 1st, 2 at 12th, and unlimited at 20th. 2 Short Rests a day isn't a myth, it's the assumption that the game is balanced around. This shows up in the Warlock to Wizard spell comparisons, and is also the point that the short rest classes are more closely balanced with the long rest classes (Fighter vs Smiting Paladin, for instance).

But, it does take work to achieve it, I'll admit that. I very much design my adventuring days around it. The Encounter design section of the DMG even says that if a set of encounters equal more than a 3rd of the total daily XP budget without allowing for a short rest, they're going to be significantly more difficult.

1/3rd is baked into the system all over. It unfortunately is a hard metric to hit. By making most of the game balance around short rests, it won't matter.

Edit: I don't believe the Barbarian is designed to be raging all the time until the end anyway. Barbarians that I've seen are more than capable enough of not raging against chump fights. If most everything is on a short rest recovery, then your group will likely rest after hard fights and the barbarian can rage each hard fight.