clearstream
(He, Him)
DMG page 84 clearly lays out a fundamental balancing principle of 5e. That there will be six to eight medium or hard encounters between long rests, and two or three encounters between short rests. It's not the goal of this thread to debate if that is good or bad. Instead, I aim to move directly on to the question of how to ensure that rest rate happens in play? @CapnZapp in his thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?551362-Resting-and-the-frikkin-Elephant-in-the-Room calls out that published material leaves it up to DMs to limit their players' ability to rest. He cites an article by the Angry GM proposing a threat-based solution http://theangrygm.com/ask-angry-resting-in-5e-and-why-its-fine/, essentially increasing the challenge elsewhere when players reduce challenge for themselves through frequent long resting. From those debates and others we have a detailed understanding of the issues, just one example being the balance between long and short rest class features which is perhaps most acutely seen when considering Warlock spell slots against Wizard spell slots. The classes are comparable if rests are enforced as DMG 8 envisions. If they are not enforced that way, the Wizard will be free to cast an order of magnitude more spells than the Warlock. Again, the goal of this thread isn't to debate those problems or even to prove they exist, but only to tackle the fundamental: how might the game mechanics support DMs to enforce rests?
I believe that an observation that DMG 84 asserts a fundamental connection asserted between adventuring days, number of encounters and levelling gives us the most direct starting point for this mechanic. If we analyse the XP budgets per adventuring day on DMG 84 against the levelling costs on PHB page 15 we can find how many adventuring days are expected to level (rounded to one decimal). About 33 days all told, or about 229 encounters.
Level Days
L-2 1.0
L-3 1.0
L-4 1.5
L-5 2.2
L-6 2.1
L-7 2.3
L-8 2.2
L-9 2.3
L-10 2.1
L-11 2.3
L-12 1.4
L-13 1.7
L-14 1.5
L-15 1.7
L-16 1.7
L-17 1.5
L-18 1.6
L-19 1.5
L-20 1.0
This analysis allows us to assert that the game balance implicitly assumes that players will recover their class features (and any other powers) through resting at a rate that is exactly the number in the right column (days) times 2-3 for short-rests and times 1 for long-rests per level. Again, I'm not saying if that is good or bad and I do not want to debate that here. Thus the most direct mechanical solution would be to give players a number of rests per level. How might that work?
Recoveries Per Level
Characters gain a new resource—minor and major “recoveries”. All features that refresh with a short-rest are instead refreshed by spending a minor recovery. All features refreshed with a long-rest are instead refreshed by spending a major recovery. To spend a recovery, a character must do the things described on PHB page 186 for a short (minor) or long (major) rest. If the rest is interrupted, the recovery fails and is not expended i.e. it can be reattempted later. All expended recoveries are replenished each time a character levels up. At 1st level, a character gains two minor and one major recovery to spend. At 5th level, a character gains an additional two minor and one major recovery to spend.
That's the proposed rule. With the huge caveat that it is pending testing, things I like about this rule are
And things I hate are
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts. Please respect the goals of this thread and focus on the game mechanics. The question is not whether we approve of rests or require rules for resting, but how to mechanically buttress the "rests" pillar of 5e's game balance given that goal? It'd also be great to know how to wed the mechanic neatly to the fiction?
[Edited to increase count of minor recoveries.]
I believe that an observation that DMG 84 asserts a fundamental connection asserted between adventuring days, number of encounters and levelling gives us the most direct starting point for this mechanic. If we analyse the XP budgets per adventuring day on DMG 84 against the levelling costs on PHB page 15 we can find how many adventuring days are expected to level (rounded to one decimal). About 33 days all told, or about 229 encounters.
Level Days
L-2 1.0
L-3 1.0
L-4 1.5
L-5 2.2
L-6 2.1
L-7 2.3
L-8 2.2
L-9 2.3
L-10 2.1
L-11 2.3
L-12 1.4
L-13 1.7
L-14 1.5
L-15 1.7
L-16 1.7
L-17 1.5
L-18 1.6
L-19 1.5
L-20 1.0
This analysis allows us to assert that the game balance implicitly assumes that players will recover their class features (and any other powers) through resting at a rate that is exactly the number in the right column (days) times 2-3 for short-rests and times 1 for long-rests per level. Again, I'm not saying if that is good or bad and I do not want to debate that here. Thus the most direct mechanical solution would be to give players a number of rests per level. How might that work?
Recoveries Per Level
Characters gain a new resource—minor and major “recoveries”. All features that refresh with a short-rest are instead refreshed by spending a minor recovery. All features refreshed with a long-rest are instead refreshed by spending a major recovery. To spend a recovery, a character must do the things described on PHB page 186 for a short (minor) or long (major) rest. If the rest is interrupted, the recovery fails and is not expended i.e. it can be reattempted later. All expended recoveries are replenished each time a character levels up. At 1st level, a character gains two minor and one major recovery to spend. At 5th level, a character gains an additional two minor and one major recovery to spend.
That's the proposed rule. With the huge caveat that it is pending testing, things I like about this rule are
- It looks easy to implement
- It looks resilient
- It looks flexible/extensible
- It snaps onto the existing rules with minimum ceremony
And things I hate are
- It's very "gamey" so it could be tough to find a fiction that "sells it" to players
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts. Please respect the goals of this thread and focus on the game mechanics. The question is not whether we approve of rests or require rules for resting, but how to mechanically buttress the "rests" pillar of 5e's game balance given that goal? It'd also be great to know how to wed the mechanic neatly to the fiction?
[Edited to increase count of minor recoveries.]
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