6-8 Encounters a long rest is, actually, a pretty problematic idea.

DM Dave1 said:

Except that: “A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period” so a canny DM can use that RAW to challenge the PCs.

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Nor can they benefit from a long rest if they don't get to sleep for 6 hours. So if they are trying to rest in an area that is trafficked by monsters or city watch patrols ("no vagrants, move along") every 5 hours (better make it every 3 hours in case of elves) a long rest is impossible. Note that the encounter doesn't have to be a threat to the party - it just has to wake everyone up.

They also need to have sufficient food rations for every party member to have something to eat.

So it's pretty easy for a DM to restrict rests if they so choose, even without imposing time restrictions (which in my experience tend to be common).

Having said that, I tend not to do that often, and design adventures around a small number of challenging combat encounters, rather than lots of trivial encounters designed to deplete resources. I don't think I have even had as many as 6 combat encounters in one game day.

Oofta said:

I didn't think I was being all that passive.

Listen, we all get our rant on now and then. I know I do. But I also try to even that out with solutions and examples of how I addressed issues in my games. Maybe it's just that the threads I've hit lately where you post you've been all Negative Nancy while being completely unhelpful. Maybe it's just been a long week [EDIT: just to clarify, I'm the one who has had a long week and am being overly-sarcastic] .

So how do you deal with this issue in your game? What solutions have you come up with? What worked or didn't work? No game is perfect so how do you make it better?

I may not agree, your solutions may not work for my game or my style but I'm interested in what other people have to say. It's why I'm active on this message board.

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On mobile right now, so no longer answer other than to say your forthright post deserves one. I'll bookmark this for later.

flametitan said:

The flow of progression I believe Blue's referring to is as follows: Without cantrips you'd need more spell slots (lest we run into the issue of, "I cast my one spell for the day, I'll wait for you back at the tavern"), and that more spell slots would necessarily require weaker spells so as to not overshadow the fighter constantly. As of now, what we have is that throwing a levelled spell is a cool moment while the fighter keeps doing their thing and shining in between the cool spell moments.

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Ah.

I would have thought removing cantrips would mean stronger spells, assuming 1) we want to maintain today's balance 2) as few other changes as possible

Sacrosanct said:

* resource management is important. If players expend all of their resources in the first encounter or two, then it's sort of on them to live with the consequences of doing so.

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I agree completely except I'd phrase it as its sort of on the game to force them to live the consequences of doing so.

I get you're enjoying the luxury of having gamers that abide by an unwritten gentleman's agreement to work with the spirit of the rules.

Problem is, there's so much to be gained by not doing that, and instead bringing the party's formidable array of assets to bear on the target "let's rest now".

In short, unless the game forces you to keep going, why do it?

Because it makes for a more exciting, better, game experience, is why! That much is obvious. But to many groups it's a hard sell to voluntarily abstain from resting.

For these groups the rules could REALLY offer official variants that make the resting non-trivial to attain, so I didn't have to go to lengths such as "you simply cannot log rest in a jungle hex, no exceptions".

Flexor the Mighty! said:

So do any of the AP actually push this kind of resource management model? The two I have XP with had little to make this 6-8 per long rest a reality. There would be instances where it could be an issue but in general getting a long rest in was not a problem.

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Ask Mistwell. He's the one having zero issues.

DM Dave1 said:

Except that: “A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period” so a canny DM can use that RAW to challenge the PCs.

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Sure.

If you can manage more than two days worth of encounters in a single game day.

In practice this is not compatible with default xp awards. It would mean the group gains levels so fast they'd outgrow the adventure's ending long before reaching it.

Also, unless you resolve combat very fast, it would mean spending session after session on them, with little time for story and role-playing in-between.

So yes in theory. In practice however I have found that actually making enemies stronger so fights become more challenging without having more of them is the only real solution.

I'd just like to throw my thoughts into this mess.

My first experience with D&D was AD&D and I only played a few games. I really got into D&D when 4E came out and have played years as both player and DM. In the past two to three years I've been heavy into 5E with several groups, again as both player and DM.

I think it is best to look at 4E and 5E as completely different games. Don't bring your notions of how the action economy and abilities should work in 4E into 5E. Yes, 4E is a lot of fun with different abilities, etc... and the power builders in the group just love it. But it is very combat focused and tends to do what OP said: drag players through 6-8 encounters between long rests. In part, I think this is to manage the dailies. Players have a ton of choice between their encounter powers but the Daily powers should be considered a rare treat.

Now in 5E things are very different: it isn't quite so combat focused and much more control is given to the DM. 5E is purposely loose on the rules which I feel allows for much more wiggle room and imagination from both the players and the DM. Sure there is the occasional dungeon crawl and yes, there are powers that recharge daily, and yes, there are very few "encounter" powers and players may end up with fewer choices during combat if they focus on just what is on their character sheet. Which is why I've never felt the same need to drag players through encounters as I did in 4E. I can't find anything in the DMG that recommends it in 5E the way it is recommend for 4E. So if the players want to take a long rest after 2 encounters: sure, why not. That's what rolls on random encounters tables are for: to see if they successfully piss away the rest of the day doing squat all (or perhaps foraging or learning a new skill) until nightfall, when their characters would be tired enough for a long rest. Two rolls on the encounters tables (day + night) and let chance see if they get a long rest. 5E has downtime rules and I try to make the most of them.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

So do any of the AP actually push this kind of resource management model? The two I have XP with had little to make this 6-8 per long rest a reality. There would be instances where it could be an issue but in general getting a long rest in was not a problem.

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Many of them do, absolutely. I don’t think it is a constant state of affairs, but each if the published modules I’m familiar with does this at times. Usually the high number of encounters are connected to an adventure site like a dungeon or a haunted keep or something like that.

In one of the past versions of this conversation, I broke down a few different modules where this happened.

I think a big part of what will make the modules work as presented or not is how the DM handles long rests and their availability. Personally, I have no problem denying a Long Rest outside of a safe environment. I also have no problem coming up with reasons for the PCs to press on.

I think other DMs allow the players to dictate when a Long Rest happens, and then they keep the world static until the PCs resume. To me, this runs counter to the game design’s expectations. I don’t think it should be up to the players when the characters can rest, and I think that if they do choose to rest, the DM should factor in possible ramifications of that decision.

Paul Farquhar said:

I can't help thinking this is kind of missing the whole point of Star Trek, which is to try and solve problems without killing anyone.

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Well in our defence, we were playing Abrams Trek

Satyrn said:

Well in our defence, we were playing Abrams Trek

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But more seriously, since my first level character's walking around with a disintegration gun, it's a good bet that some of the NPC's are too, so it's not like we wanted to get into a firefight. Like, ever.