D&D 5E D&D Unboxing Starter Set Video is on Youtube

[Remathilis]

Taking two short rests in a row is a "crazy loophole" lol.

It is or it isn't.

Ignoring second wind for a second, is there a reason to take more than one short rest in a row? (correct answer is we don't know at this point) If there is something, then it's a feature of the system. If i there isn't a reason to take multiple short rests, then you are bag- of-ratting the system.

If it becomes a problem, WotC will FAQ it just like it did with great cleave or the Orcus-slaying ranger in 4e or dozens of Sage Advice articles in Dragon. Until then...

 

[Obryn]

I don't normally agree with you, but you are right of course.

The only thing I'd add is that Second Wind used to match its intent much more closely when it gave Temp HP, even though it was absurd that it cost an action to use it and was useable voluntarily instead of as a reaction to some kind of stress, like avoiding incoming enemy attacks.

The simulationist version of this ability is just flat out better in every possible way. No reason to limit short rest chaining when temp HPs run out after 5 minutes.

I completely disagree with everything you added here.

Real hit points are perfectly fine.

My one and only point is that if this wasn't the designers' intent to allow this to happen, they shouldn't have written the rule this way, given how easily it could be fixed.

However, in context with the quote below (above?) about a short rest being one or more hours, it's moot. Problem solved, no issues, and my design objection is no longer relevant.

 

[DDNFan]

Where is it written that short rests can be strung together? (No where)

The absence of a rule is not a rule.

The rules make no mention of any constraints whatsoever of when or how often you can short rest, only that each one is a contiguous 1 hour chunk of time, at least. Standing up and walking around for 1 second breaks the rest. That's not rules lawyering, that's just logic.

If there's no law against X, you don't need a law to allow you to do X. Everything is legal by default. Otherwise you would need an infinite number of laws (or rules, in this case), to allow for the various behavior. Laws and rules are proscriptions against actions, usually. Sometimes they force you to act, and other times they constrain how you can act (like, for example, until what time at night can I play piano in my apartment).

 

[DDNFan]

I completely disagree with everything you added here.

Real hit points are perfectly fine.

My one and only point is that if this wasn't the designers' intent to allow this to happen, they shouldn't have written the rule this way, given how easily it could be fixed.

However, in context with the quote below (above?) about a short rest being one or more hours, it's moot. Problem solved, no issues, and my design objection is no longer relevant.

A rest of one hour can follow another, separate rest, after a single push up. Strenuous exercise is not resting. Ergo, you are wrong. Sorry dude. Logic is not on your side.

 

[Obryn]

I cannot state it any better than Monte Cook.
"Now the people who'd say this are awful." Exactly. This is the sort of second guessing, look out of lawyers and loopholes kind of design I just don't want to do anymore. The epiphany actually came to me in the middle of a panel at a convention. Someone was asking a ty question about some crazy loophole that no one I'd ever let in a game would consider and I said, "I don't want to design games for s anymore." It was supposed to be one of the defining hallmarks of 5e, but I don't know if that happened. But it is basically where the philosophy for the Numenera rules came from.

Now this? I kinda disagree with.

I'm great with DM fiat and a general assumption that people should be reasonable and mature around a game table. I am great with rules light systems that require a large amount of fiat from all participants.

However. That's not an excuse for writing/publishing bad or broken rules. Your rule set should need a GM, but it should not need a GM to fix it. It's a kind of subtle difference, but an important one.

 

[Obryn]

A rest of one hour can follow another, separate rest, after a single push up. Strenuous exercise is not resting. Ergo, you are wrong. Sorry dude. Logic is not on your side.

Look, keeping in mind what I just wrote in the post right above this one, this is an obviously rules-lawyery reading of a rule that a short rest is "one or more hours" and the single push up is your "bag of rats."

Simply put? You're in the wrong here. If the short rest rule was that each hour is specifically another rest, that's one thing. That's how short rests worked in 4e, but it's not how they work in Next. You're taking an obviously obtuse and abusive reading of it in order to sneak your temp hp obsession in through some kind of loophole.

 

[hbarsquared]

My favorite part is that so many are yelling about "designers publishing broken rules" or whining about "fighters healing to full in 3 hours" but no one can actually say why it's even broken.

Because it's not.

 

[DDNFan]

Ignoring second wind for a second, is there a reason to take more than one short rest in a row? (correct answer is we don't know at this point) If there is something, then it's a feature of the system. If i there isn't a reason to take multiple short rests, then you are bag- of-ratting the system.

Taking two short rests in a row is not at all similar to carrying a bag of rats. The fighter character would know that he heals or undoes the damage he just received at a rate of once per hour of short rest. So, take two short rests, or three, or five, until he is full up.

I'm not breaking the rules by playing by the rules, the rules are broken. Railroading PCs is not the answer. Anything they put in the FAQ to limit when you can take a short rest will probably seem contrived and arbitrary, and anyway will be exploitable. So sure, the fighter uses second wind, then they start walking for a bit, until whenever the new FAQ suggestion or rule states that sufficient time has passed, or circumstances have arisen, and the player can decide if he wants to risk using an HD or take another short rest as soon as the criteria are met. If I'm on a budget, and I can avoid wasting money, why are you telling me to waste money? (or cure spells) I can wait a couple minutes before starting another hour-long rest, if I can take another rest for an hour anyway.

Lay on Hands is a certain number of times per day. The cleric healing ability is capped to 50%, which inherently stops it from making Cure Wounds or HD obsolete. Second Wind isn't capped or limited in any way except a flimsy, "when does one rest end and another begin"-way. Which is bad game design. When you have a healing limit for the fighter class, it had better have hard, serious caps on it that aren't open to debate.

Until there's a limit on the number of short rests you can take, or they add some kind of delay between short rests, it is perfectly rational, sensible, and not an exploit in any way, to play the game by the rules.

Why should I cast cure wounds on my party member when he can cure himself now, at no daily cost? Makes no sense, in character or out of character. I enjoy playing games with rules that make sense, that's why aside from this and a handful of other rules in 5th edition, I play it weekly.

If I didn't think the rules made sense overall, I wouldn't play this game. There are two other rules lawyers in my group, and they also similarly dislike arbitrary DM fiat or hand wavey rationalizations for not allowing something so simple.

This wasn't a problem in the October packet, they introduced this later.

 

[DDNFan]

My favorite part is that so many are yelling about "designers publishing broken rules" or whining about "fighters healing to full in 3 hours" but no one can actually say why it's even broken.

Because it's not.

Because fighters shouldn't remain at max HP entering into every battle without expending daily resources from any source maybe?

You didn't even have that in 4th edition. Even in 3rd, you still had to buy those wands of CLW, and they might not be available. In all editions, cleric's surgeless / external healing is limited in terms of castings per day.

Unlimited free healing with no cap per day is broken. On the fighter too, no less. Why ever buy a healing potion? Or use your own hit dice? You can use your free, surgeless healing aka Second Wind, and not spend HD or your allies' Cure Wounds spells.

Fighters with max HP at zero cost, every battle is broken, dude. Sorry.

 

[Grazzt]

If the DM did that to us, we'd probably quit on the spot. We aren't dumb, and can see when we're being railroaded into a course of action. That isn't why we play a game of D&D. The players choose what their characters do. If the DM wants, he can put in a house rule, sure, but then we're back to the fact that the default, Basic D&D game has an exploitable short rest issue in the most basic class of the game, and people are telling us to ignore it or play around it instead of telling the devs to fix it.

Not really railroading. It's in the last playtest DM Guidelines section. Random encounters. Roll every 10 minutes. Odds aren't good even in a "densely populated dungeon" (16-20 on 1d20) on a single roll, but roll enough times, odds are the PCs will encounter something. Roll enough times per day, per rest, whatever, and they are guaranteed to encounter something.