D&D (2024) Limiting Short Rests to 2x/day

[Horwath]

I actually did mean 3.5. I've played a ton of 3.5, 4e, and 5e and I've never seen a day with 8 encounters in any system.

You can have 8 easy to medium encounters in a day to spend the "XP budget" or as I like to call them "do we really need to roll for this encounter?"

 

[tetrasodium]

One of the biggest complaints about the warlock is that they just have to spam the same at-will all day. The fact that they're reduced to that is exactly what many are having an issue with. You're saying it's fine for the LR classes to have variety and spell slots all day because the warlock can just play the game in auto-mode instead of rest. It's coping with a problem, not solving one.

In my initial post I didn't even mention warlock, you brought them up and now we seem be stuck on them but they're not even close to the only issue. Every class suffers if you don't let them use hit dice because the rest of the party won't rest. The monk wasting ki on things that don't work but not being able to get them back is a common complaint. People think the Champion is the worst because it only gets a good auto-attack. You're taking one of the big complaints about class design in 5e and claiming that a lack of options is a feature. The 1 hour short rest has been needlessly causing issues throughout the system.


I literally just said in the post that you quoted that if you have to tune down the power of at-wills or move their extra power to short rest features to balance things, they can do that because it's a new edition. You chose ignore what I wrote in order to make up an argument that was the opposite of what I said and attribute it to me.


It's not even about what I like. The 1 hour short rest introduced the entire narrative of party members arguing over short rests that didn't exist before. Whether or not I like that, it's a common phenomenon on the boards and IRL.

This is not a new thing. Warlock and other short rest classes had those kinds of powerful at will abilities since 2014. It's just been easier to point at bad design for a shield while wield the social contract like a club to blame the LR class players and gm for denying them a rest they need after refusing to moderate their slot burn to any level shy of immediate nova through any encounter when they get pushback on the 5mwd they are trying to push since 2014.

 

[mamba]

It's not even about what I like. The 1 hour short rest introduced the entire narrative of party members arguing over short rests that didn't exist before. Whether or not I like that, it's a common phenomenon on the boards and IRL.

ok, so 1h SR lead to arguments, I rather have those than have 5min SR however, those are just broken.

Preferably we would have no recharge in SR at all, if that is not doable, keep it at 1h, twice a day

 

[Horwath]

ok, so 1h SR lead to arguments, I rather have those than have 5min SR however, those are just broken.

Preferably we would have no recharge in SR at all, if that is not doable, keep it at 1h, twice a day

1min short rest, so you can take it after every battle, even during if it's a siege. Or no SR at all and key all abilities from LR.

have spending a HD be part of Dodge Action,
1 HD at 1st level,
2 HD at 5th level,
3 HD at 11th level,
4 HD at 17th level,

 

[James Gasik]

Rests should be as frequent and take just as much time as the narrative can stand, all stop. There really shouldn't be a set amount of time they take. The play pattern should be as follows:

Player: man, we're a bit beat up, and the Monk could use more ki. DM, can we rest?"

DM: hm. You encountered a few decent places you could rest in, but there's no guarantee you'll be undetected.

Player: Ok, let's go for it.

OR

DM: sure, that's fine, by the time you finish searching the room, you can spend your Hit Dice and the Monk gets her ki back.

Even if the players use things like Rope Trick, the environment doesn't stop because the players do. If there are patrols or wandering foes, then rests can be tricky. If there's a time table, rests can be tricky.

If there's nothing going on around you though, rest away!

 

[NaturalZero]

It's just been easier to point at bad design for a shield while wield the social contract like a club to blame the LR class players and gm for denying them a rest they need after refusing to moderate their slot burn to any level shy of immediate nova through any encounter when they get pushback on the 5mwd they are trying to push since 2014.

You're honestly arguing that a guy moderating their slow burn of 2 spell slots over a day is that same as a guy moderating their 12 spells slots over day. "Just moderate" is copium, not problem solving.

The social contract isn't the problem. The LR class players aren't the problem. The 1 hour short rest created this problem where none existed with 5 minutes short rests..

 

[mamba]

The 1 hour short rest created this problem where none existed with 5 minutes short rests..

the 5min short rest is the problem the 1h SR tried fixing… I am all for a better fix of no SR recharge

 

[James Gasik]

That is another way to look at it. What if you just removed short rests entirely? SR classes get 3x their daily resources (as if 2 short rests are assumed) and you can spend Hit Dice to heal twice per day whenever you want.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I actually did mean 3.5. I've played a ton of 3.5, 4e, and 5e and I've never seen a day with 8 encounters in any system.

They're certainly not common, the impetus to rest is extreme, especially at low levels.

My first 4e group actually pulled a 8 encounter day, in the freak'n Keep on the Shadowfell, which got brutal. Action Points from milestones got us through it. Pre-E, Action Points, Item Dailies, and, at paragon, items that unlocked better dailies if you hit a milestone, all mitigated against that impetus to rest prematurely. But that only went so far - I've run plenty of longer days, for various reasons, but usually with some story element precluding rests. What really helped 4e hold together with shorter days was class balance, that and short rests (hey, original topic) after every encounter meant that, while they're was still an attrition game going on, it didn't readily turn into a death spiral.

Any other edition, yes, if you could possibly get spells back, you did, because it was just foolish not to. They're far too powerful/important a resource to ignore.

1e AD&D also tended towards shorter days. At low level, in particular, you could only handle so many fights before you ran out of spells and hp, and someone was going to die - or worse, drop to 'deaths door' and take a week to recover (new characters were instantaneous!)

I think the "short rest problem" that 5e was trying to 'fix' (the problem being that you were pretty likely to start every encounter at full hp, rather than start death-spiraling) was actually introduced by 3.0 and the infamous Wand of Cure Light Wounds. I also don't think it was a problem, at all, in the pacing or challenge sense. The real problem was that 3e Clerics were given a lot of spells/day with the expectation they'd be diverted to healing, and with the WoCLW tactic, they weren't, which awakened CoDzilla like an above-ground nuclear test.

 

[tetrasodium]

That is another way to look at it. What if you just removed short rests entirely? SR classes get 3x their daily resources (as if 2 short rests are assumed) and you can spend Hit Dice to heal twice per day whenever you want.

You really don't see any problems with a warlock having 6x4th level spells at level 6... 6x 5th level spells at level 9.. 9x5th level spells at level 11?

How about the half dozen fireballs it would grant at level 5?