D&D 5E Classes with resources feel like usage is too restrained

[Lanliss]

There is no combination of rule options in the book that prevent someone from going down to zero, and then resting for the night and being back up to full. Even the slowest option allows a short rest overnight, and even the grittiest option still permits you to spend all of your Hit Dice over a short rest.

There is no 'gritty realism' variant in the game because the default heal rate is so ridiculously generous that there's no way to get it back down to reasonable, at least not with any of the dials that they give you. Likewise, there's no real way to balance a game around one big boss fight in a day, because the default expected encounter rate is so ridiculously high that a single enemy is outside the bounds of what works, at least if you try to follow their budget guidelines and monster level restrictions simultaneously; that math problem is over-constrained and no solution exists. Attrition over the course of an adventuring day, whether that adventuring day is 24 hours or 240 hours, is the only option that's included in the game.

You could rule that they can't use more than half their Hit Dice on a short rest.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Of course, HP are not 'meat' so all you've done is restored your pool of (using the PHB definition of HP) 'luck, resolve, the will to live and health'.

That doesn't sound like "gritty realism" in any sense of the term. That sounds borderline cinematic.

Using the PHB definition, HP aren't just meat, but they are meat in addition to some of those other things. The PHB also leaves open the option that HP are mostly meat, although nothing in the healing rules really support that (which is the issue at hand).

Your statement is patently false. Ive been DMing a game for 12 levels and 2 years of real time roughly adhering to the 6-8/ 2 short rest guidelines (the occasional shorter or longer adventuring day, or solo encounter here or there) and have encountered no problems with the system.

If you're adhering to the (6-8)/2 guidelines, then you're using the attrition model, which the game is designed to support. My complaint is that the guidelines are not flexible enough, since they don't really support a 1/0 or 2/0 game for any significant period of time. The balance just doesn't exist if you aren't being slowly worn down through attrition.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You could rule that they can't use more than half their Hit Dice on a short rest.

I could also rule that you only get to store one Hit Die at a time, or that Hit Dice don't exist at all, but doing so is going beyond the purview of what the game intends and may have serious ramifications on playability since it deviates from their design expectations.

They tried to set up a lot of room for each DM to make the game their own, but they didn't quite deliver on that since they had to make certain assumptions in order for their designs to work. They tried to make the rules agnostic to the length of rests, but they still assume that you're going to have Hit Dice which behave in predictable ways.

 

[Imaro]

That doesn't sound like "gritty realism" in any sense of the term. That sounds borderline cinematic.

Using the PHB definition, HP aren't just meat, but they are meat in addition to some of those other things. The PHB also leaves open the option that HP are mostly meat, although nothing in the healing rules really support that (which is the issue at hand).
If you're adhering to the (6-8)/2 guidelines, then you're using the attrition model, which the game is designed to support. My complaint is that the guidelines are not flexible enough, since they don't really support a 1/0 or 2/0 game for any significant period of time. The balance just doesn't exist if you aren't being slowly worn down through attrition.

1/0game...Use all of the XP for an adventuring day in one battle...giving those with short rest abilities what amount to 2 recharges and everyone gets the average of all their hit dice in extra hit points.

2/0 game... cut the above in half... 1 recharge worth of abilities and half the average of all hit dice.

The game has given us the math to account for these things it's not that hard.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There is no 'gritty realism' variant in the game because the default heal rate is so ridiculously generous that there's no way to get it back down to reasonable, at least not with any of the dials that they give you.

There's not much point, unless you're also going to restrict or eliminate healing magic (which, for 'gritty realism' you might, since magic is sometimes gritty, but, by definition, not in the least realistic), because as you push 'natural' healing beyond the time horizon of the Long Rest it becomes faster to expend slots for healing and rest to regain /those/.

Likewise, there's no real way to balance a game around one big boss fight in a day, because the default expected encounter rate is so ridiculously high that a single enemy is outside the bounds of what works

It can 'work' and be challenging, you have to go beyond the guidelines (which makes sense, since single-encounter days are, themselves, outside those guidelines), but it can be done. The rough resource-balance among long- and short- rest recharge classes is, of course, completely lost, heavily favoring the majority long-rest set.

Attrition over the course of an adventuring day, whether that adventuring day is 24 hours or 240 hours, is the only option that's included in the game.

You have to mod it substantially to make it work, mechanically, in a remotely 'balanced' way, yes. But you probably have to do some balancing or re-balancing, regardless, and a good DM might well be able to get away with just doing garden-variety balancing rather than actually re-writing the rules. It might be tricky, it would be a constant effort, but it's possible. Harder than just coloring inside the guidelines, but possible.

 

[Flamestrike]

That doesn't sound like "gritty realism" in any sense of the term. That sounds borderline cinematic.

Its a game designed to be so. DnD characters face down the Balrog of Moria or Gods and win. With swords.

There are better systems out there for gritty realism. Built that way from the ground up. Where permanent nerve damage is just a combat encounter away.

Using the PHB definition, HP aren't just meat, but they are meat in addition to some of those other things. The PHB also leaves open the option that HP are mostly meat, although nothing in the healing rules really support that (which is the issue at hand).

Yeah but its not like (assuming you hae 100 HP) that a certain percentage are meat, another percentage luck, another percentage will to live and so on.

Some days you'll lose 30 HP and not take a scratch (narrowly blocking or dodging the blow or it glancing off your armor, or having a hail of arrows luckily miss you where they would have riddled a lesser hero). Other days that loss of 30 HP represents a minor cut or bruise.

Its an abstraction. That gets narrated however you want. You know how Drizzt rarely gets 'wounded'? He loses hit points every paragraph or two, 'dodging attacks' 'parrying blows' 'ducking at the last minute' and 'stepping inside the reach of his opponent, his resolve strengthening and his blades scything in a counter attack' and 'luckily being missed by an arrow' and so forth.

You could lose all 99 HP in a single blow and the blow can be narrated as missing you entirely (however you just used up a crapload of luck).

If you're adhering to the (6-8)/2 guidelines, then you're using the attrition model, which the game is designed to support.

Intentionally. The game designers in their wisdom realized that in an encounter with just a 10 percent chance of a TPK, then no party would ever get past 5th level. Even one such encounter a level leaves your average adventurer odds on to be dead before getting out of the lower levels.

This might sound like fun to you, but not to me. Constant TPKs are not fun. Takes all sorts though.

Again, I suggest ditching DnD and picking up Rolemaster if this is more your thing (deadly battles where anything can kill you, gory detailed wounds and realistic crunch).

My complaint is that the guidelines are not flexible enough, since they don't really support a 1/0 or 2/0 game for any significant period of time.

The gritty realism variant does a great job as a tack on.

You can spend 5 days marching through the wilderness, have a single [medium to hard encounter] spend another three days wandering about, have two more [medium to hard] encounters and then spend 2 more days getting the the dungeon. Once there you slowly wind through tkind down 4 encounters before holing up to rest the night. The following day you clear out two more, before starting the uneventful 11 day hike back to town.

Congrats, youve just had [encounter] short rest [2 encounters] short rest [4 encounters] short rest [two encounters].

Thats 9 encounters and 3 short rests between long rests. If your party is struggling, the DM can always handwave one of those short rests into a long rest.

Its not an issue for mine. I often handwave the odd short rest, place time constraints on my quests, throw 'random' encounters at the party, or just give them a single 'deadly' enounter in a single adventuring day. I mix it up.

The balance just doesn't exist if you aren't being slowly worn down through attrition.

True in only an isolated sense. If all you ever do is throw really hard encounters at the party, and they always hit them fully rested, then the long rest classes (barbs, palis, casters) will shine. If you mix it up with alternating days of 6-8 encounters, with 2-3 short rests (and the odd day featuring a lot of both encounters and short rests to give the fighters, monks and so forth a chance to shine) it all evens up in the long run, with all classes given the chance to have their time int he spotlight.

Take a longer term approach to it all, and it might change your perspective

 

[Tony Vargas]

There are better systems out there for gritty realism.

Again, I suggest ditching DnD and picking up Rolemaster if this is more your thing (deadly battles where anything can kill you, gory detailed wounds and realistic crunch).

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is looking for a capability in 5e that existed in past editions. It's not an unreasonable thing to want from D&D, again/still in 'big tent' 5e, even if other games have gone on to do it better than D&D. Heck, if we get technical about it, everything D&D has ever done has probably been done much better by some other game, sometime - even if the game languished in obscurity and the small publisher went broke.

 

[CapnZapp]

And 99 percent of published adventures are based in one (or a string of several).

Not saying its the only way to play, but the game design is based around this (and other) assumptions.

This is a severely outdated viewpoint.

 

[Flamestrike]

@Saelorn is looking for a capability in 5e that existed in past editions. It's not an unreasonable thing to want from D&D, again/still in 'big tent' 5e, even if other games have gone on to do it better than D&D. Heck, if we get technical about it, everything D&D has ever done has probably been done much better by some other game, sometime - even if the game languished in obscurity and the small publisher went broke.

Does sound like he'd love the system. And Shadow world (Terry Amthor is a god).

My kingdom for some Akbutege. Heals 1d10 hits everytime.

Now I just need to treat that nerve damage, shattered knee and sprained wrist, stem my bleeding, and seek help with the PTSD from neutering myself after tripping on that imaginary turtle.

I just hope the attendant Psych doesnt downroll the Psychology skill check on the Static manouver chart and deliver me an E stress critical.

 

[Flamestrike]

This is a severely outdated viewpoint.

Really? All Adventures in 5E to date feature several if not dozens of 'dungeons' or variants thereof with several encounters packed closely together in nearby locations, separated by a few days of downtime or travel.

Its where the game started. Its been the case in pretty much every module ever created. Its in the title to the game, and the DMG spells it out as such.

It really sounds like you should also be playing a different game. If long overland travel and less dungeons is for you, The One Ring is right up your alley.

Otherwise youre kind of trying jam a round peg into a square hole, and blaming the peg for not fitting properly.

Im not saying you cant do it, just that you would be better off using a square peg.