D&D (2024) REcharge and Rest

[Bardic Dave]

How would you fix rests and recharging abilities?

I thought 4e was easy and elegant, but I doubt we go back to that. I am not sure they really change this, but I wish they would.

I'd consider: First short rest is 5 minutes. Second is 10. Third is 1 hour.

I'd also just get rid of abilities recharging on short rests, but I don't have a good answer for what I'd do instead.

You know know what I've recently realized about 4e recovery mechanics (and encounter powers specifically)? I dislike them only in the presentation they received in 4e. I actually have no problem with an ability that recharges when your character meditates for 1 minute or something similar; I just dislike it when it's framed in metagame terminology like "Encounter Power".

I know that 4e did have an in-fiction justification for how encounter powers recharge (take a minute to catch your breath or whatever). And to be honest, that explanation is good enough for me. But the way 4e put the metagame concepts front and centre (encounter powers, daily powers, etc.) really turned me off the system, such that I never really gave it a fair try.

It's funny how presentation can matter so much for how you receive a concept. If 4e had tried to hide how the sausage is made just a little bit, it might have appealed to me more.

 

[Zaukrie]

Conditions are there that you can use it in combat if you set a good situation for it, but if you misscalculate, you will suffer a round of critical hits.

Oh, I understood that. Not sure I'd impose that much "punishment" for the decision. Love the idea of burning an action, just not sure I'd impose that much in addition (more likely, "you use all of your actions, including bonus and reaction, and cannot move." or something).

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

The rules in the book can be whatever they want, because I just use the variant rule that says I can make Rests whatever length I want. I don't need the rule in the PHB about the length of rests be the same as the one I want to use. My opinion on the matter is no better than anyone else's.

That being said... I use 10 minute Short Rests, 8 hour Long Rests, and 24 hours-in-a-safe-location Extended Rests.

Do you find any 1st-5th level spells that are broken or cause a narrative/world-building problem if you can cast 2-4 of that spell every 15 minutes for an entire day?

 

[Zaukrie]

You know know what I've recently realized about encounter powers? I dislike them only in the presentation they received in 4e. I actually have no problem with an ability that recharges when your character meditates for 1 minute or something similar; I just dislike it when it's framed in metagame terminology like "Encounter Power".

I know that 4e did have an in-fiction justification for how encounter powers recharge (take a minute to catch your breath or whatever). And to be honest, that explanation is good enough for me. But the way 4e put the metagame concepts front and centre (encounter powers, daily powers, etc.) really turned me off the system, such that I never really gave it a fair try.

It's funny how presentation can matter so much for how you receive a concept. If 4e had tried to hide how the sausage is made just a little bit, it might have appealed to me more.

My fiction was always that they were only available once an encounter.....not that you rest, but that the opportunity for that thing only arose one time.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Do you find any 1st-5th level spells that are broken or cause a narrative/world-building problem if you can cast 2-4 of that spell every 15 minutes for an entire day?

Like healing. A warlock can take healing spells and effectively be a one-person hospital, curing all injury and disease for a community, because they never run out of healing

 

[Bardic Dave]

My fiction was always that they were only available once an encounter.....not that you rest, but that the opportunity for that thing only arose one time.

For some reason, that explanation just doesn't work for me. I can't really explain why. Funny how we all have our esoteric preferences.

 

[Zaukrie]

For some reason, that explanation just doesn't work for me. I can't really explain why. Funny how we all have our esoteric preferences.

It works great for melee attacks, less so for magic, admittedly.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Do you find any 1st-5th level spells that are broken or cause a narrative/world-building problem if you can cast 2-4 of that spell every 15 minutes for an entire day?

No. Because I and my players play the narrative not the game mechanics. If there's no narrative reason within the story for someone to cast X spell 35 times in the day (usually just to try and get around some mechanical roadblock)... then they don't do it. It's no different than the person who says at-will magic is bad because you could then have a wizard cast Acid Splash continuously and melt through every lock or trap mechanism ever.

I think that is narratively silly, so we just don't do that sort of thing.

 

[Vaalingrade]

For some reason, that explanation just doesn't work for me. I can't really explain why. Funny how we all have our esoteric preferences.

For me it's because we're representing a fantasy story, not real life. The hero only uses their special move once per fight because otherwise it would be boring.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

No. Because I and my players play the narrative not the game mechanics. If there's no narrative reason within the story for someone to cast X spell 35 times in the day (usually just to try and get around some mechanical roadblock)... then they don't do it. It's no different than the person who says at-will magic is bad because you could then have a wizard cast Acid Splash continuously and melt through every lock or trap mechanism ever.

I think that is narratively silly, so we just don't do that sort of thing.

You play the narrative of the encounters? Because it doesn't sound like you extrapolate the narrative into worldbuilding. The nature of magic and how it is used by the people in a world informs how the world works. It's just logic.

If an actual "Good" caster can heal at will, and they weren't pressed for time, why wouldn't they cure injured innocents wherever they were? It would make no sense not to, and to ignore that suffering is not "Good". But if that is the way magic works, it would change the entire feel of the world. NPCs would be using that same rule system, and every community can heal anything that can get treatment before death.

From an encounter perspective, it also means that the PCs can stop and heal up without spending hit dice, until they were happy, and then get their spells back and keep going afterwards.

And if the PCs are playing by completely different rules, PCs having completely different magic systems than the NPCs, means that there shouldn't be NPCs that share their experience, and no one to learn from.

I guess I am trying to say that I don't like purely gamist RPGs that care only abut mechanics, which is one of the reasons why 4E ultimately fell flat for me (and I played 4E for the entire life of that edition) and I was happy for 5E when it was released.