D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[dave2008]

But, that's not really true. All possible solutions, save WotC coming out with an official rules change, have been rejected out of hand. Nothing short of WotC completely rewriting the PHB, Monster Manual and the encounter guidelines is acceptable.

So, no, this is very much NOT about providing a solution to an assumed problem.

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I am pretty sure the OP has been receptive to some suggestions (I could be mistaken because has had several similar threads recently and I could be mixing them up). He/she has rejected any suggestion that is based on changing how he/she play and or interpret the existing rules. Which is understandable because this is not what the thread is about.

EDIT: I went back to the OP and reread the first 10+/- pages and I realized this is not the thread I thought it was. So, you may be correct. I definitely noticed the OP gave XP to some of the suggestions, so that is some acceptance of suggestions. He/she does admit (in post #111) that PotA has the advice he/she is looking for in general.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But, again, the discrepancy only exists FOR YOU. And for anyone who is insisting on ignoring the actual design advice provided in the DMG.

Yup, congratulations, if you run single encounter days, 5e D&D will not provide very good challenges. Yuppers, that's right.

Now, since you know that, why would you continue to run single encounter days? You know what the problem is (single encounter days allow the party to punch too far above their weight class) and you know, because you've been told repeatedly, what the solution is - use 3-18 encounters per adventuring day.

Now, why this thread has lasted 80 some pages is beyond me. It's frankly baffling. We know the problem. We have a perfectly viable solution (RTFM and follow the advice). There's no elephant. An elephant in the room would be a problem that no one is recognizing. We recognize the problem. The game designers recognize the problem. Concussed gerbils on crack recognize the problem.

Only thing is, everyone else figured out the easy solution. DON'T USE SINGLE ENCOUNTER DAYS.

You do not speak for me. If you'd like to present your opinions I encourage you to do so, but do not assume the mantle of speaking for everyone. You do not.

 

[Hussar]

But even in hexcrawls LANEFAN it is easy to do. I already posted a solution.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But even in hexcrawls LANEFAN it is easy to do. I already posted a solution.

Does that mean I have agree with your solution? I'm not following, because it really seems like you believe that because something isn't a problem for you and/or you have a way that works for you no one else should complain or discuss it.

 

[OB1]

Seems you'd be as or more likely to have en encounter moving stealthy as you would hiding in one place and resting. All telegraphing resting = random encounter does is force parties to factor in the need to face an encounter to get a rest (unless you're fighting a long time, you get the benefits?), meaning rest that much sooner.

But, I think the more 5e-worthy solution is to put (or for the DM to seize, in spite of any player resistance, given the current phrasing of the system) control of whether a rest is possible, how long it takes, and what benefits are gained, entirely in the DM's hands, with the 1 hr and 8 hr long/short rests serving merely as default guidelines, or 'anecdotal' if you're OB1.

Yes but if you shelter in place, you aren't getting closer to your objective, so by having a high probability of Deadly level encounters where you are traveling, and a high probability of deadly encounters when resting, you will be encouraged to keep moving so as to get out of the area of those encounters. For example, if you are in an area of say 12 hexes that are under Orc control, you might face 3 deadly encounters if you keep moving and short rest twice, but 6 or more if you stay in a single hex for 24 hours, which would put a strain on your daily resources.

I will say that OOTA doesn't do a great job of illustrating this in it's guidelines for traveling through the Underdark, but it's not very difficult to adjust this to meet your group's level of play. I think it would be good for TOA to give better guidelines for a more robust challenge "out of the box". I think WOTC is mimicking typical video game difficulty levels where the base experience is more geared towards casual players with the assumption that more skilled players can ramp up the difficult on their own to suit their tastes.

I hereby retract my use of the word anecdotal and instead will say that the DMG provides an single example of using the daily encounter guidelines not meant to be all encompassing of the way you can use the rules provided. Does that work better for you?

 

[CapnZapp]

Yes but if you shelter in place, you aren't getting closer to your objective, so by having a high probability of Deadly level encounters where you are traveling, and a high probability of deadly encounters when resting, you will be encouraged to keep moving so as to get out of the area of those encounters. For example, if you are in an area of say 12 hexes that are under Orc control, you might face 3 deadly encounters if you keep moving and short rest twice, but 6 or more if you stay in a single hex for 24 hours, which would put a strain on your daily resources.

I will say that OOTA doesn't do a great job of illustrating this in it's guidelines for traveling through the Underdark, but it's not very difficult to adjust this to meet your group's level of play. I think it would be good for TOA to give better guidelines for a more robust challenge "out of the box". I think WOTC is mimicking typical video game difficulty levels where the base experience is more geared towards casual players with the assumption that more skilled players can ramp up the difficult on their own to suit their tastes.

I hereby retract my use of the word anecdotal and instead will say that the DMG provides an single example of using the daily encounter guidelines not meant to be all encompassing of the way you can use the rules provided. Does that work better for you?

I'm not sure if this is even remotely appropriate to what you two are discussing so apologies in advance if it isn't, but since this is this thread and all, here goes anyway:

Any discussion of "dangerous orc territory" absolutely must discuss how Orcs are completely non-dangerous to any party with a competent caster.

Either that, or every orc patrol brings a Dispel Mage.

Which returns me to perhaps the most visible aspect of the Elephant - pretending that random encounters are relevant.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Lanefan]

Any discussion of "dangerous orc territory" absolutely must discuss how Orcs are completely non-dangerous to any party with a competent caster.

Depends how many Orcs there are (they do breed like rabbits, after all; and "dangerous Orc territory" would lead me to believe there's hundreds if not thousands living there), and whether any number of them have much more going for them than the average run-of-the-mill Orc.

Which returns me to perhaps the most visible aspect of the Elephant - pretending that random encounters are relevant.

Again, depends what the random encounters consist of. Three wandering Orcs? Irrelevant to any party. Three wandering Stone Giants? Yeah, that'll make some low-level types sit up and take notice...

Lanefan

 

[OB1]

I'm not sure if this is even remotely appropriate to what you two are discussing so apologies in advance if it isn't, but since this is this thread and all, here goes anyway:

Any discussion of "dangerous orc territory" absolutely must discuss how Orcs are completely non-dangerous to any party with a competent caster.

Either that, or every orc patrol brings a Dispel Mage.

Which returns me to perhaps the most visible aspect of the Elephant - pretending that random encounters are relevant.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

Well, it depends on the level of the characters and the number of Orcs.

At 1st level, it would be very dangerous.

At 5th level, having a 50% chance of a 10 Orc patrol rolling up on the party every hour would be dangerous, and would make trying to take a long rest in the area potentially fatal as the 12 encounters a day would eventually deplete the party's resources.

At 10th level, having an Adult Green Dragon strike and retreat constantly while moving through it's territory would be dangerous. Perhaps the Ranger in the party recognizes that they haven entered such territory and they will need 4-5 hours to move past it's hunting grounds.

My point, ultimately is that for Random encounters to be relevant, there must be enough of a risk of them happening to get to your daily XP allotment, and that resting can lead to it going over that allotment. Of course a single monster with a CR 150% or higher above the party level can also act as the deterrent.

In a hex crawl, these types of dangerous territory sections of the map can first be impossible, then difficult but possible and finally trivial to the point that you stop using them when players are moving through that particular section of the world (baring some other change).

But the APs don't do this out of the box, I had to ramp up OOTA to accomplish this, and, even though I don't need the APs to spell it out for me, don't think it's a bad idea to include such guidelines in them to help inspire DMs.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah, to 'switch sides' for a moment, enough orcs, at least enough LotR orc archers with unobstructed fields of fire, can be plenty dangerous.

 

[Hussar]

Does that mean I have agree with your solution? I'm not following, because it really seems like you believe that because something isn't a problem for you and/or you have a way that works for you no one else should complain or discuss it.

Nope. Not at all.

But you also don't get to pretend that solutions don't exist.

There's a difference between, " I'm having this problem." And "I'm having this problem and I will reject any and all solutions that are not 100% mechanical in nature and 100% WotC official".