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Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room
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<blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 7120213" data-attributes="member: 5890"><p>In my book, the problem with resting is that of a static world built on ridiculous premises.</p><p></p><p>For example, take the typical "tribe of humanoids raiding" scenario. The adventurers will be commissioned, then will have to travel some short distance to find the home base of the raiders, then will be faced with no more than 20 combatants, typically broken into smaller groups, and once those combatants are eliminated, the threat is over.</p><p></p><p>According to:</p><p><a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/hunter-gatherers-show-human-populations-are-hardwired-for-density/" target="_blank">https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/hunter-gatherers-show-human-populations-are-hardwired-for-density/</a></p><p></p><p>if a group of humanoids are hitting targets an hour's foot travel away as a matter of survival, then they're a tribe of roughly 80 individuals, and most of those individuals will be off hunting and gathering within a 1 hour travel radius during their active period.</p><p></p><p>The implications are obvious. If your initial encounter has only 20 combatants then a signal from that camp should potentially bring 60 more individuals within the time of a short rest. Even if you keep things quiet, you're going to have a constant flow of returning parties, most of which will easily see that something is awry and be able to set off such a signal.</p><p></p><p>I've yet to see a published adventure that does this.</p><p></p><p>Any dungeon that doesn't have an external food supply should be similar: if you take a short rest, you should end up with WAY more to fight than you started out with.</p><p></p><p>I just feel like the response curve to the average dungeon is kind of inverted: if reinforcements exist, then they charge in from the next room in a matter of seconds, but if you take an hour's rest, the dungeon stays exactly the same.</p><p></p><p>A short rest should, no matter how well protected, end up with a change in the environment. Extra fortifications, hefty reinforcements, creatures and treasure leaving the complex, active and alert patrols etc. It shouldn't be "well, I guess we take a short rest". It should be "Can we afford to take a short rest?" or "Will taking a short rest actually make things easier for us?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Saeviomagy, post: 7120213, member: 5890"] In my book, the problem with resting is that of a static world built on ridiculous premises. For example, take the typical "tribe of humanoids raiding" scenario. The adventurers will be commissioned, then will have to travel some short distance to find the home base of the raiders, then will be faced with no more than 20 combatants, typically broken into smaller groups, and once those combatants are eliminated, the threat is over. According to: [url]https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/hunter-gatherers-show-human-populations-are-hardwired-for-density/[/url] if a group of humanoids are hitting targets an hour's foot travel away as a matter of survival, then they're a tribe of roughly 80 individuals, and most of those individuals will be off hunting and gathering within a 1 hour travel radius during their active period. The implications are obvious. If your initial encounter has only 20 combatants then a signal from that camp should potentially bring 60 more individuals within the time of a short rest. Even if you keep things quiet, you're going to have a constant flow of returning parties, most of which will easily see that something is awry and be able to set off such a signal. I've yet to see a published adventure that does this. Any dungeon that doesn't have an external food supply should be similar: if you take a short rest, you should end up with WAY more to fight than you started out with. I just feel like the response curve to the average dungeon is kind of inverted: if reinforcements exist, then they charge in from the next room in a matter of seconds, but if you take an hour's rest, the dungeon stays exactly the same. A short rest should, no matter how well protected, end up with a change in the environment. Extra fortifications, hefty reinforcements, creatures and treasure leaving the complex, active and alert patrols etc. It shouldn't be "well, I guess we take a short rest". It should be "Can we afford to take a short rest?" or "Will taking a short rest actually make things easier for us?" [/QUOTE]
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