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Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room
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<blockquote data-quote="kbrakke" data-source="post: 7120773" data-attributes="member: 6781797"><p>My short answer, make time constraints, increase average encounter difficulty and reduce number of encounters. </p><p></p><p></p><p>1/2 encounters per short rest, 2/3 short rest per long rest. If they want to long rest and we're not in a position where something is in danger they rest. In a game primarily driven by story I usually skip encounters where the party will certainly emerge victorious and have no penalties for resting afterwards. This usually means that overland travel in a game where the story is the forefront is glossed over. In princes specifically they ended up taming three wyvverns so I never did overland travel, but I probably would have stopped doing it around level 5 in either case. </p><p></p><p>Because I value my time and that of my players, and having played 5e for a while I am confident in my ability to make extra hard encounters that aren't just a game of rocket tag. This usually means doing things like having clusters of lower level monsters harass the players, and purposely having something they are strong against attack them in numbers. </p><p></p><p></p><p>In princes I generally made everything connected, cultists would call for help and alert others quickly. This usually results in a pitched multi-part encounter. In effect, I gave them two battles in the course of one battle as well as make the prospect of resting difficult. For any given keep/temple/sub-temple the rooms are connected, enemies can talk and fetch reinforcements. The party fled about 25% of the time (fire temple, earth keep, fire keep), were close to death by the end of 33% (Air temple, Fire sub-temple, Water Keep, Earth sub-temple) and the others were either skipped because of story sequencing or easier due to good planning.</p><p></p><p>One tactic I used that you're going to despise because is, when they got about 4 rooms from the final portal where a prophet was located, they would hear the start of a ritual. Every time that happened they immediately grew tense and debated how much they could rest. I never placed a time limit on the ritual, simply said they heard it, my plan was to allow a short rest there, but they wanted to charge in usually, hence the near death experiences. </p><p></p><p>In my curse of strahd party they could basically rest wherever they wanted, but because there were so many players they were under leveled, and so many encounters ended up being individually deadly though, as a group they eventually over came them. </p><p></p><p>Really the plan is as follows: Figure out what parts of the adventure should be an adventuring day usually they are pretty obvious. Fighting through a temple in PotA should be an adventuring day. Going through the fane should be an adventuring day. Fighting through one of the giant strongholds should be an adventuring day, being trapped in castle ravenloft should be an adventuring day. If the party finds that they are overwhelmed and flee or otherwise safely take a rest, reset the adventuring day. Each adventure has random encounter tables, a bunch of populated rooms, and other tips on how to add enemies, so do that. They ones they killed are still dead, but that doesn't mean that nothing changed. I am a particular fan of starting an encounter, having the party think it's cake, and then have the second wave show up. Nothing makes them panic spend resources more then suddenly thinking it's a lot harder. </p><p></p><p></p><p>How did people solve this problem in other games? Having played most editions I don't know how the problem really differs between editions. In 3.5/Pathfinder we have wands of CLW and when the caster runs low on slots we long rest. In 4e players could just use their dailies and rest, and in basic we could leave a dungeon and spend a night camping to regain spell for the wizard, using any spare cure spells to get more than the 1hp/day. </p><p></p><p>Unless I'm playing wrong, nothing fundamentally changed about the nature of pacing between editions, other than in basic it takes a week or more to be "fully rested" and in 3.5 onwards it only took a night. I distinctly remember in 4e when I was running my players through some one shots I made, they always had some time pressure. In an investigation they quickly realized that their target would murder again and wanted to stop it, in another they realized there was a ritual they needed to stop. In pathfinder, in the adventure path as things got to higher levels there was an external threat they needed to prepare for. As a player in an adventure path for pathfinder right now every single book has some sort of threat with a timer that we are uncovering, we always feel like we are one step behind and blow through money and spells to get to the next encounter. Having a time limit has been the only way to ensure the players aren't at full strength for every encounter, outside of explicit effects that change how resting works. Even suggestions to change the resting rules don't change the fundamental problem. No matter how you measure and do resting, without some outside force the party can just rest until they are at full strength. </p><p></p><p>Also, I'm not clear on the end goal of this. My goal, when running a published adventure, is to make the players think they could die during plot relevant parts, but ultimately emerge victorious. If through good planning they come to a boss well rested, I will ensure the boss has minions with them(Usually more than written in the module) and try to focus fire on one player to give the impression that things are going poorly when that player goes down to single digit hit points. They usually turn the corner there and start using everything they have and emerge victorious with only the feeling of danger. If they got jacked up on the way there I will usually run it as written and try and spread the damage around so that every player feels individually in danger, rather than thinking one player is in danger. They will be tense and every turn doubles in time as they go over every option. (I live for the moments when they players start searching everything they have and making tenuous plans that are met with "I know it's risky, but it's the only chance we have") If that's the goal, just make the boss encounters harder by adding more minions if they rested, I would strongly suggest making it a two part fight with a wave to soften them before the boss arrives or is in a clear place to fight. The party resting won't change the level of danger for their boss battle, though it could make their approach easier. </p><p></p><p>If that's not the goal then I am at a loss. If you want to make overland travel a more stressful and danger filled endeavor then I can positively say that the current resting rates do not allow for this easily. If that is your goal then changing what constitutes a short and long rest are your best bets. I am running a hexcrawl style game and have changed the resting rules so that they only full heal on a long rest in a settlement, otherwise they have to spend hit dice. It's not working quite as well as I want because they have 3 druids and a paladin, but the idea is reasonable.</p><p></p><p>I agree that the current resting rates and stated encounters in the books if run simply won't always result in a party feeling in danger when they get to a boss fight. However I think the modifications you need to make are both supported by the book and not a drastic change that requires a large amount of effort. If the party is taking encounters one at a time in a dungeon, just have the creatures call for help. If they take a long rest before a boss roll two random encounters and add it to the boss fight as they call for reinforcements. Not even using the dreaded T-phrase, you can make multi part encounters to force a fight to be deadly without being rocket-tag esque right in the book.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kbrakke, post: 7120773, member: 6781797"] My short answer, make time constraints, increase average encounter difficulty and reduce number of encounters. 1/2 encounters per short rest, 2/3 short rest per long rest. If they want to long rest and we're not in a position where something is in danger they rest. In a game primarily driven by story I usually skip encounters where the party will certainly emerge victorious and have no penalties for resting afterwards. This usually means that overland travel in a game where the story is the forefront is glossed over. In princes specifically they ended up taming three wyvverns so I never did overland travel, but I probably would have stopped doing it around level 5 in either case. Because I value my time and that of my players, and having played 5e for a while I am confident in my ability to make extra hard encounters that aren't just a game of rocket tag. This usually means doing things like having clusters of lower level monsters harass the players, and purposely having something they are strong against attack them in numbers. In princes I generally made everything connected, cultists would call for help and alert others quickly. This usually results in a pitched multi-part encounter. In effect, I gave them two battles in the course of one battle as well as make the prospect of resting difficult. For any given keep/temple/sub-temple the rooms are connected, enemies can talk and fetch reinforcements. The party fled about 25% of the time (fire temple, earth keep, fire keep), were close to death by the end of 33% (Air temple, Fire sub-temple, Water Keep, Earth sub-temple) and the others were either skipped because of story sequencing or easier due to good planning. One tactic I used that you're going to despise because is, when they got about 4 rooms from the final portal where a prophet was located, they would hear the start of a ritual. Every time that happened they immediately grew tense and debated how much they could rest. I never placed a time limit on the ritual, simply said they heard it, my plan was to allow a short rest there, but they wanted to charge in usually, hence the near death experiences. In my curse of strahd party they could basically rest wherever they wanted, but because there were so many players they were under leveled, and so many encounters ended up being individually deadly though, as a group they eventually over came them. Really the plan is as follows: Figure out what parts of the adventure should be an adventuring day usually they are pretty obvious. Fighting through a temple in PotA should be an adventuring day. Going through the fane should be an adventuring day. Fighting through one of the giant strongholds should be an adventuring day, being trapped in castle ravenloft should be an adventuring day. If the party finds that they are overwhelmed and flee or otherwise safely take a rest, reset the adventuring day. Each adventure has random encounter tables, a bunch of populated rooms, and other tips on how to add enemies, so do that. They ones they killed are still dead, but that doesn't mean that nothing changed. I am a particular fan of starting an encounter, having the party think it's cake, and then have the second wave show up. Nothing makes them panic spend resources more then suddenly thinking it's a lot harder. How did people solve this problem in other games? Having played most editions I don't know how the problem really differs between editions. In 3.5/Pathfinder we have wands of CLW and when the caster runs low on slots we long rest. In 4e players could just use their dailies and rest, and in basic we could leave a dungeon and spend a night camping to regain spell for the wizard, using any spare cure spells to get more than the 1hp/day. Unless I'm playing wrong, nothing fundamentally changed about the nature of pacing between editions, other than in basic it takes a week or more to be "fully rested" and in 3.5 onwards it only took a night. I distinctly remember in 4e when I was running my players through some one shots I made, they always had some time pressure. In an investigation they quickly realized that their target would murder again and wanted to stop it, in another they realized there was a ritual they needed to stop. In pathfinder, in the adventure path as things got to higher levels there was an external threat they needed to prepare for. As a player in an adventure path for pathfinder right now every single book has some sort of threat with a timer that we are uncovering, we always feel like we are one step behind and blow through money and spells to get to the next encounter. Having a time limit has been the only way to ensure the players aren't at full strength for every encounter, outside of explicit effects that change how resting works. Even suggestions to change the resting rules don't change the fundamental problem. No matter how you measure and do resting, without some outside force the party can just rest until they are at full strength. Also, I'm not clear on the end goal of this. My goal, when running a published adventure, is to make the players think they could die during plot relevant parts, but ultimately emerge victorious. If through good planning they come to a boss well rested, I will ensure the boss has minions with them(Usually more than written in the module) and try to focus fire on one player to give the impression that things are going poorly when that player goes down to single digit hit points. They usually turn the corner there and start using everything they have and emerge victorious with only the feeling of danger. If they got jacked up on the way there I will usually run it as written and try and spread the damage around so that every player feels individually in danger, rather than thinking one player is in danger. They will be tense and every turn doubles in time as they go over every option. (I live for the moments when they players start searching everything they have and making tenuous plans that are met with "I know it's risky, but it's the only chance we have") If that's the goal, just make the boss encounters harder by adding more minions if they rested, I would strongly suggest making it a two part fight with a wave to soften them before the boss arrives or is in a clear place to fight. The party resting won't change the level of danger for their boss battle, though it could make their approach easier. If that's not the goal then I am at a loss. If you want to make overland travel a more stressful and danger filled endeavor then I can positively say that the current resting rates do not allow for this easily. If that is your goal then changing what constitutes a short and long rest are your best bets. I am running a hexcrawl style game and have changed the resting rules so that they only full heal on a long rest in a settlement, otherwise they have to spend hit dice. It's not working quite as well as I want because they have 3 druids and a paladin, but the idea is reasonable. I agree that the current resting rates and stated encounters in the books if run simply won't always result in a party feeling in danger when they get to a boss fight. However I think the modifications you need to make are both supported by the book and not a drastic change that requires a large amount of effort. If the party is taking encounters one at a time in a dungeon, just have the creatures call for help. If they take a long rest before a boss roll two random encounters and add it to the boss fight as they call for reinforcements. Not even using the dreaded T-phrase, you can make multi part encounters to force a fight to be deadly without being rocket-tag esque right in the book. [/QUOTE]
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