D&D 5E Short rests and encounters a day.

[Horwath]

I mean, if it helps someone to not break immersion to have people jumping up after a grueling battle after an hour, it doesn't really hurt anything. I prefer faster adventuring times myself- I felt 4e's 5 minute rests were just fine. I don't mind doing that for spending Hit Dice or getting back your Action Surge and Second Wind, but that might cause problems with Ki and Sorcery points.

Sorcery points are long rest.
Others are just "one battle resource".

 

[aco175]

My days are a bit varied like most tables where you are on a road and get one fight over 3 days or in a dungeon and have 20 fights. I would tend to go 3 fights before resting and another 2 before resting again. There may be another 1-2 encounters before long rest in a good day.

Some may depend on what people call encounters. Designing a dungeon I include a trap or puzzle as an encounter, or encountering a NPC and that may go good or bad. These may no drain any PC resources and then the PCs go 6 encounters leaving some DMs wondering.

 

[el-remmen]

Just to provide a different POV: I have not once paid attention to # of encounters a day in running 5E and think people worry about that way too much. I also think the difference in short and long rest powers/classes is one of the strengths of 5E and I love it. I still may shorten short rests to 20 minutes for my next go round tho.

 

[James Gasik]

Sorcery points are long rest.
Others are just "one battle resource".

I couldn't remember. Ki points are short rest though right? I'm not sure if those should be refreshed for every battle or not. I'm sure the Warlock would appreciate having more spells though.

 

[Oofta]

I use the gritty rest variant because it suits the pacing and style of games that I run. I tend to do more mysteries and urban adventures with exploration forays. We usually have between 5 and 10 encounters between long rests with a short overnight rest or three, it varies.

I find it works well for us, and yes, in part I do it because it feels more realistic.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

How many encounters and short rest do you actually have on an average adventuring day?
I'm curious how other groups usually do it.
The games I play in, it is widely random.

I'm wondering how it would turn out to just have short or long rests for most things.
I'm thinking short rests would be easier to balance but I'm not sure.

Either increase short rest abilities to long rests or turn long rest abilities into short rest.
Example:
Ki (2*monk level) + Wis mod regains on long rest.
or
Casters having having less spells maybe about 1/2 the first 5 spell levels and allow them to be regained on a short rest.

Monks, battlemasters and most other short rest -based classes could probably quite reasonably work off "As an action, recover your superiority dice/Ki. You may do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus between long Rests."
I'm a bit more iffy when it comes to Warlocks for that rule, but it may well still work.

 

[Joshy]

Monks, battlemasters and most other short rest -based classes could probably quite reasonably work off "As an action, recover your superiority dice/Ki. You may do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus between long Rests."
I'm a bit more iffy when it comes to Warlocks for that rule, but it may well still work.

Maybe take a full round action that also ends concentration or it is concentration so a hit could interrupt it?
Maybe it could be something like an action that ends concentration and provokes opportunity attacks. Only regain if you do not take damage before you end your turn.

 

[Stormonu]

I've changed short rests to 15 minutes in my game. Depending, a group might get in 3-5 short rests, usually less.

Still working on tweaking long rests primarily as I don't like the "get all HP back in a single night", but don't want long rest abilities to take a week to recover. I'm thinking something along the lines that resting in a dungeon = no HD recovery, resting on the road = 1/2 HD recovery, resting in a safe place = full HD recovery.

 

[James Gasik]

Honestly, the CR system never takes "players are not at full hit points" into account. And since enemies are almost never encountered with anything less than full resources, there's no real reason to limit PC healing, IMO.

Again, I understand if this breaks immersion, but so many things about the game do, like people going from bleeding out to popping up and fighting at full strength after a miserable Healing Word is applied to them.

 

[Odysseus]

I've been running short rests 5 minutes, long rests 1 hour. 2 short rests per long rest. long rests must be 24 hours apart.
And that seems to run very well with the style of campaigns and adventures I run.