D&D 5E Resource-Draining Model D&D Doesn't Work (for me)

Another option I have heard but rarely used is to skip all the little encounters and get to the bigger ones. You just say, "After several hours of battling minor skirmishes with goblins and the occasional bugbear you arrive at the main gates of The Castle of Arrrrrrrrgh. Everyone take 3d6 damage or cross off a spell for each d6 you wish to avoid." This skips a lot of little things and gives some resource drain. You could come up with a chart or such to detail exactly what is lost, but you also wish to keep things simple.

Another thing I do is have one of the players track initiative. It takes some work off the DM and speeds some up, but not much. The other thing I do is have the players roll damage on themselves. I roll to hit and tell them d6+2 or such and get to move on with the next attack. Some posters here say it is a bit cruel, but it works for my group. A last thing is I have the casters roll the saves when they cast spells. I just tell them the monster has +1 to dex or something.

My recommendations in no particular order:

• Skip the trivial fights. I don't bother with anything less than "medium" and, if I know I'm not going to get recommended number of encounters in I crank that up to "hard" or "deadly". Sometimes I'll ask for goal and approach to a scenario and just skip rolling dice.
• Pre-draw maps, or don't use detailed maps. I made blocks out of clay (some 1 inch, some 2 inch square, some 3 inch square) and use those to represent everything from buildings to trees. I've never been good at theater of the mind, but it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to set up a fight.
• I don't bother with PC mapping or detailed exploration. We only draw things out if it's confusing or there's a fight.
• Depending on style of campaign and pace, go with the alternate rules where a short rest is overnight and a long rest is a week or more.
• Carry over from one game to the next. There's no reason to say people have a long rest after the game session. Have people note HP, spell slots, conditions, etc at the end of the game. Next session picks up where you left off, even if that was in the middle of a dungeon.

Retreater said:

Herein is the problem (for me). My group gets together twice a month, if we're lucky. We get about 3 hours of "quality" time each session (after taking out breaks, snacks, general socializing, etc.) Knowing that the majority of our time is going to be spent with "another ho-hum goblin encounter that will only challenge us by spending a 1st level spell and a few arrows" or a trap that might do 1-6 hp of damage, it just doesn't seem a good way to spend time.

Any one else experiencing this? Any work-arounds?

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Some work around options:

1) No combats. Focus on roleplaying, investigation, and skill challenges. Set up the events and then the next adventure can be combat heavy. Essentially avoid easy combats and focus on large dramatic combats every 2-3 sessions.

2) Streamline your turns. Simple encounters should take 5-10 min. IME. A simple encounter should take 2-3 rounds. No more than 30sec per player and DM gives you 6-7 minutes. That should be plenty of time for a simple encounter.

3) Feature deadly or 2x or 3x deadly encounters when you want / need a more engaging event.

4) Make the encounter mean something. Even a simple encounter can move the story forward. Even if the combat is over in 1 round, there are important things that can be learned or gained. Make it about something more than resource management.

5) Use active defense. Have the players roll for saves to avoid being hit instead of DM to hit. Makes things go a bit faster (or can) and keeps the players more engaged.

6) DM pre-rolls. I ran an adventure for my son's birthday party once and I knew we would be playing with a bunch of kids that hadn't played before. To save time I pre-rolled about 200 d20 rolls on a sheet of paper (I used a rolling app) an djust checked them off as I went. It worked great and I started using it for future games. For dramatic moments I still sometimes rolled out in the open, but other than that I used the chart.

7) Use average damage. Saves a lot of time as a DM.

8) Run away! Have enemies run when there down and out. You can morale back into the game if you don't like deciding on your own.

9) Maps. I am not sure how you are using them, but I almost always have them pre-printed or drawn and just reveal them as needed. I don't have the PCs make maps.

aco175 said:

Another option I have heard but rarely used is to skip all the little encounters and get to the bigger ones. You just say, "After several hours of battling minor skirmishes with goblins and the occasional bugbear you arrive at the main gates of The Castle of Arrrrrrrrgh. Everyone take 3d6 damage or cross off a spell for each d6 you wish to avoid." This skips a lot of little things and gives some resource drain. You could come up with a chart or such to detail exactly what is lost, but you also wish to keep things simple.

Another thing I do is have one of the players track initiative. It takes some work off the DM and speeds some up, but not much. The other thing I do is have the players roll damage on themselves. I roll to hit and tell them d6+2 or such and get to move on with the next attack. Some posters here say it is a bit cruel, but it works for my group. A last thing is I have the casters roll the saves when they cast spells. I just tell them the monster has +1 to dex or something.

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I shifted to players making all tolls long shot in multiple systems and it has tended to speed things up.

Retreater said:

One of the key mechanics of D&D over the years has been the idea of resource-draining encounters. You burn torches, you fire arrows, you lose hit points to swarms of mooks, you cast spells from encounter-to-encounter, you scrape by with just enough strength left in you to fight the Big Bad at the end of the dungeon. Or you camp in a "safe area," hoping your characters can recover their resources without random encounters that further drag out the game and spend more resources.

Herein is the problem (for me). My group gets together twice a month, if we're lucky. We get about 3 hours of "quality" time each session (after taking out breaks, snacks, general socializing, etc.) Knowing that the majority of our time is going to be spent with "another ho-hum goblin encounter that will only challenge us by spending a 1st level spell and a few arrows" or a trap that might do 1-6 hp of damage, it just doesn't seem a good way to spend time.

Any one else experiencing this? Any work-arounds?

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First, I pity groups that meet infrequently for so little time. Our group plays twice a month (roughly), but our sessions are typically 12-15 hours so we can get a lot done.

I've never minded the resource-drain since that is how it works (you fire arrows, you lose some, you get some back, etc.), but game-time is one resource we hate getting drained.

We keep the socializing to the first 15-30 minutes, reviewing and updating characters and the current situation in the adventure all at the same time.

Some time-saving tips that work for us:
Roll Initiative only once or use side-based Initiative. Don't roll every round. The complexity it adds to the combat is not worth the time.
Use average damage for monsters, and even encourage the players to as well. Not rolling damage or having to calculate it each time saves tons of time and the game is just as much fun!
Use a morale system. If the players are steamrolling the encounter, the monsters should flee if they can IMO. Ex. Once we encountered a band of orcs and such and our half-orc called out to them to turn back or be destroyed. The Sorcerer then hit them with fireball, average damage (28) is nearly enough to kill an orc even if it saves. Several were killed, the rest fled immediately.

Easy encounters should go quickly (5-10 minutes max). If you have many foes (like dozens of stirges attacking a group of 7th-level characters) I suggest mob-style rules. The ones in the DMG work for us.
Otherwise, focus on narrating them and even award XP if you want, but stress medium or harder encounters. While you don't want every fight to be a knock-down-drag-out fight, those are the most exciting ones. Every once in a while, play out the easy encounters just to remind the players how powerful they are.

Moderate and hard encounters can vary from 5 minutes to 20-30 even IME. Deadly encounters can run an hour or more depending on the number of foes and the complexity of the set-up.

Other ideas to speed things up:
- draw your map(s) prior to the session (edit: looks like some people already mentioned this)
- roll initiative for monsters prior to the session
- roll initiative for PCs at the start of the session and then at the end of each combat so you have it ready when needed
- sometimes have what’s left of weak enemies run away or surrender when numbers are reduced by half or leader goes down

Retreater said:

Any work-arounds?

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The first work around is not bashing, just a truth: pick a different system that does not strongly have attrition required as a balance point in the game. There are a lot of great games out there, and finding one that fits your table is a good thing.

This really isn't a bash - I love 5e. I'm just not closed to other games to meet other needs.

A work around in 5e is to use one of the D&D variant to change the period of rests. If a short rest is overnight and a long rest is a week of down time, then your wearing down happens over a longer period of just meaningful encounters. Now, you may not get a long rest for several sessions - that's okay. I've run that and it works.

Oh, and for true trivial fights, ones that have to be there because it makes sense in the narrative but it's not going to eat up any long terms resources? Just montage them. Go around the table and have each player describe a cool thing they do in the battle to resolve it. 5 minutes tops, players get to have a bit of narrative control and everyone gets a minute of spotlight.

One thing that isn't a workaround is always throwing few, hard encounters. That's a recurring myth. There is a place for it, but not as a whole-campaign workaround because it doesn't work like that. There are a lot of long rest resources like spells that last for a full encounter, or have greater effect on either more enemies (area of effect spells) or more powerful enemies (crowd control - with only having 2 good saves of 6 you can still affect them even if more powerful). It also hurts short rest characters who if this was multiple encounters would have had a short rest int he middle and have their resources twice for it. It just plays havock with balance between the classes when used as the only model and a constant replacement for the design point.

Really, a good DM will vary up - sometimes throwing a few hard encounters, sometimes curb-stomp encounters a party ca really feel like heroes, some that they should consider running away from. Some adventuring "days" (weeks with that DMG variant) will be at the 6-8 recommend encounters, some less, and some more.

One fantastic memory I have as a player was we needed to hold off for a certain period of time and the DM pushed us past the end of our resources with a number of encounters. We got clever with consumables and such. Then another encounter and we really had to scrape the barrel to survive. And then a tough encounter, and we had such fear of death it was fantastic when we eventually triumphed. (D&D characters are hard to kill - you can push.)

DM Dave1 said:

Other ideas to speed things up:
- draw your map(s) prior to the session (edit: looks like some people already mentioned this)
- roll initiative for monsters prior to the session
- roll initiative for PCs at the start of the session and then at the end of each combat so you have it ready when needed
- sometimes have what’s left of weak enemies run away or surrender when numbers are reduced by half or leader goes down

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Also just use the average damage for NPC attacks unless it's a crit.

Fanaelialae said:

I've definitely had game sessions where, between RP and debating plans, there really wasn't time for more than one encounter.

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Great, but long rest resources dont come back at the end of a session.

They come back once you've completed a long rest.

I know it's convenient to 'long rest at the end of a session' for many, but as long as your Players are accurately tracking resources (and you audit the suckers with a few questions at the start of the next session) it shouldnt be a problem.

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OP: Its impossible to move away from DnD's central resource management mechanic. The whole rule system is (mechanically) a resource management game.

Hit points, Short rest abilities, Long rest abilities, Spell slots, Ki points, Rages, Smites, Superiority dice, Action surge, Wild shape, XP, GP, Charges, Sorcery points, potions, Hit Dice, Lay on Hands, etc etc etc etc. All finite daily resources.

Combat is fundamentally about hit point attrition (i.e. resource management). The best way to quickly reduce HP is to use finite X/ Short or Long rest abilities (action sure, Ki points, spell slots, sup dice, rage, smites etc) and once combat is over, those HP are regained by another finite resource (Hit dice, potions, Spells, LoH etc).

Players of course know this, and generally will (at every chance they get) attempt to recover those resources via Resting, which if left unchecked often ends up in the phenomenon called the '5 minute work day' where PCs Nova strike encounters, then fall back to rest and recover all resources.

The good DM polices this conduct via a combination of [doom clocks, 'random' encounters, a gentlemans agreement with the players, table etiquette, HR on resting, environmental constraints). The bad DM dials up encounter difficulty to match the power of the PCs (this only forces the PCs to Nova, entrenching the problem, and has other negative consequences on class and encounter balance, and greatly increases the chance of Rocket Tag TPK's).

Basically, there is no way around the issue if you're playing DnD. Mechanically it's a resource management system. If you want a resource free system (and there really arent any), I'd suggest looking at games like Savage Worlds or similar, where resource management is on the low end.

Flamestrike said:

Great, but long rest resources dont come back at the end of a session.

They come back once you've completed a long rest.

I know it's convenient to 'long rest at the end of a session' for many, but as long as your Players are accurately tracking resources (and you audit the suckers with a few questions at the start of the next session) it shouldnt be a problem.

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I realize that. But the group in question is composed of six newbies. They still don't always successfully track their resources within a session; I have no faith that they'll track them beyond the session. Think me lazy if you wish, but I have no interest in doing all the work of tracking from week to week. Hence, the default for that campaign is that a week passes between sessions. They'll probably get there eventually, but they're not there yet. They waste a lot of time in debate. I could certainly step on it as a DM, set a timer, and fix the issue but this is a casual game with some guys from work. I'd rather they enjoy themselves (which they do) than optimize their fun into misery.

With my experienced group, I don't have the same issues. They can oftentimes get through four encounters in the same time it would take the other group to get through one (and that's with time saving tricks like using ToM).