D&D 5E Short Rest Poll

[Larrin]

I've been a fan of the 5 minute short rest in 4e for since I first heard of it, and it wasn't until I started thinking out of the '4e design box' that I've had any compassion for people wanting longer ones, and in fact considered the benefits to longer short rests.

My interpretation of "By-the-book" encounters in 4e is that there are two relevant assumptions:
1) it is a full xp budget fight of Level+n.
2) You had a short rest before hand.

Thus you'd better make short rests short enough that you can fit them into the shortest believable timescales between battles in which characters could rest, and that is about 5 minutes. And I like that, It allows combats to be fun and full of encounter powers and all sorts of things. I never questioned 5 minute short rests.

But I've recently questioned is Assumption #1, that each fight should be a full xp-beudget fight, which is definitely a 4e artifact. I'm fine with the idea in general, but there are times when it is a waste of time (random encounters with 6 wolves that take an hour to resolve, but no real benefit to players fun) or not the right flavor for the fight (sweeping through a castle room by room, I posted a thread about that recently)

I started wondering "What if a party of 6 only fought 3 creatures of equal level?" and because of the short rest assumption, the answer is "massacre". I _experienced_ a module that asked the question "How long does it take 6 PCs with 12 non-minion NPC allies to kill a level appropriate full-xp budget fight?" and the answer was "WHY WOULD ANY DM DO THAT TO HIS PLAYERS?". I started wanting to change the way 4e encounters were scaled, and the biggest obstacle is that pesky 5 minute rest making small fights too easy and big fights stupidly large (because monsters have to be tough to take on a 5-minute-rested 4e PC).

So now when I look at 5e, and its lack of assuming a full xp-budget fight, I see a definite benefit to characters not getting too well rested too quickly. Short rests don't need to be very short because you don't "need" a short rest to start a new fight. So it should be a length that draws a distinct line between situations that you need need to fight battle after battle with no rest, and situations where you can really recoup after a fight.

In my estimations: the difference between 5 mins and 10 mins is irrelevant, really, you aren't changing anything there. The next step of any relevance in 30 mins, which is believable. I'd say its the minimum time at which you can easily say: "You've got time for a rest". Anything longer than that is being intentionally bothersome. So 30 mins is a narratively appropriate timescale for a rest to be.

 

[Gadget]

I don't like the idea of five minutes and you get hit points back. I would prefer a longer period based on how many hit points you get back. Part of the game is to play tactically wise knowing when to keep going and when to stop. I don't like the idea that you have to be at full hit points every minute of the day.

Those of you who have used this have you had players get pissy if you interrupt them during their rest? I have a friend who DMed 4E at the gaming store and he had an issue with players feeling like he was cheating and railroading them if he interrupted their rest.

In a 4e mindset, your healing surges are your strategic resource that are husbanded, not necessarily Hit Points. It may not have always worked out this way in practice, but there are play style issues involved as well. I can't speak for your friend or his/her players, but if the DM was constantly contriving ways to keep players from achieving a short rest, I could see the players getting upset. On the other hand, it is reasonable that nearby dangerous would react to the sounds of a battle in the next room; It all comes down to one of the banes (or strengths, depending on you view) of 4E: encounter design. For example, 4e could work perfectly well with a short rest changed to an over night duration and a long rest becoming recuperating in a more safe, secure location. Adventure and encounter design would have to be adjusted to account for such things to some degree, but it could work fine, especially for less combat focused games.

It should be noted that the whole 'short rest' phenomenon is merely a formalization of play styles that were quite common in previous versions of the game: wands of cure light used after every encounter, virtual kegs of healing potions consumed and found along the way, cleric healing people up after, or during, a battle, etc. I've know of people who scoff at the 'ridiculousness' of this 'martial healing' offered as a 'crutch' to players that makes the game to gonzo and unbelievable for their tastes; yet they have games where healing potions are more common than weeds and healing wands are practically growing on trees, which, in its own way, is just as gonzo to me, particularly from a world building perspective. Certainly this playstyle is not indicative of many who enjoy true old school resource management, or very gritty games, or other play styles that do not take kindly to easier hit point recovery, yet I think it was the perceived prevalence of the the above play style that lead to short rests, along with the desire to reduce the dependence on 'having to have a healbot (cleric) along'.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My "brief rest to recouperate and heal up a bit, but not all the way" is 8 hours.

One night.

This is because for me, all damage is potentially deadly. Which means all damage is at least somewhat physical. Which means scrapes, sprains, blood, tearing, even breaks or deep, oozing wounds. 5 minutes or even an hour isn't really going to treat those wounds. Sleep on it.

So my short rest is 8 hours. From the time you get up in the morning to the time you make camp for the night, the only healing you're going to get is going to come from special abilities/magic.

 

[Elf Witch]

In a 4e mindset, your healing surges are your strategic resource that are husbanded, not necessarily Hit Points. It may not have always worked out this way in practice, but there are play style issues involved as well. I can't speak for your friend or his/her players, but if the DM was constantly contriving ways to keep players from achieving a short rest, I could see the players getting upset. On the other hand, it is reasonable that nearby dangerous would react to the sounds of a battle in the next room; It all comes down to one of the banes (or strengths, depending on you view) of 4E: encounter design. For example, 4e could work perfectly well with a short rest changed to an over night duration and a long rest becoming recuperating in a more safe, secure location. Adventure and encounter design would have to be adjusted to account for such things to some degree, but it could work fine, especially for less combat focused games.

It should be noted that the whole 'short rest' phenomenon is merely a formalization of play styles that were quite common in previous versions of the game: wands of cure light used after every encounter, virtual kegs of healing potions consumed and found along the way, cleric healing people up after, or during, a battle, etc. I've know of people who scoff at the 'ridiculousness' of this 'martial healing' offered as a 'crutch' to players that makes the game to gonzo and unbelievable for their tastes; yet they have games where healing potions are more common than weeds and healing wands are practically growing on trees, which, in its own way, is just as gonzo to me, particularly from a world building perspective. Certainly this playstyle is not indicative of many who enjoy true old school resource management, or very gritty games, or other play styles that do not take kindly to easier hit point recovery, yet I think it was the perceived prevalence of the the above play style that lead to short rests, along with the desire to reduce the dependence on 'having to have a healbot (cleric) along'.

I only have to go on what he told me. And that was he based it on where they rested, if it was possible others heard the combat, random encounter rolls. I played with him as a DM in a 3.5 game and this sounds like how he ran that. Sometimes depending on all of this our rest was interrupted and the casters were effected and if we were out of healing well that suffered too. What bothered him was the players assumption that it is given and that the DM is breaking the rules by doing it.

I find the whole idea of tons of healing wands and potions to be gonzo. I prefer a more gritty game.

 

[Balesir]

I'm pretty sure that our base assumptions here vary, probably due to playstyle differences. What you're saying makes me think of the time Varsuvius explained how often encounters are checked for (in OotS): once along the way. It sounds like you probably fall closer to that approach than I do- for me, the frequency of encounter checks depends strictly upon the world.

I suppose that's possible, but I don't think so. I think we just define what is "system" differently.

I'm not saying that there should be no consistent correspondance between system and game world - I'm just saying that that correspondance is not part of the "system" and, as such, does not need to be specified in the system. It needs to be specified (in a way that supports playstyle) by the world creator.

There might be more or less depending on the pcs' mode of travel, but if they ride horses for forty days, there might be several sessions of random encounters before they reach their destination. I don't arbitrarily change the world to suit the pcs; I feel very strongly about the milieu standing on its own two feet and treat the campaign very much in the fashion that Gygax wrote about, as a setting with many independent pcs adventuring in it.

Sure, I hear you. The correspondance between system and game world should be invariate for all but the most player-authored drama style games.

But my point is this: those forty days of horseback riding are simply an arbitrary number of "wandering monster" checks from the point of view of the system. The journey is measured, for system purposes, as a number of "ration use" cycles and a number of "random encounter" cycles and so on. Clearly, those cycles should correspond to some imagined physical distance and imagined number of in-game time units in the imagined game world - and those correlations should remain stable for that specific game world - but the actual scale of correlation chosen is really arbitrary. It is a choice to be made by the game world designer. It makes no actual difference to the system what conversion ratios the world designer chooses - even though it does of course make a difference to the imagined world.

So, yes, you could arbitrarily set the scales, but I don't- I set them according to in-world logic. Therefore, the length of a short rest has a dramatic effect on play in my campaign.

But where does the "in-world logic" come from? You make it up!

My point is that the ratio of imagined, game-world time to a short rest, the number of random encounters experienced per short rest and the imagined density or frequency of occurrence of "wandering monsters" in the game-world form a "design circle". You can set any two and the third will follow. But the only part of the whole circle that constitutes part of the "system" is the frequency of random encounters per short rest. The rest are not "system" but the defined relation between the system and the imagined game-world, and in setting them you are defining one parameter while you have two degrees of freedom - in other words, you can set either one to be whatever you like and there will be (at least) one value of the other that completes the circle.

Now, what you appear to be saying is that you have a specific preference for the number of random encounters per short rest. Cool; hopefully that will be a system parameter that can be set according to the players' taste; I see no real reason why not. But a change to it is a change to the system, and this should be recognised.

Further to that, you have certain standards of "verisimilitude"*, it seems, that apply limits to the time duration in which this frequency of random encounter might arise. Again, cool - you can choose any duration that your sense of verisimilitude requires - the extra degree of freedom I noted above will allow you to do so with no problem. I am saying, however, that this duration does not need to be specified by the system. Every world designer should be able to set it to suit his or her tastes; there is no need to dictate it and, indeed, I think it would be positively deleterious to do so.


*: I think what this really means is that you have a clear and set vision of how certain things work in the world you have designed/are designing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, provided you don't expect that vision to apply for other world designers.

 

[pemerton]

have you had players get pissy if you interrupt them during their rest? I have a friend who DMed 4E at the gaming store and he had an issue with players feeling like he was cheating and railroading them if he interrupted their rest.

If you are running 4e, there is little point to interrupting short rests. Unless done as part of a deliberate feature of encounter design and adjudication, it will just tend to produce boring encounters in which the players don't have access to their more interesting abilities (ie their PCs' encounter powers).

This relates to [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s exchange with [MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION]: interrupting a short rest in 4e is really just adding to the difficulty of the encounter in question. (Even though, within the fiction, the events are experienced as two encounters.) When you think of it in such terms, does it make for fun play to frame the PCs into the more difficult encounter? If so, interrupt away. If not, don't.

 

[Elf Witch]

If you are running 4e, there is little point to interrupting short rests. Unless done as part of a deliberate feature of encounter design and adjudication, it will just tend to produce boring encounters in which the players don't have access to their more interesting abilities (ie their PCs' encounter powers).

This relates to [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s exchange with [MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION]: interrupting a short rest in 4e is really just adding to the difficulty of the encounter in question. (Even though, within the fiction, the events are experienced as two encounters.) When you think of it in such terms, does it make for fun play to frame the PCs into the more difficult encounter? If so, interrupt away. If not, don't.

But players need to play smart too. If you know that halfway through a battle one of the NPCs fled you don't finish the battle, hang around and loot then announce you are going to take a rest in the same room and not expected that just maybe they went to get reinforcements.

That is the kind of thinking that really bugs me the idea that the entire world goes on pause while the PCs rest.

 

[pemerton]

But players need to play smart too. If you know that halfway through a battle one of the NPCs fled you don't finish the battle, hang around and loot then announce you are going to take a rest in the same room and not expected that just maybe they went to get reinforcements.

Maybe. It depends on where the fun of play consists in. If it's going to make for a boring TPK, is it good GMing to have the NPC return with reinforcements? Rather than, say, hide in a cupboard hoping that the PCs will pass by without noticing him/her?

 

[Elf Witch]

Maybe. It depends on where the fun of play consists in. If it's going to make for a boring TPK, is it good GMing to have the NPC return with reinforcements? Rather than, say, hide in a cupboard hoping that the PCs will pass by without noticing him/her?

As a DM that is not fun for me. I can't stand having to bend over backwards to save players from their stupidity brought on by a sense of entitlement that they are special because they are PCs. As a DM I would never punish players because they forgot something or TPK them because the dice is rolling badly hence the reason I always roll behind a screen. I want my players to have fun but I am not their bitch I need to have fun as well. I have had NPCs change their minds because to confront the PCs right then and there might be a to much to handle in their current situation. But if players do something as dumb as knowing an NPC got away and didn't even bother to put a look out at the doors, nor choose someplace safer to rest I would let the consequences happen.

My fun comes from creating a world that is interesting to my players. Running NPCs who my players loath and want dead or who my players will do anything to help. A game where the choices they make really matters for both good and bad.

I have never TPK a party but I have let PCs die because they were stupid.

As a player I expect bad decisions to have consequences and good choices to get rewarded. I would find the game very unsatisfying if I knew the DM was going to pull his punches every time we we did some really bone headed.

 

[GX.Sigma]

As a DM that is not fun for me. I can't stand having to bend over backwards to save players from their stupidity brought on by a sense of entitlement that they are special because they are PCs.

I could not agree more, and I haven't been able to describe this feeling with words until you posted this, so thank you.

However, I think the key word in pemerton's post above was "boring." 4e is designed such that a single encounter is pretty much a full game by itself, taking at least an hour of gameplay. Therefore, if an encounter isn't a close fight, it's a gigantic waste of everyone's precious time--especially if they don't have their encounter powers back. Imagine a full hour of everyone going "I attack... miss... I attack... hit..." until they realize they're getting pretty low on hp and need to run. In a system like D&D Next, that encounter would work ("He comes back with 10 wights and casts cloudkill." "I'm dead." "I get the f*** outta there."). In 4e, it just doesn't.

So this conversation isn't really about one DMing style vs. another, it's about how 4e implies/requires only a certain subset of DMing styles.