D&D 5E Avoiding the 15m workday.

[Chocolategravy]

- If you want old school feel, play OSR, 5E doesn't have it
- For 5E skip the first 3 levels, the balance is awful, lots of random death from a crit.
- If you need to rest, go rest, there is always something to fight. If it wrecks the adventure, too bad for the DM.
- This is a role-playing game, unless you're role-playing suicidal chickens, really, go rest.
- The encounter guidelines say 6-8 encounters a day but nothing on how many rests in between. Really, go rest.
- Dice happen. Go rest.

 

[Sacrosanct]

- If you want old school feel, play OSR, 5E doesn't have it

As someone who's been playing AD&D as my preferred edition from 1981 to literally two months ago, 5e does in fact "have it". It all comes down to how you prefer your style of play. 5e allows me to play just like AD&D has done all these years. It will not, however, magically transform you into an OSR style player just by playing it. Neither will AD&D if you play it with a modern new school style.

- For 5E skip the first 3 levels, the balance is awful, lots of random death from a crit.

I though you just got done saying it's not OSR

- If you need to rest, go rest, there is always something to fight. If it wrecks the adventure, too bad for the DM.

Um...how does resting wreck the adventure for the DM? Players should be able to attempt to rest whenever they want. They should not be able to rest whenever they want. That's a big difference. Players should have the empowerment to make that risk assessment. Doesn't mean it always works.

Get beat down after the first 2 battles and need to leave and rest? OK. But by the time you come back, now they are expecting you and have acted accordingly. No sweat off my DM brow there.

Just had a tough fight and want to rest right away where you're at? OK, too bad that won't happen because within minutes other monsters in that lair you happen to still be in know you're there now and are coming to kick your arse out. Again, no sweat off my DM brow.

 

[Remathilis]

TL;DR, So far in 5e, we have had several sessions where we have had about 15m of action and we are all spent, is the game designed for this? can I avoid this?

From what I read, it seems like you kinda got borked on a few things beyond the game's control.

* Entering through the Nothic's tunnel puts you against the hardest foe in the area. It SHOULD have left you begging for a short rest.
* You have 4 members. Remember how there are 5 pre-gens? That's important. LMoP assumes all five members are active. If you lacked one, nearly every encounter becomes 1 step harder.
* Your dice were trying to till you. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about that.
* LMoP was written before the CR/XP budget math was finalized (its STILL not finalized). Some of those encounters are harder than they look. (When I ran it, I removed multi-attack from the Ruffians just to keep things fair).

Though honestly, retreat-and-rest (aka the 15 min workday) is a fairly old problem. People look at Keep of the Borderlands as the iconic low-level adventure, but every group I've ever played it with did so through multiple retreats and rests. Spells were just as limited; there was no second winds or short-rest refreshes. Your magic-user used his sleep spell on some kobolds you were OUT. Most groups did it through superior numbers (6+ members) and frequent ambush-and-retreats. THAT is Old School.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Though honestly, retreat-and-rest (aka the 15 min workday) is a fairly old problem. People look at Keep of the Borderlands as the iconic low-level adventure, but every group I've ever played it with did so through multiple retreats and rests..

My experience was much less this (retreating all the time), and much more "hire henchmen". Old school D&D was all about hirelings and henchmen, especially at low levels.

 

[Boarstorm]

IIRC most bonus actions that can be used for an attack require that the attack action be taken in order to get the bonus attack. For off hand attacks and monk's martial arts this is the case. I'm not sure about other bonus attacks.

If that's true, I've been doing it wrong. Can you point that rule out to me?

 

[Jer]

My experience was much less this (retreating all the time), and much more "hire henchmen". Old school D&D was all about hirelings and henchmen, especially at low levels.

We often did both. And in the early days we also would play games where all of us would "play" two or three characters simultaneously during a dungeon crawl, so that you'd have enough characters to mob a dungeon and so that when you inevitably lost a character you had a few to fall back on.

But yes - if you want a true old school feel you should be hiring lots of henchmen. And packing up mules to carry excess equipment. Remember that mules can also double as pit detection systems when you run out of henchmen and ten foot poles.

 

[Sacrosanct]

We often did both. And in the early days we also would play games where all of us would "play" two or three characters simultaneously during a dungeon crawl, so that you'd have enough characters to mob a dungeon and so that when you inevitably lost a character you had a few to fall back on.

But yes - if you want a true old school feel you should be hiring lots of henchmen. And packing up mules to carry excess equipment. Remember that mules can also double as pit detection systems when you run out of henchmen and ten foot poles.

Yeah, we did 2 PCs per player too. Mostly during my teenage years. Can't really point to any particular time when that stopped though, or for whatever reason.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Though honestly, retreat-and-rest (aka the 15 min workday) is a fairly old problem. People look at Keep of the Borderlands as the iconic low-level adventure, but every group I've ever played it with did so through multiple retreats and rests. Spells were just as limited; there was no second winds or short-rest refreshes. Your magic-user used his sleep spell on some kobolds you were OUT. Most groups did it through superior numbers (6+ members) and frequent ambush-and-retreats. THAT is Old School.

My experience was much less this (retreating all the time), and much more "hire henchmen". Old school D&D was all about hirelings and henchmen, especially at low levels.

For the survival minded it was a bit of both.

Remember also that the caves of chaos was not one big monolithic complex with all cooperative denizens. Wiping out the kobolds won't bring all the goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, and bugbears running full steam to come and kick your butt. A destroyed tribe that has contact or alliance with another tribe (the two orc tribes or goblins & hobgoblins for example) might trigger such a reaction but it isn't the same as bringing the whole place down on you.

When to take a rest, or make sure there is no one left to call reinforcements, etc. are vital player decisions. Going on without a full tank of gas vs. resting and returning to a more vigilant prepared enemy force should be a difficult and meaningful decision.

 

[ExploderWizard]

If that's true, I've been doing it wrong. Can you point that rule out to me?

No PHB here at work. If no one else has the quotes I can look them up when I get home this evening.

 

[Remathilis]

My experience was much less this (retreating all the time), and much more "hire henchmen". Old school D&D was all about hirelings and henchmen, especially at low levels.

hence "superior numbers" comment.

Still, we didn't go henchmen. We'd rather spend a week (game time) raiding a dungeon than split the loot with more people.