D&D 5E Classes with resources feel like usage is too restrained

[ammulder]

Here are the last two sessions I've run, neither of which worked well with the SR/LR mechanic:

1. Out of the Abyss: full of long travel stretches with few encounters per day (even, sometimes, days per encounter). As a player, there's no reason not to throw your all at a travel encounter, because in the rare case you get another on the same day, you can generally squeak through it with whatever you have left. Certainly you could short rest after every one to be on the safe side. I suppose I could throw in a really pumped up second encounter to put a scare into them, but I can't reasonably do it often enough that they feel a strong need to conserve resources during travel.
2. A scenario I was handed involving chasing minor enemies into their underground cave with the goal of confronting the major enemy hiding in the back room. There were 5-ish small encounters before the big one. But the players didn't rest. Partly I think they were excited to reach the goal, and partly it didn't seem sensible to just stop in the middle of cave-delving when any of the prior encounters could have potentially alerted the major enemy. Hard to know if one guy in hiding snuck off to warn him, or if he had one spell set to warn of intruders or whatever.

So in my sample size of two, there's one with always-a-short-rest and one with never-a-rest.

I might have been able to push them toward taking a short rest in the second case, but how do you characterize it without making it sound completely implausible? Sure, you've alerted numerous enemies, but you feel confident they're all dead? Sure, there's a big bad guy, but he doesn't really care what goes on in his cave? Yeah, you can take a lunch break, what are the odds that anyone in the cave complex will do anything that involves moving to a room containing either you or a bunch of dead guys you've left behind?

A five-minute rest would be easier to squeeze in, but easier to abuse as well.

 

[akr71]

The Way of the Elements monk in my group kick ass and almost never runs out of Ki and barely ever uses the Elemental Disciples she has.
She is 5th level and it usually goes something like
Attack Action --> 2 attacks with a quarterstaff (two handed), +7 to hit, 2x(d8+4)
Bonus Action --> Unarmed Strike, +7 to hit, 1d6+4
Hitting AC 17 and doing 23 HP damage/round on average

or

Attack Action --> 2 attacks with a quarterstaff (two handed), +7 to hit, 2x(d8+4)
Bonus Action --> Flurry of Blows (1 Ki point), +7 to hit, 2x(1d6+4)
Hitting AC 17 and doing 30 HP damage/round on average

+ if she spends 1 more Ki, there is a chance for a Stunning Strike

Compared to the warlock in our group spamming Eldritch Blast(Agonizing Blast) for 2x(1d10+5), hitting AC 17 and doing 14 HP damage/round average, I'd say the Monk is doing just fine. Feel free to correct my numbers if I have bad math...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Well, the "just add more encounters" advice has been thoroughly debunked by now. As in, no, it's way harder than people make it out to be. As in, yes, it can be done, but something is wrong with the game if it forces the DM to do all that hard work.

Just because you don't like it, that doesn't mean it's debunked. It is still the one, true answer for how the designers intend everyone to play. I'm not saying that it's a good design decision or anything, but that's the way it is. Other solutions may lead to unintended consequences.

If you can't fit six encounters into a single adventuring day, then you can always redefine a long rest to be a week in town, and try using six encounters over the course of a whole adventure.

 

[flametitan]

Just because you don't like it, that doesn't mean it's debunked. It is still the one, true answer for how the designers intend everyone to play. I'm not saying that it's a good design decision or anything, but that's the way it is. Other solutions may lead to unintended consequences.

If you can't fit six encounters into a single adventuring day, then you can always redefine a long rest to be a week in town, and try using six encounters over the course of a whole adventure.

But they actually don't expect you to make 6-8 encounters. It was giving a rough estimate of how many encounters you had to go through if you kept all the encounters at medium/hard difficulty, which is defined as little to no chance of a PC actually dying.

Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters,they can handle fewer. In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress. For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party’s adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest.

I'm pretty sure that's more giving an estimate of how hard encounters need to be for a given day than an absolute rule of "If you have less than 6-8 encounters everything will go wrong". If anything balance can be achieved with as few as 3 encounters per day, as the 2 short rests per long rest is going to be the larger factor than the number of packaged fights.

 

[CapnZapp]

It is still the one, true answer for how the designers intend everyone to play.

I'm not contesting what the designers thought, but the practicality of recommending it.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm calling you out on recommending more encounters like that was a neat simple thing to accomplish without so much as a mention of all the hard work needed to maintain such a campaign.

Characterizing it as the "one true answer" comes across to me as uncritical. Not because you're wrong, but because it makes you sound like you're proselytizing.

Cheers,
Zapp

 

[Mercule]

Interesting point!

If I'm understanding you correctly, the issue appears to be more that the Wizard injudiciously uses their resources (always going nova?). I haven't seen that myself, due to the frequent use of cantrips.

In short, the Wizards in my campaign, if anything, frequently have unused spells when the party is ready for a long rest ... they always tend to stay on the cautious side.

Not sure what a good solution for that is?

It's been more of an issue since he got fireball (and a couple others). Since he's an evoker and can put holes in his spells, fireball is a great way to clear a room full of mooks, even if he doesn't go at the top of initiative. In addition to it throwing off the rest rhythm, it also takes away the opportunity for the dual-wielding Fighter to shine and have fun, especially since the party also has an extremely tanky Cleric (Life + Heavy Armor Mastery) and a Blade-pact Warlock. The few spells possessed by the Ranger/Rogue are almost a non-issue, which means he has a flat power curve.

We're doing PotA, and my evolving solution has been to make the cults more dynamic. Because it takes the party longer to progress, the cults have an opportunity for reinforcements to backfill or for the more elites to get trained. There have started being more ambushes and the cults are learning their tactics, even those the party has only barely encountered. The party has broken the earth cult and routed the water prophet, but air and fire are almost untouched. That means the most cunning, flexible, and ruthless of the cults are left and their leaders are getting visions with increased frequency.

That all boils down to me starting to wing it more. The air temple have reached out to some sympathetic friends (the Knights have a backstory that allows this) with military authority. They've established martial law in the town the PCs are using as a base. While they're using the guise of allies, they're actually spying on the PCs and looking for weaknesses. This gives a good excuse to hit the group when their guard is down and/or have defenses that steer the party towards changing tactics.

Another example is that, after serious losses due to attrition, the earth prophet changed tactics from the book and went with a scorched earth policy. He brought all his remaining forces to bear at an opportune point, except that he had a couple of fanatically loyal cultists in position to detonate an annihilation sphere in the event of his defeat/death. Among other damage, it sealed the exit, preventing the PCs from having too comfy of a retreat.

 

[CapnZapp]

But they actually don't expect you to make 6-8 encounters. It was giving a rough estimate of how many encounters you had to go through if you kept all the encounters at medium/hard difficulty, which is defined as little to no chance of a PC actually dying.
[quotes Holy Scripture ]

I still believe Saelorn has a point. The game is still built around the dungeon concept, which is about the only place where I see 8 encounter days happening with any kind of regularity.

And I still think the game should come equipped with a mechanic that discourages "early" rests.

So that the sole responsibility for answering the question "why press on" isn't squarely put on the DM's story shoulders.

It would help soo much if the game itself offered mechanical boons for those who decline to rest just because they can.

Even something as small as only awarding inspiration after you have gone above and beyond the call of duty would help.

It really irks me how D&D is built on expectations the game does absolutely nothing to enforce.

 

[flametitan]

I still believe Saelorn has a point. The game is still built around the dungeon concept, which is about the only place where I see 8 encounter days happening with any kind of regularity.

And I still think the game should come equipped with a mechanic that discourages "early" rests.

So that the sole responsibility for answering the question "why press on" isn't squarely put on the DM's story shoulders.

I think I found that mechanic. It's called random encounters. The threat of a monster interrupting their rest is (while not perfect) a fairly decent means of prodding your players not to stick in one place too long.

 

[Willie the Duck]

It really irks me how D&D is built on expectations the game does absolutely nothing to enforce.

Awarding inspiration or bonus xp for "realistic roleplaying" would be the primary method.

But more to the point, what rpgs do you know that do a good job at this?

 

[ammulder]

I think I found that mechanic. It's called random encounters. The threat of a monster interrupting their rest is (while not perfect) a fairly decent means of prodding your players not to stick in one place too long.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.