Short Rest Recovery and Daily Endurance.

[Harzel]

At no point do I want to speed things up. Far from it. I want more challenging fights. These end up being longer fights. I want characters who can recover faster and get back to fun tactical combat. I also want a system more forgiving to an open world where 6-8 fights a day is ridiculous. I want to make novaing impossible rather ban unadvisable, or at least weaken the nova from hyper to just super.

I don't understand how these two things can go together. If characters recover faster, they will have more resources more often and hence be more likely to be able to nova. Am I missing something?

 

[Xeviat]

I don't understand how these two things can go together. If characters recover faster, they will have more resources more often and hence be more likely to be able to nova. Am I missing something?

The part where I want to cut long rest resources in thirds, effectively hard enforcing "two short rests" per day. This way everyone gains roughly the same power from a short rest. Wizards would have comparable Spell power between short rests as warlocks do now.

This way, a wizard and cleric don't overshadow a fighter and rogue in a slow day with only one fight.


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[Fanaelialae]

The part where I want to cut long rest resources in thirds, effectively hard enforcing "two short rests" per day. This way everyone gains roughly the same power from a short rest. Wizards would have comparable Spell power between short rests as warlocks do now.

This way, a wizard and cleric don't overshadow a fighter and rogue in a slow day with only one fight.


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It seems to me like you will still have the same problem, unless you train them not to nova (which you said in your OP that your didn't want to do). You're just shifting the time frame in which that problem will result. If they continue to nova, they'll run out of resources after every fight and will need to take a short rest after every encounter.

I'm not saying you have to train them, but maybe sit down with them and have a discussion about resource management? As long as you sprinkle in long days occasionally, the long rest guys should know better than to nova, because they are unlikely to know ahead of time whether this day will be short or long. That's what I do with my players, and I haven't seen any imbalance between the classes despite that I tend to favor shorter and deadlier days than the DMG guidelines. I throw in a few DMG length adventure days into a campaign, and the players know better than to waste resources because they never know when that long day is coming.

 

[Lanefan]

The part where I want to cut long rest resources in thirds, effectively hard enforcing "two short rests" per day. This way everyone gains roughly the same power from a short rest. Wizards would have comparable Spell power between short rests as warlocks do now.

This way, a wizard and cleric don't overshadow a fighter and rogue in a slow day with only one fight.

There's other ways to do this. The most obvious, if it's always the casters who are too powerful, is to simply make spells harder to cast and with some risk involved. No casting while in melee at all. Any damage taken while casting automatically interrupts the spell (no save) and risks a wild magic surge. And so on.

Lan-"though my initial thought on the whole issue is to just play it as written and let 'em sink or swim"-efan

 

[Xeviat]

It seems to me like you will still have the same problem, unless you train them not to nova (which you said in your OP that your didn't want to do). You're just shifting the time frame in which that problem will result. If they continue to nova, they'll run out of resources after every fight and will need to take a short rest after every encounter.

I'd be fine with a short rest after every encounter. In fact, that's what we're doing right now. But when only the Fighter really recovers on a short rest (the rest of my current player party is a Bard, Wizard, and Barbarian). The mini-nova of using all your short rest abilities in a fight is a lot better than the wizard firing off his 4th level spell in the first encounter of the day simply because he wants to.

A short rest after every encounter won't disrupt the game. I could even reduce the time of short rests and play 4E style, which would allow me to have as many fights in a day as the story dictates, rather than having to jam things in just to make sure the last fight in a day is challenging.

As I said, I think the core rules are good for dungeon crawls and 1 day timetable adventures. Bigger stories don't seem to work for me.

 

[Flamestrike]

I tried aiming for 3-4 hard-deadly fights a game day, but it still didn't work out. My players were still apt to use too much in the first fight and then struggle with the last. Yes, this could be "trained out", but my players aren't animals, and I want to run a game that plays the way they want to play it.

Put them on the clock. Let them know from the start that they need to (recover/ destroy/ locate the macguffin or slay/ capture/ stop the BBEG) by (time X) or else (bad thing Y) happens.

Now, if all spellcasters ran off the Warlock's chassis, there's an immediate problem with HP and curing. This can already happen with an MC Bard/Warlock or the Healer feat, but it becomes more of a problem when it applies to everyone. If healers get their spells back on short rest, then it's going to be safe to assume that HP recovery is going to be a lot faster.

Thats your other option; convert everything to key off a short rest.

1) All casters now cast as the Warlock using their own list of spells (half casters and 1/3 casters are half warlocks and third warlocks respectively),
2) Paladins get 1 smite per short rest at 2nd, 5th, 11th and 17th level, and the damage is (1d8) + (Paladin level/4 in d8's, round up). Lay on Hands is 2 HP per Paladin level, but it replenishes on a short rest.
3) Barbarians can Rage 1/ short rest. At 11th level this increases to 2/ short rest.
4) Bards get 1 inspiration per short rest. At 5th level this increases to Charisma/ short rest uses.

They're the main 'long rest' abilities. Just rinse and repeat for any other X/ Long rest abilities.