D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[FrogReaver]

I could be wrong about this, but I don't think spending earned XP to achieve something is a feature from the 3.x years that's sorely missed by a majority of players.

The Challenge Multiplier I suggested earlier could be viewed as an opportunity cost since a group won't immediately gain full XP from encounters until they meet a certain threshold, and that threshold resets with every long rest.

The problem with rewards, if they aren't big enough they won't change any behavior. The problem with rewarding as much extra xp as you are is how fast PC's will level. Getting more than 50% XP a fight is nuts! But if you only gave away 15% extra xp then the players likely wouldn't care enough to really change their behavior.

IMO. Immediately taking away XP to rest would go further towards eliminating resting. I probably only need to take away 10% of their total XP (a relatively minor amount compared to your large multiplier). Alternatively instead of taking it away you could make the next X amount of XP not count for the PC's after a rest. This would have the same effect and not cause as much bookkeeping IMO.

 

[Ancalagon]

The actual benchmark number is largely irrelevant. Arbitrary even. They could have determined it randomly. I think they just decided that the 3-5 encounters of 3e/4e were a little low for classical dungeon crawls and went higher.

But, again, it's 100% irrelevant to the topic of resting. Because even if the benchmark was 2 encounters between short rests you'd still get players trying to rest early. Because it's too appealing.
You just need to look at the D&D video games (like Baldur's Gate where you could rest at any time and fully heal. Without a penalty for resting, you could do so after every fight. And often did.

This is all true BUT...

Yes, the game is "balanced" around 6-8 average encounters. Because they had to have some number as the norm. They couldn't balance the fighter assuming 6 encounters, the wizard assuming 4 encounters, and the rogue assuming 8 encounters. That'd be ridiculous. They needed to set a baseline and do so for all classes.

But... that is what happened, in a way! Different classes get different benefits from different kind of resting. The fighter and monk gets far more from short rests while the Barbarian and Paladin get more out of long rests. Same issue with warlock vs wizard.

 

[Corwin]

And while all classes don't benefit equally from a short rest, all classes do benefit. The ability to heal is always nice. But, really, as a team based game, the benefit of taking a short rest is the increased success for the team. It doesn't matter if your class (or character) doesn't gain a significant benefit from a long rest. You can't carry on without the party.

Remember in the olden days, when wizards had only a couple spells per day? And even though the entire party was fine to continue, once the wizard expended his repertoire, time to camp. Cuz wizard is outta spells. Didn't matter that the rest of the group was good to go.

 

[Ristamar]

The problem with rewards, if they aren't big enough they won't change any behavior. The problem with rewarding as much extra xp as you are is how fast PC's will level. Getting more than 50% XP a fight is nuts! But if you only gave away 15% extra xp then the players likely wouldn't care enough to really change their behavior.

It's only a bonus if they manage to push through numerous encounters, and they can't ever push beyond a 50% bonus (hence the 150% cap). A party wouldn't break even relative to the standard XP award until they've completed about 6 medium encounters or 4 hard encounters. If they had less numerous or less difficult encounters in the day, they'd come up short. The break even threshold could be stretched even further if you used the suggested smaller adjustments for strong groups or applied penalties for short rests.

You post makes me wonder if my wording was poor. I may have to revise and reformat my own post for clarity (EDIT: Added some text and improved the formatting).

Regardless, I'm not married to the concept. It's just a spitball of an idea I had to potentially reward players for using as many of their resources as possible before resting.

IMO. Immediately taking away XP to rest would go further towards eliminating resting. I probably only need to take away 10% of their total XP (a relatively minor amount compared to your large multiplier).

Could you provide an example? From what pool of XP would you be deducting the 10%? For the session? Is this a cumulative penalty for multiple rests?

 

[Uller]

CapnZapp

Idea for you. You've complained (and I've agreed) about the lack of uses of gold between adventures. WotC camebout with a UA that addressed this somewhat.

Do you use it or give your players some othe meaningful downtime choices?

This will require some work but what if you implemented some sort of renown system where renown points can be spent to help influence downtime activities. Then...add a rule where taking too long to complete an adventure reduces renown. Maybe even each short rest costs 1 renown and each long rest costs 3.

Just an idea if you want a more rules based approach. (It's not something I would want...but I don't have issues with rests and number of encounters per rest).

What made me think of this is the folks mentioning Baldurs Gate. CRPGs that have staic NPCs standing around waiting for the PCs need something like that to encourage the player to keep moving. Maybe it could work here too.

 

[Jester David]

This is all true BUT...

But... that is what happened, in a way! Different classes get different benefits from different kind of resting. The fighter and monk gets far more from short rests while the Barbarian and Paladin get more out of long rests. Same issue with warlock vs wizard.

While the different classes recharge abilities at different rates, they're all meant to even out in effectiveness over the course of one day. When the warlock casts their spells 9 times over the day (resting twice) the wizard casts 11-12 spells from a larger list (including Arcane Recovery).
They're not symmetrical and there's some wiggle room depending on the number of encounters and short rests, making it easier for classes to do better or worse depending on the day. But it's designed to even out.

What drives the call for a long rest is typically the majority of the party being tapped for abilities and hit points. Health tends to factor into the decision more than anything else, as getting full hp and 1/2 HD is a pretty nice boost on top of recharging everything.

None of that drives the discussion at hand. It's a related but not particularly relevant side conversation.
Because the problem would still exist and occur in a system where all the characters regained their abilities at the exact same rate.
Because the issue is players resting early, not because they need to or can't continue to adventure, but because they want to maximise their abilities for the next encounter.

 

[Jester David]

Remember in the olden days, when wizards had only a couple spells per day? And even though the entire party was fine to continue, once the wizard expended his repertoire, time to camp. Cuz wizard is outta spells. Didn't matter that the rest of the group was good to go.

Or, as I saw a few times in my 4e game, one player would blow all their Daily powers in a single death blossom (black card, minor action black card, action point, black card!). Everyone else could continue but the one player pushed them to then rest.

 

[Uller]

Or, as I saw a few times in my 4e game, one player would blow all their Daily powers in a single death blossom (black card, minor action black card, action point, black card!). Everyone else could continue but the one player pushed them to then rest.

Yep. And what the OP seems to be looking for is some concrete (crunchy rules) either in the published adventures or in the rules as a whole that give the players a reason from a mechanical/crunch pov to push on and to ensure the DM provides a series of encounters rather than just one or two.

For me I don't look for every series of encounters (call it "adventuring day") to feel like some grand struggle. That comes organically from player decisions and how npcs and the game world react. Sometimes the party faces one trivial encounter then arrives at an inn or campsite and rests. Sometimes they face waves of hostile creatures with no chance to rest. I make little effort to control it other than maybe before a session look over the guidelines and try to predict if/when they might need a short or long rest and consider whether or not to give them that opportunity.

Like many here, the notion that I need something more from the rules to convince my players to avoid unnecessary rests is completely alien to how my players play the game. None of my players (in my table game) are real strong roleplayers. Their PCs are essentially avatars of themselves. But if I say "you have X time to achieve Y or Z happens" or even "this doesn't seem like a safe place to rest" they accept it and behave accordingly. I don't want or need more from the APs or the rules.

Curse of Strahd says Strahd harrasses and tests the party. So that is what happens.

OotA says roll for random encounters and track supplies and madness. So that is what happens.

But...to each their own I suppose.

 

[Lanefan]

Remember in the olden days, when wizards had only a couple spells per day? And even though the entire party was fine to continue, once the wizard expended his repertoire, time to camp. Cuz wizard is outta spells. Didn't matter that the rest of the group was good to go.

Depends how persuasive that wizard is vs. the rest of the party. Nothing's stopping the rest of the party from plowing ahead and telling the wizard to act as a lookout and bag-carrier...seen it (and done it) many times myself!

Lan-"but when the Cleric's out'a gas, that's when we quit for the day"-efan

 

[Corwin]

Depends how persuasive that wizard is vs. the rest of the party. Nothing's stopping the rest of the party from plowing ahead and telling the wizard to act as a lookout and bag-carrier...seen it (and done it) many times myself!

But the point was that this is something that has been an issue since the dawn of TTRPGs. And yet somehow we've managed to handle it for decades. Until now!...