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

[Corwin]

Hmmm...

I'm puzzled as to how or why you think I agree. To clarify, I've never been a part of a group in which the party stopped simply because the spellcaster ran out of spells.

So you guys were able to avoid spoiling your play experience all these years without the rules making you do things a certain way? Or the system hand holding you and/or the DM?

So, yes, you agree with my point, then. Thanks again!

Nope, nor yours more than mine.

And yet, I have more. So what? Clearly its important or you wouldn't have bothered to make a point of it. Or is only your "vast" (hint: not really all that vast) experience the only one that has value?

However, a common rhetorical device in these discussions when I mention I've never seen the "15 minute day" is to question the breadth and depth of my experience as a gamer. So I list it.

What a specific retort to a specific topic. You get that a lot, do you? How uniquely odd.

 

[CapnZapp]

But Capn has repeatedly told us that his players are not casual, nor do they suffer from poor luck, and always use amazing tactics. So I doubt he can relate to your question. So he probably doesn't care if those other types of players get punished by whatever methods he wants brought into the game. It won't negatively impact his table.

Stop speaking for me or presume you know what I want.

 

[CapnZapp]

Why would I mention that? It's an unrelated topic.

No, it most emphatically is related.

So, there are mechanical costs already. But they're not working. So the solution is more mechanical costs?

Are you seriously arguing that because the game offers wandering monsters, weather and food as solutions to rest enforcement, it's somehow a bad or circumspect thing to ask for more and better things that actually work?

You don't make any sense.

Yes, the solution is "more" costs, as in costs the players can't trivially circumvent.

 

[Corwin]

Yes, the solution is "more" costs, as in costs the players can't trivially circumvent.

But only non-casual players, with good luck and amazing tactics, can trivially circumvent all those costs...

 

[CapnZapp]

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.


What mechanic would you suggest to solve the problem of a player looking up monster statistics on their iPhone?
What mechanic would you suggest to solve the problem of a player being twice as optimised as the rest of the table?
What mechanic would you suggest to solve the problem of a player fudging their die rolls?

Table rules can solve the above problem, but those are unrelated to the "rules" of the game. They're really more social mores. If you're finding your campaign is having a problem with players going nova and the 5 minute workday, the best solution is to talk to the damn players. The DM can't hide behind the "rulebook" as a solution for every problem at the table.

You're relativizing and strawmanning to the extreme Jester.

I'm not talking about "every problem at the table". I won't respond unless you cut that kind of crap.

Again, resting early is a narrative problem. Like guessing the murderer before the murder is committed. You're not going to fix that problem by waving a rulebook at it.

The ONLY way to solve the 5 minute workday is to recharge the players to full health between every encounter. Like 4e did, but turned to 11. No daily powers, only encounter powers. Infinite healing surges. No reason to ever stop and rest.
But at that point you've created a whole bunch of other problems.

Okay, so you're dismissing me by saying there is only one solution, and that's crap. Classy.

No - resting early is not narrative. The rules introduce the incentives to rest, the rules fix it.

And if you say "you only get three short and one long rest before here and the end of the mission", what is that?

It's a SOLUTION. That hardly can be called narrative.
(It might not be a generally useful or even good solution. It shatters your illusion though, which is all I need out of it)

What's it with you people? Restricting time is all good and everything else is all bad. And that's not all, some of you absolutely refuse you're taking this artifical stance, instead trying desperately to avoid the issue.

Hence the name of the thread: there's an elephant in the room few people are willing to discuss.

Thank you for providing a brilliant illustration of exactly what's so exasperating about this.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Thanks for your suggestion. Yes, it would be super interesting if we were ever to see something like this as Unearthed Arcana.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

The point here is my amazement how you are fine with the game (and its supplements) providing solutions B, C and D.

But not A.

All I want is official rules for A (what you call "give the players a reason from a mechanical/crunch pov to push on").

In no way does that mean I want to take away wandering monsters, or harassing vampire lords, or madness, from your games.

I just see no reason why the game is utterly silent on the issue from a rules POV.

 

[CapnZapp]

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!...

I haven't followed your sub-thread in detail, but you could be forgetting that there's a crucial difference between THIS edition and those of decades ago.

There's a definite need to pace encounters now based on fundamental assumptions of the 5e game that simply did not exist back in OD&D or AD&D.

So your implication is at the very least too simplistic.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

There's a definite need to pace encounters now based on fundamental assumptions of the 5e game that simply did not exist back in OD&D or AD&D.

I'm curious to know what fundamental assumptions are present in 5e that did not exist in OD&D and AD&D that make things so very different?

 

[CapnZapp]

This is entirely the responsibility of the DM. This is why it is not addressed as directly as you would like, although I do think it is addressed by most published products. The reason you don't see the adventures telling you when and where rests are possible is the same reason you don't see adventures that tell you when initiative must be rolled, or reminding you that the PCs can use spells in combat. It's because they expect you to know this based on your understanding of the rules.

Now, the way that you can make attrition matter is to make the decision to rest a risk/reward assessment. The PCs know that they can regain some strength by choosing to rest...so why would they not do it? That's the question.

The first answer is to make rest not guaranteed. It can be interrupted in any number of ways. Yes, you are correct that there are some spells that mitigate these risks...but that doesn't mean they are fool proof. Have an enemy caster dispell a rope trick and the PCs find themselves tumbling down amidst a horde of enemies.

Sorry but this only brings the discussion back to square one. There's no spellcaster that can dispel the party teleporting back to town to rest. And yet, that's not the point. The point is for the game not to rely on environment or monster nature for something entirely mechanical: the need to pace encounters.

The second answer is along the linea of the dreaded time constraints, but different enough that I'm not afraid to mention it to you. And it's that time passes.

Thank you. I started a different thread to discuss that.

Maybe the bad guys hear the heroes are lookin for their base. Luckily, the heroes decided to rest, giving the bad guys time to get out of town, or abandon their HQ. Or get reinforcements. This isn't so much a deadline as it is treating the fictional world like a dynamic setting. If things like this happen to your PCs a few times, it will impact their decision making when it comes to deciding to take a rest or not.

Again, it seems awfully hard for y'all to keep published scenarios separate from your own campaigns.

Assuming we can agree this seldom/never happens in print modules, let's not bring it up.

Besides, it treads too close to story-based restrictions, when I want mechanical restriction options.

A third option is to string a few encounters together so that there is no time for rest. They happen one after the other without any break. That will make attrition be a factor. Removing the ability to safely rest at will is a big deal. Judging by your desert scenario you described, it seems you're already aware of this, but it never hurts to reiterate.

Obviously, I already am aware of lots of solutions.

But where are these solutions in official 5e adventures - that's the curious thing!

The rules give you what you need, but it's up to you to make it work for your game and what you want it to do./QUOTE]
Sorry - I thought we had an agreement there but then you had to go back to this old chestnut.

The entire thread is me saying that no - the rules don't give us anything.

Unless you count it as giving us something when the rules say "you're allowed to use wandering monsters".

That's a way WAY too lenient way of looking at things.

The rules doesn't "give" me the possibility to have my story be on a clock. That's soo not in the rules.

Just because the rules contain a "DM Advice" section generally discussing ways to keep up the heat in no way means the rules "give" us what we need.

Our hard work and inspiration does not belong to the rules; it is not for the rulebook to give away. It was ours all along, long before we bought the D&D product.

When I give WotC money and see the rules being dependent on encounter pacing I need that same set of rules to provide a solution in that set of rules. Barring that, I need WotC to do all the work for us when we later buy their official modules.

The rules providing a Jonathan Tweet like "no rest unless two encounters" optional variant would be a serious step forward to ending this issue once and for all. The scenario setting hard time limits with specific and significant consequences if deadlines aren't met, or the scenario putting hard limits to the nature and number of rests (that would require a significant investment to override, not some simple Goodberry or Leomund's Hut spell). That would be real steps toward recognizing the elephant in the room.