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

[Jester David]

No, it most emphatically is related.

It's related in that the number is >1.
Unless the game was designed around 1 hard encounter or 2 moderate encounters each day then players are ALWAYS incentivized to rest after each fight.

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.

So long as the game assumes 2+ encounters each day, there is a mechanical advantage to having fewer encounters.

The ONLY true mechanical solution to that is to change that equation. But that's changing all the math and powers of the game, as well as the tone of all adventures. Anything else is just a patch that doesn't address the underlying issue.

The game gives you some tools that can be used to deal with the 5 minute workday. Most, like weather and traps, exist for other reasons. That they can be used atrophy resources without combat is largely a perk.

But wandering monsters just isn't a real solution. If the party's reaction to combats is to rest afterward then *more* encounters doesn't change that. It just means the party will also rest more. It also encourages the players to find ways to rest without encounters.

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.

Ah, stawman. The internet shorthand for "I can't be bothered to actually reply to your points."

I have a personal rule. Whenever anyone break out a logical fallacy in place of actually having the discussion, I walk away from the conversation. Because there's no way it leads anywhere positive.

Good day.

 

[Oofta]

Glancing through this thread there seems to be two sides.

In one corner, the "5E is broke" crowd says that things don't work because they see 5 minute work days and no mechanical enforcement of the general assumptions of how many encounters groups get between short and long rests.

In the other corner, the "It ain't broke, but it may take some work on the DM's side to fix it" crowd. Basically that the system works well enough if the DM understands the issue (and wants to address it). If you're using a published module, you may need to tweak it a little bit to meet the needs of your style, expectations and group. No mod could be written to satisfy every group.

Is there any concrete rule change the former group would implement to change the issue that they see? Because at this point I just see a lot of complaining and ignoring the advice of the latter group.

I will be the first to admit that I'm pretty strongly in the latter group. I implement the optional rest rule from the DMG (a short rest is 8 hours, long rest is at least several days) in my campaign. It suits the pace of my campaign better (more investigaion/exploration than dungeon crawl). We frequently have two or more sessions between long rests, with only 1 or two short rests per session.

However, even before I chose to go with that rule I still followed the general guidelines by setting deadlines and consequences. Stop for an hour for a lunch break while investigating the evil cultists? They ambush you. Run away from the secret lair to someplace safe? When you come back, reinforcements have arrived (perhaps just replacing defeated opponents) and traps have been set because they know someone has found their lair.

I honestly don't see how this is an issue, or what could be done differently. The DM is control of the game - we are not slaves to the printed word in modules. D&D works because the DM can make adjustments on the fly.

The other "elephant in the room" is that some groups enjoy 5 minute work days. In a campaign (sadly coming to an end soon) that I play in we regularly have only a handful of fights between long rests (well, that may be a 15 minute work day instead of 5 minute but the concept is the same). I don't see a problem with it, even if it's not my cup of tea. It's just a different style of play, one that puts more emphasis on characters that can nova.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm dismayed to see a third long post of yours where you still don't talk about the issues, instead contesting me, every. Step. Of. The. Way.

And now you're starting to take it waaay too personal, as if I somehow forced you on "wild goose chases".

This ends here Mistwell. I tried a courteous compromise, but now I realize you won't go away with anything else than my complete surrender here. That's preposterous.

You don't get to cherry-pick my arguments, pretend to understand some things but not others, and generally try to overwhelm me with walls of text.

Maybe you mistake me for some newbie poster, but it's time for me to call out your argumentation tactics: you deliberately attack individual phrasings of mine, try to blow up some things, and generally ignore any scrap that you can't twist to your advantage.

I'm genuinely sorry for you, Mistwell, but the time has come for us to part ways.

If I broke some rule, use the report button. If my responses bother you, put me on ignore. But, don't complain that I am daring to demonstrate how you've repeatedly switched your position after I actually respond to your prior position.

How can someone "respond to the issue" if you constantly switch what the issue is after someone responds to you?

You very clearly said one issue was the rules didn't cover this situation and I responded to that. You then pretended you never said that (though I quoted you back in context where you very clearly and repeatedly did say that). So then you claimed it was a published adventure issue - and I responded to that. You then very clearly (nobody put these words in your mouth) respond that it was excellent and exactly what you were looking for, but only one adventure - and asked me directly if any other adventures did the same thing. None of that was out of context, those were your full words with complete context. So then I showed you yet another adventure doing the same thing (which is what you had just asked me to do), and you started to pretend that you hadn't just said it was excellent and exactly what you wanted and did I know of any other adventures that did that, but instead started to make it about me.

None of this was me attacking you - it was me responding to the issues you raised. You're the only guy making it personal here. You're the one that asked me to find other adventures that did the same thing and then get upset when I did just that.

 

[Lanefan]

1) Everything heals up and everyone is at maximum hit points after a night's rest in 5E.

2) All spell slots are recovered after a nights sleep.

3) There are abilities and resources that refresh on less than a full nights sleep.

These are very vital fundamental assumptions that exist in 5E that did not exist in the earlier editions.

Quite true for 1 and 3; but not so for 2 which has pretty much been the case since time immemorial I think, if one counts study/prayer time in as an extension of the rest (so, maybe a 10-hour break instead of 8).

One of the things I think is a cause of the shift is the "XP economy" and the expectations of a certain rate of advancement that's existed since 3E (it may have existed, in some groups, early than that but it wasn't enshrined in the rules).

Absolutely right; and this gets right after something I've brought up in the "consequences and rewards" thread:

Before 3e the primary in-game reward was treasure and character wealth (along with the status it could bring, etc.). Levelling up was not much more than a pleasant side effect.

In 3e the reward paradigm started to shift toward xp and level-ups and gaining more powers/abilities, but wealth and items remained important; so there's almost a dual-reward system going on.

4e-5e have entrenched that level-ups are the primary reward, with accumulating treasure having become the pleasant side effect.

Which means it's all about xp...and as most xp comes from combat this will push a play-style that optimizes a party for combat, which in turn means that as a significant part of said optimization they're quite logically going to want to rest at every possible opportunity. And that probably can't easily be fixed by rules alone, as to do so fights against the underlying design philosophy that puts levelling up as the game's primary reward system.

So, [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] , given this, I don't think that just attacking the rules is going to get you very far. I think you want to take your attack deeper, and tackle the underlying philosophy and reward system. Fix this, and the rules will then work for you rather than against you.

======================================

Someone (or several someones? I forget) have brought up a solution idea whereby there needs to be a hard-coded certain number of encounters between rests. A vaild argument against this is that it makes no sense if those encounters are days apart.

So, what about also introducing a time element. Something like "you can't short-rest until x encounters or y hours (whichever comes first) have passed since your last rest of any kind" and "between one midnight and the next you may only start one long-rest". "x" and "y" here can be dialled to suit one's preference - my first notion was 3 encounters and 6 hours but that's right off the cuff without any thought at all.

This isn't perfect (and nor is any other solution involving encounter tracking) for two reasons:

1. What defines an encounter? (this was a big problem with 4e design as well)
2. How does it work if only part of the party is involved in something while the others are not? (e.g. Thief and Ranger go ahead to scout, while they're away the remainder of party gets attacked but wins, then scouts return - now you've got uneven encounter numbers within the party...messy)

Lan-"I'm really beginning to think short-rest recovery mechanics of any kind are simply a headache looking for a place to happen"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"-efan"?

 

[FrogReaver]

Lan-"I'm really beginning to think short-rest recovery mechanics of any kind are simply a headache looking for a place to happen"

They are actually worse than long rest ones. However, please keep in mind why we have them in the first place. There were two opposing sides. One side wanted fighters to have cool abilities they could "activate occasionly". The other side opposed to fighters having daily abilities as it made no sense that a fighter couldn't just repeatedly pull off that super cool fighter maneuver. In came the short rest compromise. Somehow it was new and shiny enough for the sides to reach a compromise even without the underlying issues solved. However, as we are seeing it may also be creating other problems for us...

 

[billd91]

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

Uniquely odd?!? Your profile says you joined back in 2002 - where were you during the mid-2000s? Every time someone said they didn't have the 15-minute day problem, people would dogpile on. It was definitely a thing around here.

 

[Lanefan]

They are actually worse than long rest ones. However, please keep in mind why we have them in the first place. There were two opposing sides. One side wanted fighters to have cool abilities they could "activate occasionly". The other side opposed to fighters having daily abilities as it made no sense that a fighter couldn't just repeatedly pull off that super cool fighter maneuver.

Well, you're forgetting (or ignoring) a third side: those like me who aren't big on "super-cool fighter maneuvers" being a mechanical part of the game at all and who don't have any problem with just standing in and swinging a weapon until I or the foe falls down.

In came the short rest compromise. Somehow it was new and shiny enough for the sides to reach a compromise even without the underlying issues solved. However, as we are seeing it may also be creating other problems for us...

Ah, those knock-on effects - they'll getcha every time.

Lanefan

 

[Oofta]

Well, you're forgetting (or ignoring) a third side: those like me who aren't big on "super-cool fighter maneuvers" being a mechanical part of the game at all and who don't have any problem with just standing in and swinging a weapon until I or the foe falls down.



Lanefan

Yep ... champion fighter for me all day long.

<rant>
If I want to push people around/knock them prone I'll take shield master. If I want to do other cool things in combat I'll improvise actions. I don't need no stinkin' 4E style pseudo-spell powers.

An' if I want to play a fighter mage he'll be an elf. 'Cuz that's the way it was supposed to be! With no silly "halflings". Back in my day we had hobbits! And they were thieves!
</rant>

Wait where was I? Oh yeah. Like I was saying before I got sidetracked, I really do like champion fighters and rogues because sometimes I just want a dead simple character.

 

[Uller]

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.

Because it is unnecessary from a rules perspective. The encounters per day and daily XP budget guidelines are just that. Guidelines. They aren't intended to be "enforced". Different DMs use them in different ways. Some use them to help design their own adventures. Others use them to help them with pacing of the published adventures. I tend to use them to let me know how much I can push my players.

If WotC were to produce some rules, I'd have no use for them. I'm not opposed to it. I don't use the encumbrance rules. I don't care that they are there. I wouldn't care if they took them away.

What happens if WotC doesn't give you what you want?

You have been given several suggestions. You can continue to complain or you can take the advice you've been given and see what you can make with them. Or you can wait for WotC to solve it for you in some "official" way.