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

[Tony Vargas]

Ok, we need to put some serious resource-management limitations-


-on the use of exclamation points.



Seriously, though, yeah, the 6-8 elephant guideline does matter for balance. Thing is for a segment of the fan base, balance doesn't matter, and for a very vocal and uncompromising faction of the remainder, it's positively intolerable.

So we can have & use that guideline, but we cannot expect it to be forced by the system or modules. Balance is optional, and the responsibility for exercising that option is the DMs.

D&D didn't need another edition war.

 

[shoak1]

I guess the point that I'm wondering @shoak1 is whether or not it's actually true that the modules aren't taking this into account. Now, I'll be 100% honest here and point out that I haven't read the modules, only played. ....Now, in all three of those modules, resting has been an issue. Curse of Strahd has all sorts of ways to keep resting an issue - random encounters, incredibly dangerous to rest outside of a town at night, and at least one Night Hag in the module can make long rests a real problem. We've certainly been challenged all the way along in that module.

Hussar did you see my analysis of CoS? I went through every page of that module (in addition to having DMed it last year). It is not at all incredibly dangerous in the countryside. At most there is 2 encounters a day and the average is 0.6 (half of these are non combat or silly encounters so really only 0.3 per day). There is no night hag random encounter. In fact, the random encounters are painfully weak. Further, there are no time constraints preventing a party from resting after any such encounter. Thus freshness going into each encounter location is guaranteed. A party has a 10% chance of a combat encounter per long rest in the countryside, and except for very low levels, the PCs can allow half the party to keep sleeping during those weak encounters lol. Then long rest again to gain back the 6 hp and one spell they lost, if they want....

They did dial up the difficulty level at a few of the encounter locations where the PCs are likely to have a 1 encounter day, but thats about all you can even remotely attribute to addressing resource management. I'll go through another module in detail if it helps make my point.

Perhaps your DM in CoS created plausible issues/difficulties for rest that aren't in the module and/or scaled up some difficulty levels. But that's my point - its a gaping hole in the module that needs to be plugged by the DM.

 

[shoak1]

Ok, we need to put some serious resource-management limitations-


-on the use of exclamation points.



Seriously, though, yeah, the 6-8 elephant guideline does matter for balance. Thing is for a segment of the fan base, balance doesn't matter, and for a very vocal and uncompromising faction of the remainder, it's positively intolerable.

So we can have & use that guideline, but we cannot expect it to be forced by the system or modules. Balance is ootional, and the responsibility for exercising that option is the DMs.

D&D doesn't need another edition war.

OK fair enough re the exclamation points lol, sorry, blew a gasket there But I do think you should rethink the position re balance being optional, or you will in due time lose a large segment of the D and D fan base until they revolt and oust you, leaving u to gripe about the old days on these forums lol

Remember just because they add such stuff to a module doesn't mean you have to use it - so what's the harm in that? After all, you got your 3 pages of history about that remote town to tantalize you, why not throw me a little bone?

 

[Mistwell]

Absolutely! I've updated now to include


XP Based Rest Variant
Adventurer's and monsters draw their extraordinary powers and resilience to damage directly from the Positive and Negative planes. When you defeat other NPCs and monsters, you gain some of their power as you absorb lightning-like energy from your defeated foe. To gain the benefit of a short or long rest, you must "spend" XP collected since your last rest of this type. Spending XP in this way does not affect your total XP for the purpose of gaining a level.

You must have collected XP equal to 1/3 of your daily budget and spend an hour resting to benefit from a short rest.
You must have collected XP equal to your daily budget and spend 8 hours resting to benefit from a long rest.

Speaking of using XP to accomplish this goal, why not just make it simpler? Require a minimum of 6 encounters a day, and if the PCs long rest before that they don't get the full XP for the day but see it reduced by 16% for each missing encounter that day?

 

[Ashkelon]

Ok, we need to put some serious resource-management limitations-


-on the use of exclamation points.



Seriously, though, yeah, the 6-8 elephant guideline does matter for balance. Thing is for a segment of the fan base, balance doesn't matter, and for a very vocal and uncompromising faction of the remainder, it's positively intolerable.

So we can have & use that guideline, but we cannot expect it to be forced by the system or modules. Balance is ootional, and the responsibility for exercising that option is the DMs.

D&D doesn't need another edition war.

Here is to hoping that for 6e "balance" can be achieved by some means that isn't 6-8 encounters per day.

Whether that is by balancing per encounter to remove the need to have a grind of daily resources in order to have any ability to challenge the players, or balance per short rest to allow for games that have 1-2 encounters per day to be just as balanced as ones with 6-8, or by forcing arbitrary and nonsensical limits upon when players can rest to recover resources.

Until then, we will all play or DM 5e, as unbalanced and difficult as it is because it is D&D and that is what we play.

 

[Lanefan]

With all due respect, if you think players don't know if their DM is a "decide when u get there" kind of guy, you're kidding yourself. The majority of the players I have met don't like that kind of DMing, because it makes it all about the DM.

If the players can tell the difference between when the DM is running off prepared material and when she's flat-out winging it then the DM is doing it wrong.

Part of the job of DM is to be able to run the same game the same way regardless of what you have or have not prepared, or what curveballs your players have just thrown at you. It's the old duck analogy: calm and placid on the surface but paddling like hell under the water where you can't see it.

Also, instead of worrying about being in "conflict of interest", embrace it! Put yourself in the heads of those monsters and think "what can we do to squash these annoying little bugs, or at least hurt them enough that they go away and leave us alone?" You're not a computer processor.

Lan-"and if a player is playing the monsters doesn't that conflict their interest even worse?"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I'm willing to put hard earned dollars there are a lot of modules, released over D&D's long life, that you haven't read. Yet you are willing to speak to them all and what they should have in them.

But since you haven't read them all, hard to say for sure...

You might be a bit surprised by just how many I have read - and own, particularly from the 0e-1e era: what's missing from my collection is a quite short list. I've also read a fair number from the 2e era, some from the 3e/d20 era, some from 4e, and some from 5e. That's the official TSR-WotC stuff, mind you.

I've also read (and own) some 3rd-party stuff for all editions except 4e (including some truly awful 3rd-party dreck from the d20 era that discouraged me from wanting to read more) though it's nigh impossible to keep up with all of it particularly now the DM's Guild is going.

In any case, I think I've read enough to have given myself half a clue what makes a good module and what doesn't.

Lanefan

 

[Tony Vargas]

Here is to hoping that for 6e "balance" can be achieved by some means that isn't 6-8 encounters per day.

I'm not exactly enthused about the idea of another edition anytime soon, but, sure, it's possible.

3-4 encounters, maybe

Depends on what folks whine about the loudest..

 

[OB1]

Speaking of using XP to accomplish this goal, why not just make it simpler? Require a minimum of 6 encounters a day, and if the PCs long rest before that they don't get the full XP for the day but see it reduced by 16% for each missing encounter that day?

I toyed with a similar idea of delaying leveling based on the number of long rests taken. The idea was that if you rested too much, you didn't learn as quickly because you weren't experiencing life or death situations. But in the end it still left too many pointless combats where the PCs dominated.

I don't think I explained this very well, and also realized that I need a small tweak to account for failing in combat. First the revised rule.

XP Based Rest Variant
Adventurer's and monsters draw their extraordinary powers and resilience to damage directly from the Positive and Negative planes. When you defeat other NPCs and monsters, you gain some of their power as you absorb lightning-like energy from your defeated foe. In addition to tracking XP for level advancement, players also need to keep an XP Rest Count.

When you collect 1/3 and then 2/3s of your daily XP budget since your last long rest, you gain the benefit of a short rest. You can also gain this benefit from an 8 hour rest in a safe location, but doing so also resets your XP rest count to 0.
When you collect XP equal to or greater than your daily XP budget since your last long rest, you gain the benefit of a long rest. You can also gain this benefit from a 7 day rest in a safe location. Your rest count resets to 0 after either type of long rest.

Example
OB1 is a first level monk traveling alone through a forest to his grandmothers house.
OB1s daily budget is 300xp. He will receive short rest 1 when he gets 100xp, short rest 2 at 200xp, and a long rest at 300xp
On the way to grandma's house, OB1 is attacked by 2 giant rats and defeats them (50xp Medium difficult encounter)
OB1, to gain the benefit of a short rest, would need to rest for 8 hours or get in one more Medium difficulty fight. OB1 decides to press on.
Later, OB1 is attacked by a wolf and defeats it (50xp Medium difficulty encounter). At the end of the fight, OB1 immediately gains the benefit of a short rest, and can choose to spend hit die, which he does.
As OB1 approaches his grandma's house, he is attacked by an Orc! He fights valiantly and defeats it (100xp, Deadly difficulty encounter) and immediately gains the benefit of a short rest. He has no more hit die left, so he can't recover hit points.
At this point, OB1 can either press on to Grandma's, or he will need to take a week rest to regain his hit points and hit die. He decides to press on.
As he reaches grandma's house, a lone Orc is axing through the door. OB1 rushes it, and defeats it! OB1 gains the benefit of a long rest and also level's up! Way to go OB1!

Had OB1 bailed after the first Orc fight and returned home to rest, he would still have 200xp towards level advancement, but when he set off on the path again a week later, his XP Rest count would be at 0. After fighting the second Orc, he would reach level 2, but would need to take another week off to get a long rest or would now have to get to to 600 XP to get the long rest benefit (200 and 400 for short rest 1 and 2).

 

[Corwin]

In any case, I think I've read enough to have given myself half a clue what makes a good module and what doesn't.

If you say so. I won't get into a peen measuring contest with you, even though I've read countless as well over the last nearly four decades. I guess my qualifications for what constitutes a good module being different from yours might mean something other than how many we've read...