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

[Imaro]

These are great points, but they don't consider the worldbuilding aspect this requires. If monsters come in deadly encounter units, why aren't they wreaking havoc on the non-adventurers? If the non-adventures can handle the deadly encounter units of monsters, why adventure? The solution set here works, mechanically, and does the job, but it requires me to stretch my game past where I am comfortable on the explaining why encounters are so deadly. Occasionally, yes, this works, but it doesn't work as a default, meaning that many times while trying to present a believable worlds it doesn't work out.

1st question...Because in 5e a large enough number of non-adventurers will overcome a deadly encounter...

2nd question... Because non-adventurers would rather not die in large numbers, especially when there are more skilled individuals who will take the risk for a little coin...

The Dark Deadly Woods of Danger, sure. The Normal Woods of Everyday Travelling, not so much.

I would think The Normal Woods of Everyday Travelling would have little to no threats for anyone...

 

[shoak1]

It's not about waving the magic wand. It's about actually trying to resolve the issue. There are several solutions that have been proposed here and every single one of them gets waved off..........There, there's 3 solutions that you could implement RIGHT NOW. None of them require a lot of work and they all in combination, resolve the issues.

So, I have to ask again, what's the actual problem here. The issue is brought up, solutions have been offered. Isn't that largely the end of the issue?

sigh...Once again - the problem is that the OFFICIAL MATERIALS don't offer solutions!!! OF COURSE we can all just make up whatever solutions we want - I call that "Big/Empowered DM waving his magic wand" - that is NOT a satisfactory way to resolve the problem for many Gamists/Big Challenge guys like myself. We have a disdain for having to change official stuff and feel it should come with the basics at least complete - capesh?????

 

[Sacrosanct]

sigh...Once again - the problem is that the OFFICIAL MATERIALS don't offer solutions!!! OF COURSE we can all just make up whatever solutions we want - I call that "Big/Empowered DM waving his magic wand" - that is NOT a satisfactory way to resolve the problem for many Gamists/Big Challenge guys like myself. We have a disdain for having to change official stuff and feel it should come with the basics at least complete - capesh?????

What ARE the basics? Seems like most everyone except you and a handful of others feel the basics (and more) are perfectly covered in the rules already. Certainly enough to know what to do with them in their games. And I hate to break this to you, but if you want the rules to cover everything that YOU personally want, you're going to be waiting a long time. There has never been a rulebook out there that covered everything everybody wants how they wanted it. Ever. At some point you need to take ownership of your playstyle and stop blaming someone else for not meeting your individual standards. The game is a toolbox. If you're expecting the RAW to be exactly how you want it with everything spelled out, then you're in for disappointment. They didn't write the game just for you. Or for Capt Zapp. Or for me. They wrote it for the gaming community as a whole. And if you can't come up with solutions on your own, then that's your problem. I'm sure you can. I'm sure you're an intelligent person. You just don't want to for whatever reason. And if a DM thinks making rulings is not a satisfactory way of resolving a problem that comes up, then they are playing the wrong game, to be perfectly frank.

 

[clearstream]

sigh...Once again - the problem is that the OFFICIAL MATERIALS don't offer solutions!!! OF COURSE we can all just make up whatever solutions we want - I call that "Big/Empowered DM waving his magic wand" - that is NOT a satisfactory way to resolve the problem for many Gamists/Big Challenge guys like myself. We have a disdain for having to change official stuff and feel it should come with the basics at least complete - capesh?????

From a new thread I just made. I believe that an observation that DMG 84 asserts a fundamental connection asserted between adventuring days, number of encounters and levelling gives us the most direct starting point for this mechanic. If we analyse the XP budgets per adventuring day on DMG 84 against the levelling costs on PHB page 15 we can find how many adventuring days are expected to level (rounded to one decimal). About 33 days all told, or about 229 encounters.

Level Days
L-2 1.0
L-3 1.0
L-4 1.5
L-5 2.2
L-6 2.1
L-7 2.3
L-8 2.2
L-9 2.3
L-10 2.1
L-11 2.3
L-12 1.4
L-13 1.7
L-14 1.5
L-15 1.7
L-16 1.7
L-17 1.5
L-18 1.6
L-19 1.5
L-20 1.0

This analysis allows us to assert that the game balance implicitly assumes that players will recover their class features (and any other powers) through resting at a rate that is exactly the number in the right column (days) times 2-3 for short-rests and times 1 for long-rests per level. Again, I'm not saying if that is good or bad and I do not want to debate that here. Thus the most direct mechanical solution would be to give players a number of rests per level. How might that work?

Recoveries Per Level
Characters gain a new resource—minor and major “recoveries”. All features that refresh with a short-rest are instead refreshed by spending a minor recovery. All features refreshed with a long-rest are instead refreshed by spending a major recovery. To spend a recovery, a character must do the things described on PHB page 186 for a short (minor) or long (major) rest. If the rest is interrupted, the recovery fails and is not expended i.e. it can be reattempted later. All expended recoveries are replenished each time a character levels up. At 1st level, a character gains two minor and one major recovery to spend. At 5th level, a character gains an additional recovery of each type to spend.

That's about the simplest, most direct mechanical solution I can think of right now. It's not "official" but it snaps right on to the official rules without difficulty. The critical flaw is probably tying it nicely to our fiction...

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Actually if you award XP as suggested and your PCs don't go grinding for levels, then they will most likely be 1-2 levels below the suggested level in the official adventure paths, so there you got your 3 deadly encounters per day.

 

[CapnZapp]

But... there are mechanics for regulating this. The DMG has options for changing the resting rules right there. You don't want your PC's resting so often? Fine, change the resting rules. Let's see your party crank out long rests when long rests require a safe place and a week. Poof, end of problem. As far as organic world counters, well, that's entirely in your lap. Like I said, simply split up that one big encounter into a series of smaller encounters and you're done.

The trick is, the game has *always* hinged on the need to "hurry just the right amount". In 3e, that "right amount" was really, really slow. Typically 1-3 encounters per day. In earlier editions, it was much longer. The current paradigm is that 1-3 encounters per day is not really wanted. It makes for honking big encounters that take too long to resolve and adds a level of complexity and swinginess to encounters that makes pacing really hard.

What you're asking for is basically a return to 3e style pacing with 4e style encounter balance. And that's not going to make a lot of people happy. It might make you happy.

Thank for a reasoned reply.

Yes, one issue here is that you can't use the encounter pacing you want, because the rules are balanced on a specific pacing rate.

This isn't just my problem though. I imagine many groups to want an intense dungeon bash one day, and a relatively sedate ocean voyage the next month.

(This isn't really central to this thread's Elephant, though)

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[CapnZapp]

Okay let's go over this again.

I can get how resting becomes an issue with 6-8 encounters needed per day, but it's much less of one when, as the rules state, you only need 3 Deadly encounters per day.

If you have a 50% of a deadly encounter while on an hour short rest, and a deadly encounter itself requires a short rest after, the benefit of taking that rest goes down.

Likewise, if during a typical 8 hour rest, you have a 50% chance for a deadly encounter every hour, you now will have 4 deadly fights, and you may not make it through the night to get your resource reset and even if you do, will likely be down hit die for the next day.

I readily admit that WOTC APs do not suggest this course of action, however...

1) They don't want to make the game that deadly. They are using modern video game design philosophy that most people playing want to experience the story with a light amount of challenge that they know they will overcome.

2) The DMG clearly lays out how to accomplish pushing PCs to their limits in the adventuring day XP guidelines. There is no rule in any AP I'm aware of that says you can't add more encounters if desired. It would be nice if WOTC added such guidelines into the books or added an optional rule for Encounter Point based resting, but it isn't necessary.

If you are in a deadly forest, it should probably be full of deadly things. Hanging out should have consequences.

If you are in a deadly dungeon, it should probably be full of deadly things. Haning out should have consequences.

If you are fighting a deadly, intelligent opposing force, they should be trying to thwart your goals, and the more time they have to react to your movements, the better prepared to kill you they should be.

A response to the latter half here (on mobile so not editing quotes):

The game provides tools that trivialize that deadly forest or dungeon. This is a real problem.

I don't want only foes so intelligent that they actually are spellcasters, and specifically that they switch out their prescribed spells for Dispel Magic, to stand a chance of disrupting the party rest in a meaningful way.



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[CapnZapp]

I think it was a few pages (or forty!) ago I last thanked everyone for their replies, so it's time again:

Thank you for your thoughts on this. I really feel the discussion has gradually become more constructive and less defensive lately ☺

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[Ovinomancer]

1st question...Because in 5e a large enough number of non-adventurers will overcome a deadly encounter...

And, you still don't actually think this through in terms of worldbuilding. Yes, it's trivially true that if I get enough defenders together (where enough is a large number), they win, often at great cost, but the issue isn't that the math works out, it's where do the enough non-adventurers come from? Enough for 3 deadly encounter units of monsters a day (or other chosen time period for long rests)?

This doesn't actually address my point.

2nd question... Because non-adventurers would rather not die in large numbers, especially when there are more skilled individuals who will take the risk for a little coin...

So, deadly encounter units of monster will only attack/engage/be found by adventurers far enough away from non-adventurers so that non-adventurers are always safe? You're, again, avoiding the issue I'm raising about worldbuilding.

And, again, you don't actually address my point.

I would think The Normal Woods of Everyday Travelling would have little to no threats for anyone...

With this one you're almost... almost... there.

 

[Sadras]

I agree with @Ovinomancer - To give an example @Imaro
In my HotDQ campaign the adventurers were guided by lizardmen to a long forgotten temple. Along the way they encountered all manner of creatures where some where quite dangerous/deadly. For that session I followed the 6-8 encounters model. I didn't even have to make encounters deadly for it to mess with the worldbuilding aspect of it. You see, when worldbuilding one has to account how the lizardmen and bullywugs have managed to survive in The Mere of the Dead Men when its full of crocodiles, large spiders, shambling mounds, undead or yuanti hunting parties and this is before the harsh terrain.

So do lizardmen and bullywugs breed relatively quickly compared to other races? Are there areas which work as safe zones (hallowed), which prohibit the undead from passing through them?...etc

Now when you're increasing the Deadly Encounters ratio to 3 a day, you seriously need to take into consideration how this might impact your worldbuilding.