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

[Lanefan]

What encounters took place in the Shire? The ringwraiths visit it but no encounters or monster fighting takes place. I'm honestly drawing a blank on this one.

I was thinking of the Ringwraiths at the start, and Saruman/the scouring at the end.

Sure, and the Barrow-Wight. But all of that is along the road from the Shire to Bree, right? Outside of the actual Shire.

Outside the Shire, but in fact not on the road; they went through the forest instead.

But (in the books) even while in the Shire they don't feel safe once they get on the move. And - only just thinking of this now - this brings up another aspect to do with resting: when there is no actual danger but you have good reason to feel that danger is near, how does that affect resting? In other words, your "encounters" are mostly in your own mind...think a typical horror setup where the actual ghost or whatever only visits one day a month; you know (or have good reason to believe) there's a ghost in there but you happen to show up on one of the non-haunted days and - for whatever half-insane reason - decide to stay put there until a ghost appears. Meanwhile your mind keeps playing tricks on you to the point where you just can't get a good night's sleep.

Not sure the game mechanics can really handle this one...

And interestingly enough, for the most part, the road from the Shire to Bree would be perfectly safe for just about any travelers.

In part due to the Rangers quietly keeping it that way; also there's mention of it not being used nearly as often now as in the past, with the implication being that it's become riskier.

It's dangerous for the Hobbits, though....kind of a different rules for PCs type of thing. Obviously, there is an explanation in the story for this....but that's something a DM can come up with in his game, if he feels he needs to justify the reason for the PCs having encounters. Things were different for Tolkien's main characters than for the background characters (based on the monster attractor you mentioned, mostly).

That, and their specific intention (not that it worked out very well!) to avoid notice where possible.

Lan-"the road goes ever on"-efan

 

[hawkeyefan]

Outside the Shire, but in fact not on the road; they went through the forest instead.

Fair point. The forest would be more dangerous than the road, even if still relatively safe for that area.

But (in the books) even while in the Shire they don't feel safe once they get on the move. And - only just thinking of this now - this brings up another aspect to do with resting: when there is no actual danger but you have good reason to feel that danger is near, how does that affect resting? In other words, your "encounters" are mostly in your own mind...think a typical horror setup where the actual ghost or whatever only visits one day a month; you know (or have good reason to believe) there's a ghost in there but you happen to show up on one of the non-haunted days and - for whatever half-insane reason - decide to stay put there until a ghost appears.

Not sure the game mechanics can really handle this one...

I think it's pretty easy to address this by requiring a reasonable level safety and sanctuary in order to rest effectively. My understanding is that the 5E Adventures in Middle Earth game does exactly that. I mentioned earlier in the thread that I did this when I ran Curse of Strahd; I ruled that it was too unsafe to rest outside of settlements. Wolves and other children of the night would harry or otherwise interrupt the PCs, keeping them from resting. We didn't roll all these encounters out....instead, I narrated it the first night they camped in the wilderness, and then they realized the implications. They only tried it one other time, and they weren't surprised to not get a full rest.

In part due to the Rangers quietly keeping it that way; also there's mention of it not being used nearly as often now as in the past, with the implication being that it's become riskier.

That, and their specific intention (not that it worked out very well!) to avoid notice where possible.

Lan-"the road goes ever on"-efan

I thought that it was used less often because all of the races were drawing away from each other, so men were going to the Shire less often....but I suppose that this may have also made it more dangerous, in some ways (wild animals), and maybe less so in others (bandits).

But still....a random encounter table for the area between the Shire and Bree would be much more tame than one say in the area between Osgiliath and Mordor, or the Fangwood, or Moria.

 

[Lanefan]

If you pick one rest-recovery variant - the standard, gritty, whatever - and stick to it, that's the pacing of your campaign, if you want to use the encounter guidelines to impose class balance and have meaningful use of CR. Trouble comes in batches of 6-8 (or 3 deadly, a distinction without a difference) clustered in whatever period you're allowed one long rest - or it makes only a token appearance.

All true...and that's just the problem.

The standard mechanics, from what I can tell, work just fine - or fine enough - in a dungeon crawl situation where lots of encounters in a relatively short time are the expected norm. But they don't work for travel situations or when only one encounter every few days is expected.

The gritty mechanics, from what I can tell, are a lot better for travel or for widely-spaced encounters but run into trouble in a dungeon crawl scenario as you simply can't rest as often as the game expects you to be able to.

For consistency reasons, you can't use both rules at once; so - as Tony says - you have to pick one and stick to it.

If you claim the DM's prerogative to rule on how long rests take and what benefits are derived from them situationally (or you invent a story-based recovery system), you gain the flexibility to put those 6-8/3 encounters over whatever time period fits for that part of the story, and thus pace your campaign and 'build' your world as you like.

In other words, rewrite the resting rules to suit your own game/style/preference. A possible solution, to be sure, though a bit labour-intensive from the DM side and not at all what the OP of this thread is looking for.

If the classes were balanced, and encounter difficulty robust, regardless of day-length, you'd also have that same flexibility, without having to flex your DM Empowerment..
If you don't care about (or actively revile) class balance and/or encounter difficulty (in a 'status quo'/CaW style campaign for instance), you also have the same flexibility by default.

The holy altar of balance has claimed enough victims already. I don't feel up to feeding it any more. And encounter difficulty? One would think - for a bunch of reasons - that's going to be more or less variable at the best of times, even going as far out as almost completely random in a true sandbox.

Lan-"true balance is a pipe dream; far better are a bunch of imbalances that somehow manage to at some point cancel each other out"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

All true...and that's just the problem.

The standard mechanics, from what I can tell, work just fine - or fine enough - in a dungeon crawl situation where lots of encounters in a relatively short time are the expected norm. But they don't work for travel situations or when only one encounter every few days is expected.

Actually, I feel like the short rest isn't short enough for a dungeon crawl. JMHO. The 'gritty' rest times seem OK for modest journeys. But they're not presented as 'use this for 'standard' dungeons, use that for hexcrawling, they're presented as, rule, alternate module, pick one.

For consistency reasons, you can't use both rules at once; so - as Tony says - you have to pick one and stick to it.

Except, you really don't. Sure, it's mechanical consistency for everyone to always 'ding' after 8 hours 'round the campfire. But consistency within the setting? Not so much: it'd be perfectly consistent for a night's sleep out on a glacier to grant very little benefit compared to a night in a comfy inn, for and extreme instance.

For that matter, a night in a comfy inn spent partying until first light wouldn't exactly be restful, either...

The holy altar of balance has claimed enough victims already. I don't feel up to feeding it any more.
Lan-"true balance is a pipe dream; far better are a bunch of imbalances that somehow manage to at some point cancel each other out"-efan

Balance doesn't have victims, the point of balance is that choices co-exist within the system, no one is sacrificed to achieve that, quite the opposite it's more inclusive, imbalance removes choices from the game, and potentially drives away the players who end up under-served by the result.

Balance in a game is like Quality in any complex product, /perfect/ is unattainable, but better can always be worked towards. No one ever worries that their product quality is too high, they worry it's been too expensive to attain, but not "Damn, quality is too high, scrap this batch and run 'em again, and don't be so careful this time!"

And encounter difficulty? One would think - for a bunch of reasons - that's going to be more or less variable at the best of times, even going as far out as almost completely random in a true sandbox.

Yep. It's like rewards for system mastery, that way. The DM can always vary encounter difficulty radically. The PC's choices can impact it significantly. Both, no matter how well the system helps the DM estimate difficulty, which is all encounter guidelines do, provide the DM with a tool to estimate. Making that tool less dependable is not a good thing.

 

[Maxperson]

Ok the general discussion for at least the last couple of pages has been around combat encounters with an emphasis on monsters... didn't think I needed to specify unless I was speaking to something different.

That's the exact problem. You DID specify. You specified two completely different things. Encounters OR monster fights. Had you just said encounters, I would have assumed fights. Had you just said fights, I would have gone with fights. Instead you specified encounters as being different.

 

[Maxperson]

Rules can be principles, guidelines whatever so please stop with the petty semantics to avoid the actual point...

You might have a point with the other stuff, I'm not really going to look closely enough for that, but here he's right on point. It's not semantics. You've written something incomprehensible. You've written encounter rules vs. actual rules. What does that even mean? To me an actual rule is a......rule. Actual rules would include encounter rules, but you've separated them there. There's no way to decipher what it is you are talking about unless you clarify.

mainly nothing in the encounter guidelines, principles, rules or whatever you choose to call them affects worldbuilding unless you choose to make it so. So no, using 3 deadly encounters per day doesn't inherently create implications for worldbuilding... outside of those found in every D&D game.

So an "actual" rule affects world building?

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Yep, I think that's a valid style. You don't have to play through the odd 'random' encounter to establish what an area you're traveling through is like, especially with a higher-level party. "You travel through the lawless lands of Uhhr, frightening off would-be bandits who are no match for you several time..." "The monotony of your trek through the Evil Sands of Ilgrennata is broken by the occasional oasis and one short vicious battle with a sandworm..." Nope, no XP.

To an extent. If you establish the fiction of your campaign such that multi-encounter days don't make much sense, most of the time, the mechanics it's 'on you' for choosing to use are all the classes & monsters.
OK, that's an overstatement, you could use a selection of classes, like just the full casters (& Barbarian, maybe?) or just the Fighter, Warlock, Monk & half-casters....

...actually, neither of those sound that bad, now that I type them outloud...

...long and unproductive as this thread has mostly seemed, it does keep offering partial solutions like that.

In this case, they can both be on the wrong side of the Elephant, though. Whether you're all about the Vtude, or all about the gam'n fun, (and, anti-GNS activist that I am, I don't concede that anyone is really /all/ one or the other) the Elephant can step on your toes.

That's what I usually find, the answer is usually someplace in the middle, and usually requires a bit of flexibility from the players and the DM.

Though they might not attack. Animals are bizarrely aggressive in D&D.

And bizarrely suicidal too. But that's one of the reasons why we have fewer combats in my campaign. I don't assume that every creature attacks the party, or always fights to the death, and the party considers carefully who they feel is worth the risk.

Consistency with things as abstract and fantastic as spell slots, ki points, and even CS dice, doesn't have to be consistent in the same way your car starting when you turn the key is meant to be consistent. And, even RL life consistency isn't the same as the kind you'd get from precisely enforcing a reality implied by the very limited scope of a game's rules. IRL, a person can be invigorated and ready to go after an hour nap or 15 minute of mediation, or still be groggy and out of sorts after sleeping 10 hours. Someone driven could go two or three days without sleep, someone depressed can barely get out of bed. Even reality isn't one-size-fits all that way, why should fantasy be?

Also a good reason.

Yep. Something that can be represented in part by Constitution, a difference between good/bad sleep, character traits, and DM/player adjudication for given circumstances. All of which are in my campaign.

 

[clearstream]

Actually, I feel like the short rest isn't short enough for a dungeon crawl. JMHO. The 'gritty' rest times seem OK for modest journeys. But they're not presented as 'use this for 'standard' dungeons, use that for hexcrawling, they're presented as, rule, alternate module, pick one.

Except, you really don't. Sure, it's mechanical consistency for everyone to always 'ding' after 8 hours 'round the campfire. But consistency within the setting? Not so much: it'd be perfectly consistent for a night's sleep out on a glacier to grant very little benefit compared to a night in a comfy inn, for and extreme instance.

Pasted below is what I'm using currently in my OOTA campaign. I'm holding my "recovery" mechanics in abeyance until the calendar-time solution fails. Note that I'm ignoring Crawford and applying the RAW strictly, i.e. any combat or any spell cast interrupts a rest. It's worth reiterating that Crawford's ruling evokes a mild ambiguity in the language to require one hour of fighting to break a long rest: at an average of 5 rounds a fight (30 seconds) that entails 120 encounters to break a rest! That's enough encounters to go from level one to level ten. If that's what the author really meant, then it's worth exploiting the ambiguity to ignore them. Per RAW characters need to avoid strenuous activity and - for a Long Rest - sleep. I think that allows a DM to rule on comfort requirements.

Short Rest
A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 3 hours long.

Extended Short Rest
An extended short rest is a period of downtime, at least 8 hours long. Along with the standard benefits of a short rest, an extended short rest allows characters to reduce exhaustion, examine or attune magic items, and train. A character can’t benefit from more than one extended short rest in a 24 hour period.

Long Rest
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 24 hours long. After taking one, a character can’t benefit from another for 24 hours.

I made this change as a halfway house between standard and Gritty Realism. I wanted mechanically meaningful easy and medium encounters (often as random encounters) without slowing the travel pace to a crawl. I found a need to move "world effects" into an extended short rest. My concept for that is there are no character ability recoveries there, only other things. Possibly hit point maximum drain could recover on extended short rests. What do you think?

 

[CapnZapp]

Actually, I feel like the short rest isn't short enough for a dungeon crawl. JMHO. The 'gritty' rest times seem OK for modest journeys. But they're not presented as 'use this for 'standard' dungeons, use that for hexcrawling, they're presented as, rule, alternate module, pick one.

Except, you really don't. Sure, it's mechanical consistency for everyone to always 'ding' after 8 hours 'round the campfire. But consistency within the setting? Not so much: it'd be perfectly consistent for a night's sleep out on a glacier to grant very little benefit compared to a night in a comfy inn, for and extreme instance.

For that matter, a night in a comfy inn spent partying until first light wouldn't exactly be restful, either...

That is why the rules should have empowered the adventure writer or DM to vary the rest durations for each adventure in the same campaign with the exact same heroes.

The PHB could still have presented 1 hour and 8 hours as the assumed default. When the DMG and the DM doesn't say otherwise.

Point is: just changing it to five minutes/1 hour fixes nothing. Likewise, setting it to 1 day/1 week does not help.

The only true fix (apart from completely changing the mechanism, see "Encounter Points" for example) is to accept that for one adventure a 5 minute short rest is perfect, but for another its 1 day.

I predict that just as D&D has dragged the conservative naysayers screaming and kicking into the modern world so many times before*, it will happen again

*) remember when there were alignment restrictions on class, level restrictions on race, Hats of Non-Detection, months-long Charm Person spells, ten-round pre-combat buff parties, scry and teleport slaughters...? You shudder too? Ayep, the day will come when D&Ders will scratch their heads wondering why it took so many editions before the fixed rest sacred cow was slaughtered too.

 

[Lanefan]

I predict that just as D&D has dragged the conservative naysayers screaming and kicking into the modern world so many times before*, it will happen again

*) remember when there were alignment restrictions on class, level restrictions on race, Hats of Non-Detection

Curious: what's wrong with non-detection? I've never seen it as a problem.

months-long Charm Person spells

Well, if you were charming someone who had the intelligence of a shoe...but then what would be the point of wasting a spell on someone that dumb when you could just tell said person what to do (using small words) and chances are they'd do it anyway.

ten-round pre-combat buff parties

When they know they're about to hit the BBEG or some other major situation, I really don't mind if they do some pre-castings and buff-ups - and every pre-cast they do represents one fewer spell they have for the battle itself, or for patching themselves up afterwards. It's when the pre-cast frenzy happens before every single combat that it gets tiresome.

scry and teleport slaughters

If a group has scrying ability and has low- or no-risk instant long-range travel ability, how can these ever be fully prevented?

Lanefan