D&D 5E DM in trouble needs advice/help to balance encounters in his campaign.

[EpicureanDM]

This is why I believe our group needs to consider trying something like 1 average night = 1 short rest recovery value while something like a good night's sleep per week in a very cosy place offers the recovery benefits of a long rest.

This approach still puts control over rest - and therefore the difficulty of the game - in your players' hands. The decision becomes a little harder, but not much in my experience. You're still trying to connect a out-of-game balance mechanism ("How often should the characters recover their mechanical resources?") with an in-game fiction controlled by the people who are supposed to feel its pressure. To use a loose sports analogy, it's like a game where the rules say that the players can have three time-outs in a game, unless they decide that they want more. (That analogy isn't perfect, so please don't nitpick it.)

If you use the system I described, the players' control over the game's difficulty is vastly reduced. You eliminate the awkward dance between DM and players as you negotiate whether the characters can rest successfully. You no longer need to worry about whether the players have "earned" a short rest or whether an unexpected long rest will destroy the challenge of the final battle. Each rest comes on a strict schedule that the players are aware of and can plan for. There's complete transparency. If they sling their spells too casually in the first three encounters, you'll see them carefully strategizing in the last couple of fights. They'll need to get creative (and you'll have to support that creativity) because they must make do with less. That long rest is still two encounters away and they can't weasel you into giving it to them early without a big sacrifice! So they'll figure out how to negotiate with the monsters or trick them or steal the treasure. And because you're mostly designing Medium strength encounters (mostly as defined in the DMG), you know that those final few battles will be reasonably short and quick, but still exciting.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This approach still puts control over rest - and therefore the difficulty of the game - in your players' hands. The decision becomes a little harder, but not much in my experience. You're still trying to connect a out-of-game balance mechanism ("How often should the characters recover their mechanical resources?") with an in-game fiction controlled by the people who are supposed to feel its pressure.

That's not necessarily all bad. Where it's a little bit good is that it does give the players some meaningful decisions to make - as long as the pacing of the campaign puts the decision to rest in the players' hands, with benefits and consequences to weigh. Being better able to handle encounters because you're at full strength is the relevant benefit, and time pressures - enemy preparedness/escape, rivals getting there first, 'doom clocks' of various types, etc - the usual consequences.
However, in D&D, because the classes are balanced around a specific pacing, there's /also/ metagame pressures, for the classes with a heavy concentration of rest-recharge resources, resting more often will mean greater effectiveness, importance, and even dominance in play, and, correspondingly, greater effectiveness & chance of success for the party, for the classes without such, making a meaningful contribution means seeing classes of the first sort pushed beyond the limits of their resources. So there is a built-in, perverse incentive, for players of certain classes to sabotage their own party in order to at least appear to be pulling their own weight, when, in fact, by doing so, they are overall hurting the party's chance of success, while, conversely, if they go with what's best for the party, they're chronically under-contributing. There's literally no right call.

The 13A solution eliminates both dynamics. The standard D&D model emphasizes both.

 

[EpicureanDM]

That's not necessarily all bad. Where it's a little bit good is that it does give the players some meaningful decisions to make - as long as the pacing of the campaign puts the decision to rest in the players' hands, with benefits and consequences to weigh. Being better able to handle encounters because you're at full strength is the relevant benefit, and time pressures - enemy preparedness/escape, rivals getting there first, 'doom clocks' of various types, etc - the usual consequences.

I'm with you, but put a lot of emphasis on the part about whether the pacing is being handled via other pressures in the world. New DMs can really struggle with the solutions you're describing, especially in the moment when sitting at the table. How much stronger should the enemy be if the party rests for an hour? If the rivals get there first, is the DM ready for that? Unless DMs are using Dungeon World-style Fronts (and why would new D&D DMs be expected to?), then the DM needs to improvise and calibrate difficulty on the fly. Part of improving as a DM involves becoming better at improvising that sort of thing, but @tom1017 is a relatively new DM (with lots of players experience). One benefit of 13th Age's approach is that it puts less pressure on the DM's ability to improvise. They can build confidence with the other parts of the game without worrying as much on the game's difficulty. That's why I often recommend it. But if Tom feels confident or comfortable in their ability to improvise these pacing obstacles in game, then it just remains to find the right sweet spot of in-game time for rests.

So there is a built-in, perverse incentive, for players of certain classes to sabotage their own party in order to at least appear to be pulling their own weight, when, in fact, by doing so, they are overall hurting the party's chance of success, while, conversely, if they go with what's best for the party, they're chronically under-contributing. There's literally no right call.

I don't remember seeing it put that way before, but I like it.

 

[tom1017]

Hey guys.

Honestly it's getting a bit too technical for me... I mean, we don't even have sports with time outs around here (lol)... but I really appreciate all the help you're providing.

Long story short I discussed the option of changing the recovery pace with my most experienced player, one who's got pretty good understanding of the dynamics too.

We agreed that trying the idea of 1 average night = 1 short rest benefits while 1 comfortable night a week (or so) = 1 long rest benefits might be a pretty good idea for our group.

In any case I'm really confident this option will give positive results.

 

[Quartz]

To sum up, most of my experience comes from playing Warhammer RPG and Call of Cthulhu, and to put things simply I'm struggling to balance encounters when the players have a lot of HP and powerful abilities.

Are your players having fun? Then you're doing it right.

Somerthing not so far covered: in the two systems you mention, at least the versions I recall from 20 years ago, taking damage is a very bad thing; in D&D it's very different: PCs are expected to take damage, so don't worry about hurting PCs. They're supposed to get hurt and they have resources they can use to recover.

 

[S'mon]

I strongly recommend changing to 1 week long rests, with max 3 short rests/day (if dungeon delving - if only having 1 fight/day then overnight SR is fine). I found this made a huge difference to my game. You definitely do want to be having multiple encounters between LR most sessions, 6-8 is ideal but 3 is a minimum.

I don't really balance encounters as such. I'd say, if in doubt just double the number of monsters. This works really well in 5e.

 

[Ratskinner]

Hey guys.

Honestly it's getting a bit too technical for me... I mean, we don't even have sports with time outs around here (lol)... but I really appreciate all the help you're providing.

Long story short I discussed the option of changing the recovery pace with my most experienced player, one who's got pretty good understanding of the dynamics too.

We agreed that trying the idea of 1 average night = 1 short rest benefits while 1 comfortable night a week (or so) = 1 long rest benefits might be a pretty good idea for our group.

In any case I'm really confident this option will give positive results.

Changing the rests is the thing I was going to suggest. It's in the DMG, IIRC.

Another option, that can be used at the same time. Add more simple encounters with small-medium sized groups of easily dispatched opponents. If you can get a few of the folks like paladins and wizards to blow some of their "nova" abilities, so much the better. You can also put those in as either reinforcements or a "first wave" of the more important encounters.

I really like the "Doom Clock" suggestion. As I understand it the Tyranny of Dragons should have one anyway. Just keep it prominent and don't be afraid to mark a tick off when they fail a roll for something like Dungeoneering, Survival, or even picking a lock (if your clock is for a short enough timescale.) You can even have a "Wandering monster" clock. I've used clocks in other games and they work great to ratchet up the tension.