D&D 5E Let's Talk About Chapter 9 of the DMG

[Nebulous]

Yeah, doesn't seem to do what you want.

On the bright side for many PCs that heal check will fail 45% of the time.

Woohoo! Take that players!!!

 

[Reynard]

I see. Well the party would just have ten kits on hand so it wouldn't make a difference really.

This is the kind of thing that happens when groups decide that things like resource management and encumbrance are too big of a hassle. Healers kits are 3 lbs. They take up space. You presumably need them when you are not in a place where you can replace them. But you also need food. And clean water. And ammunition. You can only carry so much. Now you have to make choices. What do you need most?

IMO D&D without resource management devolves into action move super heroics. Which is fine if that's what you want. I think that is not actually what most people want, but they are too lazy to let D&D be what it was designed to be which, among other things, is a game about logistics.

There are cascading effects of ignoring rules systems for expedience sake. You know how people used to scoff at the old weapon type versus armor charts, and weapon lengths as they related to initiative and other fiddly bits related to equipment? Those same people complained that fighters were all the same and paled compared to casters, because what the fighter was REALLY good for was having the right tool for the job in combat. But if you did not enforce the rules that let the fighter shine, of course the fighter looked boring and useless.

D&D, any edition, is a complex machine with a huge number of moving parts. People very often change or remove those parts with no regard to how they impact the game overall, and then complain that D&D doesn't work or is broken or whatever.

 

[Nebulous]

This is the kind of thing that happens when groups decide that things like resource management and encumbrance are too big of a hassle. Healers kits are 3 lbs. They take up space. You presumably need them when you are not in a place where you can replace them. But you also need food. And clean water. And ammunition. You can only carry so much. Now you have to make choices. What do you need most?

IMO D&D without resource management devolves into action move super heroics. Which is fine if that's what you want. I think that is not actually what most people want, but they are too lazy to let D&D be what it was designed to be which, among other things, is a game about logistics.

Three pounds is heavy, I didn't know it was that much. But they'd still meta-game it to spread 10 kits among 5 PCs. As for food, water and ammunition...we don't track any of that. Most groups don't. It's too time intensive and micromanagement. I WISH we could do it easily. I've seen some third party games that have simple systems of resource management that quickly dwindle.

I'm not too upset with D&D being action movie heroic at low level. They can already take a nap and heal from any deathly wound. It's the super hero silliness at 10th+ level that I don't much like, but to each his own.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Funny. From some of the topics around here, you would get the impression that Chapter 9 is practically useless...

 

[Hriston]

By default, a long rest is eight hours, and the time between long rests is at least sixteen hours. If you scale "eight hours" out to "seven days" then maintaining the ratio would mean at least fourteen days between long rests. It's the difference between a full-time adventurer, and a tavern-jockey who occasionally goes out on brief adventures.

But as you say, that doesn't jibe with two short rests per long rest. Implementing this option requires you to make other changes to the system, and it doesn't say where or how you should change them.

Maintaining that ratio is not an explicitly stated expectation of the rules. In fact, the explicitly stated goal of Gritty Realism is to alter that ratio, so the characters spend more time out of the dungeon. On the other hand, two short rests per adventuring day is explicitly stated according to the "Evaluating Encounter Difficulty" guidelines from which I already quoted. What changes do you think are required other than changing the length of a long and short rest?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What changes do you think are required other than changing the length of a long and short rest?

Basically, any reference to time that isn't already measured in terms of short rests or long rests. If you don't update those values to account for adventure pacing, then you've changed the game, by changing the relevance of those things to the adventure. If you do update those values, then you've also changed the game, by changing their relevance to the rest of the world.

As previously mentioned, an adventurer who's only active for three days out of every ten is a distinct thing from one who's active every day. Either you need to change your assumption regarding the number of short rests per long rest, or you need to change the place of adventurers within the world.

If adventures take longer to finish (and recover from), then you need to spend more money on lifestyle maintenance. If it takes ten days to complete both the adventure and the long rest recovery, as compared to one day before, then either: 1) adventures need to be ten times as profitable, or 2) lifestyle is going to take a severe drop. You're also going to run through more torches, and other expendables. Magic potions certainly become less useful, when you're unlikely to have more than one encounter in an hour.

And that's without getting into spell durations, the sorts of activities which will disrupt a long rest, or the fact that Divine Intervention essentially becomes a long rest ability.

 

[Oofta]

Basically, any reference to time that isn't already measured in terms of short rests or long rests. If you don't update those values to account for adventure pacing, then you've changed the game, by changing the relevance of those things to the adventure. If you do update those values, then you've also changed the game, by changing their relevance to the rest of the world.

As previously mentioned, an adventurer who's only active for three days out of every ten is a distinct thing from one who's active every day. Either you need to change your assumption regarding the number of short rests per long rest, or you need to change the place of adventurers within the world.

If adventures take longer to finish (and recover from), then you need to spend more money on lifestyle maintenance. If it takes ten days to complete both the adventure and the long rest recovery, as compared to one day before, then either: 1) adventures need to be ten times as profitable, or 2) lifestyle is going to take a severe drop. You're also going to run through more torches, and other expendables. Magic potions certainly become less useful, when you're unlikely to have more than one encounter in an hour.

And that's without getting into spell durations, the sorts of activities which will disrupt a long rest, or the fact that Divine Intervention essentially becomes a long rest ability.

People who belong to professional sports teams don't play a game every single day either. Unless your PCs go from level 1 to 20 in the course of a little more than a month they will have downtime.

Spell durations are another issue, I multiply by 5 if duration is half an hour or more. Divine favor can only be granted once per month.

So yes, I do add in two incredibly tedious to track and difficult simple house rules to compensate. I just hand-wave downtime most of the time unless the PC wants to do something special.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

People who belong to professional sports teams don't play a game every single day either. Unless your PCs go from level 1 to 20 in the course of a little more than a month they will have downtime.

PCs are usually on-call, though. They don't save a town every day, but they're always open to the possibility, if they come across a town in need of saving. They don't turn down an adventure because they're on vacation for a week.

 

[Oofta]

PCs are usually on-call, though. They don't save a town every day, but they're always open to the possibility, if they come across a town in need of saving. They don't turn down an adventure because they're on vacation for a week.

Then if they don't have a chance to get in a long rest, they don't get in a long rest. That's on the DM to balance just like with daily long rests.

 

[Reynard]

Then if they don't have a chance to get in a long rest, they don't get in a long rest. That's on the DM to balance just like with daily long rests.

Yeah. If you always push yourself to complete exhaustion, don't be surprised when you can't rise to an unexpected challenge. leave some in the tank.