D&D 5E Long Rest is a Problem

[Asisreo]

As it should be IMO. MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

The problem is a lot of players IME from other posts claim they don't want death spirals. I've always liked them, myself, but meh

I've been working on a d20 SW-like system but instead of using wound points, it brings exhaustion into the equation. So far it has worked well if you want a brutal, gritty style of combat instead of the slog-fest 5E is much of the time.

Yeah, death spirals kinda suck to be on the receiving end of. It's basically the opposite of what you said combat should be minus the deadly.

If they're in a situation where they're doomed to fail, or at least feel like they are, they'll just check out.

It's like playing chess where the enemy has you completely cornered (even if you aren't necessarily in check) but you're not allowed to forfeit and have to sit there for 10 minutes playing a game you already lost.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah, death spirals kinda suck to be on the receiving end of. It's basically the opposite of what you said combat should be minus the deadly.

If they're in a situation where they're doomed to fail, or at least feel like they are, they'll just check out.

I guess I've always seen death spirals as a learning experience for me as a player. How did it get to this? What could I have done differently? Did I push my luck too far? Or was it just a case of bad luck?

After all, if I'm in a situation where I'm doomed to fail, how did I get there? Failure needs to be a bigger aspect of the game IMO, but in 5E it isn't by design. Of course DMs can always make the game harder... but the assumption is the PCs will prevail in many games and to me that just becomes boring.

But this topic has been gone over repeatedly and deviates from the point of the (once thought dead) thread, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I'm testing a modification to short and long rests in one of my current campaigns.

First, short rests take 5 minutes, and you get 2 of them per long rest. This is to keep short and long rest classes on a level playing field, which has emerged as a problem in my games.

Second, during a long rest you can only regain hit points by spending hit dice. Hit dice are regained every long rest at a rate equal to your proficiency bonus. This is to slightly slow the rate of healing, mostly as a pacing mechanism. I want to keep fights cinematic, but I also want players to feel it when they get caught in a series of back-to-back encounters. That's a tricky balance.

 

[Scott Christian]

Must say I like this one. My view if one wants gritty game. A failed death Save confers a level of exhaustion and no long rest in the dungeon/wilderness. At least until one gets Mordenkaienen's Mansion

Yeah, it kind of plays into a Tolkien-esque approach. Needing some type of comfort to "rest up." It also enables dungeons to be what they are - dungeons that adventurers, if they go down, might not get any rest. So the resource management game plays more heavily into the thought process (ie. wizards hold onto their spells and let the thief do the work. )

 

[DEFCON 1]

I mean, the big issue is that D&D is a game that is primarily abut combat. That's why 90% of a PC's stats and rules affect or are about their combat ability, and one of the three rulebooks is entirely about combat opponents (the Monster Manual). So the game is set up to allow players to play combat at normal efficiency from start to finish. That's why everyone in all editions have always done whatever it took to replenish their HP at the start of their "combat day" (not at the start of their next in-game day, but at the start of whatever next day the PCs go out on adventure).

So regardless of whatever rules a DM puts in to make the in-game "reality" somewhat "realistic"... players are never going to go along with it. They will do whatever it takes to ameliorate those rules. They will take however many long rests in a row to heal up. They will take an in-game "day off" so that the clerics and healers can blow their entire day's spell slots to heal everyone to full and then go out the next day. I mean this is exactly what players did in past editions all the time (except in instances where the DM "forced" the players to keep going while unhealed by piling on encounters before resting could be completed.) And this is why things like the Cure Light Wounds wand was a thing many 3E wizards would take the Craft Wand feat to make, so that the party could heal up at the end of the day before going to sleep. Because not a single player would ever want to start an adventuring day when a primary component of their game rules for one of the most important parts of the game were not starting from normal.

Would anyone want to play Monopoly when their opponents already had a half-dozen properties already owned? Of course not. So playing the D&D combat mini-game with less than full HP to start with was just as ridiculous. What's the point? Yeah, from the "story" point of view having "injuries" makes sense... but we know from ALL of the threads here on ENWorld about game mechanics and game balancing and character power that "story" is a massively distant second for everyone to the first place of a PC's focus, their character sheet-- again, which is 90% about combat. Thus trying to change game rules to put more a focus on "story" regarding injuries is pretty much a pointless endeavor.

And this is precisely why a 7 year old thread has not seen any "solution" in all that time. Because there is no solution. If anyone cared about "story" regarding in-game injuries it would have been solved. But it hasn't been, because players are 99.9% happy with playing the combat mini-game starting topped off, even if narratively it makes things a little wonky. They will take the wonky to play combat as it has been designed to be played.

 

[CapnZapp]

I mean, the big issue is that D&D is a game that is primarily abut combat. That's why 90% of a PC's stats and rules affect or are about their combat ability, and one of the three rulebooks is entirely about combat opponents (the Monster Manual). So the game is set up to allow players to play combat at normal efficiency from start to finish. That's why everyone in all editions have always done whatever it took to replenish their HP at the start of their "combat day" (not at the start of their next in-game day, but at the start of whatever next day the PCs go out on adventure).

So regardless of whatever rules a DM puts in to make the in-game "reality" somewhat "realistic"... players are never going to go along with it. They will do whatever it takes to ameliorate those rules. They will take however many long rests in a row to heal up. They will take an in-game "day off" so that the clerics and healers can blow their entire day's spell slots to heal everyone to full and then go out the next day. I mean this is exactly what players did in past editions all the time (except in instances where the DM "forced" the players to keep going while unhealed by piling on encounters before resting could be completed.) And this is why things like the Cure Light Wounds wand was a thing many 3E wizards would take the Craft Wand feat to make, so that the party could heal up at the end of the day before going to sleep. Because not a single player would ever want to start an adventuring day when a primary component of their game rules for one of the most important parts of the game were not starting from normal.

Would anyone want to play Monopoly when their opponents already had a half-dozen properties already owned? Of course not. So playing the D&D combat mini-game with less than full HP to start with was just as ridiculous. What's the point? Yeah, from the "story" point of view having "injuries" makes sense... but we know from ALL of the threads here on ENWorld about game mechanics and game balancing and character power that "story" is a massively distant second for everyone to the first place of a PC's focus, their character sheet-- again, which is 90% about combat. Thus trying to change game rules to put more a focus on "story" regarding injuries is pretty much a pointless endeavor.

And this is precisely why a 7 year old thread has not seen any "solution" in all that time. Because there is no solution. If anyone cared about "story" regarding in-game injuries it would have been solved. But it hasn't been, because players are 99.9% happy with playing the combat mini-game starting topped off, even if narratively it makes things a little wonky. They will take the wonky to play combat as it has been designed to be played.

A less doom-and-gloomy response would be to highlight the 7th Age system idea:

• Unless you have completed two encounters, you simply cannot take a short rest.
• Unless you have completed two short rest, you simply cannot take a long rest.

(Or something like that, I'm expressing the general idea in 5E terms here)

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, the big issue is that D&D is a game that is primarily abut combat. That's why 90% of a PC's stats and rules affect or are about their combat ability, and one of the three rulebooks is entirely about combat opponents (the Monster Manual). So the game is set up to allow players to play combat at normal efficiency from start to finish. That's why everyone in all editions have always done whatever it took to replenish their HP at the start of their "combat day" (not at the start of their next in-game day, but at the start of whatever next day the PCs go out on adventure).

So regardless of whatever rules a DM puts in to make the in-game "reality" somewhat "realistic"... players are never going to go along with it. They will do whatever it takes to ameliorate those rules. They will take however many long rests in a row to heal up. They will take an in-game "day off" so that the clerics and healers can blow their entire day's spell slots to heal everyone to full and then go out the next day. I mean this is exactly what players did in past editions all the time (except in instances where the DM "forced" the players to keep going while unhealed by piling on encounters before resting could be completed.) And this is why things like the Cure Light Wounds wand was a thing many 3E wizards would take the Craft Wand feat to make, so that the party could heal up at the end of the day before going to sleep. Because not a single player would ever want to start an adventuring day when a primary component of their game rules for one of the most important parts of the game were not starting from normal.

Would anyone want to play Monopoly when their opponents already had a half-dozen properties already owned? Of course not. So playing the D&D combat mini-game with less than full HP to start with was just as ridiculous. What's the point? Yeah, from the "story" point of view having "injuries" makes sense... but we know from ALL of the threads here on ENWorld about game mechanics and game balancing and character power that "story" is a massively distant second for everyone to the first place of a PC's focus, their character sheet-- again, which is 90% about combat. Thus trying to change game rules to put more a focus on "story" regarding injuries is pretty much a pointless endeavor.

And this is precisely why a 7 year old thread has not seen any "solution" in all that time. Because there is no solution. If anyone cared about "story" regarding in-game injuries it would have been solved. But it hasn't been, because players are 99.9% happy with playing the combat mini-game starting topped off, even if narratively it makes things a little wonky. They will take the wonky to play combat as it has been designed to be played.

I don't think there's an answer to D&D players preferring combat over narrative. (And as one of those players, I don't really want an answer, either!) I do think there's a possible answer to the rest issue by divorcing hit points (which represent combat readiness) from the greater pool of resources. 4e had the right idea by letting hit points recover easily, but healing surges powered hit points and recovered more slowly. Personally, I also favor tying more of the PC's power to consumables, and less to personal abilities. If you want your full allotment of abilities, you need to go back to civilization and procure ink and paper for scrolls, buy new potions, etc.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A less doom-and-gloomy response would be to highlight the 7th Age system idea:

• Unless you have completed two encounters, you simply cannot take a short rest.
• Unless you have completed two short rest, you simply cannot take a long rest.

(Or something like that, I'm expressing the general idea in 5E terms here)

Those are good ideas for spreading days out, certainly. But it doesn't really solve the question of why PCs can heal all wounds/injuries overnight. Not that I think you can solve it, mind you.

The problem comes down to trying to align both "in-game narrative" and "out-of-game mechanics". As I said above, players sitting "out-of-game" will never voluntarily send their PCs forward to adventure at less than full HP because they know that the game is built from the ground up for combat to be its primary focus. And no one is going to voluntarily start their combat day with one hand tied behind their back. Which is why the game rules make it easy for players to heal their PCs hit points fully-- the players were going to do that anyway.

So with that being said... the only other thing to do is to try and put together some kind of "in-game narrative" reason to do so. Oftentimes its the "gritty" long rest rules of 7 days for a LR getting thrown about. But the problem with that is that while it makes the narrative of wound recover make a little more sense... it usually destroys all the other aspects of narrative and in-game story. The plot can rarely withstand characters sitting out for an entire week. It destroys the flow of any story. So no DM is going to enjoy trying to create adventures with them now having that one hand tied behind their back. Believe me... I tried running Curse of Strahd with 7-day long-rest rules in place, and the story took a beating. So much of it made little to no sense that the PCs just had to set up a camp and twiddle their thumbs for a week as the world passed them by so that they could "heal naturally". And I came to the conclusion (rightly I think) that the one time where mechanics trumps story is regarding wound recovery. I'd rather have the plot make more sense and be more compelling by letting PCs reset quicker than try and worry about the "reality" of how fast wounds recovered. Especially considering the other "in-game" reality that we have all these characters that can throw magic at the problem as much as they want to heal wounds just up until the "out-of-game balancing system" of spell slots says those characters are all out and cannot heal anymore and thus they now all have to camp for 7 days to get all their "stuff" back.

 

[Asisreo]

A less doom-and-gloomy response would be to highlight the 7th Age system idea:

• Unless you have completed two encounters, you simply cannot take a short rest.
• Unless you have completed two short rest, you simply cannot take a long rest.

(Or something like that, I'm expressing the general idea in 5E terms here)

I mean, I don't know how many people actually enforce the "24-hours per long rest" rule, but it does actually limit the time a player can just dust their hands and call a long rest repeatedly. If the place you're in is truly dangerous, you'll be jumped multiple times. And the thing with getting jumped is that you constantly lose resources doing it. So while you're trying to recover, you're actually just losing HP.

Notice, this is before the long rest begins. If it was 4 hours since their last long rest and they decide to bunker down, they must sit in wait for 12 whole hours before they can even start their next one. It isn't even an interruption, it's a prevention..

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't think there's an answer to D&D players preferring combat over narrative. (And as one of those players, I don't really want an answer, either!) I do think there's a possible answer to the rest issue by divorcing hit points (which represent combat readiness) from the greater pool of resources. 4e had the right idea by letting hit points recover easily, but healing surges powered hit points and recovered more slowly. Personally, I also favor tying more of the PC's power to consumables, and less to personal abilities. If you want your full allotment of abilities, you need to go back to civilization and procure ink and paper for scrolls, buy new potions, etc.

I also think splitting the hit dice / wound recovery part of the Rest system from the "getting back spell slots" and other class feature recovery part of the Rest system could attempt to fix the problem. But I think we all know what would happen if we did that-- if hit point recovery was on a 7-day long rest reset and spells were on an overnight long rest reset... not a single gaming group would ever hit that 7-day wound reset. Everyone would just sleep overnight, get all their slots back, blow them all immediately to heal everyone as much as possible using magic, then sit on their hands for the day to start adventuring the next day when they get their spells back. Sure, it solves the "narrative" issue that it's no longer natural recovery that heals everyone's wounds, it's now "magic!"... but at least speaking personally, that is such an inconsequential narrative difference. The result is absolutely the same... everyone starts their adventuring day at full. The only difference is "magic" rather than the pseudo-real-world "laws of physics" that so many players seem to need in their game. So long as you can shout "Magic!", then apparently it's okay to narratively break all the rules of the natural world. But if you can't shout "Magic!", then people for some reason need the rules of our natural world to be upheld. And I have found that to be a rather ridiculous need myself.