D&D 5E House rule to force spellcasters with daily spell slots to take short rests

[MatthewJHanson]

When I transitioned from 4th to 5th, the thing that seemed to make the biggest difference in short rests is that they take an hour in 5e, and PCs often don't want to wait that long. Going back to a 5 min short rest will probably help a lot.

 

[Quartz]

I had a thread on making casters based around short rests a while back. If you do a search on my name and the word 'balance ' in the title you will find it.

 

[J-H]

Don't your players just, you know, WORK TOGETHER, to make sure the monks, warlocks, etc. get their resources back when the enemy and speed of plot allows it?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Don't your players just, you know, WORK TOGETHER, to make sure the monks, warlocks, etc. get their resources back when the enemy and speed of plot allows it?

This is exactly what I was thinking. The incentive for casters to take short rests is so that they're teammates are stronger.

The premise of this thread is, in my experience, a non-problem.

 

[NotAYakk]

Anyhow, here is another mechanic.

Second Wind:
As an action you can recover your short rest resources and spend up to 1/2 (round down) of your HD to regain HP. Once you do this, you cannot do it again until an hour has passed.

Fighter's Second Wind becomes
Improved Second Wind:
When you take a Second Wind, you regain an additional 1d10+fighter level HP. In addition, you can choose to take your Second Wind as a bonus action; if you do this, the only short rest resources that refresh are fighter class and subclass resources.

It is a fix in the other directly, basically.

 

[Umbran]

I think one of the problems with the current 5E rules is that the game is apparently balanced on the assumption that the PCs take 2-3 short rests between long rests during adventures, but spellcasters with daily spell slots don't have much of an incentive to take short rests.

Why aren't you just modifying Arcane Recovery to handle this?

Arcane Recovery
You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. Once per day when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your wizard level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Is there a problem in your campaign specifically you're trying to address? Is there a problem with casters going nova? I think by default, most players will open up with their most powerful attacks - in my most recent session of my game, I counted on that. I knew the wizard would open up with one of his most powerful spells in round one, so the enemy just counterspelled it. We don't see a lot of counterspells in campaigns here, so it was a surprise - it also didn't make the combat go any differently really, maybe added a round or two.

Are you just trying to make characters take more breaks a day? If so, why? As a guy who went hiking up a mountain with a friend who had to smoke a bowl every 30-45 minutes, I can tell you that made that hike take FOREVER. (Old Rag Mountain, VA)

 

[FireLance]

After hitting backspace a whole bunch, I'm left with....
Take the monk for example.. it's not designed to use blurry of blows as a default attack but your house rule will ensure it can by forcing classes designed to last a full day to rest every encounter.. you seem to under the impression that the real problem with short rest classes is that they can't use their big guns as a default action and the solution is to make every other class so hamstrung that they need to follow a rest cycle that allows it

For better or worse of the experience for all players at your table your three does a nice job of showing why wotc's decision to peg some classes to a short rest scale with most others on a long rest one was a terrible one and does it from quite the unusual angle. Best of luck in your game

A 2nd level wizard gets 1 1st level spell slot per short rest, to a maximum of 3.

A 2nd level warlock gets 2 1st level spell slots per short rest, no maximum.

A 5th level wizard gets 1 3rd, 1 2nd 1 1st per short rest, to a max of 3 3 4. A 5th level warlock gets 2 3rd level spell slots per short rest, no max.

This is still basically worse than the warlock.

A 9th level wizard gets 1 2 3 4 5th level slots to a max of 4 3 3 3 2 per day, compared to a warlocks 2 5th level slots. It isn't until level 7-9 that the warlock doesn't massively dominate every other spellcaster under your system.

At 11th level, the wizard gets 1 2 3 4 5 to a max of 5 3 3 3 3 per day, plus a 6th level slot and a warlock gets 3 5th level slots per rest and and 1 6th level slot. The warlock is ahead again I think; the difference is a pair of 5 slots over a single slot of each level from 1 to 4. That is a better deal for the warlock.

So you have taken all daily spell casters, and made them worse spellcasters than warlocks from level 1-6 and 11-18. Only in levels 7-10 do they compete (slightly fewer high level slots, but significantly more lower level ones).

Isn't the game supposed to be balanced around the PCs taking 2-3 short rests between each long rest? If so, a monk is supposed to have 3-4 times their level ki points over the course of an adventuring day, and a 2nd-level warlock is supposed to have 6-8 1st-level spell slots over an adventuring day compared to a 2nd-level wizard's 3 1st-level slots (4 with Arcane Recovery).

If it works out differently in practice, then I think the incentive to take short rests needs to be tweaked.

 

[FireLance]

Don't your players just, you know, WORK TOGETHER, to make sure the monks, warlocks, etc. get their resources back when the enemy and speed of plot allows it?

This is exactly what I was thinking. The incentive for casters to take short rests is so that they're teammates are stronger.

The premise of this thread is, in my experience, a non-problem.

Maybe a bit more background will make the issue clearer. I'm running two-player game with non-standard characters meant to emulate 4E characters by effectively gestalting a class with abilities that are mostly recovered on a short rest with a class with abilities that are mostly recovered on a long rest. The two characters in question are basically a mix of paladin and battlemaster fighter and a mix of four elements monk and bladesinger wizard.

I've noticed that the players' usual style is to use their long rest abilities (spell slots in particular) early and often instead of using short rest abilities more and conserving long rest abilities for tough fights. Then, they look for opportunities to take long rests and hardly take short rests unless they are low on resources and are pressed for time. This really hit home during one recent session when the PCs lost hit points in a fight, had to wait around a few hours before meeting an NPC, and the paladin used Lay on Hands to heal instead of taking a short rest to spend Hit Dice.

For the record, I'm running the PCs through Dragon of Icespire Peak (moving on to Storm Lord's Wrath now) and Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, so I don't think the issue is how the adventures are paced, unless WotC's pacing for their own adventures is off.

 

[FireLance]

In order to just keep things consistent across the board would you also convert other long rest resources into short rest ones? Paladin lay on hands for example. A lot of the subclasses also have features that are limited to long rest recharge as well like the samurai fighting spirit 3 times per long rest or the new rune knight's giant's might that is proficiency bonus time per long rest.

I might, but spell slots are the stand out for me right now.