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

[FireLance]

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

Not all spellcasters with daily spell slots have Arcane Recovery.

 

[NotAYakk]

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.

Yes, but the daily caster is supposed to be able to have more spells when they want, and less spells other times.

Under the above rules, they have less and lower level spells at all times. They continue to have fewer total spells per day, and now also can never have more spell power in a harder between short rests.

 

[Flamestrike]

Just reduce Short rests to 5 minutes, but place a cap of 2 per long rest.

Then it doesnt matter if long rest classes dont want to take one.

 

[aco175]

You could just ban wizards, or have more short rest PCs like fighters who want to rest and regain action surge and 2nd wind. I found that some of the players want to rest and the other may not need to. I bet the wizard will not want to leave the rest of the party resting to go on by himself.

 

[Don Durito]

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.

I did one too.

 

[Don Durito]

Just reduce Short rests to 5 minutes, but place a cap of 2 per long rest.

Then it doesnt matter if long rest classes dont want to take one.

Yes, and you dramatically reduce the likelihood of casters asking "why not makie it a long rest?"

 

[GlassJaw]

I'm ok with changes like this but it has to be combined with limiting the number of short rests allowed per long rest: 2 short/long is a common house rule.

Then I would use Arcane Recovery as the baseline.

 

[FireLance]

How about on a short rest a caster can spend HD to regain a spell slot. I would say 2HD per spell level. That is what we do and it works for us. But then again we have several things we allow spending HD on besides healing, so they are a more valuable resource.

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.

This wouldn't solve my problem because spellcasters with daily slots will still have a lot of slots to burn through before they feel like they need a short rest.

 

[FireLance]

Yes, but the daily caster is supposed to be able to have more spells when they want, and less spells other times.

Under the above rules, they have less and lower level spells at all times. They continue to have fewer total spells per day, and now also can never have more spell power in a harder between short rests.

Not at all times. A warlock only gets a third spell slot at 11th level and a fourth spell slot at 17th level. From 5th level onwards, a wizard will have more spell slots than a warlock of the same level, although most are lower level (one 3rd-level slot, one 2nd-level slot, and one 1st-level slot vs. two 3rd-level slots).

If anything, it's the second spell slot that a warlock gets between 2nd to 4th level that's the anomaly. If it follows the rest of the warlock spell slot progression, they should only get one spell slot from 1st to 4th level. The second spell slot at these levels was probably a design decision to make playing a low-level warlock more enjoyable.

 

[tetrasodium]

This wouldn't solve my problem because spellcasters with daily slots will still have a lot of slots to burn through before they feel like they need a short rest.

They generally don't get much of anything out of short rests & in some cases/situations they literally get nothing out of them. The frequency a warlock would like to take a short rest (basically after every fight) would almost immediately run into the point where long rest casters gain nothing. That "you might not be able to always use leveled slots" factor is why the warlock dies 1d10+cha+knockback*2/3/4 force damage at 5 11 & 17 with eldritch blast rather than a frequently resisted/immune energy type once per cast so forcing the long rest classes to meet warlock under the best possible conditions by nerfing them is massively buffing warlocks while allowing them to keep their powerful toy intended to bridge the gap as is. It doesn't seem like the long rest casters are getting much compared to their losses or the benefits short rest classes are getting... I suspect your rule will frustrate and annoy long rest classes into asking to change classes or just finding another group.

Unfortunately wotc presented a completely forseeable situation that basically requires massive game system rewriting to meaningfully alter the rest structure in 5e & you have no particularly good solutions