D&D 5E Long Rests vs Short Rests

[Ruin Explorer]

Oh. People's game style pretences can be objectively wrong now?

Er, given how many times people who liked 4E were told they were objectively wrong, I don't think you have a leg to stand on here, mate. This basically a Balor calling a Pit Fiend "evil" lol. As the other poster said, this has always been a thing, and 4E players bore the brunt of it more than any other group.

That would be fine, but buff debuff control & so on were also knocked silly by monsters combating the LFQW of old editions, spells being downtuned to avoid LFQW, & concentration being overused on basically everything in their wheelhouse. Meanwhile the damage from those cantrips is almost meaningless to their role in the party so can not posibly make up for the disparity. It's a problem of "they can do something" not being enough to justify the resulting hamstrung disparity between roles once you pile everything on the scales

Turn it around. "casters can do something in some contrived highly specific noncombat situation if the spell is known/prepared" is so squarely in "What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?" that nearly every condition for it is met

This is a really silly argument.

The first point re: debuff, crowd control etc. is illogical and irrational. It doesn't make sense on a basic level. It's immaterial how casters worked in previous editions. Totally immaterial. It only matters how they work in the current edition. And the crowd control and debuff effects are well-balanced in 5E. Were they ridiculously overpowered in say, 2E? Sure, but again, that's immaterial.

Concentration likewise, is a totally irrational point. Even it wasn't irrational to consider previous editions, you're ignoring how spell interruption worked in those. Concentration is significantly more favourable to casters than previous editions. Any spell that doesn't involve Concentration cannot be interrupted in casting in 5E. That's huge! But you think that's a limitation? That's just wrong. And Concentration only applies to one spell at once, and whilst it could do with a couple of tweaks, it's not crippling.

As for your final point, it's obviously nonsensical, as so many spells have broad applications, and it's a ridiculous point because it invokes a trope that doesn't apply here. If you have 15 different "Lame powers", the reality is, you're probably extremely powerful. The trope only works if you have just a single power (or very few).

Im just not seeing the 'ZOMG Wizards are so better than him outside of combat' argument here.

That's because you're ignoring how D&D actually works in favour of concluding that a few bonuses to some skill rolls are what it takes to be "good outside of combat".

Is there any reason the above dude is outclassed by a Wizard in the combat or social pillar (or indeed much of the exploration pillar)?

Yes. They're called spells - welcome to D&D. Come on, you know this.

You've got a very carefully min-maxed Fighter of a very specific level, and you're trying to make out "this is how it is". You know how disingenuous that is. You've got piles of ultra-specific choices to try and achieve "Fighter who is good outside of combat", and even then, he's suffering from MAD, and only "okay" outside of combat. There are games where he'd be great, and he's the sort of character I play, but the idea that he compares to a caster is not reasonable, especially if you're running 1 hour short rests and lucky to get 2/day, and the idea that he's representative of how Fighters are generally is obviously false.

People have been pulling out the strawman of "What if someone doesn't want to be good at anything but fighting!!!" as if this is some kind of excuse for 5E failing Fighters and indeed all non-casters to some extent outside the combat pillar, but it's nonsensical stuff. There are players who want simple mechanics and so on, sure, but there are not any meaningful number of players who just want their PCs to not very useful in a lot of scenes (and the martials shouldn't be bearing the brunt of that either - why make Fighters weak outside of combat, when a Sorcerer could equally just only choose combat spells?), especially if they're not dominant in others either.

 

[Asisreo]

Any spell that doesn't involve Concentration cannot be interrupted in casting in 5E.

Spells with a longer casting time than an action or reaction requires concentration to cast and can be interrupted. So a spell like Find Familiar cast in a dangerous area both ends any spells you were concentrating on and can be interrupted if a fight occurs within an hour.

 

[tetrasodium]

Er, given how many times people who liked 4E were told they were objectively wrong, I don't think you have a leg to stand on here, mate. This basically a Balor calling a Pit Fiend "evil" lol. As the other poster said, this has always been a thing, and 4E players bore the brunt of it more than any other group.

This is a really silly argument.

The first point re: debuff, crowd control etc. is illogical and irrational. It doesn't make sense on a basic level. It's immaterial how casters worked in previous editions. Totally immaterial. It only matters how they work in the current edition. And the crowd control and debuff effects are well-balanced in 5E. Were they ridiculously overpowered in say, 2E? Sure, but again, that's immaterial.

Concentration likewise, is a totally irrational point. Even it wasn't irrational to consider previous editions, you're ignoring how spell interruption worked in those. Concentration is significantly more favourable to casters than previous editions. Any spell that doesn't involve Concentration cannot be interrupted in casting in 5E. That's huge! But you think that's a limitation? That's just wrong. And Concentration only applies to one spell at once, and whilst it could do with a couple of tweaks, it's not crippling.

As for your final point, it's obviously nonsensical, as so many spells have broad applications, and it's a ridiculous point because it invokes a trope that doesn't apply here. If you have 15 different "Lame powers", the reality is, you're probably extremely powerful. The trope only works if you have just a single power (or very few).

That's because you're ignoring how D&D actually works in favour of concluding that a few bonuses to some skill rolls are what it takes to be "good outside of combat".

Yes. They're called spells - welcome to D&D. Come on, you know this.

You've got a very carefully min-maxed Fighter of a very specific level, and you're trying to make out "this is how it is". You know how disingenuous that is. You've got piles of ultra-specific choices to try and achieve "Fighter who is good outside of combat", and even then, he's suffering from MAD, and only "okay" outside of combat. There are games where he'd be great, and he's the sort of character I play, but the idea that he compares to a caster is not reasonable, especially if you're running 1 hour short rests and lucky to get 2/day, and the idea that he's representative of how Fighters are generally is obviously false.

People have been pulling out the strawman of "What if someone doesn't want to be good at anything but fighting!!!" as if this is some kind of excuse for 5E failing Fighters and indeed all non-casters to some extent outside the combat pillar, but it's nonsensical stuff. There are players who want simple mechanics and so on, sure, but there are not any meaningful number of players who just want their PCs to not very useful in a lot of scenes (and the martials shouldn't be bearing the brunt of that either - why make Fighters weak outside of combat, when a Sorcerer could equally just only choose combat spells?), especially if they're not dominant in others either.

You're entangling a few things as one & shifting the context of what makes them relevant in the process

"What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?" is a lot more applicable than you are trying to make it out to be by talking about 15 different powers, if you look at the entry it even accounts for the possibility of them being powerful. It's a bit strange that in a single post you would ignore so much of how D&D actually works to dismiss the lame heart power applicability in the ae post where you accuse someone else of "ignoring how D&D actually works"

Spoiler: The breakdown on this tangent of D&D doesn't work that way"

• "This refers to a special ability of someone on a team such as a Five-Man Band who is so specialized as to seem useless in most situations. Usually, it's because the ability has no direct combat capabilities."
  • That is literally the argument that was made earlier when someone tried to dismiss the combat disparity between casters & quadratic fighters when pointing at the ther "pillars" of the game. Usually the three pillars are combat social & exploration or similar. If casters were all monstrouslypowerful in those other two there would probably be very different discussions, except that's not where their real power lies & those elements are minimized in 5e/d&d in general or not a significant portion of an average game as literally every one of wotc's HC adventures demonstrate.
• Sometimes, a power that is more badass on paper can be lame in practice,
  • There are a lot of examples of these where there is some spell perfectly suited for a highly specific highly contrived situation unlikely to be a significant need without some alternate solution. That alternate solution is critical because it typically takes less time than is required to change up spells after a long rest(something druids clerics & bards can also do) The alternative is that you run into looks like a job for aquaman style GM hyjinx where the campaign depends on the caster using one specific ability & no other, but Descent into avernus displays the absurdity of this by taking one of the most credible one involving the 7th level planeshift spell & creating a low level adventure that requires neither the rare gm provided plane specific component nor the spell itself to be cast in order to enter avernus or return home.
    
    This whole thing is broken further down in the trope though,
• usually when 1) the power is hard to control,
  • Whatever you consider concentration & concentration checks for taking damage, these conditions are met too. You could also include spells with excessive no cost saves that are granted free after a target fails the first save to keep the spell from ever getting applied at all save in here as well
• 2) the power's activation/requirement is ridiculously complex and/or the situation where it can be used rarely comes up (see This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman when it does),
  • A niche spell is only an option if it's on a PC's class spell list actually in their spellbook. Even if that niche spell is an option it's still not an option if the spell is not prepared or not known because it's too niche to prep for some random off chance where it might be marginally easier than just doing one of the other trivial non-"job for aquaman" solutions
• 3) the user - who normally isn't lame - is facing a problem or is in a situation that their powers can't solve,
  • Energy resist, energy immune, legendary resist, high saves, antimagic zones... Yep casters can tick off this box too
• 4) the user lacks enough ingenuity and creativity to use it,
  • Most spells aren't very difficult to use, even the niche ones are just use them if an option if prepared if there is not a comperable or better non-spell slot using option. The problem comes into the fact that players are not omniscient & can not generally predict when those niche spells might possibly come into play during a given session because there is not enough leeway to just prepare a ton of them while still being a useful contributing member of the party.
• 5) the power has a big tradeoff such that the user cannot use it too often without endangering themselves,
  • this applies to all of the niche spells because any known/prepared spell for a known/prepared class has an identical cost to know/prepare as any other spell. There might be a situation wheredarkvision (I'm not picking this at random, someone noted it earlier as a great spell!) is just the spell for aquaman, but this is such an ex extreme niche spell that even the most compulsive spell collecting wizard is probably not going to waste gold scribing it. A druid could prep darkvision tomorrow by not preparing healing word moonbeam spike growh or whatever... but that's a gigantic tradeoff because those are great spells that are almost always useful between long rests.
• 6) the power's effect is too small to be effective.
  • Absolutely, this is the big problem. The disparity in combat isn't evidence that casters need to deal more damage & that's another tangent really. The disparity shows how much ground casters need to be making up in the other areas that their spells allow & as the last 5 points of lame heart power show they obviously do not even come close.

Most importantly, the problem is the implementation of casters themselves not making up for the spike & at will damage disparity rather than if a particular trope fts well enough to be good as a short hand descriptive summary of the situation or not.

If how casters worked in past editions were truly immaterial that would have solved a lot of these problems preemptively by WotC not putting so much design effort into thwarting the problems of past editions as if the way they work in the current edition justified such an extreme combined result as we see in 5e. There were very few spells in past editions that could be interrupted after being cast, take web, wall of whatever, curse, slow, most any save or suck/save or lose spell, haste, bull's strength/cats grace/etc, death ward, & many others that are pretty much all concentration with numerous power reductions targeting the problems of past editions while 5e has quadratic fighters & monsters designed with extra tools aimed at thwarting the problems of past editions. Instead we would see things like "iterative attacks at full attack bonus against low ac monsters each adding weapon/stat/etc mods to each attack dramatically outpace single all or nothing spike damage actions that deal slightly more than one attack but less than the whole chain, perhaps we should change resistance from 50% to a flat number or something like 50% up to Y damage rethink how we are & are not applying resistance/vulnerability to monsters. Also why the heck did we put this & that in?" or any number of other things that could target problems unique to 5e. Instead we have a significant amount of design space aimed at overcompensating for the problems of past editions. Subjectivity goes a long way, but you are arguing a point irrationally far beyond that.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

15 spells is paradoxically alot and not at all alot.

Take into account that spells are rather limited. Or, more like, extremely limited in what they can generally do. The spells that are less limited, like illusion spells, are generally seen as worse because they don't force anything as much.

So we got 15 spells, but not really. If you took basic combat-only spells like Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile, Fireball, Counterspell, Mirror Image, Hypnotic Pattern, Haste, Banishment, and Wall of Force; that leaves only 5 spells for "utility purposes." I took only the "essential" combat spells too. Y'know, the ones that are assumed to be prepared and casted in any form of analysis involving a wizard.

Note that if you're still talking about a wizard, 15 spells are the prepared spells. You have 24 spells to pick from, and can cast some of those as Rituals without actually using a spell slot.

Of course, by "utility," we mean Misty Step, Fly, Dimension Door, Animate Objects, and Greater/Regular Invisibility.

These are all "assumed spells." Nobody would really replace any of these spells for—say—Knock, Tongues, Phantasmal Killer, Arcane Lock, Darkvision, or Gust of Wind.

This is objectively false.

Rituals are a total wash when it comes to actual utility because nobody actually takes them and their effects are limited moreso than cantrips. Outside of Find Familiar (which eats a whole hour and ten minutes along with a component cost) and Detect Magic (which cancels pre-combat concentration), there's hardly any rituals taken. They're nice to have sometimes, but rituals aren't some kind of cantrip replacement, especially since most are much less useful than prestidigation or minor illusion.

Also objectively false.
I've seen ritual spells often memorised even on non-wizard characters where it cost a spell known specifically for the purpose of casting as rituals.

Your group may have an issue with rituals, but I can assure you that many others get a lot of use out of them.

I don't see it. Tongues is for communicating with creatures that were likely going to fight you anyways. Darkvision is like 75% of race's features in a spell, and light spells/torches fulfill the majority of its needs better anyways so it isn't that useful.

Darkvision is a better spell for stealth than Invisibility in many circumstances.

Not in my group. Someone tried using Comprehend Languages once and the DM ruled that the creature they were communicating with got intimidated by the magic and fled.

One single, highly elaborate, situation in which a spell was not useful is not a good indicator. Comprehend languages and Tongues are considerably less character resources and far more powerful than taking almost any number of extra languages through feats etc.

Remember that taking rituals do take Wizard's spells known so having better spells that will actually be used more than once a campaign are better.

The 10th level wizard you are positing has 24 spells known available for rituals.
Identify, Detect magic, Comprehend Languages, Phantom Steed, Water Breathing, Telepathic Bond?
Your wizard can have all of those available without cutting into your actual spells memorised.
Can you really hold up the claim that you, personally can't see those spells being useful more than once a campaign?

In 5e, many spells are less relatively powerful than their earlier-edition equivalents. However the disconnecting of spells to specific spell slots has been a boost in both versatility and power relative to the vancian casting of editions 0-3.5. Overall, I think the Wizard has lost relative power to where it was compared to the fighter for example. However its still a step from "massively better" down to "considerably better" I think.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Tongues was once the most important spell for two-three sessions at our table as characters found themselves in an entirely new world with no immediate way of getting back. The spell has not be used since, as 3 out of the 5 original characters are no longer part of the adventuring group. The 4th character received a ring of languages and the 5th character learned the language. I see the spell only becoming relevant again once they go plane-hopping and even then they may rely solely on the character with the amulet. The spell's usefulness very much relies on the campaign and what magical items have been made available.

 

[Flamestrike]

Er, given how many times people who liked 4E were told they were objectively wrong, I don't think you have a leg to stand on here, mate. This basically a Balor calling a Pit Fiend "evil" lol. As the other poster said, this has always been a thing, and 4E players bore the brunt of it more than any other group.

This is a really silly argument.

The first point re: debuff, crowd control etc. is illogical and irrational. It doesn't make sense on a basic level. It's immaterial how casters worked in previous editions. Totally immaterial. It only matters how they work in the current edition. And the crowd control and debuff effects are well-balanced in 5E. Were they ridiculously overpowered in say, 2E? Sure, but again, that's immaterial.

Concentration likewise, is a totally irrational point. Even it wasn't irrational to consider previous editions, you're ignoring how spell interruption worked in those. Concentration is significantly more favourable to casters than previous editions. Any spell that doesn't involve Concentration cannot be interrupted in casting in 5E. That's huge! But you think that's a limitation? That's just wrong. And Concentration only applies to one spell at once, and whilst it could do with a couple of tweaks, it's not crippling.

As for your final point, it's obviously nonsensical, as so many spells have broad applications, and it's a ridiculous point because it invokes a trope that doesn't apply here. If you have 15 different "Lame powers", the reality is, you're probably extremely powerful. The trope only works if you have just a single power (or very few).

That's because you're ignoring how D&D actually works in favour of concluding that a few bonuses to some skill rolls are what it takes to be "good outside of combat".

Yes. They're called spells - welcome to D&D. Come on, you know this.

You've got a very carefully min-maxed Fighter of a very specific level, and you're trying to make out "this is how it is". You know how disingenuous that is. You've got piles of ultra-specific choices to try and achieve "Fighter who is good outside of combat", and even then, he's suffering from MAD, and only "okay" outside of combat. There are games where he'd be great, and he's the sort of character I play, but the idea that he compares to a caster is not reasonable, especially if you're running 1 hour short rests and lucky to get 2/day, and the idea that he's representative of how Fighters are generally is obviously false.

People have been pulling out the strawman of "What if someone doesn't want to be good at anything but fighting!!!" as if this is some kind of excuse for 5E failing Fighters and indeed all non-casters to some extent outside the combat pillar, but it's nonsensical stuff. There are players who want simple mechanics and so on, sure, but there are not any meaningful number of players who just want their PCs to not very useful in a lot of scenes (and the martials shouldn't be bearing the brunt of that either - why make Fighters weak outside of combat, when a Sorcerer could equally just only choose combat spells?), especially if they're not dominant in others either.

Posr your wizard then and show me how he's dominating the social pillar and exploration pillar.

And not sure where you're getting hyper specific fighter from. He's just a GWM BM fighter with a single feat (one of his bonus feats) used on Skilled for plus 1 to Sttrength and a bonus skill with expertise.

Be my guest though. Post your 7th level wizard.

 

[Asisreo]

This is objectively false.

If you're going to be pedantic, its called an exaggeration.

Note that if you're still talking about a wizard, 15 spells are the prepared spells. You have 24 spells to pick from, and can cast some of those as Rituals without actually using a spell slot.

Essentially, you're a prepared caster with an entire spell class list of 24 spells. Not very large nor what I'd call "versatile." Honestly, while they don't have access to many teleportation abilities, Druids have far more utility options built into their class list and inherently as a fully-prepared caster.

The 10th level wizard you are positing has 24 spells known available for rituals.
Identify, Detect magic, Comprehend Languages, Phantom Steed, Water Breathing, Telepathic Bond?
Your wizard can have all of those available without cutting into your actual spells memorised.
Can you really hold up the claim that you, personally can't see those spells being useful more than once a campaign?

I can say that, yes. I'm not going to go on one-by-one but generally spells like Water Breathing or Comprehend Languages are too niche since the majority of campaigns take place in area where you don't have to breathe underwater and you don't have anybody who can either speak common, speak telepathically, or speak a shared language but also isn't completely unable to speak. Those too are waaaay too niche.

Phantom Steed seems nice but it falls into the same trap as long distance teleportation in that it is only a convenience but hardly necessary. You'd have to be in a situation where you need to go from one place to another on a relatively safe trajectory but the distance is too large to just walk there but the time limit is also long enough that a simple teleportation isn't absolutely necessary. An example scenario would be that you need to go a 25 mile distance in an amount of time that allows 2 hour delay but not a 6 hour delay but also a relatively safe passage or else you'll waste another 44 minutes recasting the spell if the horses die in combat.

Things like that makes these ritual spells look nice but are ultimately too niche when you could have used that spell known for something like Nystul's Magic Aura which is far more powerful in its niche.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Posr your wizard then and show me how he's dominating the social pillar and exploration pillar.

And not sure where you're getting hyper specific fighter from. He's just a GWM BM fighter with a single feat (one of his bonus feats) used on Skilled for plus 1 to Sttrength and a bonus skill with expertise.

Be my guest though. Post your 7th level wizard.

Mate, if you're not even going to be honest about your min-maxed Fighter being min-maxed, then that's not much incentive to get into a min-max battle with you is it?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You're entangling a few things as one & shifting the context of what makes them relevant in the process

You post this, but then your argument which has absolutely nothing to do with that claim and isn't even coherent. Plus your claim re: previous editions remains absolutely irrational and the fact that you can't see that is beyond staggering.

5e has quadratic fighters

ROFL this is the most ridiculous thing I've read on this forum for a while mate. Amazing baseless nonsense-claim.

Spells with a longer casting time than an action or reaction requires concentration to cast and can be interrupted. So a spell like Find Familiar cast in a dangerous area both ends any spells you were concentrating on and can be interrupted if a fight occurs within an hour.

... Yeah that's why I said "involve concentration".

 

[ph0rk]

Despite other conversations I've had on this topic, I like a mix of both. The challenge is for the DM to balance them and the relative dangers/costs so that players don't always reach for the same thing each session.

I don't think the system as it exists does a great job of making this is clear and easy for DMs as it should - or makes explicit the balance changes of deviating too far towards either a 5 minute adventuring day or 25 hour slog of a day.