D&D 5E The 6-battle adventuring day, does it even exist?

[Vaalingrade]

A quibble but Darkvision doesn't allow you to ignore light. Having disadvantage to Perception is terrible.

Continual Flame is what lets you ignore light.

Luckily, few DMs of any edition ever read the lighting rules.

 

[mrpopstar]

A quibble but Darkvision doesn't allow you to ignore light. Having disadvantage to Perception is terrible.

It's TERRIBLE. The dark is a scary place.

Luckily, few DMs of any edition ever read the lighting rules.

So weird! I've never not read them. They're integral to enjoying the exploration pillar! The underdark is far less foreboding if light resources aren't a concern.

And water, especially. Exhaustion racks up fast if you're trapped or lost in a dungeon environment for two or three days. You character hasn't lived until they've survived an infection with sight rot! LOL

 

[iserith]

And for me, there's also the aspect of having to take time out of having fun to track things that aren't adding to the fun. I'll put up with power resources, but not arrows and food and certainly not light when I can just not play a human to get to ignore that.

Leaving aside that darkvision in darkness means a significant penalty to PP which means being surprised and stepping on traps more often, I think the issue is that a lot of DMs don't give much thought to what should be the focus for a given game. Often this can mean that the DM more or less runs the same kind of game for every adventure or campaign. Some DMs like me change things up every campaign.

If I'm running a pulp action serial Eberron game, for example, I'm almost certainly not caring about encumbrance or rations or torches or 6 to 8 encounters per adventuring day. That is not the best fit for that game in my view whereas in media res hard framing, set piece encounters, and more abstract "skill challenges" are. But if I am running a classic town-to-dungeon adventure where there's a meaningful trade-off between what you can carry in and what you can carry out per delve, then yeah, I'm turning on the variant encumbrance rules and tying resting to rations, torches to time/exploration turns, and putting in a restock/wandering monster/other time pressure mechanic.

So when someone says "I don't like tracking rations," I'm like okay fine - but there's actually a good reason to do this in particular games and not so much in others. The question is what game are you actually running or playing?

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's TERRIBLE. The dark is a scary place.

I think I know where out biggest disconnect in style is.

You use 'scary' a lot when describing your favorite moments/types of moments. I just flat out don't like horror. The part of a lot of people's brains that rewards them for being frightened and living through it? I don't have that. Fear is something many enjoy, but I'm not one of them.

I play for the thrilling heroics, not tension or the shot of adrenaline that comes from fear or 'real danger'.

Not saying the stuff you like is bad, just like it's not for me and so for me doing work to track things to in theory amplify tension is doing something unenjoyable to add something else unenjoyable to me.

 

[Marc_C]

How did the classes feel balanced against each other, or did you mostly have PCs that shared rest recharges?

I let them take short rest to recharge special abilities. No feats, no multi-classing.

Fighter, Cavalier
Fighter, Arcane Archer
Rogue, Arcane Trickster
Cleric, Knowledge Domain

The Cavalier felt a bit under powered starting level 5. I gave the player two magic items from the familie's treasure at level 6. She was very happy. Magic items were extremely rare in that campaign. I made sure many encounters occurred outside so she could charge with her horse.

 

[mrpopstar]

I think I know where out biggest disconnect in style is.

You use 'scary' a lot when describing your favorite moments/types of moments. I just flat out don't like horror. The part of a lot of people's brains that rewards them for being frightened and living through it? I don't have that. Fear is something many enjoy, but I'm not one of them.

I play for the thrilling heroics, not tension or the shot of adrenaline that comes from fear or 'real danger'.

Not saying the stuff you like is bad, just like it's not for me and so for me doing work to track things to in theory amplify tension is doing something unenjoyable to add something else unenjoyable to me.

I respect this! Funny enough, I don't like scary movies either.

But I do like the mood and atmosphere of descending into dark dungeons. It's especially fun in my current group where there's only one spellcaster (cleric) and one character with darkvision (half-orc).

 

[Asisreo]

A problem occurs when the Wizard wants to be the star of every combat and uses their big spells to outshine other PCs.

I think this problem is far often overblown specifically because of how spellcasting is pretty limited in 5e D&D.

You've got a range, concentration, limited slots, limited actions, limited spells known/prepared, components and saving throws to worry about, not to mention the fact that there are some soft limitations like sight, recasting restrictions, penalties on miss, AoE, and enemy abilities.

Its pretty difficult to end an encounter with one spell unless that encounter was created without a good grasp on what makes fights challenging in the first place. Could the DMG do better to establish what that would look like? Yes. But one spell fights were usually doomed from the start even without a spellcaster.

 

[Oofta]

I think this problem is far often overblown specifically because of how spellcasting is pretty limited in 5e D&D.

You've got a range, concentration, limited slots, limited actions, limited spells known/prepared, components and saving throws to worry about, not to mention the fact that there are some soft limitations like sight, recasting restrictions, penalties on miss, AoE, and enemy abilities.

Its pretty difficult to end an encounter with one spell unless that encounter was created without a good grasp on what makes fights challenging in the first place. Could the DMG do better to establish what that would look like? Yes. But one spell fights were usually doomed from the start even without a spellcaster.

There are absolutely spells that can end fights - banishment against a creature from a different plane is one example.

 

[ad_hoc]

I think this problem is far often overblown specifically because of how spellcasting is pretty limited in 5e D&D.

You've got a range, concentration, limited slots, limited actions, limited spells known/prepared, components and saving throws to worry about, not to mention the fact that there are some soft limitations like sight, recasting restrictions, penalties on miss, AoE, and enemy abilities.

Its pretty difficult to end an encounter with one spell unless that encounter was created without a good grasp on what makes fights challenging in the first place. Could the DMG do better to establish what that would look like? Yes. But one spell fights were usually doomed from the start even without a spellcaster.

Would you play in a game where spellcasters have unlimited slots once they have access to that spell level?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I let them take short rest to recharge special abilities. No feats, no multi-classing.

Fighter, Cavalier
Fighter, Arcane Archer
Rogue, Arcane Trickster
Cleric, Knowledge Domain

The Cavalier felt a bit under powered starting level 5. I gave the player two magic items from the familie's treasure at level 6. She was very happy. Magic items were extremely rare in that campaign. I made sure many encounters occurred outside so she could charge with her horse.

Yup. You have no nova options there, having classes that are mostly based on short rest, reliable class features. The cleric is the only fully daily recharge class, but clerics tend to not be nova classes. Fewer encounters probably didn't make much difference for this party.

I'm curious, though, with the changes you made to resting (no healing, only hitdice), did you notice if the cleric used more slots for healing?