D&D 5E Aren't Short Rest classes *better* in "story-based" games rather than dungeon crawls?

[Umbran]

I had not heard that idea... it seems to hit the weaker classes the hardest. I will admit we rarely take more then 3 short rests but when we do it is because our SR characters need it.

Where the cap sits, of course, is arbitrary. The point being that there's some places a GM can reasonably put some limitations to abuse.

 

[HammerMan]

I do max 2 short rests, but the short rests are basically a few minutes breather.

Because it's less boring then listening to the players debate whether it's safe to stay in one place for an hour* all the time.

The other reason you might want to put limits on short rest is if you do a different rest schedule like "gritty realism", because in that case you might go say a month of game time in between long rests (and that's potentially 40 short rests - although I suspect this is not likely to be an issue in practice.)

*And then if they determine it is then someone decides they want to make it a long rest anyway.

I did play in a "Gritty" game where long rests where 1d4 days that needed to be in a safe place with food drink and R&R abilities (so not on alert guarding a base) and short rests were 8 hours.

 

[HammerMan]

The problem with short rest classes is that it’s the long rest classes who set the pace. Yes, theoretically the warlock can take enough short rests over the course of a day to cast more spells than the wizard can. But not if the wizard uses up all their spells before the warlock has had a chance to take a single short rest and then demands the party call it quits for the day.

It’s the same problem as daily vs. at-will. At-will classes need a certain number of encounters to happen in a day to keep up with the daily characters’ damage output. Which means if the daily characters decide the day is done before that number of encounters have happened, the at-will character falls behind. Short rest characters have the same problem, only they’re also capped in how much damage they can output in a single encounter. A dungeon crawl just happens to be a context where the daily characters will have a harder time convincing their at-will and short rest companions that going to bed after one fight is a safer idea than continuing on.

I think the ideal solution is that all classes need cool at will and cool sr/encounter along with cool daily abilities (they don't need to be uniform like 4e but they can be)

 

[Charlaquin]

I think the ideal solution is that all classes need cool at will and cool sr/encounter along with cool daily abilities (they don't need to be uniform like 4e but they can be)

I couldn’t agree more!!

 

[Mordhau]

The direction they seem to be going in is getting rid of short rest mechanics and replacing them with proficiency X long rest.

Which I don't get the enthusiasm for - as it seems part of the issue is a lot of tables not getting in enough encounters over the day, so this means that proficiency X long rest very quickly starts giving diminishing returns as you level up.

Plus it doesn't serve the same purpose. If I have three action surges, and I'm pretty confident that there won't be more than three combats in the day, (which I don't think is that unusual) then I might as well open with action surge most of the time (I rarely see Barbarians after the first few levels worry about if it's worth using a Rage in this encouter - they just do it from the get go). It's unsolving a solved problem.

I'd be far more tempted to get rid of long rests, (although this would be slaying sacred cows in the case of casters - but really the exponentially increasing spell slots is probably the biggest single design issue in D&D that needs solving.).

 

[Mordhau]

I did play in a "Gritty" game where long rests where 1d4 days that needed to be in a safe place with food drink and R&R abilities (so not on alert guarding a base) and short rests were 8 hours.

My point wasn't that this is necessarily rare, it was that you may see some justification for limiting short rests under such a scenario.

However, even then I'm somewhat sceptical it's really necessary. As @Charlaquin said earlier, the Long Rest classes set the pace, so it's likely that once they start getting low, the whole party will find a way to rest (and everyone is limited by Hit Dice anyway).

 

[Asisreo]

I think the ideal solution is that all classes need cool at will and cool sr/encounter along with cool daily abilities (they don't need to be uniform like 4e but they can be)

That was probably their intention. Hit Dice is a shared mechanic and, so long as the character has been damaged, even the rogue or Ranger can benefit from a short rest.

Interestingly, it's the "expert" archetype that has the least short rest abilities. I believe there may be a design reasoning behind that. Perhaps the designers thought of a dynamic where the Ranger or Rogue says "While you guys rest, I'll scout ahead."

While this doesn't make much sense in the context of a stealth group checks, if the DM rules that stealthing characters must make their individual rolls, as the books imply, then having the bulkier or clumsier characters wait behind might be more helpful.

 

[HammerMan]

Plus it doesn't serve the same purpose. If I have three action surges, and I'm pretty confident that there won't be more than three combats in the day, (which I don't think is that unusual) then I might as well open with action surge most of the time (I rarely see Barbarians after the first few levels worry about if it's worth using a Ranger in this encouter - they just do it from the get go). It's unsolving a solved problem.

1st I know what you meant but I giggled at barbarians useing rangers
2nd I would say that barbarians before they get there 3rd rage still have to worry a bit... however not much. I agree barbarian's already are always rageing long before the capstone

I'd be far more tempted to get rid of long rests, (although this would be slaying sacred cows in the case of casters - but really the exponentially increasing spell slots is probably the biggest single design issue in D&D that needs solving.).

not even sacred cow reasoning, but I do think that we need BIG daily AND small encounter/Short rest.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Is there a reason for this limit?

Pacing. I do not use this rule, but love it and will embrace it in the next campaign I run. I follow Galandris's logic perfectly.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

You're not supposed to be guaranteed a short rest after every combat however. If they wanted that, they would have kept them like 4e Encounter Powers.

Now it doesn't really matter if in practice the party get a short rest after nearly every combat*. The intended approach, isn't really affected by that - but it is affected if players know they are guaranteed (or practically guaranteed) a short rest after every combat.

*Well other than the fact that combats will be harder than intended and therefore take longer, but it seems to be a fairly rare table where that doesn't happen anyway.

Very much this here. In fact IME I have often seen players forget entirely (even if the warlock is nagging) to take short rests when they have a chance, and plow forward with plenty of unfortunate consequences as a result. So although I like the idea of a rule limiting how many short rests they can take (I prefer gritty mechanical options anyway), in reality I don't really see the short rest impact my campaigns much, as the players often can't stop themselves from squandering precious moments to rest.