D&D General IS the 5 min work day a feature or a bug?

[Minigiant]

For the bolded part.
We should a bit more precise.
The game as written does a good job.
But the writings do a poor job in conveying the intent and the RAI.
It is not evident, if you do not carefully read the DMG that the game is based on the assumption that there should be 6-8 encounters between long rests.
It is clear that there is an exp budget for characters and that this budget is to be adjusted for the number of players.
What is less clear is how to divide the daily budget into a meaningful adventuring day that will not be too easy or too hard.

In using "natural" language, the game became easier to handle and learn for the neophytes. But it also blurred a few rules and made them relatively hard to handle once you get stuck with trickier situations.

Ironically, 4e was the exact opposite. It's mechnics was designed blatantly and openly to run a multiple encounter adventuring day with various numbers of players and enemies. However it was so unnatural, different,and sometimes ugly that it turned off many from even trying it.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Ironically, 4e was the exact opposite. It's mechnics was designed blatantly and openly to run a multiple encounter adventuring day with various numbers of players and enemies. However it was so unnatural, different,and sometimes ugly that it turned off many from even trying it.

It did such a good job explaining how to do the one thing it was best tuned for that it looked like it couldn't do anything else.

And, bluntly, most players aren't coming to DnD because they want to play a challenging game. They want a little game mixed into their roleplaying.

 

[tetrasodium]

If the group really doesn't care and wants to rest anyway? Well ok, but many of their stated goals or things they wish to accomplish may end up blown as a result.

There is a problem with treating it as a "the group" thing given 5e's mechanics & there is even another thread about it that started around the sa,e time this did. When a couple players dedicated to nova>rest>nova>rest 5mwd are in a group it's a very high burden to expect other players to step in as the killjoy for Alice & Bob Murderhobo. As a result those players are left holding onto resources (superiority dice/spellslots/etc) just in case a situation comes around where they will get a chance to shine with their deeper reserves pulling the group out of a fire. Unfortunately for those players 5e's 6-8 encounter tuning for PCs gives Alice & bob the muderhobo such a deep pool that such situations are very unlikely to ever happen given the way rules are structured to enable the every need of Alice & Bob Murderhobo's desire to nova>rest>repeat.

If even one player is holding back in prep for trouble or playing a class on a different rest cycle from Alice & Bob Murderhobo it goes from "the group doesn't care" to "That player/Those players aren't willing to be the killjoy with players glaring daggers at them." At that point the way 5e is setup to encourage it while making it difficult to deal with is playing Lucy & the football with those players.

 

[Mort]

There is a problem with treating it as a "the group" thing given 5e's mechanics & there is even another thread about it that started around the sa,e time this did. When a couple players dedicated to nova>rest>nova>rest 5mwd are in a group it's a very high burden to expect other players to step in as the killjoy for Alice & Bob Murderhobo. As a result those players are left holding onto resources (superiority dice/spellslots/etc) just in case a situation comes around where they will get a chance to shine with their deeper reserves pulling the group out of a fire. Unfortunately for those players 5e's 6-8 encounter tuning for PCs gives Alice & bob the muderhobo such a deep pool that such situations are very unlikely to ever happen given the way rules are structured to enable the every need of Alice & Bob Murderhobo's desire to nova>rest>repeat.

If even one player is holding back in prep for trouble or playing a class on a different rest cycle from Alice & Bob Murderhobo it goes from "the group doesn't care" to "That player/Those players aren't willing to be the killjoy with players glaring daggers at them." At that point the way 5e is setup to encourage it while making it difficult to deal with is playing Lucy & the football with those players.

The fact that different classes have different recharge mechanics is certainly an issue, and I'd argue a design flaw.

And competing playstyles are a table problem that can be irritating.

But neither changes the fact that with proper time pressure you can incentive the group to not 5 minute workday. If that causes friction in the group, well it would have caused friction the other way too. They need to have a discussion on priorities.

 

[Minigiant]

But neither changes the fact that with proper time pressure you can incentive the group to not 5 minute workday. If that causes friction in the group, well it would have caused friction the other way too. They need to have a discussion on priorities.

But like I said before,there is a limit to time based pressure.

1. The party has to care about the rewards and penalties of the pressure
2. The clock has to make sense
   • and can't be obviously metagamed or railroading
3. The clock's penalties have to be worse than nova's

This is why 5MWD happened. You can't stick a timer on everything and have every timer make sense or make the players care about them.

I believe to many DMs make their quests and dungeons look like suicide missions and that encourages players to bail on them or cheese them.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Too much of 5e's ruleset is dedicated to ensuring that the risk is below LOQ until a line is crossed where the odds of executing players or outright triggering a TPK shifts from below LOQ to 1 almost instantly.

As much as bad luck happens, and dumb moves happen you need a lot to stack up for an encounter to turn into a TPK. But this the real problem... if the DM throws 5 encounters rolled into 1 and say the PC can't get a rest no matter what, it's just TPK>

 

[Helldritch]

Something that's always struck me as odd when DM's are like "you need to get to X in Y time so you can't stop to rest" is that a lot of times, some of these same DM's (at least from my experience) are also the types that will happily let you miss secret doors or fall into traps unless you move slowly and declare you are poking every square inch of whatever ruin you happen to find yourself in with 11' poles (because as Greg Costikyan once joked, "there are some things you wouldn't touch with a 10' pole"), leading to this weird disconnect of "hurry up but go slowly". Even more interestingly, you'd think this style of play would lend itself to trying to skip past encounters (which 1e AD&D certainly did- fighting monsters was far less preferable than robbing them blind). I've seen DM's infuriated by players who figure out ways to bypass their encounters (and then just punish them later when "the sounds of battle" attract these enemies anyways).

It's all well and good to apply time pressure to your players, but you need to be careful with how much, or they will feel forced into making rash decisions.

Curiously, a lot of old school modules I played early in my D&D career didn't have a lot of time pressure at all, and encouraged you to take your time, or even retreat when things got too tough- the long-abandoned tombs weren't going anywhere, and with death around every corner, it was to your advantage not to press on.

It's funny how the game has changed over the years- now players have tons of resources they can draw upon, so we expect them to get in, have their 6 encounters, and burn them all, where there was a time when your "resources" were nothing but your hit points, and the main way to heal was the meager handful of cure spells your Cleric had and maybe some potions, and pressing onward was a certain death sentence...

mmmm
Creative solutions were never punished in my games unless the player was using "outside" knowledge such as buying the adventure he was doing (if that adventure was a module). Hey, an avoided fight could provide as much exp as a fight if done in such a way that the characters got the treasure anyways. Having opposing forces fight each others is as good in my book as fighting them yourself.

Having monster from next door coming to backstab the characters is perfectly legal. Rolls must be made to be sure that their action is legit (that is why I roll right in front of the players) but if the DM arranges them to come and fight now even I, would have a problem with that!
Heck, if a group is good enough to bypass all the guards and go straight to the BBEG and pull it off, kudo to them! It will force me to think a lot more about the construction of the adventure next time I do something like it again.

 

[Helldritch]

Ironically, 4e was the exact opposite. It's mechnics was designed blatantly and openly to run a multiple encounter adventuring day with various numbers of players and enemies. However it was so unnatural, different,and sometimes ugly that it turned off many from even trying it.

No. 4ed did not encourage the 5mwd nor did it encourage an obligatory set number of encounters. The daily exp budget was there but the fact that encounter power regenerated meant that only your daily powers would be missing once you used them. The "at will" powers were a bit more flavorfull than what we have in 5ed but the design was/is more or less the same in both editions.

 

[Helldritch]

As much as bad luck happens, and dumb moves happen you need a lot to stack up for an encounter to turn into a TPK. But this the real problem... if the DM throws 5 encounters rolled into 1 and say the PC can't get a rest no matter what, it's just TPK>

What is LOQ? The link directs me to some company and talks about stock exchange...

Edit: Wrong poster quoted. Thanks to my phone and my big thumbs. Please ignore this post as I was trying to understand LOQ and the link got corrupted by my phone or something... Works fine on my computer.

 

[Minigiant]

No. 4ed did not encourage the 5mwd nor did it encourage an obligatory set number of encounters. The daily exp budget was there but the fact that encounter power regenerated meant that only your daily powers would be missing once you used them. The "at will" powers were a bit more flavorfull than what we have in 5ed but the design was/is more or less the same in both editions.

What I meant is that 4e locked you out of blowing all your resources. Dailies were only 25-40% of your power at best and you straight could not spend all your Healing surges in one encounter. It would take you the minimum 3 encounters to tap out even if your DM went over XP budget. AKA you'd TPK fromahard fight before you needed to long/extended rest due to low resources.

3e and 5e lets you burn through strong long rest resources fast and gives you little to run on after.