D&D 5E Are Per Rest Resources a Hindrance?

[Flamestrike]

Honestly, SWSE did the resource management bit the best with the reliance on their 'Once per encounter' abilities (and you can spend a Force point often, to use it again that encounter) like Force powers, Lightsaber powers many Talents and Starship maneuvers.

The system is broken elsewhere (the maths is totally wonky, healing is janky and against trope, and dont get me started on the condition track) but the way they baked most class features into 'per encounter' stuff was neat.

I'd really like a DnD where as much as possible was keyed to 'per encounter' primarily refresh and recharge.

 

[James Gasik]

Encounter-based design was really cool, but it broke some people's immersion- why can I perform this cool sword move only once every 5 minutes? Or this other one only once per 16 hours?

Even though the entire game is built on ambiguous and arbitrary illusions, some people need those illusions to play a game, otherwise (God, as much as I hate this comparison) it feels like a "video game" to them.

Probably a better way would be to use hit points as an extra resource- you can perform "cool move X" but the strain causes you to take damage. Or better yet, reduces your maximum hit point total until you rest (that way temporary hit points and healing spells don't let you just keep doing "cool move X" over and over).

This might go over better with players and DM's overall, and it would make combat healing more important, since you're voluntarily making yourself more vulnerable to your enemies.

 

[Flamestrike]

Encounter-based design was really cool, but it broke some people's immersion- why can I perform this cool sword move only once every 5 minutes? Or this other one only once per 16 hours?

Which is literally no different to how it works at the moment. Sup Dice, Action surge, Second wind, Rages, Slots, SP, Ki Points, Wild Shapes, Smites, LoH etc etc.

Simply reducing literally everything to 'once per encounter' usage, with some limited mechanic (spend a hero point, recovery mechanic like ToB, take a level of Exhaustion etc) to do it a second time in an encounter would be the way to go.

 

[delericho]

Which is literally no different to how it works at the moment. Sup Dice, Action surge, Second wind, Rages, Slots, SP, Ki Points, Wild Shapes, Smites, LoH etc etc.

Simply reducing literally everything to 'once per encounter' usage, with some limited mechanic (spend a hero point, recovery mechanic like ToB, take a level of Exhaustion etc) to do it a second time in an encounter would be the way to go.

I think, for me, that was the key thing that was missing from 4e for me - some mechanism by which that "once per encounter" wasn't quite absolute. (I should note that I barely played 4e beyond the first release; they may well have added it later.)

 

[James Gasik]

No, they didn't. You either got used to it or you didn't (other than magic items like the Pearl of Power). I didn't mind because, as you got to higher level, you did get abilities that justified their 1/encounter (or 1/day) status.

When I ran a long-running 4e campaign, I soon learned to dread certain powers my group would use, because I knew that once they were employed, a monster was going to go away, like powers that made the target vulnerable to all damage, or the Barbarian's counterattack ability, Curtain of Steel.

Also, you eventually got 5 encounter powers from level progression, paragon path, and epic destiny, so most fights were typically, use a daily (or action surge, which generally gave you a buff and an extra action) and start using encounter powers- and it was a rare fight that saw you down to your at-wills.

And even if you were, generally it wasn't hard to find a few feats that keyed off something one of your at will attacks did so you were still performing better than dead zero. My favorite was a move that let me slow a guy I hit, then if I hit a slowed enemy, I also knocked them prone, and then I had another feat that gave me +5 damage to prone targets.

 

[Reynard]

I feel like the real problem is (and always has been) a disconnect between what the mechanics support versus what the participants want. Specifically, the mechanics were built around dungeon delving and still hang on the initial design to that end, while most people do something other than that in play. The game of conserving your resources in order to see how far you can push for more, better rewards is pretty much gone, and yet the foundational mechanics designed for that behavior remains.

Now, this has been true since no later than 1974. I think there have always been players interested in epic quests or other kinds of "stories" than just dungeon delves, and they have always had to put up with D&D's inherent limitations in play outside of dungeon delving. It is why other fantasy RPGs exist -- or, at least, one of the reasons. As a GM, I find the arrangement of resource management in character abilities frustrating when it comes to things like overland travel: without manipulating rest availability (see LevelUp's havens) you are looking at nova's for any given encounter on the road.

The more I examine it, the less I want to use D&D for anything that isn't a gritty survival game where every fight is potential death and the goal is push just a little farther for a little more reward. Having 6-8 encounters per day doesn't make any sense when you are on a quest to save the realm or engaging in throne room politics or trying to expose the corruption that has seeped into the temple hierarchy.

 

[payn]

I feel like the real problem is (and always has been) a disconnect between what the mechanics support versus what the participants want. Specifically, the mechanics were built around dungeon delving and still hang on the initial design to that end, while most people do something other than that in play. The game of conserving your resources in order to see how far you can push for more, better rewards is pretty much gone, and yet the foundational mechanics designed for that behavior remains.

Now, this has been true since no later than 1974. I think there have always been players interested in epic quests or other kinds of "stories" than just dungeon delves, and they have always had to put up with D&D's inherent limitations in play outside of dungeon delving. It is why other fantasy RPGs exist -- or, at least, one of the reasons. As a GM, I find the arrangement of resource management in character abilities frustrating when it comes to things like overland travel: without manipulating rest availability (see LevelUp's havens) you are looking at nova's for any given encounter on the road.

The more I examine it, the less I want to use D&D for anything that isn't a gritty survival game where every fight is potential death and the goal is push just a little farther for a little more reward. Having 6-8 encounters per day doesn't make any sense when you are on a quest to save the realm or engaging in throne room politics or trying to expose the corruption that has seeped into the temple hierarchy.

I think part of it is just lack of support in the exploration and social pillars. A lot of GMs say they dont need it, and I think its mainly because for decades they have been doing it themselves. There is a lot of back and forth on whether D&D should be a survival skill play game, or a more modern power fantasy story machine. I think you are going to see pendulum swings back and forth between those ideas. At least for as long as D&D remains the industry leader by a country mile.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Mark my words, hp will still recharge on short rests. Right now we only really know about races and subclasses losing short rest abilities.
In Monsters of the Multiverse I could still find at east one monster with a short rest ability.
We don't know the full picture.

That said, I did not like 4e recharge structure. Even though theoretically it was genious in play we noticed that once you know evwry encounter power comes back there is no real incentive to not fire everything you have. Fights became very boring after a while.

 

[James Gasik]

Well monsters were designed to require all your encounter powers.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Encounter-based design was really cool, but it broke some people's immersion- why can I perform this cool sword move only once every 5 minutes? Or this other one only once per 16 hours?

Just because people use 'immersion' and bloody-minded Discworld citizen level literalism as a shield against narrativism doesn't mean there aren't reasons. Immersion is right up there with verisimilitude in terms of hollow arguments for 'I don't like it'.

You can't use certain abilities all the time because they require different non-mechanical circumstances and set-up to pull off and in the meta, because you don't use cool moves every second in a story because it would get repetitive.