D&D 5E (2014) Quick way to fix class balance if you don't use the assumed adventuring day

[bedir than]

I've found 1 short rest midday with 4-6 deadly encounters works.

 

[prabe]

You can't do that all the time though because it doesnt make sense. And if you go months in between adventures, then the long rest characters get 30+ spell dumps to impact the world. I'm so tired of having to come up with a BS reason why the world is about to end every single day.

I went with 10 minute short rests, hard capped of 2 per long rest. Long rests are hard capped of 1 in between episodes of downtime, length of which varies by campaign but normally a week or so.

I'm tired of pretending the game I'm playing isn't a game. Everyone knows it, just drop kayfabe.

No kayfabe here, I haven't had anything like the problems you're describing. Of course, I don't also have months between adventures, the PCs are always in pursuit of things relevant to them, until they get to level 20 and I give them some time to play with their maxed-out toys, then I finish the campaign.

 

[Blue]

Okay, I see where you're going with your proposal and it's way to mild.

Because not only can casters nova, and use highest level spells as a greater ratio of their total actions over the comabt day, but effects with a duration become even more effective. A spell (or a rage) with a 10 round duration cast in the 1st round will do more in an eight round combat then in a three.

Alternate suggestion: Every single long-rest recovery ability is halved. Round down.

That totally nerfs spellcasters! Um, no, it puts them around the same as at-will characters assuming 3-4 combats per day (instead of 6-7).

(Again, nothing to do with challenge, everything to do with balance between classes.)

 

[FrogReaver]

Okay, I see where you're going with your proposal and it's way to mild.

Because not only can casters nova, and use highest level spells as a greater ratio of their total actions over the comabt day, but effects with a duration become even more effective. A spell (or a rage) with a 10 round duration cast in the 1st round will do more in an eight round combat then in a three.

Alternate suggestion: Every single long-rest recovery ability is halved. Round down.

That totally nerfs spellcasters! Um, no, it puts them around the same as at-will characters assuming 3-4 combats per day (instead of 6-7).

(Again, nothing to do with challenge, everything to do with balance between classes.)

I like your suggestions, but one mistake I see people constantly make is trying to match resources instead of output per encounter.

The issue is:

• As encounter difficulty increases due to number of enemies casters get stronger due to large AOE effects.
• As encounter difficulty increases due to stronger individual enemies of the same number, casters get strong due to strong control effects.

On the other hand

• As encounter difficulty increases due to number of enemies martials don't scale in power at all
• As encounter difficulty increases due to stronger individual enemies of the same number, martials don't scale in power at all.

Essentially, casters actually scale by encounter difficulty and martials don't. The additional resources you propose help in shorter adventuring days, but balancing the resources hasn't balanced the outputs. because what typically happens for shorter adventuring days is encounter difficulty is increased and however it increases, that nearly always favors casters.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The problem with this is it makes Warlocks too good compared to long rest casters. Take a 5th level warlock. He now has 6 3rd level spells (7 with Magical Cunning) compared to the Wizard's 2. The Wizard only gets 9 total spells (plus arcane recovery).

The warlock with the 2 short rests they were designed around gets 18 spell slot levels per day. The wizard (counting arcane recovery) gets 19 spell slot levels per day. And if you make a comparison graph these numbers stay close for the whole level range. It was designed to be that way. Warlocks got a smaller number of high level slots, used eldritch blast on other rounds, and had invocations to fill out their capabilities.

If you only have a 6 round day, the warlock is going to be outpowering the wizard, leaving the wizard to make up for it with out of combat power around 5th level. Eventually, the wizard will have enough high level spells for all 6 of those rounds, etc. Overall, I think the balance will work.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Okay, I see where you're going with your proposal and it's way to mild.

You're right, it is on the mild side. I did it that way because I didn't want to box people into the game only working if they have a very small number of encounters. My solution still works even if you have a long adventuring day.

 

[Horwath]

Alternate suggestion: Every single long-rest recovery ability is halved. Round down.

this will just turn 5MWD into 5MWW(eekend)

PCs will just take 2 days back to back to get their "powers" back.

Seen in 3E where people took a week off if without healing magic to get their +2HP/level back on full day rest.

honestly, it might be best if there is no short rest mechanics or there is only short rest mechanics with long rest being reset on HPs, HDs and number of Short rests.

or Bo9S way where you spend a round to recharge your "short" rest. IMHO, that should be battlemasters ability. Lose 1 round, get all maneuver dice back.

 

[Blue]

I like your suggestions, but one mistake I see people constantly make is trying to match resources instead of output per encounter.

The issue is:

• As encounter difficulty increases due to number of enemies casters get stronger due to large AOE effects.
• As encounter difficulty increases due to stronger individual enemies of the same number, casters get strong due to strong control effects.

On the other hand

• As encounter difficulty increases due to number of enemies martials don't scale in power at all
• As encounter difficulty increases due to stronger individual enemies of the same number, martials don't scale in power at all.

Essentially, casters actually scale by encounter difficulty and martials don't. The additional resources you propose help in shorter adventuring days, but balancing the resources hasn't balanced the outputs. because what typically happens for shorter adventuring days is encounter difficulty is increased and however it increases, that nearly always favors casters.

Because output per encounter isn't the right metric. It's really output per adventuring day, or the same thing stated differently average output per action.

 

[Blue]

this will just turn 5MWD into 5MWW(eekend)

PCs will just take 2 days back to back to get their "powers" back.

Seen in 3E where people took a week off if without healing magic to get their +2HP/level back on full day rest.

honestly, it might be best if there is no short rest mechanics or there is only short rest mechanics with long rest being reset on HPs, HDs and number of Short rests.

or Bo9S way where you spend a round to recharge your "short" rest. IMHO, that should be battlemasters ability. Lose 1 round, get all maneuver dice back.

Look, until people are willing to divorce rest and recovery like in 13th Age, players can always work around limitations on daily spells. So either accept that we need to move to a completely different way, like getting them back at the end of an adventure, or accept player cheesiness. Pointing out that players can cheese while explicitly leaving the control in the hands of the players doesn't add to the conversation.

 

[Blue]

You're right, it is on the mild side. I did it that way because I didn't want to box people into the game only working if they have a very small number of encounters. My solution still works even if you have a long adventuring day.

So does mine. Mine makes the average 3-4 instead of 6-7. People look at that 6-7 recommendation and dread running that many so they treat it as a limit but really it's just an average. You can run 10 encounter days and should be just as much as you can run a 3 enounter day. So 3-4 as an average still allows play with a large number of encounters in a day compared to how people generally run.