D&D General The "Ease of Long Rests" as a metric for describing campaigns / DM styles?

[Yaarel]

Yeah, we’re working from the same data. I just thought 15 sounded like a strange number to default to if you aren’t adjusting it level by level. I’d probably pick 12 if I was going to make it a single number for every level.

Twelve encounters for every level sounds fine.

Were still approximating the official math, to zoom thru the student tier (levels 1-4), then savor the professional (5-8) and master (9-12) tiers, then speed up the pace thru grandmaster (13-16) and legend (17-20) into epic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I voted 4.

I use gritty rests with sanctuary requirement, and there usually is some stuff going on which means that you cannot just take those rests whenever (or at least not without serious consequences.) Then again, there tends not to be that many combat between long rests, though they tend to be rather hard ones.

 

[Distracted DM]

I voted 4. By default, in my games, a long rest requires two uninterrupted days of respite. This decouples sleep from long resting, which is a big thing in my mind- it doesn't matter if a LR takes one day or ten, once you've made it clear that sleep =/= LR then it makes challenging party resources a lot easier as a GM.. you can tune that dial as you go from then on.

Min 2 days uninterrupted means it's tough to get a long rest out in the wild, but not impossible... and it also means that if I feel like I made something more difficult than intended, they can get a rest. But the mentality that this sets is that rests aren't expected after every couple fights, which is a big thing to me- changing that mentality of expectation.

 

[Lanefan]

Impossible to vote for me, as there's no "whatever makes in-game sense at the time" option.

Long-resting on a cross-country trek will be easier than in the depths of a dungeon but harder than when travelling from village inn to village inn.

Even within a dungeon, long-resting is highly likely to be easier in an area where they've already knocked off the occupants than in an area where they have not.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Impossible to vote for me, as there's no "whatever makes in-game sense at the time" option.

Sure, but that is greatly impacted by what is going on in the world, which is largely decided by the GM, as well as the rules governing the long rests which ultimately are decided by the GM as well.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Maybe we are talking about the maximum level of difficulty then?

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe we are talking about the maximum level of difficulty then?

In that case almost everyone's vote should be 5, then, as in pretty much every campaign there's sooner or later going to come a time or situation where long-resting is, for a time, impossible.

 

[tetrasodium]

Maybe we are talking about the maximum level of difficulty then?

While 5e may have been designed with the expectation that every session of every campaign ever run would look more like half minute hero than any edition of d&d to ever see print before I get think that having not one of wotc's hardcover adventures operating under such strict time constraints is good evidence for why that should not be assumed.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I went with 3 because I do have random encounters, even occasionally on main roads, but I don't muck with rest rules or limit access to Leomund's hut and the like. My game tend to have larger groups than normal (I had a group with 11 players for a couple years) and our group tends to get pets/followers/steeds/etc, so lots of the random encounters never happen because the DMs decide most beasts and monsters aren't going to risk it unless someone wanders off alone.

Flip side is that it can be hard to find a space big enough and secluded enough to get full rests in "dungeons". There's no common "night" in the deep down.

The exception was

Spoiler

Princes of the Apocalypse where there were waterfalls, active volcanoes, giant pumps, metal forges, foes that hate each other, foes under weird charms & compulsions

which made it ridiculously easy to take long rests. Stupidly easy. As a player who considers finding spots to rest* to be part of the game, handing it to us on a platter is rude.

*One of my favorite "camp sites" was a quest in a labyrinth with "no sleep from screaming monsters and vampire bats." We took out a twisted dryad with a corrupted treant who was guarding a tunnel to another area, the far end blocked by a boulder. We used the dead treant and Mold Earth to barricade the open end of the tunnel for about 15ft (other than about the top 6"), giving us a quiet space to sleep.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Impossible to vote for me, as there's no "whatever makes in-game sense at the time" option.

Literally everyone's actual answer is "whatever makes in-game sense at the time", so that's kind of pointless to list as a choice. The question is just to rate where in general you tend to fall on average.

So on average, in your anecdotal experience, which ranking tends to make in-game sense at the time during your games the most often compared to the other options?