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

There's a certain pattern I notice some of my players get into frequently that makes me worry about them getting bored and disengaging from the game. It goes something like this:
Me: "It's your turn"
Player: "I walk up and attack"
Me: "Do you have any bonus actions or resources to spend?"
Player: "Yes but I don't want to spend them, I might need them later"
Repeat for 10 turns, for several combats, and then a long rest happens.

This doesn't happen with every group, but for those that do this it makes combat feel uninteresting and downright anemic. It is annoyingly repetitive and it doesn't use anything on the character's sheet that comes from their class. Character identity is muddled when you don't even bother with most of your features. I understand that character resources are limited by rests for balance reasons, but I have to wonder if it's really worth it when I see it disincentivize using those features at all in the first place. I think it's long been established that the rest frequency rules from the DMG are broken and have no relevance to actual play, so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to simply ease or remove some of the limitations around class resources.

A messy hypothetical implementation:
-Spell slots still return after a Long Rest, Pact Spell slots still return after Short Rests
-Non-spell slot Long Rest resources return after a Short Rest now
-Short rest resources relevant to combat return at the end of combat
-Short rest resources not relevant to combat remain as they are
-Enemies receive some kind of universal buff, like bonus damage on hit, to even the playing field and force more liberal use of abilities.

I haven't gone through all the (probably many) features that this would be broken on and carved out exceptions for them, but in general I would like less reasons for my players to not use their features. If the iconic move of a Barbarian is to rage, why limit their rages to such an extent? Why should a Fighter be so miserly with their Superiority Dice, or a Bard with their Bardic Inspiration Dice? This would also help non-caster martials regain some parity with their caster peers; a Paladin doesn't look so overwhelmingly superior to a Monk anymore when the Monk gets their level in Stunning Strike attempts each combat. And since spells have an absurd ability to dictate the terms of an engagement, plus their unparalleled utility, that keeping them as the one true Long Rest resource makes sense. If any classes should be playing a resource management mini-game it should be the full casters with their large array of "I win" buttons.

Well from what we've seen of the new Racial writeups in Monsters of the Multiverse, it looks like WotC is thinking about switching from "short rest" to "uses equal to proficiency bonus until you complete a long rest" for powers.

PB uses per day fixes several issues as @James Gasik mentions.

Mostly, its a pacing issue heavily influenced by how the DM handles "downtime" between active moments. I've seen a lot of new DMs be reluctant to allow or simply forgetful about the existance of short rests. Personally, I've decreased short rests to about 15 minutes in my games to encourage their use and recovery, and switched short rest abilities over to PB per day where feasible.

As an aside, I'm testing limiting cantrips to PB + spellcasting modifier per day. Warlock Eldritch Blast moves to being a class ability instead of a cantrip with this change.

The problem with "PB uses per day" is that it encourages PCs to nova and then rest - the 15 minute adventuring day. Though the current approach, where classes have a mix of approaches but the big casters are almost all per day is even worse - this encourages them to nova and then force a rest, which not only gives the 15min day but also enhances the imbalances between the classes.

What is ideally needed is for all classes to have a mix of powers that refresh at different rates, plus strong advice for the DM that the ability to rest should usually be easy but should sometimes be limited in various ways.

But what is also needed is a mechanism that encourages PCs to press on for "one more encounter" - whether that is a gradual ratcheting up of XP awards as they increase the number of encounters per day, or the use of some sort of escalation die that makes their powers stronger as they go on, or even some powers that only become available after a number of encounters. I'm not sure of the details, but building something like that in would help reduce that 15-min day problem.

One other specific thing I'd recommend to @JThursby: if your players are failing to use their "short rest" powers because they're forgetting (or unable) to take short rests, you might want to consider having them automatically refresh, either after each encounter or after 2 encounters (the game assumes a short rest after about 2, but that's one more thing to have to remember). But do make sure to tell your players that that's happening, so they can adjust their behaviour to match!

delericho said:

The problem with "PB uses per day" is that it encourages PCs to nova and then rest - the 15 minute adventuring day. Though the current approach, where classes have a mix of approaches but the big casters are almost all per day is even worse - this encourages them to nova and then force a rest, which not only gives the 15min day but also enhances the imbalances between the classes.

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The 5min(or 15) work day is simply a group preference, and no amount of rules will change that if the group do not come to agreement beforehand.

If you have players that are used to get a full rest after every (significant) combat, they will get that rest.

Yes, you can give them timing imperative, they might just ignore it... What will you do? blow up the campaign?
No. You adapt as a DM to it. Make every fight "beyond deadly+" so PCs can burn through 95% of their resources. Or more.

4e falcon swoops in to save the game with 5 minute rests and encounter powers that recharge every fight.

I guess if players feel that way, they can take other classes that do not have short rest problems. The DM can also add magic that has a power or two that comes in handy each fight. You could add a rule that powers recharge like 4e or are not used up if they miss.

This will be an ongoing convo topic well into 6e and beyond because WotC is unlikely to address the issue head on. History as proven it in 50 years.

(i) 4e's system of at-will, encounter and daily was and is the best D&D system to implement an integrated recovery purposes, hands down.

(ii) The current PB number times per day system they have implemented takes us right back to archaic systems and is no good. Its only benefits being its simple and creating symmetry amongst the classes in design.

(iii) What they actually need to do - is list powers with A (for at-will), E (for encounter) and D (for daily) and list the effects of over-exerting oneself.
i.e. For instance if a character can perform 3 x E's in an encounter/scene (roughly x minutes long) what would be the cost of performing an additional E. Cost be Fatigue, could be loss of HD (reserves)...etc. D's might cost additional stamina or HD.

(iv) And a Long Rest (however you want to define that period or status in the game i.e. 8 hours, 24 hours, a week, safe place) recovers x amount of Reserves or removes x amount of levels of Exhaustion.

(v) Wounds and conditions affect the speed of your A,E,D recovery or perhaps the # of A's, E's or D's you can perform without cost...etc

Anyways that is my opinion on that, switch everything back to A's, E's and D's. And yeah presentation is important, D&D is not a card game.

EDIT: Let tables decide for themselves, like long rest above, are short rests (between encounters) - 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour or a day.

If the players don't mind wasting their resources by "saving" their abilities for later and then never using them... then the DM shouldn't mind either (even if they personally think the combats are boring.)

I'd also say to the DM that if their players are "saving" their abilities, then there's perhaps a pretty good chance they've been burned before in this situation. Lots of small combats earlier in the day then they get hit with a big fight at the end when they've used everything up. If that happens enough times, then it's not surprising the players have now been conditioned to keep things in reserve. If that's the case, then the DM should throw out more "one fight a day" encounters to help smooth away those instincts in their players.

Players learn to adapt to a DM's tendencies. So it's often not the rules that instill certain actions and attitudes in players, it's how their DM runs their game.

Horwath said:

The 5min(or 15) work day is simply a group preference, and no amount of rules will change that if the group do not come to agreement beforehand.

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Player decisions are influenced by the mechanics of the game however. At its most basic, that's why we see Fighters using weapons and Wizards using spells.

The problem right now is that in the vast majority of cases there's no reason not to take a long rest frequently. And while individual adventures can build in a ticking clock to reduce that, that's a situational fix that gets old very quickly.

But if the game were to build in a rule that stated "you gain no XP for your first encounter of the day", we'd very quickly see an end of the nova-rest cycle. (I should note that that is very much not something I would advocate, as it's a bad rule. We'd probably switch to a tedious hackfest-nova-rest cycle.)

But the ideal would be to build in a tension between desires: "If we rest, we regain these powers. But if we go on, we gain this instead." - provided both things are desirable, you then have an interesting decision for the players.

Horwath said:

Yes, you can give them timing imperative, they might just ignore it... What will you do? blow up the campaign?

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If that's the outcome of ignoring it, you're doing timing imperatives wrong*.

The outcome of ignoring it should be something like "that NPC you guys love will die," or "the trove of magic items you want so much will be lost." DMs shouldn't threaten consequences they aren't prepared to follow through on.

*Unless the answer is "Yes, I will blow up the campaign." That's a hardcore answer, but totally legit.