Whew, this thread blew up. Somehow the notifications stopped coming and I didn’t realize the page count doubled
… thanks for all the interesting takes to all those who chimed in! A few in-line responses below…
why bother to play any caster except warlock this way?
that could be 15 to 1 ratio of Short vs Long rests.
I guess this is highly dependent on each individual’s frame of reference. I started playing in AD&D 2nd ed, and played it for many years, then played 3.5 for many more years. In those editions, there were no cantrips and wizards literally had nothing except a slot or two, a quarterstaff, a stinky rotten spellbook and the robes on their back. Being used to this frame of reference, 4e and 5e are a literal bonanza with their abundance of at-will abilities. There are even a large selection of ranged attack cantrips. So running out of spells does not mean the wizard needs to go out and risk their d4 HDs in melee combat!
Sorry for the boomer talk
… but my point is just that: even though a round where you spend slots is usually more powerful than one where you limit yourself to cantrips, that doesn’t mean cantrips are totally weak. They even scale with levels…
I rated my campaign(s) at level 2. I regularly DM for two different groups, both of whom take Leomund's tiny hut as soon as they can. I can throw a few obstacles in their way, but messing with long rests gets a lot harder after they have that spell.
LTH can literally be a
game changer though it is very conspicuous. As many have pointed out, it is quite feasible for enemies to mess with it, at least some of the time.
What should we call the different classifications of this aspect of the game?
1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5.
@greymist's school of hard knocks.
I like what you did with healing there. You kind of smeared it out in both directions.
That’s a good question. Obviously, the 1-5 rating is entirely subjective and there’s no way to ensure that two people’s equal rating is actually equivalent.
I don’t want to retroactively tack on more details on the ratings as it seems unfair to those who already cast their votes in the absence of that.
But I think it would be interesting to conduct a 2nd vote with more precise/objective rankings in the future. I don’t know what that would look like though. Maybe the average number of encounters per LR, or the % of resources left when taking a LR, or the number of encounters endured with fully depleted resources before a LR is available? Maybe a combination of these. Suggestions welcome!
You're correct. That of course requires 11-mins to cast (or 110 rounds of the Bard/Wizard/etc-Caster taking the Magic Action on their turn). And if they've kept themselves hidden thus far or silently eliminated the threats thus far in the dungeon, they may have those 11-mins uninterrupted to ritually cast. But if Pippin twists the dwarf skeleton's hand and it wakes up the hordes of Moria, they may not be able to find another 11-mins uninterrupted to cast the hut in Balin's Tomb. And even Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, and Gimli can hold the doors while Gandalf casts the spell, that's 110 rounds they need to keep the hordes of goblins and orcs at bay before Gandalf can finish the ritual. And even then, the orcs and goblins have drums in the deep. The party may not be able to sustain uninterrupted rest, and Gandalf need to recast the ritual every time they're woken up by the drums. And meanwhile the Balor is coming. Shadow and Flame.
But again, I don't bar the players from doing this and don't usually punish/challenge them for playing smartly. Chance is also factor, esp. with random encounter tables.
I think if you’re name dropping these guys, you’ve kind of decided that the mood of the campaign would be that there are 3 short rests for every 49 days of forced march, and that in the middle of the adventure, the wizard would persuade the rest of the party to "run, fools" and then proceed to solo the BBEG, only to show up later with a fancy prestige class and a slick new robe of the archmage
