D&D 5E 5e Revision: Re-Balancing and Combats per Day?

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think we'll see more ''prof per day'' features in the revised PHB of 2024, but I think we'll still have short rests, be it only for HP recovery and Warlock's slots.

Or they'll just make the Warlock a long rest caster like the other casters, but that'd be sad IMHO.

Note: I use the 5 minutes short rests (max of 2 per long rest) and it works wonder. Since its also a little power boost to Warlocks and Wizards already have they Arcane Recovery feature, I give a little ''cheat'' to Sorcerers: Sorcery Points are mainly for features and Metamagic; they can still burn slots to regain SP. BUT, I let the Sorcerer combine slots to create high level slots. ie: A Sorcerer can spend a level 4 and a level 2 slot to cast a 6th level spell. This way, all classes can deal with their own feature recovery in their own way as they like.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think we'll see more ''prof per day'' features in the revised PHB of 2024, but I think we'll still have short rests, be it only for HP recovery and Warlock's slots.

I think I read an interview or something along thosel ines that said the designers are looking to move towards "prof per day" features. It's conceivable that this change might result in an adjustment to the encounter guidelines, although I agree that it's unlikely that short rests would go away entirely.

 

[Amros]

The game is balanced against the daily XP budget. This is absolutely clear if you look at how short rest versus long rest abilities balance -- it really only levels if you're throwing daily XP at the PCs.

No, it isn't. How can you even relate XP to resources? Could you state how many spell slots or superiority dice, for instance, are equivalent to 200 XP? And if you don't use XP at all?
If I would have to bet on something, I would bet on this bit on the same DMG page 84:

SHORT RESTS
In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about onethird and two-thirds of the way through the day.

But that is not a statement either, although it tends to be true.

IMO, the real balance reside in the party as a whole, not in class-against-class basis, because resource attrition will always depend on your adventuring day. Short-rest classes cannot go nova as strongly as long-rest ones, but they will endure a very long adventuring day; on the other hand, long-rest classes will need to be conservative on long days, but can hit like a truck when needed. Having a balanced party with both long-rest and short-rest classes lets you adapt better to both situations.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, they won't do that because WotC doesn't see it as a flaw.

Er...they actually do though?

I fear I no longer remember the specific video, but it was published IIRC a bit before Tasha's released. Jeremy Crawford explicitly discussed that there is a problem in 5e's design concerning resting and resources--or, rather, a problem between the designer-expected rate of using these things and the actual-play rate of using them. They expected players to take long days with multiple short rests...and actual play doesn't bear that out. This causes some classes, like Warlock (which was explicitly called out) to fall behind, while other classes like Wizard pull ahead, because their resources don't have to stretch as far.

While they have not explicitly drawn a connection to it (to the best of my knowledge, anyway), it is generally accepted in the community that this is why, roughly starting with Tasha's or a bit before, you see zero or almost zero uses-per-short-rest features, and a total or almost total shift to Proficiency-bonus-per-long-rest features. Because the latter is totally divorced from the party's rate of taking short rests, it provides a uniform quantity of resources regardless of whether players favor few or many rests.

Like...this really is an actual design fault actually admitted by one of the primary designers when 5e was being worked on, and arguably the lead designer still at the company after Mearls left.

 

[iserith]

I doubt they will. While I find the game does indeed work better when the adventure is designed with 6 to 8 encounters per adventuring day in mind, I'm not sure how much the designers actually pushed this. It could be that a lot of people just read into that bit in the DMG. Official modules don't seem to follow this assumption either.

For my part, if I'm designing adventures where I expect there will be 6 to 8 encounters per adventuring day, I use standard rests. If I expect there will be fewer encounters, I change the resting rules accordingly. Those rules already exist in the DMG so there's not really much need for the designers to do anything in particular here.

 

[el-remmen]

If you can get away with doing nothing for 1 hour, you can get away doing nothing for 8 hrs in most of those cases.

Just putting it out there that this is not my experience, but will admit this may just be a result of how I DM. Of course, it depends on where the PCs find themselves and how good a job they do in finding a safe-ish spot for a rest in relation to that environment. In my games, regardless of chance of a random encounter for a one hour rest (which can range depending on where they are) the chances during a long rest are 8 times more likely.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, it isn't. How can you even relate XP to resources? Could you state how many spell slots or superiority dice, for instance, are equivalent to 200 XP? And if you don't use XP at all?
If I would have to bet on something, I would bet on this bit on the same DMG page 84:

You've somehow gotten a very strange idea. The recharge rates for resources, and therefore the entire resource game, uses the daily XP budget as the foundation. This isn't a relation of XP to an ability, as you seems to have leapt to, but rather the point that the game expects the resources from a short rest recharge class to be in parity with a long rest recharge class when you are using the daily XP budget.

But that is not a statement either, although it tends to be true.

IMO, the real balance reside in the party as a whole, not in class-against-class basis, because resource attrition will always depend on your adventuring day. Short-rest classes cannot go nova as strongly as long-rest ones, but they will endure a very long adventuring day; on the other hand, long-rest classes will need to be conservative on long days, but can hit like a truck when needed. Having a balanced party with both long-rest and short-rest classes lets you adapt better to both situations.

I mean, you just said resource attrition depends on the day, so....

 

[Umbran]

I would expect more and better advice on adjusting play, rather than significant rebalancing of the system itself.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not long after Monte parted ways with the 5E design project... I'm not saying our feedback was the reason, but I'm not NOT saying that either.

It definitely wasn’t. He has actually talked about it since, basically they got him to come back in the first place by promising that the corporate culture at WotC had changed and he would actually have creative freedom again. He left when it became clear that wasn’t actually true.

 

[Shiroiken]

Nothing in this regard will change, because to do so would require a huge revamp of a lot of class abilities. IMO "easy mode" has nothing to do with the number of combats per day, since DMs often build around the daily xp anyway. I wouldn't mind seeing advice on how to adjust the difficulty without leading to a TPK.

IMO, the real balance reside in the party as a whole, not in class-against-class basis, because resource attrition will always depend on your adventuring day. Short-rest classes cannot go nova as strongly as long-rest ones, but they will endure a very long adventuring day; on the other hand, long-rest classes will need to be conservative on long days, but can hit like a truck when needed. Having a balanced party with both long-rest and short-rest classes lets you adapt better to both situations.

Here's the biggest issue though, is that with fewer encounters per day, the short/no rest characters are overshadowed by the long rest characters that nova. Many don't see this as an issue, viewing it in a team perspective as you do, but a lot of others feel the classes should be able to contribute more equally. It's not an issue for me, but our group leans towards the 6-8/ day, which balances the types quite well.