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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6363350" data-attributes="member: 2067">I'm generally on board with the idea of severely curtailing spellcaster slot access. I think it was a smart idea for 5e to go in this direction. There's another angle the balance works on, though: the spells themselves have been hit in the face repeatedly with a nerf bat for the most part.Maybe, like with the slots, not in every case enough, but when you see a spell like Polymorph and your reaction is "Meh...", I think 5e is doing a really good job in putting the kibosh on some of the most infamous spells from previous e's. There's ways to unlock lock-down effects, scrying is for the most part just a slightly safer scouting mechanism, buffs take a lot of effort, summoning is pretty intensive.... The 5e wizard is still versatile as heck, but the peaks of power are a lot less high than they once were. The valleys are lower, too, thanks to things like cantrips and arcane recovery. It's roughly the same encounters/day as 4e was, which tells me that this is a magic number for them for some reason. At any rate, if you're going to clear out a dungeon floor, 6-8 encounters "feels" about right, and you have enough scenes for a good narrative arc (with 2 short rests/day as "intermission")...it's a lot of breathing room. But heck, in 4e, our average encounters per day in practice was more like 1-2 for most of the groups I played in than the 6-8 that it should've been by the maths. And mostly that just meant easier encounters.Ultimately, # encounters/day is a highly variable number in practice, as the end of the day is a thing the DM lets happen when the narrative pace feels about right most of the time. 6-8 probably works OK for a dungeon, but outside of one, or in the wilderness? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯DO IT. COME ON. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I sincerely <3 short-rest-is-a-night's-rest. I find long-rest-is-a-week's-rest works well in conjunction with the downtime mechanics: you can do a Downtime Thing when you take a long rest. I'm adopting training rules, so if a PC wants to gain a level, they also need to do it during their downtime. Thinking of some ways to expand the downtime mechanics, as well. I fit my adventures into week-long chunks. It might mess with the pacing a bit for an adventure meant to be shorter, but it's nothing a few find-and-replace time units can't fix.Woods have goblins in them. And giant spiders. And green dragons. And dire wolves. And neighborly treants who drop by to ask for some sugar for their tea OH MY GOD THEY ARE DRINKING THE BLOOD OF LEAVES THESE ARE CANNIBAL TREANTS!...At any rate, a tiny hut in the woods is not necessarily any more effective than a tiny hut in a dungeon, and neither is game-changingly more effective than making a camp out of sticks and a tinderbox. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I dunno, even at first level, Arcane Recovery keeps you topped off with one first-level spell after every short rest. While that's pretty much 1 round out of the ~10 rounds you'll have to survive until your next Arcane Recovery, that one round is still gonna be pretty sweet. If low-level casters find themselves wanting to sleep more, I suggest they consider growing a pair and not being such a delicate snowflake princess about not constantly spamming magic missile. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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