D&D 5E Are there really encounter powers?

[Tony Vargas]

The length of short rests is really bad because the design of the classes assumes that you're going to get one after every encounter.

I haven't seen anything to suggest that. I also haven't seen anything to indicate that short-rest-recharge powers are at all balanced from one class to another, either. To use two only-rumored examples, it's unlikely CS dice stack up very well compared to a Warlock's spell slots, for instance. Or compare Second Wind to re-charging a spell slot.

/If/ they are, indeed, designing things like Second Wind and Action Surge on the assumption that they'll be used every, or even most, encounters, that'd be a problem. If they're designing such powers on the assumption they'll only occasionally be used more often than dailies (ie, some days, they will get used only once, just like a daily), it should be fine.

 

[Crothian]

I like the idea of a short rest. If a group does take it after ever encounter then it is up to the DM to make this tough to do if that's the way he feels. Some groups might like the idea of doing that just like some groups seem to like the so called 15 minute work day.

 

[Capricia]

I do not see support for this assumption. I think tjhy're aware that PCs will not have these abilities in every encounter, and need to give some thought as to whether they want to use them or hold them.

Let's take a pretty basic situation as an example: The PCs encounter a cave in the wilderness. There are a couple goblin guards standing outside. The PCs can take those guards out if they get the jump on them and then make their way into the caves. Is it worth using some of these 'once per short rest' abilities to make sure you get the jump on them, or do you want to save those abilities for fights against whatever is inside the cave?

If they assume you'll use the ability every combat, you get into the 4E problem where every battle is the same series of attack combos over and over and over... that adds complexity, without really providing diversity. If you're going to be doing the same things over and over, you might as well make them simple so that they go smoothly.

You're right that longer short rests make for more of a resource management minigame, but the problem is that if you only have 1 or 2 short rests a day when you're having 4 or 6 encounters, then those classes are coping with vastly fewer resources than the other classes that rely on daily or at-will abilities. At level 4, you can have a situation of a cleric being able to pick and choose between 7 different daily abilities and cast them in any combination 7 times, plus the benefit of their channel divinity encounter ability. A fighter in the same boat has 2 encounter abilities. Preserve Life is a far better encounter power than Second Wind, and Hold Person or Spiritual or Bless or any number of other spells AND the flexibility in casting those spells is a hell of a lot better than Action Surge's ability to make another attack. But assume they're equal. Hell, assume that 1st level spells aren't as valuable as making an extra attack on your turn, say they have only half the value. Say that the cantrips are absolutely worthless.

That means that the fighter starts with 2 points a day and gets 2 more each short rest. The cleric starts with (4 1st level spells, 3 2nd level, and Channel Divinity) 6 points each day and gets 1 more every short rest. In order for this resource minigame to make sense, then after five shorts rests, the fighter has 12 points to the Cleric's 11. Anything fewer than that and the fighter gets fewer points. Any more and the advantage of being able to keep going after a short rest starts to pay off.

If you have 2 rests a day, the fighter has 6 points to the cleric's 8. That means that even with all these assumptions--cantrips don't matter, 1st level spells aren't as good as attacking, action surge can compete with abilities that simply break the rules of the game--the resource tacking and decision minigame is busted.

That's not to say that 2-minute short rests are going to fix everything. Definitely not. All I'm saying is that the design on the short rests is kicking some classes when they're down. You're giving the players the option of "I'll give you 100 dollars a week, whether you work one day or seven" vs "I'll pay you 15 dollars a day, but you'll work between one and seven days." Sure, getting 15 dollars a day means that you're getting 5 extra dollars a week than the other guy, but that's ONLY if you get to work each day. And your seven days of work is still only slightly edging out the other guy's one day of work. Which sounds like the better job?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm seeing a lot of 'powers' by several classes being called encounter powers. Those are all powers that can be recovered after a short rest. However, since a short rest is actually an hour, it seems very unlikely that those powers can actually be used every encounter. If you consider the first two dungeons in Lost Mine, once the party is inside, the characters certainly won't have the possibility of stopping for an hour without being swarmed by the rest of the occupants.

I think of it this way:

How many goblins do you kill before lunch?

An hour rest is like a meal. Presuming that breakfast and dinner are part of making and breaking camp, an hour rest is lunchtime.

If you think you can clear out a whole dungeon before lunch, that's a pretty bold statement!

More likely, you end up breaking it into more manageable chunks as a player party. You go in, kill some goblins, and get back out for an hour, before going in again. You need to find a safe space.

The "manageable chunk" could be seen as one encounter (even if it's spread up across a few different initiative rolls).

Most actual individual encounters in 5e are shorter than they would be in 4e, so stringing a few of them together without a rest to make one "encounter" makes a lot of sense to me, logistically.

 

[TerraDave]

I like the one hour rest. It always provides and interesting decision point at my table.

In our last session, the PCs had invaded the main villain's stronghold. They had 2 rough encounters, and they knew she was just a room away. They had to decide whether to go back to a safe distance and recover or press on. They knew if they pressed on the wizard and the cleric were both down important abilities, but they also knew they would be giving the villain an hour to react to their presence.

In the end, they didn't rest, and they won. But it was a close thing.

Thaumaturge.

Exactly the kind of thinking I hope to see at my own table.

 

[Savage Wombat]

This may just be a good example of how the designers expect you to "mod" the game if you want to play in an older style - they can now say "if you want the game to be more like 4e, define a short rest as 5 minutes."

 

[Mistwell]

I'm seeing a lot of 'powers' by several classes being called encounter powers. Those are all powers that can be recovered after a short rest. However, since a short rest is actually an hour, it seems very unlikely that those powers can actually be used every encounter. If you consider the first two dungeons in Lost Mine, once the party is inside, the characters certainly won't have the possibility of stopping for an hour without being swarmed by the rest of the occupants.

I agree. We've been playing our playtest campaign for about 10 months now, and the party cannot short-rest after every encounter. If they try it too often, they get hit with wandering monsters that really wreck havoc with them (since they are absent some resources that they splurged unnecessarily in the prior encounter). An hour is just too long a period of time to be assured of uninterrupted rest all the time.

 

[Tormyr]

The 1 hour short rest is something I really like about this version. The party has to strive and work together to survive. A couple of weeks ago, the level 3 party ran their first encounter since a long rest invading a temple of Hextor. 12 skeletons in plate armor, 8 cultists and a couple Tiefling guards later, the party wanted a short rest, but they had seen some cultists run into the next room. In the end, they decided to start by having the cleric do a prayer of healing, a spell with a 10 minute casting time. He sat hidden in a corner praying to Heironeous to heal them while the clerics of Hextor periodically fired crossbow bolts and summoned a fiendish ape (reskinned giant carniverous ape from the playtest).

They held everything off, killed the ape and got their healing. They also decided that there was no way they were going to be able to get a short rest uninterrupted. They pressed on, and with the help of some imaginative roleplaying, they survived the encounter agains 2 level 3 clerics and a level 5 cleric and their remaining guards. They were stretched to the breaking point, all their special abilities were used up, but they made it. After that, they got their short rest.

In my opinion, the short rest is not something that is automatic after each encounter or even when the party thinks they need it. They have to make the conditions for the short rest fit the story. Do we rest here? Do we retreat? Do we press on? Do the conditions even give us the chance at a short rest. That brings the players into the center of the decision making process instead of just being along for the ride. Knowing this, they will be less likely to blow all of their special abilities in the first encounter and instead figure out when they need to hit harder and heal faster. And when they strive and struggle and overcome or die, the story is the more memorable for it.

 

[Johnny Champion]

if anything I think they designed it that the players may get 1 or 2 short rests during a Day and that is all.

This may not have been your intent in your response, but I do like the concept of limiting the amount of short rests per day (1 or 2) regardless of random encounter or not. I like this idea better than increasing the length of a short rest or adding more random encounters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This may just be a good example of how the designers expect you to "mod" the game if you want to play in an older style - they can now say "if you want the game to be more like 4e, define a short rest as 5 minutes."

That would work if each class had a comparable proportion of it's resources on a short-rest recharge schedule.

Just like you could vary the length of the 'day' from 5MWD out to 8 or 16 or more encounters between long rests, if each class had the same proportion of daily resources.

Since 5e took the design philosophy of giving different classes very different resource schedules, it's locked into having a prescribed number of encounters (or even rounds) and short rests between long rests. A little carefully managed deviation evenly circling around the dictated average gives you a neat 'balance of imbalances' that highlights the arbitrary distinctions among the classes. Any consistent deviation in one direction trashes class balance.