D&D 5E Are there really encounter powers?

[Wrathamon]

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.

It wasnt, but they had to use "something" as a baseline. What is the avg number of short rests.

If you can adventure for 12 hours it seems feasible that you can get in 1 to 2 short rests (1 hr) maybe 3 but that might cause a random encounter.

every 3 to 4 hours the party stops to take a break


In some instances, they may not be able to take 1 but I am assuming they think that would be a rare instances to increase tension to a situation. You are in a super dangerous area.

I think it would be fine to cap the number of short rests (but only if your players are like BRING ON THE RANDOM ENCOUNTERS after every encounter).

I hated random encounters but now I see the advantage.

Also, random encounter doesnt have to be a combat. It could be more like an event. The floor collapses where you are insert crazy encounter that breaks your rest. Your food becomes spoiled by some crazy dungeon fungus or bugs. break out the starvation rules!


bit off topic but I also like how someone suggested that HD is more like your health and HP is more like how close you are to getting injured. When you are at half HD (effectively bloodied) if you have no HD left you are close to being seriously injured, you only have what little luck you have left (hp) before you might not make it.

 

[Henry]

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.

People don't talk about it much, but 1st Edition assumed that all encounters took 1 turn of time, it being assumed that even if the combat wasn't 10 rounds long, the remaining time was spent straightening up equipment, binding wounds, and sorting loot. (It was mentioned in the DMG combat chapter, somewhere around the "party A / Party B" example).

Most of the time I mentioned it, it was argued down with "it's not relevant, because spells or abilities didn't reset with a fight" , but the fact that 4e had a 5 minute rest was one piece that did remind me of AD&D.

EDIT: After this I went searching, and didn't find quite the quote I remembered, but I did find in the DMG on page 38 where Gary says that the party should be required to rest 1 turn in 6 (in other words, 10 minutes each hour) and required to rest for 1 turn after each combat or strenuous activity. I could swear I remember a more wordy version later on, though. Darn not having a 1e DMG PDF!

 

[Obryn]

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.

Yeah, I'm more than a little perplexed by the resource balancing, here.

If "short rest" abilities should be thought of as "daily, unless you're lucky" resources, any perceived advantage to them disappears. And making them weaker (and they are) because of their refreshability no longer makes any sense. It tilts balance even more strongly in favor of daily spellcasting, where you get everything up front for the day.

The rest of your analysis was spot on, imo.

 

[Li Shenron]

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."

In principle yes, but as [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] says, you'd have to be careful and do at least some considerations.

For example, the Warlock looks like it'll have more encounter-based magic than the Wizard, who only gets Arcane Recovery for recharging during a short rest but it still has a daily cap.

Thus if you can take 20 short rests (5 min each) instead of 2-3 (1 hour each) in your campaign's typical adventuring day, the Wizard is not getting anything better, while the Warlock, Cleric, Fighter and others are getting some partial "refresh" each time.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but you might need some further adjustment, or some liberal interpretation of problematic features. For instance, I'd probably rule that you can't concatenate short rests for multiple Second Wind i.e. you actually need to take some damage from a genuine threat (self-harm doesn't count) before using it again.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

People don't talk about it much, but 1st Edition assumed that all encounters took 1 turn of time, it being assumed that even if the combat wasn't 10 rounds long, the remaining time was spent straightening up equipment, binding wounds, and sorting loot. (It was mentioned in the DMG combat chapter, somewhere around the "party A / Party B" example).

Most of the time I mentioned it, it was argued down with "it's not relevant, because spells or abilities didn't reset with a fight" , but the fact that 4e had a 5 minute rest was one piece that did remind me of AD&D.

Oh, that's interesting! I didn't know that about 1E stuff like that, (makes sense, though) but yeah, that's very much how we adjudicated Short Rests in 4E, as "getting yourselves back together", straightening gear, binding wounds (non-mechanically), drinking water, getting your breath back and so on!

5E doesn't really have encounter powers, for better or worse, based on Basic and Feb. PHB leak, even with 5 or 10 minute short rests, sadly, because most classes have very little that recharges on those (not nothing, but relatively little). I do think 5/10 minute short rests instead of 1 hour (and Mearls previously claimed this would be a formal option, presumably in the DMG) would make things feel a bit closer to that model, though, and generally make the game seem more lively. I mean, to me, a 1 hour rest seems like a ludicrous period of time - as others have said, that's a lunchbreak, not a coffee break or whatever.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The formal use of 10-rounds "turns" for dungeon exploration in 1e (when rounds were a full minute, remember, so that's 10-minute turns) is one of those rules I vaguely remember reading, but don't recall anyone ever actually using.

FWIW, though 5e's exploration rules do, also, harken back to that.

 

[DreamChaser]

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.

This is what I've found as well. I actually wanted to give you XP on this, but the system said I've been giving you too much love lately.

If resting is treated only as a mechanic and not as part of the game world, then the length is irrelevant. Make it 30 seconds or 2 days...doesn't matter. If the DM factors the length of rest into the world, then it becomes a tactical choice for the players. It impacts how they use their powers and how far down the HP wear and tear they're willing to tolerate.

 

[TwoSix]

Narrative module for encounter powers: Replace all instances of "recharges on a short or long rest" with "recharges on a long rest or by spending your Inspiration".

 

[Juriel]

It would be useful to know how many short rests you're expected to get...

Because, you could just say players get that many Refreshes during a day, when they want them, done, without encouraging PCs to camp all the time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It would be useful to know how many short rests you're expected to get...

Because, you could just say players get that many Refreshes during a day, when they want them, done, without encouraging PCs to camp all the time.

I expect it'll be part of the 'Crystal Clear Guidelines' that'll tell us how many encounters/day and rounds/encounters are expected.