Beyond the encounter: rules for pacing and downtime.

[IronWolf]

I am just not sure if you can codify these things. This strikes me as one of those cases that by putting rules to manage them you stifle or handcuff the GM. Now the players know, "well that kobold dungeon is only going to restock X traps per day, so we wait two days and then go in again."

Because it is written down it has now been codified and to do something else is not playing by the rules. I don't like that.

Beyond the simple trying to put mechanics to it the area seems way too subjective to me to fit well under a set of tables and charts. There are so many factors at play that could change these timelines and such. Alliances, intelligence of the leader from one tribe to the next, etc.

From the player side, if the wizard is crafting and I am the rogue, I don't want the rules to tell me what I do when the wizard is crafting. I want to decide what I am doing. Maybe I am at the local tavern drinking all day, maybe I sleep in until noon, hit the market for an hour stealing purses and then back to the tavern to drink my winnings away. These are all decisions for the player to make - not the rules to dictate.

I am not real into seeing more codification of areas that should be left to the player's or DM's imagination.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The more I think about this, the more enamored I am of a "short rest is one sleep, extended rest is one week" idea.

Training and research and crafting are good down-time materials, as is healing. Those could all be in the PHB.

Monsters being able to rebuild, recruit, and grow is also interesting. Those could be in the DMG, or each monster might have a "Recharge" paragraph that says what would happen. Though this works better in a different sort of monster book than the usual MM.

 

[Mengu]

I am not sure I've ever had an issue with players stopping for a rest after one fight in 4e. As a matter of fact, they've gone on to do 6-7 encounters in a day. There seem to be a following here, that the length of the adventuring day is determined by the PC's. I disagree. It is determined by the story. After the first fight, if the PC's want to take the rest of the day off and let the halfling village be overrun by orcs, sure, they can do that. But I have yet to see a PC choose to ignore such threats for the sake of recovering an ability. I have however, seen them run into battle with 3 surges and 1-2 dailies between the 6 of them, and none of them at full hit points, and come out victorious with a tale to tell. Are they fools for attempting such a feat? Well... it is a thin line between what's heroic and what's foolish.

It's a matter of play style I suppose, but I've been fortunate enough to have players who care for more than just being at peak efficiency all the time. They immerse themselves in the story. I don't think any artificial mechanic can do this. It is a matter of choice, and a bit of trust in the DM.

 

[KidSnide]

The more I think about this, the more enamored I am of a "short rest is one sleep, extended rest is one week" idea.

I actually think this is a potentially really good idea. One of the problems with the 4e extended rest mechanic is that it restored the PCs to a more-or-less pristine state with a single night of rest. There should be a complete rest/recovery mechanic, but overnight is too quick.

If a complete recovery takes a week (or a month), then the game could have abilities that only recharge after that kind of rest. Such an ability would be much closer to once per adventure than anything else we have in D&D.

(Of course, serious non-hp-based wounds could also heal in that time frame, but I assume that any wound system would be strictly optional.)

-KS

 

[LostSoul]

D&D has had a tendency to impose one way of handling such things. That begins to chafe, and people start watering it down or even ignoring it completely. Yet, if you have several different ways to handle it, it becomes an interesting choice with downstream consequences. If you only want to scribe a few scrolls occasionally, then renting a room at the mage guild library for a few weeks a year is a good idea. If you start crafting like mad, you want your own tower. Once you have the tower, then you need to craft to justify maintaining it.

It's interesting how those choices can lead to the players becoming invested in the setting.

I am just not sure if you can codify these things. This strikes me as one of those cases that by putting rules to manage them you stifle or handcuff the GM. Now the players know, "well that kobold dungeon is only going to restock X traps per day, so we wait two days and then go in again."

Because it is written down it has now been codified and to do something else is not playing by the rules. I don't like that.

I think that's a big concern when you're making these types of rules.

One way they can help players is by making the consequences for their choices more obvious; if they know that the kobolds, by the rules, make 1d4 traps every 1d4+1 days, the players have some information to base their decisions on. "How long should we wait?" It's a hard question to answer without detailed information. The best way, without knowing these specific rules, is to turn to the DM...

In that way they can aid the DM. You can say, "Time should be important in the campaign," and then leave it up to the DM to figure out how to pull that off: "Um... I have no idea how long they should wait. What makes sense? How will that affect game balance? I don't know..." It's easier on the DM if you have some kind of basic framework that, even if the DM wants to vary things, can use as a starting point. "1d4 traps every 1d4 days? Well, that seems like too few for my kobolds, who have that dwarven trapmeister working for them..."

However, you don't want to get so tied down to these specific rules that there's no room for flexibility. "It says the kobolds build traps. It doesn't say they recruit allies. I guess they can't." If done well you can get value out of using them; if done poorly they'll be of little use.

The same thing goes for the options the players have. If the wizard is crafting, and the rules say it takes 8 hours, the player of the rogue should be able to do whatever he wants during those 8 hours. He shouldn't be limited to choosing his rogue's actions from a list of "downtime powers".

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Hmm.

I wonder if allowing people normal rests, but changing what is restored from rests, might change the balance a bit?


E.G. A certain total number of spell levels can be be restored per daily rest. Maybe level +spellcasting modifier?

So, if I'm a lvl 10 wizard with an 18 int, then I'd get 14 spell levels back. That could be 2 5th level spells and a 4th, or it could be a bunch of first and second, or whatever. I think that might allow for increased versatility early on, but encourage being very careful with spells.


Same for downtime/magic item creation. Make it require certain spells to be cast every day, so that a wizard called to duty mid creation would be down those spells (and spell slots).



This'd also affect parties as a whole if clerics were bound by the same restrictions. If you nova and then rest, you're adventuring with a cleric with no first, second, or third level spells and just the 4th and 5th ones accrued (as in the above example).

As a whole this might create an interesting mechanic where players are a bit more careful, as well as more eager to avoid having to rest/use spells willy nilly/charge into unsafe battles because they know they'll be at full immediately afterward.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't think this sort of thing should be strictly codified as rules. Instead, it should be presented as a framework and a set of tools for the DM. "If your players try to rest in the dungeon/spend a month of downtime in the middle of the adventure, here are some things that may happen, and some mechanics for adjudicating them."

The idea is to make life easier for DMs who don't want a static dungeon, but also don't want to put a bunch of extra prep work into "What if the PCs stop and rest here?"

 

[KidSnide]

I don't think this sort of thing should be strictly codified as rules. Instead, it should be presented as a framework and a set of tools for the DM. "If your players try to rest in the dungeon/spend a month of downtime in the middle of the adventure, here are some things that may happen, and some mechanics for adjudicating them."

The idea is to make life easier for DMs who don't want a static dungeon, but also don't want to put a bunch of extra prep work into "What if the PCs stop and rest here?"

I agree that anything like this is going to be "less rules-y" than, say, how spell memorization works for PCs. But the arguments to have "DM guidance rules" for this is similar to the arguments for morale rules:
(1) It helps to train new DMs with some well thought out defaults.
(2) It helps to calibrate PC expectations about how the world works (if the DM doesn't want to change it).
(3) It helps experienced DMs respond to unexpected situations.

There is also an aspect of simply describing how monsters respond to incursions that don't wipe them out. Depending on the monster and the extent of the incursion, the humanoids might reinforce their lair, go searching for the PC's hiding space or take their treasure and run for a new lair. In a way, this question is a lot like morale, but for the tribe on an adventure-scale instead of for the band on an encounter-scale. Either way, more guidance in the monster manual and DMG about how monsters respond to adventure-level events (as opposed to encounter-level events) would represent an improvement that matches the stated goals of D&DN.

-KS

 

[Ed_Laprade]

From what I'm seeing in this thread, I think this is a good place for the modular style of rules they keep talking about.

You can do this.
Or you can do this and that.
Or you can do these other things.

 

[Keldryn]

I don't think that rules are the best way to handle pacing and downtime issues, other than specifying the amount of time required for healing, crafting items, training, research, and the like.

One of the best ways is to simply not have a static setting. This doesn't mean constantly imposing time limits on the PCs like "rescue the prisoner in 4 days or he will be executed." Broadly define a handful of movers-and-shakers in the game world (villains and potential allies), assign them some goals, and then set up a game calendar that shows what they will be doing as time progresses. If the PCs don't interact with them, then they continue as outlined and their actions may create new adventure hooks for the PCs. If the PCs interfere with them directly, then have them react appropriately. If the PCs do something that affects them indirectly, then adjust their schedule accordingly.

If the PCs want to take 6 months off to craft magic items instead of confronting a villain that they know is up to no good, then he'll have 6 months of progress towards achieving his goals when they're done. Or maybe he'll have achieved it already; since you set it up before the PCs decided to take time off, you know that you're not being unfair. 15 minute adventuring days likewise don't work very well when there are opponents actively pursuing their own agendas.

If a DM doesn't want to run a campaign where the players completely dictate the pace of the game and take their sweet time to be carefully prepared for everything, then he shouldn't focus on littering the landscape with abandoned dungeons populated with undead, traps, and magical constructs. Make sure there are always 3 or 4 individuals actively pursuing their own agendas. Obviously, having an evil wizard actively pursuing an advanced degree in slaad philosophy is not a particularly good choice. Make sure that these goals have a significant impact on the world -- even better if it's an impact that the players won't like. Demonstrate to the players early on that the world moves on with or without them; an adventure doesn't exist frozen in time until the players decide to tackle it.

I hope that the new DMG (or its equivalent) covers this topic. Players get complacent when it feels like everything is deliberately placed in order for them to exploit. Of course, it does kind of work that way, but it should never feel that way.