D&D (2024) Brainstorming 5 minute work day fixes

[dave2008]

We play
In 5th. Five minute short rest; max prof per day.
Works very well and means one hour long spells stay useful after a fight.

(In 1st AD&D you get 1st-2nd level spells back in about 5 hours ).

I have seen this suggested before (making short rests recharge a daily resource). It would be a good idea and something they could easily implement on '24 D&D

 

[AnotherGuy]

Perhaps, extend long rest to 24 hours, change recovery after long rest, create space for a travel rest and tie re-chargable powers to HD mechanic to exhaustion track but this will wildly change the game for you, so this may not be what you're looking for.

 

[NaturalZero]

I hope they ask about short rest duration in the playtest so I can tell them to go back to the 5 minute short rest. I worked great in 4e and after playing 5e for 8 years, 1 hour still feels bad and causes inter-party issues.

 

[tetrasodium]

Couldn't you equally say the existence of long rest classes causes 5MWD issues? The reality is that the non-alignment of short and long rest classes is the issue. All one or the other is fine, but when you put them together there are (n theory) issues.

The trouble is forcing ythe gm to accomidate both together on top of plot story & just running the game. Short rest classes are designed in a way that makes that combo harder and easier to punch a 5mwd loophole in

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It can be extremely "dissociated." It's a pure game mechanic that's often not going to map onto anything "in the fiction," which will drive some players nuts. It would drive me nuts in a lot of games. I used it in a very episodic Conan-style (heroic) S&S game where the adventures were structured like S&S stories. The rule was "short rests after Act I and Act II, long rest after each episode's conclusion." Worked a charm, whether the story spanned one hour or ten years. I think it would be much harder to implement in, say, a sandbox campaign, at least for certain players (including me). But I'd love to see people take a swing at it.

I use:
If you travel more than 5 miles (or so) a day, you need a whole day of recovery to rest.
Dungeon? Seldom more than 5 miles, use as is.
Town? Same
Travelling? Usually no long rest until you arrive in a fortified space.

Also: you heal 1/4 of your hd and half hp when you sleep, regardless if it counts as a long rest or not.

 

[Krachek]

I think that 5MWD is a natural behavior for some players in response to DM insisting on hard challenge, harsh consequence and creating a feeling of insecurity.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think that 5MWD is a natural behavior for some players in response to DM insisting on hard challenge, harsh consequence and creating a feeling of insecurity.

That blame the gm accusation coin ha a flip side. Sometimes it's just one or more players with a power fantasy and an expectaoto put their self insert isekai analog filling that fantasy above the good of the game. The gm can make resting harder yes, but they have very little to do if the group simply refuses to do any thing but rest.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

If every class has both short-rest and long-rest features, it's no problem.

Move short rest to a less pace-breaking duration, with a hard cap per long rest. Leave the management of short rest to the individual player instead of an obligation for a full-party stop for a non-negligible duration.

In term of pacing, its way less jarring to wait 5 minute for the fighter to take a breather than having him stall the adventure for 1 hour if your character dont gain nothing from short rests or does not require one currently.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

A few different options that could be put into place in OneD&D because they are in other versions of D&D or D20 games

Level playing field: Everyone has the same allotment of resources with the same recharge rate. As long as everyone has the same, it doesn't matter in the slightest if it's a 5 minute day - all of the classes are still balanced against each other, and DM can then adjust challenge via the deadliness of encounters. 4e did this, with charactes having (outside utilities) the same amoutn of at-will, encounter, and daily powers.

Recharge out of player reach: If the players can't trigger a long rest during an adventure, this problem is moot. 5e does this with the Gritty Rest varient in the DMG, though that has issues with changing the expected number of short rests per long rest. Adventures in Middle Earth (a d20) does this by not allowing a long rest at all during the journey phase, with a few notable exceptions (a class feature, or finding a sanctuary like Elron's).

Recharge requires pushing on: This is a variant of above, where the characters can trigger feature and spell recovery, but it involved getting through enough encounters. 13th Age (a d20) does this, with at-wills, encounters, and "dailies" that come back at a full heal up - which only happens after four encounters. (13th Age does have a "players trigger it sooner", but it's in exchange for some campaign loss for the extra time spent.) This decouples sleeping from recharging, but it does work quite well.

I think that taking the warlock from 5e as your base (most your best abilities are at will or short rest) keep some daily and give something for pushing on (4e gave extra magic item uses).

so lets build a fighter and a wizard...

fighter has 8ish at will attacks they can choose from at 1st level 2 of them. At level 2 they get a pool of abilities that scale based on a short rest, at 3rd 5th 7th 9th and 11th level they get more to that pool and at level 11 they get more uses FROM the pool. At level 4, and 8 you get a feat/asi like warlock you pick 2 subclasses 1 at 1st and 1 at 3rd... at 1st you pick one based on fighting style (so archery, protection, defense, great weapon, duiling) at 3rd you get something more akin to Knight, Warlord, ect. However your Action Surge (that you start with at 1st level) you can only use 1 time after a mile stone (2 encounters) but it comes back every milestone (2 encounters)

wizard has 4-5 combat at wills and 6-10 non combat at wills and you pick 1 combat and 3 non combat and a spell book with a number of first level spells known, and the ability to prep 1/2 your level plus int mod spells at 1st level at level 2 you get spell slots (like a half caster but you get a max of 3 spells per level instead of 4) these spells slots are kinda sorta dailies... but at level 3 you get mana and arcane recovery...So you can get some spell slots on a short rest add in something that is like a mix of artificer infusions and warlock invocations that let you get some customization INSTEAD of subclass. Now you get EXTRA arcane recovery (to get back those dailys) on mile stone (2 encounters)
The trick is the change to spells and what mana is... mana is basicly sorcerery pts you get 1/2 your level round up starting with 2 at 3rd level... what can you do with it, you can invest or spend. If you spend it is like metamagic from sorcerer... if you invest it in an at will though it is a day long buff that you can uninvest on a short rest (ending the buff) to get the pts back to spend... Then spells, all spess get preped BUT not all spells need spell slots. Detect magic, and Mage armor compaired to shield and tasha's laugh are my got to examples... if you prep detect magic at 1st level when you have 0 spell slots you can detect magic at will.. if you prep detect magic at 20th level when you have 3 1st 3 2nd 3 3rd 3 4th and 3 5th level spell slots 10 mana and arcane recharge, you can still use detect magic at will. Mage armor on the other hand you can use 1 time per short rest without expending a slot or use a slot if you already used your 1 use this short rest... Shield and Tasha's laugh (that needs a nerf still) would still cost daily slots.
so at level 20 you can prep 25 spells even though you have 15 spell slots, but several of them can be at will or 1/sr for free... heck you could just fill up on those.

 

[Krachek]

5MWD is not a problem if everyone agree to use that pacing for adventuring.

If some players don’t enjoy the DM can add items or tweak class features to fill the gap with the 5MWD.

if the DM don’t want it and players seek it, we have a conflicting play style issue. Usually more rules don’t help that much. The table have to Talk, share expectations and find a middle ground.