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

[Stalker0]

Fundamentally, 5MWD is a conflict of incentives.

Adventuring in Dnd weakens a character; Resting strengthens them. Therefore, given the choice, players tend to side on more rests than less. Further, there is no real mechanical "penalty" to resting. There are certain limits (such as no long rest for 16 hours after the last one), but no actual penalties. The penalties are all narratively invoked by the DM. Resting might lead to an ambush, or the monsters rearranging themselves, or the McGuffin goes off because the party took too long, etc.

Now sometimes these narrative incentives are enough but it requires active and continuous work from the DM. Further, some scenarios weaken these tools. If my dungeon is filled with traps lets say, resting isn't going to suddenly make the traps move around. An ambush might not make sense if the party is traveling through an isolated desert, etc.



So for our ideal "fix", the party is incentivized not to rest...and these incentives are mechanical (not narrative). There are fundamentally 4 buckets you can invoke (with an example for each one):

Remove Stick for Adventuring

• Players recover their abilities after each encounter or after a very short rest (ala 4e's 5 min rest that recovered almost all abilities).

Add Carrot to Adventuring

• Players actually get stronger the more encounters they do in a day
  • Unlock new abilities
  • Gain a bonus to attacks, saves, etc
  • Gain inspiration

Add Stick to Resting

• A player does not suffer the penalties of fatigue until after taking a long rest (similar to how in real life you can feel pretty good after a day of labor, but then after you sleep the next morning you feel super sore).

Remove Carrot from Resting

• Certain abilities don't recover on rest (only when certain milestones are hit as an example).

Some combination of these 4 will provide a system to fit a given game.

 

[tetrasodium]

Fundamentally, 5MWD is a conflict of incentives.

Adventuring in Dnd weakens a character; Resting strengthens them. Therefore, given the choice, players tend to side on more rests than less. Further, there is no real mechanical "penalty" to resting. There are certain limits (such as no long rest for 16 hours after the last one), but no actual penalties. The penalties are all narratively invoked by the DM. Resting might lead to an ambush, or the monsters rearranging themselves, or the McGuffin goes off because the party took too long, etc.

Now sometimes these narrative incentives are enough but it requires active and continuous work from the DM. Further, some scenarios weaken these tools. If my dungeon is filled with traps lets say, resting isn't going to suddenly make the traps move around. An ambush might not make sense if the party is traveling through an isolated desert, etc.



So for our ideal "fix", the party is incentivized not to rest...and these incentives are mechanical (not narrative). There are fundamentally 4 buckets you can invoke (with an example for each one):

Remove Stick for Adventuring

• Players recover their abilities after each encounter or after a very short rest (ala 4e's 5 min rest that recovered almost all abilities).

Add Carrot to Adventuring

• Players actually get stronger the more encounters they do in a day
  • Unlock new abilities
  • Gain a bonus to attacks, saves, etc
  • Gain inspiration

Add Stick to Resting

• A player does not suffer the penalties of fatigue until after taking a long rest (similar to how in real life you can feel pretty good after a day of labor, but then after you sleep the next morning you feel super sore).

Remove Carrot from Resting

• Certain abilities don't recover on rest (only when certain milestones are hit as an example).

Some combination of these 4 will provide a system to fit a given game.

Buffs used to provide positive reinforcement pressuring not resting since they would expire & weaken the party if another slot was not burned to recast. concentration overuse & various other changes that generally devalue 5e buffs ensure that they don't apply that pressure they once did though.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I just don't really understand the 5 minute workday problem. Sometimes our intrepid adventurers have a one encounter day. That just means that the one encounter should either be meant to let them steamroll the enemies and feel awesome, or should be an extremely difficult encounter that assumes everyone novas out. Other days they should have to do multiple encounters.

I get that, given their own devices players will want to rest at intervals that undermine the story pacing or whatever. My nearly universal answer to this is that actions in D&D should have consequences. Other than having high level story deadlines the most basic consequence is that if there was a series of encounters that interlock with each other (ie: an enemy base, a dungeon, etc.), just popping in and slaughtering a few enemies and coming back the next day should result in the enemies being on much higher alert the next day, such that when they show up next time any fight raises the general alarm and brings all the planned encounters down on them at once. If they steamrolled half the dungeon and then called it good for the day, not leaving enough enemies left for even the combined forces to be an interesting fight, well guess what, come tomorrow the boss of that dungeon has skipped town with whatever they were questing after, and/or to go on a recruitment drive plotting his revenge. Or whatever; the important thing is that challenges don't all statically wait for the group to do rests all the time.

If there are no consequences to not doing the encounters in one day than there is no reason to do them in one day, and why would real adventurers not do one fight days when they could do so with no consequences? The rules shouldn't artificially box the players into a particular preferred narrative pacing if DMs and adventure designers aren't going to make that pacing make in-world sense.

 

[tetrasodium]

I just don't really understand the 5 minute workday problem. Sometimes our intrepid adventurers have a one encounter day. That just means that the one encounter should either be meant to let them steamroll the enemies and feel awesome, or should be an extremely difficult encounter that assumes everyone novas out. Other days they should have to do multiple encounters.

I get that, given their own devices players will want to rest at intervals that undermine the story pacing or whatever. My nearly universal answer to this is that actions in D&D should have consequences. Other than having high level story deadlines the most basic consequence is that if there was a series of encounters that interlock with each other (ie: an enemy base, a dungeon, etc.), just popping in and slaughtering a few enemies and coming back the next day should result in the enemies being on much higher alert the next day, such that when they show up next time any fight raises the general alarm and brings all the planned encounters down on them at once. If they steamrolled half the dungeon and then called it good for the day, not leaving enough enemies left for even the combined forces to be an interesting fight, well guess what, come tomorrow the boss of that dungeon has skipped town with whatever they were questing after, and/or to go on a recruitment drive plotting his revenge. Or whatever; the important thing is that challenges don't all statically wait for the group to do rests all the time.

If there are no consequences to not doing the encounters in one day than there is no reason to do them in one day, and why would real adventurers not do one fight days when they could do so with no consequences? The rules shouldn't artificially box the players into a particular preferred narrative pacing if DMs and adventure designers aren't going to make that pacing make in-world sense.

The keystone that makes it a serious problem for 5e specifically is that there is no inversion where PCs need to fight their way out of the corner to get off the ropes & no particularly credible way to telegraph danger that needs to be taken seriously to avoid winding up on the bbeg's. 5mwd

It was always an issue to avoid in past editions but cthulu in power armor was always a credible threat to life & limb in ways that are simply not a concern any longer. Adding the dual track long rest classes+short rest classes on top for the GM to manage simultaneously just exacerbates the matter with a new set of spotlight balance issues.

 

[overgeeked]

The other way to go is lean into it. Use the epic heroism optional rule making long rests take one hour. Then use the whole adventuring day XP budget for a normal encounter. Maybe have short rests be an action so short rest classes aren’t hosed.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The other way to go is lean into it. Use the epic heroism optional rule making long rests take one hour. Then use the whole adventuring day XP budget for a normal encounter. Maybe have short rests be an action so short rest classes aren’t hosed.

I can't imagine a way that this will work.
You at least need to adress no rest vs short rest vs long rest classes. Otherwise you have just cut their power by 1/2 to 1/3 compared to full casters.
In my experience there are other problems, but those are more subjective.

 

[FireLance]

5E already has one daily resource that discourages the five-minute work day: hit points. The way it does so is as follows:

1. At the start of the adventuring day, the number of resources you have access to is less than your total daily resources. For example, after a long rest, a 14 Con fighter might have 36 hit points and four Hit Dice (effectively another 30 hit points on average).
2. You have to take a short rest to tap on your daily reserves of resources. In the case of hit points, they are replenished by spending Hit Dice after a short rest.
3. More importantly, taking a short rest leaves you no worse off than taking a long rest, so there is no benefit to taking a longer rest.

Suppose daily spell slots worked in a similar way - say, spellcasters only start the adventuring day with one spell slot per spell level, but also had a daily pool of spell levels or spell points which they could use to regain expended spell slots when they finish a short rest. Spellcasters would then have no incentive to take a long rest until they have exhausted their pool of reserves - which might take two or three short rests.

Similarly, maybe characters with Proficiency Bonus per long rest abilities would start the adventuring day with one use (two from 9th level) and regain expended uses to the daily limit after a short rest.

Of course, this would not go down well with players who like the nova potential of expending several high-level spell slots or powerful abilities in a single encounter. On the other hand, by limiting nova potential, it may also make CR more useful.

 

[Pauln6]

The 5 minute work day can be a challenge for one off wilderness encounters but, as DM, you mix and match. Sometimes it's necessary to do a forced march to meet a deadline. Sometimes you are in enemy territory. Sometimes you are on a dungeon crawl. Sometimes you are on the clock to prevent a ritual, sacrifice, or coronation. The game works fairly well. Just expect your wilderness encounters to heavily favour the PCs.

 

[glass]

I'll say that short rest have helped reduce this somewhat. Since everyone gets something back, even if it's just spending a few hit dice. And wizards will have a few spell slots later in the day.

This does not match my experience with 5e (which admittedly is somewhat limited), in that I never succesfully completed a long rest in the middle of a day. The only times it happened were when encounters were spread out across days, so each was followed by a long rest anyway.

Which is to say, I strongly agree that one hour is not "short", and to be useful short rests should be five or ten minutes (maybe 15 at the absolute maximum).

Other than that, I think the problem is mostly self-inflicted so I don't think rules changes are what is needed. If you don't want players to need a long rest after a particular battle, then don't make it a super deadly battle.

Going into any battle with less resources available than you could have could get you killed. Regardless of how tough the battle you just had was, the next one could be tougher. Generally, the PCs want to survive and their players want them to survive, so both players and characters are incentivised to avoid going into battle at less than full resources if at all practicable.

Depending on playstyle, the PCs might expect that the next fight will come within a

Couldn't you equally say the existence of long rest classes causes 5MWD issues?

Not "equally", "wholly". If all resources were per-encounter or "better", the pressure 5MWD would go away entirely. OTOH, without some daily limits or other pressure in that direction, you could end up with the sixteen-hour workday which is even worse for verisimilitude IMNSHO.

people still give XP?

I do, and I strongly prefer it if my GMs do too (although it is not deal-breaker if they prefer milestone levelling - I know that GMing can be demanding and do not want to put something on their plate they are not comfortable with).

PF2 called, they have a table reserved for you.

Wait, what? PF2 is absolutely slathered with daily resources!

 

[payn]

Wait, what? PF2 is absolutely slathered with daily resources!

The at wills and encounters are often just as good if not better than dailies and easily replenished. Dont kid yourself, PF2 is an encounters game in disguise.