D&D 5E 'daily' Powers/leveling breaking immersion?

[jmartkdr2]

Based on what in-game information? I mean, we just obliterated 6 people from their gang. We can take them, right?

In the game I'm talking about, after we 'defeated' some gang members, we assaulted a fort but were forced to retreat. So, my character's 'insight' on his own ability was wrong. (which is fair. People sometimes aren't the best judge of how difficult things are) My Out of Character insight on the fact that we were too low level to assault the fort in the first place was correct. The fact that I had to have that conversation in my head before deciding to do what I felt my character would do over what I knew in the 'meta' is what has been bothering me.

I think I'm missing a step: what do you know - as a player, that isn't known by the character - that makes you so sure you can't handle the fort? What's in the fort that you definitely can't handle, and how do you, as a player, have this information when your character does not?

 

[dave2008]

I mean Out of Character issues get in the way of logical 'in character' decisions.

My character thinks, 'we should take the battle to them while they are at a disadvantage'
Player thinks, 'Oh, but we're only 1st level, that would be suicide'

Edit: just to add: the narrative/story doesn't jive with the mechanics.

Are you just looking for confirmation or a solution? If its just confirmation then than the answer is yes others feel the same (I'm looking at you @dnd4vr ), and some do not. And that is OK. If you want a solution we can discuss that too.

Personally, I think that is a perspective issue. If you feel your character would push on, then push on. That is what heroes are made of - they keep going despite being beat-up, fatigued, and not at their best. I find it more immersion breaking to be able to do the same thing all the time, all day, every day. I've been in enough athletic and mental competitions to know that is just not realistic. So it bugs me a bit (just a bit), when a character only has at will abilities that can always be done all the time.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It occurs to me that I have a lot more Dming experience now and have a good feel for how adventures are structured, so maybe that's influencing my decision making.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I suppose the best in-game justification is your character understands when the need to rest and they are growing tired. For example, casters are easier because the loss of slots represents the taxing "drain" or whatever they feel. When they are nearly out of slots, they are conscious of the fact because they might "feel" tired.

You barbarian has one rage left. If he has already raged a couple times, he might understand that inner wellspring of violent aggression is close to depletion. There might be one more go in the tank, so to say.

It is like when I used to run cross country. In a race I knew I had enough left to really push that last quarter-mile. Sometimes I overexerted myself too soon and it just wasn't there.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Are you just looking for confirmation or a solution? If its just confirmation then than the answer is yes others feel the same (I'm looking at you @dnd4vr ), and some do not. And that is OK. If you want a solution we can discuss that too.

Personally, I think that is a perspective issue. If you feel your character would push on, then push on. That is what heroes are made of - they keep going despite being beat-up, fatigued, and not at their best. I find it more immersion breaking to be able to do the same thing all the time, all day, every day. I've been in enough athletic and mental competitions to know that is just not realistic. So it bugs me a bit (just a bit), when a character only has at will abilities that can always be done all the time.

Stop looking at me, @dave2008 , it is making me self-conscious!

 

[Flamestrike]

I find 1 hour short rests to be ridiculously jarring.

I mean the expectation is you get 2 of them on average each adventuring day, and the game seems to be largely balanced around that assumption as well.

The in-game implication is PCs are stopping an assault on a dungeon every 2 or so encounters to take a 1 hour lunch break.

That's why I reduced Short rests to 'a quick breather of a few minutes to swig some water, bind some wounds, check the map and catch your breath' but limited them to 2/ long rest. Much easier to take one, and far less jarring to the narrative, with with a hard cap of you only being able to benefit from them twice between long rests.

It's fixed a lot of the problems with immersion.

I dont really get the other problems of 'we're too low level to tackle the next encounter.' which the OP claims is present in 5E and not in 3E. If you're having that issue in 5E (with bounded accuracy) then surely it was worse in 3E where a few levels difference in encounter v party level, and you're totally outclassed.

 

[dave2008]

Stop looking at me, @dave2008 , it is making me self-conscious!

Well now that your avatar is no longer Merlin, I find myself looking your way less and less

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I find 1 hour short rests to be ridiculously jarring.

I mean the expectation is you get 2 of them on average each adventuring day, and the game seems to be largely balanced around that assumption as well.

The in-game implication is PCs are stopping an assault on a dungeon every 2 or so encounters to take a 1 hour lunch break.

That's why I reduced Short rests to 'a quick breather of a few minutes to swig some water, bind some wounds, check the map and catch your breath' but limited them to 2/ long rest. Much easier to take one, and far less jarring to the narrative, with with a hard cap of you only being able to benefit from them twice between long rests.

I find One Hour Short rests weird. When I DM, I do 3 short rests/day: a morning 15min break, a 30min or 1hr midday lunch break and a 15 min break in the afternoon. It sounds like a work day but I find when I'm doing real life stuff like camping or trekking and other physically difficult tasks, these are natural times to take a break and I find it works well in an adventuring day.

I dont really get the other problems of 'we're too low level to tackle the next encounter.' which the OP claims is present in 5E and not in 3E. If you're having that issue in 5E (with bounded accuracy) then surely it was worse in 3E where a few levels difference in encounter v party level, and you're totally outclassed.

I never said it wasn't a problem in 3e. In fact, I mentioned the 15minute adventuring day. I'm just curious why it feels more jarring now and was curious what others thought.

 

[dave2008]

That's why I reduced Short rests to 'a quick breather of a few minutes to swig some water, bind some wounds, check the map and catch your breath' but limited them to 2/ long rest. Much easier to take one, and far less jarring to the narrative, with with a hard cap of you only being able to benefit from them twice between long rests.

We use the 5 minute short rest option in the DMG too. We were coming from 4e so it just felt natural to us to start that way.

 

[iserith]

Based on what in-game information? I mean, we just obliterated 6 people from their gang. We can take them, right?

That's one conclusion a character can draw. Another conclusion might be "We've been lucky so far, and I don't want our luck to run out."

In the game I'm talking about, after we 'defeated' some gang members, we assaulted a fort but were forced to retreat. So, my character's 'insight' on his own ability was wrong. (which is fair. People sometimes aren't the best judge of how difficult things are) My Out of Character insight on the fact that we were too low level to assault the fort in the first place was correct. The fact that I had to have that conversation in my head before deciding to do what I felt my character would do over what I knew in the 'meta' is what has been bothering me.

As with many such discussions, I feel like the disconnect is not in the mechanics, but rather the ability of the player to successfully combine thinking about the game with how the character might think or act in a way that makes sense in context. This is a skill that can be learned and improved by doing it. The first step toward doing so in my view is recognizing that it is unlikely that there is only one conclusion a character might draw about a particular situation.

In Friday's game, I was playing my zealot barbarian, Real Zeal Holyfield. He took a significant beating - down to 3 hit points and only 1 rage left. It wasn't prudent to take a short rest due to looming threats and our ability to heal with magic as a party is limited. So, we pressed on. A battle broke out with some vrocks. I was faced with a choice: Rage and get knocked out pretty quickly, thereby losing the rage, or go in without raging, figuring that when I did go down, I'd be hit with healing word to bring me back up no worse for wear so I could reserve the rage for any fights after our short rest (whenever that would be). And so I looked for useful fictional context. Rather than fly into a rage, Real Zeal decided to instead front-line it with 3 hit points, scoffing at the vrocks - a few of which he had beaten handily in previous sessions - since he knew he could defeat them without drawing upon the zealous rage he used in previous battles.