D&D 4E Darksun (4e Hardcore Mode)

[SkullThrone]

Not sure how many of you feel the way I do, but to me it seems like WofC messed up when they defined a short rest to be 5 min and a extended rest to be a day. With characters always returning to full strength, outside Diseases and Curses, after a full rest.

Now, I've played 4e from a essentially beta content, I was originally a "basher" of it before it's release, but quickly came around, but even in the beginning the "Rest" definitions really bugged me.

I've thought about many different ways to deal with this, but the one that I've landed on is simply defining Short-Rest is a 6 hour rest (i.e. the old Extended-Rest), and pushing an Extended-Rest out to a 48 hours rest, or a 16 hour rest in an Inn with good drink and good food.

With these rules "every" battle matters, you can use wandering encounters again, and make the journey actual have some bearing on the characters condition. Not every adventure needs to follow the 3 to 5 encounter model, you can actually have adventures that last a week of game time, with an encounter every day or two, with the "boss" battle at the end of a small delve.

On top of this encounters are smaller and faster, but you definitely see the effects of these on the party. I'm using my rules in my current Darksun campaign, explaining to the players the world is very dangersome, and exhaunting...so the rest required is longer. Things are working very well, currently running Marauders of the Dune Sea (not the best hooks or adventure) and its been playing very in what I've called Hardcore mode.

I've got all this documented , but want to "Pretty it up" before I share it.

 

[DragoonLance]

You are the DM, feel free to redefine rests. I'm doing the same thing for my current campaign. A short rest is 6 hours, an extended rest is about a week's downtime in a secure location. The world is a scary place, especially at night.

 

[SkullThrone]

I only allow Healing surges to be spent at the rate of one per hour as well...I do allow surges to be spent getting back Encounter Powers, but they know that means less heal.

As a bonus however I award a Healing surge in place of an Action Token, if they chose.

 

[Walking Dad]

I like the rules as they are... and the changes you suggest would make the new 'mostly at-will' classes in the essential books look like some easy cheat.

And what has this to do with Dark Sun? I played it since the first box for it came out. ... Some characters ended up with regeneration after creation and all magic-users regained their spells each day.

 

[Matt James]

Short and Extended rests are merely options. In my current Dark Sun 4e game, short rests work somewhat close to the 5 minute rule but I look at it more like how one might feel after running 2 miles. While you are not at max efficiency, you can typically reengage in extrenuous physical activity after hanging out for 15-20 minutes (after the run).

I am brutal when it comes to extended rests. I may give back powers, but I almost always (now) don't give back their full amount of healing surges. This helps to mitigate any issues you might have with that part of the system and will definitely help the 'pucker' factor

Results? I have found that my players pay more attention to what they do and when they do it. They are no longer in a mechanized mode of play. It takes some retraining, and some will push back, but stick to your guns and you'll find a rewarding result.

 

[El Coro]

I use what Matt suggested (limiting the healing surge and power return on extended rests) and it is a phenomenal and simple way to force your players to consider their abilities and think about what they're doing.

It's a whole different game when they can't stop for an extended rest to "reset" all of their surges, powers, and abilities whenever they think something difficult is coming up. You'll see more creative and tactical play, and they'll be on the lookout for anything they can use to gain the upper hand.

One of the best house rules, IMO!

 

[SkullThrone]

And what has this to do with Dark Sun? I played it since the first box for it came out. ... Some characters ended up with regeneration after creation and all magic-users regained their spells each day.

Nothing, it was just a good time to change things, new campaign...new rules.

With the Hardcore rules I step-up, DM's can still run the 3 to 5 encounter delve, by using a Milestone awards and another mechanism I call a Rally Surge.

The scenario I was trying to "fix" was to be able to run a decent wilderness campaign, and let's face it the Darksun Encounter Series, and Marauders on the Dune Sea are pretty much that...however after every extended rest the party has to ask "Do we get Daily's back this time", to which the DM says "Nope, you were picked at all night with hit and tactics from <insert creature>, so no Daily's this time".

With Hardcore rules the players understand the framework to which their characters are in, and no what it takes to recharges these...plus the DM can create adventures that span a weeks time knowing that no extended rest be received. But, they can also grant a short-rest as a "Milestone Reward" they need to progress the adventure into a traditional Delve.

I do it this way to make the DM seem generous with the rest rewards, rather than playing in the traditional rules and having to make up a reason why they don't get an extended rest or to manufacture a sense of urgency that forces them to run encounter to encounter with no short rest.

Just personal preference...I played 4e since beta, and it alway bugged me that random encounters or encounters on the journey had no effect on the condition of the party when they arrived.

 

[SkullThrone]

I am brutal when it comes to extended rests. I may give back powers, but I almost always (now) don't give back their full amount of healing surges. This helps to mitigate any issues you might have with that part of the system and will definitely help the 'pucker' factor

I've done similar things before creating the Hardcore framework. Being a player in Revenge of the Giants really annoyed me when the module essentially randomized the results of an extended rest on the Frost Giant leg of the journey...I think the real annoyance was the fact that I have resist 10 cold, and endure elements ritual and it gave my shaman a +5 on my endurance check to see if I recover...of course my check suck'd and I still failed a lot.

The Hardcore rules I created were merely to create a framework around slowing the campaign down and allowing some fun on the journey. It seemed annoying to me that players can essentially have an epic battle every day for two weeks and suffer no ill effects from the previous days battle, and assuming they survive this, return to town in two weeks having gained 5 or more levels...

Using 48 hour extended rests, or at least a stay at an inn, provides a realistic game incentive to players to return to town, and it doesn't seem strange to now take months of game time to get a level, or two.

 

[moxcamel]

Design-wise, the reason for the 5 minute short rest was to keep the game moving at a fairly brisk pace. (apologies if this was already obvious, mostly I'm just writing stream of consciousness here ) When you define a short rest as 6 hours, you're slowing the game down quite a bit, something 4e wasn't really designed for. Which isn't necessarily bad if your players don't mind, but if you ever played 1e or 2e, you might remember that the basic formula became a few fights a day, then holing up in a cleared dungeon room (remember those door spikes?), or heading back to town for at least a few days, and then rinsing and repeating. It just felt monotonous sometimes because it seemed like just as things were getting good, we'd have to pack up and head back to town because the spellcasters were out of spells.

I think if you really want to make the fights count more, just make multiple encounters seem like one big encounter with the breaks situated in such a way that they don't really seem like breaks. An idea off the top of my head is having the PCs defend an area where multiple waves of attackers enter at different times. The challenge for the players is to kill off one wave before the next wave arrives. If they take too long, they don't get the benefits of a rest in between. (although at the very least I'd let them have a rest after no more than 3 fights.) Using this method, you still have a "fight that counts" (even though in game terms it was a series of encounters), and it's likely that at the end of it your PCs will have to head back to Tyr to resupply and heal up. Then maybe the next time they're chasing somebody through the city streets, having to fight their way through bunches of thugs whose job it is to get in their way. You could even mix it up with skill challenges. Doing it this way results in a more cinematic approach, rather than the plodding fight/hole-up/repeat formula of old.

 

[SkullThrone]

Design-wise, the reason for the 5 minute short rest was to keep the game moving at a fairly brisk pace. (apologies if this was already obvious, mostly I'm just writing stream of consciousness here ) When you define a short rest as 6 hours, you're slowing the game down quite a bit, something 4e wasn't really designed for.

On the contrary, defining a short-rest as 6 hours in actually speeds up the game. After each combat using the 4e rules as defined, a short-rest is taken after every combat, and people converse over who has something that can give them bonuses to their healing to maximize it. Plus, everyone is flipping cards over or erasing used Encounter Power marks.

In Hardcore...first the encounter itself is faster, as less of a battle is required to tax the party. Plus you get nothing back...So there is no post combat book keeping. Play goes immediately into looting, and they typically know that "Here" is not a good spot to rest for 6 hours, so they push on.

I think if you really want to make the fights count more, just make multiple encounters seem like one big encounter with the breaks situated in such a way that they don't really seem like breaks. An idea off the top of my head is having the PCs defend an area where multiple waves of attackers enter at different times.

I've done this, but having to manufacture a sense of urgency gets tiring as a DM, and unless you plan on keeping this up, it ultimately won't have that much an effect on the final battle. You may as well roll randomly and say that character spends a daily, and everyone takes 2 Healing Surges of damage...which isn't too far from what some skill challenges do.

Honestly I thing the resting rules are designed to turn D&D into a 4 hour board game, where you play 3 encounters and a skill challenge, and get an extended rest, which ends the session so no one has to remember "where they were" and the DM can drop them in the middle of another delve.

I think Hardcore, really creates a campaign flavor where everything matters, if you chose to use a power then its gone for a little while. No longer are DMs required to follow the 3 encounter plus a skill challenge. Also when you do want to throw a random encounter at the party they don't just throw all their daily's at it (meta-gaming) knowing that tomorrow they will have them all back.

That's just my take, I appreciate the arguments/debate that those who are opposed to this have. I really have tried everything, I've DM'd six campaigns in the 2 plus years 4e has been out, playing nearly once a week on average, and this simple change seems to really be working as a fix.

Plus, I can grant the party a immediate short rest, I call it a Rally Surge...After a particular grueling battle that they need to push on immediately, they get a burst of heroic adrenalin (same effect as a rest)...but this comes as a reward rather than a penalty...much better received by the players than trying to keep telling them, well the rest you took just didn't seem to have any effect.