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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flamestrike" data-source="post: 7123816" data-attributes="member: 6788736">So many DMs dont get this. 5E is an attrition and resource management game. As a DM you have to DM with this in mind.If thats not your thing, then play a different game.They become rocket tag. Its OK to have the occasional Deadly+ single encounter day of course. But they can go south with some bad luck from the party fast.I agree 5E leaves that resource management in the hands of the DM, and doesnt enforce it on the game structure.If it did enforce it though, you would be forced in your narrative structure to abide by it. By giving you options (gritty realism etc) they allow individual DMs to mess about with it to taste.Hang on mate. No one says 'you must run 6-8 encounters each long rest every time'. That would be boring and predictable. No-one advocates for this.All a DM needs to do for around 50 percent of the time is use the 6ish encounter 'adventuring day' (adventuring day meaning 'time between long rests and not necessarily a game day'). The other 'days' will me a mix of single encounter days. 2 encounter days, and more than 6 encounters days. Some will allow for 2 short rests; some none. Some will allow for 3 or more short rests. Rare days will feature 12 or more encounters (real meat grinders, with no chance to long rest and the PCs are on the clock).Remember, the devs intentionally made some classes shine on shorter adventuring days (paladins, casters, barbarians) and some shine on longer adventuring days with lots of short rests (warlocks, monks, fighters, especially champions). By introducing shorter 'days' you allow the former to shine. By pushing longer days on the party, the latter shine (particularly if you give the PCs ample time to short rest).Basically the DM has his hand on the 'class balance' dial. If your barbarians/ paladins are outshining your fighters, or your Wizards and outshining your Warlocks, try reducing short rests to 5 minutes, or using the gritty realism (long rest  = 1 week) options. Put your PCs on the clock for their next quest, where they have to deal with 10 encounters before the time limit expires, but have several hours to allow for multiple short rests.Example quest:PCs wake up (after long rest) and a haggard figure staggers into the camp, badly wounded and collapses. The PCs heal her, and she tells them she was captured by [BBEG + monsters] who are using a nearby [ruin] a few hours ride away to [perform a ritual] that will be completed [at midnight]. They are sacrificing [innocents and someone dear to the PCs] and if the ritual is successful [something really bad happens]. The PCs must now ride to [the ruin] and slay the monsters [10 x combat encounters and 2 x traps] but they have 14 hours to do it in (enough time for a short rest after each encounter if they want.As an option B, have the haggard figure stagger in the PCs camp as they settle down for the night (once they are already depleted of resources that day from dealing with an encounter or two).After your PCs have gottten a quest like this they will naturally conserve resources all the time, and will hold back from nova options even on the slower single encounter adventuring days. Just make sure you throw the occasional really long adventuring day at them (every second level or so, or every other month), so they hold back, they self regulate for you.</blockquote>

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