Level Up (A5E) End the 5 minute work-day by making all classes work off short rests.

[Micah Sweet]

Yea, I'm not a big fan of meta currency. And you are right, I often use milestone leveling for ease. But I certainly would be willing to switch to traditional XP if that meant the 5MWD problem was solved.

I also use milestone leveling, but there are times I wish I didn't. I feel it squanders an opportunity to reward the players by having the monsters they fight and obstacles they overcome have a concrete benefit in the form of xp. With milestone, they just level when the DM decides they should.

 

[tetrasodium]

To keep attrition, how about spending HD to recharge powers?

Imagine daily powers being recharge 16+ and per-battle powers being recharge 11+. Roll for recharge at the end of the battle used. If the recharge roll fails, one can spend a HD to recharge the power.

Obviously, the idea needs smoothing out, but it allows for more balance in the different rest rates, keeps the resource-counting aspect of the game, and encourages players "pushing their luck."

Using hit dice to fuel powers makes a lot of sense, especially given the fat that only a fraction of players/classes are likely to be using them much if any as 5e is. "The different" rest rates is a big problem in 5e tha might have started out a well intentioned solution to a problem it addressed but then a couple classes were built to unabashedly & transparently exploit the resulting 5mwd only to have things go further and further southa wotc kept releasing stuff to help those classes better exploit it at the expense of everything else.

I also use milestone leveling, but there are times I wish I didn't. I feel it squanders an opportunity to reward the players by having the monsters they fight and obstacles they overcome have a concrete benefit in the form of xp. With milestone, they just level when the DM decides they should.

I too use milestone leveling & there are things I don't like about it but it solves a lot of problems without needing to fight the system elsewhere. I tried using fate points where doing something especially heroic awards the group a single fate point they can give to one of the pc's & that fate point can be spent to turn "that's it, your dead" into the "wait no he just looked dead" kind of thing you see at the cliffhanger in many action movies/tv shows. Unfortunately even though everyone thought it cool it's almost impossible for the players to actually need to use the one they started with let alone need another by any means other than "and the beholder shoots a pale green ray at you, make a con save bob"

 

[ThatGuySteve]

Using hit dice to fuel powers makes a lot of sense, especially given the fat that only a fraction of players/classes are likely to be using them much if any as 5e is. "The different" rest rates is a big problem in 5e tha might have started out a well intentioned solution to a problem it addressed but then a couple classes were built to unabashedly & transparently exploit the resulting 5mwd only to have things go further and further southa wotc kept releasing stuff to help those classes better exploit it at the expense of everything else.

I think using hit dice to refresh powers would be unbalancing for the split of front line vs back line characters. Characters in the thick of melee will generally take more hits and need to spend more hit dice on recovery. Those at the back will have more resources to spend on fueling abilities.

In my experience, I see melee characters running out of hit dice regularly, were the back line are spending one out two over the course of the day.

 

[Kinematics]

I think using hit dice to refresh powers would be unbalancing for the split of front line vs back line characters. Characters in the thick of melee will generally take more hits and need to spend more hit dice on recovery. Those at the back will have more resources to spend on fueling abilities.

In my experience, I see melee characters running out of hit dice regularly, were the back line are spending one out two over the course of the day.

On the other hand, the front line fighters tend to have more short rest abilities, while the backline tends to have more long rest abilities. If long rest abilities cost more to refresh, it's still possible to maintain a balance.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think using hit dice to refresh powers would be unbalancing for the split of front line vs back line characters. Characters in the thick of melee will generally take more hits and need to spend more hit dice on recovery. Those at the back will have more resources to spend on fueling abilities.

In my experience, I see melee characters running out of hit dice regularly, were the back line are spending one out two over the course of the day.

It depends on what they power & how. I bet if I had said "burning a hitdie to recover second wibd & action surge but I'm not sure if it should recover one or both" your post would have looked very different... Burn a hit die to recover our rages?... maybe... Burn a hit die to make this bow shot a line or burst? same deal... Burn a hit die to cast one of these spells/spell like abilities?.. how is that any different from the prior examples other than being unfinished? The key is that everyone needs to want to use them, right now backline classes hardly ever use their hit dice for anything and they have nothing to use them on
edit
@Kinematics I think the point is more using hit dice to recover or power balanced amounts of short rest abilities & designing those abilities accordingly so everyone has a decent selection of go to powers that way. Of course it would require not having a couple munchkin classes built entirely to abuse the 5mwd.

 

[RangerWickett]

How about we just eliminate 'refreshing powers' altogether.

If you want to do something cool, you either build up momentum to pull it off, or you need to spend a lot of time.

I always wanted a magic system that had a bit of the vibe of Magic: the Gathering. You enter battle, and your fire wizard starts by spending an action to Gather Power. Fire swirls around her, dealing a bit of fire damage to anyone who enters or starts their turn in the area. Then the wizard has some fire mana, which she can spend to hurl a fireball. Some spells might cost no mana, but the good ones require you to build up to them. But you can't hold onto mana for more than a minute or so, or else it starts to burn you.

Or a fighter needs to warm up. He could have a rhythm meter, like in some fighting games, and each round he gets some points he can spend to improve his attacks, and certain 'fighting styles' give more points if he does certain actions. The Wuxia style would give bonuses if he attacks an enemy while jumping or otherwise not standing on the ground. The Knight style might give bonus points if he lets his opponent attack him first.

 

[tetrasodium]

How about we just eliminate 'refreshing powers' altogether.

If you want to do something cool, you either build up momentum to pull it off, or you need to spend a lot of time.

I always wanted a magic system that had a bit of the vibe of Magic: the Gathering. You enter battle, and your fire wizard starts by spending an action to Gather Power. Fire swirls around her, dealing a bit of fire damage to anyone who enters or starts their turn in the area. Then the wizard has some fire mana, which she can spend to hurl a fireball. Some spells might cost no mana, but the good ones require you to build up to them. But you can't hold onto mana for more than a minute or so, or else it starts to burn you.

Or a fighter needs to warm up. He could have a rhythm meter, like in some fighting games, and each round he gets some points he can spend to improve his attacks, and certain 'fighting styles' give more points if he does certain actions. The Wuxia style would give bonuses if he attacks an enemy while jumping or otherwise not standing on the ground. The Knight style might give bonus points if he lets his opponent attack him first.

You might want to look at dfrpg. It'd an extrodinarily complex magic system that only works because it leverages an early version of fate to make that complexity simple. Trying to port it over to d&d would be a mess. With that said, trading time for ome other resource burn (ie spell slots) is not a bad idea but such a thing needs to be baked into the spells & balanced from the getgo.

 

[CleverNickName]

How about we just eliminate 'refreshing powers' altogether.

If you want to do something cool, you either build up momentum to pull it off, or you need to spend a lot of time.

That's a great idea! If you want to do Your Cool Trick, you have to spend X round(s) powering it up. Each Action that you spend focusing/powering/channeling/etc adds +X to the attack roll, +Yd6 dice to the damage, +Z to the save DC, etc.

As long as X, Y, and/or Z are sufficient to make it worth spending your Action each round, it could make for some interesting tactics. Nice and clean.

 

[DND_Reborn]

How about we just eliminate 'refreshing powers' altogether.

I am with you here.

If you want to do something cool, you either build up momentum to pull it off, or you need to spend a lot of time.

Not so much here...

It's fun for anime, etc. but not D&D. No, no thank you.

FWIW, @Maxperson might like your idea.

 

[Lanefan]

How about we just eliminate 'refreshing powers' altogether.

Good idea.

If you want to do something cool, you either build up momentum to pull it off, or you need to spend a lot of time.

Build up momentum within a single combat? Not sure if that'll work.

But - if you have to build up momentum through a few encounters* before you can pull off your coolest moves, you're on to something.

* - and the DM would have to be VERY harsh (as in, out the door with you, old son; it's been nice knowing you) on anyone who tries to 'bag of rats' this rule.