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

[ThatGuySteve]

Every class ( maybe heritage) should get something back in a short rest. To take a short rest though should cost ' something' to bring in some balance. Maybe you have to spend a Hit Dice to take a short rest ( bit harsh at 1st level) or there is a law of diminishing returns ( so you get an absolute minimum back after 3rd short rest).

Something like wizards' Arcane Recovery. Remove it being once per long rest. Add "each time you use this feature you regain one less level of spells, minimum 1" . That way the wizard can keep getting something out of short rests, but with diminishing returns.

 

[Li Shenron]

Above and beyond all else I would like to see the end of the 5 minute work-day by making all classes based around short rests. Every class should regain class features on a short rest.

It's not a good idea, as others have pointed out.

If all features recharge on a short rest, then everyone is encouraged to "go nova" on every single combat encounter, and take a short rest afterwards.

This forces the DM to have more or less all encounters the same difficulty. The idea that on a given day the PCs have a variety of encounters between the easiest ones, which consume few resources, and the hardest ones which prompt the PCs to activate their most valuable abilities i.e. the "dailies" which won't recharge until next day. You potentially eliminate one good resources management aspect of the game.

Gaming groups which practice the "5 minutes workday" are very few. In fact, the idea makes the adventures suck big time and those who fall into this trap generally learn by themselves that it's not fun. Anyway, the reality is that adventure pacing, variety and inherent unpredictability all make the "5 minutes workday" strategy unfeasible unless the DM purposefully makes it possible.

In other words, I believe that the "5 minutes workday" problem is a myth. It exists only in theory, but no gaming group is dumb enough to allow this to keep happening on the long term. It can happen occasionally that the PCs can manage to take a long rest just before the BBEG confrontation to maximise their chances... and what exactly is wrong with that? It is in fact part of good planning, but it is still subject to lots of uncertainties.

I'd rather eliminate the 5-minute workday by using the rules for "gritty realism" in the DMG. Short rests = 8 hours, Long rests = 1 week. Resource management becomes a lot more important, and natural healing makes a little bit more sense. The decision to "go nova" in an encounter becomes a lot more important, and not to be made lightly. The party will be a lot less likely to take a long rest after each battle if they know it will cause them to fail their mission (or die of old age).

Indeed, your suggestion to go the opposite direction does in fact have a positive effect on a group tempted to take too many rests.

Normally, a day-night cycle is enough to prevent the PCs wanting to call it quit too early, because a lot of stuff can happen around them in a day, so that they cannot normally afford to just wait until tomorrow before continuing their quest.

Your idea means that calling it quit to regain all limited abilities is simply a no-go, as it means that the rest of the world has potentially up to a whole week to go on with their business, likely making you botch your quest. It might still makes sense for the PC to wait a whole week in the slowest-possible paced adventures, but generally it will mean that 1-week long rests are taken mostly between adventures, during travelling, or (if the DM considers this light enough activity) while investigating.

 

[glass]

If all features recharge on a short rest, then everyone is encouraged to "go nova" on every single combat encounter, and take a short rest afterwards.

"All classes have features that recharge on a short rest" is not the same as "all features of all classes recharging on a short rest". I would be opposed to the latter for the reasons you outline in your post (that I snipped), but the former has some merit. Encounter powers are good because they provide variety within each combat. Daily powers are good because they provide variety between different combats.

That said, I would not necessarily give all classes encounter powers so much as all characters.

_
glass.

 

[Quartz]

If all features recharge on a short rest, then everyone is encouraged to "go nova" on every single combat encounter, and take a short rest afterwards.

I wasn't suggesting that all features recharge. Did you follow the link I provided?

 

[CleverNickName]

The point I'm trying to make is that there is already too much incentive to take constant rests in our games ("our" being my gaming group; I don't speak for anyone else). Adding any features to the already-abused short rest would only exacerbate that problem.

 

[clearstream]

It's not a good idea, as others have pointed out.

If all features recharge on a short rest, then everyone is encouraged to "go nova" on every single combat encounter, and take a short rest afterwards.

This forces the DM to have more or less all encounters the same difficulty. The idea that on a given day the PCs have a variety of encounters between the easiest ones, which consume few resources, and the hardest ones which prompt the PCs to activate their most valuable abilities i.e. the "dailies" which won't recharge until next day. You potentially eliminate one good resources management aspect of the game.

Gaming groups which practice the "5 minutes workday" are very few. In fact, the idea makes the adventures suck big time and those who fall into this trap generally learn by themselves that it's not fun. Anyway, the reality is that adventure pacing, variety and inherent unpredictability all make the "5 minutes workday" strategy unfeasible unless the DM purposefully makes it possible.

In other words, I believe that the "5 minutes workday" problem is a myth. It exists only in theory, but no gaming group is dumb enough to allow this to keep happening on the long term. It can happen occasionally that the PCs can manage to take a long rest just before the BBEG confrontation to maximise their chances... and what exactly is wrong with that? It is in fact part of good planning, but it is still subject to lots of uncertainties.



Indeed, your suggestion to go the opposite direction does in fact have a positive effect on a group tempted to take too many rests.

Normally, a day-night cycle is enough to prevent the PCs wanting to call it quit too early, because a lot of stuff can happen around them in a day, so that they cannot normally afford to just wait until tomorrow before continuing their quest.

Your idea means that calling it quit to regain all limited abilities is simply a no-go, as it means that the rest of the world has potentially up to a whole week to go on with their business, likely making you botch your quest. It might still makes sense for the PC to wait a whole week in the slowest-possible paced adventures, but generally it will mean that 1-week long rests are taken mostly between adventures, during travelling, or (if the DM considers this light enough activity) while investigating.

To chime in on this. I've tested several rest variants over almost a hundred game sessions. I tested RAW, all short rest with probabilistic recovery, all short rest with rest points, gritty realism, and my homebrew gritty realism. The most successful has been my homebrew of gritty realism, which I will paste here in case it helps, and which you may use however you like. I want to stress that this has been extensively playtested in live sessions.

A DM might dislike this approach, but the mechanics per se are pretty robust. For example, we found with Gritty Realism as written that our game balance shifted to favour short rest classes, like warlocks. The obvious fix was to shorten long rests and lengthen short rests, but then that turned out to also need the gap between rests rule so that short or long rests couldn't be immediately repeated... pushing players to choose sensibly between the two. Allowing rests to extend into one another also worked out well (once you get your head around it). The reduced availability of higher level spells like raise dead also had a very positive impact on the campaign.

A dungeoneering campaign is likely fine with RAW. Anything that meaningfully steps out beyond the dungeon might benefit well from these rules. The essence of why it works is that the narrative time opened up allows a DM to easily and plausibly advance events when characters rest. It is not a hard-fix (such as if rest points are accumulated per session, say) but it works very well. If you have Xanathar's, longer rests also dovetail nicely with more ways to use downtime.

Slower Recovery

Breather
A breather is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character performs no more than lowkey activity such as reading, talking, eating, drinking or standing watch. If it is interrupted by adventuring activity—fighting, casting spells, marching, or similar—characters must start the rest over to gain any benefit from it.
At the end of a breather—characters can spend Hit Dice to regain hit points.

Sleep or Trance
A breather can be extended into a sleep or trance. Characters who sleep need 8 hours while those who trance need only 4. Warlocks benefiting from Aspect of the Moon can spend 4 hours reading their Book of Shadows instead of sleeping.
Upon waking—characters who sleep or trance in comfort and eat and drink recover one level of exhaustion.

Short Rest
A sleep or trance can be extended into a short rest of about a day (total). At the end of that rest—characters with sufficient XP level up, those who prepare spells can change their lists, and any features that can refresh at the end of a short rest, do so.

Long Rest
A short rest can be extended into a long rest of around three days (total). A character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of such a rest to gain its benefits; and must sleep or trance each day.
At the end of that rest—characters regain all lost hit points and any features that can refresh at the end of a long rest, do so. Those who sleep or trance in comfort and eat and drink regain spent Hit Dice up to half their total number of them (at least 1) and recover completely from exhaustion.

Between Rests
Rests can be extended into a longer rest, but can't and don't overlap. When characters finish a rest incorporating a given type, they cannot benefit from another rest of that type until time equal to its duration has passed, e.g. characters finishing a short rest can’t benefit from a breather for an hour.

Sleeping and Trancing, and Armor
Characters sleeping or trancing in medium or heavy armor aren’t comfortable.

 

[Hecubus]

How about Go gritty DMG rules and put mechanics/food/magic in place that can turn rests into shortER periods, like druids and rangers or others using survival or medicine checks to speed things up. Maybe feats and race, or class features that allow for it. The super hero can get back on his feat far quicker.

 

[Phoebasss]

Given how often rests are in conflict in 5e, I think we should move to either a 13th age style system, or instant short rests.

The 13th age system applied to 5e would look like this. After every combat you get a short rest, after 4 (sometimes 3, if it fits the narrative / you beat your players up too much in each fight) combats you get a long rest.

Instant short rests are what they sound like. This solves the 5 minute work day by just not allowing you to take a long rest if you overdid it in your first combat of the rest cycle. You have to live with the consequences.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Given how often rests are in conflict in 5e, I think we should move to either a 13th age style system, or instant short rests.

I was thinking something along these lines:

Make short rest abilities per encounter.
Make long rest abilities short rest.

But I'm not sold on it yet.

 

[Phoebasss]

I was thinking something along these lines:

Make short rest abilities per encounter.
Make long rest abilities short rest.

But I'm not sold on it yet.

I do think players should sleep, so I'm keen on keeping long rests at maybe slighly shorter than their current length for that purpose. But I do get annoyed when GMs use the fact that long rests are 8 hours to naughty word over players with an encounter 7 hours into a rest.