D&D (2024) Fixing short rest novaloops is important... using the moon druid

[Charlaquin]

Your numbers fall apart as levels progress & honestly start breaking down even before then somewhere in late tier2. I'm going to again defer to Jeremy Crawford's wisdom on refuting this with a timestamped video link & quote from him "There are some spells that just become too powerful; if you get to just keep pressing the 5th level version of that over and over and over again".

He’s not wrong. Fortunately, with warlock spell slots limited to 2 per short rest for most of the warlock’s career and capping out at 4 per short rest from 17th level on, they cannot just keep pressing the 5th level version over and over. Keep in mind, this quote was explaining why they couldn’t both maintain Pact Magic and give the warlock more spell slots. Which is why when the feedback indicated that watlock fans were not willing to give up Pact Magic, they reverted to the 2014 progression. That progression is balanced appropriately.

However the most recent warlock (packet7) has two 5th level slots each short rest & that jumps to 3 of them each short rest at 11.

Which is exactly how it works in the 2014 PHB.

It very much spills into being so much more that it creates a problem that wotc needs to do a better job addressing.

The only increase to spell slots warlocks for in packet 7 compared to the 2014 PHB is Magical Cunning, for a whopping 1 extra spell slot per long rest at levels 2-10, and 2 extra per long rest at levels 11+.

 

[Mistwell]

I'd like to see rogues recover something on a short rest in their subclasses. Same with Rangers. I'd even like to see Arcane Recovery switched to every short rest for wizards.

 

[tetrasodium]

He’s not wrong. Fortunately, with warlock spell slots limited to 2 per short rest for most of the warlock’s career and capping out at 4 per short rest from 17th level on, they cannot just keep pressing the 5th level version over and over. Keep in mind, this quote was explaining why they couldn’t both maintain Pact Magic and give the warlock more spell slots. Which is why when the feedback indicated that watlock fans were not willing to give up Pact Magic, they reverted to the 2014 progression. That progression is balanced appropriately.

Which is exactly how it works in the 2014 PHB.

The only increase to spell slots warlocks for in packet 7 compared to the 2014 PHB is Magical Cunning, for a whopping 1 extra spell slot per long rest at levels 2-10, and 2 extra per long rest at levels 11+.

Where in the world do they count like this 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 17?

Spoiler

You skipped quite a few levels worth of the class. Monk too has an excessive escalation at similar levels. Without even getting fancy you have 2 attacks from extra attack plus 3 more from heightened discipline, why bother with a discipline cost if the class mechanics are designed to ensure it can be ignored?

 

[tetrasodium]

I've ran 5E since it's beginning, and it was always the short rest classes who came up short, no pun intended, in our games prior to moving to a limited rest model just from how adventures flow. Daily classes utterly wreck the 1-2 random encounters per day you might face while traveling to a location, and there's no way I'm running 6-8 5E trash fights per day for the party to get to the fireworks factory.

I don't even know how your players are sitting on their butts for an hour in dangerous territory after every encounter, and it doesn't seem like that would be feasible in published 5E adventures (any more than just spamming long rests). In our games, getting in the expected 6-8 encounters was rare even in a dungeon environment (and when it did occur, simply un-fun as it's a lot of no stakes grind for the sake of attrition). We're clearly running differently paced adventures, but I believe you when you say it's an issue for your table. However it does seem to be a rarer issue, as I don't think I've ever seen anyone say monks are OP like you experience.


Short rest classes nova power level is also much lower than the long rest classes. They get to dump 1/3 of their expected daily resources in a fight. The daily class gets to dump 100% of theirs. Action economy is a factor, but with paladins smite nova, sorcerers dumping their sorc points on quickened/twinned everything, etc, the daily nova is a lot more fearsome from my experience. During stretches of non-combat intense adventure segments the daily vancian classes control the narrative a lot more as well through various schennanigans. Action surge really only has significant value when you're trying to kill someone, less when you're taking a week to rig an election or rebuild a fort and a caster can safely dump the vast majority of their leveled spells each day, rest and repeat.

And then there's poor rogues, who get to be C tier all day long lol.

5E is complete easy mode compared to previous editions, particularly if your players have any amount of tactics beyond "get em!". I've given up on WOTC balancing it enough to challenge them. A hard limit on a fixed number of rests per adventures or per level might seem artificial, but then again you're already limited to 1 long rest per day IIRC, so /shrug. I think this is more a table issue than a rules issue, but having discussions on rest pacing in the player's handbook might help with that. Basically let players know that rests are DM fiat as the baseline.

My experience is generally the opposite where the long rest class players recognize the embarrassment of riches that would go with trying to be excessive with long rests & choose to regulate their resource consumption while the short rest class players band together complaining how their class neeeeeds the rests because of how it's designed while using that same design to justify aiming for maximum resource burn "to keep up" then immediately join hands trying to force the group to wait for them to recover now that they are totally spent.

Get 2-3 monk/warlock+ afighter or two(action surge) in a group with 5 PCs and nobody wants to be the one stepping in to act as the fun police in the face of shameless 5mwd expectations.

 

[Charlaquin]

Where in the world do they count like this 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 17?

I don’t. I said capping out at 4 spell slots at 17th level. Implying that there is growth leading up to that cap. Which there is.

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You skipped quite a few levels worth of the class.

If 4 spell slots between short rests is reasonable, I figured it went without saying that 3 spell slots between short rests was also reasonable (which it is). Especially since the increase in number of spell coincides with 5e’s power tiers. You get 2 spell slots per short rests at tiers 1 and 2, 3 at tier 3, and 4 at tier 4. Pretty tame, honestly.

Monk too has an excessive escalation at similar levels.

Almost like a big jump in PC power at levels 5, 11, and 17 is by design. Oh, right, because it is.

Without even getting fancy you have 2 attacks from extra attack plus 3 more from heightened discipline, why bother with a discipline cost if the class mechanics are designed to ensure it can be ignored?

Mostly because resource attrition is the primary model of challenge in D&D. Also for flavor. Could you redesign the monk to work fully at-will? Probably. But it might not feel like a D&D monk. Certainly I think you’d run into significant backwards compatibility issues.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

My experience is generally the opposite where the long rest class players recognize the embarrassment of riches that would go with trying to be excessive with long rests & choose to regulate their resource consumption while the short rest class players band together complaining how their class neeeeeds the rests because of how it's designed while using that same design to justify aiming for maximum resource burn "to keep up" then immediately join hands trying to force the group to wait for them to recover now that they are totally spent.

Get 2-3 monk/warlock+ afighter or two(action surge) in a group with 5 PCs and nobody wants to be the one stepping in to act as the fun police in the face of shameless 5mwd expectations.

Wouldn't simply saying "no more than 2 (or 3 or whatever) short rests before taking a long rest" fix your issue? Or go back to 4e's... milestones I want to say? Whatever the things DM's awarded after a fight but went away on a rest. You need x milestones to take a short rest. Not everyone needs to take their short rest at the same time.

 

[Vikingkingq]

Wouldn't simply saying "no more than 2 (or 3 or whatever) short rests before taking a long rest" fix your issue?

Yeah, that was what I was thinking. Just make it a straightforward rule of two short rests per long rest.

 

[tetrasodium]

Wouldn't simply saying "no more than 2 (or 3 or whatever) short rests before taking a long rest" fix your issue? Or go back to 4e's... milestones I want to say? Whatever the things DM's awarded after a fight but went away on a rest. You need x milestones to take a short rest. Not everyone needs to take their short rest at the same time.

If it was such a simple thing why is something like that not in any of the UA rules glossary resting entries?

For me though... Yes and no. It resulted in a lot of bad blood & between session venom brewing from players who felt they were being singled out by making a couple classes "unplayable" as of S0. Unfortunately it's a lot easier for those players to make the case that the GM is being unreasonable while quietly convincing casual players e who don't dig deep into the rules to see that too many short rests are excessive because there is a kernel of truth to those classes needing some.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don’t. I said capping out at 4 spell slots at 17th level. Implying that there is growth leading up to that cap. Which there is.

No you said this...

He’s not wrong. Fortunately, with warlock spell slots limited to 2 per short rest for most of the warlock’s career and capping out at 4 per short rest from 17th level on...

You skipped a pretty big range pointed out in both of the spoilers

If 4 spell slots between short rests is reasonable, I figured it went without saying that 3 spell slots between short rests was also reasonable (which it is). Especially since the increase in number of spell coincides with 5e’s power tiers. You get 2 spell slots per short rests at tiers 1 and 2, 3 at tier 3, and 4 at tier 4. Pretty tame, honestly.

Not all spells are equal. a four 3rd level spell are worth more than a four second level spells. The same holds true with 4th & 5th level spells

Almost like a big jump in PC power at levels 5, 11, and 17 is by design. Oh, right, because it is.

You say that like warlock & monk gain nothing at & around those levels

Mostly because resource attrition is the primary model of challenge in D&D. Also for flavor. Could you redesign the monk to work fully at-will? Probably. But it might not feel like a D&D monk. Certainly I think you’d run into significant backwards compatibility issues.

You are talking about something else, that's a different extreme. Giving a class with minimal short rest recovery benefits more to benefit from a SR can't be the only adjustment, classes with too much incentive to SR also need adjustment towards aiming for a a more reasonable incentivization.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don’t. I said capping out at 4 spell slots at 17th level.

No you said this...

He’s not wrong. Fortunately, with warlock spell slots limited to 2 per short rest for most of the warlock’s career and capping out at 4 per short rest from 17th level on,

looks to me like I did indeed say “capping out at,” just like I said I did.

You skipped a pretty big range pointed out in both of the spoilers

Yes, because again, I was talking about the floor and the cap, counting on the reader’s’ ability to understand context and realize the implication of a growth between that floor and that cap.

Not all spells are equal. a four 3rd level spell are worth more than a four second level spells. The same holds true with 4th & 5th level spells

Ok?

You say that like warlock & monk gain nothing at & around those levels

No, they gain more than one thing. That’s perfectly ok for them to do.

You are talking about something else, that's a different extreme.

My friend, you were the one who posed the question why limit the abilities’ usage at all if the limits are built to be worked around. That was my answer. You could absolutely design the class without those limits if you were of a mind to, but that might run into problems of class feel and backwards compatibility.

Giving a class with minimal short rest recovery benefits more to benefit from a SR can't be the only adjustment, classes with too much incentive to SR also need adjustment towards aiming for a a more reasonable incentivization.

Nah, giving at-will and long-rest-reliant classes a bit of a benefit from a short rest is fine. Everyone will have reason to want to take a short rest, and some will get more from it than others, just as everyone has reason to want to take a long rest, and some benefit more from that than others. And every class has its own unique resource management style, so the sameyness everyone complained about in 4e is avoided. This is the best of all worlds.