D&D 5E Getting rid of the short rest: The answer to Linear Fighter vs Quadratic Wizard?

[Hawk Diesel]

"Roll a bunch of HD to heal yourself, and recharge some features" is still doing something. About the same as "cast cure wounds on yourself." Definatly more active than just rolling a death save.
Most of the time it's still done between combats. With one used early, and the other held onto in case of emergency.

Very true. But maybe my table experience is different than most, but it is also very rare for any of my players to use their action for healing. But then, I also use an adapted version of Angry DM's Fighting Spirit to have some intermediate condition between up and fighting and unconscious and rolling death saves. I'm gonna experiment with it though and see how it works. I'll definitely keep people updated on how it goes.

Have you played much high level 5e? Yeah, battles go fast. And your average opponent has something called Legendary Resistance. That means as a spellcaster you spend a turn or two trying to burn those away before you bring out the Meteor Swarm, which may still be saved against or Counterspelled. Of course during that time the 20th level GWM fighter has had 16 opportunities to hit the BBG (4 attacks over two turns with an Action Surge each turn) for an average of 25hp an attack that connects, say 75% do, doing 300hp non-savable damage.

As for 'utility spells', well Concentration takes the wind out of those to a big degree. You can have ONE utility spell running in most situations and then burn spell slots with damaging spells, 1 per turn, that do typically less damage than the damage being doled out by the martial characters.

In practice I just don't see the spell casting uber-race outshining their mundane counterparts. Do they sometimes? Sure, some spells are just the thing to save the day, as they should be. But just as often the monk gets in a Quivering Palm or a paladin triggers a massive Smite or a frenzied barbarian is able to resist the mind-bending spell that has beguiled the rest of the party.

All fair and valid points. I have played high level D&D, though admittedly not much. But thank you for bringing up these examples. It is helping me consider whether I am still thinking that magic users are as powerful as I proposed.

At my table we long rest once every 2 or 3 sessions.

Are you saying that your table long rests more than once per session?

Yea, sometimes. Either similarly to what [MENTION=6788732]cbwjm[/MENTION], or being in games where long rests were just plain used more often than short rests (though that game had the house rule that short rests were 4 hours, so anytime you could short rest there was no reason not to just go for a full long rest).

That's the sort of thing that we hand wave. There is no real tension there.

So either we just declare that time passes and we're wherever we need to be or perhaps have a bit of description of what happened but not actually play it out.

If exploration is the thing then we do that but it would be a series of encounters and obstacles.

It's sort of the same with the skill system. If there is no consequence and/or it isn't interesting then there is no roll.

Do you mean you hand wave that single encounter between long rests in the travel periods? I'm not understanding. But I have experienced a number of sessions in my games where there is max one or two encounters between long rests. Obviously when I DM I can have control over the pacing and I do try to stretch out their resources to increase the challenge and tension. But it doesn't always work out that way. Especially when my players are clever and do everything they can to actively avoid encounters all together.

Right, we just go one step further and hand wave the encounter too.

If the result is already known and the party won't be hindered at all from it, then we don't play it out.

Your group may be different, but I would be dissatisfied by something like that as a player. But of the fun of encounters is seeing how the dice might impact the whole thing. Even if a party has full resources and the encounter won't deplete them, doesn't mean there is no challenge or risk inherent in the encounter. Not every encounter has to be part of a build-up to resource depletion. Some encounters should be easy, and others terribly difficult. Not only does that keep players on their toes, but it also makes it difficult for players to anticipate how an encounter might go.

I dislike tying rests to a set number of encounters as it just feels artificial. I don't like the thought of the players having 4 encounters in a day allowing which allows them to rest and regain spent powers only to have a week of travel where they might not get a 4th encounter until day 7 when they can finally regain powers with a rest. It just feels weird to me.

This is a difficulty with any role playing game. Managing the artificial mechanics balanced with simulating the action/experience balanced with driving the story forward. I'm not sure there is a good way to handle it that perfectly feels realistic while also being consistent and equitable across mechanics of various class power structures.

 

[FrogReaver]

I dislike tying rests to a set number of encounters as it just feels artificial. I don't like the thought of the players having 4 encounters in a day allowing which allows them to rest and regain spent powers only to have a week of travel where they might not get a 4th encounter until day 7 when they can finally regain powers with a rest. It just feels weird to me.

Step 1. Drop the notion that spell slots and superiority dice and etc are in game world constructs that have any meaning. Instead treat them as if the only place they bear any meaning is outside the game world.

In fact you probably already do that with superiority dice so it shouldn't be that hard to do with anything else.

That's really all that needs done.

Honestly though, have you ever really stopped to think about how silly a world is where all magic recharges on a 24 hour timer with 8 hours of rest. If you really want to talk about things feeling artificial wouldnt that be a better place to start?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Step 1. Drop the notion that spell slots and superiority dice and etc are in game world constructs that have any meaning. Instead treat them as if the only place they bear any meaning is outside the game world.

In fact you probably already do that with superiority dice so it shouldn't be that hard to do with anything else.

That's really all that needs done.

Honestly though, have you ever really stopped to think about how silly a world is where all magic recharges on a 24 hour timer with 8 hours of rest. If you really want to talk about things feeling artificial wouldnt that be a better place to start?

Don't forget that it's safe, reliable, and apparently as easy to learn as just swinging a sword slightly better, but not everyone of note uses it for some weird reason. Even games where all PC's are casters feature things like backlash and casting checks when tossing spells (Mage, Ars Magica). Magic is simply too easy and accessible for D&D to remove this issue without letting non-casters be essentially superheroes. I'm tired of the person who isn't even playing the fighter getting to decide it's limitations. And if they want to be a Merry/Pippin chump, they can just not level their character up or use anything that breaks their limited imagination and willful lack of immersion.

The focus on resting ignores the core of the linear fighter vs quadratic wizard problem. The fighter essentially just gets more of the same (damage, hp, resilience). The wizard does, but also gets more plot busting utility. In terms of social and exploration, anything a fighter can do, a wizard can also do. All a fighter can do is ability score related stuff, as they have no significant class features or niche protection.

 

[cbwjm]

Step 1. Drop the notion that spell slots and superiority dice and etc are in game world constructs that have any meaning. Instead treat them as if the only place they bear any meaning is outside the game world.

In fact you probably already do that with superiority dice so it shouldn't be that hard to do with anything else.

That's really all that needs done.

Honestly though, have you ever really stopped to think about how silly a world is where all magic recharges on a 24 hour timer with 8 hours of rest. If you really want to talk about things feeling artificial wouldnt that be a better place to start?

I don't t find resting and recharging your magical energies to be all that artificial, I've read enough novels where the spellcasters have to do this as casting spells is draining and they need to restore the energy expended. The restriction on a battlemaster does seem artificial, i kind of hate it but I put up with it.

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[mellored]

BTW, the resource recovery balance in 5e is my biggest gripe about an otherwise fine game. I greatly prefer how 13th Age does it. (If you've heard me give this spiel you can tune out now.)

13th Age is a d20 by lead designers of 3rd & 4e that came out before 5e but shares a lot of it's philosophy. But the one thing I love is that they divorce the in-game mechanism of resting from the resource recovery mechanic. At their basics, they have at-will, per-encounter, and ones that recover on a full-heal-up. But a full heal-up happens every four encounters, not attached to an in-game event.

A three week trip across the savanna with four encounters? Full heal-up at the end. A day adventuring with four encounters? The same. Two days of two encounters each? Full heal up after the second day. A dungeon delver with four encounters in the morning and four more in the afternoon? That's a recovery at lunch and another at night.

The DM can make it less if they are throwing harder encounters, and the party can always "force" a rest, but they take a campaign set-back in return. Perhaps the vampires turned a pair of the villagers they made off with, or the cult completed the first stage of their ritual and now have a minor demon guarding them.

It's such a sacred cow, but it works so much better. Adventures go at whatever pace makes sense, and the mechanics still balance out.

To yoink it for D&D, something like a short rest every other encounter and a long rest every six.

While I like the idea of heal-after-challenge rather than heal-after-time, the sudden full heal seems a bit weird. (it does in 5e as well).

I would probably do something like heal 1/4 after every encounter.
With at-will, encounter, and "daily" power points which recharge 1/4 after each battle.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

This sometimes happens in the games I'm in. We sometimes have a lot of travel in a single session equaling multiple days and therefore multiple long rests. Might even only have a single encounter between long rests.

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Why not say that you must have x encounters during cross country travel before you can get the benefits of a long rest?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Why not say that you must have x encounters during cross country travel before you can get the benefits of a long rest?

Why? It just sounds so artificial. Rest is based on the opportunity to rest, not some set number of exertions you go through before resting.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

So, having just read this thread, I think there's a lot of great suggestions.

Free use of short rests powers, max two per long rest makes for great tactical choices for the individual player. Maybe a max of one per encounter.

Using a short rest when unconscious is an interesting houserule

Using milestones is a great idea.

Tying long rests to number of encounters I like as well, plus it helps with the overland travel issue. The party can always force a rest at the cost of a campaign loss.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Why? It just sounds so artificial. Rest is based on the opportunity to rest, not some set number of exertions you go through before resting.

The whole rest mechanic is an artificial game balance thingie anyway, so why not just treat it as such and then improve the Game's flow? It would actually solve the 'always at full strength in overland travel encounters' problem.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

The whole rest mechanic is an artificial game balance thingie anyway, so why not just treat it as such and then improve the Game's flow? It would actually solve the 'always at full strength in overland travel encounters' problem.

I get it.

Perhaps parts of overland travel can be abstracted to use up resources? Traveling through the forest? Okay, you'll need an Int (Survival) check for overland navigation, a Wis (Survival) check to circumvent trail hazards and a Wis (Nature) check to appease the local fey into not messing with you in the morning and again in the PM. Fail any of those rolls and you lose a third of the mileage you would of made, or get lost or whatever. Alternatively each player can exchange (Tier Appropriate Resources in HP, Spell Slots, Etc) to avoid those penalties. These would be in addition to whatever encounter hazard the DM put in place.