D&D 5E Have the designers lost interest in short rests?

[Don Durito]

Maybe this is a real trend, or maybe I'm just imagining it.

But I've had the impression that the designers have largely stopped designing short rests features. I first noticed this with the Samurai subclass where an ability clearly designed to work in conjuction with Action Surge was made 3 times a long rest. And of course the new Bladesinger is long rest. And I realised that I can't remember seeing any recent subclasses with short rest features.

Or am I wrong? Maybe they've released a lot of stuff and I've just somehow missed it because it didn't interest me.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe this is a real trend, or maybe I'm just imagining it.

But I've had the impression that the designers have largely stopped designing short rests features. I first noticed this with the Samurai subclass where an ability clearly designed to work in conjuction with Action Surge was made 3 times a long rest. And of course the new Bladesinger is long rest. And I realised that I can't remember seeing any recent subclasses with short rest features.

Or am I wrong? Maybe they've released a lot of stuff and I've just somehow missed it because it didn't interest me.

Maybe few groups skipping them and short rest doesn't play nice with long rest.

The various monk sucks and warlock suck type threads start to make sense if groups don't get 2 short rests.

 

[Don Durito]

Maybe few groups skipping them and short rest doesn't play nice with long rest.

The various monk sucks and warlock suck type threads start to make sense of groups don't get 2 short rests.

Possibly. I think they may have also been originally reacting to the criticism of daily powers on Martial classes in 4E. However, it really does seem that no one seems to care anymore, since there's been very little criticism of the creeping increase in long rest powers in 5e.

Personally, I've found that if I make Short Rests 5 mins but maximum twice a day they're very easy to handle. Players control the pacing.

For a while I thought it would be better with a single rest schedule - but after solving the biggest issue, by doing what I described above I also realised short rests do serve a useful purpose.

In 4E, there was a sense in which combat could become repetitive. Everyone had the same encounter powers every combat and knew best how to use them, so they would typically start off with their best one and work down the list. Short rests mean that the fighter needs to hold back and scope out the combat before committing to an action surge - rather than opening with it, they need to decide if it's worth using in this particular combat. (In a sense 13th Age approaches the same issues with 4E by using the escalation die).

Long rests sort of have the same result, but by having everyone on different schedules you do reduce the pressure on the party to be constantly looking for ways to refresh their long rest resources - or at the other extreme, holding everything back for the big boss battle.

 

[Zardnaar]

Possibly. I think they may have also been originally reacting to the criticism of daily powers on Martial powers in 4E. However, it really does seem that no one seems to care anymore, since there's been very little criticism of the creeping in long rest powers in 5e.

Personally, I've found that if I make Short Rests 5 mins but maximum twice a day they're very easy to handle. Players control the pacing.

And they do serve a useful purpose.

In 4E, there was a sense in which combat could become repetitive. Everyone had the same encounter powers every combat and knew best how to use them, so they would typically start off with their best one and work down the list. Short rests mean that the fighter needs to hold back and scope out the combat before committing to an action surge - rather than opening with it, they need to decide if it's worth using in this particular combat. (In a sense 13th Age approaches the same issues with 4E by using the escalation die).

Long rests sort of have the same result, but by having everyone on different schedules you do reduce the pressure on the party to be constantly looking for ways to refresh their long rest resources - or at the other extreme, holding everything back for the big boss battle.

Yeah reducing them to 5 minutes and capped at 2/day would help. Kinda like that rule.

 

[Charlaquin]

We have seen fewer short rest recharge features in subclasses lately, but you still see them in races. I think it's less a disinterest in short rests, and more an increased interest in the "Proficiency Bonus times per long rest" mechanic.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The samurai is not a recent addition to the game, it been around for a long time now.

 

[Don Durito]

The samurai is not a recent addition to the game, it been around for a long time now.

It's as old as it is and as new as it is also.

 

[Flamestrike]

Nearly all of the Tashas subclasses are running with [proficiency bonus x Long rest] for uses of abilities, or 2-6 times per long rest. Psi Dice are [PB X 2] per long rest.

Which is a little odd for mine, and encourages dipping.

Don't know if I like it or not yet. It's certainly a departure.

 

[Don Durito]

Nearly all of the Tashas subclasses are running with [proficiency bonus x Long rest] for uses of abilities, or 2-6 times per long rest. Psi Dice are [PB X 2] per long rest.

Which is a little odd for mine, and encourages dipping.

Don't know if I like it or not yet. It's certainly a departure.

Yeah it seems a good way to design features that you intend to scale regardless of multiclassing - but somewhat problematic if you don't.

My first thought when I saw that actually, was this is how you design base classes in such a way as to allow prestige classes to fit within the 5e framework.

 

[Flamestrike]

Yeah it seems a good way to design features that you intend to scale regardless of multiclassing

It seems a super odd way of doing it though. Almost as if they expect more encounters per long rest at higher levels.

I'd love a game that did away with all long rest and short rest abilities, and made them all per encounter abilities.

Effectively made schools of magic similar to ToB martial disciplines and everyone has a suite of manouvers or abilities that can be used 1/ encounter.