D&D (2024) If short rest abilities become Prof # tiimes per day?

[Parmandur]

Ah, okay. It's like a lot of people experienced with 4e powers. For those of us that didn't have our eyes glaze over, it was very clear just how different and impactful on gameplay different powers were. For others, it was a thousand iterations of small bits of text in the same formatting that they were expected to read and understand well enough to choose between, and they basically noped out of the whole affair.

I was kind of in the middle on 4E Powers there. I understood the idea, and got it, but in practice I did not enjoy parsing the options and making anything out of it. But, yeah, that's about the run of it.

I completely disagree.

I suspect we might be operating on some different definitions.

Of course, why wouldn't they if they think its a better design. But "redo the core books with stuff refitted to use the improved designs they've come up with over a decade" is not a new edition. It's just a "best-of" reprint of the core books.

And there it is. In most of publishing, board games and TTRPGs outside of D&D included, that is pretty much the definition of an "Edition." D&D has a history of abusing the term, though, so they may not want to use a loaded term, I'll admit. So I would consider a completely compatible overhaul based on consolidation of the previous ten years of options and development a "new Edition" de facto whether they designate it as 6E de jure or not.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Or we could give up on the legacy attrition-based design and go per-encounter.

I'd rather not.

Long days should feel different. Adventures where there's no time to properly rest, or nowhere safe to rest, should feel different.

I'd rather add Extended Rests (require a safe place where you can take your guard down and be genuinely comfortable) as the only way to immediately get everything restored, and keep Long and Short rests.

I'd be fine with most class abilities becoming short rest, or with some types of abilities being one and some the other, regardless of class, but I'm also fine with the asymmetry of 5e.

What I mean by the above, btw, is something like:

All class features that aren't at-will are per encounter, all spells are per day (i'd still let the warlock break this but it would be via infusions and boons), everyone regains HP as written now, racial abilities are generally short rest, etc, and per encounter abilites would just refresh when an encounter ends and doesn't immediately lead into another encounter. Fighters don't need to be on the same resource recovery track as wizards. They just need to contribute in fun ways to all three pillars, and have a both super simple and complex options.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was kind of in the middle on 4E Powers there. I understood the idea, and got it, but in practice I did not enjoy parsing the options and making anything out of it. But, yeah, that's about the run of it.

As much as I loved 4e, and still look back to it for inspiration quite a lot, I preferred essentials/e+ 4e to PHB1 4e, for much the same reason. I can pick executioner, and I'm only picking my daily poisons from there, or I can pick Hunter or Scout, and I'm mostly just picking utility powers and wilderness knacks. Having every single damn thing be a dropdown with 100+ options is exhausting.

I suspect we might be operating on some different definitions.

And there it is. In most of publishing, board games and TTRPGs outside of D&D included, that is pretty much the definition of an "Edition." D&D has a history of abusing the term, though, so they may not want to use a loaded term, I'll admit. So I would consider a completely compatible overhaul based on consolidation of the previous ten years of options and development a "new Edition" de facto whether they designate it as 6E de jure or not.

If discussing DnD, I'm going to use the definition that the game has historically used.

DnD "edition" is more like "version", where in board games it more often just means "update with patch fixes and errata".

Whatever term you want to use, 2024 isn't going to see a new version of dnd that isn't 5e. It's going to be fully compatible, meaning you can use post 2024 subclasses with 2014 classes, what a feat is won't change, general rules won't change, the big rules expansion books at the very least will be wholly playable alongside and in the same character as the 2024 core books and post anniversary expansions to the game.

No conversion required.

Could I be proven wrong? Sure! Anything could happen. They could secretly have already built a revolutionary new version of DND that makes 4e seem traditional, too, but I doubt it. I've seen no evidence, anywhere, that I'm likely to be wrong, though.

 

[Parmandur]

As much as I loved 4e, and still look back to it for inspiration quite a lot, I preferred essentials/e+ 4e to PHB1 4e, for much the same reason. I can pick executioner, and I'm only picking my daily poisons from there, or I can pick Hunter or Scout, and I'm mostly just picking utility powers and wilderness knacks. Having every single damn thing be a dropdown with 100+ options is exhausting.

At a certain point, it becomes a question of why not just go full point buy system?

If discussing DnD, I'm going to use the definition that the game has historically used.

That the problem, I don't think that's consistent, either.

Whatever term you want to use, 2024 isn't going to see a new version of dnd that isn't 5e. It's going to be fully compatible

I agree there, but I'm not so certain what the precise lines are for the designers.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ah, okay. It's like a lot of people experienced with 4e powers. For those of us that didn't have our eyes glaze over, it was very clear just how different and impactful on gameplay different powers were. For others, it was a thousand iterations of small bits of text in the same formatting that they were expected to read and understand well enough to choose between, and they basically noped out of the whole affair.

Kinda, but with all the mysticism taken out IIRC, which to me completely eradicates any point in having the class.

I completely disagree.

Of course, why wouldn't they if they think its a better design. But "redo the core books with stuff refitted to use the improved designs they've come up with over a decade" is not a new edition. It's just a "best-of" reprint of the core books.

Sure they will. Without making a new edition.

Its exactly the same thing that 2e and 3.5 did. How is that not a new edition?

 

[Parmandur]

Its exactly the same thing that 2e and 3.5 did. How is that not a new edition?

WotC sort of screwed up the terminology by insisting on making an Edition change something as utterly drastic as 2E > 3E, 3E > 4E, or 4E > 5E while pretending that 3.5 didn't "count" as a full Edition.

 

[pnewman]

This is very true, but does require a specific variant rule for each such class. I don't think they'll go that far.

Maybe instead, they'll say that a short rest can be done as an action, PB/LR. That way, you've got full compatibility with the PHB, no need for any conversion at all.

So every monster can take "Short Rest" as their action any turn, roll all the hit dice they want, and suddenly have lots more hit points? That would really increase the grind factor of combat. OTOH it would also nerf OP spellcasters, since they would now need to burn through more spell slots to keep up their current monster killing abilities.

 

[Horwath]

So every monster can take "Short Rest" as their action any turn, roll all the hit dice they want, and suddenly have lots more hit points? That would really increase the grind factor of combat. OTOH it would also nerf OP spellcasters, since thy would now need to burn through more spell slots to keep up their current monster killing abilities.

Action would be too fast.

maybe an option that you can, on start of your turn, you can chose to be incapacitated for 3 turns. after that you gain benefits of short rest.

 

[NaturalZero]

Action would be too fast.

maybe an option that you can, on start of your turn, you can chose to be incapacitated for 3 turns. after that you gain benefits of short rest.

I mean, 5 minutes of rest worked really well in 4e. Too long to do in combat but short enough to not mess up pacing.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, 5 minutes of rest worked really well in 4e. Too long to do in combat but short enough to not mess up pacing.

Yeah I mean, it went off the assumption that people stop, look around, bind wounds, etc. between encounters.

Although if you actually do run into multiple encounters back to back in 4e, you're probably going to die. Had that happen twice, the first time was a very long slog with several characters near death. The second was a TPK.

Basically, 4e assumes you have no reason to hold back using Encounter powers. So you don't. Which can cause serious havoc if they aren't allowed to refresh.

And if you conserve encounter abilities "just in case", battles go longer than they really should. It's a real Catch 22.

The only way around it is to agree with the players they will always get their encounter powers back, which might bother some people's immersion.

Personally, what I would have done is just say encounter powers refresh whenever you roll initiative, and the purpose of resting is to recover hit points.