D&D 5E If you had to choose: short rest vs long rest

[Xeviat]

I'm about to start a 5E version of Red Hand of Doom, a 3.5 adventure. One thing I'm finding is just how drastic the change in encounter assumptions changes adventure design.

In 3E, characters were expected to be able to handle 4 encounters per day with an Encounter Level equal to their own: a single monster's EL was equal to it's CR.

In 5E, characters are expected to be able to handle 6-8 medium encounters per day, but they're also expected to get 2 short rests in there.

So, where a 3E adventuring day could easily be, say, attacking a keep with 4 different encounters in one go, a 5E version would need to be spaces out more and allow for the characters to squeeze in two one-hour rests.

When I was working on converting Red Hand of Doom to 4E, the encounter structure made it easier to design. Shorter rests between encounters made it easier to pace.

So, I'm wondering what you would rather play in: a game that house ruled daily resources to be divided by 3 and restored on a shorter short rest, or to have short rest resources be multiplied by 3 (and, maybe further limited in how often they work). I'm strongly leaning towards switching everything to an encounter structure, but I'm curious what others think.

Please, leave "it's fine as it is" out as an answer; I want to know which house rule you'd rather try.

Short Rest (All): Long rest recovery abilities would be divided by 3. If they are less than 3, they'd be reevaluated.

Short Rest (Primarily): Long rest recovery abilities would be divided by 3, but 1/long rest abilities would remain (like Mystic Arcanum and high level spell slots).

Long Rest (All): all short rest recovery abilities would have their uses increased by 3 times. These abilities may need other limitations if being able to use them multiple times in the same encounter would be a problem.

 

[Esker]

I would lean toward option 3 since it's easier to multiply abilities than divide them, but cap SR resources to their current number of uses within a given encounter.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think all 3 are bad house rules, I would rather not play.

 

[DND_Reborn]

My question is why are you doing this?

You say a 5E version needs to put in time for rests for pacing, and I disagree. 5E doesn't have to be played that way. We routinely have 5-8 encounters before a rest of any kind (short or long).

I think this is a error in the mindset of players IME. The game shouldn't be a planned out formula IMO. It should be organic, and because of that players should always conserve resources until absolutely needed.

I don't understand the mindset of recovering resources after X encounters--never made sense to me. Recovering on a long rest (e.g. "sleeping") always made sense because that is when people feel refreshed, etc. IRL. I can understand some things on the short rest, since you are going to feel better after a break, but by X encounters doesn't mean a thing really. Given a break and a chance to rest (at least some) I might even understand a per encounter idea--but regardless IMO time should be the required factor, not number of encounters.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Of the house rules, I'd be more inclined to try "everything on a short rest" simply because I haven't played that way before.

But one thing I have done is allow shorter short rests to help with pacing in the dungeon (an hour is a lot) - it works fine.

 

[Shiroiken]

Changing the current structure to short rests would greatly empower full casters, even if you divide the number of spells slots recovered. Moving short rest abilities to long rest by multiplying their use would fit much better.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I would use primarily short rests. Have every spellcaster use the Warlock format for spells-- 1-3 slots per short rest cast at highest level (as per the warlock class table) and a handful of 1st level spells available for "free" with no slot via Invocations.

Yes, it would involve a little bit of work to create potential "invocations" that are meant for divine casters, primal casters and other arcane characters (probably renaming a few of the standard invocations as well to remove the hard fiend/GOO flavor) but if you want everyone on the same short rest page... that's the best way to do it in my opinion. You already know Warlock casting has been playtested to work in the game... so just put everyone on that train.

The only thing I would keep on long rests are the natural healing / hit dice mechanics. Which is why switching over to short rest casting is good... not having spellcasting and natural healing on the same timetable is beneficial and allows you to tweak your healing levels without messing up your casters..

 

[TwoSix]

I voted short, but really I would say it depends on how you want any individual encounter to impact other encounters within an adventure day.

If you want to keep to that 3E model, where resource attrition is a major challenge to manage (theoretically, at least for 3E), and blowing a lot of resources on encounter 1 makes encounter 4 much more difficult, than you probably want to move to a long rest model.

If you want each encounter to be roughly resource-independent on more dependent on tactical use of resources, than move to short rest.

 

[Quartz]

Option 4: short rests but convert long rest abilities to partially recover on a short rest. See here for spells.

 

[Garthanos]

either of the all options..

Option 4: short rests but convert long rest abilities to partially recover on a short rest. See here for spells.

sneaky way of doing another all option I like it.