D&D General IS the 5 min work day a feature or a bug?

[Iry]

In theory this is true, but I've found that in practice a genuinely beat-up character can take hours to heal up with Treat Wounds. Which is pretty easy for gms to limit.

I do not believe you are supposed to limit it. That is to say, the expectation is full HP (but not full spell slots or necessarily full focus points) for each encounter.

 

[Lanefan]

Mysteries, stories where every fight matters, city-based stories, stories about travel that aren't about danger but occasionally involve action.

Basically any story where combat is something that won't happen multiple times in a day doesn't work if combat is only interesting if attrition happens first. Or you have boring combat.

Attrition, however, applies to many things other than combat.

Food-water attrition during travel. Health attrition on a long sea voyage. Time attrition just about anywhere. Reputation and-or disguise attrition in a spy or intrigue setting. Etc.

There's always some sort of resource to be managed, and thus whittled away.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you do not want 5 minute work days then make days matter. Have time limits or at least the illusion of them (and flllow through with them in case your players start to question them)

How do you suggest doing this without being needlessly punitive to classes that need short rests, particularly Fighters, Monks, and Warlocks, some of the classes most susceptible to falling behind the power curve?

Because I find it is difficult, bordering on impossible, to create consistent and sustained time pressure that makes a day matter enormously (enough to consistently overcome the desire to blow all one's resources in two encounters and then take a break for the rest of the day) but which makes a couple hours no big deal (enough to consistently support the 2-4 short rests characters should be taking to bridge the gap between LR-based and SR-based classes.) Two to four hours of doing nothing whatever is not much different from eight hours of doing nothing whatever.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

BUT once the habit of 5MWD is set in, it can be very hard to dislodge it. Players who realize they're much more effective playing that way will want to play that way. And technically they're right: it is the most effective way to play, even if it doesn't make narrative sense and makes the game less fun.

This is the exact problem. It is a demonstrably dominant strategy. Further, the main verisimilitudinous fix for it, intense time pressure on a scale meaningfully smaller than 24 hours (or whatever period you declare a "long rest" to be), directly and negatively affects the classes least likely to want the 5MWD anyway. If we only have 12 hours to get an important task done, spending a full quarter of that time on short rests seems pretty unwise unless we really, REALLY need them. "Oh sure our 12 hour time limit will run out in about three hours, but I really need to spend an hour regaining my two spell slots/my four superiority dice. Two hours is plenty for us to finish this thing!"

 

[Ixal]

How do you suggest doing this without being needlessly punitive to classes that need short rests, particularly Fighters, Monks, and Warlocks, some of the classes most susceptible to falling behind the power curve?

Because I find it is difficult, bordering on impossible, to create consistent and sustained time pressure that makes a day matter enormously (enough to consistently overcome the desire to blow all one's resources in two encounters and then take a break for the rest of the day) but which makes a couple hours no big deal (enough to consistently support the 2-4 short rests characters should be taking to bridge the gap between LR-based and SR-based classes.) Two to four hours of doing nothing whatever is not much different from eight hours of doing nothing whatever.

Days, not a day.
Its not needed that the PCs have exactly 1 day to go through the dungeon. There just needs to be some form of time pressure even if its generous. For example the quest giver saying that the PCs have 2 weeks to do X or they do not get paid for reasons and the travel to whatever dungeon they need to go takes around 5 days.
It doesn't even be that direct. You can give them a time limit of 2 months, but the quest is more elaborate, the PCs have to do research, downtime activities, ect.

Time limits can also be implicit. Have the players track food, water and carrying capacity, so the time they can spend in the dungeon is limited by whatever they bring with them. Even if they do something most PCs don't do and buy horse with cart to carry stuff, they still know that some clock is ticking.

You can also push the players when they overuse the 5mwd by, for example, have other adventurers show up because they took so long that the questgiver assumed them dead and hired someone else ect.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

How do you suggest doing this without being needlessly punitive to classes that need short rests, particularly Fighters, Monks, and Warlocks, some of the classes most susceptible to falling behind the power curve?

Because I find it is difficult, bordering on impossible, to create consistent and sustained time pressure that makes a day matter enormously (enough to consistently overcome the desire to blow all one's resources in two encounters and then take a break for the rest of the day) but which makes a couple hours no big deal (enough to consistently support the 2-4 short rests characters should be taking to bridge the gap between LR-based and SR-based classes.) Two to four hours of doing nothing whatever is not much different from eight hours of doing nothing whatever.

Then fiddle with the lengths of the rests. I like gritty, but it doesn't need to be that. If you want more hectic pace with a full daily refresh, but have an issue with not getting enough short rests in, make the short rests a fifteen minute breather or something like that.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It depends on how much game you want in your TTRPG. Some tables do the dungeon goes to bed when the PCs do routine. This closely resembles video games. For these folks the point is just to delve scary dungeons, face monsters, kill them and get their stuff. They are not trying to mimic reality. Also, some folks like the challenge level set lower so they are not constantly under threat of death and/or TPK. Even others, like to have a fully loaded bazooka to unload even on lowly goblins to have fun. All of these are based on playstyle.

Some GMs and tables like a more challenging simulation reality(close to) style of game. For them, its about resource attrition and making good decisions. A harkening back to skill play where survival is part of the challenge. In these games, wandering monsters, environmental conditions, and supplies will effect ability to rest. Going 5min work day is a very risky proposition in these style of games.

Sorry to say, but depends on group is really the answer to the question. Although, sometimes this is lead by game design and experience. Folks that want to punish the 5min work day will do so in any system. Though they are likely to complain and/or not use systems that fight too much against their ability to do so. Some folks stick with it because that's how they always done it, and that's how video games do it, and that seems to be what the system is asking them to do.

I will agree that enjoying resource tracking/conservation and enjoying single battles with all your resources intact are two different play styles.

I do have trouble with claims that one style is inherently more “challenging” or “realistic” than the other.

 

[Bill Zebub]

.

For ex. If the PCs anger the Duke he'll send men after them. These men WILL NOT come on the PCs schedule and will make it a point to catch them unprepared, exhausted, whatever (they've dealt with adventurers and are not idiots).

They will? With certainty?

In the real world, supposedly professional soldiers don’t make blindingly stupid tactical decisions?

 

[Mort]

They will? With certainty?

In the real world, supposedly professional soldiers don’t make blindingly stupid tactical decisions?

Of course they sometimes make stupid decisions. But not every time. I'm giving an example of POSSIBLE consequences.

Another possibility is the group gets away or otherwise prevails easily.

But the group can't/shouldn't always count on the bad guys not being on their A game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Because it’s basically asking the world to not give them another encounter until they’re ready to face it on their own terms and that there be a readily available place to rest in the first place,

again that isn't my experence at all normally the 5mwd involves usieng tactics and some of those resourses to get the safe rest... the fact that sometimes it doesn't work out doesn't really change much...

you seem to think they ask the DM "Please can we rest even though we did nothing to make it possible" and again that isn't my experience, they plane shift or teleport or extra dimensional space a safe spot...

’no thank you sir we’ve already expended all our resources and don’t want another encounter today, come back after we’ve rested’ , that the world won’t notice or react to them slowly progressing one fight a day through the forest/cave/stronghold, that the bandits won’t shore up their defences,

the idea isn't 'the bandits wont do there best to shore up there defenses... the idea is you are costing the bandits more then they can replenish.

the bounty monster won’t run away or get poached by another group,

if either happens they just move on to the next quest or hook... I am not seeing the issue.

that the wizard wont prepare specific spells to counter the group he’s getting a very good look at every day using their maximum abilities in each fight.

sure he is going to prep... but he is loseing allies and traps each day. the idea is you are weakeneing him not strengthinging him