D&D General Let's Talk About How to "Fix" D&D

[Reynard]

Because I do not want the PCs to have fewer than two short rests per day. When short rests are 1 hour, they often don't have time in between encounters and so end up taking one or none.

Out of curiosity, do you precisely track in-world time during play? It is relatively rare these day, in my experience, and I'd be interested in how you find doing so with 5E.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I know. "Fix" implies there is something "wrong" and that's okay. We are allowed to not like the way a thing is done in D&D (or any other game). But it also suggests something positive: that by tweaking or changing a thing, we can make the game better for our own purposes.

So here are the rules: present a "problem" with D&D (any edition will do) and explain why you feel it is a problem (this part is really important) and the either suggest a fix, or ask for a fix from fellow community members.

For example, one thing in 5E that I really find to be a problem as a GM is how poorly the action economy is balanced for "solo" creatures. A PC party of 4 or 5 characters punches WAY above its weight class against solo monsters, even in Lairs and with legendary actions. A good part of this has to do with the 5E math -- solo monsters don't hit especially hard and so they aren't terrifying in that "stay away from it or you're dead!" feeling that helps keep the PCs at bay. On top of it, PCs can really pump out a lot of damage when they want to and solos, which are usually just big bags of hit points, don't last long. All that said, the fight against one massive foe is a fantasy staple and I want it to work -- and not just for epic boss battles. There's no reason a random encounter with a giant or whatever shouldn't be viable, too.

One thought I have had to fix this is to treat a big creature like a group of creatures that all stay close together. Like, if the dragon were it's head, it's tail and its torso/claw routine. So the head not only gets to act independently on its own initiative, it has its own list of abilities, its own reach and range, and its own hit point pool. The same for the other parts. But while I think it is a neat idea for a dragon, I don't know how it would translate well to a giant or other creature without lots of "interesting parts."

I've considered doing something similar for a monster-hunter-inspired game, where each part of the big beast was (mechanically) its own creature. This would also mitigate save-or-suck effects, because you wouldn't hypnotize the whole creature.

What I couldn't find a good answer to was making the game all about one fight per day - aside from giving the enemy tons of hp, but then you have to deal with combats that drag on and on.

 

[Dausuul]

Fair enough.

I see this sometimes in dungeon crawls or similar adventures, but otherwise by and large it is pretty easy IMO to get in two short rests per long rest. But, in that case, I would just remove the time limit completely--IME 5 minutes is still too long when you have a run of encounters one after another, but YMMV of course.

The time limit does still serve one function, which is to prevent the PCs from resting while actually in the midst of combat. I might reduce it to 1 minute instead of 5, but so far I have not found it's an issue.

Now, are you just considering feature recovery, or would you translate all of the short rest into 5 minutes (such as spending HD to recover HP)?

It's everything. You get the full benefits of a short rest.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The time limit does still serve one function, which is to prevent the PCs from resting while actually in the midst of combat. I might reduce it to 1 minute instead of 5, but so far I have not found it's an issue.


It's everything. You get the full benefits of a short rest.

Well, you don't need a time limit to accomplish that IMO, but if it works for you good enough.

Thanks for the clarifications.

 

[Reynard]

What I couldn't find a good answer to was making the game all about one fight per day - aside from giving the enemy tons of hp, but then you have to deal with combats that drag on and on.

Yeah. Making a nova encounter fun, dynamic and NOT a slog is a tough one. It happens sometimes by accident, but I have never been able to distill a formula.

 

[DND_Reborn]

What I couldn't find a good answer to was making the game all about one fight per day - aside from giving the enemy tons of hp, but then you have to deal with combats that drag on and on.

Out of curiosity, why would you want to make it about one fighter per day?

 

[Dausuul]

Out of curiosity, do you precisely track in-world time during play? It is relatively rare these day, in my experience, and I'd be interested in how you find doing so with 5E.

No, I don't. I've tried it and found it was a lot of bookkeeping for minimal benefit.

The issue I find with short rests is that if I create an "active dungeon" where the monsters organize a counterattack in response to the PCs' intrusion, it is really hard to explain why they will counterattack if you rest for 8 hours but not if you rest for 1 hour. The only way I have found to make by-the-book rests work smoothly is to combine a fairly passive dungeon with an adventure-level time limit: "You have X days to complete your mission." But that framework doesn't fit every adventure.

 

[Reynard]

Out of curiosity, why would you want to make it about one fighter per day?

For my part, it isn't about "one fight per day" it is about "one fight per adventure" sometimes -- whatever happens leads to a showdown with some powerful enemy or group of enemies with no or essentially trivial combats beforehand. It happens a lot in my open world sandboxy games, actually. Anyway, it is hard to balance a nova encounter, but they can also be a lot of fun if they go off.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Out of curiosity, do you precisely track in-world time during play? It is relatively rare these day, in my experience, and I'd be interested in how you find doing so with 5E.

I track in-world game time very carefully, and not just during encounters. How long it takes PCs to get from point A to point B could easily impact the adventure and what they encounter when they arrive.

I track time during dungeon crawls so I know when longer spells (See Invisibility and even Mage Armor) run out.

I use the old 10-minute turn-based counter (a d6) and a d12 for an hour counter, whenever either are appropriate, otherwise I just keep a mental estimate of elapsed time.

But, our groups also track things strictly like encumbrance, rations, weather conditions, etc. to make sure the PC can do the things they want. If weather is rough (like blizzards in Frostmaiden) it can easily affect an encounter (ranged attacks, encounter distance, etc.). This is more important at lower levels, of course, but can still impact game play at higher levels as well.

For my part, it isn't about "one fight per day" it is about "one fight per adventure" sometimes -- whatever happens leads to a showdown with some powerful enemy or group of enemies with no or essentially trivial combats beforehand. It happens a lot in my open world sandboxy games, actually. Anyway, it is hard to balance a nova encounter, but they can also be a lot of fun if they go off.

So, then the "one fights" are typically Hard or Deadly I would think? It overcomes the more trivial easy and some moderate encounters, which otherwise exist (outside of story reasons) simply for the sake of resource attrition. I've considered that myself.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Out of curiosity, why would you want to make it about one fighter per day?

Edit: I misread the question! The reason is to emulate the source material: the pc's are professional monster hunters, they go right at a single big monster and take it out, harvest it for parts, and then seek a new contract. Adding a bunch of small fights along the wayt would make it no longer emulate the source material.

The question I thought I read: "How would you make it one fight per day": Allow short rests as an action (2/day) and make it so that the characters need to spend a whole day's resources on the fight.

But that does mean you need a whole day's worth of fights in a single encounter. Not too bad at low levels, but after, say, 5th it would get really hard to do. It's jsust a ton of hp to chew through, against the same enemy. Maybe phases? I haven't quite figured it out.

Of course, the as-yet-unmentioned secondary objective of "make one session = one monster" makes "more hp" a less appealing solution.

(The other issue was getting new equipment after each fight, but avoiding numerical bonuses and making stuff breakable could solve that.)