D&D 5E Live Q&A with D&D R&D

[Hussar]

"Who's going to fall on the Cleric Grenade" is a conversation I'd rather not see at my table anymore. I usually played clerics when I play, because I like them, but, I can totally understand why people don't. It's nice to have rules that many any given class optional.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

One of the problems I would see with moving a long rest to weekly and a short rest to daily, for instance, is that you are not going to be doing much beyond your most basic attacks the majority of the time. You end up with the fighter swinging, and the mage cantriping, etc. Occasionally you get to actually action-surge, or rage, or cast a spell. But the majority of the time you don't get any of that stuff. (Of course, in the playtest packets, the rogue would make out like a bandit (heh) because all of his abilities are at-will.)

Now, I actually like an older 2e kind of feel, but I think that's a bit extreme for my tastes. It just no longer feels like D&D to me when spell resources and stuff are weekly. Not saying at all that it's a bad option for those who like it, but I think it really changes the entire feel of the game.

 

[GX.Sigma]

One of the problems I would see with moving a long rest to weekly and a short rest to daily, for instance, is that you are not going to be doing much beyond your most basic attacks the majority of the time. You end up with the fighter swinging, and the mage cantriping, etc. Occasionally you get to actually action-surge, or rage, or cast a spell. But the majority of the time you don't get any of that stuff.

Why would that necessarily be caused by longer rests, though? The same would happen with any rest length if there are too many encounters between rests.

 

[Blackbrrd]

One of the problems I would see with moving a long rest to weekly and a short rest to daily, for instance, is that you are not going to be doing much beyond your most basic attacks the majority of the time. You end up with the fighter swinging, and the mage cantriping, etc. Occasionally you get to actually action-surge, or rage, or cast a spell. But the majority of the time you don't get any of that stuff. (Of course, in the playtest packets, the rogue would make out like a bandit (heh) because all of his abilities are at-will.)

Now, I actually like an older 2e kind of feel, but I think that's a bit extreme for my tastes. It just no longer feels like D&D to me when spell resources and stuff are weekly. Not saying at all that it's a bad option for those who like it, but I think it really changes the entire feel of the game.

This really depends on the adventure you are playing. In my current campaign one encounter per day is the norm. Mostly because I don't do dungeon crawls.

 

[pemerton]

Something immediately caught my attention when Mearls gave the example that someone may dial short rest to 8 hours and long rest to one week...

Many DMs may want to have such long extended rest for the purpose of natural healing, if they want to describe HP and damage as mostly physical wounds, and want more realistic natural healing rates to match.

OTOH extended rest also means refreshing spells and other daily abilities, which then becomes weekly abilities. This has a HUGE effect on adventure pacing!

I would definitely be interesting in trying out a game like that, where you have to save your spells or rage etc. for days to come! But clearly, nearly every gaming would find such an idea too weird and hard to play

Just FYI, a lot of 4e posters on these boards use an extended rest cycle of much longer than 1 day. For instance, in my 4e game the PCs can't take an extended rest when they are trekking through the Underdark unless they conjure a Hallowed Temple or find accommodation in a town or citadel.

What you absolutely want to avoid is leaving HP and "daily" abilities on different timers.

Absolutely!

 

[pemerton]

One of the problems I would see with moving a long rest to weekly and a short rest to daily, for instance, is that you are not going to be doing much beyond your most basic attacks the majority of the time.

This really depends on the adventure you are playing.

I agree with Blackbrrd on this one. If you're slowing down the recovery rate like that, presumably the idea is that the whole game will take on a slower-paced approach.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Sure if you want to make attrition meaningful you can do it by that method. I agree that the way most people do random encounters makes attrition somewhat of a non-issue.

Now, I actually love having to worry about resources. I almost feel cheated when I play a spellcaster and the rest of the party expects me to blow my best resources at the start of any fight. I'd rather hoard spells and use the minimum required, because you never know what's going to hit you next. At the same time, as a non-caster, you really shine when you can keep using your superior standard attacks all day long.

The way I handle it, as a DM, is to make random encounters and events more, well random! I don't use level appropriate random encounters--I use location appropriate random encounters. This means that if you are blowing your best abilities on the first fight you run into that day, sure you may be fine, but if I happen to roll a random encounter at the upper reaches of your capabilities (or beyond) while you are sleeping that night, you're really going to wish you had saved those long-rest based abilities you unnecessarily expended earlier that day.

I guess it isn't an issue for me because of how I run a generally simulationist adventuring environment. On the other hand, changing how often spells are regained feels wrong--getting back spells in the morning is too D&D ingrained for me. And things like the 5e fighter's action surge seem weird if you can only use them once per week.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I guess it isn't an issue for me because of how I run a generally simulationist adventuring environment. On the other hand, changing how often spells are regained feels wrong--getting back spells in the morning is too D&D ingrained for me. And things like the 5e fighter's action surge seem weird if you can only use them once per week.

I do agree with you, getting back spells in the morning is D&D. Moving to once week is quite viable for some campaigns, but doesn't feel like D&D.

I tried moving resources to weekly instead of daily for overland travel in 4e, and mechanically, it worked out. It felt really meta-gamey, and I don't think I will do it again.

My solution is to nearly always assume that the players will be fully rested and that they will pull back if they get too low on resources. It doesn't simulate long travels through dangerous environments well at all, but it works better for me.

Regarding encounters, about a quarter of the encounters I create aren't ment to be handled head on. In other words, it would probably be best to use subterfuge, avoidance, diplomacy or other means to handle them than combat.

I don't label the encounters as "Too hard to fight head on", it's for the PC's to discover. Because of this, I seldom use surprise attacks and such, because then the PC's don't have as much of a meaningful choice, they basically have to fight. I do use quite a bit of hints, inspired by the "rule of three", I try do give much more information than "should" be needed, but sometimes the PC's does take on a big fight when it could be avoided and we get some really interesting encounters.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm running the Isle of Dread with my group right now, and I love that roll I make for random encounters. The first encounter was a group of human natives as the party was traveling through the jungle. They both heard each other further away than they could see each other. The party couldn't understand their language. Our mage started casting comprehend languages as a ritual, and in the meantime a couple of the natives (I rolled 6 of them) trying sneaking up on the party from the side to see who they were. Our ranger spotted one of them, drew his bow and aimed an arrow at him. The native hastily retreated. Based on the report from the scouts, the natives took off. By the time the spell was cast, there was no need of it, and the party simply continued on. They could have followed the tracks, but they didn't bother.

A few minutes of time to really add to the atmosphere. I was quite pleased.

 

[Lanefan]

[MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]Just so we're on the same page, have your party ever moved from having a healer to not or visa versa, mid-campaign? Because that's where it turned into a train wreck for me.

Mid-campaign, or mid-adventure?

During a campaign characters come and go all the time - someties they have two or three healers, sometimes just one; if they ever find themselves without one they'll almost always go and recruit an NPC.

During an adventure, if the healer(s) die or lose their spells or whatever, the party just has to be more careful.

I've had plenty of campaigns where it never caused a problem as well, but that's because either nobody played a cleric (basically all of 2nd Edition) or the party had a cleric the whole time (most of 3rd and Pathfinder). Going from no healer to healer was complete mess, though.

Another difference might be that the players here are often running more than one character in the party at a time - our average party size is about 8-10 for 4-5 players - so there's always room to chuck in another Cleric or Druid.

I haven't seen the reverse, but if the cleric in my current game died and was replaced by a non-healer, I'd have to do some fancy footwork to not destroy the campaign. "Lulz, sorry guys, the evil archmage's plans are actually a couple months out rather than a few days" wouldn't cut it, so I'd probably need to sneak in an NPC or bunch of healing items... which is a pretty dubious thing to pull right after the party loses its healer, in my opinion.

Or, the party might have to accept they're not going to get the job done this time; or if they do it's really going to hurt.

I don't see a functional difference, honestly. Either the casters wait up for everyone to heal up (like happens without a healer) or the party's healed up as soon as the casters are ready (like happens with a healer). It just makes those two the same time, so you can switch back and forth.

Many a time I've seen the casters say "OK, we're set, let's go!" when some of the front-liners are still far from fit shape - usually followed by a debate which sometimes the casters win and sometimes the front-liners win. But the time difference is what sparks the debate.

Lanefan