Long Rests in Dangerous Places -- What if NOPE?

[Yaarel]

I'm not saying that long rests are a bad thing, or that taking them too often is something that needs to be corrected (personally I think they are, but that's a topic for a different thread.) I'm curious about how the game would change for your table if Long Rests in dangerous areas just wasn't possible for any reason like in an old-school CRPG. It's not about outsmarting or evading the Grue; I'm asking everyone to imagine that the Grue will always eat you no matter what you do, even if you're in a Tiny Hut. What then?

For me, it's hard to see a downside.

Resource management would be a huge problem for my group, since we have become accustomed to the Five-Minute Workday. Most of our gold would get spent on healing potions and scrolls...and honestly? That's probably a good thing, since everyone already complains about how "useless" gold is.

And I think exhaustion would become a lot more pervasive for us as well...also a good thing. It's one of the most dangerous things in 5E, but I can't remember the last time any of us even had to track it. At higher levels, teleporting across the forest to avoid a 6-day overland journey might be worth burning the spell slot if it means we won't arrive exhausted and covered in owlbear-bites.

Scouting, planning and outfitting for a journey would be a lot more important for us also. If the dungeon is several miles away through a dangerous forest that we can't camp in, scouting for a safe place to camp would become the first order of business...right now, we don't give it any thought at all. Horses would be critical to the success of any overland mission as well, as they should be.

I think I get what you are saying. What do you do if a Long Rest is impossible.

This scenario extremely harms the players who play daily-resource classes, mainly fullcasters. To some degree, always-on classes, like Fighter and Rogue, still suffer from depleting hit points.

Ultimately, it is a game of fear and scarcity. Where Rogues are probably the most capable of surviving. While other classes are less likely to survive.

This kind of scenario, can be unfun if too often for players who like casters.

But it can be fun, once in a while, because of the change in mood.

I want to emphasize the unfun part. My experience of playing Dragonlance was playing a Cleric who, it turned out, was unable to cast spells. To this day, I hate that setting with a burning passion. I couldnt care less if that hate is rational or irrational.

So, whatever the case. Dont ‘surprise’ your players.

 

[CleverNickName]

Honestly it sounds like you just want more exploration challenges in your D&D experience which is perfectly doable without messing with long rests. The resting issue is resolved with time pressure. For exploration which usually includes logistics, there just has to be meaningful travel pace (tying into time pressures), Activities While Traveling with useful trade-offs between those activities, ration tracking, weather, and random encounters. I would also suggest the variant encumbrance rules which will increase the incentive for pack animals and hirelings.

I don't really want to mess with long rests either. It's just a thought exercise, trying to look at this new staple of D&D from a new angle. I'm not writing house-rules or anything.

I suddenly noticed how dependent my group has become upon them, and wanted to step back and look at them.

 

[MarkB]

I don't think I'd want to formalise it too much. There are some dungeons I've run where the place is active and social, and anyone unfriendly to the locals would have a very hard time resting anywhere. And others are ancient ruins whose traps and denizens have been waiting for centuries, and have no problem waiting another day.

And while a constant sense of danger can work in some circumstances, it's also nice to be able to experience the life of traveling and resting outdoors without feeling like something's going to come and try to eat you every single night.

 

[Immortal Sun]

[MENTION=6904924]FlyingChihuahua[/MENTION], [MENTION=6981174]Immortal Sun[/MENTION], [MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION]: yes, I understand that these spells exist, and for good reason...but what if they didn't? Or what if it was like in Final Fantasy III and they only worked in very specific, predefined locations like at the intersection of arcane leylines, or within a circle of ancient stones?

It's just a thought exercise about how important Long Rests are, really, to your group. Would it completely change the way your group plays the game, or would it just be a minor inconvenience? Or would anybody even notice?

Yes, I have made more overt efforts to restrict resting places. Yes, the players do notice. No I don't feel it really changes the pace of the game. Generally it just causes complaining and it's not worth the trouble.

 

[Fenris-77]

Don't disallow long rests anywhere. The third or fourth time their ill-chosen long rest location gets them random-monstered in the middle of the night and they get no rest they'll hopefully get the hint. If they have access to magical alternatives then good for them, there are other ways to deal with their kind.

The GM is always in control.

 

[dave2008]

(I'm not the DM for this group, I'm a player.) Yeah, we've had the dungeon change completely a few times on us, and our enemies have fortified positions and so forth. But this ends up backfiring because we still go nova on the first encounter back from town, still take a long rest right afterward, and still go back to town to rest up again. It's an XP farm.

Hmm - makes me glad I gave up on the XP system back in the 80s.

 

[dave2008]

..., trying to look at this new staple of D&D from a new angle.

Do you mean new to you? The 5MWD has been a staple of D&D for a long time. It is not something my groups have ever engaged in, but it has been a complaint since pretty much the beginning.

 

[CleverNickName]

Do you mean new to you? The 5MWD has been a staple of D&D for a long time. It is not something my groups have ever engaged in, but it has been a complaint since pretty much the beginning.

Well, new to me. But I meant I was trying to look at Long Rests from a new angle. I didn't play 4E, so the concept is new to me.

I always took Long Rests at face value, and never really examined them closely before. Most of the tweaks I've read involve adjusting the length of time required; I wondered what it would look like to adjust the location instead.

 

[dave2008]

I didn't play 4E, so the concept is new to me.

Just to be clear, the issue pre-dates 4e by 3 editions In fact, the AEDU structure of 4e (coupled with healing surges) was partially to try and combat the 5MWD.

 

[CleverNickName]

Just to be clear, the issue pre-dates 4e by 3 editions In fact, the AEDU structure of 4e (coupled with healing surges) was partially to try and combat the 5MWD.

Agreed. TBH, I'm kind of sorry I even mentioned the "five minute workday," because it seems to have pulled focus from the original topic: Long Rests.