Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Long Rests vs Short Rests
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8263623" data-attributes="member: 6777737"><p>I guess I'd say that this simply doesn't match the reality of gameplay I experienced in prior editions. By those rules natural healing may have meant that PCs did not recover all HP each day, but in actual practice this merely meant that adventuring parties relied on magical healing -- clerical magic pre-3e, and healing magic supplemented with over-the-counter wands of cure light wounds in 3.x. I do not recall ever willingly starting an adventuring day without the entire party being at full HP and full spell preparation. If you weren't at full HP, you just rested another day. </p><p></p><p>The primary consequence to the change to HP recovery in 5e was that it made it less obnoxious to play the way that every table I've been at was already playing the game. It required less hand waving and less empty table time, and it also meant that as a rule all NPCs recover fully as well even if they don't have access to magical healing.</p><p></p><p>The issue is that whether or not you need to stop and heal isn't really a choice in <em>any</em> edition of the game. The truth is that there was never any way to tell if resting would make encounters more dangerous, but you definitely could tell that not resting was horrifically dangerous. If the fighters are down to single digits, you're going to stop and rest. You just have to do that. You literally cannot continue to adventure in any practical sense, and in game terms increasing the difficulty at this point is just intentionally building a death spiral. Why even have hit points, then?</p><p></p><p>The logistics of whether rest takes place in the dungeon or if it takes place after retreat and withdrawal aren't really pertinent. Whether or not the adventure has a deadline also isn't really pertinent. At some point, the party will be so damaged that they will stop and rest no matter what. "Half of us are dead or completely out of action but we need to press on" just isn't a realistic game mode. That isn't what the game is designed for (i.e., leaving half the players at the table stuck doing nothing is poor game design) and it isn't how encounters are designed (i.e., no module or DM says, 'by the time they get here we'll be down to two PCs so the encounter needs to be rebalanced....').</p><p></p><p>Further, there isn't really anything that the DM could do against you in 2-3 days that they couldn't also just do in one. PC parties are simply too small to have them be a logistical challenge that NPCs could practically better prepare for after 2-3 days than you could after 12 hours or so. It's not like after 1 day there will be virtually no change, but after 2 days the NPCs are going to A-Team a tank together complete with a brass section accompaniment. Especially when you include that the NPCs now heal overnight as well, I don't think there's really much practical difference. There may be different timelines, of course, but those are limitations of your situation not of every potential circumstance. You need weeks or months to adequately prepare for adventuring PCs, not days, especially after they've already overcome some of your defenses.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bacon Bits, post: 8263623, member: 6777737"] I guess I'd say that this simply doesn't match the reality of gameplay I experienced in prior editions. By those rules natural healing may have meant that PCs did not recover all HP each day, but in actual practice this merely meant that adventuring parties relied on magical healing -- clerical magic pre-3e, and healing magic supplemented with over-the-counter wands of cure light wounds in 3.x. I do not recall ever willingly starting an adventuring day without the entire party being at full HP and full spell preparation. If you weren't at full HP, you just rested another day. The primary consequence to the change to HP recovery in 5e was that it made it less obnoxious to play the way that every table I've been at was already playing the game. It required less hand waving and less empty table time, and it also meant that as a rule all NPCs recover fully as well even if they don't have access to magical healing. The issue is that whether or not you need to stop and heal isn't really a choice in [I]any[/I] edition of the game. The truth is that there was never any way to tell if resting would make encounters more dangerous, but you definitely could tell that not resting was horrifically dangerous. If the fighters are down to single digits, you're going to stop and rest. You just have to do that. You literally cannot continue to adventure in any practical sense, and in game terms increasing the difficulty at this point is just intentionally building a death spiral. Why even have hit points, then? The logistics of whether rest takes place in the dungeon or if it takes place after retreat and withdrawal aren't really pertinent. Whether or not the adventure has a deadline also isn't really pertinent. At some point, the party will be so damaged that they will stop and rest no matter what. "Half of us are dead or completely out of action but we need to press on" just isn't a realistic game mode. That isn't what the game is designed for (i.e., leaving half the players at the table stuck doing nothing is poor game design) and it isn't how encounters are designed (i.e., no module or DM says, 'by the time they get here we'll be down to two PCs so the encounter needs to be rebalanced....'). Further, there isn't really anything that the DM could do against you in 2-3 days that they couldn't also just do in one. PC parties are simply too small to have them be a logistical challenge that NPCs could practically better prepare for after 2-3 days than you could after 12 hours or so. It's not like after 1 day there will be virtually no change, but after 2 days the NPCs are going to A-Team a tank together complete with a brass section accompaniment. Especially when you include that the NPCs now heal overnight as well, I don't think there's really much practical difference. There may be different timelines, of course, but those are limitations of your situation not of every potential circumstance. You need weeks or months to adequately prepare for adventuring PCs, not days, especially after they've already overcome some of your defenses. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Long Rests vs Short Rests
Top