D&D 5E Making Every Class "Short Rest"-based?

[Flamestrike]

Sounds interesting. I'd be curious to see it when you're finsihed.

I've broken some spells into 'stances' (such as mirror image, mage armor, sanctuary etc) that are activated as a bonus action (along with ToB stances like Punishing sance, thicket of blades etc) plus pulling out certain class features (rage, divine grace, bardic inspiration etc) that also now function as 'stances'.

It's only at a rough outline at the moment.

The advantage of the system is that I can pretty easily allocate 'maneuvers' for martials, the same relative power level of 'spells' for casters, and the system (as a whole) becomes [encounters/rests per adventuring day] neutral (it doesnt matter if there is one, two or ten encounters in a day).

You can multiclass (slowing down access to higher level maneuvers/ spells known, just like MC spellcasters in 5E) to gain access to maneuvers/ spells from a different class.

Still playing around with how to work non combat/ utility [spells/ maneuvers] into the system, and how to deal with things like healing spells/ maneuvers that can be broken by spamming them repeatedly.

Current idea is to limit healing abilities to only work up to 1/2 max HP, and that at the end of each encounter (when maneuvers refresh) HP's are also restored to 1/2 max (if lower), with the underlying system mechanics working off the assumption that at the start of every encounter, the PCs will be at (at least) 1/2 max HP.

So you can heal 'in combat' by spamming a healing spell/ maneuver (to a maximum of 1/2 HP), but when the encounter is over, you simply refresh expended maneuvers, and your HP are restored to 1/2 Max as you gain your second wind/ bind wounds after the battle.

I also want to work a risk/ reward element into the game; both a 'wound level/ fatigue' mechanic (so the longer you push on, the more beat up you become) along with a built in 'escalation/ reward' mechanic, so the longer you push on you also gain a benefit (increased XP? access to a special escalation dice?). Still bouncing a few ideas around for this.

The goal would be to encourage players to continue, rather than encourage them to fall back and rest all the time... at a cost.

 

[Flamestrike]

Also, you can create schools of [magic/ fighting] that gain access to specialist spells/ maneuvers, only available to that school.

So entire unique fighting styles, or schools of magic, with unique abilities/ manouvers/spells for each.

 

[bedir than]

I want every class to have a Tier 1 short class feature.
But don't want all to be fully short rest

 

[overgeeked]

I think it would be easier to change the short-rest classes to the long-rest setup.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I thought 4th Edition taught us people want classes to have different resource structures??

 

[Unwise]

That way lies 4th edition.

Once you put everybody on the same resource mechanic, the discrepancies become very obvious. The Battlemaster is tripping an enemy, the wizard is casting Wish to summon a castle in the sky. So things get tamed down and shifted around until everybody is equal, and the same. Everybody has at-will power and encounter powers of the same power level. But we still want people to be able to do super cool stuff sometimes, but not too often. So let's give them daily powers too. Now we have the standard At-will+Encounter+Daily structure of 4e that almost everybody railed against.

(Personally I liked 4e except for the HP bloat at later levels)

 

[DND_Reborn]

That way lies 4th edition.

I never played 4E, but from what I have heard I like some of it, other aspect wouldn't work for me.

 

[Flamestrike]

I think it would be easier to change the short-rest classes to the long-rest setup.

Triple the uses of all X per short rest abilities, and make them recharge on a Long rest is the way to go.

So a Battlemaster 3 has 3 Action surges, 3 Second winds, and 12 Superiority dice (d8s) that all come back on a long rest. Which (putting Action surge to one side) works out to:

• 3d10+9 in self healing (25 points) and
• 12d8 in bonus damage (54 points)

By contrast, a Paladin 3 has 3 x 1st level Slots (for smites) at 2d8 each, 3 channel divinities, 15 points of LoH. 1 Channel divinity can be used to regain a slot for an extra smite. So in addition to the 2 x channel divinities (and ability to spend slots on spells instead of smites for utility) he sits at

• 15 points of healing (to anyone) which can also cure disease and poison
• 4 smites of 2d8 (36 damage) or 12d8 (54) against Fiends and Undead.

So they're basically on par.

For casters:

A 3rd level Warlock has 6 x 2nd level spell slots, and a damn fine cantrip.

A Wizard has 4 x 1sts and 3 x 2nds (thanks to Arcane Recovery) - but a far better list to choose from, and also Rituals.

So again, roughly on par.

When you peer closely at the maths behind the game, the classes balance out at around that 2 short rest per Long rest frequency.

It's more work going the other way (making all classes short rest based) but it's much more balanced in that it cuts down on nova strikes, and removes the temptation to fall back and long rest all the time.

 

[Composer99]

I'm voting other. I'm inclined to say that most low-level abilities should refresh on a short or long rest basis, and then abilities in tier 3 and 4 should refresh on a long rest basis; with this refresh schedule being more or less uniform.

My thinking here is that ideally the game is agnostic to pacing - if a table plays a fifteen-minute-workday and another table routinely plays twelve-encounter-day meatgrinders and another table plays adventure days that vary widely between them, a more-or-less uniform recovery schedule can accommodate any of these styles more easily than discrepant recovery schedules can. Likewise, this agnosticism makes using variant rules - say, longer rest periods for a grittier game or shorter ones for a more heroic one - easier to dial up or down.

If one were to implement a more uniform schedule based on short or long rests, it might be desirable to have a "strategic"/daily resource that is expended to fuel short-rest recovery. The number of these available could be dialed up or down depending on how heroic or down-to-earth you want the game to be.

(Suffice to say I'm not particularly concerned about this pacing/recovery mechanic resembling, or not resembling, 4e.)

Alternately, either a completely uniform short/long or long rest would be satisfactory. As long as (a) the game is agnostic to pacing and (b) it's easier to tinker with pacing to hit your table's desired playstyle.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Encounter-based design is the first step to getting rid of the Adventuring Day, which is what I'm all for.