D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

Yeah. It’s always been a ridiculous read to say it takes 1 hour of combat to interrupt a long rest. Yet another thing the designers got wildly wrong. See the OP again.
The problem again is, that you have to use the "crutch" of random encounters to deny a long rest or just handwave a NO to long rests, because long rests are just too good by giving 100% of all ressources back.

What needs to change is the Long Rest itself. If a good night's sleep in the wilderness only gives back 1 HP(+Con, because we are nice) and the lowest used up spell slot, all the problems go away.
Than even a 25% Chance of one random encounter feels dangerous, because it takes up more ressources than a long rest gives back.

And than you give out consumable ressources like Healing Potions and Mana Potions as a DM to adjust the difficulty.

That way it also feels way more realistic (100% ressource regenration feels just to gamey and is not explained in the game world), damage in combat and casting spells matters longer than a day and the DM is now in controll of pacing the game through the rate of Potions he is giving out.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

The problem again is, that you have to use the "crutch" of random encounters to deny a long rest or just handwave a NO to long rests, because long rests are just too good by giving 100% of all ressources back.

What needs to change is the Long Rest itself. If a good night's sleep in the wilderness only gives back 1 HP(+Con, because we are nice) and the lowest used up spell slot, all the problems go away.
Than even a 25% Chance of one random encounter feels dangerous, because it takes up more ressources than a long rest gives back.

And than you give out consumable ressources like Healing Potions and Mana Potions as a DM to adjust the difficulty.

That way it also feels way more realistic (100% ressource regenration feels just to gamey and is not explained in the game world), damage in combat and casting spells matters longer than a day and the DM is now in controll of pacing the game through the rate of Potions he is giving out.
And just to add:

Why do we even want attrition based design for more than one combat?
Because it gives the DMs more tools to pace the game.
If everything resets after every encounter (like with a 5mwd), the stakes are only during one combat. You either win or loose, nothing in between. No costly victories, no defeats that are not to bad.
A combat has no impact outside of itself.
That's why you want attrition based design. So combat matters afterwards, too.
 

The bigger problem now is an entire generation of players expects free suger. No edition of D&D will cope well if 5MWD (less actually) has become standard.
1e and 2e did just fine. Slow healing and save or die meant that resting didn't bring you anywhere close to full on hit points after a nasty fight, and even magic healing was really limited and would take you days to heal everyone up from a big fight. Couple that with save or die effects and energy drains which can hurt/kill a PC who has just woken up and is full on everything, and you have editions that really don't care about the 5 minute workday.

And it had more wandering monsters to boot, so resting was more dangerous.
 

1e and 2e did just fine. Slow healing and save or die meant that resting didn't bring you anywhere close to full on hit points after a nasty fight, and even magic healing was really limited and would take you days to heal everyone up from a big fight. Couple that with save or die effects and energy drains which can hurt/kill a PC who has just woken up and is full on everything, and you have editions that really don't care about the 5 minute workday.

And it had more wandering monsters to boot, so resting was more dangerous.

Aware ive played them somewhat recently.

At level 3 party had to return to town as attrition was wearing them down.
 

There is admittedly some contraversy about the usage of commas in regards to Long Rest rules in 2014...but the more clear reading is that initiating combat is one of four things that fully interrupts a Long Rest. Another is an hour of strenuous activity. Some think that the text means an hour of combat, but the more likely reading is those are separate thoughts in the text.
Yeah. It doesn't take an hour of combat to ruin a long rest. The idea that it would take 600 rounds of combat before your long rest was ruined is silly. At the average of 4 rounds per fight, that particular adventuring day would have to have 150 encounters just in the 8 hours of long rest time. Just a biiiiiiiiiiiit over the 5-7 that are recommended.

Walking isn't that strenuous, so it takes an hour of that to equate to 18-24 seconds of fighting for your life and being filled with adrenalin.
 


ah, I see, I am looking at different rules than you do ;)

Googled it and used the link, which is from 2014 rules


The full text is

“A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity - at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity - the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.

At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character's total number of them (minimum of one die). For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest.

A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.”

You used the 2024 ones as far as I can tell

EDIT: and the interpretation of whether the 1 hour is limited to walking only or applying to all items in the list
Outside of walking, nothing on that list is going to cover anywhere close to an hour of activity. Spellcasters don't have 600 spells to cast. There's no way you're having 150 encounters to make up those 600 rounds of combat.

It has to mean an hour of walking OR fighting, casting, etc. Especially since anything more than eating or drinking spoils a short rest, and those are harder to spoil than a long rest, since long rests need a good night of sleep, while a short rest is just catching your breath for a bit.
 


Yeah, it seems lookomg around there ia a lot of controversy about how to interpret this, and Crawford even clarified the more lenient interpretation I guess...the 2024 rules are actually far more clear and more lenient still than I would prefer if people are trying to cheese the system by "playing optimally".

Still, it is easier to have the opposition to the players "play optimally" if cheese is an issue.
Quite frankly, nothing Crawford says can be trusted. He just calls it like it is written, whether it's intended that way or not. That has resulted in a bunch of really hokey rulings by him, like See Invisibility, which allows you to see an invisible person as normal, doesn't allow you to see the invisible person as normal. And others that are equally ridiculous.
 

It was fairly logical that between a Short Rest and Long Rest there should have been a Travel Rest...

Anyways it doesn't matter we've had 10+ years to homebrew and fix their mistakes and we have plenty of 5e derivatives, not mention DMsGuild content.
 

Remove ads

Top