Most frustrating quirk of 5E?

[Azzy]

Another thing I'm not a fan of in 5e is the fondling an magic item for an hour and you know all you need to know about that item. No identify spell needed. blah.

That's something my group either forgot about or intentionally ignored.

 

[Blue]

It didn't show a mechanical impact because players fear it, so they don't drop as often

That contradicts the post I was responding to:

PCs routinely dropped to 0 HP, don't get me wrong.

Were you at that table, did guiachi misspeak?

Even if they didn't drop "as often", every single drop means the character has disadvantage at everything mechanical outside of combat for at least a week - really sucks for that player, especially if it's multiple sessions before they can get a week worth of downtime.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Even if they didn't drop "as often", every single drop means the character has disadvantage at everything mechanical outside of combat for at least a week - really sucks for that player, especially if it's multiple sessions before they can get a week worth of downtime.

Not every campaign asks every character to make a mechanical check every week. Sometimes, it's two or three weeks (in-game) before you're asked to roll anything. That may or may not correspond to more than one session.

 

[Blue]

Not every campaign asks every character to make a mechanical check every week. Sometimes, it's two or three weeks (in-game) before you're asked to roll anything. That may or may not correspond to more than one session.

A week of adventuring wouldn't count as a long rest. The comment I was answering talking about chaning the long rest to one week as well.

A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least [1 week] long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. 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.

I would say it's very likely that if you are in the middle of an adventure, getting a week of no strenuous activity would not be the most common. Sure there are corner cases - you ride in a wagon for a week of overland travel with few rolls.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A week of adventuring wouldn't count as a long rest. The comment I was answering talking about changing the long rest to one week as well.

I would say it's very likely that if you are in the middle of an adventure, getting a week of no strenuous activity would not be the most common. Sure there are corner cases - you ride in a wagon for a week of overland travel with few rolls.

For some reason, I always assumed that changing the length of a rest would probably entail changing some of the other parameters as well. If nothing else, you should be able to stand watch for 2 hours each night, no matter how many nights were involved with the rest.

I don't think that the rules in the book explicitly address it anywhere, but someone willing to make such a substantive change to the system is probably okay with playing that by ear.

 

[Blue]

For some reason, I always assumed that changing the length of a rest would probably entail changing some of the other parameters as well. If nothing else, you should be able to stand watch for 2 hours each night, no matter how many nights were involved with the rest.

I don't think that the rules in the book explicitly address it anywhere, but someone willing to make such a substantive change to the system is probably okay with playing that by ear.

Oh, I agree with you. I'd have all of those limitations be "per day" for the 7 days. But still doing things like walking more than an hour a day will cause it to restart. What can be done during a long rest is very restrictive towards the rest of the party trying to continue an adventure.

Actually, the other part that could be worrisome is that normally you can't take advantage of more than one long rest in a 24 hour period. If that is also extended the other party members may explicitly not want to take a long rest because they want to wait until they have used up more resources since doing it now would prevent it from being done later. But that's just conjecture, we don't have any feedback on how the DM was applying that part.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Another thing I'm not a fan of in 5e is the fondling an magic item for an hour and you know all you need to know about that item. No identify spell needed. blah.

Sorry to pick on you, @Yardiff, but yours is the most recent example that I’ve seen on this point. And that point is that I find some, if not many, complaints can easily be quelled by reading the books:

Variant: More Difficult Identification
DMG p136
If you prefer magic items to have a greater mystique, consider removing the ability to identify the properties of a magic item during a short rest, and require the identify spell, experimentation, or both to reveal what a magic item does.

 

[5ekyu]

Oh, I agree with you. I'd have all of those limitations be "per day" for the 7 days. But still doing things like walking more than an hour a day will cause it to restart. What can be done during a long rest is very restrictive towards the rest of the party trying to continue an adventure.

Actually, the other part that could be worrisome is that normally you can't take advantage of more than one long rest in a 24 hour period. If that is also extended the other party members may explicitly not want to take a long rest because they want to wait until they have used up more resources since doing it now would prevent it from being done later. But that's just conjecture, we don't have any feedback on how the DM was applying that part.

A key to keep in mind is that campaigns may alter structure and story timing as well. It might be just as much action and session time spent between the week long rest as it was the overnight long rest, maybe less (fewer camp at night tho maybe the camp at night wandering beasties scene gets replaced by downtime bookkeeping)

If that's the case, it's more of an aesthetic change where pretty much the same steps happen in the same order but the "you rest for the night" cut-away becomes "you rest for the week " and we have a tomayto tomahto thing going on.

My games tend to mix it up... some cases rests are easy, others not and sometimes time matters (frequently) but others not. But a mandated week long locking of many classes' abilities would not serve that model any good and would constrain our stories way too much.

But then, I dont like okra either.

As for the rest of the group not wanting to wait a week, that's just a table conflict. "Are we gonna handwaved a week so everybody can play" is a huge factor depending on the gameplay and style. If the answer is yes, then you get one set of preferred mechanics. If the answer is no, you get another and players adapt their choices.

But one of the worst would be disagreement where one or two keep doing stuff while the others hold back and recover.

You might be better served with troupe style play - where while one character recovers another moves to the front. Ars Magica style only it's for healing not spell stuff.

 

[Mepher]

Another thing I'm not a fan of in 5e is the fondling an magic item for an hour and you know all you need to know about that item. No identify spell needed. blah.

I just ditched that in my game. Identify spell is needed. I also made the material component, the 100 GP Pearl, consumable.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Oh, I agree with you. I'd have all of those limitations be "per day" for the 7 days. But still doing things like walking more than an hour a day will cause it to restart. What can be done during a long rest is very restrictive towards the rest of the party trying to continue an adventure.

Actually, the other part that could be worrisome is that normally you can't take advantage of more than one long rest in a 24 hour period. If that is also extended the other party members may explicitly not want to take a long rest because they want to wait until they have used up more resources since doing it now would prevent it from being done later. But that's just conjecture, we don't have any feedback on how the DM was applying that part.

If I intended for the adventure to continue during a long rest, I would probably interpret the restrictions to be "you must get at least seven hours of sleep each night" rather than "you cannot walk for more than one hour, during each eight hour period"; it's going to take some interpretation, either way, so I would interpret in such a way that the adventure can keep going.

More likely, if I was going to implement a one-week long rest, I would make it clear to everyone at the table that a long rest is something which happens between adventures, so nobody would need to worry about coordinating their activities around it.