D&D General My Best and Simplest Homebrew Rule: Nerfed Long Rests

[NotAYakk]

Well, it isn't of course isn't always exactly two short per one long, (though I think it is rather close) but for how I pace stuff, it works for maintaining both rests as useful. I understand people often have issues with having short rests happening often enough or even at all. With gritty that is not a problem.

With the normal rests the both rests have very similar identity. Both are basically things that can be done 'on the field'. How I run gritty, the long rest is basically a small bit of downtime in a safe location. It gives it very different place as far as the pacing goes than the short rest.

I think @NotAYakk explains how it works very well in post #4 of this thread.

The trick is that your "unit" of adventure building isn't the encounter.

The units are "scenes" and "chapters".

Start with a chapter. Build it out of 2-5 medium difficulty scenes. Plan ehat failure looks like (PCs disengage and take a long rest).

Easy scenes are half price, hard 1.5 and deadly 2.0 medium.

For a scene, build it out of encounters. Again, 2-5 medium encounters, with easy being 0.5, hard 1.5 and deadly 2.0. Plan what failure looks like (PCs disengage and take a rest).

Multiple scenes can get fuzzy-glued together (like, provide a pile of encounters, and let PCs pick when to rest), with gradual consequenses as days pass (even just for feedback to PCs that time matters).

Failure shouldn't be "game ends", but "things happen in world PCs won't prefer".

Encounters you can judge by adding up CR. 1/5, 1/4, 1/3 and 40% of PC level total for easy/medium/hard/deadly. (I find this much easier/faster than any of the standard encounter budget systems, and it does a decent job).

If you prefer a world-first, encounter level = sum of CR. Scene level is 1/3 (sum EL^1.5)^(2/3). Chapter level is 1/3 Sum(scene level).

Then you can judge how hard a chapter/encounter/scene is for a party via:

Sum PC level/5 is easy
Sum PC level/4 is medium
Sum PC level/3 is hard
Sum PC level *.4 is deadly

So a group of 6 level 5 PCs would find a Level 12 encounter, scene or chapter deadly.

Adjust based on actual group performance; this just attempts to give you initial hints, and encourages you to build events larger than encounters.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Hit Points, Spell Slots, Hit Dice, Ki Points, Sorcery Points, Combat Maneuvers, Bardic Inspiration...etc
The whole game is about resource management.

HP can stay

Spell slots should burn.
Hit Dice shoudl either get good or burn.
Ki and Sorcery Point are fine
Combat maneuvers shouldn't be a resource.
If people remember Inspiration, bardic or otherwise, it might be an issue, but they don't.
I don't remember an etc stat.