D&D 5E My vision of ability recharge

[FrogReaver]

This thread is my solution to fix everyone's issues they have with the current rest mechanics. I'm going to start by listing the basic principles below. I'll explain why I think these are good principles and how I see a game playing out with them.

1. A full rest should only happen when you have an extended period of time to recuperate (maybe a week or month) in a hospitable setting link a city or inn .

2. All other rests whether short or long taken in the course of an adventure will not function the same as a full rest. These rests will only have a chance to restore some of your used abilities back and will not generally guarantee they recharge back to "full"

3. All classes need a chance to restore abilities at both long and short rests.

Why are these good principles?
1. A full rest is much harder to achieve. Currently a "long rest" is very similar to my "full rest" except a long rest happens overnight. Not much has time to change in a day "usually". However, there's much more narrative freedom for a DM when the players leave an area for at least a week or a month to fully recharge.

2. I think it's apparent why only some abilities are restored so I won't say much here. But why chance? Let's start with an example. Let's say I wasn't basing the recharge on chance but instead I would restore 50% of my abilities rounded up each long rest. Well, I now always recharge that ability to full every long rest. Recharging based on a chance eliminates this problem. It will also help me implement principle 3 much easier.

3. I like the difference between short rest and long rest as a choice. I like the difference in short rest and long rest classes as well. I don't propose on entirely eliminating that difference. It's just I think long rest classes get too little out of short rests to ever make them interested in taking one. Likewise, short rest classes get to little out of long rests to really consider them as worth it over a short rest. So for a long rest character I need to give some incentive for taking a short rest over a long rest. This is where probabilities come into play. I can tweak the chance to recharge whatever however I desire. So perhaps a long rest for the Wizard regains on average 60% of his abilities while a short rest only regains 10% on average. A fighter may regain 40% of his abilities on a long rest and 20% on a short rest. (These are just examples). This is jus to illustrate that fighter's and Wizards can value short or long rests differently as long as both get "enough" of a benefit out of both types of rests.

As a side effect of these rules it is easy to change how much gets recharged on a particular rest in bad conditions. For example, resting through a blizzard may be something the players try that gives disadvantage on the ability recharge checks they make to determine how much of their abilities they receive back (just an example).

Thoughts opinions?

 

[ccs]

Too complex.
Plus there's no need to screw with the recovery system of wizard/cleric spells that's been working fine for 40 years.

 

[FrogReaver]

Too complex.
Plus there's no need to screw with the recovery system of wizard/cleric spells that's been working fine for 40 years.

1. Elaborate on what you find too complex? I'm not seeing it?

2. For many of us the Wizard/Cleric spell recovery system hasn't been working fine for 40 years.

 

[Jester David]

So if you're a 2nd level wizard, and cast all your spells then rest, you regain one spell?
So you choose which slots get recharged at higher levels or roll randomly?

This doesn't affect short rest classes like the warlock or the fighter.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Are you going for gritty realism, or just balance purposes? Because there is a reason why when it comes to resting in D&D, its still very video gamey. The reason is this: If you reduce the effects of resting or make resting times longer, you either have to severely reduce the combat difficulty, or have the players be constantly paranoid and cowardly. And cowardly player characters don't make for a fun game nor an engaging story. You don't want your players to always avoid doing stuff just because it is difficult to recover resources. The casters and magic users will also feel gimped for constantly feel the need in saving spell slots and resort to only using cantrips most of the time. Boring.

In the end, the heroes would end up sit around doing nothing, because its much safer. Or feel weak and useless after a few combat encounters, and die a lot.

Also, you can't change most of the daily powers, or measure 60% of spell slots to regain. Its unnecessarily complicated, and just plain dumb.

 

[MNblockhead]

This thread is my solution to fix everyone's issues they have with the current rest mechanics. I'm going to start by listing the basic principles below. I'll explain why I think these are good principles and how I see a game playing out with them.

1. A full rest should only happen when you have an extended period of time to recuperate (maybe a week or month) in a hospitable setting link a city or inn .

I wanted to do something similar when I started my campaign—though I was looking at alternate healing rules in the DMG—but I quickly decided to stick with the standard rules. I find that when you take a more "realistic" or "gritty" approach to rest and healing that you either hand wave the long periods or you bore the hell out of everyone except the one player that enjoy lengthy sidebar roleplaying encounters with nurses and townspeople.

Or everything becomes a slog. You'll have to go back to the days of bringing a small army of hirelings or let players play multiple characters to keep the party size big. Maybe you are looking for a more old-school resource management game instead of a story and character driven fantasy action film style of play. In that case, you may as well start giving XP for GP and enforce strict weight accounting and inventory management.

How fun would most action films be if they treated combat, injury, and recovery realistically. It can be done, but that just isn't in the DNA of DnD. You might find other game systems to be more appropriate for your play style, which could be more satisfying than re-designing DnD. Can't think of any such systems off the top of my head—I'd by unlikely to enjoy playing them.

2. All other rests whether short or long taken in the course of an adventure will not function the same as a full rest. These rests will only have a chance to restore some of your used abilities back and will not generally guarantee they recharge back to "full"

Hope you are okay with nobody wanting to play a Wizard in your game. You've just nerfed them.

Why are these good principles?
1. A full rest is much harder to achieve. Currently a "long rest" is very similar to my "full rest" except a long rest happens overnight. Not much has time to change in a day "usually". However, there's much more narrative freedom for a DM when the players leave an area for at least a week or a month to fully recharge.

Make rests difficult to achieve through narrative devices. If you are in a dungeon complex, infiltrating heavily patrol enemy territory, or being pursued through the wilderness, it is really easy to make it very very difficult for the party to achieve even a short rest.

If the party has a big fight and you give them the opportunity to rest before the next encounter, why does it really matter how long it takes? You either let them rest or you don't. If you make the rest take a week or a month instead of a day and make them travel to a town or build up a proper camp to do so... either you handwave (with perhaps some boring random encounter rolls) it or you spend precious IRL game time on camp and travel minutiae.

2. I think it's apparent why only some abilities are restored so I won't say much here.

Not apparent to me. If you are talking certain STR and CON based abilities, maybe. But why a Wizards spell-casting powers? If they are too fatigued for the mental rigors of preparing spells, why does that apply to the divine magic of clerics? Generally, your players are going to demand some game balance over realism. If you don't care about realism and just want to make things more challenging. There are plenty of ways to do so without rewriting the rules of the game.

But why chance? Let's start with an example. Let's say I wasn't basing the recharge on chance but instead I would restore 50% of my abilities rounded up each long rest. Well, I now always recharge that ability to full every long rest. Recharging based on a chance eliminates this problem. It will also help me implement principle 3 much easier.

I guess I'm not seeing a problem in need of elimination.

3. I like the difference between short rest and long rest as a choice. I like the difference in short rest and long rest classes as well. I don't propose on entirely eliminating that difference. It's just I think long rest classes get too little out of short rests to ever make them interested in taking one.

Given the choice, of course you'll want the long rest. You take short rests because you don't have a choice. Kinda like I would rather get a good night's sleep rather than a quick "power nap" but if I have a deadline I need to make by morning that won't get done if I get a full night's sleep, I'll settle for the nap.

Likewise, short rest classes get to little out of long rests to really consider them as worth it over a short rest. So for a long rest character I need to give some incentive for taking a short rest over a long rest.

This is a feature not a bug. I allows for diversity of play styles to better meat varying challenges.

This is where probabilities come into play. I can tweak the chance to recharge whatever however I desire. So perhaps a long rest for the Wizard regains on average 60% of his abilities while a short rest only regains 10% on average. A fighter may regain 40% of his abilities on a long rest and 20% on a short rest. (These are just examples). This is jus to illustrate that fighter's and Wizards can value short or long rests differently as long as both get "enough" of a benefit out of both types of rests.

60% of one's abilities? Get out the calculators. This is just too fiddly. I like 5e (and systems like Monte Cook's Cipher System) because it gets away from this kind of triviality.

As a side effect of these rules it is easy to change how much gets recharged on a particular rest in bad conditions. For example, resting through a blizzard may be something the players try that gives disadvantage on the ability recharge checks they make to determine how much of their abilities they receive back (just an example).

It is like some trickster gnome got ahold of the Player's Handbook and make some "upgrades" such that resting mechanics are more complicated than combat.

 

[Li Shenron]

1. A full rest should only happen when you have an extended period of time to recuperate (maybe a week or month) in a hospitable setting link a city or inn .

So you basically want to have 3 types of rests instead of 2, with a new type of rest that works like the current long rest but requires a longer time. This is OK.

2. All other rests whether short or long taken in the course of an adventure will not function the same as a full rest. These rests will only have a chance to restore some of your used abilities back and will not generally guarantee they recharge back to "full"

I like randomness and I think this idea is interesting, but outside an automated computer game this resting system has the potential of becoming slow and boring to manage.

Correct me if I am wrong... it sounds to me like once you've decided on a % value (based on class, and depending on short/long rest), the player will go through the whole list of her limited-use abilities, and roll a dice for each ability to see if it recharges. Is this what you have in mind?

It's not complicated, it's just slow, especially for higher-level characters.

For example, if the Wizard has 10 spell slots, you'd have to roll 10 times, one % roll per slot, to see which slots recharge. If the slots were all equal, you could get away with a single roll that gives an average equal to the wanted %, but since higher-level slots are worth more than lower-level slots, are you going to let the player choose which ones get recharged?

And in general, every character has abilities that are more powerful and therefore recharge only with long rests. Are you going to give them the same % recharge chance as less powerful abilities?

It's just I think long rest classes get too little out of short rests to ever make them interested in taking one. Likewise, short rest classes get to little out of long rests to really consider them as worth it over a short rest. So for a long rest character I need to give some incentive for taking a short rest over a long rest.

Long rests are not really chosen... You pretty much have to sleep once a day, and that's when you normally take the long rest. The rules allow you to anticipate the long rest to during the day if you have time, but you still can't have more than one in a day.

 

[Krachek]

What is the point with all classes should restore abilities on rest?
Are we talking about kids crying because two receive candy and two others don't recharge anything?
Is there really balance issue between classes?
Some have challenge issue with rest, but don't forget Core assumption : pc are heroes. They are meant to succeed.
If you want a game with nasty realism seeing the pc as a bunch of looser, as DM you will have to make your own house rule.
For balance issue I suggest looking for removing items with + and reducing ability score. Try point buy with only 23 points.

 

[FrogReaver]

No idea where the gritty realism is coming from for this.

i never mentioned it once

 

[Blue]

1. A full rest should only happen when you have an extended period of time to recuperate (maybe a week or month) in a hospitable setting link a city or inn.

If I can make a suggestion, I think you're following the same logic that an out-of-game resource recovery balance needs to be tied to an in-game event. Yes, narratively that is the easiest. But it also introduces issues that time allowed can dictate gaming needs (and therefore the opposite - gaming needs may not dictate your narrative).

13th Age is a d20 OGL very similar to 5e in philosophy though it came out before it. They are closer to the 4e resource recovery of encounter and everything, but that's not a large stretch for 5e.

Encounter is obvious - one use per encounter. No need to worry about scheduling short rests or not between.

But the "recover all" is called a full-heal-up and happens every four combat encounters. (Though a DM can give ti quicker if they have been throwing particularly tough/draining encounters.) It is fully detached from an in-game event.

So a three week journey across a tundra with an encounter every handful of days might be a single full-heal-up. You don't have to worry like in 5e of trying to design an encounter where your full-rest-recovery folks can nova and that needs to balance your sword-swingers a-swinging.

On the other hand, half way through the day of a dungeon might be a full-heal-up, and another that evening.

Now, the DM has the freedom and responsibility to make this make sense in the narrative. It could be with a luxurious rest. Or drinking from the magic fountain they found in the dungeon. Or NOT during a insect-biting night in the jungle with lions coughing every once in a while in the near distance.

Oh, and the players can always take one early if they can justify it, but take a campaign setback in doing so. Maybe the villagers they are trying to rescue end up with turned into a vampire. Or the cultists have time to complete a ritual and summon the first of the demons. Or the big bad leaves and now they have to chase him once they figure that out. Whatever.