D&D 5E Playing with short rests, potential problems?

[machineelf]

I have been considering a home brew rule change for awhile, and I might implement it soon with my group.

The problem: Essentially it's the 5-minute workday issue. Particularly, the fact that my casters might use up all or most of their spell slots after a first big fight in a dungeon, and want to sleep for the night before they continue on.

My proposed solution: Allow casters to recover half their spell slots every short rest. In addition, I will only allow players to use hit dice on long rests, doing away with full healing on long rests. This will mean that the only viable way to heal up during the day is by potions, healing spells, or if someone has the medicine feat that allows bandages to heal.

Predicted effects: Casters will have the same battle stamina as fighters. They can continue on in dungeons for a longer time before needing to stop for a long rest. Casters will be a bit more powerful, but it will be tempered by the fact that they can only recover half their spell slots each short rest and by the fact that healing casters will need to use many more of their slots to heal other characters during short rests, since there will be no more hit dice. Healing potions will be more important, as will the medicine feat. Healing over long rests will be a bit more gritty and life-like, eliminating the unrealistic full natural heal on long rests idea.

I know there are likely many negative consequences I'm not thinking of at the moment. Can you think of some?

 

[alienux]

This is not an answer to your specific question, but if they're abusing the long rest like that, it sounds like an opportunity for some encounters during the rests to put a stop to that.

 

[machineelf]

This is not an answer to your specific question, but if they're abusing the long rest like that, it sounds like an opportunity for some encounters during the rests to put a stop to that.

True, but I also get aggravated by the fact that the casters are out of resources after one big fight. So even if I gave them encounters when they are trying to rest, it only accentuates that problem, and doesn't solve it.

I do realize that my solution may only push the 5-minute workday back one level, so that the party is just taking a 1-hour rest constantly to heal themselves up and get their spell slots up to half (I would cap their spell slot recovery on short rests at half their max). But that's where I could give them encounters to discourage constant short rests.

 

[Ath'kethin]

True, but I also get aggravated by the fact that the casters are out of resources after one big fight. So even if I gave them encounters when they are trying to rest, it only accentuates that problem, and doesn't solve it.

If your casters are out of resources after a single encounter, it's a player problem not a class problem. Keep the adventuring day going after they're out of resources. They'll either learn to budget better or they'll be responsible for the group's failure. Don't let some crappy playing wreck everybody else's time.

 

[Flamestrike]

I have been considering a home brew rule change for awhile, and I might implement it soon with my group.

The problem: Essentially it's the 5-minute workday issue. Particularly, the fact that my casters might use up all or most of their spell slots after a first big fight in a dungeon, and want to sleep for the night before they continue on.

My proposed solution: Allow casters to recover half their spell slots every short rest. In addition, I will only allow players to use hit dice on long rests, doing away with full healing on long rests. This will mean that the only viable way to heal up during the day is by potions, healing spells, or if someone has the medicine feat that allows bandages to heal.

Predicted effects: Casters will have the same battle stamina as fighters. They can continue on in dungeons for a longer time before needing to stop for a long rest. Casters will be a bit more powerful, but it will be tempered by the fact that they can only recover half their spell slots each short rest and by the fact that healing casters will need to use many more of their slots to heal other characters during short rests, since there will be no more hit dice. Healing potions will be more important, as will the medicine feat. Healing over long rests will be a bit more gritty and life-like, eliminating the unrealistic full natural heal on long rests idea.

I know there are likely many negative consequences I'm not thinking of at the moment. Can you think of some?

Dude what?

You're having a problem with Long rest-based casters novaing.. and your proposed solution is giving them more daily resources, and taking things away from the fighters and warlocks?

derp

Just impose time limits on your quests. Save the Princess by midnight. That kind of thing. Then make sure the PCs hit the dungeon with about four hours to spare. They have just enough time to do 6 to 8 encounters, and have enough time for about two short rests.

If they fail the princess dies and... throw a CR [Arbitrarily high number] Demon at them. The Demon is why they had to save the princess before midnight - she gets sacrificed and the demon gets summoned. Have it wreck the town, destroy their magic items and generally be a pain in the ass. Have the family of the Princess and the other townsfolk mock them for being failures.

If they succeed and save the Princess, have them richly rewarded.

Why so many DM's don't understand this ill never freaking know.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

I don't consider it an abuse to long rest when a party deems it necessary. There's many situations where it would be appropriate for nothing to show up and attack and logically it wouldn't make sense to continue on. Don't force encounters for no reason. If you really feel they are resting too much, cut back on the overall encounter strength and increase the number of encounters in a way that makes sense.

Half spell slots on a short rest seems too powerful. It sounds like maybe your casters expend spells much too quickly or the fights are far too brutal. Part of playing a caster includes conservation of spells. No reason to fireball 2 normal goblins just because you can sort of thing.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

-Part of D&D is resource management. By allowing Casters to regain half their spell slots, this trivializes the resource management portion of the game and the decision on whether an encounter is worth spending the spell slots.

-Casters are not the only ones who have abilities that refresh on Long Rests. Allowing only casters to regain spell slots provides an unfair advantage to the casters over other classes (and some races with racial abilities). Why can't the Barbarian get 1/2 their Rages back on a short rest?

-Casters themselves will skyrocket in power. Even regaining 1/2 spell slots on a Short Rest is huge. Their spells are what make them special, but their Cantrips are nothing to sneeze at. Were this old editions, I could see the need to try and let the Casters have more fun and not use their Crossbow until the end of the dungeon. However, with the addition of Cantrips, a Caster can still be functional without using spell slots. Using spell slots should be something special and not a "Standard Attack".

-Removing the ability to use Hit Dice to recover HP during a Short Rest is a hard hitting ability. Like you mentioned, this forces the healer to then use any regained spell slots to pour into healing, which will most likely heal less overall than everyone could recover via using their HD, and once again puts them at no spell slots. Which they will likely then want to take ANOTHER short rest, making the removal of recovery by HD unnecessary. Spending HD to recover HP via Long Rest is unnecessary since Long Rests heal to full and recover 1/2 HD's used during Short Rests...unless you are looking to alter that mechanic too, which presents more problems.


One alternative I might suggest...change the ability to Long Rest to only be applicable in "safe" environments. If the party fights once in the dungeon and then leaves to rest, make them go back to town (and in the mean time have the dungeon adapt to this by repopulating or moving treasure, reinforcing, etc...depending on the type of dungeon). Maybe also have a conversation with the players that you will be playing by the rules of a standard adventuring day = 6 encounters / long rest (or whatever you want) to put their meta mind at ease. That way when 4 kobolds pop out they don't launch all their resources at them, then demand an 8 hour rest.

But personally, I don't like the idea of recovering 1/2 spell slots on a short rest. That seems WAY too powerful for casters. And if I was playing a Fighter, I would immediately want to re-roll as a full caster to take advantage of this.

 

[Jer]

You're having a problem with Long rest-based casters novaing..

No. He isn't.

Read the post again - his problem isn't that his casters are going nova and overpowering the challenges he's set up. He's fine with them using their resources that way and presumably has what he thinks are appropriate challenges for them.

His problem is that the play style that he and his group enjoy is not being supported by the short rest/long rest system in 5th edition.

This is a different problem. He's not asking people "how can I stop my casters from using all of their spell slots" he's asking people "does this look like a viable solution to letting us play the game the way we have fun playing".

Not everyone wants to play the resource management game. And if they want to smack the game around a bit to have it support the kind of game they want to play, well, if D&D has ever been consistently about anything it's been about that.

 

[machineelf]

Why so many DM's don't understand this ill never freaking know.

Less mockery and more helpful comments.

You might be missing an important point here: I personally don't think casters get enough resources. The fact that they run out so quickly is a real problem, in my view, while melee fighters often get all their resources back after a short rest and can keep going and going. It's a balance issue and a problem.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

No. He isn't.

Read the post again - his problem isn't that his casters are going nova and overpowering the challenges he's set up. He's fine with them using their resources that way and presumably has what he thinks are appropriate challenges for them.

His problem is that the play style that he and his group enjoy is not being supported by the short rest/long rest system in 5th edition.

This is a different problem. He's not asking people "how can I stop my casters from using all of their spell slots" he's asking people "does this look like a viable solution to letting us play the game the way we have fun playing".

Not everyone wants to play the resource management game. And if they want to smack the game around a bit to have it support the kind of game they want to play, well, if D&D has ever been consistently about anything it's been about that.

The resource management game is how casters are set up in D&D for the most part. If you play one, you should prepare for some resource management. If you don't want to deal with resource management then don't play one. I'm not attacking the idea of disliking resource management or anything. Spell slot spells are meant to have more impact then your unlimited resources ( sword swing/cantrip ). I think this leads to casters being far too powerful if they can refresh so many spell slots per short rest because of the imbalance between a sword swing and the effects of most spells when used effectively.