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

[machineelf]

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.

Thanks for understanding my question. I may not have been clear enough, but yes that's what I was getting at. I still think that casters will have to manage resources, but I want them to be able to have a bit more staying power than they currently have.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

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.

There is something wrong for sure if your casters are running out of spells quickly all the time. Either they are mismanaging their spells, or the fights are far too tough for them. It's hard to tell without more information.

EDIT: Posts are popping up while I reply. In my opinion there is a big difference between half their spells back on a short rest and a bit more staying power. A bit more staying power is fine possibly, but can still be tricky because casters are already very powerful. Half their spell slots back is tremendously powerful and I feel should be avoided.

 

[Flamestrike]

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.

Okay; then the unintended consequences will be long rest-based casters will absolutely dominate the game, and short rests based classes and melee based classes will suck.

Fighters no longer get their hit points back on a short rest. Wizards now get get half their spells back on a short rest.

Seeing as full casters will be able to dump high-level spell slots virtually at will during their encounters, they should trivialise most encounters. In order to compensate for that the DM will have to ramp up the difficulty of the encounters considerably. As in; most encounters will have to be deadly plus.

Which of course will just make the fighters suck even more. In addition, the game devolves into rocket tag where are the 1st to initiative wins.

That's what the unintended or intended consequences will be.

The OP was saying he had a problem with the five-minute workday. If you want to stop the five-minute workday, make your players do more encounters between long rests.

If you can't be bothered setting time limits for your quests just don't let them rest. Say no. Problem fixed.

 

[Jer]

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

Casters will have much more battle stamina than fighters, not the same. The fighter resource is hit points and you're proposing to cut off the fighter resources while removing the limits from the caster resources. It'll be the fighters begging for a long rest rather than the casters if you go down this road. Even with a cleric in the party, your fighters are going to become the squeaky wheel for a long rest.

The problem here is that 5e does not have "per encounter" balance. 4e went down that route and did a reasonable job with it, but they rolled it back for 5e. Trying to get a per encounter balance out of 5e is just too much work and likely to leave everyone at your table unsatisfied.

One thing I might suggest is that instead of giving them "half their spell slots" on a short rest, look at the Arcane Recovery class feature of the Wizard and think of giving something like that to all of your casters. Arcane Recovery is half your level in spell slots on a short rest once per day. If you make some adjustments on the encounter side, it might not be too broken to make that every short rest you get back half your level in spell slots rather than once per day and give it to clerics too. Sure it doesn't get them all of their highest level slots back, but if you are generous and round that half your level up your wizards and clerics would always have the opportunity to have one spell at their highest level in every combat which might be enough to make them happy. (Of course I'd make the combats slightly more difficult and expect to have fewer than 6 in a day because you're getting closer to "per encounter" balance rather than "per long rest" balance in your resources, and you have to keep that in mind).

 

[Flamestrike]

Thanks for understanding my question. I may not have been clear enough, but yes that's what I was getting at. I still think that casters will have to manage resources, but I want them to be able to have a bit more staying power than they currently have.

That's what cantrips are for. And rituals.

Your casters should be casting no more than one or two spells per encounter. Maybe three if you count low level spells like shield. The rest should be cantrips.

Over a seven encounter adventuring day, that is 7-21 spell slots for combat alone.

If they're burning through those slots quicker, screw them - they can rely on cantrips for the last four encounters for the day, while they cower behind the fighter.

They'll learn.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Thanks for understanding my question. I may not have been clear enough, but yes that's what I was getting at. I still think that casters will have to manage resources, but I want them to be able to have a bit more staying power than they currently have.

In that case, my mind goes back to 3rd Edition. What about giving them bonus Spell Slots / Level based on their Spellcasting ability? For example, Caster with 13 Stat is +1, so they get a bonus 1st level slot. Caster with 16 is +3, so they get a bonus 1st, 2nd, and 3rd slot. That does empower the casters, but doesn't completely tip the scales by giving them too much.

Plus, building on what Jer said, most of the casters have a way to regain Spell Slots on their own. Sorcerers can use their Sorcery Points if they need, while Wizards have Arcane Recovery. Warlocks already recover all on a short rest, but they only get 2-4 (which is an indication of how many spells per short rest the game is balanced around).

Also, thinking more about the lack of healing you suggested, this puts an unfair burden on the healer of the group. Be it Bard, Cleric, Druid, or Paladin, I feel this would revert them to a 1st or 2nd edition variation where all their resources are spent on healing instead of having enough to throw out other useful non-healing spells.

 

[Flamestrike]

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.

Yes but the resources that casters get a far more potent than those fighters get. Force cage or the power words spells is a no save lockdown. Meteor swarm is an action surge that affects every Creature on the table. Simulacrum Creates artificial intelligence. Sleep particularly at low levels is an auto win button. Fireball clears the room of Mooks. Haste amplifies the melee capabilities of your barbarian by 50%.

Those same resources can also be used in the exploration or social pillar. Teleport, fly, Charm person, Disguise self, Divinations, Planar travel.

Fighter resources are a once per short rest doubling of damage for one round, A slightly improved critical range or a few extra damage dice per short rest.

If your wizard runs out of spells lost you always have a fire bolt to fall back on. The damage is not as good as a fighters at will damage, But the fighter doesn't have the same access to the daily list of auto win buttons that the Wizard has.

 

[machineelf]

There is something wrong for sure if your casters are running out of spells quickly all the time. Either they are mismanaging their spells, or the fights are far too tough for them. It's hard to tell without more information.

Let me give an example. I'm currently running my group through Out of the Abyss. They are in Blingdenstone. Last session they went into the outer city, and they have a lot of options about where they go -- it's pretty sandboxy in that regard. They happened to go into an area right off the bat where a couple of gargoyles and an earth elemental were. It was a fairly high total CR and it really stretched them. They had to use most all of their resources to stay alive, and they barely did. It was a lot of fun, and I like the idea that they have choices, and they may choose a hard battle early on. But of course after that fight, they wanted/needed to return to safer parts of the city to rest. That's fine if it's once-in-awhile. But this seems to happen all the time, even on moderate CR encounters.

So it's not that I am throwing too much at them, really. There is a mix of hard, medium, and easy encounters. But I do want them to be stretched at times in some battles. And it makes logical sense to me that casters would be able to regain more of their ability to cast spells after a rest after a battle than they currently do.

I've played casters and melee classes myself in 5th ed. I've played most of the classes, in fact. Casters like sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards seem to me to be some of the weakest classes, in large part because they often cast a high level spell, the target resists, and they only do a small amount or no damage, and they've just burned their spell slots. One fight with bad rolls and you're left with only cantrips for the rest of the dungeon. This seems to be a problem to me, and I'd love to fix that somehow without imbalancing the other classes.

 

[Caliban]

That's what cantrips are for. And rituals.

Your casters should be casting no more than one or two spells per encounter. Maybe three if you count low level spells like shield. The rest should be cantrips.

Over a seven encounter adventuring day, that is 7-21 spell slots for combat alone.

If they're burning through those slots quicker, screw them - they can rely on cantrips for the last four encounters for the day, while they cower behind the fighter.

They'll learn.

Your preferred playstyle isn't the only viable one. If the DM doesn't mind the "5 minute workday" then it's not a problem. No need to get adversarial with the "Screw the players" attitude. This isn't your game, it's his.

He wants to adjust 5e to accommodate his playstyle, not adjust his playstyle to accommodate 5e and he's asking for some input on how to do that. Telling him not to do that isn't helpful advice.

If the topic isn't your thing, you don't have to comment on it. There are a lot of threads in this forum I don't comment on because I really don't care about the topic they are discussing, or think the "problem" under discussion is a non-issue.

 

[Uller]

What level casters are we talking about here? At low levels (1st-5th), yes...casters run out of slots quickly. But as you get past 6th level it becomes less and less of a problem.

As others have said...D&D is a game of resource management. Some resources are short term and rechargeable on a short rest. Others are longer term and require a long rest. If you are going to give a boost to casters like this it should cost them something and/or be of extremely limited scope. Maybe allow them to recover low level spells on a short rest. Something like:

On a short rest you can recover 1st level spell slots equal to your spell casting modifying on a short rest. Starting at 7th level you can recover 2nd level slots (at a cost of 2 per slot) and starting at 11th level you can recover 3rd level slots (at a cost of 3 per slot). But in so doing you cannot expend any Hit Dice for healing.

Or something like that....It is limited to lower level spells. A first level caster can recover his two spell slots on every short rest (but he can't heal). An 11th level caster can recover one 3rd level slot and a 2nd level slot...It probably isn't worth it unless he is not wounded at all and it isn't a game breaker. I would not let them recover 4th level slots because those are the "I win" spells. Banishment, Forcecage, etc.


Like Flamestrike said, you absolutely don't want to enable casters to be dumping their high level spells and then resting to recover them. Give them RP reasons to press on...time limits, monsters pursuing them, etc.