Preserving the Fear Inherent in 1st Level

[5ekyu]

Changing the rest structure will impact the deadliness, especially if they're forced to push on after most resources have been spent. The 8 hour short rest and 1 week long rest makes even simple tasks much harder.

Change Death by Massive Damage to be extra HP equal to Level plus Con score. At lower levels, it's not likely to matter, but soon healing from 0 HP becomes a risky process. With only a few HP, taking lethal damage is much more likely, even without a critical hit. Being attacked while down is much more likely to kill, since it's also a critical hit, and random AoE can also cause instant death (rather than just a failed death save).

I will quibble with the first statement.

you can inflict time pressure to keep going with a 1 hr short and 8 hour long with no problem. Ongoing harrassment by enemies, chase and pursuit angles and even just the usual sacrifice at midnight tic tocs can push those just fine.

So, no, changing the rests to longer dont make things deadlier than they can be under the normal rules - they just expand the number of times and ways you can work in those pressures from their "lots of ways" to "more lots of ways" *and* add in a lot of downtime to deal with (for better or ill.)

Folks always seem to assume its deadlier because "the old approach wont work" but what will happen is **unless the Gm/situation puts time pressure and/or interruptions in** they just change the frequency of their rest vs action vs downtime.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Just make sure to kill characters regularly. If the monsters in a Hard or Deadly encounter focus fire on a single character they will go down quickly and possibly die. Removing Raise Dead and similar spells from the game also helps.

 

[Charlaquin]

Aggressive time pressure. At early levels, PCs have very few resources. Low HP, very limited spell slots, not enough gold to afford both combat equipment and survival necessities. As players progress, they get access to more resources so they can comfortably take on more and/or more difficult encounters per day. Theoretically though, they should have a similar experience to those early levels when their resources are running low. The trouble is, players will always elect to rest and recover resources before getting to that point if the option is available. The solution is to not make that option available, or to make it come at the cost of another, equally precious resource. And since the only thing resting costs is time, you have to make time as valuable to the players as HP, spell slots, and gold. Ticking clocks and very aggressive random encounter tables can both achieve this goal.

 

[robus]

Another thing I’ve found, is that PCs fear uncertainty. My one group was utterly terrified of running into the vampire they had heard was lurking about, because they didn’t know what they were capable of.

Well they do say familiarity breeds contempt. I think this is a big factor in why I want to start each campaign in a unique setting.

 

[Shiroiken]

I will quibble with the first statement.

you can inflict time pressure to keep going with a 1 hr short and 8 hour long with no problem. Ongoing harrassment by enemies, chase and pursuit angles and even just the usual sacrifice at midnight tic tocs can push those just fine.

So, no, changing the rests to longer dont make things deadlier than they can be under the normal rules - they just expand the number of times and ways you can work in those pressures from their "lots of ways" to "more lots of ways" *and* add in a lot of downtime to deal with (for better or ill.)

Folks always seem to assume its deadlier because "the old approach wont work" but what will happen is **unless the Gm/situation puts time pressure and/or interruptions in** they just change the frequency of their rest vs action vs downtime.

My original statement was assuming the same or similar number of encounters per day, but pushing the rests back. In such a case, the game is exceptionally more deadly than normal, since you have less resources to get the same amount done. I suppose, however, it depends on how your game runs.

My group seldom takes a short rest (and never more than 1 per day), because of the opportunity costs associated with them. Unless we are just traveling with no set time frame, we assume that the DM will have the ecology adjust to our presence. Rather than facing unprepared enemies that we can try to pick off, they're much more likely to be alert, better defended, and massed into harder groups. While this can happen at any time during the adventure, allowing an hour for creatures to come across our activities (i.e. trail of dead monsters) seems like a lot, even if dealing with low intelligence creatures. With intelligent creatures, it should almost certainly happen within an hour ("Bob's been gone a while; I better check on him."). We have 4 DMs, and each does this to one degree or another.

However, if your game allows players to rest, with the rest of the world remaining fairly static, then I agree the duration of rests is irrelevant.

 

[5ekyu]

My original statement was assuming the same or similar number of encounters per day, but pushing the rests back. In such a case, the game is exceptionally more deadly than normal, since you have less resources to get the same amount done. I suppose, however, it depends on how your game runs.

My group seldom takes a short rest (and never more than 1 per day), because of the opportunity costs associated with them. Unless we are just traveling with no set time frame, we assume that the DM will have the ecology adjust to our presence. Rather than facing unprepared enemies that we can try to pick off, they're much more likely to be alert, better defended, and massed into harder groups. While this can happen at any time during the adventure, allowing an hour for creatures to come across our activities (i.e. trail of dead monsters) seems like a lot, even if dealing with low intelligence creatures. With intelligent creatures, it should almost certainly happen within an hour ("Bob's been gone a while; I better check on him."). We have 4 DMs, and each does this to one degree or another.

However, if your game allows players to rest, with the rest of the world remaining fairly static, then I agree the duration of rests is irrelevant.

Again a quibble - there doesnt have to be anything static at all.

the key is this - as Gm an adventure can have time pressure which makes resting fine, "troublesome" or "counter productive" or even "just lunacy" and all the way between - with reactions from the environment etc and whether or not that rest is 1 hour or 8 hours or 1 week does not change that at all.

All it does is sometimes shift which category any given scenario setup and timing would fit into.

So, how often your group enjoys having "no rest" adventures vs "short rest(s) only" adventures vs "long rest and any rest " adventures and the m ixes between etc... you can serve them all just fine regardless of whether the rests are 1 hour, 8 hours or a week.

A no rest adventure is as hard on resources whether it spans a whole day, two days or two hours.
A short rest(s) only doesn't get easier if it only spans five hours vs two days. In fact, unless crafting or downtime rules change, it might get easier as the party uses time consuming non-rest-tracked abilities.
etc
etc
etc

 

[jgsugden]

When you are first level, you're stepping into a scary world of danger and adventure. It is easy to find yourself overpowered... and many new adventurers die.

That is the feeling of level 1. Why do you want to preserve that feeling? Wouldn't you rather evolve the game to keep it interesting?

By the time they hit level 5 they should feel like heroes. They've been on adventures and come back. They wield blades with the best of them and cast spells as powerful as fireball.... and have a lot more spells to cast each day. They're getting a reputation in their region and people look to them when they are in need. If they fear death in every battle, do they feel like these heroes? Or should they feel like they are a bit in charge on the battle field... most of the time.

11th level? Bards across the nation sing their praises and the heroes start to look to matters beyond the Prime Material Plane. Should they fear every battle they face? Or should they be made to feel ready for these amazing adventures? There should certainly be some terrifying threats hey face, but they need to be heroes! Not zeroes!

And for all of you thinking that you need life and death struggles in every combat to keep it interesting: There are a lot of ways to challenge PCs. Save the peasants. Stop the ritual. Capture the giant alive. Stop the room from filling with water before they drown. Keep the bandits from stealing their loot. Impress the nobles with your ability. Make sure the wizard can finish his ritual. Collapse the cave. All of these types of challenges can take place in combats that pose no real combat threat to the lives of the PCs. And - speaking from experience - they go a long way towards making the heroes feel like heroes rather than zeroes. They're the type of combats that give PCs the swagger.

 

[Lanefan]

Just make sure to kill characters regularly. If the monsters in a Hard or Deadly encounter focus fire on a single character they will go down quickly and possibly die. Removing Raise Dead and similar spells from the game also helps.

I'm not sure removing Raise Dead etc. is the answer; though there's something to be said for making it more costly and-or for removing Revivify and suchlike.

My own take is that a death-revival cycle should have some lasting or permanent impact. In 1e you came back permanently down a point of Con, for example - maybe give this a look.

When you are first level, you're stepping into a scary world of danger and adventure. It is easy to find yourself overpowered... and many new adventurers die.

That is the feeling of level 1. Why do you want to preserve that feeling? Wouldn't you rather evolve the game to keep it interesting?

Yes, but I'd rather see that evolution take a lot longer.

By the time they hit level 5 they should feel like heroes. They've been on adventures and come back. They wield blades with the best of them and cast spells as powerful as fireball.... and have a lot more spells to cast each day. They're getting a reputation in their region and people look to them when they are in need. If they fear death in every battle, do they feel like these heroes? Or should they feel like they are a bit in charge on the battle field... most of the time.

By level 5 they should feel like they're getting somewhere but that there are still a lot of much bigger fish out there who will be happy to gobble them up for a snack. Wield blades with the best of them? Hardly.

11th level? Bards across the nation sing their praises and the heroes start to look to matters beyond the Prime Material Plane. Should they fear every battle they face? Or should they be made to feel ready for these amazing adventures? There should certainly be some terrifying threats hey face, but they need to be heroes! Not zeroes!

By 11th level they've probably pissed off enough powerful enemies that they're not getting many nights of peaceful sleep without constantly watching their backs. The locals might see them as heroes but if the PCs are seeing themselves as heroes they're ripe for the picking.

They're still not very big fish, in the grand scheme of things. Were this 1e I'd be much more in agreement with you but this is 5e we're talking about where the game in theory goes 1-20 and at 11th they're barely halfway there.

Lanefan

 

[Li Shenron]

What methods have you found to keep the game dangerous even as PCs rise in level?

Following the instructions for monsters tactics at www.themonstersknow.com

 

[5ekyu]

I'm not sure removing Raise Dead etc. is the answer; though there's something to be said for making it more costly and-or for removing Revivify and suchlike.

My own take is that a death-revival cycle should have some lasting or permanent impact. In 1e you came back permanently down a point of Con, for example - maybe give this a look.

Yes, but I'd rather see that evolution take a lot longer.

By level 5 they should feel like they're getting somewhere but that there are still a lot of much bigger fish out there who will be happy to gobble them up for a snack. Wield blades with the best of them? Hardly.

By 11th level they've probably pissed off enough powerful enemies that they're not getting many nights of peaceful sleep without constantly watching their backs. The locals might see them as heroes but if the PCs are seeing themselves as heroes they're ripe for the picking.

They're still not very big fish, in the grand scheme of things. Were this 1e I'd be much more in agreement with you but this is 5e we're talking about where the game in theory goes 1-20 and at 11th they're barely halfway there.

Lanefan

RE the bold - we have an example of agreement and simultaneous disagreement.

It seems that so very often "lasting or permanent impact" is locked into "negative impact" or "punishment".

First, of course, the life-death-after-cycle should be a setting shaping thing.

Second, for PC life-death-after-cycle it can be one that has permanent and meaningful impact without negatives at all, In my last 3.5 game every PC death was followed by an after-life between scene where very personal to the character events played out "on the other side" and the issue of "come back or not" was explored and every single time the interactions and scenes played a significant part of a change to the character often including new info that could help or new obligations or debts or missions, etc etc etc. No two were the same except for profoundly changing the character in some non-mechanical way.

Additionally, there were sects of a given goddess that believes the "returned" were holy prophets to be cherished and worshiped and all that (one sect) or abominations and affronts to the goddess who should be killed again and painfully (other sect.)

Additionally, there was a feat -tree or mini-prestige class that unlocked when you hit "dead but got better" that let you character choose to develop and expand that "walked on both sides" nature with a variety of medium/necromantic type effects including things like speak with dead rituals or able to spot or hide from other "both siders" and so on and so on.

led to every single case of life-death-pc-cycle being very much meaningful and impactful and permanently changing the character - just not in a punishment or penalized sort of way.

i think the idea that seems so ingrained of needing to make the dead and back a penalized feature derives from the original wargamish "fight is competition", "losing fight means dead - and vice versa" and the resulting "death" is "failure" leads you to punish failure.

I see it as more akin to "death is an opportunity" in a fantasy world where dead and back is a thing.

YGMV YFMV YMMV