Sword of Spirit
Legend
Over the years, the tension between the design of the game around short rests and long adventuring days, and the reality that that's hard to pull off (or undesired) for many groups, has been an ongoing concern. Mike Mearl's recent reminder of what was going on in design has brought this into focus again. I've played a lot of 2014 5e, and spent a lot of time thinking about this concern, and here's what I've come up with as a solution.
Edit: I want to clarify that this solution is for balancing classes against each other with reduced combat rounds and short rests in a day. It is not intended to address the issue of balancing monsters against the party.
A Solution
For those who don't use the 20ish combat rounds per day with 2 short rests, you of course run into inter-class balance problems. Those classes who are long rest dependent (full casters) shine in shorter days because they can blow through their best spells in combat. Those designed around consistent output for the whole time (like rogues in particular) will not perform as intended. As much of a fan as I am of the design, I realize that adventuring days are hard to come by and it can be rather forced. Rather than going into how I handle it, I'm going to provide some guidelines for how people who just want to have their 3-5 combat rounds in a day with no short rests can get better balance.
Step 1:
Eliminate short rests. Instead, multiply the number of uses of all short rest dependent abilities by 3. That balances classes like monk and warlock (and fighter to a lesser extent) that are highly dependent on short rest recharging resources, by giving them the same number they are assumed to have over that long day with 2 short rests. Now they can go nova like full casters.
Step 2:
Combat Precision - New Class Feature
When you hit with an attack, you can turn it into a critical hit.
You can use this feature X times, and then must complete a long rest before you can use it again.
The classes that get this feature, and the number of times they can use it are:
Barbarian/Fighter: 2x
Paladin/Ranger: 1x
Rogue: 3x
This gives classes that rely (to various degrees) on consistent capability over long days an extremely simple way to front load it. Rogues (who most need it) particularly benefit, because they not only get the most uses, but they can use it with sneak attacks.
As best I can tell, this should pretty much do the trick. Classes should maintain a pretty close to intended balance regardless of how many encounters you have in the day.
An Alternative Solution
For those who still want to have short rests, all you really have to do is make sure you have about 2 short rests per adventuring day, which means you need about 3 challenging encounters. If those encounters are usually short, you may want to still give out that class feature from Step 2 of the first solution, but reduce the number of uses by 1. Make short rests 5 minutes to further condense.
Edit: I want to clarify that this solution is for balancing classes against each other with reduced combat rounds and short rests in a day. It is not intended to address the issue of balancing monsters against the party.
A Solution
For those who don't use the 20ish combat rounds per day with 2 short rests, you of course run into inter-class balance problems. Those classes who are long rest dependent (full casters) shine in shorter days because they can blow through their best spells in combat. Those designed around consistent output for the whole time (like rogues in particular) will not perform as intended. As much of a fan as I am of the design, I realize that adventuring days are hard to come by and it can be rather forced. Rather than going into how I handle it, I'm going to provide some guidelines for how people who just want to have their 3-5 combat rounds in a day with no short rests can get better balance.
Step 1:
Eliminate short rests. Instead, multiply the number of uses of all short rest dependent abilities by 3. That balances classes like monk and warlock (and fighter to a lesser extent) that are highly dependent on short rest recharging resources, by giving them the same number they are assumed to have over that long day with 2 short rests. Now they can go nova like full casters.
Step 2:
Combat Precision - New Class Feature
When you hit with an attack, you can turn it into a critical hit.
You can use this feature X times, and then must complete a long rest before you can use it again.
The classes that get this feature, and the number of times they can use it are:
Barbarian/Fighter: 2x
Paladin/Ranger: 1x
Rogue: 3x
This gives classes that rely (to various degrees) on consistent capability over long days an extremely simple way to front load it. Rogues (who most need it) particularly benefit, because they not only get the most uses, but they can use it with sneak attacks.
As best I can tell, this should pretty much do the trick. Classes should maintain a pretty close to intended balance regardless of how many encounters you have in the day.
An Alternative Solution
For those who still want to have short rests, all you really have to do is make sure you have about 2 short rests per adventuring day, which means you need about 3 challenging encounters. If those encounters are usually short, you may want to still give out that class feature from Step 2 of the first solution, but reduce the number of uses by 1. Make short rests 5 minutes to further condense.
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