D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[Hussar]

Exactly.

And to be more precise, the follow-up:

"...and that the game pretty much dumps all that balance in the lap of the adventure writer/DM, essentially giving up without trying."

The elephant in the room is that the rules busy themselves with relatively minor issues - what size your hit die is, how many spells of that level you can cast, how many feet you can move and still throw a spear... the like.

While leaving the issue of getting back all those resources entirely open to player cautiousness or lack thereof. And even throwing in spells that actively work against the world being an organic counter to resting.

To put it bluntly, the game balance hinges on the illusion that you need to hurry just the right amount. There are not even options for those wishing the game to regulate this.

The final nail in the coffin? How the game even pretends as if this *wasn't a problem*!

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

But... there are mechanics for regulating this. The DMG has options for changing the resting rules right there. You don't want your PC's resting so often? Fine, change the resting rules. Let's see your party crank out long rests when long rests require a safe place and a week. Poof, end of problem. As far as organic world counters, well, that's entirely in your lap. Like I said, simply split up that one big encounter into a series of smaller encounters and you're done.

The trick is, the game has *always* hinged on the need to "hurry just the right amount". In 3e, that "right amount" was really, really slow. Typically 1-3 encounters per day. In earlier editions, it was much longer. The current paradigm is that 1-3 encounters per day is not really wanted. It makes for honking big encounters that take too long to resolve and adds a level of complexity and swinginess to encounters that makes pacing really hard.

What you're asking for is basically a return to 3e style pacing with 4e style encounter balance. And that's not going to make a lot of people happy. It might make you happy.

 

[OB1]

Hey, it's there, as are the consequences for deviating. It's not like the game, itself, 'pretends' there's no issue.

Okay let's go over this again.

I can get how resting becomes an issue with 6-8 encounters needed per day, but it's much less of one when, as the rules state, you only need 3 Deadly encounters per day.

If you have a 50% of a deadly encounter while on an hour short rest, and a deadly encounter itself requires a short rest after, the benefit of taking that rest goes down.

Likewise, if during a typical 8 hour rest, you have a 50% chance for a deadly encounter every hour, you now will have 4 deadly fights, and you may not make it through the night to get your resource reset and even if you do, will likely be down hit die for the next day.

I readily admit that WOTC APs do not suggest this course of action, however...

1) They don't want to make the game that deadly. They are using modern video game design philosophy that most people playing want to experience the story with a light amount of challenge that they know they will overcome.

2) The DMG clearly lays out how to accomplish pushing PCs to their limits in the adventuring day XP guidelines. There is no rule in any AP I'm aware of that says you can't add more encounters if desired. It would be nice if WOTC added such guidelines into the books or added an optional rule for Encounter Point based resting, but it isn't necessary.

If you are in a deadly forest, it should probably be full of deadly things. Hanging out should have consequences.

If you are in a deadly dungeon, it should probably be full of deadly things. Haning out should have consequences.

If you are fighting a deadly, intelligent opposing force, they should be trying to thwart your goals, and the more time they have to react to your movements, the better prepared to kill you they should be.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Okay let's go over this again.

Why not? That's been most of this thread, no? Going over the same things. ;(

I can get how resting becomes an issue with 6-8 encounters needed per day, but it's much less of one when, as the rules state...

Not rules, guidelines.

Sure, you can sub a single harder encounter for a couple of softer ones, and have some play in that 6-8.

... if during a typical 8 hour rest, you have a 50% chance for a deadly encounter every hour

Now that's definitely not a rule, or a guideline...

I readily admit that WOTC APs do not suggest this course of action, however...

Nothing about the game suggests that, no. It does suggest having a 6-8 encounter day with 2-3 short rests. Calls it 'typical.' Shorter days, the party will be able to handle tougher encounters, longer days each encounter will have to be easier - and, yeah, class balance will also be distorted when you deviate from the typical day. That's all guidance, using it is very much up to the DM.

The only 'problem' I see is that 5e didn't do as good a job giving the DM tools & latitude (and shaping player expectations) to actually do that as it did with other issues, like magic items and action declarations. Spells suffer from a similar issue, they're a lot more set in stone (paper) than actions that would use checks. And, spell slots recharge with rests....

The DMG clearly lays out how to accomplish pushing PCs to their limits in the adventuring day XP guidelines.

At least you called 'em guidelines this time. That's all any of these things are.

 

[OB1]

Sure, you can sub a single harder encounter for a couple of softer ones, and have some play in that 6-8.

Okay, guideline instead of rule then. But also, the example only says that the typical party can handle about 6-8 medium to hard encounters before needing to rest. It doesn't say anything about how many deadly encounters they can handle because it comes after the extensive section complete with tables on how to judge the difficulty of individual encounters and how much adjusted xp a party can handle in an adventuring day. But people keep holding up that one line like it's gospel.

Again, the guidelines for encounter day xp clearly show that 3 deadly encounters are equal to a full adventuring day of xp.

The 6-8 medium/hard encounters is one example of the daily adjust xp tables in play. 3 Deadly are just as valid in those guidelines as 6-8 medium/hard and work just as well with game balance.

A 1 or 2 encounter day however is problematic for several reasons, which are fundamental to the design of the game, and which can't be changed without an extensive rewrite of classes and monsters. When I recently ran a 1 encounter day that contained a full day's adjust XP, I gave characters boons to heal mid combat and still killed 2 PCs. It can be done, but it requires even more adjustment from the DM.

 

[Imaro]

Okay, guideline instead of rule then. But also, the example only says that the typical party can handle about 6-8 medium to hard encounters before needing to rest. It doesn't say anything about how many deadly encounters they can handle because it comes after the extensive section complete with tables on how to judge the difficulty of individual encounters and how much adjusted xp a party can handle in an adventuring day. But people keep holding up that one line like it's gospel.

Again, the guidelines for encounter day xp clearly show that 3 deadly encounters are equal to a full adventuring day of xp.

The 6-8 medium/hard encounters is one example of the daily adjust xp tables in play. 3 Deadly are just as valid in those guidelines as 6-8 medium/hard and work just as well with game balance.

A 1 or 2 encounter day however is problematic for several reasons, which are fundamental to the design of the game, and which can't be changed without an extensive rewrite of classes and monsters. When I recently ran a 1 encounter day that contained a full day's adjust XP, I gave characters boons to heal mid combat and still killed 2 PCs. It can be done, but it requires even more adjustment from the DM.

I've explained this numerous times in numerous threads... some people seriously refuse to accept that the actual encounter guidelines accomodate more than just 6-8 encounters a day.

I think with a 1-2 encounter day all PC's have to have their total daily allotment of powers and be allowed to spend hit dice as a reaction or maybe a bonus action. I think that might work but you'd still have to be careful with the number of enemies that make up the encounter.

 

[OB1]

I've explained this numerous times in numerous threads... some people seriously refuse to accept that the actual encounter guidelines accomodate more than just 6-8 encounters a day.

Truth brother!

I think with a 1-2 encounter day all PC's have to have their total daily allotment of powers and be allowed to spend hit dice as a reaction or maybe a bonus action. I think that might work but you'd still have to be careful with the number of enemies that make up the encounter.

I like that, just triple all of the short rest powers and give everyone two "healing surges" where they can spend hit die as a free action and you're done.

I've only run one single encounter day that was meant to be challenging in 15 levels and 3 years of play in my homebrew. The rest of the time I use them to hint at the type of enemies that are coming up so the players know when they face multiples or combinations of them just how difficult the fight might be and can plan appropriately.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Okay let's go over this again.

I can get how resting becomes an issue with 6-8 encounters needed per day, but it's much less of one when, as the rules state, you only need 3 Deadly encounters per day.

If you have a 50% of a deadly encounter while on an hour short rest, and a deadly encounter itself requires a short rest after, the benefit of taking that rest goes down.

Likewise, if during a typical 8 hour rest, you have a 50% chance for a deadly encounter every hour, you now will have 4 deadly fights, and you may not make it through the night to get your resource reset and even if you do, will likely be down hit die for the next day.

I readily admit that WOTC APs do not suggest this course of action, however...

1) They don't want to make the game that deadly. They are using modern video game design philosophy that most people playing want to experience the story with a light amount of challenge that they know they will overcome.

2) The DMG clearly lays out how to accomplish pushing PCs to their limits in the adventuring day XP guidelines. There is no rule in any AP I'm aware of that says you can't add more encounters if desired. It would be nice if WOTC added such guidelines into the books or added an optional rule for Encounter Point based resting, but it isn't necessary.

If you are in a deadly forest, it should probably be full of deadly things. Hanging out should have consequences.

If you are in a deadly dungeon, it should probably be full of deadly things. Haning out should have consequences.

If you are fighting a deadly, intelligent opposing force, they should be trying to thwart your goals, and the more time they have to react to your movements, the better prepared to kill you they should be.

These are great points, but they don't consider the worldbuilding aspect this requires. If monsters come in deadly encounter units, why aren't they wreaking havoc on the non-adventurers? If the non-adventures can handle the deadly encounter units of monsters, why adventure? The solution set here works, mechanically, and does the job, but it requires me to stretch my game past where I am comfortable on the explaining why encounters are so deadly. Occasionally, yes, this works, but it doesn't work as a default, meaning that many times while trying to present a believable worlds it doesn't work out.

The Dark Deadly Woods of Danger, sure. The Normal Woods of Everyday Travelling, not so much.

Again, I do very much appreciate the point your making, and it's something that I've internalized for some time without being explicit about in my games. I vary encounters a lot. But, then, I also don't pay much attention to the daily XP counter. But I also have a bit of a sandbox, which means I'm not always (often?) in control of the pacing. To offset this, I will vary the 'win conditions' for encounters so that killing everything isn't always sufficient to win. This also addresses the issue by reducing the need/use of being in peak condition for a fight. But, all of that said, what we're talking about here is really some advanced DMing technique -- system mastery to understand how encounter math works and game pacing options and setting encounters where killing isn't winning. All work to make resting less of an issue, but none of them are present in published adventures and it requires considerable work to put them in. As someone running SKT right now (my first module in almost a decade), I'm making a lot of planned and on the fly changes to address some of the pacing issues present in the game (they have sections way to slow and some way too fast). That's not easy nor immediately apparent. If I didn't spend a few hours a session, it'd be a hot mess.

So, I guess my point is that yours is a good suggestion, and useful, and should go in the toolbox, but it doesn't solve the issue by itself. And it doesn't address published adventures. The designers of the game are largely unconcerned about this issue. That may, or may not, be an issue for individuals. It's one for me, and I have to put in work to fix it. Which defeats one of the points of published adventures.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But... there are mechanics for regulating this. The DMG has options for changing the resting rules right there. You don't want your PC's resting so often? Fine, change the resting rules. Let's see your party crank out long rests when long rests require a safe place and a week. Poof, end of problem.

No, just shifting of the problem. Now you've gone from not being able to run a slow-paced hex-crawl without issues to not being able to run a fast-paced dungeon raid without issues.

5e presents some things, like MCing & Feats, as options that the DM can flick on or off, and others, like the core resolution mechanic, as things he can rule on case by case. The problem is that rest timing is the former, when the cleaning up after the elephant in the room requires the latter.

Okay, guideline instead of rule then. But also, the example only says that the typical party can handle about 6-8 medium to hard encounters before needing to rest.

That's not an example. If it's an example, what party are we talking about? Is it Regdar, Lidda, Mialee & Jozan?

A 1 or 2 encounter day however is problematic for several reasons, which are fundamental to the design of the game, and which can't be changed without an extensive rewrite of classes and monsters.

True, of course. For that matter, a 6-8 Encounter day with no short rest would also have serious issues, as would an 8-encounter day with 7 short rests.

Because of the notorious 5MWD, encounters/day is very much the focus, but short rests/long rest is also critical.

I like that, just triple all of the short rest powers and give everyone two "healing surges" where they can spend hit die as a free action and you're done.

I've seen the tripling (or doubling) suggestion before, and it seems roughly workable on the surface. There isn't a strict daily allotment for short-rest resources, though, the guideline is not too strong, but seems to be 2-3. That'd be tripling or quadrupling short-rest resources to make them 'daily,' which is a lot (especially for the warlock, like, wow).

Anyway, in a dialed-up, very deadly encounter, the party will have to drop its most powerful resources to turn the tide quickly and have a chance at survival, which means being able to drop a short-rest ability 6 times instead of 2 might not make much difference, while being able to toss your 2 or 3 most powerful daily recharge abilities might make all the difference.

The 'healing surge' idea, bringing use-on-a-short-rest HD into it, as well as recharge-on-a-short rest, would help get you a long enough combat for that to all shake out. So that's a new wrinkle on the idea. Without it, an encounter that's tough enough to challenge the party is tough enough to wipe it out if it's not wiped out by the party's 'nova.' With it, you can make a very tough encounter, indeed, and the party can stay alive long enough for those extra uses to matter.

Then there's still the odd daily resource like Rage that run for a whole encounter. Getting to 'blow them all in a big encounter' means little.

And, of course, it's 'dissociated' as all heck for those who care about such things -puts the idea of simply floating the time required to get rest benefits based on the situation & pacing of the campaign looks tame by comparison - but they wouldn't be trying to 'balance' anything, in the first place...

 

[guachi]

I like that, just triple all of the short rest powers and give everyone two "healing surges" where they can spend hit die as a free action and you're done.

I've mentioned this before, but I basically did that. Only I doubled short rest abilities instead of triple. I figured the versatility of not needing to rest offset having fewer.

Though in my current game I tripled them as I extended a long rest to one week. Or, more precisely, players get long rest's worth of abilities back in seven days. I divided up the abilities by how many you get in seven days and portioned them out throughout the week. Once it's done it's easy enough to hand it to the players and they can see when they get abilities back. It helps that my game world has months of four seven-day weeks.

For example, if you get four 1st level spells per long rest you get them back on M-W-F-Su and if you get three 2nd level spells you get them back on T-Th-Sa.

Yes, it's a bit messy, but once it's done it's easy enough to simply hand each player a list with the day of the month and the resources they get back. I've used it once but the players still found it useful to rest once and get a few resources back and finish the dungeon.

I liked it. The long-term players liked it. They took it to be a challenge to overcome tricks/traps/creatures using the least amount of resources possible. The newbie player gave me side-eye. He's used to anything goes AL play.

 

[Imaro]

I've mentioned this before, but I basically did that. Only I doubled short rest abilities instead of triple. I figured the versatility of not needing to rest offset having fewer.

Though in my current game I tripled them as I extended a long rest to one week. Or, more precisely, players get long rest's worth of abilities back in seven days. I divided up the abilities by how many you get in seven days and portioned them out throughout the week. Once it's done it's easy enough to hand it to the players and they can see when they get abilities back. It helps that my game world has months of four seven-day weeks.

For example, if you get four 1st level spells per long rest you get them back on M-W-F-Su and if you get three 2nd level spells you get them back on T-Th-Sa.

Yes, it's a bit messy, but once it's done it's easy enough to simply hand each player a list with the day of the month and the resources they get back. I've used it once but the players still found it useful to rest once and get a few resources back and finish the dungeon.

I liked it. The long-term players liked it. They took it to be a challenge to overcome tricks/traps/creatures using the least amount of resources possible. The newbie player gave me side-eye. He's used to anything goes AL play.

Nice... I find actual experience around these ideas helpful. Were there any major issues with the balance of the classes or was it roughly balanced in terms of the short rest and long rest classes once you gave them their allotted resources? I'm actually thinking of trying this out on a one shot basis for a future game.