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

[Corwin]

As soon as you feel you belong to this group, feel free to stop reading threads with such subjects

Aren't you the guy that goes bat-S when anyone even hints at telling you to go away?

Also, my point remains. I would guess most players of 5e would consider over emphasis, or constant worrying, about "resting attrition or strategic balance" as actively detrimental to their enjoyment of the game. Care to refute that? Cool beans. You're free to do so. Heck, I'd welcome an actual conversation. But playing the "go away" card is just scandalously hypocritical of you, doncha think?

 

[CapnZapp]

Also, my point remains. I would guess most players of 5e would consider over emphasis, or constant worrying, about resting attrition or strategic balance as actively detrimental to their enjoyment of the game.

I don't have any problems accepting that.

It's just utterly irrelevant to the thread. I'm not most players.

If you don't find resting attrition or strategic balance important and vital areas of the game, why are you even here? My discussion is predicated on that resting attrition is prescribed but not enforced, and that this makes the game balance hang in tatters because of it.

 

[Corwin]

I don't have any problems accepting that.

It's just utterly irrelevant to the thread. I'm not most players.

I guess, good thing my post wasn't in response to you, but to someone else who brought up those very points?

If you don't find resting attrition or strategic balance important and vital areas of the game, why are you even here?

To turn the "go away" card around... If you don't find 5e's considerations, or lack thereof, towards the importance of, or lack thereof, resting attrition or strategic balance, why are you even here? My offer to help you find a system/edition, that more adequately enforces such important (to you) aspects of play, stands.

 

[CapnZapp]

Right, and I spent a looooooong time pouring through not one, but now a second published adventure, to address your point directly. And I tied it back to those rules, which you did raise. And now it would appear you are, once again, punting and cutting 95% of my response. I am starting to wonder if you wanted your question answered, or if you were just trying to tell everyone what you thought without a conversation about it.

Right. You actually did.

I missed that because when you started debating semantics I skipped the rest of your post.

But here it is:

I do have Storm King's Thunder handy. I am not going to go page by page through that adventure though, because you already demonstrated that's mostly a waste of my time as you will just dismiss it as "one adventure". But I will say the adventure does have similar references all over the place to random encounters, it has a huge section in chapter three on the topic, it gives some guidelines on how to use it, and includes this text:

"Characters exploring the North are likely to encounter wandering monsters. Such encounters can occur as often as you like-but keep in mind that too many random encounters can bog down the adventure and cause players to lose interest in the story. You can roll on the Random Wilderness Encounters table or choose an appropriate encounter. Each encounter is described in more detail after the table. For guidelines on how to use random encounters effectively, see "Random Encounters" in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master's Guide..."

And then it proceeds to provide a truly huge list of random encounters and variations based on the terrain the characters are traversing and a change for percentage odds based on that terrain, including Forest, Grassland, Hills, Moors, Mountains, Roads, Trails, Sea, and Tundra. And every one of those encounters has a full write-up.

Then there is a second section just for Ice Wind Dale random encounters, with similar level of detailing.

Then there is a third section just for random encounters during Air Travel.

There are also several multi-stage combat situations and patrol situations that can also put constraints on too much resting.

Now you might say that most of these are non-dungeon oriented, and you'd be right. But, that's because this adventure is non-dungeon oriented. It's an adventure that involves a lot of travel, outdoors. So the encounters are tailored to the adventure. But if you try to overdo resting during this adventure, they've given you the tools to interrupt that, and to keep the adventure moving and drain the character resources if they try to do that.

And it's not some huge burden on the DM. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. If the issue arises where you as the DM feel the party is resting too often and the adventure is bogging down from that or meaningfully being altered because of it, the adventure gives you an easy tool to use to address it. All you need to do is roll either a percentage dice or d20, depending on the location, and you have your random encounter to interrupt the rest with. Or you can skip that step and just choose an appropriate random encounter. Either way, not a lot of burden on the DM there, as the adventure writer went to a lot of effort to create some detailed encounters for you to use, complete with descriptions and stats and tactics and treasure and terrain suggestions and everything.

I hope I do not get another "but that's just one adventure" hand-waive response. If me looking through the two adventures I have here (and it's not like we're talking about a looooong list of adventures that are out for 5e) isn't enough to demonstrate this issue is in fact considered by both the rules and the adventures, then I'd suggest you're trying to "win" an argument more than actually get to the bottom of your question regarding whether it's an issue that's addressed.

Okay, so you've proven adventures do contain random encounters. And you know what? You're completely right. They all do that.

The problem is, that's just such an unsatisfactory and incomplete and easily circumvented solution I didn't even count it.

(I mean, I must have mentioned it, especially in conjunction with my emphasis on mid- to high level play. But rather than to go back and check, I give you the issue)

So what do I want then?

I guess the simplest answer is in that poster granting action points to BBEGs when heroes rest. Or the suggestion to add better loot if you don't rest. Or now, my other thread about Angry's Time Pool (or Rest Dice or whatever he calls it).

Resting is a problem. Why? Because it short-circuits the challenge of the game. (And because it changes the balance of classes I guess) Is it a story problem? No, it is a mechanical problem. It only exists in the context of the rules, not the story.

That's my purest beef with Flamestrike & Co telling me to write restrictions into the story: I don't want to.

Not merely because I don't want to be the one solving a problem created by the rules, or even because I can't purchase published modules that solve it to my satisfaction.

I don't want rules that don't handle its own balancing issues internally. I don't want to have to consider rests when I write the dragon's ransom note for the Princess. I want a ruleset that works equally well if the seven tasks of Hercules take place over a single day or over 12 years (to exaggerate slightly).

Why wasn't this important in earlier editions? Because rest frequency and encounter guidelines weren't such a strict part of earlier editions, that's why! (If a game focuses on the single encounter, and makes every encounter potentially lethal on its own, it really doesn't matter if you fight the Nemean Lion and the Lernaean Hydra back to back or on different years) It's 5E that makes this important, so it's 5E (as in the rules, not the story) that needs to provide the means to make it important!

 

[CapnZapp]

My offer to help you find a system/edition, that more adequately enforces such important (to you) aspects of play, stands.

Your attempts at making abandoning 5e a reasonable alternative are not appreciated, and this is not the first time I am asking you to stop "helping" me switch games.

This time I'm not asking.

 

[Krachek]

I don't have any problems accepting that.

It's just utterly irrelevant to the thread. I'm not most players.

If you don't find resting attrition or strategic balance important and vital areas of the game, why are you even here? My discussion is predicated on that resting attrition is prescribed but not enforced, and that this makes the game balance hang in tatters because of it.

I think DnD require players with a certain will to be part of a good story.
Don't forget DnD is a role playing game, the more player play the rules instead of the role, the more imbalance will arise.
The game is setup for role play and not shielded against rest abuser.

 

[Ashkelon]

If the game had been designed around shoe rests and the assumption that players will have 2 or so encounters between short rests, most of these problems go away. Especially if classes with daily abilities had significantly fewer of them, but regained some during short rests.

The nova problem would go away because players wouldn't be able to spend resources meant for 6-8 encounters in a single fight.

The balance between classes would have been easier to tune as at-will, daily, and per short rest abilities are much easier to account for with fewer assumed encounters between rests.

The desire for some classes to rest while the rest of the party wants to push on would mostly disappear as more classes would benefit from short rests and fewer classes would have all their capabilities tied to per day resources.

The need for doomsday clocks and random encounters to wage a war of attrition with the party would go away as well as a single day of adventuring would work just as well with 2 encounters and no short rests as it would with 6 encounters and 2 short rests. This allows for a greater range of adventure pacing.

Such a setup would also allow for games that only have a single significant encounter per day. Instead of relying on multiple weaker encounters to whittle away at party resources so that a Boss encounter (which otherwise would not challenge the group at full strength) feels dangerous.

 

[Mistwell]

Okay, so you've proven adventures do contain random encounters. And you know what? You're completely right. They all do that.

The problem is, that's just such an unsatisfactory and incomplete and easily circumvented solution I didn't even count it.

Naw, sorry, that is yet another shifting position for you:

1) First you mentioned the rules don't address this and when I showed they do you shifted to focusing on adventures.
2) Second I went through an adventure and you said it WAS a pretty good response, BUT that it was just one adventure and not representative of the published adventures in general.
3) Third I went through a second adventure and you have shifted again to saying it's an such an unsatisfactory solution that you "didn't count it".

All this, despite earlier saying (and these are direct quotes):

"This does seem to be a magnitude more involved enforcement than Strahd or Abyss. Thank you." and
"Excellent. Now, what are your thoughts about Tyranny, Abyss, Strahd, Thunder and Yawning? Would you say Princes is typical or atypical?" and
"This is exactly what I want, yes." and
"I started this thread because I haven't come across a 5th edition adventure anywhere near this level of attention poured on the question of rest restriction and ways to meet the 6-8 encounter expectation. So Princes get an OK from you. That's great to hear! Any other WotC 5e modules you'd like to share info on?"

There is no reasonable way to go from telling me things like "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT, YES" and "Excellent" and "great to hear!" to "that's just such an unsatisfactory and incomplete and easily circumvented solution I didn't even count it."

That, my friend, is a complete and total shift in your position purely in response to someone actually addressing your point directly. You absolutely "counted" it earlier, and said so, unless you were just blatantly lying earlier when you said it was "EXACTLY" what you wanted and "EXCELLENT". Now it's so far from "exactly" what you wanted that it you "didn't even count it"? BAH LONEY!

So now I am back to asking why? Why would you do something like asking me directly if there were any other WOTC 5e modules that did that and tell me that was an excellent solution and exactly what you were looking for and great to hear, if you actually meant it's so unsatisfactory and incomplete and easily circumvented that you wouldn't even count it? Why would you send me on that kind of wild goose chase if you had no intention of backing up your claimed satisfaction with that solution to begin with?

 

[FrogReaver]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]

Here's the issue in a nutshell.

1. Characters restoring their abilities and hp needs to be tied to an in game action
2. That in game action to restore abilities and hp needs rules
3. Once we have rules governing rests and tying them to in game actions then the narrative section of the game is almost the only place left to do anything about limiting them. (And as you have noticed some stories don't get told well with traditional d&d rests)

The solutions are listed below and follow directly from what happened above:

A. Drop the notion that rests are associated with an in game action
B. Don't have general rest rules but instead let each adventure define it's own rest rules
C. Find story solutions to enforcing rests (this is the current solution for D&D)

 

[Krachek]

Story driven rest make perfect sense in a role playing game.