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

[Oofta]

I would not do that, but I kept Short Rest as one hour (having converted most short rest powers to long rest x3) which has an equivalent effect. PCs go in the dungeon/site, have an Adventuring Day's worth of encounters with a couple short rests to spend hit dice, then withdraw to place of safety to long rest. The Goodberries are available for the 6-12 hours the PCs are actually in the dungeon.

Edit: This makes Leomund's Tiny Hut a lot less overpowered, something I am ABSOLUTELY FINE with.
That and Mordy's MM just give my variant Overnight Rest which restores 1 hp/level and 1 level of
exhaustion. Though I think the 5-star service of MMM might be worth 2 hp/level and 2 levels of
exhaustion if you stay the full 24 hours.

How long an adventuring day is really has more to do with storytelling pace and type of story. If I did more dungeon crawls or had emergencies that had to be resolved in 24 hours I'd use the standard rules. I just found I couldn't come up with excuses to not let people get long rests on a regular basis from a story perspective.


Not a big deal one way or the other, but not having the standard number of encounters between long rests takes away some of the resource management aspect of the game and makes classes with recharge relatively more powerful.

 

[Soul Stigma]

I agree. We have opted for a modified gritty system. See attachment.
Short Rest powers have been converted into Long Rest powers. Class features like Arcane Tradition which are rechargable every day, but usable after a Short Rest - remain the same, but we have switched to a Short Break instead of a Short Rest for narrative purposes.

*Rolls a natural 20 for Stealth, a modified 21 for Sleight of Hand and absconds with cool new rest house rule*


Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

 

[Ilbranteloth]

But, yes, 5e is less deadly than, for example, 1e. Some people really enjoy it, others not as much. If you don't like the rules on resting, there is a simple solution available to you- change the rules. There are numerous semi-official (DMs Guide) and unofficial variants for resting and healing you can use. Use them!

Funny thing, since I continue to go through the older books regularly, 5e is more deadly than 1e when it comes to dying.

In 1e, when you reached 0 hp, you had 9 rounds before you died (those are 1 minute rounds). An "optional" rule (really a sentence) says you could be knocked down to as low as -3. That's still 6 rounds before you die.

Now, you didn't get death saves. Each round you lost 1 hit point. But all that had to happen was another player had to spend a round tending to your wounds. No healer's kit. No skill check. Automatically stabilized at 0 hit points.

BUT - you were in a coma for 10 to 60 minutes, and then all you could do was move slowly for a minimum of a full week. Even with healing potions or magic short of a heal spell, you were out of commission for a full week.

What was more deadly were things like poison, which were usually save or die.

In response to the original post:

I have changed the rules on resting and short rest/long rest abilities and the like for slightly different reasons, but it resolves any of these types of problems too.

But until then, the the primary solution was simple for us:

The characters are people, and we treated them as such. We didn't treat them as pawns in a game. They have goals, regular lives, and their habits. It was essentially an agreement that they would treat the day as a day. And they would rest at appropriate times. Part of it was simply that we didn't want the rules to change the way our characters acted from before we switched to 5e.

Another fun fact - AD&D required rests. "A party should be required to rest at least one turn in six (remember, the average party packs a lot of equipment), and, in addition, they should rest for a turn after every time they engage in combat or any other strenuous activities. (Remember that a turn is 10 minutes.)

It mentions that wandering monsters are possible, but "may be moderated somewhat, depending on conditions" and "Too frequent interruptions may make spell recovery impossible."

So there were no actual consequences for not resting, but guidelines for the DM to give them a break when they did rest.

I do agree that "adding time restraints" is not a good answer. Nor am I a fan of punitive random encounters. The easiest rules fix is that you can only benefit a long rest once/day (as noted), and you can only benefit from a short rest every 4 or 6 hours (two per day, or whatever number is appropriate for your campaign). To me it has nothing to do with the number of encounters.

That's the rule side of the equation. The rest of the equation is the players agreeing not to think in terms of game mechanics and get on with the adventure. We expect that they'll take at least a few minutes break after a combat, they'll stop for lunch, and probably an afternoon breather, before stopping for dinner and to set up camp for the night. We expect that the pattern for a daily life will remain the same as usual.

In other words, focus on the characters and their actions in the game world, and don't worry about the inconsistency that the rules make. If they bother you enough, though, you'll have to change them. Either by using one of the alternatives in the DMG, or the many home-brews or your own design.

 

[ddaley]

I agree. This is a completely contrived issue that has a simple solution (to a non-issue) that he is rejecting for a inane reason.

This "resting" issue has not been an issue for our group. I guess my group tends to feel a sense of urgency... or at least responsibility to the story. They are usually saying "Let's just go do this and that before resting"... which usually gets them into trouble. But, in our last session, cantrips and minimal healing on the most injured saved the day.

I don't understand the question. The time constraints answer is not "dishonest" (what an odd word to use); it's the correct answer. The GM creates the adventure and the events that transpire within the game world; the game company creates the ruleset. I guess if you're asking why the published *adventures* don't acknowledge that aspect of the rules to your satisfaction, the answer *is* change the adventure, or use a different adventure. I know that's not the answer you want, but that is the answer -ts not a rules issue, it's a GMing technique issue.

That aside, I've never noticed it to be a problem in the 5E games I've run.



The rulebooks don't contain the story. The GM does. The rulebooks also don't tell you that goblins attack the party, or that the evil necromancer is trying to rule the Great Desert, or that there's a lava field between the party and the pyromancer's pyramid. Or that the party has a time constraint. Story-driven stuff is the GM's domain.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I really don't think [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] is as out of line as many posters here seem to think. The fact that the published adventures completely avoid talking about rest is quite an interesting point. Dungeons should indicate whether places suitable for long rests have been designed in (or what criteria might need to be met in order for a long rest to be possible). And how short rests might be accomplished in the same dungeon.

Publishing an adventure without reference to key mechanics (and, sorry [MENTION=6780961]Yunru[/MENTION], gravity is not a mechanic) that must have been considered during the design of the adventure is puzzling IMHO - why should the DM have to reverse engineer it at the table?

When you say "what criteria might need to be met in order for a long rest to be possible" it doesn't make any sense to me. Why? Because to me a long rest is a good night's sleep. So anyplace you (as a character) feel you can make that happen is suitable. It might fail. You might find yourself in the position of the characters in the Hobbit when the place they stopped for a rest dumped them into the goblins' lair.

Not every time. And certainly not as a punitive action by the DM.

But I'm not one to try to "game" the system, "Hey, you don't even need to sleep to benefit from a long rest, heh, heh..."

Yeah, whatever.

The game needs a system to regain hit points and abilities "naturally" and the rules are based on the very simple concept that people take a few breaks during a day, have a couple of meals, and stop for the night to get some sleep. So if you simply approach the game from that perspective, then there really isn't an issue.

The answer to me has always returned to treating the character like a person in a world, not a bunch of stats interacting with the rules of a game. People are creatures of habit. Most like something to eat in the morning, they get on with the day, take a quick break at some point, have lunch, maybe another break in the afternoon, then stop for the day, make dinner, and relax, then get to bed for a good night's sleep. They don't like to be bored, tend not to like to wait around and do nothing, and have goals and a certain amount of productivity they expect to accomplish for the day.

If you just survived a combat, you'll probably want a snack, a few sips of water, and a few minutes to catch your breath and recover. Then move on. If you (as a DM and group) decide that a 10-15 minute break following a combat is sufficient to warrant healing a few hit points and refreshing your abilities, then great. Change the rule from 1 hour to 10 minutes.

On the other hand, if you think they should only be able to replenish their abilities a couple of times a day, then tie it into their meals. You can take a short rest when you have a meal.

If you have the types of players that decide they are going to sit down for an hour long meal after every combat... Well, first I think you need to discuss expectations. What are they really looking to accomplish? If they are going to insist on this charade no matter what rule you make, then why fight it? Really.

But if you want to go there, then fine. You can have a meal at every rest, and sufficient water. You'll also find that you need to carry a lot more food and water with you. Oh, and after a few weeks your armor doesn't fit anymore. You'll need to purchase some more. Also, you've now gotten large enough that you have disadvantage on Dexterity checks and saving throws.

Don't want to sleep - fine. Make a Constitution save each hour or suffer a level of exhaustion.

 

[Lanefan]

Funny thing, since I continue to go through the older books regularly, 5e is more deadly than 1e when it comes to dying.

In 1e, when you reached 0 hp, you had 9 rounds before you died (those are 1 minute rounds). An "optional" rule (really a sentence) says you could be knocked down to as low as -3. That's still 6 rounds before you die.

Where are you seeing this?

EDIT: Never mind, found it.

Another fun fact - AD&D required rests. "A party should be required to rest at least one turn in six (remember, the average party packs a lot of equipment), and, in addition, they should rest for a turn after every time they engage in combat or any other strenuous activities. (Remember that a turn is 10 minutes.)

It mentions that wandering monsters are possible, but "may be moderated somewhat, depending on conditions" and "Too frequent interruptions may make spell recovery impossible."

So there were no actual consequences for not resting, but guidelines for the DM to give them a break when they did rest.

Agreed on this; which made the presence of one or more healers in the party somewhat essential, for when rest wasn't viable for whatever reason.

Lan-"no rest for the wicked, and even less rest for the good"-efan

 

[robus]

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], the point is: these published adventures should be exemplars of how the rules and guidelines can be used to build adventures. They should be teaching tools for DMs wanting to create their own adventures. Not explaining (or at least giving reference to) design decisions made during the adventure creation is a missed opportunity IMHO. It doesn't help new DMs see the underlying design patterns that they can repurpose for themselves. Telling DMs to ignore the rules or change the rules misses the point.

 

[Lanefan]

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], the point is: these published adventures should be exemplars of how the rules and guidelines can be used to build adventures. They should be teaching tools for DMs wanting to create their own adventures. Not explaining (or at least giving reference to) design decisions made during the adventure creation is a missed opportunity IMHO. It doesn't help new DMs see the underlying design patterns that they can repurpose for themselves. Telling DMs to ignore the rules or change the rules misses the point.

While I completely agree that DMs should be given this material, shouldn't it be in the DMG (or its own book) if only to avoid having it repeated in every adventure?

Lanefan

 

[robus]

While I completely agree that DMs should be given this material, shouldn't it be in the DMG (or its own book) if only to avoid having it repeated in every adventure?

Lanefan

A separate PDF giving insight into the design decisions would be awesome and I think I proposed that earlier here (or in another thread). But for something as fundamental as how the adventure anticipates resting I think that should be in the adventure itself.

 

[Lanefan]

A separate PDF giving insight into the design decisions would be awesome and I think I proposed that earlier here (or in another thread). But for something as fundamental as how the adventure anticipates resting I think that should be in the adventure itself.

If markedly different from some accepted norm, perhaps....as in, say, if the adventure is set up such that the PCs will not be able to rest at all through a lot of it. Otherwise, it's a less important what-if than some others that are often missed e.g. what if the PCs approach from a different direction.

Also, having written (but never yet published) a few adventures I know I've never given any thought at all as to how and when parties will rest, or to any other aspect of how they'll approach the thing unless the adventure itself has something really unusual to it (e.g. the whole place is a wild magic zone), in part because there's no way to know. One group might go steaming in the front door aiming to either one-shot the place or die trying, another might nibble at the edges for weeks before venturing deep inside, a third might spend ages searching for a back door or other non-obvious entry, while a fourth might wade in but fully rest up after every single encounter.

Lan-"the module writer can't account for every 'what-if', though some could do better and at least try to catch a few"-efan