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

[CapnZapp]

First off published adventures have places to rest and recover that are labeled as such.

Second, even if the short rest is uneventful, you spent spells or HD healing. You don't recover those until a long rest.

Third, if you stop to rest you just gave the enemy an hour to be aware of your intrusion, organize defenses, rest themselves if appropriate. That makes every encounter more difficult.

Stealthily around after taking a rest should be much harder, every creature would be on alert, as appropriate to its intelligence and alignment. You simply won't be able to surprise anyone barring a well played case. Alert creatures will have readied actions all set. Lawful, organized foes will have plans to retreat around every corner.

The point being you don't have upset the rest period to attrition the players.


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This comes across as if written with a complete disregard of my examples.

If you want a reply from me, please engage with my examples (such as desert treks or ocean voyages).

 

[CapnZapp]

I think the adventures do support the multiple encounter adventuring day quite often, and I also think they tend to address resting and areas where resting is possible to some extent; it seems to vary from adventure to adventure. I also thibk that they do address resting within the expectations of the adventure itself when it is appropriate. I don't think that this has come up all that often in the published adventures; there's no example as blatant as the desert travel where the conditions do not allow for a long rest.

The closest example I can think of would be the opening part of Out of the Abyss where the PCs are fleeing their drow captors, and the pursuit is affected by how frequently the PCs stop to rest. I think that if a scenario calls for an alteration to the rest rules in order to evoke a specific effect or theme, then the designeds would not hesitate to incorporate such an alteration. We cannot say for certain though because it hasn't yet come up.

I'd be all for a one page web enhancement in support of each adventure book with advice for new DMs for that adventure, and how to handle rest and things like that. I think that's a good idea and would be useful for new DMs and also for experienced DMs as well.

But I just don't see how this needs to be a change to the core rules. This is an area of the game that will be handled differently by different groups...no need to change the rules to fit one group's or DM's preference.

The example of the desert travel not allowing for ling rests is a really good DM judgment, in my opinion. It is an interesting challenge and it fits the fiction. I can imagine this being in a published adventure, much like the "hard mode" death saves that look to be a part of Tomb of Annihilation. If such DM alterations to rules, whether offered in a published adventure or purely the idea of the DM, are resisted by the players, then there's not much to be done. This edition is designed around DM judgment rather than having hard and fast rules for everything. The players either realize that orthey don't.

Sure but it's a big difference between taking away something the players can point to the PHB and say "it says right here we can rest". Compare to a different wording which says

"Different scenarios require different rest frequencies. The default assumption of the rules is the classic dungeon adventure, and there 1 hour short rests and 8 hour long rests work well. Ask your DM for the specifics for the adventure at hand."

Even having a single (1) official adventure that changes this would be a huge help in swaying the ultra-conservative minds of gamers. But so far nothing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

OK, so you are addressing several different things in these posts. But to start with, I totally disagree that different stories require different resting frequencies.

They require different pacing. If a story plays out over years, you can't play through 6-8 encounters every single day, everyone will be 20th level (or dead) long before the climax. If you're running the fantasy version of 24, you might have 30 encounters in a single 'day.' You might sack out every night in the years-long story, or not slip a wink in the 24 story, so you're not changing rest frequency (much), it's the pacing of how much /action/ there is between any two rests that varies.

The game 'requires' the same resting frequency: 6-8 encounters/2-3 short rest/ long rest. (And it's not a requirement, more a warning label.
WARNING: if you think balance is a joke now, wait until you run a series of single-encounter days, you poor sucker.
WARNING: do not exceed recommended dosage of 6-8 encounters per day. Larger quantities may be toxic to your campaign, symptoms may include character death, loss of friendships, or edition warring.)

the rules for resting certainly shouldn't change from adventure to adventure. You've decided that they don't get to rest in the desert - not because of any meaningful aspect of the fiction, you just don't like it.

It's a desert! That's not just a meaningful aspect of the fiction, it's the defining aspect of a trek through the desert.

But that first encounter ended up being much more deadly than you expected because of some bad tactics and bad die rolls. Now what? You've changed the rules and said they can't rest at all. Not a good solution. Something like the rules for resting should be consistent.

Don't see how that helps. Whether the party's first encounter goes horribly wrong with the next oasis is 3 days away, or when the princes dies in half an hour, you've screwed up. Better to keep an eye on things and not let encounters go that horribly wrong, in the first place.

Sure they can be killed, but it's not likely. You want an edition that acknowledges that the resting mechanic is a "problem" - I think it already does that.

It does, that's why it gives you the 6-8 encounter guideline. Because it doesn't work as well the further you stray from that, it's up to you how to cope. You can apply time pressure until it seems absurd, you can throw in wandering monsters until the PCs are ready to tell them 'take a number,' you can adjust the difficulty of encounters to always be much higher when there's more encounters and much easier when there are many, you can arbitrarily over-emphasize the short-rest PC's particular at-will abilities when there aren't enough short rests, or the long-rest characters' when there aren't enough of those. You can give the PC with no long-rest recharges a magic item with some nice 'daily' special abilities so he can nova along with everyone else in your 1 encounter/day campaign.

That's exactly why the DMG has alternative options - because they're acknowledging that the default design isn't for everybody. You just don't like any of their solutions.

The alternate options are OK, if instead of wanting to generally pace your campaign around 6-8 encounter days, you'd rather pace them around 6-8 encounter weeks or something just as consistently. If you want more flexibility in pacing, they don't work, even swapping among them may not work that well. Giving yourself the same level of flexibility by freely ruling rather resting is possible and how long it takes in each given situation, OTOH, can work.

This is an inherent problem with this type of design.

It is, yes. The 'type of design' being resources that recharge at different intervals and in different quantities for different classes, rendering class balance and encounter balance heavily dependent on a narrow range of pacing.

It's not easy to fix after-market, you'd have to re-design most of the classes, for instance. It's not hard to avoid designing into a game in the first place. Either don't use recharge mechanics, or dole them out fairly evenly. 5e chose to design-in this inherent problem because D&D has always had it to some extent (even in 4e while class balance was robust to changes in pacing, encounter balance could be distorted by a very short 'day'), and a game without the issue wouldn't feel like D&D.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sure but it's a big difference between taking away something the players can point to the PHB and say "it says right here we can rest". Compare to a different wording which says

"Different scenarios require different rest frequencies. The default assumption of the rules is the classic dungeon adventure, and there 1 hour short rests and 8 hour long rests work well. Ask your DM for the specifics for the adventure at hand."

Even having a single (1) official adventure that changes this would be a huge help in swaying the ultra-conservative minds of gamers. But so far nothing.

I'm not saying you're wrong....I get your point. But don't know if the core rules are meant to sway preconceived notions of players.

I expect you may see something along the lines of what you are talking about at some point, but I don't think it's the kind of thing that they feel needs to be addressed so much as something they'll do if it feels right for whatever adventure they are designing.

 

[Sadras]

The DM does have the right to set the rest rules. The players, if they are actually participating in a game, have the right to having some consistency. As the DM think about the campaign type you want to run and set the rest rules accordingly. Also decide at the outset if this will be a game or just story time. A game demands some consistency in the rules, and story time does not. If the ongoing narrative is going to get authority over everything else, then players need to be aware of this at the outset. That way, no one is getting screwed and no one is being a bastard. It will be clearly understood that all participants are servants of the narrative.

No one was suggesting anyone is to get screwed.
Let us take the very first 5e AP - HotDQ:

Episode 1: Greenest in Flames - the village is being attacked, encounters are many and frequent. Std Rest rules apply in this scenario.

Now fast forward a few weeks

Episode 4: On the Road - this takes place over 2 months of travel time and the AP provides a dozen or so encounters that might occur on the road. You're not supposed to run through 6-8 encounters in a day in this chapter - they are supposed to be spaced out, so I imagine the DM can easily change-up the Rest rules in order to get the encounter ratio right to challenge the party. This change would obviously be communicated to the players.

All Capp is suggesting is a variable Rest period depending on the adventure, with the most common being:
Travel and City = Longer Rest Periods, while Dungeon-type sessions = Shorter Rest Periods
And in both instances, unless otherwise specified.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But don't know if the core rules are meant to sway preconceived notions of players.

I think they're more designed to meet expectations, or not challenge said notions, I suppose. 5e has done a very good job of evoking the feel of the classic game. If worshiping the sacred cows and leaving the elephant in the room means they get to keep being the biggest fish in the small pond...

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think they're more designed to meet expectations, or not challenge said notions, I suppose. 5e has done a very good job of evoking the feel of the classic game. If worshiping the sacred cows and leaving the elephant in the room means they get to keep being the biggest fish in the small pond...

I think that evoking a more "classic" feel was intended, sure.

But what I mean is that many players familiar with one or more prior editions may have preconceived notions about how the game should work or how the rules should be followed.

My impression of Cap's players based on his descriptions and some of my own experiences, is that they're heavily influenced by the 3.X/Pathfinder versions of the game. That was the edition that most codified the rules, which to me created a mindset by the players of being able to bypass the DM and go to the book for the rules. Which os why Cap seems so focused having the rules he wants in the book. I could certai ly be wrong about some or all of that, but it's my impression.

With that in mind, I don't think that a new edition should aim to break down habits or preconceptions based on past editions. I think it's more important for a new edition to say what it is, rather than what it's not.

Would players who are only familiar with 5E and it's approach (rulings not rules, DM empowerment, etc.) really expect to be able to point to the rules to counter a DM ruling? Or is that some kind of holdover from playing a prior edition? And if so, is it really 5E's responsibility to address that kind of behavior?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think that evoking a more "classic" feel was intended, sure.

But what I mean is that many players familiar with one or more prior editions may have preconceived notions about how the game should work or how the rules should be followed.

My impression of Cap's players based on his descriptions and some of my own experiences, is that they're heavily influenced by the 3.X/Pathfinder versions of the game.

Sure. I think he may have said as much at some point. As much a d20 game as it is, 5e does seem to cater more to the expectations of players of the classic game. And, sure, the way it leans heavily on the DM is contrary to the 'RAW' expectations of the 3.x community.

OTOH, the DM-led variable-resting solution he's championing is very much at odds with that RAW emphasis, and, IMHO, in keeping with the spirit of 5e's DM Empowerment, and could shore up 5e's encounter guidelines. So that's... interesting.

Maybe the designers had a little trouble extricating themselves from some 3.x era preconceptions, too?

With that in mind, I don't think that a new edition should aim to break down habits or preconceptions based on past editions. I think it's more important for a new edition to say what it is, rather than what it's not.

Certainly 5e was conceived with the idea of being true to past editions, particularly the classic TSR editions, and to those tropes shared by all editions. It very different from the other WotC editions in being DM-focused, DM-empowering, and depending very much upon the judgment of the DM, rather than focusing on players' options - and the idea of the DM exercising judgment when it comes to whether resting is possible and how long it might take, seems very consistent with what it is.

Would players who are only familiar with 5E and it's approach (rulings not rules, DM empowerment, etc.) really expect to be able to point to the rules to counter a DM ruling?

I wouldn't think so, no. There was some of that 'rules lawyering' back in the day, certainly, but the whole RAW/'rewards for system mastery' paradigm was very much a 3e thing.

Or is that some kind of holdover from playing a prior edition? And if so, is it really 5E's responsibility to address that kind of behavior?

Ironically, I suppose 5e should have some 'module' where the DM commits to catering to that kind of behavior, in the name of being 'for' fans of 3.x, as well as those of the other editions.

 

[hawkeyefan]

All Capp is suggesting is a variable Rest period depending on the adventure, with the most common being:
Travel and City = Longer Rest Periods, while Dungeon-type sessions = Shorter Rest Periods
And in both instances, unless otherwise specified.

I think this is fine for those that want this type of rest dynamic. I get the notion of balancing the number of encounters between resta across days to keep them in line from an attrition standpoint.

But the problem with this, for me at least, is that the logic behind it only stands if there is some mitigating factor...such as travel through a harsh environment, like the desert in CapnZapp's example. If the PCs are traveling through a temperate region at a normal pace with standard travel concerns, then it stops making sense. At that point, it means that going through encounter after encounter in a dungeon is less tiring than walking along a road.

My other concern is the impact that this would have on spell durations and other game elements that are based on a single day timeframe. These would all have to be changed. I don't think there are a ton of these, but it's an area of concern. It can likely be abdicated on the fly...but then that defeats the purpose of having a system in place.

For me, I tend not to focus on extended travel, so having this altered rest mechanic as a standard rule does not appeal to me. I usually narrate past extended travel, unless there are encounters I want to have happen along the way. Or unless I wanted to make this particular trip stand out. Altering rest mechanics is a good way for travel to stand out, especially when tied to a game world element like the environment.

 

[Sadras]

But the problem with this, for me at least, is that the logic behind it only stands if there is some mitigating factor...such as travel through a harsh environment, like the desert in CapnZapp's example. If the PCs are traveling through a temperate region at a normal pace with standard travel concerns, then it stops making sense. At that point, it means that going through encounter after encounter in a dungeon is less tiring than walking along a road.

What is the logic of 6-8 encounters per day? Why does that make sense? Why is the rest mechanic the issue and not the 6-8 encounters?

My other concern is the impact that this would have on spell durations and other game elements that are based on a single day timeframe. These would all have to be changed.

Disagree. Read up on episode 4 of HotDQ and tell me which spells you feel need to be changed for that chapter.