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

[clearstream]

That is why the rules should have empowered the adventure writer or DM to vary the rest durations for each adventure in the same campaign with the exact same heroes.

The PHB could still have presented 1 hour and 8 hours as the assumed default. When the DMG and the DM doesn't say otherwise.

Point is: just changing it to five minutes/1 hour fixes nothing. Likewise, setting it to 1 day/1 week does not help.

The only true fix (apart from completely changing the mechanism, see "Encounter Points" for example) is to accept that for one adventure a 5 minute short rest is perfect, but for another its 1 day.

I predict that just as D&D has dragged the conservative naysayers screaming and kicking into the modern world so many times before*, it will happen again

*) remember when there were alignment restrictions on class, level restrictions on race, Hats of Non-Detection, months-long Charm Person spells, ten-round pre-combat buff parties, scry and teleport slaughters...? You shudder too? Ayep, the day will come when D&Ders will scratch their heads wondering why it took so many editions before the fixed rest sacred cow was slaughtered too.

Indeed! Just to be clear, even though I am trying "calendar-rest" solutions that play with the rest duration, I believe that ultimately what is needed are resilient mechanics that support DMs. Which will need to be hooked up to expectations about the XP worth of encounters (including non-combat!) that PCs are managing their resources over.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I predict that just as D&D has dragged the conservative naysayers screaming and kicking into the modern world so many times before*, it will happen again

Ha! 5e is all about da classic feelz.

*) remember when there were alignment restrictions on class, level restrictions on race, Hats of Non-Detection, months-long Charm Person spells, ten-round pre-combat buff parties, scry and teleport slaughters...? You shudder too? Ayep, the day will come when D&Ders will scratch their heads wondering why it took so many editions before the fixed rest sacred cow was slaughtered too.

Thing is, the status quo in 5e tilts the game towards parties long-resting more often relative to short resting (if 1 hr is easy to take off, 8 hrs isn't exactly out of the question; if the party is without magical healing for any reason, after waiting d4 hours for dropped allies to wake up, and another for them to be able to spend HD, why not finish our a long rest for everyone else, too, etc) and more often than the 6-8 encounter guideline. Which favors traditional* casters and makes encounters easier than their nominal CR. Which is what the fanbase wants.

More generally, WotC doesn't seem up to slaughtering any of the other sacred cows they've only recently resurrected, either, for that matter.














* Not that traditional casters are that traditional, anymore, with wizards &c having at-will cantrips & casting spontaneously, but apparently breaking with tradition is fine if it gives wizards /more/ toys.

 

[Hussar]

I'm a little confused.

How does campaign pacing impact world building? That's been stated as a more or less given, but, in my mind, they have nothing to do with each other.

Again, just because my PC's meet X encounters in Y period doesn't really have any larger meaning. I'm honestly baffled by this attempt to link pacing to world building.

 

[Ancalagon]

This is getting off topic, but it is a bit ludicrous that civilized areas are not mostly safe for high level characters. If they are not they are not inhabitable essentially...

Point being, if I, the DM, decide that the king dies of sepsis after being gored by a boat, I should be able to do so. Even though that completely bypasses the rules of the game.

Yeah, those boats sure are dangerous!

 

[Hussar]

Sigh. You make one typo.

 

[Lanefan]

Sigh. You make one typo.

Yeah, but it's such a good one!

 

[clearstream]

I'm a little confused.

How does campaign pacing impact world building? That's been stated as a more or less given, but, in my mind, they have nothing to do with each other.

Again, just because my PC's meet X encounters in Y period doesn't really have any larger meaning. I'm honestly baffled by this attempt to link pacing to world building.

It is true that if something does not have "any larger meaning" for you, then it will be hard to see how it could have any larger meaning. Setting aside that tautology, a couple of facets are security and logistics. If our world applies random encounters consistently then what we decide for our random encounter tables will be reflected in our settlements and culture. Deadly encounters on the doorstep of settlements helps sustain a points-of-light setting: travel is risky, mundane communication is limited, cultures develop separate identities. Logistically, it's harder to move resources in such a world, and a large share of such resources as are available is consumed by the maintenance of defensive forces. Conversely, if our civilisation has pushed everything really dangerous into the hinterlands, then we might expect the emergence of more and larger polities comprising multiple settlements with shared identities. Possibly some losers of the clash between such a civilisation and autochthonous peoples will remain to disrupt things. Similarly our mechanics for eking out supernal power matter. A world in which spell casts are cheap (or common) is different from one in which casts are expensive (or rare). A simple thought experiment is to change the pacing costs of one spell - Animate Dead. Say it lasts one week and we always get to recover the spell slot in one day. Necromancers gain power and more of them will be found in, or at the head of, the courts or other centers of power in our game world. One only has to look at each class ability or spell and ask - what if this was more frequent, or less frequent, in my world? What are the knock on effects?

I acknowledge that creating a fully realised, perfectly consistent world cannot be done based on RPG mechanics. I disagree that we cannot reflect on those mechanics and incorporate them meaningfully into our game worlds.

 

[Sadras]

Short Rest
A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 3 hours long.

Extended Short Rest
An extended short rest is a period of downtime, at least 8 hours long. Along with the standard benefits of a short rest, an extended short rest allows characters to reduce exhaustion, examine or attune magic items, and train. A character can’t benefit from more than one extended short rest in a 24 hour period.

Long Rest
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 24 hours long. After taking one, a character can’t benefit from another for 24 hours.

I made this change as a halfway house between standard and Gritty Realism. I wanted mechanically meaningful easy and medium encounters (often as random encounters) without slowing the travel pace to a crawl. I found a need to move "world effects" into an extended short rest. My concept for that is there are no character ability recoveries there, only other things. Possibly hit point maximum drain could recover on extended short rests. What do you think?

(a) It still allows for the Short Rest recharge without requiring house rules for converting Short Rest abilities to daily uses;
(b) It mitigates the effect Rope Trick/Leomund's Hut spells on the Rest Mechanics; and
(c) It thematically makes sense without the jarring gritty system's one-week requirement to learn spells.

In a word, Brilliant!, but I will give you another Elegant!
My house-rule system only did (b) and (c) and fixed a HD issue I had. This is infinitely better - consider it borrowed.

 

[Imaro]

It is true that if something does not have "any larger meaning" for you, then it will be hard to see how it could have any larger meaning. Setting aside that tautology, a couple of facets are security and logistics. If our world applies random encounters consistently then what we decide for our random encounter tables will be reflected in our settlements and culture.

I am still trying to understand why this is a given though (well outside of personal preference)... why should or do the encounters for PC's have to apply to the populace at large? I've seen no real explanation for why this must be true... well again except for personal preference and at that point it kind of proves this isn't an objective thing but instead something a particular DM chooses to make true in his world and thus chooses to create the associated problems around it.

Deadly encounters on the doorstep of settlements helps sustain a points-of-light setting: travel is risky, mundane communication is limited, cultures develop separate identities. Logistically, it's harder to move resources in such a world, and a large share of such resources as are available is consumed by the maintenance of defensive forces. Conversely, if our civilisation has pushed everything really dangerous into the hinterlands, then we might expect the emergence of more and larger polities comprising multiple settlements with shared identities. Possibly some losers of the clash between such a civilisation and autochthonous peoples will remain to disrupt things. Similarly our mechanics for eking out supernal power matter. A world in which spell casts are cheap (or common) is different from one in which casts are expensive (or rare). A simple thought experiment is to change the pacing costs of one spell - Animate Dead. Say it lasts one week and we always get to recover the spell slot in one day. Necromancers gain power and more of them will be found in, or at the head of, the courts or other centers of power in our game world. One only has to look at each class ability or spell and ask - what if this was more frequent, or less frequent, in my world? What are the knock on effects?

But again with the effects of BA those stragglers who are disrupting civilization can be deadly encounters without a massive increase in numbers. We can have a band of 10 bandits who are any CR we want and yet their limited numbers makes it suicide for them to openly and brazenly attack a settlement. This is what I've been trying to convey (I think unsuccessfully) throughout this conversation... there is no one set D&D X (where X is a monster). As part of the game any X can be modified or even created anew in any way the DM wants thus it becomes a wholly self imposed problem when you choose to make your deadly encounter for a party of 3rd level characters 20 (CR 1/8 cultists) vs. say 8 (CR 1/2) cultists. The logistics, effect on environment, worldbuilding implications, etc. are totally different for one encounter vs. the other... even without assuming the encounters are a mechanic for player interaction as opposed to a generator for worldbuilding.

It's being claimed there are implications in using 3 deadly encounters to balance the game... while I'm saying the construction of said encounters can vary those implications so much that unless you mean it in the most generic sense possible (as in any encounter balance system will have implications) then it's a moot point

I acknowledge that creating a fully realised, perfectly consistent world cannot be done based on RPG mechanics. I disagree that we cannot reflect on those mechanics and incorporate them meaningfully into our game worlds.

Yes but we also have to look at the flexibility of said mechanics and out own responsibility in their use. Again if I decide to have 20 CR 1/8 cultists in a small hamlet of 50 people vs. 8 CR 1/2 cultists in said hamlet... the worldbulding implications are different for eac h even though they are both "deadly" encounters for my 3rd level party... determining how to fit the right deadly encounters into the world so it makes sense in your campaign is the part the DM has to take responsibility for.

 

[Maxperson]

But again with the effects of BA those stragglers who are disrupting civilization can be deadly encounters without a massive increase in numbers. We can have a band of 10 bandits who are any CR we want and yet their limited numbers makes it suicide for them to openly and brazenly attack a settlement. This is what I've been trying to convey (I think unsuccessfully) throughout this conversation... there is no one set D&D X (where X is a monster). As part of the game any X can be modified or even created anew in any way the DM wants thus it becomes a wholly self imposed problem when you choose to make your deadly encounter for a party of 3rd level characters 20 (CR 1/8 cultists) vs. say 8 (CR 1/2) cultists. The logistics, effect on environment, worldbuilding implications, etc. are totally different for one encounter vs. the other... even without assuming the encounters are a mechanic for player interaction as opposed to a generator for worldbuilding.

It's being claimed there are implications in using 3 deadly encounters to balance the game... while I'm saying the construction of said encounters can vary those implications so much that unless you mean it in the most generic sense possible (as in any encounter balance system will have implications) then it's a moot point

Whether you have 20 1/8th cultists, or 8 1/2 cultists, those farmers being sacrificed aren't going to be able to resist. In a deadly world like that, farming dies unless moved withing city walls or a standing army patrols constantly. Both of those constitute world building. The framework of the world shifts according to the deadliness of the encounter tables.

Yes but we also have to look at the flexibility of said mechanics and out own responsibility in their use. Again if I decide to have 20 CR 1/8 cultists in a small hamlet of 50 people vs. 8 CR 1/2 cultists in said hamlet... the worldbulding implications are different for eac h even though they are both "deadly" encounters for my 3rd level party... determining how to fit the right deadly encounters into the world so it makes sense in your campaign is the part the DM has to take responsibility for.

First, most people in a hamlet aren't fighting types, so making it so that an entire hamlet comes out to fight would be a feat of world building. Second, they aren't going to be all standing in a group 24/7, so they will be picked off and whittled down by raids unless they world build defenses that hamlets typically don't have.