Level Up (A5E) Rests & Level Up

[Kozos]

How about decoupling ability refresh from rest mechanics? We could have empower and dailies for ability refresh and short/long rest for hp refresh

 

[clearstream]

There shouldn't be any short rest classes. Forcing the gm to design the game/campaign pacing & structure around making sure the design off class A is balanced against the design of class B by plot armor invisible walls & constant doom clocks on top of making sure the plot is interesting, making sure everyone has reasonable chances at the spotlight, deciding how the world reacts to (un)expected PC actions, & so forth is poor design

Quoting my OP...

Rests create design space for ability diversity. Without rests, we can't have nice things like rich class designs. Rests let designers create strong abilities that cannot be used every combat, and weak abilities that can be used every combat. For example, cantrips (use every turn) and wizard spells (use every few combats). That presents more interesting decisions to players.

 

[Stalker0]

Quoting my OP...

I think there are two camps on changing rests. There is the "remove rest from ability recharge entirely". I am personally in that camp, though I recognize that is a large divergence from the baseline, and maybe too aggressive for this project.

The other is "remove short rest recharge classes". This second camp respects that rests are a factor in diversity, but by having this large divergence between short rest requirements and long rest requirements.... you are forcing the DM to choose balance over encounter flavor. Now long rest mechanics also do that, but with a single mechanic to balance the DM can design his adventures to work within that model.

When you have to balance short rest and long rests with your adventure design, the issue becomes significantly harder.

 

[Horwath]

Its all well if you want that. But players will take rest if they feel they need one. No matter the length. Better make it shorter

In play I find it needs to be 3 days (with the same amount of time before another can be taken), else the short to long ratio favours short-rest classes more than equitably.

 

[tetrasodium]

Quoting my OP...
Rests create design space for ability diversity. Without rests, we can't have nice things like rich class designs. Rests let designers create strong abilities that cannot be used every combat, and weak abilities that can be used every combat. For example, cantrips (use every turn) and wizard spells (use every few combats). That presents more interesting decisions to players.

I don't see how that supports a need for "short rest classes" as opposed to long rest/set up camp rest/whatever classes, at best it seems to support classes with a mix. It's fine to have small powers that recharge on a short rest if they must, but balancing class A against class B is something that should be done (early?) in design/maybe playtest & definitely before print rather than being left to the gm to structure their campaign around that unfinished balancing.

 

[clearstream]

Its all well if you want that. But players will take rest if they feel they need one. No matter the length. Better make it shorter

For what I call narrative rests (versus mechanical) the rest length assists a DM to plausibly and meaningfully advance events. Three days is long enough that it feels unsurprising if something happens that the rest takers will feel concerned by... possibly even interrupting the rest. It's long enough that resters feel more inclined to seek a safe place to rest. Or so I have found in playtesting.

 

[Asisreo]

Is a 1-day time pressure so difficult that it's become a problem?

I can assume the enemy can just exit while the party is sitting down. And exiting isn't the same as fleeing. Fleeing implies you're in-danger and must retreat or be harmed. It can be considered losing. Exiting is literally leaving the whatever. Maybe the BBEG just leaves with whatever, the mcguffin, or something. Maybe he can make more minions to assist him.

I'm not sure how time pressures are seen as cop-outs or too repetitive when time is a pressure resource in every single aspect in life. Avoiding time pressures while balancing adventures is like balancing combats without dealing HP damage. It's possible but it seems like an obtuse way to change something that works fine.

 

[tetrasodium]

Is a 1-day time pressure so difficult that it's become a problem?

I can assume the enemy can just exit while the party is sitting down. And exiting isn't the same as fleeing. Fleeing implies you're in-danger and must retreat or be harmed. It can be considered losing. Exiting is literally leaving the whatever. Maybe the BBEG just leaves with whatever, the mcguffin, or something. Maybe he can make more minions to assist him.

I'm not sure how time pressures are seen as cop-outs or too repetitive when time is a pressure resource in every single aspect in life. Avoiding time pressures while balancing adventures is like balancing combats without dealing HP damage. It's possible but it seems like an obtuse way to change something that works fine.

Your mixing two issues with 5e rests. The first issue is some utter munchkin designed some classes to use long rest class abilities but link their only real limit to how many short rests they can finangle out of the gm & make most of them charisma based casters that synergize to absurd levels. In doing that, they proved why there should not be any "short rest classes". No class should be designed to push for & pine for the five minute work day.

The second issue is urgency & where the math of the old rest system comes in & I broke down how the math used to be over here a few days back. Stock 5e gives full of more hp through hit dice on a short rest & some long rest abilities to a couple classes adds in then a long rest recovers all spell slots & all hp plus some hit dice. Back when you regained your level in hp back it didn't require a pit fiend or twenty wolves to sneak up on the party & massively cut into recovery or even reverse it.... Because of that players would either need to make a choice to go back to town or burn tough very expensive consumables to recover quickly. The players knew that so they didn't recklessly charge in without a plan & just face roll through encounters letting death saves absorb huge amounts of damage.

 

[CubicsRube]

I think the issue of rests has always been at odds with adventure design as neither plot points in a campaign or the exploration pillar interact with time as a resource any more. So 1 day, 3 days etc are a resource expenditure that don't really tie to anything else in game except by GM fiat.

I like AiME's concepts of sanctuaries and would love to see LevelUp work around this concept, even as an optional.

In short the AiME determines that only certain places have the right circumstances that a person can take a long rest, such as a town.

In LevelUp, there could be certain conditions that need to be met to qualify the party for a short rest or a long rest. This to me makes more interesting choice points. Perhaps the party can barricade in level 2 of the castle, but if they can make their way to the temple sanctum they might be able to secure a long rest. Is it worth pushing on?

 

[tetrasodium]

I think the issue of rests has always been at odds with adventure design as neither plot points in a campaign or the exploration pillar interact with time as a resource any more. So 1 day, 3 days etc are a resource expenditure that don't really tie to anything else in game except by GM fiat.

I like AiME's concepts of sanctuaries and would love to see LevelUp work around this concept, even as an optional.

In short the AiME determines that only certain places have the right circumstances that a person can take a long rest, such as a town.

In LevelUp, there could be certain conditions that need to be met to qualify the party for a short rest or a long rest. This to me makes more interesting choice points. Perhaps the party can barricade in level 2 of the castle, but if they can make their way to the temple sanctum they might be able to secure a long rest. Is it worth pushing on?

pure curiosity, what is Aime?