D&D (2024) Rests should be dropped. Stop conflating survival mechanics with resource recovery.

[Emberashh]

I'm not sure you've made the point that it is a better survival mechanic.

Well yeah because thats not at all what was being said. What was said there is that when survival is divorced from resource restoration, survival can then be made better as it doesn't have to be held back by a core game that can't commit to being a full survival sim.

okay so this isn't for D&D but a whole new game, based on this 7 Dice system?

Its both. Ive given up on DND myself but I still have an interest in seeing it be better.

You are planning a game where gathering and crafting are much more integral and important for the game?

Yes.

Maybe just provide some bullet points on what you think are the main issues with the current rest system?

The principle issue is that theres no clear cut way to balance out the rate at which rests are granted to the players. They ostensibly have control, but the DM is as much an arbiter of that as they are, and in fact has a disproportionate ability to deny the benefits.

This isn't good, because while negotiation is healthy for table ettiquete, the game wastes a lot of energy on it, especially when its not the only aspect of the game that deals with these dynamics.

Attempting to address this issue often leads to safe haven rules, which are a band aid that just swaps the problems around. Safe haven rules break verisimilitude (as getting adequate rest does not require civilization) and, like Gritty Realism, also imposes narrative constraints that aren't always going to mesh with every story or module.

And given that, as the game isn't and won't commit to being a true survival game, this results in the rest mechanics, like the rest of the survival mechanics in the game, being pretty lame by requirement.

Freeing the mechanics from having to support the core game frees up design space for them to be more in-depth and worthwhile to actually use. Adding new mechanics to restore resources in turn allows the need to negotiate over resources to be eliminated, giving tables more freedom to just play and DMs less of a headache.

Why I think this way is because I've seen the benefits of approaching game mechanics like this first hand. Placing more control in the players hands is good, and finding means of sharing that control equitably is even better.

Thats why I feel the tension pool is one of the best innovations ever, because by design it allows the DM and Players to share control over when and how complications enter into the narrative, and by its nature it helps immerse the table into that narrative as it asserts the importance of time and the importance of the characters various perspectives.

And mind, just using the tension pool is actually pretty solid for resolving rest concerns; just give the players full control over their rests and the tension pool will handle the rest. Where it falls short versus the ideas in this topic is that it doesn't open up many avenues for more mechanics and player facing content.

There are however other benefits for all of these beyond just rests; the tension pool is a great tool for restoring exploration to the game, and having more robust gathering and crafting (moreso crafting, but still) is something thats been pretty commonly requested, especially given that in most games the mechanics for these aren't terribly interactive and are the mechanical equivalent of ribbon abilities. And going for a universal resource system (ie mana/stamina) emphasizes the kind of game that main-line DND has drifted toward over the years, which is ultimately good because the designers having to constantly write a game that pretends to be something it isn't is just such a waste.

Had the community, at the time, not thrown such a massive naughty word fit over 4e, Id be willing to bet that the game would have eventually moved towards this. Perhaps not by whatever version of 5e would exist in that timeline, but eventually nonetheless. 4es per encounter design can easily be adapted into such a system, and in that context would probably do a better job at bridging between the more overtly gamey design of 4e and the classical resource attrition of older DND than what we ended up with in 5e (which I to this day contend is literally just 4e with the paint stripped and the parts scrambled, which is why people keep reinventing 4e; they stumble into the gaping holes and its easy to rebuild)

 

[Maxperson]

Posts 71 and 75 cover my idea. In short (or rather, long form as it turned out), resources are consolidated into one of two universal resources, which are the things that get restored by potions.

First, thanks for the detailed response. I appreciate it. Second, sorry for the delay in getting back to you, but I've been busy and/or tired due to being busy the last few days and needed to digest the information. You put a lot of effort into this post and I wanted to give it an appropriate response.

Abilities, spells, etc all have a cost of some amount of these universal resources, and some might have their own internal resource as an alternative (ie, daily powers).

This in turn would be coupled with a robust crafting and gathering system that would be the primary source of potions, but would also support all the other fun things players might want to craft.

I don't know if my idea for crafting is original to me or not (as I haven't quite found anything like it thus far), but the idea is something I called 7Dice. You roll 7 standard RPG dice and from this you get 6 different values. Each rolled value corresponds to some component or step in a crafting process, and the values determine the final properties of the item. These values can then be modified using skill and energy based modifiers (instead of attribute mods I consolidated them into the 3 energies, being Composure, Mana, and Stamina), and can benefit from certain class features, which allow you to customize them. Once you set up the item in this way, the final crafting budget is added up and it determines the DC you roll against to confirm the item, and degrees of success determine what you finally get; failing doesn't mean you get nothing, but succeeding really well does come with benefits, giving incentive to level up the relevant skills and, by extension, other skills to get your modifiers up.

I have a few questions about this part of the process.

1) Are the 7 dice d4, d6, d8, 2d10(percentile), d12 and d20?
2) Did you really mean different values from the 7 dice rolled or just 7 different numbers? I'm having a hard time understanding how you can guarantee different values from rolled dice.
3) I'm assuming mana=magic energy, stamina=physical energy. What is composure for?

I like that you can succeed well to get benefits, and I personally enjoy critical failures. Have you completely gotten rid of the idea of failing badly receiving a penalty. Also, I know from experience that players really enjoy adding ability modifiers to rolls. Perhaps a combination of skill and energy based modifiers AND some appropriate stat modifier.

Gathering meanwhile hooks primarily into a better codified travel activity system, which means even if a player doesn't want to go on direct quests to seek out components, they can still benefit passively as they and their party go off to do other things. Gathering corresponds to different skills, and the idea is that miniature skill challenges (with varied constructions based on 7Dice, see below) would be used to resolve the specific travel activity.

So say you're wanting to gather some metal to Smith with. You'd take the Prospecting travel activity, and the resultant skill challenge for Mining would determine what you get; using 7Dice as a basis, you'd have a specific set of dice you'd roll starting with a 2d10 skill check, which is what gives you your base prospecting chance to find some mineable ores. From there, you work your way down, rolling 1d8, 1d6, and 1d4. Each step represents the process of ore extraction, and spending your modifiers to get better rolls gets exponentially more expensive as you move down the line. The basic strategy, in essence, is to try not to spend your modifiers at all until you confirm your 1d4, which if you had at least some moderate successful values on your other rolls, means you can spend to get as much ore as you can. But, if you can roll high across the board and spread your mod equally across all the dice, then you can better ores and more of them simultaneously; the benefits of rolling high but also being very skilled.

I really like the idea of gathering ingredients/resources as you travel, perhaps slowing down by X amount depending on what you are looking for and how seriously you are looking. If the party is willing to slow way down, perhaps they get a positive modifier to look for stuff. If they want to travel quickly and are essentially just keeping an eye out as they go, they'd get a penalty since they aren't really searching, but might get lucky and find something anyway.

Mining seems to me would take a loooooooong time to accomplish. Also, would the ore need to be refined before being usable or is that more detailed than you want to be with the system?

Overall the idea behind 7Dice is that its meant to be quick to adjudicate even at the table. Much of the think-work can happen simultaneously with other goings on at the table, and for both gathering and crafting the idea is that you'd have planned ahead of time what you were going for, which would also speed things up. Potions meanwhile, as well as virtually everything else you could think to craft, would all follow this same core mechanic, making it relatively easy for players to swap between different crafting and gathering types, with the variety and interest coming from the different effects different components add to the items.

I haven't actually sat down and hammered out how Im specifically going to do potions (Im only just getting into my mages, and they're the ones that will have more of the relevant class features), but theres enough meat there to make some very interesting options for players to mess with, and as always there will be plentiful alternatives. Potions will be lootable and buyable, but these ones will mostly only be comparable to the ones a player could make at 0 Herbalism skill; player crafted items would more or less always be better, but the game wouldn't need them to function at a basic level. (Though it would be difficult to still be relying on them by level 30; at that point you could afford to employ an alchemist, so theres little reason not to eventually have the good stuff, even if you don't want to bother with doing the crafting yourself)

My thoughts on this are that if you are going to have purchased potions be sufficient as a base, making pretty much every PC potion better than that could provide some serious balance issues. Especially if there's no limiter on the number of potions a player can make and/or drink during the day(or other time unit). Perhaps a low roll could be a substandard potion, average be equal to what you can buy, and good rolls are superior.

Of course there would likely be different qualities of potions depending on character level. Someone who is level 8 is probably using moderate potions rather than the light ones 1st level PCs use. So a substandard moderate potion would be better than a good light potion. Skill would likely be going up with level as well, so PCs would be able to make better and better potions as they go up in level.

Lastly, as a player if I were to use a crafting system like this, I wouldn't want to have to employ an alchemist at high levels. I'd want to be able to focus my skill(through feats or whatever other mechanism you have) in order to achieve the level of skill to make the best stuff at level 30. Obviously that would come at a cost, since if I'm devoting resources to being the best at alchemy, I'm not using those same resources to be better at my class, but I feel that option should be there.

But anyway, this system overall results in a more functional system for a variety of reasons. First and foremost is that it hands resource management entirely over to the players. There is no arguing over when to get powers back. You either have the potions or you don't, and its on the player to be adequately prepared.

The only real arguing that I've seen on this front are the occasional discussion between players.

Player 1: "We need to rest. This room seems like the safest spot we've seen."
Player 2: "We've been in this area looking around for just an hour and we've run into 4 patrols. It's too dangerous to rest."
Player 3: "I have to agree. It's too dangerous to rest here. Maybe we should go back to town and lick our wounds there."
player 4: "We can push on. None of us is too beat up yet and we still have a lot of fight in us. If we rest now or leave, the monster X's that live here will find the bodies we have left and sound the alarm, probably preparing defenses for us if we should come back. It will be harder, if not impossible if we rest now."

To me that's roleplaying and a great part of the game. Anything to get players roleplaying about hard choices is a good thing in my book. On the DM side of things it's only random(or sometimes set) encounters that can disrupt rests, so there's no real negotiation or arguing between myself and the players that goes on.

This in turn makes the GMs life easier, as you can design according to what they're prepped for, or can just design fixed encounters, and they either come prepares or they don't. No need to go out of ones way to balance the game, because it already will be by virtue of how the new resource system works.

Which, is the next big thing this would do. As player resources are no longer tied to adventure design, balance can be achieved per encounter.

As I mentioned in a prior post, 5e is balanced around the adventuring day. 6-8 encounters in-between long rests. It's probably the single thing I dislike most about 5e. By balancing around that many encounters, they have made the game about resource attrition. The initial encounters, even "hard" ones, will be easy. By the time you get to the last few encounters, resources will be low and the party will finally be challenged. Spend too many resources early and the party could lose PCs or have a TPK at the end.

Potions as a resource to replace sleep seems like it would unbalance 5e to a great degree unless potion consumption were highly limited to the point where they mimicked the amount of resources you recover the short rests in-between long rests and the one long rest you get per 24 hours. This system could be better for balancing encounters under a different system, though. That system would be designed with this particular crafting system in mind.

More still has to be done on the intra-party balance when it comes to 5e, and for that matter in monster design, but insofar as resource management goes, these systems would provide simplification and more depth simultaneously and where it ought to be. GMs do not need to have complex considerations just to make the game functional, and players by and large tend to appreciate robust mechanics that are flexible enough to be engaged with by choice.

Hooking gathering into travel activities also helps to make the process of travelling into something that actually has a point to work through rather than skipping it outright, and I don't think we need to argue over whether or not exploration needs help, and when combined with, by my experience much more fun and interactive travel mechanics (based on the Tension pool), you get a lot of mileage.

General thoughts.

1) 5e has been very specifically designed to be simple. In fact WotC has in my opinion thrown the baby out with the bath water and over simplified 5e. It really needs to be a bit more complicated than it is. Your crafting system would add quite a bit more complexity to the game, so WotC wouldn't ever make something like this for this particular edition. 6e might be different.

2) Resting as a means to recover resources is a major, major sacred cow for D&D. WotC won't be getting rid of it, especially since the amount of arguing it receives pales in comparison to say hit points or alignment, both of which remain and will continue to remain. Pushing for this system to replace resting isn't going to work for D&D. It could supplement it and/or be some sort of optional system that DMs can draw upon from the DM's Toolbox in the DMG.

3) I really like the idea of an improved crafting system. As you might have guessed, I like more complexity that 5e currently has. Your ideas wouldn't work for me as a replacement to rest, but as a more robust method of crafting, I could potentially see myself using it in that regard, though not as a replacement to rest. I would need to see the exact mechanics before I would decide that, though.

4) This seems like something that you could put out on the DM's Guild(or wherever else) as a 5.5e supplement and it might do very well. I doubt I'm anywhere near the only one who thinks 5e is too simple and wants a better crafting system.

 

[Emberashh]

) Are the 7 dice d4, d6, d8, 2d10(percentile), d12 and d20?
2) Did you really mean different values from the 7 dice rolled or just 7 different numbers? I'm having a hard time understanding how you can guarantee different values from rolled dice.
3) I'm assuming mana=magic energy, stamina=physical energy. What is composure for?

1. Yes. The idea is you pick up the pile and roll all of them. Each die corresponds to a value with the d10/d% adding to one value. You could probably guess that that one would be used for the primary property of the item.

2. How it works is when you roll the dice, each value rolled represents the base value for its correlated property, and to each value you can add (or subtract) to reach a desired value using your Skill and Energy modifiers as a "crafting budget".

For most items, 1d4 correlates to the items Quality, and is generally the most expensive to raise to a higher number, as each step costs an exponential amount of mod points.

Every die in turn works like this, and some, when subtracting, will also refund those points to be spent elsewhere in the item. Currently the max, before any class bonuses, you can get is 60 Points you can spend to modify each die, but to get there takes being a level 30 character whose maxed out around 12 different skills. (Your Energy modifiers derive from your attributes, so you have to have diversified skills to max an attribute)

3. Composure is the equivalent of HP. Its a bit different than the DND take on it, as significant wounds aren't assumed as part of it; those would come from being hit after being dropped to zero.

Perhaps a combination of skill and energy based modifiers AND some appropriate stat modifier.

Energy mods are a replacement for ability/attribute mods. Its more or less a compromise between DND style attributes and the Fort/Will/Reflex type saves of DCC.

Personally I felt it was an exceedingly clever way to do it.

Mining seems to me would take a loooooooong time to accomplish.

Initially, but part of the idea is that itd be semi-repetitive. It'll be slow at first but with repetition it'd be quick to run.

And smelting/refining is assumed as part of Smithing. Doing smelting separately was possible but thats more or less just the busy work between the interesting parts; and given smelting is involved in the smithing process anyway that was an easy consolidation.

Especially if there's no limiter on the number of potions a player can make and/or drink during the day(or other time unit).

Part of the balance is that if the players have spent enough time travelling/questing to accumulate a substantive amount of components then they essentially deserve it.

With how gathering is set up you really don't need to grind, so opting to spend table time on it should be suitably rewarding.

But for things like potions, they come with diminishing returns. You could spam them for whatever immediate effects they have, but any over-time effects don't stack, and those are where the real benefits would be.

I wouldn't want to have to employ an alchemist at high levels.

Right. Thats for people who don't want to bother with the system or skills at all for whatever reason. Instead they can just trade relatively obscene amounts of gold for it instead. But some things wouldn't be accessible still anyhow; a Potion of Heroism sort of thing would only be able to be crafted by a Player (or a non-standard NPC thats been granted high enough levels).

The only real arguing that I've seen on this front are the occasional discussion between players

Oh I don't consider in-character stuff to be problematic. Its when it spills over into real world that it becomes an issue and that does happen. Not always, but theres little reason to encourage its prominence.

Potions as a resource to replace sleep seems like it would unbalance 5e

Well thats why this topic is in the OneDND forum. Whether its a new edition or a "revision", this is the context in which such changes could be introduced.

Your crafting system would add quite a bit more complexity to the game

Not all complexity is equal, and a big intention of mine is to make it as easy to engage with as possible.

Thats why the crafting mechanic is generic and can apply to literally everything with minimal changes. The only complexity in it is in the exponential combinations that can be created using it, but that isn't a bad thing and, frankly, is obviously a very popular thing with players, if theory crafting is anything to go by.

Incidentally its also a trade off in my game; equipment choice and creation is more complex compared to classes, which are more linear and with much less choices.

Resting as a means to recover resources is a major, major sacred cow for D&D.

Clearly, if the incredible aggravation that was this topic wasn't a big hint, and obviously I consider it to be to the games detriment if they can't make the system work, which they've thus far failed at and haven't shown any indication that they'll be doing better.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

For my purposes, this was a problem solved two editions ago in 3.5, where resting and recovery was in the sweet spot (for me; ymmv). Buuuut.....I am not the majority on this, so yeah.

A lot of suggestions I read in this thread sound awfully close to the 4E take, which is concerning (to me, anyway). I am not a huge fan of 5E's overly nice approach to resting and recovery, but its at least a compromise between video-game level recovery and "realistic" level recovery.

Potions are fine in D&D. They are part of the "in world logic" and therefore do not break verisimilitude, unless you are trying to model the real world in D&D, in which case potions are the last thing you want to worry about, there are bigger fish to fry.

 

[clearstream]

But you need a way to reset game abilities.

And players will want to do game abilites every encounter.

You need rests.

My hope was that they'd simplify to a quick breather (just allows spending HD) and a long rest. Jettisoning short.

 

[S'mon]

My hope was that they'd simplify to a quick breather (just allows spending HD) and a long rest. Jettisoning short.

I guess I'm more the opposite - I prefer the Short Rest class design. I'd rather have all Short Rest based classes, with Long Rests just for healing/hit point recovery to full.

 

[clearstream]

I guess I'm more the opposite - I prefer the Short Rest class design. I'd rather have all Short Rest based classes, with Long Rests just for healing/hit point recovery to full.

I'd settle for one or the other!

Just to get clear on your concept - are you saying that Short Rests are solely feature refreshes? Or do they still have other functions? Is a Short Rest effectively part of a Long Rest?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'd settle for one or the other!

Just to get clear on your concept - are you saying that Short Rests are solely feature refreshes? Or do they still have other functions? Is a Short Rest effectively part of a Long Rest?

4e short rests take about the length of time as a boxer gets between rounds. I think it's unambiguous that boxers start one round with more energy than they ended the previous one. And this includes some measure of hit point refreshes as a boxer who's been knocked down and the count out started won't be in the same state at the start of the next round.

 

[S'mon]

I'd settle for one or the other!

Just to get clear on your concept - are you saying that Short Rests are solely feature refreshes? Or do they still have other functions? Is a Short Rest effectively part of a Long Rest?

I'm fine with spending hit dice/healing surges in a SR. Or else recover some variable number of hp the way Dragonbane does it.
LR should refresh everything to full - hp, spell slots etc.

 

[SteveC]

It seems like all of this ties into what an adventuring day is and what it's supposed to look like. Are characters supposed to be at full hit points when they start every encounter? How many encounters are they expected to do between that long rest and reset?

Now I know they (the designers) have talked about things like this, but the answers don't really work, especially at lower levels. There's the infamous "six encounters in a day," which no one really seems to use. I'll double down and say that I had experiences with this right when the game launched and at lower levels this was absolutely terrible. I played AL "Horde of the Dragon Queen" and the GM was determined to run us through six encounters that we really couldn't skip. The poor wizard who was playing D&D for the first time killed his character and brought in a duplicate to actually get to do something more than shoot cantrips in encounter three. You really have to get some levels under your belt before you're ready to handle anything like those number of encounters.

When I ran Curse of Strahd, I did the full six encounters per day, and that left the group exhausted and at the end of their rope. And that was good because that's what I was trying to enforce as a "this is a HORRIBLE place to be." I would never run that way outside of an extreme situation.

I'm playing in Dragon Heist right now and the GM appears to be running it by the book. We've just hit fourth level and I think we've had at most three encounters in the day. I think that seems to strike a balance where short rest characters get a rest but long rest ones don't feel like they can't do enough.

I think the ultimate point is that the game doesn't give us clear indications of the design of the adventuring day and that's a problem. What are the expectations? How often should characters be able to take short rests? How many encounters should you build for as a GM based on the environment? The discussions about this that I've read just don't really match up with what I see in actual play and, more to the point, they aren't consistent and fun. It seems like a lot of GMs grumble about short rests at an hour from a realism standpoint, but what they really are is a balancing mechanism for different classes, and a chance to heal without spell slots. Let's make that clear upfront on a system level, please!

All of the discussion in this thread just tells me there's some design work that either wasn't really thought out or wasn't communicated very well.