D&D 5E Short Rest Poll

[pemerton]

I can't stand having to bend over backwards to save players from their stupidity brought on by a sense of entitlement that they are special because they are PCs. As a DM I would never punish players because they forgot something or TPK them because the dice is rolling badly hence the reason I always roll behind a screen.

<snip>

if players do something as dumb as knowing an NPC got away and didn't even bother to put a look out at the doors, nor choose someplace safer to rest I would let the consequences happen.

The second quoted paragraph puts additional parameters on the situation which weren't in your initial description. Though what the function of a look out is is not always clear - if the runner is a goblin, and s/he comes back with a Balrog, what are the players expected to do, or to have done?

I also think the contrast between "bad luck" and "stupidity" is not always clear cut. If the PCs are on their last legs, and the final NPC runs away, are the players stupid for deciding not to give chase? Or sensibly taking advantage of their good luck, because they know that had the NPC hung around, s/he probably could have killed a PC or two?

If an encounter is interesting - preferably in both story/dramatic terms and in mechanica/tactical terms - then I'm happy to frame it and see what happens. (Including a TPK if that's the upshot - I don't fudge my dice rolls.) That includes with the escaped NPC - but if the game is 4e, then typically play will be more interesting if the encounter is framed "Just as you get your breath back, you see XYZ coming towards you" - and so the players, in resolving the encounter, have full access to the suite of mechanical resources that helps make the game interesting - than framing a mechanically less challenging encounter that the players have to resolve without access to their interesting abilities.

And as I said, if the runaway's reinforcement encounter doesn't seem like it would be interesting, I can just decide that the escaped NPC hides in a cupboard. That's not particularly unrealistic, and doesn't seem like any sort of "bending over backwards" to me.

I think the key word in pemerton's post above was "boring." 4e is designed such that a single encounter is pretty much a full game by itself, taking at least an hour of gameplay. Therefore, if an encounter isn't a close fight, it's a gigantic waste of everyone's precious time--especially if they don't have their encounter powers back.

<snip>

So this conversation isn't really about one DMing style vs. another, it's about how 4e implies/requires only a certain subset of DMing styles.

I agree with your first quoted paragraph, though I think maybe we have different views as to what extent this is a virtue of the system.

I'm not sure I agree so much with the second, although it's hard to individuate "DMing styles" with technical precision.

But is it a radically different GMing style to have the reinforcements turn up 3 minutes later at mechanical strength X or 5 minutes later at mechanical strength 2X? I'm not sure that it is, but in 4e those two different choices make quite a difference for how the game is likely to play out at the table.

I'm not sure the "run away" option is so radically different in 4e either. In classic D&D if the reinforcement turn up and the players have their PCs run away, there are the evasion rules to resolve that. (Which to me, at least, are rather sympathetic to the players even at a modest concession to verisimilitude.) In 4e, the same thing could be resolved by way of a short-ish skill challenge. As long as the players are aware of that mechanical possibility (eg because the GM tells them if they ask, or because they know how the GM handles attepts to flee at that particular table) then that is a reason to think that the rest-interrupting encounter with the reinforcements could be interesting, and even perhaps a fun change of pace.

To me it's all about knowing the system, and the tools that it provides to make resolving the fictional situation you want to frame interesting rather than tedious. I personally haven't found that 4e makes this especially difficult for a GM, nor that it constrains options noticeably more than other systems.

I also think, whatever the system, it's important to distinguish player experience from character experience. The 4e DMG2 makes this point nicely when it notes that, if a consequence for failure is the PCs getting ambushed in the night, then (everything else being equal) the players are likely to enjoy resolving the fight even though the characters, obviously, would rather not have been attacked. That's why, when it comes to the run away NPC and the interruption of a short rest, I think it is more helpful to think in terms of table experience than simply in in-world, in-character terms.

 

[Li Shenron]

I prefer 1 hour, but I'm happy that this is a trivial dial, for those who want to increase/decrease the pace.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Jumping in on the discussion that you're all having... I don't think it's only about a 4E / XE edition split in terms of NPCs running away and bringing back reinforcements... it's also about individual DMs and the way they see the reasoning of having fights in their world, and how those fights come about and are filled.

When an NPC that was let free to run off comes running back with reinforcements... the quantity and power of those reinforcements is determined many different ways based upon individual DMs. For some DMs (like pemerton it seems)... the decision on the reinforcements comes down to what will make this new fight interesting in and of itself. And the monster group that shows up is based almost entirely on creating that interesting fight (based partly on the monsters further in the dungeon that might show up). For other DMs (like Elf Witch it seems)... the decision on the reinforcements comes down to who that NPC might logically have come into contact with, and convinced to join the fight. If (according to the map the DM has) the NPC could only have run into two other NPCs, then those three NPCs return to attack the party (if them attacking makes sense.) But if the NPC could realistically come across several dozen other monsters, all of whom would want to see the party thrown out or killed... then those two dozen monsters show up and possibly kick the ass of the entire party.

In the former scenario... some DMs would say that you were making arbitrary decisions on who shows up (based upon making an interesting and fun fight), but which makes no actual sense in the world of the game. In the latter scenario... some DMs would say that if only 3 NPCs are going to show up to attack the party and it's blatantly obvious (based on the power of those 3 NPCs) that they serve no real threat, then why bother having that boring combat at all? (And this is where GX.Sigma is right in that because 4E fights tend to be longer affairs, having one that is a fait accompli which could waste an hour or two in a 4E game really makes the fight superfluous.)

And this kind of thing can't be solved by a single ruleset. Not in the least. We HAVE to have options for both sides available to us, because I don't think there's even a close-to-consensus on one side or another. We're much more likely having a 50-50 opinion on the two scenarios than a 90-10 (which might justify setting a default with little to no optional modules included.)

Any time the opinions on certain rules is more of a 50-50 affair... I think it usually ends up being that both sides have their rules represented in the game, with the simplest adjudication being the base rule, and the more complex one being Rules Module #1. Which in many cases I think we're all usually okay with.

 

[Argyle King]

I said 10mins but I think 15 or 20 is better. The truth is 5mins is too short and an hour is too long

I agree. 5 mins is way too short; an hour seems too long.

I am closer to a half hour to hour. It is enough time to patch up wounds, let your limbs take a rest, releave oneself, calm your mind, or even take a refresher nap. A lunch break. Five minutes is too short. Your heavy is still pounding and the weaker adventurers would not have caught their breath yet.

30 minutes sounds about right to me

 

[Jester David]

For 4e, 5 minutes is really too long. It's just assumed, so short rests should almost be automatic. Having to actually sit for 5 minutes seems needless; there should never be a time when you do not heal between encounters or regain Encounter powers save when one fight bleeds into another.
The abstract "couple minutes" of looting and catching your breath is enough as you're not *really* resting.

For D&D5, the short rest is very different. It's not assumed to happen after every fight. The short rest denotes a period of actually resting, when you're ceasing activity and adventuring.
5-10 minutes is too low because nothing happens in that length of time. Monsters cannot move and nothing in the dungeon changes. It's hard to judge how much an impact stopping for 5 minutes has on an adventure. But an hour has a big impact. A lot can happen in an hour.

An hour means taking a short rest is a choice with weight. It's not automatic or a no-brainer. There is a cost involved.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I think an hour is way too long. It doesn't take that long to catch your breath, bandage yourself, etc. IMO, 1 hour is such a long period of time that there's little difference between short and long rests. With so many class features recharging after a short rest, they're really not "encounter" abilities when it takes 1 hour to recharge them. They end up being more like 2 or maybe 3/day abilities, if that. In some cases this makes them worse than daily powers, because at least those can be used a few times per day without having to rest for an hour in-between each and every use. If they're going to make short rests that inconvenient and take up such a huge amount of time in an adventure, there's little point to even having encounter vs. daily powers.

I think 10-15 minutes would be much better.

 

[Derren]

From the listed durations 1 hour. Everything else is too short to have an actual effect. Like [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION] said, resting should not be automatic after every fight.

But even longer periods are thinkable, depending on what the rest exactly does refresh. Personal preference: D&D plays too fast anyway, with PCs being able to go from 1 to 20 within months and spend adventuring 24/7 because of the very short rest durations and fast regeneration (magical and natural) the PCs have. So I am not opposed to have a short rest taking a day and the PCs having to recover for a month or longer after an adventure.

I prefer 1 hour, but I'm happy that this is a trivial dial, for those who want to increase/decrease the pace.

This is hardly a trivial dial. While DMs can easily change the resting time for their tables, published adventures depend on knowing how long the rest is, as they have to be designed totally different when the PCs can rest between battles for 5 minutes and get their power back or not.

 

[Elf Witch]

I could not agree more, and I haven't been able to describe this feeling with words until you posted this, so thank you.

However, I think the key word in pemerton's post above was "boring." 4e is designed such that a single encounter is pretty much a full game by itself, taking at least an hour of gameplay. Therefore, if an encounter isn't a close fight, it's a gigantic waste of everyone's precious time--especially if they don't have their encounter powers back. Imagine a full hour of everyone going "I attack... miss... I attack... hit..." until they realize they're getting pretty low on hp and need to run. In a system like D&D Next, that encounter would work ("He comes back with 10 wights and casts cloudkill." "I'm dead." "I get the f*** outta there."). In 4e, it just doesn't.

So this conversation isn't really about one DMing style vs. another, it's about how 4e implies/requires only a certain subset of DMing styles.

I don't run or play 4E. This situation I described happened to a friend who runs both 4E and Pathfinder. He often runs into this mindset with 4E players. And I would hate to see this kind of mindset carrying into 5E.

 

[Rhenny]

I have noted a number of benefits from making short rests 1 hour (often impossible to take in a populated dungeon unless complete stealth is maintained). There has been a steady up-tick in tension in my most recent playtest sessions. My players assume that they will need to carry on, so they push forward much more than they would have in past editions. When they find a position/situation where they can take 1 hour rests, they are terrifically relieved, but I like how they don't expect to be able to rest in many dungeon situations.

Pushing on once PCs have spent short rest features also makes the session feel more dire and gritty. For us, that works. For others it may not.

It is also much easier for the DM to determine if the rest should be interrupted or not when using 1 hour rests. When short rests are too short, the DM is faced with a tougher decision. It is harder to determine what an enemy might do with 5, 10 or 15 minutes (in a way, getting interrupted during a really short rest like this makes it seem as if the DM is purposefully trying to prevent the PCs from resting). It is much easier to determine what will happen with 1 hour of time (if the patrol interrupts the PCs during an hour rest, there is never any grumbling...my players expect it unless they are in a completely safe area).

 

[Elf Witch]

The second quoted paragraph puts additional parameters on the situation which weren't in your initial description. Though what the function of a look out is is not always clear - if the runner is a goblin, and s/he comes back with a Balrog, what are the players expected to do, or to have done?

I also think the contrast between "bad luck" and "stupidity" is not always clear cut. If the PCs are on their last legs, and the final NPC runs away, are the players stupid for deciding not to give chase? Or sensibly taking advantage of their good luck, because they know that had the NPC hung around, s/he probably could have killed a PC or two?

If an encounter is interesting - preferably in both story/dramatic terms and in mechanica/tactical terms - then I'm happy to frame it and see what happens. (Including a TPK if that's the upshot - I don't fudge my dice rolls.) That includes with the escaped NPC - but if the game is 4e, then typically play will be more interesting if the encounter is framed "Just as you get your breath back, you see XYZ coming towards you" - and so the players, in resolving the encounter, have full access to the suite of mechanical resources that helps make the game interesting - than framing a mechanically less challenging encounter that the players have to resolve without access to their interesting abilities.

And as I said, if the runaway's reinforcement encounter doesn't seem like it would be interesting, I can just decide that the escaped NPC hides in a cupboard. That's not particularly unrealistic, and doesn't seem like any sort of "bending over backwards" to me.

I agree with your first quoted paragraph, though I think maybe we have different views as to what extent this is a virtue of the system.

I'm not sure I agree so much with the second, although it's hard to individuate "DMing styles" with technical precision.

But is it a radically different GMing style to have the reinforcements turn up 3 minutes later at mechanical strength X or 5 minutes later at mechanical strength 2X? I'm not sure that it is, but in 4e those two different choices make quite a difference for how the game is likely to play out at the table.

I'm not sure the "run away" option is so radically different in 4e either. In classic D&D if the reinforcement turn up and the players have their PCs run away, there are the evasion rules to resolve that. (Which to me, at least, are rather sympathetic to the players even at a modest concession to verisimilitude.) In 4e, the same thing could be resolved by way of a short-ish skill challenge. As long as the players are aware of that mechanical possibility (eg because the GM tells them if they ask, or because they know how the GM handles attepts to flee at that particular table) then that is a reason to think that the rest-interrupting encounter with the reinforcements could be interesting, and even perhaps a fun change of pace.

To me it's all about knowing the system, and the tools that it provides to make resolving the fictional situation you want to frame interesting rather than tedious. I personally haven't found that 4e makes this especially difficult for a GM, nor that it constrains options noticeably more than other systems.

I also think, whatever the system, it's important to distinguish player experience from character experience. The 4e DMG2 makes this point nicely when it notes that, if a consequence for failure is the PCs getting ambushed in the night, then (everything else being equal) the players are likely to enjoy resolving the fight even though the characters, obviously, would rather not have been attacked. That's why, when it comes to the run away NPC and the interruption of a short rest, I think it is more helpful to think in terms of table experience than simply in in-world, in-character terms.

The players also had a tantrum over it. One actually said that the DM is not allowed to to do that it is cheating. They had this real entitlement issue that as PC they had rights that the DM was not allowed to violate because that was how the game was designed.

In that situation as a player regardless of the system I would get out of dodge if the party was badly injured and could not handle a new encounter. I certainly would not chose to rest in the same room.

As a DM I had a situation where an encounter turned out much harder than I had planned and the party got their butts handed to them. I had been rolling listening checks to see if the goblins in the guard room heard them. When it went so bad I stopped rolling and decided that the guards were drinking and making to much noise to hear. The players did not know this so they hurriedly searched the room, put a guard on hall and then hide the bodies while the wizard cast prestidigitation to clean up the blood. Then they went in search of a place to hide and rest. They were low on any kind of healing. I made a snap decision that one of the scrolls was rope trick so they could safely rest without worrying about being interrupted.

What I consider stupid behavior is thinking that just because you are a PC you get some kind of plot immunity. Some stupid things I have seen is a low level rogue picking powerful nobles pockets at a ceremony that the PCs had been invited to because they had helped young prince out of a scrape. He failed a roll and got caught and searched and they found all these stolen items. The King stopped to much bad from happening so instead of getting his hand cut off the price of thievery well known in the city. The rogue was given a warning that if he was ever caught stealing in the city again he would lose not his hand but his life. The rest of the party was furious.The player excuse was well I am rogue this is what I do.