D&D 5E Slow Rests: Anyone Tried It?

[Remathilis]

My only concern is that some classes (wizards, circle of the land druids, and warlocks) can recover some or all spells on a short rest, while others (bard, cleric, sorcerer, and moon druids) can not. That makes the former much more appealing choices.

 

[keterys]

My only concern is that some classes (wizards, circle of the land druids, and warlocks) can recover some or all spells on a short rest, while others (bard, cleric, sorcerer, and moon druids) can not. That makes the former much more appealing choices.

Why?

Or, more specifically, why wouldn't they already be, since that's already how they work with respect to short rests?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

My only concern is that some classes (wizards, circle of the land druids, and warlocks) can recover some or all spells on a short rest, while others (bard, cleric, sorcerer, and moon druids) can not. That makes the former much more appealing choices.

I haven't had a ton of time to examine all of the classes, but doesn't the cleric regain uses of Channel Divinity with a short rest? I think most classes gain some fairly substantial resources with a short rest. Every class has a different balance of short-rest and long-rest powers, but a game with seven short rests per long rest will not favor a short-rest-focused class much more than a game with one short rest per long rest will favor a long-rest-focused class.

 

[Sunseeker]

I have no inherent objections to the idea provided that it actually changes the way the party behaves while resting. If it doesn't serve to do anything besides slow down the time in the game, I fail to see the purpose. Traditionally characters in stories take "long rests", that is, get days or weeks of rest after a serious injury in plot-locations. Frodo gets stabbed by the Nazgul, takes a "long rest" in Rivendell. From a storytelling perspective, noone really cares what happens during that downtime, but that's not to say the world, and the other party members all sat on their thumbs in the interim.

I guess what I'm getting at is that aside from changing the time-flow of the game, you also need to change the dynamic. Not all party members are likely to be as injured as others. Perhaps Bob only needs a single night of rest. Maybe Bill doesn't need any at all. Maybe Timmy is seriously injured and needs more time. Well, what are Bob and Bill doing while they wait for Timmy to get better?

If your "long rests" are just taking place in Generic Town with no real ways to carry on the game while Timmy is recovering, then you have not essentially changed anything at all. More time may have been taken, but rest was still "the party takes a long rest" and then they go back to whatever they were doing. Slow Rests only matter on their own when "time is of the essence", such as the big-bad getting the crystal of doom or catching up to the party. Otherwise the DM must endeavor to make the "full week of rest" feel like it has more of an impact than a "full night of rest". Without that additional impact I question the value of doing it at all.

 

[TwoSix]

I have no inherent objections to the idea provided that it actually changes the way the party behaves while resting. If it doesn't serve to do anything besides slow down the time in the game, I fail to see the purpose. Traditionally characters in stories take "long rests", that is, get days or weeks of rest after a serious injury in plot-locations. Frodo gets stabbed by the Nazgul, takes a "long rest" in Rivendell. From a storytelling perspective, noone really cares what happens during that downtime, but that's not to say the world, and the other party members all sat on their thumbs in the interim.

Well, it is a good way to get characters to engage in downtime activities by blending them into the recovery of the game resources. But that isn't really the purpose of making long rests longer.

I guess what I'm getting at is that aside from changing the time-flow of the game, you also need to change the dynamic. Not all party members are likely to be as injured as others. Perhaps Bob only needs a single night of rest. Maybe Bill doesn't need any at all. Maybe Timmy is seriously injured and needs more time. Well, what are Bob and Bill doing while they wait for Timmy to get better?

If your "long rests" are just taking place in Generic Town with no real ways to carry on the game while Timmy is recovering, then you have not essentially changed anything at all. More time may have been taken, but rest was still "the party takes a long rest" and then they go back to whatever they were doing. Slow Rests only matter on their own when "time is of the essence", such as the big-bad getting the crystal of doom or catching up to the party. Otherwise the DM must endeavor to make the "full week of rest" feel like it has more of an impact than a "full night of rest". Without that additional impact I question the value of doing it at all.

It's more about what's happening between the rests than what's happening during the rest. There's a general agreement (so far) that about 6-8 moderately challenging encounters is the expected amount of pressure to put on a PC party before they should be able to take a long rest. For some styles of play, such as a concentrated dungeon crawl, 6-8 encounters is a perfectly normal expectation for 14-16 hours of in-game exploration. For other styles of play, such as ones with more wilderness exploration, 6-8 encounters might take 10-14 in-game days to complete.

Assuming that in the latter play style the DM wishes to preserve the resource pressure that is a part of the definition of "classic" D&D, there needs to be a method to allow for 2 straight weeks of travel without a recharging of all resources. The extended long rest is one method of doing so, especially when tied together with a requirement of relative safety and civilization.

If it also helps to create a campaign narrative that takes place over in-game years rather than in-game months, I think the response would be "So much the better."

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, it is a good way to get characters to engage in downtime activities by blending them into the recovery of the game resources. But that isn't really the purpose of making long rests longer.

It's more about what's happening between the rests than what's happening during the rest. There's a general agreement (so far) that about 6-8 moderately challenging encounters is the expected amount of pressure to put on a PC party before they should be able to take a long rest. For some styles of play, such as a concentrated dungeon crawl, 6-8 encounters is a perfectly normal expectation for 14-16 hours of in-game exploration. For other styles of play, such as ones with more wilderness exploration, 6-8 encounters might take 10-14 in-game days to complete.

Assuming that in the latter play style the DM wishes to preserve the resource pressure that is a part of the definition of "classic" D&D, there needs to be a method to allow for 2 straight weeks of travel without a recharging of all resources. The extended long rest is one method of doing so, especially when tied together with a requirement of relative safety and civilization.

If it also helps to create a campaign narrative that takes place over in-game years rather than in-game months, I think the response would be "So much the better."

I don't really care if my story takes place over months or years in-game personally. So I don't see the benefits to making the rests take longer simply to achieve that goal. If you want to make the game take years instead of months, there are plenty of more interesting ways to do that.

If players aren't doing anything useful during their now extended downtime (and they are capable of doing so), then the downtime has no meaning. I don't care if it's a bard competition or a jousting tournament or even Oktoberfest. If the days are handwaved away when you previously would have only waved away hours, it doesn't accomplish anything. You don't even get the feeling like the time has passed. You NEED the players to get that "itch" to keep moving in order to make it feel like time has really passed.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't really care if my story takes place over months or years in-game personally. So I don't see the benefits to making the rests take longer simply to achieve that goal. If you want to make the game take years instead of months, there are plenty of more interesting ways to do that.

That's all fine, but I still don't see how that solves the issue of not letting PCs recharge during an extended adventure. You're arguing about an issue (the overall duration of the campaign) that's only loosely associated with the main issue (campaigns that don't have 6-8 encounters per day.)

 

[Haffrung]

I guess what I'm getting at is that aside from changing the time-flow of the game, you also need to change the dynamic. Not all party members are likely to be as injured as others. Perhaps Bob only needs a single night of rest. Maybe Bill doesn't need any at all. Maybe Timmy is seriously injured and needs more time. Well, what are Bob and Bill doing while they wait for Timmy to get better?

The PHB has a bunch of downtime options. I expect the DMG will have more. Gathering rumours, training, researching, etc.

If your "long rests" are just taking place in Generic Town with no real ways to carry on the game while Timmy is recovering, then you have not essentially changed anything at all. More time may have been taken, but rest was still "the party takes a long rest" and then they go back to whatever they were doing. Slow Rests only matter on their own when "time is of the essence", such as the big-bad getting the crystal of doom or catching up to the party. Otherwise the DM must endeavor to make the "full week of rest" feel like it has more of an impact than a "full night of rest". Without that additional impact I question the value of doing it at all.

If you have a living campaign world where things happen outside the spotlight of the PCs, then time matters. The orc raiders withdraw to their mountain fastness; the necromancer is two weeks closer to becoming a lich; another young lord is enchanted by the dryads of the Gloaming Wood. Or more directly pertinent to the PCs, the party's wizard sends a message to his sage friend in Viridistan asking for information about sigils he found in the dungeon; the rogue learns from his contacts that human cultists of some demon have been spotted in the city; the surviving troglodytes abandon the shrine of Demogorgon and retreat (along with their gold idol) deeper into the underdark.

 

[Sunseeker]

The PHB has a bunch of downtime options. I expect the DMG will have more. Gathering rumours, training, researching, etc.

If you have a living campaign world where things happen outside the spotlight of the PCs, then time matters. The orc raiders withdraw to their mountain fastness; the necromancer is two weeks closer to becoming a lich; another young lord is enchanted by the dryads of the Gloaming Wood. Or more directly pertinent to the PCs, the party's wizard sends a message to his sage friend in Viridistan asking for information about sigils he found in the dungeon; the rogue learns from his contacts that human cultists of some demon have been spotted in the city; the surviving troglodytes abandon the shrine of Demogorgon and retreat (along with their gold idol) deeper into the underdark.

Oh yeah I totally agree, but that's my point. More or less time spent on a campaign really has no meaning if the world doesn't move without the PCs taking action. What's important and what should be noted in the rules themselves is this very fact: that when the the players stop moving the world doesn't. This isn't an issue with 8 hours being a long rest but it is with potentially week long rests and if the book has sections covering alternative times for resting, it should point out that time should keep moving.

 

[Remathilis]

I haven't had a ton of time to examine all of the classes, but doesn't the cleric regain uses of Channel Divinity with a short rest? I think most classes gain some fairly substantial resources with a short rest. Every class has a different balance of short-rest and long-rest powers, but a game with seven short rests per long rest will not favor a short-rest-focused class much more than a game with one short rest per long rest will favor a long-rest-focused class.

Why?

Or, more specifically, why wouldn't they already be, since that's already how they work with respect to short rests?

Its a perception of time and restorative strength.

If I'm adventuring in a dungeon and take a beating, I might take a 1 hour rest to blow a few HD, recover my 2nd level spell slot, or recharge second wind. If I'm REALLY beat up, I can hide in a room, stake the door, set watch, and 8 hours later go out again.

I can't do that with slow rests. If I get dropped to 0 because of a lucky crit, my team can't rest a day for me to recover. They have to blow hard resources to bring me up (spells, HD) that they won't see again for days or even weeks. If I get dropped on day six of a seven day journey to the Crystalmyst caverns, will they want to waste spell slots to bring me up or perhaps save them for whatever creature guards those caverns? Would if I get bit by a dire rat and get filth fever, are they going to go back the six days they traveled to get me to a cleric how can remove it? Will I MAKE the six day travel home? What if they kill the ogre guarding the caverns, but doing so are now out of HD and spell slots? They got attacked 5 times on the way here; why would they not be attacked on the way home? Do they camp in the ogre's cave for a week (unmolested) to recover their stuff?

Anyone who can recover even a portion of their power on a short rest has the advantage over one who needs a long rest. In the standard format, that isn't a big deal: a warlock refreshes his spells 1-3 times (if even) over a sorcerer, but if they take a beating and need their spells, they are both 24 hours away from full strength. In the slow rests, a weeklong journey to the Crystalmysts means the warlock recovers 6 times to the sorcerer's once, and if they are both beaten, they both can't just "camp a week" in the middle of nowhere to reset; the warlock has his magic back in 24 hours, the sorcerer at the end of a 14 day round trip.

Effectively, slow rests make every short rest ability "1/day" and every long-rest ability "1/adventure". Turn Undead? 1/day (no cleric in AD&D or d20 had a restriction THAT harsh on turn undead!) Every cleric would be saving their spell slots for Cure Wounds since you don't know when the next critical is going to derail your entire travel plans. Warlocks become THE best arcane caster (at will invocations + short rest spell slots). I wouldn't DARE consider using CR = party level monsters; on day six that's a TPK. Dragonborn become horribly gimped.

Sounds good in theorycraft, but unless your game focused on an urban center with short jaunts to the immediate countryside OR a boatload of houserules and dice-fudging, I wager the game would begin to change in unexpected ways.