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

[pemerton]

If you have a living campaign world where things happen outside the spotlight of the PCs, then time matters.

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.

OK, but for some players the flavour matters, and can matter even if the campaign world is not the sort of "living world" that Haffrung describes. I think mulitple posters have expressly stated upthread that they don't like the flavour of 1st to 20th level in 6 months of ingame time.

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.

The idea of slow rests is that they belong in a game which doesn't have so many encounters per day. If you're running a typical time-limited dungeon adventures than you probably wouldn't want to use slow rests.

I won't weep tears of envy about the wizard novaing in such an environment. Because I'll be playing the wizard. I know which classes get my bread buttered.

Truly, you have mastered the art of avoiding tears of envy!

 

[Remathilis]

The idea of slow rests is that they belong in a game which doesn't have so many encounters per day. If you're running a typical time-limited dungeon adventures than you probably wouldn't want to use slow rests.

Which isn't what I was talking about.

You avoided the rest of my example where I discuss day four of an eight day "adventure/journey" where the group takes a bad turn of dice and ends with two PCs at 0 hp, a blinded, diseased fighter, and no spells of note left beyond cantrips. They are FOUR DAYS away from their goal (and by extension, four more encounters they have to face) and FOUR DAYS away from returning home to long-rest and heal for a week. In the standard healing scenario: if the group feels additional encounters are suicidal, they can retreat and heal at the cost of an extra day of rest. The slow heal group, if they decide to retreat, has 96 hours of road to travel and a week of inactivity to recover. TWO WEEKS later, they can return to the point they were, fully healed.

Slow rests also play havoc with spell durations longer than combat. I cited Mage Armor which, in the regular rules, lasts a day (well, 8 hours). In the normal rules, if the group needed to short rest, all it costs the mage is an hour of his mage armor. In slow rests, his spell ends after his short rest and if he wants it again, he has to recast it (out of his non-replenishing spell slots, no less!). The same is true of Faithful Hound, Nondetection, Water Breathing, etc. In the normal rules, you can short rest with these spells and not lose them, in slow rests, you can't. The plus side is that warlocks, with short-rest replenishment and some spells at-will (including mage armor and detect magic) will be INCREDIBLY popular since they can still go nova every day...

The same is true of negative conditions; mummy rot causes you to take 3d6 negative hp loss (which lowers your hp maximum) every 24 hours. In the normal rules; a cleric who doesn't have lesser restoration prepared (or lacks the spell slots to cast it) can do so in a night's sleep so that the afflicted PCs takes 3d6 damage from it max. In a slow rest, he takes it four times (12d6) before he even returns to town, which is a death sentence for a 4th level PC (mummies are CR 3). Which is why you can't use CR as a guideline anymore (My suggestion? CR = level -2 and double XP value for creating encounter budgets, unless you want the dead stacked in piles).

If all that makes you happy, go for it. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, I'm just trying to point out its not the same as "running a game on half-speed" and will need new-fittings.

My suggestion?
* All all classes to use Arcane Recovery once per short rest. Getting back half your caster-level in spell levels (max 5th) will allow casters to gain back some spell slots each "day", lessening the fear they will have nothing come later battles.
* Make spells with durations longer than 1 hour "1 day" so that mage armor lasts 8 days instead.
* Make non-spell abilities that recover with a rest double: a cleric gets 2 channel divinities per short rest, a dragonborn two breath weapons per short rest, and a bard gets double his Charisma modifier in bardic inspiration.
* PCs recover ALL Hit dice on a long rest.

That should give PCs a greater feeling of being able to handle challenges "by the book" without resorting to dice-fudging or TPKs.

 

[keterys]

Slow rests also play havoc with spell durations longer than combat. I cited Mage Armor which, in the regular rules, lasts a day (well, 8 hours). In the normal rules, if the group needed to short rest, all it costs the mage is an hour of his mage armor.

Yep, good objection. Personally, I kinda wish the system instead just had long and short durations, and every long you trigger longs and every short shorts, and move on. But, D&D tries really hard to pretend it can be realistic, and that magic is totally unscientific but also follows stop watches

The plus side is that warlocks, with short-rest replenishment and some spells at-will (including mage armor and detect magic) will be INCREDIBLY popular since they can still go nova every day...

I think you're still missing the point, with this statement. Cause you could also just as easily have said "The down side is that warlocks will be INCREDIBLY unpopular since they only get 1 to 2 spell slots per day!"

Same number of slots per rest. Same everything.

The same is true of negative conditions; mummy rot causes you to take 3d6 negative hp loss (which lowers your hp maximum) every 24 hours.

Yep, you'd either want to count it as tougher or make everything that triggers per long time trigger per (new) long time.

Which is why you can't use CR as a guideline anymore (My suggestion? CR = level -2 and double XP value for creating encounter budgets, unless you want the dead stacked in piles).

Doesn't make sense at all. Very few things are impacted by this change. Not every creature is a mummy.

* All all classes to use Arcane Recovery once per short rest. Getting back half your caster-level in spell levels (max 5th) will allow casters to gain back some spell slots each "day", lessening the fear they will have nothing come later battles.

Many classes already have mechanics to get resources back per short rest; applying more of them only starts to miss the point. What could make sense is instead that classes be able to adjust their prepared / memorized spells, to account for new situations, potentially. There's some argument to be made there. (Also some argument to be made for during normal short rests too)

Ie, it's reasonable to let someone adjust their spells prepared to deal with (curse, poison, disease, restorable things) over the course of time. It's also reasonable not to, since "spells known" folks have to cope without that freedom and not like there's really any recompense for that

* Make spells with durations longer than 1 hour "1 day" so that mage armor lasts 8 days instead.

Possibly make that longer than a couple hours, but sure.

* Make non-spell abilities that recover with a rest double: a cleric gets 2 channel divinities per short rest, a dragonborn two breath weapons per short rest, and a bard gets double his Charisma modifier in bardic inspiration.

That's a ton of potential resources. Especially when you consider things like Life Channel Div. Why is it so necessary to make the game so much easier? It's already pretty darn easy (except for 1st level, randomly).

* PCs recover ALL Hit dice on a long rest.

Absolutely agree. I'm surprised you didn't make an argument for, say, one hit die per short rest.

 

[Remathilis]

I think you're still missing the point, with this statement. Cause you could also just as easily have said "The down side is that warlocks will be INCREDIBLY unpopular since they only get 1 to 2 spell slots per day!"

Same number of slots per rest. Same everything.

Depends on how often you have short rests.

If we're going by the 1 encounter per day (and rests at night = short rest) model, then our hypothetical warlock has 2 spell slots per day (+ 3 invocations) where as the wizard has 9 spells total (+2 spell levels returned).

On day one, they both cast two spells. The wizard has 7 spells, the warlock refreshes and has 2.
On day two, they both cast two spells. The wizard has 5 spells, the warlock refreshes and has 2.
On day three, they both cast two spells. The wizard has 3 spells left, the warlock refreshes and has 2.
On day four, they both cast two spells. The wizard has 1 spell left, the warlock refreshes and has 2.
On day five, they both cast their remaining spells. The wizard is reduced to cantrips, the warlock refreshes and has 2.
On day six, seven, and eight, the warlock casts two spells per day and gets them back. The wizard recovers 2 first or 1 second level spell. Going into the "final" eight battle, the wizard might have a single spell left, the warlock comes in at full strength.

See, under the normal rules, you're not going to short rest every 1-2 encounters. You'll probably get two short rests if you're lucky during 8 encounters. The warlock there refreshes and get 6 spells, no where near the wizard's 9. But every day the warlock gets to short rest that the wizard doesn't get to long rest, the warlock gets his juice back and wizard does not.

So if you know you're going to face a single encounter per short rest and not get long rests, why would you choose a wizard over a warlock?

Doesn't make sense at all. Very few things are impacted by this change. Not every creature is a mummy.

The mummy is an egregious example. The definition of CR is "An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths." Emphasis mine. You are not giving your PCs a chance to be "well rested". Therefore, they can't handle the same types of challenges. The CR -2 keeps foes less deady (and thus doesn't require as much drain on their limited resources) or the double XP budget (and that is just a guestimate, I haven't crunched numbers) would show what kind of real challenge a foe would be when the PCs CAN'T retreat, heal up, and go back in.

Many classes already have mechanics to get resources back per short rest; applying more of them only starts to miss the point. What could make sense is instead that classes be able to adjust their prepared / memorized spells, to account for new situations, potentially. There's some argument to be made there. (Also some argument to be made for during normal short rests too.

Ie, it's reasonable to let someone adjust their spells prepared to deal with (curse, poison, disease, restorable things) over the course of time. It's also reasonable not to, since "spells known" folks have to cope without that freedom and not like there's really any recompense for that

Spellcasters want to cast spells. My example above was two spells per day (barring rituals and cantrips) to handle problems and attack foes. I sincerely doubt two spells between short rests is not "going nova", but giving classes a recovery mechanic (esp sorcerers, who get really hosed: less spells, both sorcery and spells recover only on long rests) allows them to breathe at bit, especially when those pesky monsters make their saves!

That's a ton of potential resources. Especially when you consider things like Life Channel Div. Why is it so necessary to make the game so much easier? It's already pretty darn easy (except for 1st level, randomly).

What about a dragonborn's breath weapon? They breathe fire once per day? Or bardic inspiration: "Hey guys, I can inspire you three times over the next two weeks!"

Yeah, not ever ability needs to double, but some of them might need a boost on uses, especially if they are a bread-and-butter ability that refreshes during a long rest; otherwise you will see most everyone just spamming basic attacks and cantrips.

Absolutely agree. I'm surprised you didn't make an argument for, say, one hit die per short rest.

There is a distinction to be made between resting for HP renewal and resting for ability renewal.

I'm actually NOT slow healing; the idea that a good night's rest recovers all wounds does limit certain playstyles. I can understand why people want to modify that.

However, if I'm a caster, I want to cast my spells. If I'm a barbarian, I want to rage. If I'm a bard, I want to use my inspiration dice. In a game where I can't recover those abilities easily, I'm loathe to use them and end up sticking to resources that can be renewed. Additionally, in normal rests I know that if things get too hot, I can retreat, regroup, and try again. In this mode, if things get too hot, I lose (either by going home empty handed or dying) and that leaves no room for error. If an encounter goes south, we don't say "Damn, that fight was harder than we expected; lets rest and regroup before we press on", we say "Damn, that fight was harder than we expected; let's quit and go back to town."

Call it a personal preference, but I don't like the latter.

 

[Andor]

I was going to quibble with Remathilis, but I misremembered Sorcerers recovering sorcery points on a short rest. They don't until 20th level.

Which got me thinking about how each class is impacted by this rule change. The rule as I understand it is basically that a nights rest counts as a short rest, and a Long rest requires significant downtime, call it a week, yes?

Ok.

Barbarian: Short rest recovers nothing. 2 Rages and he's a fighter without a style until he can nap for a week. Furthermore this makes the Berserker path much worse than the Totem Path. If he uses his frenzy he's exhausted until further notice.

Bard: Short rest recovers nothing unitl 5th level when it will refresh Bardic Inspiration. OTOH the Song of Rest ability becomes more important, giving the Bard an attractive boost in this model.

Cleric: Short Rest recovers Channel Divinity. This makes the Channel Divinity power more important, and probably shifts the balance between domains a bit. Ritual Caster becomes more important in the slow recovery model.

Druid: Short Rest Recovers wildshape. Wildshape is movement, healing and combat. Druid is significantly boosted on a daily basis in this model, only aided by the Ritual Casting.

Fighter: Short Rest recovers Second Wind, Action Surge and Superiority dice. Probably a net bump for the fighter as a whole. However the Battlemaster becomes much more attractive than the Eldritch Knight since superiorty dice are quick recovering and spells are slow.

Monk: Short Rest recovers Ki. Wholeness of Body becomes the Monks only Long rest refresh power, making Open Palm less attractive than the others.

Paladin: Short rest recover only Channel Divinity. Everything else is on a long Rest. Paladin gets bumped down a notch.

Ranger: Gets nothing from a short rest. Falls a notch.

Rogues in general get nothing from short rest. The class is essentially unaffected by the rule, however Arcane Tricksters are degraded significantly in comparison to Thiefs and Assassins.

Sorcerers: Get nothing from a short rest until level 20. Not a ritual caster. Sorcerer loses some attractiveness. They do have the most cantrips however.

Warlock: The class has a lot of control over whether it's abilities are at-will, short rest, or long rest recovered. Plus they can opt to be a powerful ritual caster. Strong net bump for the Sorcerer.

Wizard: Short rest grants Arcane recovery. School abilities are mostly at-will. Ritual caster. Strong boost compared to the Sorcerer.

I make these judgements from the persepective of a player, who can never know that a GM is going to limit the encounters we face to the suggested pace of 6-8 per long rest. As such I always want something in my back pocket, a class which can become exhausted for days on end like the Eldritch Knight or Sorcerer becomes much less appealing to me under those circumstances.

 

[pemerton]

Which isn't what I was talking about.

You avoided the rest of my example where I discuss day four of an eight day "adventure/journey" where the group takes a bad turn of dice and ends with two PCs at 0 hp, a blinded, diseased fighter, and no spells of note left beyond cantrips. They are FOUR DAYS away from their goal (and by extension, four more encounters they have to face) and FOUR DAYS away from returning home to long-rest and heal for a week. In the standard healing scenario: if the group feels additional encounters are suicidal, they can retreat and heal at the cost of an extra day of rest. The slow heal group, if they decide to retreat, has 96 hours of road to travel and a week of inactivity to recover. TWO WEEKS later, they can return to the point they were, fully healed.

This isn't a bug, though. For someone using slow rests it is a feature - exactly the feature they are seeking to achieve.

Subject to some spell descriptions (which I will comment on below) the difference between two days and two weeks is purely a flavour difference. The whole point of using slow rests is to slow down the passage of events in the game, and to increase the number of times that two weeks pass rather than two days. A GM/group using slow rests will - assuming they are rational - adapt the fictional pace of the game, and ingame events, to fit with this overall slowing-down.

Slow rests also play havoc with spell durations longer than combat.

This was mentioned by [MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION] in the OP, I believe. That's why he asked if anyone has had actual play experience.

I haven't done a comprehensive check for the number of long-duration spells. But if it's only a handful, a GM who wants to use slow rests can probably just make an ad hoc correction of them. (Eg 1 hour/level becomes 1 day/level.)

Likewise for the handful of creatures like mummies. It becomes damage/week rather than damage/day (ie as with the 4e disease track it is linked to the long rest cycle).

The plus side is that warlocks, with short-rest replenishment and some spells at-will (including mage armor and detect magic) will be INCREDIBLY popular since they can still go nova every day

Huh? Warlocks can nova X times per Y encounters, based on the pacing of short rests relative to encounters. Changing the ingame timing between encounters doesn't affect this pacing. If you make it one encounter per two hours, with hour long short rests, or one encounter per day, with overnight shorts rests, warlocks don't get any more powerful.

 

[pemerton]

under the normal rules, you're not going to short rest every 1-2 encounters. You'll probably get two short rests if you're lucky during 8 encounters. The warlock there refreshes and get 6 spells, no where near the wizard's 9. But every day the warlock gets to short rest that the wizard doesn't get to long rest, the warlock gets his juice back and wizard does not.

I don't follow this either. Under the normal rules, if you have one encounter per day then you get one long rest per encounter and as many short rests as you like.

@ketery has already posted actual play experiences where two short rests per 8 encounters are not the norm.

So if you know you're going to face a single encounter per short rest and not get long rests, why would you choose a wizard over a warlock?

I don't understand "not get long rests". This thread is about slow rests, not abolishing long rests.

Heaps of people have done this in 4e - [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] posted about it in this thread, [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has also posted about it many times in the past, and so have I.

I'm actually NOT slow healing; the idea that a good night's rest recovers all wounds does limit certain playstyles. I can understand why people want to modify that.

However, if I'm a caster, I want to cast my spells.

A key insight of 4e is that, just as spells are a wizard's daily resource, so hit points are a fighter's daily resource. Slowing down recovery of one but not the other causes balance issues.

As I posted above, the labels for passage of ingame time are just labels. Casting one spell per encounter at two encounters per day (with short rests in between) and casting one spell per encounter at two encounters per hour (with short rests in between) doesn't change the degree to which my caster is casting spells. It just changes the fiction and flavour around that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Effectively, slow rests make every short rest ability "1/day" and every long-rest ability "1/adventure".

I think this is already true on a certain level. It's called an "adventuring day" for a reason. The encounter numbers are set to what a small dungeon level would contain. It's a good target for what you might accomplish in one 3-4 hour session. It's not explicit (as DMs will have adventures of varying durations, dungeons can have multiple levels, etc.), but it seems to be a bit of structure that underpins it: a one-session adventure is one adventuring day long.

See, under the normal rules, you're not going to short rest every 1-2 encounters. You'll probably get two short rests if you're lucky during 8 encounters.

I actually think you will be resting every 1-2 encounters. And you will be also getting 2 short rests for 8 encounters.

Good morning!
Encounter 1
Encounter 2
- Short Rest 1
Encounter 3
Encounter 4
- Short Rest 2
Encounter 5
Encounter 6
- Long Rest

...and if you're skilled, or if the encounters are lowballed, you'll fit another encounter or two in there before the long rest.

...this might affect the short rest/long rest dichotomy a little differently than in 4e in that 4e largely had 6 short rests/extended rest already (because a short rest happened after each encounter) and 5e seems to have 2 short rests/extended rest. Which might ramp up the power of short-rest-recovered abilities. Might not be a very big deal....