D&D 5E Solving the 5MWD

[Uller]

As an example of how to get players to press on...

We just finieshed a multi level dungeon. They defeated and slew the boss on level 1 but when they rested a sub boss they hadn't encountered got away. She realized she was overmatched and left to get help.

On the second level the level 2 boss escaped before they could kill him. While they tarried looking for loot the boss organized a counter attack forcing them to retreat back to level 1 where they rested again. The level 1 sub boss had not yet mustered the forces necessary to retake her lair so they got a second rest...

On level 3 they managed to completely destroy one of the bosses and all her forces but tried to rest there. The lvl 2 boss had rallied his forces and enlisted the aid of a powerful ally to mount an attack on the resting party. This resulted in a fighting retreat and the party having to barter for safe passage from some of the other monsters on level 3. They managed to kill the level 2 boss this time scattering his forces but the powerful ally remained. Before it all ended they rested 2 more times, defeated the most powerful enemies in the dungeon but unbeknownst to them the lvl 1 subboss returned with allies and completely reoccupied the first level. The PCs left by a different route and still don't know it. Maybe that will bite them later.

Resting has story consequences. That is what ought to prevent the 5MWD most of the time. Sometimes the 5MWD is a valid strategy for the adventure (exploring a tomb with static challenges, for example). But most of the time it should not seem that way to the players.

If your game style is such that you only get in one or two encounters between long rests then the best solution to me is to change the criteria for a long rest so that you can stick to your style but long rests just happen less frequently or give more time for NPCs to take their "off screen" turn.

If players rest while they still have resources and the adventure is still unresolved they should feel about the same way they would if they ended their turn in combat while still having actions left in the combat action economy...they are leaving resources on the table and their enemies should take full advantage of that.

 

[Harzel]

Question, what happens at 20th level. Once you use up those spells are you just done? No more magic?

You know what they say: getting old is not for wimps. So, yeah, chalk it up to verisimilitude - there are, um ... things ... that just don't recover like they used to.

 

[Lanefan]

I actually think what people are really looking for here is to essentially remove casters, and make all magic be scrolls and potions. That avoids all the weirdness and awkwardness of linking stuff to level up and allows for greater tactical and strategic decision-making than level up based stuff.

Where I almost get the sense that some here are looking to essentially remove all that annoying tactical and strategic decision-making on any scale larger/longer than the single fight that's being played out right now at the table. No more long-term resource management; no more attrition-based play; no more decisions as to whether we carry on, bail out, or find a place to hole up and rest.

Linking refresh to level-up (or some other arbitrary out-of-fiction element - for example I'm kind of surprised nobody's yet suggested refresh happen only at the start of each game session) has the disadvantage of moving it completely* out of character and into the metagame - which, as Ruin Explorer points out, is fine for a computer game but IMO nowhere near so good for a TTRPG with any thoughts of simulationism at all.

* - as opposed to partly, where it is now; though at least one can easily link the game mechanics to in-fiction actions if one tries (the characters take a breather, some abilities come back; they rest overnight and they all come back).

 

[Lanefan]

Question, what happens at 20th level. Once you use up those spells are you just done? No more magic?

Eh, the magic's usually gone long before 20th level...

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't know why I didn't mention this earlier, it even came up in another thread:

Back in the day, if you failed your % to open a lock or something, you couldn't try again until you gained your next experience level.

Yeah.

 

[EpicureanDM]

If all your abilities are tied, instead, to a DM-controlled level-up, that presents a very different mode of play. It is also necessarily less possible to be "skilled" at using abilities with per level stuff, because it is simply rationing, and thus the only real way to be "skilled" is to somehow know, beforehand, what you are facing, in some detail, and to plan resource usage, deviating as required by bad/good dice rolls and so on. There's no "Oh naughty word that was a tough encounter we need to find a way to rest and prepare for the next!", and if you blow most/all of your abilities you're just screwed, with no ability to execute a plan to regain those abilities. You can't even fight your way back out of the dungeon and recharge. Instead you're staring at the XP bar (as it were), which is your only guide.

Although it's not been mentioned much in this thread, the 13A solution does allow for limited player control over recovery. The hypothetical party screwed over by a tough encounter can choose to take a "campaign loss" and jump instantly to a long rest (in 5e terms). A campaign loss is defined loosely in 13A, but it's meant to be a fictional penalty, a setback in the campaign. The simplest example is that the final boss battle will be harder or the characters' enemies elsewhere move closer to completing their evil goals. But in exchange, the party regains all hp and spells and such. No need to fight your way back out of the dungeon.

 

[Harzel]

Where I almost get the sense that some here are looking to essentially remove all that annoying tactical and strategic decision-making on any scale larger/longer than the single fight that's being played out right now at the table. No more long-term resource management; no more attrition-based play;

Not strictly true, but, depending on the exact proposal, you have 'some' to 'much' more certainty about the what the optimal usage rate is.

no more decisions as to whether we carry on, bail out, or find a place to hole up and rest.

Also - dammit, we've been at this luxury spa for two weeks; seems like we ought to be ready to go!

Linking refresh to level-up (or some other arbitrary out-of-fiction element - for example I'm kind of surprised nobody's yet suggested refresh happen only at the start of each game session) has the disadvantage of moving it completely* out of character and into the metagame - which, as Ruin Explorer points out, is fine for a computer game but IMO nowhere near so good for a TTRPG with any thoughts of simulationism at all.

* - as opposed to partly, where it is now; though at least one can easily link the game mechanics to in-fiction actions if one tries (the characters take a breather, some abilities come back; they rest overnight and they all come back).

Agreed. Do you have a take on the kind of thing that @Sadras suggested?

 

[clearstream]

For me this problem is solved in the following ways:

1) Always give hints to your players that there is more to the world than the current encounter. NPCs and monsters have allies. There are bigger and meaner things stalking the adventure location. If an NPC or monster escapes the fight they will seek revenge or to recapture whatever was lost. The PCs should rarely feel comfortable just reasting in a place that is not a safe haven.

2) Limit the effectiveness of rests or expand the time. I allow 3 short rests per day, each takes twice as long as the last...15 min, 30 min, 1 hour. Long rests in the dungeon reset this but only count as a short rest...long rests require a completely safe haven or very well stocked and established camp amd take 24 hours.

3) Before they decide to rest help them understand that the NPCs will get a "turn" in the larger game. Rooms will restock. Wounded will heal. Reinforcements might arrive. PC allies mught be attacked, etc. Give an ingame consequence. Your adventures should not feel like an old school CRPG where the monsters are just waiting for the PCs to come kill them.

To me, the 5MWD problem is not solved only with rules. It requires the DM to present a game world that is dangerous enough that the players feel they have to conserve resources and press on even when they are low. It also requires the players to stick to the social contract that their PCs have motivations (sometimes unspoken by the DM) to finish the adventure...they want to get back to soft bed and warm food, to lives they left behind, or they want to have time for other things.

Generally, and in not quite the same way, yes: I prefer a plot-time approach that is long enough to create credible scope for those sorts of things to happen. I found that RAW plot-time was inadequate, even though the principle itself was okay (and that was after trying hard mechanical approaches).

 

[Ashrym]

Another problem is that the entire adventure against the goblins consisted of the wizard casting sleep on a bunch of goblins and the rest of the party murdering said goblins, rifling through their stuff, and waiting for the wizard to recharge his sleep spells so they could do it again. Simple. Efficient. Why is anyone else even there? Why not all play wizards casting sleep? That would also 'solve' the 5MWD problem as they could murder goblin like six times as fast, no?

Generally it's the fact that the wizard would only get 3 of those goblins with sleep, lol, and it's easy to wake up those who were put to sleep. Sleep used to drop an ogre at 1st level. Not so much these days.

A party of wizard spamming sleep can drop a lot of goblins. Depending on initiative. And worg riders. And goblin leaders. And traps or ambushes or just plain old surprise. Or the range of missile weapons vs the range of spells like sleep.

Stopping after running out of sleep spells doesn't necessarily solve the objective (what were the goblins planning on doing with their time?) or prevent goblins tracking down the resting party for retribution while the party is resting.

"Weeeell, yup, until you run into something immune to Sleep..."
Yeah, because what a party of wizards lacks is /versatility/. :|

The wizards would need that versatility, lol. It's not like they fight nothing but goblins and kobolds. It's not immunity to sleep that's restricts that spell. It's the hit points monsters have. Wizards also need to mitigate and/or heal damage.

What you are portraying as a caster issue is nothing of the sort. A group of all fighters can stomp on a group of goblins, take less damage due to armor, are more likely to survive due to taking less damage and having more hit points, and can second wind if needed. Then the group of fighters can take a long rest due to the default healing rules.

Players are just as likely to take a long rest for healing as they are for spell slots. Any solution to a presumed 5MWD isn't going to be resolved by targeting only spells. The OP's proposal recognized that even if I disagree with the premise.

To be clear, the players who are using daily resources because the classes they picked have 'em.

There's not one daily resource only class that exists in the game, however. Not one. Every class has at-will abilities. Every class uses hit dice healing on short rests at a minimum. That's why we have cantrips for spells casters, and rituals for most spell casters.

The assumption that spell caster will use their limited resources instead of their limitless resources while rationing limited resources is just that -- an assumption. If that's what happens in your experience and not what happens in my experience then I know that it's just an assumption simply for the fact I know it doesn't happen at all tables. If it doesn't happen at all tables then it's how the players are playing and how the DM is handling it, not a proven issue with the rules themselves.

The rules say "this is the general assumption" and the premise of the argument is "players choose to do this instead and the DM facilitates that style of play instead of facilitating the general assumption", and not even all players at that.

I hear that alot - but reasonably, how much can really change in 24 hours fictional time? This is one reason I prefer a longer rest cycle - but then the opposite effect happens and you've given the enemys too much time for preparation or maybe even so much time they are no longer on high alert.

Time passes yet - but there's only certain things that can reasonably happen in any pre codified resting-recovery timeframe.

What happens is relative to the adventure and campaign.

Well, there's the example of the goblins who weren't defeated yet tracking down the party before they've managed to complete their rest, for starters.

If you pull something as cliché as "caravan guard", cultists attack the caravan, you blow daily resources fighting them off, and group "b" was kidnapping the caravan master's daughter (the plot hook) while you fighting the other attackers do you really thing the appropriate response to "save my daughter" is "I'll do it tomorrow".

Caravan master: "Umm, why tomorrow? Save my daughter! I hired you to protect us!"
Players: "Well, you see, Bob got excited and was trying to show off, and now he wants to relax so he can show off again tomorrow."
Caravan master: "So I hired Bob and he's totally useless after one battle? Any you others are helpless without him?"
Players: "Well, no. We never actually needed Bob and none us is helpless at all. Not even Bob."
Caravan master: "So really what's going on here is you are just leaving my daughter to whatever happens to her with the those cultists....."

Going with the not being out of spells the party starts the adventure, decides to quit for the day early (not necessarily right after the caravan fight but at any point), and the caravan master's daughter becomes the victim of ritual sacrifice. The goal is to save the daughter. The party chose to play in such a way that they fail the quest.

Temple of Elemental Evil took the approach of gathering forces. If the party wasn't progressing through the dungeon there would be replacements for what they already went through and increasing numbers of opponents by their inaction.

24 hours is enough to complete that ancient ritual summoning ancient evil, important NPC's to become compromised or slain, villages to be razed, and more. It's plenty of time for the remaining forces to counter attack, shore of defenses, recruit additional resources, set traps, relocate important resources, and set extra patrols.

The 6-8 encounter guidelines are an estimate to when the party should need rest. The long rest is the party sleeping overnight. It doesn't makes sense outside of a gamist approach that the party goes on an adventure and does nothing but wait until nightfall so they can sleep again before continuing, and events certainly progress while the party is doing nothing but waiting so they can sleep again.

The only thing a DM needs to do in that scenario is add encounters to it because the party is literally doing nothing in that time as well. That's why it's actually easier to take a short rest than it is to wait to be able to take a long rest again. The party already benefitted from a short rest well within 24 hours prior and doesn't actually start the long rest for some time.

Even the party that decides to take a long rest benefits from a short rest an hour into the wait. At that point they aren't out of resources again because they spent hit dice and most classes either didn't need to recover anything or recovered something.

I'm the DM man, I'm like already 1000th level or something

That reminded me of a game I was in way back in junior high. One of the new players asked what level the DM is. He answered "12 billion". Then explained the DM isn't an in-game concept after the game.

 

[Maxperson]

That reminded me of a game I was in way back in junior high. One of the new players asked what level the DM is. He answered "12 billion". Then explained the DM isn't an in-game concept after the game.

I beg to differ.