D&D 5E Solving the 5MWD

[Krachek]

4ed was close to eliminate completely 5mwd.
you give efficient at-will and encounter powers, infinite healing surge, and a few dailies in case of emergency, and you have an encounter base system. In system like that if you survive an encounter after a 5 minutes short rest you are up and running and almost at full efficiency. Dailies power are there only to spice up thing, and can be completely erase if needed.

such a system is nice, efficient, logical, completely balance, but it is not DnD.
that is its main problem.

 

[Tony Vargas]

For many that's a bit too metagamey - even worse than the 4 encounters to recover part - but also a necessary evil in the 13th age system IMO

A "Campaign Loss" still fits into the narrative, though, so it's not purely metagame. Really, it's a non-meta-game relief valve, of sorts.

The change that would be necessary would be a reduction in the power of individual spells.

To cantrips, that's the benchmark for at-will magic. Well, and rituals.

Many of your solutions to 5MWD only solve the balance issues related to it. The 5MWD still exists even if it benefits all characters equally.

/Especially/ if it benefits all character equally. The only pressure against the 5MWD is what the DM provides (and that may be 'none' if his story/setting/circumstance have no narrative reason for time pressure), and the "solution" of dialing up challenge just plain works, in those cases.

For instance, I've often found late-campaign storylines gravitating to infrequent, very powerful combats, because there just aren't that many challenges left for a high-level party. If there were so many of them that the party could spend their high-teen-level days grinding away 6-8 of them, they'd've conquered/destroyed the world back when the party was Heroic. It's just a pacing that feels more narratively natural as you get to very high power levels, yet, the resource mix at high level reaches its highest points, and greatest degrees of disparity.

Encounter-based design, OTOH, renders it a non-issue. You may get single-encounter 'days' (or years, or 73-encounter days), if the fiction makes it happen, but it doesn't hurt or benefit anyone.
But that also eliminates the resource-management meta-game, entirely.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

It made as much sense as a lot of things in the game. Your roll represented the best attempt. If you failed you literally could not do better than your best attempt, so you had to improve your skill before you had a chance to do better. It's not perfect, but as I said, it makes as much sense as many things, and less than some things like combat movement.

 

[5ekyu]

Yep - but one that doesn't work with the fictional environments I want to play and/or DM in.

So, should the thread be titled "Solving MY 5MWD." if the solutions are specifically to be geared to support the specific fictional environment that you prefer?

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, should the thread be titled "Solving MY 5MWD." if the solutions are specifically to be geared to support the specific fictional environment that you prefer?

5e was meant to be useable in a wide range of such styles.

 

[Maxperson]

So, should the thread be titled "Solving MY 5MWD." if the solutions are specifically to be geared to support the specific fictional environment that you prefer?

Actually, you might be okay with the 5 minute work day in your game, but it's an objective problem in 5e. The 5e mechanics are balanced for like 5-7 encounters before a long rest, so if the players are getting into one fight, long resting and then getting into another fight, they are breaking the game.

 

[FrogReaver]

Hope it makes sense - it takes some time to adjust or get your head around it.
We have had success using this system for the last almost 2 years but of course each table is different.

EDIT: The original idea came from @Ilbranteloth and I adjusted the modifier from 1d20 + proficiency + primary mod to 2 x proficiency because of a conversation with @Blue

Interesting rules.

I love the breather - I will probably bring that up for our games.

I still wonder hy you chose a penalty of exhaustion and placed weapped it in uncertainty. I don't understand why the need or benefit to rolling dice to determine if you are exhausted? Why wasn't this an always occurring detriment?

I have some major criticisms of the other rules. 3 levels of exhaustion - having a decent chance to occur your 2nd day on the road is pretty harsh.

Anyways, more importantly in relation to the 5MWD. It doesn't actually solve it - though it is a lot more flexible around it than the current D&D default system. It still is going to have certain fictional settings it works well with and others that it doesn't - which is the part of the mechanic that is exploited in creating the 5MWD - finding a way to turn most situations into a situation where you can fully recover. The system as listed in the pdf doesn't allow for an adventure where you are within a relatively short journey to a long rest site.

 

[FrogReaver]

4ed was close to eliminate completely 5mwd.
you give efficient at-will and encounter powers, infinite healing surge, and a few dailies in case of emergency, and you have an encounter base system. In system like that if you survive an encounter after a 5 minutes short rest you are up and running and almost at full efficiency. Dailies power are there only to spice up thing, and can be completely erase if needed.

such a system is nice, efficient, logical, completely balance, but it is not DnD.
that is its main problem.

4ed didn't solve it though - it just made it to where everyone benefited from a long rest nearly identically. That solved the intra party balance issues of it. It didn't solve the resulting possible fictional problems arising from players seeking out the long rest and using all their big guns all the time. Also, 4e still didn't work well for month long adventures with maybe 1 encounter per day. Things like that - all issues related to the 5MWD's root cause.

 

[FrogReaver]

So, should the thread be titled "Solving MY 5MWD." if the solutions are specifically to be geared to support the specific fictional environment that you prefer?

I believe a game's core mechanics should work regardless of the daily frequency of encounters you face. Demanding the fiction to defer to much to the game mechanics is evidence of the 5MWD issue. Such a solution greatly limits the types of adventures you can bring to life - which is why it isn't actually a solution - but rather a transformation of the problem into another problem - all with the same root cause.

 

[FrogReaver]

I mean, I don't think it's MEANT to be punishing the players, but IMO it is, in that THEY want to play one way, and YOU the DM want to play a different way, and you are forcing your desired game style onto the others?

If players want to play in such a way that they force imbalance on the in game options and force the DM to modify the fiction to ever challenge them then yes he should force a solution to that problem upon them.

Like, if this is a common problem in your group you may need a different group?

Like, if this isn't a common problem with yours then you may need a different group.

I Freaking LOVE Agricola. I love fiddly micromanaging, I love complex scoring systems, I love digging deep for synergy between my options. But nobody else in my gaming group WANTS to play a 4-6 hour boardgame about Medieval Farming in France with Logarithmic Scoring.

Generally, they want to play Cards Against Humanity.

Now, CLEARLY, Agricola is a Deeper, Better, More PROFOUND game. So clearly they are wrong. I should force them to play Agricola. I will tell them we are playing Card Against Humanity, then set up Agricola and pass out Occupation and Minor Improvement cards.

1. Board games aren't RPGs.
2. No one is saying that - aka straman
3. I firmly believe there are a variety of gaming tastes. I also firmly believe that some tastes don't make for good games in an objective sort of way (For example the 2 year old playstyle where they must always win). Then there's also the firm belief that even some tastes while perfectly fine in general terms just aren't compatible with a specific game.

This, SURELY, is a plan that won't backfire, or alienate my friends.

yep - alternatively if you were the friend who always wanted to play a game that didn't actually work right you might just alienate your friends as well...

Cause, I've played plenty of D&D at cons where we didn't have a 5mwd. We kept rolling through 4,5,6 encounters without even a short rest. And as long as the players are OK with that, as long as we all agreed we were fine playing that way and knew that was the style of game we were going to play, it was fine.

It's weird that I notice people always say, I played D&D at cons and there was no 5MWD. I think cons are a different animal. I think those people by saying it that way are acknowledging that they have 5MWD's in their home games. Just something to think about.

So if the players are PLAYING All guns blazing, full rest between each encounter, it's because that's what they want? That's what they came to play?

Anyway.

If the game they are playing actually supports that playstyle that's fine. D&D doesn't really support that playstyle.