D&D 5E Solving the 5MWD

[Tony Vargas]

So only 1st level spells for spell casters, and then only when casters reach 3rd level . What happens to the first level wizard with 2 1st level spell slots? Or the second level wizard with 3?

2 rounds down to 0, 3 up to 1. 7 would be the breakpoint for a second use per short rest.

And just cutting out class abilities that function 1/long rest isn't going to fly. They are going to have to be replaced by something or the entire class structure is crippled.

Nope, 1/day is just gone - obviously "too powerful" to be balanced as a short rest recharge.

K.I.S.S.

 

[coolAlias]

2 rounds down to 0, 3 up to 1. 7 would be the breakpoint for a second use.

Nope, 1/day is just gone - obviously too powerful to be balanced as a short rest recharge.

K.I.S.S.

Well... that's certainly one way to go about it! I wouldn't play in that game as a full caster of any kind, but there's definitely potential for a lower magic adventure in there.

 

[Lanefan]

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

Haven't looked at the full write-up, to be honest, but the brief description given in the thread looked mighty complicated from here.

 

[Maxperson]

2 rounds down to 0, 3 up to 1. 7 would be the breakpoint for a second use per short rest.

A second use of what? You never get to more than 4 first level slots, so 7 never shows up. Rounding 3 up would allow a wizard to eventually cast 5th level spells, but not until 18th level and they get 4th level spells at 9th. No new spell level for 9 levels!!

So you have wizards that are unable to cast spells until second level and will be behind in power.

Nope, 1/day is just gone - obviously "too powerful" to be balanced as a short rest recharge.
K.I.S.S.

Your "simple fix" is anything but. You've completely gimped spellcasters. I mean, wizards are now worse than they were in 1e. At least in 1e you got to cast 1 spell at first level before pulling out the darts. You've also gimped every other class and race that has long rest abilities. That gimping forces you to adjust monsters and other balance mechanics to compensate, so now you've re-written the vast majority of the game. Which brings us back to this conversion essentially being 6e.

 

[Lanefan]

After reading all this I've come to the conclusion that completely solving the 5MWD is a fool's errand as long as the players are allowed to play their characters as having any sense of self-preservation, which is their right; so why bother trying?

 

[Maxperson]

After reading all this I've come to the conclusion that completely solving the 5MWD is a fool's errand as long as the players are allowed to play their characters as having any sense of self-preservation, which is their right; so why bother trying?

It literally breaks the game. That's why. I'd go back to 3e first.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A second use of what? You never get to more than 4 first level slots, so 7 never shows up. Rounding 3 up would allow a wizard to eventually cast 5th level spells, but not until 18th level and they get 4th level spells at 9th. No new spell level for 9 levels!!
So you have wizards that are unable to cast spells until second level

Yes.

and will be behind in power.

Still has cantrips and rituals.

Your "simple fix" is anything but. You've completely gimped spellcasters.

only in comparison to short days when they'd be OP. On a 3-short rest day, a caster that would have had 3 spells to get him through the day would get to cast 4. Just no two in the same encounter.

You've also gimped every other class and race that has long rest abilities. That gimping forces you to adjust monsters and other balance mechanics to compensate,

There's nothing to compensate for, a 1/day ability can't be used in 5-7 of the expected 6-8 encounters/day. Can you only use monsters normally on that one encounter? No.
Encounter challenge estimates and "other balance mechanics" would likely become more dependable.

 

[Maxperson]

only in comparison to short days when they'd be OP. On a 3-short rest day, a caster that would have had 3 spells to get him through the day would get to cast 4. Just no two in the same encounter.

This is not true. The game assumes that at some point during the day, a 5th level caster will have access to 3rd level spells. That's doesn't happen with your "fix." The game assumes that casters will have access to a 5th level spell at some point during the day at 9th level. 9th level with your "fix" barely gives the caster 4th level spells. No 5th level spells until 18th level, when the game assumes the caster will at some point during a daily encounter have access to not only 5th level spells, but also 6th-9th, which the caster never gets.

Your "fix" objectively gimps casters far beyond what it would take to have a fair fight with like level monsters. It also gimps every other class, just not quite as badly.

 

[5ekyu]

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.

But, as others have pointed out, the mechanics do work in other placings- even in the ones you seem to not prefer.

Every combo of "these are the mechanics" and "these are the preferences I have for what I want it to feel like" will greatly limit the types of adventures you can bring to life.

As I observed earlier, if the "rule" sets the "sustain pressure" (resource drain vs encounters" to a constant of "x encounters" (as is simplistically described) then that removes my ability as GM within those rules to have and show the "awesome nova battles" and the "long haul in a rationing - starvation mode" as part of my mixed bag of widely different challenges as if I follow the rules. It turns every "challenge" stage into a "get thru x segments" inventory kind of feel.

While that might be great for white room comparisons, it seems like it's pretty stagnant and limiting the feel and type of stories.

This is kinda the source of the contradiction I see here - coming from a position of not wanting the mechanics to limit the type if fiction and ferl would not seem to support going to a place where the type of fiction and feel becomes locked to a single type - all the same resource vs challenge frame due to some outside of in-game absolute the players see.

 

[5ekyu]

It strikes me that if Wizard's got spells back on short rests that there'd be a lot more short rests in the game!

It strikes me that it would lead to more forum threads about the 5 minute work hour and how the short rest mechanics are limiting fiction, breaking immersion, too easy to overpower scenes and basically almost all of the issues we have now - including the "balance" between "no rest" abilities and "short rest" abilities and a host of others.