D&D 5E Solving the 5MWD

[Oofta]

Exactly, though D&D doesn't make it easy with the base resting rules. If I have that three week trek across the frozen tundra, players are expecting a long rest every evening in 5e. Or there are times when there is no time pressure (not every adventure can or should have it) where the characters decided to rest.

That's where codifying it helps.

I get it, and it's a good standard. Yours is one way, another is saying you can't rest in hostile terrain, changed rest length rules are another. If you always level after a specified number of encounters, the OP's suggestion probably works as well.

More than one way to skin the cat. I think it really just boils down to if you don't want a 5 minute work day, just don't make it an option.

 

[Blue]

I get it, and it's a good standard. Yours is one way, another is saying you can't rest in hostile terrain, changed rest length rules are another. If you always level after a specified number of encounters, the OP's suggestion probably works as well.

More than one way to skin the cat. I think it really just boils down to if you don't want a 5 minute work day, just don't make it an option.

Definitely more than one way to skin a cat, there are a lot of valid ways to solve this.

Some features this of any codified one is that it manages player expectation and doesn't put the onus on the DM/adventure since not all are of the same experience or skill.

 

[Oofta]

Definitely more than one way to skin a cat, there are a lot of valid ways to solve this.

Some features this of any codified one is that it manages player expectation and doesn't put the onus on the DM/adventure since not all are of the same experience or skill.

It's a trade-off. I think the DMG could have been more explicit on it's advice on the number of encounters between rests without implementing a "auto recovery after X number of encounters". Along with some guidance on how to achieve that.

My issue with 13th Age recuperation as I understand it (and my understanding may be flawed) is two-fold.

One is that if you have a hard-and-fast rule I don't have as much flexibility as a DM. Every once in a while I'll only have a handful of encounters between long rests and I'll broadcast it ahead of time. Sometimes I want the limited resource guys to feel special. Other times it will be a slog, I've had as many as 10 encounters between any rest at all because it fits the story. There are times when it's fun to go nova, other times I want PCs stretched to their absolute limits and fighting for survival, not sure if they're going to make it.

Playing into that idea I like to put more control into the hands of the players. Do they take the safe(r) route or do they gamble it all for the big win? Overall I'm still going to enforce a more standard number of encounters per rest, but for that story arc? If they decided to reach for the brass ring, not allowing recovery is one tool I have to challenge them.

The other is simple versimilitude. There's always a timer counting down and as a player I know it. As I understand it, this could lead to situations where we're in the middle of a pitched battle with a short break while the enemy regroups and the timer goes "bing" and we reset. It feels artificial and reinforces the game mechanics. To me, that makes it feel more like a game than a story.

Again, no right way or wrong way. Just my 2 coppers.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you know what it means then are you seriously suggesting it's not possible to blow through most all your resources in a short span and rest and recharge them all?

I think the denial of the 5MWD "issue" is based more upon a fondness for the dynamic than any belief that it never happens.

The CaW style, for instance, is all about ruthlessly maximizing your advantage in every encounter - going in loaded for bear every time, avoiding encounters when you lack an overwhelming advantage - having all your resources ready is an obvious way to do that, having them customized to the next encounter, the more so.

Similarly, "sandboxing" is a player-driven exploration style that theoretically allows the players to choose the pacing they want, so not being 'able' to choose a slower pacing would undermine that sense of being player-driven.

Both those styles will distort encounter difficulty in any but a purely-encounter-resource game (which no version of D&D has ever been - unless you count "D&D" Gamma World c2011). In virtually every edition D&D, 5e far from least of all, they'll also distort class balance.

Charitably, we can stipulate that the desirability of 5-min workday is due to the first 'issue' - the possibility of the decision to rest or husband resources, to impact the difficulty of encounters. Interestingly, while the 13A version nearly erases that, yours leaves it available, since resting /does/ restore hp/HD, so player-influenced pacing can influence difficulty.

The problem I'm starting to see with the idea is that the number of encounter to earn XP varies with level. At 1st, you can actually gain a level in a single "day" of adventuring, based on the daily exp budget. But that quickly increases to over two days/level from 4 through 11, then cuts back to about a day & a half at high level, though it fluctuates a bit.

You might 'normalize' exp progression to a full day of encounter per level. Or, you might have the "days" between levels continue to rise at high level instead of taper off, since high level characters have so many resources.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Or alternatively you could pace your spells and have some left at the end?

5MWD --> due to failure to pace spell usage.

Your solution --> do a better job at pacing spell usage under a harsher regime.

The beatings will continue until play improves!

 

[FrogReaver]

5MWD --> due to failure to pace spell usage.

Your solution --> do a better job at pacing spell usage under a harsher regime.

The beatings will continue until play improves!

5MWD requires 2 things. Player initiated recovery of abilities and not pacing those abilities over the day

Take one of those things away and there can be no 5 minute work day.

 

[clearstream]

I had an interesting idea and wanted to share and hammer out some of the details.

1. Tie ability recharges to level up. For example spell slots only recharge on level up. Obviously the number of slots needs increased but that should be doable.
2. Keep healing and hit die mechanics tied to resting - potentially also slow the rate at which you heal through resting.

Does this solve the 5MWD issue? Are there any foreseeable issues with this setup? Would it be more fun to play this way?

Do you mean that long and short rest abilities all recharge on level up?

 

[clearstream]

Rather than changing the rules, I think that making the passage of time an important element in the adventure will do more to mitigate the 5 MWD.

I found it easier (for a campaign with a lot of travel) to make the passage of time important if I first made the time taken to rest longer. So I use short rests of 1 day, long rests of 3 days. I had tried the 1 week long rest from the DMG, but that ended up pushing players onto short-rest classes.

 

[Lanefan]

I think the denial of the 5MWD "issue" is based more upon a fondness for the dynamic than any belief that it never happens.

Not so much a denial in my case as an acceptance that sometimes it simply makes sense in-character to have a day that consists of nova-then-rest. Add to that that it sometimes makes sense in the game world that this will be a good tactic (i.e. there really isn't anything else likely to threaten them for a while) and sometimes it's gonna come back to bite them when the next threat(s) show up sooner than expected.

The CaW style, for instance, is all about ruthlessly maximizing your advantage in every encounter - going in loaded for bear every time, avoiding encounters when you lack an overwhelming advantage - having all your resources ready is an obvious way to do that, having them customized to the next encounter, the more so.

Similarly, "sandboxing" is a player-driven exploration style that theoretically allows the players to choose the pacing they want, so not being 'able' to choose a slower pacing would undermine that sense of being player-driven.

Good points: the players have to be left open to playing their characters how they like.

Both those styles will distort encounter difficulty in any but a purely-encounter-resource game (which no version of D&D has ever been - unless you count "D&D" Gamma World c2011). In virtually every edition D&D, 5e far from least of all, they'll also distort class balance.

Charitably, we can stipulate that the desirability of 5-min workday is due to the first 'issue' - the possibility of the decision to rest or husband resources, to impact the difficulty of encounters. Interestingly, while the 13A version nearly erases that, yours leaves it available, since resting /does/ restore hp/HD, so player-influenced pacing can influence difficulty.

The problem I'm starting to see with the idea is that the number of encounter to earn XP varies with level. At 1st, you can actually gain a level in a single "day" of adventuring, based on the daily exp budget. But that quickly increases to over two days/level from 4 through 11, then cuts back to about a day & a half at high level, though it fluctuates a bit.

You might 'normalize' exp progression to a full day of encounter per level. Or, you might have the "days" between levels continue to rise at high level instead of taper off, since high level characters have so many resources.

A few things here:

First, you worry about class balance - particularly in the short-term - far more than I do; never mind that were a table to try this and find things got too far out of whack the DM can always do some kitbashing to fix it.

Second, and to me far more important, is the revival of a really big problem I had with 4e design: what exactly defines an "encounter"?

Sure, sometimes it's obvious - the battle with the 15 Goblins, then the battle with the giant lizard and its Orc rider a half hour later, then an hour later having to scale a steep bank that if not taken carefully could bury the party in a landslide; that's three encounters.

But oftentimes it's not obvious at all. Take travelling across the frozen tundra for a couple of days - it's risky, and resources have to be expended to keep people warm and upright - but there's no "encounters". No creatures met, no particularly difficult patches to travel through or over (e.g. crevasses, thin ice, etc.). Do you then define a specific block of time as an "encounter"?

And third, it takes something that's pretty easy to grok in the fiction (e.g. only after a good night's rest can you pray/study your spells back) and moves it much more into the metagame in that the characters in the fiction can't really predict when their resources will refill. (and if they could, this would soon result: "There's some Goblins. Great! We need to fight 'em because if we do it's our fourth battle and we'll get all our spells back right after!". Bleah.)

 

[cbwjm]

Well now your selling it. Making magic more precious seems like a bonus to me.

If that's the kind of game you're going for, then great. It wouldn't be a fun game for me though.