D&D 5E (2014) The Gritty Realism variant rule seems to solve a lot of problems

[AlViking]

If I ever run a 5e game again I'll definitely use this. But I think modern D&D stuff, at least up until I quit playing 5e, is largely built around the idea you can plow though most encounters without worrying much about resource management since its so easy to recover. So adventures would need to be set up with the idea that the players will have to use resources sparingly and be able to avoid and get around combat encounters in order to save scarce spells, HP, etc. This approach would probably require a reworking of adventure path stuff, at least the ones I looked at.

If I used published mods I'd have to do some rewriting. Add more encounters, figure out how to handle the fact that the "next" encounter is 20 feet away but they never hear a fight and so on.

A lot of mods are more work and less flexible than I want to bother with so I do my own stuff. Using GR or not doesn't really change that.

 

[ECMO3]

...if you play RAW the DM absolutely controls the time between setpieces; make it a narrative wee

Right so he either has to bend the rules or houserule if he wants to control his next set peice that is 3 days away and also wants the party to get a long rest.

if you want the long rest, cut it to a short rest if you want to squeeze the party's recovery...

So if the DM wants to give the party time a long rest, he has to cut it to a short rest instead??? Thanks for making my point.

 

[ECMO3]

Some DMs may run a game you don't want. But GR rules didn't change how many fights between rests I targeted. All it did was change pacing.

Exactly, you are much more limited in how many fights you can run per day because you have to pace them by rests. If you want to run 20 difficult fights in 2 days you are pretty screwed if you also want the party to get adequate resting.

While the opposite is not true if you want to stretch out 6 or 7 fights over a week without a rest that is easy to do without GR.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right so he either has to bend the rules or houserule if he wants to control his next set peice that is 3 days away and also wants the party to get a long rest.




So if the DM wants to give the party time a long rest, he has to cut it to a short rest instead??? Thanks for making my point.

This sounds like a bizarre concocted conundrum. The GM decides when things happen in the first place, so if they want to give the players more time, they can.

 

[ECMO3]

This sounds like a bizarre concocted conundrum. The GM decides when things happen in the first place, so if they want to give the players more time, they can.

And many times this does not make sense in story. The thing with GR and resting specifically is it limit the DM options with respect to pacing.

 

[Blue]

If a greater proportion of daily slots need be allocated to healing or damage avoidance (e.g., Shield, False Life, etc) then by definition the classes most likely to unload an alpha strike have fewer daily resources left for those purposes…

I think the second order effects of not regenerating HPs fully each day may be pernicious and thus not easy to fully evaluate.

Again, I also still think these effects can be very table-dependent.

I believe you if you tell me that at your table it would not be good.

I'm telling you that at every table it does not address the primary issue of attrition. Uses of daily features and spell slots coming back. Since that's inherent in what was being proposed, it by definition isn't table dependant since it effects every table.

You keep bringing up the HPs. I don't care about the HPs, or even if that may cause some additional daily uses from some types of classes. Unless every table bans the classes that it wouldn't affect, then this doesn't address the issue and therefore affects evey table.

There is no possible honest way to say that all classes will uses all daily features (rage? every non-warlock's classes different spell lists?) in an equal pursuit of regaining HPs, and that they are doing it to such a degree that it's offsetting say 4-5 combats a day worth of expendatures. (As people run 1-3 combats a day instead of the designer math 6-8.)

 

[...m...]

And many times this does not make sense in story. The thing with GR and resting specifically is it limit the DM options with respect to pacing.

...sounds like you're not running the game; the game's running you...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Exactly, you are much more limited in how many fights you can run per day because you have to pace them by rests. If you want to run 20 difficult fights in 2 days you are pretty screwed if you also want the party to get adequate resting.

But that is utterly insane amount of combat, so why on Earth would anyone want to do that? Also, shouldn't fighting twenty difficult fights in two days be pretty damn lethal? It sounds like a suicide to me.

While the opposite is not true if you want to stretch out 6 or 7 fights over a week without a rest that is easy to do without GR.

It is not. Not at all. It becomes very contrived to concoct reasons why a party cannot get occasional eight hours (four if elves) of rest over such long period of time, especially as they have access to magic that secures a safe resting location. And of course if the characters somehow go without sleep for seven days, one would imagine they would be suffering from several levels of exhaustion, and possibly madness or even death.

This is the main issue with normal rests. Sensible stories have one or two fights a day (and several days of no fights between) and the characters sleep at most nights. This means they have full days resources to burn on these fights, either making them trivial, or the GM having to make random encounters whilst travelling significantly harder than most boss fights. And it of course means that casters have basically endless slots to burn for utility spells, so they dominate the non-combat aspects of the play.

 

[AlViking]

Exactly, you are much more limited in how many fights you can run per day because you have to pace them by rests. If you want to run 20 difficult fights in 2 days you are pretty screwed if you also want the party to get adequate resting.

While the opposite is not true if you want to stretch out 6 or 7 fights over a week without a rest that is easy to do without GR.

This one again? It made no sense the first time it makes no sense now. I don't plan things by start with how many fights I "want", I start with what I hope will be a fun and compelling storyline for the PCs to pursue based on PC goals and campaign direction the players have chosen. Then I plan out details. Which set of rest rules doesn't really matter.

I get that you don't like GR, but this has never been an issue. If I envision a lot of fights its far, far easier and makes vastly more sense with GR for me than standard rest rules.

 

[Silam]

I'm telling you that at every table it does not address the primary issue of attrition. Uses of daily features and spell slots coming back. Since that's inherent in what was being proposed, it by definition isn't table dependant since it effects every table.

You keep bringing up the HPs. I don't care about the HPs, or even if that may cause some additional daily uses from some types of classes. Unless every table bans the classes that it wouldn't affect, then this doesn't address the issue and therefore affects evey table.

There is no possible honest way to say that all classes will uses all daily features (rage? every non-warlock's classes different spell lists?) in an equal pursuit of regaining HPs, and that they are doing it to such a degree that it's offsetting say 4-5 combats a day worth of expendatures. (As people run 1-3 combats a day instead of the designer math 6-8.)

Got it. If we agree that we should not care about HPs nor about spells and abilities that recover HPs nor about those that let us prevent losing HPs in the first place… then indeed, it must be true that at every table any rules tweak that affects HPs is irrelevant. With those parameters in place, we can turn towards what effects remain upon resting, and if we say that those include the recovery of daily resources, then for sure it will benefit classes more tilted towards daily resources.

I’m ok with that conclusion