D&D 5E The Resting Mechanics - What Works Best?

[DND_Reborn]

FWIW guidance in the DMG is a check per 4-8 hours, albeit I've found in the published adventures it's typically a check per 8 hours. Often at a 16+ on the d20.

I do check frequency depending on the area, but usually a 1 in 6 per hour check. I never do it more often than 1 hour, but will increase the probability to 2 in 6 if a really hostile/patrolled area. Often, I might only do a check every four hours if a more sparse area.

Now, of course not every encounter is bad, and many are neutral or can even be beneficial depending on how the PCs play it out.

You have some good ideas in your system, but it is a bit too complex with distinctions for me, personally. I'm glad you like it though, and I think that is obviously the most important thing: finding a rest system you like, the fits your play style and flavor, makes sense in your world, etc.

 

[clearstream]

You have some good ideas in your system, but it is a bit too complex with distinctions for me, personally. I'm glad you like it though, and I think that is obviously the most important thing: finding a rest system you like, the fits your play style and flavor, makes sense in your world, etc.

I can see how on surface they might look more complex, but in truth they capture what is already in 5th edition.

• So if you use the XGE sleep rules, then that's the Sleep section. I collate and clarify the consequences of those existing rules, e.g. for Warlocks.
• If you use Gritty Realism, again I collate and clarify the consequences, and revise the durations following years of playtesting to 1 day / 3 days. Those durations play better to the short/long rest class balances.
• The one rule I've fabricated from whole cloth is the Breather, and that is an essential patch to Gritty Realism. When you play with longer rests, chances are you will hit the same issue and perhaps fix it the same way.
• Attuning Magic Item rules is genuinely idiosyncratic, but it's also trivial. I move the existing rule from short rest to sleep.

Everyone should follow their own taste, but it is genuinely mistaken to picture my rules as more complex, or making more distinctions, than the existing rules. Mechanically they're simpler, due to the way I define lowkey versus fatiguing activity. I also make sleeping in armor (XGE) less fiddly to manage. Breaking spending HD out to breathers is as I say the sole additional distinction, but that comes out of what proves more streamlined in play.