D&D 5E "The so-called '5-Minute Workday' is Something I've Seen Regularly Playing 5E D&D" (a poll)

[EzekielRaiden]

Gotta say, I find the "I can always create time pressure" response not very compelling. Creating time pressure that consistently does not invalidate taking multiple short rests (which must be allowed in order to actually prevent the 5MWD problem) while consistently punishing the group for taking even one  long rest just...doesn't sound realistic or plausible to me. The artificiality of constantly having pressure where 8 hours rest is totally infeasible but 3 hours rest is completely doable is just going to stick out like a sore thumb.

Back in 4e, when short rests were 5 minutes, I could have believed it easily. Taking six short rests in a day is only half an hour, one-sixteenth the amount of time you would spend on a long rest. That makes perfect sense that it should be easily doable and yet a long rest would be far too costly unless you have made serious progress (or literally cannot afford to go on without resting.)

Taking just two short rests in 5e is four times as much time, a full quarter of the amount you'd spend on a long rest. Time pressure so sensitive that one night's rest is far too much but two hours is always fine, every time, no matter what? No, I don't see it.

This is not to say that you couldn't make it work SOME of the time. But consistently, which is what is needed to actually resolve the issue? Nah, I'm not buying it.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I feel like a good rule of thumb should be ‘If this session were a movie you were watching instead of a game you were playing would the heroes of done enough to justify a rest scene narratively’,
Let’s watch the version of LoTR where after every goblin or orc or whatever encounter Gandalf casts Leomund’s Tiny Hut and they break for 8 hours, see how that changes the story, Frodo making a slowly increasing will saves against the ring every 24 hours, they wouldn’t have gotten half as close to reaching Mt doom before he failed the final save in that scenario.

 

[Oofta]

Really? I've died twice and been revived.

And we're not talking about having a 1 in 10 chance of death. We're talking about having a 1 in 10 chance of failing to win a fight. That doesn't equal death.

Depends on how you play the game, in many cases every death is likely to be permanent. It's always been kind of odd to me that death is just treated as a speed bump in D&D, in my own campaign it's difficult to bring someone back from the dead and nearly impossible after a few weeks. I may be an outlier, but death of a PC should be meaningful and if a PC has been brought back from the dead in a game I run I don't remember it. I've given people the option to come back, they never want to.

 

[Oofta]

Gotta say, I find the "I can always create time pressure" response not very compelling. Creating time pressure that consistently does not invalidate taking multiple short rests (which must be allowed in order to actually prevent the 5MWD problem) while consistently punishing the group for taking even one  long rest just...doesn't sound realistic or plausible to me. The artificiality of constantly having pressure where 8 hours rest is totally infeasible but 3 hours rest is completely doable is just going to stick out like a sore thumb.

Back in 4e, when short rests were 5 minutes, I could have believed it easily. Taking six short rests in a day is only half an hour, one-sixteenth the amount of time you would spend on a long rest. That makes perfect sense that it should be easily doable and yet a long rest would be far too costly unless you have made serious progress (or literally cannot afford to go on without resting.)

Taking just two short rests in 5e is four times as much time, a full quarter of the amount you'd spend on a long rest. Time pressure so sensitive that one night's rest is far too much but two hours is always fine, every time, no matter what? No, I don't see it.

This is not to say that you couldn't make it work SOME of the time. But consistently, which is what is needed to actually resolve the issue? Nah, I'm not buying it.

I've switched to the alternate rest rules, but even before then I didn't have a problem limiting people to more than 1 or 2 short rests per day. As far as 4E, that was a different game, different rules.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've switched to the alternate rest rules, but even before then I didn't have a problem limiting people to more than 1 or 2 short rests per day. As far as 4E, that was a different game, different rules.

I mean, okay? That still means you're having the "5MWD" problem, or you've house-ruled it away. Because the game wasn't balanced for characters to take a single short rest most days. That will leave daily-based characters...primarily, full spellcasters (other than warlock)...having an excess of resources relative to short-rest-based ones.

That's the core of the 5MWD problem in 5e: unlike 3e, classes actually benefit differently from different kinds of rests, so you need to make sure you get 2-3 short rests a day, leaning toward 3 on average so that the non-full-casters (plus warlocks) can catch up to the full-caster classes in terms of resources. If that doesn't happen (which, based on your 1-2 example...it doesn't), you still have the 5MWD problem.

This is the very reason why "5.5e" (or whatever they choose to call it) will almost certainly feature a retreat from short-rest-based resources (as implied by the "PB/long rest" pattern observed in UA content.) Because the designers expected people to play many, many combats every day and take lots of short rests....and they don't. They almost always play few, big combats, and take few short rests, albeit usually at least one.

"Short rest" abilities were meant to be almost "encounter" abilities. They have instead turned out to be "two, maybe three times a day" abilities, based on how people actually play 5e. We will almost certainly see "5.5e" attempt to address this and embrace how people actually choose to play 5e, rather than trying to force people to play 5e "as intended."

 

[Oofta]

I mean, okay? That still means you're having the "5MWD" problem, or you've house-ruled it away. Because the game wasn't balanced for characters to take a single short rest most days. That will leave daily-based characters...primarily, full spellcasters (other than warlock)...having an excess of resources relative to short-rest-based ones.

No, it meant that I had no problem with 5MWD before I switched. I just decided that a slower pace made more sense in terms of how long it takes to recover and the pace of my game.

That's the core of the 5MWD problem in 5e: unlike 3e, classes actually benefit differently from different kinds of rests, so you need to make sure you get 2-3 short rests a day, leaning toward 3 on average so that the non-full-casters (plus warlocks) can catch up to the full-caster classes in terms of resources. If that doesn't happen (which, based on your 1-2 example...it doesn't), you still have the 5MWD problem.

This is the very reason why "5.5e" (or whatever they choose to call it) will almost certainly feature a retreat from short-rest-based resources (as implied by the "PB/long rest" pattern observed in UA content.) Because the designers expected people to play many, many combats every day and take lots of short rests....and they don't. They almost always play few, big combats, and take few short rests, albeit usually at least one.

"Short rest" abilities were meant to be almost "encounter" abilities. They have instead turned out to be "two, maybe three times a day" abilities, based on how people actually play 5e. We will almost certainly see "5.5e" attempt to address this and embrace how people actually choose to play 5e, rather than trying to force people to play 5e "as intended."

I suspect short rests may be optional at some point. I do agree it can be an issue, just a slightly different one.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, it meant that I had no problem with 5MWD before I switched. I just decided that a slower pace made more sense in terms of how long it takes to recover and the pace of my game.



I suspect short rests may be optional at some point. I do agree it can be an issue, just a slightly different one.

I don't see the point of inventing a new term for what is essentially exactly the same problem ("full casters get all the resources they'll ever get for the day all at once, and can thus blow through them really really fast and demand a rest, before the other types of classes get the chance to 'catch up' to that level of impact.") Yes, it's not absolutely 1:1 perfectly identical, but nothing in an edition change will ever be so absolutely identical, certainly not something that ranges across so many individual parts as this.

The 5MWD is a problem because the people who have the party's healing resources and biggest, baddest tools are also the ones who can blow through all of those tools in just one or two fights, and then (very validly) say that the party will be in a better position to deal with future threats if they rest. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

 

[el-remmen]

I feel like a good rule of thumb should be ‘If this session were a movie you were watching instead of a game you were playing would the heroes of done enough to justify a rest scene narratively’,

I think that is a good rule of thumb for a game seeking to emulate a book or movie, but not all of us are trying to or want to do that (I know that is not how I see my game overall, even if some moments of tension and pacing do parallel books or movies).

To answer my own poll question, I see no problem with a party deciding to try to turtle up after one tough fight, if that is what they feel like they need to do. It would be a problem if this was their reaction to every combat encounter, just like any other strategy you do over and over would be a problem, because not all potential solutions fit all situations and trying to do that is either the definition of insanity or the result of an insane world where doing the same thing over and over always works.

I have not seen the 5MWD even once in 5E so far. I have seen it some in previous editions, but for none of them would I have described it as "regularly."

 

[ad_hoc]

I feel like a good rule of thumb should be ‘If this session were a movie you were watching instead of a game you were playing would the heroes of done enough to justify a rest scene narratively’,
Let’s watch the version of LoTR where after every goblin or orc or whatever encounter Gandalf casts Leomund’s Tiny Hut and they break for 8 hours, see how that changes the story, Frodo making a slowly increasing will saves against the ring every 24 hours, they wouldn’t have gotten half as close to reaching Mt doom before he failed the final save in that scenario.

Exactly this.

Think of any action movie.

There are usually breaks where the heroes get to recover but esp. in Act III it's all rising tension.

The Terminator is a perfect example of this. Lots of action. Long rest. Lots of action. End.

 

[ad_hoc]

I think that is a good rule of thumb for a game seeking to emulate a book or movie, but not all of us are trying to or want to do that (I know that is not how I see my game overall, even if some moments of tension and pacing do parallel books or movies).

To answer my own poll question, I see no problem with a party deciding to try to turtle up after one tough fight, if that is what they feel like they need to do. It would be a problem if this was their reaction to every combat encounter, just like any other strategy you do over and over would be a problem, because not all potential solutions fit all situations and trying to do that is either the definition of insanity or the result of an insane world where doing the same thing over and over always works.

I have not seen the 5MWD even once in 5E so far. I have seen it some in previous editions, but for none of them would I have described it as "regularly."

Or just create adventure stories in general. It doesn't have to emulate books or movies. It's just the way storytelling works.