D&D 5E Things that wreck with alternate healing/rest

[Joe Liker]

(PLEASE NOTE: This is not a thread about which system you prefer, or what you'll be using, or opinions in general. There's another thread for that. This one is about rules problems only. Thanks!)

First, I'll point out that a lot of things don't wreck -- at least not badly. In most cases, class balance remains intact because you're still getting more short rests than long rests, and most likely in roughly the same ratio, whether you're shortening or lengthening the amount of time required for a rest.

However, there's at least one class path that crashes and burns: the berserker. His primary feature is paid for in exhaustion, which is tethered to both time and healing, so it plays havoc with everything if you try to monkey with those systems. (Actually the real problem is with exhaustion, but it only causes a class balance issue for the berserker.)

If you shorten long rests to one hour (with 5-minute short rests), exhaustion becomes trivial for all purposes other than berserking. And if you lengthen long rests to a week (with 8-hour short rests), exhaustion is far more deadly than it should be for all characters.

I've thought of several workarounds, easiest of which is to untether exhaustion from the short/long rest terminology, but no matter how you try to fix it, the berserker ends up being able to frenzy a lot more often or a lot less often (relative to the abilities of other classes) than the default rules allow.

Anyone have other, similar Gordian knots in the rules with alternate healing and rest systems?

 

[Eejit]

As long as you have the "working day" be based on rests rather than a planetary day it shouldn't be a problem. The rate of encounters changing with a short rest is just changing the overall pace of the game.

 

[77IM]

I agree with Eejit, it's the ratio of encounters to rests that matters. Some classes get better "at will" powers (rogue, fighter), some get better "encounter" powers (warlock) and some get better "dailies" (spellcasters). Making rests more/less expensive will trash class balance, unless you make encounters happen at the same rate. I'm not really sure exhaustion is any different in this regard; it's not like it gets worse over time or anything.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The particular bugbear I've been fighting is with the Fighter's Second Wind. If I tone down natural healing, such that you can only spend one Hit Die per long rest, then the Fighter can still recover more than that between short rests. The only other real short-rest healing is with the Life Cleric's healing channel, which caps out at half-max HP.

 

[Evenglare]

Yeah I also figured that the resting options simply change the pace of the narrative more than anything. I can see how fighting 5 or 6 battles (or whatever) every day could destroy any game if you are using the long rest options. I mean that's what... 40ish encounters with only 6 short rests? Of course thats going to bring the characters to their knees. I figured they are simply extending the "day" to a week and assuming encounters and the like are extended as well. I don't see this as a problem honestly. It seems like it would be for people who enjoy more of a roleplaying narrative aspect rather than a battle heavy day.

 

[Gadget]

If the default is one or two short (1 hour) rests per long (overnight) rest, I can see there being a problem with long rests taking a week and short rests moving up to overnight. Suddenly, you're getting 6 or 7 short rests per long rest, instead of one or two. This could make the warlock and fighter types more resilient than they are in the default game, as you would probably be getting a short rest after every combat if you adjusted the encounter ratio to match. I guess the answer to this would be to have a couple of (or more) days without encounters, and cram several encounters into the remaining days? It is something to keep in mind at least.

 

[Emerikol]

I don't think anyway that takes issue with natural recovery being so rapid will be satisfied with playing the exact same set of encounters over a longer period of time. I realize that yes this does technically solve the issue. No disagreement there. It's just not going to be satisfying for most of us.

Here are some desires and they may not overlap (and don't in many cases)
1. The desire to avoid non-magical healing beyond a few hit points a day.
2. The desire to treat hit points as a scarce resource across the adventuring day. So you do not automatically heal up between encounters.
3. The desire for a healing class is be an important & essential part of a group
4. The desire for magic items that heal to be limited and costly.

There are likely others but realizing they aren't all the same thing and in perfect alignment is an important step to designing subsystems that can be dialed to whatever preference you have.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If the default is one or two short (1 hour) rests per long (overnight) rest, I can see there being a problem with long rests taking a week and short rests moving up to overnight. Suddenly, you're getting 6 or 7 short rests per long rest, instead of one or two.

There's also an issue where a lot of powers are tied to a daily cycle, rather than long rests. Off the top of my head, I know that the cleric's divine intervention has a 7-day cooldown. I want to say that there are some others, like the wizard's arcane recovery, which might be on a per-day basis.

If so, then it actually works out pretty well - clerics get their channels back on a short rest, wizards get some spells back on a short rest (once per day, but that doesn't matter), and warlocks get their pact slots back on a short rest.

 

[MechaPilot]

The particular bugbear I've been fighting is with the Fighter's Second Wind. If I tone down natural healing, such that you can only spend one Hit Die per long rest, then the Fighter can still recover more than that between short rests. The only other real short-rest healing is with the Life Cleric's healing channel, which caps out at half-max HP.

Yeah, but second wind has been pointed out before to have an easy fix for those for whom it is a problem: just replace it with the Toughness feat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If the default is one or two short (1 hour) rests per long (overnight) rest, I can see there being a problem with long rests taking a week and short rests moving up to overnight. Suddenly, you're getting 6 or 7 short rests per long rest, instead of one or two. This could make the warlock and fighter types more resilient than they are in the default game, as you would probably be getting a short rest after every combat if you adjusted the encounter ratio to match. I guess the answer to this would be to have a couple of (or more) days without encounters, and cram several encounters into the remaining days? It is something to keep in mind at least.

It works more like this:

DAY ONE: 2 encounters (then short rest)
DAY TWO: 2 encounters (then short rest)
DAY THREE: 2 encounters (then extended rest for 1 week)
DAY ELEVEN: 2 encounters (then short rest)
DAY TWELVE: 2 encounters (then short rest)
DAY THIRTEEN: 2 encounters (then extended rest for 1 week)
...etc.

There's a lot of OTHER things going on with what people want out of healing that this idea is intersecting, but the basic idea doesn't change the math at all.