Level Up (A5E) Travel quirks

[Marcus Lindberg]

I just started a campaign at level 1. Party of four: Berserker, Druid, Rogue and a Bard. The players thought it was great fun with the travel actions. I rolled some cultists that ambushed them and they handled some bears coming out of hibernation. Great fun

Some reflections:

I am a bit sceptic about the haven rule. It only seems to limit regaining fatigue/strife. As long rests are not limited in any other way then a party can just as in O5E have a 5 minute workday, unloading all their per day abilities and then expect a longrest, making anything but a hard/deadly encounter quite uninteresting. Is there a normal source of loosing fatigue/strife when traveling making the haven limitation meaningful? I required the party to make a DC10 wis check after killing the cultists or loose one strife due to not having killed any sentient being before as they are beginner adventurers. I thought of adopting the middle earth roleplaying restriction of anly having short rests during travel, but finds it hard to justify it without it seeming strange.

Some of the travel actions seems to scale badly and only seems useful during low tiers, like busk, rob, harvest and gather. Is that intended? Maybe I missed a rule somewhere.

How have A5E traveling worked for you?

 

[Morrus]

I am a bit sceptic about the haven rule. It only seems to limit regaining fatigue/strife. As long rests are not limited in any other way then a party can just as in O5E have a 5 minute workday, unloading all their per day abilities and then expect a longrest, making anything but a hard/deadly encounter quite uninteresting. Is there a normal source of loosing fatigue/strife when traveling making the haven limitation meaningful? I required the party to make a DC10 wis check after killing the cultists or loose one strife due to not having killed any sentient being before as they are beginner adventurers. I thought of adopting the middle earth roleplaying restriction of anly having short rests during travel, but finds it hard to justify it without it seeming strange.

I'm not 100% sure I understand the question, but the haven mechanic isn't designed as something to address the '5-minute workday', so I would be surprised if it did so. It's very much a mechanic designed for journeys.

Some of the travel actions seems to scale badly and only seems useful during low tiers, like busk, rob, harvest and gather. Is that intended? Maybe I missed a rule somewhere.

They are very much small flavourful things to help the group narrate the journey, not as major actions which dramatically affect the party. They are a bit more impactful at lower tiers, before the flight and teleportation and stuff starts kicking in.

 

[WarDriveWorley]

I am a bit sceptic about the haven rule. It only seems to limit regaining fatigue/strife. As long rests are not limited in any other way then a party can just as in O5E have a 5 minute workday, unloading all their per day abilities and then expect a longrest, making anything but a hard/deadly encounter quite uninteresting.

I'm not sure what you mean by long rests not being limited. Per page 425 of the Adventurer's Guide a character can only benefit from 1 long rest in a 24 hour period so going nova, then doing a long rest seems counter productive if there's a chance for additional encounters unless your party just stops traveling after an encounter.

 

[Skynex]

I am a bit sceptic about the haven rule. It only seems to limit regaining fatigue/strife. As long rests are not limited in any other way then a party can just as in O5E have a 5 minute workday, unloading all their per day abilities and then expect a longrest, making anything but a hard/deadly encounter quite uninteresting.

I'm not sure what you mean by long rests not being limited. Per page 425 of the Adventurer's Guide a character can only benefit from 1 long rest in a 24 hour period so going nova, then doing a long rest seems counter productive if there's a chance for additional encounters unless your party just stops traveling after an encounter.

Not only that but there are a lot more mechanics in A5e (spells, crits, etc.) that cause fatigue and strife meaning they show up much more often and once they start to stack they will make medium and easy encounters more of a challenge, thus making havens more important.

 

[Morrus]

Not only that but there are a lot more mechanics in A5e (spells, crits, etc.) that cause fatigue and strife meaning they show up much more often and once they start to stack they will make medium and easy encounters more of a challenge, thus making havens more important.

The big one of course being going unconscious.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not sure what you mean by long rests not being limited. Per page 425 of the Adventurer's Guide a character can only benefit from 1 long rest in a 24 hour period so going nova, then doing a long rest seems counter productive if there's a chance for additional encounters unless your party just stops traveling after an encounter.

Warlock adept & probably all of the other exertion based short rest classes don't have any players playing have no such limits on short rests. A good number of cultures & heritages have once per long or short rest abilities too.

I'm hoping that delivers guide touches on the short rest Nova problem to some degree

 

[WarDriveWorley]

Warlock adept & probably all of the other exertion based short rest classes don't have any players playing have no such limits on short rests. A good number of cultures & heritages have once per long or short rest abilities too.

I'm hoping that delivers guide touches on the short rest Nova problem to some degree

Oh yeah. I'm not denying there's a short rest recharge Nova option for many classes. Heck I'm currently "laboring" with a class that has that option. However the OP was specifically talking about using long rest to reset a nova. They may be confusing the two, however.

That said I think a lot of times DMs tend to hand wave short rests a bit. I have one DM that basically counts them as a quick reset and another that is very stringent on time/activities done. As a DM I tend to hover in between because I will hand wave in non-important situations, but make sure the players understand that the short rest isn't an invulnerability frame option too.

 

[tetrasodium]

Oh yeah. I'm not denying there's a short rest recharge Nova option for many classes. Heck I'm currently "laboring" with a class that has that option. However the OP was specifically talking about using long rest to reset a nova They may be confusing the two, however.

That said I think a lot of times DMs tend to hand wave short rests a bit. I have one DM that basically counts them as a quick reset and another that is very stringent on time/activities done. As a DM I tend to hover in between because I will hand wave in non-important situations, but make sure the players understand that the short rest isn't an invulnerability frame option too.

Yea. The most frustrating part about the short rest nova is that as short rest nova players increases it quickly reaches a point where they can be all nova all the time till there are enough encounters to make it so the long rest classes are left in the dust trying to space out their cantrips while waiting for the perfect chance to use something because nothing lasts more than a round or two.

 

[Larnievc]

I find the 5 minute day confusing. What kind of adventure allows a party to take a long rest after every encounter? It never comes up at me table- they take short rests all the time, though.

 

[Reynard]

I find the 5 minute day confusing. What kind of adventure allows a party to take a long rest after every encounter? It never comes up at me table- they take short rests all the time, though.

It is pretty common during travel, in my experience. Not so much in the dungeon.