D&D 5E Tweaking 5E: Your knobs, dials and switches.

[Ristamar]

I took a rule from Modern AGE/The Expanse called Take a Breather. It's just 15 minutes where the characters catch their breath, drink water, etc. If they do that, they can spend up to 1/2 their HD (minimum of 1). It's not long enough to use more hit dice than that and they don't get back any powers. But I think it simulates the Non-Body Point portion of Hit Points fairly well.

Hitting 0 hit points gives a level of Fatigue. Really cuts down on Wack-a-mole.

I have a similar house rule except I call it a Quick Rest, 10 minutes, and no limit on the Hit Dice.

 

[S'mon]

The theme I sense here is that it seems many DMs look at 6-8 encounters and immediately think 6-8 Combats. I agree, that's a lot of Combat! And why wouldn't we think this? Most of the rules of the game center around Combat so it just makes sense to fall into this line of thought. I'm not saying you all do, but from how I'm interpreting what I'm reading it seems plausible that some of you might equate combats with encounters. I certainly used to and I know other DMs who used to as well.

When I look at 6-8 encounters now, yes several might include combat, but certainly not all. As the Angry GM points out, Combat is not an actual encounter, it is just another form of conflict resolution. There are often opportunities for the players to use skills (Stealth, Persuasion, Intimidation) instead of weapons to resolve a potential violent conflict. Many encounters don't really even have combat as an option for resolving the challenge, such as:
- Seeking out the black market shop that has the special doo-dad the party needs for their journey into the wilderness.
- Finding a skilled, trustworthy guide and negotiating a fair price
- Figuring out a way to overcome an environmental hazard like a wide fast flowing river
- Avoiding a trap set up by some unknown foe
- Investigating the strange statue in the middle of the grove.
- Etc.
Using 6-8 encounters as a target then doesn't feel like "squeezing them in" to one day, and you need not utilize a traditional D&D menagerie "artificial" dungeon to achieve this targer, when you parse out what the DMG (p81) is describing as an encounter. Reading the section over, they really don't do a stellar job of it, but it is there. For example, look at the sample encounter table on p87 - not all are encounters resolvable by combat. "That day we were amazed to discover that when the DMG was saying 'Creating a Combat Encounter', what it meant was, 'Creating an Encounter Resolved Via Combat' And even more amazing was the day we realized the DMG truly loved us back." Wait... what?



I like this. If I were to go with the one week long rest, this would be the primary reason. The overnight "booboos all better" has mildly bugged me, but then again not enough to really ruin the fun.

The implausibility of no injury lasting over a night dig bug me, yes. Even 1 week is implausible but it has the feel of truthiness - like the 3e system it allows suspension of disbelief in a way the 4e and default 5e systems don't, for me.

Re encounters - they have to drain resources in a manner analogous to a medium-hard combat or they don't count towards the DMG 6-8 figure, which is about resource attrition.

 

[Gladius Legis]

In 5e Expertise (at level 13) will take something from impossible to nearly impossible.... which is still ahem mechanically a fluke.

Yeah ... you're not familiar with 5e math and bounded accuracy, are you?

 

[Gladius Legis]

Some of my recent tweaks:
- "Off-hand" property for 1d4 melee weapons (except the whip), which allow dual-wielding's bonus action attack even if the main hand isn't light.
- Sneak Attack works with all *light* weapons, as well. (That way it works with clubs, for example, for a nice whack in the head.)
- STR requirements to use the finesse property on certain weapons. (e.g. 9 for the dagger, 11 for the shortsword, 13 for the rapier)
- STR requirements for ranged weapons. If you're not of the STR for a certain weapon, you attack with disadvantage. (I do keep DEX to damage for ranged and finesse, by the way.)
- Grappler feat gives "Expertise" in Athletics and allows grappling vs. two sizes larger.
- Remove -5/+10 properties from GWM/Sharpshooter. Replace with a constant effect of if you reduce the creature's damage with the relevant weapon attack to less than 10 HPs, you reduce the target to 0 HPs.
- Changing Natural Explorer for the Ranger to this.

 

[Stalker0]

Anyway, just curious why people like this long rest variant. No one has mentioned the Gritty Realism of the DMG (p 267) as their reason for employing it. What might I be missing?

Beyond just balance, from a "big picture" standpoint of world-building, it helps to keep magic accessible but greatly tones down its frequency. The difference between casting a spell 1/day vs 1/week has a huge impact on worldbuilding.

Use divinations for example. Imagine your a guy who just sits around divining everday, and get the spell even just once a day. That's 365 casting of divination.....that is a LOT of questions. Now imagine that person does that for 5 years. If you use the week variant, he only gets 52....still quite a lot, but dramatically less. It also makes a lot more sense that casters just don't have a spell that you need "right this moment"....you can come back in a week and get it. This puts more back on the players to seek an answer instead of just contracting it out.

The catch though is rituals...and to me any long rest variant should alter the ritual rules as well, otherwise rituals actually become very abusive in such a setting.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah ... you're not familiar with 5e math and bounded accuracy, are you?

I find Reliable Talent + Expertise is a powerful combination and definity makes Rogues the skill powerhouse. Level 17 Rogue can't do worse than a 27 on best Dex skills like Stealth, that is pretty nifty. They often have similar on WIS skills like Perception too.

 

[S'mon]

Beyond just balance, from a "big picture" standpoint of world-building, it helps to keep magic accessible but greatly tones down its frequency. The difference between casting a spell 1/day vs 1/week has a huge impact on worldbuilding.

Use divinations for example. Imagine your a guy who just sits around divining everday, and get the spell even just once a day. That's 365 casting of divination.....that is a LOT of questions. Now imagine that person does that for 5 years. If you use the week variant, he only gets 52....still quite a lot, but dramatically less. It also makes a lot more sense that casters just don't have a spell that you need "right this moment"....you can come back in a week and get it. This puts more back on the players to seek an answer instead of just contracting it out.

The catch though is rituals...and to me any long rest variant should alter the ritual rules as well, otherwise rituals actually become very abusive in such a setting.

I haven't seen any issue with Rituals IMC. WIth 1 week LR PCs don't bother with Leomund's hut any more; it used to be a big thing. Stuff like comprehend languages isn't abused it just helps the game.

 

[Psyzhran2357]

How do the DMs using 8 hour short rests and week-long long rests handle "whole day" spells? Stuff like Mage Armor, upcasted Hex, etc. If unadjusted, a spell that normally would get you through the whole adventuring day now only lasts for 1-3 encounters. Are the spell durations adjusted to accommodate this?

 

[S'mon]

How do the DMs using 8 hour short rests and week-long long rests handle "whole day" spells? Stuff like Mage Armor, upcasted Hex, etc. If unadjusted, a spell that normally would get you through the whole adventuring day now only lasts for 1-3 encounters. Are the spell durations adjusted to accommodate this?

I use 1 hour short rests max 3/day, and it rarely comes up since when possible the pcs will LR between expeditions. Where in the past they'd throw up a Hut and LR during the expedition, now they try to get as much as possible done in one day.

Occasionally they have to do 2 or 3 days, but this is no different than going over 8 hours on a single day. They just have to deal with it, same as the barbarian has to deal with running out of Rages.

 

[Fenris-77]

If a character in my game has a whole year to do nothing but divination then I'm doing something wrong. Characters should be far too busy for this kind of thing to even occur to them. Obviously it's possible given the rules that, for example, an NPC could do this, but I prefer to believe that NPC wizards have a great many things to occupy their time, and I don't really sweat the whole repeated casting of one spell thing.