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

[Blue]

The theme I sense here is that it seems many DMs look at 6-8 encounters and immediately think 6-8 Combats.

The point being discussed with changing the rest periods is resource recovery, part of resource management and attrition. If encounter is too general of a term that it includes both a high and low/none resource usage challenges, let's drop it for more precise language.

When I talked about the balance point for encounters, I explicitly was using it as synonymous with combat encounters. That 5-6 originated with the DMG 6-8 as a guideline, but it's gained through experience at my table. That's also why it changes at my table as the levels go up - for example 1st level casters really don't have a nova at all.

A non-combat challenge in general* doesn't move the needle of resource usage for what I was talking about experiencing at my table. Combats are much heavier resource drains then other challenges and scenes, and are explicitly what I was counting in the experience of the numbers I put up in my post.

(*And if a challenge does use a lot of resources, then count it so. Just talking in general.)

That's part of the reason why the one week long rest was such a good fit for me. As I mentioned we have sessions go by with plenty of challenges but no combats at all. So it get to the number of combats (read: the amount of resource attrition) my table desires, considering that I have a lot of challenges that don't turn into combats could easily be 15 or more total challenges. Trying to every day fit that between sunrises just to meet the attrition level the mechanics are balanced around are just ridiculous.

When I look at 6-8 encounters now, yes several might include combat, but certainly not all. As the Angry GM points out, ...

What the Angry GM points out are completely valid points and definitely things DMs should think about. But when we move the focus back to resource usage, they fall mostly into the side of no/low-resource challenges so aren't really talking about the topic of resource management and recovery we're discussing here.

So if my tables wants 5-6 combats per day, with 1-3 as low and 9+ as lots, and I have 3 combats and 5 non-combat encounters that use minimal resources, then the day is low combat. Even if Angry GM says that's 6-8 "encounters". I should have a corresponding 9+ combat (plus however many non-combat challenges) as well some other day, so both long-rest resource classes and at-will resource classes have real chances to shine.

And have plenty of other periods near the 5-6 combats plus X non-combat challenge that at my table the at-wills and the long-rest recovery classes balance against each other.

And for me, it's both easier and makes more narrative sense if I don't try to always stick in that number of "encounters" between sunrises.

 

[Garthanos]

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

Yeah math, assuming the DM let you try, hitting a DC of nearly impossible 35 at level 13 (+10 expertise ) mid paragon where such abilities were acquired ... even with a 20(+5) stat in 5e is what roll? "Fun" of this is you can try again and again and again....

 

[Maxperson]

@Blue hints at it, but I'm not really following what is meant by the "artificial time limits". Unless that is code for "squeezing in encounters in an adventuring day just b/c the DM feels it's necessary to meet the 6-8 encounter quota".

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?

My group changed to that for two reasons.

First, outside of a war or dungeon, 6-8 encounters in a 24 hour day in order to achieve game balance is just not very realistic. You aren't going realistically have that many encounters every time you hit an adventuring day. It's feels artificial to force that much into such a short period of time. By lengthening a long rest out to a week, we can have an 2 encounters on day 1, nothing on day 2, a social encounter on day 3, 1 combat on day 4, nothing on day 5, 2 encounters on day 6, and maybe something on day 7 and achieve game balance without things feeling forced.

Second, it helps keep the nova down. I've noticed from a DM point of view that players who know their PCs aren't resting for 7 days are stingier with the use of their long rest abilities, than they are when the rest is going to happen every 24 hours. It seems strange, given that they are hitting the same number of encounters before a long rest, but I guess there's something psychological going on.

 

[Garthanos]

It seems strange, given that they are hitting the same number of encounters before a long rest, but I guess there's something psychological going on.

I find myself assuming they are used to the higher density of danger being on the table? Sure we almost never get in to 2 fights in a day but we might get into 6?

 

[CubicsRube]

I have loved the players make all the rolls option since I first seen it in 3e Unearthed Arcana.

I am wanting skill stunts which spend a HD to make a skillful action over the top and reliable ... for a price. In other words I want the mechanic to actually justify its use.

But I love a lot of your thoughts on this.

I was thinking of going the other way with hit dice (example AiME allows you to use hit dice to power certain things I bieve).

My thought would be that healing spells and potions allow a character to immediately use a hit die. I liked this because if you're out of HD, then no magical healing will help. You need to be stabilised and rest.

I thought about extending this to some class abikities but i realised it would be far too much to do.

Even rewriting the spells would be a hard sell unkess you had group by in.

Like you I'd rather make them more interesting or just kill them off.

 

[Laurefindel]

Hit Dice can also be tweaked to heal effects (like reduced hit point maximum, or exhaustion) on short rest. Not super relevant on a regular game, but in a week-long long rest game, this enables the DM to play more with those without gimping the players excessively.

I like to DM in the Forgotten Realms, that’s my favourite setting, but I like to take the setting’s « Magic » knob and dial it down a few notches down.

 

[Garthanos]

I was thinking of going the other way with hit dice (example AiME allows you to use hit dice to power certain things I bieve).

I am not familiar with that game?

My thought would be that healing spells and potions allow a character to immediately use a hit die. I liked this because if you're out of HD, then no magical healing will help. You need to be stabilised and rest.

I thought about extending this to some class abikities but i realised it would be far too much to do.

Even rewriting the spells would be a hard sell unkess you had group by in.

Like you I'd rather make them more interesting or just kill them off.

Yes allowing people to spend hit dice when they recieve healing or inspiration hp sort of a flip flop of the core of healing surge use but in a good way by putting it in the hands of the one healed is cool as that demonstrates its your resource not the one doing the healing or inspiring. (It is a better healing surge rule than the one they put in the 5e DMG - which really represents second wind not healing surges)

Spending hd as an exertion to push skill use towards accomplishing the extraordinary is a different idea which broadens it beyond just healing (though over-exerting damaging you and hd heals the damage is one way of seeing it)

 

[Garthanos]

Hit Dice can also be tweaked to heal effects (like reduced hit point maximum, or exhaustion) on short rest.

Wonder if there is a way to elegantly merge fatigue and hit dice... ie you are unfatigued you are at full hit dice. An effect that tends to fatigue has a chance of causing an involuntary loss of hd.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Yeah math, assuming the DM let you try, hitting a DC of nearly impossible 35 at level 13 (+10 expertise ) mid paragon where such abilities were acquired ... even with a 20(+5) stat in 5e is what roll? "Fun" of this is you can try again and again and again....

"Nearly impossible" DC is 30 in 5e, not 35.

 

[Garthanos]

"Nearly impossible" DC is 30 in 5e, not 35.

bah jinxed myself by thinking 35 made a good impossible and that the expertise is what made it effectively nearly impossible earlier ie contributed about 5 points, it remains beyond the pale for anything but weird circumstances where one might convince your DM into letting you even try followed by a lot of failures and even that, is only reachable to skill monkeys (assuming we even get expertise to enable virtually impossible stunts, which may be entirely "not a rogue" style awesome stunts behind the paywall of being a rogue) instead of a utility which is well defined ahead of time.

The kind of stunts do hijinx which basically break the rules of how something is normally done in limited ways so once a scene might be ok or even once every several might be better and having someone waste their turn a lot for the fun of having it work rarely is meh in a game and it is why we use "resources" instead of terrible rolls for long rest and less terrible rolls for short rest abilities. It is why casters use predefined spells and slots or spell points. Instead of getting to do a cool effect which the dm has to analyze the plausibility for on arcana checks which are geared to usually fail or a similar system. You have the foundations for a very ( if used all alone ) un fun magic system using the same idea, congrats.

To be clear adding in well defined skill stunts aka utility powers do not have to remove the oh my gosh i have a weird idea lets give it a shot possibility. They remain an option even if you have the more reliable tool ... one could probably allow improvisation with magic without ditching well defined spells too.