D&D 5E Warlocks and Hex and the "daily morning short rest"

[Caliban]

No, I dont 'like' doing it at all. I hate doing it.

Sorry, I really don't believe you. You make such a big deal about doing it the instant a player steps out of line, and you say it so very often, and with great vigor each time.

See, this thread wasn't about how you ran things at your table, or about rules and exploits you don't like. But you seem to think we need to know how strong your pimp hand is, despite that having NOTHING to do with the topic at hand.

Given how quick you are to brag about it, it sounds like you DO enjoy it to me, despite your protests to the contrary.

 

[Caliban]

And I feel like all that tells me is that you haven't understood what I said in response to what you wrote.

I have no idea where along the way you've fallen off course on the way to understanding me, so I can't really offer any help. Sorry.

Well, I wasn't talking to you in the first place, and you seemed to be responding to a point I wasn't making. So yeah, your response reads like gibberish to me.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Well, I wasn't talking to you in the first place

That's not relevant when posting in a public thread.

...and you seemed to be responding to a point I wasn't making.

You made a point of saying that a DM can metagame and gave examples of when you believe that is the case. I responded to that point with the idea that those things you listed aren't metagaming at all because metagame is, by definition, separate from the game and those things are not separate from the game.

I then added a proviso that one could go right ahead and call those things metagaming despite that it doesn't actually fit the definition I know of the phrase, but if they did so would have to believe that not all metagaming is inherently bad, which was a thought expressed by someone else - covered in my post not because I was attributing that to you specifically, but because this is a public thread, so I assume posters other than just whomever I have quoted will in fact be reading my post.

 

[Caliban]

That's not relevant when posting in a public thread.

Well, I just decided I don't care anymore. I can only deal with so much crazy in one day. Stopped reading here.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I personally require there to be at least one encounter between rests. Otherwise it just counts as one longer rest. So casting hex and then immediately doing a short rest isn't possible. Because that would simply make it a 9 hour long rest.

 

[ccs]

A game master can absolutely meta game. Deny it a billion more times, it will still be true.

Monsters with no prior knowledge of the PC's somehow being prepared with exactly the right countermeasures for their usual tactics? DM is metagaming.

A unique magic item that is "perfect" for a PC's character concept "just happens" to be in the possession of a random group of monsters (or in their lair, etc.). DM is metagaming.

A monster with a specific vulnerability is coming up, so the DM includes a weapon/wand/scroll that deals exactly that type of damage in the treasure just before they have to fight it? DM is metagaming.

DM's metagame all the time. It's in the job description. Sometimes they do it to make the game more fun or more challenging, sometimes they do it just because they are being petty and adversarial. But it definitely happens.

Eh. Meta-gaming is such a crude, mechanical sounding way of describing it. Think of it more as me playing the various Greek gods/etc. Or those MG things being the hooks for potential stories. Afterall, there might be a reason you keep coming across just the right thing, or finding foes conveniently prepared/informed....

 

[Flamestrike]

You make such a big deal about doing it the instant a player steps out of line, and you say it so very often, and with great vigor each time.

I say it with such vigor because if everyone did it, we wouldnt have these arguments anymore.

And threads like this (My players are trying to game/ exploit [ruleX]. What do I do?) wouldnt exist. The advice every time is 'Say No. Harden up and do your job as a DM. If they dont like it, turf the player for being a twat'.

This guy gets it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Don't mind him [MENTION=284]Caliban[/MENTION], he's been repeatedly called out for blaming DMs to redirect discussion away from deficiencies in WotC's game, and yet he persists in accusing DMs to be at fault whenever the rules doesn't quite work.

 

[Arial Black]

The better solution, in my opinion, is to simply point out that a rest - whether long or short - is not a precisely timed thing. A short rest is at least 1 hour, so 3 hours spent resting is just a single short rest taking longer than the minimum required time, and a long rest is at least 8 hours, so 9 hours spent resting - even with a spell cast 8 hours into it - is just a single long rest taking longer than the minimum required time.

I agree with this. However, we aren't really talking about 9 hour rests.

A long rest completely refreshes you: hit points, spell slots, Ki points, whatever. When you are at maximum hit points, spell slots, ki points, whatever, then more resting (short or long) does not give you more than your maximum hit points, spell slots, ki points, whatever. You are already completely refreshed.

But we are not talking about a completely refreshed person resting for an hour.

As a player I know that I can spend hit dice to heal hit point loss after a short rest, which must be at least one hour. Meanwhile, my character knows that resting for an hour lets him get his breath back and recover from bumps and bruises.

I know it. My PC knows it. Resting for an hour lets me recover lost hit points, lost spell slots, lost ki points, lost whatever. My PC does not know about game mechanics like hit points, spell slots or ki points, but he does know about injury and healing, that you can only cast so many spells before you can't cast any more and that you can only use ki abilities for so long before you can't use them any more, and that resting allows recovery of casting/ki ability.

Taking hit points as my example, it is true that after a long rest while I am at full hit points, then a 'short rest' of one hour straight after a long rest does nothing for my hit points; it is indistinguishable from a single 9 hour long rest.

However, after that long rest and regaining all my hit points, the first thing I do is cut myself while preparing one of the rabbits that the ranger caught for breakfast. I am now injured to the tune of, say, 4 points. I can heal those 4 points back, by ANY of the ways that can heal those points: by spell, Lay On Hands, Second Wind, or even by resting an hour and spending hit dice! There is no game mechanic, nor any conceptual in-game reality, that denies the benefits of a short rest.

The same applies to spell slots. If you have used spell slots then you can regain those slots in any way the rules allow, including (for Pact Magic) resting for an hour.

If you have used slots then this is not resting. Your slots now need to be refreshed, and you can refresh them with a short rest.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I agree with this. However, we aren't really talking about 9 hour rests.

Yes, we are.

Because casting a spell does not interrupt a long rest, it cannot be used as a marker for the long rest ending and thus another rest being capable of starting. Do some non-rest activity for an hour, which is what the game says is necessary to count as interrupting a rest - a thing I am counting as necessary because the character in question is intending to stay at rest, and thus cannot possibly be voluntarily ending their own rest - and you can start a different rest.

And your example about cutting yourself while preparing rabbits is a nonfunctional one - hit points are not so granular that an injury the character is going to bandage up and move on with their day registers as any loss of hit points, and are not representative of the character's physical condition to such a degree that the character being at full hit points precludes the character from having numerous injuries that still require bandages and care because they take days/weeks to heal despite hp returning to full after a single long rest.