Well, BM fighter, particularly, with short-rest CS dice. EK has added daily resources. Champion at-will.
1/3 casters don't have nearly enough resources to count as being daily powers. Getting 2nd level spells at level 7 and 3rd level spells at level 13 is
absurdly slow.
And having played a Champion level 1-19, calling anything they get before level 18 an "at-will power" is
really stretching that definition. No, I never felt weak, but without the minimal amount of decision making required to use GWM, I would never have made it past level 5 with that class. Playing a champion, you feel like you have two choices to make and that's it: when to Second Wind (yay
) and when to Action Surge. Since Action Surge is best early on (best defense is a good offense) you run into the problem that if you make a mistake, you're stuck until the next long rest.
Sure it has. It's a perennial issue, only slightly perturbed for a couple of years c2009.
You're missing my point. It's been an issue, yes, but it's not been one which has caused
party conflict. It's never worked at cross-purposes. It's been an artifact of the game, but not a flaw of design. It hasn't been a problem that caused issues in game play. Well, excepting the "5 minute work day" that irritates DMs, but if that was an issue in 4e then that's basically impossible to avoid.
In 1e/2e/3e/4e, when the Fighter wanted to stop because they were out of hp, you stopped because nobody else wants the Fighter's role of high AC, high hp, and consistent damage. The "meat shield" idiom is not an unwarranted one. When the spellcasters want to stop, the Fighter does because not only does he wants the Wizard's big guns, he wants the Clerics fast healing and combat healing. Not only do the requirements to rest dovetail into what each class does for the others, nobody is really arguing about
how long to rest, either. [Excepting 1e's extremely slow spell recovery, but I don't think I ever played in a campaign that didn't use 100% daily spell slot recovery.]
In 5e, you can run into situations where the Fighter/Warlock/Monk wants to stop because their active resources need replenishing, but the Barbarian/Bard/Cleric/Druid/Rogue/Paladin/Wizard/etc.
don't want to stop because not only are they mostly full on resources, but the role that a Fighter/Warlock/Monk is expected to fill int the party -- tank, blaster, or skirmisher -- isn't significantly impaired. The worst part is that they'll be more likely to be bored and they player might feel less in the spotlight. It doesn't make your character worse, it just makes playing your character
feel worse. Unfortunately, that actually
worse from a design perspective.
Ouch. Yeah, you've got a point there. The 1hr "short" rest is problematic, it's just not that short, it doesn't fit narratively into many circumstances, and when it does, it's probably as practical - and more beneficial - to take a long rest.
It's somewhat ironic because, in my observation, the number one recommendation that DMs seem to get when they ask, "How do I run 6-8 encounters a day when my party keeps stopping after 2-4," is, "Use time pressure to force them to keep going." Nearly any time pressure that is urgent enough to prevent them from long resting is also going to prevent them from short resting every other encounter!
There's no point making a trap that no one will ever walk into, now is there?
It would be less of an issue if there were
more classes that relied on short rests for most of their interesting, active abilities. The problem is that, with only 3 classes with the issue, many groups will have 1 short rest class and 3-4 long rest classes (or the one at-will class, Rogue). So the short rest player is always out-voted.
There's a
third problem with short rests, and this one relates to Hit Dice.
One of the last concessions made at the end of playtesting was to dial back the number of Hit Dice recovered with a long rest. Originally, you recovered all of them with a long rest. They switched it to only recovering half with a long rest to appease players who wanted slower recovery.
That was also a design mistake. The consequence is that, over the long term, filling your day with short rests to recover hit points and continue adventuring
carries diminishing returns.
Say you're a 10th level whatever. You short rest and expend 5 Hit Dice to recover your hp. Later, you rest again and spend another 4 Hit Dice to recover hp, and you keep going. Later you long rest. Great! This is what the game wanted you to do! Except, wait. You only recover 5 HD overnight. You'll only have
6 HD tomorrow, but adventuring today and recovering with short rests cost
9 HD. Assuming the next day is equally difficult, I should expect to be unable to continue adventuring tomorrow at my
second rest opportunity (i.e., short, long) even though I had
three rest opportunities today (i.e., short, short, long).
Now, I agree that this is very realistic. Getting worn down over time is thematic, flavorful, and challenging. Indeed, I would even agree that this is an overall good design... except when your game includes classes that rely on short rests.
Reduced HD recovery
discourages short resting day after day after day. Short resting is now not as sustainable. You'll either need to go more encounters between rests, or else just have fewer encounters per day even if they have the same difficulty. If you do the former, then short rest classes have fewer chances to recover resources over the same number of encounters. That is, they have fewer ability uses each day. If you do the latter, long rest characters will have the same amount of resources to use over fewer encounters. That is, they have fewer ability targets each day.
