D&D (2024) What would your ideal rest mechanic look like?

[EpicureanDM]

For our campaign this is normal because we count the number of encounters in order to advance to the next level. We zoom thru the apprentice tier of levels 1 thru 4, with 4 encounters then 7, 10, and 13 respectively. For the tiers of levels 5 thru 12, it takes about 16 encounters to reach the next level. The exact number of encounters depends on when a gaming session ends, so might be "close enough" or "wait till we finish this part". Players work on leveling their characters between sessions.

Yeah, that's how 13th Age does it. Maybe that's where you got the idea from. Just embrace the other half of this approach and use their rest system, too, like I do.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, that's how 13th Age does it. Maybe that's where you got the idea from. Just embrace the other half of this approach and use their rest system, too, like I do.

I got the encounters per level idea from two people who, for different reasons, calculated out how many standard encounters it takes at each level to get the xp to reach the next level. Once I saw this info, I thought, why not count encounters instead? We experimented and instantly preferred it.

Counting encounters is so much easier. And because the difficulty is evaluated after the encounter, it is more accurate than xp is. Note, the creature rating calculations are still useful for designing an encounter. But just count encounters for leveling.

What I especially like about this method is, an encounter can be combat, lethal or nonlethal, social, exploration, puzzle. It can be anything that the players get interested in doing.

 

[EpicureanDM]

Counting encounters is so much easier. And because the difficulty is evaluated after the encounter, it is more accurate than xp is. Note, the creature rating calculations are still useful for designing an encounter. But just count encounters for leveling.

In 13th Age, you level up after four long rests.

It's clean and simple.

 

[nevin]

What is your own ideal rest mechanic that you use or want to use for the game.


In 5e, per day, the standard rest mechanic assumes about 6 to 8 encounters until the next 8-hour long rest. In addition, there are perhaps two 1-hour short rests, between these per-day combat encounters. So the standard schedule tends to approximate something like:

Long Rest − 3 encounters − Short Rest − 2 encounters − Short Rest − 2 encounters − Long Rest


This standard schedule seems to happen less frequently than intended because the same hostile environment that fills a single day with about seven combat encounters is the same hostile environment that makes full 1-hour short rests less obtainable.

Nevertheless, many adventure stories take place in a hostile environment, such as an underground dungeon crawl, and the schedule where each night is a long rest and a short rest is an emergency triage, seems adequate for many gaming tables, at least upto around level 12.

For much of the adventure, especially levels 5 to 8, also 9 to 12, there work out to be 2 long rests per level.



The difficulties with the rest mechanic include:

Story Setting
• Some stories make combat less frequent, such as a well-policed urban environment or seafaring ship, one combat between long rests.
• Some stories make combat more frequent, making a 1-hour rest implausible.

Story Mood
• "Gritty" stories portray fragile and weary heroes, making an 8-hour full refresh feel too vibrant. Here prefers 7 days of relaxation or similar.
• "Heroic" stories portray action heroes, full of urgency and power, making a 1-hour short boost obstructive. Here prefers a 15-minute break, 10, or 5.

Gaming Balance
• Some classes depend more on long rest refresh (Wizard) and some depend more on short rest (Warlock), so straying from standard affects balance.

New Mechanic: Proficiency Times Per Long Rest
• Most editions of D&D relied on the 8 hour or week long refresh long rest. 5e short rests are new.
• 4e per-encounter powers translated into 5e as per-short-rest.
• The short rest seems to be the most difficult regulate routinely if story makes the standard schedule less plausible.
• Designers recently employ the proficiency times per long rest mechanic, where one might expect a short rest.
• A hero can do the feature a number of times equal to the current proficiency bonus. This number increases while advancing in levels.
• Perhaps the designers are phasing out short rests.
• If short rests disappear, the amount of time for a long rest becomes easier to "dial", while the proficiency times per long rest regulate accordingly.



The above is many of the considerations. What is your ideal rest mechanic?

simple. set all character resources on an daily basis and let the characters burn through them till they are done and have to rest.

 

[JarooAshstaff]

What is your own ideal rest

8 hours uninterrupted sleep.

 

[Krachek]

Ideal!

Rule 1 The DM control the rest.
it’s the DM that tell you if you can rest. He may ask you to perform some check in order to find a secure shelter.

Rule 2. the DM control the time need.
Heroes can be back on track very quickly in urgent time, but sometime they need to replenish fully, so resting can vary greatly. a rest can vary between 5 minutes, an hour, a night, a week, or even more.
Again DM may ask some ability check to alter the resting time need.

Rule 3. the DM control what PC replenish.
How heroes recover their strength, power and will to succeed is a mystery.
it is the DM who decided if you benefit from a Long Rest, a short rest, or something in between. The DM may ask some ability check to alter the result of the resting.

 

[Steampunkette]

It depends on three things, for me.

1) Party Composition.
If I've got a bunch of short-rest characters then there will be an impetus for the characters to -create- short rests for themselves. Whether this means disengaging from the narrative in order to retreat for a time and return at "Full Power" or otherwise force a short rest right before an important encounter.

2) Narrative Tension.
A lot of people don't really seem to care about this, but because of the structure of storytelling and drama, taking a random hour, or eight hours, can utterly crumble any sense of tension or drama. This could also be referred to as a Time Scale. If the players only have 6 hours to complete a specific task, and have a lot of encounters between them and the ending, taking an hour or two to rest is dangerous to credulity.

3) Player Investment.
The players need to be entertained to enjoy the game. Sometimes that means maintaining high tension, sometimes that means briefly cooling off. Sometimes that means giving them only a moment to get some heroic inspiration before they finish this, once and for all...

And all of these reasons are why my Short and Long Rests are -variable-.

Are we in a "Die Hard" type situation where everything is on the line and there's no time for a short rest, much less a long one? Here comes the 2 minute Breather as a short rest and the half hour long rest. Long overland travel with a terrible relic fated to destroy the world unless it is destroyed in the fires where it was wrought? 1 hour short rest, 8 hour long rest. Political Intrigue over the course of a month with players managing spy networks and organization? 1 day short rest, one week long rest.

Have the players been fighting through the evil king's castle, been desperately wounded, depleted of spells, and weakened by lieutenants and monsters? Time for the Heroic Surge when they all get a Long Rest in 1 round's time (Without the full heal, but they can spend hit dice and their newly recovered spell slots) before they finish the battle and immediately gain 3 ranks of Fatigue when it's "Finally Over". Depleted and drained, the heroes stumble out of the BBEG's castle to the roar of the populace finally freed of the tyrant.

It all depends. And Flexible, Variable, Rests are always going to be superior, in my opinion.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What is your own ideal rest mechanic that you use or want to use for the game.

depends on the feel I am going for. I have adjusted those rules back and forth more then any other... but as defualt here is what I want:

some powers recharge as encounter not short rest. I think Ki pts and supiriority dice and maybe some others should fall in here If you fight 3 orcs then kick down a door and fight 3 more orcs I want those powers to be useable no rest but only 1 time
some powers at will (and every class get them not just basic attacks) and for those to scale one way or another as you level
some powers to need a short rest so action surge and warlock slots... and a short rest be 20 mins AND be a safeish location with access to food and drink. I am starting to think there should be a limit as to how many you can take per long rest but I don't know what. I like arcane recovery here, and I LOVE HD being spent here.
Nights rest... there are more or less daily powers like per day spells. it should require what ever your race sleep/trances for (min 4 hours) plus at least 1 hour of down time (so party of warforged and elves can take a 5 hour night rest, but a party with humans needs 9 hours) and as above needs to be safeish and have food and drink but also place to sleep/trance. getting back all your HP and some portion of HD (right now half don't know if I would change that)
Long rest... this is a week or more, and fully resets you. It requires you be fully safe in a town or base (hey the gangwar broke out guess you are down to just night rests in this town) and it would have things like ability damage and perm hp loss come back

 

[delericho]

I think my ideal looks like the following:

Short rest: characters can spend hit dice, some powers refresh.
Long rest: characters regain hit points and some hit dice, all powers refresh.
Extended rest: characters regain full capability, and can take a downtime action.

This is, of course, pretty much what we have now. The key differences:

Most importantly, the time required for each type of rest isn't fixed - it will be set by the DM based on the environment. So resting at home is rather easier than while on the road in the middle of a warzone! Amongst other things, this means that in a "points of light" setting, characters travelling from one city to the next will only be able to take short rests when they stop overnight.

Secondly, an interrupted rest gives no benefit, and characters cannot immediately rest again. So resting in the dungeon is a much tougher ask than currently. And, in fact, I'd be inclined to flag clearly just how easy it is to take different types of rests in different places - some places may allow all rests, allow all rests at some risk, allow short rests only (with or without risk), or might even not allow any resting at all.

Additionally, all characters need to regain something on both short and long rests. So maybe a spellcaster's cantrips are each usable once per short rest, or perhaps all spellcasters have a version of the Wizard's "arcane recovery" feature (but available on every short rest). And I suggest that on a short rest character can either spend one or more hit dice or they regain one hit die. This, of course, will require some changes to almost all the classes.

I don't like this drift towards "X times per day" - it very much looks like WotC are moving towards either eliminating short rests or, possibly worse, de-emphasizing them for many but not all characters. That feels very much like a retrograde step to me.

 

[Eric V]

What if there were only short rests, but the player decides what gets recovered on the rest?

For (early-idea) example, on a short rest, a player may do one (or some limited number) of the following:

a) Spend HD to regain hp
b) Recover HD
c) Recharge a class ability (or a few?)
d) Recover a spell slot (or more?)
e) Recharge a magical item

There would need to be some math involved to balance it, but one could see one player choosing to heal with HD, while another takes the risk to stay with her lower hp after the battle in order to recover a higher-level spell slot, and another player pours his essence into the helm of teleportation.

This would be even more interesting if characters could use their HD for things other than healing, like powering spells, etc.

What happens to long rests in a system like this? A "long rest" is essentially when you have enough time to chain a bunch of short rests together, so the DM handwaves it and people fully recharge. However, for people who like it, you could always be in a state of "not fully there" and so attrition is a major factor.