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

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Sounds actually pretty fine, albeit it might be too fiddly for some people's tastes as they would constantly need to decide what to recharge. It would also need to be somehow scaling like prof bonus' worth of recharges or something, as higher level characters have more features.

 

[Eric V]

Sounds actually pretty fine, albeit it might be too fiddly for some people's tastes as they would constantly need to decide what to recharge. It would also need to be somehow scaling like prof bonus' worth of recharges or something, as higher level characters have more features.

100%. This isn't a finalized idea by any means; it needs workshopping. I like the idea of making choices during rest rather than simply hitting a 'reset' button.

 

[Baron Opal II]

It's hard to understand the most important function of the rest system: control of the game's pacing. It's an artificial restraint on the recovery of the characters' limited resources. It makes the game challenging and rewarding.
...
Two encounters -> short rest -> Two more encounters -> short rest -> Another two encounters -> long rest, restart the counter at zero.

I don't like it, but I can appreciate it. I can see the utility if you can ignore the pattern so that you don't exploit it. But, maybe that's the point.

 

[jgsugden]

I'd use the following mechanics if I were rebuilding 5E:

LONG REST: You'd need to get 6 hours of rest within 24 hours to avoid a level of exhaustion. That 6 hour total could be split in up to 2 periods of rest. NO ABILITY RECHARGES WOULD BE TIED TO LONG RESTS.

DAILY ABILITIES: Many abilities would be recharged at dawn of each day. Most current 'LR' abilities now would be recharged at dawn.

RECHARGE ABILITIES: Some abilities would have recharge periods. Long enough that you could not use them in contingous battles, but where you could rest for a bit (or retreat for a bit) and use them later in the day. One simple approach to this would be four 6 hour periods (or 6 four hour periods) in a day and abilities would recharge at the start of the 2nd period after the ability was used. I built a system that used this and used tokens on a 4 panel sheet to track when the abilities would recharge.

 

[overgeeked]

Or just go back to the 4E rest and resource mechanic. It’s perfect. Everyone gets a mix of short and long rest abilities. Short rests are 5-minutes long. Long rests are 6-8 hours.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Or just go back to the 4E rest and resource mechanic. It’s perfect. Everyone gets a mix of short and long rest abilities. Short rests are 5-minutes long. Long rests are 6-8 hours.

And then strictly limit the proliferation of daily abilities.

 

[Blue]

Question to everyone: If instead of looking for a "Rest Mechanic", we were looking for a "Recovery Mechanic". So it need not be tied to a period of inactivity but could be tied to other aspects. Then what would your favorite look like?

For example, in some early editions of D&D clerics of good-aligned deities refreshed spells at dawn. In 13th Age it does have Quick Rests that are like short rests (but quicker) but the Full Heal-Up which is the equivalent to a long rest is divorced from narrative control and happens roughly every four battles. Which does a great job of inter-class balance, but is disliked by some for verisimilitude reasons.

But I'd rather hear your suggestions than debate those two examples.

 

[Cruentus]

Question to everyone: If instead of looking for a "Rest Mechanic", we were looking for a "Recovery Mechanic". So it need not be tied to a period of inactivity but could be tied to other aspects. Then what would your favorite look like?

In one of my campaigns, I toyed with using spell points that regenerated over time, passively. So if you had (just spitballing) 40 spell points, and used 10 of them in an encounter, then you might get back 2 points per hour no matter what you were doing. If you found an area saturated with magic, or ley lines, it might charge back faster. Resting had no impact.

Similarly, HP would recover in the same manner. Some slow drip of HP recovery based on time, and not resting. Time spent doing nothing but resting might allow for an enhanced recovery time.

I didn't extend the exercise to cover abilities, powers, or other things, as I couldn't quite come up with a solid base of mechanics/math to have it all scale at the same time. Or maybe I was overthinking it and it doesn't need to scale, just recover at a reasonable pace.

If you remove the "rest = power/HP/ability recovery" mechanic, then parties will stop asking for rests. Lack of rest/sleep would be impacted by some sort of (non-5e) Fatigue or Encumbrance mechanic.

 

[Dausuul]

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

That depends on whether I'm allowed to modify the rest of the game to adjust for it.

If the rest of the game stays unchanged, my preferred rest mechanic is to change short rests to 5 minutes and cap them at (prof) times per day. It addresses the major issues with short rests and balance between short- and long-rest classes. My table has been using essentially this house rule for some time now.

If I'm allowed to rebalance the rest of the game, I would prefer to go back to the 4E rest mechanics where a long rest is 6 hours (limit 1/day) and a short rest is 5 minutes as often as you like. It's simpler, and it lets PCs have abilities which are available in every encounter but can't be spammed throughout the fight. But this would require overhauling pretty much all of the short-rest classes, since they would otherwise become insanely OP.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Question to everyone: If instead of looking for a "Rest Mechanic", we were looking for a "Recovery Mechanic". So it need not be tied to a period of inactivity but could be tied to other aspects. Then what would your favorite look like?

For example, in some early editions of D&D clerics of good-aligned deities refreshed spells at dawn. In 13th Age it does have Quick Rests that are like short rests (but quicker) but the Full Heal-Up which is the equivalent to a long rest is divorced from narrative control and happens roughly every four battles. Which does a great job of inter-class balance, but is disliked by some for verisimilitude reasons.

But I'd rather hear your suggestions than debate those two examples.

I, for one, would like a setup where you're expected to go into fights with full resources and the dm can build an encounter that's challenging to you. 1 fight per day fits a lot more story types than attrition, so it should work.

Attrition-based pay can be tacked on by limiting the amount of healing (or other recovery) you can do between full heal-ups. Depending on the details, this might not kick in until you get to 3 or 4 fights in a day... but that's fine.

Based on those design goals: short rests are 5 minutes. Long rests are at least a full day. Powerful magics might have their own, thematic limitations (ie Divine Intervention is once per in-game week.)