Yaarel
🇮🇱He-Mage
@GMMichael, Im getting that this is how your character prefers to spend downtime? Any new skills?
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D&D (2024) What would your ideal rest mechanic look like?
- Thread starter Yaarel
- Start date
Yaarel
🇮🇱He-Mage
Personally I am unsure how the short rest versus the proficiency times will play out.
For short spans, I am fond of the 15-minute time block, because there are roughly a 100 of them per day, thus a convenient way to track percentages of day metrically. A "ke" (Chinese unit of time) is 14.4 minutes, easily rounding off as if 15 minutes, and being a hundredth of a day.
Is a 15-minute short rest a viable compromise between 1-hour and 30-minute versus 5-minute and 10-minute? A 15-minute break is a common reallife custom.
I find 15 minutes a solid amount of time to perform most rituals, and tasks that dont take up too much time.
For short spans, I am fond of the 15-minute time block, because there are roughly a 100 of them per day, thus a convenient way to track percentages of day metrically. A "ke" (Chinese unit of time) is 14.4 minutes, easily rounding off as if 15 minutes, and being a hundredth of a day.
Is a 15-minute short rest a viable compromise between 1-hour and 30-minute versus 5-minute and 10-minute? A 15-minute break is a common reallife custom.
I find 15 minutes a solid amount of time to perform most rituals, and tasks that dont take up too much time.
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Neonchameleon
Legend
I've seen two systems that worked well:
- The 4e system which meant that your options narrowed in a skirmish as you got tired, and that allowed some recovery between fights as you caught your breath and bandaged yourself up - but healing surges were limited.
- A tweak on it with short rests each taking longer as you used them in the day. The first was from memory a turn then a minute then five, then an hour, then eight, then you'd better long rest. So each gets harder than the last.
2 Axis
One axis is Time. How long you rest.
One axis is Time. How long you rest.
- Quick- 5 Minutes
- Short- 1 hour
- Long- 8 hours
- Full- 1 day
- Extended- 3 days
- Respite- Downtime in an actively hostile and dangerous environment.
- Break- Downtime in a potentially dangerous environment or actively upsetting
- Rest- Downtime in a safe environment
- "Holiday"- Downtime in a safe environment designed for healing, recovery, and relaxation
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Yeah, X times between [length] rests is a pretty uninspired way to limit ability usage, and comes with a lot of problems that D&D has been struggling with since it’s inception. I think 4e did the best version of that mechanic we’re ever likely to see.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
The old idea of recovery items might work well. Towns have shops for these. Mana potions/healing potions/*short rest potions/*long rest potions. It would also help create a gold sink that players could actually use to spend their money on. Then just have it be you don't recharge naturally outside of a safe town environment (or maybe anything but hp). You still need to sleep at night or face exhaustion. Then you just regulate gold.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Short rest 30 minutes. Otherwise as is.
Long rest 8 hours, but in a sanctuary (safe, secure, and comfortable location). An inn or similar would be fine.
You still need about 6-8 hours rest per day to stave off fatigue/strife, but it only counts as a short rest unless in a sanctuary.
Long rest 8 hours, but in a sanctuary (safe, secure, and comfortable location). An inn or similar would be fine.
You still need about 6-8 hours rest per day to stave off fatigue/strife, but it only counts as a short rest unless in a sanctuary.
Vaalingrade
Legend
Short rest 5 minutes. Everything is built on this.
Long rest recovered HP and HD. No abilities are daily except mx healing.
Long rest recovered HP and HD. No abilities are daily except mx healing.
RangerWickett
Legend
My preferred version would require a heavy retool of the rest of the system. But here it is.
First, we'd have HP that replenishes with a 5 minute rest, where Hit Points means "ability to survive an attack that hits."
But on top of that you have wounds that can occur from critical hits. And if you're out of HP, every attack that hits causes a wound. Usually someone who drops to 0 HP just gives up. (And if you score a critical hit against someone with no HP, they
Wounds persist until you get treatment, which might take an hour, a day, or a week (or magic!). The location is random, or you can spend a bonus action to aim at a specific location, but aiming only matters if you inflict a wound. Arm wounds make wielding stuff harder. Leg wounds make moving harder. Head wounds impede your senses or might knock you unconscious. And torso wounds cause blood loss (so you make a save each turn to avoid passing out) and lower your max HP, so when you take a rest you might only get back to 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 your total.
Wounds can be light (heal in an hour), moderate (heal in a day), serious (heal in a week), or critical (never heal).
When you drop to 0 HP, you automatically get a moderate wound wherever the attack hit, or a light wound if you choose to fall unconscious.
Normally critical hits would inflict serious wounds. They'd upgrade to critical if you have no HP left. Whenever you take a wound, you can make a Con save to reduce it by one step. And you'd have hero points you could expend to reduce any wound to light.
A 5-minute Medicine check (DC 10) can let the patient recover from a light wound. So can a cure light wounds spell (1st level).
A 1-hour Medicine check (DC 15) can let a patient ignore the effects of a moderate wound, though the benefit goes away after the character falls below half HP. Cure moderate wounds (2nd level) can fully recover a moderate wound.
Cure serious wounds (3rd level) can fix a serious wound. Cure critical (4th level) can fix a critical wound, which includes regrowing severed limbs. Then Raise Dead (5th level) lets you beat death, but any wounds the person had when they died require an extra cure spell. Heal (6th level) can fix all your wounds at once. Resurrection (7th level) can restore the dead and fix all your wounds. And True Resurrection (9th level) is that, but with a casting time of one action.
None of these actually recover hit points. For that you either need inspiration by an ally, or you can take an action to get a second wind, or maybe a heroism spell.
The idea here is to have rules for how wounds actually function in real life, but in a way that players can still function and be heroic while injured.
First, we'd have HP that replenishes with a 5 minute rest, where Hit Points means "ability to survive an attack that hits."
But on top of that you have wounds that can occur from critical hits. And if you're out of HP, every attack that hits causes a wound. Usually someone who drops to 0 HP just gives up. (And if you score a critical hit against someone with no HP, they
Wounds persist until you get treatment, which might take an hour, a day, or a week (or magic!). The location is random, or you can spend a bonus action to aim at a specific location, but aiming only matters if you inflict a wound. Arm wounds make wielding stuff harder. Leg wounds make moving harder. Head wounds impede your senses or might knock you unconscious. And torso wounds cause blood loss (so you make a save each turn to avoid passing out) and lower your max HP, so when you take a rest you might only get back to 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 your total.
Wounds can be light (heal in an hour), moderate (heal in a day), serious (heal in a week), or critical (never heal).
When you drop to 0 HP, you automatically get a moderate wound wherever the attack hit, or a light wound if you choose to fall unconscious.
Normally critical hits would inflict serious wounds. They'd upgrade to critical if you have no HP left. Whenever you take a wound, you can make a Con save to reduce it by one step. And you'd have hero points you could expend to reduce any wound to light.
A 5-minute Medicine check (DC 10) can let the patient recover from a light wound. So can a cure light wounds spell (1st level).
A 1-hour Medicine check (DC 15) can let a patient ignore the effects of a moderate wound, though the benefit goes away after the character falls below half HP. Cure moderate wounds (2nd level) can fully recover a moderate wound.
Cure serious wounds (3rd level) can fix a serious wound. Cure critical (4th level) can fix a critical wound, which includes regrowing severed limbs. Then Raise Dead (5th level) lets you beat death, but any wounds the person had when they died require an extra cure spell. Heal (6th level) can fix all your wounds at once. Resurrection (7th level) can restore the dead and fix all your wounds. And True Resurrection (9th level) is that, but with a casting time of one action.
None of these actually recover hit points. For that you either need inspiration by an ally, or you can take an action to get a second wind, or maybe a heroism spell.
The idea here is to have rules for how wounds actually function in real life, but in a way that players can still function and be heroic while injured.
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Yaarel
🇮🇱He-Mage
Maybe the length of a "long rest" can depend on whether the damage is superficial or deep?
Most of the damage is intangible: loss of energy, alertness, and luck. Only if reaching zero hit points can the damage become deadly.
The character is fresh at full hit points. Down until half hit points, there is some contact, but the hit point loss comes from fatigue, getting sloppy, etcetera. At bloodied, at half, the damage causes lasting bruises, cuts, bloodied nose, and so on. Bandages become helpful. But still the damage is cosmetic. One can look at a fight sport match to see what this looks like.
These superficial bruises etcetera clear up in, say, 2d8 days. This cosmetic damage has no bearing on hit points, but it is fun to remind the player, the character still has a black eye from when getting bloodied several days ago.
But at zero hit points, ones luck runs out. The damage becomes deadly. This is the sword thru the gut, and so on. (The attacker can choose avoid lethal damage, but the target is still unconscious and completely vulnerable at zero hit points.) If the damage is deadly, and the character survives the death saves, this deep damage can take weeks (or even months) to heal.
Typical injury − broken bone, bad burn, deep cut − 3 to 9 weeks to heal.
So, when does real damage happen? It can happen at zero hit points. It normally takes weeks to heal real damage.
Consider the following rates of healing. It might be too complex for gaming purposes, but it gives a sense of what injuries might look like.
Damage Categories
• maximum hit points until half: negligible injury, mainly fatigue, heal normally
• half hit points until zero: minor injury, bloodied, heal normally, cosmetic marks persist 2d8 days
• zero hit points, fail 0 death saves: minor injury, downed, heal normally, cosmetic marks persist 2d8 days
• zero hit points fail 1 death save: moderate or serious, 2d6 weeks to heal
• zero hit points fail 2 death saves: severe or critical, 3d8 months to heal
• zero hit points fail 3 death saves: untreatable, permanent loss of either life or limb (DMs discretion based on injury)
The game doesnt have to get too complex about damage categories. But switching from an 8-hour sleep for full hit points, to something that takes weeks, can make sense when an injury is significant.
Most of the damage is intangible: loss of energy, alertness, and luck. Only if reaching zero hit points can the damage become deadly.
The character is fresh at full hit points. Down until half hit points, there is some contact, but the hit point loss comes from fatigue, getting sloppy, etcetera. At bloodied, at half, the damage causes lasting bruises, cuts, bloodied nose, and so on. Bandages become helpful. But still the damage is cosmetic. One can look at a fight sport match to see what this looks like.
These superficial bruises etcetera clear up in, say, 2d8 days. This cosmetic damage has no bearing on hit points, but it is fun to remind the player, the character still has a black eye from when getting bloodied several days ago.
But at zero hit points, ones luck runs out. The damage becomes deadly. This is the sword thru the gut, and so on. (The attacker can choose avoid lethal damage, but the target is still unconscious and completely vulnerable at zero hit points.) If the damage is deadly, and the character survives the death saves, this deep damage can take weeks (or even months) to heal.
Typical injury − broken bone, bad burn, deep cut − 3 to 9 weeks to heal.
So, when does real damage happen? It can happen at zero hit points. It normally takes weeks to heal real damage.
Consider the following rates of healing. It might be too complex for gaming purposes, but it gives a sense of what injuries might look like.
Damage Categories
• maximum hit points until half: negligible injury, mainly fatigue, heal normally
• half hit points until zero: minor injury, bloodied, heal normally, cosmetic marks persist 2d8 days
• zero hit points, fail 0 death saves: minor injury, downed, heal normally, cosmetic marks persist 2d8 days
• zero hit points fail 1 death save: moderate or serious, 2d6 weeks to heal
• zero hit points fail 2 death saves: severe or critical, 3d8 months to heal
• zero hit points fail 3 death saves: untreatable, permanent loss of either life or limb (DMs discretion based on injury)
The game doesnt have to get too complex about damage categories. But switching from an 8-hour sleep for full hit points, to something that takes weeks, can make sense when an injury is significant.
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