D&D 5E Yet another "Solution to Rests" thread

[Ilbranteloth]

OK, I posted this in one of the other threads for resting, but it's being ignored there. There are threads for allocating rests per level (basically based on XP), and encounter (x number of encounters per rest).

I'm not a fan of either, because I prefer the reasons and results of rests to be related to the narrative. People get tired, they rest, they recover sort of thing.

Adventures in Middle Earth uses a system that treats rests differently when traveling than when adventuring in a dungeon. Some of the concepts I can go with, but I'm not sure I like the travel system as a whole. What I do like, is that they use the exhaustion system more.

There are several issues that I see raised on a fairly regular basis with rests:

1) The balance of the classes shifts with different amounts of rests. Warlocks in particular are dependent heavily on rests. Other classes less so, depending on the class.

2) The rest system doesn't work well for attrition on low encounter days. This is a primary complaint about traveling, where you may have a single encounter each day. The complaint basically being that they are fully rested before every encounter.

3) There's the ever present 5mwd problem.

4) My objection to short rests is primarily the length of time they take (it disrupts the narrative).

This system separates the recovery of short and long rest abilities from resting.
It has a built in attrition system, making the recovery of abilities each day a little harder, and reduced number of hit points.
It allows the players to have full control of their rests and recovery of abilities (including potentially more RAW).
There is arbitrary limitation of rests.

It's based loosely on the Barbarian's Relentless Rage ability, and leverages the exhaustion condition.

Short Rest
10 to 15 minutes long. You can regain hit points by spending Hit Dice.


Travel Rest
8 hours long. One per day. You regain 1/2 of your Hit Dice. You remove 1 level of exhaustion. The DC for your exhaustion check after recovering short rest abilities is set to 5 plus 1 for each day since your long rest, and your next such check is made with advantage. The DC for your exhaustion check after recovering long rest abilities is set to 15 plus 1 for each day since your last long rest and your next such check is made with advantage.


Long Rest
24 hours of uninterrupted rest. You regain all hit points. You regain all Hit Dice. You remove all levels of exhaustion. You regain all abilities. The DCs for exhaustion checks after recovering short and long rest abilities are set to 5 and 15, respectively.
Recovering Short and Long Rest Abilities
You may recover all short rest abilities or all long rest abilities at any time. However, when you do so you must make an exhaustion check. You make a separate check after recovering short rest and long rest abilities. Each creature recovers abilities and make exhaustion checks separately.


The exhaustion check is an ability check against your primary class ability (Dexterity for rogues, Charisma for Sorcerers, etc.). If you fail the exhaustion check, you suffer 1 level of exhaustion if you recovered short rest abilities, or 3 levels of exhaustion if you recovered long rest abilities.


As noted above, immediately after a long rest, the DCs for exhaustion checks after recovering short rest and long rest abilities are 5 and 15, respectively. Following each exhaustion check, the corresponding DC increases by 5.

Notes
I have not done any mathematical testing to see what impact this really has on day 2, day 5, or day 10 of an adventure. I'm very curious to hear how that plays out.

The basic design is to be the equivalent of about 3 short rests per long rest, although that will shift down depending on the number of days they have gone since a full day rest.

I've considered 2 levels of exhaustion for a failed long rest ability check, or 1d4 levels. I've also considered a DC of 20 for recovering long rest abilities. The challenge is to make it really difficult to regain your long rest abilities for a second time in one day, but not so tough that you won't get them at least once/day. Since it's based on your primary ability, the assumption is that you'll have at least a +2 to the check. With advantage, recovering your long rest abilities once/day seems doable.

For a more AD&D feel, or if your players abuse the Full Day Rest, make it a week.

 

[Tony Vargas]

OK, I posted this in one of the other threads for resting, but it's being ignored there. There are threads for allocating rests per level (basically based on XP), and encounter (x number of encounters per rest).

I'm not a fan of either, because I prefer the reasons and results of rests to be related to the narrative. People get tired, they rest, they recover sort of thing.

'Realism?' Nobody is so tired after a few minutes (6 second rounds, 6-8 encounters could total no more than a few minutes, 1-3 encounters before you're wanting a short rest even less) of intense activity they need an hour (let alone 8) to be good to go again - they might be dead or injured after a few minutes, and need days/weeks to recover, OTOH.

Also: magic? Not real.

So see that broken window, there, 'realism' left through that 40 years ago. The current system is not realistic, no modification of or replacement for it need be, either.

1) The balance of the classes shifts with different amounts of rests. Warlocks in particular are dependent heavily on rests. Other classes less so, depending on the class.

Short vs long rest is an issue with the Warlock, certainly - it can be OP with too many relative to encounters, or under-powered with too few relative to long rests, but all classes are impacted. All classes are dependent upon short rests to spend HD, and long rests to recover those half those HD and re-set their hps. Most classes can also recover a big chunk of powerful/flexible class abilities (spell slots) on a long rest, and become overpowered when long rests are too readily available, even among that broad set of classes, there are 3 - the traditional prepped (Tier 1) classes - that benefit even more dramatically from frequent long rests.

The rest system doesn't work well for attrition on low encounter days. This is a primary complaint about traveling, where you may have a single encounter each day. The complaint basically being that they are fully rested before every encounter.

Attrition doesn't work well, but it's so ingrained into D&D tradition that we're stuck tying systems and campaigns in knots trying to make it work.

3) There's the ever present 5mwd problem.

Indisputably.

4) My objection to short rests is primarily the length of time they take (it disrupts the narrative).

An hour seemed strangely long to me. How long does it take to catch your breath, get your bearings & be good to go?
If you can stop for a whole hour, it almost seems plausible to stop for 8.

...and leverages the exhaustion condition.

I really don't care for the exhaustion rules, but...

Short Rest
10 to 15 minutes long. You can regain hit points by spending Hit Dice.

Solid.

I like it if the DM has the flexibility of a range of times, 1-15'd be even better, or just "at least a few minutes, but nor more than an hour, if resting is possible at all."

Long Rest
8 hours long. You regain 1/2 of your Hit Dice. You regain 1 level of exhaustion.

OK...

Full Day Rest
24 hours of uninterrupted rest. You regain all hit points. You regain all Hit Dice. You regain all exhaustion. You regain all abilities.

A third rest category? ... OK, I think it's good idea, on balance.
Are you going to keep the rule about not taking multiple long rests in a day?

I'd still rather see flexibility than fixed durations. Shouldn't the DM be free to judge that conditions preclude resting, cut PCs some slack with a 6-hr rest, or whatever?

I suppose, rather than it being a third category of rest, it could just be ... "after at least one day of Downtime?" Or a 'Downtime Rest,' perhaps?

Recovering Short and Long Rest Abilities
You recover abilities by making an ability check.
The ability check is against your primary class ability (Dexterity for rogues, Charisma for Sorcerers, etc.).
You make a separate check for short rest and long rest abilities.
You regain all of your short or long rest abilities with one check.

The Base DC is 5 for short rest abilities, and 15 for long rest abilities.
The DC increases by 5 each time you attempt to recover the ability.


Long Rest You reset the base DC for recovering short and long rest abilities, and add 1 to the base DC for each day since your last full day rest to set the new base DC. Your next check for recovery of short and long rest abilities is made with advantage.


Full Day Rest The base DC for ability recovery is reset with no modifier.

When you make a recovery check, you regain all of your short rest or long rest abilities. If you fail the check, you suffer 1 level of exhaustion for a failed short rest ability recovery check, or 3 levels of exhaustion for a failed long rest ability recovery check.

So, wait, if you rest & fail to get back a special ability, you get /more/ tired? That doesn't sound quite right. You could kill yourself by taking 8 short rests and rolling a series of 1s?

The increasing DC seems a sufficient limit.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I like it if the DM has the flexibility of a range of times, 1-15'd be even better, or just "at least a few minutes, but nor more than an hour, if resting is possible at all."

I'm OK with that. We describe short rests in our campaign, as just that - catching your breath, etc. It's also rolled into their pre-described "after battle routine" of collecting ammunition, looting the dead, binding wounds, having some food and water, etc.

So, wait, if you rest & fail to get back a special ability, you get /more/ tired? That doesn't sound quite right. You could kill yourself by taking 8 short rests and rolling a series of 1s?

The increasing DC seems a sufficient limit.

You never fail to get back the ability, you just suffer the exhaustion. I'll clarify in the OP. Copy/Paste didn't work properly and I missed that...

 

[Tony Vargas]

You never fail to get back the ability, you just suffer the exhaustion. I'll clarify in the OP. Copy/Paste didn't work properly and I missed that...

Ah! OK then.

 

[Sadras]

OK, I posted this in one of the other threads for resting, but it's being ignored there.

Hey, I noticed it and gave you some love

Short Rest
10 to 15 minutes long. You can regain hit points by spending Hit Dice.

Long Rest
8 hours long. You regain 1/2 of your Hit Dice. You regain 1 level of exhaustion. You reset the base DC for recovering short and long rest abilities, and add 1 to the base DC for each day since your last full day rest to set the new base DC. Your next check for recovery of short and long rest abilities is made with advantage.

Full Day Rest
24 hours of uninterrupted rest. You regain all hit points. You regain all Hit Dice. You regain all exhaustion. You regain all abilities. The base DC for ability recovery is reset with no modifier.

Thoughts...
(a) Change the Full Day Rest to Long Rest as it is more in line with the 5e Long Rest and rename your Long Rest to Travel Rest or something.
(b) I would change the wording for the advantage gain in your Long Rest (Travel Rest) to " Your next check for recovery of short or long rest abilities, whichever comes first, is made with advantage.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Hey, I noticed it and gave you some love

Thoughts...
(a) Change the Full Day Rest to Long Rest as it is more in line with the 5e Long Rest and rename your Long Rest to Travel Rest or something.
(b) I would change the wording for the advantage gain in your Long Rest (Travel Rest) to " Your next check for recovery of short or long rest abilities, whichever comes first, is made with advantage.

Thanks!

Really, when [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] alerted me to another thread for a different variation, I figured it was better to do this on its own thread instead of hijacking the other one.

I can do the name changes. That makes sense, since you'll recover all of those abilities during a full day long rest.

The advantage is intended (for now) to be for the recovery of both. In other words, the first time you try to recover short rest abilities has advantage, and the first time you check for long rest abilities you also have advantage.

This is to counteract, to some degree, the increasing DC following a rest. After the first rest, you should be able to recover all of your abilities as you normally would following a rest. Each successive day it gets harder, but your best chance is following your...travel rest.

Of course, if we want it to be harder we can change that. But I'm assuming that for most people, the recovery should mimic the RAW as much as possible. For those that want the attrition or the chances to be harder, you can go with +2 to the base DC each day, instead of +1.

 

[Harzel]

Overall, good thinking. Thanks for posting this.

I have a couple questions/clarifications.

There is arbitrary limitation of rests.

I'm not sure what you mean by this ^.

Travel Rest
8 hours long. One per day. You regain 1/2 of your Hit Dice. You regain 1 level of exhaustion.

Assuming you mean that your level of exhaustion decreases by 1, 'remove' might be a better word than 'regain'. ('Regain' could be interpreted as level of exhaustion increases by 1.)

You reset the base DC for recovering short and long rest abilities, and add 1 to the base DC for each day since your last full day rest to set the new base DC.

It could just be me, but I had to read this several times before I understood it. I found the way you were using 'base DC' confusing. I think it might be clearer to say this (assuming that I have understood correctly):

The DCs for recovering short and long rest abilities are reset to the base DCs. For each day since your last full day rest, add 1 to each DC.
​

Or maybe this (the longer I think, the more I edit; sorry ):

Recovering Short and Long Rest Abilities
You may recover all short rest abilities or all long rest abilities at any time. However, when you do so you must make an exhaustion check. You make a separate check after recovering short rest and long rest abilities. Each creature recovers abilities and make exhaustion checks separately.

The exhaustion check is an ability check against your primary class ability (Dexterity for rogues, Charisma for Sorcerers, etc.). If you fail the exhaustion check, you suffer 1 level of exhaustion if you recovered short rest abilities, or 3 levels of exhaustion if you recovered long rest abilities.

As noted below, immediately after a long rest, the DCs for exhaustion checks after recovering short rest and long rest abilities are 5 and 15, respectively. Following each exhaustion check, the corresponding DC increases by 5.

Travel Rest
8 hours long. One per day. You regain 1/2 of your Hit Dice. You remove 1 level of exhaustion. The DC for your exhaustion check after recovering short rest abilities is set to 5 plus 1 for each day since your long rest, and your next such check is made with advantage. The DC for your exhaustion check after recovering long rest abilities is set to 15 plus 1 for each day since your last long rest and your next such check is made with advantage.

Long Rest
24 hours of uninterrupted rest. You regain all hit points. You regain all Hit Dice. You remove all levels of exhaustion. You regain all abilities. The DCs for exhaustion checks after recovering short and long rest abilities are set to 5 and 15, respectively.

 

[discosoc]

I have an idea. Get rid of short rests entirely! Double the short-rest resources that some classes have, and call it a day (pun totally intended). This whole thing is a self-made problem with 5e, and I hope it's blown away in the next edition.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have an idea. Get rid of short rests entirely! Double the short-rest resources that some classes have, and call it a day (pun totally intended).

That would require tippling short-rest resources, at a minimum, which'd be a bit much for Warlocks, still not enough for fighters. You'd still have issues with classes that get very different proportions of such abilities, and those that get neither.

 

[discosoc]

That would require tippling short-rest resources, at a minimum, which'd be a bit much for Warlocks, still not enough for fighters. You'd still have issues with classes that get very different proportions of such abilities, and those that get neither.

You're only supposed to get 2-3 per long rest (according to the DMG), so you'd triple the resources at max; maybe multiply by 2.5 and round up to call it good. As far as I've seen, there's no stated intention that some short-rest resources are balanced around or meant to have more short rests than others. I think that's just player assumptions that have developed over the years.