This whole discussion is a huge reason why I wish a DM could customize what happens when players in their campaign hit the Long Rest button, instead of it being just a permanently always-on Wolverine Super Regeneration button.
They can. Just not in DDB, or not without a bunch of shenanigans in the tool.
I really...really...
REALLY
...hate...
When people make posts like this here.
This is the D&D Beyond user forum. The base assumption in this place is that anybody you're talking to is here because they use and are invested in the tools. Could I impose whatever rules my table and I agreed on without issue using dead-tree documents? Of course! WE DON'T DO THAT THOUGH. My group is scattered across the continental United States, the online digital tools are the only way/reason any of us get to play. Anything that's difficult to do in the digital tool is ergo difficult to do period for me, mine, and anyone else in the position we're in. The whole entire-ass purpose of being here is the digital tools.
I need to put it in my signature or something - "If your answer to a problem on DDB is "that's only a problem if you're using the digital character sheet", your answer is wrong and bad and you should feel bad about it." I sure as shit didn't spend hundreds of dollars on virtual books on this website to then transcribe everything onto the mutilated corpse of a tree and have no reasonable way to play with all my friends online.
Jeesh.
Not to "well actually" but I actually do "don't touch that button" and manually administer everything in my games - via my players sheets on DDB. I'll have varying planar effects, regional affects etc. and after a rest "tell them how it is" (they now know "no rest for the wicked" rules that sleeping in the Hells sucks, mostly because the first thing we do before regaining anything is check for alignment shift to LE). The digital character sheet is a great tool, but the ability to manage hit points and spell slots and inspiration manually is part of the tool set too. Users aren't bound to SR/LR button.
Yeah it'd be great if DDB implemented other options or allowed custom tuning of what rest means in game, but I see that as following their non DMG options interpretation of rules as written so treat it much like custom skills and the like.
That's the answer. In my upcoming game, you can only long rest at a shrine. They exist throughout the world and are imbued with holy magic or whatever. You can short rest each night. That's the plan anyway.
So no reaching a shrine means no regaining of spell slots?
Yeah, exactly. Unless you have something that lets you get them back without a long rest. Most classes do, it's just limited.
Not to "well actually" but I actually do "don't touch that button" and manually administer everything in my games - via my players sheets on DDB.
Hence the shenagigans I refered to. You can do almost anything you'd do with an eraser and pencil on a paper character sheet on one of DDB's charsheets too, with the right pushing of buttons and typing of keys.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
It sounds like a lot of people are playing in groups without a PC who has the 'Inspiring Leader' feat or the spell "Cat Nap". These together allow short rests to last only 10 minutes; and in those 10 minutes the party also gains temporary hit points, so even if there are members who have nothing to recharge and don't need to spend any HD are just waiting for the casters to recharge for the next fight, they still gain a bonus for participating in the short rest; and 10 minutes does not have a the kind of slow down the day effect people are worried about; which honestly, having to take long rests more often would have on the overall pace of time.
It sounds like a lot of people are playing in groups without a PC who has the 'Inspiring Leader' feat or the spell "Cat Nap". These together allow short rests to last only 10 minutes; and in those 10 minutes the party also gains temporary hit points, so even if there are members who have nothing to recharge and don't need to spend any HD are just waiting for the casters to recharge for the next fight, they still gain a bonus for participating in the short rest; and 10 minutes does not have a the kind of slow down the day effect people are worried about; which honestly, having to take long rests more often would have on the overall pace of time.
Yes because players always pick feats and spells for party management. Feats are optional and not allowed in some games, and in those that are in early levels might not have been selected by whatever first level character had feats available to them. Inspiring Leader and Cat Naps are idiosynchratic solutions as opposed to universal. I mean they work, but it's not an all cases sort of thing to presume.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This whole discussion is a huge reason why I wish a DM could customize what happens when players in their campaign hit the Long Rest button, instead of it being just a permanently always-on Wolverine Super Regeneration button. Implement Slow Natural Healing, perhaps even implement some means of slowing down spell slot regeneration. Get players to start making decisions about what to use where, instead of "I'm going to cast literally every single spell I have in the first fight I find myself in without exception, and then I'm going to complain until I get a long rest."
5e was built as a resource management and attrition game. Long rests have no god damned business punching you back up to 100% for free.
I'm not a fan of the "full HP on a long rest" thing either, but it does solve one problem which plagued earlier editions of DnD. Namely, the healbot aka bandaid aka anyone who played a cleric.
The short/long rest mechanics in 5e seem to be designed to allow more party compositions to be valid. Now you can play a cleric without saving all your spell slots for heals. Or you can play in a party without a cleric. Healing word seems to be about the only spell I would argue is "essential" so you can get people reliably back up from dying without wasting an action, but you can survive without it.
Now, would I prefer a more realistic HP recovery mechanic? Yes, but not if it meant going back to the bad old days of having one party member be the designated heal bot. Spending time at the start of every night using up any remaining spell slots to restore HP etc.
Having said that, in my games I'm super strict about when the party can take a long rest. If you've ever played a video game where you tried to rest and got denied with the voice over stating "it's not safe to rest here", then that's me. If the party tried to long rest in the middle of a dungeon/enemy keep etc then there would be serious consequences. Like don't be surprised if half the remaining bad guys turn up simultaneously because 8 hours is plenty of time for them to work out there has been a security breach.
One idea I have been toying with is also taking from video games, namely grading the quality of a long rest. e.g. You camp out in the middle of a forest, maybe you only get back a half or a quarter hit points, plus a few hit dice. You spend the night at the penthouse suite in the best inn in town complete with in-built healing springs, then full hit points plus all your hit dice as well. You get the idea.
They shoulda switched it so you got all your Hit Dice back on a long rest, but only up to half your total Hit Points back on a long rest (up to your Max HP). That woulda still solved that “White Mage” addiction, and encouraged people to want to short rest so they don’t “waste” their Hit Dice.
It sounds like a lot of people are playing in groups without a PC who has the 'Inspiring Leader' feat or the spell "Cat Nap". These together allow short rests to last only 10 minutes; and in those 10 minutes the party also gains temporary hit points, so even if there are members who have nothing to recharge and don't need to spend any HD are just waiting for the casters to recharge for the next fight, they still gain a bonus for participating in the short rest; and 10 minutes does not have a the kind of slow down the day effect people are worried about; which honestly, having to take long rests more often would have on the overall pace of time.
Yes because players always pick feats and spells for party management. Feats are optional and not allowed in some games, and in those that are in early levels might not have been selected by whatever first level character had feats available to them. Inspiring Leader and Cat Naps are idiosynchratic solutions as opposed to universal. I mean they work, but it's not an all cases sort of thing to presume.
I do ;-P
Ah, well that's one of those 5e pshaw! problems I keep encountering - IMHO Feats should be standard RAW.
nods - If absolutely necessary to maining fun through pacing management, the DM can always send a temporary tag-along npc for an outing or so, just to give players a taste of how nice it is to be able to do that, thus at least one of them they may consider it for their next selection.
nods - but it is still something to consider if you are constantly finding yourself inconvenienced by the need for short rests rather than appreciative of them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
While my campaign is set up so people value their short rests, it is a general balance problem when some classes derive a large amount of their power from long rests, and others don't, because it means relative power level of classes varies with the length of the day. Personally, I would probably have shifted more towards a short rest model, but consistency is good.
I think the DMG does a good job of giving the DM options for tailoring rests to their campaign's needs. I wish that DDB supported it better, though. As an example, in my Ravenloft campaign I use slower healing, where at the end of a long rest you have to spend hit die to regain hit points. I also (sparingly) use lingering injuries. This, I feel, makes combat a bit scarier (particularly combined with the Stress and Fear mechanics). DDB doesn't really support that, though - we just have to remember where are hit points were before clicking the long rest button and resetting it before spending hit die.
I'm also running a Greek Myth inspired campaign - in that game, I have short long rest (5 minutes) that represent the very special, heroic nature of the PCs. I didn't implement the long rest as 1 hour rule for it, but if DDB had let me tailor the long rest a bit (restricting the recovering of spell slots above level 5, for example) I might have tried it out.
I'm not sure that WotC is moving away from Short Rests to the extent that some think. We are certainly seeing that with the races in Monsters of the Multiverse, but in a way that is moving design more toward what we initially had in the PHB. The only race that had an ability that recharged on a short rest (as far as I can remember) was the Dragonborn. Having those abilities recharge on a long rest (with uses mapped to proficiency) makes it easier to balance races against one another.
If we look at Tasha's, we see a few examples of abilities that might have been 1/short or long rest in earlier books. They might also have been "Ability score mod" x per day. But the Monk still has abilities that use Ki (instead of being prof. x per day) and the Fighter subclasses still have features that recharge on short rests (the rune carver abilities of the Rune Knight or the various psionic abilities of the Psi Warrior).
While my campaign is set up so people value their short rests, it is a general balance problem when some classes derive a large amount of their power from long rests, and others don't, because it means relative power level of classes varies with the length of the day. Personally, I would probably have shifted more towards a short rest model, but consistency is good.
I like a mix of short and long rest refreshes, I just don’t think they got the mix quite right. That’s why I try to pay attention to it in my homebrews. Whenever I create a Subclass for a short rest dependent classes (Fighter, Monk, Warlock) I try to avoid making features that also refresh on a short rest. When I make subclasses for the classes that have little to no short rest refreshes, I always try to make sure at least some of the features of the Subclass do. That way the short rest PCs have some stuff that will last all day long, and the long rest PCs have an excuse to take a short rest.
Not to "well actually" but I actually do "don't touch that button" and manually administer everything in my games - via my players sheets on DDB. I'll have varying planar effects, regional affects etc. and after a rest "tell them how it is" (they now know "no rest for the wicked" rules that sleeping in the Hells sucks, mostly because the first thing we do before regaining anything is check for alignment shift to LE). The digital character sheet is a great tool, but the ability to manage hit points and spell slots and inspiration manually is part of the tool set too. Users aren't bound to SR/LR button.
Yeah it'd be great if DDB implemented other options or allowed custom tuning of what rest means in game, but I see that as following their non DMG options interpretation of rules as written so treat it much like custom skills and the like.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Yeah, exactly. Unless you have something that lets you get them back without a long rest. Most classes do, it's just limited.
Hence the shenagigans I refered to. You can do almost anything you'd do with an eraser and pencil on a paper character sheet on one of DDB's charsheets too, with the right pushing of buttons and typing of keys.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
It sounds like a lot of people are playing in groups without a PC who has the 'Inspiring Leader' feat or the spell "Cat Nap". These together allow short rests to last only 10 minutes; and in those 10 minutes the party also gains temporary hit points, so even if there are members who have nothing to recharge and don't need to spend any HD are just waiting for the casters to recharge for the next fight, they still gain a bonus for participating in the short rest; and 10 minutes does not have a the kind of slow down the day effect people are worried about; which honestly, having to take long rests more often would have on the overall pace of time.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Yes because players always pick feats and spells for party management. Feats are optional and not allowed in some games, and in those that are in early levels might not have been selected by whatever first level character had feats available to them. Inspiring Leader and Cat Naps are idiosynchratic solutions as opposed to universal. I mean they work, but it's not an all cases sort of thing to presume.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm not a fan of the "full HP on a long rest" thing either, but it does solve one problem which plagued earlier editions of DnD. Namely, the healbot aka bandaid aka anyone who played a cleric.
The short/long rest mechanics in 5e seem to be designed to allow more party compositions to be valid. Now you can play a cleric without saving all your spell slots for heals. Or you can play in a party without a cleric. Healing word seems to be about the only spell I would argue is "essential" so you can get people reliably back up from dying without wasting an action, but you can survive without it.
Now, would I prefer a more realistic HP recovery mechanic? Yes, but not if it meant going back to the bad old days of having one party member be the designated heal bot. Spending time at the start of every night using up any remaining spell slots to restore HP etc.
Having said that, in my games I'm super strict about when the party can take a long rest. If you've ever played a video game where you tried to rest and got denied with the voice over stating "it's not safe to rest here", then that's me. If the party tried to long rest in the middle of a dungeon/enemy keep etc then there would be serious consequences. Like don't be surprised if half the remaining bad guys turn up simultaneously because 8 hours is plenty of time for them to work out there has been a security breach.
One idea I have been toying with is also taking from video games, namely grading the quality of a long rest. e.g. You camp out in the middle of a forest, maybe you only get back a half or a quarter hit points, plus a few hit dice. You spend the night at the penthouse suite in the best inn in town complete with in-built healing springs, then full hit points plus all your hit dice as well. You get the idea.
They shoulda switched it so you got all your Hit Dice back on a long rest, but only up to half your total Hit Points back on a long rest (up to your Max HP). That woulda still solved that “White Mage” addiction, and encouraged people to want to short rest so they don’t “waste” their Hit Dice.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I do ;-P
Ah, well that's one of those 5e pshaw! problems I keep encountering - IMHO Feats should be standard RAW.
nods - If absolutely necessary to maining fun through pacing management, the DM can always send a temporary tag-along npc for an outing or so, just to give players a taste of how nice it is to be able to do that, thus at least one of them they may consider it for their next selection.
nods - but it is still something to consider if you are constantly finding yourself inconvenienced by the need for short rests rather than appreciative of them.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
While my campaign is set up so people value their short rests, it is a general balance problem when some classes derive a large amount of their power from long rests, and others don't, because it means relative power level of classes varies with the length of the day. Personally, I would probably have shifted more towards a short rest model, but consistency is good.
I think the DMG does a good job of giving the DM options for tailoring rests to their campaign's needs. I wish that DDB supported it better, though. As an example, in my Ravenloft campaign I use slower healing, where at the end of a long rest you have to spend hit die to regain hit points. I also (sparingly) use lingering injuries. This, I feel, makes combat a bit scarier (particularly combined with the Stress and Fear mechanics). DDB doesn't really support that, though - we just have to remember where are hit points were before clicking the long rest button and resetting it before spending hit die.
I'm also running a Greek Myth inspired campaign - in that game, I have short long rest (5 minutes) that represent the very special, heroic nature of the PCs. I didn't implement the long rest as 1 hour rule for it, but if DDB had let me tailor the long rest a bit (restricting the recovering of spell slots above level 5, for example) I might have tried it out.
I'm not sure that WotC is moving away from Short Rests to the extent that some think. We are certainly seeing that with the races in Monsters of the Multiverse, but in a way that is moving design more toward what we initially had in the PHB. The only race that had an ability that recharged on a short rest (as far as I can remember) was the Dragonborn. Having those abilities recharge on a long rest (with uses mapped to proficiency) makes it easier to balance races against one another.
If we look at Tasha's, we see a few examples of abilities that might have been 1/short or long rest in earlier books. They might also have been "Ability score mod" x per day. But the Monk still has abilities that use Ki (instead of being prof. x per day) and the Fighter subclasses still have features that recharge on short rests (the rune carver abilities of the Rune Knight or the various psionic abilities of the Psi Warrior).
I like a mix of short and long rest refreshes, I just don’t think they got the mix quite right. That’s why I try to pay attention to it in my homebrews. Whenever I create a Subclass for a short rest dependent classes (Fighter, Monk, Warlock) I try to avoid making features that also refresh on a short rest. When I make subclasses for the classes that have little to no short rest refreshes, I always try to make sure at least some of the features of the Subclass do. That way the short rest PCs have some stuff that will last all day long, and the long rest PCs have an excuse to take a short rest.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting