In case you are unfamiliar with the Slow Natural Healing - Variant Rule , it is Basically Players must spend Hit Dice to Recover Hit Points. And per the Normal Rules Long Rests only give you back 1/2 your Hit Dice each Night. This sounds great. My hope with using this rule was that after a particularly hard fight, the Party would have to take it easy the Next Day. Maybe making more cautious choices while they are recovering and not at 100%. However after running this rule from Level 1 to 8, with DeadlyAdventuring Days, the Party has never been inconvenienced by this restriction in healing.
I know the Culprit - Magically Healing Excess Spell Slots, it easily bridges the gap with a few low level leftover spell slots being used for Healing filling in the any of the hurt accumulated during the Day. And with all the Spell slots coming back after a Long Rest, the Healer doesn't think twice about draining their magic pockets. They are smart and have been responsible adventurers, taking the necessary precautions to ensure a safe Long Rest.
The Solution I have for this is simple but I'm trying to work out the best way to Implement this. I want a simple system that doesn't require to much math. I think that Player Abilities are good coming back on a Long Rest. I want to find a way for players to also think about which spell slots they get back, but it also has to work for all the different types of Casters. I'm open to any other ideas based on other systems, but here are some of the Ideas I've considered and why I don't 100% like them.
50% Spell Points - Using theVariant Rule of Spell PointsPlayers Regain 50% of there Spell Points as Part of a Long Rest. They can supplement this by spending Hit Dice and adding the Spell Casting Modifier. Pros: Evenly Recovers Spell Slots across all Casting Classes. Cons: Tracking Spell Points is a Pain, and the system isn't known to most players, also the ability to spend Hit Dice hits Wizards and Sorcerers (d6) much harder than a Ranger (d10).
Regain Spell Slots equal to your Caster Level - This rule starts close to recovering 50% and grows as the Players Level up. (Caster level is Based on your Class and Sub Class) Pros: The Math is simple, Full Casters start at Recovering 50% of their Spell slots at level 1 and by Level 20 they are recovering 90%. Cons: This System doesn't work Great for Partial Casters, like Paladins and Arcane Tricksters. Half Casters also start at 50% (Assuming you Round Up) and by level 20 are only recovering about 66% of their Spells by Level 20. The system doesn't work will for 1/3 Casters. So this version of the rule heavily Favors Full Casters, so much so that I feel like it would stop mattering at high levels. My brain didn't Math this correctly.
Spell Recovery Dice[Spell Point Pool] - Assign the Different Spellcasting Classes Spell Recovery Dice, using Multiple Dice to Recover Spell Points (Dice plus Casting Modifier) Pros: This is the most easily Balanced Method. Cons: It requires more Tracking than the Spell Point Method, not Simple!
Spell Recovery Dice[Proficiency Die] Rolling Proficiency Dice to recover Total Spell Slots. This option would also distinguish between full and partial casters. Pro: Mathematically it scales with Caster Level Nicely. Cons: Some Bad Rolls might make your Caster Player be unable to do anything while everyone else plays D&D.
Also I'll mention Warlocks because frankly they work great as is and don't need any modifications.
Thanks for any Tips.
Edit:My Goal is to find a System that Makes it so the Player isn't guaranteed to get back all of there spell slots everyday, similar to how magic items recover charges.
Edit 2: So After Crunching Numbers for several different Spell Slot Recovery Rules. This is what I settled on.
Slow Natural Magic Recovery: A Spellcaster Recovers Spells equal to Half of their Total Spell Slots Levels plus the Result of a Proficiency Bonus Die. (Rounded Down)
So some reasons I liked this Spread of Spell slots recovered are:
Easy to Understand
It scales Nicely with Power Level
At Level 1 All Spellcasters still get 100% of their slots back
In Tier 1, (When Spellcasters are most vulnerable) they still have a chance to get 100% back, but its not guaranteed. so they started learning to conserve some spell slots.
In Tier 2, The Full Casters are still getting on average 66% of their slots Back, while the (Spell Slot Hungry) Half and Partial Casters still have a chance of getting back up to full.
In Tier 3 and above, Full Casters should be experts of Managing Spell Slots at this point (Getting more than enough for their High Level Slots) Meanwhile the Half Casters have hit the point where they should be managing their slots. And Partial Casters still get most of their very limited slots back.
Honestly, a simpler solution would be to give your players "lingering injuries" that provide debuffs for X days, that cannot be healed except by very high level magic.
Honestly, a simpler solution would be to give your players "lingering injuries" that provide debuffs for X days, that cannot be healed except by very high level magic.
I did Lingering Injuries for a while in my Other Campaign (Currently Level 18) and it ended up not being very fun or interesting. Handicapping the Players isn't what I want, I want them to have to plan how they manage their spell slots. They are already managing their HP very responsibly.
Honestly, if you want slow healing, don't use the Slow Healing rule, as it barely does anything. Use the Gritty Realism rule.
The Grit Realism Rule is too slow, like I said above the Slow Healing is working as intended but, I need a fair way to restrict spell slots as well. The players are enjoying the pacing, dialing it down to a snails pace won't help.
I think you need to clarify your need - "I need to restrict magical healing" or "I need to restrict spell slots?" They are two very different things and the latter has a lot of side-effects.
If magical healing is your problem, restrict magical healing. Ban healing spells, allow X number a day regardless of slots available, halve their effect, make them grant temp hp only, something like that.
One resting mechanic I use is that the party can only take a true long rest in certain places. A town, an established inn, a particularly fortified or hidden room in a dungeon. Any other overnight rests are short rests. This allows you to treat several days of adventuring as one "adventure day." It's easier to tell my players what kind of rest they get (that is also supported by the character sheet) than it is to implement a set of rules variations.
I did Lingering Injuries for a while in my Other Campaign (Currently Level 18) and it ended up not being very fun or interesting. Handicapping the Players isn't what I want, I want them to have to plan how they manage their spell slots. They are already managing their HP very responsibly.
Wanting to restrict the use/management of spellslots is a completely different question than limiting healing or the other concerns you expressed in your OP : i.e. incentivizing the party to be cautious about getting into fights. There are a ton of healing options other than spellslots (e.g. potions, lay on hands, second wind, mercy monk healing, hit dice, aasimar healing, channel divinities, 2024-wildshape uses, etc..) and lots of ways to make spellslots extremely efficient for healing. Limiting spellslots will have a much greater effect on the use of spells in combat and for non-combat utility situations than their use for out-of-combat healing, because there are many spells that are just sooo efficient for out-of-combat healing. E.g. 2014 Conjure Woodland Beings can heal 60 hp for 1x 4th level slot via conjuring Dryads, Aura of Vitality can heal 70 hp for 1x 3rd level slot, Prayer of Healing can heal 45 hp for 1x 2nd level slot.
Plus it sounds like your game is very much meat-grinder-y so healing is a primary concern necessary for survival of the party. Whereas using spellslots for exploration is usually a convenient luxury rather than a necessity for survival.
So sure spell points will reduce the amount of spellcasting available to the party, but that won't necessarily decrease the amount of out-of-combat healing available to them. TBH it might actually increase it because using spell points gives them more flexibility in which spells they can cast, e.g. with spell points a cleric can get 210 hp of healing out of 9 spell points by casting Aura of Vitality 3 times vs having to spend 3x 3rd level slots + 2x 2nd level slots for the same total hp healed at level 6.
I guess the question is more: what is your actual concern? Is it healing? Or is it general use of magic for all kinds of stuff? Because those are two very different problems.
Party has never been inconvenienced by this restriction in healing.
Handicapping the Players isn't what I want.
The Grit Realism Rule is too slow, like I said above the Slow Healing is working as intended but, I need a fair way to restrict spell slots as well. The players are enjoying the pacing, dialing it down to a snails pace won't help.
Ok, I'm really confused what it is you want to achieve. Inconveniencing your party means slowing them down, it means making them choose not to do stuff because their party is too weak to do that stuff and needs to wait to recover. But you also say you don't want to slow down your party, and you don't want to handicap them, so you don't want to inconvenience them? Could you please clarify, exactly what the problem is you are having with your game?
So the Martials can fight with no problems but the Casters are cut off at the knees? Sorry Wizards, not only do you have limited recovery on HP, you also don't get all of your spell slots back. Have fun in the next fight.
Encounter design isn't always the easiest thing to do. Is that what the problem is? You don't want the party to be full health, full spells for every encounter? The above posters made suggestions on how to do that.
Honestly, if you want slow healing, don't use the Slow Healing rule, as it barely does anything. Use the Gritty Realism rule.
^^ this really. I think that Gritty Realism solves most of the problems.
If you don't want to go that route, you need to make them expend more spell slots in battle. if they have too many resources, you're not making them spend enough. You're probably going to need to make more fights, or make longer fights for them. It's going to be more work, but you'll have to find ways to make them blow through their spell slots more.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
So the Martials can fight with no problems but the Casters are cut off at the knees? Sorry Wizards, not only do you have limited recovery on HP, you also don't get all of your spell slots back. Have fun in the next fight.
Encounter design isn't always the easiest thing to do. Is that what the problem is? You don't want the party to be full health, full spells for every encounter? The above posters made suggestions on how to do that.
This too. Restricting spell casters while letting martials act at full capacity is punishing. The martials are then going to pressure healing classes to not 'waste' their spell slots on non-heal spells turning them into 2e heal bots who are 'stuck' playing the class.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Hmm, I guess I need to phrase my thoughts better. I want to restrict Spell slots in a way such that the Caster's Spell Slots are Strained the same way the Barbarians Hit Points are affected by the Slow Natural Healing Rule. I want most Long Rests to End with the Players at 95% Resources, and only after they have that close call, near death experience for them to be limping for a day at like 65% Resources. I want a system to make it so they aren't guaranteed to get all of there spell slots back. Kind of like how Magic items don't regain all there charges each day.
Maybe you could make it so that you can only benefit from healing spells a number of times per day equal to your Con modifier? If that's too restrictive, maybe Con score minus 10?
Hmm, I guess I need to phrase my thoughts better. I want to restrict Spell slots in a way such that the Caster's Spell Slots are Strained the same way the Barbarians Hit Points are affected by the Slow Natural Healing Rule. I want most Long Rests to End with the Players at 95% Resources, and only after they have that close call, near death experience for them to be limping for a day at like 65% Resources. I want a system to make it so they aren't guaranteed to get all of there spell slots back. Kind of like how Magic items don't regain all there charges each day.
Then just do that-- say, a recharge roll. To be comparable in effect to slow natural healing, I would say for every slot you're missing, roll 1d6; on a 4+ you recover it, on a 1-3 you don't.
Hmm, I guess I need to phrase my thoughts better. I want to restrict Spell slots in a way such that the Caster's Spell Slots are Strained the same way the Barbarians Hit Points are affected by the Slow Natural Healing Rule. I want most Long Rests to End with the Players at 95% Resources, and only after they have that close call, near death experience for them to be limping for a day at like 65% Resources. I want a system to make it so they aren't guaranteed to get all of there spell slots back. Kind of like how Magic items don't regain all there charges each day.
Then just do that-- say, a recharge roll. To be comparable in effect to slow natural healing, I would say for every slot you're missing, roll 1d6; on a 4+ you recover it, on a 1-3 you don't.
Perhaps the answer is gritty realism with all spell caster characters getting a modified version of Arcane Recovery 1/day rather than 1/long rest.
Level 1: Arcane Recovery
You can regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. When you finish a Short Rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level equal to no more than half your Wizard level (round up), and none of the slots can be level 6 or higher. For example, if you’re a level 4 Wizard, you can recover up to two levels’ worth of spell slots, regaining either one level 2 spell slot or two level 1 spell slots.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
When 6e comes, I hope that they have the guts to kill pact magic that they tried, for 5.5 and chickened out of. It's cool in theory but it causes a lot of problems.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
When 6e comes, I hope that they have the guts to kill pact magic that they tried, for 5.5 and chickened out of. It's cool in theory but it causes a lot of problems.
Honestly, the problem is trying to have both long rest and short rest classes, and it's mostly people not using rests as expected (six encounters with two short rests per adventuring day) that causes problems. If they really want people to spread their resources over an adventuring day, just don't let them take a long rest until they've completed an adventuring day of activities.
And DMs that don't want to come at players with hard enough encounters to bleed those resources (which is on topic for this thread). At lower levels, it's not super hard to run a character out of slots. At higher levels, casters can afford to drop slots every round, and things are harder on GMs. I used to hate the concept of Gritty Realism, but honestly, the more I think about it, gritty realism solves a lot of problems for DMs.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
And DMs that don't want to come at players with hard enough encounters to bleed those resources (which is on topic for this thread).
No, failure to bleed resources is almost entirely about not having enough encounters. It doesn't take a super challenging encounters for it to be difficult to go through six of them in a day, the hard part is making sure the PCs can't just decide to stop and take a long rest after three of them.
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In case you are unfamiliar with the Slow Natural Healing - Variant Rule , it is Basically Players must spend Hit Dice to Recover Hit Points. And per the Normal Rules Long Rests only give you back 1/2 your Hit Dice each Night.
This sounds great. My hope with using this rule was that after a particularly hard fight, the Party would have to take it easy the Next Day. Maybe making more cautious choices while they are recovering and not at 100%. However after running this rule from Level 1 to 8, with Deadly Adventuring Days, the Party has never been inconvenienced by this restriction in healing.
I know the Culprit -
Magically HealingExcess Spell Slots, it easily bridges the gap with a few low level leftover spell slots being used for Healing filling in the any of the hurt accumulated during the Day. And with all the Spell slots coming back after a Long Rest, the Healer doesn't think twice about draining their magic pockets. They are smart and have been responsible adventurers, taking the necessary precautions to ensure a safe Long Rest.The Solution I have for this is simple but I'm trying to work out the best way to Implement this. I want a simple system that doesn't require to much math. I think that Player Abilities are good coming back on a Long Rest. I want to find a way for players to also think about which spell slots they get back, but it also has to work for all the different types of Casters.
I'm open to any other ideas based on other systems, but here are some of the Ideas I've considered and why I don't 100% like them.
Pros: Evenly Recovers Spell Slots across all Casting Classes.
Cons: Tracking Spell Points is a Pain, and the system isn't known to most players, also the ability to spend Hit Dice hits Wizards and Sorcerers (d6) much harder than a Ranger (d10).
Regain Spell Slots equal to your Caster Level - This rule starts close to recovering 50% and grows as the Players Level up. (Caster level is Based on your Class and Sub Class)Pros: The Math is simple, Full Casters start at Recovering 50% of their Spell slots at level 1 and by Level 20 they are recovering 90%.Cons: This System doesn't work Great for Partial Casters, like Paladins and Arcane Tricksters. Half Casters also start at 50% (Assuming you Round Up) and by level 20 are only recovering about 66% of their Spells by Level 20. The system doesn't work will for 1/3 Casters. So this version of the rule heavily Favors Full Casters, so much so that I feel like it would stop mattering at high levels.My brain didn't Math this correctly.Pros: This is the most easily Balanced Method.
Cons: It requires more Tracking than the Spell Point Method, not Simple!
Pro: Mathematically it scales with Caster Level Nicely.
Cons: Some Bad Rolls might make your Caster Player be unable to do anything while everyone else plays D&D.
Also I'll mention Warlocks because frankly they work great as is and don't need any modifications.
Thanks for any Tips.
Edit: My Goal is to find a System that Makes it so the Player isn't guaranteed to get back all of there spell slots everyday, similar to how magic items recover charges.
Edit 2: So After Crunching Numbers for several different Spell Slot Recovery Rules. This is what I settled on.
Slow Natural Magic Recovery: A Spellcaster Recovers Spells equal to Half of their Total Spell Slots Levels plus the Result of a Proficiency Bonus Die. (Rounded Down)
So some reasons I liked this Spread of Spell slots recovered are:
Honestly, a simpler solution would be to give your players "lingering injuries" that provide debuffs for X days, that cannot be healed except by very high level magic.
Honestly, if you want slow healing, don't use the Slow Healing rule, as it barely does anything. Use the Gritty Realism rule.
I did Lingering Injuries for a while in my Other Campaign (Currently Level 18) and it ended up not being very fun or interesting. Handicapping the Players isn't what I want, I want them to have to plan how they manage their spell slots. They are already managing their HP very responsibly.
The Grit Realism Rule is too slow, like I said above the Slow Healing is working as intended but, I need a fair way to restrict spell slots as well. The players are enjoying the pacing, dialing it down to a snails pace won't help.
I think you need to clarify your need - "I need to restrict magical healing" or "I need to restrict spell slots?" They are two very different things and the latter has a lot of side-effects.
If magical healing is your problem, restrict magical healing. Ban healing spells, allow X number a day regardless of slots available, halve their effect, make them grant temp hp only, something like that.
One resting mechanic I use is that the party can only take a true long rest in certain places. A town, an established inn, a particularly fortified or hidden room in a dungeon. Any other overnight rests are short rests. This allows you to treat several days of adventuring as one "adventure day." It's easier to tell my players what kind of rest they get (that is also supported by the character sheet) than it is to implement a set of rules variations.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Then use some intermediate value for long rests. For example, short rest 8 hours, long rest 2 days (a weekend), max 1 long rest per week.
Wanting to restrict the use/management of spellslots is a completely different question than limiting healing or the other concerns you expressed in your OP : i.e. incentivizing the party to be cautious about getting into fights. There are a ton of healing options other than spellslots (e.g. potions, lay on hands, second wind, mercy monk healing, hit dice, aasimar healing, channel divinities, 2024-wildshape uses, etc..) and lots of ways to make spellslots extremely efficient for healing. Limiting spellslots will have a much greater effect on the use of spells in combat and for non-combat utility situations than their use for out-of-combat healing, because there are many spells that are just sooo efficient for out-of-combat healing. E.g. 2014 Conjure Woodland Beings can heal 60 hp for 1x 4th level slot via conjuring Dryads, Aura of Vitality can heal 70 hp for 1x 3rd level slot, Prayer of Healing can heal 45 hp for 1x 2nd level slot.
Plus it sounds like your game is very much meat-grinder-y so healing is a primary concern necessary for survival of the party. Whereas using spellslots for exploration is usually a convenient luxury rather than a necessity for survival.
So sure spell points will reduce the amount of spellcasting available to the party, but that won't necessarily decrease the amount of out-of-combat healing available to them. TBH it might actually increase it because using spell points gives them more flexibility in which spells they can cast, e.g. with spell points a cleric can get 210 hp of healing out of 9 spell points by casting Aura of Vitality 3 times vs having to spend 3x 3rd level slots + 2x 2nd level slots for the same total hp healed at level 6.
I guess the question is more: what is your actual concern? Is it healing? Or is it general use of magic for all kinds of stuff? Because those are two very different problems.
Ok, I'm really confused what it is you want to achieve. Inconveniencing your party means slowing them down, it means making them choose not to do stuff because their party is too weak to do that stuff and needs to wait to recover. But you also say you don't want to slow down your party, and you don't want to handicap them, so you don't want to inconvenience them? Could you please clarify, exactly what the problem is you are having with your game?
So the Martials can fight with no problems but the Casters are cut off at the knees? Sorry Wizards, not only do you have limited recovery on HP, you also don't get all of your spell slots back. Have fun in the next fight.
Encounter design isn't always the easiest thing to do. Is that what the problem is? You don't want the party to be full health, full spells for every encounter? The above posters made suggestions on how to do that.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
^^ this really. I think that Gritty Realism solves most of the problems.
If you don't want to go that route, you need to make them expend more spell slots in battle. if they have too many resources, you're not making them spend enough. You're probably going to need to make more fights, or make longer fights for them. It's going to be more work, but you'll have to find ways to make them blow through their spell slots more.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
This too. Restricting spell casters while letting martials act at full capacity is punishing. The martials are then going to pressure healing classes to not 'waste' their spell slots on non-heal spells turning them into 2e heal bots who are 'stuck' playing the class.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Hmm, I guess I need to phrase my thoughts better. I want to restrict Spell slots in a way such that the Caster's Spell Slots are Strained the same way the Barbarians Hit Points are affected by the Slow Natural Healing Rule. I want most Long Rests to End with the Players at 95% Resources, and only after they have that close call, near death experience for them to be limping for a day at like 65% Resources. I want a system to make it so they aren't guaranteed to get all of there spell slots back. Kind of like how Magic items don't regain all there charges each day.
Maybe you could make it so that you can only benefit from healing spells a number of times per day equal to your Con modifier? If that's too restrictive, maybe Con score minus 10?
Then just do that-- say, a recharge roll. To be comparable in effect to slow natural healing, I would say for every slot you're missing, roll 1d6; on a 4+ you recover it, on a 1-3 you don't.
Perhaps the answer is gritty realism with all spell caster characters getting a modified version of Arcane Recovery 1/day rather than 1/long rest.
Level 1: Arcane Recovery
You can regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. When you finish a Short Rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level equal to no more than half your Wizard level (round up), and none of the slots can be level 6 or higher. For example, if you’re a level 4 Wizard, you can recover up to two levels’ worth of spell slots, regaining either one level 2 spell slot or two level 1 spell slots.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
So...your casters will never get all of their spell slots back?
Warlocks will either be awesome or totally screwed.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
When 6e comes, I hope that they have the guts to kill pact magic that they tried, for 5.5 and chickened out of. It's cool in theory but it causes a lot of problems.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Honestly, the problem is trying to have both long rest and short rest classes, and it's mostly people not using rests as expected (six encounters with two short rests per adventuring day) that causes problems. If they really want people to spread their resources over an adventuring day, just don't let them take a long rest until they've completed an adventuring day of activities.
And DMs that don't want to come at players with hard enough encounters to bleed those resources (which is on topic for this thread). At lower levels, it's not super hard to run a character out of slots. At higher levels, casters can afford to drop slots every round, and things are harder on GMs. I used to hate the concept of Gritty Realism, but honestly, the more I think about it, gritty realism solves a lot of problems for DMs.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
No, failure to bleed resources is almost entirely about not having enough encounters. It doesn't take a super challenging encounters for it to be difficult to go through six of them in a day, the hard part is making sure the PCs can't just decide to stop and take a long rest after three of them.