I posted the previous version of this before, but now I need a place to put my thoughts, and it's gotten tweaked.
The current philosophy behind this design is Mark Rosewater's design philosophies related to As-Fan and Simplicity.
As-Fan: If youe theme doesn't exist at common / low levels, it isn't your theme.
Three Rest System - There are three kinds of rests. Short Rests, Long Rests, Extended Rests. (There's also a Quick Rest, bit it isn't something the game is balanced on.)
Short Rest - You spend 30mn performing light activity, eating, and drinking. You recover all uses of Tiring abilities. You may also spend any number of hit dice to recover that much HP. For each hit die spent, you recover an additional number of HP equal to your Constitution Modifier × the number of hit dice used (minimum of 0). You recover all Cantrip slots. Short Rests Fatigue after Proficiency Bonus uses.
Long Rest - You spend 8hrs performing light activity, eating, drinking, and sleeping. You must be asleep for a number of hours equal to 8hrs - your constitution modifier. You recover all uses of Fatiguing and tiring abilities, all HP and a number of hit dice equal to your proficiency bonus + constitution modifier (minimum of 1). You recover all spell slots of levels 1 through 5.
Extended Rests - You spend at least 5 days only performing light activity, sleeping, eating, and drinking. You regain all uses of exhausting, fatiguing, and tiring abilities. You also recover all HP, hit dice, and spell slots.
Quick Rests - The fourth rest. You get these as a Barbarian, Monk, or if you take the Quick Rest feat. A quick rest takes 5mn of light activity. You can spend hit dice as normal, and recover a number of each tiring ability equal to your Constitution Modifier (minimum of 1).
Tiring, fatiguing, and exhausting abilities are those you want limited in uses. They should be limited to either 1; a number equal to your ___ modifier; or a number equal to your proficiency bonus. Tiring is each combat. Fatiguing is each day. Exhausting is less than each day. You don't need to cast Wish each day.
More to the point, things lower levels (1-5) should be full of tiring abilities. Higher levels (15-20) should be full of exhausting abilities.
There's more logic here, but I don't remember off the top of my head.
I'm not clear on what problem you're solving here.
As-fan: the current system of short/long rests is uniform at all levels.
Simplicity: two types of rest is simpler than four, especially when you consider you have four tiers of abilities that you need to balance with each other based on how often they can be used.
This would also have a large effect on pacing. If most low level abilities were tiring, low levels would proceed lightning quick, while higher level adventures would move at a snail's pace.
Maybe you could elaborate on what you think this would bring to the game?
To start, it's not for 5e, but another version of D&D.
As for things being fixed: Challenging players at higher levels, and pacing. Currently, theres the Monk and Warlock sitting in the, "Can we take a short rest?" Camp while most other classes say, "Why not take a long rest instead?"
This would give all classes stuff that cares about short rests and long rests.
Higher spell slots and super powerful abilities shouldn't actually change the pacing of the game. It should also ultimately give DM's an easier control over the duration of the adventuring day.
I’ve gone down the three rest path for a long term campaign
short rest as per normal
long rest as per normal except they do not regain Hit Dice and only regain HP if there is a Healers kit available (one use depleted per character, per long rest. If there are four characters there needs to be four uses available to heal all back to full HP)
extended rest (one week) - same as a long except you regain Hit Dice. Full Hit Dice if it’s a week of light activity, half Hit Dice if they are burning the candle at both ends (doing stuff during both the day and the night).
it involves some manual tracking of Hit Dice but places some emphasis on downtime activities and makes the players really consider their Hit Dice and other ways to heal or not take damage.
To start, it's not for 5e, but another version of D&D.
Well that's going to be an issue for what value our feedback can provide, because the idea needs to be weighed against the system. And we don't know what that system is.
Mentioning monks and warlocks regaining things on short rests, and the way you reference the wish spell suggest 5e quite a bit. So I assume when you say it's not 5e you mean that you don't consider your homebrewed 5e to be 5e anymore?
Higher spell slots and super powerful abilities shouldn't actually change the pacing of the game.
I don't think this is going to solve that. If you only let the party cast Wish once every 5 days, they will try their best to rest 5 days between any attempts at adventuring. You don't give your players high-tier awesome stuff just to tell them they can only use it 20% of the time and they should just use the same old things they've been using since level 1 instead.
It sounds like your real problem is dealing with the power level of high-tier abilities and spells. Fortunately, as a DM your power is limitless. You just need to throw challenges at them that meet their capabilities.
I don't think this is going to solve that. If you only let the party cast Wish once every 5 days, they will try their best to rest 5 days between any attempts at adventuring.
The solution to this is eliminating time-based resting entirely: you get to take a long rest once per waypoint.
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I posted the previous version of this before, but now I need a place to put my thoughts, and it's gotten tweaked.
The current philosophy behind this design is Mark Rosewater's design philosophies related to As-Fan and Simplicity.
As-Fan: If youe theme doesn't exist at common / low levels, it isn't your theme.
Three Rest System - There are three kinds of rests. Short Rests, Long Rests, Extended Rests. (There's also a Quick Rest, bit it isn't something the game is balanced on.)
Short Rest - You spend 30mn performing light activity, eating, and drinking. You recover all uses of Tiring abilities. You may also spend any number of hit dice to recover that much HP. For each hit die spent, you recover an additional number of HP equal to your Constitution Modifier × the number of hit dice used (minimum of 0). You recover all Cantrip slots. Short Rests Fatigue after Proficiency Bonus uses.
Long Rest - You spend 8hrs performing light activity, eating, drinking, and sleeping. You must be asleep for a number of hours equal to 8hrs - your constitution modifier. You recover all uses of Fatiguing and tiring abilities, all HP and a number of hit dice equal to your proficiency bonus + constitution modifier (minimum of 1). You recover all spell slots of levels 1 through 5.
Extended Rests - You spend at least 5 days only performing light activity, sleeping, eating, and drinking. You regain all uses of exhausting, fatiguing, and tiring abilities. You also recover all HP, hit dice, and spell slots.
Quick Rests - The fourth rest. You get these as a Barbarian, Monk, or if you take the Quick Rest feat. A quick rest takes 5mn of light activity. You can spend hit dice as normal, and recover a number of each tiring ability equal to your Constitution Modifier (minimum of 1).
Tiring, fatiguing, and exhausting abilities are those you want limited in uses. They should be limited to either 1; a number equal to your ___ modifier; or a number equal to your proficiency bonus. Tiring is each combat. Fatiguing is each day. Exhausting is less than each day. You don't need to cast Wish each day.
More to the point, things lower levels (1-5) should be full of tiring abilities. Higher levels (15-20) should be full of exhausting abilities.
There's more logic here, but I don't remember off the top of my head.
I'm not clear on what problem you're solving here.
As-fan: the current system of short/long rests is uniform at all levels.
Simplicity: two types of rest is simpler than four, especially when you consider you have four tiers of abilities that you need to balance with each other based on how often they can be used.
This would also have a large effect on pacing. If most low level abilities were tiring, low levels would proceed lightning quick, while higher level adventures would move at a snail's pace.
Maybe you could elaborate on what you think this would bring to the game?
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
To start, it's not for 5e, but another version of D&D.
As for things being fixed: Challenging players at higher levels, and pacing. Currently, theres the Monk and Warlock sitting in the, "Can we take a short rest?" Camp while most other classes say, "Why not take a long rest instead?"
This would give all classes stuff that cares about short rests and long rests.
Higher spell slots and super powerful abilities shouldn't actually change the pacing of the game. It should also ultimately give DM's an easier control over the duration of the adventuring day.
Not sure why you need to create new rest types to accomplish that -- just take existing abilities and change their rest type and number of uses.
I’ve gone down the three rest path for a long term campaign
short rest as per normal
long rest as per normal except they do not regain Hit Dice and only regain HP if there is a Healers kit available (one use depleted per character, per long rest. If there are four characters there needs to be four uses available to heal all back to full HP)
extended rest (one week) - same as a long except you regain Hit Dice. Full Hit Dice if it’s a week of light activity, half Hit Dice if they are burning the candle at both ends (doing stuff during both the day and the night).
it involves some manual tracking of Hit Dice but places some emphasis on downtime activities and makes the players really consider their Hit Dice and other ways to heal or not take damage.
Well that's going to be an issue for what value our feedback can provide, because the idea needs to be weighed against the system. And we don't know what that system is.
Mentioning monks and warlocks regaining things on short rests, and the way you reference the wish spell suggest 5e quite a bit. So I assume when you say it's not 5e you mean that you don't consider your homebrewed 5e to be 5e anymore?
I don't think this is going to solve that. If you only let the party cast Wish once every 5 days, they will try their best to rest 5 days between any attempts at adventuring. You don't give your players high-tier awesome stuff just to tell them they can only use it 20% of the time and they should just use the same old things they've been using since level 1 instead.
It sounds like your real problem is dealing with the power level of high-tier abilities and spells. Fortunately, as a DM your power is limitless. You just need to throw challenges at them that meet their capabilities.
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
The solution to this is eliminating time-based resting entirely: you get to take a long rest once per waypoint.