So our table is switching over to 5e and I've spent the last few weeks learning the system. Overall, I'm really looking forward to it, but I have a question for you guys.
We run a much more narrative based game than a crunchy dungeon crawl. I'm seeing that the average adventuring day has an upper limit of about 6-8 encounters based on the resources of the party. Our game usually has about 1-3 combats on an adventuring day.
I've seen TONS of different potential house rules for that kind of thing. Any thoughts you guys have?
Should PCs have to spend a HD to get the benefits of a short rest? Should short rests be 6 hours and a long rest be a few days? Should I just up the encounters with lots more "random" encounters? Should I make the encounters deadlier but only have a few of them? Should I just not worry about it, and the players never feel all that threatened?
Ask your players. Do they want to play the same character to a high level, or do they want to have the risk of death so they can play different characters in the campaign?
If they don't plan on their character dying then get them to flesh out the character. Then put the things their character cares about in danger. I'd say just be careful to not kill/destroy everything as there'll be your resource for keeping the players engaged with the encounters.
If they are up for their PC's being pushed and partial to death then create encounters with higher challenge ratings and enforce the exhaustion rule. Make sure food and water are being tracked and used on long rests. Encounters can take place after travelling for some time and food and water can be only found on medium survival check. You can go as far as you want to make a long rest seem more complex to avoid the party spamming it.
I run a similar game to yours, except even less violent, we usually have a combat encounter every third session or so. When combat encounters happen there are occasionally a few in a single day, but not more than 4.
The DM's Guide has variants for healing and resting on pages 266 and 267. I like the "slow natural healing" and "healing surges". Slow natural healing removes the hp recovery from a short rest so you have to use hit dice to heal at all. Surges lets you spend more dice. Together, while giving increased survival in a single combat they massively reduce your long-term stamina. Then I use effects like exhaustion and skill checks that have physical results and/or encourage the use of spell slots and other limited use abilities so that when combats happen the players are appropriately threatened. They also use up resources at about the same rate as a party with more combat and less story.
I also design many (not all, not even most) combats to be potential total party wipes if the players don't approach them correctly. If they use story elements to reduce the threat or gain advantage that's great, if they do the reverse and make them more dangerous, that's bad. In combat there is usually a strategy or opportunity to exploit. Like creatures that slow, then on hitting a slowed enemy immobilize, then when hitting an immobilized enemy daze. If you can remove the effect that slows, (such as when they abilities are split among several creatures and you remove the one that has the slow) the fight is a breeze. If you don't use the story time to learn what you're up against, it is far harder, and someone is gonna die. This means I don't need to emphasize dealing damage or using extra enemies, I can use story to make the fight exciting and they can use story to help win.
The healing surges option means if they screw up they can dump resources to survive or recover. But slow healing means they can't rely on that option every time.
So our table is switching over to 5e and I've spent the last few weeks learning the system. Overall, I'm really looking forward to it, but I have a question for you guys.
We run a much more narrative based game than a crunchy dungeon crawl. I'm seeing that the average adventuring day has an upper limit of about 6-8 encounters based on the resources of the party. Our game usually has about 1-3 combats on an adventuring day.
I've seen TONS of different potential house rules for that kind of thing. Any thoughts you guys have?
Should PCs have to spend a HD to get the benefits of a short rest? Should short rests be 6 hours and a long rest be a few days? Should I just up the encounters with lots more "random" encounters? Should I make the encounters deadlier but only have a few of them? Should I just not worry about it, and the players never feel all that threatened?
Any thoughts would be great.
Generally speaking players are going to spend HD during a short rest to heal. They shouldn't have to spend anything else. Short rests and long rests should remain the same. I mean you don't want to get into the odd spot where the PCs have to rest three days because they got their resources taxed out, while they are clearing out a dungeon, even if you are doing a story based game, the story can't happen if the PCs are having to take 3 days to rest and make sure they encounter nothing dangerous the entire time. Plus, game wise, there is little benefit to saying a long rest lasts more than a day. Its not like you have to actually sit there for 3 days before something happens and there are very very few situations where resting more than a day by the PCs is going to make a lot of difference. The only thing it will do is extend the number of days the party spends doing something else before the story can continue.
Don't up the encounters with lots more "random" encounters, unless it makes sense. You still won't have enough to matter. If you are only having a few encounters, then make the encounters harder. More monsters, Higher damage, and More HP for each monster are the common ways to deal with the situation. I'd recommend some combination of all three.
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So our table is switching over to 5e and I've spent the last few weeks learning the system. Overall, I'm really looking forward to it, but I have a question for you guys.
We run a much more narrative based game than a crunchy dungeon crawl. I'm seeing that the average adventuring day has an upper limit of about 6-8 encounters based on the resources of the party. Our game usually has about 1-3 combats on an adventuring day.
I've seen TONS of different potential house rules for that kind of thing. Any thoughts you guys have?
Should PCs have to spend a HD to get the benefits of a short rest? Should short rests be 6 hours and a long rest be a few days? Should I just up the encounters with lots more "random" encounters? Should I make the encounters deadlier but only have a few of them? Should I just not worry about it, and the players never feel all that threatened?
Any thoughts would be great.
Ask your players. Do they want to play the same character to a high level, or do they want to have the risk of death so they can play different characters in the campaign?
If they don't plan on their character dying then get them to flesh out the character. Then put the things their character cares about in danger. I'd say just be careful to not kill/destroy everything as there'll be your resource for keeping the players engaged with the encounters.
If they are up for their PC's being pushed and partial to death then create encounters with higher challenge ratings and enforce the exhaustion rule. Make sure food and water are being tracked and used on long rests. Encounters can take place after travelling for some time and food and water can be only found on medium survival check. You can go as far as you want to make a long rest seem more complex to avoid the party spamming it.
I run a similar game to yours, except even less violent, we usually have a combat encounter every third session or so. When combat encounters happen there are occasionally a few in a single day, but not more than 4.
The DM's Guide has variants for healing and resting on pages 266 and 267. I like the "slow natural healing" and "healing surges". Slow natural healing removes the hp recovery from a short rest so you have to use hit dice to heal at all. Surges lets you spend more dice. Together, while giving increased survival in a single combat they massively reduce your long-term stamina. Then I use effects like exhaustion and skill checks that have physical results and/or encourage the use of spell slots and other limited use abilities so that when combats happen the players are appropriately threatened. They also use up resources at about the same rate as a party with more combat and less story.
I also design many (not all, not even most) combats to be potential total party wipes if the players don't approach them correctly. If they use story elements to reduce the threat or gain advantage that's great, if they do the reverse and make them more dangerous, that's bad. In combat there is usually a strategy or opportunity to exploit. Like creatures that slow, then on hitting a slowed enemy immobilize, then when hitting an immobilized enemy daze. If you can remove the effect that slows, (such as when they abilities are split among several creatures and you remove the one that has the slow) the fight is a breeze. If you don't use the story time to learn what you're up against, it is far harder, and someone is gonna die. This means I don't need to emphasize dealing damage or using extra enemies, I can use story to make the fight exciting and they can use story to help win.
The healing surges option means if they screw up they can dump resources to survive or recover. But slow healing means they can't rely on that option every time.