Since AD&D (When I started playing), D&D had a lot of changes and 5e is now very popular.
One thing that I really asked myself is the spell slots system and the rest or you may call recharge mechanic.
Long Rest:
I really like Long Rest and how Its designed. Some times even the session ends with a long rest.
Short Rest:
But what about short rest? How you guys feels? I don't know, I really thinks is great for healing. Because, if you don't have HP, going forward may be deadly.
Combat Start:
And why D&D 5e don't embrace Combat Starts recharges? Some abilities have it, but the majority of them are Long and Short. Why is that? Would be more intuitive, easy and fair to always know what you are capable ate starting a combat?
Wouldn't be the abilities economy be much more fair and easy to design?
What's you guys thought on that? Any Devs already talked about that?
So short and long rests already have optional rules in the DMG, that I suggest people use based on the pace of play and style of their game. The names are deceptive but their function works.
If you are doing standard dungeon crawl style game you are operating under the games basic rule idea with large rooms and distances between them and the ability to hunker down and take a rest from time to time in the dungeon than the standard 8 and 1 would work with 6 to 8 encounters a day.
If you are doing an even faster paced game somehow where every second counts that is where the 5 minute short and 1 hour long come in with like 40 encounters a day.
If you are doing a slower pace game with only 1 or 2 encounters a day, this is what the 8 hour short rest and 3 day long rest are for.
Long Rests have been in the game from all the way back when. They just weren't called that. It was just "getting your proper bedtime".
Short Rests came with the mechanic of spending your Hit Dice with 4E (I believe?), and I very much like it in theory. In practice, it's a rollercoaster. Sometimes it's perfectly clear how the group might take their rest. They stop for lunch along the main road. They pull out of the Cursed Crypt of Thousand Traps to regroup at their camp, wrapping their new wounds and rethinking their lives. Stopping at the tavern between hitting up the Thieves' Guild's safehouses in search for the missing Giff space-diplomat. Easy peasy.
But then there are situations where getting that whole hour in might be unfeasible. Due to roaming harrowgeists, the party can only safely catch their breath for, say, fifteen minutes? What then? No rest for the sickened?
I feel like the boogeyman with Short Rests is the concretely established hour requirement. It would likely have been fine if its timespan had been left intentionally vague. "The party settles down to tend their wounds, have something to eat or drink, and discuss how to proceed." And then each table could come to a mutual, mature, and reasonable conclusion if they have the necessary time for it. Not DM fiat; Table fiat.
Resources that replenishing at the start of combat... Well, I just wonder if that would encourage guerilla playstyles since there is now a mechanical benefit to only having combat last 1 round, and then retreating to hopefully start it anew. It would be niiice to have some manner of recovery model that is entirely detached from the rest mechanics, but I'm not sure if this is it. Maybe I just need to give the concept more time in my brainplaces to settle in...
Resources that replenishing at the start of combat... Well, I just wonder if that would encourage guerilla playstyles since there is now a mechanical benefit to only having combat last 1 round, and then retreating to hopefully start it anew. It would be niiice to have some manner of recovery model that is entirely detached from the rest mechanics, but I'm not sure if this is it. Maybe I just need to give the concept more time in my brainplaces to settle in...
One well design Start of Combat is :
15TH LEVEL: PERFECT DISCIPLINE
When you roll Initiative, you regain 4 expended Discipline Points if you have none remaining.
A little tweak you be:
When you roll Initiative, you always have at least 4 Discipline Points.
Since AD&D (When I started playing), D&D had a lot of changes and 5e is now very popular.
One thing that I really asked myself is the spell slots system and the rest or you may call recharge mechanic.
Long Rest:
I really like Long Rest and how Its designed. Some times even the session ends with a long rest.
Short Rest:
But what about short rest? How you guys feels? I don't know, I really thinks is great for healing. Because, if you don't have HP, going forward may be deadly.
Combat Start:
And why D&D 5e don't embrace Combat Starts recharges? Some abilities have it, but the majority of them are Long and Short. Why is that? Would be more intuitive, easy and fair to always know what you are capable ate starting a combat?
Wouldn't be the abilities economy be much more fair and easy to design?
What's you guys thought on that? Any Devs already talked about that?
Why don't we do away with combat and just role play? I mean we'll just handwave it and say player always wins..
Honestly, combat is my least favorite part anyway, and it's pretty boring..
I feel like the boogeyman with Short Rests is the concretely established hour requirement. It would likely have been fine if its timespan had been left intentionally vague. "The party settles down to tend their wounds, have something to eat or drink, and discuss how to proceed." And then each table could come to a mutual, mature, and reasonable conclusion if they have the necessary time for it. Not DM fiat; Table fiat.
This is it, this is 100% it. The DMG has multiple rest lengths and I run campaigns that shift in pace of play throughout the campaign. I specifically created the "narrative rest" rules to allow for the shifting in pace and allow for rests. Sometimes a long rest is 8 hours, sometimes it is an hour, sometimes it is 2 days, depends on what is happening. Same with short rests, sometimes it is an hour, sometimes it is 5 minutes, and sometimes it takes a whole 8 hours, depends what is going on in the adventure.
Lots of abilities in 5e are meant to have use not just inside of combat though, they are meant to be used while exploring solving puzzles or avoiding traps. Having an ability be combat-recharge makes it only usable during combat and encourages murder-hoboing rather than e.g. using a warlock spell slot for a Charm person to avoid a combat.
Imagine the jarring feeling of having to go pick a fight to regain your slot so you could cast Remove Curse on your rapidly decomposing mummy-rotted friend.
For some abilities, I can totally see it being suitable. Like, Second Wind. Recharge each combat? Sure! Fighter gonna keep fightin'. But there are also cases that would leave me pushing my sunglasses down and look very confused. Like Bardic Inspiration. Feeling newfound creative inspiration well up inside you at the thought of imminent bloodshed, paints a pretty grimdark picture of a social butterfly in my mind.
Lots of abilities in 5e are meant to have use not just inside of combat though, they are meant to be used while exploring solving puzzles or avoiding traps. Having an ability be combat-recharge makes it only usable during combat and encourages murder-hoboing rather than e.g. using a warlock spell slot for a Charm person to avoid a combat.
Imagine the jarring feeling of having to go pick a fight to regain your slot so you could cast Remove Curse on your rapidly decomposing mummy-rotted friend.
For some abilities, I can totally see it being suitable. Like, Second Wind. Recharge each combat? Sure! Fighter gonna keep fightin'. But there are also cases that would leave me pushing my sunglasses down and look very confused. Like Bardic Inspiration. Feeling newfound creative inspiration well up inside you at the thought of imminent bloodshed, paints a pretty grimdark picture of a social butterfly in my mind.
If you need an ability out of combat isn't it easier to just Long Rest or Short Rest ? The problem is not to have a minimum when a combat starts.
If you need an ability out of combat isn't it easier to just Long Rest or Short Rest ? The problem is not to have a minimum when a combat starts.
That's exactly it, Emery :)
That's what makes a certain kind of players - myself included - hoard those limited resources instead of using them, because of us telling ourselves that we might need them even more later on? "But what if..?" is such a hard thought to pry away from your favourite brainplaces. The fear of not having it when I need it causes me to not use it when I have it. Bleh.
If you need an ability out of combat isn't it easier to just Long Rest or Short Rest ? The problem is not to have a minimum when a combat starts.
That's exactly it, Emery :)
That's what makes a certain kind of players - myself included - hoard those limited resources instead of using them, because of us telling ourselves that we might need them even more later on? "But what if..?" is such a hard thought to pry away from your favourite brainplaces. The fear of not having it when I need it causes me to not use it when I have it. Bleh.
But.... that's what cantrips and rituals are for....
Seriously. What do you think eldritch blast is there for? Or your invocations? To conserve a VERY limited resource. And you still get them back at a short rest.
Why add more and more rests when really you just need a bit better cantrips and spammable options? You're asking for an entirely new game mechanic that screws up all the other classes puts off the player monster balance more than it is already (monsters are little more than HP bags), and for what? So you can spam different spells?
You're absolutely right! There are cantrips and rituals, or even mundane tricks and other consumables, Bob :)
This time, I was pointing out a perceived design problem. (I'm posting my increasingly convoluted alternate model speculations about a certain class in the other thread). I don't remember to whom I'd attribute the quote, but there was this saying about how players are good at identifying problems, but not so great at providing solutions to them. (Guilty!)
The question here was, is the Long Rest / Short Rest / Combat-Generative model good enough? What can be done to make players feel that they have more influence over not only the expenditure of their limited resource class features, but also their recovery? We've seen a few tentative probes in those directions, what with the warlock's Magical Cunning feature, or the various "you can also spend a spell slot to use this feature again".
Then we have the features that provide X charges to your class defining ability when you've run out any remaining uses, upon entering into a threatening situation (ie battle mode: on). They feel - to me - like a very cludgey fix, and even gives it all an air of "Encounter Power". Not entirely sure how I feel about that.
You're absolutely right! There are cantrips and rituals, or even mundane tricks and other consumables, Bob :)
This time, I was pointing out a perceived design problem. (I'm posting my increasingly convoluted alternate model speculations about a certain class in the other thread). I don't remember to whom I'd attribute the quote, but there was this saying about how players are good at identifying problems, but not so great at providing solutions to them. (Guilty!)
The question here was, is the Long Rest / Short Rest / Combat-Generative model good enough? What can be done to make players feel that they have more influence over not only the expenditure of their limited resource class features, but also their recovery? We've seen a few tentative probes in those directions, what with the warlock's Magical Cunning feature, or the various "you can also spend a spell slot to use this feature again".
Then we have the features that provide X charges to your class defining ability when you've run out any remaining uses, upon entering into a threatening situation (ie battle mode: on). They feel - to me - like a very cludgey fix, and even gives it all an air of "Encounter Power". Not entirely sure how I feel about that.
Truthfully..... I think people are just hitting the limits of what 5e can offer as it is.
Last UA I was gung ho with criticisms of the bard being overpowered and the rogue getting practically nothing and the weapon masteries being stupid and the ranger being a victim of ignored game mechanics that defined it and all classes starting to overlap to much and become same-y.
Now with this one I'm realizing how much the casters in general are boring and samey and nothing like what was promised by description or what I thought they would play as back in 2014 (ish. Whenever I got to read 5e the first time.... it was many years ago).
Yurei may have......issues.... a lot of issues... but the idea that a new edition is true. I just feel that the UA's seem to push for a return to 3.5 complexity as an answer to the 5e staleness than what the system actually could be.
I mentioned it in a few dm threads, but I find spelljammer's release usuay is an omen/sign that the edition has reached the end of what it can do. (I think once you put fantasy in space, you hit the end of your fantasy ideas, and visiting a multiverse seems like your characters are gods and quite frankly, the world's themselves all so enmeshed and same-y, setting is of little consequence.. or something like that...)
That fear of dredging up 3.5 for "inspiration" on a new edition is real btw. The weapons masteries make me shudder with terror at the overcomplication of a mechanic that just doesn't need to be.... and they insist on keeping it and giving more around it ...
I mentioned it in a few dm threads, but I find spelljammer's release usuay is an omen/sign that the edition has reached the end of what it can do. (I think once you put fantasy in space, you hit the end of your fantasy ideas, and visiting a multiverse seems like your characters are gods and quite frankly, the world's themselves all so enmeshed and same-y, setting is of little consequence.. or something like that...)
And yet, we only have one adventure that hoes all the way to level 20, "Dungeon of the Mad Mage". I find it ridiculous, why even design classes past level 15 if there's nothing to play there aside from homebrew?
Regarding rests, short rest has always been a problem because it's a core mechanic being entirely at the DM's mercy. It makes warlocks and monks miserable, because if the DM decides you can't put a dungeon crawl on a pause for 1 hour (rightly so), well, there go your two spells for an entire day. The duration should be changed.
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Since AD&D (When I started playing), D&D had a lot of changes and 5e is now very popular.
One thing that I really asked myself is the spell slots system and the rest or you may call recharge mechanic.
Long Rest:
I really like Long Rest and how Its designed. Some times even the session ends with a long rest.
Short Rest:
But what about short rest? How you guys feels? I don't know, I really thinks is great for healing. Because, if you don't have HP, going forward may be deadly.
Combat Start:
And why D&D 5e don't embrace Combat Starts recharges? Some abilities have it, but the majority of them are Long and Short. Why is that? Would be more intuitive, easy and fair to always know what you are capable ate starting a combat?
Wouldn't be the abilities economy be much more fair and easy to design?
What's you guys thought on that? Any Devs already talked about that?
So short and long rests already have optional rules in the DMG, that I suggest people use based on the pace of play and style of their game. The names are deceptive but their function works.
If you are doing standard dungeon crawl style game you are operating under the games basic rule idea with large rooms and distances between them and the ability to hunker down and take a rest from time to time in the dungeon than the standard 8 and 1 would work with 6 to 8 encounters a day.
If you are doing an even faster paced game somehow where every second counts that is where the 5 minute short and 1 hour long come in with like 40 encounters a day.
If you are doing a slower pace game with only 1 or 2 encounters a day, this is what the 8 hour short rest and 3 day long rest are for.
Long Rests have been in the game from all the way back when. They just weren't called that. It was just "getting your proper bedtime".
Short Rests came with the mechanic of spending your Hit Dice with 4E (I believe?), and I very much like it in theory. In practice, it's a rollercoaster. Sometimes it's perfectly clear how the group might take their rest. They stop for lunch along the main road. They pull out of the Cursed Crypt of Thousand Traps to regroup at their camp, wrapping their new wounds and rethinking their lives. Stopping at the tavern between hitting up the Thieves' Guild's safehouses in search for the missing Giff space-diplomat. Easy peasy.
But then there are situations where getting that whole hour in might be unfeasible. Due to roaming harrowgeists, the party can only safely catch their breath for, say, fifteen minutes? What then? No rest for the sickened?
I feel like the boogeyman with Short Rests is the concretely established hour requirement. It would likely have been fine if its timespan had been left intentionally vague. "The party settles down to tend their wounds, have something to eat or drink, and discuss how to proceed." And then each table could come to a mutual, mature, and reasonable conclusion if they have the necessary time for it. Not DM fiat; Table fiat.
Resources that replenishing at the start of combat... Well, I just wonder if that would encourage guerilla playstyles since there is now a mechanical benefit to only having combat last 1 round, and then retreating to hopefully start it anew. It would be niiice to have some manner of recovery model that is entirely detached from the rest mechanics, but I'm not sure if this is it. Maybe I just need to give the concept more time in my brainplaces to settle in...
One well design Start of Combat is :
15TH LEVEL: PERFECT DISCIPLINE
When you roll Initiative, you regain 4 expended Discipline Points if you have none remaining.
A little tweak you be:
When you roll Initiative, you always have at least 4 Discipline Points.
Why don't we do away with combat and just role play? I mean we'll just handwave it and say player always wins..
Honestly, combat is my least favorite part anyway, and it's pretty boring..
This is it, this is 100% it. The DMG has multiple rest lengths and I run campaigns that shift in pace of play throughout the campaign. I specifically created the "narrative rest" rules to allow for the shifting in pace and allow for rests. Sometimes a long rest is 8 hours, sometimes it is an hour, sometimes it is 2 days, depends on what is happening. Same with short rests, sometimes it is an hour, sometimes it is 5 minutes, and sometimes it takes a whole 8 hours, depends what is going on in the adventure.
Lots of abilities in 5e are meant to have use not just inside of combat though, they are meant to be used while exploring solving puzzles or avoiding traps. Having an ability be combat-recharge makes it only usable during combat and encourages murder-hoboing rather than e.g. using a warlock spell slot for a Charm person to avoid a combat.
Imagine the jarring feeling of having to go pick a fight to regain your slot so you could cast Remove Curse on your rapidly decomposing mummy-rotted friend.
For some abilities, I can totally see it being suitable. Like, Second Wind. Recharge each combat? Sure! Fighter gonna keep fightin'. But there are also cases that would leave me pushing my sunglasses down and look very confused. Like Bardic Inspiration. Feeling newfound creative inspiration well up inside you at the thought of imminent bloodshed, paints a pretty grimdark picture of a social butterfly in my mind.
If you need an ability out of combat isn't it easier to just Long Rest or Short Rest ? The problem is not to have a minimum when a combat starts.
That's exactly it, Emery :)
That's what makes a certain kind of players - myself included - hoard those limited resources instead of using them, because of us telling ourselves that we might need them even more later on? "But what if..?" is such a hard thought to pry away from your favourite brainplaces. The fear of not having it when I need it causes me to not use it when I have it. Bleh.
But.... that's what cantrips and rituals are for....
Seriously. What do you think eldritch blast is there for? Or your invocations? To conserve a VERY limited resource. And you still get them back at a short rest.
Why add more and more rests when really you just need a bit better cantrips and spammable options? You're asking for an entirely new game mechanic that screws up all the other classes puts off the player monster balance more than it is already (monsters are little more than HP bags), and for what? So you can spam different spells?
Lol. Come on......
You're absolutely right! There are cantrips and rituals, or even mundane tricks and other consumables, Bob :)
This time, I was pointing out a perceived design problem. (I'm posting my increasingly convoluted alternate model speculations about a certain class in the other thread). I don't remember to whom I'd attribute the quote, but there was this saying about how players are good at identifying problems, but not so great at providing solutions to them. (Guilty!)
The question here was, is the Long Rest / Short Rest / Combat-Generative model good enough? What can be done to make players feel that they have more influence over not only the expenditure of their limited resource class features, but also their recovery? We've seen a few tentative probes in those directions, what with the warlock's Magical Cunning feature, or the various "you can also spend a spell slot to use this feature again".
Then we have the features that provide X charges to your class defining ability when you've run out any remaining uses, upon entering into a threatening situation (ie battle mode: on). They feel - to me - like a very cludgey fix, and even gives it all an air of "Encounter Power". Not entirely sure how I feel about that.
Truthfully..... I think people are just hitting the limits of what 5e can offer as it is.
Last UA I was gung ho with criticisms of the bard being overpowered and the rogue getting practically nothing and the weapon masteries being stupid and the ranger being a victim of ignored game mechanics that defined it and all classes starting to overlap to much and become same-y.
Now with this one I'm realizing how much the casters in general are boring and samey and nothing like what was promised by description or what I thought they would play as back in 2014 (ish. Whenever I got to read 5e the first time.... it was many years ago).
Yurei may have......issues.... a lot of issues... but the idea that a new edition is true. I just feel that the UA's seem to push for a return to 3.5 complexity as an answer to the 5e staleness than what the system actually could be.
I mentioned it in a few dm threads, but I find spelljammer's release usuay is an omen/sign that the edition has reached the end of what it can do. (I think once you put fantasy in space, you hit the end of your fantasy ideas, and visiting a multiverse seems like your characters are gods and quite frankly, the world's themselves all so enmeshed and same-y, setting is of little consequence.. or something like that...)
That fear of dredging up 3.5 for "inspiration" on a new edition is real btw. The weapons masteries make me shudder with terror at the overcomplication of a mechanic that just doesn't need to be.... and they insist on keeping it and giving more around it ...
And yet, we only have one adventure that hoes all the way to level 20, "Dungeon of the Mad Mage". I find it ridiculous, why even design classes past level 15 if there's nothing to play there aside from homebrew?
Regarding rests, short rest has always been a problem because it's a core mechanic being entirely at the DM's mercy. It makes warlocks and monks miserable, because if the DM decides you can't put a dungeon crawl on a pause for 1 hour (rightly so), well, there go your two spells for an entire day. The duration should be changed.