Reducing short rest time and the Warlock

[Tholomyes]

To me and my group, the 1 hour short rest time is way too long, and we'd planned to cut it down to something more reasonable like 10-15 minutes or so. Since most of the things that are based around a short rest are combat related, or otherwise are difficult to abuse (The Life cleric's channel divinity only works on creatures below half their max health, so while it's somewhat abusable, it's more of an HD/Healing Potion saver than something truly broken), this didn't feel like it would unbalance much, and it would generally boost mundanes and make it so short rests would actually be used, since, in my experience, if you can rest for an hour, then you usually can afford to rest for 8.

The problem, however, comes with the Warlock. A warlock's spell list might not be the greatest thing, compared to the wizard, but the fact that they get spells back on a short rest means that it's far more open for abuse and becoming overpowered than a monk's Ki or a Fighter's Maneuvers. So does anyone have a solution? I don't want to make 3 levels of rest, since I don't think that solves much. Already you have a bit of a conflict of interest, where mundanes want to take short rests, while casters want to take long ones, and I don't want to add to that, where some classes want to take Medium rests. The closest thing I could think to a reasonable solution would be to make it so a warlock only gains a certain number of spell slots on a short rest, and have the short rest be shortened, but that's not something I'm sure about.

Another thing I'm concerned with is that, as much as I want to boost martials, and somewhat reign in casters, I don't want to obsolete any class. If the Warlock can cast a boat-load more spells than the wizard, all at a higher average spell level, I could see it overcoming other casters. A potential would be to give all casters a modified version of Arcane Recovery, and give the Wizard and Land Druid another use or two of theirs, but this doesn't solve much, since it's still limited to once or a couple times per day; essentially it's a daily ability in disguise as a short-rest ability. I'm looking for something that makes casters care about taking a short rest, even if they are uninjured. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Human Paragon 3]

The easiest thing to do would be to make Short Rest 10-15 minutes as you want, but then make warlock's commune with their patron for 60 minutes (or however long you deem fair) to regain their expended slots. Kind of like how Monks must meditate for 30 minutes to regain their ki points.

One other idea would be to just let them recover their slots and see how bad it gets before making any other house rules.

[Tholomyes]

The easiest thing to do would be to make Short Rest 10-15 minutes as you want, but then make warlock's commune with their patron for 60 minutes (or however long you deem fair) to regain their expended slots. Kind of like how Monks must meditate for 30 minutes to regain their ki points.I already mentioned above that this doesn't solve many problems, since all it would do is make a conflict of interests, where martials want to rest for 10-15 minutes, Warlocks want to rest for 1 hour, and other casters want to rest for 8. I'm already cutting the monk's 30 minute meditation to 5 minutes, since it causes the same issue with conflicts of interest.

[CyberThread]

From the three play runs I have had with warlocks , I would say they play more like a factotum as far as spells go. They arn't really going to out do wizards for magic.

[Envyus]

Just set the rests to an hour and see how it works. Most groups I find don't like to take long rests right away and some don't even like to take short rests until they are beat up a bit

[pwykersotz]

For which reasons do you think the short rest is too long? Maybe if we had a solid notion of why you were doing it, we would have a platform from which to generate ideas.

[Tholomyes]

For which reasons do you think the short rest is too long? Maybe if we had a solid notion of why you were doing it, we would have a platform from which to generate ideas.The short rest is too long, because rarely is there a situation where the party has the ability to rest for an hour, when they can't rest for longer. Ki and battlemaster maneuvers, and other short rest abilities end up being not very different from spells and other long rest abilities. I'd prefer it if they were something where you can't rest after every fight, but even with something reasonably time-sensitive, you might be able to take a rest or two, when clearing out a dungeon or what have you. You can't do this with 1 hour short rests.

[Human Paragon 3]

If you refuse to make the different classes have different recharge times for their powers, and you refuse to keep the short rest 1 hour, your problem is intractable, unless you completely re-write the warlock class. Sorry.

[Dark Tira]

I'd suggest you just try out the modified short rests before singling out the Warlock for nerfs. Honestly I'd think the battlemaster fighter would be far more dangerous with extra short rests because of second wind and action surge.

[DiBastet]

I'll cut it down to 15 minutes too, and I'm not seeing a lot of problem actually, but that's because my games run on the basis that most of the time if they could have 15 minutes to rest they could have 60 minutes too.

Besides, 15 makes more sense on the narrative perspective IMHO. I would say try it and see for yourself.

[Tholomyes]

I'd suggest you just try out the modified short rests before singling out the Warlock for nerfs. Honestly I'd think the battlemaster fighter would be far more dangerous with extra short rests because of second wind and action surge.Second wind and action surge are just combat stuff. I don't mind that a fighter is able to get an extra action more often, or be able to self heal in combat, if need be. Spells are more problematic because in downtime scenarios, casting a 2-4 spells every 15 minutes could be problematic.

[Malifice]

Yeah Ill be running it as 5 minutes for a short rest, with a pacing of around 3-4 encounters per rest.

[Dark Tira]

Second wind and action surge are just combat stuff. I don't mind that a fighter is able to get an extra action more often, or be able to self heal in combat, if need be. Spells are more problematic because in downtime scenarios, casting a 2-4 spells every 15 minutes could be problematic.

Could you provide an example of how it could be problematic?

[Chaosvii7]

Second wind and action surge are just combat stuff. I don't mind that a fighter is able to get an extra action more often, or be able to self heal in combat, if need be. Spells are more problematic because in downtime scenarios, casting a 2-4 spells every 15 minutes could be problematic.

Easy solution. Rewrite the Warlock's spell slots mechanic so that instead of them returning after a short rest, A Warlock gains them at the beginning of the next encounter. Make it a command word that they can speak so that their reserve of eldritch energy is given to them by their patron.

Like Etrigan.

...Except maybe without the flashy fire and brimstone transformation.

If you're willing to go that far, you could make it so that they need to fulfill a condition on combat(something either mechanical, simple, or both) to regain their spell slots for the next encounter. Consider it using the patron's power to fulfill a goal they may have. That way it has a bit of a roleplaying implication as well, as the patron has a slightly more active participation in the story than they may normally.

[Tholomyes]

Easy solution. Rewrite the Warlock's spell slots mechanic so that instead of them returning after a short rest, A Warlock gains them at the beginning of the next encounter. Make it a command word that they can speak so that their reserve of eldritch energy is given to them by their patron.

Like Etrigan.

...Except maybe without the flashy fire and brimstone transformation.

If you're willing to go that far, you could make it so that they need to fulfill a condition on combat(something either mechanical, simple, or both) to regain their spell slots for the next encounter. Consider it using the patron's power to fulfill a goal they may have. That way it has a bit of a roleplaying implication as well, as the patron has a slightly more active participation in the story than they may normally.That'd be an interesting way to do it. I'm afraid of tying it too heavily to combat, but that did give me a good idea on fixing it, looking back on it. Since pretty much all the other short rest abilities focus on combat, I could easily just house-rule that short rests vary in length based on the situation. They may normally be 15 minutes or so, but in downtime they revert back to 1 hour. I can't exactly think of a good fluff explanation of why that would be, but given that my group is usually pretty OK with more cinematic style over realism, so it'll probably work out fine.

[da_chicken]

I would simply warn my players that if they find a way to abuse shorter rest periods ant then try to exploit it that you will simply switch back to hour long rests. Put the responsibility for messing the game up for everybody back on the players.

[Sidmen]

If you're worried, you could always just give warlocks up to half their slots back on a short rest - and all of them on a long rest.