Short rests in dungeons

[Dalebert]

The other night, I suggested a short rest after the very first encounter in a dungeon was particularly brutal and probably did over half the party's HP. I learned that the DM rolls for wandering monsters every 10 mins in a dungeon and that there was a 25% chance each time. He wanted to discourage taking too many short rests, which I understand, but OMG. That's VERY discouraging. When I suggested we go outside for it, he said that would just be a different set of wandering monsters. Basically, we were still right by the dungeon.

He's actually very reasonable. I had a chat with him after about short rests and how you're supposed to be able to get about 2 or 3 in a day and that many classes are built on that. The warlock comes to mind. He becomes severely gimped. One of my features as a bard is song of rest which I get no use from without them. He agreed with me and was trying to think of some compromise. He was thinking of allowing us to continue our short rest and still benefit from it even if it was interrupted by an encounter, and it usually would with those odds. That bugs me and doesn't seem to fit with the idea of a short but continuous rest. I understand his position as well. He's just trying to keep us from going nuts with them and I can't blame him.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you handle them? How do you keep people from trying to do them too often without overkill?

[Shadow]

What are your thoughts on this?

My thoughts?
I think you guys must be Union Adventurers.
You did three minutes of work and then wanted to take lunch.

Look at it this way. The day is 24 hours long.
8 of those will be a long rest, leaving 16.
Those 16 will be split up into 5-8 hour "shifts" with meal breaks between.
Those "meal breaks" are your short rests.

One room into a dungeon and you want to use one of them up? I'd have a big problem with it as a DM, too. Had he let you, it would have set a terrible precedent.

[CrusaderJoe]

My thoughts?
I think you guys must be Union Adventurers.
You did three minutes of work and then wanted to take lunch.

Look at it this way. The day is 24 hours long.
8 of those will be a long rest, leaving 16.
Those 16 will be split up into 5-8 hour "shifts" with meal breaks between.
Those "meal breaks" are your short rests.

One room into a dungeon and you want to use one of them up? I'd have a big problem with it as a DM, too. Had he let you, it would have set a terrible precedent.

That's pretty damn offensive you know. I'm not in a union but I oversee their work and they work their butt off for 14 hour shifts.

:smallannoyed:

Edit: As do my coworkers all over the country, not just where I'm from.

[Soular]

That's pretty damn offensive you know. I'm not in a union but I oversee their work and they work their butt off for 14 hour shifts.

:smallannoyed:

Edit: As do my coworkers all over the country, not just where I'm from.

So, you're not from California?

EDIT---------------------

I don't have my DMG with me, but IIRC there were no concrete rules for encounters. The DM can have them as often as once per hour, or as few as a couple per day. In this case he needs to weigh how hard the previous encounter was on the party, and how good/secluded their resting spot is in order to come to a common sense decision. The encounters should not be so common and timely as to become boring or dreaded; they should help set the tone and lend atmosphere to the narrative.

Furthermore, not all encounters need to be combat encounters. A small group of baddies may be convinced that a fight with the adventurers would go badly for them, and leave. Perhaps an individual (or creature) happens by and though not helpful, will choose not to hinder the party either. Or perhaps the adventurers cross path with an ally of sorts that may choose to help them out, possibly in return for future favors. All of these are "encounters," but I would let the rest period continue through them.

Either way, I think every ten minutes is reasonable in rare cases, but for a dungeon that would mean that monsters, possibly enemies to each other, are packed in awfully darn close and competing for the same resources.

[Callin]

No it wouldnt be a precedent. They got the BUTTS handed to em and needed to spend extra time patching up wounds before they could continue on. aka Spend HD and what not. From someone who is playing with a group who dont let us take short rests, me and the wizard who were down low on HP and spells took a short rest. The rogue and Barb said screw yall and went deeper into the dungeon to cont to explore and kill. Through good tactics they did just that and ate up half the XP in the dungeon while me and the other player sat out.

Its not fun and its bull****. This game is designed with short rests being taken every so often, let the players take them.

[archaeo]

Dalebert, I tend to think the DM here should avoid pre-emptive attacks against short rest abuse. There are any number of ways to threaten a party that takes an hour break between every encounter, but a 25% chance of a wandering monster 6 times every short rest seems kind of like overkill. Maybe a 25% chance per hour, sure, but every 6 minutes?


This game is designed with short rests being taken every so often, let the players take them.

It's designed for short rests to be taken every 2-3 medium-to-hard encounters, provided that the goal is to let players always have access to their short rest resources and avoid dying because they cannot remain healed.

There are so many different ways to handle this paradigm. You can pack in more encounters that are easier. You can pack in fewer encounters that are harder. You can change the length of rests. You can add healing surges or other mechanics.

You have to take the 2-3 encounters per short rest baseline into account, but you don't have to abide by it. You just take advantage of the DMG's toolbox for fine-tuning the pace of your campaign. It's also a baseline the players will generally just take advantage of on their own, since they're likely to be spent after 2-3 combats, and the DM should probably avoid constantly screwing these rests over by having punishing wandering monsters unless there's a really good reason to do it.

[Giant2005]

You can't wander into an enemy stronghold, pull out your tea and crumpets and expect to be able to have a picnic unmolested.
That sort of crap doesn't even happen in action movies and action movies don't tend to even make any attempt at verisimilitude. If something as unrealistic as an action movie things it is too far fetched, then you probably shouldn't be expecting it to work in your game unless your game is a lot more cartoon-ish.

[Malifice]

I allow short rests of 5-10 minutes duration in my games; with no more than 2 in between long rests. I find that balances things a lot more to my taste. There will generally be a 1 in 6 chance of a random encounter during them.

My players naturally pace themselves accordingly.

On topic, your DM sounds a bit harsh. I make a point in 5e of talking with the DM first about his rest pacing - in games like this one I would avoid things like the Warlock, Monk and Fighter like the plague.

[Phion]

If you need to rest you need to rest, to be fair I can see why you shouldn't just take a nap in enemy territory. I mean as long as a dungeon doesn't just start spawning infinite random monsters I find the method fine but a game should be challenging not a strain however, so many dm's struggle to get the balance right.

[pibby]

If you're DM doesn't like the idea that adventurers need to have snack time 2-3 times in an adventuring day in 1 hour increments then I suggest that maybe your gaming group should have short rests last 10 minutes instead.

[Dalebert]

No it wouldnt be a precedent. They got the BUTTS handed to em and needed to spend extra time patching up wounds before they could continue on.

This is essentially it. A little more context: We were on our way to some ruins on a mission and were camping for the night. We found a cave and thought "Let's camp in there. It'll be safer." Of course, meta-game, we knew there was probably something in that cave that needed clearing, but that's fine. We were prepared for an encounter and if something's in the cave, better to get it now than camp near it and have it get us in the middle of the night. We got swarmed by ants and the encounter brutalized us.

In retrospect, the rational thing to do at that point is either rest and continue or abandon the "dungeon". It turned out to be a full-fledged adventure in itself when we were expecting maybe an encounter to clear a cave so we could camp. Under pressure from the DM who was basically calling us pansies for wanting to patch our wounds, we continued, but I think it was stupid. I picture a short rest as the group stitching up gashes, pouring a little alcohol on wounds, etc. It's more than just fatigue from the passage of time. Resting in this case it was that we were severely injured. I feel like we were goaded into behaving stupidly by continuing in our injured state when there was nothing pressing us to do so other than meta-game knowledge from the DM, i.e. "you're going to get attacked if you rest".


You can't wander into an enemy stronghold, pull out your tea and crumpets and expect to be able to have a picnic unmolested.

Enemy stronghold? That's a VERY specific kind of adventure. In fact, I would say a typical dungeon is either abandoned and infested with monsters that don't go on regular, organized patrols or often times it is a stronghold, but it's very large and there are cubby holes that you might hide in and be discreet enough to get by for an hour. This was the former.


If you're DM doesn't like the idea that adventurers need to have snack time 2-3 times in an adventuring day in 1 hour increments then I suggest that maybe your gaming group should have short rests last 10 minutes instead.

That would have defeated his purpose. His whole point of having frequent wandering monsters was to disrupt potential for hour-long rests. Changing it to 10 minutes would have defeated his point.

Limiting short rests to 2 per 24 hour period doesn't seem so bad. However, it seems that there are already mechanics in place to limit them, e.g. you have reserve hit dice for healing with and you only recover half of them with a long rest which already encourages you to use them sparingly.

I'm not sure what the best compromise is. I'm inclined to like suggestions to just handle it on a case-by-case basis. I find that I already don't want to use them unless they're truly needed or appropriate. They already entail risk, even if he rolls just once for an encounter, that's a discouraging risk. Also, frankly, that just seems more realistic for wandering monsters in most cases. Otherwise the monsters are just swarming all over and bumping into each other.

[archaeo]

If you're DM doesn't like the idea that adventurers need to have snack time 2-3 times in an adventuring day in 1 hour increments then I suggest that maybe your gaming group should have short rests last 10 minutes instead.

See, I almost suggested this as well, but I figure that if Dalebert's DM doesn't want players to abuse short rests, making those rests take 10 minutes is not going to solve his problem. If you do that, you almost have to either a) institute Malifice's 2-per-long-rest rule, or b) design every encounter differently, since the party will often be at or near full strength (with the notable exception of casters, so, I guess, "caster edition" solved?).

[Shadow]

This is essentially it. A little more context: We were on our way to some ruins on a mission and were camping for the night. We found a cave and thought "Let's camp in there. It'll be safer." Of course, meta-game, we knew there was probably something in that cave that needed clearing, but that's fine. We were prepared for an encounter and if something's in the cave, better to get it now than camp near it and have it get us in the middle of the night. We got swarmed by ants and the encounter brutalized us.

In retrospect, the rational thing to do at that point is either rest and continue or abandon the "dungeon". It turned out to be a full-fledged adventure in itself when we were expecting maybe an encounter to clear a cave so we could camp.

That is very different from the impression that you gave in the OP.


The other night, I suggested a short rest after the very first encounter in a dungeon was particularly brutal and probably did over half the party's HP.

From the OP's given impression, I side with the DM. Man up. You've still got lots to do and you just got here.
After more context is given, I agree with you. That was the entire purpose of your entering and clearing the cave to begin with, Why does he have a problem with it?

[Dalebert]

That is very different from the impression that you gave in the OP.

I can understand getting a certain impression. The only thing that changed is the moment we walked in, instead of seeing the extent of a small cave and maybe a monster or a small cluster of monster occupants, we saw that it branched out into three directions and realized it was a full-fledged (small?) dungeon.


From the OP's given impression, I side with the DM. Man up.

Ignoring for a moment that I really hate that expression for how sexist it is, that men are supposed to be more hardy and endure more than women, it particularly bothers me in this case because you're agreeing with my DM taunting us to go on and behave in a tactically stupid manner. Regardless of whether it was a "normal" dungeon, we were down over half our hit points! Every single member had taken substantial damage. Practically all of us were at 50% or lower and undoubtedly we were down more then 50% of the party's total HP, and you're saying we should act like total idiots and blaze forward in our severely injured states. *face palm* It doesn't matter that we just started. Time and number of encounters are not the only criteria for taking "rests" (patching up wounds). If we were actually deep into the dungeon, it would make more sense because a short rest could be more dangerous whereas we could just leave the cave to rest because we just entered.

Honestly, the most rational thing to do in retrospect after a severe beating in an unplanned adventure was to leave the cave and travel a bit further and camp for the night. The cave had ceased to be useful for its intended purpose which was to be a safe place for a long rest. There were meta-game pressures to continue, largely coming from the DM himself who basically said we're going to be interrupted if we try to rest PERIOD, inside or outside the cave.

[Shadow]

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[Phion]

Sometimes to win one must use the Joestar families ultimate technique, skedaddle. And thats okay. I mean realistically there should only be a set limit of monsters in a dungeon so most of the time it is not an issue.

[Dalebert]

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I was simply stating my disagreement, a disagreement that remained even with your impression of the events.


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I was already validated by my DM. I stated exactly what I came here for which was to find out how people balance short rests. I agreed with my DMs general concerns and he agreed with me that he needed to find some kind of balanced way to address it. I didn't come here to debate the specific case. That was simply an example that raised questions for both me and my DM on broader issues that we agreed about.

[Safety Sword]

Random encounters are very much intended in this edition of D&D.

Otherwise you would just long rest after every fight.

[Xetheral]

Random encounters are very much intended in this edition of D&D.

I hope you're wrong. I've not used random encounters (or played at a table with random encounters, or personally known any DMs who use random encounters) for over 15 years. If the system breaks down because I want encounters to be story-driven, I consider that a huge limitation.

[Malifice]

See, I almost suggested this as well, but I figure that if Dalebert's DM doesn't want players to abuse short rests, making those rests take 10 minutes is not going to solve his problem. If you do that, you almost have to either a) institute Malifice's 2-per-long-rest rule, or b) design every encounter differently, since the party will often be at or near full strength (with the notable exception of casters, so, I guess, "caster edition" solved?).

Considering this DM gives a 1/4 chance of an encounter every 10 minutes anyways, a 10 minute short rest is probably about right.

Also, my '2 rests per day maximum' isn't a hard and fast rule. If my players are badly beaten, and it fits the story, I reserve the right to allow them to benefit from extra short rests.

I think beyond any concerns about short rest duration is the meta considerations of the rest pacing. One can make a short rest a simple hand waved abstraction of time, or remove the short rest entirely, and have the DM alone tell players when they can recover short rest powers and spend HD.

As long as the DM sticks to allowing the players 2-3 (short rests recovery of powers) per long rest it all works out.

I find two 5-10 minute short rests a day (at the players options when they're taken, and a 1/6 chance of being bumped by a random monster) strikes the right balance between risk/ reward, verisimilitude/ gamist reasoning and martials/caster balance.

[DanyBallon]

To answer Dalebert original question; my players use short rest twice a day, usually as lunch break. Sometimes they may end up lunching earlier than planned but at the end of the day it's even out.

On the topic of what you should have done... it's a bit trickier. As for myself I would have tried to secured the area before the rest, putting someone on guard duty if needed, as this doesn't interfere much with the short rest description. Otherwise, if the intent of entering the dungeon was to prevent any trouble for your long rest, seeing that this won't be the case I would have move our camp to an other location. Wandering monsters are part of the game so a party that rest outside, should always prepare themselves for such an event. 25% every 10 min is a bit harsh though. Once a day, maybe once 6-8 hours in an active area, or once an hour in a really dangerous area, but to get a check every 10 min, it's almost like if your resting right in the path of the guard on watch duty...

[cobaltstarfire]

My DM gives us 2-3 short rests a "day" too, once we've hit that many we have to take a long rest if we want to rest at all. But we've been in a lot of time sensitive situations so we often end up having to slog through without rests anyway.

I don't know how/if my DM does wandering monsters though, he's mentioned them and rolled things...but as far as I can tell we've never gotten any while resting...that said even in the midst of a dungeon we've managed to find and hole ourselves up whenever we've wanted to rest.


Random encounters are very much intended in this edition of D&D.

Otherwise you would just long rest after every fight.

I thought you could only long rest once per day anyway, so you couldn't "long rest after every fight". Random encounters aren't a problem, random encounters every 10 minutes in game time is absurd.

[Kryx]

Wandering monsters every 10 minutes is too much. Half-hour is more reasonable.

As others have echoed I expect 2-3 short rests per day. I set a maximum of 3 for recovering abilities tied to it.

[Malifice]

Wandering monsters every 10 minutes is too much. Half-hour is more reasonable.

As others have echoed I expect 2-3 short rests per day. I set a maximum of 3 for recovering abilities tied to it.


I like the 1/6 risk of a random ecounter per short rest. I work with a 1/3 chance on a long rest.

That feels about right to me to manage the (risk/reward), regardless of the actual length of the rest.

[Person_Man]

The other night, I suggested a short rest after the very first encounter in a dungeon was particularly brutal and probably did over half the party's HP. I learned that the DM rolls for wandering monsters every 10 mins in a dungeon and that there was a 25% chance each time.

I'm not sure what the RAW was, but that sounds very close to my 2E playing experience. In particular, a lot of players back then had become extremely paranoid (after playing modules like Tomb of Horrors, can you blame them) and therefore were extremely methodical/slot about checking every square inch of a dungeon for traps, hidden doors, etc. So the solution was to check for random encounters frequently. It was actually really fun at the time, though the DMs did have to ease back on the number of death traps.

Having said all that, I agree with that the Monk and Warlock basically need a Short Rest every 2-3 encounters. But if you know for sure that your DM is going to be playing a brutal no Short Rest game, I would just play a Druid or some other full caster.

[Safety Sword]

I thought you could only long rest once per day anyway, so you couldn't "long rest after every fight". Random encounters aren't a problem, random encounters every 10 minutes in game time is absurd.

That's exactly what I mean. Alpha Strike everything once a day and rest. The 10 minute adventuring day.

Checking for random encounters once an hour is not unreasonable. Otherwise players have no fear of short resting every encounter. And long resting in the middle of the bad guy lair.

3 short rests a day seems about right, breakfast, lunch and dinner. ;)

[JFahy]

Checking for random encounters once an hour is not unreasonable. Otherwise players have no fear of short resting every encounter. And long resting in the middle of the bad guy lair.


Trouble is, then they want to short-rest earlier, so if they get bumped during
their short rest they have enough resources to get through it.

This is hard to justify in-world, but - what if you guaranteed them one safe
short rest (nothing will happen, scout's honor) and after that the chance of
a random encounter increases with each successive short rest? Or maybe
the chance increases with each rest, but decreases for each encounter they
get through?? (Half-baked idea, bear with me.)

I'm trying to come up with something that gives the players an incentive
to push forward, because right now maximum rest is all good and assuming
more risk by doing 2+ encounters per rest is all bad. :smallconfused:

[Soular]

That's exactly what I mean. Alpha Strike everything once a day and rest. The 10 minute adventuring day.

Checking for random encounters once an hour is not unreasonable. Otherwise players have no fear of short resting every encounter. And long resting in the middle of the bad guy lair.

3 short rests a day seems about right, breakfast, lunch and dinner. ;)

Unless you're a hobbit (halfling?).

7:00am – Breakfast
9:00am – Second Breakfast
11:00am – Elevenses
1:00pm – Luncheon
4:00pm – Afternoon Tea
6:00pm – Dinner
8:00pm – Supper

http://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/41765286488/the-seven-daily-hobbit-meals

[Icewraith]

Wandering monsters actually encourage the three minute adventuring day, not discourage it. If the party's banged up you can either try and take a short rest and get attacked by a "random" monster while low on spells and HP, or you can leave, head back to town, and take a long rest, or you can go into what's probably a boss battle or some kind of lethal trap without most of your normal resources.

If the party can't trust the DM to throw encounters at them at a reasonable rate, or are aware the dice will eventually screw them over even if the DM doesn't directly intend to, they have to preserve more of their resources on hand compared to a party that can expect to be able to take a short rest once they're worn out.

[JFahy]

Wandering monsters actually encourage the three minute adventuring day, not discourage it. If the party's banged up you can either try and take a short rest and get attacked by a "random" monster while low on spells and HP, or you can leave, head back to town, and take a long rest, or you can go into what's probably a boss battle or some kind of lethal trap without most of your normal resources.


Stacking XP bonus for each encounter completed, and the bonus resets after a rest?

My players will do all kinds of filthy disgusting dangerous things for experience points. :smallamused:

[cobaltstarfire]

That's exactly what I mean. Alpha Strike everything once a day and rest. The 10 minute adventuring day.

Checking for random encounters once an hour is not unreasonable. Otherwise players have no fear of short resting every encounter. And long resting in the middle of the bad guy lair.

3 short rests a day seems about right, breakfast, lunch and dinner. ;)

So what you're saying is you don't give the characters any incentive to do things in a timely manner, and the best way you can think of to stop them from going at a slow leisurely rate is to punish them with monsters any time they might try to rest.

[JFahy]

So what you're saying is you don't give the characters any incentive to do things in a timely manner, and the best way you can think of to stop them from going at a slow leisurely rate is to punish them with monsters any time they might try to rest.

Hi, Judgey McJudgerson, glad you could join us.

There are obviously ways you can create a sense of urgency to push the party along, but when long-abandoned tombs and sunken ships and lost aztec shrines all have pacing gimmicks built in, it's going to feel increasingly artificial. When you keep having to tweak your narrative to make it work with a certain rule, perhaps it's better to tweak the rule instead.

[Phion]

Anyone even considered a 10 minute rest that has restrictions yet instead of just going between extremes.

i.e. you can only pick one of these options during a "time out"
- roll hit dice= to half character level level
- one use of magic features such as font of magic/ arcane recovery
-return ki points/ warlock spells

a justifiable method that also helps players do their thing thus fun yet challenge.

[Telok]

The type of 'dungeon' is also something to consider.

In an abandoned tomb there could be no wandering monsters, you could do a room each day for as long as your food held out. Hiding in a castle you could run the risk of being found by a servant or someone on an errand every hour. If you just kicked in the door on a giant anthill or wasp nest then you might roll for random swarms every five minutes.

[Icewraith]

Stacking XP bonus for each encounter completed, and the bonus resets after a rest?

My players will do all kinds of filthy disgusting dangerous things for experience points. :smallamused:

If you're running completely your own stuff that might work, but it'll really mess with the pacing of anything pre-published. After running an extremely high powered game, I appreciate not having to inflate all the numbers so the suddenly over-leveled party doesn't just walk over anything you want to use out of the MM or campaign book, for instance.

Also, getting attacked during rests is what Leomund's tiny hut is for. It's even a ritual, so ten minutes is all you need to set up your force-bubble-that-you-can-see-out-of-normally-so-you-can-totally-see-anything-trying-to-set-up-an-ambush-when-you-come-out-of-the-bubble away from home. Once your wizard, Tome warlock, or ritual caster feat guy hits 9th or 10th level respectively, spend another ten minutes towards the end of the rest setting up the hour long inter-party telepathy line via Rary's Telepathic Bond.

You know what really stops the ten minute adventuring day?

"Hey guys, I'll need to refresh my spell-slot free inter-party tactical chat line in about forty minutes and will need about ten minutes to do that, with a ten minute buffer in case we happen to be in combat or running away at that time. So in the next forty minutes to an hour, we need to clear out as much of the dungeon as we possibly can without getting ourselves killed or split up. Past that time I won't be able to tell you to stay the hell out of the way of my fireball without also alerting our opponents, so you need to be able to find me ten minutes of time where I don't need to move faster than my speed, or everything else in the dungeon needs to be dead. Sound good?"

[Safety Sword]

Unless you're a hobbit (halfling?).

7:00am – Breakfast
9:00am – Second Breakfast
11:00am – Elevenses
1:00pm – Luncheon
4:00pm – Afternoon Tea
6:00pm – Dinner
8:00pm – Supper

http://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/41765286488/the-seven-daily-hobbit-meals

Hobbits already have the "short" covered. So it's just rest to them anyway.


So what you're saying is you don't give the characters any incentive to do things in a timely manner, and the best way you can think of to stop them from going at a slow leisurely rate is to punish them with monsters any time they might try to rest.

No, no and no. What I'm doing is adding an element of uncertainty that makes resource management a bit more interesting than just dumping all of your best "stuff" every time you encounter anything. If the players know that their characters can rest all of the time with no chance of interruption they don't bother to set watches, use warding spells or do anything that keeps them immersed in the fact that they're exploring an unknown location with an unknown set of enemies within.

I would argue that the way I run my magic elf game suits my groups just fine and your groups can have their enchanted dwarf game they way you like it.

[some guy]

I think 25% chance is too much, but yeah, I usually roll every 10 minutes for random encounters in dungeons (or highly active area's) as well. With a lower chance, though (usually 5 to 16,66%). My players know this.
A good thing about a chance of encounters every 10 minutes are that rituals take 10 minutes. You want to do a ritual, sure, but the cost is the risk of encounters. If a dm were to lower the frequency of encounter-checks, I'd say that rituals-preparation-time should also be increased.

[cobaltstarfire]

No, no and no. What I'm doing is adding an element of uncertainty that makes resource management a bit more interesting than just dumping all of your best "stuff" every time you encounter anything. If the players know that their characters can rest all of the time with no chance of interruption they don't bother to set watches, use warding spells or do anything that keeps them immersed in the fact that they're exploring an unknown location with an unknown set of enemies within.




None of which is relevant to the OP since as you may recall they were explicitly trying to clear out a secure space for the night and ended up being beat down and denied the thing they wanted to do in the first place.

Being able to rest, and knowing when it is best to do so is just as much a part of resource management as anything else. If your players can't handle it and try to metagame the system then fine, drop a billion monsters on them until they figure it out, or better yet just explain to them. But don't assume that every single player does this and that all monsters all the time is right and justified for every single group of players out there.

[1337 b4k4]

A couple of points that might be worth discussing with your DM:

1) 1 in 4 chance every 10 minutes is particularly harsh. Even at it's most frequent (OD&D) the standard rule was 1 in 6 every turn (10 minutes), with most every thing published after that (including Holmes) being 1 in 6 every 2 or 3 turns.

2) Many (most?) of the editions also had rules for encounter distance and monster reaction rules, so just because a random encounter is rolled does not imply combat. For example, in one of my games, the players were wandering a forest and a random encounter for wolves came up at a distance of 200 or so feet, neutral reaction, so the next tree they rounded found themselves looking down into a clearing where a pack of wolves was circling a deer. It was up to the players whether or not they wanted to engage or try and sneak around. Your DM might want to consider using distance and reaction rules, especially if they want to keep such a high frequency of encounters.

3) Lastly, I'm of the opinion that random encounters don't always have to mandate actual player encounters so much as simply things that happen that will have consequences in the future. Another example from one of my games: my players were messing around in a room where the floor appeared to be covered in invisible coins that turned visible once picked up, and then returned invisible when placed down. I honestly had no plans for this room, it was just an interesting weird thing to see, but my players were insistent on spending time. Finally they ticked past a random encounter check and it came up wolf (again) and at 800 feet. 800 feet in a dungeon environment is usually quite a few rooms and turns away so obviously the players weren't going to really see this coming, and I was a bit stumped as to how I was going to work this in fairly when one of my players gave me a golden opportunity. They took one of the coins out of the room to see if it would disappear. When it didn't, they immediately pocketed the coin and went back for more. Inspiration (otherwise known as stealing others ideas) hit and I decided these coins were magically cursed. Anyone who took one would be forever stalked (until the coin was returned) by a foul and dread wolf and, as soon as the character stuck the coin in their pocket, I declared from a long distance they all heard an unearthly howl that chilled them to the bone and gave them an immediate sense of dread.

Random encounters are great tools and I certainly understand your DM's desire both to keep short rests in check (although at an hour a piece, if you have any time sensitive things, they'll stay pretty well in check on their own) and to make sure that dungeons and wilderness areas feel dangerous and not just the sort of place you have a nap at. At the same time, REs are a tool for making a better game, and the DM needs to make sure they're balancing the flow and fun of the game with the application of the rules.

All that said, it's also worth noting that there's nothing at all wrong with the idea of after a single entry encounter knocking out over 50% of your resources that your party might have considered going back to town anyway and restocking and resupplying, hiring some help and event seeking specialized weaponry (were it one of my parties, flasks of flammable oil to throw). I mean, I agree, it's tactically unsound to not rest and heal up after such a beat down if you have the opportunity. But it also seems tactically unsound to simply keep pressing forward, not expecting the encounters to get even harder and without consideration that perhaps you might not be ready for this place yet. To be fair, that entirely rests on whether or not your DM has designed a world without regard to your level or if the encounters and dungeons are all supposed to be level appropriate for you.

[Myzz]

just me 2 cp...

as others have noted 25% chance of "Fight" every 10 mins is harsh, not every random encounter is intended to be a random fight.

I only use random encounters when traveling across great stretches... read hours. If you have an 8 hour journey it would be ridiculous to roll every 10 min... 48 rolls with 25% chance = 12 encounters, which if interpreted to mean fights is 12 fights to travel from point A to B.... thats way too ridiculous, no one would go anywhere, and adventurers would just spend their time doing caravan escorts since it would have to be profitable and is NEEDED.

I don't really do random dungeons anymore. So random wandering monsters do NOT exist in my campaigns. Each inhabitant of a dungeon is pretty much planned on my part, and IF there are patrols for the most part they are not random. They will approach area X every Y time interval... That time interval does very within set parameters, and would almost never be less than half an hour.

In regards to fights every 10 min... As a PC I would suggest finding a defensively advantageous spot to hole up, wait and rest on alert until Monsters stop coming... if wandering patrols keep coming to you and no one escapes to bring the big baddies, then you level up on an infinite supply of wimps. Why risk actual danger, death traps, and chance of running into the big bosses when the mobs are stupid enough to come at you in waves where you have advantage. There is no incentive to go on deeper into the dungeon when the dungeon apparently will come to you in the best strategic scenario possible!

infinite dungeon = infinite xp, without actually having to go anywhere therefore allowing you to maintain a defensive posture!

[Person_Man]

Instead of random encounters, you could also use more realistic enemies.

If a dungeon has 100 kobolds living in it, those kobolds don't segregate themselves in separate rooms, waiting for the players to find them. They wake up, go to the bathroom, eat, do whatever their job is, see their family, whatever. If players walk in the front door and kill some of their friends, if any kobold is alerted to it, they're going to organize a defense. So if the players try and rest before they've basically defeated all of the adult kobolds, they're going to get attacked.

As long as the dungeon is inhabited by any sentient beings, they're going to react to whatever the PCs do with some level of intelligence. That in itself should be a deterrence. On the flip side, if you treat D&D like a video game of a disjointed monsters waiting to be killed, then yeah, you're going to have to use random encounters.

[Phion]

Instead of random encounters, you could also use more realistic enemies.

If a dungeon has 100 kobolds living in it, those kobolds don't segregate themselves in separate rooms, waiting for the players to find them. They wake up, go to the bathroom, eat, do whatever their job is, see their family, whatever. If players walk in the front door and kill some of their friends, if any kobold is alerted to it, they're going to organize a defense. So if the players try and rest before they've basically defeated all of the adult kobolds, they're going to get attacked.

As long as the dungeon is inhabited by any sentient beings, they're going to react to whatever the PCs do with some level of intelligence. That in itself should be a deterrence. On the flip side, if you treat D&D like a video game of a disjointed monsters waiting to be killed, then yeah, you're going to have to use random encounters.

What this guy said. Keep things organic. Consequences of actions not punishments, the two sound familiar but punishment implies that the DM is intentionally setting things up so the players get killed whereas consequences of actions could be "did you leave any evidence that you have just raided the enemies lair and the are close by, oh look you left the corpses and there is a trail of blood leading to their hideout. They should have cleaned that up now the whole place is a alert" (keep track of number of monsters in the place and how many they have killed so even then the players have a chance/ could be overwhelmed because they bit off more than they could chew.

[Dalebert]

If a dungeon has 100 kobolds living in it, those kobolds don't segregate themselves in separate rooms, waiting for the players to find them.

I guess we've always played with this in mind. We are always trying to plan such that we can (hopefully) prevent anyone from leaving to gather the whole dungeon into one giant fight. We also made a point to drag and hide bodies and clean up blood (prestidigitation is handy!). I'm surprised to hear that this does not appear to be the norm.

[Myzz]

I guess we've always played with this in mind. We are always trying to plan such that we can (hopefully) prevent anyone from leaving to gather the whole dungeon into one giant fight. We also made a point to drag and hide bodies and clean up blood (prestidigitation is handy!). I'm surprised to hear that this does not appear to be the norm.

was it Gnoll Hide Cavern in EQ, where you could train the whole zone to the entrance??? ahh those were good days =)

[Dalebert]

was it Gnoll Hide Cavern in EQ, where you could train the whole zone to the entrance??? ahh those were good days =)

There were several places where you could make some pretty obscene trains. I was notorious for chaperoning twinks with my wood elf druid. I'd stack crazy buffs on them while they cut wide swaths through mobs that were too high for them otherwise. I recall someone trying to burst our camp with one of the most ridiculous trains I'd ever seen. It got a little heated but was ultimately just a bunch of extra XP for us. None of my twinks went down. :smallbiggrin: So sad to disappoint, trainers. :smallcool:

[Myzz]

on a related topic...

In HotDQ, nearly every battle we've had in the caves has required a short rest after. We did go in the back way apparently, so that could be why, since the DM has had to alter the CR a bit to accommodate for us going backward thru the dungeon.

We entered just fine, fought 2 gaurds one of whom escaped for help. When the guards ran through the tunnel leading into the cavern one of our druids dropped a Moonbeam at the entrance and they went down pretty hard. We went on to the "treasure room" and attempted to question the drunk, who then got axed. On through the barracks and into the clerics bed chamber??? where we had another fight. After the fight we had to take our first short rest.

Down the hole we went (after throwing a torch down it, alerting those below that we were coming). After the fight with 3 henchmen of the Dragonborn we needed another short rest. Then we came across a bunch of kobolds that our cleric cowed and we bypassed them momentarily (they gave us thier stack of coins to leave them alone). On to some penned drakes... My character threw a lantern filled with oil down to better see and then proceeded to firebolt the captive drakes. At which point we were attacked by the Kobolds we had spared. After deafeating everything we needed a long rest. Set wolf ranger pet and bat familiar to gaurd us while we got some sleep.

After sleep we discovered we were being watched, we chased the offenders down only to go further into the caves and lost em. Where we discovered their refridgerator, and trapped entry way that we made through just fine but the cleric got hosed leaving (nearly died and was poisoned?) Then my bat familiar got killed by a stirge, then we were attacked by stirges... cleric hit 0 HP, rolled nat 20 and was on feet after all stirges killed. We went on to a mushroom farm area, where only the Ranger got hit by the shrooms... we fled upstairs and back into the are where we killed big bad dragonborn earlier... where we left off tattered, bruised, out of HD again, low on spell slots... and missing a party member who ran off and died earlier!

Basically in need of a long rest, even though we essentially just had one...

the 2-3 encounters per short rest with 2-3 short per long seems way off...

[JFahy]

the 2-3 encounters per short rest with 2-3 short per long seems way off...

Agreed. 2-3 encounters seems not too bad as far as hit point recovery, but my group goes through cooldowns much faster than that - and I'm sorry, a cleric is not getting through anything like 9 encounters before running out of spells. I'm about a quarter inch away from houseruling him something like the wizard's ?Arcane Recovery? where they get back a few slots on a short rest.

[McBars]

That's pretty damn offensive you know. I'm not in a union but I oversee their work and they work their butt off for 14 hour shifts.

:smallannoyed:

Edit: As do my coworkers all over the country, not just where I'm from.

{scrubbed}

[Safety Sword]

None of which is relevant to the OP since as you may recall they were explicitly trying to clear out a secure space for the night and ended up being beat down and denied the thing they wanted to do in the first place.

Being able to rest, and knowing when it is best to do so is just as much a part of resource management as anything else. If your players can't handle it and try to metagame the system then fine, drop a billion monsters on them until they figure it out, or better yet just explain to them. But don't assume that every single player does this and that all monsters all the time is right and justified for every single group of players out there.

I wish that you would have actually read what I actually wrote.

My point was that guaranteeing that resting is safe breaks the belief that adventuring is dangerous. It doesn't take anything away from players to set the pace of the game, it's an important part of running the type of game my groups enjoy.

Wandering monsters (or random encounters, not quite the same, I know, I wished I had used the term "Encounters with a random chance of happening") give me a tool as a DM to say "Hey, be alert, you're resting and giving the enemy time to organise, send probes to locate your position, make their own plans to ensure your demise." It's a risk to rest in the bad guy lair.

Any spellcaster can blow up everyone in the first few rounds of combat. I try to get my players to think about whether that's what they want to do considering that you might not get to rest straight after every encounter. "Softer" games might allow PCs to rest all the time, so players hardly consider spells slots as valuable resources.

Magic elves and not enchanted dwarves.

[JAL_1138]

Magic elves and not enchanted dwarves.

Ensorcelled gnomes.

Sorry, had to.

[Safety Sword]

Ensorcelled gnomes.

Sorry, had to.

Oh Gods, a paradigm shift. Could this be D&D 6E!?!

[rollingForInit]

You can't wander into an enemy stronghold, pull out your tea and crumpets and expect to be able to have a picnic unmolested.
That sort of crap doesn't even happen in action movies and action movies don't tend to even make any attempt at verisimilitude. If something as unrealistic as an action movie things it is too far fetched, then you probably shouldn't be expecting it to work in your game unless your game is a lot more cartoon-ish.


There were plenty of short rests in Moria in Lord of the Rings. One of the most archetypical fantasy adventure films.

And "enemy stronghold" would be something very different from the average dungeons, imo. But a place that does not allow for short rests should be desgined so that short rests aren't needed. That is, you can't expect there to be a dozen averagely challenging battles.

[bokodasu]

One other note - a "long rest" isn't 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep any more - you can fight or cast spells, as long as you don't do that for more than an hour, and you can take a 2-hour watch. I don't have my book with me, but I'd rule that a short rest would be similar - you can't fight for more than, say, a couple of minutes, but most wandering monsters aren't going to put up 20 rounds of combat so that's fine. You're even still wearing your armor!

And if that's a no-go, then "short" rest for four hours and have 3 characters stand guard for each hour. It bogs down the campaign even more and makes the adventuring day even shorter, but hey, the average reasonable person will do whatever it takes to not die, they don't care about your story progression.

Also, 1.5 wandering encounters per hour is silly, unless you're right in the middle of an enemy encampment. Even in Basic, when you checked every 10 minutes in the highest-monster areas (and had an average chance of 1 per hour that way), there was never an assumption that monsters would walk up to a locked/barricaded door, bash it down, and gnaw everyone to death - it rewarded things like "finding a safe place to rest," "staying quiet," and "setting watch".

[Yagyujubei]

everything everyone is arguing about here is completely negated by the existence of Rope Trick and Tiny Hut which come online as early as lvl two i think?. Dangerous environment? no probs. random encounters? don't make me laughs.

[Demonslayer666]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the DM's job to challenge the players.

As a player, do whatever you want and role-play your character. Enjoy the story and contribute to it. It is not your job as a player to tell the DM how he should run his game.

Be respectful and thankful that the DM is taking the time and putting in the effort to run the game for you. Complaining about the minutia will make your DM want to stop DM'ing.

If you really don't like the way the DM runs your game, run your own, or find a different group.

Complaining about rolling up your fourth character in 4 sessions - now you have a valid complaint. And yes, that actually happened to me.

[kaoskonfety]

Oh Gods, a paradigm shift. Could this be D&D 6E!?!

It's gnomes all the way down - just gnomes.

No rules, more gnomes, no monsters, more gnomes, no rests, more gnomes...

In their little hats on the lawns, watching... always watching.

[Baptor]

I'm a DM. Here's how I do it.

In general I let my players take roughly 3 short rests before they are too "exhausted" (not the game condition) to continue without a long rest. They've never really asked for more than 3, so it's never been an issue.

IMO, the limitation of healing dice are an automatic check on short rests. Once my players run out of healing dice, they know its time for a long rest.

If they take a short rest in a dangerous area, I might roll once to check for a wandering encounter. How high the chance is depends on how dangerous the area is and if the players take measures to hide their presence. A very dangerous area with no preparations would mean a 1d4. If they took measures, 1d6. If the place is not so dangerous, 1d8. If they got jumped, they'd get a chance to try again and I would lower the die chance for a second encounter.

If they are brave enough to attempt a long rest in a place like a dungeon, they will get three chance rolls for an encounter, and I would probably set that at a 1d6 chance. Again, as per the rules this time, the rest counts unless something catastrophic happens.

Now granted, my games tend to be a bit combat heavy, but the OP's DM's game seems to be the same way if his "random encounter" took out 50% of their hp.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the DM's job to challenge the players.

As a player, do whatever you want and role-play your character. Enjoy the story and contribute to it. It is not your job as a player to tell the DM how he should run his game.

Be respectful and thankful that the DM is taking the time and putting in the effort to run the game for you. Complaining about the minutia will make your DM want to stop DM'ing.

If you really don't like the way the DM runs your game, run your own, or find a different group.

Complaining about rolling up your fourth character in 4 sessions - now you have a valid complaint. And yes, that actually happened to me.

OK. So as the resident DM, I agree that "complaining" is a bad idea. My players know that if they are having trouble with something I am doing to them to come to me during a break and say "I am not having fun." That's our friendly phrase I came up with. My answer is, "I want you to have fun, let's talk about it." To date, I've always been able to reach a compromise we can both appreciate.

However, your claim that his DM complaint is invalid but yours is not is purely subjective. Some grongard DMs would consider losing four characters just the daily commute. Some players consider getting shanghaied every time they want to take a break excessive.

[Malifice]

everything everyone is arguing about here is completely negated by the existence of Rope Trick and Tiny Hut which come online as early as lvl two i think?. Dangerous environment? no probs. random encounters? don't make me laughs.

Rope trick burns a second level (Wizard only) spell slot to allow a single safe short rest. It can be cast as soon as 3rd level but burns a precious second level (mirror image, scorching ray, web) spell slot.

And it does nothing to stop the monsters from reacting and reinforcing the dungeon while you're in the space.

[Garimeth]

I guess we've always played with this in mind. We are always trying to plan such that we can (hopefully) prevent anyone from leaving to gather the whole dungeon into one giant fight. We also made a point to drag and hide bodies and clean up blood (prestidigitation is handy!). I'm surprised to hear that this does not appear to be the norm.

Side note, this is why in my game any of the more martial and intelligent species in games I run only patrol in pairs, have rotating watches with check-in times, and a means of producing long distance communication a horn, a bell, or a signal fire or mirror. You know, cause that's what we do in real life and I figure the more organized and war-like races probably know their business.

This lends itself to my player self-limiting their short-rests, not me. I also hate wandering monsters, unless it makes sense from a narrative perspective.

[Dalebert]

As a player, do whatever you want and role-play your character. Enjoy the story and contribute to it. It is not your job as a player to tell the DM how he should run his game.

Good grief. What is this in response to?

"Why when I was a kid, we took the beatings our DMs dished out to us and we were grateful!"

Just trying to have a dialogue about how various folks find their balance, i.e. to allow some rests to happen but not make it so folks are resting after every encounter. What my DM was doing amounted to no short rests, practically, and 5e was designed around having 2 or 3 an adventuring "day". You don't think that's worth raising as an issue of concern and having a discussion with him about it? He agreed with me on the principle. He just didn't seem to have worked out a way to balance it. He had taken an approach he felt was necessary to discourage abuse of short rests that essentially resulted in eliminating them altogether. So I came here asking how folks deal with it in their games. My DM was extremely reasonable about it. If he was adamant on this issue, then I would probably stop playing in his games altogether, but that extreme reaction has not been called for. Can you imagine bringing a warlock into a game like that and suddenly realizing your character went from 6 or 8 spell slots a day to 2? Your Moon Circle druid went from 6 or 8 wild shapes a day to 2? Your bard went from 12 or 16 inspirations a day to 4? And every single characters HD per day of healing went to zero? That would be some serious buyer's remorse.

[rhouck]

Agreed. 2-3 encounters seems not too bad as far as hit point recovery, but my group goes through cooldowns much faster than that - and I'm sorry, a cleric is not getting through anything like 9 encounters before running out of spells. I'm about a quarter inch away from houseruling him something like the wizard's ?Arcane Recovery? where they get back a few slots on a short rest.

I would be careful with that. Clerics don't NEED to blow through their spells to be effective. In addition to cantrips, they get decent armor and thus can swing away in combat (especially at lower levels where spells slots are most at a premium). They also get channel divinity abilities that recover on a short rest and many of them are equivalent (or better) than spells (e.g., Preserve Life, Radiance of the Dawn).

Though I think any of these discussions are difficult to generalize since it really depends on the difficulty of encounters faced by a party. A well-optimized party facing Easy or Medium encounters is going to blow far few cooldowns than a less-optimized party facing Hard or Deadly encounters. The DMG gives it as 6-8 Medium or Hard encounters per day, with 2 short rests. If your group cannot make it through that many, then it probably is just facing more difficult encounters :smallsmile: (which is not a bad thing, it could be the style of play your group finds more fun) It might also mean your party's appetite for risk is lower, so you are less likely to push another encounter when you are low on spells/abilities/hp.