Rest Mechanic Variant

[PeteNutButter]

I've proposed the following rules for my next campaign to discourage waste of resources, and wanted to hear feedback from the forums. The basis is the party will have a random amount of downtime between adventures, and I am looking for a way to have partial recovery, but not necessarily all. That means gritty realism is of no use.

Rests
Long rests no longer recover hit points. Only hit dice are recovered(one half, as normal), which can be spent upon the completion of the long rest, like a short rest. Many debilitating effects are not automatically removed at the completion of a long rest, and instead require a successful check.

The intent here is to make players feel the pain of damage sustained and suffer long term injuries, instilling a realistic fear of conflict, even trivial ones as damage lasts.

Uncertain Spell Recovery
Upon completing a long rest a spell caster does not regain all expended slots. They instead must make an ability check for their corresponding spell casting stat (multiclass casters use best stat) and recover the maximum level of slots of 10 - the number rolled. For example a 3rd level wizard with a 16 int, rolls an 8 upon completing a long rest. With his intelligence modifer (+3) he only reached 11 on the ability check, so he is only able to recover expended 1st level slots, not second. Warlocks must make a similar check upon completing a short rest, and if the number rolled is 11 or higher, but lower than the level of their pact magic slots, their recovered pact magic slots are of the level rolled (-10) until fully recovered by a successful roll on a later short rest.

This design choice is a compromise between the normal long rest mechanic and the optional rule in the DMG. Since many adventuring days logically have only one or two fights, it forces players to consider expending spells as there is no certain recovery the next day, or even in the next week.

One of the main reasons to implement it is to prevent healers from blowing all their slots to heal up before a long rest (thus nullifying the lack of hp recovery). The most obvious issue I see with it is the clear nerfing of spell casters.

What do you folks think of the rule otherwise? Should I look to apply a similar penalty to other rest recovered resources such as ki/superiority dice?

EDIT2: Please no canned answers about how to DM properly to make sure the party has the right amount of rests you determine. I intentionally want it to be randomized.

[imanidiot]

It is impossible for players to dictate when and where they will take even short rests. You rest when the DM says you rest. Period.

I've never seen any "realistic" variant rules that are actually realistic. They should just be called "anti-caster" variant rules.

Edit: If a healer blows all of their slots on healing before a long rest just ambush them in the middle of the rest. Now they have no spell slots and dont get the benefit of a long rest. They won't do that again.

[PeteNutButter]

It is impossible for players to dictate when and where they will take even short rests. You rest when the DM says you rest. Period.

I've never seen any "realistic" variant rules that are actually realistic. They should just be called "anti-caster" variant rules.

Edit: If a healer blows all of their slots on healing before a long rest just ambush them in the middle of the rest. Now they have no spell slots and dont get the benefit of a long rest. They won't do that again.

I'm not aiming for realism. I'm aiming for the ability to wear down the party without it having to be done in one "adventuring" day.

[imanidiot]

I'm not aiming for realism. I'm aiming for the ability to wear down the party without it having to be done in one "adventuring" day.

In that case you just need to be more strict with rests. You have a lot of leeway in your judgment as to what constitutes a long rest.
Ex: Are the PCs under siege? That would make taking a long rest impossible. You cant expect to get meaningful rest while stones pound your fortifications and you have to stay on alert for breaches.

You are the final arbiter as to when and where and for how long the PCs may rest. If you can only realistically fit 2 encounters in a day then your PCs shouldn't expect a lomg rest any more frequently than once every 3 days. If you only sleep 6 hours you won't have many problems, I wouldn't even give a level of exhaustion, but you dont get a long rest for anything short of 8 hours of uninterrupted rest.

[imanidiot]

That being said some people like fiddling with variant rules. If that's you fiddle away.

[Malifice]

I'm not aiming for realism. I'm aiming for the ability to wear down the party without it having to be done in one "adventuring" day.

Time limits on your quests is the best way to police the AD. Place the PCs on the clock for around 50 percent of their quests.

You are hired to recover (the macguffin) by (NPC). He needs it to present to the King on his coronation in (three days time). Fail to get it by that time, and you dont get paid. Get it earlier and you get a bonus.
You must stop the ritual by (midnight) or else (big CR Demon is summoned).
You are hired to save (the NPC healer) before the monsters (eat/ sacrifice) him/ her. If you succeed you aquire discount (healing potions) in town.
A plague is sweeping the town. (X) numbers of people are dying each day. You need to recover (cure) before more people die.
You have been placed under a horrible curse (magic item, strange book, NPC, ritual etc). Each day that passes your HP max is reduced by 1d10. If it reaches zero, you die. The curse can only be removed by (doing quest).
A mysterious ruin appears in the middle of the town square! Research shows that it is an ancient (Netherese) city that magically teleports to a random location in the multiverse every 24 hours at midnight... dare you explore it and make your way out before it vanishes again..?
The ship you are on is attacked by a manticore. While the crew are making repairs to the ship, you decide to explore a mysterious island the chimera came from which doesnt appear on any map. The captain tells you that you have only 3 days before repairs are done and the ship departs. On the island the PCs find themselves trapped inside a mysterious dungeon... with 3 days to find the way to escape before being marooned on the island!
A rival band of adbventurers are seeking the (same macguffin) you are. You must act quickly to recover it before they do.
You must destroy (the macgufin) by throwing it in a volcano where it was forged before the dark lord conquers (Gondor).
The PCs trigger an ancient trap, which traps them in the dungeon and starts stealing their lifeforce. They must track down the demilich that created this trap in the dungeon, and slay him to escape.
The (NPC) wants the PCs to (rescue captured villagers from slavers before they are sold/ slay a bunch of bandits before they move elsewhere/ stop the cultists from completing the ritual/ recover the macguffin so it can be used to do X) etc etc
You must (fire your proton torpedo down a shaft no bigger than a womp rat) before (the Death star gets in range) or else (Yavin is blown up and the Rebel alliance detroyed).
The PCs find themselves defending a tower/ trapped in a seige. Waves of monsters attack the keep throughout the night... can the PCs hold on until dawn?


Many of these can be used over and over again in different variations.

Dont do it every adventuring day. Around 50-60 percent is enough.

Important; On 'days' when you arent using timed quests, let the PCs think its going to be a '1 encounter' day and then hit them with a bunch more encounters in a row afterwards.

A tough encounter with a bunch of bandits (encounter 1), turns out to be the advance party for a much larger force (encounter 2 that hits them a few minutes after the PCs deal with encounter 1). Searching these bandits reveals evidence that they plan on selling a bunch of commoners as slaves in a few hours time. The PCs must track the bandits back to the camp to deal with an even larger force (encounter 3) to save the commoners. Just after they deal with that encounter... the slavers (cultists and a spell caster or two) who were planing on buying the commoners turn up, and they are not happy! (encounter 4).

Between timed quests, and 'one-two' surprise punches like the above, the PCs will naturally police resource usage internally without you even having to worry about it, even on 'single' encounter adventuring days.

Occasionally the full casters will get a single encounter nova day. Thats fine, let them have the spotlight for a change. Just present the short rest classes a chance to do the same (design a dungeon with multiple encounters in a row, time to short rest a lot, but long resting is impossible).

[Malifice]

Its really something that can be 'solved' with nothing more than some imagination on the part of the DM, and him/ her turning his/ her mind to the issue during the week when he does his prep work for the weekends session.

When you sit down to do your prep work, frame your encounters in a [time limit]. Why are the PCs doing this quest? When does it need to be done by? What are the consequences if they fail/ succeed?

If you want mechanical solutions, the 'gritty realism' rest variant is a good baseline.

Personally I use the following rules:

Short rests are only 5 minutes long (but usable only once every 4 hours). You can only spend 1/2 max HD on a short rest to heal (but they otherwise function as normal)
Long rests are 8 hours long (once every 24 hours), and you gain no HP on resting. You do regain 1/2 level in HD, and can spend as many HD as you want at the end of the rest to heal. You also only recover 1 spell slot of each of levels 1-5 (if you can cast slots of that level) and one slot/ arcanum of levels 6+ (if you have them) each long rest.

(Barbarians are also changed to reduce the number of rages per long rest by 1, but gain a fighting style at 2nd to make up for it).

[PeteNutButter]

Its really something that can be 'solved' with nothing more than some imagination on the part of the DM, and him/ her turning his/ her mind to the issue during the week when he does his prep work for the weekends session.

When you sit down to do your prep work, frame your encounters in a [time limit]. Why are the PCs doing this quest? When does it need to be done by? What are the consequences if they fail/ succeed?

If you want mechanical solutions, the 'gritty realism' rest variant is a good baseline.

Personally I use the following rules:

Short rests are only 5 minutes long (but usable only once every 4 hours). You can only spend 1/2 max HD on a short rest to heal (but they otherwise function as normal)
Long rests are 8 hours long (once every 24 hours), and you gain no HP on resting. You do regain 1/2 level in HD, and can spend as many HD as you want at the end of the rest to heal. You also only recover 1 spell slot of each of levels 1-5 (if you can cast slots of that level) and one slot/ arcanum of levels 6+ (if you have them) each long rest.

(Barbarians are also changed to reduce the number of rages per long rest by 1, but gain a fighting style at 2nd to make up for it).

I'm experienced with putting time pressure on the party. That isn't what I'm going for here.

I'm not proposing a rule for every game, but more for the unique campaign. The PCs will have random periods of downtime, typically 2d6-2 days of downtime (with modifiers based on their actions) between most sessions or even during some sessions.

I was looking for a way to have some randomization in the recovery, so that the whole party isn't always in top shape, or all not. If I give them a long rest once a week for instance, then the whole party either gets everything back, or gets nothing. Also it just feels sort of like a d*ck move to roll a 6 when they need 7 days to get anything.

So basically I'm looking for a modified version of what I've proposed. A roll based variant system, but I'm afraid it's punishing casters too much, and would like to implement similar penalties to the martial rest recovery resources.

[Blue Lantern]

I'm not aiming for realism. I'm aiming for the ability to wear down the party without it having to be done in one "adventuring" day.

If that is your goal the "gritty realism" variant rule is probably the simplest option

[PeteNutButter]

If that is your goal the "gritty realism" variant rule is probably the simplest option

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Please read above.

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No one as of yet actually addressed my proposed mechanics.

[coolAlias]

If that is your goal the "gritty realism" variant rule is probably the simplest option


...

Please read above.

...

No one as of yet actually addressed my proposed mechanics.
If you use the gritty realism variant coupled with HP only recovering via use of HD, you've basically got variable recovery without punishing casters, no?

If the PCs ever get a free day and know that, however, then the healers can go all out with their spells and get everyone back in top shape, but for most adventures, HP and HD will be a valuable and scarce resource.

EDIT: Variable resource recovery for things other than HP is going to be tough to do in a fair and consistent manner across all classes. I don't have any good suggestions for that, sorry.

[Pex]

I'm not aiming for realism. I'm aiming for the ability to wear down the party without it having to be done in one "adventuring" day.

Why should it bother you the party is at full hit points and resources after a long rest?

The bad guys are every combat.

[PeteNutButter]

If the PCs ever get a free day and know that, however, then the healers can go all out with their spells and get everyone back in top shape, but for most adventures, HP and HD will be a valuable and scarce resource.


There in lies the problem.



-Variable resource recovery for things other than HP is going to be tough to do in a fair and consistent manner across all classes. I don't have any good suggestions for that, sorry-

What about some sort of check to determine what resources you recover based on class level? Something like an ability check, recovering resources as if you were the class level of the roll -10. A roll of 13 means you only recover resources as a 3rd level character, i.e. 2 rages for the barbarian, first and second level spells for casters, etc.

Unless you also add proficiency though, it makes it basically impossible to get higher than 15th level resources back...

[Easy_Lee]

Mechanics are not the way to do what you're trying to do. Instead, keep them guessing about the nature of the adventuring day. Several encounters in a row with no rest one day, one hard encounter followed by nothing but skill challenges another, a day where they constantly feel like an encounter is about to happen but are unsure when they will be ambushed, etc.

If you keep them guessing, then it doesn't matter what the mechanics do.

With all that said, do casters really need to be nerfed? This system makes it highly unlikely for a caster to recover high level slots in a given rest. If I was playing a caster, I'd be pretty pissed when I couldn't use my features. I'd reroll and encourage everyone to do the same, that we might come up with some party makeup to fit the campaign.

[coolAlias]

Why should it bother you the party is at full hit points and resources after a long rest?

The bad guys are every combat.
While this is true and I'm not the OP, for a certain style of game it can be nice to have "lesser" enemies still be a credible threat to the party without having to do a full adventuring day every day.

EDIT: @OP I see what you're trying to do but I have to agree with the others that keeping the players guessing as to whether they'll have more encounters before they can rest is a better solution than randomizing what they recover when they do rest.

Since that's not what you want to do, however, what about a system where you assign a value to each ability, perhaps simply the level at which it is acquired, and the PCs each make a d20+proficiency+main stat roll-{X} upon a long rest, where {X} is probably 10. Whatever number they roll is the number of points they can spend to recover resources of their choice. Spell slots could use the Spell Point variant to determine cost of recovery, and spending a HD might cost 1-5 points each.

Perhaps the amount they roll on the long rest is available until they long rest again, and those points also need to be saved for recovering short rest abilities.

This way the players are given lots of tough decision points vs. simply a random roll.

[PeteNutButter]

While this is true and I'm not the OP, for a certain style of game it can be nice to have "lesser" enemies still be a credible threat to the party without having to do a full adventuring day every day.

EDIT: @OP I see what you're trying to do but I have to agree with the others that keeping the players guessing as to whether they'll have more encounters before they can rest is a better solution than randomizing what they recover when they do rest.

Since that's not what you want to do, however, what about a system where you assign a value to each ability, perhaps simply the level at which it is acquired, and the PCs each make a d20+proficiency+main stat roll-{X} upon a long rest, where {X} is probably 10. Whatever number they roll is the number of points they can spend to recover resources of their choice. Spell slots could use the Spell Point variant to determine cost of recovery, and spending a HD might cost 1-5 points each.

Perhaps the amount they roll on the long rest is available until they long rest again, and those points also need to be saved for recovering short rest abilities.

This way the players are given lots of tough decision points vs. simply a random roll.

I like this. Let me fiddle with it, to see if I can come up with something that isn't entirely cumbersome.

[coolAlias]

I like this. Let me fiddle with it, to see if I can come up with something that isn't entirely cumbersome.
On second thought I'd recommend using something with more of a bell curve rather than a d20, such as 3d6 or 2d10, and probably not subtracting anything; otherwise, players stand a good chance of getting screwed out of resources and that's usually not fun.

Perhaps the recovery dice could scale with level, even something as simple as 1d4+character level.

[Pex]

While this is true and I'm not the OP, for a certain style of game it can be nice to have "lesser" enemies still be a credible threat to the party without having to do a full adventuring day every day.



That is what Bounded Accuracy is for. You don't need to screw over players resting for goblins to remain a threat as they gain levels. Just have more goblins.

It's becoming my new pet peeve, like 5E skills, of DMs who just can't stand it that PCs rest and get back their stuff. They've been doing since forever. It was only in 4E that it was given a name with 5E getting more detailed about it. 3E had long rests. 2E had long rests. 1E had long rests. It was "the party sleeps for the night keeping watch, morning comes, clerics pray, wizard study their spells, and go". Why all of a sudden it's such a big deal DMs are going oh feces PCs are too powerful I'm losing my control of the game how dare players think they have any say whatsoever in how to play?

Let PCs rest already.

"Fight me" (DM Attitude) :smallsmile:

[coolAlias]

That is what Bounded Accuracy is for. You don't need to screw over players resting for goblins to remain a threat as they gain levels. Just have more goblins.

It's becoming my new pet peeve, like 5E skills, of DMs who just can't stand it that PCs rest and get back their stuff. They've been doing since forever. It was only in 4E that it was given a name with 5E getting more detailed about it. 3E had long rests. 2E had long rests. 1E had long rests. It was "the party sleeps for the night keeping watch, morning comes, clerics pray, wizard study their spells, and go". Why all of a sudden it's such a big deal DMs are going oh feces PCs are too powerful I'm losing my control of the game how dare players think they have any say whatsoever in how to play?

Let PCs rest already.

"Fight me" (DM Attitude) :smallsmile:
You seem to have had some very adversarial DMs in your time. I wish you luck finding better people to play with.

As for "just have more goblins," sometimes (rarely, I'll grant) that isn't a good answer, and in the OP's opinion, this is one of those cases and they were asking for ideas on alternatives. I don't see what's so wrong with that.