New AdventureGoal: Decrease the deadliness of combat, and make Resting slower

[TrinculoLives]

(If Yu Min is reading this, go away!)

Hi all,
I am about to start running Red Hand of Doom for 5th edition this next weekend, and I've been thinking about the 5th edition Adventuring Day.

Roughly speaking, 5e is designed for around 6 encounters and about two short rests per day. Now I'm not very familiar with 3rd edition, but I do know that a good amount of emphasis in this adventure is placed on a certain healing item (if you know the adventure you'll know what I'm talking about), and on having a good store of potions. I'd like to include this healing item in the adventure, and have it be a meaningful thing for the players to get.

RHoD also has a ticking time bomb element to it and I'd like to slow down the adventuring pace of the PCs so as to put the screw to the players a bit. The setting in which I'm placing the adventure is quite a bit smaller than the original, and travel times are not going to be as significant of a drag on the party's time.

Oh, and I've been trying to incorporate Inspiration for ages in my games, but haven't worked out an effective system. So I want to encourage Inspiration use as well.

Anyway, I thought I'd try out something like the Gritty Rest variant from the DMG, but with a few tweaks specific to this adventure.

Basically my goals are:

-Keep relative deadliness of encounters, traps, etc. low compared to the party.
-Keep combat difficulty challenging by decreasing frequency of Resting.
-Encourage usage of Inspiration mechanic, specifically Option #1 from this (http://theangrygm.com/take-the-suck-out-of-inspiration/) Angry GM article.
-Borrow some resting mechanics from older editions for the fun of it.

Do the following changes help with that? And do you see any significant problems therein?

1. Short Rests take as long as Long Rests do currently. At the end of this "Short Rest", in addition to the usual benefits, a character regains a number of hp equal to their level + CON modifier ( got the idea from 3e)
2. A "Breather" of five minutes of uninterrupted rest can be used by the party at any time. During this time, they can use any Hit Dice available to them, as in a Short Rest. (~4e)
3. Long Rests require 24 hours of uninterrupted resting, but with the exception that travel at a Slow Pace (in fair weather conditions) is allowed during this time.
4. When a player gains inspiration, they also receive one of the following of their choice: they regain 1 Hit Die, a single use of a class feature that "resets" on a Long or Short Rest, or their lowest level used spell slot.

Okay, thanks, commence talking me out of it now. :)

[Kane0]

Probably best to avoid tweaking too many things in one go, DMG variant rules for gritty variant resting and healing surges will get you the majority of what you're looking for anyways. Try those out and let everyone adjust before making more serious changes.

Just for all that is holy please don't use the DMG flanking rules.

Edit: I've found it handy to start every session with inspiration for everyone and to give out inspiration any time a PC after attempts any 'heroic' kind of action, pass or fail, as well as anything that matches an ideal or flaw they have (I don't keep track of those so it's up to the player to tell me when this is the case). They can only have one at a time, so it's not like they can abuse this by stocking up and encourages both interesting play and a little bit of risk-taking, which in turn promps the player to spent it more often as well.
The trick is to be generous, the more you give it out the more you and the players will remember and use it.

[TrinculoLives]

The problem is that the 7 day Long Rest from the Gritty Realism variant isn't going to work with this adventure. I need something of shorter duration.

Point taken about Inspiration: if we use it more often, we'll use it more often.
I still want that "specific action = inspiration" reward system though. I'd like to tie the mechanic in to the players playing off their character's characteristics. That's what it's for after all!

[rbstr]

In terms of balance it really hardly even matters how long the rests are so long as you keep, roughly, to the 2-3 short rests per long rest, 6-8 encounters per long rest guidelines.

So it really all can be pretty arbitrary - make the rest length fit to the story and balance the encounters based on that.
I see no issue with 24hr long rests and 8 hour short rests in that context.

[DireSickFish]

We've done 8 hour rest = short rest and 3days = long rest and it worked out swell for an overland adventure game. Gives you time for downtime activities in town too. 24 hours vs 8 hours really isn't that big a difference and your players will take very few short rests.

[Estrillian]

I've been doing


10+ minutes equals short rest, no more than 2 per sleep
Sleeping overnight is also a short rest
24 hours rest in a secure camp with food and water is a long rest
No HP regain on a long rest (only hit dice)


And it has worked fine. I wouldn't raise a short rest to 8 hours because it is so punishing for short rest classes like Warlocks, who are likely to cast only 2 spells a day under that regime.

As others have said, the key to Inspiration is reminding people to use it, and giving it out often. It is already great, and don't need to be incentivised.

[TrinculoLives]

I've been doing


10+ minutes equals short rest, no more than 2 per sleep
Sleeping overnight is also a short rest
24 hours rest in a secure camp with food and water is a long rest
No HP regain on a long rest (only hit dice)


And it has worked fine. I wouldn't raise a short rest to 8 hours because it is so punishing for short rest classes like Warlocks, who are likely to cast only 2 spells a day under that regime.

I feel the opposite: that allowing 10 minute short rests, but 24 hour long rests unfairly advantages Warlocks.

[MadBear]

I feel the opposite: that allowing 10 minute short rests, but 24 hour long rests unfairly advantages Warlocks.

that's only true if you don't also enforce the 2 per long rest rule. If that's enforced the warlock's fine.

[TrinculoLives]

Ah, yes, indeed.

Well I'm breaking the idea to the group tomorrow. Wish me luck!