Battlemaster Fighter without short rests

[Aett_Thorn]

Hey all, hoping you can help me out with something. So in our ongoing campaign, I am a Battlemaster Fighter in a party with a Wizard, a Sorc, A Cleric, a Valor Bard, and a new player who's a Swashbuckler Rogue (all level 6 moving to 7 after our last session). Based on how past fights have gone, and the general markup of the party, he's moved more towards big fights, and away from the 2 short rests per long rests. Basically, the casters were blowing big resources on smaller fights, and then pressing for a longer rest to get their spells back, making sure to try to find suitable places to do so.

Now, I don't mind that this is the course that the game is taking, but it does leave me with a bit of a predicament. All of my powers are fairly weak, but if I were able to get multiple uses per day, they'd be fine. Action Surge, Second Wind, and all of my Battlemaster maneuvers all are short-rest recharge, and so if we're just doing one big fight per 'day', it feels like my abilities don't stand up to the other party members. It has also led to fights against BBEGs that are very tough, and the DM usually bumps up their abilities a bit to make them tougher. This means that even though I have a decent AC and HPs, even I can be dropped fairly quickly.

Since everyone else seems to be fine with the tougher fights, my main questions are:

1) If we do go away from short rests, how far behind will I really be behind the casters in terms of overall power. I feel like I don't really contribute much overall in combat, and don't have much out of combat.

2) Is there some way to adjust a BM fighter to account for a situation like this? Upping maneuver damage or giving more Superiority dice per day? Anything that I can do to fix the current character to make it work given this kind of balance?

3) Or, should I discuss this with the DM and try to get him to realize that the current situation makes my character feel weak? See if maybe I should create a new character that would be better given the current situation?

Any help would be appreciated.

[LeonBH]

You're experiencing the 5 minute workday and the quadratic wizard phenomenon.

One way to "fix" this might be to ask your DM to give you unlimited Superiority Dice. It's going to give you a maneuver per attack that you hit, and every time you miss, you can up that with Precision Attack.

It makes you much stronger, which will probably make the DM make monsters stronger... it's going to be an interesting arms race.

Alternatively, you can ask the DM to extend your adventuring day instead.

[tsotate]

Ask the DM to multiply all your short rest resources by two to three, since that's how many of them you should have in a day.

[Malifice]

Hey all, hoping you can help me out with something. So in our ongoing campaign, I am a Battlemaster Fighter in a party with a Wizard, a Sorc, A Cleric, a Valor Bard, and a new player who's a Swashbuckler Rogue (all level 6 moving to 7 after our last session). Based on how past fights have gone, and the general markup of the party, he's moved more towards big fights, and away from the 2 short rests per long rests. Basically, the casters were blowing big resources on smaller fights, and then pressing for a longer rest to get their spells back, making sure to try to find suitable places to do so.

Your DM is making a huge (but common) mistake. His long rest classes are Nova striking and he's responded by ramping up encounter difficulty. Its a rookie mistake. All he is doing is mandating those nova strikes and making the problem worse.

He needs to push longer Adventuring days on the party.

Best way for this party is the 'doom clock': 'You are hired by NPC to [do task Z] by [time X] or else [bad thing Y] happens.' Then within that time frame, he designs his encounters, and lets the PCs run things from there.

Example: PC are hired to stop a ritual by BBEG that will be performed at midnight - in 12 hours time! If they fail to stop the ritual [horrible demon army] will be summoned, and the town will be destroyed and they will be shunned by the locals and their name mud [plus having to deal with a demonic incursion].

The dungeon is 4 hours ride away. Along the way the PCs are attacked by [hard encounter]. They have time to short rest before pushing on. At the dungeon there are 6 more [medium-hard] encounters to deal with in various rooms. They have enough time to short rest 2 more times during this incursion, before confronting the BBEG just before the stroke of midnight and dealing with him [hard-deadly] encounter.

If the PCs want to nova the first encounter, let them. They are then left without juice for encounters 2-7.

You need to talk to your DM about what he is doing wrong. He needs to be aiming for 6-8 [medium-hard] encounters featuring around 2-3 short rests per long rest as a median. Some days will have less encounters, and some days will have more. Some days should have more short rests, and some days less.

Talk to your DM and remind him of his obligation to police the adventuring day. The campaign is on a highway to falling over if he doesnt.

[mephnick]

Ask the DM to multiply all your short rest resources by two to three, since that's how many of them you should have in a day.

Probably the best option. If he doesn't go for this I'd ask to reroll a long rest class. Trending the day towards long rest classes is the worst thing you can do because they're already the strongest classes. Skipping short rests in favour of a 5 minute adventuring day destroys the game for anyone reliant on them.

[Foxhound438]

Ask the DM to multiply all your short rest resources by two to three, since that's how many of them you should have in a day.

it's gotta be either this or tell him to enforce the adventuring day anyways. Make there be a "time limit" on the party so they have to progress during a day or see major consequences. Then if the casters complain about it, remind them that they don't need to and generally shouldn't blow all their resources in the face of every pair of rats they see.

[mephnick]

When I DM I just make Short Rests 5 minutes and allow players to take them at any time, independantly, but restrict them to 2 per long rest. The Short Rest classes always get their assumed amount of abilities, but doesn't make them too strong like Gritty Realism has a tendancy to do.

[Foxhound438]

When I DM I just make Short Rests 5 minutes and allow players to take them at any time, independantly, but restrict them to 2 per long rest. The Short Rest classes always get their assumed amount of abilities, but doesn't make them too strong like Gritty Realism has a tendancy to do.

I feel this is a really good way to do it. Unfortunately doesn't fix the OP's issue of having 1 nuclear arms race per day, but it's a good way to do it nonetheless.

[rbstr]

Multiplying all your short-rest resources by 3 would could approximate turning you into a long-rest class.

But...12 is a lot of maneuvers. Maybe also let you spend 2 die at a time on some of them? Like let precision add one to the attack roll and one to damage? I dono.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Then if the casters complain about it, remind them that they don't need to and generally shouldn't blow all their resources in the face of every pair of rats they see.

They were BIG rats!

Y-you weren't there, man

[Aett_Thorn]

Thanks, all. I’ll talk to my DM and bring a few of these suggestions along.