Gritty Realism Resting

[Teaguethebean]

I am interested in the gritty realism resting variant. If you don't know what it does, it makes short rests take 8 hours and a long rest take a week. I have been considering using this in my next game as I find it irrational for a DM to cram 6 encounters into a single adventuring day but with this variant you can easily do an encounter per day an not invalidate warlocks and fighters when they are compared to a wizard or paladin. I am wondering if anyone has any comments on this rule set. Should I perhaps change around somethings like should a sorcerer regain some sorcery points on short rests or maybe paladins gain back some lay on hands? I'm just looking for some advice if anyone has experience.

[rel]

1) Don't put your players on a short countdown, 'you have till midnight to stop the ritual' means at most 1 short rest for the rest of the adventure under this system.
2) Break up locations like dungeons into discrete, mostly separated areas with relatively safe places to rest or retreat to.
3) If you use a wandering monster mechanic review the rules you use to get a frequency of encounters that matches the recovery rate.
4) Relating to (1), if you use structured stories try and come up with reasons to bundle linked encounters over a few days and reasons why it is alright to leave the plot alone for a few weeks from time to time.
5) 5e has quite a few options to remove the food and torches aspect of resource management so if you want that to be part of the game (and it does fit well with longer rest times) consider replacing said options

[JackPhoenix]

Problem with gritty realism is that while it works wonderfully during overland travel or in more social games when you don't have many encounters per day, you'll have a problem if you ever have to deal with any encounter-dense location... a dungeon, enemy base, anything like that. Especially if that location behaves realistically and you can't spend few weeks clearing it out while hiding in closet periodically to sleep.

[Grog Logs]

I like GR, but you do have to police the Adventuring Week because a Fighter who uses Action Surge 7x per long rest (i.e., week) and a Warlock who casts 14 Fireballs per long rest at level 5 are WAY overpowered. My Homebrew solution is to limit short rest recharges to 2 per long rest (with each PC able to choose when they use theirs).

You also have to consider how this affects the machinations of your NPCs. If the Big Bad is sending troops that are 21 days away from a settlement. The PCs have much less time to prepare (in terms of long rest recharging). This to me is the much more critical element as it affects the STORY rather than the mechanics.

[Grog Logs]

Problem with gritty realism is that while it works wonderfully during overland travel or in more social games when you don't have many encounters per day, you'll have a problem if you ever have to deal with any encounter-dense location... a dungeon, enemy base, anything like that. Especially if that location behaves realistically and you can't spend few weeks clearing it out while hiding in closet periodically to sleep.

This is very true. In my campaign, GR has resulted in the wilderness being the dungeons. A traditional dungeon does not make sense with GR, at least not without magical items that heal and cast spells... At which point, how is it gritty. An exception would be Rogues who don't need any rests, only lots of healing potions in dungeons in GR.

The other side effect of GR is a lot more social interactions. You can have lots of social interactions without GR, but GR seems to put extra pressure on them from a logistical, narrative standpoint.

A non-GR solution would be to overtly state that long rests can only occur in town (not in dungeons or wilderness). So, you have to ask yourself, "What problem am I trying to solve? What tone am I trying to create? And, how does my solution aid or hinder those?"

[Man_Over_Game]

I implemented a fix for when players are within dungeons or high danger areas for Gritty Realism rules:

Ley Lines. While in a Ley Line point, you rest at 10-20% of the normal time it takes for a rest. Ley Lines are full of magic and naturally shift around the planes, so while many beings may build their lairs around these rare points of energy, the Ley Line may shift over the centuries to parts of the lair that weren't intended to utilize a Ley Line. Monsters are naturally attracted to these points, and they can be detected as a source of planar, divine, and arcane energy (can be detected by virtually anyone).

Lets me put Gritty Realism in my games and still allows Dungeons to become possible. Additionally, being able to sense one means that players know that they can put more risk into a day comfortably.

[guachi]

My last campaign I used Gritty Realism and Slow Natural Healing. I also abolished Short Rests for resource replenishment purposes but not for using HD to regain I multiplied all Short Rest abilities by 3 and had those abilities key off of Long Rests.

I didn't actually require PCs to rest 7 days to get resources back. Whatever resources you had on a Long Rest would come back throughout the week. For example, if you could do a thing 7 times per Long Rest you would get back 1 each day. If you could do a thing 3 or 4 times per Long Rest you'd get one back roughly every other day. Yes, it was a little complex but I as the DM had a preprinted chart and in practice it only took seconds for the players to see what they got back.

The results:
Easier to balance between Short and Long rest classes. Encounters per adventuring day ranged from 1 to 12 and everyone could contribute. Imagine that 1 encounter day when a Fighter has 3 Action Surges for one encounter! The one time it happened was awesome.

Easier to do wilderness type adventuring with scattered encounters throughout the week.

Easier to hit 6-8 encounters.

With 6-8 encounters and encounters (at least the way I did it) with more low CR creatures the total XP gained was much lower so advancement was slower.

Everything takes longer. PCs will often need to take 1-3 weeks off after an adventure so you don't end up with PCs hitting level 20 in 60 campaign days or something.

Adventures that need more than one Adventuring Day can be really hard if there's no easy way to get a week off. What happened in practice was that lower level, but longer, adventures could be used with higher level PCs.

With PCs getting a small amount of resources back each day instead of all at once after 7 days, PCs can sustain low levels of activity (1 encounter - whether combat or not as long as it expends resources - every day or two) almost indefinitely. I used this at higher levels when the PCs had lots of traveling to do in hostile territory.

Also, with PCs getting a small amount of resources each day, the PCs have choices (at times, depending on the adventure) of only resting a day or two or three, getting a little bit back, and hopefully finishing what they had started.

All together, I loved the changes. The campaign seemed more alive and the PCs constantly felt pressed as they'd head right back out to adventure as soon as they were back at full. The mandated downtime to recover gave the PCs time to interact with the world around them (usually in town).

[Teaguethebean]

After reading the comments I really like the idea of magic lay lines perhaps breaking out the faster rests rules. Also I see the point of the slower every day features but I beleive I may just make long rests be any return to civilization with downtime being a hand waved long rest

[Derpy]

I've noticed in my current campaign that the traditional short/long rest economy seems a bit forgiving. My campaign is more macro then micro, lots of exploration and open spaces with set encounters and places to explore around the campaign world. Almost always it will be a week between our location explorations anyway, and it seems the way I've balanced things has been good not needing a rest in the middle of a dungeon. There have been one or two capstone type dungeons with BBEG that have been exceptions to this, but with a bit of planning and some DM magic I think I can work it to make a challange that is not insurmountable. I don't want to kill the party(though I would), but also don't want them to coast through with no threats; balance is important. I think I might try out the longer rests for the next campaign I run, after talking it over with the players. It will probably work for the campaign, though I attribute that to the pace of it, I'm not sure I'd want to run something more 'traditional' with GR.

[Malifice]

I like GR, but you do have to police the Adventuring Week because a Fighter who uses Action Surge 7x per long rest (i.e., week) and a Warlock who casts 14 Fireballs per long rest at level 5 are WAY overpowered.

It doesnt quite work that way, but I agree. You still need to police the adventuring 'day' (span of time between long rests). It just makes it easier for many DMs to do when you add in longer time frames and added complexity of needing a whole week of R and R to long rest.

[ad_hoc]

I am interested in the gritty realism resting variant. If you don't know what it does, it makes short rests take 8 hours and a long rest take a week. I have been considering using this in my next game as I find it irrational for a DM to cram 6 encounters into a single adventuring day but with this variant you can easily do an encounter per day an not invalidate warlocks and fighters when they are compared to a wizard or paladin. I am wondering if anyone has any comments on this rule set. Should I perhaps change around somethings like should a sorcerer regain some sorcery points on short rests or maybe paladins gain back some lay on hands? I'm just looking for some advice if anyone has experience.

Use it or don't use it.

If you're playing a game without dungeons (or their equivalent) then it might be appropriate.

You can't have both though. Dungeons just don't work with it.

You can always switch back and forth during the same campaign too.

If you're having trouble with something as central to the game as resting then it might be best to start with a published adventure. They all work around the concept of 6-8 encounters per long rest.

[Hypersmith]

I love GR as a concept, but all the players need to be very on board and ready for long adventuring days. In my experience, it's the absolute best way to get it to feel like actual difficulty, especially the higher levels go. Might also help to make healing time a little longer. So yeah, agreement with the folk above :p. I think another important requisite of GR is that a significant amount of the struggle needs to be just the baseline survival, especially at the start of the game. Food and shelter are half or more of the starting survival issue. It can get easier with time for sure. Otherwise the game will be boring.

[Malifice]

Use it or don't use it.

If you're playing a game without dungeons (or their equivalent) then it might be appropriate.

You can't have both though. Dungeons just don't work with it.

You can always switch back and forth during the same campaign too.

If you're having trouble with something as central to the game as resting then it might be best to start with a published adventure. They all work around the concept of 6-8 encounters per long rest.


You can do dungeons, but beyond 4 encounters it gets tough.

If I were to do GR, I'd have exhaustion come back on a Short rest, and would also bring in a 'second wind' rule.

Second Wind: You stop to bind wounds, grab a bite to eat, catch your breath and refocus for the task at hand. By resting for at least 5 minutes, you gain the benefits of a short rest. Once you do so, you cant gain the benefits of another second wind until you have completed a full 8 hour short rest.

This doesnt have any effect on 0-1 encounter days, and only kicks in when you have 2+ encounter days. Importantly it makes dungeoneering feasible under GR. The assumption is players will hit dungeon type environments largely at full strength, deal with 0-4 encounters, and then 'Second wind' spending hit dice and recharging SR features, enabling them to deal with a further 0-4 encounters (meaning your average party can complete your average dungeon level).

[Tanarii]

as I find it irrational for a DM to cram 6 encounters into a single adventuring day
Whereas I often wonder what kind of D&D people are playing where they don't have at least this many encounters in a day. :smallbiggrin:

Other than wilderness hex crawl adventuring or the "exactly one random encounter" wilderness journey, of course.

Like, if I ever run the Chult module, I'll seriously consider using some kind of gritty rest variant.



You can always switch back and forth during the same campaign too.

I played around with using all three rest styles, gritty in civilized, normal in frontier/wilderness, and heroic in dungeons. But I eventually abandoned it because it was just too gamist for too many players. And my players are already a pretty gamist bunch.

[Malifice]

Like, if I ever run the Chult module, I'll seriously consider using some kind of gritty rest variant.

I use a homebrewed rest variant in the ToA game I run.

Short rests are only 5 minutes long (max 2 per long rest) and you can only spend up to 1/2 level in HD (rounded up) each time. You cant take one if you've used one in the last 4 hours.

Long rests are overnight affairs (and 1/ 24 hours) as normal but they dont recover HP (you still still get back 1/2 level in HD, and you can immediately spend as many as you want when the rest is finished). You also recover 1 expended spell slot of each of levels 1-5 (if you have them) plus 1 expended slot of levels 6-9 (if you have multiple expended slots, you choose the slot).

[Rusvul]

The rest houserule I use is kind of like a toned-down Gritty Realism: short rests are 8 hours, long rests are 24. Hit points don't recover automatically on long rests, you have to spend hit dice. The idea is to extend the 6-8 encounter "adventuring day" over a few days instead of one. With two short rests between long rests, an "adventuring day" is 3 days, which means I only need 2-3 encounters per day. Much more manageable. It also pushes my PCs to camp out in the wild a little, which I like. The idea is to do all of that without making dungeoneering impossible, like the Gritty Realism variant does.

[Laserlight]

I find it irrational for a DM to cram 6 encounters into a single adventuring day

The actual text is most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. (emphasis added).

An Easy encounter is half the XP budget of a Medium; a Hard is 1.5 Mediums; and a Deadly is on average 2.25 Mediums. So if you don't want six to eight Medium-to-Hard, make it three or four Deadly, with a short rest after each.

[Malifice]

I find it irrational for a DM to cram 6 encounters into a single adventuring day

That's par for the course in your standard dungeon. Your average dungeon level (includes ruins, lairs, temples, castles, forest trails etc - the kind of locale that features in every adventure ever written, ever) usually features around 6-8 encounters, in close proximity to each other, designed to be dealt with in a single (in game) day.

Remember, an adventuring day is not a single in game day, nor is it an out of game session. Its the variable span of time in game between finishing a long rest and finishing your next next long rest.

That adventuring day might span several in game days, and it might span several out of game sessions.

[Lance Tankmen]

I currently use in my campaign going on different parties over two years. I find it makes people wait and consider burning stuff on certain fights. Ive had parties go months without long rests. I do give free health on short rests based on how they sleep. Then during a day they can use two 1 hour breaks and use HD heal(its how they've beat dungeons). And during short rest gives Spell chuckers a chance to get a spell slot back during a short rest, except warlocks wizards and circle of land druids after level 6 i think?.



all in all i like it but i use enough homebrew that its not the same :smallcool:

[guachi]

You can't have both though. Dungeons just don't work with it.



Yes they do. At least, the campaign I ran using my rules above and old modules from the '80s I updated to 5e.

From level 1-12 the only module that was problematic was N2 Against the Cult of the Reptile God and that's because the second part of the module is a two-level dungeon where each level is basically one adventuring day. It was really rough at level two and the only way the PCs got through was to hit level three at/near the end of dungeon level one and I gave the PCs their level three abilities after one night's rest and they recovered a very small amount of other resources in that one night.

[Sharur]

I like Gritty, but its never worked for any table that I've run.
Especially,

However, there is an idea that I tried out with a "new to 5e" group (they were Pathfinder players, so they were used to X/day abilities) I ran a 5e one-shot for: itemized rests.

They seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a short rest inside the dungeon they were in (which, considering it was the lair of a psuedo-vampiric blood mage, was not unreasonable), so I let them find "potions of vitality" which gave the benefits of a short rest...

[Malifice]

I like Gritty, but its never worked for any table that I've run.
Especially,

However, there is an idea that I tried out with a "new to 5e" group (they were Pathfinder players, so they were used to X/day abilities) I ran a 5e one-shot for: itemized rests.

They seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a short rest inside the dungeon they were in (which, considering it was the lair of a psuedo-vampiric blood mage, was not unreasonable), so I let them find "potions of vitality" which gave the benefits of a short rest...

Drop short rests to a 5 minute breather (usually just handwaved).

Limit them to a max of 2 per Long rest.

That pacing works best for most dungeon heavy games.

[Laserlight]

Drop short rests to a 5 minute breather (usually just handwaved).

Limit them to a max of 2 per Long rest.

That pacing works best for most dungeon heavy games.

A couple of years ago, one of our players came up with a reason why a Short Rest should be ten minutes. Something to do with the PHB spells or rituals, as I recall. It made sense, and a ten minute breather makes better narrative sense than an hour picnic, so we're using that. It's never been a problem.

[DanyBallon]

For our SKT campaign, we opted to use gritty realism resting rules for overland travel, and we switch to regular resting rules when entering a dungeon (with the exception that a long rest don't give you back your full HP, when using the regular rest rules)

The switch can be clunky from time to time, but so far it's doing the job of balancing the "adventuring day"

[darknite]

I've just found that GR healing/recovery turns the 5 Minute Adventuring Day into the 5 Minute Adventuring Week. Players are not going to want to go into danger with limited HP and other resources. Making them wait longer for 'realism' purposes just drags things out with no real advantage to the game. YMMV.

[Malifice]

I've just found that GR healing/recovery turns the 5 Minute Adventuring Day into the 5 Minute Adventuring Week. Players are not going to want to go into danger with limited HP and other resources. Making them wait longer for 'realism' purposes just drags things out with no real advantage to the game. YMMV.

It's used in conjunction with doom clocks and dangerous environments (both easier to enforce with longer time frames involved) to push multiple encounter adventuring 'days' on the party.

Instead of 'save the princess/ stop the ritual by midnight tonight' it becomes 'do the thing before 2 weeks lapses'

[darknite]

It's used in conjunction with doom clocks and dangerous environments (both easier to enforce with longer time frames involved) to push multiple encounter adventuring 'days' on the party.

Instead of 'save the princess/ stop the ritual by midnight tonight' it becomes 'do the thing before 2 weeks lapses'

In that case I recommend you provide some sort of healing mechanic that allows the players to recoup losses between encounters. Make it dependent on resources - potions of healing are out there but cost a bunch of gold. So you can take your long Gritty Long Rest to regain HP or you can spend a bunch of GP. The bottom line is that you are more likely to get buy-in if you provide such an option rather than players feeling rushed into putting their PCs into harm's way at significant penalty.

[Nhorianscum]

I am interested in the gritty realism resting variant. If you don't know what it does, it makes short rests take 8 hours and a long rest take a week. I have been considering using this in my next game as I find it irrational for a DM to cram 6 encounters into a single adventuring day but with this variant you can easily do an encounter per day an not invalidate warlocks and fighters when they are compared to a wizard or paladin. I am wondering if anyone has any comments on this rule set. Should I perhaps change around somethings like should a sorcerer regain some sorcery points on short rests or maybe paladins gain back some lay on hands? I'm just looking for some advice if anyone has experience.

I tend to run gritty realism in the overworld and standard day in dungeon/dungeonlike areas. Works well as long as your setting has fluff for varrying intensities of magic/magic like effects.

As for gritty in general.

Mechanically this leads to less absurd downtime shenanigans with magic.

Fluff wise it's a way to slow down and enjoy the social and exploration pillars.

It's useable and enjoyable. I prefer to swap to standard when I need to up the pace (crawls) as a DM though

[Naanomi]

Learn Catnap and love it, be prepared for some abilities to lose utility (tiny Hit Ritual, Elven trance) magic items and abilities that recharge after a day instead of after a rest gain power

[Tanarii]

In that case I recommend you provide some sort of healing mechanic that allows the players to recoup losses between encounters. Make it dependent on resources - potions of healing are out there but cost a bunch of gold. So you can take your long Gritty Long Rest to regain HP or you can spend a bunch of GP. The bottom line is that you are more likely to get buy-in if you provide such an option rather than players feeling rushed into putting their PCs into harm's way at significant penalty.
Life is about difficult choices. Good RPG sessions are too.

[strangebloke]

I implemented a fix for when players are within dungeons or high danger areas for Gritty Realism rules:

Ley Lines. While in a Ley Line point, you rest at 10-20% of the normal time it takes for a rest. Ley Lines are full of magic and naturally shift around the planes, so while many beings may build their lairs around these rare points of energy, the Ley Line may shift over the centuries to parts of the lair that weren't intended to utilize a Ley Line. Monsters are naturally attracted to these points, and they can be detected as a source of planar, divine, and arcane energy (can be detected by virtually anyone).

Lets me put Gritty Realism in my games and still allows Dungeons to become possible. Additionally, being able to sense one means that players know that they can put more risk into a day comfortably.

Yup. For me this mechanic is called "Wells of Light and Shadow." My in-lore justification is:

Positive energy returns things to their natural state. Negative energy warps them. Both are present in equal amounts everywhere in the universe.

Except, in some places one of those forms of energy has been suppressed. This leads to regions of "shadow" where reality is warped and twisted, undead form naturally, and normal beasts are warped into strange creatures. Alternately, if negative energy is suppressed, you'll get a region where wounds and curses naturally fade at an accelerated rate.

However, in both such places, the suppression results in a pocket of concentrated positive or negative energy; a "Well of Light" lets people heal at supernatural speeds, and a "Well of Shadow" can be used for many complex magical processes.

[ChildofLuthic]

I've just found that GR healing/recovery turns the 5 Minute Adventuring Day into the 5 Minute Adventuring Week. Players are not going to want to go into danger with limited HP and other resources. Making them wait longer for 'realism' purposes just drags things out with no real advantage to the game. YMMV.

I mean, it isn't meant to solve "my overly cautious players refuse to play the game as intended." It's meant to solve "I'm not making on the kind of adventures where they can be expected to fight 6-8 things in a day." Which is a real problem depending on what sort of game you're running. If you're running a "go into ancient crypts and fight" adventure, the normal rest rules work as long as the players are going to play as intended. But if you're running a "let's explore this forest and maybe fight a monster or two every day" adventure, then even if your players play as intended, the normal rest rules don't work.

[strangebloke]

In that case I recommend you provide some sort of healing mechanic that allows the players to recoup losses between encounters. Make it dependent on resources - potions of healing are out there but cost a bunch of gold. So you can take your long Gritty Long Rest to regain HP or you can spend a bunch of GP. The bottom line is that you are more likely to get buy-in if you provide such an option rather than players feeling rushed into putting their PCs into harm's way at significant penalty.

Better advice:

Don't use doom clocks. Use soft time pressure, where better outcomes can happen if you rush, but even if you fail there's a way for you to keep playing the campaign.

So for example in my last campaign, the city one of my characters was from got destroyed because the party didn't save it in time. It was a big, dramatic moment. They could have prevented the city from getting destroyed, but they failed.

...And that was fine. They had to retreat from the final encounter, and live to fight another day. It made that villain really threatening and was loads of fun when they finally did take him down.

If players assume they can win every fight, it leads to boring campaigns.

[ad_hoc]

In that case I recommend you provide some sort of healing mechanic that allows the players to recoup losses between encounters. Make it dependent on resources - potions of healing are out there but cost a bunch of gold. So you can take your long Gritty Long Rest to regain HP or you can spend a bunch of GP. The bottom line is that you are more likely to get buy-in if you provide such an option rather than players feeling rushed into putting their PCs into harm's way at significant penalty.

If the characters have the situation so dominated that they can approach it at their leisure, then just assume they succeeded and move on to the next adventure.

There is no tension or excitement in it. So move on.

[Malifice]

Better advice:

Don't use doom clocks. Use soft time pressure, where better outcomes can happen if you rush, but even if you fail there's a way for you to keep playing the campaign.

A doom clock doesnt have to be campaign ending mate. Heck that should be avoided at all costs.

All you need to do is set up a temporal contraint (and consequences for missing the deadline) into your adventures.


Save the princess/ prisoners before the lizardfolk eat them/ the cultists sacrifice them and you dont get paid
Stop the ritual before midnight or else demon gets released
Recover the macguffin from the BBEG or else he uses it and becomes immortal
Find an escape from the ruins before thenbad guys find you
Beat the NPC adventuring group to the hidden treasure
Save your daughter from Mendoza and Bennett before they find out you're not on the plane
Blow up the Death Star before it blows up Yavin
Shut down the shield generator before the Rebel fleet get to Endor
Throw the ring of power into the volcano before Sauron finds it
Find a cure for the plague before NPC dies
Find a way to stop a curse before it messes you up
Recover a special trinket from a bandit camp before they move on to a different location
Defend the castle from the besieging army until sun rise when the relief army is due to arrive


Etc etc etc.

When you sit down during the week to stat up your encounters and design your aventure, you should be turning your mind to the temporal restraints (framed in such a way as to preserve the length of adventuring day you're after) and consequences for success or failure before this time ticks over

[strangebloke]

A doom clock doesnt have to be campaign ending mate. Heck that should be avoided at all costs.

When you sit down during the week to stat up your encounters and design your aventure, you should be turning your mind to the temporal restraints (framed in such a way as to preserve the length of adventuring day you're after) and consequences for success or failure before this time ticks over

...isn't that what I just said?

Doom clock is a term I don't love because it implies doom. AKA the end. But I get the idea of time pressure as being important, as well as allowing the party to be able to fail.

[tchntm43]

I agree with the purpose of GR, but not the method they use to achieve it. In our game, we've kept Short Rest = 1 hr, Long Rest = 8 hours, and added a 3rd category for a week or more (or automatically between adventures). But we've completely rewritten what actually happens during those rests to make it more realistic. We tend to play fewer hostile encounters anyway.

Here's what it breaks down to in our game:
Short Rest (1 hr): Heal 1 HP, if that character uses the time to rest. Can't spend Hit Dice. Abilities like Second Wind and Action Surge are recovered, and can use Short Rest abilities like Arcane Recovery. If a character makes a DC 15 Medicine check then that character can then spend 1 HD. They can also use this check to try and heal a different character instead (that character uses his/her own hit dice, though, if the check succeeds).
Long Rest (8 hrs): Heal 1 HD worth of HP, if that character uses the time to rest. Can spend any number of hit dice in addition to that. All abilities and spell slots recover. In this case, the DC 15 Medicine check means that character restores 2 HD worth of HP instead, and again they can opt to use it to heal a different character.
Very Long Rest (1 week): Same as a vanilla Long Rest, everything restored. Only way to get Hit Dice back by resting, so basically hit dice are limited per adventure.

I'm well aware that this rule can't be dropped into any game. It works in our game because there are fewer encounters. It may still need some tweaking at higher levels (because a fixed 1 HP for short rest is pretty insignificant when the character has 80+). In general, it's a bit more realistic that, if the party is camping out after getting a beating, and all the healers have already expended their spells, they get a little back with rest but they still wake up bruised and sore the next morning.

[Xetheral]

That's par for the course in your standard dungeon. Your average dungeon level (includes ruins, lairs, temples, castles, forest trails etc - the kind of locale that features in every adventure ever written, ever) usually features around 6-8 encounters, in close proximity to each other, designed to be dealt with in a single (in game) day.

Unless you always fight in Silence, or the dungeon is an anachronistic sound recording studio, I'm hard pressed to imagine that the other dungeon occupants won't change their behavior at the sound of battle. If they are attracted to the commotion, you get one giant encounter total (or a series of back-to-back encounters if the other occupants trickle in). If they flee the dungeon, you just get the first encounter. If they group up for a coordinated assault or fall back and barricade themselves, you get the first encounter plus another big one.

I suppose if the dungeon is densely populated and your attack unleashes pandemonium, you might find 5 more separate groups of uncoordinated residents and be able to fight them separately? Or maybe if the dungeon was phenomenally huge, or had a lot of background noise, then the other occupants might remain unaware of the first combat?


If the characters have the situation so dominated that they can approach it at their leisure, then just assume they succeeded and move on to the next adventure.

There is no tension or excitement in it. So move on.

I think that depends on how challenging the situation was in the first place. Sure, accomplishing something trivial can be safely skipped. But if the players successfully tilt the odds in their favor to the point that a great challenge has become a cake walk, I'd rather focus heavily on that accomplishment and let it play out so that the players can savor their victory.

[Naanomi]

As an aside, I think it is funny how this variant is somehow 'gritty realism'... true gritty realism would be getting an infection from a rat bite and dying after 2d6 days of crippling fever unless you get magic healing in most classic 'dark ages fantasy' settings right?

[Man_Over_Game]

The rest houserule I use is kind of like a toned-down Gritty Realism: short rests are 8 hours, long rests are 24. Hit points don't recover automatically on long rests, you have to spend hit dice. The idea is to extend the 6-8 encounter "adventuring day" over a few days instead of one. With two short rests between long rests, an "adventuring day" is 3 days, which means I only need 2-3 encounters per day. Much more manageable. It also pushes my PCs to camp out in the wild a little, which I like. The idea is to do all of that without making dungeoneering impossible, like the Gritty Realism variant does.

I do exactly this, combined with my aforementioned Ley Line concept.

Combined, this means that players won't get a Long Rest unless it's planned, or if adventuring is slow (so that they're fully charged when they jump back on the horse).

With 1-2 encounters per day, and me able to put in a Ley Line whenever it's necessary (reducing rest times from 8/SR and 24/LR to 1/SR and 6/LR), it's a very happy balance between utilizing limited resources and enabling multiple encounters in a row. If the players want to barricade a temporary rest area near a Ley Line, more power to them.

The complicated part is whether or not a combat or travel during a Long Rest still allows it to count as a Long Rest, and how much. I'm still on the fence, but I think that as long as it's less than 1 hour of stress (like combat), or less than 6 hours of moderate travel, it will still count as a Long Rest.

[Hecuba]

This is very true. In my campaign, GR has resulted in the wilderness being the dungeons. A traditional dungeon does not make sense with GR, at least not without magical items that heal and cast spells... At which point, how is it gritty. An exception would be Rogues who don't need any rests, only lots of healing potions in dungeons in GR.

I find the key is that if the party is going to be interacting with an inhabited dungeon over the course of a week or more, they need to do so in a manner where their activities should not be reasonably considered the primary focus of the inhabitants' activities.

That can mean stealth - for example, actively concealing a safe location in an abandoned or very low-traffic area.
It can mean subterfuge - passing as slaves of the fire giants while sneaking off at convenient times to work on the mission.
It can mean a larger, more pressing conflict - a party infiltrating to carry out a quest behind enemy lines while the dungeon is besieged by their allies, and retreating if the need to rest.