Rest rules thoughts.

[diplomancer]

I was re-reading the rest rules in the DMG and noticed this interesting paragraph in the Epic Heroism variant rule:

"Spellcasters using this system can afford to burn through spell slots quickly, especially at higher levels. Consider allowing spellcasters to restore expended spell slots equal to only half their maximum spell slots (rounded down) at the end of a long rest, and to limit spell slots restored to 5th level or lower. Only a full 8-hour rest will allow a spellcaster to restore all spell slots and to regain spell slots of 6th level or higher."

And I thought, why not use this system, but with the regular rest rules? A long rest allows you to recover half their maximum spell slots, only a full week of downtime allows them to recover all their spell slots (as in the gritty realism)? This might solve wilderness exploration issues (where a caster just Nova's on any random encounter, making them entirely pointless), strengthening the short-rest classes, without creating weird mechanics like I've seen proposed ("use gritty variant for wilderness exploration and regular rules for dungeon exploring")

What are your thoughts on that? Would it be too much of a nerf on spellcasters? They've been dominating my campaign lately (chapter 3 of SKT, with a lot of wilderness exploration and travel).

[Unoriginal]

This subject is one of those on which any theoretical discussion would be either too generic or too table-specific to be useful.

Try it for a few sessions, see if it works for your table.


Wouldn't work for mine.

[Malifice]

Limit short rests to 2/ long rest and make them 5 minutes long as well and you're golden.

[diplomancer]

Limit short rests to 2/ long rest and make them 5 minutes long as well and you're golden.

That solves the balance between Long and Short rests, but does not solve the problem of "long days of travels", or making travel dangerous in general, or any situation when you are not expecting a lot of encounters each day.

[Man_Over_Game]

That solves the balance between Long and Short rests, but does not solve the problem of "long days of travels", or making travel dangerous in general, or any situation when you are not expecting a lot of encounters each day.

For when you want to balance around travel days:
Short Rests = 8 Hours. Long Rest = 32 (an entire day of light activities).

When you need a quick Short Rest or to fit in more combat (like in Dungeons), I implement one of these solutions:


Adrenaline Surge: Bosses upgrade in the middle of the fight. When they do so, the heroes get Exhaustion and the benefits of a Short Rest.
Ley Lines: Powerful nodes of arcane energy allow nearby creatures to gain the benefits of a rest in a very short amount of time. Those hungry for power often build their lairs around such sources of power.


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As for your recommendation, I just can't suggest that anyone takes a full week of downtime in a campaign. It just incentivizes your players to not Adventure and to take up real jobs, which kinda defeats the point. 1-2 days is a lot more palatable/manageable than 7.

[Trask]

For when you want to balance around travel days:
As for your recommendation, I just can't suggest that anyone takes a full week of downtime in a campaign. It just incentivizes your players to not Adventure and to take up real jobs, which kinda defeats the point. 1-2 days is a lot more palatable/manageable than 7.

I think it depends on the kinds of adventures you run. In a more slow paced, player driven regional sandbox I think it might be perfect, but in a mission to save world/kingdom/tri-state area it might not fun at all.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think it depends on the kinds of adventures you run. In a more slow paced, player driven regional sandbox I think it might be perfect, but in a mission to save world/kingdom/tri-state area it might not fun at all.

Sure, but then you just don't balance things based off of travel days.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the standard system. I'm saying that if you think there's something wrong with it, there're options.

[Trask]

I think that some kind of way to spread/smooth out the massive power reset that casters get on a long rest is a good thing for the kinds of games I run. I'm not sure if a week is too long, it does feel like an intimidating amount of time but I think it would be an interesting rule to try. I particularly like that the caster is still getting some spells back on a long rest, but hes not getting his super-powerful ones which are really the ones that (I feel) are what make days without many, many encounters such a triviality.

Dangerous wilderness exploration/non-dungeon exploration in general just really doesnt work well in RAW, unhouseruled 5e. Its either an ever continuing arms race of supernova PCs vs absolutely absurd CR monsters or a disbelief stretching cavalcade of encounters in what is supposed to be desolate wilderness just to maintain some semblance of encounter and adventure design at all.

OP's suggestion is a very intriguing and seemingly decent fix for that.

[Errata]

During periods of time dominated by travel, we sometimes have the night just be counted as a "short rest" mechanically to keep things balanced. As a full caster, even it's a random encounter and I expect to be able to rest, I will refrain from going nova just to show off and outshine the martial characters. I will only pull out all the stops if I think there's a real chance we might fail otherwise.

[diplomancer]

I think that some kind of way to spread/smooth out the massive power reset that casters get on a long rest is a good thing for the kinds of games I run. I'm not sure if a week is too long, it does feel like an intimidating amount of time but I think it would be an interesting rule to try. I particularly like that the caster is still getting some spells back on a long rest, but hes not getting his super-powerful ones which are really the ones that (I feel) are what make days without many, many encounters such a triviality.

Dangerous wilderness exploration/non-dungeon exploration in general just really doesnt work well in RAW, unhouseruled 5e. Its either an ever continuing arms race of supernova PCs vs absolutely absurd CR monsters or a disbelief stretched cavalcade of encounters in what is supposed to be desolate wilderness.

OP's suggestion is a very intriguing and seemingly decent fix for that.

The one week time looks a bit long to me too, my thought was, basically "if heroic resting rules require 8 hours (regular rules Long Rest) to get all spells back, why not make regular rest rules require gritty variant long rest to get them back as well?".

That said, you gave me another idea, but it does stretch a bit believability, and probably not good for game play. Once you know how long it should take for the players to get from point A to point B, have all the possible encounters be concentrated on as few days as possible, with nothing happening on most days.

[Trask]

When it says you can recover half your maximum spell slots rounded down, does that mean you can take 2-3 long rests and get half your spells back each time? Or are you limited to recovering half your max until you long rest?