Has anyone played a “gritty realism” game?

[FabulousFizban]

How did it go?
EDIT: how would you “fix” gritty realism?

[Teaguethebean]

The game I'm running now is gritty realism and I love it. It makes the overland travel my game has far better. If each day you get everything back then nothing is lost from the 1 per day random encounter but with gritty realism if my players fought a troll then they have lost resources by the next day. It also helps kick the habit off the 5-minute adventure day. I also have in my world there are magical hotspots where the standard testing rules are used and super magical hotspots that use high fantasy Resting rules.

[Pex]

Irrelevant, and I mean that sincerely. Whatever rest variant suits your fancy for your game is fine. What matters is the ratio of the number of short and long rests you get per game session. Players feel fulfilled using their stuff and getting it back. The experience of play affects their mood. That doesn't mean they must have a long rest every game session, though nothing wrong with that if they do, but rather if they haven't rested for three game sessions already they're going to be frustrated and angry, and it won't matter if a long rest is one game world hour, night, week, or millennia. Story pacing can determine the suitable game world rest length you need, but whatever it is let the players rest already.

[Eldariel]

Irrelevant, and I mean that sincerely. Whatever rest variant suits your fancy for your game is fine. What matters is the ratio of the number of short and long rests you get per game session. Players feel fulfilled using their stuff and getting it back. The experience of play affects their mood. That doesn't mean they must have a long rest every game session, though nothing wrong with that if they do, but rather if they haven't rested for three game sessions already they're going to be frustrated and angry, and it won't matter if a long rest is one game world hour, night, week, or millennia. Story pacing can determine the suitable game world rest length you need, but whatever it is let the players rest already.

The longer the rest, the larger the likelihood of never getting said rest though. You have to be in a safe location indeed to have any real chance of resting a week undisturbed, much less when fighting a powerful hostile organisation. If long rest is a week, your casters will have to go through the entire adventure with mostly cantrips in all likelihood (though of course, given how strong 5e cantrips are, that's not really an issue)

[zockeros]

Tried it during two campaigns.
It can get troublesome. The game becomes much less flexible. Short Rests work fine but become more enforced as risking to go over your limits and take exhaustion is less of an option. Long Rests change the flow of the game a lot beecause you always to need to time everything to have those 7 days. The result were either artificial breaks and adventures that didn't felt as immersive or stretched periods between Long Rests that ended up frustrating for any class with limited resources.

[Teaguethebean]

Tried it during two campaigns.
It can get troublesome. The game becomes much less flexible. Short Rests work fine but become more enforced as risking to go over your limits and take exhaustion is less of an option. Long Rests change the flow of the game a lot beecause you always to need to time everything to have those 7 days. The result were either artificial breaks and adventures that didn't felt as immersive or stretched periods between Long Rests that ended up frustrating for any class with limited resources.

You bring up some good points I suppose I should have mentioned I shortened a long rest to 4 days and I made exaustion go away on a short rest (My berserker barbarian is having a blast)

[Waterdeep Merch]

It doesn't really work well within the confines of the system, at least as I found it. Things deal too much damage, healing is too impotent, and forget about anything even remotely resembling a dungeon crawl- the players better only have .7 encounters a day, or they're going to get run ragged and feel miserable about it. There's nothing "fun" about it, since gritty realism is about pressure. Your players will avoid fights wherever they can, which might be what you want. But I'd also argue that 5e isn't the best system to use if your plan is to avoid combat.

Compare this to the 5 minute short rest. Players get excited when you tell them you're doing that. They feel more inclined to go all-out in every fight, and then they get loose and creative. Encounters become more of a joy for both sides.

[GlenSmash!]

It essentially turns the Adventuring day into an adventuring week, while also requiring a week of downtime between adventuring weeks.

I like the first part, but find the latter troublesome.

Shorten the long rest to 24-48 hours and You pretty much have turned adventuring into a standard work week with a weekend off. Which I like better.

[Pex]

The longer the rest, the larger the likelihood of never getting said rest though. You have to be in a safe location indeed to have any real chance of resting a week undisturbed, much less when fighting a powerful hostile organisation. If long rest is a week, your casters will have to go through the entire adventure with mostly cantrips in all likelihood (though of course, given how strong 5e cantrips are, that's not really an issue)

It still depends on the DM allowing for the party to find a safe location to rest. It doesn't matter how strong cantrips are. When that's all the spellcaster is doing for two game sessions already because the DM absolutely refuses to let them find a safe area to rest the player will rightly be po'd.

[FabulousFizban]

It essentially turns the Adventuring day into an adventuring week, while also requiring a week of downtime between adventuring weeks.

I like the first part, but find the latter troublesome.

Shorten the long rest to 24-48 hours and You pretty much have turned adventuring into a standard work week with a weekend off. Which I like better.

i like a short rest taking 8 hours, but a week for a long rest seems too long and makes me hesitant on the format. turning a long rest into 48 hours seems like a good middle ground to me, but how about this: what if a short rest was still 8 hours, but your features regenerated as during a long rest after a week whether you rest or not?

basically, all your features regenerate once a week no matter what. or maybe, if you want to get more micro about it, a week from when you used that feature. burn a 5th level slot one day and a 3rd the next? that 5th slot will regenerate before the 3rd. what does the playground think?

[GlenSmash!]

i like a short rest taking 8 hours, but a week for a long rest seems too long and makes me hesitant on the format. turning a long rest into 48 hours seems like a good middle ground to me, but how about this: what if a short rest was still 8 hours, but your features regenerated as during a long rest after a week whether you rest or not?

basically, all your features regenerate once a week no matter what. or maybe, if you want to get more micro about it, a week from when you used that feature. burn a 5th level slot one day and a 3rd the next? that 5th slot will regenerate before the 3rd. what does the playground think?

Something like "Your seventh Short Rest gains the benefits of a Long Rest"? I could see that working.

Though I am a bit partial to the day or two long rest. Like the Fellowship resting in Rivendell or Lothlorien.

[Lance Tankmen]

yes, but i home brew to give casters and some classes a chance to regain things on a short rest

[Doug Lampert]

Something like "Your seventh Short Rest gains the benefits of a Long Rest"? I could see that working.

Though I am a bit partial to the day or two long rest. Like the Fellowship resting in Rivendell or Lothlorien.

Those are not day or two long rests. Those are month or two rests!

Frodo enters Rivendell on October 20, he leaves on December 25.

The fellowship enters Lothlorien on 15 January and leaves on 16 February, there's even a comment when one of the characters is surprised to see from the moon how much time has passed.

Tolkien had combat experience and had read lots of sagas. He knew that recovery takes time and he also knew that saying "then a week passes" is easy.

[GlenSmash!]

Those are not day or two long rests. Those are month or two rests!

Frodo enters Rivendell on October 20, he leaves on December 25.

The fellowship enters Lothlorien on 15 January and leaves on 16 February, there's even a comment when one of the characters is surprised to see from the moon how much time has passed.

Tolkien had combat experience and had read lots of sagas. He knew that recovery takes time and he also knew that saying "then a week passes" is easy.

Details, details. :smallwink:

I like the feel of it more than exactly replicating it.

[jjordan]

How did it go?
EDIT: how would you “fix” gritty realism?
For simplified gritty I like recovering 1HD per hour of rest. 1 hour counts as a short rest for all other game mechanics. 8 hours(4 hours for elves) counts as a long rest for all other game mechanics.

For more complexity I like distinguishing between meat points (which recover at the DMG gritty realism rate unless treated/healed) and energy/determination which recovers as above. Meat point damage can also cause lingering effects (e.g. the broken hand will prevent you from using two-handed weapons).

Characters get healed up enough that they are mostly able to keep to standard pacing if that is desired but wounds have lingering/lasting effects.

[Willie the Duck]

i like a short rest taking 8 hours, but a week for a long rest seems too long and makes me hesitant on the format. turning a long rest into 48 hours seems like a good middle ground to me, but how about this: what if a short rest was still 8 hours, but your features regenerated as during a long rest after a week whether you rest or not?

That's certainly an option. Another is a long rest triggers off a full day of uninterrupted rest in a fairly comfortable situation -- so if you can find a out of the way copse of trees and avoid all the wandering monster checks for a full day (not just 8 hours), you get your recharge.


It doesn't really work well within the confines of the system, at least as I found it. Things deal too much damage, healing is too impotent, and forget about anything even remotely resembling a dungeon crawl- the players better only have .7 encounters a day, or they're going to get run ragged and feel miserable about it.

Fundamentally, this is the problem. We kind of want to get rid of the 15 minute workday, because then it's just nova-time for the LR-recharging casters, particularly during wilderness travel or in-city social (where you simply aren't going to have massively multiple encounters per day), but then when you pull up to the dungeon, you kind of do want to be able to get some benefit from an hour's respite in a bolthole somewhere, and if you can hoof it back out of the dungeon and find a secure spot to rest for 8 hours, maybe you do want to get some spells back.


Compare this to the 5 minute short rest. Players get excited when you tell them you're doing that. They feel more inclined to go all-out in every fight, and then they get loose and creative. Encounters become more of a joy for both sides.

Er, um, no. Pretty much everyone I have ever played with consider the 5 minute workday to be the central problem with D&D, we just all have different ideas on how best to fix it.


How did it go?
EDIT: how would you “fix” gritty realism?

The best answer, to my mind, is to make recharges be based on circumstances, rather than a strict time-ruling. There isn't a perfect answer to the question other than a judicious DM saying, 'yeah, you can get a short rest in here,' as well as, 'no, you are not going to be able to take a long rest now, next time don't blow all your high-level spells on the first encounter.'

[Teaguethebean]

yes, but i home brew to give casters and some classes a chance to regain things on a short rest

I feel that is not necessary at all. Do you give back your fighter long rest resources too? All classes but sorcerer, barbarian, and rogue already have good ways to gain back resources on a short rest and I feel rogue is kinda null for this point and unless you also would give back other resources for short rest classes like hit dice or a fighters indomitable you will quickly invalidate short rest classes

[TyGuy]

Loved it. I heavily modified it. Players didn't try to abuse rests once. The time scales were more organic as well. Would recommend for large scope campaigns with lots of travel time.

[Fable Wright]

I'm in such a game now, and running another.

Love it. We did multiply spell durations by 10, so Mage Armor lasts 80 hours instead of 8, and just have every seventh short rest become a long one. The fact that the day of the long rest is known adds a layer of strategic resources manipulation, and it lets the adventuring week actually hold 6-8 encounters.

[Doug Lampert]

Details, details. :smallwink:

I like the feel of it more than exactly replicating it.

But there's no problem with the current gritty realism by the book for exactly replicating the feel of it when it comes to long rests.

You just need to learn to say the words, "then a week passes."

That's it. That's the sum total adjustment the players need to make. The GM can then decide if something dramatic happens in the world during that week.

You may also want to modify hour+ duration spells to have a duration in days equal to their old duration in hours or something, but I'm just not seeing where, "then 48 hours passes" is that much easier to say than "then a week passes".

A long rest is SUPPOSED to be long enough that the defenses could plausibly reset, that more wandering monsters could plausibly arrive, that the orcs could plausibly have found reinforcements. With a week it is actually long enough for all those things.

Pull out of the dungeon to rest 8 hours, pull out of the dungeon to rest 168 hours, either way the key is that you have pulled out of the dungeon for long enough for things that should reset have time to reset. Needing overnight for a short rest is actually the problem introduced by gritty realism for classic dungeon crawls, but then a lot of people have trouble justifying even a 1 hour short rest in a classic dungeon crawl game.

[Lance Tankmen]

I feel that is not necessary at all. Do you give back your fighter long rest resources too? All classes but sorcerer, barbarian, and rogue already have good ways to gain back resources on a short rest and I feel rogue is kinda null for this point and unless you also would give back other resources for short rest classes like hit dice or a fighters indomitable you will quickly invalidate short rest classes
never really a fighter use it, tbh but i address things as they appear. Yes wizards freely get half level back in spell slots. but i figured id give the classes a chance, DC16 + spell slot using a skill based on class nature for druid,rangers etc arcane for sorcs just cause

[Pex]

But there's no problem with the current gritty realism by the book for exactly replicating the feel of it when it comes to long rests.

You just need to learn to say the words, "then a week passes."

That's it. That's the sum total adjustment the players need to make. The GM can then decide if something dramatic happens in the world during that week.

You may also want to modify hour+ duration spells to have a duration in days equal to their old duration in hours or something, but I'm just not seeing where, "then 48 hours passes" is that much easier to say than "then a week passes".

Yep. It is simple as that. The game world time is as whatever the story finds appropriate. As long as players get their rests all is well.


A long rest is SUPPOSED to be long enough that the defenses could plausibly reset, that more wandering monsters could plausibly arrive, that the orcs could plausibly have found reinforcements. With a week it is actually long enough for all those things.

Pull out of the dungeon to rest 8 hours, pull out of the dungeon to rest 168 hours, either way the key is that you have pulled out of the dungeon for long enough for things that should reset have time to reset. Needing overnight for a short rest is actually the problem introduced by gritty realism for classic dungeon crawls, but then a lot of people have trouble justifying even a 1 hour short rest in a classic dungeon crawl game.

That's when Heroic Recovery should be used - short rest is 5 minutes, long rest 1 hour, caveat spellcasters get back only half spell levels spent. Still need 8 hours to get back all spell slots.

[TyGuy]

I applied my own variation to great effect. I did it for narrative reasons. I wanted a large scale campaign and I had short rest classes in the party so I wanted to slow things down to more realistic time scales. Some people are quick to point out how bad long-rest abuse is for gritty realism but that problem lies with the long rest abuse, not the time scale. My players never abused the long rest and were actually really good about continuing the full day's adventures at less than 100% strength/health instead of hunkering down for a short rest after every combat. One important thing to keep in mind is dungeon crawling. Encounters in general, but especially dungeons where there are several, should be scaled down a little to accommodate the new time scale. Or in some cases you can design a dungeon to be conducive to a night's respite so the party can sneak in a short rest.

Here are the changes I made

Short rest was the former criteria of a long rest. 8 hr rest, 6 of which has to be sleep. Limited to one per 24hr (typically night's sleep)
Long rest was 5 consecutive days of full short rests (no skipping a night's sleep) and medium/light activity.
Spell durations were multiplied by 5 where applicable.
Some 1 round/turn abilities were extended to multiple turns/rounds. They were adjusted by feel.
Exhaustion was heavily altered.
Exhaustion was removed by a short rest instead of long
Each level of exhaustion required that many rests to remove. E.g. level 2 exhaustion took three nights. Two to remove the level 2 and another to remove the level 1.
Skipping short rests required a con save against exhaustion instead of skipping long rests.



Found my old post, here's the alterations I made to gritty realism.

[jjordan]

Found my old post, here's the alterations I made to gritty realism.That seems logical and very consistent.

[Eldariel]

Yep. It is simple as that. The game world time is as whatever the story finds appropriate. As long as players get their rests all is well.

That's only one way to run the game though. If the world is actually organic, story kind of builds itself and the DM no longer has to actually plan anything but rather just set the starting point and manage the events rather than decide them. This way, player actions have way more potential for impact and indeed, the adventure may conclude in a surprising way for the DM too. In such a world, a week's long rest carries a lot of repercussions from giving hostile factions a great time to strike at the PCs or go for their own goals undisturbed (but of course, they also need their long rests to regain their abilities, which in turn gives openings to the PCs) if the information of the PCs being resting somewhere is leaked, and it places a premium on long rest recovery abilities (since you have to make do with what you've got left if you end up under attack during a rest or forced to move at an unopportune moment).

[FoxWolFrostFire]

Always wanted too! But my group has always been to whimpy to follow through!

[Demonslayer666]

I don't like the current long rest system with regards to healing, and I definitely dislike gritty realism. One week to regain your spells seems ridiculous after playing D&D for 40 years and regaining them daily. And any time constraint seems way too taxing.

I think most things should refresh daily (or shorter) except healing. I like the idea of a week of rest fully healing you. I'm going to try a hybrid of the two in my next game, where you recover less HD on a long rest, and it takes a full week to fully heal, but everything else stays the same.

[MThurston]

Yes. The game system is Harn.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Fundamentally, this is the problem. We kind of want to get rid of the 15 minute workday, because then it's just nova-time for the LR-recharging casters, particularly during wilderness travel or in-city social (where you simply aren't going to have massively multiple encounters per day), but then when you pull up to the dungeon, you kind of do want to be able to get some benefit from an hour's respite in a bolthole somewhere, and if you can hoof it back out of the dungeon and find a secure spot to rest for 8 hours, maybe you do want to get some spells back.



Er, um, no. Pretty much everyone I have ever played with consider the 5 minute workday to be the central problem with D&D, we just all have different ideas on how best to fix it.

Difference in experience. When I make it easy for my players to get a short rest after most fights, they go for much longer before stopping for a long rest. The only major problem I've ever seen is the warlock. Pact Magic needs specific nerfs to not blow that variant to bits, like 'you can only recharge your spell slots 1 + tier per day'.

Isn't there some sort of differential resting mechanic in the Middle Earth game? I've been interested in that one. The idea that there are several different sorts of rests for travel versus exploration could really benefit the former.

[GlenSmash!]

Difference in experience. When I make it easy for my players to get a short rest after most fights, they go for much longer before stopping for a long rest. The only major problem I've ever seen is the warlock. Pact Magic needs specific nerfs to not blow that variant to bits, like 'you can only recharge your spell slots 1 + tier per day'.

Isn't there some sort of differential resting mechanic in the Middle Earth game? I've been interested in that one. The idea that there are several different sorts of rests for travel versus exploration could really benefit the former.

The only differences in Adventures in Middle-Earth is that the company cannot take a long rest during Journeys (Overland Travel) and a guideline that to get a long rest during the Adventuring Phase consider if the company has Safety from threat of attack, Comfort, and Tranquility.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The only differences in Adventures in Middle-Earth is that the company cannot take a long rest during Journeys (Overland Travel) and a guideline that to get a long rest during the Adventuring Phase consider if the company has Safety from threat of attack, Comfort, and Tranquility.
Ahh. Well, it's somewhat helpful. I was hoping for a bit more nuance.

And it still doesn't seem to be able to deal with Leomund's Tiny Hut and friends.

[GlenSmash!]

Ahh. Well, it's somewhat helpful. I was hoping for a bit more nuance.

And it still doesn't seem to be able to deal with Leomund's Tiny Hut and friends.

Yeah, no Tiny Huts or Rope Tricks in Middle-Earth.

[Pex]

That's only one way to run the game though. If the world is actually organic, story kind of builds itself and the DM no longer has to actually plan anything but rather just set the starting point and manage the events rather than decide them. This way, player actions have way more potential for impact and indeed, the adventure may conclude in a surprising way for the DM too. In such a world, a week's long rest carries a lot of repercussions from giving hostile factions a great time to strike at the PCs or go for their own goals undisturbed (but of course, they also need their long rests to regain their abilities, which in turn gives openings to the PCs) if the information of the PCs being resting somewhere is leaked, and it places a premium on long rest recovery abilities (since you have to make do with what you've got left if you end up under attack during a rest or forced to move at an unopportune moment).

If the PCs are in a constant time constraint such that if they rest the world is doomed so they never can that's the fault of the DM. Time constraint is fine within a given adventure, usually one meant to be solved in one game session. However, if they save the village and need to rest, it's the DM's fault the next village over got destroyed because the party rested.

[Eldariel]

If the PCs are in a constant time constraint such that if they rest the world is doomed so they never can that's the fault of the DM. Time constraint is fine within a given adventure, usually one meant to be solved in one game session. However, if they save the village and need to rest, it's the DM's fault the next village over got destroyed because the party rested.

Time constraints and events happening constantly are two different things. The PCs could save the village if they chose to fight without their big guns, or they could've conserved their big guns if they needed it. They choose to give up the village to have a better chance dealing with the enemy at the next strategic location. Of course, that's a huge information loss if they knew this attack was coming but can't predict the next one. Resting is always a trade-off; it means enemies get free moves while you gain more power. Same applies to enemies though.

[Teaguethebean]

Time constraints and events happening constantly are two different things. The PCs could save the village if they chose to fight without their big guns, or they could've conserved their big guns if they needed it. They choose to give up the village to have a better chance dealing with the enemy at the next strategic location. Of course, that's a huge information loss if they knew this attack was coming but can't predict the next one. Resting is always a trade-off; it means enemies get free moves while you gain more power. Same applies to enemies though.

This hypothetical sounds like the PC's are the only ones who can deal with any problem that honestly makes the world feel far more fake and inorganic.

[Pex]

If the DM has the bad guys win off camera to spite the players taking a rest, the world wasn't worth saving or playing in.

[JellyPooga]

If the DM has the bad guys win off camera to spite the players taking a rest, the world wasn't worth saving or playing in.

I think this is a slightly narrow perspective.

The bad guys can win off camera IF the win was due to a player choice. "Save the princess before she's sacrificed in the big ritual!" is a classic time sensitive quest that the players can lose by boozing it up in the tavern or doing other missions. Nothing wrong with a quest timing-out if the players are aware of the time pressure. It can even heighten the tension of back-to-back quests or encounters, as Eldariel mentions; saving resources on one mission to be better prepared for the next, or vice-versa, is a choice the players have if their resources are more heavily influenced by time (i.e. it takes longer to rest).

An example of "doing it wrong" would be telling the players they have two weeks and then pulling a fast one by telling their info was wrong, or giving them false information based on a bad roll. That would be a game not worth the time playing.

I've never actually played using Gritty Realism, but I like the theory of it. As written, it does change the dynamic of a game because the Long Rest goes from being 8 times the length of a Short Rest in Standard play to 21 times the length under Gritty Realism. It's also worth noting the convenience factor. Using Standard rests, taking an hour out of a day to Short Rest is something you can choose to do or not, depending on the players whims and opportunity, but outside of unusual circumstances you will almost always have a Long Rest because what else are you going to do while sleeping? Gritty Realism turns this on its head and makes Short Rests the one that you "might as well" take while sleeping and Long Rests become the optional/"when we get a chance" choice. This puts pressure on Long Rest based Classes to conserve their resources more (because the cost of taking a Long Rest is higher than taking a Short Rest), while the Short Rest ones will be more inclined to adventure day after day (every day they're back up to full-strength); the reverse of what I usually see when using Standard rules, where the Long Rest guys are often pressuring the Short Rest ones to push on through more encounters a day than they're ready for (because the cost of taking a Short Rest is higher than that of a Long Rest).

Yes, the game is still balanced around taking 2-3 Short Rests between each Long Rest and roughly 6-8 encounters per Long Rest, but it's worth bearing in mind the will and choices of the Players in the face of that encounter/adventure design, in addition to the possibilities inherent to the time scales involved (RE: dungeons "re-spawning", time-sensitive missions, etc.).

[Eldariel]

This hypothetical sounds like the PC's are the only ones who can deal with any problem that honestly makes the world feel far more fake and inorganic.

Obviously not my point, I'm just trying to highlight the dynamics between the PC actions and the world to a person, who seems to be claiming that PCs spending a week doing nothing should have no bearing on what's going on in the world. Of course other aligned factions can help the PCs' cause while the PCs are resting and the village isn't guaranteed to fall but by the time the PCs are in their teens, they're big movers and their absence or presence is going to have a dramatic impact on the course of any events.


If the DM has the bad guys win off camera to spite the players taking a rest, the world wasn't worth saving or playing in.

Bad guys winning a fight doesn't mean them winning the war and the PCs taking a rest is a very real decision with very real consequences. Similarly, the PCs can win a fight while the bad guys (or some of them) are restring or attack the bad guys while their pants are down. But if you do sit down for long enough in the face of a world threatening plot, the world will of course end eventually; all it takes for evil to win is for the good guys to do nothing.

Of course, our styles of games are so different that it's probably impossible to ever reconcile them; I prefer sandboxy and combat-as-war (https://web.archive.org/web/20190213233924/https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?317715-Very-Long-Combat-as-Sport-vs-Combat-as-War-a-Key-Difference-in-D-amp-D-Play-Styles), while you seem to be pretty railroady and combat-as-sports (https://web.archive.org/web/20190213233924/https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?317715-Very-Long-Combat-as-Sport-vs-Combat-as-War-a-Key-Difference-in-D-amp-D-Play-Styles). As such, all of these are stylistic decisions more so than facts and thus there can never be an agreement. Of course, it's up to the table to ultimately determine the kind of game they'd like to play.

[ad_hoc]

It's just a narrative device.

Use it if you feel more comfortable with foes completing machinations/hassling the PCs on a scale of days rather than hours.

It doesn't take more table time to say your rest takes longer.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

How did it go?
EDIT: how would you “fix” gritty realism?

Yes. Bad each and every time.

D&D was not designed for it and it takes a lot of work to make D&D work with it and no, using the alternate rules in the DMG doesn't help.

D&D is a combat oriented game and overwhelmingly majority of the system is centered around combat.

The social and explorative side of D&D has fallen to the wayside and is replaced with "Well, DM, what do you think".

My suggestion would be to play a different, more compatitble system. Or do a cray cray amount of homevrwwing before hand so people know what they're getting into.

=====
Edit: It went better with systems designed for gritty realism. Heck Call of Cthulu was way better for this set up and we just turned it into CoC + D&D Setting.

[Fable Wright]

D&D is a combat oriented game and overwhelmingly majority of the system is centered around combat.

The social and explorative side of D&D has fallen to the wayside and is replaced with "Well, DM, what do you think".

And yet.

When D&D was designed as a miniatures tactical game first, its sales were a fraction of what 5e has managed to pull off. The pull back to fewer pure combat abilities did bring back a lot of players.

The main benefit to Gritty Realism is in games where your main objective is to add something to the world and not all about combat. To use an example from my favorite home game, building a port.

Settlers don't appear overnight.
Crops don't grow overnight.
Caravansaries don't make themselves overnight.
You don't get ships overnight.

So clearly, in the event that you'd like to make measurable progress towards your main objective, you'd like to space out events. However, the only kind of threats that show up in 6-8 groups over a 24 hour period are attacking forces, which get really repetitive after a while. If it's just a problem here and there, then the players are able to fully nova just about every fight, and not even burn through all of their resources doing it.

If it's a problem here and there, and you're prolonging things so that you only get a long rest every 1-2 weeks, then you've got situations where characters need to ration out their abilities, think their way through encounters, and plan. Spellcasters are miserly with their slots, since some of them get half their level in slots back per day, while some don't get any until the long rest is up. Warlocks are feared for the amount of power they can sling around without fear. It feels like a real, gritty world.

And I adore that game.

[ad_hoc]

Yes. Bad each and every time.

D&D was not designed for it and it takes a lot of work to make D&D work with it and no, using the alternate rules in the DMG doesn't help.

D&D is a combat oriented game and overwhelmingly majority of the system is centered around combat.

The social and explorative side of D&D has fallen to the wayside and is replaced with "Well, DM, what do you think".

My suggestion would be to play a different, more compatitble system. Or do a cray cray amount of homevrwwing before hand so people know what they're getting into.

=====
Edit: It went better with systems designed for gritty realism. Heck Call of Cthulu was way better for this set up and we just turned it into CoC + D&D Setting.

It works just fine with combat.

The name of the variant is bad, that's all.

[False God]

I see a lot of discussion about resting being longer. Is that it? Is that all folks are doing to make a "gritty realism" game?

What about slowed leveling, or no leveling at all? Disease? Wounds and injuries (beyond HP loss)? Starvation and dehydration?

So, for reference, I've run all of these things.

I find little fundamental change to the game with extending rests. I mostly find it annoying and puts an additional burden on the front-liners who are more likely to suffer damage. Which inevitably leads to one or two members of the party having to sit around town and twiddle their thumbs for a week. And I HATE role-playing shopping and crafting.

Ironically, when we do the "You wait a week. *SKIP*" thing it makes me question why we bothered to extend rests in the fist place if we're not going to do anything with the time! Because sometimes you just get those folks who are like "nah we're just gonna sit around until Bob over there is healed." Ooookayyy....

The second set of thing mostly adds a level of tedium to a game I find uninteresting. Everyone makes checks every day not to suffer from dehydration. Everyone makes checks to scavenge for food. Everyone makes checks to properly cook that food. Everyone makes checks if they get a disease when drinking the water. Dysentery was a thing but hey I don't really want to role play it!

TLDR: making games "gritty and realistic" is IMO, A: not something I feel D&D handles well. B: not very fun. C: requires more tracking than it's worth. D: with good party comp after about 5th level it's not real gritty anymore.

There are some games where "gritty" is totally awesome. WH40k for example. I have never had a particularly enjoyable experience running, or playing in "gritty" D&D.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

And yet.

When D&D was designed as a miniatures tactical game first, its sales were a fraction of what 5e has managed to pull off. The pull back to fewer pure combat abilities did bring back a lot of players.



You can't prove that lol.

A majority of features in 5e are combat oriented and 4e was the same way, 4e just looked different.


Edit: There are way too many thinga about 5e to boil it down to what you're saying. Also, I never said there wasn't non-combat abilities, just that an overwhelmingly majority of abilities and rules are about combat. Look at the phb and see how big the rules/descriptions for exploration, role-playing, and interactions are compared to all the things that are directly combat related.

D&D 5e is still a combat oriented game that puts non-combat on the way back burner.


It works just fine with combat.

The name of the variant is bad, that's all.

Slower healing, injuries, and wounds in a gritty realism game will demolish you if you get into the number of fights that D&D assumes you will be in.

[Fable Wright]

You can't prove that lol.

A majority of features in 5e are combat oriented and 4e was the same way, 4e just looked different.

I can prove that sales figures for 5e were bigger. (https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/dungeons-dragons-had-its-biggest-sales-year-in-2017)


Edit: There are way too many thinga about 5e to boil it down to what you're saying. Also, I never said there wasn't non-combat abilities, just that an overwhelmingly majority of abilities and rules are about combat. Look at the phb and see how big the rules/descriptions for exploration, role-playing, and interactions are compared to all the things that are directly combat related.

D&D 5e is still a combat oriented game that puts non-combat on the way back burner.

I see what you're saying, and yet I disagree with it due to the existence of things like easy-use Ritual spells and more.

I will say that Gritty Realism is designed for Combat As War play as opposed to Combat As Sport, and if you're a big fan of the latter, Gritty Realism is unlikely to inspire you.


Slower healing, injuries, and wounds in a gritty realism game will demolish you if you get into the number of fights that D&D assumes you will be in.

Ah, that might be your issue. You only use Gritty Realism when you want to decrease the number of fights you get into. If you have 6 fights before your short rest, then that's your problem.

[ad_hoc]

Slower healing, injuries, and wounds in a gritty realism game will demolish you if you get into the number of fights that D&D assumes you will be in.

That's not the variant.

The 'gritty realism' variant just changes in game resting time.

That's it. No changes to healing or lasting injuries and such.

Mechanically resting works the same, it just has a different effect on the narrative. It's nice for people who want to have a scale of months and years of in universe game time rather than days and weeks.

[Anymage]

I see a lot of discussion about resting being longer. Is that it? Is that all folks are doing to make a "gritty realism" game...

DMG, P. 267. "Gritty realism" may not have been the best name for it. But the idea that rests can mean different things can have an impact on the story you're telling with little impact on the specific encounters. You just have to remember to space out encounters to match your definition of "rest".


Obviously not my point, I'm just trying to highlight the dynamics between the PC actions and the world to a person, who seems to be claiming that PCs spending a week doing nothing should have no bearing on what's going on in the world. Of course other aligned factions can help the PCs' cause while the PCs are resting and the village isn't guaranteed to fall but by the time the PCs are in their teens, they're big movers and their absence or presence is going to have a dramatic impact on the course of any events...

And how often do threats arise that require the intervention of teen level PC types? Keep in mind that relevant challenges often require similarly leveled monsters, so it's a little strange if teen level heroes are super rare while teen level monsters are a near daily occurrence.

I mean yes, I'm okay punishing you if you blow all your resources in the first fifteen minutes and then expect to be able to take a long rest. Gritty Realism allows me to do that without packing multiple serious threats into a single day. I also like the idea that issues serious enough to call up the big heroes happen rarely enough that you can get some deserved R&R after saving the kingdom. And as a bonus, GR actively encourages the PCs to avoid trivial combats. They could thrash some underlings, but sneaking by allows them to save their resources for the big boss. If you like playing games like I do, GR is all upside.

Of course it does fail hard if you want a more superhero feel, or if you want a dungeon as a series of interesting encounters. It isn't for everybody, and it needs to have a double underlined note that you need to space out encounters to match the rests instead of just wearing the PCs out. Still, it's a good thing that people talk about redefining rests to suit their pacing instead of feeling locked into the daily cycle.

[Mackatrin]

I ran a group with it and quite enjoyed it. I created a homebrew world that was heavily involved in politics between Humanity & the non-humans. And due to that, I was hoping that putting Gritty Realism, would slow the pace down and encourage them to interact with the world, which they did. We all had alot of fun. Its not for everyone thats for sure and definitely is worth talking to players, since you have some classes that virtually get shut down (such as Barbarian) but again you can make your own adjustments at the same time. I also use lingering injury, massive damage, and climbing on monsters and have it in the print out I put out for players that enter my campaign.

[BarneyBent]

I’m going to run SKT with some other stuff thrown in. I’m planning on switching between Gritty Realism and normal resting rules. Basically, the players can choose to go into a “Dungeon Crawl” mode which uses standard rest rules. Haven’t figured out exact mechanics, but thinking a max of 3 days in a row, and must take a full, Gritty Realism long rest afterwards.

All other situations will be gritty realism resting. Resting and resources are basically abstractions anyway, so the idea is that this reflects the extra effort and intensity that goes into clearing out dungeons and stuff, but which is absolutely not sustainable on a day to day basis.

[Tanarii]

It works fine if you've got one group of PCs in the world, and you the DM are controlling rests and adventuring day balancing closely, and you're running narrative time.

It's either or good or bad if you have multiple groups of PCs in the world, you'd have to design the world and adventuring scenarios right.

I've personally found most players hate Gritty Realism, if they are the ones that get to pick when to rest and they control adventuring day pacing.

It's terrible if you're trying to run some kind of every-minute-of-world-time-is-game-time world. Lots of DMs default to this kind of thinking for some reason. They usually don't find Downtime rules useful either.

Generally speaking, I don't recommend its use for true sandbox worlds. Even for ones (like mine) that are open table, focus on adventuring in the wilderness and dungeons, and downtime is just time back at base. In my case, the week back at base between sessions wouldn't be the problem, it's the limiting scope of what an adventuring site can contain before they'd have to retreat somewhere safe for a Short Rest of 8 hrs.

[Xetheral]

If the DM has the bad guys win off camera to spite the players taking a rest, the world wasn't worth saving or playing in.

I agree with your general point that it's not worth playing in a game where the DM is acting out if spite. But I can't agree that bad guys winning off camera suggests such spite. Consider:

Unless the game world is a utopia, in a sandbox game there are always going to be more bad guys than the PCs could ever possibly stop. The PCs can't be in multiple places at once, and while they're busy opposing one group of bad guys (or busy with their own goals), they can't oppose all the other groups of bad guys. Some of the other bad guys will be stopped by NPCs, some won't, and all of that will happen off-camera.

More broadly, the longer rests are, the longer it will take the PCs to complete any given goal. Being limited to completing goals more slowly necessarily means that the PCs' ability to effect change in the game world is accordingly reduced. Gritty Realism therefore isn't just a superficial change, but instead fundamentally limits the party's ability to influence their environment.

[ad_hoc]

In my case, the week back at base between sessions wouldn't be the problem, it's the limiting scope of what an adventuring site can contain before they'd have to retreat somewhere safe for a Short Rest of 8 hrs.

Why is it problematic for them to retreat to safety for resting?

This is actually the aspect I like most about the variant. It gives more space for consequences to PC resting.

Maybe the orcs come back from their raiding or another group of adventurers come by and pillage some of the dungeon.

It's easier for these things to happen over the course of a week than a day.

[Tanarii]

Why is it problematic for them to retreat to safety for resting?Because they'd have to do it after 1 Deadly to 3 Easy encounters.

[Dork_Forge]

I like the idea of this kind of game on occasion but I find the rules for it a bit much, I handle it as such: A long rest is a period of 24 hours where you do nothing but light activity and resting, a short rest is what a standard long rest is and in addition to those, once per day a character may take a 'breather', a rest of one hour where they may roll recover one hit die rolled + Con. If you want a game with altered resting to work longer than a short arc you'd need to either reduce the number of encounters or give the players addition tools to help them (an NPC with the Healer feat, more consumable magic items and more magic items in general).

[Pex]

I agree with your general point that it's not worth playing in a game where the DM is acting out if spite. But I can't agree that bad guys winning off camera suggests such spite. Consider:

Unless the game world is a utopia, in a sandbox game there are always going to be more bad guys than the PCs could ever possibly stop. The PCs can't be in multiple places at once, and while they're busy opposing one group of bad guys (or busy with their own goals), they can't oppose all the other groups of bad guys. Some of the other bad guys will be stopped by NPCs, some won't, and all of that will happen off-camera.

More broadly, the longer rests are, the longer it will take the PCs to complete any given goal. Being limited to completing goals more slowly necessarily means that the PCs' ability to effect change in the game world is accordingly reduced. Gritty Realism therefore isn't just a superficial change, but instead fundamentally limits the party's ability to influence their environment.

Bad guys can win off camera as part of campaign plot. If they win with the players thinking "if only we hadn't rested even though we really needed to" it's spite. I contrast this with players wanting to rest after every fight. The criticism is fair game. The ratio of rests per game session is also the players' responsibility. Conservation of class resources is important, and I'm ok with players once in a while choosing to forgo a short rest because the current situation has them feel they need to keep going even though they probably need one. They rather use up resources like healing potions to save time.

It's all about the pacing as it usually is. How many short rests per long rest, etc. That does not change. The point remains how long in game world time a short or long rest is only matters as far as game world story necessitates. What's important is how many short and long rests players get per game session because that affects the physical activity of having fun playing the game using your stuff. If you want a long rest to be an in game week, I'm happy for you. That's fine. I don't argue against it. The point is to make sure the players get that in game week to long rest in a reasonable pacing per game session.

What's reasonable is perhaps subjective. For me it depends on how often we play. If it's every week then I want a long rest at least every two sessions. If it's every two weeks or longer then a long rest at the end of the session to start fresh next game session is fine. Real life happens. I want to play the game for relaxing fun. I don't want it to be a series of frustrations not looking forward to play because all I can do is cast Fire Bolt, Sacred Flame, or attack for 1d8 + 5 damage, again. There are game sessions where it's all roleplay, no combat. Those are fun, but if that's the case we're long resting.

[False God]

DMG, P. 267. "Gritty realism" may not have been the best name for it. But the idea that rests can mean different things can have an impact on the story you're telling with little impact on the specific encounters. You just have to remember to space out encounters to match your definition of "rest".
Fair truth I skimmed my DMG once, having played several games since 5E launched before it ever game out and found most of its information neat, but useless. I didn't realize that was the actual terminology it was using.

Yikes that's a bad word choice. Almost kinda insulting to the concept IMO.

[Xetheral]

Bad guys can win off camera as part of campaign plot. If they win with the players thinking "if only we hadn't rested even though we really needed to" it's spite.

I can't agree with this. Let's say the party is torn between pursuing two competing objectives (out of dozens of possibilities). They choose the higher priority one, and accomplish it successfully. They're out of resources, so they choose to long rest, and then they ambitiously pursue their second objective, hoping they're not too late. It is not DM spite to stick to the original timeline for the second objective, even if doing so means the PCs are too late by less than the length of a long rest. (In the absence of a timeline that granular, it also would not be DM spite to determine whether the PCs are too late via a random check.)


I contrast this with players wanting to rest after every fight. The criticism is fair game. The ratio of rests per game session is also the players' responsibility. Conservation of class resources is important, and I'm ok with players once in a while choosing to forgo a short rest because the current situation has them feel they need to keep going even though they probably need one. They rather use up resources like healing potions to save time.

It's all about the pacing as it usually is. How many short rests per long rest, etc. That does not change. The point remains how long in game world time a short or long rest is only matters as far as game world story necessitates. What's important is how many short and long rests players get per game session because that affects the physical activity of having fun playing the game using your stuff. If you want a long rest to be an in game week, I'm happy for you. That's fine. I don't argue against it. The point is to make sure the players get that in game week to long rest in a reasonable pacing per game session.

I entirely agree that the availability of character resources per game session is extremely important. But I can't dismiss the importance of the length of rests as "only" mattering in the context of the impact on the game world. While your claim is literally true, the game world impact of the characters's actions is a defining characteristic of a sandbox campaign. I thus can't agree with your minimization of the importance of rest lengths.

Consider a simple example of a sandbox campaign revolving around the PCs trying to protect and expand a settlement. Obstacles and threats emerge at some average rate. Switching from standard rest rules to gritty realism (lengthening long rests by a factor of 21, and lowering their frequency by at least a factor of 7) means the PCs are able to personally address approximately 7 to 21 times fewer of these obstacles and threats. The PC's impact on the future of their settlement is thus massively reduced. A game where the PCs are comparatively powerless to affect their environment can still be fun, but it's an entirely different style of game.

(Sure, the DM could reduce the rate at which obstacles and threats emerge to match the new resting rate, but a 7-21 times reduction moves the setting quite far along the hellscape-utopia axis, and such a dramatic setting change also requires playing an entirely different style of game.)

[Anymage]

(Sure, the DM could reduce the rate at which obstacles and threats emerge to match the new resting rate, but a 7-21 times reduction moves the setting quite far along the hellscape-utopia axis, and such a dramatic setting change also requires playing an entirely different style of game.)

The Epic Heroism rest rules also exist, if you want to have holy warriors standing at the literal brink of hell and having to constantly repel invaders. Nobody is saying that Gritty Realism is the ideal game style. If it were, it would be the default rest style instead of a small blurb in the back of the DMG.

It's just that each set of rest rules do force certain assumptions on the world. Epic Heroism gives short rests that are twelve times faster than normal, and long rests that are eight times faster. For a pure sandbox that's obviously a lot more ability to flex your adventurer muscles. It's still a tonal shift how often you can and should flex. EH assumes massive personal involvement and/or an unceasing rain of challenges, GR encourages skills/soft power/interactions and that you can delegate a lot of responsibilities and sometimes even enjoy some downtime with the status quo.

[ad_hoc]

The point is to make sure the players get that in game week to long rest in a reasonable pacing per game session.

Why does it have to be per game session?

At our table we average around 1 long rest per 2 sessions.

We are a bit slow about playing and just don't have that many encounters (plus fairly short sessions).

We try to make sure we end a session on a short rest so that we don't have to track that stuff for next time though.

[ad_hoc]

(Sure, the DM could reduce the rate at which obstacles and threats emerge to match the new resting rate, but a 7-21 times reduction moves the setting quite far along the hellscape-utopia axis, and such a dramatic setting change also requires playing an entirely different style of game.)

'Gritty Realism' actually works very well for dungeon delving. The timeline makes a lot of sense for having repercussions when resting too much.

The general expectation is to clear a dungeon level in 1 long rest. If you only do half the level and retreat for a week more monsters might come in, the monsters may have abandoned the place with their loot, other adventurers may have finished what the PCs have started, etc.

[Xetheral]

'Gritty Realism' actually works very well for dungeon delving. The timeline makes a lot of sense for having repercussions when resting too much.

The general expectation is to clear a dungeon level in 1 long rest. If you only do half the level and retreat for a week more monsters might come in, the monsters may have abandoned the place with their loot, other adventurers may have finished what the PCs have started, etc.

I'm sure there are many play styles Gritty Realism works well with. My point is only that changing the length of rests greatly impacts the ability of the PCs to impact the game world, particularly in sandbox games. It isn't always as simple as simply replacing "8 hours pass" with "7 days pass".

Personally, I found having short and long rests both be 8 hours (but long rests only possible in town) worked well for an episodic sandbox campaign I ran. Each session covered an up-to two-week expedition that ended back in town with a long rest. (The campaign was designed this way because attendance was going to be unpredictable, and ending each session in a common location ensured that the characters of whomever showed up the next session would be in the same place.) I wouldn't use that rest structure in a more-traditional campaign format, however.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One concern I have about GR rest-style is downtime.

Specifically, it doesn't change the restrictions around what you can do during a long rest, so that week you spend "resting"? That's basically bed rest. You can't do many of the traditional downtime activities without interrupting the long rest.

On the other hand, the standard format allows long stretches of time to pass with nothing much happening just fine. You say "you take three weeks of downtime" and it's done.

In my games, there's a natural pacing which doesn't allow for taking 8 hours off between every pair of Medium fights or after every Deadly one. Ironically, the GR method actually fits the "5 minute adventuring day" schedule better than the standard one--you walk in, spend 2-3 minutes "on camera" (fighting, searching, or whatever) and then you retreat for 8 hours of rest, with the rest of the day spent twiddling your thumbs because you can't rest that frequently anyway (at least in any sane sort of way). The standard one, at least at my table, might have several hours of searching, delving, talking, or wary travel interspersed with fights or other encounters.

And the requirement for "balance" isn't always having 6-8 encounters per day--it's averaging two short rests with (on average) n > 1 encounters per short rest. A day with 10 easy encounters and a day with 1 deadly encounter balance out. Having a variety keeps things interesting. What doesn't work is constantly only having 1-2 super-deadly encounters per long rest.

[1] those numbers assume a lot that isn't usually stated. Specifically, that's 3-7 Medium encounters with 1-3 or so Hards thrown in. A single Deadly counts (at minimum) as a Hard + Medium, so a more common "full adventuring day" is about 3-5 encounters: Patterns like MM/H/MM work, or MM/M/D, or D/HM/D, where / represents a short rest.

[JellyPooga]

Ironically, the GR method actually fits the "5 minute adventuring day" schedule better than the standard one--you walk in, spend 2-3 minutes "on camera" (fighting, searching, or whatever) and then you retreat for 8 hours of rest, with the rest of the day spent twiddling your thumbs because you can't rest that frequently anyway (at least in any sane sort of way). The standard one, at least at my table, might have several hours of searching, delving, talking, or wary travel interspersed with fights or other encounters.

Hmm...I'd never considered GR to be particularly suited to dungeon delving before; after all, it discourages taking on several (>2) encounters in a row before retreating to rest. However, in light of the rest of ypur post, it actually makes dungeons make a little more sense if you play them right. One thing that always bugged me about dungeons is how separated encounters tend to be; you take out rooms one at a time and little or nothing from the rest of the dungeon notices, waiting in their room for the adventurers to arrive.

With GR, you can have entire sections of the dungeon mobilise into one or two larger encounters, or broken down into a string of easy encounters without breaking suspension of disbelief; the dungeon ecology makes more sense if the inhabitants react to the adventurers incursion on a grander scale than the piecemeal standard most tables experience.

Definitely food for thought...

[TyGuy]

Ironically, the GR method actually fits the "5 minute adventuring day" schedule better than the standard one--you walk in, spend 2-3 minutes "on camera" (fighting, searching, or whatever) and then you retreat for 8 hours of rest, with the rest of the day spent twiddling your thumbs because you can't rest that frequently anyway (at least in any sane sort of way).

Rest abuse can happen with any time scale format. The 15 min adventuring day still happens in standard format and is even more powerful since the 8hr rest yields the benefits of a long instead of just a short.

[Tanarii]

Ironically, the GR method actually fits the "5 minute adventuring day" schedule better than the standard one--you walk in, spend 2-3 minutes "on camera" (fighting, searching, or whatever) and then you retreat for 8 hours of rest, with the rest of the day spent twiddling your thumbs because you can't rest that frequently anyway (at least in any sane sort of way).
It's not ironic, it's fully intentional. The entire point of Gritty Realism is for those DMs who think more than one encounter, two at the outside, per in-game day is "ridiculous" and totally "unrealistic". (Quotes because DMs have literally posted those words about standard rest adventuring days on this board before.)

It's intended for things like Urban or Wilderness encounters where there is only ever going to be one resource using encounter in a day. Or if there several, they'll all be fairly weak.

It's totally useless if you have wilderness or dungeon adventuring sites with any large-ish number of encounters that are approaching party appropriate CRs (or vice versa, the party is approaching the appropriate difficulty areas). Unless it's something like a Goblin camp of 40-50, and you've got 4x level tens who are going to try and do them all in, in one go. Which would be a totally cool game of D&D if that was the expectation for it, of course.

[Meichrob7]

The game I'm running now is gritty realism and I love it. It makes the overland travel my game has far better. If each day you get everything back then nothing is lost from the 1 per day random encounter but with gritty realism if my players fought a troll then they have lost resources by the next day. It also helps kick the habit off the 5-minute adventure day. I also have in my world there are magical hotspots where the standard testing rules are used and super magical hotspots that use high fantasy Resting rules.

So this is something I’ve started testing out but I’m a bit worried about how it’ll impact full castors. If you’re resting every other week then you’re getting 10 rests per long rest as opposed to 3 per long rest, I feel like this severely harms the classes that get resources back on a long rest. Any thoughts on solutions or isn’t it not actually an issue at all?

[ad_hoc]

So this is something I’ve started testing out but I’m a bit worried about how it’ll impact full castors. If you’re resting every other week then you’re getting 10 rests per long rest as opposed to 3 per long rest, I feel like this severely harms the classes that get resources back on a long rest. Any thoughts on solutions or isn’t it not actually an issue at all?

This is like saying you get 15 short rests per long rest in the regular system.

[Fable Wright]

So this is something I’ve started testing out but I’m a bit worried about how it’ll impact full castors. If you’re resting every other week then you’re getting 10 rests per long rest as opposed to 3 per long rest, I feel like this severely harms the classes that get resources back on a long rest. Any thoughts on solutions or isn’t it not actually an issue at all?

The biggest issues are sorcerers and clerics; Bards to a lesser extent. Arcane Recovery/Natural Recovery happens per day, rather than long rest, so the druid and wizard make it out fine.

Clerics need to be very stingy with their slots, rather than nova-ing out heals. Your Channel Divinity becomes extremely important, but honestly, I feel like it tends to work out fine. Paladins and Sorcerers are too strong in regular adventuring days, just because of how much they benefit from frequent long rests. As long as they invest more in spells like Spirit Guardians than Shatter, though, they make it out just fine.

Sorcerers haaaaate this variant. I've honestly considered letting them burn 1 HD to get their Con modifier sorcerer points back on a short rest so they can make it through, but I'm not sure how well balanced that would be. I'd need to test it, at the very least.

[Tanarii]

This is like saying you get 15 short rests per long rest in the regular system.
Right.

For example, it's a "problem" if you have 6 medium encounters in your adventuring day* and get a short rest after each, whether a short rest is 1 hour or 8. That's a encounter pacing issue, not a rest variant issue.

I say "problem" because for some people that's not an actual problem. But in terms how making the game significantly easier than the default adventuring day pacing, it definitely does that.

*adventuring day meaning, as always, the time between one long rest ending and the next beginning,

[Pex]

I can't agree with this. Let's say the party is torn between pursuing two competing objectives (out of dozens of possibilities). They choose the higher priority one, and accomplish it successfully. They're out of resources, so they choose to long rest, and then they ambitiously pursue their second objective, hoping they're not too late. It is not DM spite to stick to the original timeline for the second objective, even if doing so means the PCs are too late by less than the length of a long rest. (In the absence of a timeline that granular, it also would not be DM spite to determine whether the PCs are too late via a random check.)



I entirely agree that the availability of character resources per game session is extremely important. But I can't dismiss the importance of the length of rests as "only" mattering in the context of the impact on the game world. While your claim is literally true, the game world impact of the characters's actions is a defining characteristic of a sandbox campaign. I thus can't agree with your minimization of the importance of rest lengths.

Consider a simple example of a sandbox campaign revolving around the PCs trying to protect and expand a settlement. Obstacles and threats emerge at some average rate. Switching from standard rest rules to gritty realism (lengthening long rests by a factor of 21, and lowering their frequency by at least a factor of 7) means the PCs are able to personally address approximately 7 to 21 times fewer of these obstacles and threats. The PC's impact on the future of their settlement is thus massively reduced. A game where the PCs are comparatively powerless to affect their environment can still be fun, but it's an entirely different style of game.

(Sure, the DM could reduce the rate at which obstacles and threats emerge to match the new resting rate, but a 7-21 times reduction moves the setting quite far along the hellscape-utopia axis, and such a dramatic setting change also requires playing an entirely different style of game.)

You set a different bar between what constitutes campaign plot and the DM being spiteful the players rested. That doesn't change regardless of how long a rest is in game world time there needs to be a reasonable ratio of long rests per game session. Part of the fun of playing is players using their stuff. Deny them that stuff for too long because you absolutely refuse to let them rest, the game becomes not fun.

[Eldariel]

You set a different bar between what constitutes campaign plot and the DM being spiteful the players rested. That doesn't change regardless of how long a rest is in game world time there needs to be a reasonable ratio of long rests per game session. Part of the fun of playing is players using their stuff. Deny them that stuff for too long because you absolutely refuse to let them rest, the game becomes not fun.

Part of the fun of playing is players using their stuff carefully and in a well-thought out, efficient manner. To such an end, having an extremely restricted access to long rests can actually enhance their fun. And again, in a sandbox they can always rest, until the end of their lives if they feel so inclined. Doesn't change the fact that stuff is happening elsewhere while they're resting.

[Pex]

Why does it have to be per game session?

At our table we average around 1 long rest per 2 sessions.

We are a bit slow about playing and just don't have that many encounters (plus fairly short sessions).

We try to make sure we end a session on a short rest so that we don't have to track that stuff for next time though.

It doesn't have to be one long rest per game session. It just has to be a reasonable ratio. What's reasonable can be subjective. As I wrote for me it depends on how often the game is played. Come to think of, regardless of how often the game is played, barring not playing every day which never happened and is probably ridiculous, I prefer at least one long rest per two real world weeks that have passed. Life happens. Come game time I want to relax and use my stuff. Therefore, if the game is played every week, a long rest every two sessions is fine with once in a while a three week interval being fine depending on campaign circumstances, but it's the exception not the rule. If the game meets only once a month, then yes, I want that long rest per game session which can be at the end of the session to start fresh next time. If it's three real world months later and all I'm doing is "I cast Fire Bolt", I'm not going to want to play anymore.


Part of the fun of playing is players using their stuff carefully and in a well-thought out, efficient manner. To such an end, having an extremely restricted access to long rests can actually enhance their fun. And again, in a sandbox they can always rest, until the end of their lives if they feel so inclined. Doesn't change the fact that stuff is happening elsewhere while they're resting.

That's an issue of resource management, not how long a rest is. Even using the normal rest length rules it is dumb for players to use all their stuff on the first encounter. That is the players' responsibility to learn.

[ad_hoc]

It doesn't have to be one long rest per game session. It just has to be a reasonable ratio. What's reasonable can be subjective. As I wrote for me it depends on how often the game is played. Come to think of, regardless of how often the game is played, barring not playing every day which never happened and is probably ridiculous, I prefer at least one long rest per two real world weeks that have passed. Life happens. Come game time I want to relax and use my stuff. Therefore, if the game is played every week, a long rest every two sessions is fine with once in a while a three week interval being fine depending on campaign circumstances, but it's the exception not the rule. If the game meets only once a month, then yes, I want that long rest per game session which can be at the end of the session to start fresh next time. If it's three real world months later and all I'm doing is "I cast Fire Bolt", I'm not going to want to play anymore.



That's an issue of resource management, not how long a rest is. Even using the normal rest length rules it is dumb for players to use all their stuff on the first encounter. That is the players' responsibility to learn.

Sounds like you should play a class that doesn't rely on long rest abilities.

If the table sets it up so that the characters with long rest abilities get to use them as much as the characters with short rest or always on abilities then the latter aren't going to be having as much fun.

That's how the game is designed. You get fewer uses but they are more powerful when you do use them.

You don't get to keep using your powerful stuff all the time. Yes, that means spending a lot of time casting Firebolt. Such is the life of a Wizard.

This sort of thinking is why people think Paladins are overpowered. Because they expect them to be able to smite all the time.

[Tanarii]

If your game sessions can't fit a full adventuring day (with 2 short rests, 1 long rest) into a single 3-4 hour session you're playing pretty slow. It's easily possibly to fit 1-1/3 into a single 3 hour session, with 1-2/3 into a 4 hour session. If it's taking more than 2 sessions to get a Long Rest, you're doing something really weird.

What rest variant you're using shouldn't change that. You change the rest variant because you have more in-game time between encounters, not more table time between rests.

[Eldariel]

That's an issue of resource management, not how long a rest is. Even using the normal rest length rules it is dumb for players to use all their stuff on the first encounter. That is the players' responsibility to learn.

There's no limitation to that though: players' responsibility extends to every single use of every ability and every rest. In a sandbox, everything is players' responsibility. They can go after the Ancient Red Dragon on level 1 and they can just play dockyard exterminators their whole careers. That's what makes it sandbox. Whenever players have spent resources and want to rest, they've always had the option of not doing so. When to rest is also players' prerogative, but it always carries a proper compensation too. You can rest wherever, it will always do something. Thus, a high achiever party might go through 50 encounters without rest (probably using non-combat bypass solutions to maintain their combat ability) while a lazy party might take a long rest after every fight. It's a key skill to know when rest might be possible, but it's always down to the enemy actions and RNG (random encounter tables) whether it succeeds, depending on the amount of work the party puts into staying safe. The party that rests more will probably also end up having to interrupt their rest more often unless they at least rest in Tiny Huts (but even then, said Tiny Hut is breachable so if the enemy knows where they are, it's not a guarantee; they'll have to go through the trouble to conceal their traces or get some auxiliary protection).

In essence, a sandbox lets the players determine what's fun for them and try and go for that, at the cost of them having to take the responsibility for their own fun. Instead of having the GM try to carefully balance around the party, the party level, and cater encounters or adventures to them, the players will build their own adventure with the GM running the backdrop world with the appropriate statistics: the ancient Dragon is there, whether the players go there or not.

[ad_hoc]

If your game sessions can't fit a full adventuring day (with 2 short rests, 1 long rest) into a single 3-4 hour session you're playing pretty slow. It's easily possibly to fit 1-1/3 into a single 3 hour session, with 1-2/3 into a 4 hour session. If it's taking more than 2 sessions to get a Long Rest, you're doing something really weird.

What rest variant you're using shouldn't change that. You change the rest variant because you have more in-game time between encounters, not more table time between rests.

We spend a good chunk of time making out of game jokes and talking about our lives.

A long rest usually takes us 2 sessions but sometimes we do it in one depending on what we're doing in the game.

I agree that if we were focused on the game we would get a lot more done. If for some reason I were to play with strangers I would expect more game time in a session.

(That said when we are making in game decisions we take the narrative seriously)


Agreed that the rest variant has no impact on how often we long rest in out of game time.

[Pex]

Sounds like you should play a class that doesn't rely on long rest abilities.

If the table sets it up so that the characters with long rest abilities get to use them as much as the characters with short rest or always on abilities then the latter aren't going to be having as much fun.

That's how the game is designed. You get fewer uses but they are more powerful when you do use them.

You don't get to keep using your powerful stuff all the time. Yes, that means spending a lot of time casting Firebolt. Such is the life of a Wizard.

This sort of thinking is why people think Paladins are overpowered. Because they expect them to be able to smite all the time.

No, because you still get the proverbial two short rests per long rest. If you play once a week with a long rest every two weeks, then it's likely one short rest the first session and one short rest the second session with a long rest at the end to start fresh on the third week. If you play once a month long rest at the end then there will be two short rests during the game session.


If your game sessions can't fit a full adventuring day (with 2 short rests, 1 long rest) into a single 3-4 hour session you're playing pretty slow. It's easily possibly to fit 1-1/3 into a single 3 hour session, with 1-2/3 into a 4 hour session. If it's taking more than 2 sessions to get a Long Rest, you're doing something really weird.

What rest variant you're using shouldn't change that. You change the rest variant because you have more in-game time between encounters, not more table time between rests.

Exactly!

Time for a party. Tanarii and I agree on something.

[Tanarii]

Exactly!

Time for a party. Tanarii and I agree on something.lol it happens a bit, I just don't always post when I agree.

I do think 'sandbox' environments, player driven rests, and independent predetermined or random per interval timelines, all make in-game rest rate relevent.

Of course, some people think one party 'sandbox' environments are possible, so you'll get some wierd reactions to your philosphy, which is contingent on a more traditional one-party environment where the DM ultimately drives the game

[Sception]

I prefer to go a bit out of character for rest restrictions. You get two short rests per long rest - you can take them whenever you want as long as you aren't in active danger and the party doesn't have to all rest at the same time. Limiting short rests per long rest also just flatly elminitates coffeelock shenanigans as well as any potential hassles of warlocks accessing spells with ongoing benefits like animate dead.

Long rests are pretty normal BUT are limited to 1/in game day - you can't just go right back to sleep after your first fight. At higher levels with some of the fancier safe zone spells 5 minute adventuring days are still possible, but having to wait until the next entire day instead just 6 hours, and even when in-character motivation isn't enough, the metagame knowledge that the party is "wasting" their "limited" short rests by not using them both before the next long rest is generally enough motivation to not do that.


Honestly a better solution would be to ensure that every class has a reasonable division between abilities they can use all the time, slightly more powerful abilities that refresh a few times during the day, and most powerful abilities that are limited to once per day. If every character had that sort of distribution of resources, then adventuring days could be as short or long as you like and it would at least affect all the characters in similar ways so the DM could just adjust difficulty of encounters for the party as a whole without the wizard feeling singled out in a bad way on particularly long days or the warlock feeling singled out in a bad way on particularly short days.

[Tanarii]

You get two short rests per long rest - you can take them whenever you want as long as you aren't in active danger and the party doesn't have to all rest at the same time. Limiting short rests per long rest also just flatly elminitates coffeelock shenanigans as well as any potential hassles of warlocks accessing spells with ongoing benefits like animate dead.This always seems like a weird restriction to me. Not enough Short rests is typically most folks problem, unless the DM builds their adventuring sites right. I mean, if you give "instant short rests" then yeah you need to cap them. But PCs can easily handle another third of an adventuring day if given a third short rest, and sometimes yet another third with a 4th. You're eliminating party potential to push on ... and of course the corresponding danger they'll over extend themselves and put their head in a noose.

After all, that's where all the fun really kicks in, at the ragged end of the resources. :smallamused:

[Sception]

This always seems like a weird restriction to me. Not enough Short rests is typically most folks problem, unless the DM builds their adventuring sites right. I mean, if you give "instant short rests" then yeah you need to cap them. But PCs can easily handle another third of an adventuring day if given a third short rest, and sometimes yet another third with a 4th. You're eliminating party potential to push on ... and of course the corresponding danger they'll over extend themselves and put their head in a noose.

I find parties don't take enough short rests under the normal rules. There's rarely a situation where a party feels like they'll be reliably safe for an entire hour but not safe for six hours. And if you limit long rests by imposing a time limit of some kind, then waiting around for an entire hour to short rest feels just as inappropriate as stopping for a long rest.

The easiest response to this is to shorten short rests to like 10 or 5 or 1 minutes... except that the 5e core rules are built around an assumed standard of a short rest every 2 to 3 hours, NOT a short rest between each and every encounter, the way 4e was built. If you shorten short rests enough that people take them at all, then you create a situation where the party can and will short rest after each and every encounter, which is fine except for heavily short rest oriented classes like fighter and especially warlock which see the same sort of power boost, albeit less severe, as daily resource oriented classes see from too frequent long rests.

Hence a combination of both shortening short rests to the point that parties feel comfortable taking them when needed but also limiting them per day (2/day, 3/day, whatever, depends on how many encounters you plan on running that day) so that the party can't short rest after each and every individual encounter.

Frankly, the game would be better if the game were built around short rests happening after every encounter. While I like 5e better than 4e overall, the rest structure was just a lot better, more intuitive, & easier to design around in 4e.


After all, that's where all the fun really kicks in, at the ragged end of the resources. :smallamused:

that's where limiting long rests per in game day comes in

[Tanarii]

Hence a combination of both shortening short rests to the point that parties feel comfortable taking them when needed but also limiting them per day (2/day, 3/day, whatever, depends on how many encounters you plan on running that day) so that the party can't short rest after each and every individual encounter.Why not just limit "instant" short rests to once every 1-2 hours then? That doesn't take away the ability to do extended adventuring days.


Frankly, the game would be better if the game were built around short rests happening after every encounter. While I like 5e better than 4e overall, the rest structure was just a lot better, more intuitive, & easier to design around in 4e.Agreed, it did work far smoother.


that's where limiting long rests per in game day comes inAlternatively, it just results in the party retreating earlier at full strength to long rest, because they know they are "out" of short rests.

Of course if they don't have a choice and MUST push on, they're in far worse a situation. :)

[ad_hoc]

I find parties don't take enough short rests under the normal rules. There's rarely a situation where a party feels like they'll be reliably safe for an entire hour but not safe for six hours. And if you limit long rests by imposing a time limit of some kind, then waiting around for an entire hour to short rest feels just as inappropriate as stopping for a long rest.

That isn't true for my table.

But then we play mostly WotC published adventures that are designed around a standard adventuring day with that pacing so maybe that is why.

[GlenSmash!]

That isn't true for my table.

But then we play mostly WotC published adventures that are designed around a standard adventuring day with that pacing so maybe that is why.

Same here.

Playing though Storm King's thunder right now, and on a typical adventuring day we average 1-2 combats per short rest, and 2 short rests per long rest.

While traveling we might only have a single encounter day (or weeks even) but those are pretty well sandwiched between big adventuring days.

[Sception]

Why not just limit "instant" short rests to once every 1-2 hours then?

to prevent short rest recharge abilities that grant benefits with durations that last until the next long rest from overlapping with each other without end. This is mostly but not exclusively a warlock problem, with coffeelock being the most extreem example. Short of just flat banning sorlock multiclass combinations, or rewriting sorcerer abilities not to work with warlock spell slots - neither of which are ideal solitions, imo, limiting short rests per long rest is the most effective solution.

[Willie the Duck]

Short of just flat banning sorlock multiclass combinations, or rewriting sorcerer abilities not to work with warlock spell slots - neither of which are ideal solitions, imo, limiting short rests per long rest is the most effective solution.

Honestly, the number of times I've run into people that would be hurt by ruling sorlock spell -> sorcery points doesn't work -- other than people having fun with coffeelock -- is pretty much nil. If it were to come down to massive rewrite to the short rest mechanics, or rewriting those abilities, I'd vote for rewriting those abilities.

[elyktsorb]

I played in a GR setting that also wanted to make Magic a taboo thing (Which was shotty as all hell since how did you distinguish non-magic class abilities from class abilities that are clearly magic but don't use spell slots) Long story short, it just wasn't that good. Not only from a conceptual standpoint, but just because it wasn't that fun. Like, making things harder didn't really do anything except make the people play characters that cared less, since straying from the main objective often meant running into things that could more easily kill you.

[Sception]

Honestly, the number of times I've run into people that would be hurt by ruling sorlock spell -> sorcery points doesn't work -- other than people having fun with coffeelock -- is pretty much nil. If it were to come down to massive rewrite to the short rest mechanics, or rewriting those abilities, I'd vote for rewriting those abilities.

The short rest mechanics have lots of other troubles ime. IMO multiclass combinations working well together is a good thing and the only thing that renders this one problematic is the existing short rest mechanics which are already a problem - again ime, your mileage very well may vary.

Again, imo the ideal solution is assuming short rests after every encounter, and making sure short rest recharge, aka "encounter" abilities - can never last beyond the next short rest. But that would involve rewriting a lot of 5e to be a lot more like the much less popular previous edition so... *big shrug I guess*.

[Anymage]

I played in a GR setting that also wanted to make Magic a taboo thing (Which was shotty as all hell since how did you distinguish non-magic class abilities from class abilities that are clearly magic but don't use spell slots) Long story short, it just wasn't that good. Not only from a conceptual standpoint, but just because it wasn't that fun. Like, making things harder didn't really do anything except make the people play characters that cared less, since straying from the main objective often meant running into things that could more easily kill you.

If you're trying to use GR to make things harder, you're doing it wrong. Throwing a bunch of enemies at the party when they don't have the opportunity to rest (because you made rests longer) is basically the same thing at throwing a bunch of enemies at the party when they don't have the opportunity to rest (because you just keep having new monsters appear until they overwhelm the PCs). It's certainly within the DM's power to do so, but why?

[malachi]

One concern I have about GR rest-style is downtime.

Specifically, it doesn't change the restrictions around what you can do during a long rest, so that week you spend "resting"? That's basically bed rest. You can't do many of the traditional downtime activities without interrupting the long rest.

On the other hand, the standard format allows long stretches of time to pass with nothing much happening just fine. You say "you take three weeks of downtime" and it's done.

In my games, there's a natural pacing which doesn't allow for taking 8 hours off between every pair of Medium fights or after every Deadly one. Ironically, the GR method actually fits the "5 minute adventuring day" schedule better than the standard one--you walk in, spend 2-3 minutes "on camera" (fighting, searching, or whatever) and then you retreat for 8 hours of rest, with the rest of the day spent twiddling your thumbs because you can't rest that frequently anyway (at least in any sane sort of way). The standard one, at least at my table, might have several hours of searching, delving, talking, or wary travel interspersed with fights or other encounters.

And the requirement for "balance" isn't always having 6-8 encounters per day--it's averaging two short rests with (on average) n > 1 encounters per short rest. A day with 10 easy encounters and a day with 1 deadly encounter balance out. Having a variety keeps things interesting. What doesn't work is constantly only having 1-2 super-deadly encounters per long rest.

[1] those numbers assume a lot that isn't usually stated. Specifically, that's 3-7 Medium encounters with 1-3 or so Hards thrown in. A single Deadly counts (at minimum) as a Hard + Medium, so a more common "full adventuring day" is about 3-5 encounters: Patterns like MM/H/MM work, or MM/M/D, or D/HM/D, where / represents a short rest.

I disagree that increasing the duration of rests (and similarly lengthening the "time between encounters" / "time that antagonistic forces take to do things" as appropriate) impacts the "5 minute adventuring period" at all. If the DM works things such that the PCs have to achieve their goal (and if their goal doesn't have a timeline, the rest duration literally doesn't matter. If they don't have a goal then.... well, what's going on in the gaming session?) in an amount of time analogous to X Long Rests, that is the effective limit to the "5 minute adventuring day".

Example:

Traditional rests: PCs have 3 days to convince the city's mayor to prepare for an invading army (involving a 'loyalty-proving' quest), root out the spies preparing to weaken the defenses from within, and deal with an ancient sleeping monster that would awaken if a war broke out in the vicinity of the city.

"Gritty Realism": PCs have 2 months to organize the city's defenses (with increased times, this can involve getting support from neighboring areas in addition to doing 'loyalty-proving' quests), root out the spies preparing to weaken the defenses from within, and deal with the ancient sleeping monster that would awaken if a war broke out.

"Epic Heroism": PCs have 5 hours to defend the city (some kind of quick 'loyalty-proving' quest?), rush around and stop the spies who are currently weakening the defenses from within, and deal with the ancient sleeping monster.


The shape of activities has to change based on the rest duration, but the general shape of things doesn't really change, just the sense of urgency and how contrived the situation may feel to the DM and players. Were I to DM, I can't envision a campaign I would want to run that could work on "Epic Heroism", and I feel like it would be a stretch to use traditional rests. At level 6, how many times an in-game day would I need to put the party in a situation where the wizard would really be happy with more than 3 fireballs in a single day, on top of the lower-level spells the wizard has access to, while also allowing the fighter enough time for short rests to not feel completely outshined by the wizard, and without having enemies be so close to each other that I have to contrive some way to keep them from all ganging up in one huge, long encounter? Based on your numbers, 4-10 encounters per adventuring period.

That's 3-7 encounters that require at least "one or two scary moments for the players" and "one or more of them might need to use healing resources" and 1-3 encounters where a "weaker character might get taken out of the fight, and there's a slim chance that one or more characters might die" (DMG p. 82 - descriptions of Medium and Hard encounters).

I don't see anything in the DMG about how many resources should be used up in non-combat encounters, so my guess is:
- Easy: uses none, or only a few low-level spell slots (1st level slots at character level 7, 2nd level slots at character level 9) per character
- Medium: uses one high level slot, or a few medium level slots per character
- Hard: uses a high level slot and a few medium level slots per character, or one level 6+ slot
- Deadly: uses a level 6+ slot and one high level or several medium level slots
(I'm using "high level slot" as the highest slot up to 5th level, and "medium slot" as anything that isn't a "low level slot" or a "high level slot")


It would strain my suspension of disbelief to run or play in a game that had between 3 Deadly encounters and 10 Medium encounters several times a day ("Epic Heroism"), unless it was a very short campaign focused on "oh crud, everything's going wrong, and even the gods are freaking out", and was entirely combat-focused.

It would also strain my suspension of disbelief to run or play in a game that had between 3 Deadly and 10 Medium encounters in a single day several times a week (Traditional resting), unless it was delving into relatively small dungeons (less than 6 hours of hiking around in) or playing as special forces in a war.

It would not strain my suspension of disbelief to run or play in a game that had between 3 Deadly and 10 Medium encounters all within up to 1 week of each other ("Gritty Realism").


It's not ironic, it's fully intentional. The entire point of Gritty Realism is for those DMs who think more than one encounter, two at the outside, per in-game day is "ridiculous" and totally "unrealistic". (Quotes because DMs have literally posted those words about standard rest adventuring days on this board before.)

It's intended for things like Urban or Wilderness encounters where there is only ever going to be one resource using encounter in a day. Or if there several, they'll all be fairly weak.

It's totally useless if you have wilderness or dungeon adventuring sites with any large-ish number of encounters that are approaching party appropriate CRs (or vice versa, the party is approaching the appropriate difficulty areas). Unless it's something like a Goblin camp of 40-50, and you've got 4x level tens who are going to try and do them all in, in one go. Which would be a totally cool game of D&D if that was the expectation for it, of course.

It's not that having any days of more than one encounter is ridiculous, its that any day where an encounter happens has to also include 3-9 other encounters in order to keep parity between classes with different ability refresh rates.

I am playing in a campaign right now that uses traditional rests, but typically has 1 Deadly+ encounter per day. Occasionally, it'll have 2 or 3 Deadly+ encounters in a day, but there has never been a safe place to take a 1 hour break during that time where the DM didn't just say "OK, so you guys rest for 8 hours". This has resulted in my rogue growing less and less relevant in combat compared to the Frenzy barbarian (who can frenzy every combat) or the bard and cleric (who can use their highest level spell on pretty much every turn).


If your game sessions can't fit a full adventuring day (with 2 short rests, 1 long rest) into a single 3-4 hour session you're playing pretty slow. It's easily possibly to fit 1-1/3 into a single 3 hour session, with 1-2/3 into a 4 hour session. If it's taking more than 2 sessions to get a Long Rest, you're doing something really weird.

What rest variant you're using shouldn't change that. You change the rest variant because you have more in-game time between encounters, not more table time between rests.

You're saying that my group is doing something really weird? Well, count yourself lucky that we appreciate being weirdos :p

But honestly, it's not "weird", its just a different focus. We'll gladly spend time bickering in character, pursuing our character's goals, etc, for an entire session. However, when we do have combat, I've never seen combat take less than an hour or two in any system I've played (3.5, 4e, 5e, IKRPG), and I've never been in a campaign that realistically had space for multiple combats in a single 24 hr in-game period of time (this is over 3 or 4 DMs).

[Pex]

I played in a GR setting that also wanted to make Magic a taboo thing (Which was shotty as all hell since how did you distinguish non-magic class abilities from class abilities that are clearly magic but don't use spell slots) Long story short, it just wasn't that good. Not only from a conceptual standpoint, but just because it wasn't that fun. Like, making things harder didn't really do anything except make the people play characters that cared less, since straying from the main objective often meant running into things that could more easily kill you.

To be fair that sounds more like a DM who hates his players* problem rather than a commentary on gritty realism resting.

*A DM who doesn't like PCs doing amazing, powerful things, sometimes including going off railroad tracks.


The short rest mechanics have lots of other troubles ime. IMO multiclass combinations working well together is a good thing and the only thing that renders this one problematic is the existing short rest mechanics which are already a problem - again ime, your mileage very well may vary.

Again, imo the ideal solution is assuming short rests after every encounter, and making sure short rest recharge, aka "encounter" abilities - can never last beyond the next short rest. But that would involve rewriting a lot of 5e to be a lot more like the much less popular previous edition so... *big shrug I guess*.

Having daily and encounter powers in 4E wasn't the problem. The problem was everyone having the same daily and encounter powers but with different colors (damage type) plus or minus a die. Wizard had a few that were different. Individual 5E class abilities are quite different from each other. That some share resetting on a short rest doesn't mean anything. Battle Master maneuvers do different things than monk using ki which is different than warlock casting a spell which is different than cleric channeling something. In 4E, everyone does X[W] damage of type + condition or someone moves.

[Anymage]

Having daily and encounter powers in 4E wasn't the problem. The problem was everyone having the same daily and encounter powers but with different colors (damage type) plus or minus a die. Wizard had a few that were different. Individual 5E class abilities are quite different from each other. That some share resetting on a short rest doesn't mean anything. Battle Master maneuvers do different things than monk using ki which is different than warlock casting a spell which is different than cleric channeling something. In 4E, everyone does X[W] damage of type + condition or someone moves.

I'll grant that many people didn't like the way that 4e moved to being primarily a miniatures combat game.

Within the context of being a miniatures combat game, though, classes did feel different even if they overwhelmingly ran under the AEDU power system.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I'll grant that many people didn't like the way that 4e moved to being primarily a miniatures combat game.

Within the context of being a miniatures combat game, though, classes did feel different even if they overwhelmingly ran under the AEDU power system.
I played 4e a lot when it was in vogue, and I can attest that the idea that all the classes played the same was very much wrong. While a lot of classes could essentially fill a lot of the same roles, they all played extremely differently in combat, regardless of the AEDU structure. They did a very good job of differentiating the classes by powers. The ones that were terrible and boring to play were actually the few classes that broke AEDU.

4e's real problems, and the reason I don't run it anymore, lie in it's comparatively lackluster non-combat rules, the +1/2 level modifier treadmill, the necessity of digital tools and fan guides to even hope to competently parse your options on level up thanks to the bevy of options even in just the PHB, and the sumo wrestler matches that fights turned into around the end of Tier 1, only getting worse as the game progressed. Seriously, a competent party could make every encounter boring somewhere around the third combat round thanks to the ridiculous HP bloat and how all the cool powers are probably spent by then. As obnoxious as chumbawumba is in 5e, at least it's not that.

And fixing it would take more time and patience than I possess. Way, way too many variables.

[Sception]

Class powers were formatted the same, they looked the same in paper, and the resource management was the same, but yeah, they played out very differently in practice. Tanking & healing especially was about as effective and varried as those play styles have ever been in D&D, but the *structure* of the abilities could have varried a lot more. Not every class needed the same number of powers in the same order.

Honestly, as in 3rd edition, the most interesting ideas to come out of 4e came towards the very end of the edition. The executioner assassin in particular was a very compelling class concept that had a very different take on the whole aedu thing, one big encounter power instead of several weaker ones, poisons as daily powers. The lone example of just how varried the AEDU concept could have been the whole time.

[Tanarii]

You're saying that my group is doing something really weird? Well, count yourself lucky that we appreciate being weirdos :p

But honestly, it's not "weird", its just a different focus. We'll gladly spend time bickering in character, pursuing our character's goals, etc, for an entire session. However, when we do have combat, I've never seen combat take less than an hour or two in any system I've played (3.5, 4e, 5e, IKRPG), and I've never been in a campaign that realistically had space for multiple combats in a single 24 hr in-game period of time (this is over 3 or 4 DMs).If you're playing mostly free form game in a large town or city where you can take time pursuing your own goals, that's fairly weird.

Otoh I also consider it 'weird' (not really but it breaks my assumption) to have a lot of non-combat challenges that require no significant resources (i.e. technically rated Easy difficulty). Obviously that can be a very satisfying play experience, and I'm not going to diss it for real.

But it's definitely worth noting those kinds of encounters can take up a disproportionate amount of table time. Easy combat encounters only take 10 minutes or so to resolve. It can easily take significantly more to deal with a very tough challenge that doesn't actually require any resources, e.g. just player skill and maybe a few checks. Even if you give more XP for them (which IMO is fair), in terms of how far a party can go before needing a rest to renew resources, they are low impact and high table time.

But yeah, if you're taking an hour to resolve a 5e combat, that's abnormal. Even with 6 players and a Deadly combat, it's pushing it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But yeah, if you're taking an hour to resolve a 5e combat, that's abnormal. Even with 6 players and a Deadly combat, it's pushing it.

Yeah. I can do 3-4 combats and a bunch of time spent in the social and exploration pillars, plus a whole lot of banter, off-topic talk, and dithering in a 3-hour session. 1 hr for a combat is...ouch. I'd be zoning out hard on that.

[Xetheral]

I get the impression that at a lot of tables where combat goes quickly, it isn't in doubt that the PCs will achieve their objectives when initiative is rolled. The only question is: how many resources will the PCs will expend in doing so?

By contrast, at tables where combat takes longer, whether or not the PCs will achieve their objectives at all is often an open question when initiative is rolled. I think the types of battles that lend themselves to this kind of uncertainty tend to be much more involved (either in number of combatants, size of the battlefield, or the range of tactical choices available), so it makes sense to me that such battles take considerably longer.

For example, a short-range combat in a cramped space with minimal available cover, against mindless enemies, might go quickly even if it's Deadly according the the DMG guidelines. The outcome is known in advance: the PCs will kill their opponents, and combat is fought to determine how many resources they expend in the process and whether any PCs die. The fight will maybe last 4-5 rounds.

By contrast, consider a battle where the PCs are doing a hit and run operation to seize a magic artifact from a well-guarded caravan, and the open question is whether the PCs will obtain the artifact before the defenders organize enough to drive them off. Everything about the combat is going to take longer even if the PCs are in less physical danger than in the Deadly fight from the first example. Describing the scene will take longer (both because there is more to describe and because the ability of the PCs to make important tactical choices depends on their accurate understanding of the battlefield), sketching the map will take longer, there will be far more turns where characters aren't actively doing damage (dashing to close with opponents or move between full cover, dodging when out in the open, moving to draw away enemy forces, obtaining the artifact from whatever it is kept in), and the sheer number of enemies will take time to run. Even after the central question about the artifact is decided, if the enemy feels strong enough to pursue the retreating PCs, combat will take even longer in order to resolve the PC's attempted escape. With smart play, superior mobility, and a willingness to start the retreat promptly, the PCs may not be physical danger at all in such a battle. But despite the lack of physical threat, such a fight could easily take 10-20 rounds of combat, with the outcome more uncertain than the simpler Deadly example.

[Tanarii]

Complex fights with tactical advantages are supposed to change the Difficulty.

Hit and Run can definitely increase a fight scene length, but if players are doing that they're probably shooting way above their weight class and trying to lower the Difficulty (by taking advantage of terrain) to something they can handle.

Changing the goal from win the fight to something else rapidly pushes it into the same category as non-combat challenges, as in a gain the mccuffin mobile encounter which is some-combat involved followed by a chase scene challenge, and as for non-combat challenges those can take excessive table time to resolve.

Not saying every encounter has to be Medium or Hard maybe modified by a simple difficulty against the players terrain enhancer, but for most tables IMX they are the norm. Otoh my experience with other tables is heavily AL.