PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-20, 04:53 PM
Problem to be solved: Equating one in-game day with one Adventuring Day (the time between Long Rests) has narrative problems, and imbalanced Adventuring Days can lead to intra-party balance issues. And the Rest Variants are too set-in-stone for my tastes. I'd like something that could naturally vary (in terms of in-game time) with the narrative flow. As well as something that the party can take charge of, so that they can have a sense of when they're getting close to a good stopping point for a rest, as well as giving incentives to take Short Rests.
Intent: decouple mechanical Rests (Long and Short) from the clock and instead promote player agency in resting and fit it into the narrative better.
-----------------
Define Scene: a set of narrative events that all fit tightly together without major narrative breaks in the action. Scenes are separated by significant narrative breaks.
Short scene: Contains one of the following:
• Combat totaling at least a Hard encounter: 1H, 2M, 1M1E, 4E.
• A Moderate or lower complex trap
• Three simple ability challenges or one intricate ability challenge
Long scene: contains one or more of the following:
• Combat totaling at least a Deadly encounter
• One deadly complex trap or two or more moderate complex traps
• Three intricate ability challenges or 5-6 simple ones
Anything less than a short scene between two narrative breaks doesn't count at all toward progress. Short scenes count roughly as half a long scene.
Ability challenges (not part of a combat or complex trap) count as easy encounters unless they're particularly intricate (ie take more than 15 minutes of real time) and/or have severe consequences for failure (such as significant damage or strong narrative penalties) and are thus more likely to consume significant resources. Those should be assigned a difficulty based on the expectation of resource/table-time expenditure, usually no more than medium.
Narrative breaks
These occur when the narrative is "fast forwarded" past boring stuff. Moving between locations in a non-hostile environment. Short downtime breaks. Etc. The party can generate these by holing up in a dungeon (for instance) and barricading the door. The presence of active threats in the immediate vicinity cancels a narrative break.
Resting:
After at least one long scene, during the narrative break before the next scene, the party can choose to take a short rest. The duration of the short rest is the duration of the narrative break or 1 hour, whichever is shorter.
After three long scenes (again, in the narrative break), the party can choose to attempt a long rest. If the party is in a safe location, the attempt automatically succeeds. Otherwise, the DM can choose to impose another scene where narratively fitting, which may disrupt the long rest (especially on failure/fleeing). Examples might include getting ambushed in the night, or other situations arising that require significant attention. The duration of the long rest is the duration of the narrative break or 8 hours, whichever is shorter.
Note that multiple in-game days may pass without a proper long rest (such as when traveling). The party still needs to sleep, but these in-game rests do not grant any particular benefits (except to stave off exhaustion).
Trance still only requires 4 hours of sleep to avoid exhaustion, but no longer speeds up long rests (because that's meaningless). Same with the warforged trait.
Intent: decouple mechanical Rests (Long and Short) from the clock and instead promote player agency in resting and fit it into the narrative better.
-----------------
Define Scene: a set of narrative events that all fit tightly together without major narrative breaks in the action. Scenes are separated by significant narrative breaks.
Short scene: Contains one of the following:
• Combat totaling at least a Hard encounter: 1H, 2M, 1M1E, 4E.
• A Moderate or lower complex trap
• Three simple ability challenges or one intricate ability challenge
Long scene: contains one or more of the following:
• Combat totaling at least a Deadly encounter
• One deadly complex trap or two or more moderate complex traps
• Three intricate ability challenges or 5-6 simple ones
Anything less than a short scene between two narrative breaks doesn't count at all toward progress. Short scenes count roughly as half a long scene.
Ability challenges (not part of a combat or complex trap) count as easy encounters unless they're particularly intricate (ie take more than 15 minutes of real time) and/or have severe consequences for failure (such as significant damage or strong narrative penalties) and are thus more likely to consume significant resources. Those should be assigned a difficulty based on the expectation of resource/table-time expenditure, usually no more than medium.
Narrative breaks
These occur when the narrative is "fast forwarded" past boring stuff. Moving between locations in a non-hostile environment. Short downtime breaks. Etc. The party can generate these by holing up in a dungeon (for instance) and barricading the door. The presence of active threats in the immediate vicinity cancels a narrative break.
Resting:
After at least one long scene, during the narrative break before the next scene, the party can choose to take a short rest. The duration of the short rest is the duration of the narrative break or 1 hour, whichever is shorter.
After three long scenes (again, in the narrative break), the party can choose to attempt a long rest. If the party is in a safe location, the attempt automatically succeeds. Otherwise, the DM can choose to impose another scene where narratively fitting, which may disrupt the long rest (especially on failure/fleeing). Examples might include getting ambushed in the night, or other situations arising that require significant attention. The duration of the long rest is the duration of the narrative break or 8 hours, whichever is shorter.
Note that multiple in-game days may pass without a proper long rest (such as when traveling). The party still needs to sleep, but these in-game rests do not grant any particular benefits (except to stave off exhaustion).
Trance still only requires 4 hours of sleep to avoid exhaustion, but no longer speeds up long rests (because that's meaningless). Same with the warforged trait.