People who has play with or used gritty realism rules. Please comment.

[thorr-kan]

I've been running a campaign in the "Adventures in Middle Earth" 5e game.

One big factor that flavors the game is that you can not take long rests in the wild, no matter how much time you have.

When you set out on a journey you are leaving the comfort and safety required to truly rest easy.

It has the effect of making safe havens a very essential and special place - worth protecting. And it make the wilderness seem an untamed place where one must always be on the lookout for danger.

I collect but don't play the AiME books because I want Tolkien in my D&D.

I think you're right. AiME is an excellent example of how fiddling with the optional rules can be baked into a setting's assumptions.

[BRC]

I played in a brief campaign that used Gritty Realism rules.

The big thing I found was that it shut down the pacing, although that might have just come down to a mismatch between what the GM wanted, and what we (or at least I) wanted. I was playing a wizard, so long-rest based.
The issue was that, unlike an 8-hour rest where 'Okay you go to sleep and wake up", a full week of resting meant that the GM wanted to play through that time. So we'd have multiple sessions of just kicking around in town, which was fun for a bit, but I wanted to go do things and play my character, and chatting with random NPCs got old fast. Campaign fell apart during that first long-rest.

You'll also have to address "What happens if character have to interrupt their Rest" a lot more often.

[Joe the Rat]

I've been running a campaign in the "Adventures in Middle Earth" 5e game.

One big factor that flavors the game is that you can not take long rests in the wild, no matter how much time you have.

When you set out on a journey you are leaving the comfort and safety required to truly rest easy.

It has the effect of making safe havens a very essential and special place - worth protecting. And it make the wilderness seem an untamed place where one must always be on the lookout for danger.

That works really well when the Wilds and the Safe Places are (as thorr-kan noted) part of the setting. Which makes sense, as a big chunk of the tales is travel, and the spaces between the Points of Light are very wild and woolly. It also means no emergency hole up and recharge in the dungeon. Having some sort of medium rest (8ish hrs, Recover Prof Mod-1HD, 1/2 your caster level in Spell Slots a la Arcane Recovery) could fill the Dungeon Rest hole for more typical pacing.


I've proposed something similar to my players - Gritty Travel. When you are moving place to place, it's Daily 8hr Short Rests, Long Rests take at least a full day's rest in place. So start camp, get a full 24 hours (maybe 2 days, still working on it), then break camp the next day. It fits the usual 1/day travel encounter pacing better, but still gives a way to set a Long Rest in the field if the space is safe enough, without breaking timelines altogether. Foraging/hunting, mid-rest combat encounters, etc don't break rest unless you are talking about extensive action (having to relocate with more than an hour's travel may reset the clock).

I am still keeping regular pacing for city and "dungeon" settings, since these operate on a denser action scale. It's really about keeping the balance of action and rests, with a light narrative justification.

[Pex]

But see, in a CaW game DM doesn't care about whether the players get a rest or not. Earning a rest is up to the players. they need to find a place safe enough and put matters in such a place that you don't lose campaign-level objects while resting. There's no game session-level guarantee or requirement, but it's entirely down to the PCs. If players end up without sufficient resources, that's on them: they made choices that lead to them being unable to take long rests. It's much easier to stay safe for 8 hours than for 168 hours. That's simple math. That's 21 times more potential encounters, enemy attacks, ambushes, etc. So the place needs to be much safer than for an 8 hour rest and you can't just count on Tiny Hut or such anymore.

In short, you fundamentally misunderstand how a CAW sandbox works. There are safer places but players make places more or less safe with their actions (who they antagonise, who they befriend) and it's up to the players to find those safe locations. It's even naturally one of the big campaign level objects in a gritty realism one - to find places where you can rest for a week without getting interrupted while still preferably being able to move on one object soon after you're done resting.

Winning or losing based on your action or inaction is a part of the deal already. This makes the decisions more difficult and perilious and thus also more thrilling and exciting. Which is precisely the whole draw of such games. You might like Combat as Sports but that's not for everyone either. As a player, I want to feel like my character earned their achievements instead of being given them as par de course for a game. A game where you can only fail in encounters just doesn't feel very exciting to me, which is why I don't like playing that way.

Nothing happens without the DM's permission. It's up to the DM to have a safe haven exist. It's up to the DM not to have any wandering monsters interrupt the rest. It's up to the DM the bad guys haven't tracked the party to their location despite whatever precautions they take. No rest can ever happen unless the DM lets it happen. The players can decide for themselves if a place is safe enough or not, but ultimately the DM decides if that's actually true. The players can do the scouting, canvas the area, keep watch, set up alarms, but however long it takes is up to the DM, so let the players succeed already and get their rest.

[Anymage]

In short, you fundamentally misunderstand how a CAW sandbox works. There are safer places but players make places more or less safe with their actions (who they antagonise, who they befriend) and it's up to the players to find those safe locations. It's even naturally one of the big campaign level objects in a gritty realism one - to find places where you can rest for a week without getting interrupted while still preferably being able to move on one object soon after you're done resting.

Winning or losing based on your action or inaction is a part of the deal already. This makes the decisions more difficult and perilious and thus also more thrilling and exciting. Which is precisely the whole draw of such games. You might like Combat as Sports but that's not for everyone either. As a player, I want to feel like my character earned their achievements instead of being given them as par de course for a game. A game where you can only fail in encounters just doesn't feel very exciting to me, which is why I don't like playing that way.

While your first paragraph is technically true (in a pure sandbox being able to recharge your abilities more often means you get to act more often), your second paragraph makes me wonder why you're arguing so strenuously. CaW sandbox gritty realism means that you really want allies to keep pressure up on your enemies while you're recharging, and that you have a vested interest in making sure that safe places are kept secure and that you stay on good terms with the people in charge. You might even want to stagger recharges so that your friends still have some gas in the tank while you're out. Plus, your enemies also needing recharge times also means you have better windows to plan around striking. All in all it sounds like it's added depth.

More importantly, though, Pex is right in the sense of all the players understanding each other. It's entirely possible for a DM to call gritty realism and then have enemies numerous enough to attack the PCs many times per day. It's also possible for the DM to call for the epic heroism rest variant and then only have combats once every few days. Both are pacing mismatches.

The DM absolutely controls how numerous the PCs enemies are (unless the PCs go out of their way to make enemies, in which case that's really on them), and how often those enemies can focus on the PCs as opposed to other conflicts. Even in your CaW sandbox, whether or not the bad guys are busy dealing with something else comes down to a DM call. As such, even if an enemy can surprise you and will take advantage if they think they can exploit your being tapped out, average time between conflicts is still something that you can and should come to a metagame agreement on.

[Eldariel]

Nothing happens without the DM's permission. It's up to the DM to have a safe haven exist. It's up to the DM not to have any wandering monsters interrupt the rest. It's up to the DM the bad guys haven't tracked the party to their location despite whatever precautions they take. No rest can ever happen unless the DM lets it happen. The players can decide for themselves if a place is safe enough or not, but ultimately the DM decides if that's actually true. The players can do the scouting, canvas the area, keep watch, set up alarms, but however long it takes is up to the DM, so let the players succeed already and get their rest.

It's up to DM to populate the world. It's up to the players to use it.

While your first paragraph is technically true (in a pure sandbox being able to recharge your abilities more often means you get to act more often), your second paragraph makes me wonder why you're arguing so strenuously. CaW sandbox gritty realism means that you really want allies to keep pressure up on your enemies while you're recharging, and that you have a vested interest in making sure that safe places are kept secure and that you stay on good terms with the people in charge. You might even want to stagger recharges so that your friends still have some gas in the tank while you're out. Plus, your enemies also needing recharge times also means you have better windows to plan around striking. All in all it sounds like it's added depth.

More importantly, though, Pex is right in the sense of all the players understanding each other. It's entirely possible for a DM to call gritty realism and then have enemies numerous enough to attack the PCs many times per day. It's also possible for the DM to call for the epic heroism rest variant and then only have combats once every few days. Both are pacing mismatches.

The DM absolutely controls how numerous the PCs enemies are (unless the PCs go out of their way to make enemies, in which case that's really on them), and how often those enemies can focus on the PCs as opposed to other conflicts. Even in your CaW sandbox, whether or not the bad guys are busy dealing with something else comes down to a DM call. As such, even if an enemy can surprise you and will take advantage if they think they can exploit your being tapped out, average time between conflicts is still something that you can and should come to a metagame agreement on.

Well, most enemies you get in a sandbox are based on the goals you select for yourself and the size of the adversarial factions related to that. I.e. matters under PC control. Of course it's good to come to an agreement on what you want out of the game but if you want is a full sandbox, then the assumption should be that if a party is hostile enough and able enough, they will try to keep you from resting. OTOH if no parties are particularly hostile to you, the only thing preventing rests are random encounters and similar random hazards natural to the place (which are generally a nuisance at best since they don't have a vested interest in the end of your lives).

[Pex]

It's up to DM to populate the world. It's up to the players to use it.



Well, most enemies you get in a sandbox are based on the goals you select for yourself and the size of the adversarial factions related to that. I.e. matters under PC control. Of course it's good to come to an agreement on what you want out of the game but if you want is a full sandbox, then the assumption should be that if a party is hostile enough and able enough, they will try to keep you from resting. OTOH if no parties are particularly hostile to you, the only thing preventing rests are random encounters and similar random hazards natural to the place (which are generally a nuisance at best since they don't have a vested interest in the end of your lives).

In the sandbox the players choose their goals, but it's exactly that the DM populates the world. If the party goes after the orcs it's the DM who says how many orcs there are, how they function, and how often they bother the PCs. At the extreme no I don't expect the party to be able to rest after taking out an encampent of orcs that was only half populated and they stay at the camp. However, if they leave the camp covering their tracks and find a hidden cave verified not to be an animal's den and keep it hidden, they get their rest. Maybe not that cave. Maybe something else, someplace else, whatever it takes to satisfy the DM the players get their rest, I don't care how, they should satisfy the DM's demands no longer than once per two game sessions and get their rest already. If it is combat as war the players are actively trying to meet the demands. If the players do absolutely nothing, sure that's on them, but I'm presuming basic competence since this is the type of game they want to play. As I said, use whateever verisimilitude you need to satisfy the players get their rest, but they should get the rest no longer than once per two game session to avoid frustration of playing, meaning the game is becoming a chore - not being fun.

[KyleG]

For me the goal with GR is threefold.
1. Making healing more realistic
2. Fit 6-8 encounters into a long rest
3. Extend game world time so it is more meaningful for the characters.
Im not sure all can be achieved but in the next campaign I run im thinking of doing a rest occurs at night. First night is a short rest, second a short rest and third a long rest. Now if they don't get a rest then its delayed until they do. There is still obviously some spell issues, but the exhaustion/short rest presented here would work as would some ideas round healing with medicine checks. Even make better use of healers kit and feat.
What ever I end up on it should be simple.

[Samayu]

To me, gritty realism all about the realism of healing, so I don't get why people restrict the recovery of SR or LR abilities. I think the GR rules should be about not being able to heal in a short time. I think you should still be able to sit for a while and center yourself and recover your ki points, for example.

Giving everyone their powers back keeps up the fun that's found in your ability to do the things that your character was made to do. But restricting HP gain ratchets up the tension.

I think restricting ability usage per rests, would only be fun for people who have never gotten used to the pacing of a regular D&D 5e game. For me, I already spend so much time second-guessing the usage of my daily abilities, or worse, lamenting their failure, that I don't think I could play a game that had more encounters per rest cycle.

[KyleG]

To me, gritty realism all about the realism of healing, so I don't get why people restrict the recovery of SR or LR abilities. I think the GR rules should be about not being able to heal in a short time. I think you should still be able to sit for a while and center yourself and recover your ki points, for example.

Giving everyone their powers back keeps up the fun that's found in your ability to do the things that your character was made to do. But restricting HP gain ratchets up the tension.

I think restricting ability usage per rests, would only be fun for people who have never gotten used to the pacing of a regular D&D 5e game. For me, I already spend so much time second-guessing the usage of my daily abilities, or worse, lamenting their failure, that I don't think I could play a game that had more encounters per rest cycle.

How many encounters do you have. It should be 6-8 per rest cycle. So if you arent getting that because starting 6 bar fights and 2 dungeon fights seems excessive each day then that is one reason why i want to change the cycle to not necessarily coincide with day/night.

[Witty Username]

To me, gritty realism all about the realism of healing...

In that case do you prefer the alternative healing rules like long rests not providing full heals?

[Throne12]

In the sandbox the players choose their goals, but it's exactly that the DM populates the world. If the party goes after the orcs it's the DM who says how many orcs there are, how they function, and how often they bother the PCs. At the extreme no I don't expect the party to be able to rest after taking out an encampent of orcs that was only half populated and they stay at the camp. However, if they leave the camp covering their tracks and find a hidden cave verified not to be an animal's den and keep it hidden, they get their rest. Maybe not that cave. Maybe something else, someplace else, whatever it takes to satisfy the DM the players get their rest, I don't care how, they should satisfy the DM's demands no longer than once per two game sessions and get their rest already. If it is combat as war the players are actively trying to meet the demands. If the players do absolutely nothing, sure that's on them, but I'm presuming basic competence since this is the type of game they want to play. As I said, use whateever verisimilitude you need to satisfy the players get their rest, but they should get the rest no longer than once per two game session to avoid frustration of playing, meaning the game is becoming a chore - not being fun.

I think that's the point your not getting there are people. That a enjoy the Frustration this style of play is trying to emulate. That shower feel so good at the end of the day after you crawed Through the mud, sweat. It gives you that Satisfying feeling that you earned that decanter of endless water. There are people out there that just don't want to be handed things. I've noticed that in many game that things that the DM handed to the player or things that didn't cost much effort to get. The players didn't use often or at all. But the things they fought and Pried from the hands of dead enemies. They liked and used more.

At the end of day everyone playing needs to be on the same page. On what they want out of the game. If you want to be handed easy encounters and players feeling as unstoppable as a anime protagonist. Then keep play 5e as is it not a bad way to play. But it not the only way and not the way others want. 5e is easy on the PC's. With out changing the rules it Extremely hard for the DM to follow the rules and kill a pc or even to slow down the momentum the players have just baked in. They might as well not put Exhaustion into the game as easy it is to deal with. Whats the point in throwing Diseases at the party when they can cast a spell of use 5points of lay on hands using resources. then a few hours later there all good on resources because they had a sleep. It doesn't matter if that sleep was on a hard cold ground.

[Anymage]

To me, gritty realism all about the realism of healing, so I don't get why people restrict the recovery of SR or LR abilities...I don't think I could play a game that had more encounters per rest cycle.

Healing in 5e is so trivial because for most of D&D's history healing required someone to suck it up and play the healer regardless of what they might have wanted. As long as spell slots can be converted into hit points, allowing spell slots to recover daily but being a stickler about mundane HP recovery just brings that dynamic back. The real advantage to GR is for people who consider multiple encounters per day unrealistic. If you only expect one encounter per day at most, it makes perfect sense to nova and to pick classes consistent with long rest recharge nova abilities. Changing the definition of "rest" allows you to bring back the resource management and long rest/short rest balance while keeping your preferred pacing in the story.

I think that's the point your not getting there are people. That a enjoy the Frustration this style of play is trying to emulate.

That doesn't change Pex's point at all. The DM still gets to decide how numerous the enemies are and how much they can focus on the PCs vs. other priorities. Wading through muck and having enemies take advantage of your weakened state can happen whether your full recharge takes ten minutes or a year.

Plus, like I said last time, if you want to up the risks then longer recharges are a good thing. If all you need is a Tiny Hut and then you can come back fresh as a daisy, that kind of undermines the struggle of needing to get back to a safe place to recharge.

[Eldariel]

In the sandbox the players choose their goals, but it's exactly that the DM populates the world. If the party goes after the orcs it's the DM who says how many orcs there are, how they function, and how often they bother the PCs. At the extreme no I don't expect the party to be able to rest after taking out an encampent of orcs that was only half populated and they stay at the camp. However, if they leave the camp covering their tracks and find a hidden cave verified not to be an animal's den and keep it hidden, they get their rest. Maybe not that cave. Maybe something else, someplace else, whatever it takes to satisfy the DM the players get their rest, I don't care how, they should satisfy the DM's demands no longer than once per two game sessions and get their rest already. If it is combat as war the players are actively trying to meet the demands. If the players do absolutely nothing, sure that's on them, but I'm presuming basic competence since this is the type of game they want to play. As I said, use whateever verisimilitude you need to satisfy the players get their rest, but they should get the rest no longer than once per two game session to avoid frustration of playing, meaning the game is becoming a chore - not being fun.

But see, when I build a sandbox I largely prepopulate the world; the numbers are already all there so I don't need to really alter them. And not getting a rest - i.e. getting persistence hunted and strangled out of your resources and slowly being whittled to death has its own kind of charm, much akin to some horror genre games (it can feel quite horrifying and the player can feel quite helpless). Especially since you can do something about it. It's not only at the peak of their resources that players can die after all. It's a part of the game too.

I should say that I've rarely had my players unable to rest pretty much when they want to (of course, time moves onwards so they still ratio resting since their goals often slip further out of their grasp over the week). But if they decided to trek to an incredibly hostile environment or just hung around a town where they've pretty much antagonized every single faction of note, it's possible. But again, it's definitely on them: I won't present a world with no safe places to rest in nor make movers by default hostile enough to them unless we specifically agree to play a game where humanoids are hunted for sports by dragons and giants.

[PattThe]

The one gritty realism game I'm involved with is on indefinite hiatus for quite a while. We built 15th level characters and the week long rest rule really shaped my spell choice. I'm a lvl 15 Shadar-Kai Raven Queen Warlock of the Chain. Raven Queen warlock was an old UA. Being a warlock means I actually have a pool of spell slots to waste every night before going to sleep. I picked Vampiric Touch because that becomes free healing every day if you can grab some sucker and heal up, dragging their body somewhere for animation at a later point. My real quizzical scenario is my access to Demiplane as a "once per week" spell from Mystic Arcanum. I made a few rooms before the game so I have that in my back pocket if we really need to bug out of somewhere. However the fact that the Doorway lasts only for an hour and I can't cast the spell until a week has passed means.. well.. if someone's in there they are stuck there for a week at the very least.
Also I have infinite flight, two familiars, and spell sniper on a Repelling Eldritch Spear. I took Flock of Familiars because.. well.. I can scout an entire city in ten minutes with all of these things! The class feature Raven isn't a familiar, so I can have an Imp in raven form as well. 5th level flock of familiars, and my ability to shift into my familiar.. that's a lot of birds.

My thesis on gritty realism is find a way to ensure you can get HP if you need it, and build the rest of your character around a few abilities that don't have limitations on numbers of uses. Taking invocations via feats can give you a few spells to use as cantrips. Pick things that are fun that you can enjoy doing all day every day.

[OathofDiscovery]

I've been using a GR variant in my home game for nearly two years now. It's a completely off the book Storm King's Thunder game with a party of 4 lvl 15 characters.
Variant is 8hr Short Rest, uninterrupted 24 Hr long rest, bump spell durations/ casting times of longer than 1 minute up one notch (10 mins -> 1 hr -> 8 hrs -> 24 hrs -> etc).

Works really well for what I wanted; there's a lot of travel in my game so this keeps it relevant, the plot can advance in the background, downtime activities are relevant, decisions about when/ where to rest are important but not crippling. I do run into problems with dungeon crawls, but it turns small ones into resource management games and large ones into planned multi stage expeditions.

[Azuresun]

How many encounters do you have. It should be 6-8 per rest cycle. So if you arent getting that because starting 6 bar fights and 2 dungeon fights seems excessive each day then that is one reason why i want to change the cycle to not necessarily coincide with day/night.

The DMG does not mandate 6-8 encounters, and never claimed to, that's entirely an internet invention. What it actually says is 6-8 medium-hard encounters, more if they're easier encounters and fewer if they're harder.

/petpeeve

[Eldariel]

The DMG does not mandate 6-8 encounters, and never claimed to, that's entirely an internet invention. What it actually says is 6-8 medium-hard encounters, more if they're easier encounters and fewer if they're harder.

/petpeeve

ON AVERAGE a party HAS ENOUGH RESOURCES that the PLAYTEST PLAYERS FELT LIKE THEY are able to clear about that many encounters. That whole thing speaks nothing of how many and how hard encounters you should run, just what's reasonably easy for an average party to beat. As the modules show, the design assumes few and no encounter days as well as marathon slogs.

But as we all know, CR is a crapshot so you can't really stare at the numbers too much much: circumstances and tactics are way more important than raw numbers much of the time.

[Pex]

I think that's the point your not getting there are people. That a enjoy the Frustration this style of play is trying to emulate. That shower feel so good at the end of the day after you crawed Through the mud, sweat. It gives you that Satisfying feeling that you earned that decanter of endless water. There are people out there that just don't want to be handed things. I've noticed that in many game that things that the DM handed to the player or things that didn't cost much effort to get. The players didn't use often or at all. But the things they fought and Pried from the hands of dead enemies. They liked and used more.

At the end of day everyone playing needs to be on the same page. On what they want out of the game. If you want to be handed easy encounters and players feeling as unstoppable as a anime protagonist. Then keep play 5e as is it not a bad way to play. But it not the only way and not the way others want. 5e is easy on the PC's. With out changing the rules it Extremely hard for the DM to follow the rules and kill a pc or even to slow down the momentum the players have just baked in. They might as well not put Exhaustion into the game as easy it is to deal with. Whats the point in throwing Diseases at the party when they can cast a spell of use 5points of lay on hands using resources. then a few hours later there all good on resources because they had a sleep. It doesn't matter if that sleep was on a hard cold ground.

As I said it takes a masochist to be playing a wizard and be happy the only thing you can do in combat is cast Fire Bolt after 6 game sessions without a rest. It was being facetious, but the analogy is the point. If you really have such players, so be it. However, this falls into a different topic as far as I'm concerned. Having house rules is fine. If you need to write your own Player's Handbook, perhaps the better solution is to play a different game. If you need to tweek 5E so much to make it work for you, maybe there's another game system that already does what you want.

5E sort of has this anyway with its Middle Earth adaptation. Even if you don't play that gameworld, it has new classes, no spellcasters, and traveling rules that make for importance of resources, character morale, and no easy solutions. Resting is not based on time but being in specific locales, such as Rivendell in the gameworld but you can make your own. I maintain the PCs should arrive at one of these locations no worse than once per two game sessions, but if this Frustration as Fun is your thing check it out.

[noob]

I am pretty sure that if rests are removed from the game that wizards are bad picks.
But an abjuration wizard with the at will non-detection spell like ability is not the worst pick ever if the game never gives any rest.(replenish the ward and also make your team harder to scry and kill which is basically guaranteed to happen insanely often if rests are nearly impossible)

[Eldariel]

I am pretty sure that if rests are removed from the game that wizards are bad picks.
But an abjuration wizard with the at will non-detection spell like ability is not the worst pick ever if the game never gives any rest.(replenish the ward and also make your team harder to scry and kill which is basically guaranteed to happen insanely often if rests are nearly impossible)

At that point you do still have Ritual Caster: Wizard and cantrips, which aren't amazing but they're at least something. They're basically sufficient for a Tier 1 character: you don't actually need slots on those levels but of course, slots are nice to have. Mold Earth, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation/Shape Water, Unseen Servant, Find Familiar, Detect Magic, Magic Mouth is a pretty solid character all on its own right: extremely solid detection abilities (especially Find Familiar and Magic Mouth, but also Detect Magic), good shaping and battlefield control (Unseen Servant, Mold Earth, Minor Illusion, potentially Shape Water), and reasonable damage (16 Dex Light Crossbow). Tier 2 is rough though if you can only use your spells once in a blue moon.

It gets better in Tier 3. You begin to get permanent spells: Major Image from 6th level slot (or Programmed Image) is very strong and Magic Jar too and both can give you permanent bonuses. Of course, you need one rest to cast both even once. Contingency is also great if you do get the chance to prepare. A high level Illusionist could certainly do stuff with that: Major Image is permanent from 6th level+ slot and Illusory Reality and Malleable Illusions let you do pretty much whatever you want with them. In general, Tier 3-4 Wizard has a much easier time building permanent boons with their high level spells which make them competitive on an at-will basis if they've had the chance to put those in place.

Tier 2 is definitely the point where the class is the most long rest reliant (and now Bladesinger isn't quite the answer it used to be either since Bladesong is no longer an SR ability and being in melee without a reliable means of replenishing HP is pretty rough; though there's the Drow Hand Crossbow Bladesinger which would've worked around that somewhat).

[Samayu]

How many encounters do you have. It should be 6-8 per rest cycle. So if you arent getting that because starting 6 bar fights and 2 dungeon fights seems excessive each day then that is one reason why i want to change the cycle to not necessarily coincide with day/night.

I don't follow you. You suggest 6 to 8 encounters per rest cycle is reasonable, and they you say that if 6 to 8 encounters seems excessive... somethingsomething... so you want to change it.

In that case do you prefer the alternative healing rules like long rests not providing full heals?

I don't care for the heroic healing thing so much, so I'm interested in trying something at some point. It would take some work to learn how to balance things.

So, Slow Natural Healing (DMG p267)? Characters only gain HP from rests by spending hit dice. Sure, that would be one way to do it. Like I said, I just don't understand why you'd want to reduce the use of class features. It just doesn't sound like much fun. And would disrupt the game balance, as people are talking about nerfing wizards and such.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Here's my take:

Gritty Realism is a misnomer, as it is neither more gritty nor more realistic than defauit.

Both grit and verisimilitude are entirely functions of the GM's story writing and handling [with a little bit of complicity from the players], so if that's your objective don't turn to Gritty Realism rules, and instead start thinking about how a world with magic and monsters would be realistically structured from the development of society and consider the pressures and the fundamental requirements of having a coherent and stable society in such a world.



There are two major effects I've noticed for Gritty Realism: the first is that it effectively moves the start of a mission to the point where you leave town, as opposed to the point where you arrive at the area of operation. It makes travel random encounters more significant, since resources expended in them won't be available during the mission proper. If you believe in random travel encounters and want to make them more significant and are frustrated that players always alpha strike your wandering irrelevant monsters down and then rest before beginning their mission proper, this is a rules package for you. Personally, I don't believe in random encounters [of all the things on the road, adventurers are the least attractive things to attack, since they're prickly and have minimal reward; and if a kingdom has such insecurity from roving monsters or bandits that open attacks on travelers are threatening, regular, and unexceptional, trade and communication would collapse, and so would the kingdom], so playing with this ruleset is essentially exactly like playing normally.

More theoretically:
If you play in a game where a GM deployed encountered measured by rests and permits rests in the field, then you won't experience a difference mechanically, and it might disrupt the pacing of the game if the idea of taking all day to sweep one or two rooms doesn't sit right.

If your GM is like me, and generally presents an active and reactive enemy who will seize the initiative when the players cease to maintain it and react to offensive maneuvers by the players when given the chance, then it's also basically the same. My players can't reasonably take a long rest in the field, taking 8 hours is basically inviting the enemy to counterattack, dig in, or withdraw. Often, taking a 1 hour short rest is beyond their capability since the enemy will almost certainly reinforce, move their assets around, or construct hasty defenses in that hour.

You'll only see a difference really if you play in a game in which the players have full control over the rate of encounters, and opposing forces sit tight and oblige and wait to be engaged by the player. If you happen to have this as a problem, wherein players clear one room with full firepower, then take an 8 hour rest, then move onto the next room, rinse and repeat, I think you should solve this problem by having a less passive and set-piece enemy and introduce some greater strategic coordination to the enemy's efforts, such as mounting counteroffensives, progressing their plot at a rate independent of the party's progress in killing them, or just reoccupying previously cleared rooms so the party keeps having to start at ground zero.




The other thing that Gritty Realism does is grant downtime. It is inherent that you will have a lot of downtime, since every long rest is a week in town. If your game doesn't ever present downtime and you want to use and have downtime rules [I might recommend looking outside of 5e for good ones since 5e's are critically unimpressive, but that's besides the point], then you might want to consider this rules package. It basically forces you to take downtime, and the GM to give it to you.

[MoiMagnus]

Here's my take:

Gritty Realism is a misnomer, as it is neither more gritty nor more realistic than defauit.

Fully agree on the gritty part. "Slow pace" or something similar would have been the name.
I think the "realistic" part is here as an answer to peoples complaining that non-magical healing is unrealistically fast under normal rules.

[Tanarii]

I've run it. It doesn't work for what I generally want to do with most campaigns, arrive at the adventuring site, have a bunch of encounters (combat and non) in an in-game day and single session, then retreat to rest at the end of the session. Even the normal rest rate doesn't quite allow enough encounters by the guidelines, but luckily most experienced players can handle more than 6 medium or 4.5 hard combat encounters per Long rest, provided they have sufficient short rests (ie more than 2).

Now if I was running a dangerous wilderness journeying campaign with a Deadly+ fight every 2 days, and then the ability to rest in between it would be perfect.

From that perspective, I partially agree with Pex. What mostly matters is how many sessions you get a long rest in. But that said, it also matters (for balance reasons) how much you do in a session. If you only do one Deadly fight per session and all your other activities are not expected to use any resources, then a long rest every other session is a bit too much, and one per session is far too much. In that case, adjusting in-game time per long rest won't do what you need. If you want one per session, you'd have to nerf Long Rest resources per session.

I don't follow you. You suggest 6 to 8 encounters per rest cycle is reasonable, and they you say that if 6 to 8 encounters seems excessive... somethingsomething... so you want to change it.

An example:
3 Deadly encounter or 6 medium encounter per 24 in-game day is excessive for some folks campaign's in-game speed. It's okay if it's 1 Deadly or 2 Medium every other in-game day, followed by a week in a town. Even if both of them occur over 1-2 sessions of real world time.

[One Tin Soldier]

Here's my take:

Gritty Realism is a misnomer, as it is neither more gritty nor more realistic than defauit.

Both grit and verisimilitude are entirely functions of the GM's story writing and handling [with a little bit of complicity from the players], so if that's your objective don't turn to Gritty Realism rules, and instead start thinking about how a world with magic and monsters would be realistically structured from the development of society and consider the pressures and the fundamental requirements of having a coherent and stable society in such a world.



There are two major effects I've noticed for Gritty Realism: the first is that it effectively moves the start of a mission to the point where you leave town, as opposed to the point where you arrive at the area of operation. It makes travel random encounters more significant, since resources expended in them won't be available during the mission proper. If you believe in random travel encounters and want to make them more significant and are frustrated that players always alpha strike your wandering irrelevant monsters down and then rest before beginning their mission proper, this is a rules package for you. Personally, I don't believe in random encounters [of all the things on the road, adventurers are the least attractive things to attack, since they're prickly and have minimal reward; and if a kingdom has such insecurity from roving monsters or bandits that open attacks on travelers are threatening, regular, and unexceptional, trade and communication would collapse, and so would the kingdom], so playing with this ruleset is essentially exactly like playing normally.

This is pretty much spot on with how I've been using it. I primarily run one-shots these days, and I've found that GR is good for stories that are centered around a multi-day journey. Meeting obstacles and enemies on the road becomes something that actually effects the outcome, rather than set dressing. I've even thought about going a step further some day: following GR rules when journeying between destinations, then in the dungeon itself following standard rest rules.

By the same token, the Epic Rest variant is good for when you want the PCs to blast their way through hordes of enemies within a short period of time. Like, say, a demonic invasion of a city.

The change in pace could be justified in character by having areas of high and low ambient magic, but its ultimately secondary to game pace.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Fully agree on the gritty part. "Slow pace" or something similar would have been the name.
I think the "realistic" part is here as an answer to peoples complaining that non-magical healing is unrealistically fast under normal rules.

It's still unrealistically fast under Gritty Realism, though. It takes well more than a week to recover from wounds suffered in combat [if you ever recover at all] without medical attention.

[Tanarii]

It's still unrealistically fast under Gritty Realism, though. It takes well more than a week to recover from wounds suffered in combat [if you ever recover at all] without medical attention.

Add Lingering Injuries if you drop to 0 hit points. Anything beyond that isn't severe damage.

[Dienekes]

Add Lingering Injuries if you drop to 0 hit points. Anything beyond that isn't severe damage.

Not particularly realistic either. Plenty of wounds that will take months to heal happen when you're still up and fighting.

But then D&D isn't realistic in any way so not seeing a reason to think any rules variations that doesn't change literally everything about the hit point system can be gritty and/or realistic.

[Sorinth]

My biggest gripe with gritty realism is that it pushes healers into conserving their spells almost entirely for healing. Since most people don't want to spend a week healing, they pressure a player into being the heal bot who only heals people. So as much as people complain about the wizard struggling, it's the cleric that ends up stuck casting cantrips or just attacking all the time.

Wizards actually have it much better since Arcane Recovery works per day not per long rest (Land Druid's version of it is the opposite). So even under the gritty realism rules the wizard is still getting some spells back every day, so yeah they have to be stingy during fights but they will still throw out important combat changing spells when needed so it's not as bad as people might initially think.


To the OP,
If all you want is to force resource management on spellcasters and don't want to up the number of encounters then I would propose that LR casters simply don't recover all their spells per long rest, give them half or even a third of their level worth of spell slots per long rest.

If you want a more survivalist game then the I would suggest limiting when you get the benefits of a LR to only at "civilized" locations. So sleeping in an inn will get you your LR, but camping in the wilderness only nets you a SR. Though there might be wilderness places, like a shrine to a local goddess that could still grant the proper LR.