# What would your ideal rest mechanic look like?



## Yaarel

What is your own ideal rest mechanic that you use or want to use for the game.


In 5e, per day, the standard rest mechanic assumes about 6 to 8 encounters until the next 8-hour long rest. In addition, there are perhaps two 1-hour short rests, between these per-day combat encounters. So the standard schedule tends to approximate something like:

*Long Rest* − _3 encounters_ − *Short Rest* − _2 encounters_ − *Short Rest* − _2 encounters_ − *Long Rest*


This standard schedule seems to happen less frequently than intended because the same hostile environment that fills a single day with about seven combat encounters is the same hostile environment that makes full 1-hour short rests less obtainable.

Nevertheless, many adventure stories take place in a hostile environment, such as an underground dungeon crawl, and the schedule where each night is a long rest and a short rest is an emergency triage, seems adequate for many gaming tables, at least upto around level 12.

For much of the adventure, especially levels 5 to 8, also 9 to 12, there work out to be 2 long rests per level.



The difficulties with the rest mechanic include:

Story Setting
• Some stories make combat less frequent, such as a well-policed urban environment or seafaring ship, one combat between long rests.
• Some stories make combat more frequent, making a 1-hour rest implausible.

Story Mood
• "Gritty" stories portray fragile and weary heroes, making an 8-hour full refresh feel too vibrant. Here prefers 7 days of relaxation or similar.
• "Heroic" stories portray action heroes, full of urgency and power, making a 1-hour short boost obstructive. Here prefers a 15-minute break, 10, or 5.

Gaming Balance
• Some classes depend more on long rest refresh (Wizard) and some depend more on short rest (Warlock), so straying from standard affects balance.

New Mechanic: Proficiency Times Per Long Rest
• Most editions of D&D relied on the 8 hour or week long refresh long rest. 5e short rests are new.
• 4e per-encounter powers translated into 5e as per-short-rest.
• The short rest seems to be the most difficult regulate routinely if story makes the standard schedule less plausible.
• Designers recently employ the proficiency times per long rest mechanic, where one might expect a short rest.
• A hero can do the feature a number of times equal to the current proficiency bonus. This number increases while advancing in levels.
• Perhaps the designers are phasing out short rests.
• If short rests disappear, the amount of time for a long rest becomes easier to "dial", while the proficiency times per long rest regulate accordingly.



The above is many of the considerations. What is your ideal rest mechanic?


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## aco175

Maybe there could something on floating rests?  There is a lot on powers being tied to proficiency bonus/ time per day from the looks of things.  Make it simple enough like 4e with rests being 5 minutes (or whatever) and let the player take them as needed and not force some classes to break when the other want to.  

Maybe space them out in hours to make the gaming day longer so you get away from, nova, nova, nova, long rest after 15 minute day.  

There should be something from 4e that works and pulled over.


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## King Babar

I can't really think of an ideal system (I'm not a game designer), but I don't like an approach the reinforces proficiency bonus as the master dial to be tweaked for game balance.


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## commandercrud

Here's what I've found works best with 5e.
"Quick Rest" - 5 minutes, only usable immediately after a battle. Can use only 1 HD.
Short Rest - full night's sleep
Long Rest - 5 downtime days


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## el-remmen

I think the system works nearly as well as I'd want as is. But I am considering the following for my next campaign:

Short Rest (30 minutes) - spend hit dice as normal - regain short rest powers
Long Rest (8 hours of sleep/rest - at least 6 hours of the former - with less than 10 minutes of interruption and no combat) - regain long rest powers and spend hit dice (but with advantage) as a short rest. At the _end _of a long rest you get half-level rounded down hit dice back. No more than one long rest in a 24 hour period.
Extended Rest (a week of long rests with no combat) - heal back damage from energy-draining undead and like and recover from some other long term conditions - all hit points and hd go to max if they haven't already.


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## overgeeked

There's already another thread dealing with this exact question. 

You either need to change how classes recharge their resources (everyone on the same pace of short rest or long rest) or you need to adjust the length of rests to roughly emulate that change.

For me, the ideal is long rests based on the environment, so long rest as written somewhere safe and guarded, like a town. Long rests in the wilds, in dungeons, etc will take longer. Maybe not Gritty Realism long, but definitely longer than 8 hours. But to also decrease the time short rests take, something like an action or bonus action is ideal, though you'd need to limit short rests to 2 per day. 

I've tried this a few times and it seems to resolve quite a few issues with game design assumptions (6-8 encounters per day) and the lingering issues of linear fighter, quadratic wizard. It's not perfect, but it's dramatically better than RAW.


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## jmartkdr2

Radical approach: the rest mechanic only impacts hit point recovery. Everything else isn't based on x/rest.

You can totally make a game like this. It wouldn't do well under the D&D brand.


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## EzekielRaiden

The way 4e did it was pretty much ideal already. Don't balance short-rest abilities on the assumption they have to be stretched out across multiple encounters. Let them be tricks you can pull out pretty much every fight.

Of course, I'm also of the opinion that Wizards being able to cast three spells a day that are likely to put a quick end to encounters is just fundamentally bad design. It dramatically encourages everyone, regardless of the resting mechanic, to take whatever rest gives spells back as often as humanly possible. But people tend to react pretty nastily when you tell them that design of this nature has some inherent issues that are exceptionally difficult to design around.


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## Oofta

Not sure there is a one size fits all, the best we can do is give people options.  As I said on the other thread, I don't really do gritty rest rules because they're gritty. I do it for purposes of pacing and feel. I don't want to cram in a ton of encounters in one day and it take more than overnight to recover HP.  Even if you consider HP damage to just be stresses, strains and bruises, you need more than a good night's sleep a lot of times.  I do multiply duration by 5 for spells that last 30 minutes or more to compensate.

On the other hand, I think some of the difficulty is the rate of recovery for spells and other abilities. I could see an option where you get back X per hour of rest with the option to change that to getting back X per night of rest or similar.  I kind of look to The Dresden Files as inspiration - things are going fine and then the poo hits the air circulation device. By the end of a couple of days of strenuous casting, Dresden is at the end of his rope physically and mentally which can be a fun challenge.

So my ideal system would be a hybrid system with more flexibility built in based on the style of game.  Oh, and I don't want some metagame logic for it.  I want it to make sense in world from the PC's perspective.


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## GMMichael




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## Yaarel

@GMMichael, Im getting that this is how your character prefers to spend downtime? Any new skills?


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## Yaarel

Personally I am unsure how the short rest versus the proficiency times will play out.

For short spans, I am fond of the 15-minute time block, because there are roughly a 100 of them per day, thus a convenient way to track percentages of day metrically. A "ke" (Chinese unit of time) is 14.4 minutes, easily rounding off as if 15 minutes, and being a hundredth of a day.

Is a 15-minute short rest a viable compromise between 1-hour and 30-minute versus 5-minute and 10-minute? A 15-minute break is a common reallife custom.

I find 15 minutes a solid amount of time to perform most rituals, and tasks that dont take up too much time.


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## Neonchameleon

I've seen two systems that worked well:

The 4e system which meant that your options narrowed in a skirmish as you got tired, and that allowed some recovery between fights as you caught your breath and bandaged yourself up - but healing surges were limited.
A tweak on it with short rests each taking longer as you used them in the day. The first was from memory a turn then a minute then five, then an hour, then eight, then you'd better long rest. So each gets harder than the last.
15 minutes just about works. An hour doesn't.


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## Minigiant

2 Axis

One axis is *Time*. How long you rest. 

Quick- 5 Minutes
Short- 1 hour
Long- 8 hours
Full- 1 day
Extended- 3 days
The other axis is *Location*. How safe you rest and how many recovery and relaxation facilities the area has. 

Respite- Downtime in an actively hostile and dangerous environment.
Break- Downtime in a potentially dangerous environment or actively upsetting
Rest- Downtime in a safe environment
"Holiday"- Downtime in a safe environment designed for healing, recovery, and relaxation
Respites and breaks only heal HP and sanity.


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## Charlaquin

jmartkdr2 said:


> Radical approach: the rest mechanic only impacts hit point recovery. Everything else isn't based on x/rest.
> 
> You can totally make a game like this. It wouldn't do well under the D&D brand.



Yeah, X times between [length] rests is a pretty uninspired way to limit ability usage, and comes with a lot of problems that D&D has been struggling with since it’s inception. I think 4e did the best version of that mechanic we’re ever likely to see.


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## FrogReaver

The old idea of recovery items might work well.  Towns have shops for these.  Mana potions/healing potions/*short rest potions/*long rest potions.  It would also help create a gold sink that players could actually use to spend their money on.  Then just have it be you don't recharge naturally outside of a safe town environment (or maybe anything but hp).  You still need to sleep at night or face exhaustion.  Then you just regulate gold.


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## Micah Sweet

Short rest 30 minutes.  Otherwise as is.

Long rest 8 hours, but in a sanctuary (safe, secure, and comfortable location).  An inn or similar would be fine.

You still need about 6-8 hours rest per day to stave off fatigue/strife, but it only counts as a short rest unless in a sanctuary.


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## Vaalingrade

Short rest 5 minutes. Everything is built on this.

Long rest recovered HP and HD. No abilities are daily except mx healing.


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## RangerWickett

My preferred version would require a heavy retool of the rest of the system. But here it is.

First, we'd have HP that replenishes with a 5 minute rest, where *Hit* Points means "ability to survive an attack that *hits*."

But on top of that you have *wounds* that can occur from critical hits. And if you're out of HP, every attack that hits causes a wound. Usually someone who drops to 0 HP just gives up. (And if you score a critical hit against someone with no HP, they

Wounds persist until you get treatment, which might take an hour, a day, or a week (or magic!). The location is random, or you can spend a bonus action to aim at a specific location, but aiming only matters _if_ you inflict a wound. Arm wounds make wielding stuff harder. Leg wounds make moving harder. Head wounds impede your senses or might knock you unconscious. And torso wounds cause blood loss (so you make a save each turn to avoid passing out) _and_ lower your max HP, so when you take a rest you might only get back to 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 your total.

Wounds can be *light* (heal in an hour), *moderate *(heal in a day), *serious *(heal in a week), or *critical *(never heal).

When you drop to 0 HP, you automatically get a moderate wound wherever the attack hit, or a light wound if you choose to fall unconscious.

Normally critical hits would inflict serious wounds. They'd upgrade to critical if you have no HP left. Whenever you take a wound, you can make a Con save to reduce it by one step. And you'd have hero points you could expend to reduce _any_ wound to light.

A 5-minute Medicine check (DC 10) can let the patient recover from a light wound. So can a cure light wounds spell (1st level).

A 1-hour Medicine check (DC 15) can let a patient ignore the effects of a moderate wound, though the benefit goes away after the character falls below half HP. Cure moderate wounds (2nd level) can fully recover a moderate wound.

Cure serious wounds (3rd level) can fix a serious wound. Cure critical (4th level) can fix a critical wound, which includes regrowing severed limbs. Then Raise Dead (5th level) lets you beat death, but any wounds the person had when they died require an extra cure spell. Heal (6th level) can fix all your wounds at once. Resurrection (7th level) can restore the dead _and_ fix all your wounds. And True Resurrection (9th level) is that, but with a casting time of one action.

None of these actually recover hit points. For that you either need inspiration by an ally, or you can take an action to get a second wind, or maybe a heroism spell.

The idea here is to have rules for how wounds actually function in real life, but in a way that players can still function and be heroic while injured.


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## Yaarel

Maybe the length of a "long rest" can depend on whether the damage is superficial or deep?

Most of the damage is intangible: loss of energy, alertness, and luck. Only if reaching zero hit points can the damage become deadly.

The character is fresh at full hit points. Down until half hit points, there is some contact, but the hit point loss comes from fatigue, getting sloppy, etcetera. At bloodied, at half, the damage causes lasting bruises, cuts, bloodied nose, and so on. Bandages become helpful. But still the damage is cosmetic. One can look at a fight sport match to see what this looks like.

These superficial bruises etcetera clear up in, say, *2d8 days*. This cosmetic damage has no bearing on hit points, but it is fun to remind the player, the character still has a black eye from when getting bloodied several days ago.

But at zero hit points, ones luck runs out. The damage becomes deadly. This is the sword thru the gut, and so on. (The attacker can choose avoid lethal damage, but the target is still unconscious and completely vulnerable at zero hit points.) If the damage is deadly, and the character survives the death saves, this deep damage can take weeks (or even months) to heal.

Typical injury − broken bone, bad burn, deep cut − *3 to 9 weeks to heal*.

So, when does real damage happen? It can happen at zero hit points. It normally takes weeks to heal real damage.



Consider the following rates of healing. It might be too complex for gaming purposes, but it gives a sense of what injuries might look like.

Damage Categories
• maximum hit points until half: negligible injury, mainly fatigue, heal normally
• half hit points until zero: minor injury, bloodied, heal normally, cosmetic marks persist 2d8 days
• zero hit points, fail 0 death saves: minor injury, downed, heal normally, cosmetic marks persist 2d8 days
• zero hit points fail 1 death save: moderate or serious, 2d6 weeks to heal
• zero hit points fail 2 death saves: severe or critical, 3d8 months to heal
• zero hit points fail 3 death saves: untreatable, permanent loss of either life or limb (DMs discretion based on injury)



The game doesnt have to get too complex about damage categories. But switching from an 8-hour sleep for full hit points, to something that takes weeks, can make sense when an injury is significant.


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## Aldarc

The *Cypher System* uses a Recovery mechanic that increases the amount of time needed per rest. 

1st Recovery Roll: 1 Action
2nd Recovery Roll: 10 Minutes
3rd Recovery Roll: 1 Hour
4th Recovery Roll: 10 Hours (i.e., a Long Rest)

I would consider implementing something similar to this for 5e* rather than debating whether a Short Rest should be 5-10 minutes or 1 hour. This empowers Short Rest based (sub)classes to make more Rests early on while also increasing the time cost for pushing ahead or taking further Rests. 

* I almost suspect that this was a Rest mechanic that Monte Cook may have intended for 5e while he was on the team.


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## Li Shenron

Yaarel said:


> What is your own ideal rest mechanic that you use or want to use for the game.



My ideal is not to thin too much about it. I like having both a short rest option to regain _some_ resources, and a long rest to regain _all_ resources, but I absolutely do not sweat over imposing a specific pace of the adventures. I let the players figure out when it's convenient/appropriate to take a rest instead of pushing on.


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## Lyxen

Li Shenron said:


> My ideal is not to thin too much about it. I like having both a short rest option to regain _some_ resources, and a long rest to regain _all_ resources, but I absolutely do not sweat over imposing a specific pace of the adventures. I let the players figure out when it's convenient/appropriate to take a rest instead of pushing on.




Exactly. Once more, 5e is based on rulings, not rules, there should not be heavy sweat about this. Rather than being prescriptive, I would let the players figure things out, with or without pressure from time, threats, etc.

And if a short rest is 50 minutes or 1h20, or even 30 minutes only as a breather, is that really a problem, as long as it's motivated by circumstances ?


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## Baldurs_Underdark

The ideal rest mechanic is just a simple mechanic, and to that effect the 5E rules are perfect. The administrative side of a rest is typically 1-2 minutes, and then the story can move on again.

And the story will determine when and how many rests are taken.


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## Horwath

Long rest only. 10hrs. Somewhat safe location. 6hrs of those needed for sleep.

recharges everything, except some long lasting effects(depend on effects, energy drain, disease, etc...)

"encounter powers" can be on simple d6 recharge mechanics. Use ability, roll d6, wait that numbers of rounds. Roll of 1 means it's available next round.

you can spend HDs as an Action(amount equal to half prof bonus, round up), need to wait d6 rounds when you can use it again.


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## aco175

Are *Milestones *worth bringing back from 4e?  Every 2 encounters you can get a power back.  Maybe separate powers from healing.  If a fighter knows he gets 2nd wind back every 2 fights, then he uses it and does not need the rest mechanic to get powers back.  Maybe a milestone is a 5 minute break where you get a power back and/or can spend 1 HD.


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## Blue

My ideal rest power recovery mechanic is one where different DMs are free to run extremely different types of games and the various classes are still in balance.

So a three week trek across a wilderness with four encounters, or a brisk morning with the same have the same total power recovery.  As well as being able to have exploration with heavy utility usage and a masquerade ball with associated intrigue, stealthing, uncovering secrets, and stopping a poisoning can balance.

Which means there is no way for it to be a _rest_ mechanic, as rests will be available at different rates as they are related to character choices as well as the passing of in-game time.

While rather gamist to some, 13th Age (a d20 that 5e is similar to in streamlining) has a solution.  "Full heal ups" happen after four encounters.  Sleeping has nothing to getting your powers back.  It could be four days of exploring the Overworld, it could be twice during a busy day in a Living Dungeon.  The DM can reduce the number if they are particularly big combats (but by default a standard combat is hard to deadly in 5e encounter design terms, may be hard but isn't actually deadly), and players can take one early by taking a campaign loss - the cultists complete another part of their ritual, the werewolves claim another farm, whatever makes sense.


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## DEFCON 1

My ideal rest mechanics are entirely about making the board game work and be fun.  That's all I care about.  If the rules allow the players of the board game to play it and enjoy it, then I'm good.  But I do not in any way, shape, or form care a whit about making those rules of the board game align to any sense of true _injury_ narratively.  Because Dungeons & Dragons combat does not in any way, shape, or form reflect any sort of reality in terms of actual swordfighting, archery, and being blasted in the face by what these "spells" are supposed to do... so I just handwave that aspect of it completely.  Going from 0 HP to full HP with a good night's rest?  Doesn't matter.  That's purely a convenience of the board game and to make the rules easy and fun to use, so worrying about how it looks within the story is a waste of my time.

And this is simply because I refuse to believe there is any sort of realistic response to a person getting blasted in the face by essentially a flamethrower, falling unconscious, having a healer a couple seconds later heal those burns (but not in any way removing the trauma of being burned alive and the memory of that pain and agony)... and then that same person just jumps up and says "Okay!  That was fun!  On to the next room!"  And then five minutes later in the next room that same character suffers a myriad of bites, claws, stab wounds, poisoning, and being bludgeoned about the head and neck, falls unconscious AGAIN... then has a vial of liquid emptied into their mouth to seal up those bleeding wounds (but again not in any way removing the trauma and mental anguish of pain they just suffered) and the character just once more jumps up and says "Okay!  That was fun!  On to the next room!" and this continues ad nauseum.

All of it is stupid.  It has no basis for any attempt at realism.  It is complete and utter fantasy (which makes sense, because it is a game of fantasy.)  And thus I just accept it for the unrealism it is and do my best to never question it (or care in the slightest if the board game and fantasy story does or does not align.)


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## GMMichael

Yaarel said:


> @GMMichael, Im getting that this is how your character prefers to spend downtime? Any new skills?



That's what my ideal rest mechanic would look like.

Not sure about skills, but it's important to note that Long Rest and Short Rest are not called 1-Hour Rest and 8-Hour Rest.  This says to me that a long or short rest can happen anytime it works for the story, not when it fits into the monsters' schedules.

A couple band-aids can make the game more enjoyable, but if you start overhauling rules, that's a sign that you might want to try a different game.


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## Yaarel

GMMichael said:


> That's what my ideal rest mechanic would look like.



Is the character the woman relaxing at the spa, or an other character who wants to relax with the woman?



GMMichael said:


> Not sure about skills, but it's important to note that Long Rest and Short Rest are not called 1-Hour Rest and 8-Hour Rest.  This says to me that a long or short rest can happen anytime it works for the story, not when it fits into the monsters' schedules.



I agree, the pace of the narrative is primary.



GMMichael said:


> A couple band-aids can make the game more enjoyable, but if you start overhauling rules, that's a sign that you might want to try a different game.



We are looking at rest variants. Different players want different things out of the rest variants.

For some, it is mainly a good night rest. For some it is a week-long vacation. For some, it is more like a partial level up after a number of encounters. For some, it is an opportune time when a refresh might make sense.


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## Yaarel

aco175 said:


> Are *Milestones *worth bringing back from 4e?  Every 2 encounters you can get a power back.  Maybe separate powers from healing.  If a fighter knows he gets 2nd wind back every 2 fights, then he uses it and does not need the rest mechanic to get powers back.  Maybe a milestone is a 5 minute break where you get a power back and/or can spend 1 HD.



I dont count narrative "milestones", but I do count the number of standard encounters to reach the next level. (For most levels about 16 encounters to level, give or take, depending on the narrative and the mood of the players. The leveling only happens between sessions.

In my campaign, all rests are short rests, except that twice per level, a player can instead choose to gain the benefit of a long rest from it. So far it is working well.

Only the narrative matters for when a combat happens. A standard encounter is often enough a noncombat encounter, such as a social challenge or puzzle, or a nonlethal encounter where foes flee or surrender. Rests happen narratively whenever a rest makes sense.

It is possible to modify this further, such as allowing any rest to be as brief as, say, 15 minutes. Or that the deep rest is only possible if in a nonstressful environment.


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## Composer99

I'm coming around to everyone gets everything back on a short or long rest, and then you have a number of Recoveries or whatever you want to call them, that limit the number of short rests you can take. I'm assuming 10 minute short rests and 8 hour long rests. (I do like the Cypher system schedule as an alternative.)

IMO this handily gets rid of rest schedule discrepancies - no 5 minute adventuring day or coffeelock - and is easy for DMs to play around with to suit the campaign with three simple dials to adjust - the number of Recoveries, the length of short rests, and the length of long rests.

Want a grittier game? Fewer Recoveries, and/or rests take longer. Want an epic game? More Recoveries.


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## Umbran

Yaarel said:


> This standard schedule seems to happen less frequently than intended because the same hostile environment that fills a single day with about seven combat encounters is the same hostile environment that makes full 1-hour short rests less obtainable.




I think there are other reasons that aren't based in the order of play of the game, but in the practical arrangement of play - meaning the "game session".  There is a great deal to be said for having the basic unit of rest be one session - the characters start fresh at the beginning, and they go into a long rest at the end, such that they'll be fresh at the start of the next session.

For one (entirely practical, metagame) thing, this largely eliminates the need for mechanical bookkeeping between sessions.  No more need to remember how many slots of which levels of spells did you use, and so forth.

Moreover, many people can go a couple of weeks between sessions, and lives are busy - not having to remember in quite so much detail exactly what the heck was going on last session is a bonus.

And then, there's the length of our sessions.  Eight encounters is... a lot.  I'm not getting through those in a three-hour weeknight session.  So either I am going to have to preserve the detailed game-state across multiple weeks between sessions, or I am just going to muck with the number of "encounters" I handle in one session. 

It seems to me that the rest mechanic was really built around a group that's spending a long weekend afternoon playing the game, rather than a short weekday evening.


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## Crimson Longinus

Blue said:


> My ideal rest power recovery mechanic is one where different DMs are free to run extremely different types of games and the various classes are still in balance.
> 
> So a three week trek across a wilderness with four encounters, or a brisk morning with the same have the same total power recovery.  As well as being able to have exploration with heavy utility usage and a masquerade ball with associated intrigue, stealthing, uncovering secrets, and stopping a poisoning can balance.
> 
> Which means there is no way for it to be a _rest_ mechanic, as rests will be available at different rates as they are related to character choices as well as the passing of in-game time.
> 
> While rather gamist to some, 13th Age (a d20 that 5e is similar to in streamlining) has a solution.  "Full heal ups" happen after four encounters.  Sleeping has nothing to getting your powers back.  It could be four days of exploring the Overworld, it could be twice during a busy day in a Living Dungeon.  The DM can reduce the number if they are particularly big combats (but by default a standard combat is hard to deadly in 5e encounter design terms, may be hard but isn't actually deadly), and players can take one early by taking a campaign loss - the cultists complete another part of their ritual, the werewolves claim another farm, whatever makes sense.



I'd hate this. It is just gamey and utterly disconnected. "Quick, find some goblins we can fight so that we heal and get our spells back!"  

I want the rules to be at least somewhat connected to the fictional reality the characters inhabit, so that the players can make informed choices in character.


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## Crimson Longinus

DEFCON 1 said:


> My ideal rest mechanics are entirely about making the board game work and be fun.  That's all I care about.  If the rules allow the players of the board game to play it and enjoy it, then I'm good.  But I do not in any way, shape, or form care a whit about making those rules of the board game align to any sense of true _injury_ narratively.  Because Dungeons & Dragons combat does not in any way, shape, or form reflect any sort of reality in terms of actual swordfighting, archery, and being blasted in the face by what these "spells" are supposed to do... so I just handwave that aspect of it completely.  Going from 0 HP to full HP with a good night's rest?  Doesn't matter.  That's purely a convenience of the board game and to make the rules easy and fun to use, so worrying about how it looks within the story is a waste of my time.
> 
> And this is simply because I refuse to believe there is any sort of realistic response to a person getting blasted in the face by essentially a flamethrower, falling unconscious, having a healer a couple seconds later heal those burns (but not in any way removing the trauma of being burned alive and the memory of that pain and agony)... and then that same person just jumps up and says "Okay!  That was fun!  On to the next room!"  And then five minutes later in the next room that same character suffers a myriad of bites, claws, stab wounds, poisoning, and being bludgeoned about the head and neck, falls unconscious AGAIN... then has a vial of liquid emptied into their mouth to seal up those bleeding wounds (but again not in any way removing the trauma and mental anguish of pain they just suffered) and the character just once more jumps up and says "Okay!  That was fun!  On to the next room!" and this continues ad nauseum.
> 
> All of it is stupid.  It has no basis for any attempt at realism.  It is complete and utter fantasy (which makes sense, because it is a game of fantasy.)  And thus I just accept it for the unrealism it is and do my best to never question it (or care in the slightest if the board game and fantasy story does or does not align.)



If I believed this about any RPG I would refuse to play it.


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## Yaarel

Umbran said:


> I think there are other reasons that aren't based in the play of the game, but in the practical arrangement of play - meaning the "game session".  There is a great deal to be said for having the basic unit of rest be one session - the characters start fresh at the beginning, and they go into a long rest at the end, such that they'll be fresh at the start of the next session.
> 
> For one (entirely practical, metagame) thing, this largely eliminates the need for mechanical bookkeeping between sessions.  No more need to remember how many slots of which levels of spells did you use, and so forth.
> 
> Moreover, many people can go a couple of weeks between sessions, and lives are busy - not having to remember in quite so much detail exactly what the heck was going on last session is a bonus.
> 
> And then, there's the length of our sessions.  Eight encounters is... a lot.  I'm not getting through those in a three-hour weeknight session.  So either I am going to have to preserve the detailed game-state across multiple weeks between sessions, or I am just going to muck with the number of "encounters" I handle in one session.
> 
> It seems to me that the rest mechanic was really built around a group that's spending a long weekend afternoon playing the game, rather than a short weekday evening.



For me, leveling is always between sessions, it would be easy to handle rests similarly.

So, maybe all rests are short rests (to spend hit dice if any).

Then the start of every gaming session benefits from a long rest, with max hit points.

I can live with that.


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## Laurefindel

Yaarel said:


> The above is many of the considerations. What is your ideal rest mechanic?



I find myself in a situation where, as a DM, I don't really know anymore. What I do know however, is that I no longer want to care about short rests and who benefits most from them, who is advantaged if there aren't any, and how to pace my encounters to follow the rest mechanics (as opposed to pacing my encounters to follow the narrative), etc.

At this minute today, this would be my favourite:

Per/encounter abilities (or using the 5e lingo, " when you roll initiative and don't have X..." for everything expected to refresh after short rests/combats.
A "wilderness" overnight rest when the party is sleeping in conditions that do not allow them to fully relax, for most of what 5e long rest is for.
A "safe haven" stay where the PC can let their guard down and fully recover, for abilities that make game balance harder to keep, especially at higher levels. I'm thinking spells of level 6-9 and other magick-y stuff that is cool but becomes annoying when performed every single day, day after day, for the rest of the adventurer's career*.

But I'm not sold on this either. As I said, I no longer know the right balance between having manageable PC and happy players.

*An obvious hyperbole, but you get my drift...


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Umbran said:


> I think there are other reasons that aren't based in the play of the game, but in the practical arrangement of play - meaning the "game session".  There is a great deal to be said for having the basic unit of rest be one session - the characters start fresh at the beginning, and they go into a long rest at the end, such that they'll be fresh at the start of the next session.
> 
> For one (entirely practical, metagame) thing, this largely eliminates the need for mechanical bookkeeping between sessions.  No more need to remember how many slots of which levels of spells did you use, and so forth.
> 
> Moreover, many people can go a couple of weeks between sessions, and lives are busy - not having to remember in quite so much detail exactly what the heck was going on last session is a bonus.
> 
> And then, there's the length of our sessions.  Eight encounters is... a lot.  I'm not getting through those in a three-hour weeknight session.  So either I am going to have to preserve the detailed game-state across multiple weeks between sessions, or I am just going to muck with the number of "encounters" I handle in one session.
> 
> It seems to me that the rest mechanic was really built around a group that's spending a long weekend afternoon playing the game, rather than a short weekday evening.



I use (slightly altered) gritty rests and try to arrange the sessions so that they can end to a long rest. It doesn't always work that way, but seems to be relatively easy to arrange. 

I think my ideal rest mechanic would probably be close to the gritty rests. Camping for nigh is an adventuring trope, so having that to be significant (I.E. a  short rest) seems corrects, and long rest can be a small amount of downtime in a safe location, which again is something that seems narratively meaningful (E.G Hobbits arriving to Rivendel and spending some time there.)


----------



## Blue

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'd hate this. It is just gamey and utterly disconnected. "Quick, find some goblins we can fight so that we heal and get our spells back!"
> 
> I want the rules to be at least somewhat connected to the fictional reality the characters inhabit, so that the players can make informed choices in character.



I pointed out it was gamey, but opens up a world of difference in class design and play.  My requirement is "not easily under player control" which includes generically time based because without requiring the DM to do anything special (like put time pressure in every adventure) that is effectively under rough player control.

So, just as you dismiss this as gamey, I will equally dismiss resting.

_Let's explore together everything else that it might be._

For example, Adventures in Middle Earth (the 5e adaption of The One Ring) doesn't allow resting during the Journey phase generally unless you stop by a sanctuary like Elrond's.

So, where can we find a medium that meets


----------



## jmartkdr2

Blue said:


> I pointed out it was gamey, but opens up a world of difference in class design and play.  My requirement is "not easily under player control" which includes generically time based because without requiring the DM to do anything special (like put time pressure in every adventure) that is effectively under rough player control.
> 
> So, just as you dismiss this as gamey, I will equally dismiss resting.
> 
> _Let's explore together everything else that it might be._
> 
> For example, Adventures in Middle Earth (the 5e adaption of The One Ring) doesn't allow resting during the Journey phase generally unless you stop by a sanctuary like Elrond's.
> 
> So, where can we find a medium that meets



The best mediums I've seen is to design the game so that the rests have roughly the same impact on all characters. If some classes need a lot of naps, others only get stuff back after a trip to the spa and one shines the best when they have a dozen battles in a row - you've created conflict between players over what rest schedule to follow, because they have divergent interests. 

Now you just need to come up with a fictionally-logical way to limit spells the same way you limit trip attempts and sneak attacks. I don't think you'll find a universally acceptable answer, but I'm sure there's several good answers.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Blue said:


> I pointed out it was gamey, but opens up a world of difference in class design and play.  My requirement is "not easily under player control" which includes generically time based because without requiring the DM to do anything special (like put time pressure in every adventure) that is effectively under rough player control.
> 
> So, just as you dismiss this as gamey, I will equally dismiss resting.
> 
> _Let's explore together everything else that it might be._
> 
> For example, Adventures in Middle Earth (the 5e adaption of The One Ring) doesn't allow resting during the Journey phase generally unless you stop by a sanctuary like Elrond's.
> 
> So, where can we find a medium that meets



Ultimately what I want is that whatever the method of resource recovery is, it is something that works on consistent setting-based logic rather than on meta logic (even if the reason for selecting that particular setting-based logic would be game balance.) If one character asks a wizard when they can cast their powerful spell again, I want there to be a consistent answer that makes sense from in-character perspective.

Long rests only in sanctuaries seems fine enough. But whether that is the case or not depending on some gamey 'phase' the characters cannot have knowledge of is not fine.


----------



## dave2008

We use 5min short rest and normal long rest, but we have added *Extended Rest.  *An extended rest is a week in a safe place. And you need an extend rest to heal 1 BHP (bloodied hit point).


----------



## Yora

Short rest of 8 hours once per day, and long rest of "several" days limited to secure towns, castles, and friendly strongholds feels pretty good.


----------



## dave2008

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'd hate this. It is just gamey and utterly disconnected. "Quick, find some goblins we can fight so that we heal and get our spells back!"
> 
> I want the rules to be at least somewhat connected to the fictional reality the characters inhabit, so that the players can make informed choices in character.



Its not my cup of tea, but I understand the appeal from a purely game design perspective.  I also understand why some would want that, but it is not what I want in my D&D.


----------



## Blue

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately what I want is that whatever the method of resource recovery is, it is something that works on consistent setting-based logic rather than on meta logic (even if the reason for selecting that particular setting-based logic would be game balance.) If one character asks a wizard when they can cast their powerful spell again, I want there to be a consistent answer that makes sense from in-character perspective.
> 
> Long rests only in sanctuaries seems fine enough. But whether that is the case or not depending on some gamey 'phase' the characters cannot have knowledge of is not fine.



We can let go the "gamey" part - I've accepted you aren't going for it.

I was hoping for more suggestions instead of just reiterating mine.  What else can you come up with that fits your requirements but it's under the player's rough control?  Be creative.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Blue said:


> We can let go the "gamey" part - I've accepted you aren't going for it.
> 
> I was hoping for more suggestions instead of just reiterating mine.  What else can you come up with that fits your requirements but it's under the player's rough control?  Be creative.



Why I need to be creative? I'm relatively satisfied with my slightly altered gritty rest rules. So I'm not quite sure what the problem is we're trying to solve...


----------



## Blue

Crimson Longinus said:


> Why I need to be creative? I'm relatively satisfied with my slightly altered gritty rest rules. So I'm not quite sure what the problem is we're trying to solve...



I made the mistake of assuming on a discussion board people wanted to discuss.  You had engaged by responding to me, and we had strong opinions that left a lot of fertile ground between them.  I didn't realize "creative" wasn't worth the effort trying to answer Yarell's question about ideal rest mechanics.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Blue said:


> I made the mistake of assuming on a discussion board people wanted to discuss.  You had engaged by responding to me, and we had strong opinions that left a lot of fertile ground between them.  I didn't realize "creative" wasn't worth the effort trying to answer Yarell's question about ideal rest mechanics.



Your attempts at discussion confuse me, it seems you're mostly dissing me. I am also not sure that choosing some middle point between diametrically opposed views is so much fertile ground for creative solutions, rather than a recipe for incoherent compromise that pleases no one. Though I of course would be glad to be proven wrong on that.

But in sprit of attempting to be, if not creative, at least constructive, I repeat my question: what is the problem you feel the 13th Age's encounter count based rests solves? And why you find gritty rests unsatisfying?


----------



## Blue

Crimson Longinus said:


> Your attempts at discussion confuse me, it seems you're mostly dissing me.



Apologies - my first response to you was inviting you to brainstorm from a field of possibilities that met both our requirements, and I took the tone of "why, I have my answer already" a bit negatively.



Crimson Longinus said:


> I am also not sure that choosing some middle point between diametrically opposed views is so much fertile ground for creative solutions, rather than a recipe for incoherent compromise that pleases no one. Though I of course would be glad to be proven wrong on that.



I don't see how there can be a middle point because there's no axis.  It's like one of us saying "I don't like fried foods" and the other saying "I don't like sherbet" - our requirements don't fall on a spectrum, but rather just black out sections of a large field.

I quoted one published solution that you found acceptable, so we know there is room for something besides "incoherent compromise".



Crimson Longinus said:


> But in sprit of attempting to be, if not creative, at least constructive, I repeat my question: what is the problem you feel the 13th Age's encounter count based rests solves? And why you find gritty rests unsatisfying?



I though I had detailed that - I want power refresh not to be under the control of the player, even roughly such as by passage of time.

To go into more detail, I want the pacing of power refreshes to be a tool for the DM, without assuming that every DM will force the issue every adventure, such as putting a time limit in.  That could be because it's regular and the DM can plan around it (like what I quoted from 13th Age), because it irrelevant (like pre-essentials 4e where all of the characters had the same power refresh structure sans a few utility powers), or even more directly under the DM control (like only taking refreshing powers at a sanctuary or between adventures).

I just went back and read your altered gritty rest mechanic.  It is close to fitting my requirements to, except for the issue that some classes mostly refresh their expendables on a short rest like the warlock or monk, while others really don't, so there's still a significant player-controlled gap.

BTW, since the beginning I have been breaking out power refreshes - that is only half of the rest rules in 5e with the other half being spending HD (short rest) or fully healing and recovering long-term attrition (1 level of exhaustion and half your HD).  How would you feel about this adjustment to your gritty rest rules:

All short rest refresh abilities move to Proficiency times per long rest, as seems to be the current trend.

Short rests still retain importance in spending HD, but there's no power refreshes under player control via time.


----------



## Oofta

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately what I want is that whatever the method of resource recovery is, it is something that works on consistent setting-based logic rather than on meta logic (even if the reason for selecting that particular setting-based logic would be game balance.) If one character asks a wizard when they can cast their powerful spell again, I want there to be a consistent answer that makes sense from in-character perspective.



Same here


Crimson Longinus said:


> Long rests only in sanctuaries seems fine enough. But whether that is the case or not depending on some gamey 'phase' the characters cannot have knowledge of is not fine.



The problem I have with the sanctuary idea is that for me anyway that still wouldn't help much.  I regularly want to limit long rests even though the current story arc is set in the party's home city where they go to bed at night to sleep snug in their beds.  Safe sanctuary limits only seem to help for exploration and dungeon crawls.


----------



## Yaarel

Oofta said:


> I regularly want to limit long rests even though the current story arc is set in the party's home city where they go to bed at night to sleep snug in their beds.  Safe sanctuary limits only seem to help for exploration and dungeon crawls.



Other planets have different schedules, but in reallife Earth, the week moreorless corresponds to the moon, where there are four weeks, comprising 28 days, until the next (fully dark) new moon. So narratively, meaningful recovery can be one moon away.

One option is, a two-week long rest only grants half the number of hit dice − but without granting the maximum hit point restoration. Then the character must spend hit dice as the only way to regain hit points. Thus if an injured character has already spent all the hit dice and is at zero hit points, it will take about one month on average to return to maximum hit points, assuming average hit dice roles. Plus the character needs an additional month to then regain both the maximum hit points and the extra maximum hit dice to spend later. This four-to-eight week recovery period approximates the amount of time for typical injuries.

This per-week long rest but without the automatic full hit points, makes sense if the character reduces to zero hit points, fails at least one death save, and incurs a moderate or serious injury.

But if a character stays intact by avoiding zero hit points, then the 8-hour long rest with full hit points refresh, makes sense when mainly to refresh from fatigue.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Blue said:


> I though I had detailed that - I want power refresh not to be under the control of the player, even roughly such as by passage of time.
> 
> To go into more detail, I want the pacing of power refreshes to be a tool for the DM, without assuming that every DM will force the issue every adventure, such as putting a time limit in.  That could be because it's regular and the DM can plan around it (like what I quoted from 13th Age), because it irrelevant (like pre-essentials 4e where all of the characters had the same power refresh structure sans a few utility powers), or even more directly under the DM control (like only taking refreshing powers at a sanctuary or between adventures).



I don't think it possible for the rest to be at least partially in player control and still be a sensible in game thing. But the GM has a massive amount of control anyway. They decide what sort of enemies are where, what their plans are and how and when they act. Anything more would start to seem pretty arbitrary. "You can't rest, because I say so," and I wouldn't want that.



Blue said:


> I just went back and read your altered gritty rest mechanic.  It is close to fitting my requirements to, except for the issue that some classes mostly refresh their expendables on a short rest like the warlock or monk, while others really don't, so there's still a significant player-controlled gap.
> 
> BTW, since the beginning I have been breaking out power refreshes - that is only half of the rest rules in 5e with the other half being spending HD (short rest) or fully healing and recovering long-term attrition (1 level of exhaustion and half your HD).  How would you feel about this adjustment to your gritty rest rules:
> 
> All short rest refresh abilities move to Proficiency times per long rest, as seems to be the current trend.
> 
> Short rests still retain importance in spending HD, but there's no power refreshes under player control via time.




I don't like it. It's not terrible, but I actually like different classes working differently. And as HD only refreshes on long rests, everyone will want one sooner or later anyway. Yes, a Monk can decide to meditate a night and regain their chi, a wizard can't do that with their spells. And I think that's a feature, not a bug.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Oofta said:


> The problem I have with the sanctuary idea is that for me anyway that still wouldn't help much.  I regularly want to limit long rests even though the current story arc is set in the party's home city where they go to bed at night to sleep snug in their beds.  Safe sanctuary limits only seem to help for exploration and dungeon crawls.



But if it is also a week, then that helps, if there is any time pressure at all*. But yes, it gets less elegant in such a situation. 


*Ideally one would setup such a situation so that the opposition has plans that they proceed with if the PCs do not act. But I get that setting up everything to work like that is a lot of work.


----------



## Oofta

Yaarel said:


> Other planets have different schedules, but in reallife Earth, the week moreorless corresponds to the moon, where there are four weeks, comprising 28 days, until the next (fully dark) new moon. So narratively, meaningful recovery can be one moon away.
> 
> One option is, a one-week long rest only grants half the number of hit dice − but without granting the maximum hit point restoration. Then the character must spend hit dice as the only way to regain hit points. Thus if an injured character has already spent all the hit dice and is at zero hit points, it will take about one month on average to return to maximum hit points, assuming average hit dice roles. Plus the character needs an additional two weeks to then regain both the maximum hit points and the maximum hit dice to spend later. This six week recovery period approximates the amount of time for typical injuries.
> 
> This per-week long rest but that prevents the automatic full hit points, makes sense if the character reduces to zero hit points, fails at least one death save, and incurs a moderate or serious injury.
> 
> But if a character stays intact by avoiding zero hit points, then the 8-hour long rest with full hit points refresh, makes sense when mainly to refresh from fatigue.



Interesting idea, but assumes that there is a moon.  Then again, it's something we don't really think about which is why the full moon is baked into things like lycanthropy.   

But I'm not sure the HP recovery is really a major issue for a lot of people, it's more about resource recovery.  If you regain all your healing spells at dawn, it only takes a couple of days for the cleric to get everybody back to full health if there's no other demand on their resource.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Blue said:


> My ideal rest power recovery mechanic is one where different DMs are free to run extremely different types of games and the various classes are still in balance.
> 
> So a three week trek across a wilderness with four encounters, or a brisk morning with the same have the same total power recovery.  As well as being able to have exploration with heavy utility usage and a masquerade ball with associated intrigue, stealthing, uncovering secrets, and stopping a poisoning can balance.
> 
> Which means there is no way for it to be a _rest_ mechanic, as rests will be available at different rates as they are related to character choices as well as the passing of in-game time.
> 
> While rather gamist to some, 13th Age (a d20 that 5e is similar to in streamlining) has a solution.  "Full heal ups" happen after four encounters.  Sleeping has nothing to getting your powers back.  It could be four days of exploring the Overworld, it could be twice during a busy day in a Living Dungeon.  The DM can reduce the number if they are particularly big combats (but by default a standard combat is hard to deadly in 5e encounter design terms, may be hard but isn't actually deadly), and players can take one early by taking a campaign loss - the cultists complete another part of their ritual, the werewolves claim another farm, whatever makes sense.



Yeah, I'm one of the some that feels it to be rather gamist.  Too bad, because it is an elegant mechanic.


----------



## Yaarel

Oofta said:


> Interesting idea, but assumes that there is a moon.  Then again, it's something we don't really think about which is why the full moon is baked into things like lycanthropy.



It is easy to forget how unique planet Earth is.



Oofta said:


> But I'm not sure the HP recovery is really a major issue for a lot of people, it's more about resource recovery.  If you regain all your healing spells at dawn, it only takes a couple of days for the cleric to get everybody back to full health if there's no other demand on their resource.



In a game where injuries are actually injuries, magic becomes more important. When there is a difference between fatigue and injury, different spells can do different things.

Relatedly, a Warlord can reasonably mitigate fatigue, by coaching the combat to inspire a character and keep the character alert. But if the character actually gets physically injured at zero hit points, the Warlord would need to resort the Medicine skill to treat the wound.


----------



## Micah Sweet

DEFCON 1 said:


> My ideal rest mechanics are entirely about making the board game work and be fun.  That's all I care about.  If the rules allow the players of the board game to play it and enjoy it, then I'm good.  But I do not in any way, shape, or form care a whit about making those rules of the board game align to any sense of true _injury_ narratively.  Because Dungeons & Dragons combat does not in any way, shape, or form reflect any sort of reality in terms of actual swordfighting, archery, and being blasted in the face by what these "spells" are supposed to do... so I just handwave that aspect of it completely.  Going from 0 HP to full HP with a good night's rest?  Doesn't matter.  That's purely a convenience of the board game and to make the rules easy and fun to use, so worrying about how it looks within the story is a waste of my time.
> 
> And this is simply because I refuse to believe there is any sort of realistic response to a person getting blasted in the face by essentially a flamethrower, falling unconscious, having a healer a couple seconds later heal those burns (but not in any way removing the trauma of being burned alive and the memory of that pain and agony)... and then that same person just jumps up and says "Okay!  That was fun!  On to the next room!"  And then five minutes later in the next room that same character suffers a myriad of bites, claws, stab wounds, poisoning, and being bludgeoned about the head and neck, falls unconscious AGAIN... then has a vial of liquid emptied into their mouth to seal up those bleeding wounds (but again not in any way removing the trauma and mental anguish of pain they just suffered) and the character just once more jumps up and says "Okay!  That was fun!  On to the next room!" and this continues ad nauseum.
> 
> All of it is stupid.  It has no basis for any attempt at realism.  It is complete and utter fantasy (which makes sense, because it is a game of fantasy.)  And thus I just accept it for the unrealism it is and do my best to never question it (or care in the slightest if the board game and fantasy story does or does not align.)



I would love it if people would stop using the phrase "it's fantasy" to disregard every single concern about reality breaking, no matter how big or small.  It is a spectrum, and rules and players fall on different points along it, and trying to make a pass at realism matters to a lot of people.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Blue said:


> I pointed out it was gamey, but opens up a world of difference in class design and play.  My requirement is "not easily under player control" which includes generically time based because without requiring the DM to do anything special (like put time pressure in every adventure) that is effectively under rough player control.
> 
> So, just as you dismiss this as gamey, I will equally dismiss resting.
> 
> _Let's explore together everything else that it might be._
> 
> For example, Adventures in Middle Earth (the 5e adaption of The One Ring) doesn't allow resting during the Journey phase generally unless you stop by a sanctuary like Elrond's.
> 
> So, where can we find a medium that meets



My version of resting, as noted above, is inspired by Adventures in Middle Earth, as was Level Up's I believe.  The Sanctuary concept fixes a lot of issues for me.


----------



## Oofta

So wizards can use Arcane Recovery to get back 1/2 their level in spell slots during a short rest.  What if you extend that idea to long rests and potentially other resources as well?

If multiply the number of slots a caster has times the spell level then add it all up a 10th level full caster has 41 points.  During a short rest, that 10th level caster can recover 5 points back, so 5 1st level spells or a 2nd and a 3rd and so on.  Depending on style of campaign you could give casters back 1/2 their level in points back, their level back, double or even just say they get all spells back.  

So to match the pace of my current campaign I'd use the first option and it would take 8 days to recuperate from "empty".

Similar for healing as well, you recover HD as usual but you have to spend HD to heal.  You'd still have to figure out balance for other powers, maybe just get rid of short rest recovery altogether and replace it with using things proficiency times per day.  If you did that you could limit how many you get back.

Or ... just borrow from other games and use mana or spell points.  Give the DM the option of how quickly mana recovers with the option of mana potions.

The hard part is difficulty and trying to keep it simple.  I personally like having a mana or spell point pool that recovers slowly over time, but people could find it confusing.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Crimson Longinus said:


> Your attempts at discussion confuse me, it seems you're mostly dissing me. I am also not sure that choosing some middle point between diametrically opposed views is so much fertile ground for creative solutions, rather than a recipe for incoherent compromise that pleases no one. Though I of course would be glad to be proven wrong on that.
> 
> But in sprit of attempting to be, if not creative, at least constructive, I repeat my question: what is the problem you feel the 13th Age's encounter count based rests solves? And why you find gritty rests unsatisfying?



I think that there is no "ideal" resting mechanic that will work for everyone.   In fact, I'm not sure the OP was even asking for one.  I thought we were just discussing what worked for us, and to a lesser degree why what worked for others didn't work for us.  Creating some kind of Platonic perfect version just seems unrealistic.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Oofta said:


> Same here
> 
> The problem I have with the sanctuary idea is that for me anyway that still wouldn't help much.  I regularly want to limit long rests even though the current story arc is set in the party's home city where they go to bed at night to sleep snug in their beds.  Safe sanctuary limits only seem to help for exploration and dungeon crawls.



True, but my urban play doesn't feature a lot of combat typically, so it doesn't really matter to me.


----------



## Yaarel

Oofta said:


> If multiply the number of slots a caster has times the spell level then add it all up a 10th level full caster has 41 points.  During a short rest, that 10th level caster can recover 5 points back, so 5 1st level spells or a 2nd and a 3rd and so on.  Depending on style of campaign you could give casters back 1/2 their level in points back, their level back, double or even just say they get all spells back.



Im exploring similar. If the Wizard converts to spell points, it becomes easy to regulate the rate of refreshing spell points.

Unfortunately, the 5e spell point system in the DMs Guide is awkward, almost unworkable for casual play.

A simplification that stays moreorless within the intent of the system is: a slot costs its slot level +1. So a slot 1 spell costs 2 points, and a slot 5 spell costs 6 points.

Inferably, a caster can figure out how to cast an unknown cantrip (slot 0) at the cost of 1 point. I like this possibility.

Despite the fact the official point system includes slots 6, 7, 8, and 9, I feel it is probably more useful to treat these slot levels separately. Note the Warlock class treats slots 6 thru 9 separately, with only the Arcanum able to access them.

In any case, a spell point system is easy regulate when deciding how many points a short rest can replenish.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Yeah, a system where there was only one type of rests and those would refresh certain fraction of resources would work pretty perfectly in theory, but not with the sort of features 5e has. And I don't really want D&D to move into spell point/heroic deed point type system, which would be the requirement for managing it being easy.


----------



## DEFCON 1

Micah Sweet said:


> I would love it if people would stop using the phrase "it's fantasy" to disregard every single concern about reality breaking, no matter how big or small.  It is a spectrum, and rules and players fall on different points along it, and trying to make a pass at realism matters to a lot of people.



Yeah, well, I call 'em as I see 'em.  And D&D combat, where people get into more than a dozen different sword and spell fights in one single day, every day, for days on end (and getting potentially knocked unconscious a half-dozen times)... pretty much throws any sense of "realism" out the window for me.

If you can handwave that away and think that it can still be "realistic" in your mind to have people getting stabbed over and over and over and over again, cool... good on you!  But it doesn't mean the rest of us have to stop pointing it out how we disagree.


----------



## Micah Sweet

DEFCON 1 said:


> Yeah, well, I call 'em as I see 'em.  And D&D combat, where people get into more than a dozen different sword and spell fights in one single day, every day, for days on end (and getting potentially knocked unconscious a half-dozen times)... pretty much throws any sense of "realism" out the window for me.
> 
> If you can handwave that away and think that it can still be "realistic" in your mind to have people getting stabbed over and over and over and over again, cool... good on you!  But it doesn't mean the rest of us have to stop pointing it out how we disagree.



There are different ways to look at successful attack rolls.  And "realism" (or at least a stab at it) can take many forms and may be more effective for any given person in different areas of the game.  Not everyone wants a board game out of their ttrpg experience.


----------



## DEFCON 1

Micah Sweet said:


> There are different ways to look at successful attack rolls.  And "realism" (or at least a stab at it) can take many forms and may be more effective for any given person in different areas of the game.  Not everyone wants a board game out of their ttrpg experience.



Like I said... if you're good with it, happy gaming!  All the best to you and your table.  But you're the one who complained _to me_ that I called D&D combat "fantasy".  If you don't like that I called it unrealistic, there's nothing I can do for you about that.  As far as I'm concerned, it is.  You may disagree and that's cool... but if you do disagree ya gotta accept that if you quote me when you do that I'm going to respond with why I think you're incorrect.


----------



## Micah Sweet

DEFCON 1 said:


> Like I said... if you're good with it, happy gaming!  All the best to you and your table.  But you're the one who complained _to me_ that I called D&D combat "fantasy".  If you don't like that I called it unrealistic, there's nothing I can do for you about that.  As far as I'm concerned, it is.  You may disagree and that's cool... but if you do disagree ya gotta accept that if you quote me when you do that I'm going to respond with why I think you're incorrect.



I expected your response.  I just think your opinion is in the minority.  And that's fine, but sometimes it gets tiring to defend the idea that a fantasy game doesn't mean "literally anything goes, and nothing that's true in the real world matters, so whatever".


----------



## Yaarel

I prefer high-magic characters. So I am comfortable with "nonrealistic".

At the same time, I prefer the narrative to cohere with the mechanics, and viceversa, the mechanics to actualize the narrative. In other words, I want mechanics that make sense narratively.

As a DM I prioritize narrative to adjudicate success or failure of an effort by the player characters. Only if the narrative is ambiguous and can go either way, do I resort to dice rolls.

So, I appreciate when the narrative world works according sensical rules that have verisimilitude, so I can estimate if something is likely to work or not.

Also as a player, when thinking outside the box, I want the narrative world to work in ways that make sense, ... so I know what the "box" of "normal" expectations is, that I might be able to work around.


----------



## Yaarel

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yeah, a system where there was only one type of rests and those would refresh certain fraction of resources would work pretty perfectly in theory, but not with the sort of features 5e has. And I don't really want D&D to move into spell point/heroic deed point type system, which would be the requirement for managing it being easy.



If the proficiency times per long rest replaces short rests, that would effectively be "one type of rest". Thoughts?


----------



## jmartkdr2

Yaarel said:


> If the proficiency times per long rest replaces short rests, that would effectively be "one type of rest". Thoughts?



For myself: technically an improvement, but I usually find it harder to prevent higher level characters from resting since they have more ways to secure places and there are fewer things that can threaten them. Which means it's getting exponentially harder to attrit them.

Just changing 1/SR to 3/LR would probably be better, though still not great IMO.


----------



## Kinematics

Laurefindel said:


> Per/encounter abilities



Hmm. This makes me think of legendary abilities, where the creature gets an ability back on some value of a d6 roll (eg: 4-6).  Using that idea, if you used a short rest ability, then at the end of the encounter you can roll a d6 to see if you get it back and are able to use it in the next encounter.  A 4-6 means you tend to be able to use an ability every other encounter, which is vaguely close to a short rest.  Maybe a 5-6 if you want to be a bit more restrictive.

So there wouldn't ever be short rests to recover abilities. It would only be a short break to get your breath back, and use hit dice to recover HP.

My preferred duration for a short rest is 15 minutes.  It's long enough for 10 minute duration effects to wear off if there's an encounter on either side.  1 hour is the next tier up, and I feel it's a bit punitive to enforce that a 1 hour effect wears off after a short rest.

Edit:

You might even be able to extend this to recovering spell slots, but considering the logistics of how to work through points and spell slots and such (based on the default values given in the DM guide), maybe not so much.

On the other hand, it might works reasonably well for a sorcerer if you used spell points instead of spell slots, but with a much more limited pool than one that tried to represent all your possible spell slots. Like, start with a relatively low value, and at the end of each encounter you can recover 1d4 spell points (maybe with a max number of dice used per day equal to your hit dice count or something).

This would need a lot of polishing to see how it balances out, but it's an interesting idea.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Yaarel said:


> If the proficiency times per long rest replaces short rests, that would effectively be "one type of rest". Thoughts?



True, but we end up with one big rests that resets all, which I feel is actually the thing that causes the issues in the first place. If there is just one type of rest, I'd definitely want it to be a small rest that resets a fraction of things, and you effectively need to just queue several of them to achieve a full reset.


----------



## Yaarel

Crimson Longinus said:


> If there is just one type of rest, I'd definitely want it to be a small rest that resets a fraction of things, and you effectively need to just queue several of them to achieve a full reset.




The long rest is worth about 1½ x the maximum hit dice. Two halves to refresh the maximum hit points, plus one half for the extra hit dice left over.

So a "small rest" might be only the ½ max hit dice, by itself, being equivalent to one third of the current long rest.

By extension, the recovery of class features would also be approximately by a third, such as the "small rest" recovering the equivalent of about one third of the total number of spells.



For reference:

Standard Long Rest
• req: 8-hour rest per 24 hours
• maximum hit points
• half maximum hit dice

Standard Short Rest
• req: 1-hour rest
• spend any number of hit dice
• + Con per hit die.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Yaarel said:


> The long rest is worth about 1½ x the maximum hit dice. Two halves to refresh the maximum hit points, plus one half for the extra hit dice left over.
> 
> So a "small rest" might be only the ½ max hit dice, by itself, being equivalent to one third of the current long rest.
> 
> By extension, the recovery of class features would also be approximately by a third, such as the "small rest" recovering the equivalent of about one third of the total number of spells.



Yes, but one third of features and spells is hard to elegantly formulate. The good thing about long rests resetting basically everything is that it is clear and easy.


----------



## Yaarel

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, but one third of features and spells is hard to elegantly formulate.



Yeah. The third is mainly to explore a ballpark figure.



Crimson Longinus said:


> The good thing about long rests resetting basically everything is that it is clear and easy.



Consider if the rest grants only max hit dice, that might be spent immediately or save for later.

Meanwhile, the casters might only refresh half their total.

This privileging hit points over spells might benefit the noncasters more, but that might be tolerable.


----------



## Yaarel

It occurs to me, the proficiency times mechanics seems to require the "big" long rest to balance around.


----------



## jmartkdr2

Crimson Longinus said:


> True, but we end up with one big rests that resets all, which I feel is actually the thing that causes the issues in the first place. If there is just one type of rest, I'd definitely want it to be a small rest that resets a fraction of things, and you effectively need to just queue several of them to achieve a full reset.



And/or add a mechanic that limits how much you can get from short resting during an entire adventure (ie you need downtime to fully recharge).


----------



## EpicureanDM

Yaarel said:


> What is your ideal rest mechanic?



It's hard to understand the most important function of the rest system: control of the game's pacing. It's an artificial restraint on the recovery of the characters' limited resources. It makes the game challenging and rewarding. The biggest hurdle to accepting this idea comes from players and DMs internalizing the idea that "rest" should be measured through in-game time. This thread is full of people trying to find the golden ratio of minutes and hours to apply to short and long rests. Rest in 5e is not about in-game time; it's about controlling pace and difficulty. *Control of the game's pacing is the DM's job, not the player's job. But D&D's approach to rest puts primary control of rest (i.e. pacing) in the players' hands. Whomever controls the pacing controls the difficulty and challenge of the game. *

_13th Age_ offers a solution for this problem with its rule that the PCs gain the benefits of a long rest after every fourth encounter. The rule hedges its language a bit to say that the GM can decide to award a long rest after a series of three tough encounters or after the fifth encounter if the party has had an easy time of it. But, for the most part, it's four encounters. 

I adapted this rule for 5e by suggesting the following: *After every two encounters, the party gets the benefit of a short rest. After their sixth encounter, they get the benefits of a long rest.* So over the course of six encounters, the players will get two short rests and one long one. If they faced a really hard fight, you decide that long rest happens after the fifth encounter. If the players feel that they're too beat up then, at any point, they can just declare that they're taking a long rest. That's fine, but then you, as the DM, get to describe a significant setback they suffer. The monsters get tougher or find dangerous reinforcements. Maybe an enemy of theirs take a major step forward in their plans, putting the party further behind in their plan to stop the villain. *But for the most part, this schedule is strict. Unless the players accept the big setback or the DM decides that the players have had bad dice luck (this should be a rare determination), the schedule doesn't change.*

To clarify the rest pattern, it looks like this:

*Two encounters -> short rest -> Two more encounters -> short rest -> Another two encounters -> long rest, restart the counter at zero.*

So the game falls into the "natural" 6-8 encounter rhythm that the Dungeon Master's Guide famously suggests as ideal for play. For players who aren't used to this system, you can shorten it to 2, 2, 1. So they'd get the long rest after the fifth encounter, not the sixth. If there's a non-combat encounter where the players expend some resources (spells, usually), you might consider that an encounter, too. Look for opportunities to do this, but don't go too far out of your way. 

Every 5e group I've introduced to this rest system has enjoyed it.


----------



## Oofta

EpicureanDM said:


> It's hard to understand the most important function of the rest system: control of the game's pacing. It's an artificial restraint on the recovery of the characters' limited resources. It makes the game challenging and rewarding. The biggest hurdle to accepting this idea comes from players and DMs internalizing the idea that "rest" should be measured through in-game time. This thread is full of people trying to find the golden ratio of minutes and hours to apply to short and long rests. Rest in 5e is not about in-game time; it's about controlling pace and difficulty. *Control of the game's pacing is the DM's job, not the player's job. But D&D's approach to rest puts primary control of rest (i.e. pacing) in the players' hands. Whomever controls the pacing controls the difficulty and challenge of the game. *
> 
> _13th Age_ offers a solution for this problem with its rule that the PCs gain the benefits of a long rest after every fourth encounter. The rule hedges its language a bit to say that the GM can decide to award a long rest after a series of three tough encounters or after the fifth encounter if the party has had an easy time of it. But, for the most part, it's four encounters.
> 
> I adapted this rule for 5e by suggesting the following: *After every two encounters, the party gets the benefit of a short rest. After their sixth encounter, they get the benefits of a long rest.* So over the course of six encounters, the players will get two short rests and one long one. If they faced a really hard fight, you decide that long rest happens after the fifth encounter. If the players feel that they're too beat up then, at any point, they can just declare that they're taking a long rest. That's fine, but then you, as the DM, get to describe a significant setback they suffer. The monsters get tougher or find dangerous reinforcements. Maybe an enemy of theirs take a major step forward in their plans, putting the party further behind in their plan to stop the villain. *But for the most part, this schedule is strict. Unless the players accept the big setback or the DM decides that the players have had bad dice luck (this should be a rare determination), the schedule doesn't change.*
> 
> To clarify the rest pattern, it looks like this:
> 
> *Two encounters -> short rest -> Two more encounters -> short rest -> Another two encounters -> long rest, restart the counter at zero.*
> 
> So the game falls into the "natural" 6-8 encounter rhythm that the Dungeon Master's Guide famously suggests as ideal for play. For players who aren't used to this system, you can shorten it to 2, 2, 1. So they'd get the long rest after the fifth encounter, not the sixth. If there's a non-combat encounter where the players expend some resources (spells, usually), you might consider that an encounter, too. Look for opportunities to do this, but don't go too far out of your way.
> 
> Every 5e group I've introduced to this rest system has enjoyed it.




I know other people have suggested this as well and I'm glad it works for you and your group.  I would hate it, it would feel too artificial to me.  Which, yeah, I know D&D isn't exactly a real world simulator but it does a decent job of being a fantasy novel simulator.  Resting after X encounters makes sense from a game rule perspective but has no in-world logic attached to it so it wouldn't work for me.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Oofta said:


> I know other people have suggested this as well and I'm glad it works for you and your group.  I would hate it, it would feel too artificial to me.  Which, yeah, I know D&D isn't exactly a real world simulator but it does a decent job of being a fantasy novel simulator.  Resting after X encounters makes sense from a game rule perspective but has no in-world logic attached to it so it wouldn't work for me.



It's worked for multiple, different groups of players. I often encourage DMs to try it because it usually reveals just how little the players care about in-game time between rests. It seems like it would feel artificial, but it produces enough fun play that people tend to forget worries about artificiality.


----------



## EpicureanDM

I always allow players to determine how much in-game time their short and long rests use. They rarely choose anything other than "instantaneous". Once in a while, some players make an argument for a certain rest (short or long) to take a particular amount of time for reasons that fit the narrative. And I go with what the players want.


----------



## Micah Sweet

EpicureanDM said:


> It's worked for multiple, different groups of players. I often encourage DMs to try it because it usually reveals just how little the players care about in-game time between rests. It seems like it would feel artificial, but it produces enough fun play that people tend to forget worries about artificiality.



Well, the DM is a player too, and I certainly would care.  I don't think all my players would be as sanguine as yours about it either.


----------



## Oofta

EpicureanDM said:


> It's worked for multiple, different groups of players. I often encourage DMs to try it because it usually reveals just how little the players care about in-game time between rests. It seems like it would feel artificial, but it produces enough fun play that people tend to forget worries about artificiality.



I use the gritty rest rules, they work fine.  Glad your solution works for you, it would not work for me.


----------



## Zaukrie

I liked how 4E handled it, for the most part. But the idea of hit points vs wounds is very interesting.

I'd also be good with more random refreshes of powers like the recharge mechanic for monsters.


----------



## Zaukrie

EpicureanDM said:


> It's hard to understand the most important function of the rest system: control of the game's pacing. It's an artificial restraint on the recovery of the characters' limited resources. It makes the game challenging and rewarding. The biggest hurdle to accepting this idea comes from players and DMs internalizing the idea that "rest" should be meas...................
> 
> Every 5e group I've introduced to this rest system has enjoyed it.



This is a great idea.


----------



## Yaarel

This post continues a thought experiment from earlier in thread.

The standard rest is: each 24 hours has two short rests and one long rest. In other words, there are three rests per day. And about two or three encounters before the next rest.

A way to simplify this is: there is only one kind of rest. *Every rest only grants half hit dice.* 

The player can choose to spend these hit dice during the rest, or save them to spend later.

To go from both zero hit dice and zero hit points to both max hit dice and max hit points takes four rests. (Two rests refresh the hit points. Two rests regain the extra max hit dice.) In other words, total recovery takes about four rests.



To distinguish between the "long rest" spell recovery versus the "short rest" spell recovery:

One can only recover long-rest spell slots if at maximum hit points at the end of a rest.

By contrast, one can recover a short-rest spell slots whether at max hit points or not.

So a Warlock is a bit more rough-and-tumble. A Wizard must be at peak to prepare magic.



Since there is only one kind of rest, the DM can easily determine the amount of time to qualify as a rest, whether 15 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours, 1 week, or 2 weeks, or by frequency per level or per encounter.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Yaarel said:


> This post continues a thought experiment from earlier in thread.
> 
> The standard rest is: each 24 hours has two short rests and one long rest. In other words, there are three rests per day. And about two or three encounters before the next rest.



I appreciate the impulse to design some sort of new mechanical system that will find the sweet spot between metagame resource management and in-game narrative. That's a bit of a distraction, though, from what I consider the bigger flaw in your idea: players still largely control when rests happen and they will try to game them in a way that maximizes recovery and minimizes risk. This is the central tension underlying all of the hand-wringing over rest. Players want to minimize risk by maximizing rest while DMs struggle to find ways to swing the balance towards risk without seeming unfair or arbitrary. 

The greatest strength of my house rule is its simplicity. There's no negotiation, no ambiguity, no jockeying to get around your new house rules. Players know exactly what rests will come and when. In a way, their risk is somewhat minimized. They don't have to worry about whether the DM's going to contrive to keep them from getting a short rest that they want. The schedule tells them when the next rest - next resource recharge - comes. So it's up to them to play smart or find clever ways of managing if they used resources too freely in previous encounters. As the DM, you're short-circuiting all of those tedious negotiations about whether the party can find a safe place to rest in the dungeon. And the players always have a safety valve if they want to recharge faster. But I've very rarely seen players use that safety valve to force an early long rest. They generally do their best with limited resources rather than take the increased difficulty.


----------



## Yaarel

EpicureanDM said:


> I appreciate the impulse to design some sort of new mechanical system that will find the sweet spot between metagame resource management and in-game narrative. That's a bit of a distraction, though, from what I consider the bigger flaw in your idea: players still largely control when rests happen and they will try to game them in a way that maximizes recovery and minimizes risk. This is the central tension underlying all of the hand-wringing over rest. Players want to minimize risk by maximizing rest while DMs struggle to find ways to swing the balance towards risk without seeming unfair or arbitrary.
> 
> The greatest strength of my house rule is its simplicity. There's no negotiation, no ambiguity, no jockeying to get around your new house rules. Players know exactly what rests will come and when. In a way, their risk is somewhat minimized. They don't have to worry about whether the DM's going to contrive to keep them from getting a short rest that they want. The schedule tells them when the next rest - next resource recharge - comes. So it's up to them to play smart or find clever ways of managing if they used resources too freely in previous encounters. As the DM, you're short-circuiting all of those tedious negotiations about whether the party can find a safe place to rest in the dungeon. And the players always have a safety valve if they want to recharge faster. But I've very rarely seen players use that safety valve to force an early long rest. They generally do their best with limited resources rather than take the increased difficulty.



I think everyone agrees that your resting style works well, especially with respect to gaming balance.

Some posts mention a preference to link resting to the narrative, rather than to the mechanical timing the way advancing in levels does. I think the narrative can handle the periodic "breakthrus" that happen across the activities of a character. Yet there is an odd "ding" that happens when leveling up.



Regarding the thought experiment, the DM does control the narrative and mechanical flow of the gaming style, when deciding how long a rest takes. If it is only 15 minutes, the DM intends the players to rest often and normally operate at heightened capacity. If the DM makes a rest 2 weeks, the DM intends the rest to represent physical healing, and for a campaign to be gritty and its magic preparation more scarce. By simplifying the long and short rests into one kind of rest, the DM can more easily dial the style.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

EpicureanDM said:


> I appreciate the impulse to design some sort of new mechanical system that will find the sweet spot between metagame resource management and in-game narrative. That's a bit of a distraction, though, from what I consider the bigger flaw in your idea: players still largely control when rests happen and they will try to game them in a way that maximizes recovery and minimizes risk. This is the central tension underlying all of the hand-wringing over rest. Players want to minimize risk by maximizing rest while DMs struggle to find ways to swing the balance towards risk without seeming unfair or arbitrary.
> 
> The greatest strength of my house rule is its simplicity. There's no negotiation, no ambiguity, no jockeying to get around your new house rules. Players know exactly what rests will come and when. In a way, their risk is somewhat minimized. They don't have to worry about whether the DM's going to contrive to keep them from getting a short rest that they want. The schedule tells them when the next rest - next resource recharge - comes. So it's up to them to play smart or find clever ways of managing if they used resources too freely in previous encounters. As the DM, you're short-circuiting all of those tedious negotiations about whether the party can find a safe place to rest in the dungeon. And the players always have a safety valve if they want to recharge faster. But I've very rarely seen players use that safety valve to force an early long rest. They generally do their best with limited resources rather than take the increased difficulty.



And I'd consider this a serious flaw. Players_ should_ have an incentive to try to avoid fights. That is both realistic and encourages intelligent gameplay. Your system creates utterly bizarre incentives, such as seeking a fight in order to _regain_ resources and to heal!


----------



## Zaukrie

I don't really get short rest vs encounter reharge ..... the idea of encounter rechrage is that you only get the opportunity to do something once (or twice or whatever) an encounter, which makes a ton of sense in the fiction, IMO. I'm not sure why a short rest would increase my ability to do most of the things a melee fighter does, and who the heck knows how magic works anyway....


----------



## Zaukrie

Crimson Longinus said:


> And I'd consider this a serious flaw. Players_ should_ have an incentive to try to avoid fights. That is both realistic and encourages intelligent gameplay. Your system creates utterly bizarre incentives, such as seeking a fight in order to _regain_ resources and to heal!



Is an encounter always combat? I think not, but I could be wrong in understanding this idea.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Zaukrie said:


> Is an encounter always combat? I think not, but I could be wrong in understanding this idea.



I don't know, and normally I don't need to know. But under these rules we need to define 'encounter' on meta level, and constantly decide which is one and which isn't. If there a bunch of kobolds in the forest that are suspicious of outsider and this could _potentially_ lead to fight, is sneaking past them or negotiating with them peacefully 'completing an encounter'? How suspicious they need to be? What if they were completely peaceful and friendly and the characters just though they might be hostile? What if I start a bar fight? What if I convince a castle guard letting us to enter?  What if I challenge an ogre to a boxing match?  What if I challenge another PC to a boxing match?


----------



## Cruentus

EpicureanDM said:


> +snip+
> 
> I adapted this rule for 5e by suggesting the following: *After every two encounters, the party gets the benefit of a short rest. After their sixth encounter, they get the benefits of a long rest.* So over the course of six encounters, the players will get two short rests and one long one. If they faced a really hard fight, you decide that long rest happens after the fifth encounter. If the players feel that they're too beat up then, at any point, they can just declare that they're taking a long rest. That's fine, but then you, as the DM, get to describe a significant setback they suffer. The monsters get tougher or find dangerous reinforcements. Maybe an enemy of theirs take a major step forward in their plans, putting the party further behind in their plan to stop the villain. *But for the most part, this schedule is strict. Unless the players accept the big setback or the DM decides that the players have had bad dice luck (this should be a rare determination), the schedule doesn't change.*
> 
> To clarify the rest pattern, it looks like this:
> 
> *Two encounters -> short rest -> Two more encounters -> short rest -> Another two encounters -> long rest, restart the counter at zero.*
> 
> +snip+



So, let me see if I have the application right:

Party travels to nearby town, encounters a group of bandits on the road (encounter 1).  Party defeats bandits, continues to town, hires boat.  (Encounter 2? or is this not counting as an encounter?).  Assume it is = Short rest.  

Party gets on boat, travels for 4 days to new port (no encounters).  Arriving at night, party is accosted on the docks by some ruffians, fight ensues (Encounter 3?).  Party defeats ruffians, goes to sleep at Tavern.  Wakes up and travels via road for another 2 days, encounters wolves at night during sleep (Encounter 4).  Defeats wolves.  Short Rest. 

Then there needs to be another 2 encounters (or 1 in your shorter variant) to reach a Long Rest?  

I just wanted to see if I had that correctly applied.  If I do, its 7 days of in game time, and the party has had 2 "short rests"?  

This obviously speeds up in a dungeon, or in the middle of high action adventuring, but stretches out the recovery during journeying (so far, so good, I'm not complaining).  

And how do you adjudicate the party rustling up encounters to speed up the clock to get to the long rest?  Well, I'll just pick a fight in the bar, throw some punches = encounter.  Do non-combat encounters count?  

It seems to play similar to the gritty recovery rules that Oofta uses in its actual application.  

The only thing the gritty rules do that I haven't been able to wrap my head around is the "long rest over 7 days".  I assume thats in a town or village or somewhere safe, and I assume the party is laying low, shopping, light training, studying spells, recovering from injuries?  My initial knee jerk reaction is to have the "long rest" be an overnight sleep at the end of the week.


----------



## Oofta

Cruentus said:


> ...
> The only thing the gritty rules do that I haven't been able to wrap my head around is the "long rest over 7 days".  I assume thats in a town or village or somewhere safe, and I assume the party is laying low, shopping, light training, studying spells, recovering from injuries?  My initial knee jerk reaction is to have the "long rest" be an overnight sleep at the end of the week.



The long rest has to be someplace relatively safe and not strenuous.  So I'd allow camping in the wilderness and watches, but would not consider a long rest a week of strenuous hiking.  Usually it's at a home base, but anywhere that you can just do relatively minimal activities in reasonable comfort will do.

Think of it like how professional athletes will have a break between events or games.  They may do some light training after the big game, but they generally aren't going to push themselves.

As far as pacing, that's never been an issue. Sometimes everything takes place in a 24 hour period, other times it stretches out for a week or more because the group is hiking through the mountains. Typically the span between long rests is 2-4 days.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Cruentus said:


> So, let me see if I have the application right:
> 
> Party travels to nearby town, encounters a group of bandits on the road (encounter 1). Party defeats bandits, continues to town, hires boat. (Encounter 2? or is this not counting as an encounter?). Assume it is = Short rest.
> 
> Party gets on boat, travels for 4 days to new port (no encounters). Arriving at night, party is accosted on the docks by some ruffians, fight ensues (Encounter 3?). Party defeats ruffians, goes to sleep at Tavern. Wakes up and travels via road for another 2 days, encounters wolves at night during sleep (Encounter 4). Defeats wolves. Short Rest.
> 
> Then there needs to be another 2 encounters (or 1 in your shorter variant) to reach a Long Rest?
> 
> I just wanted to see if I had that correctly applied. If I do, its 7 days of in game time, and the party has had 2 "short rests"?
> 
> This obviously speeds up in a dungeon, or in the middle of high action adventuring, but stretches out the recovery during journeying (so far, so good, I'm not complaining).



You've got it. It does stretch out recovery during long journeys.


Cruentus said:


> And how do you adjudicate the party rustling up encounters to speed up the clock to get to the long rest? Well, I'll just pick a fight in the bar, throw some punches = encounter. Do non-combat encounters count?



We must fix in our minds that "rest" is really "recovery of in-game resources". If an event or situation was resolved without using in-game resources (hit points, bardic inspiration, spells requiring spell slots, hit dice, etc.), then it doesn't count for purposes of rest. You still want to reward clever play that makes economical use of tactics and resources. The goal isn't to create an exact metric of expended resources to determine whether an encounter officially counts. That's the impulse that gets people in trouble in the first place, trying to be fine-grained about it. As a general rule, I use Medium encounters as a rough benchmark for determining whether an encounter advances the cycle. Have the PCs expended the resources I'd expect them to use in resolving a Medium encounter? That's the threshold. Casting a single _Charm Person_ spell to hire the boat that takes them down river probably wouldn't be an encounter the way I figure it.

In my experience over three different groups who've been introduced to this system, I don't remember any of them trying to cheat the system to gain an earlier rest by picking a fight with a lone drunk in a bar. Players tend to respond to the simplicity and fairness of this rest system by playing simply and fairly.

EDIT: If the negotiation for hiring the boat somehow involved more resource expenditure, like _Charm Person_ but also some Bardic Inspiration, a use of the druid's _Wild Shape, _and a wizard's _Disguise Self_ to avoid a dock guard's suspicious looks, I might consider that an encounter. It's about resource management, not in-game time and the literal definition of "rest". Why would that count as an encounter? Look at what it required! The situation must have been much more complex and interesting if the party needed to expend all those resources to set off down the river. The situation picked up a lot of narrative weight, enough weight that it made sense for the party to expend all those resources. So it might not have started out in the DM's mind as a "cycle-advancing" encounter, but it sort of became one.


----------



## Thunderfoot

The idea that a rest 'mechanic' was put i to the rules at all still makes me cringe.  If you were going to stat out a 24 hour period you needed 8 hours sleep for the mage + 4 hours spell prep (12 hours) and then 12 hours of travel/ explore/ etc.   And hope to hell that that 12 hour rest period was not interrupted.  Made spell, resource and tactics much more of a situational awareness thing. (much like real combat).  Sure you could push on but you'll run out of arrows, the fighter is half dead, the cleric has one Cure Light Wounds and a healing potion and the mage has no spells and a wand of Fireballs with one charge.  Sure... charge.   _rolleyes_


----------



## jmartkdr2

With a couple more days of thought, I think my ideal mechanic looks something like this:

Limited attack/offensive/combat resources should  be per short rest - but you should get few enough of these that a single hard to deadly encounter (or a few waves of easier encounters) can tax you. Offhand something like one spell slot per spell level - so a 9th-level wizard only has up to five spell slots at any given time. A dangerous fight will use the top two for attacking/buffing and the bottom two for defense - she might still have her 3rd level slot but she's effectively spellburnt.

A short rest (I like the refocus activity from PF2 as a model for this) should get back most or all of those slots - maybe just a number of spell levels a la Arcane Recovery, but simply all of them might work better. Other classes should be similar in terms of combat resources: Superiority Dice, Ki, whatever rogues get, all come back on a short rest. So unless it's waves of enemies, you're going into each battle with all your "ammo" ready.

Short rests shouldn't take a full hour, but should be long enough that they aren't guaranteed. 10-15 minutes to refocus sound right to me, especially if it's clear that you have to be doing that and not anything else. You're not refocusing while hiking or keeping watch. 

Noncombat resources are on their own track: ritual spells (which should include most noncombat spells) would require special materials, lots of time, and multiple checks. Each ritual category (teleport, scry, resurrect, ward a location) should be it's own little subsystem, requiring particular components (which can include x gp worth of general ritual supplies, but most rituals should also have more specific stuff - ie to teleport you _really_ want an associated object), specific checks (ie teleport wants a cartographer's tools check to land where you want to), etc. Rituals should generally be available to casters, but also anyone with the feat, and should essentially be a skill challenge every time, unless it's one you know you can pass because you've already worked it out (ie warding the camp). Rituals shouldn't outshine skills if they replace them (ie knock replaces thieves' tools, but is slower, louder, and more expensive.) Other nonmagical classes might get similar features, but aside from skill challenges and tier-specific skill check options I'm not sure what. 

Special, signature high-level abilities each have their own rules: Divine Intervention already does, but things like a Warlock's 14th-level patron feature usually makes sense for having their own special rule, or a paladin's capstone transformation. These might be 1/long rest, but they should generally be flavor-specific and tailored to the class/feature. High-level spell slots might land here. A lot of high-level spells probably should. 

Healing should almost always come from Hit Dice - ie healing magic generally works by letting you spend Hit Dice without needing an action of your own, and maybe adds a few points, but most if not all of the hp recovery comes from Hit Dice - and Hit Dice _only_ return on a long rest. If you're out of HD, you're in a very bad spot and probably want to retreat form the danger zone right away, because you can't heal anymore. Lack of healing is the main attrition mechanic - one fight is a threat, but many fights is a new and different problem to be solved. 

A long rest is a full heal-up, which means it only happens when you can completely recover. It takes days, requires safety, and completely restores you. The intent is for it to happen between adventures, and rarely during without special magic.


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## Yaarel

jmartkdr2 said:


> With a couple more days of thought, I think my ideal mechanic looks something like this:
> 
> Limited attack/offensive/combat resources should  be per short rest - but you should get few enough of these that a single hard to deadly encounter (or a few waves of easier encounters) can tax you. Offhand something like one spell slot per spell level - so a 9th-level wizard only has up to five spell slots at any given time. A dangerous fight will use the top two for attacking/buffing and the bottom two for defense - she might still have her 3rd level slot but she's effectively spellburnt.
> 
> A short rest (I like the refocus activity from PF2 as a model for this) should get back most or all of those slots - maybe just a number of spell levels a la Arcane Recovery, but simply all of them might work better. Other classes should be similar in terms of combat resources: Superiority Dice, Ki, whatever rogues get, all come back on a short rest. So unless it's waves of enemies, you're going into each battle with all your "ammo" ready.
> 
> Short rests shouldn't take a full hour, but should be long enough that they aren't guaranteed. 10-15 minutes to refocus sound right to me, especially if it's clear that you have to be doing that and not anything else. You're not refocusing while hiking or keeping watch.
> 
> Noncombat resources are on their own track: ritual spells (which should include most noncombat spells) would require special materials, lots of time, and multiple checks. Each ritual category (teleport, scry, resurrect, ward a location) should be it's own little subsystem, requiring particular components (which can include x gp worth of general ritual supplies, but most rituals should also have more specific stuff - ie to teleport you _really_ want an associated object), specific checks (ie teleport wants a cartographer's tools check to land where you want to), etc. Rituals should generally be available to casters, but also anyone with the feat, and should essentially be a skill challenge every time, unless it's one you know you can pass because you've already worked it out (ie warding the camp). Rituals shouldn't outshine skills if they replace them (ie knock replaces thieves' tools, but is slower, louder, and more expensive.) Other nonmagical classes might get similar features, but aside from skill challenges and tier-specific skill check options I'm not sure what.
> 
> Special, signature high-level abilities each have their own rules: Divine Intervention already does, but things like a Warlock's 14th-level patron feature usually makes sense for having their own special rule, or a paladin's capstone transformation. These might be 1/long rest, but they should generally be flavor-specific and tailored to the class/feature. High-level spell slots might land here. A lot of high-level spells probably should.
> 
> Healing should almost always come from Hit Dice - ie healing magic generally works by letting you spend Hit Dice without needing an action of your own, and maybe adds a few points, but most if not all of the hp recovery comes from Hit Dice - and Hit Dice _only_ return on a long rest. If you're out of HD, you're in a very bad spot and probably want to retreat form the danger zone right away, because you can't heal anymore. Lack of healing is the main attrition mechanic - one fight is a threat, but many fights is a new and different problem to be solved.
> 
> A long rest is a full heal-up, which means it only happens when you can completely recover. It takes days, requires safety, and completely restores you. The intent is for it to happen between adventures, and rarely during without special magic.



If I understand correctly, the Wizard switches to short rest spell slot refreshes, more like a Warlock?

Notably, the Warlock has short rests for slots 1 thru 5, but long rests for slots 6 thru 9.

Maybe the Wizard does similar, except where the Warlock has potent at-will features, the Wizard has extra short-rest slots 1 thru 5?


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## Yaarel

Re the topic of counting encounters.

For our campaign this is normal because we count the number of encounters in order to advance to the next level. We zoom thru the apprentice tier of levels 1 thru 4, with 4 encounters then 7, 10, and 13 respectively. For the tiers of levels 5 thru 12, it takes about 16 encounters to reach the next level. The exact number of encounters depends on when a gaming session ends, so might be "close enough" or "wait till we finish this part". Players work on leveling their characters between sessions.

As DM, I decide if an encounter is difficult, easy, or standard, after the encounter has ended. I have a plan for what the players will encounter and how challenging I expect it to be. But sometimes the players surprise me. What I thought would be difficult sometimes turns out to be trivial. Sometimes what I thought would be no big deal catches the players unprepared and ends up as a near TPK. Sometimes the players decide to do something off the wall and I need to improvise encounters on the fly. In all cases, the amount of effort that the PLAYERS need to make is what determines the degree of challenge. For example. A puzzle might turn out to be a difficult encounter for the players even tho the characters spend no resources. Similar for a social encounter or series of social encounters where the players are trying to achieve some goal. Most combats are difficult if spending heavy resources with little success or if facing it after depleting resources. But sometimes players try to resolve the combat in an unconventional way that exploits the narrative scenario, like trying to make the roof collapse.

No matter what kind of encounter, a standard encounter counts as 1 toward the 16. An easy encounter counts as half. And a difficult encounter counts as one and a half, sometimes two. How much the encounter is worth is normally obvious in hindsight, after the encounter is over.


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## jmartkdr2

Yaarel said:


> If I understand correctly, the Wizard switches to short rest spell slot refreshes, more like a Warlock?



More or less. It might not be all your spell slots every short rest, but most.


Yaarel said:


> Notably, the Warlock has short rests for slots 1 thru 5, but long rests for slots 6 thru 9.



The warlock would also need tweaking - and probably end up using the same progression for spells as everyone else. 


Yaarel said:


> Maybe the Wizard does similar, except where the Warlock has potent at-will features, the Wizard has extra short-rest slots 1 thru 5?



Something like that. Or the wizard gets more/better rituals, or more long-rest spells. But again, not too many. They shouldn't auto-win an encounter unless it was already easy or non-combat.


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## EpicureanDM

Yaarel said:


> For our campaign this is normal because we count the number of encounters in order to advance to the next level. We zoom thru the apprentice tier of levels 1 thru 4, with 4 encounters then 7, 10, and 13 respectively. For the tiers of levels 5 thru 12, it takes about 16 encounters to reach the next level. The exact number of encounters depends on when a gaming session ends, so might be "close enough" or "wait till we finish this part". Players work on leveling their characters between sessions.



Yeah, that's how _13th Age_ does it. Maybe that's where you got the idea from. Just embrace the other half of this approach and use their rest system, too, like I do.


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## Yaarel

EpicureanDM said:


> Yeah, that's how _13th Age_ does it. Maybe that's where you got the idea from. Just embrace the other half of this approach and use their rest system, too, like I do.



I got the encounters per level idea from two people who, for different reasons, calculated out how many standard encounters it takes at each level to get the xp to reach the next level. Once I saw this info, I thought, why not count encounters instead? We experimented and instantly preferred it.

Counting encounters is so much easier. And because the difficulty is evaluated after the encounter, it is more accurate than xp is. Note, the creature rating calculations are still useful for designing an encounter. But just count encounters for leveling.

What I especially like about this method is, an encounter can be combat, lethal or nonlethal, social, exploration, puzzle. It can be anything that the players get interested in doing.


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## EpicureanDM

Yaarel said:


> Counting encounters is so much easier. And because the difficulty is evaluated after the encounter, it is more accurate than xp is. Note, the creature rating calculations are still useful for designing an encounter. But just count encounters for leveling.



In _13th Age_, you level up after four long rests.

It's clean and simple.


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## nevin

Yaarel said:


> What is your own ideal rest mechanic that you use or want to use for the game.
> 
> 
> In 5e, per day, the standard rest mechanic assumes about 6 to 8 encounters until the next 8-hour long rest. In addition, there are perhaps two 1-hour short rests, between these per-day combat encounters. So the standard schedule tends to approximate something like:
> 
> *Long Rest* − _3 encounters_ − *Short Rest* − _2 encounters_ − *Short Rest* − _2 encounters_ − *Long Rest*
> 
> 
> This standard schedule seems to happen less frequently than intended because the same hostile environment that fills a single day with about seven combat encounters is the same hostile environment that makes full 1-hour short rests less obtainable.
> 
> Nevertheless, many adventure stories take place in a hostile environment, such as an underground dungeon crawl, and the schedule where each night is a long rest and a short rest is an emergency triage, seems adequate for many gaming tables, at least upto around level 12.
> 
> For much of the adventure, especially levels 5 to 8, also 9 to 12, there work out to be 2 long rests per level.
> 
> 
> 
> The difficulties with the rest mechanic include:
> 
> Story Setting
> • Some stories make combat less frequent, such as a well-policed urban environment or seafaring ship, one combat between long rests.
> • Some stories make combat more frequent, making a 1-hour rest implausible.
> 
> Story Mood
> • "Gritty" stories portray fragile and weary heroes, making an 8-hour full refresh feel too vibrant. Here prefers 7 days of relaxation or similar.
> • "Heroic" stories portray action heroes, full of urgency and power, making a 1-hour short boost obstructive. Here prefers a 15-minute break, 10, or 5.
> 
> Gaming Balance
> • Some classes depend more on long rest refresh (Wizard) and some depend more on short rest (Warlock), so straying from standard affects balance.
> 
> New Mechanic: Proficiency Times Per Long Rest
> • Most editions of D&D relied on the 8 hour or week long refresh long rest. 5e short rests are new.
> • 4e per-encounter powers translated into 5e as per-short-rest.
> • The short rest seems to be the most difficult regulate routinely if story makes the standard schedule less plausible.
> • Designers recently employ the proficiency times per long rest mechanic, where one might expect a short rest.
> • A hero can do the feature a number of times equal to the current proficiency bonus. This number increases while advancing in levels.
> • Perhaps the designers are phasing out short rests.
> • If short rests disappear, the amount of time for a long rest becomes easier to "dial", while the proficiency times per long rest regulate accordingly.
> 
> 
> 
> The above is many of the considerations. What is your ideal rest mechanic?



simple.  set all character resources on an daily basis and let the characters burn through them till they are done and have to rest.


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## JarooAshstaff

Yaarel said:


> What is your own ideal rest



8 hours uninterrupted sleep.


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## Krachek

Ideal!

Rule 1 The DM control the rest.
it’s the DM that tell you if you can rest. He may ask you to perform some check in order to find a secure shelter.

Rule 2. the DM control the time need.
Heroes can be back on track very quickly in urgent time, but sometime they need to replenish fully, so resting can vary greatly. a rest can vary between 5 minutes, an hour, a night, a week, or even more.
Again DM may ask some ability check to alter the resting time need.

Rule 3. the DM control what PC replenish.
How heroes recover their strength, power and will to succeed is a mystery.
it is the DM who decided if you benefit from a Long Rest, a short rest, or something in between. The DM may ask some ability check to alter the result of the resting.


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## Steampunkette

It depends on three things, for me.

*1) Party Composition.*
If I've got a bunch of short-rest characters then there will be an impetus for the characters to -create- short rests for themselves. Whether this means disengaging from the narrative in order to retreat for a time and return at "Full Power" or otherwise force a short rest right before an important encounter.

*2) Narrative Tension.*
A lot of people don't really seem to care about this, but because of the structure of storytelling and drama, taking a random hour, or eight hours, can utterly crumble any sense of tension or drama. This could also be referred to as a Time Scale. If the players only have 6 hours to complete a specific task, and have a lot of encounters between them and the ending, taking an hour or two to rest is dangerous to credulity.

*3) Player Investment.*
The players need to be entertained to enjoy the game. Sometimes that means maintaining high tension, sometimes that means briefly cooling off. Sometimes that means giving them only a moment to get some heroic inspiration before they finish this, once and for all...

And all of these reasons are why my Short and Long Rests are -variable-.

Are we in a "Die Hard" type situation where everything is on the line and there's no time for a short rest, much less a long one? Here comes the 2 minute Breather as a short rest and the half hour long rest. Long overland travel with a terrible relic fated to destroy the world unless it is destroyed in the fires where it was wrought? 1 hour short rest, 8 hour long rest. Political Intrigue over the course of a month with players managing spy networks and organization? 1 day short rest, one week long rest.

Have the players been fighting through the evil king's castle, been desperately wounded, depleted of spells, and weakened by lieutenants and monsters? Time for the Heroic Surge when they all get a Long Rest in 1 round's time (Without the full heal, but they can spend hit dice and their newly recovered spell slots) before they finish the battle and immediately gain 3 ranks of Fatigue when it's "Finally Over". Depleted and drained, the heroes stumble out of the BBEG's castle to the roar of the populace finally freed of the tyrant.

It all depends. And Flexible, Variable, Rests are always going to be superior, in my opinion.


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## GMforPowergamers

Yaarel said:


> What is your own ideal rest mechanic that you use or want to use for the game.



depends on the feel I am going for. I have adjusted those rules back and forth more then any other... but as defualt here is what I want:

some powers recharge as encounter not short rest. I think Ki pts and supiriority dice and maybe some others should fall in here  If you fight 3 orcs then kick down a door and fight 3 more orcs I want those powers to be useable no rest but only 1 time
some powers at will (and every class get them not just basic attacks) and for those to scale one way or another as you level
some powers to need a short rest so action surge and warlock slots... and a short rest be 20 mins AND be a safeish location with access to food and drink.  I am starting to think there should be a limit as to how many you can take per long rest but I don't know what.  I like arcane recovery here, and I LOVE HD being spent here.
Nights rest... there are more or less daily powers like per day spells. it should require what ever your race sleep/trances for (min 4 hours) plus at least 1 hour of down time (so party of warforged and elves can take a 5 hour night rest, but a party with humans needs 9 hours) and as above needs to be safeish and have food and drink but also place to sleep/trance. getting back all your HP and some portion of HD (right now half don't know if I would change that)
Long rest... this is a week or more, and fully resets you. It requires you be fully safe in a town or base (hey the gangwar broke out guess you are down to just night rests in this town) and it would have things like ability damage and perm hp loss come back


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## delericho

I think my ideal looks like the following:

Short rest: characters can spend hit dice, some powers refresh.
Long rest: characters regain hit points and some hit dice, all powers refresh.
Extended rest: characters regain full capability, and can take a downtime action.

This is, of course, pretty much what we have now. The key differences:

Most importantly, the time required for each type of rest isn't fixed - it will be set by the DM based on the environment. So resting at home is rather easier than while on the road in the middle of a warzone! Amongst other things, this means that in a "points of light" setting, characters travelling from one city to the next will only be able to take short rests when they stop overnight.

Secondly, an interrupted rest gives no benefit, and characters cannot immediately rest again. So resting in the dungeon is a much tougher ask than currently. And, in fact, I'd be inclined to flag clearly just how easy it is to take different types of rests in different places - some places may allow all rests, allow all rests at some risk, allow short rests only (with or without risk), or might even not allow any resting at all.

Additionally, all characters need to regain something on both short and long rests. So maybe a spellcaster's cantrips are each usable once per short rest, or perhaps all spellcasters have a version of the Wizard's "arcane recovery" feature (but available on every short rest). And I suggest that on a short rest character can either spend one or more hit dice or they regain one hit die. This, of course, will require some changes to almost all the classes.

I _don't_ like this drift towards "X times per day" - it very much looks like WotC are moving towards either eliminating short rests or, possibly worse, de-emphasizing them for many but not all characters. That feels very much like a retrograde step to me.


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## Eric V

What if there were _only _short rests, but the player decides _what _gets recovered on the rest?

For (early-idea) example, on a short rest, a player may do one (or some limited number) of the following:

a) Spend HD to regain hp
b) Recover HD
c) Recharge a class ability (or a few?)
d) Recover a spell slot (or more?)
e) Recharge a magical item

There would need to be some math involved to balance it, but one could see one player choosing to heal with HD, while another takes the risk to stay with her lower hp after the battle in order to recover a higher-level spell slot, and another player pours his essence into the helm of teleportation.

This would be even more interesting if characters could use their HD for things other than healing, like powering spells, etc.

What happens to long rests in a system like this?  A "long rest" is essentially when you have enough time to chain a bunch of short rests together, so the DM handwaves it and people fully recharge.  However, for people who like it, you could always be in a state of "not fully there" and so attrition is a major factor.


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## Crimson Longinus

Eric V said:


> What if there were _only _short rests, but the player decides _what _gets recovered on the rest?
> 
> For (early-idea) example, on a short rest, a player may do one (or some limited number) of the following:
> 
> a) Spend HD to regain hp
> b) Recover HD
> c) Recharge a class ability (or a few?)
> d) Recover a spell slot (or more?)
> e) Recharge a magical item
> 
> There would need to be some math involved to balance it, but one could see one player choosing to heal with HD, while another takes the risk to stay with her lower hp after the battle in order to recover a higher-level spell slot, and another player pours his essence into the helm of teleportation.
> 
> This would be even more interesting if characters could use their HD for things other than healing, like powering spells, etc.
> 
> What happens to long rests in a system like this?  A "long rest" is essentially when you have enough time to chain a bunch of short rests together, so the DM handwaves it and people fully recharge.  However, for people who like it, you could always be in a state of "not fully there" and so attrition is a major factor.




Sounds actually pretty fine, albeit it might be too fiddly for some people's tastes as they would constantly need to decide what to recharge. It would also need to be somehow scaling like prof bonus' worth of recharges or something, as higher level characters have more features.


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## Eric V

Crimson Longinus said:


> Sounds actually pretty fine, albeit it might be too fiddly for some people's tastes as they would constantly need to decide what to recharge. It would also need to be somehow scaling like prof bonus' worth of recharges or something, as higher level characters have more features.



100%.  This isn't a finalized idea by any means; it needs workshopping.  I like the idea of making choices during rest rather than simply hitting a 'reset' button.


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## Baron Opal II

EpicureanDM said:


> It's hard to understand the most important function of the rest system: control of the game's pacing. It's an artificial restraint on the recovery of the characters' limited resources. It makes the game challenging and rewarding.
> ...
> *Two encounters -> short rest -> Two more encounters -> short rest -> Another two encounters -> long rest, restart the counter at zero.*



I don't like it, but I can appreciate it. I can see the utility if you can ignore the pattern so that you don't exploit it. But, maybe that's the point.


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## jgsugden

I'd use the following mechanics if I were rebuilding 5E:

LONG REST: You'd need to get 6 hours of rest within 24 hours to avoid a level of exhaustion.  That 6 hour total could be split in up to 2 periods of rest.  NO ABILITY RECHARGES WOULD BE TIED TO LONG RESTS.

DAILY ABILITIES: Many abilities would be recharged at dawn of each day.  Most current 'LR' abilities now would be recharged at dawn.

RECHARGE ABILITIES: Some abilities would have recharge periods.  Long enough that you could not use them in contingous battles, but where you could rest for a bit (or retreat for a bit) and use them later in the day.  One simple approach to this would be four 6 hour periods (or 6 four hour periods) in a day and abilities would recharge at the start of the 2nd period after the ability was used.  I built a system that used this and used tokens on a 4 panel sheet to track when the abilities would recharge.


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## overgeeked

Or just go back to the 4E rest and resource mechanic. It’s perfect. Everyone gets a mix of short and long rest abilities. Short rests are 5-minutes long. Long rests are 6-8 hours.


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## Vaalingrade

overgeeked said:


> Or just go back to the 4E rest and resource mechanic. It’s perfect. Everyone gets a mix of short and long rest abilities. Short rests are 5-minutes long. Long rests are 6-8 hours.



And then strictly limit the proliferation of daily abilities.


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## Blue

Question to everyone:  If instead of looking for a "Rest Mechanic", we were looking for a "Recovery Mechanic".  So it need not be tied to a period of inactivity but could be tied to other aspects.  Then what would your favorite look like?

For example, in some early editions of D&D clerics of good-aligned deities refreshed spells at dawn.  In 13th Age it does have Quick Rests that are like short rests (but quicker) but the Full Heal-Up which is the equivalent to a long rest is divorced from narrative control and happens roughly every four battles.  Which does a great job of inter-class balance, but is disliked by some for verisimilitude reasons.

But I'd rather hear your suggestions than debate those two examples.


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## Cruentus

Blue said:


> Question to everyone:  If instead of looking for a "Rest Mechanic", we were looking for a "Recovery Mechanic".  So it need not be tied to a period of inactivity but could be tied to other aspects.  Then what would your favorite look like?



In one of my campaigns, I toyed with using spell points that regenerated over time, passively.  So if you had (just spitballing) 40 spell points, and used 10 of them in an encounter, then you might get back 2 points per hour no matter what you were doing.  If you found an area saturated with magic, or ley lines, it might charge back faster.  Resting had no impact. 

Similarly, HP would recover in the same manner.  Some slow drip of HP recovery based on time, and not resting.  Time spent doing nothing but resting might allow for an enhanced recovery time.  

I didn't extend the exercise to cover abilities, powers, or other things, as I couldn't quite come up with a solid base of mechanics/math to have it all scale at the same time.  Or maybe I was overthinking it and it doesn't need to scale, just recover at a reasonable pace. 

If you remove the "rest = power/HP/ability recovery" mechanic, then parties will stop asking for rests.  Lack of rest/sleep would be impacted by some sort of (non-5e) Fatigue or Encumbrance mechanic.


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## Dausuul

Yaarel said:


> The above is many of the considerations. What is your ideal rest mechanic?



That depends on whether I'm allowed to modify the rest of the game to adjust for it.

If the rest of the game stays unchanged, my preferred rest mechanic is to change short rests to 5 minutes and cap them at (prof) times per day. It addresses the major issues with short rests and balance between short- and long-rest classes. My table has been using essentially this house rule for some time now.

If I'm allowed to rebalance the rest of the game, I would prefer to go back to the 4E rest mechanics where a long rest is 6 hours (limit 1/day) and a short rest is 5 minutes as often as you like. It's simpler, and it lets PCs have abilities which are _available_ in every encounter but can't be spammed throughout the fight. But this would require overhauling pretty much all of the short-rest classes, since they would otherwise become insanely OP.


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## jmartkdr2

Blue said:


> Question to everyone:  If instead of looking for a "Rest Mechanic", we were looking for a "Recovery Mechanic".  So it need not be tied to a period of inactivity but could be tied to other aspects.  Then what would your favorite look like?
> 
> For example, in some early editions of D&D clerics of good-aligned deities refreshed spells at dawn.  In 13th Age it does have Quick Rests that are like short rests (but quicker) but the Full Heal-Up which is the equivalent to a long rest is divorced from narrative control and happens roughly every four battles.  Which does a great job of inter-class balance, but is disliked by some for verisimilitude reasons.
> 
> But I'd rather hear your suggestions than debate those two examples.



I, for one, would like a setup where you're expected to go into fights with full resources and the dm can build an encounter that's challenging to you. 1 fight per day fits a lot more story types than attrition, so it should work.

Attrition-based pay can be tacked on by limiting the amount of healing (or other recovery) you can do between full heal-ups. Depending on the details, this might not kick in until you get to 3 or 4 fights in a day... but that's fine. 

Based on those design goals: short rests are 5 minutes. Long rests are at least a full day. Powerful magics might have their own, thematic limitations (ie Divine Intervention is once per in-game week.)


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## overgeeked

Blue said:


> Question to everyone: If instead of looking for a "Rest Mechanic", we were looking for a "Recovery Mechanic". So it need not be tied to a period of inactivity but could be tied to other aspects. Then what would your favorite look like?



Favorite non-rest recovery?

I have two. One’s basically a short rest mechanic, but here goes anyway. In AD&D, to recover spells you had to rest and spend 15 minutes per spell level per spell to study, pray, and or meditate to memorize spells. Keep the study, maybe make it 15 minutes per character level in class appropriate activity, study, prayer, meditation, making music, crafting, etc. The other is to reverse the notion entirely. Instead of having resources you spend and track, start with your cantrips and 1st-level spells…then on each successive round of combat you gain access to higher level stuff. Round 2 you can use 2nd level spells. Etc. Powering up instead of resource tracking.


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## Blue

overgeeked said:


> The other is to reverse the notion entirely. Instead of having resources you spend and track, start with your cantrips and 1st-level spells…then on each successive round of combat you gain access to higher level stuff. Round 2 you can use 2nd level spells. Etc. Powering up instead of resource tracking.



I like that from a combat flow mechanic.  It's slightly similar to Sentinel RPG's GYRO mechanism.  

But narratively how does it work when characters are expecting combat and know they need to "power up" like about to kick in a door or ambush someone, and how does it work outside combat where time isn't a factor?


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## South by Southwest

I don't have a specific stance on the ideal rest mechanic because I'm not a game designer and don't pretend to know and understand all the variables that play into this question. I admire the dedication and expertise of those who do, but I'm just not there. Accordingly, my only confident claim on this is that it'd be a lot less permissive/generous than 5e. That's it. Just something whereby 5.5/6e would feel less like a text-based version of Call of Duty and _a bit_ more like the AD&D of yore.

What would that actually look like? Wish I knew.


----------



## Luceilia

RangerWickett said:


> My preferred version would require a heavy retool of the rest of the system. But here it is.
> 
> First, we'd have HP that replenishes with a 5 minute rest, where *Hit* Points means "ability to survive an attack that *hits*."
> 
> But on top of that you have *wounds* that can occur from critical hits. And if you're out of HP, every attack that hits causes a wound. Usually someone who drops to 0 HP just gives up. (And if you score a critical hit against someone with no HP, they
> 
> Wounds persist until you get treatment, which might take an hour, a day, or a week (or magic!). The location is random, or you can spend a bonus action to aim at a specific location, but aiming only matters _if_ you inflict a wound. Arm wounds make wielding stuff harder. Leg wounds make moving harder. Head wounds impede your senses or might knock you unconscious. And torso wounds cause blood loss (so you make a save each turn to avoid passing out) _and_ lower your max HP, so when you take a rest you might only get back to 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 your total.
> 
> Wounds can be *light* (heal in an hour), *moderate *(heal in a day), *serious *(heal in a week), or *critical *(never heal).
> 
> When you drop to 0 HP, you automatically get a moderate wound wherever the attack hit, or a light wound if you choose to fall unconscious.
> 
> Normally critical hits would inflict serious wounds. They'd upgrade to critical if you have no HP left. Whenever you take a wound, you can make a Con save to reduce it by one step. And you'd have hero points you could expend to reduce _any_ wound to light.
> 
> A 5-minute Medicine check (DC 10) can let the patient recover from a light wound. So can a cure light wounds spell (1st level).
> 
> A 1-hour Medicine check (DC 15) can let a patient ignore the effects of a moderate wound, though the benefit goes away after the character falls below half HP. Cure moderate wounds (2nd level) can fully recover a moderate wound.
> 
> Cure serious wounds (3rd level) can fix a serious wound. Cure critical (4th level) can fix a critical wound, which includes regrowing severed limbs. Then Raise Dead (5th level) lets you beat death, but any wounds the person had when they died require an extra cure spell. Heal (6th level) can fix all your wounds at once. Resurrection (7th level) can restore the dead _and_ fix all your wounds. And True Resurrection (9th level) is that, but with a casting time of one action.
> 
> None of these actually recover hit points. For that you either need inspiration by an ally, or you can take an action to get a second wind, or maybe a heroism spell.
> 
> The idea here is to have rules for how wounds actually function in real life, but in a way that players can still function and be heroic while injured.



Are there D&D Players who actually like such a system?

It's so complicated and punishing and totally destroys my vision of what it means for a character to grow more powerful and resilient by evolving as a being through leveling up.

Not saying it's bad on a mechanical level, I don't claim expertise with systems like this and the only experience I had with something similar I hated so I never looked back.

But at least in the context of D&D it just doesn't feel like fun.

Regarding the thread topic I'm actually going the other direction. Killing Long Rests, reducing spells and allowing the recovery of all class abilities on short rests.

HP gets something like the Hit Dice mechanic as well as Medical Treatments available after each battle to grant additional healing and decent but not absolute overnight recovery (probably 1/level for small HD classes, 2/level for medium HD classes and 3/level for high HD classes, double that for absolute bed rest)

Essentially my goal is to make it pretty easy to have either one encounter a month or 5 a day (assuming the presence of healing magic, be that a caster or items) without screwing with the balance too much


----------



## Cruentus

I had been brainstorming a rest and spell point recovery mechanic that was based strictly on time for natural healing and spell recovery.  I haven't nailed down the basics, but essentially after you take damage, you recover 1 hp over some time interval.  Maybe, say, 4 hours.  So if you have 8 hit points, that takes you a full day to slowly recover.  Of course, magic can speed this up, as could the Medicine skill.  But when you have 20 hit points, its up to 80 hours till you're full.  You could adventure down some HP, but that would be an in game decision. 

Likewise, spell point recovery could work the same way.  Using the spell point system offers more caster flexibility, so a low magic system could offer less spell points per day, and they are recovered not all at once, but on a rolling basis (maybe resting slightly increases the rate of recovery).  

My thinking is that these types of mechanics decouple resting (and sleeping), from HP and spell point recovery, which then adds a further decision point to the characters as to whether to keep going, and/or how long to wait to recover some or all of their HP, but its not an "overnight" thing, except at very low levels.  But, like I said, I'm still working on the mechanics, and haven't tried to balance it at all in the broader system.


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## RangerWickett

Luceilia said:


> Are there D&D Players who actually like such a system?
> 
> It's so complicated and punishing and totally destroys my vision of what it means for a character to grow more powerful and resilient by evolving as a being through leveling up.
> 
> Not saying it's bad on a mechanical level, I don't claim expertise with systems like this and the only experience I had with something similar I hated so I never looked back.
> 
> But at least in the context of D&D it just doesn't feel like fun.
> 
> Regarding the thread topic I'm actually going the other direction. Killing Long Rests, reducing spells and allowing the recovery of all class abilities on short rests.
> 
> HP gets something like the Hit Dice mechanic as well as Medical Treatments available after each battle to grant additional healing and decent but not absolute overnight recovery (probably 1/level for small HD classes, 2/level for medium HD classes and 3/level for high HD classes, double that for absolute bed rest)
> 
> Essentially my goal is to make it pretty easy to have either one encounter a month or 5 a day (assuming the presence of healing magic, be that a caster or items) without screwing with the balance too much



I like injuries existing. I like Die Hard with glass in the feet. I like Star Wars with hands getting chopped off. I like Predator with a dude getting his ribs broken by a log trap. And I like characters carrying on after these injuries. That, to me, is heroic.

In some games, sure, get swallowed by a monster, spat out, then rub some dirt on your wounds and be back to full strength. But I don't really like that tone of game most of the time. I want to feel like there's a weight to action. I like the verisimilitude of having to worry about really getting hurt, and of seeing a guy swinging a sword or a monster champing its teeth at me as something to try really hard to avoid. 

It helps with immersion, and that helps me enjoy the game more.


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## Lanefan

Luceilia said:


> Are there D&D Players who actually like such a system?



Guilty as charged, y'r honour.


Luceilia said:


> It's so complicated and punishing and totally destroys my vision of what it means for a character to grow more powerful and resilient by evolving as a being through leveling up.



Sorry about your vision, but I far prefer the realism of slow recovery - though nowhere near as slow as by-the-book AD&D would have it.

What I've used for ages in my (not 5e) games:

After taking damage you can spend a few minutes catching your breath, tending to minor nicks and scratches, etc - this gets you back a very few h.p. (usually about a d3 worth).

Overnight rest gets you back [_hit point total / 10, round ALL fractions up_].  This way, someone with 72 hit points gets back 8 while someone with only 16 hit points gets back 2; the really neat part for me is it balances equally across all levels and classes - everyone recovers at about the same relative rate.

And then we complicate it by using a body-fatigue points system to allow us to reflect long-term injuries etc. 


Luceilia said:


> Regarding the thread topic I'm actually going the other direction. Killing Long Rests, reducing spells and allowing the recovery of all class abilities on short rests.
> 
> HP gets something like the Hit Dice mechanic as well as Medical Treatments available after each battle to grant additional healing and decent but not absolute overnight recovery (probably 1/level for small HD classes, 2/level for medium HD classes and 3/level for high HD classes, double that for absolute bed rest)



If that works for you, rock on! 

It's not the direction I'd want to go, though.  I much prefer a more gritty survival-is-job-one type of game where there's a clear and obvious choice between pressing on or stopping to recover, where each has its pros and cons.


Luceilia said:


> Essentially my goal is to make it pretty easy to have either one encounter a month or 5 a day (assuming the presence of healing magic, be that a caster or items) without screwing with the balance too much



And here, you're on to something.

If you're intentionally trying to eschew any sort of attrition-based model then this is probably the ideal end result, as it means you can then more or less do away with forced amounts of encounters per day etc.  That said, you'll either then have to set the encounter difficulties based on the PCs being at full pop every time or expect the PCs to make a fairly easy job of things most of the time.

Have you tried this system yet and if so, how well is it working?


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## Luceilia

Lanefan said:


> That said, you'll either then have to set the encounter difficulties based on the PCs being at full pop every time or expect the PCs to make a fairly easy job of things most of the time.
> 
> Have you tried this system yet and if so, how well is it working?



Yeah I've been running a playtest group with it for eight weeks so far (a playtest group differing from a typical group I would actually use the system on by virtue of each session is testing a level instead of my usual organic story based leveling approach) at levels 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14

Spellcasters get one new spell slot of the highest level they can cast on level up and Full Casters start with two level 0 spells (I'm rolling something of a hybrid between 5th and 3rd, the idea of a caster being an infinite cantrip gun doesn't exactly feel magical to me. But the corollary is that I mod spells to scale better than 5th) and it's great.

I don't have to think about how many resources they're going to burn through, I can easily decide if a fight is easy or hard simply based on what they have.

If I _want_ a little attrition I can give that with pressure/reinforcements/waves and the fact that resources do take some time to recover, but I have very limited Nova concerns. Sure a caster can nova a bit, but only so far and if they completely blow their load they're in trouble if they don't actually get time to recover their magic.

One other thing I've been dabbling with rather than a dull all-or-nothing short rest is gradual spell recovery. 1+1/spell level to prepare a spell, or 1+ 1/2 spell level minutes to recover spontaneous spell slots from lowest to highest.

Creates a lot of tension in the rare occasion I use a dungeon and the casters did use up their spells and have to find a way to recover them without getting found or pinned down or tagged by a wandering monster.


----------



## Lanefan

Luceilia said:


> Spellcasters get one new spell slot of the highest level they can cast on level up and Full Casters start with two level 0 spells (I'm rolling *something of a hybrid between 5th and 3rd,* the idea of a caster being an infinite cantrip gun doesn't exactly feel magical to me. But the corollary is that I mod spells to scale better than 5th) and it's great.



A kitbashed hybrid of 5e and 3e?

I applaud your courage in even trying that.  Those - particularly 3e - aren't easy systems to kitbash and make it work.


Luceilia said:


> I don't have to think about how many resources they're going to burn through, I can easily decide if a fight is easy or hard simply based on what they have.
> 
> If I _want_ a little attrition I can give that with pressure/reinforcements/waves and the fact that resources do take some time to recover, but I have very limited Nova concerns. Sure a caster can nova a bit, but only so far and if they completely blow their load they're in trouble if they don't actually get time to recover their magic.
> 
> One other thing I've been dabbling with rather than a dull all-or-nothing short rest is gradual spell recovery. 1+1/spell level to prepare a spell, or 1+ 1/2 spell level minutes to recover spontaneous spell slots from lowest to highest.



If measured in minutes rather than tens of minutes or even hours, that's not what I'd call "gradual".   But the idea behind it is good.

Are the players cool with the extra tracking required?


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## Luceilia

Lanefan said:


> A kitbashed hybrid of 5e and 3e?
> 
> I applaud your courage in even trying that.  Those - particularly 3e - aren't easy systems to kitbash and make it work.



I've been homebrewing and tweaking 3rd edition for close to 15 years now, it's second nature to me at this point lol.



> If measured in minutes rather than tens of minutes or even hours, that's not what I'd call "gradual".   But the idea behind it is good.
> 
> Are the players cool with the extra tracking required?



No complaints so far, but they don't really have to keep track of anything. For spontaneous casters it's just an in-world timer where I let them know which slots to mark recovered as they go. For the prepared ones it's as simple as 'I'm preparing this spell'  and then either it is prepared before something shows up or it's not.

As for the time scale, I presume you're thinking in the context of something like a Megadungeon?

Not a fan personally, when I run a dungeon it's small, like an organization's fortification (such as a realistically sized castle) or maybe an Indiana Jones sized crypt. A place where when there's pressure, the pressure Is On. Where it's basically There vs Not There rather than days of exploration.

But that all goes back to my style as a GM, where I don't want to be dealing with the details of a giant dungeon and the levels/floors and all that.


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## Lanefan

Luceilia said:


> I've been homebrewing and tweaking 3rd edition for close to 15 years now, it's second nature to me at this point lol.



Nice. 


Luceilia said:


> No complaints so far, but they don't really have to keep track of anything. For spontaneous casters it's just an in-world timer where I let them know which slots to mark recovered as they go. For the prepared ones it's as simple as 'I'm preparing this spell'  and then either it is prepared before something shows up or it's not.
> 
> As for the time scale, I presume you're thinking in the context of something like a Megadungeon?



I was thinking more of having it take longer than just a few minutes to recover those used spells, regardless of the situation; in order to - in a way - kinda force them to slow down and take a break now and then rather than just plow through in one big run.


Luceilia said:


> Not a fan personally, when I run a dungeon it's small, like an organization's fortification (such as a realistically sized castle) or maybe an Indiana Jones sized crypt. A place where when there's pressure, the pressure Is On. Where it's basically There vs Not There rather than days of exploration.
> 
> But that all goes back to my style as a GM, where I don't want to be dealing with the details of a giant dungeon and the levels/floors and all that.



I guess my tastes kinda cover both, in that I want a typical castle or crypt - assuming there's some hostile occupants - to take more than just a day or two to explore.  I don't at all mind if they pull back and rest up for a night or even longer before trying another sortie into the place.

Megadungeons can be a blast but the players have to buy in hard to whatever the premise is for their PCs being there.  Without that, it can quicky become a disaster.


----------



## Luceilia

Lanefan said:


> I was thinking more of having it take longer than just a few minutes to recover those used spells, regardless of the situation; in order to - in a way - kinda force them to slow down and take a break now and then rather than just plow through in one big run.
> 
> I guess my tastes kinda cover both, in that I want a typical castle or crypt - assuming there's some hostile occupants - to take more than just a day or two to explore.
> 
> I don't at all mind if they pull back and rest up for a night or even longer before trying another sortie into the place.



I mean with the crypts I get it, you can just have more obstacles and more size and the party can come back rested (although I feel like I would get bored of that sort of thing... Third day back I'm asking myself why are we here just to suffer?) but with a Base Raid? Definitely not in my games lol. That assault is going to be multiple times harder if they give the enemy time to prepare and adapt.

New fortifications, new conscripts or mercenaries, new traps, more general Operational Security. More of the treasure consumed and weaponized.

Maybe even a harrier sent to allies to bring more reinforcements.


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## Art Waring

We use our own spell point system, and introduced 10 minute short rests. Spellcasters now get a few spell points on a short rest, not much, but enough to keep contributing to fights without overshadowing other classes that now get to have their short rests fitted into the day with relative ease.


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## niklinna

I've often wondered how a scaling effort/recovery approach might work. As a very arbitrary and just-for-example example, you'd need X hours of rest to recover spell slots of level X. Cast any 8th-level spells, you need 8 hours of rest to get them all back. If you've only cast 3rd-level spells so far, you can have those back with 3 hours of rest.

Scale the time increment however you like: half-hour increments, half days, whatever.

You could generalize by applying similar refresh times to other class abilities (essentially a spell-level equivalent rating), rather than saying they refresh on a short or long rest.


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## tetrasodium

niklinna said:


> I've often wondered how a scaling effort/recovery approach might work. As a very arbitrary and just-for-example example, you'd need X hours of rest to recover spell slots of level X. Cast any 8th-level spells, you need 8 hours of rest to get them all back. If you've only cast 3rd-level spells so far, you can have those back with 3 hours of rest.
> 
> Scale the time increment however you like: half-hour increments, half days, whatever.
> 
> You could generalize by applying similar refresh times to other class abilities (essentially a spell-level equivalent rating), rather than saying they refresh on a short or long rest.



it was a thing in early editions (2e at least iirc).  It worked ok but I don't remember us ever counting the hours so much as checking with the gm if there was enough time & just hand waving it  if we had their blessing vrs guess we can't rest here if the gm says no because.  I've seen systems that do it much better where it took a varying amount of time depending on your level or whatever sort of 1day*level for a long rest kind of thing so low level characters dealing with low level threats are ready to go again quick while high level characters with high level goals & problems don't want to kill 5 rats or six zombies when they could hire some low level types to do it (or die trying) because they will need a long time to recover


----------



## glass

EzekielRaiden said:


> The way 4e did it was pretty much ideal already. Don't balance short-rest abilities on the assumption they have to be stretched out across multiple encounters. Let them be tricks you can pull out pretty much every fight.



Pretty much this. Short rests are 5 minutes or ten minutes (maybe 15 at a stretch). Anything longer than that is not a "short" rest, and probably does not happen at all.



RangerWickett said:


> My preferred version would require a heavy retool of the rest of the system. But here it is.
> 
> First, we'd have HP that replenishes with a 5 minute rest, where *Hit* Points means "ability to survive an attack that *hits*."
> 
> But on top of that you have *wounds* that can occur from critical hits. And if you're out of HP, every attack that hits causes a wound. Usually someone who drops to 0 HP just gives up. (And if you score a critical hit against someone with no HP, they



Interesting stuff. One of the things that I am debating with myself is whether to do something like this in my (perennially unfinished) homebrew system.



dave2008 said:


> We use 5min short rest and normal long rest, but we have added *Extended Rest. *An extended rest is a week in a safe place. And you need an extend rest to heal 1 BHP (bloodied hit point).



This is another one that I have kicked around (mostly because it helps avert "level 1 to 20 in a week"), but I have never been able to resolve to my satisfaction what exactly it should do. In your implementation, what exactly is a "bloodied hit point"?


----------



## dave2008

glass said:


> In your implementation, what exactly is a "bloodied hit point"?



A bloodied hit point is a "meat" point, vitality point, whatever you want to call it.  You have very few of them (2-8) and they don't go up with level.


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## Branduil

IMO, if you're going to run a system where players need several days of rest to recover HP, you better do the same for spells as well. Spellcasters have enough advantages as it is, I would hate playing as a fighter and being hamstrung for days while the wizard can just wake up and cast 10 more Fireballs.


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## glass

dave2008 said:


> A bloodied hit point is a "meat" point, vitality point, whatever you want to call it.  You have very few of them (2-8) and they don't go up with level.



Presumably if you run out of them you die? Do you start losing them if you run out of normal hp, or by some other method?


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## Blue

Ideal rest mechanics:

1.  None.  Remove attrition based resource management as one of the themes of the game, since it forces certain DMing styles.  Games like Hero use END primarily, which comes back during a fight and all comes back after a fight.

2.  Synchronized between classes.  4e (pre-Essentials) had attrition resource management, but all characters had the same resources in the same amounts.  So you could run one encounter or 14 encounters between rests and all of the characters had the same resources to divide across them all - no classes had advantages or disadvantages based on fewer or more encounters between rests.

3. Game-focused.  Attrition based resource management is very much a mechanical gaming aspect, what I mean by that is that it is a game that is played, trying to maximize utility and efficiency.  Do I use my high levfel spell now or later?  I only have one Rage left, do I use it now against these guards or might there be a better time later?  So instead of putting recovery of those resources into a non-game-focused aspect like time passing, link it directly to the resources.  I've played with a house rule where each character can trigger a short rest that takes 5 minutes, but only twice a day.  I've seen a house rule where a short rest automatically happens every two combats.  13th Age has a rule where a full heal up (equivilent of a long rest in terms of resource recovery) happens every four encounters, with the DM having an option to make it sooner based on how challenging they were, and the players having an option to take it sooner as the cost of a campaign setback.

Really, "rest" as the trigger for recovery mechanics is a poor idea in terms of the gaming aspect and the narrative flow aspects, even if they meet simulation goals.  The idea that an arbitrary amount of time available in the adventure allows the reset of resources in such a heavily attrition based game like D&D does not match all DMing styles or narrative pacing choices.  As an example, a three week trek across a desert might have a total of four encounters, but with rest based they are either spread out and therefore trivial in final impact and not worth of the session time spent on them, or unrealistically all gathered into the same day.


----------



## dave2008

glass said:


> Presumably if you run out of them you die? Do you start losing them if you run out of normal hp, or by some other method?



Yes, 0 BHP = death. You loose them when HP = 0 or on a confirmed critical hit. Also, armor in our game also has DR (damage reduction) of AC-10.  This only comes into play when you would suffer BHP damage.  So if your HP are 0 and you take a hit for 10 damage and you're wearing plate (DR 8) you only take 2 BHP damage.


----------



## Lanefan

dave2008 said:


> Yes, 0 BHP = death. You loose them when HP = 0 or on a confirmed critical hit. Also, armor in our game also has DR (damage reduction) of AC-10.  This only comes into play when you would suffer BHP damage.  So if your HP are 0 and you take a hit for 10 damage and you're wearing plate (DR 8) you only take 2 BHP damage.



Question: do you find this makes your non-armoured characters more vulnerable?  Also, does it make your tanks unkillable by minor foes e.g. Leprechauns or Pixies who simply can't do 8 damage on an attack, even if the tank is buried under three dozen of 'em?  Both of these would be concerns for me.


----------



## Branduil

To me, the most important thing is that all the resources in the game are tied together. If you recover full HP every rest, you should recover full Spells/Rechargeable abilities as well. If you recover half HP, half Spells.


----------



## dave2008

Lanefan said:


> Question: do you find this makes your non-armoured characters more vulnerable?



Yes, when they take an actual hit.  That is the game working as intended for us.  Maybe that is why most of our players wear heavy armor!


Lanefan said:


> Also, does it make your tanks unkillable by minor foes e.g. Leprechauns or Pixies who simply can't do 8 damage on an attack, even if the tank is buried under three dozen of 'em?  Both of these would be concerns for me.



It could; however, we have a house rule that allows players and monsters spend 1-2 HD to increase the damage on an attack. So an Almiraji could spend its 1 HD and increase the damage of its attack to 1d4 + 3 + 1d6, which could inflict enough damage to arm even someone in plate armor.

PS. The 5e pixie doesn't have an attack that targets AC, so it is not an issue.


----------



## glass

dave2008 said:


> Yes, 0 BHP = death. You loose them when HP = 0 or on a confirmed critical hit. Also, armor in our game also has DR (damage reduction) of AC-10.  This only comes into play when you would suffer BHP damage.  So if your HP are 0 and you take a hit for 10 damage and you're wearing plate (DR 8) you only take 2 BHP damage.



Actually, I think I have quizzed you about this before, so apologies for the repetition. IIRC, I was concerned about crits going straught to BHP being instant death (due to the difference in scale between regular HP and BHP), but in your experience the DR was enough to offset that.


----------



## dave2008

glass said:


> Actually, I think I have quizzed you about this before, so apologies for the repetition. IIRC, I was concerned about crits going straught to BHP being instant death (due to the difference in scale between regular HP and BHP)*, but in your experience the DR was enough to offset that.*



Yes. Now, you obviously want to avoid a crit from an ancient dragon, but that is working as intended in our opinion.  

I will be honest that it is probably not the right fit for all groups or playstyles, but it works for us.


----------



## Lojaan

Short rest = same but 5min
Long rest= same but need a survival check if not in comfortable, safe place


----------



## Lanefan

dave2008 said:


> Yes, when they take an actual hit.  That is the game working as intended for us.  Maybe that is why most of our players where heavy armor!



Even your arcane casters?


dave2008 said:


> It could; however, we have a house rule that allows players and monsters spend 1-2 HD to increase the damage on an attack. So an Almiraji could spend its 1 HD and increase the damage of its attack to 1d4 + 3 + 1d6, which could inflict enough damage to arm even someone in plate armor.



Ah.  That does make a difference, yes.


dave2008 said:


> PS. The 5e pixie doesn't have an attack that targets AC, so it is not an issue.



I used Pixie as an off-the-cuff example of a tiny creature that is only dangerous in numbers, each doing one or two points damage per hit.  Replace it with any other such creature to get what I'm after here.


----------



## dave2008

Lanefan said:


> Even your arcane casters?



No (I said most), but they are supposed to be squishy.  Again, that is working as intended.  Though we only have one caster. Casters are not front line fighters in our game. They need to be protected.


Lanefan said:


> I used Pixie as an off-the-cuff example of a tiny creature that is only dangerous in numbers, each doing one or two points damage per hit.  Replace it with any other such creature to get what I'm after here.



Yes, and I think that is an issue with typical D&D. It overvalues tiny creature damage in my opinion. I mean a cat causes 1 slashing damage.  I've had many a cat scratch and it would take about a million of them (or more) before I would need a death save!


----------



## UngeheuerLich

dave2008 said:


> Yes, 0 BHP = death. You loose them when HP = 0 or on a confirmed critical hit. Also, armor in our game also has DR (damage reduction) of AC-10.  This only comes into play when you would suffer BHP damage.  So if your HP are 0 and you take a hit for 10 damage and you're wearing plate (DR 8) you only take 2 BHP damage.




What are BHP?
Can you still act on HP=0?

I like the idea.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

dave2008 said:


> Yes, and I think that is an issue with typical D&D. It overvalues tiny creature damage in my opinion. I mean a cat causes 1 slashing damage.  I've had many a cat scratch and it would take about a million of them (or more) before I would need a death save!




I think I remember maybe a next playtest iteration, where cats did 1d4-3 damage. This was probably 0 most of the time.

But in the end, DnD also undervaules damage from huge enemies.


----------



## dave2008

UngeheuerLich said:


> I think I remember maybe a next playtest iteration, where cats did 1d4-3 damage. This was probably 0 most of the time.



That would be better.


UngeheuerLich said:


> But in the end, DnD also undervaules damage from huge enemies.



yes it does, if you think HP is meat. However, we have separate meat points. Since a human has about 10 BHP max. A hit from an ancient dragon is instant death like it should be!


----------



## dave2008

UngeheuerLich said:


> What are BHP?



Bloodied Hit Points


UngeheuerLich said:


> Can you still act on HP=0?



Yes. 0 BHP = dead.


UngeheuerLich said:


> I like the idea.



It has worked well for us. At one point we included lingering injuries on crits too, but we didn't find it fun in play.  Anyway, here are our BHP, AC, and Recovery rules:


----------



## Haplo781

Make a short rest 5 minutes and balance around having one after every encounter.


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## UngainlyTitan

This a difficult task and I am not sure there is an "ideal" rest mechanic for D&D since the game incorporates a wide variety of playstyles.
I think an ideal system would recognise the different styles and break out the various resources involved and allow the DM to cycle them on different recovery mechanics. 
What do I mean by this?
        Essentially at the moment a D&D character has a number of resources that reset on rest breaks. They are; Powers (spell, Ki, maneuvers etc.), inventory (scrolls, potions, etc), and health (hit points, hit dice).
There is not particular reason that powers should be recovered on the same mechanic as health (rests). Powers could be recovered on a clock (At dawn of a new day, with or with out a rest, for instance) where as health would need a rest or a rest in a safe haven.
The DM should be supplied with enough information to be able to set the various recovery mechanics to suit the style of game they want. 

I am not sure what those mechanics would look like though.


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## Marandahir

Short Rest - 1 hour, reboots "encounter" level powers (I've got problems with Prof/day recharges…)
Long Rest - 8 hours for full benefit, 4 hours for partial benefit, some lineages give full benefit with 4 hour special resting mechanics etc. However, this doesn't clear all levels of exhaustion or certain diseases or other injuries.
Extended Rest - 28-30 days for full benefit, 7-10 days for partial benefit. Certain diseases or major injuries might advance without proper treatment, but most will be dealt with from resting for an extended period. All exhaustion cleared. Maybe you can roll every 7-10 days to see if you've cleared exhaustion / diseases / recovered extended rest recharge mechanics (Wish spell?).


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