Level Up (A5E) Rests & Level Up

[clearstream]

Aren't rests just a game balance rather than advanced rules issue? I believe not, for the following reason. Rests create design space for ability diversity. Without rests, we can't have nice things like rich class designs. Rests let designers create strong abilities that cannot be used every combat, and weak abilities that can be used every combat. For example, cantrips (use every turn) and wizard spells (use every few combats). That presents more interesting decisions to players. There are two options for rests that have received a lot of ideation and testing -

A) We can have rests that cannot be prevented, but are mechanically constrained. For example, an instant short rest at the end of every second combat.

OR

B) We can have rests that can be prevented, but are not mechanically constrained. For example, an 8 hour long rest whenever you like... but it can be interrupted.

What about

C) Rests that can be prevented and are mechanically constrained? I think this is dead space: unlikely to be fun. Players have no choice, but can be punished.

Both A) and B) can satisfy the purpose of rests. There is plenty of scope in those two mechanical ideas for advanced rests that can form a better foundation for advanced game options. The current RAW straddles those options and does neither effectively: leading to dissatisfaction. B) needs to be pushed out further toward its pole. A) doesn't exist. I want to advocate that the Level Up offers players both A) a mechanically constrained system using instant rests, rest points or stochastic rests, whichever can be made to work smoothly, and B), a more polar narrative-time system - something like Gritty Realism (which doesn't work, for the record) or the adaption of Gritty Realism that I have posted elsewhere.

 

[Horwath]

I would like to see the return of 5 min short rest.
But they can be limited in numbers.
I.E. 3 short rests in between 2 long rests.

And long rests could be 12hrs long(8 for elves). 8 hrs of sleeping(4 for elves) and 4 hrs on rotating watch, making meals, making camp, light training/meditation/spell preparing/gathering food.

 

[clearstream]

I would like to see the return of 5 min short rest.
But they can be limited in numbers.
I.E. 3 short rests in between 2 long rests.

And long rests could be 12hrs long(8 for elves). 8 hrs of sleeping(4 for elves) and 4 hrs on rotating watch, making meals, making camp, light training/meditation/spell preparing/gathering food.

I think the rest length needs to be answered after answering the key mechanical questions 1) can it be interrupted or not? 2) is it automatic or can players choose when they rest?

It could be that the best way to manage interruptions is through asserting what is allowed, as you do.

 

[CapnZapp]

Again, the first question needs to be:

Does rests currently work so bad Level Up must fix them?*

Remember, Level Up isn't a brand new game. It's explicitly positioned to be an upgrade to 5th Edition.

*) The answer may well be "yes", but then fixing that problem is what Level Up should do. Not change for change's sake.

 

[clearstream]

Again, the first question needs to be:

Does rests currently work so bad Level Up must fix them?*

Remember, Level Up isn't a brand new game. It's explicitly positioned to be an upgrade to 5th Edition.

*) The answer may well be "yes", but then fixing that problem is what Level Up should do. Not change for change's sake.

In many ways I wish that was the question, but fixing 5e isn't Level Up's goal. It becomes more like - can advanced rules that matter be offered for rests? I'm saying they can. In fact, they're foundational. A payoff for this - for 5.5ed optimists - is that rules that see play in Level Up might influence what ultimately goes into future core.

Regards your question is yes, they're horrible. Nearly useless as written (except possibly for a narrow, dungeon-bashing game type).

 

[tetrasodium]

Aren't rests just a game balance rather than advanced rules issue? I believe not, for the following reason. Rests create design space for ability diversity. Without rests, we can't have nice things like rich class designs. Rests let designers create strong abilities that cannot be used every combat, and weak abilities that can be used every combat. For example, cantrips (use every turn) and wizard spells (use every few combats). That presents more interesting decisions to players. There are two options for rests that have received a lot of ideation and testing -

Part of the problem is a two part thing.
First the caveat There are two kinds of rest (short breather and long set down for camp). The original intent was to peg small powers and minor recovery to the short & the big guns/full recovery the long. That was fine.

• things went screwy when they made classes largely designed to recover from short with fewer uses of the exact same big guns as the long rest classes. They didn't stop there though and created multiclassing options that allowed bridging the gap by using the short rest class to recover the long some to shed the inflexability of the short rest (scorlock) and similar
  
  There's no difference between a third level fireball cast by by a warlock sorcerer and wizard but the classes are designed like there is and any changes to rests a gm tries to make somehow need to balance the needs of all three against each other as well as scorlock multiclass against all three before you even get into the martials and all the other rules a change could impact.
• Having a short rest generally be able to easily restore half to full or more of full hp (there are tons of ways to make those better) and the same for a long rest forces an unreasonable level of lethality to be needed before anyone is really affected

 

[clearstream]

Part of the problem is a two part thing
.. There are two kinds of rest (short breather and long set down for camp). The original intent was to peg small powers and minor recovery to the short & the big guns/full recovery the long.
- things went screwy when they made classes largely designed to recover from short with fewer uses of the exact same big guns as the long rest classes. They didn't stop there though and created multiclassing options that allowed bridging the gap by using the short rest class to recover the long some to shed the inflexability of the short rest (scorlock) and similar.

There's no difference between a third level fireball baby by a warlock sorcerer and wizard but the classes are designed like there is and any changes to rests a gm tries to make somehow need to balance the needs of all three against each other as well as sherlock multiclass against all three before you even get into the martials and all the other rules a change could impact.

Having a short rest generally be able to easily restore half to full or more of full hp (there are tons of ways to make those better) and the same for a long rest forces an unreasonable level of lethality to be needed before anyone is really affected

It's true that they also made things screwy by giving long rest effects in reduced numbers to short rest classes. In play - in longer campaigns - you reach a point where most casts doesn't matter because there aren't enough rounds to use them up anyway. That's exaggerating, but not by much.

I don't think rests are fundamentally about lethality, which is controlled more by the presence of whack-a-mole spells like Healing Word. With my longer narrative rests system I found in fact that players become quite stretched on recovery, albeit I would probably embrace a good argument for recovering fewer than all HP with a long.

 

[aco175]

I did like 4e with the encounter and daily powers. Not sure to get something like this for the 5e system. Part of me also thinks that there was a backlash on 4e that helped create 5e so not sure on how that will play into things.

 

[TheSword]

The rest system works fine.

An hour to eat some food, bind wounds and study magic items is a perfectly reasonable option. Taking an hour out in a room with guardable exits isn’t unreasonable and none of the DMs I play with would punish people for doing so. Short rests take healing responsibility off long rests and specifically intended to be fitted between encounters.

Long rests are one of the key mechanisms balancing casters and martials. There are already controls on the 5 min working day - the fact that it can only be done once every 24 hours. Now if players like to wait in a room for 23 1/2 hours then there is a group problem not a game problem...

... either the DM is making the game so difficult the players feel like they need to nova every encounter. Or the PCs expect every encounter to be at max power and be a cake walk. Either way a conversation needs to be had to correct their. Changing the testing system isn’t the solution.

 

[TheSword]

I did like 4e with the encounter and daily powers. Not sure to get something like this for the 5e system. Part of me also thinks that there was a backlash on 4e that helped create 5e so not sure on how that will play into things.

Short rests and long rests are the difference between encounter and daily powers.