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Author Topic: 5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?  (Read 4727 times)

crkrueger

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« on: August 28, 2018, 02:31:09 AM »
In another thread, Smon wrote that he runs 5e with Long Rests on a weekly timer.
1. Doesn't that drastically alter some classes capabilities?  The whole Short-Rest/Long-Rest issue?
2. Do you "speed up" any class abilities to account for this?

For anyone who runs a Really Long Rest :D, how does that affect gameplay that you've noticed?
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S'mon

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2018, 03:13:19 AM »
I found that before the change warlocks and fighters seemed underpowered, this brings them into balance with barbarians and wizards.

What actually happens is that pc party adventures/fights for a day then rests for a week. Or if travelling they rest at the end of the journey. But few journeys approach the 6-8 fights per long rest the class balance was designed around.

In fact even with 7 days to long rest I still rarely ever see 6+ fights between long rests and technically the LR classes still have the advantage. Because pcs are not supposed to short rest after every fight I limit SRs to 3 per day of adventuring too.

There are some highly artificial scenarios my system does not work for, the ones where pcs must slog through 32 fights in a few days to stop the evil ritual. It works great in more organic and sandbox play.

Daztur

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2018, 04:02:47 AM »
Most sessions it doesn't matter since players resting off screen doesn't matter too much but it really makes long overland travel more interesting and taking resting in the dungeon off the table which helps.

Gilgamesh

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2018, 05:41:14 AM »
Quote from: CRKrueger;1054242
In another thread, Smon wrote that he runs 5e with Long Rests on a weekly timer.
1. Doesn't that drastically alter some classes capabilities?  The whole Short-Rest/Long-Rest issue?
2. Do you "speed up" any class abilities to account for this?

For anyone who runs a Really Long Rest :D, how does that affect gameplay that you've noticed?

1. It can, yes, depending on the party composition. A bard must be vigilant with his Inspiration uses if there's a high chance of multiple encounters per day, while a fighter doesn't have to worry as much. The biggest offender (especially at later levels) IMO is the Moon Druid because Wild Shape is an ability that, especially in traditional exploration and random encounter scenarios, is just is leagues above many other class abilities and having it reset after Short and Long Rests introduces potential for power balance issues.

2. In a way, yes. I'm running a weekly game with a party consisting of: Bard 8, Bard 6/Warlock 2, Rogue 8, Druid 8, Fighter 8 and Ranger 7/Fighter 1. We use a modified version of the travel rules from Adventures in Middle-earth, which means that Long Rests aren't generally viable in the wilderness unless the party finds (and unlocks) a safe heaven/sanctum of some sorts. Now, this can become a huge deterrent against long expeditions since spellcasters will just run dry fast - Adventures in Middle-earth has unique classes and no traditional D&D spellcasting, so it's not such a huge problem in that game - especially at low levels. To mitigate this problem, I added that all spellcasters can decide if they want to use Hit Dice during a Short Rest or regain a single spell slot that is half of the highest spell level they can cast (min. 1). By now the characters are high enough in level that they don't really need that option anymore, but it really helped our game early on and the conditioning of 'Don't Waste Resources!' is still having an impact on the game, which I rather enjoy.

As to the impact of Really Long Rests, we also use a downtime system close to the one from Unearthed Arcana. Players can pursue projects during any downtime of sufficient lengths, do research, learn new languages, and so on. Of course, the world doesn't stop in the meantime and more than once the group had to decide if they can really afford to give the bad guys an advantage by taking a vacation. I like that it adds so much to the political aspect of the game (the party also owns property and is building a base of operation, which of course also feeds into this). Right now for example the party has defeated their biggest long-term opponent in a climactic battle and can do a 'real' downtime for the first time in (in-game) months, which has some folks pretty excited.

Steven Mitchell

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2018, 09:38:06 AM »
I strongly considered going with the "long rest 1/week, short rest 1/day" rule in my current campaign, but ended up reducing the effects of rests and making exhaustion more common than normal instead.  As S'mon said, it all depends on what kind of adventures you are having, and how you want those to work.  

There are enough levers in the D&D recovery options that I think it is almost more useful to start with the outcomes and feel you want, then work backwards into how to tweak the recovery mechanics to match those.

estar

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2018, 12:33:48 PM »
A variant of this works well in Adventures in Middle Earth. Makes the campaign flow a bit differently and stretches in-game time out.

Spinachcat

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2018, 04:31:40 PM »
What goes wonky if short rest = 1 day?

Also, what if the long rest gets interrupted? AKA, you're neck deep in booze and VD for 4 days when Evil McEvil shows up and you gotta throw down.

Or even worse, you gotta track down McEvil to his lair so you had 4 days only of your long rest?

Omega

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2018, 04:48:40 PM »
Quote from: Spinachcat;1054286
What goes wonky if short rest = 1 day?

Also, what if the long rest gets interrupted? AKA, you're neck deep in booze and VD for 4 days when Evil McEvil shows up and you gotta throw down.

Or even worse, you gotta track down McEvil to his lair so you had 4 days only of your long rest?

Extending the short rest to 8 hours for me and the groups I usually play with had about zero impact as we NEVER expect a chance to get one once at a site. We usually power through with what we have. It plays alot like AD&D or BX.

As for interrupting a long rest. Unless you remove the "must be in combat for a full hour" rule then its nigh impossible to crack a long rest unless the PC actively does things that will. If someone jumps them during a long rest and they can finish it within 600 rounds then they can get back to convalescing.

Steven Mitchell

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2018, 05:10:23 PM »
It is not necessarily true that "one long rest per week" translate to needing a week of rest.  It's not even the most sensible translation, since the standard rule of one long per day requires only 6 hours of rest.  If I went that route, I'd require 2 or 3 days of rest, stretching it out for the full week only if interrupted.  Once the rest finishes and you get the benefit, you cannot get the benefit again for another 7 days.

estar

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2018, 06:26:41 PM »
Quote from: Spinachcat;1054286
Also, what if the long rest gets interrupted? AKA, you're neck deep in booze and VD for 4 days when Evil McEvil shows up and you gotta throw down.

If it made to work like Adventure in Middle Earth then it represent non-adventuring time which means McEvil isn't going to show up. The way AiME does it that it isn't a fixed time. It is a period of respite. The shortest I done is about four days.  The longest was about three month. So in the case of McEvil. The PC get "home" or to their sanctuary rest for a few days and McEvil shows up. Just let go of the idea that it is represent a fixed time and have it represent a sufficiently long period of rest.

Psikerlord

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #10 on: August 28, 2018, 07:16:38 PM »
I expect using 1 week as a long rest would work better than overnight - you will at least discourage the nova/rest/repeat problem for long wilderness treks, for example.  But you unbalance the long rest classes by doing so, nerfing them signficantly. Still, better than the default.

What I would also recommend doing is converting all short rest abilities to twice per long rest abilities instead. Eg the fighter can second wind twice per long rest, instead of once per short rest (given that the DMG suggests the formula they had in mind was 2 short rests per long rest). That way all classes are on the same refresh rate, fixing the balance problem. Older dnd for example had lots of magic items that were usable twice per day, or three times per day, etc. Similar thing.
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S'mon

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2018, 07:28:41 PM »
Quote from: Psikerlord;1054300
What I would also recommend doing is converting all short rest abilities to twice per long rest abilities instead. Eg the fighter can second wind twice per long rest, instead of once per short rest (given that the DMG suggests the formula they had in mind was 2 short rests per long rest).

2 SR per LR is actually 3 uses of SR-recovered powers per LR. I do this in my online game, SR powers > 3 per LR powers - and it works well for Fighters anyway. I think it gives Monks too many Ki. So for tabletop sessions, which are longer, I prefer to just cap at 3 SRs per day, and 99% of the time a session is one day.

Psikerlord

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2018, 11:00:22 PM »
Quote from: S'mon;1054301
2 SR per LR is actually 3 uses of SR-recovered powers per LR. I do this in my online game, SR powers > 3 per LR powers - and it works well for Fighters anyway. I think it gives Monks too many Ki. So for tabletop sessions, which are longer, I prefer to just cap at 3 SRs per day, and 99% of the time a session is one day.
Yes you're right, there's the original use, plus 2 more granted by the SRs, total 3.
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mAcular Chaotic

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2018, 11:53:37 PM »
I've run a game with a week long Long Rest and it's been fine. You just need to make Downtime Activities and Lifestyle a bigger thing, and that's the fun of it. It makes the focus of adventuring to get in, and get out.

The one hiccup now is they are hiding in an enemy base and resting... they really need a recharge, but by the current rules they would need to be somewhere to rest a week, so all they're going to get is a Short Rest. They are going to be out of luck, pretty much.

In the cases where they're in the hot zone for an extended period like this and have no way out it might be better to switch over to the normal rules.
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S'mon

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5e - One Week Long Rest - Repercussions?
« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2018, 03:17:57 AM »
One thing I do is have long rests always be between sessions and the session almost always ends with a long rest. I use real time equal game time in most games as Gygax  advised and players know there is no LR until end of session.

There is no LR in enemy fortress. If you run the kind of game that needs that then this approach is not suitable. Personally I think it is silly and I would rather avoid that sort of adventure.