Gritty Realism vs. 10 minute short rests. Why not both?!

[Bjarkmundur]

"Eat your broccoli" vs. "Do you want one or two pieces of broccoli?"

"When are you free?" vs. "Would you like to meet Wednesday or Thursday?"

I have a 6 year old son who, like most children, always wants to challenge the rules. Bed times, snacks, computer-time. These are things he will climb mountains to get more of. This lead to a pretty interesting system. I have learned that no matter how much computer time he gets he will always ask for more. Give him 30 minutes, he ask for 10 extra. Give him 45 minutes, he asks for 10 extra. When you explained to him that he just got 15 extra, he still wants 10 extra. Now, I simply calculate his "extra" into everything, and include it as positive reinforcement. He now only gets 30 minutes, but can put away 5 toys into his toy box, dishes to kitchen or dirty clothes to laundry to get his "10 extra".
We are both VERY happy with this system xD

Presentation of options affects how we see those options. If we are assume getting 10gp from a quest, but only get 5gp, we feel disappointed. If we expect nothing and get 5gp, we are pretty happy.

One player-DM negotiation that I am completely sick of is the rest argument. I don't like confrontations. I know I can talk to each player individually or make a declaration of "I am the storyteller and the game master, I decide when your characters rest and when they will not".

Or, I can simply adjust the presentation. You see, wanting something and getting nothing sucks. That's why I've created two additional rest periods which you can serve as compensatory rests for Rest-hungry players. Now when a player initiates the "I want a long rest" debate, you simply reply with "You can't, but I will allow you to set up camp for the night". Which is, admittedly and objectively, better than nothing.

Breather
A breather is a short period of downtime, just long enough to catch one’s breath. A breather is typically 10-15 minutes, and during it PCs can use hit dice to regain hit points. It is advised to not take a breather where a battle has taken place, since the sounds of battle might have alerted nearby enemies.

Short Rest
A short rest is a period of downtime, typically 1-2 hours long, during which a character might have a meal, clean his weapons, read over his prepared spells, perform a ritual, take a nap, or prepare for the day ahead in any other way. During a short rest, a PC regains expended uses of some of his abilities and can expend hit dice to regain lost hit points. Be careful, however, since short rest in a hostile environment might trigger a random encounter. Each character can benefit from a maximum of two short rests before either setting up camp or taking a long rest.

Setting up Camp
Finding a place to stay the night involves a period of downtime that lasts at least 8 hours where the PCs take turns standing watch. At the end of the resting period the PCs regain all their lost hit points, a single hit dice and the use of their short-rest abilities.

Long Rest
A long rest is a period of extended downtime in a safe environment and is defined as at least a 24-hour break from adventuring. At the end of a long rest, PCs regain all lost Hit Points, all expended uses of their abilities, half their total number of hit dice (minimum 1) and their exhaustion level is reduced by 1. You can gain these benefits again after another 24 hour period, in order to fully regain expended hit dice and lower your exhaustion level by an additional level.

Hostile Environments & Random Encounters
Some environments are simply too dangerous to risk a rest and a DM might specify that the players cannot benefit from a rest while in certain locations. During a rest in a hostile environment, the players make a single luck roll. On an unlucky result, there’s a random encounter. Players may gain advantage or suffer disadvantage, based on various factors.

[Zman]

This appears like it could be advantageous to short rest classes by being more strict on long rest classes. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but something to be taken into account. IMO, the problem is more deeply rooted in the design that advantages the five minute adventuring day or going "Nova".


When running 5e, I've used a breather mechanic for years. Essentially my breather is a 30s to 5min rest in which characters may expend one of their hit dice to heal, just one. Then I kept the standard 1hr Short Rest and 8hr Long Rest. It works really well for rapid fire encounters that maintains verisimilitude and doesn't feel clunky like taking an hour off in the middle of the Orc Caves.

For Gritty Realism, I also use the no heal to max on a Long Rest. I require the playter to use their Hitdice and be limited to the recovery rate. It "feels" better, but IMO isn't a perfect solution.

[Segev]

It strikes me that the long rest mechanic will mean that you can't actually recover long rest abilities while traveling or dungeon delving at all. This will turn those abilities from "once per adventuring day" to "once per dungeon/trip," which is, I think, too little.

That said, it does have some appeal for making exploration adventures harder. When you have about .75 encounters per day on average (as the odds in Tomb of Annihilation's recommended travel encounters work out), novaing is absolutely an option and anything that doesn't put you near death feels like no danger at all. Fortunately, I like developing challenges in ways that have goals other than killing the PCs as the source of "win/loss" and challenge conditions.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It strikes me that the long rest mechanic will mean that you can't actually recover long rest abilities while traveling or dungeon delving at all. This will turn those abilities from "once per adventuring day" to "once per dungeon/trip," which is, I think, too little.
I think it's a little wonky too. Finding "healing completely after a good night's sleep" is one of the big reasons to go for the gritty realism variant. Not only do you lose that, but the way long rest benefits are broken up seems like it'll benefit some classes more than others.

I generally prefer a "you can only long rest in a safe location"-- either an established settlement or a camp the characters have fortified. That way each trip into the wilderness can be a full 6-to-8-encounter adventuring "day."

[Bjarkmundur]

Oh wow, I totally forgot to include by design goal!

-> To create periods of rests that I can distribute freely without having to worry about ability recharge and the short rest / long rest balance. This means creating rests that allow PCs to regain other resources such as hit dice and hit points, and engage in short downtime activities, but not recharge any abilities.

With that design goal in mind, you're right that having "Setting Camp" give access to more short rests and long rests being 24 hours quite heavily tips the scales towards short rest classes. The verisimilitude REALLY wants camping to reset the short rest counter.

Breather
A breather is a short period of downtime, just long enough to catch one’s breath. A breather is typically 10-15 minutes, and during it PCs can use hit dice to regain hit points. It is advised to not take a breather where a battle has taken place, since the sounds of battle might have alerted nearby enemies.

Short Rest
A short rest is a period of downtime, typically 1-2 hours long, during which the PCs might have a meal, clean their weapons, read over his prepared spells, perform a ritual, take a nap, or prepare for the day ahead in any other way. During a short rest, the PCs regains all expended uses of some of his abilities and can expend hit dice to regain lost hit points. Be careful, however, since short rest in a hostile environment might trigger a random encounter. Each character can benefit from a maximum of two short rests.

Setting up Camp
Finding a place to stay the night involves a period of downtime that lasts at least 8 hours where the PCs take turns standing watch. Setting up camp is only half as beneficial as a long rest. As such it has the following benefits:
- Regain all lost hit points
- Regain one expended hit dice
- Regain the use of a single long-rest ability (excluding spell slots gained from the spellcasting class feature)
- Regain the ability to benefit from one short rest.

Long Rest
A long rest is a period of extended downtime in a safe environment and is defined as at least a 24-hour break from adventuring. At the end of a long rest, PCs regain all lost Hit Points, all expended uses of their abilities, half their total number of hit dice (minimum 1), the ability to benefit from two short rests and their exhaustion level is reduced by 1. You can gain these benefits again after another 24 hour period, in order to fully regain expended hit dice and lower your exhaustion level by an additional level.

Hostile Environments & Random Encounters
Some environments are simply too dangerous to risk a rest and a DM might specify that the players cannot benefit from a rest while in certain locations. If resting is possible in a hostile environment it still might trigger a random encounter, The players make a single luck roll. On an unlucky result, there’s a random encounter. Players may gain advantage or suffer disadvantage, based on various factors

I'll keep working on it. I know "a single long rest ability" does NOT work. Let's call it a placeholder until I find a better solution.
In all honesty I'll probably end up using just breathers, short rests (1 hour) and long rests (8 hours). But hey, game design is a skill, and you won't get better without practice ^^

Edit: As a rule of thumb I almost exclusively introduce housrules that can be explained in a single sentance. Breather is easy "It's a 15 minute downtime which allows you to use hit dice, but doesn't grant you additional uses of any abilities". Setting Camp does not fit the single-sentence criteria, so it's not likely to be implemented in my game. It was a fun experiment, howewer.

[Waffle_Iron]

I like the idea, but I think there’s too many clauses on some of your short rest and overnight camp mechanics. You’d probably end up explaining it over and over.

Perhaps:
Breather - spend hit dice to heal
Short rest - as normal short rest
Camping - as a short rest, but also you gain half hit dice back and can choose between recovering exhaustion or regaining long rest powers.
Long rest - as normal long rest

This allows long rest classes to regain some powers OR heal exhaustion camping overnight, but forces the party to think about healing because it doesn’t happen automatically.

[Bjarkmundur]

I like the idea, but I think there’s too many clauses on some of your short rest and overnight camp mechanics. You’d probably end up explaining it over and over.

Perhaps:
Breather - spend hit dice to heal
Short rest - as normal short rest
Camping - as a short rest, but also you gain half hit dice back and can choose between recovering exhaustion or regaining long rest powers.
Long rest - as normal long rest

This allows long rest classes to regain some powers OR heal exhaustion camping overnight, but forces the party to think about healing because it doesn’t happen automatically.

An elegant solution! I love it! I'll start with just adding the breather and see if making further changes will make the game more fun or simply more confusing. But I'm sure some groups would enjoy this tweak.