Problematic Resting

The system for resting in Fifth Edition revolves around two primary mechanics: a “short rest” and a “long rest” which both restore different aspects of a character’s fighting capability.

When a character is hurt or exerted from adventuring these two rests allow them to restore hit points and regain the use of abilities. The latter of these benefits typically occurs during long rests. Spells, class abilities, and other features are limited to a number of uses which are restored only after a long rest. This matters because a character's power is directly affected by how many of their resources they can bring to bear at any given moment. The game’s designers plan many features and encounters around how many of these resources they expect to be available during a period of time.

Why it matters

In the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Fifth Edition there is a section dedicated to building encounters. This section is meant to give ideas, help with preparation, and supply system guidelines. Some of these reference combat difficulty, the experience threshold is meant to balance encounters against the power of your adventuring party.

When game designers create these balancing systems they base them around certain expectations. What abilities characters have at what levels, the strength of relevant enemies they may face, and also most importantly what resources these characters are capable of using at a given moment.

An unfortunate mismatch

The assumption made in the rulebook is that an adventuring party will face… Six to eight medium or hard encounters?? Well let's first look at what medium or hard really means then shall we?

It varies from scary moments, to character death. Meaning an adventuring party is expected to face death multiple times each day. But what actually occurs in most games?

It is fair to say that most groups do not accomplish this. Often what happens with limited time to fight, role play, and explore, sessions end up with merely one or two chances for combat. This combat can then range from incredibly dangerous, to mediocre or even unsatisfying. When you have such a small window in which to fit such an amount of danger and challenge it becomes incredibly difficult to find solid ground to build a fantastic experience.

What’s the solution?

Well the first one presented to us is actually in the DMG. Gritty Realism is an optional rule found on page 267 for resting. (If curious, read the other resting variant contained there, many may not have heard of it.) The explanation is fairly simple, a short rest is now 8 hours to complete, and a long rest a week. It is often seen as a way to make D&D “hardcore” or more difficult, however that is not necessarily the best use.

Gritty Realism is excellent if you need to slow the pace of your game to match the number of encounters per adventuring day. If your in-game days struggle to meet the required number of encounters now you’ll have a week. This slower pace can have other benefits as well for modern games, balancing some of the issues which arise in class power. Your short rest oriented players will feel more useful and heavy hitting abilities and spells will come out less often.

These benefits sound great, however many dislike the idea of a long rest always taking a week. There are situations where you may want the party to be capable of a rest sooner than a week. One possibility is that you have misjudged how dangerous some encounters were, and now your party is stuck in a dungeon without resources to spare.

An easier path

Not liking the idea of being stuck into week long rests? There is a solution for you as well, stop connecting the mechanical benefit of resting to the in-game time and sleeping. By severing this connection we can use what can be aptly called “Narrative Resting.”

For this method a short rest can remain one hour, or even be shortened to ten minutes for snappy play as needed. The long rest will no longer have any set time. Instead you are free to allow the benefits of a long rest whenever it seems narratively and mechanically appropriate. If the party is within a dangerous delve you can let them know a long rest will not be possible there. Same for traveling a rough road out to the dungeon, or during a high stakes time sensitive quest.

With this change you can pace the benefit of long rests to however long is needed. It offers a highly tunable experience and can offer multiple benefits. First, you can incentivise characters to return back to towns or cities for longer downtime to receive rest benefits. This allows for wonderful opportunities for shopping, roleplay, and planning before the next quest or dungeon. Second, you can now offer long rest benefits as a reward, such as right before a major fight or as a boon from an NPC.

If you go the route of Narrative Resting, it is important to implement certain attributes to your play. Discuss with your players the requirements that will be typically needed for a long rest to complete. You want to work with the party and not against it. While you may be ready for a long rest the party may desire it anyway.

If they commit to meet certain requirements based on location and present danger allow them the rest. Such as returning to town when not performing time sensitive missions, or securing a base in which to recover whilst in a dangerous locale. The duration of time for the long rest to complete, resources spent, or whether they need to sleep during that time can be varied.

Wrapping up

With the ability to better pace your game, whether through Gritty Realism or Narrative Resting, planning combat becomes easier. You can balance a number of encounters between the full recovery of resources, and present additional chances for reward and roleplay. Even if your session time is limited each week you can hold greater control over your game’s flow and feel.

Try talking with your own players about a slower paced game. It can be highly rewarding to intentionally pace your downtime and adventuring across sessions for a mix of gameplay. If you have done something similar before in your games, or are just excited to try it, leave a comment about your experience or thoughts.

Keep building worlds and weaving stories, until the next time we grow together.