Rest Mechanics, Encounter Design and Narrative: A diatribe

[Deleted]

Jul 8, 2015 23:05:19 GMT -8 lowkeyoh said:

A Bear in GURPS can kill a player. A Bear in Savage Worlds can kill a player. A Bear in D&D can only kill a player when they're at a certain level, and then becomes not a threat at all, and when it still is a threat the player can always take a nap and shrug off all damage and get their spells back. That's inherently a 'because it's a game thing' and not a 'this is a representation of reality'

That's just a matter of narrative focus. There are an infinite number of possible worlds that we could be looking at, each with their own quirks, but we choose to look at the one where the universe happens to balance such that these interesting stories are more likely to occur.

The world where grievous wounds are rare is a different world from the ones where they are common. That doesn't make it any less of a true representation of that reality. It just happens to be a different reality.

Nothing happens 'because it's a game'. Everything happens for a reason that is internal to the world in which it is happening, or else you've broken the basic conceit of roleplaying.

[D.T. Pints]

Where was this posted to get on everyone's radar like this ? Did a million voices crying out "Their talking about D&D!" occur ?

[lowkeyoh]

Someone posted it to reddit on /r/dndnext

I'm discussing it with people there, too.

[D.T. Pints]

Ahh...good ol' Reddit. Is there civil discourse occurring? I'd be disappointed.

[Luckstrider]

I really like the 13th age system for their number of encounters/full heal up OR campaign failure. It puts the decision in the hands of the PCs.

[archmagezemoc]

I guess I'm just a dick about it, but my players only heal (ONE hit die+Con mod) per long nights rest. So if they took a shitload of damage in one fight and only sleep it off, well, they may still be 30 to 40 HP below max.

Also, these rest issues should only be of concern to people running meaningful campaigns, that being ones where there is an accurate calendar being kept. Otherwise why not have your long rests be like, a week, it will still only take 5-10 seconds Out Of Game to say "you rest and regain hit points".

[Deleted]

I think you have a bigger issue to look at, which is that you have 20 points at which D&D as a game is balanced differently. Of course this could likely be broken down into bigger chunks, but you have to admit that first level is a different beast from fifth as fifth is to tenth. With this is mind, is it even worth trying to find a balance when it is all going to go to hell in a few levels anyhow? In my mind you need to change your focus from HP to other areas.

So how can you have a deadly combat without it being an awful event that takes days to run? Tactics is a good place to start. When you line the baddies up like civil war soldiers in a nice and tidy line they are going to get mowed down in a volley from your spell casters. Think like a gorilla fighter. Don't ever fight fair. Most creatures have a home ground advantage, even with only an animals cunning you can use knowledge of the terrain to your advantage. Harrie the party constantly. Keep the, paranoid and awake with rustling noises or creatures lurking just out of range. Ambush them while they are out taking a shit in the woods if you have to. Even the lowly wolf is a lot more menacing when you start with your breaches around your ankles and you are off on your own.

Challenge their tactics. Do the party mages like AOE damage spells? What happens when the sherif shows up to arrest them for property damage caused in their little civil disturbance? How well does never leaving each other's side work when your group gets attacked by a swarm! The game is weighted in favor of the players. It's your job as DM to play dirty to challenge them. Yes, those aquatic lizard men do use nets to drag people off riverboats and drown them in the river, nasty huh?

[D.T. Pints]

Yeah I've been thinking about this style of GMing recently and there are definite aspects of "playing D&D to win" that I do understand. Having to utilize the 'ever increasing war of max hit points" as a strategy to challenge the players is boring. "Well they mowed down that Challenge Rating 5 encounter at 2nd level...next up CR 8!" When in fact thinking about how opponents would actually ROLE play in an encounter to best survive and overcome their foes makes for a more interesting game. It also makes me reconsider my position on optimizing characters vs playing broken ones...but that's a story for another day.

[archmagezemoc]

A lot of people have problems with their characters slaughtering equal CR or higher CR encounters. In my opinion that CR is only applicable when it's really fighting the way they are supposed to fight. Like a high CR caster front-lining vs a rhino is going to lose, he's met his counter. But when a high CR caster sits back and lights up with fireballs? Much more effective.

[Gilded Phoenix]

Jul 27, 2015 7:38:25 GMT -8 archmagezemoc said:

A lot of people have problems with their characters slaughtering equal CR or higher CR encounters. In my opinion that CR is only applicable when it's really fighting the way they are supposed to fight. Like a high CR caster front-lining vs a rhino is going to lose, he's met his counter. But when a high CR caster sits back and lights up with fireballs? Much more effective.

A really basic example of this: 1 Goblin should be a Medium encounter for a single level 1 adventurer. If the DM has the goblin charge right in the middle, it's going to get beheaded really quick. Hardly a "medium" challenge. But, goblins in 5e can Disengage or Hide as a bonus action. If the DM instead has the goblin doing hit-and-run attacks and hiding in brush every other round, you can create quite an intense encounter for the player. Keep him guessing how many goblins are actually there. It's still only a Medium encounter, so the player (unless he's really off-balance) will find and kill the goblin eventually. But the second you throw a second goblin into the encounter, it's beyond deadly (according to the DMG).

Granted, it's a lot easier to run low-level encounters effectively since creatures have fewer abilities and they tend to be more direct. Properly-balanced high-level encounters require more homework for the DM, but such is the DM's life.

[archmagezemoc]

Aug 20, 2015 7:22:46 GMT -8 Gilded Phoenix said:

Jul 27, 2015 7:38:25 GMT -8 archmagezemoc said:

A lot of people have problems with their characters slaughtering equal CR or higher CR encounters. In my opinion that CR is only applicable when it's really fighting the way they are supposed to fight. Like a high CR caster front-lining vs a rhino is going to lose, he's met his counter. But when a high CR caster sits back and lights up with fireballs? Much more effective.

A really basic example of this: 1 Goblin should be a Medium encounter for a party of four level 1 adventurers. If the DM has the goblin charge right in the middle of the party, it's going to get beheaded really quick. Hardly a "medium" challenge. But, goblins in 5e can Disengage or Hide as a bonus action. If the DM instead has the goblin doing hit-and-run attacks and hiding in brush every other round, you can create quite an intense encounter for the players. Keep the party guessing how many goblins are actually there. It's still only a medium encounter, so the party (unless they're really off-balance) will find and kill the goblin eventually. But the second you throw a second goblin into the encounter, it's beyond deadly (according to the DMG).

Granted, it's a lot easier to run low-level encounters effectively since creatures have fewer abilities and they tend to be more direct. Properly-balanced high-level encounters require more homework for the DM, but such is the DM's life.

Well put, my players are level 15-17 and I almost TPKed em with Bone Devils (with Polearms) as a few would run around using their reach while two others would get in their faces and theyd spread out their poison-tails each round. Luckily for them they retreated instead of chasing deeper after the ambush-rout.

[Ozymandias]

To the OP: it sounds like you have an issue with the fact that 5th Ed. allows for near-instant recovery of resources. Between HD healing, special abilities and spells, a well-rounded group can recover all lost hit points in a day (and often less than that, assuming they weren't drained to begin with).

And this is why 5th Ed. sucks.

My suggestion: change the rules for healing. Spread the healing out so that a scrap with a few wolves takes days to recover from. Characters drained to near death should require weeks of natural healing. But then there's spells... so change the time requirement for recovering spells. Say, 15 minutes of study per spell level; that way, players have to weigh the benefit of spending a 3rd level spell if it'll take 45 minutes to get it back.

Really, you wouldn't have to redesign the whole game. Just create a few house rules and go from there.

[Deleted]

Of consideration is the fact that resource recuperation rates effect how damaging hard encounters or mistakes can be. If you put out an encounter that is harder than you initial expectation and the resource regeneration times have been extended, you will end up with players unwilling to engage the story further. Suppose for example you make the short rest time one night and the long rest time one week. You might think the players would continue on because they won't receive a benefit for waiting less than a whole day. What might happen instead is that they play more cautiously, slowing down even further. They know they are hurt and they know it's going to be some time before they can get back the resources they need. Time to hole up.

If your goal is player engagement you need to make them feel free to do so without major consequences. Players will react to the world presented to them. If the world is dangerous and being heroic would offer serious chance of death they are way less likely to play that same heroic character. As soon as the game becomes lethal the focus shifts in conflict resolution to "what are you willing to die for". That can be an interesting premise, but only if the players are bought in to the fate of their characters and the world they inhabit. Sadly I have been in various games where that buy in has not yet occurred and the game is lethal. What should be tense choices have no emotional content to them.

If you have ever played a game like the warhammer fantasy RPG you know what I am talking about. The players are likely to not act like heroes. They know they may die if they get stabbed, and even if they don't their road to recovery may be a long time coming, which means a lot of avoiding conflict so you don't end up in Morr's garden (a graveyard). So you must weigh realism vs the type of game you want to run. Dark and gritty people trying to survive or defenders of good (or whatever it is they stand for).

[The Northman]

I agree. The way you handle damage and healing has a direct impact on how heroic or romantic you want your game to be. In a game where combat is relatively rare, and things like investigation and social interaction are going to keep things going for a player who's otherwise worse for wear to the point of needing to avoid a scrap, it can work fine. We ran a mortals game in WoD where that was the case...I think the old occult professor was limping the entire story from a fight in the first session, and that was completely in-line with the feel of that game. Otherwise I feel like games such as D&D generally lend themselves to bouncing back with the John Wayne 'just a scratch, ma'am,' style of damage.

This also brings up the issue of hit points as actual physical injury vs your luck/level of fatigue catching up with you...

/ducks

We've always played with them as an abstract unless you take a particularly vicious blow or get taken to near-death, so how quickly people heal has never pushed my suspension of disbelief or made me feel less challenged by the types of encounters we tend to throw at one another.