Most of Veeky Forums says encounters should be done to use "resources" up. Now I agree with this but my players rest after each encounter or small challange.
>use a spell. Rest.
>get hit by a trap. Rest.
>fight anything. Rest.
I feel like this kills the idea of using up resources for encouters.
What should i do without making the player feel like Im trying to stop this?
How can i push them with out adding a timer on everything?
If they need to rest every single fucking time, have roaming monsters that attack them while they are resting. Maybe that will light a fire under their ass and make them double time it.
Adding time would probably help here. It doesn't feel as artificial as it does in concept, it's pretty intuitive.
Have you tried talking to them? I dunno about you but random encounters are stupid.
alk with your players
If talking didn't help:
They rest in dangerous locale (pretty much anywhere that isn't a town)? Roll on wandering monsters table. They rest afer THAT encounter? Smell/sound attracts more monsters. They rest again? You got it, monsters.
Alternatively:
Make encounters that are tactical challenges instead of resource drains, from classic bridge with archers to video game puzzle boss-tier fights.
Wandering monsters. How the hell are the PCs consistently finding safe secure places to hide where no one ever finds them. You can't make a ton of noise fighting some dudes and then sit in a corner for an hour expecting nothing to happen. Do the orcs in the next room just wait for their turn?
And fuck it, USE a timer! Unless the party is exploring a decrepit ruin just for exploration's sake, they're probably on some sort of time table. Bandits will move on with stolen goods and kidnapped people (especially when they know they're under attack from PC *in their own base*). Dragons will eat princesses. Evil cults will complete the ritual. It's usually nonsensical to not have some sort of timer, even if it's a generous one.
The guys they fought had friends who are coming back. Loot and go or you fight again.
>Most of Veeky Forums says encounters should be done to use "resources" up.
Then most of Veeky Forums is clueless D&D plebs. Which means I think you're right here, OP.
I have done this but I just feel as if tho it is forced like I was saying.
Add time as a factor; Intelligent foes should be able to use this time to prepare:
They are barricading the doors, are preparing more traps, maybe mobilize and flee altogether.
They could raise guards to warn the others, or harass the intruders in many different ways.
And even less intelligent foes wouldn't just sit there and wait to get slaughtered....
Encounters are tactical challenges, not just resource-draining meat wall.
>Most of Veeky Forums says encounters should be done to use "resources" up.
Do they? That isn't what I think encounters should be...
In my mind an encounter should:
Reinforce the feel of the setting and location (for example, use of ice-themed monsters in a norther wilderness tells you that it's more of a high fantasy game while some hungry wolves eating an abandoned baby would be more gritty).
Provide entertainment for the players (or give specific players something to do if they seem bored).
Give an opportunity to practice using the combat (or social conflict, trap disarming or whatever) system.
Drop clues to the plot.
Give out some loot.
Put pressure on them to move towards their goals by having serious threats turn up if they dawdle.
Maybe introduce some sort of recurring bad guy hunting them that gets closer every time they rest so after 5 rests or something it's boss time.
Alternatively have some sort of freddy kruger dream fiend or smth like that so they have to succeed an encounter if they want to get the rest
If you want to be really hardcore you can have them make a constitution or luck save and if they fail say they had an agitated sleep/were woken up by a nightmare and don't recover anything
>When you wake up, you find your weapon missing. Echoing laughter down the halls of this dungeon seem to be admiring the metalwork of your blade. You must retrieve it quickly!
>The resting party is set upon by Goblins! You are all prone and stunned for the first turn as you stir awake.
>As you go to rest your head, you recall that the ritual these cultists are about to perform must be performed at a specific time and date, one that's rapidly approaching. You can only rest for so long.
My DM always throws us an encounter when we rest. Always. I don't like it, but we're wary to use our rests.
Start tossing encounter at them until they move away from the danger zone or kill them off.
>Most of Veeky Forums says encounters should be done to use "resources" up.
Fuck that. A small number of well-rounded encounters where the challenge comes from overcoming the level and the enemy's preparations as much as it comes from the maths of the enemy mobs themselves is all you need. Challenge your players' ability to use their tools creatively, not how many tools they can collect and micromanage.
Y'all already ruined D&D with that mentality, give it up.
How is it forced? If anything it's better than the idea that monsters are just staying in their rooms, waiting for the PC's to bust down the door.
Why not both? Attacking the Character Sheet and encouraging them to use, sacrifice, or risk items against encounters will leave them with a far more limited toolkit, which encourages creative application of said limited tools.
It's all easy until you realize you're too deep to go back up, and have to brave the final floor or whatever using nothing but a scroll of spider climb, a sacrificial dagger, and four torches. Now, that's where stories are made.
By playing different system that either don't have quick resources replenishment, have no need for it, or have specific rules about how rest phase works (Torchbearer)
First and foremost, make time relevant. To make the most stupid example, if they have to save the princess from orcs and they dick around for two weeks to clear a dungeon, they'll arrive too late and the orcs have made the princess into stew.
Second, it is reasonable to limit benefical resting to once every 24 hour. Which means, you can't rest eight hours, have one hour of adventuring, and rest again - at least, not with the full benefits of rest. If you try to do that in real life the most you can expect is to disrupt your circadian rhythm, which means you'll likely become insomniac or lethargic, or just very stressed.
Third, dungeons and wilderness aren't just static encounters waiting for adventurers to bump into them, they are dynamic environments. If you're in a dungeon filled with monsters, they won't just wait in their rooms, they'll probably roam around searching for food or other necessities - or leisures, depending on intelligence; and they'll sniff or hear if a party breaks in and starts triggering traps or breaking doors. If the dungeon is populated by a group of organized creatures, like goblins or bugbears or whatever, they'll probably have guards, and even if these guards are killed before they can alarm the others, their absence will eventually be noticed by their comrades, so you can't just rest in a room most of the time and expect to not be noticed for days.
Then there may be other problems like the need for food, water, even fresh air. You get the point.
Just add a time limit.
Like: "The evil guy is preparing his ultimate plan to become an unstoppable god. If you do not stop him in approximately 10 days, he will ascend and destroy everything you hold dear."
Works every time.
And if they still rest for 10 days, just play the consequences straight. They should have known better.
Give them a bit more time than they would need though.
So they can rest one or two additional times, when they get some unlucky rolls and must retreat or something like that.
Better define resting as a concept and tie it to a resource. Say for a short rest they need an amount of firewood, tinder and flint, also food and drink. Don't let this prevent them from resting entirely but reduce the amount of spell slots they recover if they don't have these resources. That way it becomes a tactical decision when to rest as they only have so many casts until they get more supplies, this is especially effective in a dungeon where they don't know how deep it is and whether there will be any opportunity to scavenge / gather such.
Remove hp/mana regen.
If your leg gets cutoff you can't just rest for 5 hours to heal it. Do the same thing for mana, wanna throw fire balls? Better go buy some mana potions, nothing is free IRL and shouldn't be in a tabletop either. Same thing for hp damage, you have to find an actual doctor to heal you.
The party are being hunted by something. They hesitate, it catches up and gets them
D&D is entirely balanced around the existence of healing spells. And lore of the weave which is used in the majority of all non-hombrew is the major obstacle to implementing mana. If he was to redesign it as you have suggested he may as well use an entirely different system at that point.
You should be putting a timer on everything.
Time is one of those resources an encounter can use up.
Hello, Veeky Forums helpdesk, have you tried etc.
See, I get the feeling you only find it forced because that's what your group screeches every time you try to fix the problem.
There's an article called something like "how to stop one encounter per day." I've got it saved but I'm not on pc so try googling for that. It's definitely a problem people have, and I'm sure there are creative solutions.
Have you tried not playing d&d?
Clocks advence. Evil plots hatch. Sitations get more dire. The chance of Rocks falling get bigger.
Players daring you on this? Flip the setting. PCs failed in stopping the apocalypse. Fuck the world. Players still dawdling? Do it again. The situation can ALWAYS get worse. Now the world is even shittier place because the players didn't spend enough effort and risk and heroism.
>forced
It's not forced if it realistic.
Patrols or wandering shit interrupts rest. Hostile situations that make rest hard. Timers.
>D&D is entirely balanced
Apparently not because you can just rest to instantly heal from everything.
By "everything" I clearly meant all of the combat mechanics.
*entirely
I haven't slept for two nights straight so my memory is fucked.
This.
Anytime players treat tabletop like theyre playing vidya, it annoys the shit out of me...
>baww it's forced when you have something find us when resting in the open in a dangerous place but not when we stop the entire game for a metagame reason
Forget not playing D&D, have you tried not playing with 5 year olds? If you tell them they take damage do they tell you that they're rubber and you're glue?
Sounds like someone needs a rest
There's optional rules in the DM guide regarding resting and healing, such as requiring the use of a healer's kit in order to expend hit dice on a short rest, or making the resting periods longer. As for resources for casting spells, well, they do list spell components in the player's handbook...