Originally Posted by GM4Him
Originally Posted by robertthebard
3. Un-limit SRs, but limit them. Is it any wonder some people are scratching their heads?

OK. Sorry. Explained this so many times that I didn't realize how it might come across to someone who hasn't read the explanation before.

By Un-limit SRs, I mean make it so that you can do more than 2 per day. My point is that the resting system is backwards. Short Rests should be promoted. A DM should WANT the players to SR as much as they can while LR'ing less. This stretches out the adventuring day so it doesn't feel like players have sucky, bad, weak characters. You WANT players to feel like their characters are powerful, even at level 1. You don't want players to feel like they can't kill anything and their characters are dumb.

So, you promote SRs. Limiting SRs to 2 per day, however, while having unlimited LRs essentially says, "Hey players. LR more and SR less."

But, you still need SOME sort of limits to SRs or you will then make those who benefit more from SRs more powerful than those who only benefit from LRs. In other words, if SRs aren't limited in some way, Warlocks then become MORE powerful than Wizards. Warlocks only ever get a few spell slots, even at higher levels, but their spell slots reset per SR. Meanwhile, Wizards get WAY more spell slots, but they only reset via LR. So, if SRs are totally unlimited, the Warlock can spam SR forever and wind up having more spell slots than Wizards, making them more powerful. But, as the game is currently, with only 2 SRs per day, the Warlock's class is totally nerfed.

That's why I said they should do like 5e was designed and limit SRs via Hit Dice. As was mentioned by someone on this thread, SRs eventually do promote LR because you only get half your Hit Dice back per LR. So, you have to strategically use Hit Dice and plan them out well, along with your SRs, so you don't mess yourself over later.

And THAT'S what I want. Strategy. Something meaningful. Something more than a push of a button that is a convenience, and something that promotes SRs and discourages just using LRs. I want things to have meaning and purpose. Otherwise, just remove it.

Seriously, I'd rather they do something like NWN, where resting was a five second "bend the knee" moment and then you continue on with your day than this current resting system. At least then I'd feel like my characters aren't sleeping their lives away with brain-eating tadpoles in their heads.

Except that, even with an HD limit, players would be treating SRs exactly like you're complaining about people treating LRs. If one can simply roll a Warlock, per your example, and just SR their way to victory, why roll anything else? This is why I'd much rather see LRs restricted by requiring x number of SRs in between, while limiting the number, and number of times, one can take a SR. Whether that's 2 "per day", or based on HD doesn't matter to me. What really and truly matters is that I won't miss out on a comp romance, for example, because I was busy playing the game, instead of spending a majority of my time in camp.

The beauty of this is that the LRs need not require one to exhaust all possible SRs. If we run with a HD restriction, and the player has 4 HD, we can still restrict LRs to requiring 2 SRs, for example. Then it's just a matter of determining a good "cut off" time for SRs. However, any system that's affecting LRs must have a way to fix the ability of a player to miss out on relevant content. Anything that doesn't address this does not fix the game, but breaks it. So, from where I'm sitting, this is like a 25% solution, which does nothing to address the overall problem that I have with how LR/story beats are handled. Some of them require LRs, the dream sequences for example, and Astarion's little "adventure". Some of them really don't, like Gale's Weave scene. That could just as easily be handled with a quest marker on him, or his portrait, telling me that he needs to talk, and if I talk to him, he can suggest talking in camp. This would not require a rest at all, just having the convo there.