Just thought i might toss this idea out there and see what everyone thinks about it.
What if shorts rests were mandatory, and yes i know that sounds annoying given how useless they currently are, but the caveat would be that they now give all level 1 spell slots back so that way you wouldn’t be inclined to just use them all up to long rest instead. This would make short rests have value while also putting stipulations to long resting without forcing one or the other to be wasted. As it currently stands long resting is just broken due to the fact there are no downsides or stipulations that make it less frequently used. I would also put in an OPTION to make long resting only available in either safe areas or cleared out hostile zones. This would help the hardcore dnd players get that same feeling from tabletop dnd without forcing annoying mechanics on some of the more casual players. I also believe this would buff some underwhelming classes such as cleric and arcane trickster. It would also allow for some more utility and damage from spellcasters without the need to constantly long rest and would incentivize saving those long rests and high end spells for the tough fights. It would also make cantrips feel less like spammy (i ran outta spells) spells that are basically pointless (and you would probably prefer to just to use a melee attack instead). This would make level 1 spells a lot more common and easier to obtain and maintain but i also think that it gives more value to high end spells and cantrips allowing cantrips to be what I personally think they are for “finishers”, and high end spells would be much more difficult to keep around unless you waste all your short rests which would be pointless given that most fights don’t require you to use level 2 or higher spells as most enemies in EA are quite easy if you play your cards right. And because spamming through short rests can be mildly annoying, you could implement a system that allows long resting in safe areas (non-hostile areas even if the enemies are cleared out it wouldn’t work in a hostile environment) without using all of your short rests!
