Tag: 5-minute rest

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Greatest Hits 2012: Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2012. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

In the original article we talked about ways to bend the rules or tweak the numbers to give PCs a fighting chance when they’re low on hit points and healing surges. One thing that we didn’t really address that I think deserves mentioning are the PCs starting number of healing surges.

There will always be times when the party cannot continue because they’re out of surges. More often than not it’s the PCs that began with few surges in the first place that make the most noise about taking an extended rest. At my tables it always seems to be the strikers, and more specifically the Rogues and the Vampires.

I think it’s important for the DM, and even the other players in your gaming group, to talk to players who choose to run characters with minimal starting healing surges. It is a striker’s job to get into the thick of things which usually results in them talking some hits; however, good tactics and planning ahead can reduce the chances of these PCs running out of surges before everyone else. Yet trying to convince these players to have a good starting Con score, take the Durability feat, or just play smarter is often a challenge.

If the entire group addresses the low healing surge issue early, the party as a whole can develop tactics to overcome this obstacle and ensure the softest PCs stay on their feet and don’t blow through all their surges in the first fight. It’s a behavioural change that a lot of D&D players are not comfortable making but by addressing this early (possibly even during character creation) it can make for better games down the road and eliminate the frequency of the 5-minute work day without the need for any of the tricks we suggest in the article below.

From June 5, 2012, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game.

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Staying Alive: 8 Ways to Keep Wounded PCs in the Game

One of my biggest issues with D&D is the five-minute work day. This is when PCs expend all their best powers and burn through their healing surges so quickly that they’re useless unless they take an extended rest. The game is designed for PCs to have four or more encounters before they should need to take an extended rest but I suspect that many DMs rarely push through more than four encounters before calling it a day. However, there will be times when this just isn’t possible – either because it doesn’t make sense given how the story is progressing or the printed adventure doesn’t allow it. In these cases the DM may need to get creative to keep the PCs alive until the end of the day.

Assuming the PCs can still take short rests then output isn’t usually a big deal if the party continues on past four encounters. Sure they may not have those awesome daily powers at their disposal into the fifth encounter but they will have all their cool encounter powers. It’s healing surges that usually become the biggest problem.

Strikers generally have the fewest surges to begin with, and unless the player has a reasonable Constitution score or the Durability feat they’ll run out of surges quickly. What makes the problem worse is that as soon as monsters (intelligent monsters anyway) see a striker mowing through their ranks they’ll target the biggest threat (the striker). Unless you’ve got advantageous tactics or a decent defender at your side, strikers end up taking damage every fight.

So what’s a DM to do when this kind of thing happens? How do you keep a wounded party in the game and convince the players to push those PCs forward? It may just be a game, but players get emotionally attached to their PCs quickly and no one wants to enter a combat encounter knowing that their PC is likely to die. It’s a delicate situation that requires some careful manipulation. The key is not to do so in such a way that it insults the players or belittles the game mechanic. Players want to do well but they don’t want the DM to just give them an easy, unearned victory. It’s a real balancing act and here are 8 suggested ways to pull it off.

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Foregoing a Short Rest

How important is resting in D&D? The rules allow for characters to rest between encounter in order to heal and regain the use of encounter powers, but just because the rules state that characters can rest does that mean that character should rest?

At low levels DMs always try to find ways to keep the party moving forward. Without a compelling motive, many games end up suffering from a bad case of the 5-minute work day. The players don’t want their characters to die so they’re always looking for an excuse to rest and regain the use of their best powers.

However, I’ve realized from my own recent gaming experiences that as characters get tougher the players are a lot more willing to keep their PC’s adventuring without resting between every single encounter.

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Blurring the Line Between Encounters

Generally the definition of what constitutes an encounter is not something that is up for debate. During an encounter the PCs engage a bunch of monsters, perform a skill challenge, or some combination of the two. When the encounter is over the PCs have the opportunity to take a short, 5-minute rest after which they regain encounter powers, heal wounds by expending healing surges and move one step closer to achieving a milestone.

In a recent game we ran into a situation where this standard definition of encounter was questioned. As the DM I choose to make a few calls on the fly to keep the action moving. Afterwards the group spent a lot of time discussing whether or not we handled the situation correctly. The intent was not to critique the DM or the calls made at the time; rather we wanted to lay some groundwork just in case we ever found ourselves in a similar situation again.

After describing the situation to a few other DMs, I learned that our situation was not as unique as we thought and a lot of other groups had experienced similar circumstances themselves. As it turned out, no one was sure what the correct course of action was. Knowing that this situation might occur again at our table and that it may happen at your table (if it hasn’t already) I’m putting this conundrum to you, our readers. I’ll explain what happened and how we handled the situation. I’m looking for you input and feedback on our rulings.

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Greatest Hits 2010: The 5-Minute Rest as a Skill Challenge

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2010. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

Between my home games, LFR and D&D Encounters I’ve easily DMed over 100 hours of D&D during the past year. Of all the ideas I had as the DM during 2010, this was one of the ideas that stands out in my mind as a solid bull’s-eye.

Turning a 5-minute rest into a skill challenge seemed like such a simple concept. I wasn’t sure how well it would be executed in a real game scenario, but it turned out better than I’d hoped. It was one of those times when I didn’t feel bound or restricted by the rules. I used the existing materials as a guideline and adapted them to the situation at my gaming table. The result was an extremely memorable encounter.

Everything clicked. The players realized the importance and necessity of taking the rest at that point in the adventure and they were willing to role-play the scenario. Even though they’d typically just say they were taking the rest, this time they wanted to play it out. They understood the objective (to rest without being attacked) and knew the limitations they faced as “resting” character.

As one of the players commented in the original article, he felt the skill challenge part of the 5-minute rest was worked into the encounter so gracefully that he didn’t even realize a skill challenge was going on. When running a skill challenge, this is the highest compliment I think any DM can get from his players.

On the surface, I encourage you to use this idea in your next game and have the 5-minute rest become a skill challenge in itself. However, the more important lesson I hope you take away from this article is that the rules are there to provide direction. Ultimately it’s you – the DM – that drives the game. Feel free to bend and even break the rules from time-to-time if doing so will make the game better.

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The 5-Minute Rest as a Skill Challenge

Normally when combat is finished the PCs take a short, 5-minute rest. They get to rest up, heal, catch their breath, and regain the use of encounter powers. But what many players forget is that all of the benefits that come from taking a 5-minute rest come at then end of those five minutes. If the party is attacked or decides to venture onwards before the short rest is finished, they are still hurt and resource depleted.

In a recent game the PCs found themselves in a situation where they really needed a short rest, but couldn’t just drop their guard for five minutes. I decided to turn the 5-minute rest into a skill challenge. If they succeeded, then after five minutes they got all the benefits of taking the short rest (and some XP for completing the skill challenge). If they failed then at least some of the PCs would have to engage in combat to guard the others still resting. Here’s how it played out.

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