D&D Next - 5e Discussion @ttrpg.network smeg @feddit.uk 1y ago

Thoughts on Gritty Realism / Adventuring Week - anyone tried it?

Copying this from a comment I made a few months ago, I'd like to try having an "adventuring week" rather than an "adventuring day", i.e. have X encounters per in-game week(ish) rather than the same number per in-game day. The Gritty Realism variant rules basically provide this though I think the name really puts people off; I'm not trying to add realism, just make it so you can have actual meaningful resource-draining encounters as part of something like a week-long travel (currently I'd need to throw in so many encounters that it becomes tedious, or have one-encounter days which we all know the problems with!)

Has anyone tried Gritty Realism before, and if so how did you implement it and how did you find it? My main question would be:

How many days did you have per long rest?
- I'm thinking probably three (so two short rests per long rest) but that's more a guideline for me the DM when planning rather than mandating a minimum time between long rests.
How long were your long rests and did they need to be in a "safe haven"?
- I think something like at least 24 hours of downtime in a safe-ish place (including two sleeps), though again it's on me the DM to make sure safe havens are common enough.
How did you adjust spell times?
- 1 minute stays as 1 minute, it's meant to last a single combat
- 1 hour up to several hours, could last multiple combats but doesn't persist after a short rest
- 8 hours up to several days, lasts most of the adventuring week (e.g. mage armour)
- 24 hours up to several days, at least as long as the adventuring week

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I've tried it! The players revolted because I was running mixed-level parties and this system exacerbated the issues inherent in that (low-level chars need to rest more often than high-level chars in the same environment).

@smeg @dndnext
- I'm guessing it would have been the same situation if you had done the same number of combats per short and long rest for a normal adventuring day, do you think? Also how big a level difference are we talking?
  
  If D&D had only been a series of fights, it would've been the same thing, but the revolt happened when one char was doing fun fun village stuff and exploring and social interaction while the other char was healing up from bloody wounds in an inn bed for a week. I think they were only like three or four levels apart.
  
  Now we use https://idiomdrottning.org/oh-injury instead for our HP realism purps. (Basically HP is fatigue/hope/destiny.)
  
  @smeg @dndnext
  
  Ah OK, I wasn't planning on using any of the slow healing / lingering injury rules, I'm not looking for "realism", just to make the days a bit less busy. Also I don't plan on having PCs end up more than 1 level off each other, how did you end up in that situation?
  
  It usually happens because a character died and that player started over with a new level-one character.
  
  @smeg @dndnext
  
  Damn, I've never heard of anyone playing that new characters have to start from level 1, you run a pretty brutal table!
  
  I know, right? And I've had that group since 2014 and our most recent campaign was 254 sessions and if even players accustomed to that kind of brutality wasn't into the "weeklong healing" rule, that's saying something about how beyond brutal that rule is!
  
  @smeg @dndnext
  
  ...we've played with new characters starting from level one and it actually works rather nicely: they catch up extremely fast due to the geometric scaling of experience points at higher-level encounters...
  
  Do the low-levels not find themselves completely overshadowed and very vulnerable? For instance a level 1 barbarian isn't going to be able to do much tanking for a level 5 party if the monsters they're facing can kill them in one hit, and a level 1 wizard won't be solving many problems with their first level spells if everyone else has third level, right?
  
  ...not at all; we adjust tactics to account for vulnerability but there's plenty of utility even low-level characters can offer to encounters through action-economy...
  
  ...i actually prefer heterogenous parties; feels more natural, or at least more like old-school gameplay...

20 comments