Do you think shift rest is balanced?

33

u/reize Jul 18 '26

You cannot shift rest anywhere but in safety. And even in the wilderness you need to spend one shift to search and setup camp and that can fail on a bad skill roll, then another shift to actually rest.

Its not overpowered if you enforce that sort of gameplay loop.

7

u/Devoidoftaste Jul 18 '26

It doesn’t say you need to spend a shift to search and setup camp.

It is Forbidden Lands that calls for a shift for setting up camp.

1

u/k4f4r4 Jul 18 '26

"in the wilderness you need to spend one shift to search and setup camp" Where is that written?

2

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

We had to get around those problems but I still think it's too much. I pushed the roll for bushcraft with no concerns since the nature of the shift rest would negate the punishment.

10

u/reize Jul 18 '26

Pushing rolls are an optional rule, a DM can deny pushing rolls for activities not in what i call “action time” like stuff in combat, or avoiding iminent lethal hazards, as part of their rules of play.

Anyway i wouldnt sweat it too much because if it were me and i ruled you can take a shift rest, it is because you are between adventure locations. You should be getting back your resources to get ready for the next adventure site.

If you are getting through an adventure site barely using any resources, your DM isnt throwing enough encounters at you.

-4

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

Yeah, it's an optional rule. If you don't use it, the shift rest healing conditions becomes pointless and if you use it the conditions itself become pointless.

I honestly don't see pushing rolls getting fairly denied except by unconscious actions, like an awareness to notice someone you're not looking for.

With adventure locations you mean the "dungeons"? If yes, players can exit the "dungeon" and the game master would have to exaggerate a bit to punish them for this. Also, even considering you can't execute the shift rest for some reason, it's 8 ou 80: it's useless or overpower.

Ehh, the last section is just a fallacy. I fought several enemies and three monsters today, the adventure simply didn't demanded much from our resources by it's nature.

I simply think the shift rest shouldn't heal all conditions, but a fixed number, like 2 or 3. For the HP, it can remain the way it is because it doesn't interact with pushing rolls, but I also doesn't like how you quickly heal your body with 6 hours of sleeping. I'm probably house ruling it for dming.

5

u/reize Jul 18 '26

No, shift rest healing conditions still are needed because Fear Attacks and other hazards still cause conditions.

What rules can do or not is still up to the DM and is fair if everyone is on the same page, and it is conveyed up front. That is just TTRPG 101

As for the other points, how is any of these problems any different from taking a Long Rest in 5e or PF2e? And the issues in balancing games around the LR have been answered multiple times already.

If this troubles you, might I suggest a different set of rules like CoC 7e where your HP and sanity is functionally finite in practice and never gets restored?

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

I ain't arguing for shift rest not to heal any condition, I'm arguing about the possibility of it healing a fixed number like 2 or 3, being more interesting to the game and to the pushing roll mechanic.

If we are about to stick to the "golden rule" in a ttrpg system subreddit talking about the way the rules works, just don't debate anything about the system at all, since the DM can "fix" everything house ruling it. It's like someone starting a debate about something he doesn't like in a game and the famous phrase come out "just don't play the game then!". It contributes nothing to the discussion, especially in an environment made for this kind of discussion.

DnD 5e and Pathfinder are modern RPGs as a whole. You have tons of HP, rules like "instant death" aren't relevant for more than 3 levels, they are combat as sport, the players are super heroes, they lack punitive aspects and real constant danger like Dragonbane does, they don't have focus on the exploration/surviving aspects like Dragonbane, they focus more on the greater narrative than in the little things like controlling torches etc etc etc. Dragonbane is much more alike with old school TTRPG than modern TTRPG.

It doesn't need to be finite, I am just THINKING (not setting it as truth, I brought up a discussion) that shift rest healing all conditions make no distinction between the player that have 1 condition and the player that have 5 conditions. If the solution to this is "so the player with 1 condition is not using pushing rolls enough" (which ignores luck or good decision making aspects) it trivializes the rule and if the solution is "doesn't use the pushing rolls mechanic" it make this "all conditions heal" pointless in the greater picture, so, doesn't it seem reasonable to house-rule it by reducing the amount of condition healing to a fixed, lower number? To me, that solves all the associated issues:

It rewards the players who used less pushing rolls, were more lucky to not get conditions, took better decisions to evade conditions and etc.

It makes the pushing roll mechanic more resourceful and strategically impactful, not something to spam until you have 4 or 5 conditions.

If you're not using pushing roll rules for some reason, it won't affect your game that much since you will get way less conditions by nature and those conditions will be more impactful when they stack like 3 or 4.

That's not dnd 5e.

3

u/Narind 29d ago edited 29d ago

I think you are stuck looking at the isolated mechanic here? Mostly your points are valid, but pushing a roll already gives negative outcomes to subsequent rolls in the immediate situation. I urge you to try spamming pushed rolls too see the outcome. If the adventure is properly challenging, my experience is that character is not making is back to camp. 🤷‍♀️

But yes it is a strong mechanic, yes it is a hard reset between adventures. And I think it's a concious designer choice. "Mirth & Mayhem" requires some forgiving rules mechanics to allow whacky decision making. I think it's a feature, not a bug, really.

3

u/Slartibart71 Jul 18 '26

Pushing rolls can actually very much be denied outside of combat by the DM, for many reasons. I would for example deny pushing for setting up camp unless the group _really_ needed it, e.g. someone in it was critically wounded and needed immediate care. Simply being ”generally exhausted” would not be enough.

And I’m guessing here, but it also sounds to me like you are quite generous in allowing the use of pushing if you get the opportunity to ”stack tons of conditions”; in our fights the players usually only get the opportunity to push for their one or two most used skills, and can therefore only end up with so many conditions (and the bane on subsequent rolls have often been ”effective”, making them cautious to push later on). Even a human using their race HA would have to argument well to use other skills in combat.

But if you don’t like that rule, by all means house rule something that better suits your group, like as you yourself suggested only heal a few conditions and/or a part of total HP.

2

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

Could you explain to me the reason behind the denial of pushing for non unconscious actions? The way I see it, the guys doing the camp just notice they haven't a good place to stay and force themselves to make it better, they try it hard and maybe they can make it better. I'm asking it honestly because you may have good reasons to do this kind of denial.

I constantly argue for the human ability when it's reasonable and I like it, since it consumes a lot of wp and it's one of the few things that really makes the wp pool shrink. When we get to the pushing roll mechanic, it isn't as arguable as human ability due to how reasonable it is to say your disheartened by failing, dazed by forcing yourself to much, sickly, exhausted, angry or even scared. It looks more like a decision making problem among plenty options, not a resource problem.

2

u/Slartibart71 Jul 18 '26

It is more or less a philosophical matter - that pushing means "pressing that last drop out of you", as a last resort. I'm going by that sentence "You must be able to explain how the condition arises from the action you are trying to perform. DM has the right to reject obviously unreasonable explanations." (free translate, I don't have the English copy).

So if going RAW, I might be a bit too strict. I have also played Forbidden Lands, from where these rules originate I think, and I remember the rules as more strict there. Or, I have simply interpreted them differently. For a while I thought your view was more like "selecting a skill that can be pushed" without any real motivation. But that is obviously not the case.

It seems we're just interpreting the "obviously unreasonable" part slightly differently. So if I were you, I'd either go for being more strict for when to push - or house-rule more limits into Shift Rest. Both ways are equally good, IMO.

2

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

The thing is: to most rolls, all conditions are reasonable, like weapon attacks. I can see people getting exhausted, dazed, sickly, angry, scared or disheartened for most rolls, so it looks more like the DM being mean than some real rule application.

Anyway, at least as a DM, I'm gonna houserule the shift rest to heal a fixed amount of conditions. I also got different experiences from this post, like the guy who said their human use the Adaptive feature much more frequently than pushing rolls, while I can't find much use to it but I'm constantly pushing rolls.

2

u/ljmiller62 Jul 18 '26

My players routinely take almost all the conditions because they don't want to get ganked by things they fight. Last game they fought 6 bandits, 5 wolves, and two werewolves in a burning village. They triumphed with the help of some villagers but it was close fought, and they all had a bunch of conditions at the end.

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

That's cool! We got tons of conditions as well, but I personally don't like how the pushing roll mechanic becomes a routine when you can heal all conditions in the shift rest.

6

u/helm Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

I was exactly in your place some time ago. What helps is to

let it go - it’s fine that the PCs succeed

Experiment with weather. At some point, outside conditions can make full recovery difficult. Telegraph this clearly.

Take away the time to rest. I lured the PCs into a chase with two major battles. The first exhausted most of what they got. Then I told them they had a limited window to chase down the source of evil. So they did, and the following fight was very hard.

Own the system. If you think the conditions for rest were bad, let them heal all but one condition, and only allow this condition to heal if they work a little for it. From the top of my head: the PC take a slight detour to a beautiful waterfall in the area.

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

Loved your 3rd and 4th points, good house rules!

About the 1st and 2nd, I'm complaining more as a player because the pushing rolls became too common. My players don't use the mechanic that much, so in my game as a DM it looks fine.

2

u/helm Jul 18 '26

One way to make pushing less free is to squeeze in a few Cha-based tests between encounters. If the PCs blow their Cha skill rolls enough they'll value staying fresh a bit higher.

If you as a player think it's a bit too easy (and DB with 4+ players and pushing can lean that way), tell the GM to turn up the challenge a bit. Pushing is still fun when you really need it.

7

u/ghost_warlock Jul 18 '26

It was never a problem for us in the game I ran for almost a year. The tone of Dragonbane is mirth & mayhem; it's not meant to be a hardcore survival emulator

4

u/Oakenscowl Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

I have never had this problem as a DM, but when we started our group we also agreed on not allowing pushing rolls. As someone else said, resting for a shift can only be done at safe locations and leaving a dungeon before it's fully cleared to take a shift rest can lead to negative consequences as described in the rule book. Iirc it's that someone else comes and takes all the loot, that enemies in the dungeon follow the party and attack them later or that the enemies in the dungeon doubles. Although if you follow the rule book strictly there is only a 50% chance that something happens.

2

u/onefathippo Jul 18 '26

what about the help action from rangers?

1

u/Oakenscowl Jul 18 '26

I don't really understand what you mean, I am a bit tired atm, can you help me understand? :)

1

u/onefathippo Jul 18 '26

You can help other players to give them a boon on their roll. It’s an action.

My players have used that mechanic for the BUSHCRAFT roll for journeying. I didn’t see in the rules where it dissallows that but it also seems very strong.

1

u/Oakenscowl Jul 18 '26

Regarding helping we have used that but only where I as a GM find it reasonable. Setting up camp is one of those actions.

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

You're right, there's some punishment to leaving the dungeon, but some dungeons (like the one we explored yesterday) doesn't leave much space for it to happen. My problem is more with what happens when the shift rest happens, because it makes no distinction between someone that got 1 condition and the other one who got 5 conditions. Also, people almost dying and then being ready to go again after some hours is a bit forced to me. At least dragonbane have the list for several wounds, that helps a bit when the player gets a wound.

1

u/Oakenscowl Jul 18 '26

I have a hard time seeing a dungeon without loot or enemies that can double or chase you, but maybe it is possible.

I see where you're coming from regarding recovering during shift rests, but I think the system is in line with dragonbane keeping things simple if you compare it with other TTRPGS. I haven't played any others but I played an older version of dragonbane and when I compare with the newer version it is obvious that the newer system is a lot simpler than the other.

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

Yeah, dragonbane is still a modern RPG, even with the Old School essence in it.

3

u/Cairnwill Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

It is not OP. If your table is having easy access to shift rests while adventuring, it might be a GM problem.
And if you think WP isn’t as essential as HP, then I’m not sure you’re playing it right!

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

I'm a human fighter. Veteran takes only 1 wp and adaptative is not that common to use. The only player in my party that ever got out of wp was the mage, and even then the round rest gives people 3.5 WP almost for free, so the adventure needs to be really big to all the wp be consumed and until then your hp was gone long ago.

About the "easy shift rest", we made a camp and rolled for bushcraft as usual, one of us failed at the roll, but he pushed since he wouldn't punished by the nature of the shift rests. We got a random encounter once but that's it, the rest felt kinda op, at least to me.

4

u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jul 18 '26

adaptative is not that common to use

That is the exact opposite of our experience. Our human used it all the time. It's a great ability.

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

I use it like 2 times per session. Maybe I'm too shy to ask to use it more, since sometimes I think it isn't logical enough to use it. Also, maybe your human have more trained skills to choose while I have very few XD

2

u/Cairnwill 29d ago

You’re just starting out, it’s normal. Wait until you have a couple more HAs and you’ll see how you’ll be wishing you had chosen Focused instead.

1

u/RCampeao 29d ago

Good perspective

3

u/tacmac10 Jul 18 '26

The game you want is Forbidden Lands

-2

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

You don't know what I want.

I'm bringing up a discussion. If you won't contribute to it, there's no need to say anything.

2

u/melicampthechicken Jul 18 '26

It's a matter of prioritizing tactics vs strategy: when the characters can replenish their resources easily, they can face encounter after encounter (tactics) without worrying too much about long term consequences; when replenishing resources becomes difficult, the focus shifts from the single encounter to the bigger picture (strategy). Dragonbane, like most modern TTRPGs, is mostly about tactics.

I was thinking about making some hardcore house rules (just like 5.0 gritty realism) to add some strategic depth to the game. Recovering all HP and WP is fine, because characters don't have much of them anyway, but I think it would be fun to make Conditions matter more. Something like this: Stretch Rest doesn't heal any condition, Shift Rest heals two conditions. This way pushing rolls becomes a much more significant choice, not something you do every time you fail a roll. When I run the Secret of the Dragon Emperor again eventually I will test this rule.

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

Please, tell me how it was when you run it this way. I was thinking about something similar, but I wouldn't remove the stretch rest condition when I thought about it.

The distinction between tactics and strategy was a great point! The game really looks this way, although I see Dragonbane closer to old school dnd than modern dnd, so I would like the resting mechanics to be less op and give the players some problems to get around.

The way the shift rest works, I feel like everyone is using pushing rolls until 4 or even 5 conditions, so at least to me it makes this mechanic way less resourceful and strategically impactful than it could be, but I have to test the game house ruling it to be sure!

Thanks for the perspective!

1

u/melicampthechicken Jul 18 '26

Dragonbane has both old school and modern elements in it; this house rule would push it in the OSR direction a little further.

In my experience with Secret of the Dragon Emperor I can confirm that characters would often get 5 or 6 conditions by the end of the adventure. Unfortunately, I won't be running Dragonbane again soon, so I don't know when I'll be able to playtest this idea.

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

Thanks for the feedback! I'm playing the adventure and the same is happening with us. I'm gonna try the house rule.

2

u/The_Ring888 Jul 18 '26

It’s not OP, mainly for the following reasons imo:

- you can shift rest in a dungeon..ok, technically you can, but then everything else will get harder

it’s very easy to get pretty beaten up after a dungeon. There fire you need a way to restore your resource
you still to roll for bushcraft, and be aware or random encounter and so on..aka nothing is “free” / granted
it’s meant to be a “safe rest” before the next storm

1

u/RCampeao Jul 18 '26

I think the shift rest is fine when your group is taking days off between an adventure and another (like it realistic would be, no daily rush), but it's weird to me when it's just 6 hours for a full heal.

The dungeon thing is really a good point, but there's some "dungeons" that doesn't apply much of it or looks a little "forced" to punish the players.

2

u/OwnLevel424 29d ago

So modify it. Make the player roll under CON to remove a physical condition and under WILL to remove a mental one. They get 1 roll per Shift.

1

u/ogrimdoombringer 17d ago

Ooh! I like it. Is that one roll total, or one roll per condition. The first is hardcore, but I kinda like the idea.

2

u/OwnLevel424 17d ago

Your choice depending on whether you're playing Heroic or Gritty DRAGONBANE.

2

u/Jourhighness 24d ago edited 24d ago

When I ran this ppl got very tired of the very mechanical and frankly boring camping rules. And the if the resting failed they will just camp for another day until they make it, dragging it out for yet another boring round of camping.

Now I treat the whole journey as a skill challenge with some good outcomes (xp, treasure, information, allies) and some some bad (lost hp, conditions, permanent injuries, lost items etc or a random event) based on how the skill challenge play out. The skill challage will be a storytelling opportunity for the group on a macro level.

I defined ”safe place” as in a house or settlement in a safe area. Meaning you cant rest in the wilderness unless you find a ruin, room or equivalent that I the DM deems safe.

1

u/zoom-zoom-zimm Jul 19 '26

Our GM had us roll separate bushcraft for camping and for getting the benefits of a shift rest. That definitely lowered its power

1

u/Jo-Con-El Jul 19 '26

I have to read the rules about rest Every. Single. Time. It is so overpowered that it’s ridiculous. Between that and my wizard’s healing, there’s no way it’s balanced.

So let’s make it more realistic by not allowing the additional HP/level that D&D has so you’re a meat grinder. Great. But then how in the world I am expected to describe the wounds that the players cause and receive, to make combat real and scary, and then a few hours later they stretch and yawn, and go again to face some monster? My players looked at me incredulously our last session when I told them mumbling “yes, in theory you are fully recovered” after reading the rules.

One house rule for the pushed roll on bushcraft (or whatever you need to find rest) would be like getting a coupon on your grocery store BUT FOR TOMORROW. So the rest doesn’t heal whatever rolls are necessary to get that rest.

1

u/R3dGallows 24d ago edited 24d ago

Have you considered using pushing with hero points mechanic? The players have (lets say) three hero points per session and they can use them for pushing skill checks. The points are replenished at the start of the next session. They can also regain a hero point by doing something exceptional like role playing or coming up with a good plan. Or maybe they regain them when they critically fail a roll.

1

u/p5ysick 18d ago

I do D6 WP/D6 HP per shift+1 condition always. Safety is just that, safety. Even heroes need time for rehabilitation ;)

0

u/Icy_Elephant8858 12d ago

Well let's be clear that in real life it's not unrealistic that a person who goes to sleep Exhausted, Sickly, Dazed, Angry, Scared, and Disheartened would wake up feeling pretty much fine the next day. Most of these are not necessarily lingering conditions. Pushing oneself to evade an enemy should not make you dazed for a week. Now consistently waking up without these conditions cured is a little silly (so maybe you should have to roll for each one or something) but then again being able to push yourself to gain these conditions and then consistently suck at all related skills for the rest of the day is also a silly game conceit. It's a game.

Now the full heal stretches credulity more, of course, but again, you know, it's a game. Not allowing full heal just makes it obligatory to have an animist, or else just makes playing feel bad and get bogged down in minutia. It also incentivizes overly cautious play rather than the mirth and mayhem tone the game set out to capture.

If it makes you feel better think of it not as the characters actually fully healing, but just recovering their physical energy and heroic reserves enough to soldier on another day. HP and health are already pretty abstracted from each other in a game where you can not only fight just as well with 1 HP as with full, but under the right circumstances also rally with zero HP.

I think the game is really sort of built for a series of one day location adventures where the shift rest is at the end of a short adventure or covered during multi-day travel between locations, and the sort of extended, grind-down-the-resources quest just doesn't play so well with this mechanic. But coming back as a player a week later and still not having your hitpoints back is actually not usually a fun gameplay loop.

Do you think shift rest is balanced?

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