I'm running an Open Table sandbox game this summer. The 5E DMG states that they expect 6-8 Medium or Hard combat encounters per day, with about two short rests. If I tried to do that, we'd never get anywhere (short sessions, lots of newbies who struggle with combat), and my players and I enjoy many things besides combat, so I generally have closer to 2 combat encounters between long rests (though I usually make them at least Hard).
However, this means that PC's rarely feel the need to take a short rest, and people can use spells and other once-per-long-rest abilities pretty freely, which unfairly advantages casters (who have limited big effects and unlimited but less effective cantrips) over mundane classes (who have more consistently medium damage output and defensive capability). It also means that the benefit of effects that recover after a short rest, like Warlock spell slots, are much diminished.
I'd like to restore the balance and at least have the option to make my players sweat a little about resources. But I do not want to throw combat after combat at them – none of us would enjoy that much in a row, nor do I want every combat encounter to be super deadly; I just don't want them to start every fight at full strength.
The DMG suggests (under Adventuring Options: Rest) making a short rest 8 hours and a long rest 7 days. That seems promising, but a little excessive, so I'm considering making all rests 8 hours, but in order to get the benefit of a long rest you'd need to be in at least an outpost or otherwise reasonably safe and comfortable location, so the PCs can still have that moment of "I'm exhausted, let's retreat" without needing to wait a whole week before continuing.
Has anyone tried this, or other methods to maintain game balance and challenge with fewer encounters per day? What were the results?
Best Answer
I'm currently running a West Marches style game. I realised before I even began that, if I were to use the standard resting times, I would either have to run an excessive number of random encounters, or have each and every one steam-rolled by a fully-rested party.
My solution was quite simple. I changed short rests to 8 hours (and renamed them to simply 'rests'), and completely removed long rests, instead saying that, at the start of every new session, the party is fully rested. Because, in the West Marches format, every session is a new one-shot (of sorts), and every party starts and ends in town, it seems natural that the party should start each session rested (having just been staying in town).
As a result, each session contains a reasonable number of encounters (including traps, environmental hazards, etc.), such that the 'adventuring day' is in fact split over a week (or so) of in-game time. This keeps the number of random encounters each (in-game) day feeling natural (one or two), while still taxing the party's resources towards the end of the session.
It seems to be working well, although I foresee that resources could be stretched rather too thin if the session were allowed to run on longer (than about 6 hours), or an adventuring day were allowed to run across multiple sessions.
In theory, it would be possible to do this in any campaign, as long as the players were willing to accept the slight implausibility of being fully-rested at the start of every session, regardless of circumstances. The key is recognising that it is the long rest, not the short rest, which has the greatest potential to imbalance the game. Because recovering hit points in short rests is tied to hit dice, allowing your party as many short rests as they like is unlikely to radically affect balance.
To summarise: The 'adventuring day' need not be an actual in-game day. It can instead be recast as the time elapsing in one session.