LogFAQs > #965028946

ParanoidObsessive posted...

What really nerfs attrition in current D&D is the fact that 5e is designed around a specific number of encounters per short/long rest, and very few groups actually play that way. Especially ones influenced by watching online games.

Basically, most players are resting too much and recovering abilities more often than they should, unless they've specifically got a DM who wants to emphasize attrition and exhaustion and resource management and environmental penalties (ie, DMs who basically want to run a survival game).

Last time I DM'd (3.5), I found that people will heal stick (wands of cure light wounds or lesser vigor) themselves back to full after every fight. There wasn't much point trying to attrition them by health loss... which I was fine with, I can understand refusing to go on when your health is low. Only exception was long excursions from civilization where they might actually run thru their wand supply over the course of days. Attrition was more about spells and other daily resources. Which I think is better anyway, since then the non-casters feel closer to parity w/ the casters, who either limit themselves to retain a bunch of spells for the big battles later or get to shine early and then are forced to a support role when they run low. (I heavily encouraged use of Reserve feats and the like)

I did my best to ramp up the encounters, but it is a tough thing to force. I tried to have a lot of time critical missions where they had no choice but to rush an entire dungeon or whatever in a single day or a set number of days (wasn't uncommon to have like 11 combat encounters in a day; I REALLY wanted the non-casters to not be overshadowed, lol).
And when they'd be traveling for several days, I'd pack every single random encounter on the same day, so the casters couldn't just gleefully nuke them one or two per day.
My game was also heavily inspired by Suikoden, including recruitment / HQ / large scale army battles (using a completely different system I made up). Sometimes, to reflect expended resources from the battle... especially when they lost an army battle (which was not a "game over", just meant they'd be in dire straights in the aftermath), I'd require them to start out w/ half or 3/4 or whatever their normal daily resources (so like... if they'd normally have five level 3 spells, they'd have three, etc...)

It's definitely a pain in the ass to enforce attrition and not let them just rest constantly and leave the caster stupidly OP. If I ever DM again, I'm nerfing all the casters' spells per day so I don't have to bother trying to force a long adventuring day anymore.