I only allow one ‘Stretch Rest’ per day (in line with ‘rules as written’ I think), which mitigates it somewhat. But I do, largely agree - the current system makes it ‘too easy’ in some ways - it’s rather like D&D5E in that respect. I’m wondering about ‘toning it down’ somewhat, as follows… A round rest gets you just 1WP; a stretch rest gets you 1HP and 1WP unless someone heals you in which case you get 2HP and 1WP; a shift rest gets you 2D4 HP and 2D4 WP. Worth a try I think.
Your 'house rule' sounds much more balanced—and, to be frank, better. It will definitely give the PCs something to think about, instead of just running around like a hyped-up Conan the Barbarian. One extra detail I've been thinking about is giving the PCs additional Hit Points. As heroes, they should be able to withstand more damage than an ordinary person. Doubling the PCs HP, in combination with your house rule, would give the PCs more freedom to be 'reckless'—but there could be dire consequences if they take it too far. I think we are getting somewhere here. Let's see how this works in practice!
I’m not sure about doubling PCs’ HP - I agree that they’re ‘heroes’, but should heroes be that much ‘tougher’, physically, than the average hard-working medieval peasant? And giving them lots more HP might encourage ‘unrealistic’ risk-taking again, I feel. My personal inclination, as a ‘first iteration’, is to make the changes to rest and healing and see what the effect is… If it’s slightly less ‘gung-ho’ PCs, great; if it’s a heap of corpses (or a bunch of PCs spending most of their time on R&R while they heal up from their last little scrape) then perhaps something more will be needed.
Maybe I'm still colored by older versions of Dragonbane but in those there was a high probability that the PCs would die early on. If three newly created PCs fought three goblins, there was a 50-50 chance that all of them would make it out of the fight alive. But maybe there's another way to give the PCs an extra edge instead of increasing their HP. I'm thinking of allowing a pushed roll that costs WP instead of causing a condition. I don't know if this is good 'house rule' at all. We'll just have to test it and see what works.
I have wondered about linking ‘pushing rolls’ to WP too. And I wondered about a sliding scale of costs per ‘day’ (i.e. time between ‘shift rests’) - 1WP for the first push; 2WP for the second; 4WP for the third, and so on.
I only allow one ‘Stretch Rest’ per day (in line with ‘rules as written’ I think), which mitigates it somewhat. But I do, largely agree - the current system makes it ‘too easy’ in some ways - it’s rather like D&D5E in that respect. I’m wondering about ‘toning it down’ somewhat, as follows… A round rest gets you just 1WP; a stretch rest gets you 1HP and 1WP unless someone heals you in which case you get 2HP and 1WP; a shift rest gets you 2D4 HP and 2D4 WP. Worth a try I think.
Your 'house rule' sounds much more balanced—and, to be frank, better. It will definitely give the PCs something to think about, instead of just running around like a hyped-up Conan the Barbarian. One extra detail I've been thinking about is giving the PCs additional Hit Points. As heroes, they should be able to withstand more damage than an ordinary person. Doubling the PCs HP, in combination with your house rule, would give the PCs more freedom to be 'reckless'—but there could be dire consequences if they take it too far. I think we are getting somewhere here. Let's see how this works in practice!
I’m not sure about doubling PCs’ HP - I agree that they’re ‘heroes’, but should heroes be that much ‘tougher’, physically, than the average hard-working medieval peasant? And giving them lots more HP might encourage ‘unrealistic’ risk-taking again, I feel. My personal inclination, as a ‘first iteration’, is to make the changes to rest and healing and see what the effect is… If it’s slightly less ‘gung-ho’ PCs, great; if it’s a heap of corpses (or a bunch of PCs spending most of their time on R&R while they heal up from their last little scrape) then perhaps something more will be needed.
Maybe I'm still colored by older versions of Dragonbane but in those there was a high probability that the PCs would die early on. If three newly created PCs fought three goblins, there was a 50-50 chance that all of them would make it out of the fight alive. But maybe there's another way to give the PCs an extra edge instead of increasing their HP. I'm thinking of allowing a pushed roll that costs WP instead of causing a condition. I don't know if this is good 'house rule' at all. We'll just have to test it and see what works.
I have wondered about linking ‘pushing rolls’ to WP too. And I wondered about a sliding scale of costs per ‘day’ (i.e. time between ‘shift rests’) - 1WP for the first push; 2WP for the second; 4WP for the third, and so on.
Phil, you're a genius!