D&D 5E Daily Limits on Rage and Wild Shape

[Falling Icicle]

I really dislike the times per day limits on things like rage. I think it would be better if these abilities had no daily limit but refreshed after a short rest instead. Not only does this make more sense to me (raging is tiring, so it makes sense that resting would recover it), but I also think it's more balanced.

As for Wild Shape, I keep asking myself "would this really be broken if it were at-will?" Aside from the healing component (which is easily removed), I can't think of a reason why it would be. None of the forms are really that terribly powerful. They also come with drawbacks, such as not being able to do things that require a humanoid body (like speaking), item limitations, not being able to cast spells, etc. IMO, that more than balances them out. Who cares if a druid can turn into a dog or fish at will? They should at least make the weaker forms at-will and the ones like the behemoth encounter abilities that you get back with a short rest.

Aside from spells (and things like Arcane Recovery, which give back spells), Rage and Wild Shape are the only class abilities I could find that still have daily limits. Channel divinity, a monk's Ki, a fighter's action surge, etc. are all "encounter" abilities that are regained with a short rest. Why should monk's and druid's signature class abilities be limited by times per day, but not anyone elses?

I'm interested to know what other people think about this.

 

[Cyberen]

I already mentioned I would feel inclined to charge one hit die per rage.
It rubs verisimilitude the right way, as hit die represent stamina.
As far as game balance is concerned, it means trading between two damage mitigation capabilities.
Concerning Wild Shapes, perhaps we could make them domain spells.
I think we could also simplify spell slots tables by giving only one slot per level, and giving every caster a spell recovery feature with an increasing upper level bound (for example, a 5th level caster could recover her 1st level slot after a short rest, while a 20th level caster would recover all her slots below 5th)

 

[Li Shenron]

I can agree on the Druid's Wildshape. I think the reason why it's limited, is because the non-combat forms are usually meant to bypass obstacles of the exploration phase: fish shape to be able to breathe underwater and swim easily, rodent shape to be able to sneak or get into very small passages, steed shape to be able to travel fast and carry load... These are good abilities that normally require spells, so probably this is why they are also limited in daily uses. But in general, I don't think it would happen very often to need any of these multiple times in a day, or several of them in the same day, and if it happens, why not letting the Druid do it? I don't think the game strictly needs Wildshape at-will, but I don't think it would break the game either (especially because anyway the duration of wildshape is long enough anyway).

Barbarian's Rage is tricky... this is clearly a feature to get advantage in battle. I like the concept of it being based on fatigue, although I have no preference between having 1 rage which resets with a short rest or N rages which reset with a long rest. In my opinion the number of rages is limited simply because designers assume it's not fair for a Barbarian to rage all the time (which is what happens, if you change it to an encounter ability) except at very high level. That's a consequence of Rage usually granting a very good boost. If it's allowed all the time, maybe the boost should be toned down.

 

[Gadget]

I agree that the X-times per day is clunky and cumbersome game design. Especially after all the railing and thrashing about 4e's marshal dailies. I would think once per short rest would suffice. Or start out once per long rest and progress to once per short rest as levels increase.

 

[Li Shenron]

I agree that the X-times per day is clunky and cumbersome game design. Especially after all the railing and thrashing about 4e's marshal dailies.

I'm not completely sure but I think Rage has always been X-times per day in D&D, like spells and magic items special abilities. Once again, not really sure but I think encounter-based abilities were part of the core only in 4e, before that edition pretty much everything has been at will or day-based (but I guess some 3.5 supplements at least introduced encounter-based), which perhaps makes all D&D pre-3.5 clunky and cumbersome, but it still worked for a lot of us

Also, keep in mind that hostility towards 4e martial dailies was not per se, but usually grounded on missing good narrative justifications for why those powers were dailies. Rage was always a daily and didn't cause much controversy because it has a good narrative justification based on exhausting yourself when going berserk. "Swing on a chandelier" max once per day or once per encounter is another matter.

 

[Kobold Stew]

If you wanted to tie these things to resting, then the obvious association for these abilities would be the long rest, not the short rest. Would you be content with the same number of rages or wild shapes, refreshed after a long rest?

 

[Warbringer]

I agree on the wildshape, there isn't that much power in it, but maybe limit the healing to the first time after the hero takes damage in a day.

Rage is too powerful as it stands for an encounter power and needs a check (say Fort DC 20 after 1st round to sustain), a resource cost (1 die per rage/1 die per round) or reduce the power (which I'm against as it pretty iconic at the moment)

 

[variant]

I only have the issue with short rest type abilities when there are multiple abilities for each class and when you use up one ability, you still have access to different one. As long as it is a single power or multiple powers attached to a single resource, I have no issue.

That said, Wild Shape at basically At Will would be kind of game breaking for a lot of games as the Druid can shape into animals that can easily by pass encounters. Rage as it is right now, I think it would be overpowered.

 

[Dausuul]

If you wanted to tie these things to resting, then the obvious association for these abilities would be the long rest, not the short rest. Would you be content with the same number of rages or wild shapes, refreshed after a long rest?

That's what we've got right now. "Per day" is just a shorthand for "until you take a long rest."

 

[Kobold Stew]

Except that it's not.

"Until you take a long rest" answers the OP's concerns about making sense and raging being tiring. The difference is in the wording of the mechanics, and will greatly affect play -- if sleep gets interrupted, or whatever.

My point is that the per-day cycle makes perfect sense when phrased in terms of long rests, even if it doesn't when it resets-at-midnight. Shifting it to a short rest, however, greatly changes the dynamic and gives it much more comparative power.