D&D 5E Choosing NOT to Long Rest?

[Horwath]

going 24-36 hrs without sleep will seriously hamper your ability to think and coordination.

On mythbusters, they proved that is better to drive drunk rather than being awake for 36 hrs.

Even after 16hrs being awake you can feel some effects of exhaustion, maybe in-game could be described with -1 to ability checks or something similar. Small effects at first.

 

[darjr]

Worsening effectiveness is built into the mechanic. The first level is kinda not a big deal anyway. So yea if you miss a rest I'd give your character their first level of exhaustion.

 

[akr71]

Well...not exactly.



Technically, sleep isn't required on a long rest - it's sleep or light activity. So just because you take a long rest doesn't mean you sleep.

But even assuming sleep, only 6 hours is required because you can also have 2 hours of standing watch. But what if you sleep for 6 hours and then do something more strenuous that would prevent a Long Rest? (Such as taking time to go Hex and kill a small woodland creature and prepare it for breakfast...).

Would you still gain exhaustion for not completing a long rest, even though you slept for 6 hours?

I would say no exhaustion, as you got sleep, but abilities that require a a full 8 hours to recoup would not recharge, such as a wizards spells.

 

[Lanefan]

If Long Rests just "happen", and they are limited to one per 24 hours, then you'd think the party wizard could get screwed by being forced into a Long Rest when he hasn't cast any spells yet. And he then has to wait 24 hours before he can Long Rest again...

OK, let's say a party for some reason decides to take a day off in mid-adventure to refresh themselves - they leave the dungeon and head into the forest, camp there for a peaceful night, spend the next day lounging in the sun by a stream, camp again, then - much refreshed - head back into the dungeon the following day.

When did the long rest(s) occur? The two overnights? Sometime during the intervening day? Was it all one great big 36-hour long rest? Or ???

And does the DM decide the answer to this, or the players, or is it forced by the rules?

Lanefan

 

[KahlessNestor]

Basically since you can benefit from a long rest once per 24 hours I would say multiple long rests. Hit dice only refresh at half on a LR, so this would enable them to get more back

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

 

[Vymair]

Escalating CON saves to avoid the effects of exhaustion will solve this issue. We've had to push through the night once or twice and we dread those con saves even if the first one is only DC 7, 2nd DC 10, etc.

 

[Harzel]

A question for those of you who advocate the notion that rests just "happen" if PCs are not engaging in sufficiently strenuous activity for a sufficient period of time:

Can a PC choose to NOT Long Rest even though they are not engaging in strenuous activity for 8 hours?

If Long Rests just "happen", and they are limited to one per 24 hours, then you'd think the party wizard could get screwed by being forced into a Long Rest when he hasn't cast any spells yet. And he then has to wait 24 hours before he can Long Rest again...

It might be worth noting that the PHB says "A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24 hour period...", not that you can only take one. So if the wizard didn't gain anything from the prior long rest, he can take and benefit from another.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Since a long rest requires 6 hours of sleep (unless you are an elf and then it still requires 4 hours of trance), I don't see how it could just "happen".

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Since a long rest requires 6 hours of sleep...

There is no such requirement written in the rules.

 

[ThePolarBear]

Just leaving a comment here: there's no need for sleep to be in 8 hour long sessions.
What i mean is that You could sleep around 6 hours, wake up, do your stressful activities, sleep another couple of hours, more work, eat something, sleep another 6 hours, stress stress stress, eat, sleep and so on, never having "8 or more" consecutive hours of rest.

Ihmo:
RAW: Yeah. You are not forced to have long rests. I can't even find a place where you are required to sleep at all in the first place (obviously common sense takes precedence...) and there are no exaustion levels for "not sleeping" or "not resting" taken into account into the rules directly.
RAI: Yeah. You are not forced to have long rests. You could be functional for long periods of time with a limited (but reasonable) amount of sleep and resting while not having the required 8 hours straight to "trigger" the long rest. This has to be mediated by common sense as always and if there's a person that has a character that, by inception, likes or needs to rest a lot he better play it grumpy.
RAF: IF you find it fun to have a Sorcerer with 10 thousands lvl 5 spell slots go for it. If you find it disgusting, limit it. In short: As long as for table is reasonable and it's fun, why not? Rules are there as tools. If those tools are not what you need to have fun, make your own tools.