extended rests

[draquila]

Another quick question.

When would a party choose to take a short rest over an extended rest? You get an extra AP every 2 encounters without an extended rest, but then you get your AP back if you extended rest anyway?

Also, what does the once-every-12-hours limitation mean in real life terms? Is it a real life limitation (pretty much saying that during a gaming session, you are only allowed to take 1 extended rest)? Or is it assumed that the party only takes an extended rest in-between game sessions? Can the players fight 1 encounter, say "oh, we head back to town, wait 11.5 hours, and have another extended rest"?

Thanks.

 

[Kingreaper]

Why would you choose to take a short rest rather than an extended rest?

Why are you adventuring in the first place?
That's why. Whatever you're trying to achieve, whether it's getting treasure, rescuing allies, saving the world, or killing the villain...

It won't happen if you take spend 23 hours a day resting.

 

[CovertOps]

If your DM runs adventures where you can achieve goals this way then he/she is probably doing something wrong.

The ritual is to be performed at midnight tonight and you must save the princess before they kill her.

There is an army on the way and they'll arrive later tonight. Go and slow them down/harass them so they don't arrive until tomorrow.

Go take out the enemy strong hold so they stop attacking the town.

If there is no sense of urgency in the missions the PC's must accomplish then you have two issues come up. First, the party will nova all their dailies in a single fight which will dramatically reduce the difficulty of the encounter. Second, it breaks verisimilitude. In my all my examples if you don't finish the job, then there is a pretty bad consequence...the [princess dies/army arrives/town gets attacked] while the party is resting.

 

[OnlineDM]

There are two ways to answer this question: from the perspective of game rules and from the perspective of in-game reality.

From a game rules perspective, a party will take a short rest whenever there's either no need for an extended rest or when the consequences of taking an extended rest are bad. "No need" means they've finished a battle without expending any significant resources that require an extended rest to recharge (daily powers, healing surges, magic item daily uses). Bad consequences are the things that other posters have talked about - the bad guy gets so much of a head start that they'll never catch him, for instance. It could also be that just taking a nap, even with people standing guard in shifts, could leave the party vulnerable to surprise attacks that would interrupt the extended rest. And it might not be possible for the party to get to a town that's safe for some reason.

From an in-game reality perspective, it's absurd to wake up, get your gear ready, walk to the nearby bad guy lair, spend five minutes fighting enemies, then go back to bed. It's just not realistic. Maybe your players don't care about that, but I think it's worth thinking about.

I've honestly never worried too much about the 12-hour rule (I had to look it up on page 263 of the Players Handbook to even see what you were talking about). I interpret it as an in-game reality rule, but for game balance purposes. It means, from a rules perspective, that you CAN'T fight a battle, take a nap, fight a battle, take a nap. And from a reality perspective, it means that characters aren't lazy enough to do so. They need some meaningful time spent in activity before they can take an extended rest.

 

[draquila]

If your DM runs adventures where you can achieve goals this way then he/she is probably doing something wrong.

The ritual is to be performed at midnight tonight and you must save the princess before they kill her.

There is an army on the way and they'll arrive later tonight. Go and slow them down/harass them so they don't arrive until tomorrow.

Go take out the enemy strong hold so they stop attacking the town.

If there is no sense of urgency in the missions the PC's must accomplish then you have two issues come up. First, the party will nova all their dailies in a single fight which will dramatically reduce the difficulty of the encounter. Second, it breaks verisimilitude. In my all my examples if you don't finish the job, then there is a pretty bad consequence...the [princess dies/army arrives/town gets attacked] while the party is resting.

OK, this all makes sense. What if, in my campaign, the opposite is true?

The party is captured and attempting to break out of prison. There are about 4 encounters to fight through. This is their first time playing D&D, so by encounter 2 they've blown all their dailies to stay alive. I let them take an extended rest, but they've blown all their dailies again in encounter 3 (they are improving, though!)

Now I think in terms of verisimilitude, it doesn't make sense to sleep for 6 hours while doing a prison break. In fact it wouldn't make sense to extended rest at all throughout the entire series of encounters. But that's pretty darned tough for a newbie party, and I want to go easy on them.

For our next session since I only have 1 encounter remaining I think I will need to introduce some more in order to pad it out a bit... which means even more encounters without extended rest spots. I guess as the DM I should have considered the sequence of encounters leading up to an extended rest with difficulty in mind.

Not sure where to draw the line, at the moment... I guess I'll treat them as having fully rested when we start the next session, and provide safe areas to rest once they've fought a reasonable number of encounters.

 

[Kingreaper]

OK, this all makes sense. What if, in my campaign, the opposite is true?

The party is captured and attempting to break out of prison. There are about 4 encounters to fight through. This is their first time playing D&D, so by encounter 2 they've blown all their dailies to stay alive.

Okay, so they've failed to break out today?

Or did they find somewhere to hide?

I let them take an extended rest, but they've blown all their dailies again in encounter 3 (they are improving, though!)

Really? It took 2 encounters to burn all their encounters before, this time it took 1.
If you keep letting them blow all their dailies each encounter, why would they ever NOT do so?

Now I think in terms of verisimilitude, it doesn't make sense to sleep for 6 hours while doing a prison break. In fact it wouldn't make sense to extended rest at all throughout the entire series of encounters. But that's pretty darned tough for a newbie party, and I want to go easy on them.

Then why cann't you just go easy on them?

Give them encounters they can deal with despite having used up their dailies?

For our next session since I only have 1 encounter remaining I think I will need to introduce some more in order to pad it out a bit...

Why? What in-game reality does this represent?

Make it clear that the only reason they're having these fights is the rest they took. They broke out of their cells, fought their way to a hiding spot, and hid out. But now the whole prison is crawling with guards, searching for them.



A thought: If you provide a special fluff reason they've been able to take rests this time it might help them not assume they can always Extended Rest.
Perhaps the guard posts are enchanted? Guards often get tired on long shifts, a magic enchantment that allows those spots to provide the benefits of an extended rest could make sense.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Maybe the problem is that the encounters are too tough. Are you following the XP budget guidelines?

 

[deadsmurf]

Why? What in-game reality does this represent?

Make it clear that the only reason they're having these fights is the rest they took. They broke out of their cells, fought their way to a hiding spot, and hid out. But now the whole prison is crawling with guards, searching for them.



A thought: If you provide a special fluff reason they've been able to take rests this time it might help them not assume they can always Extended Rest.
Perhaps the guard posts are enchanted? Guards often get tired on long shifts, a magic enchantment that allows those spots to provide the benefits of an extended rest could make sense.

These are great things to think about - A magic break room for guards that lets them get enough sleep to count as an extended rest in 15 minutes. But that 15 minutes means there are more guards around.

Sometimes its GOOD to push the party, have them go into a hard fight without dailies, and only a couple healing surges - then they're really fighting for their very lives!

 

[Crazy_Dragon]

If everyone has most of their healing surges and haven't spent dallies keep going, strategic fighting helps conserve resources. If they have a bloodbond Seeker in their party they should realize that they can go behind cover, pop out, shoot and go back using move action+minor

 

[Cor_Malek]

OK, this all makes sense. What if, in my campaign, the opposite is true?

The party is captured and attempting to break out of prison. There are about 4 encounters to fight through. This is their first time playing D&D, so by encounter 2 they've blown all their dailies to stay alive. I let them take an extended rest, but they've blown all their dailies again in encounter 3 (they are improving, though!)

Um, see, that's precisely the kind of situation where you don't take extended rest. They should have like 1h before first wave of reinforcements, and maybe 2-3 before a total lock-down of said prison. And if they do extended rest before they take out all the wardens? They should consider themselves happy to wake up at all, and even then - in not-so-comfy reinforced cells.

Taking naps in enemy territory, especially when opponents are well aware of your presence - not a good idea.