D&D (2024) How long should a Short rest be in 5E(2024)?

[Clint_L]

The enemies dark ritual will complete in an hour.

So...do we have time for a short rest?

Um....sure will take about 30 minutes, so you only have 30 minutes to get to the ritual.


Next time: Party is severely exhausted after the last fight.

Ok when are the reinforcements coming against us, like about half an hour right? Crap we don't have time for a rest, we have to keep going.

DM: Well...you could probably take about 10 minutes and get your stuff back.

Players: Wait, but it took 30 minutes last time, why is it different now?


There will always be those groups that work with time pressures that are going to want to know how much a short rest will tick down that ticking clock.

None of that needs a fixed time for short rests. In fact, your last example shows why the fixed time for a short rest is a problem. Had the DM just used narrative language all along, then the last objection wouldn't happen.

In the first instance, is it significant that they will have 30 minutes to get to the ritual? There isn't enough context. Is the DM implying that there might be some consequence to taking the short rest? If so, what is it?

In the second instance, it is clear that the DM has judged that, in the story, the short rest is viable. So that's all that matters. The actual times involved don't, and trying to to work with a fixed time is just giving the DM fits because nobody actually plots out their stories that precisely.

You can run a ticking clock perfectly well without giving defining a short rest as X minutes. All that matters is: do they have time for one, or don't they?

Edit: here's what I want to know: has anyone who fixes short rests at 1 hour ever actually denied the party one because they only got 55 minutes? And if so, did that make sense in the story? Like, "damn, without those last 5 minutes, the other 55 are wasted. Those last 5 are golden!"

 

[FrogReaver]

None of that needs a fixed time for short rests. In fact, your last example shows why the fixed time for a short rest is a problem. Had the DM just used narrative language all along, then the last objection wouldn't happen.

In the first instance, is it significant that they will have 30 minutes to get to the ritual? There isn't enough context. Is the DM implying that there might be some consequence to taking the short rest? If so, what is it?

In the second instance, it is clear that the DM has judged that, in the story, the short rest is viable. So that's all that matters. The actual times involved don't, and trying to to work with a fixed time is just giving the DM fits because nobody actually plots out their stories that precisely.

You can run a ticking clock perfectly well without giving defining a short rest as X minutes. All that matters is: do they have time for one, or don't they?

Edit: here's what I want to know: has anyone who fixes short rests at 1 hour ever actually denied the party one because they only got 55 minutes? And if so, did that make sense in the story? Like, "damn, without those last 5 minutes, the other 55 are wasted. Those last 5 are golden!"

Part of the problem is that spells also have exact durations. Having variable short rest times would be a mess due to that alone.

 

[Clint_L]

Part of the problem is that spells also have exact durations. Having variable short rest times would be a mess due to that alone.

I don't follow. I don't have "variable short rest times." My short rests all take the same time: short rest time. Either the story permits one, or it doesn't.

 

[mamba]

I don't follow. I don't have "variable short rest times." My short rests all take the same time: short rest time. Either the story permits one, or it doesn't.

that is a pretty disingenuous take, given that you wrote the following....

I don't see any reason to apply a fixed time, and never have.

If your short rests are not always the same number of minutes, then saying that always have the duration of 1 short rest unit is just nonsense. At that point there no longer is such a unit. Just say your shorts rest durations are variable and story driven, nothing wrong with that. Arguing that they are always the same one unit despite being a variable number of minutes is at best problematic

 

[Clint_L]

that is a pretty disingenuous take, given that you wrote the following....



If your short rests are not always the same number of minutes, then saying that always have the duration of 1 short rest unit is just nonsense. At that point there no longer is such a unit. Just say your shorts rest durations are variable and story driven, nothing wrong with that. Arguing that they are always the same one unit despite being a variable number of minutes is at best problematic

I find this entire argument painfully pedantic. I don't worry about the number of minutes, I worry about whether the short rest is possible in the story, or not. In the story, it was enough time to rest and recover a little bit. That is the short rest unit: "enough."

Putting a specific timer on short rests adds zero to the game and sometimes leads to goofy situations. It's a solution in search of a problem. You can get rid of it and lose nothing. Demonstrably.

 

[mamba]

I find this entire argument painfully pedantic. I don't worry about the number of minutes, I worry about whether the short rest is possible in the story, or not. In the story, it was enough time to rest and recover a little bit. That is the short rest unit: "enough."

Putting a specific timer on short rests adds zero to the game and sometimes leads to goofy situations. It's a solution in search of a problem. You can get rid of it and lose nothing. Demonstrably.

I have no problem with your approach, I have one with saying ‘my short rests always take the same amount of time’ when they clearly do not

 

[Ondath]

I have no problem with your approach, I have one with saying ‘my short rests always take the same amount of time’ when they clearly do not

I'm guessing they take the same "narrative" time in Clint's approach, in other words "as long as a breather seems fitting at that story moment". I'm not sure if that's a good approach, but I can respect it. I think 13th Age has a similar, narrative approach to resting: Long Rests don't necessarily last 8 hours and you don't necessarily have to do take them at the end of every day. Instead, rests measure the time between each combat encounter, and PCs are supposed to get a Long Rest (Full Heal) after every 4th encounter or so. The players can decide to rest earlier than that, but that means they suffer a campaign loss (i.e., the forces they're trying to stop succeed at some of their goals). No concrete lengths of time are attached to these terms, but they instead describe a narrative push & pull between the players and the GM. The PCs might say they want to rest and regain some strength before the final battle, but the GM says there'll be narrative consequences to their actions. So instead of discussing things in terms of hours and days, you're discussing them in terms of story beats.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't follow. I don't have "variable short rest times." My short rests all take the same time: short rest time. Either the story permits one, or it doesn't.

The only issue I could see is when it clashes with long duration effects. A quick example:

A caster, knowing he is going to face a difficult encounter, casts false life (duration 1 hour). They enter combat and emerge victorious 10 rounds later, and decide to take a short rest before continuing on. Does the caster keep his false life after the rest?

That question hinges on how long they rest. If I'm the caster, that 5 minute short rest sure looks good right now, as I'd have 50 minutes left of my spell. If we use classic rules: it's gone since SR is an hour and I've already used a few minutes of it casting and fighting. If it's variable what is the call? Do I keep my spell effect going or not? What determines if the rest is measured in minutes or hours?

I'm genuinely curious how you would rule in the above scenario..

 

[mamba]

I'm genuinely curious how you would rule in the above scenario..

I guess it stays active as the SR narratively is shorter than the remainder of the spell, and the spell then runs out when it feels ‘right’ to do so, which is more or less how it is if they did not take an SR and continued on, unless you actually keep precise track of time throughout

 

[Yaarel]

Tracking precise time. It is rarely important. Sometimes it is.

The 15-minute timespan is about 1% of a day, a reallife example of metric time units.

If short rests are this "bout" of time, and the typical ritual as well, then these and other brief uses of time can divide up the day with some precision. 50 short rests is 50% of the day.

A metric hour is 4% of the day, with 25 metric hours per day. But in these systems, one normally tracks the percentage of the day, the number of circa 15-minute units, from 00 to 99.