D&D 5E Quick long rest question

[SnakeEyes097]

So say the party decides to take a long rest in a somewhat dangerous area, such as Wave Echo Cave. If there is a random encounter, does that fail their long rest if it's only encounter they have? From the PHB p. 186 "A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity- at least one hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it."

My question is whether the sentence says 1) one hour of walking, or any of the following activities, or 2) one full hour of any of the following activities. A random encounter will not take an hour, so if they randomly roll some fight against a couple stirges or a wandering ghoul, will they have to start their rest over?

 

[Sunseeker]

Yes it would because it is not a "light activity". Fighting is strenuous.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For my money, it's "an hour, in total, of <list of activities>." So if you spend an hour casting a complex ritual (not a "weapon bond" type thing that can be part of a short rest, but something focused and challenging like making a teleportation circle), that counts. Or if you spend half an hour doing that, and half an hour marching.

The sentence makes no sense if you attempt to attach the "one hour" exclusively to the "walking." Casting spells is plural, so casting an individual spell clearly isn't enough--it only makes sense in the context of "one hour casting spells." "Adventuring activity" on its own fails to make sense, because "making camp" is an adventuring activity required to engage in a long rest anywhere but in town and sometimes even then--so, again, it requires the "one hour" in front. Thus, we either have to accept the implausible reading that everything on the list except fighting was meant to be added together to make at least one hour, and fighting is different despite being in the middle of the list...or we take the much more natural reading that "fighting" is meant to be included in that whole set of activities.

As dangerous as it is to make statements about designer intent with any game (and 5e in particular), I really don't think the designers intended for long rests to be trivially easy to interrupt. I think they were intended to be potentially interruptable, if a major issue arose, but not so easily lost that a single kerfluffle would spoil them.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As Ezekiel says, if you can go back to sleep then you can continue the long rest. Keep in mind that you don't get the benefits until the end of the rest, though, so the party might still be in pretty bad shape if they waited too long before resting.

 

[pedro2112]

This was asked of the developers on twitter shortly after the basic rules came out. They said it would have to be an hour of fighting to interrupt the rest.

 

[CapnZapp]

Since no D&D combat ever in the history of gaming has taken more than 20 rounds or so, they could just as easily have said "no amount of fighting can break a rest"

One hour of fighting... Yeah, right

 

[bgbarcus]

Interrupting a Long Rest is intentionally difficult. Monsters wandering into camp and starting a combat won't do it but that combat could force the party to run away, or even chase the monsters if they stole something valuable. If the total activity time (fighting, running, chasing, etc.) adds up to an hour, the LR is ruined.

I'm not a fan of the 'hit the reset button every day' rules but it is popular with everyone else in my group so I don't try screw with their rests very often. Considering how quickly monsters can chew through PC hit points, a DM that made resting more difficult would have to be careful about the number and size of combats each day or the PC's would be beaten down very easily.

 

[SnakeEyes097]

Awesome answers, thanks guys! I'll probably just roll for a random encounter to keep the tension up but not actually give them an encounter then if that's the case. I'm already a bit worried about stuff in the cave wrecking them as it is.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Since no D&D combat ever in the history of gaming has taken more than 20 rounds or so, they could just as easily have said "no amount of fighting can break a rest"

One hour of fighting... Yeah, right

Sure, a solid hour of nothing but combat is unfeasible. However, there is a penumbra of strenuous activity around "combat" that can pad things out substantially. If you know you're about to be attacked, any time spent prepping I'd call a "strenuous" activity, and that's a good 5-ish minutes there. Then if you take any prisoners, getting them secured will take several minutes at least, and either way you're going to spend a few more minutes stripping them of their valuables. If the group has to move for some reason--retreat to a more-easily-defended location, for example--then all the time spent packing up, moving, and laying back down would count against it too, and that could easily be an hour by itself.

As with a lot of limitations in 5e, I feel like people have an...odd perception of it. It's not there to identify a thing that easily and frequently breaks a short rest. Some fighting can happen, but just because you get jumped in camp one time doesn't mean you can't still get some rest. "No amount of fighting" would be a ridiculous extreme, allowing abusive effects. But at the same time, "any amount of fighting" would also be extreme, as it would make unexpected encounters an extremely, inordinately dangerous threat. Thus we get something that's somewhere in the middle, neither so extremely lax that it cannot be negatively impacted ever, nor so extremely strict that even the slightest problem breaks it.

Honestly, this feels like exactly the same issue that came up in your "Inspiring Leader" thread. Why is it that limitations need to be either absolutely restrictive, or absolutely permissive? Middle-of-the-road limitations that set a pace seem perfectly cromulent, allowing practical use while still providing some kind of failure-case in the face of reasonable difficulty.

 

[CapnZapp]

Sure, a solid hour of nothing but combat is unfeasible. However, there is a penumbra of strenuous activity around "combat" that can pad things out substantially. If you know you're about to be attacked, any time spent prepping I'd call a "strenuous" activity, and that's a good 5-ish minutes there. Then if you take any prisoners, getting them secured will take several minutes at least, and either way you're going to spend a few more minutes stripping them of their valuables. If the group has to move for some reason--retreat to a more-easily-defended location, for example--then all the time spent packing up, moving, and laying back down would count against it too, and that could easily be an hour by itself.

No... You're not seeing the practical implications.

If you're harassed for a full hour, the only penalty on paper is "you'll have to start over, losing the hours of rest you've already spent"

But in reality, such a prolonged harassment to me means a complete night of adventure.

In effect, any measure taken by the enemy that's persistent enough to actually break off a rest, in practical play becomes a rest breaker far earlier simply by virtue of the adventurers having to deal with a whole night of play without getting that rest.

In short, the restriction makes little sense and will almost never come into play.

In contrast, having a rule that said "no more than 5 minutes of strenuous, or the rest is broken" would have made a rule that actually would see some use.

Then you could have a quick nightly ambush with the added suspense of "will we get rid of our attackers in time to complete our rest?" without that in itself taking up the entire evening.

But one hour? Your rest isn't so much broken as postponed completely.