Correct.
Now back to solutions that are 100% mechanical in nature and 100% WotC official [emoji4]
In other words, let's discuss the situation where you aren't available to come home to me and solve the issues for me, Hussar [emoji2]
You're so modest in your demands, Capn
I believe the best 100% mechanical 100% WotC solution presently available is to use the
Gritty Realism option from the DMG and apply *all* the words in the PHB RAW on Long Rests. The latter gives a number of outs to the DM
Sentence Two - Interruptions I
The construction of the second sentence of Long Rest does not
reasonably imply that an hour of combat is needed to interrupt a Long Rest, ergo
any combat interrupts a Long Rest. From an "
official" point of view we might feel wedded to Crawford's ruling on that and say that only one entire hour of combat breaks a long-rest. This is patently risible and I frankly ignore Crawford on this point. To briefly expand on why - our
average combat is 5 rounds (30 seconds). That is supported both by empirical evidence and rules found in the DMG. Thus, according to Crawford our adventurers need to join
120 combats to interrupt a Long Rest. That is nearly
three times the assumed number of encounters to level from 1 to 20! What the second sentence does reasonably imply is that 1 hour of walking is equivalent to 1 combat or 1 spell cast, in terms of interrupting a long rest.
Sentence Two - Interruptions II
Regardless of how we feel about the above, we can use "
similar adventuring activity to come up with other interruptions. For example, we might say taking damage interrupts a rest, or dying, or healing, or... you get the picture. So long as its as strenuous as a relaxed hour's walk, it'll interrupt the rest. Anything that bestows a level of exhaustion could interrupt a rest, by that measure. As DMs those three words let us do what we want.
Sentence One - Requirements
No matter how we feel about both of the above arguments, in order to count as long resting our PCs must meet the requirements stated the
first sentence of Long Rest. So long as we're being obedient to official sources, we're not entitled to read some words and ignore others. Thus, during the rest our PCs must sleep, or read, talk, eat or stand watch for up to 2 hours. If we're being silly about the meaning of the second sentence, we're certainly justified in being silly about the meaning of this sentence and can say that "
during" means they must keep doing those things for the whole rest. I would obviously suggest we avoid being silly about either sentence, and instead understand that our PCs must do only those sorts of things described in sentence one, but needn't do them continuously, while avoiding doing the other more strenuous sorts of things described in sentence two - including
any casting and
any combat. If you want to adhere to "
official" then official sources are silent thus far on sentence one, and as DMs we can adopt it in frank contradiction to sentence two and proceed as we like.
DMG - Gritty Realism
With Gritty Realism in place, space is created to stretch player resources. The Angry GM's approach is what I've described as a squashy balloon. PCs push down on encounters per day, so threat level swells up elsewhere. A decent
official alternative is simply make long rests long enough that players can't resort to them whenever they like, and things like L's Tiny Hut can't be so easily abused.
