D&D 5E What is a Short Rest vs a Long Rest?

[Gorg]

Speaking of rests, if your party takes a short rest and the 3rd level mage spends 1 hd to gain back some health, does the expenditure of that hit die have any other in-game effects?

 

[Hriston]

During a short rest, you're limited to "light activity" only.

During a long rest, you can perform some "strenuous activity", but the time spent doing it doesn't count toward the rest, and it has to be less than an hour or you have to start the rest over.

 

[Shiroiken]

By normal rules, a long rest is getting a good nights sleep (or equivalent), allowing someone to recharge themselves. A short rest is really just that: a break during the day to relax. Thinking of them as meals is pretty helpful, as these would be opportune times to eat. Unless you're on a very tight time frame (i.e. making Con saves for exhaustion), characters have plenty of extra time during the day to do these activities.

The issue that comes up with Short Rests more often than not isn't that parties aren't getting a chance to take a Short Rest... it's that the way the story is playing out the group doesn't need to take a Short Rest because that's the only combat of the day.

The only times Short Rests really become necessary are under very specific adventuring scenarios... usually dungeon crawls or overland hikes (that are like dungeon crawls in disguise.) Scenarios where the expectation is to have the prototypical "6 to 8 encounter per day". But those adventures for a lot of groups do not occur all the time-- oftentimes a dungeon crawl of that sort might be only one of like ten different "adventures" or "encounters" or "stories" the party will hit. Everything else is a lot of time spent wandering cities or wandering wilderness, socializing, exploring, researching, relaxing so on and so forth. And when you have that... you might not have any combat whatsoever. Which makes Short Rests unnecessary.

IMO most groups who don't have anywhere near the 6-8 recommended encounters should consider moving to the "gritty realism" model of each overnight being a short rest. This would help bring the daily ability characters (spellcasters) back in balance with short rest characters.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

An adventuring day is not necessarily a 'day'.

It's the arbitrary amount of time between long rest recharges of abilities.

Using Gritty realism, an adventuring 'day' could be a month or more.

Alternatively, a day on your campaign world could just be equivalent to an Earth month. There's way too many fantasy planets with day/night cycles exactly equivalent to ours.

 

[auburn2]

Alternatively, a day on your campaign world could just be equivalent to an Earth month. There's way too many fantasy planets with day/night cycles exactly equivalent to ours.

It is truely amazing what percentage of fantasy worlds are about the same mass as earth (i.e. same gravity), same angluar velocity as earth (24 hour day) and have the same atmosphere as earth (breathing and plant life)

 

[bedir than]

I originally ignored this post because I thought it was a rather obvious question and answer, but upon reading it I like what @Slit518 did. There is narrative behind the use of various rests. They should be taken even when there is little or no mechanical need. Because the characters need those moments. They need a cup of coffee, a slurp on the wineskin, a nap, a calm dip in the river, time with their book, some polish on their boots.

Resting around a fire may not benefit your own character's hit points or spells. That doesn't matter. It does benefit your character's relationship with the rest of the party and/or present NPCs. Take a moment to live these fantastical lives that are numbers on a sheet of paper.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Long rests in my games tend to vary in length depending on the number of party members and how many of them can do a 2-hour watch. Most of my groups in the past have typically been 5 PCs and maybe an NPC. So in that scenario, if all the PCs want a proper amount of rest, and will also stand watch, then a long rest will be 10 hours, as each PC does a 2-hour stint on watch and then has 8 hours to relax and sleep, plus time for dinner before settling in and breakfast before everyone is packed back up and on the move again.

 

[Umbran]

It is truely amazing what percentage of fantasy worlds are about the same mass as earth (i.e. same gravity), same angluar velocity as earth (24 hour day) and have the same atmosphere as earth (breathing and plant life)

About as amazing as how many fantasy worlds have languages that you can read.

The concept of a 24 hour day is not, in fact, a straight arbitrary choice - it arose from function. It appears that that ancient Egyptians, having 10 fingers and toes, divided the full light of day into 10 hours (and measured the hours by sundial). They stuck an hour of dawn and twilight on the ends - getting you a 12 hour daylight period. Then, for consistency, divided the dark period similarly. You then have a 24 hour day.

Doesn't matter how fast your planet spins, you can divide its period in 24 parts, and call them hours, for the same reason, if you wanted. Unless you are Elminster and cross between worlds, you don't actually know how their hours compare with ours.

Atmosphere? I am pretty sure Tolkien doesn't tell you what the breakdown of gasses is in Middle Earth's atmosphere. Maybe Middle Earth just has "air".

 

[jgsugden]

...Atmosphere? I am pretty sure Tolkien doesn't tell you what the breakdown of gasses is in Middle Earth's atmosphere. Maybe Middle Earth just has "air".

There are some strongly implied atmospheric gasses in the passages about Bombur.

 

[commandercrud]

In my game they're much more clear. A short rest is a night's sleep. A long rest is 5 downtime days.