D&D 5E What interupts a long rest?

[MarkB]

Focus on what the rules require. A character must have 6 hours during which they don't do any of those things. I could

1. Start a long rest
2. Clear a few chambers in the dungeon
3. Catch 3 hours sleep
4. Clear another few chambers
5. Stand watch for 1 hour
6. Catch another 3 hours sleep
7. Refresh my abilities

That being the case, I am saying - why even care what happens in that 1 hour of continued adventuring? Spelling it out in detail - the character has to be unconscious for at least 6 hours and then has to either sleep 1 more hour or perform light activity for that hour. They have to perform exactly those activities for 7 hours, and they can't take more than 8 hours to do so.

Okay, now you've lost me. A long rest is six hours of sleep, plus two hours which can include sleep, inactivity or light activity.

Anything else which interrupts that rest, and which takes less than an hour, is in addition to those eight hours, not part of them. It is an interruption, it doesn't count towards completing those eight hours, but it also doesn't require you to start those eight hours over from scratch, unless it takes an hour or more.

 

[Mannahnin]

Right. Any interruption of less than an hour is merely added onto the total length of the rest. Any interruption of an hour or more resets the clock entirely and the rest must be re-started from the beginning.

 

[clearstream]

Right. Any interruption of less than an hour is merely added onto the total length of the rest. Any interruption of an hour or more resets the clock entirely and the rest must be re-started from the beginning.

Where does it say added onto the length?

 

[MarkB]

Where does it say added onto the length?

Where it says that it's an interruption. If you're doing a half-hour workout, and you have to take a telephone call 15 minutes in that lasts for 10 minutes before getting back into it, does another 5 minutes complete your workout?

 

[clearstream]

Okay, now you've lost me. A long rest is six hours of sleep, plus two hours which can include sleep, inactivity or light activity.

Anything else which interrupts that rest, and which takes less than an hour, is in addition to those eight hours, not part of them. It is an interruption, it doesn't count towards completing those eight hours, but it also doesn't require you to start those eight hours over from scratch, unless it takes an hour or more.

It feels like you are coming at this without clear eyes. Focus on what a player is enabled to do, given that we enforce the rule sincerely.

They are permitted to fight, cast spells and march up to an hour without that changing that they are resting. We know they must be unconscious for 6 hours, and can continue to be unconscious or perform light activity for 1 hour. So long as they don't adventure for more than 59 minutes and 59 seconds during the 8 hour period of the rest, the rest doesn't stall, restart or extend.

 

[clearstream]

Where it says that it's an interruption. If you're doing a half-hour workout, and you have to take a telephone call 15 minutes in that lasts for 10 minutes before getting back into it, does another 5 minutes complete your workout?

You miss the point. Interrupting means the rest must restart. But a character can adventure for 59 minutes and 59 seconds without interrupting. So where does it say that, that time extends the rest?


[EDIT Recollect the wording that - "the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it" - relating to interrupt. Not extend, restart.]

 

[prabe]

You miss the point. Interrupting means the rest must restart. But a character can adventure for 59 minutes and 59 seconds without interrupting. So where does it say that, that time extends the rest?

I believe the thinking goes something like this:

If a Long Rest requires 6 hours of actual rest and 2 hours of light activity; if you fight for, say, a minute, that minute doesn't count toward either the actual rest or the light activity, and you now need to rest for 1 minute longer.

As a practical matter, I expect that roughly no table keeps track of time to that level of granularity--but if you believe that you need an hour of strenuous activity before you need to restart the short rest, you might add like half an hour to the rest duration, if the party were active for that long in the middle of their rest. (So, the long rest would end half an hour later.)

 

[clearstream]

I believe the thinking goes something like this:

If a Long Rest requires 6 hours of actual rest and 2 hours of light activity; if you fight for, say, a minute, that minute doesn't count toward either the actual rest or the light activity, and you now need to rest for 1 minute longer.

I follow the thinking, but you will agree that isn't what the RAI says, right. The words on the page do not provide for extending.

Or to put it another way, could you quote here the words that say to extend?

 

[MarkB]

You miss the point. Interrupting means the rest must restart.

No. Nowhere do the rules state that.

An interruption that lasts an hour or more means that you must restart. An interruption that lasts less than an hour is still an interruption, but allows you to pick up resting afterwards, from the point where you left off.

 

[prabe]

I follow the thinking, but you will agree that isn't what the RAI says, right. The words on the page do not provide for extending.

Or to put it another way, could you quote here the words that say to extend?

The resting rules in the PHB don't say to extend the rest in so many words, but it's at least as reasonable to read the requirements (at least 8 hours total, at least 6 hours sleeping, any activity "light") to mean that time lost to other activity must be added, as it is to interpret the wording that any fighting at all will interrupt a long rest to the point it must be restarted.