D&D 5E What interupts a long rest?

[clearstream]

Sure, I guess? Frankly, I’m just not going to be that much of a stickler for individual minutes spent standing versus walking or how vigorously one needs to be engaged in an activity to count as “adventuring” vs. “light”. Even if I rule as permissively as possible and just let the players get away with this exploit, it’s all much ado about nothing. Great job you got to have like three risk-free encounters. You’re very smart, have a cookie and let’s move on with the adventure.

Meh, the specific examples are simply to illustrate the point. It's all adventuring while resting. If you are comfortable with that, then your RAI is good.

I guess we also touch here on the - can your players do the things the rules allow, or do they ask they DM if they may do those things?

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, here is the complete up-to-date text on the long rest:

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 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.

We have established that, as per Jeremy Crawford’s clarification and the wording in the playtest, walking, fighting, and casting spells, are all part of the category “adventuring activity.” A long rest is a period of 8 hours during which you sleep for at least 6 hours and perform light activity for no more than 2. An interruption of an hour or longer of adventuring activity also forces you to restart the rest.

Now, let’s suppose a party of adventurers sleeps for 3 hours, wakes up and begins adventuring for 59 minutes, goes back to sleep for 3 more hours, wakes up and spends 1 minute reading. Has this party completed a long rest? Let’s check.

Has the period been at least 8 hours long? Yes.
Has it included at least 6 hours of sleep? Yes.
Has it included more than 2 hours of light activity? No.
Has it been interrupted by at least an hour of adventuring activity? No.

My conclusion would be that this adventuring party has indeed completed a long rest, as the RAW defines it.

Which brings us back to the absurd. 3 hours of sleep followed by almost an hour of strenuous activity, followed by 3 hours of sleep is NOT restful at all. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Maxperson]

My interpretation is that adventuring activities include (but are not limited to) fighting, spellcasting, and walking. In this case, it takes 1 hour of walking to be considered strenuous, whereas walking for less than 1 hour is considered light activity.

So 58 minutes of fighting for your life, or heck, 1 minute of fighting for your life is not strenuous? You have to hit a full hour?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Metagaming interrupts long rests. It yanks me out of immersion so jarringly that my character wakes up.

 

[Laurefindel]

Of course!

From a purely mechanical perspective, the rule revised so that light activity can include travel has rather hairy implications.

the rule mentions "walking", but traveling less than 1 hour is already not considered strenuous activity by any interpretation of a long rest.

In other words, I see rule as long rest = minimum of 8 hours, 6 of which must include sleep, thus leaving a minimum of 2 hours of light activities (presumably more for a long rest lasting more than 8 hours). Long rest is interrupted by strenuous and adventuring activities such as fighting, spellcasting, and walking for more than 1 hour (as opposed to 1 hour of walking, 1 hour of fighting, 1 hour of spellcasting, or 1 hour of similar adventuring activities).

 

[Xetheral]

Ok, here is the complete up-to-date text on the long rest:

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 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.

We have established that, as per Jeremy Crawford’s clarification and the wording in the playtest, walking, fighting, and casting spells, are all part of the category “adventuring activity.” A long rest is a period of 8 hours during which you sleep for at least 6 hours and perform light activity for no more than 2. An interruption of an hour or longer of adventuring activity also forces you to restart the rest.

Now, let’s suppose a party of adventurers sleeps for 3 hours, wakes up and begins adventuring for 59 minutes, goes back to sleep for 3 more hours, wakes up and spends 1 minute reading. Has this party completed a long rest? Let’s check.

Has the period been at least 8 hours long? Yes.
Has it included at least 6 hours of sleep? Yes.
Has it included more than 2 hours of light activity? No.
Has it been interrupted by at least an hour of adventuring activity? No.

My conclusion would be that this adventuring party has indeed completed a long rest, as the RAW defines it.

I disagree. The current text that you quoted says that a long rest is "a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity". So benefiting from a long rest requires at least 8 hours of downtime, and downtime is defined as sleep or light activity. Time spent adventuring isn't sleep or light activity, and thus can't count towards the required 8 hours of downtime.

In your example, the total downtime is only six hours and 1 minute, and thus fails to qualify as a long rest. To work your example would need to be rewritten to look something like:

Sleep for 3 hours, Adventure for 59 minutes, Sleep for 3 hours, Light Activity (or Sleep) for 2 hours.

Then the total amount of downtime would satisfy the eight hour minimum.

 

[Maxperson]

Metagaming interrupts long rests. It yanks me out of immersion so jarringly that my character wakes up.

Another reason not to do it.

 

[Maxperson]

Sleep for 3 hours, Adventure for 59 minutes, Sleep for 3 hours, Light Activity (or Sleep) for 2 hours.

Then the total amount of downtime would satisfy the eight hour minimum.

You have 8 hours and 59 minutes of time there.

 

[Xetheral]

You have 8 hours and 59 minutes of time there.

I have 8 hours of downtime. The 59 minutes of adventuring is not sleep or light activity and thus doesn't count towards the minimum required downtime.

 

[clearstream]

the rule mentions "walking", but traveling less than 1 hour is already not considered strenuous activity by any interpretation of a long rest.

In other words, I see rule as long rest = minimum of 8 hours, 6 of which must include sleep, thus leaving a minimum of 2 hours of light activities (presumably more for a long rest lasting more than 8 hours). Long rest is interrupted by strenuous and adventuring activities such as fighting, spellcasting, and walking for more than 1 hour (as opposed to 1 hour of walking, 1 hour of fighting, 1 hour of spellcasting, or 1 hour of similar adventuring activities).

If walking is light activity, then one can 'light activity' from chamber to chamber in the dungeon, saving the strenuous activity for fighting. That stretches out the time one can spend adventuring-while-resting.

EDIT But I see that what you intended is a little different from what I understood from what you first wrote.