D&D 5E What interupts a long rest?

[Xetheral]

So my question is - for the rest of the time is it really worth quibbling over whether an activity is light or strenuous, and runs for an hour or for two hours!? Why not just rule it like this -

A character gets the benefits of a long rest at the end of any 8 hour period in which they had positive hit points and slept 6 hours. They can't get that benefit again for 16 hours.

Given the wide disparity between the sorts of activities given as examples of Light Activity and the sorts of examples given of Strenuous Activity, I don't see it as quibbling. If I wanted rests to effectively only be six hours, I'd just change the length of the rest outright rather than keeping it at eight hours and allowing up to two hours of adventuring activity.

And allowing Strenuous Activity to count towards a rest encourages things like planning overland travel in the middle of a rest period, which is the sort of contradiction in terms I want to avoid. I want rests to feel natural, rather than be something to be gamed.

I am fine with shortening the minimum time before a character can benefit from a second short rest to something like 20 hours, to permit the party to rest once per night with some late nights and some early nights. The 24-hour-rule creates a one-way ratchet where going to bed late one night means every subsequent night has to be just as late until you skip a long rest to reset the timer.

I think you overlook the main point. I'll try to reframe it. Given I feel it is okay to have an hour of adventuring while resting (RAI) why on Earth should I object to two hours? What is more credulity stretching about two, that wasn't already stretched at one? And given that RAI makes rests essentially non-interruptable, only extendable as you (more-or-less) previously observed, even less reason to worry about what happens in that two hours. Players can just roll the rest forward.

Do you follow? Under the RAI, the only part of rests worth tracking is the 6 hours sleep.

I disagree with your interpretation that RAI counts time spent on Strenuous Activity towards the minimum downtime requirement. So your question seems moot to me.

That said, if you are allowing any Strenuous Activity to count towards minimum downtime requirements, I'd say the more you allow the more credulity-stretching it becomes.

 

[MarkB]

I think you overlook the main point. I'll try to reframe it. Given I feel it is okay to have an hour of adventuring while resting (RAI) why on Earth should I object to two hours? What is more credulity stretching about two, that wasn't already stretched at one? And given that RAI makes rests essentially non-interruptable, only extendable as you (more-or-less) previously observed, even less reason to worry about what happens in that two hours. Players can just roll the rest forward.

Do you follow? Under the RAI, the only part of rests worth tracking is the 6 hours sleep.

Just accept that our interpretations differ, and move on. This is becoming tiresome.

 

[clearstream]

Just accept that our interpretations differ, and move on. This is becoming tiresome.

Well, to raise a point of order. If I come to a thread to tell a poster still interested in the thread that I am no longer interested, then isn't the onus on me to leave the thread? Not to attempt to quash another poster's curiousity.

 

[MarkB]

Well, to raise a point of order. If I come to a thread to tell a poster still interested in the thread that I am no longer interested, then isn't the onus on me to leave the thread? Not to attempt to quash another poster's curiousity.

It's not the thread that's tiresome.

 

[clearstream]

It's not the thread that's tiresome.

Then by all means, let us continue

What happens, if a character ignores "no more than 2 hours of light activity", and goes ahead and performs 3 hours of light activity? Does that force their long rest to restart?

 

[MarkB]

Then by all means, let us continue

There. That was the tiresome part.

 

[clearstream]

There. That was the tiresome part.

Then focus on the question. What happens, if a character ignores "no more than 2 hours of light activity", and goes ahead and performs 3 hours of light activity? Does that force their long rest to restart?

 

[Charlaquin]

Remember that I am discussing working with the RAI that is best sustained by evidence from the game designers. My position - explained extensively - is that adventuring is not resting.

However, given the RAI as we have it, I suggest that quibbling over whether 2 of the 8 hours of "rest" are an hour of light activity and an hour of strenuous (roughly) is of low value. Why bother? A DM might just focus on the toothier requirement that characters must fit 6 hours of unconsciousness into 8 hours.

Yeah, I guess you can frame it that way if you want to. I don’t really see a practical difference between this and the current rule in actual gameplay terms. Either way what we’re actually doing at the table is setting aside 8 in-fiction hours for a long rest, maybe a bit of light roleplaying, and rolling some dice to see if the PCs get attacked during that time (and if so, who’s on watch when it happens.) But it sounds like producing the same gameplay experience as the current rule does is explicitly your goal, which makes the exercise seem kinda pointless to me.

 

[clearstream]

Yeah, I guess you can frame it that way if you want to. I don’t really see a practical difference between this and the current rule in actual gameplay terms. Either way what we’re actually doing at the table is setting aside 8 in-fiction hours for a long rest, maybe a bit of light roleplaying, and rolling some dice to see if the PCs get attacked during that time (and if so, who’s on watch when it happens.) But it sounds like producing the same gameplay experience as the current rule does is explicitly your goal, which makes the exercise seem kinda pointless to me.

It's worth bothering with, because it produces a streamlined rule that focuses on what actually matters. It is far easier for DMs to parse. It casts better light on the adventuring day problem, which is one of the most fundamental, most intractable, for D&D design. It is one of the most valuable design problems to solve for 6th edition.

For example, think through the question of what happens, if a character ignores "no more than 2 hours of light activity", and goes ahead and performs 3 hours of light activity? Reflect on where we have reached, and where we could go with the design from here.

 

[clearstream]

There. That was the tiresome part.

I realise I have not explained the purpose behind my dialectic, and that can be frustrating for other posters. I would like to find a good solve for the intractable problem of the adventuring day. I sense here the possibility of progress toward a real solution. That is why I am so tenaciously pursuing this.