D&D (2024) How long should a Short rest be in 5E(2024)?

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Tracking precise time. It is rarely important. Sometimes it is.

The 15-minute timespan is about 1% of a day, a reallife example of metric time units.

If short rests are this "bout" of time, and the typical ritual as well, then these and other brief uses of time can divide up the day with some precision. 50 short rests is 50% of the day.

A metric hour is 4% of the day, with 25 metric hours per day. But in these systems, one normally tracks the percentage of the day, the number of circa 15-minute units, from 00 to 99.

Metric time? In the metric system, the base unit of time is the second (as in, an actual second). There is no such thing as a metric hour in the metric system. When an hour is referred to, it always means an actual hour, as in 60 minutes of 60 seconds each. Perhaps you're referring to decimal time?

 

[Yaarel]

Metric time? In the metric system, the base unit of time is the second (as in, an actual second). There is no such thing as a metric hour in the metric system. When an hour is referred to, it always means an actual hour, as in 60 minutes of 60 seconds each. Perhaps you're referring to decimal time?

Chinese history has the 15-minute unit called ke, which is 1% of the day.

French history had the long hour, over two traditional hours, being 10% of the day. But there are also metric systems for 20-hour days and of interest here 25-hour days.

But again the only system that proves continual use is counting the percentage of the directly. The comparison to the 4%-hour (or the 5%-hour) is mostly for a reference.

The 1% (ke) is about 15 minutes and this is a common unit of time.

 

[Clint_L]

The only issue I could see is when it clashes with long duration effects. A quick example:

A caster, knowing he is going to face a difficult encounter, casts false life (duration 1 hour). They enter combat and emerge victorious 10 rounds later, and decide to take a short rest before continuing on. Does the caster keep his false life after the rest?

That question hinges on how long they rest. If I'm the caster, that 5 minute short rest sure looks good right now, as I'd have 50 minutes left of my spell. If we use classic rules: it's gone since SR is an hour and I've already used a few minutes of it casting and fighting. If it's variable what is the call? Do I keep my spell effect going or not? What determines if the rest is measured in minutes or hours?

I'm genuinely curious how you would rule in the above scenario..

It would depend on what is happening in the story. This is no different than a DM who has an exact time for short rests; they are still making a judgement as to whether X minutes will occur according to the imperatives of the story and then giving that decision to the player. I just make the ruling without worrying about whether X minutes has passed (which will be a made-up number anyway) and just give them the information they care about: do we have time to take a short rest and still have the spell effect going.

Specifically timed short rests lead to weird results because, outside of combat, D&D adventures run narratively, not on timed turns. In AD&D (1e) you could have used them, at least in theory, because out of combat turns were ten minutes, though we seldom if ever paid attention to that rule. Once the game is in story mode, it doesn't help.

 

[zedturtle]

I have a vague memory of answering this sort of question here before, and I've definitely asked it elsewhere before.

10 Minutes. No more than 3 Short Rests until a Long Rest.

That is three meal breaks and sitting-down-to-catch-your-breath periods a day, then you need to sleep (or trance or whatever). Make spells last no more than a minute or hours instead. Things need to go back to 1/Encounter, 1/Day, and Unlimited. There was a lot of good babies in the 4e bathwater and they all got tossed in 2014. Do better this time.

 

[Remathilis]

It would depend on what is happening in the story. This is no different than a DM who has an exact time for short rests; they are still making a judgement as to whether X minutes will occur according to the imperatives of the story and then giving that decision to the player. I just make the ruling without worrying about whether X minutes has passed (which will be a made-up number anyway) and just give them the information they care about: do we have time to take a short rest and still have the spell effect going.

Specifically timed short rests lead to weird results because, outside of combat, D&D adventures run narratively, not on timed turns. In AD&D (1e) you could have used them, at least in theory, because out of combat turns were ten minutes, though we seldom if ever paid attention to that rule. Once the game is in story mode, it doesn't help.

So basically, the DM fiat decides when the spell ends.

To be honest, there might be a good case to be made for D&D to adopt scenes and encounters as the currency of time rather than rounds, minutes and hours. Scenes are narrative chunks of an adventure (infiltrate the king's court, travel from Neverwinter to Phandelver, explore Castle Ravenloft's first floor) and encounters are exact actions (speak with the king, discover a burning caravan along the road, fight Strahd). Certain abilities recover at the rate of encounter (such as getting a use of channel divinity or discipline points) but others only recover when the scene ends (such as hp or spells). Of course, such a system needs to rebalance many abilities to avoid over or under powering, so it's not the kind of thing we would see until 6e is a possibility.

 

[CleverNickName]

One hour.
Not broken, don't fix.

 

[Vaalingrade]

One hour.
Not broken, don't fix.

I mean, technically immediately grinding something to sand isn't breaking it so....

 

[DEFCON 1]

I mean, technically immediately grinding something to sand isn't breaking it so....

Yeah, and then you can put that sand into an hourglass to keep track of the one hour Short Rest! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Whenever people say 1 hour is a short rest, I kind of wonder how they experience hours and resting.

 

[S'mon]

I like the 5 minute 'catch your breath' SR best.