D&D (2024) PHB 2024 Channel Divinity Question

[Charlaquin]

Two things:

1) Long rests have a time limit (once every 24 hours) that short rests don't have.

2) Would you take two rests back-to-back in real life? Say you took a half-hour nap, and when that half-hour was up, you decided to nap for another half-hour. Would you count that as two half-hour naps, or would you count it as one nap that you extended into a whole hour? I'd be more inclined to think of it as the latter.

"I want my character to rest for two hours, but I want it to count as two separate short rests for the mechanical benefits rather than one longer rest" sounds very much like gaming the system to me, especially if it is at a point in the game where a long rest is not yet an option.

I mean, getting back a second use of Channel Divinity, Second Wind, Rage, or the like would be the only benefit of taking back to back short rests anyway. I feel like, if the players’ time is under little enough pressure that they want to spend two straight hours resting just to get those features back, but not so little pressure that they want to take a long rest… That seems like a very specific scenario, and I don’t think doing so would really feel like gaming the system. YMMV though.

 

[Seramus]

2) Would you take two rests back-to-back in real life? Say you took a half-hour nap, and when that half-hour was up, you decided to nap for another half-hour. Would you count that as two half-hour naps, or would you count it as one nap that you extended into a whole hour? I'd be more inclined to think of it as the latter.

Two half-hour naps, absolutely. As a frequent napper there's a world of difference in quality between two half-hour naps and a single one hour nap! Even waking up four times a night leaves me pretty devastated compared to sleeping the whole night through.

 

[Charlaquin]

I won't dispute that. However, would you count a two-hour rest as two one-hour rests or as one two-hour rest?

A two-hour rest isn’t a specific rest category though. And I’d say resting for two hours to get back two Channel Divinity uses seems reasonable. Whether you call it a two hour rest or two one hour rests seems pretty moot to me.

 

[pukunui]

I mean, getting back a second use of Channel Divinity, Second Wind, Rage, or the like would be the only benefit of taking back to back short rests anyway. I feel like, if the players’ time is under little enough pressure that they want to spend two straight hours resting just to get those features back, but not so little pressure that they want to take a long rest… That seems like a very specific scenario, and I don’t think doing so would really feel like gaming the system. YMMV though.

Indeed. As far as power levels and all that, it's not such a big deal. I just feel it is not within the spirit of the game.

Two half-hour naps, absolutely. As a frequent napper there's a world of difference in quality between two half-hour naps and a single one hour nap! Even waking up four times a night leaves me pretty devastated compared to sleeping the whole night through.

Sure, but that is not what I imagine to be happening here. Let me put it another way: You take a half-hour nap. You feel well rested afterwards, but you still feel you could gain some benefit from resting for another half-hour, so you reset your timer and go back to sleep (without getting up). Would you still count that as two separate naps or as one extended nap?

A two-hour rest isn’t a specific rest category though. And I’d say resting for two hours to get back two Channel Divinity uses seems reasonable. Whether you call it a two hour rest or two one hour rests seems pretty moot to me.

Fine. For me, it's about the principle of the thing. I just can't imagine the characters wanting to take back-to-back rests in order to fully top up their power sources or whatever. It's very much a thing that the player would want to do. In the long run, it may be a minor thing. It just rubs me the wrong way. I would not allow it myself. I am happy to agree to disagree on this point.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I just can't imagine the characters wanting to take back-to-back rests in order to fully top up their power sources

Longer rest = more rested. It doesn't have to go farther than that.

 

[Seramus]

Sure, but that is not what I imagine to be happening here. Let me put it another way: You take a half-hour nap. You feel well rested afterwards, but you still feel you could gain some benefit from resting for another half-hour, so you reset your timer and go back to sleep (without getting up). Would you still count that as two separate naps or as one extended nap?

Two separate naps. It feels way different than a single one hour nap. I deal with this on a daily basis.
The result in game is the exact opposite, though!

 

[MarkB]

Fine. For me, it's about the principle of the thing. I just can't imagine the characters wanting to take back-to-back rests in order to fully top up their power sources or whatever. It's very much a thing that the player would want to do. In the long run, it may be a minor thing. It just rubs me the wrong way. I would not allow it myself. I am happy to agree to disagree on this point.

Well, that depends. War domain in particular seems skewed towards fairly intensive Channel Divinity use. If the character routinely burns through multiple CDs in any reasonably tough combat and they're all out of them, then they as a character know they're not going to be at their best even after a short rest.

And for a cleric it's about as easy to justify as it gets. They're not kicking back and resting twice over, they're spending an extended period in prayer and meditation, beseeching their god for the strength they'll need to face this next challenge.

 

[Charlaquin]

Indeed. As far as power levels and all that, it's not such a big deal. I just feel it is not within the spirit of the game.

Huh. I wonder why?

Fine. For me, it's about the principle of the thing. I just can't imagine the characters wanting to take back-to-back rests in order to fully top up their power sources or whatever. It's very much a thing that the player would want to do. In the long run, it may be a minor thing. It just rubs me the wrong way. I would not allow it myself. I am happy to agree to disagree on this point.

Well, from an in-character perspective, they aren’t taking two back-to-back rests. They’re taking one rest, for twice as long.

 

[sevenbastard]

Every Employee Handbook I have ever had don't let you take back to back breaks. So I would rule no.

Also I had a player who would take a short rest, use second wind then try and take another short rest and I rulled no to that as well.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, if I'm being honest, I'd say taking a single one-hour nap in the middle of an adventure is already kind of ludicrous, so two is like "sure, whatever", lol.

Outside of a dungeon, there's plenty of times when players might not face enough encounters to need a short rest to begin with, especially when traveling.

I think WotC really needs to separate the concepts of physical resting and regaining powers- this wasn't as big of a deal in 4e when a short rest was just "taking a breather after a fight, patching up wounds, looting the fallen and taking a good look around you"- because that version of the game had another limiting factor that prevented people from adventuring forever.

With 5e's resource paradigm, I'd rather they just decide exactly how many uses of abilities players should get and not waffle with this "but if you can take a nap you can get more!" idea.

If recovering powers =/= actually sleeping and napping, then you could say "it takes you three days to travel to town" without having to worry about "but they might be able to nova the random bandit encounter" or "wait, so we slept for three days and our Barbarian still can't rage anymore?"

But that's just like, my opinion.