D&D General Can animal companions, familiars, mounts, spend HD on short rest to recover HP?

[Tessarael]

Do animal companions, familiars, mounts, etc., short rest and have the ability to spend hit dice and recover hit points along with the rest of the party?

Searching the web, I see mixed answers about this, and no definitive ruling. I do not see anything in Sage Advice. Is there any definitive ruling or discussion that anyone is aware of? Thanks for any help!

 

[bedir than]

This question is clearly answered in the 2024 Rules Glossary.

A Short Rest is a 1-hour period of downtime, during which a creature does nothing more strenuous than reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. To start a Short Rest, you must have at least 1 Hit Point.

Benefits of the Rest. When you finish the rest, you gain the following benefits:

Spend Hit Point Dice. You can spend one or more of your Hit Point Dice to regain Hit Points. For each Hit Point Die you spend in this way, roll the die and add your Constitution modifier to it. You regain Hit Points equal to the total (minimum of 1 Hit Point). You can decide to spend an additional Hit Point Die after each roll. / snip

Per the Glossary, the word 'you' refers to the creature taking the Short Rest.

 

[Tessarael]

Thank you very much bedir. It does not appear to be as clear in D&D 2014 and A5E, as it specifies "character" rather than "creature", and some interpret character as only applying to a character with class levels.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Monsters can to.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A Short Rest is a 1-hour period of downtime, during which a creature does nothing more strenuous than reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. To start a Short Rest, you must have at least 1 Hit Point.

The big thing to remember though is when you see your Mount using their short rest to read... you know something bad is probably going down.

 

[GMMichael]

Do animal companions, familiars, mounts, etc., short rest and have the ability to spend hit dice and recover hit points along with the rest of the party?

Well, if they don't, then they don't live very long. It's hard enough to get the party cleric to CLW one of the PCs before they die, much less one of the party beasts.

you must have at least 1 Hit Point.

Thanks for clarifying that, D&D. I'm pretty sure you're taking a different kind of rest when you have 0 hit points.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Our house rule is that non-sapients use their HD to heal whenever possible. There's no "planning for the future" there. Which means if we have any AoE healing affects we plan to use on the mounts, we do it before the rest completes.

 

[Nikosandros]

Thanks for clarifying that, D&D. I'm pretty sure you're taking a different kind of rest when you have 0 hit points.

A creature can be at 0 HP, but stable. In that case, they can't benefit from a rest, but must first receive healing or wait 1d4 hours and recover automatically 1 HP.

 

[Gorck]

The big thing to remember though is when you see your Mount using their short rest to read... you know something bad is probably going down.

That’s how it starts. Then, the next thing you know, all the mounts are banding together to form a union.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That’s how it starts. Then, the next thing you know, all the mounts are banding together to form a union.

Only thing worse is when all the constrictor Wizard familiars organize to form the Union Of The Snake, as Duran Duran warned us about.