The "24-hour" Adventuring Day is a
ridiculous concept. It means in less than 34 (in yellow below) days of "adventuring" your PC will go from 1st level to 20th level.
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@Maxperson
That is one of the reasons I count the number of encounters per level, instead of xp or milestones. The sweet spot of levels 5 to 8 have about 15 (roughly 13 to 17) encounters to reach each next level. Other levels have less. (Tiers 13-16 and 17-20 have about 9, roughly 8 to 10 encounters). Modify to taste.
In other words, during the sweet spot, if one expects a consecutive 6 to 8 encounters per day, then the next level will happen within 3 days, often 2 days.
In other words, there will be about 3 or 2 long rests per level. For other levels it will be 2 days. (1 long rest can happen during the lowest tier.)
In this math, it is safe to assume every character has only 2 long rests per level (or 3 depending on DM taste). Anything else is short rests. It is also possible to allow a player to "spend" one of these two long rests whenever they want, by converting any rest, whether a lunch break or a sleep, into a "deep" rest equivalent to a mechanical long rest. But the long rest benefit can only happen twice per level.
There are many benefits for counting encounters per level instead of xp. First, the encounters can be nonlethal combat, social, or exploratory − any kind of genuinely challenging encounter that the DM presents to the players. Second, the DM can get off the clock. Sometimes, the leveling does happen from extremely urgent situations where are multiple deadly encounters in a single day. Other times, each encounter might be days or even years apart. By counting whenever these encounters naturally happen, the DM can focus on what makes sense during the story, rather than the pressure of what the mechanics require. By counting 2 (or 3) long rests per level, the math stays solid.
