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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8653122" data-attributes="member: 6877472">During the D&amp;D Next Playtest, I recall one of the adventures had some very strange notions of when you could rest.&nbsp; We'd searched some ruins and encountered a few Orcs, while on our way to another objective.The DM then announced that we travel for six days to get to where we were going.&nbsp; We started marking off hit points and resources, and the DM is like &quot;no you don't get a rest at this time, that happens after several more encounters.&quot;To say we were confused by that was probably the understatement of the year.I think we have to realize that &quot;rests&quot; are a metagame concept, and they don't happen unless the players take steps to actually rest, and the DM allows them to happen.It's more than just &quot;you do nothing for X time&quot; because then the DM is being forced to maintain appropriate pacing to make sure every hour something happens if they don't want to allow rests at a given stage.Of course, things like rope trick and leomund's tiny hut do complicate this equation (really, these spells shouldn't be necessary- a given adventure should allow for rest periods no matter what is going on.&nbsp; That they exist at all leads me to two conclusions- either WotC felt there would be DM's who would be massive sticklers about whether or not resting was &quot;realistic&quot;, thus necessitating the expenditure of these resources, or it's a safety valve for DM's who don't understand why rests are necessary in the first place.&nbsp; Either way, that's bad design, it's just going to lead to arguments and bad feelings). Personally, I think tying a set amount of time to resting was a mistake- whether it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours is up to the pace of the adventure.&nbsp; It's a narrative conceit.&nbsp; Sometimes it's silly to assume players can really take that much time.Other times, it's busted when you have an adventure that isn't action action action every X amount of minutes.&nbsp; If you say &quot;it takes you three hours to get to the next location&quot;, players will say &quot;oh boy a rest&quot; when it's not appropriate for the adventure to get one.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8653122, member: 6877472"] During the D&D Next Playtest, I recall one of the adventures had some very strange notions of when you could rest. We'd searched some ruins and encountered a few Orcs, while on our way to another objective. The DM then announced that we travel for six days to get to where we were going. We started marking off hit points and resources, and the DM is like "no you don't get a rest at this time, that happens after several more encounters." To say we were confused by that was probably the understatement of the year. I think we have to realize that "rests" are a metagame concept, and they don't happen unless the players take steps to actually rest, and the DM allows them to happen. It's more than just "you do nothing for X time" because then the DM is being forced to maintain appropriate pacing to make sure every hour something happens if they don't want to allow rests at a given stage. Of course, things like [I]rope trick [/I]and [I]leomund's tiny hut[/I] do complicate this equation (really, these spells shouldn't be necessary- a given adventure should allow for rest periods no matter what is going on. That they exist at all leads me to two conclusions- either WotC felt there would be DM's who would be massive sticklers about whether or not resting was "realistic", thus necessitating the expenditure of these resources, or it's a safety valve for DM's who don't understand why rests are necessary in the first place. Either way, that's bad design, it's just going to lead to arguments and bad feelings). Personally, I think tying a set amount of time to resting was a mistake- whether it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours is up to the pace of the adventure. It's a narrative conceit. Sometimes it's silly to assume players can really take that much time. Other times, it's busted when you have an adventure that isn't action action action every X amount of minutes. If you say "it takes you three hours to get to the next location", players will say "oh boy a rest" when it's not appropriate for the adventure to get one. [/QUOTE]

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