D&D 5E Elven trance and long rests

[CydKnight]

In my last campaign session, we had an elf PC with 1 level of exhaustion take 3rd watch on a long rest. Of course I asked for the Perception check for the watch to be made with disadvantage. The PC argued that with trance, she had already completed her Long Rest and therefore should not have disadvantage. In the moment, I didn't want to hold up the game searching through RAR and Erratas so I gave the player the benefit of the doubt. Moving forward since that session, now that I have had the opportunity to research this thoroughly, I have informed the PCs how this will work.

PCs with "Trance" can take 4 hours of trance in lieu of sleep during a Long Rest however they will not receive the full benefits of a Long Rest until a full 8 hours has been completed. During that Long Rest 4 hours can be trance, 2 hours can be on watch, and 2 hours can be spent performing non-strenuous activities as described in the DMG. Any activity that normally interrupts a Long Rest as described in the DMG still applies.

To me it just makes more sense if everyone in the party is receiving Long Rest benefits at the same time under normal circumstances. Sure some rare exceptions may occur like if a Rogue wants to go Rogue and scout ahead in the dungeon while the rest of the party is sleeping to get that choice loot for himself he will likely miss out on a long rest while the rest of the party benefits.

 

[Charlaquin]

In my last campaign session, we had an elf PC with 1 level of exhaustion take 3rd watch on a long rest. Of course I asked for the Perception check for the watch to be made with disadvantage. The PC argued that with trance, she had already completed her Long Rest and therefore should not have disadvantage. In the moment, I didn't want to hold up the game searching through RAR and Erratas so I gave the player the benefit of the doubt. Moving forward since that session, now that I have had the opportunity to research this thoroughly, I have informed the PCs how this will work.

PCs with "Trance" can take 4 hours of trance in lieu of sleep during a Long Rest however they will not receive the full benefits of a Long Rest until a full 8 hours has been completed. During that Long Rest 4 hours can be trance, 2 hours can be on watch, and 2 hours can be spent performing non-strenuous activities as described in the DMG. Any activity that normally interrupts a Long Rest as described in the DMG still applies.

To me it just makes more sense if everyone in the party is receiving Long Rest benefits at the same time under normal circumstances. Sure some rare exceptions may occur like if a Rogue wants to go Rogue and scout ahead in the dungeon while the rest of the party is sleeping to get that choice loot for himself he will likely miss out on a long rest while the rest of the party benefits.

That’s a perfectly reasonable ruling, even if it is not what Sage Advice says to do (and who cares what Sage Advice says anyway, really? Not I.) I do wonder why you decided to treat standing watch as separate from light activity. The wording of Long Rest, particularly post-errata makes it pretty clear that standing watch is an example of the light activity you can perform during a long rest. It seems to me that if one isn’t going to allow Trance to grant the benefits of a short rest after four hours, one ought to at least allow a character with Trance to stand watch for the whole 4 hours of the long rest that they are not meditating for, otherwise the feature would seem to me to be of negligible value.

 

[CydKnight]

I do wonder why you decided to treat standing watch as separate from light activity. The wording of Long Rest, particularly post-errata makes it pretty clear that standing watch is an example of the light activity you can perform during a long rest. It seems to me that if one isn’t going to allow Trance to grant the benefits of a short rest after four hours, one ought to at least allow a character with Trance to stand watch for the whole 4 hours of the long rest that they are not meditating for, otherwise the feature would seem to me to be of negligible value.

2 hours max seems a reasonable limitation to me for a watch during a Long Rest and is consistent with the non-trance PCs. The trance feature is of negligible value the way I house-ruled it but it allows the PCs to keep it for thematic effect. Also, it seems like incidents where someone might need to stand watch for 4 hours would be isolated and rare anyway which keeps the value negligible even if allowed.

Also if you are awake (non-trance state) for 4 hours instead of 2 hours (like non-trance PCs), that is potentially 2 extra hours during an 8-hour Long Rest where you can be wearing medium or heavy armor without penalty depending on how you want to further rule it for your game.

Also, also....depending on how you want to rule the "semiconscious" state of trance when compared to the apparently "unconscious" state of actually sleeping, you could rule that perception checks are not penalized or partially penalized along the lines of Xanathar's (pg. 77). Of course any such penalty would likely only apply to the 4 hours of trance time. So 4 hours of the 8 hour Long Rest are potentially not penalized for Perception even if not actively taking a watch while non-trance PCs will likely only be conscious and alert for 2 of the 8 hours whether on watch or not.

Of course finding a safe place for a Long Rest means most of the above won't matter anyway except thematically. Lemond's Tiny Hut, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, or any other such spell or condition allow for an essentially "Free" Long Rest under most circumstances.

 

[aco175]

Nobody is arguing yet that the new wording of a long rest states that you must sleep for 6 hours and since elves do not sleep, they trance, they should not get the benefits of a long rest.

That sounds completely wrong and most will say that is not the meaning or rules as intended. Same thing with the 4 hours which would mean that elves get 4 hours instead of just 2 to pull guard or eat and such. Maybe extra bathing time or combing their hair.

 

[Yunru]

Nobody is arguing yet that the new wording of a long rest states that you must sleep for 6 hours and since elves do not sleep, they trance, they should not get the benefits of a long rest.

That sounds completely wrong and most will say that is not the meaning or rules as intended. Same thing with the 4 hours which would mean that elves get 4 hours instead of just 2 to pull guard or eat and such. Maybe extra bathing time or combing their hair.

But they also can't have more than 2 hours of non-sleeping long resting, so Elves double can't long rest

 

[Charlaquin]

Nobody is arguing yet that the new wording of a long rest states that you must sleep for 6 hours and since elves do not sleep, they trance, they should not get the benefits of a long rest.

Nor is anyone saying that anyone is arguing that...

That sounds completely wrong and most will say that is not the meaning or rules as intended. Same thing with the 4 hours which would mean that elves get 4 hours instead of just 2 to pull guard or eat and such. Maybe extra bathing time or combing their hair.

Huh?

 

[Charlaquin]

But they also can't have more than 2 hours of non-sleeping long resting, so Elves double can't long rest

Again, even if we accept this as true, the way that the wording of Trance interacts with the (new) wording of long rests means that an elf doesn’t actually need to take a long rest to receive the benefits of one. All they need to do is to rest in the way described by the trait (specifically, meditating, remaining semiconscious and reflexively performing mental exercises, for 4 hours). When they finish doing so, they gain the same benefits a human gets from 8 hours of sleep, which once per 24 hours would include the benefits of a long rest.

I feel like there’s an echo in this thread.

 

[Satyrn]

Well, l guess I should look at the time stamp. I didn’t realize it had been necro’d. I do enjoy reading my own jokes though, so it was worth the 2 minutes I took to write it

Aye. If you come up with a good joke, you gotta post it no matter what. That's my motto . . . wait, no, that's not quite my motto.

If you come up with a good joke, you gotta post it no matter what. Yeah, that's my motto.