D&D 5E Good news! The RAW answer to: "When does a rest end?"

[Storyteller Hero]

Order now and you can get a week's worth of long rests for the cost of five. Get it while supplies last!

 

[FrogReaver]

Related question:
If a long rest gets interrupted after 1-7 hours, does it count as a short rest?

For example: The characters stop for a long rest. They are attacked by wandering monsters 4 hours into the rest. The players want to roll HD before combat starts, as though they have taken a short rest.

Thoughts?

I would allow it.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Related question:
If a long rest gets interrupted after 1-7 hours, does it count as a short rest?

For example: The characters stop for a long rest. They are attacked by wandering monsters 4 hours into the rest. The players want to roll HD before combat starts, as though they have taken a short rest.

Thoughts?

You'd have to ask Jeremy Crawford if it is the intent, but the phrasing and layout used in the Player's Handbook suggests that the players are expected to be declaring what sort of rest is being taken, such as "We take a short rest" or "We take a long rest", and then the paragraph of text under the appropriate heading in the book applies - and neither of those paragraphs include text explicitly stating (or even implying, really) that one type of rest can automatically become the other.

So in this specific case, I'd say the answer that appear to be supported by the text in the book, and that I would use at my own table are: No, an interrupted long rest that went at least 1 hour before being interrupted doesn't count as a short rest. No, the characters trying to take a long rest and being attacked 4 hours into it don't get to roll HD, they'd have to have been taking a short rest to do that and would have to have ended that short rest sometime before the wandering monsters showed up because combat of any length spoils a short rest.

 

[FrogReaver]

I wanted to add:

If a player wakes up after 8 hours and tells me his character is starting to do a vigorous exercise for the next hour then I will gladly end his long before the exercise as long as the rest of the group doesn't mind waiting on him to finish or doing something else for the hour he is exercising.

He can even short rest after the exercise if the group is okay with that.

 

[FrogReaver]

You'd have to ask Jeremy Crawford if it is the intent, but the phrasing and layout used in the Player's Handbook suggests that the players are expected to be declaring what sort of rest is being taken, such as "We take a short rest" or "We take a long rest", and then the paragraph of text under the appropriate heading in the book applies - and neither of those paragraphs include text explicitly stating (or even implying, really) that one type of rest can automatically become the other.

So in this specific case, I'd say the answer that appear to be supported by the text in the book, and that I would use at my own table are: No, an interrupted long rest that went at least 1 hour before being interrupted doesn't count as a short rest. No, the characters trying to take a long rest and being attacked 4 hours into it don't get to roll HD, they'd have to have been taking a short rest to do that and would have to have ended that short rest sometime before the wandering monsters showed up because combat of any length spoils a short rest.

Hmmm, I forgot about monsters showing up stopping a short rest. I change my ruling. They would not get a short rest benefit for being interrupted in a long rest after an hour

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I wanted to add:

If a player wakes up after 8 hours and tells me his character is starting to do a vigorous exercise for the next hour then I will gladly end his long before the exercise as long as the rest of the group doesn't mind waiting on him to finish or doing something else for the hour he is exercising.

He can even short rest after the exercise if the group is okay with that.

Yes, and I too should be sure to add that I'm okay with separating a long rest and a short rest with a meaningful period of exercise (i.e. "a quick jog" or "my normal morning calisthenics routine", but not "I do like 4 jumping-jacks" or some other thing which is clearly trying to exploit a perceived loophole in the resting rules).

 

[Parmandur]

I am...unclear..as to what "loophole" is being taken advantage of...?

 

[Lidgar]

I wish I made my Intelligence (Investigation) check before clicking on this thread.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So if the DM has honest players and he states he will only give a benefit to a long rest when the party is ready to go do things other than rest then there will be no way to short rest after a long rest.

That is not a resting option which this game supports, though. All of the variants in the book just change the amount of time involved for a short rest and a long rest. None of them create conditionals that depend upon future action declaration. A DM who states that they will only give the benefit of a long rest when the party is ready to not take a short rest is not playing under the rules that we're discussing.

It's fine of the DM wants to invent a new rule for that sort of thing, of course, but it would fall clearly within discussion of house rules and would not in any way be relevant to general discourse about resting.

 

[Uller]

Related question:
If a long rest gets interrupted after 1-7 hours, does it count as a short rest?

For example: The characters stop for a long rest. They are attacked by wandering monsters 4 hours into the rest. The players want to roll HD before combat starts, as though they have taken a short rest.

Thoughts?

If there is any reasonable chance of a combat encounter then I count the first hour of a long rest as a short rest and tell my players. They can gain the benefits of a short rest and spend some HD if they want. Then we finish the long rest and they get the long rest benefits.

This encourages them to maybe spend a little more HD. A PC that is sitting under 25% of max hp is going to want to spend some HD.