D&D (2024) How long should a Short rest be in 5E(2024)?

[Horwath]

So how long should a Short rest be?


1. One minute long, quick breather, making the Monk's Heighten metabolism unlimited global mechanic?

2. 5 minutes long. 4E version of Short rest. DM variant. A breather, a chance to have a bite, bit of water and throw some alcohol on a cut.

3. 15 minutes. Most games half-time break. Time for a bandage or a quick lunch. Or relax for a moment.

4. 1 Hour long. Default 5E.

5. Removed. All recharge is based on Long rest. More resource management. HD usage needs to be reworked. Possible as an Action.

6. Other duration?

 

[delericho]

Undefined. Or, more accurately, defined by the adventure conditions and/or the DM. I don't think there needs to be a one size fits all answer to this.

 

[CreamCloud0]

vote for Other: gritty realism 8 hours obligatory mention

 

[mellored]

15 minutes, with 2 hours between short rests.

With all the are 10 minutes duration features, it needs to last at least 10 minutes.

They would also need to revert a lot of ones they switched to 1 hour (i.e. bardic inspiration).

 

[Clint_L]

Undefined. Or, more accurately, defined by the adventure conditions and/or the DM. I don't think there needs to be a one size fits all answer to this.

This. We don’t worry about an exact time, we go with what makes sense in the story.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

When the concept of short rests was introduced in 4E, it was basically window dressing around the mechanic of abilities that were designed to be used once per encounter or other in game scene/interaction, combat or otherwise.

It was more immersive to say 'your character takes 5 minutes to catch his breath' than 'your powers recharge in time for your next encounter'.

So to me, debating how many minutes long a short rest should be is contrary to the intent of the short rest in the first place. If I had to pick a length though, I'd say anything longer than 5 minutes defeats the purpose of the game design mechanic the short rest was intended to represent: the per encounter ability.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Undefined. Or, more accurately, defined by the adventure conditions and/or the DM. I don't think there needs to be a one size fits all answer to this.

actually i think i remember someone's houserule that was mentioned once in a thread before, where their world/group usually ran on gritty realism schedules but the adventurers could swap to 'dungeon time' where SR/LR were changed to 15min/6 hours and when they ended dungeon time they gained levels of exhaustion equal to the number of long rests they took under dungeon time and couldn't start it again till they'd rested all the levels of exhaustion off one level per day, narratively it was the adventurers pushing themselves to their limits explaining why it couldn't be constantly on else they'd burn themselves out

 

[delericho]

When the concept of short rests was introduced in 4E, it was basically window dressing around the mechanic of abilities that were designed to be used once per encounter or other in game scene/interaction, combat or otherwise.

Indeed. Which makes a lot of sense, except that 5e then makes the odd assumption that characters will face two encounters between short rests (and then introduces a whole bunch of "you can use this X times" short rest powers to compensate).

It was more immersive to say 'your character takes 5 minutes to catch his breath' than 'your powers recharge in time for your next encounter'.

Way back in the days of the BECMI Red Box, the exploration part of the game ran in turns of 10 minutes each, but then switched to rounds of 10 seconds each. This of course meant that a turn consisted of 60 rounds, but of course combats basically never lasted that long. However, a combat encounter was assumed to last a full turn - whatever time was left was assumed to be that "5 minutes to catch your breath". (I'm not sure if B/X and other older versions did that the same way.)

Of course, BECMI didn't have encounter powers as such. But something resembling short rests were built in, of fairly short duration and fairly regular occurrence.

 

[Charlaquin]

You skipped right over 10 minutes, which I think would be the most obvious. Coincides with the time a ritual spell takes, among other things.

I’m personally fine with the 1-hour short rest, but 10 minutes would be even better.

 

[Charlaquin]

actually i think i remember someone's houserule that was mentioned once in a thread before, where their world/group usually ran on gritty realism schedules but the adventurers could swap to 'dungeon time' where SR/LR were changed to 15min/6 hours and when they ended dungeon time they gained levels of exhaustion equal to the number of long rests they took under dungeon time and couldn't start it again till they'd rested all the levels of exhaustion off one level per day, narratively it was the adventurers pushing themselves to their limits explaining why it couldn't be constantly on else they'd burn themselves out

That’s neat!

I’ve been thinking for my next campaign I might try having three types of rests. The standard one-hour short rest, which allows spending hit dice and recovering short rest resources like Monk points; a slightly nerfed 8-hour long rest, which restores hit dice, spell slots, and other long rest resources, and removes up to one level of exhaustion but no hit points; and a one week extended rest that restores all hit points, maximum hit points, and ability scores (for the small handful of monster features that reduce them, like shadows), and removes all levels of exhaustion. The idea being that each rest type is primarily relevant to a different mode of play; short rests in the dungeon or other adventure location, long rests while traveling, and extended rests during downtime.