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

[payn]

Remove please.

 

[renbot]

I like the Numenera system of rests of increasing duration: a round, 10 minutes, an hour, 8 hours. For D&D I would probably do 1 minute, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours. Party members don't all have to take the same duration rest (or any rest) at the same time although probably by the 8 hour rest you will want to sync up.

So if your monk and warlock need their 15 minute rests and your fighter hasn't needed a rest yet today, the fighter doesn't have to take one. Then in the next encounter if the fighter goes toe-to-toe with a giant and needs a rest, they will only need one minute to rest, a minute from which the monk and warlock get no benefit at all.

Too bad I already have too many house rules and don't want my party to mutiny.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Classes aren't designed for that munchkin fever dream dmg option...

Ah yes, the 'munchkin fever dream' of a well-paced game.

 

[mamba]

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.

yes, and the 5 min short rest worked in 4e, because the rest of the game was designed with that in mind. If you shorten the 5e SR to 5 min, you potentially break a lot of stuff (depending on how much your players abuse that)

 

[the Jester]

It should default to one hour, with a sidebar discussing how different lengths affect the game and what playstyles each pushes, along with a very heavy, "DMs, you may want to adjust how long this takes in your game" message.

 

[Krachek]

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.

And use the same logic for Long rest.

 

[Incenjucar]

...what class besides wizards can "abuse" short rests?

 

[Yaarel]

Is there a problem with the DMG alternate of 10 min? I expected that to be on the list.

I think they should just switch the default and alternate. Make 10 min. Standard and 1 hr and 1 day the alternates.

I like 15 minutes better than 10, because 15 minutes is about 1% of a day.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I use a 5 minute short rest. Helps bring the warlock and other short rest classes up to par. Have not seen any negative impacts.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

yes, and the 5 min short rest worked in 4e, because the rest of the game was designed with that in mind. If you shorten the 5e SR to 5 min, you potentially break a lot of stuff (depending on how much your players abuse that)

For sure. My point though is that the 'short rest' was designed as a per encounter ability recharge point. If there are going to be short rest-based abilities in 5E (2024), I would hope that those abilities are designed to be used per encounter. If there are short rest abilities, but they aren't designed to be used every encounter, irrespective of the number of encounters the character experiences per day, then we have a different game mechanic. One that would be much more difficult to balance for the usual reason: the number of encounters per day varies from table to table, and even day by day at the same table.