D&D 5E How many short rests per long rest?

[cmad1977]

I haven’t put a cap on it. None of my players have wanted to rest more than MAYBE twice. Doesn’t happen too often I think.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I haven’t put a cap on it. None of my players have wanted to rest more than MAYBE twice. Doesn’t happen too often I think.

It is fairly common at our table to run several encounters between long rests, especially in dungeon crawls. We had 14 last session, but only managed to get in one short rest.

 

[Shiroiken]

It largely depends on the adventure, DM & Player style, and level. Some adventures are very time sensitive, and might not allow even a single short rest. Some DMs make short rests have an opportunity cost (or players might perceive them as such), while others may make them easy and common. Level is a big factor, as are certain classes (battlemaster, monk, warlock), as they determine how beneficial each short rest might be (you only have so many HD). Other than that, you could take 16 short rest in a day (but not get anything done).

My group generally performs about 1 short rest per long rest, mostly because of the potential opportunity cost. Recently Warlocks have become more common among our players, so I expect as we get higher level we'll probably take more.

 

[sim-h]

I house rule one every 8 hours. So I guess two short rests for every long. That house rule is loose - if it was going to annoy the players to enforce it rigidly - I'd just let them rest. Generally having the house rule 'out there' in play means the players look at resting as a more valuable resource, not to be taken lightly. Works for me.

 

[Dausuul]

By the book, there is no limit.

In my campaign, I have a house rule that short rests are 5 minutes but you're only allowed two per long rest. I find it helps a lot with balance between short-rest and long-rest classes, given that a lot of my campaign is wilderness adventuring or politics rather than time-constrained dungeon crawls.

 

[Larnievc]

Real simple question:

How many short rests can you benefit from before you require a long rest?

I know the encounter guideline suggests two short rests per long rest during the "adventuring day", and I think our DM decided that was the actual rule; but I've been reading through the books and can't find any other reference to it.

So, I am asking in case I have missed something... thanks!

I have short rest happen automatically after every two encounters and a long after every six.

A little artificial but it works great, balance wise.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I house rule a cap of 4 short rests per long rest. It cuts down on theoretical problems with class features that may or may not ever come up. The party has never bumped against that cap as far as I can remember (even before I added it), so it's mostly to maintain a little bit of believability for me. In practice, when traversing the wilderness, the party general takes a short rest after a fight if they can get use out of it, otherwise they don't rest that day. In a dungeon (ie, when we're in actual "adventuring day" time), they tend to regularly hit about 2 or 3 short rests per day.

 

[Stoutstien]

1-4 SR per LR is my general goals.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Just remember that the PHB says a default Short Rest is at least one hour long, and as Crawford pointed out in Sage Advice, that means anything at least an hour, but less than eight hours, could be called a Short Rest by the DM. So that four-hour break the party took? Just a Short Rest. But on the question, even Crawford said in Sage Advice that there is not a specific limit in the rules on short rests per day.

 

[Coroc]

It is also to mention that thje SR LR 2:1 ratio best makes sense if you are using the encounter frequency suggested with appropriate mob difficulties. If you run another baseline (like I do) or if you got the 1day / 1week or 1 weekend at the comfortable inn SR LR solution (which I also do), and 5 minute SR is only handed out in rare dire circumstances, then all the rulings do not work.