How often does your party take a short rest?

[Baldurs_Underdark]

The poll needs another option "We have no clearly defined amount of rests".

We play a roleplaying game, where our characters travel through an fantasy world. This means that sometimes there are opportunities to rest, and sometimes there aren't.
In my opinion, if you have a pre-chosen number of encounters, and a set number of rests, you're no longer roleplaying, but you are instead playing a dice-game. It becomes a type of gambling with extra fluff. Not that there's anything wrong with that... it's just not what we play.

 

[ccs]

I'd guess it'd work out to about 2 short rests per day.

As for how long those rests are? It varies based on plot.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I use 100% standard rules (AL strict) and since my group has a Warlock and a Monk, they pretty much want to rest after every battle. As they are resting this often and in insecure areas, the chance of getting ambushed is fairly high, though, so if an ambush occurs they fight 2 battles per short rest, otherwise 1 battle.
The average number of battles we do per day is 4-5 of which 1 is an ambush on average.
This results in the number of short rests being 2-3.

The most common scenario is:

Long rest -> 2 battles -> short rest -> 1 battles -> short rest -> 1 battle -> long rest.

 

[Blue]

I can't quantify with any of the answers in your poll. How many encounters per day varies a lot and short rests seem more to be a feature of number of encounters then per day. Say we average a short rest every 2-3 encounters.

Though it can vary greatly. For example, while traveling we might have a short rest for some after every encounter since people can rest in the wagon. The flip side is when going through a lair where we are worried that an alarm will be raised if anyone we killed is discovered we might not take any short rests. An hour is a long time.

 

[jasper]

When the booze is gone and Morrus has to make a run.

 

[aco175]

I also allow short rests between set encounters. There is an area of mines the PCs are exploring right now where they cleared out 3 rooms and are traveling to another area of mines. I may roll for an encounter or just say that it takes a few hours to manage your way and allow a short rest.

Traveling tends to play wonky things with encounters. If the PCs are traveling to the adventure site and know that the encounter is just the only one today they will tend to use more resources. Even if they do not 'know' that there is only one encounter, most players can guess accordingly.

 

[Xetheral]

Number of short rests per day tends to vary a lot at the tables I run and played with. The most salient variable appears to be location: in a dungeon or wilderness setting, short rests are rare, except for lunch during overland travel or in the uncommon case where the party needs to wait for something before continuing (e.g. nightfall, a rendevous, an ambush target, a sending from a contact). In a city, where the PCs often split up and some characters frequently end up waiting around (e.g. for other PCs, for shops to open/close, for appointments, for dinner plans), or are simply spending more time on R&R, the characters often get multiple short rests, often as many as 4 or 5 (admittedly, they only really benefit from so many rests if the party has a warlock with social/utility spells, the party has a sorlock, or the party is repeatedly picking fights).

 

[TwoSix]

Pretty evenly divided between 0, 1, and 2, so I took the average and said 1. I don't think I've ever taken 3.

 

[guachi]

Optional/House Rules, 2 short rests.

In my home game I eliminated short rests as a mechanic for recovering any resources outside of using HD for HP (and that takes 5-10 minutes). I found it too irritating and not a fun aspect of the game to deal with.

So on the assumption PCs get two short rests in one adventuring day I tripled the things people recover on a short rest and they can do that on a long rest. Also, long rests are one week.

 

[jgsugden]

About 2 per day, or once per every 8 threads that complain about the resting rules.

They work well.