How often does your party take a short rest?

[Dausuul]

Title sums it up. How many short rests does your party typically take per "day" (i.e., between long rests)? And are you using the standard rules where a short rest is 1 hour and a long rest is 8, or some variant system (either the DMG optional rules, or a house rule of your own devising)?

Edit: Obviously this is going to vary a lot from day to day and session to session. I'm asking for your estimate of the average number of short rests.

My group found that we seldom ended up taking short rests; if there was time to rest at all, there was usually time for a long rest, which really screwed over the short-rest classes (e.g., warlocks). We've been experimenting with different rest mechanics. At first we tried the "slow rests" where a short rest is 8 hours and a long rest is several days, and it worked to get a better ratio, but created other issues with the campaign. Now we're trying a new rule where a short rest takes 1 minute but you can only take two per long rest.

 

[Nerditorium]

My party rarely takes rests, unless it seems logical (in a safe area, able to guard the room). I use the standard rules, but lately I am thinking of starting up a new game using alternate rules where short rest is 8 hours and a long rest is 7 days. I wanted to do something more in vein of Torchbearer, and switch up some of the mechanics to heighten the drama and let the party deal with the stress.

 

[aco175]

My group takes a short rest every 2-3 encounters and a long rest after 5-6 encounters. Some days there is 2 short rests, but most days there is one and when they are spent again they will need a long rest. One of the games I run tends to be closed modules where there are only 3-4 encounters before ending and we would start again back in town the next time. In this case they go through 2 encounters before resting and then finishing the other one or two encounters.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

We have varying DM's with our group and are running multiple campaigns. It seems to break down as follows:
Me: houserule, 1 round out of combat short rests. 2 short rests can be taken between every long rest.
Anders: Has adopted my houserule
Ed: houserule, one minute short rests. No limit on number, but honor system to not abuse it
Travis: By the rules. We take a single short rest or no short rest between long rests. Often it's a single encounter in a day, making short rests pointless.

Finding time for multiple short rests in most games is very difficult if playing by the standard rules. If you are fighting your way through a goblin infested cavern system for example, it requires a significant suspension of disbelief to say, "Yeah, you settle down for an hour of uninterrupted rest. The goblins respect your privacy during that time, they know you've had a hard day."

 

[Ancalagon]

We have 1-2 short rest per day, *sometimes* 3.

As far as the "almost never" group... so your characters never have lunch? That's what a short rest is.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I voted about 2 in between long rests, but it is really more how many the DM allows the party to get in between encounters.

And I will be really curious to see how this would be answered later this year by groups playing through Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

 

[The Human Target]

Whenever we have expended renewable resources and have the opportunity.

The rules for them are... goofy.

 

[rgoodbb]

Our DM usually gives us one big battle in the day, (which is why nobody chooses Warlocks) so we rarely take or use them. If we do, it would only be the once, with standard rules.

 

[MNblockhead]

It varies by campaign, adventure, and session, but I select standard, ~1 per day.

I'm fine with the RAW because A/C is an abstraction of more than bodily damage. It is largely your level of exhaustion, mental resolve, the condition of your armor and weapons, etc. A short reast lets you take a breather and do some basic adjustments and repairs/replacements to armor and equipment.

Whether you have time for such a short rest, depends on whether you can find a safe place to do so. There should be sessions where it is very difficults, if not impossible, to take as short rest. I can make for a memorable session. Do it too often, however, and it removes the edge and makes every session seem like a slog.

Runehammer has a good video on this: Key Mechanics: Rest

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I chose the middle "Standard, rarely" one because there wasn't one that fit. My Players will take a short rest when they think their characters need it...in a role-playing sense; e.g., "We've been in this cave system for about 5 hours and it took us 2 hours to get here. I'm starving and my hands and feet hurt. Lets go back to that last cave with the higher-up ledge area and rest for a while. Couple hours. Poor Gorm over there's been getting the tar kicked out of him and he looks like he could use some bandaging and cleaning up"

The player role-plays his characters desire and reasoning for resting, and they think they have a "safe enough" spot to do it. If they manage to actually rest that hour or two (I roll for the actual amount of minutes they "rest"... 50 +(1d8 x10) minutes; so between 1 hour and 2 hours 10 minutes), then they get to decide if they want to use HD or whatever.

It is rare for any of my players to say "I'm really hurt and need to get some HP's and Short Rest abilities back". It's just...I don't know..."weird" to play like that.

The PC's can go "days" without taking/using a full 'short rest'. Usually if they've been in a ruin, dungeon, cave, or other 'adventure area', after 6 or so hours in the thick of it, they usually opt to actually leave the area and head back to camp. They usually camp about 4 to 8 hours away from the adventure location. Of course, when are actually under a limiting factor (either real or self imposed), they may press on and try to find that one place in the dungeon where they can get that 1 to 2 hour rest.

I guess what I'm trying to say is..."My players rest when they think they can and they think it's appropriate to do from their characters perspective...and almost never take any game mechanics into account". They did the same thing back in PF...and 3.5e...and 3e...and 2e...and 1e...and BECMI...and pretty much any other game we play (er...except for Superhero games, because you're super heroes, and Call of Cthulhu; you go to sleep in that haunted house your investigating and you are LUCKY if you don't wake up as the multi-eyed, multi-mawed, slimy tentacled horror from beyond time and space is licking the skin off of you).

^_^

Paul L. Ming