D&D 5E Interrupting rests

[DND_Reborn]

IRL your wounds will not disappear after a long rest.

If you are thinking HP are "wounds", you might want to re-examine what HP represent in 5E D&D.

HP represent skill, luck, divine favor, intuition, endurance, fortitude, and all sorts of good things. There is a reason why you get them all back after a long rest. Those things, especially when you factor in fatigue and muscle strains and mental exhaustion-- are recovered with rest--at least to the point you can carry on more-or-less at full steam.

Also, in my example, I never mentioned "wounds" anyway.

 

[clearstream]

I've never understood the concept of "extending a short rest into a long rest." Either you're taking a short rest, which simply requires everyone to take minimal activity, or you're taking a long rest, which requires everyone to have only 2 hours of minimal activity (or 1 hour of minimal and 1 hour of strenuous). To "extend" a short rest into a long one requires that everyone spend 1 of those minimal activity hours up front, leaving 7 hours of watch to be broken up among the party. Unless you have an elf or 7 characters, this leave the party vulnerable.

The way I see it, it's not something a DM can forestall. Players should be free 59 minutes into doing nothing, to decide that they'd like to make that a long rest instead!

This is why I said that it's only when the DM contradicts something explicit that it's not RAW, but a houserule. The HD of a fighter is explicit, but the damage of magic missile is not. Do you roll for each missile, or only once for all of them? Intuitively you want to roll for each missile, but the rule on rolling damage for spells implies that you should only roll once. Neither is explicitly correct, thus leaving it to DM interpretation (SA says roll once).

Oh right, I must have mistaken your meaning. The rules contain a great deal that is concrete, but that which is not explicit is up to each DM to decide. As you say, contradicting that which is concrete is houseruling. Of course, something can be both explicit, and interpretable (well, strictly speaking all rules are, but they fall in different places along the spectrum of how subject to interpretation they're taken to be).

 

[oriaxx77]

If you are thinking HP are "wounds", you might want to re-examine what HP represent in 5E D&D.

HP represent skill, luck, divine favor, intuition, endurance, fortitude, and all sorts of good things. There is a reason why you get them all back after a long rest. Those things, especially when you factor in fatigue and muscle strains and mental exhaustion-- are recovered with rest--at least to the point you can carry on more-or-less at full steam.

Also, in my example, I never mentioned "wounds" anyway.

I hit someone with a two handed sword. There should be a wound. Right or wrong? Why cure light wounds gives hit points back? Why does it called HIT points and not stress points? The list could go on ...

 

[Ovinomancer]

I hit someone with a two handed sword. There should be a wound. Right or wrong?

Did you hit an armor plate, landing a bruising blow? Did they manage to turn your blade slightly, meaning you hit with the flat? Did you just scratch your opponent? Did the manage to get their shield in place, but now have strained a muscle? Was your killing strike blunted at the last moment by a burst of arcane energy? Did divine luck mean your opponent stumbled as the last moment, causing your strike to miss by a whisker?

Or any number of other nearly infinite descriptions?

 

[oriaxx77]

Did you hit an armor plate, landing a bruising blow? Did they manage to turn your blade slightly, meaning you hit with the flat? Did you just scratch your opponent? Did the manage to get their shield in place, but now have strained a muscle? Was your killing strike blunted at the last moment by a burst of arcane energy? Did divine luck mean your opponent stumbled as the last moment, causing your strike to miss by a whisker?

Or any number of other nearly infinite descriptions?

It means a lot of things but wounds are among them. So how it disappears after a long rest? Because it is a game mechanic and has nothing to do with IRL

 

[Ovinomancer]

It means a lot of things but wounds are among them. So how it disappears after a long rest? Because it is a game mechanic and has nothing to do with IRL

Yes, you can choose to narrate wounds, which then cause problems when a long rest happens or hit dice are spent. You can also choose to not narrate wounds, which then don't have a problem with long rests or hit dice. The thing is that you choose.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I hit someone with a two handed sword. There should be a wound. Right or wrong? Why cure light wounds gives hit points back? Why does it called HIT points and not stress points? The list could go on ...

Depends on your current HP when you get hit. In 5E, actual "wounds" (not just nicks and scratches, etc.) are only when your HP is taken to 0. It represents the solid blow that finally managed to hit you and break through your skill, favor, luck, endurance, or whatever. You're done. You can't take anymore and you fall unconscious from the hit.

There are plenty of write-ups as to why it is called Hit Points online. It is a legacy thing from the 70's that carried when they were actual "hits".

More appropriately, as I explain this to new players who join my groups, hit points represent your ability to fight back and withstand potentially lethal hits. As long as you have hit points left, you are fighting strong. When they are gone, you are vulnerable.

I agree the terminology should be changed. That is why I love the d20 SW game--with Vitality (i.e. Hit Points) and Wound Points (actual physical body meat or injury, etc.). You could change them to Defensive Points or Stress Points or whatever, sure.

FWIW, Cure Wounds (no "Light" anymore ) is also a legacy hold-over from prior editions. If you changed the terminology, the spells could be renamed: Stress Points and Relieve Stress (i.e. Cure Wounds) or something.

The point is in 5E (and really since AD&D 1E or probably sooner), the vast majority of hit points is NOT physical wounds, but fatigue, running out of luck, or whatever other abstract concept you want to toss into the mix.

 

[Hriston]

Yes, you can choose to narrate wounds, which then cause problems when a long rest happens or hit dice are spent. You can also choose to not narrate wounds, which then don't have a problem with long rests or hit dice. The thing is that you choose.

There’s no reason for wounds to cause problems. Your hit points heal, your wounds do not.

 

[Lanefan]

The way I see it, it's not something a DM can forestall. Players should be free 59 minutes into doing nothing, to decide that they'd like to make that a long rest instead!

Were it me I'd make them commit up front before starting the rest, as to which type of rest they're intending to take.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, you can choose to narrate wounds, which then cause problems when a long rest happens or hit dice are spent. You can also choose to not narrate wounds, which then don't have a problem with long rests or hit dice. The thing is that you choose.

Fine until you hit the near-binary divide between 1 h.p. and 0 h.p.; and also dependent on whether one sees a character's current hit points (as a fraction of its full hit points) as an informer of narration as to what condition that character is in.

Put another way, given that it's utterly unrealistic to narrate them as all looking to be in the same state of [health-fatigue-etc.], how do you differently narrate the condition of 5 characters where one's at full h.p., one's at 3/4, one's at half, one's at 1/4 and the fifth is at 1 h.p.

Never mind that this is all an issue the game doesn't even need to have, had they only made hit point recovery via rest a lot slower in the first place.