D&D 5E Interrupting rests

[clearstream]

Some of the other commonly complained-about rulings counter-indicate this. It would be more permissive to rule that you can attack before or after making a shove with shield mastery, or to rule that Paladins can smite with unarmed strikes. I think the evidence points to him leaning towards the most literal interpretation of the wording possible.

To me the Shield Master evidence points the opposite way. JC's undid his 2015 post with his later ruling, vexing expert players and helping out casual players. Further, to hang the argument on this one example would be cherry-picking.

I’m not convinced UA rulings indicate design intent. The ruling on magic shields seems to me to favor the letter of the rule over the spirit, and I very much doubt it was the intended interpretation, though it is the most literal one.

In a score of places in the SA the writer literally says "the intent is" or "the design intent is" or words to that effect. It is to such contextualising explanation that I refer.

This disregards the far more likely intent that combat alone is not meant to be able to interrupt long rests at all, but that combat is meant to contribute to the total amount of time spent engaging in strenuous activity. For example, walking for 11 minutes, participating in 10 rounds of combat, and repeating this process 4 more times would break a long rest.

Actually, that is one of the issues. The interpretation amounts to saying that combat can't interrupt long rests. As between combat and walking, it would always be the walking that was telling. Seeing as combat might be at most few minutes, it practically speaking comes down to how much the characters have walked. It is always poor design to include conditions that don't count. (Or shows lack of sufficient playtesting or experience with the game, which I would hope to rule out here!)

One might in fact have sufficient combat as to span multiple game sessions - without interrupting the rest - and it would still come down to the walking. Do the players go that extra 5 minutes, or take a smoko!? None of the examples of the fabled mixture of activities anyone has yet given comes across as plausible in play at the table.

 

[clearstream]

One can generalize about the two types of rest. They're both periods of downtime in which you can sleep and perform light activity. Because a long rest has the added requirement of at least six hours of sleep, that limits the amount of light activity you can perform. Strenuous activity is not resting, and any amount of it interrupts a rest. An interrupted short rest is spoiled and produces no benefit for a character performing strenuous activity. Because a long rest is longer, you can resume a long rest after an interruption as long as the interruption was less than an hour in duration. An hour or more of strenuous activity has the same effect on a long rest as any amount of strenuous activity has on a short rest.

Would then you maintain that the first 59 minutes of a short rest, that players then decide to make a long rest, is the wrong kind of doing nothing?

 

[Hriston]

Would then you maintain that the first 59 minutes of a short rest, that players then decide to make a long rest, is the wrong kind of doing nothing?

I’m not sure what you’re asking me or what it has to do with what I posted. It’s downtime, so I’m not doing minute by minute resolution. Maybe you could give me an example because I’m having trouble imagining an instance of play in which this is happening or what problem you think it might cause.

 

[clearstream]

I’m not sure what you’re asking me or what it has to do with what I posted. It’s downtime, so I’m not doing minute by minute resolution. Maybe you could give me an example because I’m having trouble imagining an instance of play in which this is happening or what problem you think it might cause.

Yes. My players start a short rest, then change their minds part way through and decide on a long rest.

I wouldn't characterise this in terms of "problems" as that is evidently subjective. Rather I am interested in the mechanical implications. As I said, the case seems to rely on that first hour being the wrong kind of doing nothing...

 

[Lanefan]

Wrong kind of doing nothing?

No, just different kind: are you focusing on replenishing your short-rest abilities or your long-rest abilities? (I'm nasty enough to say that to do both would require 9 hours; as in 1 + 8)

 

[clearstream]

No, just different kind: are you focusing on replenishing your short-rest abilities or your long-rest abilities? (I'm nasty enough to say that to do both would require 9 hours; as in 1 + 8)

Different kind of doing nothing

It's a really nice concept, metaphysically!

 

[Iry]

No, just different kind: are you focusing on replenishing your short-rest abilities or your long-rest abilities? (I'm nasty enough to say that to do both would require 9 hours; as in 1 + 8)

Are there any short-rest abilities that do not refresh on a long-rest?

 

[clearstream]

Are there any short-rest abilities that do not refresh on a long-rest?

They do, and that in itself is kind of weird once you disallow short rests extending into long rests and/or rule that they are categorically different \o/

 

[Dragonsbane]

Make your own ruling. For my group, ANYTHING just about interrupts a long rest. Resting in the dungeon? The kobolds pelt you with darts. Or maybe just one dart. Or some loud noise of doors slamming. Even for just a minute. IMHO there is too much resting to begin with.

 

[Dragonsbane]

My house rules on resting, long rests are different No more full heals of HP on long rests, how silly. Now, hit dice need to be conserved! Unless you take a week off or something, which to me seems realistic after days of fighting.

Short Rest​

A Short Rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.
A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a Short Rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains Hit Points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains one Hit Die upon finishing a Long Rest, as explained below.
Edit

Long Rest​

A Long Rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by walking, fighting, casting Spells, or similar Adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
At the end of a Long Rest, a character regains one hit point per character level plus its constitution modifier. The character additionally loses one level of exhaustion if they have any. The character also regains one Hit Die, and a character can spend any hit dice it has as if it had a short rest.
A character can’t benefit from more than one Long Rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.