D&D 5E Just how long is a long rest anyway?

[jmartkdr2]

Not to derail things too much but I really can’t believe that 1 hour combat is required to interrupt a long rest. My reading is it’s 1 hour of walking or any combat or any strenuous activity.

1 hour of combat is completely beyond any combat encounter in the game given that a typical combat encounter lasts 30 seconds at most.

Yeah, the wording on this is vague - a whole hour of combat seems excessive, but you also don't want to interrupt a long rest for 6 or fewer (ie less than a full round) seconds of combat or the wizard casting prestidigitation once to get the fire going in the morning or some such.

Just common sense this one, honestly. Trying to write detailed rules for every possible case is a fool's errand.

 

[Hriston]

This also seems a bit rules-lawyery doesn’t it? Is any one going to feel cheated if you say the PCs can share the watch while the others sleep? I’ve read plenty of fantasy novels where a pair of adventurers share the watch through the night. Make the adjustment to suit your group and move on?

I'm not sure I understand. No one's stopping the players from having their PCs share a watch. I'm just pointing out how these particular rules aren't very good at handling different situations.

 

[Hriston]

To be honest, I just say that a long rest takes 2 consecutive travel periods, assume the party takes roughly even watch shifts, and if they get attacked mid-rest, I roll for who’s on
watch at the time. No need to nitpick over who’s awake at what particular hour, or how the characters divide their shifts, or if it’s exactly 6 hours sleep and 2 hours watch or whatever. I suppose if the party was only two characters I’d give them the option to leave a shift unguarded or take an extra travel period to rest.

Yeah, the party only has two members right now, actually, and they take turns sleeping in six-hour shifts, but the rules handle that just fine.

 

[Hriston]

A long rest is 8 hours of sleep and light activity... According to the warlock invocation Aspect of the Moon in Xanathar's, keeping watch counts as light activity unless there's an attack... Also, it doesn't take anywhere near 2 hours to set up camp or pack it up... It would take 15-30 minutes...

Well, that covers everything from finding a good location, gathering firewood, cooking dinner, washing up, setting up tents, etc., and on the other end everything from waking up, cooking breakfast, washing up, taking down tents, and getting underway. Mostly though it's an even unit of in-game time that rounds out the day. I'm mostly resolving entire days at a time.

 

[robus]

I'm not sure I understand. No one's stopping the players from having their PCs share a watch. I'm just pointing out how these particular rules aren't very good at handling different situations.

I agree, but I’m not sure that adding more rules is the right way to go? Simply make a minor adjustment for your group or situation and carry on. I.e, say that the PCs figure an equitable solution to long resting and carry on. The watch is divided into 3rds and you can determine who‘s on watch when something bad happens? That’s the interesting bit surely, not whether the amount of time resting is tracked to perfection?

 

[Orban Sirgen]

Well, that covers everything from finding a good location, gathering firewood, cooking dinner, washing up, setting up tents, etc., and on the other end everything from waking up, cooking breakfast, washing up, taking down tents, and getting underway. Mostly though it's an even unit of in-game time that rounds out the day. I'm mostly resolving entire days at a time.

Almost all of those can be done while on watch...

 

[clearstream]

I disagree. I think that is precisely the intent, which is why I specifically said that the only situation I can imagine a long rest being interrupted for the full hour required to deprive the characters of the benefit of the rest would be if they decided partway through that they had made a mistake and would be better off traveling somewhere else to rest than trying to tough it out where they are.

No. I definitely want attrition to matter, which is why I adhere to the 6-8 encounter adventuring day guidelines as best I can.

Okay, my understanding now is that you want attrition to matter, but for rests not to be easily interrupted. At least not by combat.

That understanding is informed by my feeling that if multiple combats are required to interrupt a rest, then in my game that just wouldn't come up very often. And also, I find the interpretation loose, because we seem to have to decide that we will reinterpret an hour of combat to mean something other than an hour of combat, at which point we can with equal justice read it as @robus does. I don't see any particular justification for choosing some number of rounds of combat... in fact that seems less justified on the surface of it.

My take is that I want it to be easy for me, as DM, to interrupt a rest in a plausible way. And my players have always found it plausible that any combat causes the rest to need to restart.

 

[Hriston]

I agree, but I’m not sure that adding more rules is the right way to go? Simply make a minor adjustment for your group or situation and carry on. I.e, say that the PCs figure an equitable solution to long resting and carry on. The watch is divided into 3rds and you can determine who‘s on watch when something bad happens? That’s the interesting bit surely, not whether the amount of time resting is tracked to perfection?

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I did long before starting this thread actually. I decided that the 2-hour limit on light activity/standing watch was too restrictive in situations where a character’s long rest was spread out over more than eight hours. Also, we don’t really track these things in hours at the table. This was just a problem with the rules I encountered when trying to adjudicate the players’ declared action to set even watches, which I resolved much as you’ve suggested. The thread was intended to share my observation and see if anyone else had noticed a similar issue or had a novel solution. I agree it’s not a big deal and don’t think I was acting like it was.

 

[Hriston]

Almost all of those can be done while on watch...

It’s funny you say that because the transition from traveling to making camp in the afternoon/evening and the opposite process in the morning are two of the times of day when I might check for a random encounter. I consider these checks as part of the travel day, however, so while I would agree that characters are watchful while making or breaking camp, it doesn’t really come up because encounters don’t happen just then. It’s really just an assumed routine that doesn’t see much table time.

As to the idea that camp can be put up/taken down and meals prepared/consumed while everyone except the person on watch is asleep, I’m not sure how that doesn’t strike you as nonsensical. Having someone on watch duty is specifically about having someone conscious and aware to deal with any encounters that occur while others are given time to sleep. Most if not all of the activities I mentioned would necessarily have to happen outside of that time period, when everyone is still awake.

 

[Charlaquin]

Okay, my understanding now is that you want attrition to matter, but for rests not to be easily interrupted. At least not by combat.

That’s correct.

That understanding is informed by my feeling that if multiple combats are required to interrupt a rest, then in my game that just wouldn't come up very often. And also, I find the interpretation loose, because we seem to have to decide that we will reinterpret an hour of combat to mean something other than an hour of combat, at which point we can with equal justice read it as @robus does. I don't see any particular justification for choosing some number of rounds of combat... in fact that seems less justified on the surface of it.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at about choosing a number of rounds of combat... The number of rounds it would take to add up to an hour is 600, since each round is 6 seconds. In other words, combat alone just isn’t going to cause the PCs to miss out on the benefits of a long rest, and I believe that is the design intent.

My take is that I want it to be easy for me, as DM, to interrupt a rest in a plausible way. And my players have always found it plausible that any combat causes the rest to need to restart.

Which is perfectly reasonable.