My experience with 7-day rests is that there are too many things in the game that need adjusting, particularly spells. Many spell durations are tied to 8 hour rests (off the top of my head - goodberry, create undead, tiny hut, mansion, raise dead, revivify, mage armor).
Money also needs to be adjusted. If a long rest needs 7 days then low level characters end up spending a big chunk of treasure simply on food and accomodation.
Resource management is a thing in D&D and anything that brings it back to the fore is a good thing IMO.My experience with 7-day rests is that there are too many things in the game that need adjusting, particularly spells. Many spell durations are tied to 8 hour rests (off the top of my head - goodberry, create undead, tiny hut, mansion, raise dead, revivify, mage armor).
Money also needs to be adjusted. If a long rest needs 7 days then low level characters end up spending a big chunk of treasure simply on food and accomodation.
There are two paragraphs under Gritty Realism, but I'd say the rule itself is just the first sentence: it changes a short rest to eight hours and a long rest to seven days. That's all it changes.The whole rule is like one paragraph. They really don't go into it at all. I was assuming one week off and one week on, because it seemed like a reasonable balance. Taking a week off after three days of adventuring seems pretty egregious to me. The default balance is more like 60-75% uptime and 25-40% downtime, so it doesn't seem right to invert that. But again, they don't state their assumptions.
When I first read it, I thought they were trying to do a throwback to the old days, when healing and preparing spells was something that you did between adventures. That could easily turn into one long rest per month, or per three months, though. It also raises an issue regarding the inability to heal without spending Hit Dice, since you're likely to run out of those after a couple of days.