D&D General Long Rest and unconscious characters

[GreyBeardDM]

hello, hope someone can guide me in the right direction....

1. PCs start a long rest
2. Half way through they are woken up and attacked
3. 5 rounds later they are done, but one character goes unconscious and saves on the their death save and is unconscious for 1 hour

question 1: is the unconscious character able to wait an hour and then re-start his long rest
question 2: I assume that the other PCs are ok to continue their long rest


any help is appreciated

 

[iserith]

I would agree with you, but only up to a certain point-- the meaningful decision being whether they think they have time for a Long Rest at all or not... not whether they can sneak one in before X moment in time.

Those are both meaningful decisions in a game where time matters, and I can tell you from personal experience that the prospect of 1d4 hours of unconsciousness has absolutely impacted the decisions of the players in several of my games. Again, because time mattered.

A DM doesn't have to keep track of time if they don't want to, but there are very good reasons for doing so and it has a positive impact on gameplay. It ratchets up the tension and creates opportunities for players to get creative with what time they have available to accomplish their goals.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Those are both meaningful decisions in a game where time matters, and I can tell you from personal experience that the prospect of 1d4 hours of unconsciousness has absolutely impacted the decisions of the players in several of my games. Again, because time mattered.

A DM doesn't have to keep track of time if they don't want to, but there are very good reasons for doing so and it has a positive impact on gameplay. It ratchets up the tension and creates opportunities for players to get creative with what time they have available to accomplish their goals.

Sure. As I said in my original post there are some DMs who find that important. Nothing wrong with that. I just believe that the rest of the gaming populace might not gain as much from it as those DMs do, so the original OP just needs to figure out whether or not they truly are one of the former or one of the latter.

After the first six posters went in the one direction, I just said here's a second perspective. One that might actually have meaning for a large number of DMs out there.

 

[Hriston]

I suppose what you're saying is that while one has to be at or above 1 h.p. to start a long rest there's nothing saying one has to maintain that condition throughout, thus during the long rest can drop to 0 h.p. (unconscious) and still get the benefits of resting...which seems counterintuitive as all hell but that's nothing new for 5e's rest rules.

It's no less counterintuitive, IMO, than someone sustaining damage in a mid-rest fight that doesn't drop them to zero and having it all healed up at the end of the rest. The point is if the period of strenuous activity that interrupts the rest is less than an hour long, then the rest doesn't need to re-start and therefore there's no requirement to have at least 1 hit point at the end of the interruption to gain the benefits of the rest.

 

[GreyBeardDM]

thank you everyone for your replies

 

[aco175]

I guess I question if this ever would come up? I mean is there a problem resting for 8 hours and then letting the down guy rest for one more.

"Sorry, He'll catch up. We need to take off now- you know time crunch plot of the DM."

Also kind of poor taste for the DM to not just let the stabilized guy get up with the rest of the PCs. They must already be penalized enough by only gaining half their hit dice, since they must be out, otherwise they would have taken a short rest in the middle of the night.

Also, after the fight in the middle of the night nobody did anything for the downed PC except stabilized him. I guess the party could have no potions or spells remaining, but I find this rarely happens.

"Sorry, I got this one heal left but need to save it in case we get attacked again in the middle of the night and I might need it. You understand- right."

 

[Lanefan]

It's no less counterintuitive, IMO, than someone sustaining damage in a mid-rest fight that doesn't drop them to zero and having it all healed up at the end of the rest.

Yes, hence my noting that 5e rest rules are generally counterintuitive and that this going-unconscious bit is just one more example of such.

The point is if the period of strenuous activity that interrupts the rest is less than an hour long, then the rest doesn't need to re-start and therefore there's no requirement to have at least 1 hit point at the end of the interruption to gain the benefits of the rest.

By RAW, this is correct.

However, RAW in this case is an ass. I'm interested to see what 5.5e does with this and whether or not it fixes any of this, though my hopes are not high.

 

[Lanefan]

Also kind of poor taste for the DM to not just let the stabilized guy get up with the rest of the PCs.

How so? The stabilized guy nearly died during the night - surely it ought to take a bit longer for him to recover. (IMO he shouldn't be able to recover beyond 1 h.p. until at least his next long rest, but I'm harsh - a.k.a. realistic - that way)

They must already be penalized enough by only gaining half their hit dice, since they must be out, otherwise they would have taken a short rest in the middle of the night.

This assumes one can interrupt a long rest to take a short rest...which on the face of it seems a bizarre concept in and of itself.

Also, after the fight in the middle of the night nobody did anything for the downed PC except stabilized him. I guess the party could have no potions or spells remaining, but I find this rarely happens.

At very low level this can be common enough, but not after that.

 

[Rabulias]

However, RAW in this case is an ass. I'm interested to see what 5.5e does with this and whether or not it fixes any of this, though my hopes are not high.

The D&D One playtest has made an improvement to long rests in respect to this, IMO.

INTERRUPTING THE REST
If a Long Rest is interrupted by combat or by 1 hour of walking, casting Spells, or similar activity, the rest confers no benefit and must be restarted; however, if the rest was at least 1 hour long before the interruption, you gain the benefits of a Short Rest.

Personally, I think the wording could be improved further to:
If a Long Rest is interrupted by combat, casting Spells, or by 1 hour of walking or similar activity, the rest confers no benefit and must be restarted; however, if the rest was at least 1 hour long before the interruption, you gain the benefits of a Short Rest.

 

[iserith]

I'm not really sure what we gain by having long rests interrupted by a single combat. It seems to me that just further incentivizes the party using Leomund's tiny hut, with which a lot of people seem to take issue. Insisting that it does feels like legacy thinking in my view - this is the way it was done in previous editions, so people can't let it go.

In my games, a long rest is interrupted if you have to quit your camp mid-rest, such as if you have to flee from monsters attacking you in the night. The presumption here is that you have to set up a new camp elsewhere by traveling some distance away from the danger and that's the hour interruption the rules require. It happens every now and again in my games which I think is the right frequency.