D&D 5E Second Wind

[GrumpyGamer]

What your argument boils down to is that you have to go and murder something to be allowed to rest again. No other activity can be used to separate short rests.

And... enjoy your game, it's neither how the rules are written, how they're intended, or makes any sense at all.

The rules actually are very much the opposite of what you are saying. RAW is at least an hour, which means anything of an hour or longer. It is possible RAI would allow players to after an hour use second wind and then start a second short rest.

What comes into play here is the DM - the DM will likely allow you to do something to break up short rests, but that is not something that the rules explicitly say you can do.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There is nothing what so ever in the rules about needing an encounter. That is a ridiculous 4Eism.
.

To be fair, it wasn't in 4e, either.

 

[Agamon]

Yeah, Bundle of Holding makes a good example of how "at least" works. If I want to get the offered books, I need to donate at least Z dollars. I can donate more if I want, but if I donate Zx2 or Zx3, I don't get more books.

But this has been hashed out and rehashed before. Much like the hide rule, play it how you want.

 

[Ceylin]

So after fighting something in the sewers and returning to the inn for an hour rest, the party can not then rest another hour, they must go to the thief's guild and murder a few people, THEN they can rest another hour.

Absolutely ludicrous. That is a good example of the bag of rats. Having to do something completely nonsensical in order to trigger an ability.

In this case there is NO SUPPORT in the rules for this. There is nothing stopping multiple short rests, which is good, because it makes no sense why there would be. I don't get why you would want to try and force bags of rats on players.

2 or more short rests is a bag of rats. Why do players need more than 1 short rest? You can spend any number of hit die during 1 short rest. The only reason of course is to game 'other' recovery abilities, like second wind. That's not the intent of the ability.

Players can take as many short rests as they want, I don't give a . They just won't be getting more than 1 second wind back when they do it. If you take 2 short rests for a total of two hours, that is equivalent to a 2-hr 'short rest'.

 

[Plaguescarred]

FWIW Mike Mearls talked about the possibility of using Second Wind/Short Rest successively during the video of the Starter Set Unboxing (46:30)

 

[Lalato]

What your argument boils down to is that you have to go and murder something to be allowed to rest again. No other activity can be used to separate short rests.

And... enjoy your game, it's neither how the rules are written, how they're intended, or makes any sense at all.

I asked you to tone it down. I asked you to explain yourself. You've done neither of those things.

Sounds like you just want to argue a point, which is certainly your prerogative, but I have no desire to waste any further time with you.

Good day, sir. Good day.

 

[Tormyr]

What your argument boils down to is that you have to go and murder something to be allowed to rest again. No other activity can be used to separate short rests.

And... enjoy your game, it's neither how the rules are written, how they're intended, or makes any sense at all.

"You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm."

When I have an ambiguous rule to adjudicate at my table, I look at how it works within the story. In this case, I view it from its description as when the hero in a movie gets knocked around a bit and is starting to look punch drunk, but he manages to shake it off and fight with renewed vigor. I don't really view it as a means of repeatedly shaking off the weariness of battle. Healing completely just by "shaking it off" or "just feeling better" after a couple of hours does not seem to make sense, but getting a good night's rest might work.

Mechanically, I would have preferred that the feature was a reaction that gave temporary hp after taking damage as long as you were still able to take actions (not incapacitated, unconscious, etc.). But that is not how it was written, and I am not big on house rules. I choose to find story narrative reasons for why the rules are what they are. For the most part, the rules also work as a cohesive unit. If you start pulling on one part, you are going to have to shore up another.

Beyond that, it really seems like this argument is a solution in search of a problem. Just spend some hit dice, drink a couple potions or hit up your healer for healing and move on. Part of encounter/adventure design is getting the party to spend resources, and hit dice are one of those resources. If there is no spending of resources, the party (specifically in this case the fighter) is not really stretched. Caution can be thrown to the wind because the fighter can just spend a quarter of a day after every fight convalescing.

When this came up in the past, Mike Mearls has said the design was for there to be a short rest of 1 to more hours in length. He also followed that by saying that people could agree to play it as a series of 1 hour rests chained together if they really wanted to do so.

As others have said, please re-read the forum rules that you agreed to when signing up here. We are not ridiculous for holding an opinion that fits well with how the rules are written mechanically as well as fits with the story description of the rule as well as being how the feature was intended to work.

 

[Paraxis]

The rules are pretty clear to me.

Take an hour long short rest, recover your abilities and spend hit dice.

Do anything that is not restful, go on a hike, exercise for a bit, have a dance party, go hunting, have a wrestling contest with another character.

Take another hour long short rest.

Repeat as much as you want.

Now, most of the time if you can do this it is pointless because either you are not in a dangerous area or not under any time pressure, you might as well just take an extended rest.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I guess I'm missing something -

First, what's the benefit of chaining short rests together? The players can spend as many of their available hit dice as they'd like, and the fighter regains his Second Wind after a single short rest of at least 1 hour.

Even if it was a situation of either regaining hit points OR Second Wind, I don't particularly see a problem with chaining the short rests together.

Oh, I get it, I just re-read it. With multiple short rests the Fighter can just use Second Wind to eventually regain all hit points without having to spend hit dice.

This reminds me of another rule that doesn't seem to be addressed, which is the elf's Trance ability. Does that mean an elf only needs to take a 4 hour rest to qualify for a long rest?

As a DM I guess it's a question of whether the party wants to stop and rest over and over again just for the benefit of their fighters. More importantly whether the world will allow them to rest for that period without interruption.

The long rest rules also allow the party to be interrupted by combat for an entire hour. Most combats last a matter of minutes, so even this can be a tough hurdle to overcome.

I agree that it's best to tie the rules into the story and the action they are there to support. So to begin with, to get a second wind a person would need to spend his first. Once he's rested, then he's back on his first wind.

If a Second Wind represents shrugging off some of the damage recently taken in battle, then once it has been used, and the ability regained by a short rest, I would say it cannot be used until the fighter takes additional damage in battle.

Yes, this isn't how the rule is written. And I'll even accept it's contrived. I can't imagine all that many groups will run into a problem with this rule anyway. Do they want to just hang around taking short rest after short rest just for the benefit of their fighters?

I do admit that the damage and healing rules do make it relatively easy to keep the party well healed (ha ha). But it's also relatively easy as a DM, to keep things moving and make it difficult for the party to complete a long, or even a short rest. If there really is so much time available for them to take short rest after short rest, then I guess I really don't particularly care that they decide to do that.

Incidentally, with the requirement that combat or other strenuous activity take up more than a full hour of their long rest, there has to be a lot going on to negate it. That seems a bit excessive as well. Also, if an elf only needs to be in a trance for half as long as a human needs to sleep, does that mean that they can take advantage of the benefits of a long rest in half the time?

All of these rules seem a bit vague based on the Basic Rules.

Randy

 

[Tony Vargas]

Oh, I get it, I just re-read it. With multiple short rests the Fighter can just use Second Wind to eventually regain all hit points without having to spend hit dice.

This reminds me of another rule that doesn't seem to be addressed, which is the elf's Trance ability. Does that mean an elf only needs to take a 4 hour rest to qualify for a long rest?

...

Do they want to just hang around taking short rest after short rest just for the benefit of their fighters?

Here's a funny scenario. A poor, benighted human Fighter is in a party with a buncha elves. They take a 'long' rest of 4 hours, he takes 4 short rests and gets all his hps back (he doesn't really need/have any long-rest recharges but hps), and he's good to go. Sleep-deprived, but good to go - until either the sleep deprivation or the elves drive him crazy.