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<blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 6714504" data-attributes="member: 6777696">The mechanic that encourages this is wandering monsters/random encounters. Plus monster initiative, which isn't exactly a mechanic, but it's also not too hard for a DM to intuit.There's no hard mechanic in the RAW to force these exact ratios, because they aren't meant to be that rigid — they are a general planning guideline for the DM. On the other hand, if the DM rolls random encounters when PCs rest in the dungeon and allows the monsters to act while the PCs are busy resting, resting ceases to be a free action.If players know that taking a rest will increase the chances of an extra combat encounter between them and their goals, they might be less likely to take that rest, preferring to press on with the excitement of their main objective. If players know that spending an hour will allow them to maintain some degree of the offensive, while spending a whole 8 hours will allow their opponents to bring in reinforcements and effectively reset the dungeon, they are going to have some motivation to conserve resources and push ahead with the minor gains of a short rest.In my games, I've found this worked naturally, without any additional house rules on my part. Enough random encounters and dungeon change-ups had the players always asking each other, &quot;do you think we can get away with a short rest here?&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="redrick, post: 6714504, member: 6777696"] The mechanic that encourages this is wandering monsters/random encounters. Plus monster initiative, which isn't exactly a mechanic, but it's also not too hard for a DM to intuit. There's no hard mechanic in the RAW to force these exact ratios, because they aren't meant to be that rigid — they are a general planning guideline for the DM. On the other hand, if the DM rolls random encounters when PCs rest in the dungeon and allows the monsters to act while the PCs are busy resting, resting ceases to be a free action. If players know that taking a rest will increase the chances of an extra combat encounter between them and their goals, they might be less likely to take that rest, preferring to press on with the excitement of their main objective. If players know that spending an hour will allow them to maintain some degree of the offensive, while spending a whole 8 hours will allow their opponents to bring in reinforcements and effectively reset the dungeon, they are going to have some motivation to conserve resources and push ahead with the minor gains of a short rest. In my games, I've found this worked naturally, without any additional house rules on my part. Enough random encounters and dungeon change-ups had the players always asking each other, "do you think we can get away with a short rest here?" [/QUOTE]

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