Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Short rests -- how often in a day?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 6580406" data-attributes="member: 6777696"><p>We probably average somewhere between 1 and 2 short rests per long rest. The session before last was a "haunted house" type adventure, and the characters did not take any short rests, just plowed from one room to the rest before finally reaching the Big Bad in the basement. By the end of that fight, everyone was pretty drained (and it was probably early evening) so they started yesterday's session with a long rest. Unfortunately, there were a lot of rooms they'd never bothered to visit, and sleeping in a haunted house is generally dangerous business. They rushed out of the house in the middle of the night and ended up camping in the woods. Much safer.</p><p></p><p>I can't actually recall us ever taking 3 short rests in a day, but it must have happened at some point. Our casters are not so conservative with their spells that they have a lot left after the fighter has needed 3 short rests.</p><p></p><p>When prepping a session, I sometimes do a little thinking as to how being rested will affect various encounters, and think about how I will discourage or challenge resting in those circumstances. Usually, I just try to make resting a little harder or riskier, but I won't flat out tell the characters that resting isn't an option. Other times, when players start discussing a rest, my gears will start scrambling, "can they rest here? is it gonna throw off my night? if I don't want them to rest here, what am I going to do to discourage them?"</p><p></p><p>So, instead of talking about ways that we limit or restrict rests with rules, quotas and caps, maybe the question is, how do we discourage rests, or at least force our characters to work for them?</p><p></p><p><strong>Ways to Encourage Resting</strong></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Strong doors, possibly even with locks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Furniture that can be moved to block doors or entrances.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Finite number of creatures that can be "cleared" before resting.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Clear entrances and exits that can be accounted for.</li> </ul><p></p><p><strong>Ways to Discourage Resting</strong></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magic or intrinsic room properties that make a location dangerous just to be in (for instance, a demonic chapel, which was excellently defensible, but gave off an 'unholy aura,' and would have required wisdom saves to avoid exhaustion for characters who long rested)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Numerous entrances that can't be blocked off or accounted for, such as more doorways than furniture, cracks and holes in the ceilings and walls, windows without bars, large gaping holes in the floor that seem to lead deep into the earth, etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Monsters that are likely to travel in from somewhere the players haven't yet been able to clear. Signs of a regular patrol that hasn't yet been met. Monsters that have fled earlier encounters and might come back with reinforcements.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Locations that would be disadvantageous to fight in. Thick undergrowth in a forest known to be full of various creepy crawlies that can easily drop in from the trees. Thick muck. Corridors that have to be squeezed through.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Time constraints, either because of deadlines for the task at hand, or because a delay will allow monsters to properly prepare defenses and fortifications, or send for outside reinforcements.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Known incorporeal threats that ignore locked doors and barricades.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Crying kobold babies.</li> </ul><p></p><p>Some of the above can be presented in a way that characters can take a rest, but they might need to take extra steps to accomplish it, and those extra steps could have risks involved. Moving around lots of furniture to barricade doors makes noise, for instance. Ideally, characters should have a bit of a sense of just how dangerous a place is to take a rest, and be able to plan accordingly.</p><p></p><p>The only problem I run into is the "retreat and return" approach. The easiest solution to this is to have monsters rebuild, recover and recruit while the characters are back in town healing up. The problem is that this can easily lead to simply stretching out the play-time needed to complete an otherwise short adventure. When we ran Keep on the Borderlands, my players made 3 or 4 incursions into the hobgoblin caves. Every time they came back, things were different, and as the hobgoblins were slowly depleted, other monsters saw the opportunity and started to move in. Unfortunately, this led to a little burn-out on my part, as I was stuck repopulating the same 10 rooms over and over again.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="redrick, post: 6580406, member: 6777696"] We probably average somewhere between 1 and 2 short rests per long rest. The session before last was a "haunted house" type adventure, and the characters did not take any short rests, just plowed from one room to the rest before finally reaching the Big Bad in the basement. By the end of that fight, everyone was pretty drained (and it was probably early evening) so they started yesterday's session with a long rest. Unfortunately, there were a lot of rooms they'd never bothered to visit, and sleeping in a haunted house is generally dangerous business. They rushed out of the house in the middle of the night and ended up camping in the woods. Much safer. I can't actually recall us ever taking 3 short rests in a day, but it must have happened at some point. Our casters are not so conservative with their spells that they have a lot left after the fighter has needed 3 short rests. When prepping a session, I sometimes do a little thinking as to how being rested will affect various encounters, and think about how I will discourage or challenge resting in those circumstances. Usually, I just try to make resting a little harder or riskier, but I won't flat out tell the characters that resting isn't an option. Other times, when players start discussing a rest, my gears will start scrambling, "can they rest here? is it gonna throw off my night? if I don't want them to rest here, what am I going to do to discourage them?" So, instead of talking about ways that we limit or restrict rests with rules, quotas and caps, maybe the question is, how do we discourage rests, or at least force our characters to work for them? [B]Ways to Encourage Resting[/B] [LIST] [*]Strong doors, possibly even with locks. [*]Furniture that can be moved to block doors or entrances. [*]Finite number of creatures that can be "cleared" before resting. [*]Clear entrances and exits that can be accounted for. [/LIST] [B]Ways to Discourage Resting[/B] [LIST] [*]Magic or intrinsic room properties that make a location dangerous just to be in (for instance, a demonic chapel, which was excellently defensible, but gave off an 'unholy aura,' and would have required wisdom saves to avoid exhaustion for characters who long rested) [*]Numerous entrances that can't be blocked off or accounted for, such as more doorways than furniture, cracks and holes in the ceilings and walls, windows without bars, large gaping holes in the floor that seem to lead deep into the earth, etc. [*]Monsters that are likely to travel in from somewhere the players haven't yet been able to clear. Signs of a regular patrol that hasn't yet been met. Monsters that have fled earlier encounters and might come back with reinforcements. [*]Locations that would be disadvantageous to fight in. Thick undergrowth in a forest known to be full of various creepy crawlies that can easily drop in from the trees. Thick muck. Corridors that have to be squeezed through. [*]Time constraints, either because of deadlines for the task at hand, or because a delay will allow monsters to properly prepare defenses and fortifications, or send for outside reinforcements. [*]Known incorporeal threats that ignore locked doors and barricades. [*]Crying kobold babies. [/LIST] Some of the above can be presented in a way that characters can take a rest, but they might need to take extra steps to accomplish it, and those extra steps could have risks involved. Moving around lots of furniture to barricade doors makes noise, for instance. Ideally, characters should have a bit of a sense of just how dangerous a place is to take a rest, and be able to plan accordingly. The only problem I run into is the "retreat and return" approach. The easiest solution to this is to have monsters rebuild, recover and recruit while the characters are back in town healing up. The problem is that this can easily lead to simply stretching out the play-time needed to complete an otherwise short adventure. When we ran Keep on the Borderlands, my players made 3 or 4 incursions into the hobgoblin caves. Every time they came back, things were different, and as the hobgoblins were slowly depleted, other monsters saw the opportunity and started to move in. Unfortunately, this led to a little burn-out on my part, as I was stuck repopulating the same 10 rooms over and over again. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Short rests -- how often in a day?
Top