D&D 5E Should short rest be an hour long?

[Psikerlord#]

Now, what bugs me the most about 5E is short rest in duration of 1hr.

They tried to balance out short and long rest class mechanics but in 95% of situation where you can afford 1hr rest you can manage 8hrs also.
This tips the balance in favor of per day mechanics.

In our current campaign(maybe DM is not pressing us with time enough), but we have on average less than half of one short rest per long rest. That is we use short rest every other or every third adventure day. And it should be 2 or 3 rest per long rest. They are simply to long to afford, and when you make an openening, you might aswell stretch it for 8hrs so everyone gets their recharge.

If they want to get away from 5 minute work day(5MWD) they should cut down short rest to 5-15 mins at most.

15mins can be afforded even in a long battles where front lines are rotated. 1hr is impossible.

One thing 4E got right was encounter powers on 5 min rest recharge. Wrong was that EVERYONE had them, in SAME number on a given level.

Maybe have 5 min short rest but limit it to 2× per day?

Hmm I have found the opposite is true - you can often rest for 1 hr, but not 8 hrs....

In Low Fantasy Gaming RPG, I made short rests 5 mins (max 3 per 24 hrs), and long rests 1d6 days, but all classes are balanced on the same refresh mechanics.

 

[CapnZapp]

Since I haven't seen it mentioned yet, the Cypher System has an interesting approach to recovery: Each recovery takes longer than the last one, up until the long rest.

In D&D terms, your first short rest of the day would take 1 minute, your second would take 10 minutes, your third would take 1 hour, your fourth would take 8 hours (and it would count as a long rest, unless you've already taken a long rest within the past 24 hours, in which case it only counts as a short rest). After the long rest, the count resets.

Only problem is the system is designed pretty much around two short rests (or less).

I would assume a system with exponential resting times to be designed to work under different assumptions, mainly the number of SRs vary quite much from day to day, but also that the first SR (being essentially free) is almost always taken.

Except for the dungeoniest of dungeons, a shorter SR time than one duration is "essentially free", so I completely understand why SR = 1h was chosen.

Anyway, the problem isn't with short rests but with long rests. If you're open to varying the length of a rest parameter, it's the long one you should focus on, and even then not the length of the actual rest, but the length between rests.

If the rules allowed for long rests every 8 hours in the heroes' first adventure, long rests every week in their second adventure, etc, much would have been won.

If the rules then allowed for the "location-based long rest" as a third option (for the same heroes): where you can only rest at specially designed locations (magic fonts, sacred temples, comfy inns, oases with water....) I would have been a happy camper!

 

[Arial Black]

I haven't read the entire thread, but in the game I presently DM, I houseruled that a long rest requires favorable conditions, otherwise PCs only get a short rest. Most rests that occur in the wilderness won't allow a long rest's benefits. Or, if you are interrupted during the night with battle, usually benefits of a long rest do not occur either. So short rests are what you get by default.

If PCs don't sleep enough, they also gain one degree of exhaustion, for example, when they are about 36 hours without a good night's sleep.

In practice, they've had some successive nights that were long rests where they managed to jump from one village to the next and sleep in a cosy inn, but then they had a couple nights in sleeping out in the wild, attacked by wolves and yetis, and they didn't get more than a short rest - and even a level of exhaustion during the last session. That was interesting because they were short on resources for quite a while, and that forced them to approach battles very conservatively, or even try to avoid battles altogether.

Yeah, that's why I spend so much time and money on this hobby: it gives me plenty of opportunities to avoid using my cool abilities and avoid fighting any bad guys!

 

[Arial Black]

According to the default RAW, without applying any options, you can still only spend a Hit Die at the end of a Short Rest. It's just that, if you aren't applying the medkit variant, it's incredibly vague about what the in-game reality associated with spending that Hit Die actually is.

It's seems like we've been having two different debates while thinking they were the same debate.

I'm unaware of the variant rule you are using, apart from what your posts say.

My points have been about the fact that the PHB short rests allow, but do not require, eating/bandaging/etc. during that short rest while still allowing the PCs to gain the benefits. It's a good thing that it works this way, and the upshot is that as soon as you realise that you have done nothing strenuous in the previous hour, you've just had a short rest and you get the benefits.

Your variant, as you describe it, says that you don't get the benefit of bandaging wounds unless you wait until the end of a one hour rest before bandaging! That is an absurd rule!

Even if the DM wants rules that say wounds must be bandaged before hit dice can be spent (and I wouldn't mind such a rule, actually), it would be absurd to rule that bandaging wounds at the earliest opportunity doesn't help at all, but waiting for what may be several hours until you can finally get and finish a short rest before bandages are applied heals you perfectly!

So what we have in the PHB is a good rule, and the variant (as you describe it) seems to have taken a reasonable idea (wounds must be bandaged) and made an absurd rule around it!

 

[Skyscraper]

Yeah, that's why I spend so much time and money on this hobby: it gives me plenty of opportunities to avoid using my cool abilities and avoid fighting any bad guys!

I assume there is some measure of irony in your reply

This said, I think my post was clear, but to avoid ambiguity, while it happens that PCs are short on their resources, it is not the default condition, and as I mentioned at times they have regular long rests. Perhaps you understood this but for you, being occasionally short on resources is something you dislike, you prefer for your PC to always have access to all resources or to have a predictacle, controlled access to resources. I.e. adventuring days all have a predictable format, with approximately 6-8 encounter per day, 2 short rests, and then a long rest, and this long rest occurs whenever players want it to happen.

To me, this formatting is regrettable. While I agree that always being short on resources would not be pleasant, players in my game are looking to find ways to be able to replenish their resources, and this is part of their strategy. They do not expect to find a safe haven inside a dungeon for a long rest, simply because they have had their 6-8 encounters, and 2 short rests. They'll actually have to plan and think of how they can get it. If they can't, then they'll be short on resources. And then the survivability of their PCs will decrease.

So, if PCs never have to worry about lacking resources because they can get a long rest after every encounter (aka the 5-minute adventuring day), according to my personal preferences, the game then lacks some measure of suspense. Plus, these resources become less meaningful. If your preference differs, that's fine. To each his own.

My initial response, however, was only partly geared towards this incidental issue, but rather towards the OP, in which it was mentioned that "in 95% of situation where you can afford 1hr rest you can manage 8hrs also. This tips the balance in favor of per day mechanics." In my game, the advantages of long rests are not obtained simply because the players want it to be so. Long rests require favorable conditions, and otherwise short rests is what they get. I find that this helps towards giving both short rests and long rests a dictinct, meaningful impact.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Your variant, as you describe it, says that you don't get the benefit of bandaging wounds unless you wait until the end of a one hour rest before bandaging! That is an absurd rule!

Even if the DM wants rules that say wounds must be bandaged before hit dice can be spent (and I wouldn't mind such a rule, actually), it would be absurd to rule that bandaging wounds at the earliest opportunity doesn't help at all, but waiting for what may be several hours until you can finally get and finish a short rest before bandages are applied heals you perfectly!

It's in the DMG, as the officially-sanctioned "gritty" option for people who don't want to hand-wave HP as just luck or fatigue. (It doesn't quite succeed at that, but it tries.) The text is just that you spend the charge from the medkit at the end of the rest, when you would normally spend the Hit Dice, because they can't say for certain when you actually used the bandages and they don't want to bog the game down with tracking such minutiae during non-action sequences (or so I gather).

I'm not comfortable saying that it would be absurd to apply those bandages over the course of five minutes, earlier in the day, because I don't know enough about medical practice to really have an informed opinion on the matter. If the game designers say it takes 20+ minutes in a safe environment in order to really apply bandages effectively, then I'm in no position to challenge that assertion, and it really seems like it still depends on the degree to which the DM describes the injury at hand.

Yeah, that's why I spend so much time and money on this hobby: it gives me plenty of opportunities to avoid using my cool abilities and avoid fighting any bad guys!

Resource management is a lot of fun to some people, and it's an aspect of the game that isn't really challenged under the default resting paradigm. But the less frequently you use your cool abilities, the more awesome they seem when you do get to use them.

Something I miss, in this edition, is playing a wizard and hoarding my spell slots while I carefully plinked away with my darts (or crossbow), until finally the stars align and I get to release the amazing spell that completely turns the tide of battle.

 

[Arial Black]

It's in the DMG, as the officially-sanctioned "gritty" option for people who don't want to hand-wave HP as just luck or fatigue. (It doesn't quite succeed at that, but it tries.) The text is just that you spend the charge from the medkit at the end of the rest, when you would normally spend the Hit Dice, because they can't say for certain when you actually used the bandages and they don't want to bog the game down with tracking such minutiae during non-action sequences (or so I gather).

I'm not comfortable saying that it would be absurd to apply those bandages over the course of five minutes, earlier in the day, because I don't know enough about medical practice to really have an informed opinion on the matter. If the game designers say it takes 20+ minutes in a safe environment in order to really apply bandages effectively, then I'm in no position to challenge that assertion, and it really seems like it still depends on the degree to which the DM describes the injury at hand.

I'm not a medical professional either, but I've taken several first aid courses. Yes, it's better to bandage a wound as soon as you can, rather than letting it bleed for the several hours that might go by before you get and finish a short rest.

It's not the 'having to bandage' that's a problem; it's the 'bandaging doesn't work unless it happens hours later' that is absurd.

Resource management is a lot of fun to some people, and it's an aspect of the game that isn't really challenged under the default resting paradigm. But the less frequently you use your cool abilities, the more awesome they seem when you do get to use them.

Something I miss, in this edition, is playing a wizard and hoarding my spell slots while I carefully plinked away with my darts (or crossbow), until finally the stars align and I get to release the amazing spell that completely turns the tide of battle.

The amount of resource management we like is a personal taste thing. Although there may be deserts to cross and such that require resource management of non-game stuff, and dungeons to do the same for game stuff like spell slots, I wouldn't enjoy a campaign where the rules were changed to mean my 1st level full caster could only cast two first level spells per week.

And I absolutely hated playing a 1st level magic-user in AD&D, where I was a spectator who only got to cast a single sleep spell per day. I didn't enjoy that at all!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The amount of resource management we like is a personal taste thing. Although there may be deserts to cross and such that require resource management of non-game stuff, and dungeons to do the same for game stuff like spell slots, I wouldn't enjoy a campaign where the rules were changed to mean my 1st level full caster could only cast two first level spells per week.

Unfortunately for me, I don't think I could make it fly at all these days, and it's the real sticking point that prevents me from saying that a short rest is overnight and a long rest is a week in town. Even if I could get players to accept slower healing times, the game has inextricably tied that to spell slot recovery, and modern players require a wizard who can cast spells every day.

And I absolutely hated playing a 1st level magic-user in AD&D, where I was a spectator who only got to cast a single sleep spell per day. I didn't enjoy that at all!

To be fair, the fighter and thief weren't doing anything amazing either. The fighter might have been +1 or +2 to hit and damage, but everyone was just doing basic attacks, so it's not like your darts were negligible. Those were simpler times.

 

[CapnZapp]

modern players require a wizard who can cast spells every day.

I would argue the truly modern player require a wizard that casts spells every time after a long rest

That is, players that realize the hard connection between rests and days is detrimental for the game's ability to support wide differences in story pacing.

Once your player realize he isn't hosed by only getting spells back once a week, since he will still get them back after the eighth encounter (tops), welcome him to the modern world, where D&D works just as well when one set of 6-8 encounters take place within a single hour one hour, as when the next set of 6-8 encounters take place during a week of game time.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

It is a good thing that long rests aren't cancelled on an interuption while short rests are.

Realism aside, if the players rested 7 hours and then get attack and have to start resting all over that would just frustrating and doesn't have any benefit either.

If they take a long rest and you think they are 2 fights short for the day, you can make them fight 2 encounters during the rest, the rest is still finished and the group can continue their adventure right away.

For short rests it's more about "can they do it? Yes/No" where players have mostly control over when they do it but they must pick an appropriate spot for it which sometimes could mean having to fight more than 1 battle between short rests. So interuption actually has the benefit that the players will think "Hmm, maybe we shouldn't rest in the middle of this large cavern" and continue exploring or traveling back to a safe place in this case.

Imo, the rules are well thought out on this already (though as discussed before, mainly refer to dungeon exploration and not world travel).