D&D 5E The Resting Mechanics - What Works Best?

[Shiroiken]

It really depends on the type of campaign I want to run. Under normal adventuring circumstances, the standard short & long rests work well enough, although I've added a medium rest houserule. If I want to do a campaign based more on exploring or traveling, I use gritty realism for short rests and 3 days of downtime for long rests (7 days is too long for me). I might consider epic heroism if I was doing a campaign based almost entirely on combat, since rests just break up the action.

Medium Rest Houserule
A Long Rest has to take place in a Sanctuary, which is basically a relatively safe place you could spend downtime, and recovers all HD instead of half. While generally this means in town, it could include a druid's grove or other wilderness environment that's sufficiently protected (entirely GM's discretion). The purpose behind this is to prevent fully recovering mid-adventure, which is replaced by a medium rest.

A Medium Rest replaces the existing long rest when outside of a Sanctuary. You recover half your max HP, half your HD, and half your once/long rest abilities (minimum 1). Abilities that you can use a number of times per long rest recover half their number of uses, and you recover 1 spell slot per level, up to level 5 spell slots.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I dropped Short Rests to 10 minutes (so that martials could regain HP while casters were prepping rituals), kept Long Rests at 8 hours and had them regain everything except full recovery of HP (instead PCs could spend HD to recover) and the Extended Rests (24 hour of bed rest in a safe location) that regained PCs everything (including Exhaustion, as I use that chart instead of 3 Failed Death Saves).

 

[Nebulous]

Level Up adapted the 'haven' idea from Adventures in Middle Earth. I don't have the full mechanics clear in my mind, but it's akin to what you're saying. Indeed, one element of overland journeys is finding safe havens so you can rest.

Level Up also changed Tiny Hut back to more like the pre-5e version and no longer an invincible force field. It also very expensive to cast - 200gp - so would not be something done lightly by any low level party.

Components: V, S, M (piece of thatched roof woven into a dome and a sculpture of a protective deity worth 200 gold, consumed by the spell) Duration: 8 hours You create an immobile dome of protective force that provides shelter and can be used as a safe haven (Chapter 5: Exploration in Trials & Treasures). The dome is of a color of your choosing, can’t be seen through from the outside, is transparent on the inside, and can fit up to 10 Medium creatures (including you) within. The dome prevents inclement weather and environmental effects from passing through it, though creatures and objects may pass through freely. Spells and other magical effects can’t cross the dome in either direction, and the dome provides a comfortable dry interior no matter the conditions outside of it. You can command the interior to become dimly lit or dark at any time on your turn. The spell fails if a Large creature or more than 10 creatures are inside the dome. The spell ends when you leave the dome.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Level Up also changed Tiny Hut back to more like the pre-5e version and no longer an invincible force field. It also very expensive to cast - 200gp - so would not be something done lightly by any low level party.

Components: V, S, M (piece of thatched roof woven into a dome and a sculpture of a protective deity worth 200 gold, consumed by the spell) Duration: 8 hours You create an immobile dome of protective force that provides shelter and can be used as a safe haven (Chapter 5: Exploration in Trials & Treasures). The dome is of a color of your choosing, can’t be seen through from the outside, is transparent on the inside, and can fit up to 10 Medium creatures (including you) within. The dome prevents inclement weather and environmental effects from passing through it, though creatures and objects may pass through freely. Spells and other magical effects can’t cross the dome in either direction, and the dome provides a comfortable dry interior no matter the conditions outside of it. You can command the interior to become dimly lit or dark at any time on your turn. The spell fails if a Large creature or more than 10 creatures are inside the dome. The spell ends when you leave the dome.

Yeah, that's far saner than the official Leomund's Invincible Bunker.

 

[Helldritch]

I use a "other" form of healing.
A short rest is 1 hour and a character can only benefit from 2 short rests per day.
A long rest is 8 hours.
You recover HD at half your level rounded down minimum of one. Sounds familiar?
Here is the catch.
You must spend HD to heal. No heal up overnight. Unconscious but stable characters will automatically spend 1 HD per day if they succeed a death save. A failed save means that you might die and death save now becomes a daily save to heal up to at least 1 hp. After 3 consecutive save, the character dies.
After a long rest, conscious character can spend any number of HD but a CON bonus is added only once no matter the number of HD spend. After a short rest, a character can spend 1 HD per Tier (1-5, 6-10, 11-15 and 15 -20) or a maximum of 4 HD. Unless a character with medicine or with the healer's feat helps out. The CON bonus is still limited to 1 time no matter how many HD were spent.
This makes a healer a really important necessity. It makes magic healing a lot more impressive.
It also makes the medicine skill and healer's feat real good and useful.
It does not break the narrative of daily combats.
It makes the break down of 6 to 8 encounters per day much more easier.
It keeps in mind the fact that all people have trouble associating a short rest with a day and a long rest with a week. People still have in mind that resources should replenish daily.

This way, we combine both the normal healing and the gritty realism. It works out quite well for us.

 

[Helldritch]

Yeah, that's far saner than the official Leomund's Invincible Bunker.

I have always been convinced that it was a mistake in the writing of the spell. I always thought that it was impervious to weather damage/conditions and that normal animals/vermins could not penetrate it. I never used it as a low level super wall of force that was better than the 5th level spells that both required concentration and could be brought down with a "simple" disintegrate spell. The normal language used in that spell was not logical at all.

 

[Oofta]

So if a long rest is one week under the Gritty realism option and a spellcaster regains spell slots, sorcery points, etc. only after a long rest, this is really going to slow things down, right? I mean, I see well enough why this variant would be preferable for handling HD and healing, but for spell slots, ki points, sorcery points, many abilities, and all that sort of business it looks troublesome to me.


Or am I missing something obvious? I'm.....I'm missing something obvious, aren't I?

It's a feature, not a bug. One of the benefits is that the pacing comes more naturally for me and, yes, it's easier to push the party to it's limits. I regularly have 4-10 encounters between long rests and it feels like there's more of a balance between classes that rely on resting and those that do not.

I do, however have a house rule that any spell that lasts for 30 minutes or more has it's duration multiplied by 5. It's mostly for spells like mage armor.

 

[DND_Reborn]

UPDATE: I've added a new option for those who want a Safety / Haven options, where rest times depend on the location and safety of the PC.

If anyone wants to change their vote to reflect the new option, please do and thanks again for voting.

 

[aco175]

I voted RAW. While maybe not the best, it is the best for me. I find that all my players have the book and can read the rules. If I go to another table- they have the book. If I go to a convention- they have the book. We all know the rules.

I have made up for this by placing locations in dungeons that the PCs may rest in if they find them. There may be a secret room in the old tomb that would allow for a short rest or such. Long rests are harder on places with smarter bad guys that would organize searches and such, but can be done in places with undead, sparse underdark locations, and areas with competing bad guys like Keep on the Borderlands.

 

[Quartz]

I like the idea of the duration of the type of rest being location dependent, but I think that just as important is what gets recovered: many classes recover absolutely everything on a long rest. Primarily the spellcasting classes that aren't the Warlock.

We did this in another thread a while back but wrt spellcasters what arose was to halve all spell slots (minimum of 1) and let full casters recover one spell slot per spell level up to their Proficiency Bonus - 1 on a Short Rest with half casters getting back levels to PB - 2. All casters recover one spell slot per spell level on a Long Rest. I didn't try it long enough to form a judgement.