D&D 5E What interupts a long rest?

[MarkB]

All of them at night during a long rest?

I wouldn't often expect to have more than one random encounter during an 8-hour rest period. But when, by your interpretation of the resting rules, that period could be anything up to 15 hours or more because that first encounter interrupted your rest, it starts to feel less likely that you wouldn't see any more action during that period.

 

[Charlaquin]

All of them at night during a long rest?

Obviously more random encounters happen while actively adventuring than while resting, if only because PCs typically spend more table time doing the former than the latter. But, if the PCs are resting in hostile territory, there’s a pretty high chance that at least one random encounter will occur.

 

[CleverNickName]

Obviously more random encounters happen while actively adventuring than while resting, if only because PCs typically spend more table time doing the former than the latter. But, if the PCs are resting in hostile territory, there’s a pretty high chance that at least one random encounter will occur.

Just ask yourself: If a handful of zombies were camping out in your house somewhere, how long would it take for someone to notice? At night?

 

[Maxperson]

Random encounters are a regular occurance in my games. Random encounters at night slightly less so, but still common. Especially in hostile or wild territory.

Max, your position is looking a bit circular to me. You don't use random encounters much, but you rule that any encounter interrupts a long rest, therefore any DM who uses random encounters at night with any regularity is a dick and a bad DM.

First, I'd like to know why you are laughing at posts not intended to be humorous. Abuse of the laugh button is a violation of site policy.

Second, no it's not circular at all. If a DM decides on a random encounter, he's simply not going to hit you with regularity. Doing so is.........................not random. And it's also the DM being a jerk if he has also set it up so that any encounter breaks a long rest. Also, most DMs roll and this is what 5e says about rolling for random encounters.

"If you roll, do so with a d20. If the result is 18 or higher, a random encounter occurs." The are very unlikely to happen.

 

[Charlaquin]

You overlook that half that number - 300 rounds - will not interrupt a rest. That would be as many as 60 typical 5-round combats. It is enough to level from 1 to 7 if using encounter guidelines. You spoke of reliance on intuitions. I see two equally sustainable ways to read the words as they are written. One way chimes far better with my intuitions - and honestly, it feels really strange to me that you don't share my intuition that half an hour of combat won't interrupt a rest.

I guess that is often true of intuitions though. When an interpretation relies on intuitions it is frequently impossible to find a shared understanding.

Where we disagree is on the notion that the two ways to read the words are equally sustainable. Your reading seems to require the insertion of an unspoken “or any amount of,” whereas my reading does not. I think your reading does fit better with the fairly intuitive assumption that fighting for 300 rounds ought to interrupt a long rest. However, I believe that, in the absence of that intuitive assumption, your reading does not fit the actual wording as closely as mine does. I think the best way to interpret the rules is to first discard any intuitive assumptions about how the game world ought to work, and simply read as closely to the literal wording as possible. Then, if you wish to adjust the rules from that baseline to more closely align with your intuitive assumptions, you can do so with a strong understanding of what you are changing and to what end.

 

[clearstream]

Where we disagree is on the notion that the two ways to read the words are equally sustainable. Your reading seems to require the insertion of an unspoken “or any amount of,” whereas my reading does not. I think your reading does fit better with the fairly intuitive assumption that fighting for 300 rounds ought to interrupt a long rest. However, I believe that, in the absence of that intuitive assumption, your reading does not fit the actual wording as closely as mine does. I think the best way to interpret the rules is to first discard any intuitive assumptions about how the game world ought to work, and simply read as closely to the literal wording as possible. Then, if you wish to adjust the rules from that baseline to more closely align with your intuitive assumptions, you can do so with a strong understanding of what you are changing and to what end.

We hashed that out in another thread, and you are mistaken about adding any words. EDIT maybe we need to rehearse these arguments here

 

[Rune]

Because I don't assume dick DMs. Bad DMs like that are so rare as to not be worth consideration. A typical DM is not going to routinely deliberately hit you during a long rest with encounters. And random encounters don't happen often enough to be a big deal.

You sure are reading a lot into my words that I’m not actually saying. But, instead of getting offended by your implication, I think perhaps it’s just time we go our separate ways?

Good luck playing how you play. If it works for you, I’m sure it’s awesome.

 

[iserith]

With any interpretation, I think it's important to consider the actual impact on the game experience. What does this end up looking like in play? What things do the players do that they wouldn't do given some other interpretation? Is this outcome supporting my vision of the game or taking away from it or neither?

As an example, if you're ruling that any fight interrupts a long rest, if you don't have further time pressures built in (like additional random encounter checks within the duration of the reattempted rest or a deadline to complete a quest), then it really doesn't matter. It just means they start the next adventuring day a bit later than expected. For many games that I've experienced, that doesn't count for much, so why bother?

 

[Charlaquin]

We hashed that out in another thread, and you are mistaken about adding any words. EDIT maybe we need to rehearse these arguments here

No, you don’t literally need to insert the words “or any amount of” to arrive at your interpretation. However, if you don’t insert those words, arriving at your interpretation relies on an underlying assumption that between 1 and 599 rounds of combat ought to interrupt a rest, whereas arriving at my interpretation without modifying the words does not.

 

[clearstream]

No, you don’t literally need to insert the words “or any amount of” to arrive at your interpretation. However, if you don’t insert those words, arriving at your interpretation relies on an underlying assumption that between 1 and 599 rounds of combat ought to interrupt a rest, whereas arriving at my interpretation without modifying the words does not.

Yes, any amount of fighting ought to interrupt a rest. That is where one of the two possible readings of the genuinely ambiguous text we are concerned with lands. Happily lands, per my intuitions.

And yes, I agree with you that it can also be validly read the other way. Albeit I balk at accepting that 300 rounds, 200 rounds, even 100 rounds of fighting alone doesn't then interrupt a rest.

An interesting thing is that I have always read it the "any amount" way, even before I thought through the implications. Have you always read it the "mixture of activities" way? Even before these debates?