D&D 5E What interupts a long rest?

[J.Quondam]

Yep. The (imminent) threat of deadly combat alone is probably enough to f*** up your night.

not sure if I’d go there in my games, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable otherwise

Agreed. I don't how much @Galandris was joking about the mosqito upthread, but even that little bit of annoyance can really mess up a good slumber. Especially if that annoyance carries a fear of disease or something.

But yeah, not sure that's necessary in a game! (Maybe roll a Con check in really sketchy environments, or something?)

 

[Laurefindel]

I think that adrenaline rush is perfectly reasonable grounds on which to form a ruling that any amount of combat (or perhaps any amount of combat that adds up to at least an “easy” encounter? reasoning that a trivial encounter is more akin to swatting a mosquito than fending off a burglar?). I just don’t think it’s what the words written in the book actually say.

My rule of thumb is « if it isn’t worth an initiative check, it doesn’t interrupt rest »

probably a bit crude, but it works in a pinch

 

[Laurefindel]

Agreed. I don't how much @Galandris was joking about the mosqito upthread, but even that little bit of annoyance can really mess up a good slumber. Especially if that annoyance carries a fear of disease or something.

But yeah, not sure that's necessary in a game! (Maybe roll a Con check in really sketchy environments, or something?)

Never mind disease. One fragging mosquito loose in your tent is enough to drive you NUTS!

Except after two or three crappy camping nights, you sleep right through because you’re too tired to be bothered…

perhaps after a few exhaustion level, a character could ignore an interruption. It would slow the death spiral down a bit at any case…

 

[Charlaquin]

My rule of thumb is « if it isn’t worth an initiative check, it doesn’t interrupt rest »

probably a bit crude, but it works in a pinch

Seems like a good rule of thumb to me. I actually like that sort of qualitative criteria much more than the quantitative criteria of 1 hour. But on the other hand, I very much like that the PCs can fend off wolves or whatever for a few rounds and still benefit from their rest. Honestly, this is probably a case, like with stealth, where it might be best just to say “your DM decides.”

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

The example was for laugh but the idea serious. A small nuisance for the adventurer won't disturb their sleep. For adventurers, so at high level if the wizard on guard just cast disintegrate at a passing wandering monster, he's not really in peril (anymorz than he knew he would be sinxe he was standing watch in the first place). It won't prevent him from getting his spells back. If it is a big nuisance with real danger, it could. But people slept in the trenches during WWI... so the danger has to be real ans immediate (Charlaquin proposed an easy encounter). I'd also say that a series of trivial alerts would ruin a night regardless of the rules. If rustles in the nearby bushes are just the wind but you get three false alarm in the night you'll probably have a bad night even if the danger was a CR 0 wind spirit. Even if it wasn't one hour total.

After some points high level heroes retreat to their magnificent mansion so the theat of being interrupted should mean something.

 

[Umbran]

I believe that sentence is poorly constructed, and would be better as: "If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity, or at least 1 hour of walking—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it."

I agree. It is a technical writing failure to have this sentence be so ambiguous.

In a game where many are concerned with the possibility of a "five minute workday" the concept of an entire hour of fighting is pretty absurd.

 

[CleverNickName]

In my game, nothing interrupts a long rest. You still recover your hit points, spell slots, abilities, etc.

However. You will also gain a point of exhaustion if that Long Rest would be "ruined by 1 hour of walking, any fighting, any spellcasting, or other similar strenuous activity." It stacks with the exhaustion you might also get from sleeping in armor, or being diseased, etc.

The goal isn't to "gotcha" the players and catch their characters with their pants down. (My players don't enjoy that treatment, and even if they did I wouldn't need clever rules interpretation to do that.) The goal is to make finding an inn the hands-down best option for low-level characters that wish to take a long rest.

At higher levels, it's a tempest in a teapot.

"I cast Magnificient Mansion and we bed down for the night." - Wizards everywhere

 

[Laurefindel]

"I cast Magnificient Mansion and we bed down for the night." enjoy the massages, the lazyboy seats, the 9-course banquet, and we have the 100 servants carry us to bed because we ate too much." - honest wizards everywhere

fixed that for you

 

[GuyBoy]

My cat, miaowing incessantly at 3am to be let out interrupts a long rest, especially if I lose the initiative check with my wife to be the one who has to let the demanding feline out.
On a more serious note, I did fight off an intruder once (in my serious rugby playing days) and chased him down the road, until the fact that it was January, snowing and I was barefoot, allowed him to outpace me. Dealing with the police report interrupted my long rest that night.

Oh, we’re talking D&D......the night hag in ToA was a pretty memorable interruption of a long rest, and it seriously screwed over my druid’s spell ability.
Then there was the rainy night in a shallow cave on a mountain pass, with an improved invisibility assassin, name of Mylekek, sneak attacking through the night...one of the scariest experiences I’ve had in the game.
Or, the long rest Fayleen, my bard, spent in Ireena’s bedroom to help her sleep, with Strahd appearing at the window. Long rest kicked resoundingly into touch that night!

The first and third didn’t involve an initiative check (which is my rule of thumb as well) but definitely killed off the long rest.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

That's why I prefer to see if a player benefit from a long rest AFTER the long rest.
The players take their long rest, at the end they make a CON ability check against a DC to see it they recover from said rest.

The DC is based on the ''level of comfort/danger'' of the resting place, and you add to that a +1 or +2 for every strenuous activity the character perform during the long rest.

Taking a long rest in the Gloom Forest might be a DC 13, but if the wizard decide to spend 1 hour to look for food, scribe a spell or two, then fend off the were-possum raiding their bags, the DC might amount to a DC 17 or so!