D&D 5E What interupts a long rest?

[J.Quondam]

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!

Interesting way to approach it!
Does the party somehow make the check as a group, or does each PC roll individually (so some might benefit, while others don't)?

 

[MarkB]

I go with the interpretation that it's "an hour of strenuous activity, such as any combination of walking, fighting or spellcasting" that can interrupt a short rest. A single combat does not. Casting a one-action spell does not.

And to address the assertion in the previous thread that "nobody's going to be casting 600 spells in a row", there are plenty of spells with a longer casting time than one action - such as any ritual spell, which will require at least ten minutes. There are even spells which require longer than an hour to cast.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Interesting way to approach it!
Does the party somehow make the check as a group, or does each PC roll individually (so some might benefit, while others don't)?

Individually.
Naturally some features improve the chance to beat the DC by lowering the DC or giving advantage, such as access to quality food (outlander, goodberries etc), safe place to rest (magic hut and mansion), being in a ranger's favored terrain, etc.

For now I wing it a little. We havent played a lot since the start of the pandemic, and I havent DM for a while, so its not fully tested out. I'm still debating if I still keep my usual Natural Slow Healing from the DMG in addition to this recovery rule or keep the base ''full health at long rest'' if you actually succeed at making the check.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

That's more of a social challenge, and I'm going to guess that she gets advantage to her rolls.

 

[commandercrud]

"1 hour of fighting" should make it clear that's obviously not the intended meaning. It's 1 hour of walking, or any amount of fighting or any amount of .... Because obviously.

 

[overgeeked]

Hello

This is a side branch from the thread D&D 5E - The semantics of the spell Sending and I didn't want to derail it, so here we are!

in this thread, @Maxperson said
"A long rest is ruined by 1 hour of walking, any fighting, any spellcasting, or other similar strenuous activity."

I asked: "Do you mean "ruined by one hour of the following: walking, fighting, spellcasting..." or "ruined by one hour of walking OR any fighting, any spellcasting....""
and he replied it was the second.

Now I am sure that I had seen ruling that the first interpretation was correct. This is rather important, because it has a huge impact on how hazardeous it is to take a long rest. The rule states:

"If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, Fighting, casting Spells, or similar Adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it."

note the use of the word "a PERIOD of" . From my reading of the rule, it seems clear that a scare with a couple of stirges during the night will not ruin the long rest.

I'm sort of feeling... torn here. On one hand, ONE HOUR of fighting is one heck of a big interruption. Interrupting a long rest is almost impossible! On the other hand, if any fighting interrupts a long rest, then interrupting a long rest becomes extremely trivial, and this has a major impact on how long rests are taken in the field, so to speak.

We've always done it as any fighting interrupts a long rest, the other interpretation just doesn't make any sense. Fighting for your life is by definition a strenuous activity. Six seconds or sixty minutes. Fighting for a solid hour before it interrupts a long rest? No way.

 

[jmartkdr2]

If you managed to get through a 600-round fight, you're sleeping for 8 hours whether you want to or not. That's intense.

(I usually run it as: strenuous activity delays the end of a long rest. Fights usually require a cooldown period as well, ten minutes or so. The whole rest only needs to be restarted if the pc's decide to move camp.)

 

[overgeeked]

Definitely. I imagine there's a big difference popping off a few arrows to chase off some overly curious jackals and being ambushed by a troop of bugbears, even if the total number of rounds in question is the same.

I think this is one of those rules that potentially stomps on commonsense by including the hard "1 hour" number. Ultimately, I guess that sort of distinction just comes down to how well the DM and players trust each other.

It would be an argument of whether chasing off the jackals would constitute a real fight. Are they close? Are you being nipped at? Are they trying to eat your face? Or are they a few dozen yards away testing to see if you're an easy meal? Firing some arrows at the latter isn't a fight. The former is.

 

[J.Quondam]

A propos of nothing...
I don't follow the sport at all, but isn't a pro boxing match something like ten 3-minute bouts, with a 1 minute rest in between?
That's 300 rounds of combat in D&Dlandia!

Yeah, fighting is intense, even when death isn't the goal.

 

[J.Quondam]

It would be an argument of whether chasing off the jackals would constitute a real fight. Are they close? Are you being nipped at? Are they trying to eat your face? Or are they a few dozen yards away testing to see if you're an easy meal? Firing some arrows at the latter isn't a fight. The former is.

Exactly this. The circumstances depend a lot, I'd think.

Though for purposes of game mechanics, I suppose it's all too easy to overthink it, too.
DMs will be DMs, after all!