D&D 5E What interupts a long rest?

[Laurefindel]

Ok, here is the complete up-to-date text on the long rest:

A Long Rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. 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.

We have established that, as per Jeremy Crawford’s clarification and the wording in the playtest, walking, fighting, and casting spells, are all part of the category “adventuring activity.” A long rest is a period of 8 hours during which you sleep for at least 6 hours and perform light activity for no more than 2. An interruption of an hour or longer of adventuring activity also forces you to restart the rest.

Now, let’s suppose a party of adventurers sleeps for 3 hours, wakes up and begins adventuring for 59 minutes, goes back to sleep for 3 more hours, wakes up and spends 1 minute reading. Has this party completed a long rest? Let’s check.

Has the period been at least 8 hours long? Yes.
Has it included at least 6 hours of sleep? Yes.
Has it included more than 2 hours of light activity? No.
Has it been interrupted by at least an hour of adventuring activity? No.

My conclusion would be that this adventuring party has indeed completed a long rest, as the RAW defines it.

My interpretation is that adventuring activities include (but are not limited to) fighting, spellcasting, and walking. In this case, it takes 1 hour of walking to be considered strenuous, whereas walking for less than 1 hour is considered light activity.

 

[clearstream]

My position this whole time has been that 599 rounds of combat during a rest is permissible by RAW, but that it’s perfectly reasonable to rule against RAW if you find that to be an undesirable outcome.

This isn't quite right. What we have done is this

1. We noted an ambiguity
2. We argued the literal meaning - agreeing in the end that there was an ambiguity
3. We worked through cases and intuitions to see if the play implied by either interpretation was the more just - deadlocking
4. Evidence was found that the lead designer supported one interprtation
5. Evidence was presented showing how the wording evolved - better supporting the interpretation the designer supported over the other

The RAW never stopped being ambiguous. A group are not ruling against RAW if they play it the other way. What they are doing is resisting the RAI that appears best supported based on what we know.

You are not in position to say that the RAW implies one position is valid and the other not. Per RAW, both are valid. We just happen to be in possession of facts that favour one RAI over the other.

 

[Mannahnin]

Where does it say added onto the length?

It doesn't have to.

I need six hours of sleep. Four hours in, my sleep is interrupted for twenty minutes by a random encounter, hauling the dead wolves out of the campsite, cleaning my sword and bedding back down. I still need two more hours of sleep.

 

[clearstream]

My interpretation is that adventuring activities include (but are not limited to) fighting, spellcasting, and walking. In this case, it takes 1 hour of walking to be considered strenuous, whereas walking for less than 1 hour is considered light activity.

If you think that improves things, let me be the first to tell you that you are highly mistaken

 

[clearstream]

It doesn't have to.

I need six hours of sleep. Four hours in, my sleep is interrupted for twenty minutes by a random encounter, hauling the dead wolves out of the campsite, cleaning my sword and bedding back down. I still need two more hours of sleep.

If you haven't yet performed light activity, then your rest won't be extended in this case.

 

[MarkB]

You probably meant 61 minutes reading (or doing nothing at all, for that matter). But otherwise this strange adventuring-while-resting appears to be RAI. The errata clarifies it must be 6 hours sleep, which I didn't notice in what you posted (but is implied... well, without errata 5 hours and 1 minute, to 6 hours, is implied).

A cunning arrangements with wagons might be had, where bold Sir Sleepy arrives at the dungeon, strives against foul beings for 59 minutes, prays for 1 minute, and then is refreshed! Abilities and hit points fully restored, and ready to fight on.

I wouldn't allow it in my game, not because I disagree with that interpretation of the rules, but because the characters aren't going to be able to time it down to the minute and they don't actually know what the timing is in-character in the first place.

When you're winding down at the end of the day, setting up a fire-pit, putting down bedrolls, getting a bit of food cooking and just starting to relax into getting a night's rest, you don't know the exact minute at which you've transitioned from doing strenuous activity into doing light activity, and it's not going to be the same minute for every character. So there's never going to be a case where you can get up in the morning, have breakfast, get everything packed up, and say "okay, it's been just under eight hours since we started resting! Let's go off exploring for most of an hour and then we'll get in another few minutes of rest and all our stuff will refresh!"

 

[Ancalagon]

the way I interpret the rule is as follows:

If there are bouts of fighting during a period that is more than one hour, the long rest is ruined.

For example, night 1: During the 2nd watch, goblins try to overun the camp. The party fights them off and they run screaming. The party settles back down to sleep and gets a long rest.

Night 2: the surviving goblins have complained to their necromancer ally. The necromancer realizes that the party is too powerful, so must be harassed. He raises the dead goblins as zombies, and sends groups of 3 to attack the party every 20 minutes or so, for 2 hours. Long rest ruined.

 

[Charlaquin]

And that all said, I suppose you have thought through the implications of your version?

1. Start a long rest: sleep for 6 hours and perform a minute shy of 2 hours of light activity.
2. Adventure for 59 minutes
3. Perform a minute of light activity
4. Refresh abilities
5. Continue adventuring

Extending is gruesome, mechanically.

I think one of the differences affecting our interpretations here is how much adventuring we imagine a party can actually get done in an hour. So, let’s say you try to exploit this in my games. You sleep for 6 hours, do some light activity for 59 minutes, and then set out into the dungeon so you can get a full HP and spell slot refresh mid-dungeon by resting for only 1 minute, as long as you do it some time within the first hour of the adventure. You sneaky munchkins, you! But, how much can you actually do in that free hour of adventuring this exploit has bought you?

Well, hypothetically you could fight for up to 599 rounds, but the chances that so many rounds of combat are even available to be had is negligible. Let’s look at a more realistic use case. I generally measure time while adventiring in a dungeon-like environment in 10-minute chunks, so in 59 minutes gives you enough time to get through 5 such “adventuring turns,” with 9 minutes of wiggle-room left for stuff like arguing about which door to open first or whatever. At that time scale, I roll for random encounters at least once per hour, with additional rolls triggered by noisy or otherwise reckless actions that might attract the attention of passing monsters.

So, you go into the dungeon, check the first room for traps or secret doors, that’s one turn down. You find a locked door, set the rogue to try to pick it, that’s your second turn. If they fail you might spend a third turn, but by then you’d have wasted more than half of your “free” adventuring time, so maybe better to have the fighter break it down. That’ll trigger a random encounter roll, but no problem since you have a rest in your back pocket anyway. So you do that. At this point a random encounter is actually pretty unlikely (I have the chances ramp up the further into the hour you get), but let’s say you get unlucky and do roll one. You fight for maybe 3-5 rounds. Probably closer to 3 since it’s not like you have to conserve spell slots right now thanks to your exploit.

You clean up the wandering monsters and resume your adventure with 3 ten-minute turns to go. You find a room with a weird statue and want to see if it’s magic. You could spend 10 minutes casting Detect Magic as a ritual, but might as well use the spell slot since you’ll be getting them all back soon anyway. So you cast it, looks like the statue is magical. You might want to investigate further, so you spend 10 minutes thoroughly examining it.

20 minutes to go before you have to use your refresh and you’ve only lost a handful of hit points and one or two spell slots. Time to be a bit more reckless! You kick down the door into the next room, no need to bother checking for traps - what are they gonna do, damage you? Ha! Maybe this room has a treasure chest. You pick the lock. Only one turn left. Better cast all your buff spells now.

You rush into the next room. It has an Owlbear in it, which you easily defeat thanks to your clever tactics. Congratulations! At this point you’re about out of time. You finish your long rest and get all your HP (all like 7 of it you lost) and spell slots (maybe 3 or 4 levels total) back. And you’re still barely past the entrance of the dungeon.

…Woopdeedoo?

I just don’t see this exploit as serious enough to want to bother trying to combat. Besides that, I’ve never encountered a player who actually wanted to exploit the rules like this. Generally, players have a sense that such a thing would be kinda cheesy (even though, as I said, I don’t think they’d even gain that huge a benefit out of it) and will abstain from doing it, even if it’s technically allowed by the RAW.

 

[TheSword]

I think the intent has been made pretty clear. Disruptions lasting more than an hour cause long rest to need resetting. Reasons for disruption include, walking, fighting, casting spells etc. if you cast a spell and then 60 minutes later cast a spell you have disrupted combat. Spell casting over more than an hour. Same for combat.

It doesn’t have to be 600 rounds of continual fighting!

 

[MarkB]

I think one of the differences affecting our interpretations here is how much adventuring we imagine a party can actually get done in an hour. So, let’s say you try to exploit this in my games. You sleep for 6 hours, do some light activity for 59 minutes, and then set out into the dungeon so you can get a full HP and spell slot refresh mid-dungeon by resting for only 1 minute, as long as you do it some time within the first hour of the adventure. You sneaky munchkins, you! But, how much can you actually do in that free hour of adventuring this exploit has bought you?

Well, hypothetically you could fight for up to 599 rounds, but the chances that so many rounds of combat are even available to be had is negligible. Let’s look at a more realistic use case. I generally measure time while adventiring in a dungeon-like environment in 10-minute chunks, so in 59 minutes gives you enough time to get through 5 such “adventuring turns,” with 9 minutes of wiggle-room left for stuff like arguing about which door to open first or whatever. At that time scale, I roll for random encounters at least once per hour, with additional rolls triggered by noisy or otherwise reckless actions that might attract the attention of passing monsters.

So, you go into the dungeon, check the first room for traps or secret doors, that’s one turn down. You find a locked door, set the rogue to try to pick it, that’s your second turn. If they fail you might spend a third turn, but by then you’d have wasted more than half of your “free” adventuring time, so maybe better to have the fighter break it down. That’ll trigger a random encounter roll, but no problem since you have a rest in your back pocket anyway. So you do that. At this point a random encounter is actually pretty unlikely (I have the chances ramp up the further into the hour you get), but let’s say you get unlucky and do roll one. You fight for maybe 3-5 rounds. Probably closer to 3 since it’s not like you have to conserve spell slots right now thanks to your exploit.

You clean up the wandering monsters and resume your adventure with 3 ten-minute turns to go. You find a room with a weird statue and want to see if it’s magic. You could spend 10 minutes casting Detect Magic as a ritual, but might as well use the spell slot since you’ll be getting them all back soon anyway. So you cast it, looks like the statue is magical. You might want to investigate further, so you spend 10 minutes thoroughly examining it.

20 minutes to go before you have to use your refresh and you’ve only lost a handful of hit points and one or two spell slots. Time to be a bit more reckless! You kick down the door into the next room, no need to bother checking for traps - what are they gonna do, damage you? Ha! Maybe this room has a treasure chest. You pick the lock. Only one turn left. Better cast all your buff spells now.

You rush into the next room. It has an Owlbear in it, which you easily defeat thanks to your clever tactics. Congratulations! At this point you’re about out of time. You finish your long rest and get all your HP (all like 7 of it you lost) and spell slots (maybe 3 or 4 levels total) back. And you’re still barely past the entrance of the dungeon.

…Woopdeedoo?

I just don’t see this exploit as serious enough to want to bother trying to combat. Besides that, I’ve never encountered a player who actually wanted to exploit the rules like this. Generally, players have a sense that such a thing would be kinda cheesy (even though, as I said, I don’t think they’d even gain that huge a benefit out of it) and will abstain from doing it, even if it’s technically allowed by the RAW.

Also, technically, those 59 minutes of adventuring have to be nothing but strenuous activity, because if you slow down to light activity for even one minute - whether it's standing around debating how to deal with a trap, or taking some time divvying out the loot you just found - then DING! you've finished your long rest.

I'm imagining this group of adventurers all jogging on the spot while the rogue fiddles with a locked door, because they're all desperately afraid of accidentally finishing a rest.