D&D 5E What is a Short Rest vs a Long Rest?

[R_J_K75]

Depends on how much you drank the night before.

Honestly I have long since hand waved rests in my game. If I'm moving onto the next scene then I just don't want to bother with them and I just assume that the characters take precautions and find a safe place to rest for however long they need. Now if it serves the story then I'll take the time to incorporate a long or short rest but not too often. The one thing that I'm having second thoughts about is healing. I haven't decided but think I'm going to use a slower pace than rolling HD after a rest. I had a player take a dagger to the side for 4hp of damage, sleeping in a tent on a crappy cot for 8 hours shouldnt heal that much damage that quickly without magical healing. I much prefer the healing pace of earlier editions over anything 3E and later,

 

[Flamestrike]

I had a player take a dagger to the side for 4hp of damage, sleeping in a tent on a crappy cot for 8 hours shouldnt heal that much damage that quickly without magical healing.

Hit points are not meat.

The player probably parried the blow at the last minute, or it luckily glanced off his armor or robes without breaking the skin.

 

[R_J_K75]

Hit points are not meat.

The player probably parried the blow at the last minute, or it luckily glanced off his armor or robes without breaking the skin.

I understand hit points are not "meat" and are abstract, but a 1st level character with 9 hp who sustains 4 hp of damage is going to feel it and I dont see a puncture wound healing after one night of rest. It was not a glancing blow, and they were not wearing armor deflect the strike. They were surprised by a group of rogues who attacked from the shadows, and was stabbed by a dagger. The attack was intended to send a message, and placed as such.

 

[Flamestrike]

I understand hit points are not "meat" and are abstract, but a 1st level character with 9 hp who sustains 4 hp of damage is going to feel it and I dont see a puncture wound healing after one night of rest. It was not a glancing blow, and they were not wearing armor deflect the strike. They were surprised by a group of rogues who attacked from the shadows, and was stabbed by a dagger. The attack was intended to send a message, and placed as such.

It was a graze then. The rogue intentionally pulled his blow so as to not actually harm or accidentally kill the PC clipping an artery or an organ.

4 HP (out of 9) isnt even the bloodied condition in earlier editions (so it wouldnt even show as a wound). He still has over half his HP remaining.

If you wanted the rogue to actually hit the PC with any level of force, it should have reduced him to zero HP (unable to do anything but watch himself bleed out, in stunned silence) and dying.

HP represent (expressly - RAW) luck, resolve, health, and the will to live. They're also implicitly a reflection of experience (gained via advancing in level via XP) at avoiding harm that are gained at a higher rate by people skilled in combat (dodging, evading and parrying blows, and using shields and armor to turn hits into misses) such as fighters and other martials.

A 20th level fighter that takes 30 damage from a Frost giants axe, leaps out off the way at the last second, the blade narrowly missing him and jarring the ground where he was standing only a second before.

A 1st level fighter that takes the exact same damage, lacks that level of skill and luck at evading blows, and is instead cut in half.

 

[Asisreo]

The issue that comes up with Short Rests more often than not isn't that parties aren't getting a chance to take a Short Rest... it's that the way the story is playing out the group doesn't need to take a Short Rest because that's the only combat of the day.

I will always say that in such a day, the short rest classes have the edge always because they simple get more in the day considering that they now have 8 hours of potential short rests that do not get interrupted.

Oh, the Warlock only gets 2 spell slots for the final combat? How unfortunate. Luckily, he basically has access to Tongues, Fly, Detect Thoughts, Misty Step and Suggestion. And he can throw them out like candy.

Same could be said for Monks. Suddenly, using Darkvision, Pass without Trace, and teleportation is wildly cheap throughout the day, only costing an hour for roughly 2-3 times.

 

[R_J_K75]

It was a graze then. The rogue intentionally pulled his blow so as to not actually harm or accidentally kill the PC clipping an artery or an organ.

Actually no it was not a graze, the rogue totally intended to kill the player if that was the outcome. The character was STABBED, not knicked, grazed, etc.

4 HP (out of 9) isnt even the bloodied condition in earlier editions (so it wouldnt even show as a wound). He still has over half his HP remaining.

We are playing 5th Edition so previous editions in this instance dont matter.

If you wanted the rogue to actually hit the PC with any level of force, it should have reduced him to zero HP (unable to do anything but watch himself bleed out, in stunned silence) and dying.

I roll all my dice out in the open, if the attack had done enough damage to reduce the character to zero or outright kill them then fine, but it didnt.

HP represent (expressly - RAW) luck, resolve, health, and the will to live. They're also implicitly a reflection of experience (gained via advancing in level via XP) at avoiding harm that are gained at a higher rate by people skilled in combat (dodging, evading and parrying blows, and using shields and armor to turn hits into misses) such as fighters and other martials.

I know what hit point represent but beyond that they are open to interpretation and evidently my interpretation is different than yours.

Whether or not the player was hit was never a question, for some reason you decided that they weren't. My point was that after taking 4hp of damage how fast should they heal after taking a long or short rest. We decided that they regained 1 hp after a long rest and to table the discussion for a later time, but we all decided that the rate of healing RAW in 5E is too much.

 

[Umbran]

I understand hit points are not "meat" and are abstract, but a 1st level character with 9 hp who sustains 4 hp of damage is going to feel it and I dont see a puncture wound healing after one night of rest. It was not a glancing blow, and they were not wearing armor deflect the strike. They were surprised by a group of rogues who attacked from the shadows, and was stabbed by a dagger. The attack was intended to send a message, and placed as such.

So, you have a choice - allow the preferred narrative to drive the mechanic, or allow the mechanical result to drive the narrative.

There was a combat. The PC has a maximum of 9 HP, and took 4 HP of damage.

The fact that the character was surprised has already impacted the situation - it means they didn't get to act in turn - but now you want to count it again by making that impact how the damage might heal? Is that, by the rules, fair to the player? Mechanically, that they were not wearing armor already determined if they were hit, why does it matter in healing? Would those 4 HP deal differently if they'd be wearing armor?

Why does the intent of the attacker matter here? Does that change the nature of the hit points of damage? If the attacker wasn't so intent, would 4 HP heal differently? Does your game have explicit rules about how piercing damage heals, as compared to slashing or bludgeoning damage? If the answer to any of these is "no", then the narrative about how the damage came about should not be relevant to the mechanic for healing damage.

 

[R_J_K75]

Does your game have explicit rules about how piercing damage heals, as compared to slashing or bludgeoning damage? If the answer to any of these is "no", then the narrative about how the damage came about should not be relevant to the mechanic for healing damage.

As this was the first time anyone in the campaign took any damage, (the type was irrelevant), I brought up the idea of possibly modifying how natural healing would work in the current game. The player healed 1 hp after 8 hours rest, everyone agreed and we moved on. I wasn't singling out any specific player/character for not wearing armor, taking damage from a piercing weapon or because the attacker intended to kill them.

 

[Mannahnin]

Choosing to interpret the fiction in a way which conflicts with the rules often results in needing to create house rules.

 

[Umbran]

Choosing to interpret the fiction in a way which conflicts with the rules often results in needing to create house rules.

Which is fine, honestly. But it pays to recognize what we are doing, and why.