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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EpicureanDM" data-source="post: 8546452" data-attributes="member: 6996003">You've got it. It does stretch out recovery during long journeys.We must fix in our minds that "rest" is really "recovery of in-game resources". If an event or situation was resolved without using in-game resources (hit points, bardic inspiration, spells requiring spell slots, hit dice, etc.), then it doesn't count for purposes of rest. You still want to reward clever play that makes economical use of tactics and resources. The goal isn't to create an exact metric of expended resources to determine whether an encounter officially counts. That's the impulse that gets people in trouble in the first place, trying to be fine-grained about it. As a general rule, I use Medium encounters as a rough benchmark for determining whether an encounter advances the cycle. Have the PCs expended the resources I'd expect them to use in resolving a Medium encounter? That's the threshold. Casting a single Charm Person spell to hire the boat that takes them down river probably wouldn't be an encounter the way I figure it.In my experience over three different groups who've been introduced to this system, I don't remember any of them trying to cheat the system to gain an earlier rest by picking a fight with a lone drunk in a bar. Players tend to respond to the simplicity and fairness of this rest system by playing simply and fairly.EDIT: If the negotiation for hiring the boat somehow involved more resource expenditure, like Charm Person but also some Bardic Inspiration, a use of the druid's Wild Shape, and a wizard's Disguise Self to avoid a dock guard's suspicious looks, I might consider that an encounter. It's about resource management, not in-game time and the literal definition of "rest". Why would that count as an encounter? Look at what it required! The situation must have been much more complex and interesting if the party needed to expend all those resources to set off down the river. The situation picked up a lot of narrative weight, enough weight that it made sense for the party to expend all those resources. So it might not have started out in the DM's mind as a "cycle-advancing" encounter, but it sort of became one.</blockquote>

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